Thursday, July 2, 2009

Wonderful in counsel, excellent in His Work



“This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working.”-Isaiah 28:29.


What a dream was that of Jacob when he saw the ladder the foot whereof rested upon the earth, and the top whereof reached up to the seventh heaven. That dream is more than realised when I see the foot of the ladder in the humanity of Christ, fixed in Bethlehem’s manger, or if you will at Calvary’s cross, and then behold the top of that ladder reaching up to the eternal throne, where he reigns as “God over all, blessed for ever,” who was also “the Son of Man.”

When I look at each of the rounds of that ladder, and see the proofs of Divine love in the Savior’s sighs and tears, and bloody sweat, and passion, and death, I am lost in wonder. Truly it is a matchless scheme by which justice has its due, and mercy has its sway, by which vengeance is satisfied, holiness is gratified, and yet love and mercy, uncontrolled and unlimited, sway their silver scepter among the sons of men. When I see this great sight those words of Isaiah’s ring with a bell-like music in my ears, “He is wonderful in counsel.” But, beloved, when you see redemption wrought out, and when you think that God really gave his only Son and that this Son actually did come to Bethlehem, really lived among the sons of men, bowed his neck to the yoke of obedience, and gave his hands to the nails, and his side to the spear, that his death was no fiction, but a grand reality, when you see that redemption completed by the resurrection of the Master, and bear the angelic shouts as he ascends on high, leading captivity captive, and see heaven lit up with a supernal splendor as he mounts to his well earned throne, you then find that he is as wonderful in the carrying out of redemption as he is in the proposing of it, that he is wonderful in counsel, and that he is also excellent in working.

From a sermon entitled "A Feast For Faith," delivered September 16, 1866. Image by DavetheGrey under Creative Commons License.

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