Wonders!

Your weekly dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, volume 19, sermon number 1098, "Wonders."

"If studiously investigated the word of God tells us wondrous things concerning the world to come."

Beloved, we shall, in the better land, wonder more than we do here, for we shall there understand far more than we do now, and shall have clearer views and wider prospects. Our present capacities are narrow, there is scant room within our mind for great things; but in yon bright world the veil shall be taken off, and we shall know even as we are known, seeing no more in part and through a glass darkly: in the heavenly mansions our growing knowledge will excite in us increasing wonder, and we shall sing there the praise of him who hath dealt wondrously with us.

I believe the poet was right when he said:

“And sing with wonder and surprise

Thy lovingkindness in the skies.”

In the abodes of endless bliss we shall see what we escaped; we shall look down from Abraham’s bosom and see the sinner afar off in torment! It will be a dreadful sight, but O, with what hearts of gratitude shall we bless redeeming love, knowing each one of us that were it not for grace divine that fate so desperate had been ours.

In the heaven of perfect holiness we shall know the true character of sin. When we shall see the brightness of God’s glory, and the splendour of his holiness, sin will appear in all its hideousness, and we shall adore that matchless mercy which pardoned us, and bless the precious blood which cleansed us though we had been defiled with such pollution.

We think we praise God for forgiving our iniquities, and no doubt we do in some measure, but, compared with the blessing that saints in heaven render to God for deliverance from sin, our praise is as nothing. We do not know sin as they know it: we do not understand its blackness as they perceive it.

Up in heaven, too, we shall see our life as a whole, and we shall see God’s dealings with us on earth as a whole. A great many matters which now appear mysterious and complex, concerning which we can only walk by faith, for our reason is baffled, will be so clear to us as to excite our joyous songs in heaven.

“Now I see why I was laid aside when I wanted to be busy in God’s work: now I see why that dear child, whom I hoped to have had spared to me as a stay for my old age, was taken away; now I
understand why my business was suffered to fail; now I comprehend why that foul mouth was allowed to be opened against me; now I comprehend why I was assailed with inward fears, and was suffered to go tremblingly all my days.”

Such will be our confessions when the day dawns and the shadows flee away. Then we shall say and sing: “He hath dealt wondrously with us.” We shall feel that the best was done for us that even Eternal Wisdom could devise, and we shall bless the name of the Lord.

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