Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of
them is forgotten before God?--_Luke 12, 6._
Our Lord always spoke in the plainest possible terms. Whenever a
vital truth was to be stated, an important doctrine to be set forth,
He did it in language so clear that no one could misunderstand.
The statement of our text this morning shares that quality. "Are
not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is
forgotten before God?" The little creature mentioned is one of the
most insignificant that could be thought of; the Lord selected
it just for the sake of that utter insignificance to bring out a
significant and all-inspiring truth. That truth is this: that God is
in relation with everything that exists; that He superintends all;
that there is nothing so minute as to be overlooked or forgotten.
We call this the doctrine of God's providence, and a most prominent
teaching of God's Word it is, as also one of the most cheering and
practical.
Prompted by the Gospel-lesson of to-day, which shows us our blessed
Lord as providing miraculously for the four thousand with seven
loaves and a few small fishes, let us _I. seek to establish the
doctrine of God's providence_; _II. show its application and effect
upon us and our lives_.
"I believe that God has made me and all creatures, that He has
given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my
reason and all my senses, and still preserves them," thus we
confess in the explanation of the First Article of our Creed, and
what our Catechism thus confesses, the sacred Scriptures with
especial clearness teach. God did not only, as some are willing to
admit, create the universe, but He also now governs it personally
and completely. It is the theory of our modern evolutionists and
materialists that God has left the world to govern and develop
itself, that, having placed it under certain natural laws, it must
take care of itself, wholly independent of God's interference. As
Melanchthon once characterized their position: "They think of God as
a shipbuilder, who, when he has completed his vessel, launches it
and then leaves it, or like a clock which you wind up, and then let
run off." A different impression is that received from God's Holy
Book. That assures us that, so far from turning over His government
to unalterable laws, so far from retiring from His works to dwell
apart in His own unapproachable Godhead in some distant sphere,
unconcerned and uncaring for such a world and such creatures as we,
there is nothing done, nor said, nor thought, nor felt by man but
He knows it and notes it, and orders His dealings with reference
to it. His providence includes every event,--the rise and fall of
nations and states, the experiences and vicissitudes of the Church,
the occurrences of the history of each family, the unnumbered
instances which make up the life of each individual, no matter what
their character. His supreme hand is in and over them all. Those
words which we so commonly use in daily speech--chance, accident,
strictly and consistently regarded, are untruthful, for there is
no such thing as chance, an accident; nothing happens but it has
been determined in His wisdom, and is sent, directed, or permitted
according to His will. Chance or accident rule in nothing--God's
providence in all. What more satisfactory assurance would we desire
for that than what is told us in the text? It was a customary thing
to see sold in the market-place of Jerusalem, as an article of
merchandise, the little creatures here mentioned. The price was a
minimum, five sparrows for two farthings, equal at the most, to two
cents of our money. Our Lord, in referring to it, calls attention to
the little regard taken by men of this poor little bird, and brings
out in vivid and grand contrast the regard taken of it by God. "And
not one of them is forgotten before God."
Elsewhere, in one of the Psalms, God says: "I know all the fowls
upon the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are in my
sight." We watch in their season of immigration the flight of birds,
when in long flocks they cross the sky, passing from the North to
the South, or back again. To think that each in those countless
tribes is known, as if by name, to its Creator, not one confounded
with the other in the view of God! We observe the tiny sparrow as
it skips from ground to housetop, busily gathering its food, or the
frail materials wherewith to construct its nest below our house
roof; how little we reflect that every one of them is numbered in
that sight which nothing can escape, and that in the ephemeral
history of the poor little bird, of which the great God and Savior
deigns to speak, not one item is forgotten, each is seen and known
and retained in a faithful memory; "not forgotten," implying a
knowledge that lasts, a consideration though the thing known may
no longer exist. This, then, is the way we are taught to think
about our God. All things that transpire, all that has been and
shall be--all are embraced within the circle of God's unforgetting,
all-remembering knowledge, vision, providence. That is the Christian
doctrine as taught by our Lord in such plain illustrations as this,
and as preached by His apostles on the pages of the Old and New
Testament throughout.
Let us now ask of the application. That it means something to us
when the Lord says about God's not forgetting one of the sparrows
sold in the market-place of Jerusalem is a matter of course. What
does it mean? The doctrine of God's providence is, we would thus
consider it first, a stern and restraining truth. Consider for a
moment,--there is nothing about you, or in you, or of you, but God
knows and sees it all, the thoughts of your mind, the desires of
your heart, the motives of your deeds. He spieth out all your ways,
He understandeth your thoughts afar off. Yesterday, for example,
He saw you when your eyes first opened to the light, and He traced
your steps till they closed once more in sleep. You know what you
did, and He also knows. You may have thought yourself unobserved,
and some things there are which you should prefer to forget, wish
that you could conceal them, ashamed or afraid to have them known.
God does not forget, from Him you cannot conceal; all the while you
are standing in the concentrated blaze of a light, brighter than the
brightest sun, and eyes that see everything are reading you through
and through. That is, as stated, a stern and awful truth. But let us
not deceive ourselves concerning it. Let us remember that there is
no privacy anywhere for us, though we may long for it, and many live
as if they had it. Our follies and vanities, our erring steps, our
ugly temper and evil disposition, every idle word that you spoke,
every oath that has fallen from your lips, every vile action, every
dollar you have wasted in luxury, folly, or withheld in miserly
selfishness, every influence you have exerted, apt to lead a brother
or sister astray,--God sees and knows them all. You are read like
a book by the Reader of the lives of all men. Man, my beloved
hearers, needs a check upon him, a hand to keep him straight. He
has it in this belief. A person cannot go far wrong who believes
that God sees and knows all. The sense of His nearness is a moral
force, a thousandfold greater than any other that can be named. He
that thinks thus of His God is ever putting to himself the question
whether God approves what he is about at any given moment. That
saves him; it acts as a constant check; it is a lantern to his feet,
a light to his paths, a bridle to his lips. And God knows we all
need to be so held in. That communities are defiled, that the social
order is imperiled, that men are shocked at the growing ravages of
sin, and souls are ruined one by one, we may trace these things to
their sole cause, the losing sight of the fact that God's eye is on
them always, and that they are accountable to Him for what they do.
Let the doctrine of God's providence be generally rejected, and it
is only a question of time till that comes to pass again which once
occurred in the days of Noah, when God saw that the wickedness of
man was great, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. Here, then, is a truth which may be
called the beginning of the moral law, the foundation of Christian
ethics, the Alpha and Omega of Christian practice. The doctrine of
God's providence is a stern and restraining doctrine.
But there is another side to the picture. To that shall we turn
for the greatest comfort and peace that mortal man can know. "Are
not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is
forgotten before God?" "Ye are," continues the Master, "of more
value than many sparrows." If one of them cannot fall to the ground
unnoticed by our Father, how much more in His thoughts, (that is
the evident line of argumentation,) are we, His children, made in
His likeness, redeemed by His own precious blood. What should there
be for us each day and hour but loving, unwavering trust. It cannot
fail to impress every reader of his Bible how it dwells continually
upon this very point. Our Lord knew what a burdensome world this
is, and how easily perplexed men are. He has sought in all possible
manner and ways to bring home to us the truth we are considering.
He has given us precious and numerous promises. "Trust in the Lord
and do good," is one of them, "So shalt thou dwell in the land, and
verily thou shalt be fed." Another is: "Whoso putteth his trust in
the Lord shall be safe." Still others: "My grace is sufficient for
thee:" "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." These might be
multiplied from the Scriptures by the score and hundred. And again
He has sought to impress His divine providence upon us by numberless
examples. There is, for instance, Noah. Noah trusted Him, and
lo! when the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the
floods rose, and millions of the ungodly sank into a watery grave,
sheltered and shut in by God's protecting hand, the ancient saint
outrode the deluge in safety, with his family. Elijah, alone yonder
in the wilderness, in time of famine, trusted Him, and, behold, even
the ravens, divinely bidden, came flying with bread to feed him. And
so David, and Daniel, and Peter, and all of God's illustrious saints
whose biography the Bible records, put their trust in His governing
providence, and never were ashamed, and their experience has been
the universal experience and testimony of all who have ever really
put their faith in Him, and that applies as much to us as to them.
Come what will, the true and trusting child of God feels secure.
"Have we trials and temptations, is there trouble anywhere?" Is
ghastly pestilence mowing down its victims? Is financial depression
over all the land, labor unobtainable, wages low, and bread scarce?
Has sickness prostrated one? Has death broken the family circle,
and is the heart bleeding under bereavement? In the midst of it all
the Christian sees the wise, loving, all-governing providence of
God, the almighty and all-gracious hand of His own divine heavenly
Father; and in this assurance, that God is thus in all that befalls
him, his soul is filled with abiding calmness. There is nothing,
amid it all, which is more calculated to banish our cares, to throw
sunshine across life's path, to make us more content, than the
belief that our God holds the reins of universal rule, and that all
is controlled and guided by His wise and kind hand.
And this, to conclude, also gives a Christian strength and
encouragement in his work. The thought that God is near us, the
feeling that He is working with us, gives an impulse, a force which
nothing else can impart. To rise in the morning with that sense of
divine presence, that God sees all our endeavors, is to take up
one's work with an entirely different mood than where that feeling
is missing. Nor are we then easily discouraged; it gives us renewed
inspiration, the courage required for long, steady, earnest work.
We have considered a glorious truth of Christian doctrine from the
lips of Him who never exaggerated, never erred. Lay hold of it,
believe it, not languidly, but as a power in your lives, and be
happy in such belief. Amen.