GOD'S LOVE AND CARE by M. C. W.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 21, 1889

GOD'S LOVE AND CARE.

By M. C. W.

CARE combines thought and feeling for an object, which leads to action. It is akin to solicitude and anxiety, but is not so strong a word, though broader in its application. In the two latter words fear is expressed as to results, but not so as regards care. It implies that with thought and attention the expected result will be obtained. Care relates to the past, present, and future; but solicitude and anxiety relate only to the present and future. Man may have all these, but God can only have care; and that care will lead him to give such thought and attention to all his purposes that not one shall fail. Care also implies feeling, and God has feeling for his people.

God loves, and has a care for, all mankind. "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." Matt. 5:45. His blessings upon the evil and froward are to lead them to repentance (Rom. 2:4); but his blessings upon his people are evidences of his love for them, to confirm them in obedience to him. Deut. 11:13-15. But God has a special care for his people. If they have so recognized his love to sinners as to accept of his terms of reconciliation, "much more" will he do for them to save them. They have left the ranks of the arch-rebel, they have lain down their arms of rebellion, they are longing for a place in the ranks of the loyal subjects; and what monarch would not do more for them, have more thought and feeling for them, than for those still in rebellion! Justice would demand that God should have a stronger love and a greater care for those who have placed themselves in the channel of his love and under his care. Once they were rebels, now they are wards, or children of adoption. So it is that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Ps. 103:13.

The basis of God's care is God's love. He loved the world in its rebellion so much that he consented that his Only Begotten should die for them. All who will accept of that offering shall live; all who will not recognize his love, "choose death." Those who so appreciate God's love that they will gladly yield complete submission, thereby place themselves in the channel of his love, where God can work in them "the good pleasure of his will." Eph. 1:5. If he loved us before, "much more" does he love us when we have been made whole by the purchase of the blood of his dear Son. He had a care for us while we were unreconciled; he surrounded us with influences calculated to lead us to him; he directed his servants to us with messages of reproof and mercy; his Holy Spirit pleaded with us even when we were in wickedness. And now that we have become his, shall his tender care cease? No; for he careth for us still. His care is commensurate with his love.

Would we know what that is? Read the following assurances of God's love for his people:—

"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." Isa. 49:15, 16.

"The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee." Jer. 31:3.

Would we know some tangible proof of his love? We can see it in all the common blessings of life, which selfish man takes as a matter of course; in all the incentives to do right thrown around us; and more than all else, and that in which all other blessings center, and from which they all radiate, the giving of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die. He became poor that we might become rich. He took upon himself our nature, "was made flesh," was tempted in all points as we are tempted, that he might be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Heb. 4:15. Surely God has given proof of his loving care. And if God "spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things" "that pertain unto life and godliness!" Rom. 8:32; 2 Peter 1:3.

Do our doubting hearts desire other evidences of God's care for his people? Read the story of his dealings with the "father of the faithful;" his care of Lot; his love toward Jacob, who desired to be good but knew not the strength till it was given at Peniel. Read of God's care for Jacob's descendants in preserving them from famine; in saving them from the machinations of the court of Egypt, increasing their numbers under the greatest privation and strictest laws for their destruction; shielding them from the plagues of Egypt; bearing them through the wilderness of peril by his own Son as the Angel of his presence. "In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old." Isa. 63:9. And so it has been all through the history of the people of God.

God's care for his people is also manifest in those things which seem to be against them. Jacob, mourning over the loss of his favorite son, when called upon to part with the son of his old age, cried out in the anguish of his soul, "All these things are against me." Gen. 42:36. But the seeming loss of Joseph was God's plan for the rescue of Jacob's whole house from famine. God's special providence was over his people. Moses's forced flight to the land of Midian was the means by which the Lord showed him man's littleness and God's greatness. It placed him in the best school he ever knew. A king's dream is used once and again as a means by which God lifts up the head of his captive servants and advances them to such positions that they can help their companions in tribulation. So it was with both Joseph and Daniel. But time would fail us to tell of God's infinite mercy, wondrous goodness, and loving, watchful care for his people. The inspired word reveals to us again and again that out of the most insignificant, or of that which is naught to us, God can bring deliverance and blessing.

Are not all these records a help to us? Has not God left them on record for that purpose? Yes, most assuredly; "for whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." Rom. 15:4. And the same "scriptures of truth" assure us that God will not forget his people when the plagues of his wrath, typified by the Egyptian plagues, fall upon the hopelessly wicked world. "He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust; his truth shall be thy shield and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day. . . . A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee." Ps. 91. No plague shall come

near the dwelling of the people of God; God is their refuge, his angels keep them.

These are our assurances. Can we not be faithful? Will God forget his promises? Can his love fail? Trials come, but in these we will be "more than conquerors;" "for," says Paul, "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Rom. 8:38, 39. Therefore cast "all your care upon him; for he careth for you."