III. And now, lastly, look at the sudden crashing in upon the cowering
worshippers of the revealing light.

Apparently the picture of my text suggests that these elders knew not
the eyes that were looking upon them. They were hugging themselves in
the conceit, 'the Lord seeth not; the Lord hath forsaken the earth.' And
all the while, all unknown, God and His prophet stand in the doorway and
see it all. Not a finger is lifted, not a sign to the foolish
worshippers of His presence and inspection, but in stern silence He
records and remembers.

And does that need much bending to make it an impressive form of
putting a solemn truth? There are plenty of us--alas! alas! that it
should be so--to whom it is the least welcome of all thoughts that there
in the doorway stand God and His Word. Why should it be, my brother,
that the properly blessed thought of a divine eye resting upon you
should be to you like the thought of a policeman's bull's-eye to a
thief? Why should it not be rather the sweetest and the most calming and
strength-giving of all convictions--'Thou God seest me'? The little
child runs about the lawn perfectly happy as long as she knows that her
mother is watching her from the window. And it ought to be sweet and
blessed to each of us to know that there is no darkness where a Father's
eye comes not. But oh! to the men that stand before bestial idols and
have turned their backs on the beauty of the one true God, the only
possibility of composure is that they shall hug themselves in the vain
delusion:--'The Lord seeth not.'

I beseech you, dear friends, do not think of His eye as the prisoner in
a cell thinks of the pin-hole somewhere in the wall, through which a
jailer's jealous inspection may at any moment be glaring in upon him,