Isaiah 26:9 With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you early… There is a very dark side to human history: calamity, disappointment, disease, death are facts and factors in human history that no one of us can deny. And the minds of men have always been attempting a solution of this dark aspect of human experience. There have been three solutions which have been suggested:(1) We have been told that this is the work of chance, that man is forced up and down on the capricious waves of fate. (2) A second attempt at solution has been made by those who tell us that there are two powers in the universe, one good and one evil: that to the good power all benevolent developments of human history are to be traced; that to the evil power all male. relent activities are to be traced, and that there is no telling which is the stronger, the benevolent or the malignant — that now it seems as though the good triumphed, and now it seems as though the evil triumphed; and so the old Persians embraced what has been called the dual theory, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the good and the evil. (3) The Holy Scriptures teach us quite another solution, and it is the only one that brings comfort to a human soul. That solution is, that human history is the unfolding of the plan of God; that in the darker and in the brighter aspects of human experience God is still ruling; that He governs absolutely; that there is a moral purpose in things evil: that success comes out of failure, and prosperity out of adversity, and that therefore we are to rejoice evermore, because He occupies the throne; and when clouds and darkness are round about Him, be assured that, within the clouds and behind the darkness, righteousness and judgment inhabit that throne. (A. T. Pierson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. |
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