A Treasure Left Untouched By The World

Robert Murray M'Cheyne

From the pen of Robert M. M’Cheyne:

When a man’s eye is closed on Christ and the eternal world, he cannot stand the shock of afflictions; but if his eyes clearly see Jesus, you may take away houses and lands, his dearest earthly possessions, his loved ones, still his chief treasure is untouched. (M’Cheyne, The Believer’s Joy, 101)

Nothing Is Hid From God

Thomas Watson

What manner of men and women should we be? Does God have a window that opens into our hearts? He is absolutely aware of our thoughts and actions. Holiness, sincerity, and piety would become us, being in His presence! If you knew that you were about to be called into the presence of a great earthly king, would you not make solemn preparations? Are the eyes of a king better than the eyes of God? The king can only see and hear that which is outside the heart of a man. However, God has a key to every heart! Thomas Watson (1620-1686) provides us with additional thoughts on this subject:

“But all Things are naked and open unto the Eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13)

The clouds are no canopy; the night is no curtain to draw between, or intercept his knowledge: we cannot write our sins in so small or strange a character, but God can read, he hath a key for them. Indeed, we know not sometimes what to make of his providences, ‘His way is in the sanctuary,’ Ps. 77.13. We cannot read his handwriting; but he understands our hearts without a commentary: he is privy to all our treachery: we cannot climb so high but he sees us, we cannot dig so low but he takes notice. . . . Achan digs deep to hide his counsels, saying, ‘No eye shall see;’ he takes the Babylonish garment, and hides it in the earth, with the wedge of gold, but God unmasks his thievery, Josh. 7.12.

If there be any here, that when they should have been doing God’s work, have been by stealth hiding the Babylonish garment, making themselves rich, feathering their own nests; instead of driving in nails into God’s temple to fasten it, have been driving a wedge of gold into their chests, God sees it; let me tell you, all the gain you get, you may put in your eyes; nay, if you belong to God you must, and weep it out again. God hath a window that looks into your hearts. . . .

For the amplification, let us consider what the knowledge of God is; it is a most pure act by which he doth at one instant know himself in himself, and all things without himself, not only necessary, and contingent, but which shall ever be, after a most perfect, exquisite, and infallible manner. Out of this description we may gather two things. (1.) That there is no succession in God’s knowledge: our knowledge is from the effect to the cause; it is not so in God. (2.) Things that are not, have an objective being in his knowledge; Rom. 4.17, ‘He calls things that are not, as if they were;’ even these non entia have an idea in his knowledge. . . .’

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? He that formed the eye, shall he not see, Psalm 94.9? He that makes a watch, knows all the pins and wheels in it; and though these wheels move cross one to another, he knows the true and perfect motion of the watch, and the spring that sets these wheels a going; ‘He that formed the eye, shall he not see?’ Man may be compared to a spiritual watch. The affections are the wheels; the heart is the spring; the motion of this watch is false; the heart is deceitful; but God that made this watch knows the true motion of it (be it never so false) and the springs that sets the wheels a going. God knows us better than we know ourselves: he is as Ezekiel‘s wheels, full of eyes; and, as Augustine saith, he is all eye. (“God’s Anatomy Upon Man’s Heart”)