Morning Devotion — Charles H. Spurgeon

“Also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Ephesians 1:11 (NASB)
Our belief in God’s wisdom supposes and necessitates that He has a settled purpose and plan in the work of salvation. What would creation have been without His design? Is there a fish in the sea, or a fowl in the air, which was left to chance for its formation? Nay, in every bone, joint, and muscle, sinew, gland, and blood-vessel, you mark the presence of a God working everything according to the design of infinite wisdom. And shall God be present in creation, ruling over all, and not in grace? Shall the new creation have the fickle genius of free will to preside over it when divine counsel rules the old creation? Look at Providence! Who knoweth not that not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father? Even the hairs of your heads are all numbered. God weighs the mountains of our grief in scales, and the hill of our tribulation in balances. And there shall be a God in providence and not in grace? Shall the shell be ordained by wisdom and the kernel left to blind chance? No; He knows the end from the beginning. He sees it in its appointed place, not merely the corner-stone which He has laid in fair colors, in the blood of His dear Son, but He beholds in their ordained position each of the chosen stones taken out of the quarry of nature, and polished by His grace; He sees the whole from corner to cornice, from base to roof, from foundation to pinnacle. He hath in His mind a clear knowledge of every stone which shall be laid in its prepared space, and how vast the edifice shall be, and when the top-stone shall be brought forth with shoutings of “Grace! Grace! unto it.” At the last it shall be clearly seen that in every chosen vessel of mercy, Jehovah did as He willed His own; and that in every part of the work of grace He accomplished His purpose, and glorified His own name.