Psalms 103:7

He made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.

A twofold revelation, and a twofold attainment

I. A twofold Divine revelation. There is an obvious distinction between ways and acts. Acts are deeds; ways are methods. A man’s acts are the results and representatives of his ways. A man’s ways indicate the leading principle, spirit, and style of his life. His acts are not always consistent with his ways.

1. God reveals His ways. The universal, immutable, and eternal principles that guide Him in all His operations in the spiritual world are clearly laid down in the Book. The laws He gave to Moses reveal His ways, and so does the biography of His blessed Son in a still sublimer measure.

2. God reveals His acts. His acts are recorded in the Bible: creative acts--governing acts--redeeming acts--acts of justice and of mercy. His acts should be studied in order to reach the higher knowledge of His ways.

II. A twofold theological intelligence. Moses, on Sinai, received the eternal principles that regulate the Infinite in all His operations with man. The children of Israel down in the desert only saw His acts. They understood not the laws of His providence, and the grand purposes of His heart. There is a great distinction between these two kinds of knowledge.

1. One is far more profound than the other. The outward acts of God, as recorded in this Book, may be easily ascertained and detailed in fluent and accurate speech. But to understand His ways, to penetrate the region of principles, and to have an insight into the method of Divine operations, is a difficult work. This requires not only an inductive study of the Holy Book, but exalted feelings of devotion. “The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear Him.”

2. One is far more valuable than the other. It is more valuable to the possessor. The man who is only conversant with the mere acts of God will often be filled with confusion by providential events. One act will apparently contradict another, but he who understands the ways, the grand purposes and principles of God, will not be easily confused. It is more valuable, too, in qualifying us for usefulness. The man who is acquainted with mere details may repeat Bible anecdotes, and be popular. The man who has some knowledge of eternal principles can alone instruct souls.

3. One is far more uncommon than the other.

(1) In nature the millions observe the acts of God. They hear His thunder; they witness His lightning. They see His operations in heaving oceans and revolving worlds. But only one here and there understands His ways, and these are our men of science.

(2) In human history, numbers are conversant with the leading facts of human history. They know the acts of this statesman and that, this warrior and that, this nation and that; but the ways of God, the great principles with which He governs man are known only by a few--the philosophic historians.

(3) In redemption, the leading facts of Christ’s life are familiar to most in Christendom; but His ways, His grand principles, and sublime purposes, how few know anything about! (Homilist.)

Revelation by action

God has revealed Himself to man. Nothing can be more reasonable. Can it be that a supreme intelligence would create intelligent subjects of His government and children of His family, and have no further communication with them? Intelligence creating intelligence, revelation is inevitable. But how did God reveal Himself to man? When I was a very little child, I supposed that He had revealed Himself in a book, and that the self-revelation was limited to the book. I wish to insist that God, in revealing Himself to humanity, does not limit Himself to a book; but that God “made known His ways” unto individuals, “His doings” unto nations, and that His revelation was a revelation chiefly by action, a revelation on the plane of human activity, in vast historic unfoldings, through long centuries, on a colossal scale and with deep incisions. He did not write, He wrought. And man wrote. God wrought deeds to make words possible, to give significance to words; but His revelation was primarily a revelation in action. “He made known His ways unto Moses.” Glance for a moment at that wonderful scene recorded in the Book of Exodus, where Moses and Aaron appear before Pharaoh. Pharaoh demanded a sign, and Aaron, in obedience to Moses’ command, cast his rod upon the ground and it became a living serpent. At Pharaoh’s command his magicians cast their rods to the ground, and they became living serpents. But “Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods.” And then began a series of marvellous deeds which made the people of Israel and the people of Egypt acknowledge that the finger of God was there. The outcome was that the children of Israel were delivered from bondage and taken into the wilderness, where through many years they were guided by the God who had delivered them. Thus “God made known His ways unto Moses, His acts unto the children of Israel.” From the Old Testament let us go to the New. Jesus Himself never wrote a book, a sermon, an essay. “He went about doing good.” His words were the explanation of the things He did, and the things that God did in nature and in providence. When John sent his disciples to Jesus, they asked the question, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” His first answer was--silence. Then He touched the eyes of the blind man, and he saw; He touched a lame man, and he walked; a leper, and he was cleansed; a deaf man, and he heard; and, pointing to the son of the widow of Nain, who the day before had been rescued from his bier and restored to his mother, He said, “Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up; the poor have good tidings preached to them.” Thus He made known His ways, His doings to the children of men. As in the time of Moses and in the time of Jesus, so in all history has God manifested Himself as Lord of nature, who works His will on the material and with the forces He has created. And is He bound to any one mode or order of action because of the nature He has created? See the fountain breaking loose upon the top of the mountain, pouring forth its water! Following the laws of nature, these waters work their way through the yielding soil to the edge of the mountain, and then fall over in a succession of fine cascades to the plain below, where, winding their way through the sand, they join the river and pass to the sea. We say that this movement is a work of nature. Is there any other way of doing with the water that springs from the mountain than that which we have observed? Certainly. Even a man can do something other and better with this stream on the mountain. As proprietor of the land he proceeds to dig, regulate, guide, and carry for a mile along the brow of the hill the waters that break from the fountain. He then causes the stream to descend in waterfalls down the mountain-side, and then in artificial channels, crossed by rustic bridges, here and there, expanding into little lakelets, and now confined in narrow limits, he brings the stream to the river and to the Sea. Thus there are at least two ways of using the same elements in nature. Nature does one thing if left to herself. Man’s ingenuity and power can make nature do another thing without violating a law of nature. Can God do with His own resources what man can do with God’s resources? And why should there not be action in the realm of human history that is not simply a product either of nature or of man? And why may we not encounter in the records of human history marvels of which we are compelled to say, “Lo! God hath wrought this.” I once listened to a rendition of a concerto by Rubinstein where Rubinstein himself took part. Before the artist himself appeared, Thomas’s orchestra delighted the great audience with Rubinstein’s music. Although I did not see him I heard his music. After a little while he came in and took his place at the piano while his own music was going on. After a while he touched the keys himself; and, accompanying his own music rendered by other performers, he swept from the instrument strains of exquisite harmony that held the multitude spellbound. The same artist produced indirectly the music he had composed through the orchestra that rendered it, and directly through the instrument under his fingers. Can God do such things with His universe? Through all the ages His purposes have gone rolling on in harmony with His wisdom, in display of His power, in manifestation of His goodness; but there came a time when on the plains of Palestine One walked the earth, the incarnation of wisdom and love and power, and went about doing good to the children of men. In the light of this law of revelation by action, let us look at the life of Jesus. He came to reveal God to man that He might reveal man to himself. He did not come to startle our race by the wonders that He wrought. He did not come to depreciate nature as a revelation of God by simply showing that there were possibilities beyond nature. He did not come to stifle human research or to put a ban on human science and discourage human culture. He came to set forth before all the ages God’s holiness and love, the worth of man and his destiny and possibilities. See Him yonder hanging on that cross between heaven and earth, revealing by action God’s loathing of sin, His love of righteousness, and His boundless mercy. By His victory over death, as He emerged from the sepulchre, He demonstrated by action the power of the immortal life. By His ascent from the summit of Olivet into the visible heavens He revealed, as no literary or artistic production could ever have revealed, the fact of a realm of being beyond this. Reappearing in tongues of fire at Pentecost, He made known to men the fact of His presence and power on the earth for the ages to come. Thus “He made known His ways” and “doings” to humanity. In the light of this law of revelation by action let us look at the Scriptures. It is easy for us to fancy what a Divine book ought to be--how perfect and flawless, with no syllable in it that is not exact and Divine; a book completed in heaven and handed down to humanity. But this is not the Bible which we do have. We can easily see what would happen if the law of revelation by action through gradual processes be the Divine way of revelation. First, the Bible would be largely biographical; then, of course, historical; and gradually developed. It must be characterized by an all-pervading unity; there would be progressiveness in the unfolding of truth, and we should expect to get a fuller, larger, and worthier idea of God through Paul than through Moses, and through Paul’s last writings than through Paul’s earliest writings. If it was to be a revelation by action, it would take ages to produce it and ages to complete it. Its perpetuity would be guaranteed. It would be a trustworthy book if rightly interpreted. The human element would be present in it; for, if God revealed Himself through men, He would recognize the limitations of the man through whom He reveals Himself, and do the best He could with the material in hand, without violating the laws of nature or of man. In the light of this law of revelation by action let us look at the Christian life. When an individual soul receives the Divine truth and lives it out, he makes known to men by action the Divine truth he has received. Horace Bushnell has a great sermon entitled “Every Man’s Life a Plan of God.” Chrysostom says, “The true Shechinah is man.” Give me a living man in whom God dwells, whose character is moulded by the Divine truth, whose spirit is possessed by the Divine Spirit, and whose life is under the Divine direction, and I will show you a version of the Scriptures that will be of immense value to the community in which that man dwells. You have read an essay about the sun. You have seen pictures of the sun, although artists are usually ingenious enough to give a landscape just before the sun rises or just after sunset. You have seen the sun reflected in a dewdrop as it trembles on the little twig. You have seen the sun embodied in the beauty of the flower. But there is still another embodiment of sunlight. It is when on a cold day I come to your house, and a man puts a huge piece of bituminous coal on the fire. Millions upon millions of years ago the sunlight was stored in that lump of coal, but now in your home it comes out again; and the flashing light, with its brightness and its warmth, is the old sunlight millions of years ago hidden, and now giving blessing to your household. So God by action has put into this book of Divine truth the energies of His grace. These in turn have been transferred by faith to the souls of earnest and obedient students, and they in their turn make known again by action the ways of God to men. The Christian is thus a “living epistle,” read and known of all men. Often in walking through the Palace of Versailles, where those fine historic paintings fill the wall, I have imagined the trembling of the canvas, and then the coming down to the floor of those pictured men and women, no longer dead, but living and walking as they did one hundred years ago and more. It is a great thing for people to get the ideas that are in the Book inwrought into personal character, so that ideas, growing into ideals, will become realities, and people whom you meet will seem more and more like the prophets and apostles of old. Thus may we walk among men, incarnations of the Divine truth, and work over again the works of God. Therefore, let Him have His way with you that He may make known to others through you His ways of grace, and power, and victory, and blessing. (J. H. Vincent.)