Storm Signals A Collection of Sermons Author:Charles Haddon Spurgeon General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1885 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: "And Hazael said, Why weepeth my lord? And he answered, Because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel. And Hazael said, But what, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing ? " -- 2 Kings viii. 12, 13. SUPPOSE that none of us can doubt that Hazael acted with perfect freedom when he became the murderer of his master. No one, surely, would dare to suggest that any constraint was put upon him. The glittering prospect of wearing the crown of Syria was before his eyes. Nothing stood between him and the kingdom but the life of his master. That master lies sick of a fever. A wet cloth is the usual remedy. He has but to select one that shall be thicker than usual, and take care in spreading it over his face to accommodate it so that the man is suffocated, and lo ! he comes to the throne. What wonder is it that Hazael easily puts his master out of the way, and then mounts the vacant seat ? None of us will imagine for a moment that he was under constraint, unless it was Satanic. And yet while he acted as a free agent, is it not quite clear that God foreknew what he would do -- that it was absolutely certain he would destroy his master? The prophet speaks not as one who hazarded a conjecture. He foresaw the event with absolute certainty, yet did this man act with perfect freedom when he went and accomplished the prophecy of Elisha. I believe, my brethren, that it is quite as easy to see how God's predestination and man's free agency are perfectly compatible, as it is to see how divine foreknowledge and human free agency are consistent with one another. Doth not the very ...« less