Two Constant Feelings in the Mind of God.
ix. 17. Therefore the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows.
From one point of view, this is a terrible text! it shows us that a people may arrive at such a condition of desperate and incorrigible wickedness, that God may feel constrained, as the upholder of truth and righteousness in the world, to destroy them. But, on the other hand, how worthy of thought and thanksgiving is this revelation of God’s constant feelings towards two very opposite classes of persons—those who are most joyful, and those who are most sorrowful.
I. God’s feelings toward young men. He has “joy” in them, a fact of which young men seldom think. Doubtless He has joy in them, 1. because of what they are; and 2. because of what they may become. He has this joy in them as their Creator. The great Artist has a delight in all His works (Gen. i. 31; Prov. viii. 31). Young men are a realisation, more or less perfect, of a thought, an ideal in the Divine mind. Strength and comeliness of body, courage and vivacity of mind, modesty and generosity of heart, are the ideal characteristics of a young man, and precisely as they are actually found in any young man, God has “joy” in him, just as He has joy in the strength of the horse, the beauty of the swan, or the melody that is poured forth by the lark or the nightingale. We frequently see a young man who is obviously a glorious work of God; and had not sin so terribly cursed and marred our race, all young men would have been such as the British youths whose beauty called forth the old pleasant jest, “Not Angles but angels.”
All this is, of course, equally true of young women. For the Bible is in this respect to be interpreted like our English laws, concerning which it is decreed that the word “man” shall mean “woman” also in all cases in which nature herself does not forbid such an interpretation. A young woman is more than a pleasing mass of flesh and blood; she is a realisation of a thought of God, a work of the unseen Artist, to whom all that is beautiful in the universe owes its existence.[1] Many a young woman is so beautiful that the human artist counts himself happy indeed if he can make on the canvas any fair transcript of her loveliness; and, what is better still, the beautiful body is but a casket in which a more beautiful body is enshrined.
Young men and women, think of this—God delights in you! What effects will a realisation of this thought have upon you? 1. It will check that vanity by which the strength of the young man and the beauty of the young woman are often so pitifully marred (1 Cor. iv. 7). 2. It will cause you to reverence yourselves. Those who think that no one cares for them, are apt not to care for themselves; but consciousness that we are observed leads us to circumspection and self-control. If the observation be friendly and approving, it is a stimulus to endeavour to merit it. Respect kindles self-respect. Remembering how God looks upon you, you will shrink from doing anything that will lessen His “joy” in you; you will not voluntarily permit faults or vices to mar the nobleness and beauty that call it forth, any more than the roses, if they had power of self-defence, would give a lodgment to those insects which blight the beauty that causes beholders to joy in them. 3. Kindly, loving feelings toward God will spring up in you. Friendliness and love tend to call forth friendship and love; just as the sunshine and rain that in early summer descend from the natural heavens cause flowers to spring forth from the earth.
Consider what joy God must have had in the young man Jesus of Nazareth, and why He had it, and resolve that the same causes for this Divine joy shall exist in you.
II. God’s feelings towards orphans and widows. “Mercy on their fatherless and widows.” A more familiar thought, but let us not therefore overlook its preciousness. How frequent and how emphatic are the declarations of God’s pity for the orphans and widows (Exod. xxii. 22; Deut. x. 18; Ps. x. 14, 18; lxviii. 5; lxxxii. 3; cxlvi. 9; Jer. xlix. 11, &c.) Yea, we are taught that at least one-half of religion consists in being like God in this respect (Jas. i. 27). God’s pity is practical; let those to whom it is promised trust in it confidently.[2] And let God’s people make it their business—put themselves to pain and trouble—to be like Him in this respect: this is the way to secure His favour for themselves.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The world is God’s journal, wherein He writes His thoughts and traces His tastes. The world overflows with beauty. Beauty should no more be called trivial, since it is the thought of God.—Beecher.
[2] There are no such promises to those who are free from sorrow and trial as are full and abundant to the afflicted. A good country physician in New England went to a neighbour’s house to tell a wife and mother of the sudden death of her absent husband. She was more than ordinarily frail and dependent. She had a large family. Her husband had acquired no property. The fresh blow was indeed terrible to her. When the first wild burst of sorrow was over, she looked up through her tears to her sympathising friend, and said in agony, “But, Doctor, what shall I do?” “My dear woman, I don’t know,” said the kind-hearted physician. “All I can say is, I only wish I had as many promises of God to take right home to myself as you have just now. The Bible is full of promises to those who are in your case.” And the stricken woman lived to realise the truth and preciousness of the richest of those promises.—Trumbull.