God's ''Inevitable
Progress''
For some years before the bottom fell out of civilization we heard much about the inevitability of progress. The evolutionists with all their kith and kin assured us that man was as sure to move forward as the sparks to fly upward. We have not heard much of that lately. The only inevitability now mentioned is that of world destruction, at least the possibility of the extermination of the human race.
With the wiseacres now looking for a hole in the ground in which to escape from their own inventions, it is very evident that if we are progressing it is in reverse. Instead of creating a millennium we have contrived a madhouse.
But there is one kind of progress that is sure. The eternal purpose of God moves on. God's program is running on schedule. He will arrive where He is going. Let us consider three ways in which the growth of God's purpose is revealed. The God-Man grew on. God's Men grow on. God's Message grows on.
First, The God-Man grew on. Almost two thousand years ago God solved the greatest problem of all time, how to be a just God and yet justify ungodly men. How can a holy God and unholy men be brought together? Something had to be done about the sin problem.
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There was nothing that man could do. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. There had to be someone who was both God and man to bring together God and men. God solved that problem by sending His Son, who had no sin in Him but took all sin on Him, was made sin for us though He knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
So He came, born of a woman, and was laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Of course, the devil was not asleep. He got busy immediately to try to destroy the God-Man. King Herod was his instrument. All the children two years old and under in that part of the country were slain. But Joseph and Mary, warned of God, fled with the baby Jesus to Egypt. There they stayed until Herod died and the angel advised Joseph to return, ''for,'' said he, ''they are dead which sought the young child's life.'' They always die who run against the purposes of God!
Then we read that the child Jesus was taken to Nazareth, and Luke tells us: And the child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him; and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. The God-Man grew on and grew up, died and rose again, and accomplished our redemption. God's purpose prevailed, the devil was defeated, Herod died. But The God-Man grew on. Little did proud Rome know, little did cultured Greece imagine, little did religious Israel suspect, little did poor Nazareth dream, that in that little village, working at a carpenter's bench, was the Son of God and Son of man. Even a worthy Israelite
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asked, ''Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?'' Indeed, all that is good came out of Nazareth, for in Him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
In the second place, God's men grow on. In the Old Testament we read of the boy Samuel whose mother gave him to the Lord even before his birth. After he came she took him up to Eli the priest of Shiloh, and there he grew up. It was an evil age, Eli was old and his sons were immortal and the nation was backslidden. The calamity howlers and viewers-with-alarm, no doubt, were lamenting that the good old days were gone forever. But amidst all the sin and shame, the impurity and the infidelity, we read, And the child Samuel grew on, and was in favor both with the Lord, and also with men, reminding us of the similar verse about the child Jesus. God had His eye on that boy, for His eyes run to and fro throughout the whole earth, waiting to show Himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward Him. Then came the night when God called and Samuel answered, and we read after that. And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground. Thus began a glorious career as the last of the judges, counselor of kings, and spokesman for God. God's man Samuel grew on.
In the New Testament there is a similar statement. It was another evil day. For years there had been no prophet in Israel, and the fire of the Spirit had died low. God's people lived under a heathen power and religion and had sunk into dead formalism. But God sent to earth another boy to grow up outdoors and be the forerunner of the God-Man Himself. We read of John the Baptist that The child grew, and waxed
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strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel. God's man John the Baptist grew on!
So it has been through the centuries. There has never been a time so dark and dismal and desolate but somewhere God had a boy growing on. Remember that the days were dreary and the outlook desperate while the boy Martin Luther grew on. And the boy John Wesley, and the boy George Whitefield, and the boy George Fox, and the boy Charles Haddon Spurgeon, and the boy Dwight L. Moody. If you had seen any of these at the age when God called Samuel, you might not have suspected that here was God's man growing on. In Wales a lad in the coal mines prayed for years that God might endue him with the Spirit of revival. God heard him, for Evan Roberts was God's man growing on to spark the great Welsh awakening.
One thinks of the feeding of the five thousand. Here is an emergency, a multitude hungry and without food. But there are no unforeseen emergencies with God. Andrew reports, ''There is a lad here which hath five barely loaves and two small fishes.'' Ah, God has a boy on the spot! Of course, Philip took a dark view of the possibilities: ''But what are they among so many?'' But when this boy gave to Jesus such as he had, and all he had, the miracle happened.
Preaching is such a thrilling business. When my eye runs over the congregation and I see boys scattered here and there, I take heart. There may be a Samuel growing up among them! There may be a John the Baptist down there getting ready to be a voice in the wilderness. Never mind if he is not brilliant or prepossessing. He may have but loaves and fishes, but ''little
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is much if God is in it,'' and that light lunch blessed and broken and distributed by the Lord will feed a multitude. Never take your congregation lightly, though it be small and unimpressive; one of God's men may be growing up in it.
What a challenge to every parent who has a child in the home! He may be God's man growing on. Give him every needed counsel and correction, teach him to listen when God speaks. No man or woman ever had a nobler challenge or a higher privilege than to bring up a child for God, and whenever we slight that privilege or neglect that ministry for anything else, we live to mourn it in heartache and grief. There were many things that my father did not have, but one thing he did have: he had a consuming ambition that in his home a boy should grow up to live for God.
God's men grow on but God expects some assistance from us in helping them to grow on.
An old man going on a lone highway
Came in the evening cold and grey
To a chasm yawning both deep and wide.
The old man crossed in the twilight dim;
That swollen stream was naught to him.
But he stopped when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
''Old man,'' said a fellow traveler near,
''You are wasting your time in labor here;
Your journey will end with the closing day,
You never again will pass this way.
You've crossed the chasm deep and wide.
Why build you this bridge at eventide?
The laborer lifted his old grey head:
''Good friend, in the way I have come,'' he said,
''There followeth after me today
A youth whose feet must pass this way.
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This chasm which has been naught to me
To that fair youth may a pitfall be.
He too must cross in the twilight dim;
Good friend, I am building this bridge for him.''
Author Unknown
Yes, God's men grow on, and blessed is he who has a part in their progress.
Finally, I would have you observe that God's message grows on. We have already seen how one King Herod tried to destroy the child Jesus, but, instead, died himself while the God-Man grew on. Years later, another Herod tried to stop the progress of the early church by killing James and putting Peter in prison. A little later, we read that ''the angel of the Lord smote him. . .and he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost,'' and then, in striking contrast, it is declared, ''But the word of God grew and multiplied.'' Herods rise and fall, but God's message grows on. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed, but what happens? The worms get them, not only in body but also in soul, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And under the epitaph of every enemy of the Gospel we may add, ''But the word of God grew and multiplied.''
When the power of God fell on Ephesus under the ministry of Paul, we read that fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified; that many believed and confessed and burned their evil books, and again there follows the comment, ''So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.'' The very essence of a spiritual awakening is this, that God's message grows on.
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Here is a progress that is really inevitable. ''For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.'' There may be setbacks and temporary defeats. God's message may seem to lose some battles but it will not lose the war!
Someone stood on an ocean beach and observed the incoming tide. Wave after wave broke on the sands, but the tide came in on schedule! Out of that experience grew a blessed illustration of how God's message always wins:
On the far reef the breakers recoil in shattered foam;
Yet still the sea behind them urges its forces home;
Its chant of triumph surges through all the thunderous din,
The wave may break in failure but the tide is sure to win.
O mighty sea, thy message in changing spray is cast:
Within God's plan of progress it matters not at last,
How wide the shores of evil, how strong the reefs of sin;
The wave may be defeated but the tide is sure to win.
Author Unknown
Amid all the wreckage of civilization today one thing stands eternally certain: the purpose of God will prevail. We see not yet all things put under Him, but we see Jesus. The God-Man, God's men, and God's message are bound to win. Some may object by saying that there are more heathen now than ever, that there is more sin than ever, that the world is farther from being
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converted than ever. That is just another proof of the truth of our proposition. God's Word never said the world would be converted but that perilous, not prosperous, times shall come in the last days, that evil men will wax worse and worse, that because lawlessness shall abound, the love of most will wax cold. And it declares that just as the God-Man Christ Jesus came on time when first He came in grace, so He will come on time when He comes again in glory.
I would warn you, however, on one point. Just because God's plan and purpose are sure to win does not mean that you are to sit idly by and watch it win. God works His plan by working His people. The God-Man finished His work as our Saviour, but the proclamation of that finished work is not finished. God's men grow on, but we can help them grow on in a thousand ways. God's message grows on, but it grows as we go to take it and to send it.
It is a dark hour and the only light today is provided by the God-Man, who said, ''I am the light of the world''; by God's men, of whom He said, ''Ye are the light of the world''; and by God's message, of which it is said, ''The entrance of thy words giveth light.'' We are to see the light when we look unto Jesus in saving faith. We are to be a light, for He told us to let our light shine before men; and we are to send the light to the people in darkness, for how shall they hear without a preacher and how shall they preach except they be sent?
Here is the unbeatable combination, God's winning team; the God-Man, God's men, and God's message. Here is the only inevitable progress. Here is the one growing movement that will not die. Long ago the
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enemies of the Gospel were baffled even then because they could not stop it: prison doors would not stay shut, nor would the mouths of Gospel preachers. We read that the puzzled rulers doubted . . . whereunto this would grow. Well, it is still growing and if we do not grow with it we die. Make sure that you are born into it and that as it grows you grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
