The Beginning, Increase, and End of the Divine Life

"Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase."—Job 8:7.

HIS WAS the reasoning of Bildad the Shuhite. He wished to prove that Job could not possibly be an upright man, for if he were so, he here affirms that his prosperity would increase continually, or that if he fell into any trouble, God would awake for him, and make the habitation of his righteousness prosperous; and though his family were now all destroyed, and his wealth scattered to the winds, yet if he were an upright man, God would surely appear for him, and his latter end would greatly increase.
Now, the utterances of Bildad, and of the other two men who came to comfort Job, but who made his wounds tingle, are not to be accepted as being inspired. They spake as men—as mere men. They reasoned no doubt in their own esteem logically enough; but the Spirit of God was not with hem in their speech, therefore with regard to any sentiment which we find uttered by these men, we must use our own judgment; and if it be not in consonance with the rest of Holy Scriptures, it will be our bounden duty to reject it as being but the word of man—of a wise and ancient man it is true, but still of a man only.
With regard to the passage which I have selected as a text, it is rue—altogether apart from its being said by Bildad, or being found in the Bible at all; it is true, as indeed the facts of the book of Job prove: for Job did greatly increase in his latter end. His beginning was small: he was brought down to poverty, to the potsherd and to the dunghill; he had many graves, but no children; he had had many losses, he had now nothing left to lose; and yet God did awake for him; his righteousness came out from he darkness which had eclipsed it; he shone in sevenfold prosperity; s that the words of Bildad were prophetic, though he knew it not; God put into his mouth language which did come true, after all. Indeed, we have here a great principle—a principle against which none can ever contend. The beginning of the godly and the upright man may be but very small, but his latter end shall greatly increase.
Evil things may seem to begin well, but they end badly; there is the flash and the glare, but afterwards the darkness and the black ash. They promise fairly: their sun rises in the zenith, and then speedily sets, never to rise again. Evil things begin as mountains; they end as mole-hills. You sail upon their ocean at first, and as you sail onward it shrinks into a river, and afterwards into a dry bed, if not into burning sands. Behold Satan in the garden of Eden. Sin begins with the promise, "Ye shall be as gods!" How grand is its beginning! Where ends it? Shivering beneath the trees of the garden, complaining of nakedness, sin comes to its end. Or see it in Satan himself. He stretches out his right hand to snatch the diadem of heaven; he would be Lord paramount. He cannot bear to serve, he longs to reign. Oh! Glittering vision, that enchants the eye of an arch-angelic spirit! But where ends it? The vision is all gone, and is succeeded by "the blackness of darkness for ever;" and the chains reserved in fire for those that kept not their first estate. So will it be with you, too, my friend, if you have chosen the path of evil. To-day your mirth is as the crackling of thorns under a pot; it blazes, it crackles with excess of joy; to-morrow thou shalt find nothing there but a handful of ashes, and darkness, and cold. Ay, the path of evil is down hill, from its sunny summits, to its dark ravines—from the loftiness, which it assumes when it professes to be a cherub, to that lowliness in which it finds itself to be a fiend. Evil goeth downward; it hath its great things first, and then its terrible things last. No so, however, with good. With good the beginning is even small; but its latter end doth greatly increase. "The path of the just is as the shining light," which sheds a few flickering rays at first, which exercises a combat with the darkness, but it "shineth more and more unto the perfect day." As the coming forth of stars at even-tide, when first one, and then another, and yet another struggles through the darkness, till at last the whole starry host are marshalled on the heavenly plains—so it is with good—it beginneth with grains of sand, it goeth on to hills, and anon it swelleth up to mountains; it beginneth with the rippling rill—the little cascade that leapeth from its secret birth-place, and down the mountain it dasheth, it swelleth to a joyous stream, wherein the fish do leap; anon it becomes a river, which bears upon the surface the navigation of nations, and then it rolls at last an ocean that belts the globe. Good things progress. They are like Jacob's ladder—they ascend round by round. We begin as men, we end as angels; we climb until the promise of Satan is fulfilled in a sense in which he never understood it; we become as gods, and are made partakers of the Divine, being reconciled unto God, and then having God's grace infused into us.
The principle, then, upon which I have to speak this morning, is this,—that though the beginnings of good things are small, yet their latter end shall greatly increase. Instead, however, of dealing with this as a mere doctrine, I propose to use it practically; assume the fact, and then make a practical use of it. Three ends shall I hope to serve—first, to quiet the fears of those who are but beginners in grace; secondly, to confirm their faith; and, thirdly, to quicken their diligence. May I ask the prayers of God's people here that I may be strengthened in this preaching? I cannot tell how it is,—the cold clammy sweat comes over me now I am about to address you, and I feel almost quivering with weakness; nevertheless, this is a subject which may strengthen me as well as you, and therefore let us go to it at once.
I. First, then, for THE QUIETING OF YOUR FEARS. Thou sayest, my hearer, "I am but a beginner in grace, and therefore I am vexed with anxiety, and full of timorousness." Yes, and it shall be my business if God the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, shall enable me, to give thee some few sweet words which, like wafers made with honey, thou mayest roll under thy tongue, and find them satisfactory and pleasant, even as that manna which came down from heaven, and fed the Israelites in the wilderness.
Perhaps thy first fear, if I put it into words, is this:—"My beginning is so small that I cannot tell when it did begin, and therefore, methinks I cannot have been converted, but am still in the gall of bitterness." O beloved! How many thousands like thyself have been exercised with doubts upon this point! They were not converted in an instant; they were not stricken down as in the Revivals; they were not nerved with terrible alarms, such as John Bunyan describeth in his "Grace Abounding;" but they were called of God, as was Lydia, by a still small voice. Their hearts were gradually and happily opened to receive the truth; it was not as if a tornado or a hurricane rushed through their spirits; but a soft zephr below, and they lived and came to God. And you doubt, do you, because from this very reason you cannot tell when you were generated; it is but necessary for you to know that you are so. If thou canst set no date to the beginning of thy faith, yet if thou dost believe now, thou art saved. If in thy diary there stands no red-letter day in which thy sins were pardoned, and thy soul accepted, yet if thy trust be in Jesus only, this very day thou art pardoned, and thou art accepted, despite thy ignorance of the time when. God's promises bear no date; our notes are dated because there is a time when they run due, and we are apt to forget them; God's promises bear none, and his gifts sometimes do not bear any. If thou art saved—though the date be erased—yet do thou rejoice and triumph evermore in the Lord thy God. True, there are some of us who can remember the precise spot where we first found the Saviour. The day will never be forgotten when these eyes looked to he cross of Christ and found their tears all wiped away. But thousands in the fold of Jesus know not when hey were brought in; be it enough for hem to know they are there. Let them feed upon the pasture, let them lie down beside the still waters for whether they came by night or by day they did not come at a forbidden hour. Whether they came in youth or in old age, it matters not; all times are acceptable with God, "and whosoever cometh," come he when he may, "he will in no wise cast out."
Does it not strike you as being very foolish reasoning if you should say in your heart, "I am not converted because I do not know when?" Nay, with such reasoning as that, I could prove that old Rome was never built, because the precise date of her building is unknown; nay, we might declare that the world was never made, for its exact age even the geologist cannot tell us. We might prove that Jesus Christ himself never died, for the precise date on which he expired on the tree is lost beyond recovery; nor doth it signify much to us. We know the world was made, we know that Christ did die, and so you—if you are onw reconciled to God, if now your trembling arms are cast around that cross, you too are saved—though the beginning was so small that you cannot tell when it was. Indeed, in living things, it is hard to put the finger upon the beginning. Here is a fruit-will you tell me when it began to be? Was it at the time when first the tree sent forth its fruit-bud? Did this fruit begin when first the flower shed its exhalations of perfume upon the air? Indeed, you could not have seen it if you had looked. When was it? Was it when the full-ripe flower was blown away, and its leaves were scattered to the wind, and a little embryo of fruit was left? 'Twere hard to say it did not begin before that, and equally hard to say at what precise instant that fruit began to be formed. Ay, and so is it with divine grace; the desires are so faint at the beginning, the convictions are but the etchings upon the plate, which afterwards must be engraven with a harder instrument; and they are such flimsy things, such transient impressions of divine truth, that 'twere difficult to say what is transient and what permanent, what is really of the Spirit of God, and what is not; what hath saved the soul, or what only brought it to the verge of salvation; what made it really live, or what was really the calling together of the dry bones before the breath came, and the bones began to live. Quite your fears, my hearers, upon this point, for if ye are saved, no matter when, ye never shall be unsaved.
Another doubt also arises from this point. "Ah! sir," saith a timid Christian, "it is not merely the absence of all date to my conversion, but the extreme weakness of the grace I have." "Ah," saith one, "I sometimes think I have a little faith, but it is so mingled with unbelief, distrust, and incredulity, that I can hardly think it is God's gift, the faith of God's elect. I hope sometimes I have a little love, but it is such a beginning, such a mere spark, that I cannot think it is the love which God the Holy Spirit breathes into the soul; my beginning is so exceeding small, that I have to look, and look, and look again, at times, before I can discern it for myself. If I have faith, it is but as a rain of mustard seed, and I fear it will never be that goodly tree, in the midst of whose branches the birds of the air might rest." Courage, my brother, courage; however small the beginnings of grace, hey are such beginnings that they shall have a glorious end. When God begins to build, if he lay but one single stone he will finish the structure; when Christ sits down to weave, though he casts the shuttle but once, and that time the thread was so filmy as scarcely to be discernable, he will nevertheless continue ill the piece is finished, and the whole is wrought. If thy faith be never so little, yet it is immortal, and that immortality may well compensate for its littleness. A spark of grace is a spark of Deity—as soon may Deity be quenched as to quench grace—that grace within thy soul given thee of the Spirit shall continue to burn, and he who gave it shall fan it with his own soft breath, for "he will not quench the smoking flax;" he will bring it to a fire, and afterwards to a furnace, till thy faith shall attain to the full assurance of understanding. Oh! Let not the littleness of God's beginnings stagger you. Who would think, if he stood at the source of the Thames, that it would ever be such a river as it is—making this city rich? So little is it that a child might stop it with his hand, and but a handful of miry clay might dam its course, but there it rolls a mighty river that man cannot stop. And so shall it be with thee; thy faith is so little that it seems not to exist at all, and thy love so faint that it can scarcely be called love, but thy latter end shall greatly increase, till thou shalt become strong and do exploits; the babe shall become a giant; and he that stumbled at every straw shall move mountains, and make the very hills to shake.
Having thus spoken upon two fears, which are the result of these small beginnings, let me now try to quiet another. "Ah!" saith the heir of heaven, "I do hope that in me grace hath commenced its work, but my fear is, that such frail faith as mine will never stand the test of years. I am," saith he, "so weak, that one temptation would be too much for me; how then can I hope to pass through yonder forest of spears held in the hands of valiant enemies? A drop makes me tremble, how shall I stem the roaring flood of life and death? Let but one arrow fly from hell it penetrates my tender flesh; what hen if Satan shall empty his quiver? I shall surely fall by the hand of the enemy. My beginnings are so small that I am certain they will soon come to their end, and that end must be black despair." Be of good courage, brother, have done with that fear one for all; it is rue, as thou sayest, the temptation will be too much for thee, but what hast thou to do with it? Heaven is not to be won by thy might, but by the might of him who has promised heaven to thee; thy crown of life is to be obtained, not by thy arm, but by that arm which now holds it out, and bids thee run towards it. If thy perseverance rested upon thyself thou couldst not persevere an hour; if spiritual life depended on itself it would be like the shooting-star, which makes a shining trail for a moment and then is gone; but thanks be unto God, it is written—"Because I live, ye shall live also." "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God."