God’s quiet operations are like Himself. They are deep, and quiet, and seem to be slow, and circuitous, and have to be searched into, in order to be appreciated.  

When we stand on the margin of a swift river, it often happens that there are whirling eddies near the shore, where the water runs back up the stream, which looks as if the river were going the wrong way, but when we look out in the channel, we find the current speeding on toward the ocean. This is a picture of the way God works. In many things in the church, and society, as well as in religious experience, it looks as if God were being defeated, and that the movements of His grace and providence were failures, and that all His purposes were going the wrong way. It is only when we lift our eyes, and look further away from the shore of the present moment, and take into consideration the entire stream of God’s government among men, that we see that He is constantly getting the victory, as it were by strategy, and in quiet, circuitous ways.  

1. He works in a hidden way. He works as if with gloved hands, under what we call second causes, and by forces that are spiritual and not mechanical. In the material world He works through the atmosphere, the unseen currents of electricity, the unseen forces of heat, motion, the imperceptible changes in the seasons and the conjunction of planets.  

In like manner His great operations in grace, in subduing the soul, are accomplished by the invisible and almost unrecognized power of serious thoughts, of gentle heart yearnings, of heavenly attractions in prayer, of secret apprehensions of great danger, or by sudden openings in the mind of hope, and bright possibilities, or by the alternations of a sense of utter helplessness on the one hand, and then of great courage and determination on the other.  

Have you noticed that great rough, old sinners, are usually captured and conquered in the most unexpected ways, and by some little pathetic circumstances, full of quiet gentleness, exactly the opposite of what we would think essential to produce such results? Infidels are not converted by big sermons but more frequently by the quiet trust of some poor old saint, or the whispered prayer of a little child. Great revolutions in society and among nations are wrought out by unseen forces of heart and mind which great statesmen fail to apprehend, and which the eloquent historian never takes into account.  

Whatever is done by Satan or the flesh is with great show, and noise, and demonstration. You would think they were upsetting the universe at every turn. Carnal churches work on the same line as the world. When they plan for a revival, there must be a great combination of churches, crowds of people, a gigantic choir, a blast of trumpets and drums, and an army of eloquent preachers. There is a great spread-eagle splurge, and when the fuss and rattle are over, it is well-nigh impossible to find one soul truly converted to God.  

At the same time some humble saint from a back alley is out in the cornfield, silently weeping and praying for the salvation of some child, who will turn out to be a great prophet, or a reformer. Such praying in the power of the Holy Ghost is worth ten thousand times more in far-reaching results than the ecclesiastical thunder of the huge man-managed revival. God is a spirit, and works through the spirit, and can only be discerned by those who have the light of the Spirit.  

2. God works through persons, through individual souls instead of committees, and federated bands or great organizations. The strongest force on earth is the individual soul. God conquers some one heart, and through that heart He pours His purpose like a mighty river. The closer we get to God, the more we prize the individual soul.  

When men drift away from the Lord, the individual man counts but little, and confidence is placed in big majorities and heavy armies. The tower of Babel was built by a national committee, who said, “Let us build us a city, and tower.”  

But God singled out one man, Abraham, and called him to be a pilgrim, and the founder of a race of those who had faith. Napoleon said, “God is on the side of the heaviest battalions,” but something happened to prevent his words proving true, and that something will in the end be found to be a Divine touch on someone’s soul. The history of the world is found in the lives of a succession of individuals, such as Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, Paul, Luther, Wesley and others—individuals in whose hearts God imparted His thoughts and plans.  

The King of Syria marshaled an army to capture the prophet Elisha, but that lone prophet prayed and the army went blind, and he led them into Samaria. This is a sample of universal history.  

3. The Lord makes His conquests by keeping His saints in a helpless condition. This He accomplishes in various ways, so as to make them live by faith, and depend on God alone. If the Lord should give His people what men call success, such as plenty of money and personal prosperity, it would prove a total failure from God’s standpoint. God succeeds by making men to fail.  

To read the Bible, and then look at human life, it does seem that God is being defeated. What seems to be a failure in our eyes is a success with the Lord. The Almighty is not working according to human plans, nor men’s judgments. The people whom the world calls successful are in reality perfect failures. Those who are looked upon as worthless, or helpless, or undone, are oftentimes in God’s way made successful.  

Men of great faith are never allowed to get beyond having their faith tried in many ways. George Muller, at the close of his life, said his faith for supplies to take care of two thousand orphans was still tried as in the years previous. God’s plan is that there shall be none of self and all of Christ. The very people who are doing the most for God in saving souls, in mission work or in the care of orphans, are those who are working on short supplies of strength, of money, of talents, of advantages. Such are kept in a position of living by faith and taking from God, day by day, both physical and spiritual supplies. This is the way God succeeds and gains conquests over His own people, and over the unbelief of those who look on His providences.  

4. God carries His point by letting His enemies tell on themselves, and execute their own doom. King Saul and Judas both apostatized in their hearts, and while holding high offices in His kingdom, secretly worked against God, and both of them committed suicide.  

Haman was hanged on his own gallows, and Marshal Ney, at the battle of Waterloo, went insane with rage against the English, and wildly plunged his battalions into death. False prophets arise, and deceive thousands by preaching what outwardly seems right, but their true character comes out at last, for Scripture teaches that beyond a certain pitch of bombastic self-conceit, “they shall proceed no farther, and their folly shall be made manifest to everybody.”  

5. Our true conquest is to form a secret alliance with God, and take His side against our natural selves. We succeed by agreeing to be what other people would call a miserable failure. We obtain treasures by letting them drop out of sight into the hand of God. We conquer our enemies by loving them, by quietly letting the Lord manage them, and receiving their treatment as a part of God’s will for us.  

God always comes out ahead and on the top. He seems to give Satan and sinners and old self all the advantage. Then He handicaps Himself, and like Jacob, walks with a lame leg, and goes afoot while all the world, like Esau, rides on horses, and makes a great show. In the end, like lame Jacob, God conquers and carries His point in such a quiet way that He seems to be doing nothing, yet all the while, like the majesty of chemistry, He is working miracles out of sight and far under ground.