Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1892-10-28

merting on several passages of scrip
ture illustrative of Gods providential
dealings, Dr. Talmage gave out the
hymn beginning,
God moves in q mysterious way
His wonders to perform
His sermon was on the text Exodus
$40, 1.-The finger of God
Pharaoh was sulking in his marble
throne room at Memphis. Plague after
plague had come, and sometimes the
Egyptian monarch was disposed to do
better, but at the lifting of each plague
ne was as bad as before. The NEGRO
mancers of the palace, however, were
compelled to recognize the divine
movement, and after one of the
most exasperating plaques of
all the series, they cried out in the
words of my text: This is the finger
of God'-not the first nor the last time
when bad people said good thing.
An old Philadelphia friend visiting me
the other day, asked me if l had ever
noticed this passage of scripture from
which to-day speak / told him no,
and said right away, THAT is a good
text for a sermon
We all recognize the hand of God and
know it is mighty hand. You have
seen a man keep two or three rubber
balls flying in the air, catching and
pitching them so that none of them
fell to the floor, and do this for several
minutes, and you have admired its
dexterity. But have you thought how
the hand of God keeps millions and
millions of round worlds vastly
larger than our world flying for
centuries without letting one fall?
Wondrous power and skill of God
handl But about that am not TO dis
course. Ny text leads me to speak of
less than fifth of the divine hand.
"This is the finger of God" Only in
two other places does the bible refer
to this division of the Omnipotent
/ hand. The rocks on Mount Sinai are
basalt and very hard stone. Do you
| imagine it was chisel that cut the
ten commandments in that basalt?
No, in Exodus we read that
the tables of stone were written with
the finger of God" Christ says that he
cast out devils with 1.-The finger of God. {"
The only instance that Christ wrote a
word, he wrote not with pen on parch-
ment, but with his finger on the ground.
1t is a remarkable thing that some
times no one can see that finger but
yourself. A year before Abraham Lin
cipation, the White House was
thronged with committees and laymen,
advising the President to make that
| Proclamation. But he waited and
waited, amid scott and anathema, be-
cause he did not himself see the finger
of God. After awhile and at just the
right time, he saw the divine pointing
and signed the Proclamation. The
distinguished Confederates, Mason
and Slidell, were taken off
an English vessel by the
United States government. Don't
give them up" shouted all the
Northern States. Let us have war
with England rather than surrender
Them" was the almost unanimous cry
of the North. But William II. Seward
saw the finger of God leading in just
the opposite direction and the Con-
federates were given mp, and we
avoided war with England; which at
that time would have been the demoli-
ton of the United States government.
In other words the finger of God as il di-
reefs you, may be insensible TO everybody
else Follow the divine pointing, as
you see it, although the world may
e. 1,
a man or woman who amounted to any
thing that has not sometimes been
called fool. Nearly all the mistakes
that you and / have made have come
from our following the pointing of
some other finger, instead of the finger
of God. But, now, suppose all forms
of disaster close in upon man. Sup
pose his business collapses. Suppose
he buys goods and cannot sell
them. Suppose by new invention
others can furnish the same goods ut
less price. Suppose a cold spring or a
late autumn or the coming of an cpl
demic corners a man, and his notes
comes due and he cannot meet them,
and his rent must be paid and there is
nothing with which to pay it, and the
wages of the employees are due and
there is nothing with which to meet
that obligation, and the bank will not
discount, and the business friends to
whom he goes for accommodation are
in the same predicament, and he bears
up and struggles on, until, after
while, crash goes the whole
concern. He stands wondering and
saying: 81 do not see the meaning ot
all this. / have done the best i could.
God knows | would pay my debts if ]
could, but here / am hedged in and
stopped" What should that man dc
in that case? Go TO the scriptures and
read the promise about all things
working together for good and kindred
passages? That is well. But he needs
to do something beside reading the
scriptures He needs to look for the
finger of God that is pointing toward
better treasures, that is pointing to-
ward eternal release, that is urging
him to higher realms. No human
finger ever pointed to the east or west
n.