_GOD'S GLORIOUS PURPOSE_
"_I have created him for My glory, I have formed him;
yea, I have made him._"
--ISAIAH xliii. 1-7.
That is surely a superlative honour! "I have created him for My glory." I
stood before one of Turner's paintings, and a man of fine judgment said to
me, "That is Turner's glory!" He meant that in that picture the genius and
the power and the grace of Turner were most abundantly expressed. And it
is the will of God that man should express His glory, and by his
righteousness and goodness witness to the great Creator's power and love.
Amid all the wonders and sublimities of earth, and sky, and sea, man is to
be the Almighty's "glory."
The contrast is pathetic when we turn from the Creator's purpose to our
immediate life. There is so much that is shameful, crooked, and perverse.
There is little or nothing of "glory." But, blessed be God! the purpose
abides, and the Creator's work goes on. In His redemptive grace He has
made provision for marred work, for spoilt and perverted life. "The
crooked shall be made straight." "I will bring again that which is out of
the way." "Where sin abounds grace doth much more abound."