1 Samuel 2:3,4

Talk no more exceeding proudly.

The different forms of pride

1. The pride of conquest. “The bows of the mighty men are broken.”

2. The pride of abundance. There may be pride in any and every condition of life. Children, as well as grown people, may be very proud; and God hates pride in the young as much as in the old. Some children,--nay, and some grown people, too, are proud of fine clothes, and like to strut about while the gloss is new on their wearing apparel. Others are proud of being clever; whereas they should regard their talents as a trust given them by God, of which they will have to render an account. Others are vain of their beauty; and then perhaps their beauty is taken away by some loathsome complaint, or worse still, it becomes a snare to them, as Absalom’s fine long hair was the means of bringing him to his end. (Dean Goulburn.)

The Lord is a Lord of Knowledge.

The knowledge of God

Knowledge considers things absolutely, and in themselves: wisdom considers the respects and relations of things one to another, and under the notion of means and ends. The knowledge of God, is a perfect comprehension of the nature of all things, with all their powers and qualities, and circumstances: the wisdom of God, is a perfect comprehension of the respects and relations of things one to another; of their harmony and opposition; of their fitness and unfitness to such and such ends.

I. For the proof of it, I shall attempt it two ways.

1. From the dictates of natural light and reason. Unless natural reason assures us, that God is endowed with knowledge and understanding, it is in vain to inquire after Divine revelation. For to make any revelation credible, two things are requisite on the part of the revealer, ability and integrity. The Divine perfections are not to be proved by way of demonstration, but by way of conviction, by showing the absurdities of the contrary.

(1) It is a perfection, and therefore belongs to God.

(2) Knowledge is to be found in some of the creatures, and therefore is much more in God the Creator, because it is derived from Him. “Understand, ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye be wise? He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? He the formed the eye, shall He not see?”

(3) The denial of this perfection to God, argues many other imperfections in the Divine nature. Nothing would more eclipse the Divine nature, than to take away this perfection from it; this would bring an universal obscurity upon God’s other perfections; this would be to put out the light of heaven, and to turn the brightness of the morning into the shadow of death. If we remove this perfection from God, we deny His wisdom. And we weaken His power. What an impotent and ineffectual thing would power be without knowledge! What irregular things would it produce! And, consequently, we take away His providence; for without knowledge, there can be no counsel, no provision for the future, no government of the world. And that is not all; for without knowledge there could be no such thing as goodness, for He is not good that does good out of ignorance, or from a blind necessity. There could be no veracity, nor justice, nor mercy in God; for all these suppose knowledge.

2. From Scripture, and Divine revelation. I will only instance in two or three: (Job 36:4) “He that is perfect in knowledge, is with thee.” (Job 37:16) “Dost thou know the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?”

(1) That God takes notice of all our actions. The Scripture frequently mentions this: (Psalms 129:1, etc. Proverbs 5:21) “The ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He pondereth all his goings.” (Jeremiah 32:19) “Thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men, to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”

(2) He is a curious observer, one that takes exact notice of all that we do.

(3) He taketh notice of those actions which are most secret and hidden, the good as well as bad.

3.God knows the hearts and thoughts of men; which implies these two things: God perfectly knows the hearts of men (Jeremiah 17:10). (1 Kings 8:39) “For Thou, even Thou, knowest the hearts of all the children of men.” (1 Chronicles 27:9). “He knoweth the secrets of the hearts” (Proverbs 15:11).

(1) The reason of every man’s mind tells him, that the supreme Being whom we call God, is endowed with all perfection, and among His other perfections, that He excels in knowledge.

(2) The natural fears of men are likewise a secret acknowledgment of this.

2. That to have a perfect and thorough knowledge of men’s hearts, is the peculiar prerogative of God.

3. God’s knowledge of future events. This God proposes as the way to discern the true God from idols (Isaiah 41:21, etc.)

(1) That God knows future events.

(2) That He only knows them.

Objection the first: The impossibility of the thing. The certainty of all knowledge depends upon the certainty of the object; therefore there cannot be a certain and determinate knowledge of any thing, but what is certainly and determinately true; but future events, which may or may not be, have no certain and determinate truth; that is, it is not certain either that they will or will not be, because they have no certain cause; therefore there can be no infallible knowledge concerning them.

1. I might say, with a very fair probability, that the certainty of knowledge doth not depend upon the uncertainty of the cause, but of the object, which may be certain, though the cause be contingent.

2. Though we could not explain the possibility of God’s knowing future contingencies, much less the manner how; yet we are sufficiently assured that God doth know them.

3. It is very unreasonable to expect we should know all the ways which infinite knowledge hath of knowing things. We have but finite faculties and measures, which bear no proportion to infinite powers and objects.

Secondly, It is objected, that if we can admit such a knowledge in God as seems contradictions and impossible to our reason, why may we not allow and frame such notions of His goodness and justice. To this I answer, There is a great difference between those perfections of God which are imitable, and those which are mot. Knowledge of future events is a perfection wherein we are not bound to be like God; and if we are assured of the thing, that He doth know them, it is not necessary that we should know the manner of it, and disentangle it from contradiction and impossibility: but it is otherwise in God’s goodness and justice, which are imitable; he that imitates, endeavours to be like something that he knows, and we must have a clear idea and notion of that which we would bring ourselves to the likeness of; these perfections of God we are capable of knowing, and therefore the knowledge of these perfections is chiefly recommended to us in Scripture (Jeremiah 9:24). The third objection is made up of several inconveniences that would follow from God’s knowledge of future events.

1. It would prejudice the liberty of the creature. Answer.--God’s foreknowledge lays no necessity upon the event; in every event, we may consider the effect in itself, or with relation to the cause, and the manner how it comes to pass; considered in itself, it is future--with relation to its causes, it is contingent. God sees it as both.

2. If God infallibly foreknows what men will do, how can He be serious in His exhortations to repentance, in His expectation of it, and His grieving for the impenitency of men? Answer.--All these are founded in the liberty of our actions. God exhorts to repentance, and expects it, because by His grace we may do it: He is said to grieve for our impenitency, because we may do otherwise, and will not. Exhortations are not in vain themselves, but very proper to their end. Having answered the objections against God’s foreknowing future events, I proceed to show that God only knows future events (Isaiah 44:6). I have now done with the first general head I proposed to be spoken to from these words; viz., To prove that this attribute of knowledge belongs to God. I proceed to the

II. To consider the perfection and prerogative of the Divine knowledge; which I shall speak to in these following particulars:

1. God’s knowledge is present and actual, His eye is always open, and every thing is in the view of it. The knowledge of the creature is more power than act.

2. God’s knowledge is an intimate and thorough knowledge, whereby He knows the very nature and essence of things. The knowledge which we have of things is but in part, but outward and superficial.

3. God’s knowledge is clear and distinct. Our understandings in the knowledge of things are liable to great confusion; we are often deceived with the near likeness and resemblance of things, and mistake one thing for another.

4. God’s knowledge is certain and infallible. We are object to doubt and error in our understanding of things.

5. The knowledge of God is easy, and without difficulty. We must dig deep for knowledge, take a great deal of pains to know a little.

6. The knowledge of God is universal, and extends to all objects. We know but a few things; our ignorance is greater than our knowledge.

III. I come now to draw some inferences from the several parts of this discourse.

1. From the perfection of God’s knowledge.

(1) The perfection of the Divine knowledge calls for our veneration.

(2) We may hence learn humility, and that on this double account--as we have all our knowledge from Him: “What have we that we have not received?”

(3) This is a matter of comfort and encouragement; He knows our wants and our weaknesses.

2. From God’s knowing our secret actions, I infer,

(1) If God sees our most secret actions, this discovers and confutes the secret atheism of many. He that commits the most secret sin, denies the omniscience of God.

(2) Live as those that believe this: be continually under the power of this apprehension, that God takes a particular and exact notice of all thy actions.

3. God’s knowledge of the heart teaches us,

(1) The folly of hypocrisy: how vain is it to make a show of that outwardly, which inwardly, and in our hearts, we are not; to put on a mask of religion, and paint ourselves beautifully without.

(2) If God know your hearts, then endeavour to approve your hearts to Him; charge yourselves with inward purity and holiness.

(3) This is matter of encouragement to us in many cases: in our secret troubles (Psalms 142:3).

(4) This renders all the deep and profound policies of wicked men a vain thing: “The Lord knows the thoughts of men, that they are vanity” (Psalms 94:11): because He knows them, and can defeat them.

(5) If God only knows the hearts of men, then “what art thou, O man, that judgest another’s heart?”

4. From God’s knowledge of future events, we may learn,

(1) The vanity of astrology, and all other arts that pretend to foretell future events, things that depend on the will of free agents.

(2) Refer future things to God, who only knows them; trust Him with all events; “cast your care upon Him.” (J. Tillotson, D. D.)

By Him actions are weighed.--

Actions weighed by God

In all God’s dealings with us there is one thing of which we may be perfectly sure,--they will be done deliberately; delicately, by measurement, with accuracy, in proportion. We are quite safe there from all hastiness and inconsideration--those two banes of human judgment. Job’s prayer is always answered, “Let me be weighed in the balance.” Alike the greatest and the leash--from those giants of nature, the everlasting hills, down to the dust of the earth, and to the smallest thought which ever flashed through a man’s mind--all are weighed.

I. Let us be sure that we give actions their proper place in the plan of our salvation. Actions never save a man. Actions have, strictly speaking, nothing to do with our salvation. But actions occupy four parts in the great scheme of our redemption.

1. They are the tests of life--“He that abideth in Me, the same bringeth forth much fruit.”

2. They are the language of love--“If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”

3. They glorify God before men--“Let your light so shine before men that they, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

4. And although they are not the meritorious causes of our final rewards, yet they determine the degrees and proportions of our final state--“He will reward every man according as his work shall be”

II. It would be the greatest presumption on our part to say how God weighs our actions. It is sufficient to know that He does weigh them. That hand cannot err But we may carry out God’s own metaphor a little way and conceive it thus:

1. On the one hand is the action; on the other, what that action might have been, and ought to have been, and, but for our sin, would have been.

2. On the one side the action we did; on the other, the action we meant to do, and promised to do.

3. On the one side, what we have received; on the other, what we have rendered.

III. When God holds the scales of his children’s actions, He puts in something of His own over and above, and when He puts that in, the beam that had preponderated against us, turns the other way, and “mercy rejoiceth against judgment.” We should be careful not to usurp an office which only Omniscience can rightly exercise.

IV. We must all feel that when we are weighed in these Holy scales the verdict can only be, “Tekel; thou art weighed in the balances and found wanting.” But the Lord Jesus Christ died upon the cross. That death is on the one side, and the whole world’s guilt is on the other. God is “weighing them”--the blood of Christ and the sins of all mankind. God has balanced you and your substitute, and God is satisfied for His sake forever and ever (J. Vaughan.)

The King’s weighings

It is very beautiful to see how the saints of old time were accustomed to find comfort in their God. Thus Hannah thinks of the Lord, and comforts herself in His name. Like others of God’s instructed people, Hannah was very happy in the thought of God’s holiness. Hannah also turned her heart to celebrate the power of Jehovah. Hannah touched, in her rapturous hymn, upon the wisdom of the Lord. Hannah also derived comfort from the fact that God is strictly just.

I. The staple of our discourse will consist of a consideration of the process of Divine judgment, which is continually going on: “The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.” The figure of weighing suggests a thorough testing, and an accurate estimating of the matters under consideration.

1. Our first note here shall stand thus,--this is not as man dreams. Consider, next, that this form of procedure is not as man judges. By men actions are judged flippantly, but “by God actions are weighed.” Men are exceedingly apt to measure actions by their consequences. How wrong it is to measure actions by results, rather than by their own intrinsic character! A man upon the railway neglected to turn a switch, but by the care of another no accident occurred. Is he to be excused? Another man was equally negligent, certainly not more so; but in his case the natural result followed--there was a collision, and many lives were lost. The last man was blamed most deservedly, but yet the former offender was equally guilty. If we do wrong and no harm comes of it, we are not thereby justified. Yea, if we did evil and good came of it, the evil would be just as evil. It is not the result of the action but the action itself which God weighs. He who swindles and prospers is just as vile as he whose theft lodged him in prison. He who acts uprightly, and becomes a loser thereby, is just as honoured before God as if his honesty had led on to wealth. If we seek to do good and fail in our endeavour, we shall be accepted for the attempt, and not condemned for the failure. If a man gives his life to convert the heathen, and he does not succeed, he shall have as much reward of God as he who turns a nation to the faith. I would now have you note that this weighing is a very searching business. “By him actions are weighed.” A man enters a goldsmith’s shop and says, “Here is old gold to sell. See, I have quite a lot of it.” “Yes,” says the goldsmith, “Let me weigh it.” “Weigh it? Why, look at the quantity; it fills this basket.” What is the goldsmith doing? Looking for his weights and certain acids by which he means to test the metal. When he has used his acids, he puts the trinkets into the scale. “You are not going to buy by weight?” “I never buy in any other way,” says the goldsmith. “But there is such a quantity.” “That may be, but I buy by weight.” It is always so with God in all our actions: he estimates their real weight. We may hammer out our little gold, and make a great show of it, but the Lord is not mocked or deceived. Every dealing between us and God will have to be by a just balance and standard weight. And in what way will He weigh it? The weights are somewhat of this sort. The standard is His just and holy law, and all which falls short of that is sin. Any want of conformity to the law of God is sin, and by so much our acts are found wanting. Remember this, ye who would justify yourselves. The Lord also enquires how much of sincerity is found in the action. The Lord also weighs actions according to their motives. Another mode of judging is by our spirit and temper. Sometimes actions may be weighed by the circumstances which surround them. Multitudes of men are honest because they never had a chance of making a grand haul by setting up a bubble company--which is the modern mode of thieving. The lieu in the Zoological Gardens is very good because he is behind iron bars, and many a man’s goodness owes more to the iron bars of his position than to his own heart and motive. Another weight to put in the scale is this,--Was there any godliness about your life? Once more--have we lived by faith? for without faith it is impossible to please God; and if there be no faith in our life then are we nothing worth.

4. This weighing of our lives must be exceedingly accurate because it is done personally by God himself. I once heard a story (I do not know if it is true) of an old banker who said to his son to whom he bequeathed the business, “This is the key of our large iron safe: take great care of it. The bank depends upon that safe; let the people see you have such a safe, but never open it unless the bank should be in the utmost difficulty.” The bank went on all right as long as the iron safe was fast closed, but, at last there came a run upon it, and in his greatest extremity the young gentleman opened it, and he found in it--nothing at all. That was the stock of the bank: poverty carefully concealed, imaginary wealth winning confidence, and living on the results. Are there not many persons who all their lives long are doing a spiritual banking business, and deriving a considerable income of repute from that which will turn out to be mere nothing? Beware of driving a trade for eternity upon fictitious capital, for failure will be the sure result.

5. Again, I want you to notice that this weighing is carried on at this present time--“By Him actions are weighed.” As at the Bank all moneys are put through a process by which the light coins are detected, so evermore our life passes over the great weighing machine of the Lord’s justice, and He separates that which is short in weight from that which is precious, doing this at the moment as infallibly as at the judgment day. “By Him actions are weighed.” This is true of all of us--not of open sinners only, but of those who are considered saints.

6. And one day, to conclude this point, the King’s weighing will be published--set up where men and angels shall read them

II. The humbling nature of this consideration. “Talk no more so exceedingly proudly; let not arrogance come out of your mouth; for the Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed.” The fact of Divine judgment on ourselves should forever prevent our insulting over others. Next, I think we must give up all idea of speaking proudly in the presence of God. If ever you have had the weighing process carried on in your own heart I know you have given up all hope of being saved by your own merit or strength if conscience has been awakened, and if the law has fulfilled its office upon you, you have given up all idea of appearing before God in your own righteousness.

III. The position in which all this leaves us. If God weighs our actions and we are thereby found wanting, and can only cry, “Guilty” in his sight, what then? Then we are in God’s hands. That is where I wish every one of my hearers to feel himself to be. But who is the Lord?

1. First, according to Hannah, He is a God of salvation.

2. Next, according to Hannah’s song, tie is the God who delights in reversing the order of things. He throws down those who are on high, and sets up those that are down.

3. Once more, this God is one who delights to carry on strange processes in the hearts of His people. “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Divine knowledge of human action.

God’s knowledge extends to--

I. The material universe. There is nothing in any part of this universe which comes not beneath His glance. Our imagination fails us as we try to think what is included in the knowledge of God in the wide sphere of the physical creation.

II. All finite intelligences. We should conclude from the exercise of our reason, and Scripture fully confirms the belief (Colossians 1:16), that beside and above our own, are many grades of spiritual intelligences peopling the vast spaces of the heavens. The all-embracing wisdom of God must include a perfect knowledge of these--of their nature, of their capacities, of their habits, of their life. But let us rather pursue that which practically concerns us, our Father’s knowledge of His human children. God knew from the beginning--

1. The possibilities of our nature; how high we could rise and how far we might sink, how much we could enjoy and how much we could endure.

2. The course of human history. He saw what use and what misuse of his great opportunity man would make, how he would be overcome in the day of trial, and what long and dark course of sin and suffering he would pursue.

3. Our capacity to rise.

III. The worth and the unworthiness of human life and action. By the God of knowledge “actions are weighed.”

1. What is included in human action? We must not take a restricted view of those “actions” which are weighed by the Judge of all. They include--

(1) All visible movement, all overt deeds; the things which our hands execute, the paths which our feet tread, the activities of the busy world, the discharge of household duties, our indulgences, our studies, our devotions. But they include very much more than this; they embrace

(2) all utterance, both premeditated and casual. The distinction between words and deeds is only true in part. It is often the case that speaking is the finest and noblest action.

(3) All thoughts, feelings, and determination are the actions of the soul. The spirit of man is constantly at work when no sound is heard and no deed is witnessed. We may go so far as to say that human action includes

(4) our fixed attitude of soul--especially that which we deliberately take toward the Father and the Saviour of our spirit.

2. Weights in the Divine balance. By what does God determine the worth or the guilt of an action?

(1) By the purity or impurity of our motive (Matthew 6:1; Matthew 6:5; Matthew 6:16; Matthew 23:15; 1 Corinthians 13:1).

(2) By the measure of difficulty to be mastered. God “knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” He requires of us “according to that we have, and not according to that we have not.”

(3) By the presence or absence of privilege. Far more was expected from those who had “the law” than from those who had it not (Matthew 5:46; Romans 2:12). (W. Clarkson, B. A.)

The even balance

“Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite.” He who “hath weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance weigheth the spirit:” and by Him actions are weighed. Looking forward, faithful Abraham said: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

I. The truth itself. “By him actions are weighed:”--

1. Unerringly. “The Lord is a God of knowledge;” and all of us may say with the Psalmist, “Thou understandest my thoughts afar off: Thou are acquainted with all my ways.” “We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth.”

2. In connection with and having regard to their antecedents. When the Israelites provoked the Lord at the Sea--“even at the Red Sea”--their sinfulness was aggravated by their want of remembrance of “the multitude of His mercies.” On the other hand, the moral value of worthy actions is enhanced by relation to unfavourable antecedents. To the Canaanitish woman Jesus said: “O woman, great is thy faith.”

3. In connection with the degree of knowledge at the time possessed. That Abraham obeyed and went out, “not knowing whither he went,” and that “he offered up Isaac,” quite in the dark as to the Divine design. On the other hand, the sin of Saul of Tarsus, when he was “a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious,” great as it was, was far below what it would have been had he then believed that Jesus was the Christ.

4. In connection with and having regard to the circumstances under which they are performed.

5. In connection with and having regard to the motive from which they spring. When Hezekiah displayed “all that was found in his treasures” it was the character of his motives, so peculiarly unbecoming amid such great and tender mercies from the Lord, that had specially to do with his subsequent humiliation under the providence of Him who “weigheth the spirits” (Proverbs 16:2). “It was the loving motive of Mary, who took very costly and precious ointment” and anointed the feet of Jesus, that led to the signal honour conferred by our Lord.

II. Reflections.

1. In view of the great truth, that “by Him actions are weighed,” how forcible trod full of suggestiveness the words: “Many that are first shall be last, and the last first” (Mark 10:31).

2. How differently should different minds be affected by the truth now under consideration. “I know thy works and where thou dwellest, oven where Satan’s seat is; and thou holdest fast My name.”

3. What gratitude should be enkindled by the assurance that the Lord, by whom actions are weighed, “delighteth in mercy.” “A false balance is not good”: and “they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise” (2 Corinthians 3:2). It is well to feel with Job--“Let me be weighed in an even balance.” (J. Elliot.)

The true valuation of men’s actions

The man of science has electrometers, spectroscopes, gossamer gauges, fairy balances, magic tests; he can do the most wonderful things in the way of analysing physical bodies, in measuring subtle natural forces. But all this delicacy of criticism is mere barbarism compared with the criticism of God. “The Lord weigheth the spirits.” He puts thoughts, tastes, emotions into the scales; with severer tests than we dream, the hidden qualities and principles of every heart are made manifest in his sight. It is reported that an American physician, Dr. Upham, of Salem, Massachusetts, recently demonstrated to an audience to whom he was lecturing the variations of the pulse in certain diseases by causing the lecture room to be placed in telegraphic communication with the City Hospital at Boston, fifteen miles distant; and then, by means of a special apparatus and a vibrating ray of magnesian light, the pulse beats were exhibited upon the wall. There is not a throb of our heart but it makes its sign on the great white throne. “He knoweth our thoughts afar off.” “Thou hast set our sins before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.” And what stands thus revealed is bound to meet with just retribution. (W. L. Watkinson.)

Actions revealed in their true light

Men forget their sinfulness in their prosperity. If the soldier wins the battle he concludes that his cause was right; if the politician wins his election he concludes that his policy is right; if the merchant accumulates a fortune he considers that heaven has endorsed his principles, whatever they may be. And yet this line of argument may be, and often is, utterly false. A man may be a conqueror, and yet his glory be his shame; he may attain honour, and his scarlet robe be the firing sign of his scarlet sins; he may grow rich, and every coin in his coffers witness against him; he may possess every means of happiness, and yet have forfeited all right to happiness itself. “His honour rooted in dishonour still.” Many a man has a certain sense of self-respect who ought to have none, for his self-respect is based on his wealth and position, not on his personal merit; on his clothes, not on his character. So by various methods men disguise their sins from themselves and from others; villains before heaven, they are gentlemen, moralists, salts before their fellows. In Venice, Quinet was shown a helmet of studied beauty, constructed to crush the heads of the accused. “Thus,” the philosopher remarks, “Venice was artistic even in her tortures.” How many men are artistic in their sins. Cleverly disguised as sin may be, it will inevitably suffer detection. (W. L. Watkinson.)