Daily Devotionals

Music For the Soul

Devotional: January 23rd

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD

And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever. - Isaiah 32:17

"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains." Like these, its roots are fast and stable; like these, it stands firm for ever; like these, its summits touch the fleeting clouds of human circumstance; like these, it is a shelter and a refuge, inaccessible in its steepest peaks, but affording many a cleft in its rocks where a man may hide and be safe. But, unlike these, it knew no beginning and shall know no end. Emblems of permanence as they are, though Olivet looks down on Jerusalem as it did when Melchizedek was its king, and Tabor and Hermon stand as they did before human lips had named them, they are wearing away by winter storms and summer heats. But, as Isaiah has taught us, when the earth is old, Gods might and mercy are young; for "the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from thee." " The earth shall wax old like a garment, but My righteousness shall not be abolished." It is "more stable than the mountains, and firmer than the firmest things upon earth."

Here towers Vesuvius; there at its feet lie the waters of the bay. So the righteousness’s springs up like some great cliff, rising sheer from the water’s edge, while its feet are laved by the "sea of glass mingled with fire " - the Divine judgments, unfathomable and shoreless. The mountains and the sea are the two grandest things in nature, and in their combination sublime; the one the home of calm and silence, the other in perpetual motion. But the mountain’s roots are deeper than the depths of the sea; and though the judgments are a mighty deep, the righteousness is deeper, and is the bed of that ocean.

The metaphor, of course, implies obscurity, but what sort of obscurity? The obscurity of the sea. And what sort of obscurity is that? Not that which comes from mud, or anything added; that which comes from depth. As far as a man can see down into its blue-green depths, they are clear and translucent; but where the light fails and the eye fails, there comes what we call obscurity. The sea is clear, but our sight is limited.

And so there is no arbitrary obscurity in God’s dealings, and we know as much about them as it is possible for us to know; but we cannot see to the bottom. A man on the cliff can see much deeper down in the ocean than a man on the bank. The further you climb, the further you will see down into the "sea of glass mingled with fire" that lies placid before God’s throne. Let us remember that it is a hazardous thing to judge of a picture before it is finished, of a building before the scaffolding is pulled down; and it is a hazardous thing for us to say about any deed or any revealed truth that it is inconsistent with the Divine character. Wait a bit; wait a bit! " Thy judgments are a great deep." The deep will be drained off one day, and you will see the bottom of it.