Proverbs 21:1

The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord.

God and the human race

In these verses we have God unfolded to us.

I. As the controller of human hearts. Some suppose there is an allusion to the gardener directing the rills of water through the different parts of his ground, and that the comparison is between the ease with which the gardener does this and the ease with which the Almighty controls the purposes and volitions of the human soul.

1. This is an undoubted fact. A priori reasoning renders this obvious. The God of infinite wisdom must have a purpose to answer in relation to the existence and history of the human race. He has a purpose not only in the rise and fall of empires, but in all the events that happen in the individual history of the obscure as well as the illustrious. But unless He has a control over the workings of the human heart and the volitions of the human soul, how could this purpose be realised? If He controls not the thoughts and impulses of the human mind, He has no control over the human race, and His purposes have no guarantee for their fulfilment.

2. This fact interferes not with human responsibility. Though the Creator has an absolute control over all the workings of our minds, yet we are conscious that we are free in all our volitions and actions. Though the reconciliation of these two facts transcends our philosophy, they involve no absurdity.

II. As the judge of human character. There is a connection between the second and first verses. The connection suggests--

1. That God judges men’s characters, not according to their own estimate. Men generally are so vain that they form a high opinion of themselves, but this estimate may be the very reverse of God’s.

2. That God judges men’s characters not according to the result of their conduct. Though they may unwittingly work out His plans, they do not approve themselves to Him on that account.

3. That God judges men’s characters by the heart. The essence of the character is in the motive.

III. As the approver of human goodness (Proverbs 21:3). Sacrifice, at best, is only circumstantially good--rectitude is essentially so. Sacrifice, at best, is only the means and expression of good--rectitude is goodness itself. God accepts the moral without the ceremonial, but never the ceremonial without the moral. The universe can do without the ceremonial, but not without the moral. (D. Thomas, D. D.)

God rules the hearts of men

General Gordon had an Arab text inscribed over his throne in the Palace of Khartoum--“God rules over the hearts of men.”