#137 The Numbered Hairs · My Sermon Notes

How considerate of our fears is the Lord Jesus! He knew that his people would be persecuted, and he sought to cheer them.

In how sweet and homely a way he puts things! He deigns to speak about the hairs of our head. Here is a proverb, simple in words, but sublime in sense.

We think we see four things in this sentence.

I. FORE-ORDINATION. The text may be read, “have all been numbered.” It is of the past as well as of the present.

Its extent. Predestination extends to everything.
- All the man; his being as a whole is foreknown. “In your book all my members were written”: Psalm 139:16.
- All that concerns him is foreknown; even to his hair, which may be shorn from him without damage to life or health.
- All that he does; even the least and most casual thought, or act.
- All that he undergoes. This may affect his hair so as to change its color; but every hair blanched with sorrow is numbered.
Its source. The counting is done by the Lord.
Its lessons. Jesus mentions this fore-ordination for a purpose.
- To make us brave under trial.
- To teach us to be submissive.
- To help us to be hopeful.
- To induce us to be joyful.
Its influence. It ennobles us to be thus minutely predestined.
- If God arranges even our hairs, we are honored indeed.
- To be the subject of a divine purpose of grace is glorious.

II. KNOWLEDGE. We are known so well as to have our hairs counted.

Concerning this divine knowledge let us note—

Its character.
- Minute. “The very hairs of your head.”
- Complete. The whole man, spirit, soul, and body, is thus most assuredly well known to the Omniscient Lord.
- Pre-eminent. God knows us better than we know ourselves, or than others know us; for neither we nor they have numbered the hairs of our head.
- Tender. Thus a mother values each hair of her darling’s head.
- Sympathetic. God enters into those trials, those years, and those sicknesses which are registered in a man’s hair.
- Constant. Not a hair falls from our head without God.
Its lessons.
- Concerning consecration, we are taught that our least precious parts are the Lord’s, and are included in the royal inventory. Let us not use even our hair for vanity.
- Concerning prayer. Our heavenly Father knows what things we have need of. We do not pray to inform him of our case.
- Concerning our circumstances. These are before the divine mind, be they little or great. Since trifling matters like out hairs are catalogued by Providence, we are assured that greater concerns are before the Father’s eye.

III. VALUATION. The hairs of our head are counted because valued.

These were poor saints who were thus highly esteemed.

The numbering mentioned in the text suggests several questions.

If each hair is valued, what must their heads be worth?

What must their bodies be worth?

What must their souls be worth?

What must they have cost the Lord, their Redeemer?

How can it be thought that he will lose one of them?

Ought we not greatly to esteem them?

Is it not our duty, our honor, our joy to seek after such of them as are not yet called by grace?

IV. PRESERVATION. The hairs of their head are all numbered, because they are to be preserved from all evil.

From the smallest real loss we are secured by promise. “There shall not a hair of your head perish”: Luke 21:18.
From persecution we shall be rescued. “Fear not them”: Matthew 10:28.
From accident. Nothing can harm us unless the Lord permits.
From necessity. You shall not die of hunger, or thirst, or nakedness. God will keep each hair of your head.
From sickness. It shall sanctify rather than injure you.
From death. In death we are not losers, but infinite gainers.
- Resurrection will restore the whole man.

Let us for ourselves trust, and not be afraid.

Let us set a high value upon souls, and feel an earnest love for them.

Pins

“Hairs”—of which you yourselves are heedless. Who cares for the hairs once dragged out by a comb? A hair is a proverbial expression for an utter trifle.—John Albert Bengel.

If God numbers their hairs, much more does he number their heads, and take care of their lives, their comforts, their souls. This intimates that God takes more care of them than they do of themselves. They who are solicitous to number their money, and goods, and cattle, yet were never careful to number their hairs, which fall, and are lost, and they never miss them: but God numbers the hairs of his people, and not a hair of their head shall perish: Luke 21:18. Not the least hurt shall be done them, but upon a valuable consideration: so precious to God are his saints, and their lives and deaths!—Matthew Henry.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,

None loves them best—Oh! vain and selfish sigh!

Out of the bosom of His love He spares—

The Father spares the Son, for you to die:

For you He died—for you He lives again:

O’er you He watches in His boundless reign.

You are as much His care, as if beside

Nor man nor angel lived in Heaven or earth:

Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide

To light up worlds, or wake an insect’s mirth:

They shine and shine with unexhausted store—

You are your Savior’s darling—seek no more.

—John Keble.

An Italian martyr, in the sixteenth century, was most cruelly treated in the prisons of the Inquisition. His brother, who with great difficulty obtained an interview with him, was deeply affected by the sight of his sufferings. “My brother,” said the prisoner, “if you are a Christian, why do you distress yourself thus? Do you not know that a leaf cannot fall to the ground without the will of God? Comfort yourself in Christ Jesus, for the present troubles are not to be compared with the glory to come.”

If pestilence stalk through the land, you say “This is God’s doing”;

Is it not also his doing when an aphis creeps on a rosebud?—

It an avalanche roll from its Alp, you tremble at the will of Providence;

Is not that will concerned when the sear leaves fall from the poplar?

Martin F. Tupper.