Psalms 86:8

Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto Thy works.

God’s works unique

I. God’s works in the material domain have no equal.

1. How exquisite in perfection. How delicate in structure, symmetrical in form and hue. Compare the finest fabric that the human hand has ever produced with the commonest flower of the field, and what a difference.

2. How infinite in variety! From the microscopic atom to that central orb that holds the material universe together, from the animalcule to the archangel, no two alike. How limited the range of man’s inventions, what a sameness in all his productions!

3. How immeasurable in extent! “The works of the Lord are great,” etc. Ill. God’s works in the mortal domain have no equal.

For example, how different the way in which God deals with enemies with the way men do!

1. God offers forgiveness to the rebel; man crushes him.

2. God offers forgiveness to the rebel after he has frequently refused it.

3. God offers forgiveness to the rebel, and makes the greatest sacrifice, “He gave His Son,” etc. Verily, “His ways are not our ways.” (Homilist.)

The wonder-working God

I. The glories of Israel’s covenant God unequalled. “There is none like unto Thee.”

II. The operations of His hands. “Neither are there any works like unto Thy works.”

1. In nature, who can make a tree such as God makes? You may make an imitation of it. Who can make a blade of grass such as God makes?

2. In providence there are no works like unto God’s. If He send forth His servants, as He did Jeremiah, to throw down, root up, and overturn nations and empires. It is He that giveth power to get wealth, He it is that fixes the bounds of our habitations; nay, more, it is His constant employ to order the very steps of every good man.

3. Now, look at what might be accounted religious works, or what may be termed the work of grace. Can any god work like Him?

III. The designs of his love.

1. The salvation and redemption of His Church.

2. The new creation of every member of the Church, to qualify them to enjoy redemption. What a subject for personal self-examination!

3. The tribute of praise He designs shall be paid to Himself. “My glory,” says He, “will I not give to another,” nor my praise to graven images; therefore is there no god like our God, and no other god shall have any of His tribute. (J. Irons.)

God’s work

The text is the expression of the unsophisticated man in the presence of earth and sky; and, mind, Jesus Christ is on the side of the unsophisticated man. “Consider the lilies, how they grow,” etc. He did not say that Solomon was not a match for a landscape, but he was not arrayed like “one” of these. That is, in the estimation of Jesus Christ, there was more splendour in a single wild flower than there is in all our manufactured magnificence. It is something like what Mr. Ruskin said: “There is more beauty in a bluebell than would be necessary to decorate a dozen cathedrals.” The unsophisticated man feels that there is no rivalry between our creations and the magnificence of the Creation. Everybody knows that when Aladdin’s palace was built the magicians were disturbed, and left a window incomplete, and all the genius of the East failed to complete that window. But, I say, if a bit of the sky had been left incomplete, or a section of the rainbow unpainted, or the petal of a flower organically defective, who would have finished that? Oh, no, “amongst the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord.” A great many art critics fancy that God Almighty is not much of an artist, and that you require a great deal of correction and idealization before you can get a picture. The botanist feels that flowers must have a great deal of care and training before they are fit for the show; and most people who have to deal with nature have a consciousness that it does not satisfy their artistic sense. So to-day, you perpetually hear of the limitation, the irregularity, the defectiveness, and failures of nature. Now, what are you to say to these? Are you to deny them? Not for a moment. But remember this, that whenever you mark the defects of nature, those alleged defects are only part of a larger ultimate perfection. Let me say this--two great canons--everything in nature is good in its place, and everything in nature is good for its purpose; not ideally perfect, but good in its place, good for its purpose. But I wish to speak to you on the perfection of God’s works as revealed in His government of the race. Now, the unsophisticated man, looking at the structure of society, the independence of the nations, the unfoldings of evolution, would say at once that God was wonderful in counsel and excellent in working; amongst the gods there is no ruler like Thee, O Lord, neither is there any government like unto Thy government. But the critic steps in again. What! Look at the planet; think of human history; mark all the confusions and catastrophes of the ages; and could any government be worse than the government of God--that is, if there be such government? Now, what are we to say? Let us begin again. Everything good in its place. What is that? Get the right distance, look at the thing with a true perspective, and you will give a favourable verdict. Let me illustrate it. There has appeared, almost in our own day, a new historian--the philosophical historian. The old historians gave anecdotes of kings and of camps, stories of the people, the movement of the times. It was a series of sketches, a series of anecdotes; and there they finished. But in modern times we have another historian--the philosophical historian. What is his particular vocation? He shows how the different nations have contributed to the development of civilization; what part the Egyptian civilization played, what part the Greek, what part the Judaic, what part the Roman. Why did not the philosophical historian come earlier? Because the right point of view had not been reached; the Egyptian did not know what he was doing--the Greek did not, the Jew did not, the Roman did not. They were up in the dome, they were far too near. But the philosophical historian is the man who has got the proper distance; he has got the floor, and he begins to see that the past has not been a gigantic muddle, but there has been system in it, order, purpose. The chaos is revealing itself as a picture. The philosophical historian says, “Under everything there is a plan; running through all things there is a purpose; and what for ages looked to men but a confused and purposeless history begins to show to-day the great, universal, and splendid purpose of Him who sits upon the throne and governs all things to His own great ends.” Don’t you judge too quickly; you wait ten thousand years; you have plenty of time. What is ten thousand years to you? The great purpose of God that is hidden begins to make itself known through the mist, and what you once thought to be a chaos you see to be a cartoon. Yes, you say, but ten thousand years is rather trying to us, with our impatience. It is; you need not always wait so long. Three centuries ago an ugly tyranny in this nation drove out from us some of the noblest women and noblest men that belonged to the commonwealth. Now, if you had been on the Atlantic coast, and had seen the Mayflower driving across that wild sea to an unknown world, you would have said, with your little view of things, “Where is the wisdom and purpose of this? Talk of the government of God--could there be a worse government than the government that permits the expatriation of these noble men and women?” The American Republic of to-day is God’s explanation of the mystery of three centuries ago, and the voyage of the Mayflower. Yes, you say, but one gets a bit tired in three centuries. It is tedious. Well now, let me tell you this. God does not always keep you waiting three centuries. You know, young people think they know every thing, and they do pretty nearly, but there are a few things that God keeps for the aged, there are a few odd truths that He whispers in our ear; and I tell you one is this. As a man gets older he begins to see that his life has not been made up of unrelated patches, but it has been an intelligent working and programme throughout. When a man is young, life seems made up of events unrelated, contradictory, grotesque; life seems made up of ups and downs, ins and outs, births, deaths, and marriages, without rhyme and without reason. But when a man gets old, at the right distance from the dome, he begins to see that God girded him when he knew it not, and that God has been shaping things from infancy to age. I don’t think for a moment that I deceive myself when I think to-day of my life; I can see to-day what I did not see before, that God has been standing at the back, and He has ordered things, and what I once thought a mistake I see now to have been right, and before I have done, very likely, I shall see the picture more clearly than I see it to-day. I am a philosophical historian on a small scale, and I begin to feel that God has worked out my life with a distinct purpose and plan, and I have a deep conviction that He has done all things well. Everything good in its place--what did I say?--everything good for its purpose. Try that again. What is the object of the government of God? To make us perfect, to make us into noble men and women. The failures of society are only imperfections that aim at a larger perfection--the perfection of the man. When you judge things, you judge they are blunders, because they have spoiled your money, or they have spoiled your health, or they have spoiled your happiness. Not at all. Think how they stand related to your discipline, your higher education, your perfecting in knowledge and righteousness; think of that. Judge the purpose, and then you will see that it was not a blunder. “Thy judgments are a great deep,” says the psalmist. Yes, a great deep, that is now, and we are sceptics, we are complaining, the air is filled with criticism and cynicisms and blasphemies. “Thy judgments are a great deep,” and we say all sorts of wicked things. But on the last page of the book I read, “For Thy judgments are made manifest.” (W. L. Watkinson.)

The ways and works of God

The psalmist is here speaking of the incomparableness of the workmanship of God. The perfection of the Divine action as we witness it in creation: “Amongst the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto Thy works.” That is the utterance of the unsophisticated man as he stands in the presence of the grandeur of the world. You know that in the old story of the building of Aladdin’s palace by the spirits, that they were disturbed in their work and they left one of the windows incomplete, and all the artistry of the East failed to finish that window and make it harmonize with the work already done. But I say if a bit of the sky had been left uncoloured, who would have dared to dye it? If the fragrance had been left out of the rose, who would have supplied it? But we are not left to instinctive admiration, for the critic comes along. There is not a man in this place but who knows that there is more said to-day about the imperfection of nature than about its perfection. Our artistic friends are sure they could have improved the world vastly if they had been consulted. The result is that many people speak much about the imperfections of nature, the imperfections of society, and the imperfections of life. Now, what are we to say about these? How are we to deal with these questions? Are we to deny them? No, not for one moment. Admit them, and then declare that the apparent imperfections of the world are only the proofs of a more glorious and more wonderful perfection. There are two principles which I want you to keep in mind while we follow this thought--that everything in nature is good in its place. It does not seem good if you take it out of its place. Now, when you went to Rome and had climbed to the dome of St. Peter’s, the thing which struck you was the imperfection of the fabric, the material was coarse, the inlaying was carelessly done, and the colours were crude. But when you came down to the floor 250 feet beneath and looked up, it was a triumphant success; its very imperfection was its perfection. The artist knew that his work was to be looked at from the floor, and he made his plans accordingly. If he had finished it in fullest detail he would have defeated his own purpose. But instead he made it rough, and so created a picture of great beauty. It is just like that in nature. The sacred writer, with a fine discrimination, says: “Everything is beautiful in its time, in its season.” Everything is beautiful in its order, everything is beautiful in its place, so that when a man sees only the imperfect or the unscientific, all I can say to such an one is that he has taken it out of its context, he has looked at it out of its perspective. There is a further principle, everything is good for its purpose. The ideally perfect is not always the ideally practical. One of the greatest scientists of this age has told us that if any optician was to send him an instrument as imperfect as the eye, he would return it at once with a severe reprimand for his carelessness. We are told that the eye has serious technical defects. The optician could make us a better, but he does not. I do not doubt that he could make us once more theoretically and ideally perfect. But if we got an eye like that, its very refinements would be an impediment to us. It would not be of service for its purpose. With all its defects the human eyes is good for its purpose. I want to say a word about the Divine action in the ways of God’s government. The unsophisticated man looks on the world all down the ages, and he says, How wonderful, how marvellous in counsel! What providential leadings we have seen. Don’t you be in too great a hurry, for you will have the critic down on you. He will ask you if you can shut your eyes to the suffering of the world, to the bankruptcies of civilization, to the tragedies of nations, and to the miseries of individuals. Let us go back to our first principle. Everything is good in its place. If you are going to judge wisely, you must have a true standpoint, and before we can judge history we must have such a true standpoint and wait long enough. In our day you have a new school of historians--the philosophical historian. The old historian used to give us pictures of things; he would tell us anecdotes about the kings, parliaments, and contemporaries, and the events of great personages. The philosophical historian is of another type. His method is to find out the succession and harmony of events. He says to you that “through the ages one increasing purpose runs.” He tells you how the great nations have worked for one purpose. The Jew contributed ethics, the Greek beauty, the Roman jurisprudence, and he points out to you how the different nations were all working unconsciously for the bringing in of a wider purpose. Now, what I want to know is, why did not the philosophic historian come sooner? To see the providence of God sometimes you have to wait six, eight, or even ten thousand years, but what is that to you and me? We have plenty of time, for we are alive for evermore. God’s plan runs on, and it is not for us to say Chat we can interpret His workmanship. If you had stood on the shore that day when the Mayflower steered her course from our land! The occupants were fleeing from tyranny in this country. Surely it was cruelty and a spectacle for pity. It seemed as if the great men and noble women were driven out to find a home in another part of the world. But we were too near to the pinnacle to see rightly. You wait until you get to the floor. Wait three hundred years, and the American Republic is God’s interpretation of the Mayflower. The young people will not understand this, but it has its appeal to the patriarchs. They will agree with me that the difference in the past and the present vision of life is all a matter of a new perspective. Thus what was once a shapeless, purposeless confusion is revealed as the perfect plan of God. So I say to you, when you are tempted to judge God’s ways hard, always be sure that you have waited long enough. “He maketh the wrath of men to praise Him.” What is the purpose of the government of God? Is it to make us rich, or strong, or to make us famous and happy? If His government aimed at such results, it has broken down most pathetically. But it does not aim at such results. It aims at the moral development of the individual and the cleansing of the community, the making of a holy nation. These are the aims of His government, not material but moral aims. A German writer, in pointing out the defects of nature, shows that many animals are woefully defective. The organs of motion are often mechanically defective. We cannot argue with these men, they say it is so, and no doubt it is true. But t was most struck with the last line of the paragraph. He finished by saying, “Considerations of a higher order have determined these imperfections.” I tell you that as I walk along the streets of the city and look on the suffering world, on the sickness and the loss, the poverty and the tears, I often whisper to myself, “considerations of a higher order have determined these imperfections.” Ah! God sometimes smites us on lower grounds for higher purposes. He afflicts me to-day that He may give me to-morrow higher and better things, “considerations of a higher order have determined these imperfections.” Let us consider this in relation to the Divine action in revelation. How you could emphasize this! How wonderful those pages have been to you, promises full of stars for dark times. Sweet pastures where the Shepherd leads His flock. But suddenly the critic comes down upon us, and he says with a mighty scorn, “That Book perfect! It is full of crudities, full of inconsistencies, and full of imperfections.” Don’t deny these charges, but reveal the greater perfection. The sun has spots, but you don’t break it up and cart it away for scrap iron. Go back to your principles. Everything good in its place. Now, there are those who find fault with the Old Testament, and especially with the Pentateuch. I say to you that the Pentateuch has been effective not in spite of its imperfections, but because of them. It was the only way in which God could educate a sensual age. Just think of a rose looking down at its roots, and saying, “There is a nasty thing. It has got no colour, no shape, and no fragrance.” But the root is perfect as a root, and the perfection of the root is the rose which graces its top. And I say to you to-day that you must not despise that Old Testament out of which you sprung. Boast not thyself against the root, for thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. It is also good for its purpose. What is the purpose of this revelation? It is to teach redemption, not geology or astronomy. It was to reveal God, and make you like Him. I was very interested during my visit to America in a correspondence on what would have been the effect if the sun had been another colour, say, if it had been green, or scarlet, or blue. It was a very amusing controversy, but I was most interested in the conclusion they arrived at, viz., that, on the whole, it was better as it was. The sun may be defective, but it ripens your corn, and colours your flowers. And so with the revelation of God: it fulfils its purpose. This book has illumined men, inspired men, and comforted men. His weakness is stronger than our strength. His weakness is greater than our wisdom. (W. L. Watkinson.)