Proverbs 16:1-3 - Homilies By E. Johnson

The rule and guidance of Jehovah

I. GOD THE OBJECT AND FULFILMENT OF HUMAN DESIRE . We are wishful, craving creatures, "with no language but a sigh." The answer of the praying tongue and heart is God himself—in the fulness of his wisdom and love, the generosity of his gifts, the accessibility of his presence. A philosopher of this century actually taught that God was the Creator of human wishes and imagination. Let us rather say, it is God who creates and calls forth the longings of the finite heart, which is restless till it rests in him.

II. GOD THE CORRECTOR OF OUR FALSE JUDGMENTS . ( Proverbs 16:2 ) We are prone to judge of actions and choices by their aesthetic value, i.e. by reference to our feeling of pleasure and pain; God pronounces on their ethical value, their relation to his Law and to the ideal of our own being.

III. GOD THE SUPPORT OF OUR WEAKNESS . ( Proverbs 16:3 .) What is the source of all care and over anxiety, but that we are unequal to the conflict with laws mightier than our frail energies and endeavours? Without God, we stand trembling in the presence of a giant late which can crush us. But there is no such fate to the believer in God, only a holy power and immovable will. "We are a care to the gods," said Socrates. Much more can the Christian say this, and learn to ,get rid of his troubles by making them in childlike faith God's troubles, his cares God's cares. Our plans become fixed, our purposes firm, when we are conscious that they are God's plans and purposes being wrought out through us.—J.