"It became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." HEBREWS ii. 10.
THERE is no book which can stand the test of sorrow and suffering as the Bible can. Other books may delight us in sunny hours, when the heart is gay; but in dark and overcast days we fling them aside, and eagerly betake ourselves to our Bibles. And the reason for this is in the fact that this Book was born in the fires. It is soaked with the tears, either of those who wrote or of those addressed.
Take, for instance, this Epistle. It was intended to solace the bitter anguish of these Hebrew Christians, who were exposed to the double fury of the storm. In the first place, there was the inevitable opposition and persecution to be encountered by all followers of the Nazarene; not only from the Gentiles, but specially from their fellow-countrymen, who accounted them apostates.
Next, there was the pain of excommunication from the splendid rites of the Temple, with its daily service, its solemn feasts, its magnificent ceremonial. Only those amongst our-selves who from childhood have been wont to worship in some splendid minster, with its pealing organ, full-voiced choir, and mystery of architecture, arresting and enchaining every sense of beauty, but who have felt constrained to join the worship of an obscure handful in some plain meetinghouse, can realize how painfully those who were addressed in these words missed the religious associations of their early days.
And then this suffering, thorn-crowned, dying Messiah! It seemed almost impossible to realize that he was the Christ of national desire. The objections that baffled the faith of the two travelers to Emmaus arose in almost irresistible force: "The chief priests and our rulers have crucified him; but we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel" (Luke xxiv. 20).
No attempt is made in these words to minimize the sufferings of Christ. That were impossible and superfluous. He is King in the realm of sorrow; peerless in his pain; supreme in his distress. Though earth be full of sufferers, none can vie with our Lord in his. Human nature is limited. The confines of its joys or sorrows are soon touched. The pendulum swings only hither and thither. But who shall estimate the capacity of Christ's nature? And because of it, he could taste the sweets of a joy beyond his fellows, and of sorrow so excessive as to warrant the challenge: "Behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." If it be true, as Carlyle says, that our sorrow is the inverted image of our nobility, how deep must the sorrow have been of the noblest of our race! Well may the Greek liturgy, with infinite pathos, speak of his "unknown sorrows."
Shall the sufferings of Christ cause us to reject Christ? Ah, strange infatuation! As well reject the heaven because of its sun, or night because of the queenly moon; or a diadem because of its regal gem; or home because of mother. The sufferings of Christ are the proudest boast of the Gospel. He himself wears the insignia of them in heaven; as a general, on the day of triumph, chooses his choicest order to wear upon his breast. Yes, and it was the deliberate choice of him, "for whom are all things, and by whom are all things "-and who must, therefore, have had every expedient at his command-that the path of suffering should be his Son's way through our world. Every track through creation is as familiar to Omniscience as the tracks across the hills to the gray-haired, plaided shepherd. Had he wished, the Father might have conducted the Son to glory by another route than the thorny, flint-set path of suffering. But the reasons for this experience were so overwhelming that he could not evade them. Nothing else had been becoming. Those reasons may be stated almost in a sentence.
Our Father has on hand a work greater than his original creation. He is "bringing many sons unto glory." The way may be rugged and tedious; but its end is glory. And it is the way along which our Father is bringing us; for, since we believe on the Son, we have the right to call ourselves sons (John i. 12). And there are many of us. Many sons, though only one Son. We do not go solitarily along the narrow way. We are but part of a multitude which no man can number. The glory of which we have already spoken, and into which Jesus has entered, is not for him alone, but for us also. "Many sons" are to be his joint-heirs; reigning with him on his throne, sharing his unsearchable riches and his everlasting reign.
But all these sons must tread the path of sufering. Since the first sin brought suffering to our first parents, and bloodshed into the first home, there has been but one lot for those who will live Godly. Their road leads to glory; but every inch of it is stained with their blood and watered by their tears. It climbs to Hermon's summit; but it descends immediately into somber and devil-haunted plains. It conducts to the Mount of Olives, with its ascension light; but it first traverses the glades of Gethsemane, the wine-press of Golgotha, the solitude and darkness of the grave.
"The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown."
What true soul has not its wilderness of temptation; its conflicts with Sadducees and Scribes; its hour of weariness and watching; its tears over cities full of rebellious men; its disappointments from friends; its persecutions from foes; rejection, agony, friendlessness, loneliness, denials, trial, treacheries, deaths, and burials? Such is the draught which the noblest and saintliest have drunk from the golden chalice of life.
Foreseeing our needs, our Father has provided for us a Leader. It is a great boon for a company of pilgrims to have a Great-heart; for an army to have a captain; for an exodus to have a Moses. Courageous, sagacious, and strong leaders are God's good gifts to men. And it is only what we might have expected that God has placed such a One as the efficient Leader at the head of the long line of pilgrims, whom he is engaged in bringing to glory. The toils seem lighter and the distance shorter; laggards quicken their pace; wandering ones are recalled from by-paths by the presence and voice of the Leader, who marches, efficient, royal, and divine, in the van. 0 heirs of glory, weary of the long and toilsome march, remember that ye are part of a great host: and that the Prince, at the head of the column, has long since entered the city; though he is back again, passing as an inspiration along the ranks as they are toiling on.
Our Leader is perfect. Of course this does not refer to his moral or spiritual attributes. In these he is possessed of the stature of the perfect Man, and has filled out, in every detail, God's ideal of manhood. But he might have been all this without being perfectly adapted to the work of leading many sons through suffering to glory. He might have been perfect in character, and desirous to help us; but, if he had never tasted death, how could he allay our fears as we tread the verge of Jordan? If he had never been tempted, how could he succor those who are tempted? If he had never wept, how could he stanch our tears? If he had never suffered, hungered, wearied on the hill of difficulty, or threaded his way through the quagmires of grief, how could he have been a merciful and faithful High-Priest, having compassion on the ignorant and wayward? But, thank God, our Leader is a perfect one. He is perfectly adapted to his task. His certificate, countersigned by the voice of inspiration, declares him fully qualified.
But this perfect efficiency, as we have seen, is the result of suffering. In no other conceivable way could he have been so effectively qualified to be our Leader as he has been by the ordeal of suffering. Every pang, every tear, every thrill, all were needed to complete his equipment to help us. And from this we may infer that suffering is sometimes permitted to befall us in order to qualify us to be, in our poor measure, the leaders and comforters of our brethren, who are faltering in the march. When next we suffer, let us believe that it is not the result of chance, or fate, or man's carelessness, or hell's malevolence; but that perhaps God is perfecting our adaptability to comfort and succor others.
Are there not some in your circle to whom you naturally betake yourself in times of trial and sorrow? They always seem to speak the right word, to give the very counsel you are longing for; you do not realize, however, the cost which they had to pay ere they became so skillful in binding up gaping wounds and drying tears. But if you were to investigate their past history you would find that they have suffered more than most. They have watched the slow untwisting of some silver cord on which the lamp of life hung. They have seen the golden bowl of joy dashed to their feet, and its contents spilt. They have stood by ebbing tides, and drooping gourds, and noon sunsets; but all this has been necessary to make them the nurses, the physicians, the priests of men. The boxes that come from foreign climes are clumsy enough; but they contain spices which scent the air with the fragrance of the Orient. So suffering is rough and hard to bear; but it hides beneath it discipline, education, possibilities, which not only leave us nobler, but perfect us to help others. Do not fret, or set your teeth, or wait doggedly for the suffering to pass; but get out of it all you can, both for yourself and for your service to your generation, according to the will of God.
Suffering educates sympathy; it softens the spirit, lightens the touch, hushes the tread; it accustoms the spirit to read from afar the symptoms of an unspoken grief; it teaches the soul to tell the number of the promises, which, like the constellations of the arctic circle, shine most brilliantly through the wintry night; it gives to the spirit a depth, a delicacy, a wealth of which it cannot otherwise possess itself. Through suffering he has become perfected.
His sufferings have purchased our pardon. He tasted death for every man. But his sufferings have done more in enabling him to understand experimentally, and to allay, with the tenderness of one who has suffered, all the griefs and sorrows that are experienced by the weakest and weariest of the great family of God.
So far, then, from rejecting him because of his sorrows, this shall attract us the more quickly to his side. And, amid our glad songs, this note shall predominate: "It behoved Christ to suffer." "In the midst of the throne, a Lamb as it had been slain."
Chapter 7
THE DEATH OF DEATH
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." HEBREWS ii. 14, 15. WE fear death with a double fear. There is, first, the instinctive fear shared also by the animal creation; for the very brutes tremble as the moment of death draws near. Surely this fear is not wrong. It is often congenital and involuntary, and afflicts some of God's noblest saints: though doubtless these will some day confess that it was most unwarrantable, and that the moment of dissolution was calm and sweet and blessed.
It is a growing opinion among thoughtful men that the moment of death, when the spirit passes from its earthly tabernacle, is probably the most painless and the happiest moment of its whole earthly story. And if this be so generally, how much more must it be the case with those on whose sight are breaking the glories of Paradise! The child whose eyes feast upon a glowing vista of flower and fruit, beckoning it through the garden-gate, hardly notices the rough woodwork of the gate itself as it bounds through; and probably the soul, becoming aware of the beauty of the King and the glories of its home, is too absorbed to notice the act of death, till it suddenly finds itself free to mount and soar and revel in the dawning light.
But there is another fear of death, which is spiritual. dread its mystery. What is it? Whither does it lead? Why does it come just now? What is the nature of the life beyond? We see the movements on the other side of the thick curtain which sways to and fro; but we can distinguish no form. The dying ones are conscious of sights and sounds for which we strain eye and ear in vain.
We dread its leave-taking. The heathen poet sang sadly of leaving earth and home and family. Long habit endears the homeliest lot and the roughest comrades: how much more the true-hearted and congenial-it is hard to part from them. If only we could all go together, there would be nothing in it. But this separate dropping-off, this departing one by one, this drift from the anchorage alone! Who can deny that it is a lonesome thing?
Men dread the after-death. " The sting of death is sin." The sinner dreads to die, because he knows that, on the other side of death, he must meet the God against whom he has sinned, and stand at his bar to give an account and receive the due reward of his deeds. How can he face that burning glory? How can he answer for one of a thousand? How can mortal man be just with God? How can he escape hell, and find his place amid the happy festal throngs of the Golden City?
Many of man's fears were known to Christ. And he knew that they would be felt by many who were to be closely related to him as brethren. If, then, he was prompted by ordinary feelings of compassion to the great masses of mankind, he would be especially moved to relieve those with whom he had so close an affinity, as these marvelous verses unfold. He and they are all of one (ver. 11). He calls them brethren through the lips of psalmist and prophet (ver. 12). He takes his stand in the assembled Church, and sings his Father's praise in its company (ver. I 2). He even associates himself with them in their humble childlike trust (ver. 13). He dares to accost the gaze of all worlds, as he comes forward leading them by the hand (ver. 13). Oh, marvelous identification! Oh, rapturous association! More wondrous far than if a seraph should cherish friendship with a worm! But the preciousness of this relationship lies in the fact that Jesus will do all he can to alleviate that fear of death, which is more or less common to us all.
But in order to do it, he must die. He could not be the death of death unless he had personally tasted death. He needed to fulfill the law of death by dying, before he could abolish death. Our David must go into the valley of Elah, and grapple with our giant foe, and wrest from him his power, and slay him with his own sword. As in the old fable Prometheus could not slay the Minotaur unless he accompanied the yearly freight of victims, so must Jesus go with the myriads of our race into the dark confines of the tomb, that death might do its worst in vain; that the grave might lose its victory; and that the grim gaoler might be shown powerless to hold the Resurrection and the Life. Had Christ not died, it might have been affirmed that, in one place at least, death and sin, chaos and darkness, were supreme. "It behooved him, therefore, to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day." And, like another Samson, carrying the gates of his prison-house, he came forth, demonstrating forever that light is stronger than darkness, salvation than sin, life than death. Hear his triumphant cry, as thrice the risen and ascended Master exclaims, "I died, and lo, I am alive forevermore, and have the keys of Hades and of death." Death and hell chose their own battleground, their strongest; and there, in the hour of his weakness, our King defeated them, and now carries the trophy of victory at his girdle forevermore. Hallelujah!
But he could only have died by becoming man. Perhaps there is no race in the universe that can die but our own. So there may be no other spot in the wide universe of God seamed with graves, shadowed by the outspread wings of the angel of death, or marked by the plague-spot of sin. "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all." In order then to die, Christ must take on himself our human nature. Others die because they are born; Christ was born that he might die. It is as if he said: "Of thee, 0 human mother, must I be born; and I must suffer the aches and pains and sorrows of mortal life; and I must hasten quickly to the destined goal of human life; I have come into the world to die." "Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same, in order that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil: and deliver them, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."
BY DEATH CHRIST DESTROYED HIM THAT HAD THE POWER OF DEATH. Scripture has no doubt as to the existence of the devil. And those who know much of their own inner life, and of the sudden assaults of evil to which we are liable, cannot but realize his terrible power. And from this passage we infer that that power was even greater before Jesus died. "He had the power of death." It was a chief weapon in his infernal armory. The dread of it was so great as to drive men to yield to any demands made by the priests of false religions, with their dark impurities and hideous rites. Thus timid sheep are scared by horrid shouts and blows into the butcher's shambles.
But since Jesus died, the devil and his power are destroyed. Brought to naught, not made extinct. Still he assails the Christian warrior, though armed from head to foot; and goes about seeking whom he may devour, and deceives men to ruin. Satan is not impotent though chained. He has received the wound which annuls his power, but it has not yet been effectual to destroy him.
His power was broken at the cross and grave of Jesus. The hour of Gethsemane was the hour and power of darkness. And Satan must have seen the Resurrection in despair. It was the knell of his destiny. It sealed his doom. The prince of this world was judged and cast out from the seat of power (John xii. 31 ; xvi. ii). The serpent's head was bruised beyond remedy.
Fear not the devil, 0 child of God; nor death! These make much noise, but they have no power. The Breaker has gone before thee, clearing thy way. Only keep close behind him. Hark ! He gives thee power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt thee (Luke x. '9). No robber shall pluck thee from thy Shepherd's hand.
By DEATH CHRIST DELIVERS FROM THE FEAR OF DEATH. A child was in the habit of playing in a large and beautiful garden, with sunny lawns; but there was one part of it, a long and winding path, down which he never ventured; indeed, he dreaded to go near it, because some silly nurse had told him that ogres and goblins dwelt within its darksome gloom. At last his eldest brother heard of his fear, and, after playing one day with him, took him to the embowered entrance of the grove, and, leaving him there terror-stricken, went singing through its length, and returned, and reasoned with the child, proving that his fears were groundless. At last he took the lad's hand, and they went through it together, and from that moment the fear which had haunted the place fled. And the memory of that brother's presence took its place. So has Jesus done for us!
Fear not the mystery Of death! Jesus has died, and has shown us that it is the gateway into another life, more fair and blessed than this-a life in which human words are understood, and human faces smile, and human affections linger still. The forty days of his resurrection life have solved many of the problems, and illumined most of the mystery. To die is to go at once to be with him. No chasm, no interval, no weary delay in purgatory. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, One moment here in conditions of mortality; the next beyond the stars.
Fear not the loneliness of death! The soul in the dark valley becomes aware of another at its side, "Thou art with me." Death cannot separate us, even for a moment, from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. In the hour of death Jesus fulfills his own promise, "I will come again and take you unto myself." And on the other side we step into a vast circle of loving spirits, who welcome the new-comer with festal songs (2 Peter i. 11)
Fear not the after-death! The curse and penalty of sin have been borne by him. Death, the supreme sentence on sinners, has been suffered for us by our Substitute. In him we have indeed passed on to the other side of the doom, which is justly ours, as members of a sinful race. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again."
Death! How shall they die who have already died in Christ? That which others call death, we call sleep. We dread it no more than sleep. Our bodies lie down exhausted with the long working-day, to awake in the fresh energy of the eternal morning; but in the meanwhile the spirit is presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Chapter 8
CHRIST'S MERCIFUL AND FAITHFUL HELP
" merciful and faithful high-priest in things pertaining to God." HEBREWS ii. 17.
DOST thou wonder that thy Lord was tempted and sorrowful? It is indeed the marvel of eternity; and yet not so marvelous, when we consider the beings whom he elected to succor, help, and save, and of whom each of us is one.
Had he chosen to lay hold of fallen angels, with a view of raising them from their lost estate, he would without doubt have taken upon himself their nature, and descended into the pit; identifying himself with their miseries, and paving, by his sufferings, a pathway across the great fixed gulf which intervenes between their lost estate and Paradise. But verily he took not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham; and had no alternative therefore but to assimilate himself in all points to the nature of those whom, in infinite mercy and grace, he brothered.
There are two things thou needest, reader; and not thou only, but all men, reconciliation, and succor in the hour of temptation. These instinctive cravings of the soul are as mighty and as irrepressible as the craving of the body for sleep or food; and they are as evident amid our luxury and refinement as in primeval forests, or beside the historic rivers of antiquity-the Nile, the Indus, the Euphrates.
To meet these two needs, men have constituted one of their number a priest. That word has an ominous sound to our ears, because it has been associated with immoralities and cruelty. The world has never seen more unscrupulous or rapacious tyrants than its priests, whether of Baal or Moloch, of Judaism or the Papacy. All through the ages it has seemed impossible for men to receive power in the spiritual realm without abusing it to the injury of those who sought their help. Study the history of the priesthood, which murdered Christ because he threw too strong a light upon its hypocrisies and villainies, and you have the history of every priestcraft which has darkened the world with crime, and saturated its soil with the blood of the noblest and saintliest of men.
And yet the idea of the priest is a natural and a beautiful one. It is natural for men who are conscious of sin barring their access into the presence of a holy God, and demanding sacrifice in order to peace, to say to one of their fellows, "Our hands are stained with blood, and grimed with toil; our garments spotted with pollution and dust; our lives too busy for us to spare time for those rites which alone can fit the sinner to stand before the eye of God: do for us what we cannot do for ourselves; prepare thyself by holy rite and vigil and fasting from sin, so as to be able to stand in the presence-chamber of the All-Holy; and when thou hast acquired the right of audience with him, speak for us, atone for us, make reconciliation for our sins; and then come forth to us, succoring and blessing those who cannot attain to thy position, but must ever struggle as best they may with the strong, rough, bad world in which they are doomed to live."
This seems the underlying thought of the vast system which has built temples in every land, reared altars on every soil, and constituted a priesthood amid the most degraded as well as the most civilized races of mankind.
And there is great beauty in the work and ministry of a true priest. Not always engaged in the darker work of sacrificing flocks of fleecy sheep, by which alone, in those rude days, the cost of sin could be computed; the true priest would have other, and, perhaps, more congenial work. He would be the shepherd of the timid souls around him; listening to confessions whispered over the heads of the dumb victims; feeling compassion for erring and wayward ones; comforting those who were passing through scenes of sorrow, till faces shadowed with tears began to gleam with holy light; arresting the proud hand of the oppressor, as Ambrose did in lawless days, to rescue the poor from the mailed blow. Never studying self-interest; never consuting ease or pleasure or gain; never resting while one poor wanderer was away in the snowdrift or on the wild. Yes, and more: he would be the spokesman of souls, praying for those who did not pray for themselves; praying for those who knew not what or how to ask; interceding for the whole race of man. Ah! how often must such a one have been compelled by the pressure of the burden to go apart from the busy crowds to some lone spot, that he might pour out before God the long litany of need and sorrow and temptation which had been poured into his heart. Lovely ideal; ah, how seldom realized!
All this is Jesus Christ, and more. Words fail indeed to say all that he is in himself, or all that he can be to those that trust him. And it is because of this that he is able to give such blessed help to all who need it. Let us consider that help.
IT Is SOVEREIGN AND UNEXPECTED HELP. Angels fell. Once they were the peers of heaven. They sang its songs, plucked its flowers of amaranth, and drank its tranquil bliss. They loved its King, and served him, like the sunbeam, with unpolluted brightness and unswerving direction. But, alas! they fell from heaven to hell. And for them there is no help, so far as we can learn. "God taketh not hold of angels."
But he has set his heart upon us, the poor children of dust, the creatures of the transient moments of time, who had fallen by the same sin of self-will. Here is a theme for meditation! We cannot pierce the mystery, or understand its full import. But we may, with wondering faith and joy, accept the chalice, brimming with unmerited, unexpected, undeserved grace, and drain its draughts of bliss.
IT IS HUMAN HELP. " Made like unto his brethren." The peculiarity of this phrase testifies to Christ's pre-existence and glory, and indicates how great a stoop on his part it involved ere he could be like man. He had to be made like man, i.e., he was not like man in the original constitution of his being. We cannot solve the mystery of the holy incarnation. And yet the thought of it has never been quite foreign to the heart of man. Many a Greek and Hindu myth rested on an instinctive craving for the presence of God in human flesh, which became parent to the belief that such a thing had been, and might be again. Even in the highlands of Galatia, the most ready explanation of the miracles of Paul was that the gods had come down in the likeness of men.
But though there be such a profound mystery resting on this subject, yet the union of the Almighty with a human life is at least not more incomprehensible than the union of a spiritual, unmaterial principle, as the soul, with a material organism, as the human body. When the secrets of our own nature have been unraveled, it will be time enough for us to demand of the Almighty that, when he assumes our nature, lie should disrobe himself of all mystery. How exquisite is the arrangement that God's help should come to us through the Son of Man; that our Helper should shed true human tears, and feel true human pity Jew though he was, child of the most exclusive and intolerant of peoples, yet the humanity which is greater than Judaism makes us oblivious to all else than that lie is our Brother.
IT IS HIGH-PRIESTLY HELP. The full meaning of this phrase will appear as we proceed. It is sufficient to say here, that all that men have sought to realize in human priesthoods, but in vain, is realized with transcendent beauty in him. Nor is there any way of weaning men from the human priesthoods which deceive, but to present to them the all-glorious, immaculate priesthood of Christ.
It is of little use only to denounce the priests that are coming back to Protestant England through a thousand covert channels, or the people who go to them. There is a craving in their heart which impels them. It is of no use to fight against nature. But satisfy it; give it its true nutriment; supply its wants with reality; and it will be content to drop the false for the true, the paste diamond for the Golconda pebbles, the human for the divine. Men must have a priest; and they are going back to the mummeries of Rome, because there has been too scanty a presentation in our pulpits of the priesthood of Jesus.
IT IS MERCIFUL AND FAITHFUL HELP. When we are in need, we want help wedded with mercy. The patient in the infirmary does not like to be treated as a broken watch. Oh that he were at home again, to be nursed by the soft hands of his mother, which ever feel so skillful and gentle and soft! We need merciful help, which does not upbraid, is not in too great a hurry to listen, and gladly takes all extenuating circumstances into account. Such mercy is in the heart of Jesus. And his help is ever faithful, too. This word has a fine tint of meaning, almost lost in our translation, giving the idea of one who runs up at the first cry of distress. He neither slumbers nor sleeps. He watches us with a gaze which is not for a moment diverted from us. He sees us through the storm. He sits beside the molten metal. He will help us right early -i.e., when the day breaks. You may be bereft of all power of consecutive thought, unable to utter a single intelligible sentence, frantic with agony and remorse; but if you can only moan, he will instantly respond. "He will be very gracious unto thee at the voice of thy cry."
IT IS HELP BASED ON RECONCILIATION FOR SIN. Sin is one of the greatest facts in our history. It is impossible to ignore it. You cannot explain man unless you take it into account. For this the world has been covered with the apparatus of sacrifice; and the cry has rung in a monotone of despair, "How shall man be just with God?"
But Jesus met the demands of conscience, echoing those of a broken law, when on Calvary, as High-Priest, he offered himself as victim, and made an all-sufficient, satisfactory, and complete sacrifice for the sin of the world.
Burdened one, groaning under the load of sin, remember that he bare thy sins in his own body on the tree. Approach the holy God, reminding him of that fact, and daring on account of it to stand unabashed and accepted in his sight.
IT IS SYMPATHETIC HELP FOR THE TEMPTED. " Them that are tempted." Within that circle we all stand. Each is tempted in subtler, if not in grosser, forms; in extraordinary, if not in ordinary, ways. You have been trying, oh, so hard, to be good; but have met with some sudden gust, and been overcome. Tempted to despair! Tempted to yield to Potiphar's wife! Tempted to become a brute! No lawn without the fowler's snare! No day without its sorrow! No night without its noisome pestilence! No rose without its thorn!
Do we not need succor? Certainly; and he is able to succor the tempted, because he has suffered the very worst that temptation can do. Not that there was ever one symptom or thought of yielding; yet suffering to the point of extreme anguish, beneath the test.
O sufferers, tempted ones, desolate and not comforted, lean your heads against the breast of the God-Man, whose feet have trodden each inch of your thorny path; and whose experiences of the power of evil well qualify him to strengthen you to stand, to lift you up if you have fallen, to speak such words as will heal the ache of the freshly gaping wound. If he were impassive, and had never wept or fought in the Garden shadows, or cried out forsaken on the cross, we had not felt him so near as we can do now in all hours of bitter grief.
O matchless Saviour, on whom God our Father has laid our help, we can dispense with human sympathy, with priestly help, with the solace and stay of many a holy service; but thou art indispensable to us, in thy life, and death, and resurrection, and brotherhood, and sympathizing intercession at the throne of God!
Chapter 9
A WARNING AGAINST UNBELIEF
"Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God." -HEBREWS iii. 12.
THE contrast between the third and fourth chapters of this epistle is very marked. The former is like a drear November day, when all the landscape is drenched by sweeping rain, and the rotting leaves fall in showers to find a grave upon the damp and muddy soil. The latter is like a still clear day in midsummer, when nature revels in reposeful bliss beneath the unstinted caresses of the sun. There is as much difference between them as between the seventh and eighth chapters of the Epistle to the Romans.
But each chapter represents an experience of the inner Christian life. Perhaps the majority of Christians live and die in the third chapter, to their infinite loss. Comparatively few pass over into the fourth. Yet why, reader, should you not pass the boundary line today, and leave behind forever the bitter, unsatisfactory experiences which have become the normal rule of your existence? Come up out of the wilderness, in which you have wandered so long. Your sojourn there has been due, not to any desire on the part of God, or to any arbitrary appointment of his, or to any natural disability of your temperament; but to certain grave failures on your part, in the regimen of the inner life.
The antipodes of your hitherto dreary experiences is Christ, the unsearchable riches of Christ; to be made a partaker of Christ: for Christ is the Promised Land that flows with milk and honey, in which we eat bread without scarceness, and gather the grapes and pomegranates and olives of rare spiritual blessedness.
WILDERNESS EXPERIENCES. Never did a nation occupy a prouder position than the children of Israel on the morning when they stood victorious on the shores of the Red Sea. The power of the tyrant had been broken by a series of marvelous miracles. The chivalry of Egypt had sunk as lead in the mighty waters of death. And as the sun rose behind the mountains of Edom, and struck a flashing pathway across the burnished mirror of the sea, it revealed long lines of corpses washed up to the water's edge. Behind, Egypt left forever. Above, the fleecy cloud, chariot of God, tabernacle for his presence. Before, the Land of Promise. Many a man was already dreaming of vineyards and olive yards, and a settled home, all of which lay within two or three months' easy march.
But of those six hundred thousand men, flushed with victory and hope, two only were destined to see the land flowing with milk and honey; and these not until forty weary years had slowly passed away. And what became of all the rest? Alas! their carcasses fell in the wilderness. Instead of reposing in some family burying-place in the Land of Promise, their bodies were taken up one by one and laid in the desert waste; the sands their winding-sheet; the solitude their mausoleum. It took forty years for them all to die. And to accomplish this there must have been a high percentage of deaths. How dreary those incessant funerals! How monotonous the perpetual sounds of Oriental grief moaning through the camp! What wonder that Psalm xc., written among such scenes, is so inexpressibly sad!
The wilderness experience is emblematic, amongst other things, of unrest, aimlessness, and unsatisfied longings. Unrest: the tents were constantly being struck to be erected again in much the same spot. Theirs a perpetual weariness; and they were not suffered to enter into God's rest. Aimlessness: they wandered in the wilderness in a desert way; they found no city of habitation. Unsatisfied longings: hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.
But how typical of the lives of many amongst ourselves! Life is passing away so swiftly from us, but how unideal! How few Christians seem to have learned the secret of the inner rest! How many are the victims of murmuring and discontent; or are bitten by the serpents of jealousy and passion, of hatred and ill-will! The almost universal experience tells of broken vows and blighted hopes, of purposeless wanderings, of a monotony of failure. Always striking and pitching the camp! Always surrounded by the same monotonous horizon, sand, with here and there a palm tree! Always fed on the same food, till the soul loathes it! Life passes away amid fret and chafing disappointment and weariness of existence, till we say with Solomon, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
One of the scourges of the desert is the sandstorm, when the hot wind is laden with light powdery dust, which finds its way into eyes and mouth and lungs; penetrating the clothes, stinging the skin, and making life almost unbearable. An apt illustration of the small annoyances, the petty irritations, the perpetual swarm of gnat-like stings, which invade our most comfortable circumstances, and make us question whether life is worth living.
Then there is also the mirage. When from afar green glades seem to attract the weary traveler, who, as he reaches them, finds his hopes deceived and his thirst mocked. Emblem this of the disappointments to which they expose themselves who are ever seeking for some earthly good to mitigate the hardships and sorrows of their life, instead of seeking the fellowship and blessed help of the living Christ. They travel forward, thinking at every step that they are nearing an oasis in their desert march; but, as they approach, the fabric of their hopes fades away into the air.
"We are made partakers of Christ." These words may either mean that all believers together partake of the fullness of Jesus, or that they all partake with him of the fullness of God. "Heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." But whichever be the true rendering, the thought is inexpressibly helpful. Jesus Christ is our Promised Land, and our Joshua to lead us thither. He gives us rest. In him are orchards and vineyards, and all manner of precious things. His comfort for our sorrow; his rest for our weariness; his strength for our weakness; his purity for our corruption; his ever-present help for our need. Oh, blessed Jesus, surely it is the wonder of heaven that we make so little of thee!
THE CAUSE OF THE WILDERNESS EXPERIENCE. They could not enter in because of unbelief. See how unbelief raises a barrier which shuts us out of blessing. A fortune may have been left you; but if you do not believe the intelligence and apply for it, you will not profit by it. A regiment of angels may be passing by your home, with blessings in their hands that might enrich you forever; but if you do not believe the tidings that they are on the march, you will not go out to greet or welcome them. A noble character may rear itself in the neighborhood in which you live, or the society in which you move; but if you do not believe in it, you will derive no stimulus or comfort from its genial and helpful influence. So whatever Christ may be, and however near, he will be nothing to you unless you have learned to trust him.
There are three conditions in which unbelief thrives with us, as with the children of Israel: they murmured.
The first outbreak was in the wilderness of Sin (Exod.xvi.), within a few days of the Exodus. There was no bread. The provisions hastily brought from Egypt were consumed. They had their kneading-troughs, but no flour to knead. There was no organized commissariat. "And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron in the wilderness: and the children of Israel said unto them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh-pots, when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger."
The second outbreak was at Rephidim (Exod. xvii.). There was no water. The scanty desert brooks were heaps of scorching stones, and not a leaf of vegetation trembled in the burning sunshine. And again the sullen sounds of discontent were heard as the people muttered their belief that they had been brought out of Egypt to perish there.
But the most serious outbreak occurred shortly after they left Sinai (Num. xiii.). The green hills of Palestine at last appeared in view, and spies were sent forward to search the land. After forty days they returned laden with luscious fruits; but they had a story to tell of the strength and fortifications of the Canaanites, which filled the people with dismay; and "all the people murmured against Moses and against Aaron, and said, Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt." "Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word; but murmured in their tents, and hearkened not unto the voice of the Lord. Therefore he lifted up his hand unto them, that he would overthrow them in the wilderness" (Psa. cvi. 24-26). A murmuring, complaining heart is one which has already commenced to disbelieve in the wise and loving lead of Christ, and in which unbelief will thrive.
"They departed from the living God." God is the Home and Source of life. From him, as from a fountain, all things derive their being, strength, and beauty. If Israel had remained in living union with him, there would have been no failure in their supplies; and there would have been sufficient grace to make the people calm and restful and strong amid these privations and difficulties. But they departed from him. They thought they could do better for themselves. They forsook the Fountain of living water, and went up into the hills to hew out for themselves broken, i.e., cracked cisterns, which could hold no water. Of the Rock that begat them they grew unmindful; and so became as the desert tamarisk, which inhabits dull and uninhabited wastes, in contrast to the tree whose roots are fed by rivers, and whose arms shadow generations.
Let us ask ourselves whether there has been any declension in our heart-religion, less prayerfulness, less closeness in our walk with God, less enjoyment in the worship of his house; for, if so, unbelief is sure to manifest itself, as the fungus which grows fat on the damp and foetid soil. Unbelief cannot live in the sunlight of fellowship with God.
They failed to learn the lessons of the past. They did not deny the past. They would have told you with flashing eyes the wonderful story of deliverance. But they did not trust God's love and wisdom; they did not rely on his repeated promises that he would most certainly bring them in as he had already brought them out; they did not find in the past a guarantee that he would not fail nor forsake them. At Sin they should have said, "He gave us these bodies with these appetites and needs: we may trust him to provide them with food. 'Our heavenly Father knows that we have need of all these things.'" At Marah they should have said, "He gave us manna, surely he can supply our thirst." At Paran they should have said, "God has promised to give us the land; and so, though the Canaanites are strong, and their cities walled to heaven, we will dare believe in him." Instead of this they cried, "He smote the rock, and the waters gushed out; and the streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Can he give flesh for his people?"
As we pass through life we should carefully store our hearts with the memory of God's great goodness, and fetch from past deliverances the assurances that he will never leave, neither forsake. Has he conveyed us across the Atlantic to leave us to drown in a ditch? Has he been with us in six troubles to desert us in the seventh? Has he saved, and can he not keep? Has he redeemed us from hell, and can he not bring us to heaven?
"His love in time past forbids us to think
He'll leave us at last in trouble to sink;
Each sweet Ebenezer we have in review
Confirms his good pleasure to help us right through."
If we would guard against unbelief, we should reinforce our faith by constantly recapitulating the story of God's past dealings; and thus through the stream of memory the uplands of our life will send their deposits of blessed helpfulness to reinforce us in our daily anxieties and perplexities. "The Lord hath been mindful of us, he will bless us." "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."
You were happy in your childhood; your early days were set in a golden frame; but dear ones have vanished, as the oak's shadow from the forest undergrowth, and you feel unprotected and lonely: but the God of your childhood will not be less thoughtful of you than in those happy bygone days.
You have stepped out on the waters, and as the storm threatens you, you almost wish yourself back; but he who was with you in the fair haven will be as near you when the winds rave and the waves lift up their voice. You are on the point of exchanging the flesh-pots of Egypt for the new land of Canaan, with its blessed promise; and on the way, heart and flesh fail at the new and untried scenes that daunt and perplex: but he who delivered you from Pharaoh can shield you from Amalek; he who cleft the Red Sea will divide the Jordan.
INSPIRED CAUTIONS. " Take heed lest there be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God." Unbelief is the child, not of the head, but of the heart. It is always well to know the source of disease, then the physician can attack it in its citadel. If unbelief were the creature of our intellect, we must needs meet it there with argument; but since it is the product of a wrong state of heart, of an evil heart, we must meet it there.
"This," says William Law, "is an eternal truth, which you cannot too much reflect upon, that reason always follows the state of the heart; and what your heart is, that is your reason. If your heart is full of sentiments, of penitence, and of faith, your reason will take part with your heart; but if your heart is shut up in death and dryness, your reason will delight in nothing but dry objections and speculations."
Guard against an evil heart. If the heart were in a right condition, faith would be as natural to it as flowers in spring; or as smiles on the face of healthy, innocent childhood. As soon as the heart gets into an evil state-harboring sin; cherishing things which you would not excuse in others, but condone in yourself; permitting unholy thoughts and desires to remain unchecked and unjudged, then, beware! for such a heart is no longer able to believe in God. Its head turns dizzy; its eyes are blinded; and it is in imminent peril of falling irretrievably.
Take heed, then; watch and pray; examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves! Expose yourselves to the searching light of God's Spirit. Cultivate the honest and good heart. Most of the infidelity of the present day arises from man's disinclination to retain God in his knowledge. More skepticism may be traced to a neglected prayer closet than to the arguments of infidels or the halls of secularists. First, men depart from God; then they deny him. And, therefore, for the most part, unbelief will not yield to clever sermons on the evidences, but to home thrusts that pierce the points of the harness to the soul within. "Keep thy heart beyond all keeping, since out of it are the issues of life."
Guard especially against heart-hardening. Hard hearts are unbelieving ones; therefore beware of ossification of the heart. The hardest hearts were soft once, and the softest may get hard. The chalk which now holds the fossil shells was once moist ooze. The horny hand of toil was once full of soft dimples. The murderer once shuddered when, as a boy, he crushed a worm. Judas must have been once a tender and impressionable lad.
But hearts harden gradually, like the freezing of a pond on a frosty night. At first the process can be detected by none but a practiced eye. Then there is a thin film of ice, so slender that a pin or needle would fall through. At length it will sustain a pebble, and, if winter still hold its unbroken sway, a child, a man, a crowd, a cart will follow. We get hard through the steps of an unperceived process.
The constant hearing the truth without obeying it. The knowing a better and doing the worse. The cherishing of unholy things that seem fair as angels. The refusal to confess the wrong and to profess the right. All these things harden. Beware of the deceitfulness of sin! Take heed to yourselves! Exhort one another daily.
Guard against a fickle heart. This is the sin which this epistle especially opposes. There are many around us who eagerly embrace a novelty; but when the stress comes, as it always does, like the settling of a house, there is a slackening off. We must hold fast our boldness and the glorying of our hope steadfast to the end. We can only become partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm to the end.
We should see not only to our own heart, but to the heart of our brethren; and exhort one another daily, watching over each other, and seeking to revive drooping piety and reanimate fainting hope. Let us take heed to these things today. Now is God's time. The Holy Ghost saith, Today. Every day of delay is dangerous, because the hardening process becomes more habitual. Today restore what you have taken wrongfully; adjust a wrong, promote a right. Today renounce some evil habit, some unhallowed pastime, some unlawful friendship. Today reach out after some further realization of the fair ideal whch beckons you. Today leave the wilderness forever, and enter by faith the Land of Promise.
Chapter 10
THE GOSPEL OF REST
"There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. "-HEBREWS iv. 9.
THE keynote of this chapter is Rest. In the second verse it is spoken of as a gospel, or good news. And is there any gospel that more needs preaching in these busy, weary days, through which our age is rushing to its close, than the Gospel of Rest? On all hands we hear of strong and useful workers stricken down in early life by the exhausting effects of mental toil. The tender brain tissues were never made to sustain the tremendous wear and tear of our times. There is no machinery in human nature to repair swiftly enough the waste of nervous energy which is continually going on. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at that the symptoms of brain tiredness are becoming familiar to many workers, acting as warning signals, which, if not immediately attended to, are followed by some terrible collapse of mind or body, or both.
And yet it is not altogether that we work so much harder than our forefathers; but that there is so much more fret and chafe and worry in our lives. Competition is closer. Population is more crowded. Brains are keener and swifter in their motion. The resources of ingenuity and inventiveness, of creation and production, are more severely and constantly taxed. And the age seem's so merciless and selfish. If the lonely spirit trips and falls, it is trodden down in the great onward rush, or left behind to its fate; and the dread of the swoop of the vultures, with rustling wings, from unknown heights upon us as their prey, fills us with an anguish which we know by the familiar name of care. We could better stand the strain of work if only we had rest from worry, from anxiety, and from the fret of the troubled sea that cannot rest, as it moans around us, with its yeasty waves, hungry to devour. Is such a rest possible?
This chapter states that such a rest is possible. "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest." Rest? What rest? His rest, says the first verse; my rest, says the third verse; God's rest, says the fourth verse. And this last verse is a quotation from the earliest page of the Bible, which tells how God rested from all the work that he had made. And as we turn to that marvelous apocalypse of the past, which in so many respects answers to the apocalypse of the future given us by the Apostle John, we find that, whereas we are expressly told of the evening and morning of each of the other days of creation, there is no reference to the dawn or close of God's rest-day; and we are left to infer that it is impervious to time, independent of duration, unlimited, and eternal; that the ages of human story are but hours in the rest-day of Jehovah; and that, in point of fact, we spend our years in the Sabbath-keeping of God. But, better than all, it would appear that we are invited to enter into it and share it; as a child living by the placid waters of a vast fresh water lake may dip into them its cup, and drink and drink again, without making any appreciable diminution of its volume or ripple on its expanse.
What is meant by God resting? Surely not the rest of weariness! "He fainteth not, neither is weary." Though he had spread forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, and had invented ten thousand differing forms of being, yet his inventiveness was as fresh, his energy as vigorous as ever. Surely not the rest of inactivity. "My Father worketh hitherto," said our Lord. "In him we live, and move, and have our being." True, he is not now sending forth, so far as we know, suns, or systems, or fresh types of being. But his power is ever at work, repairing, renewing, and sustaining the fabric of the vast machinery of the universe. No sparrow falls to the ground without him. The cry of the young lion and the lowing of the oxen in the pastures attract his instant regard. "In him all things consist." It was the rest of a finished work. He girded himself to the specific work of creation, and summoned into being all that is; and when it was finished he said it was very good: and at once he rested from all his work which he had created and made. It was the rest of divine complacency, of infinite satisfaction, of perfect content. It was equivalent to saying, "This creation of mine is all that I meant it to be, finished and perfect. I am perfectly satisfied; there is nothing more to be done; it is all very good."
This, then, is the rest which we are invited to share. We are not summoned to the heavy slumber which follows over-taxing toil, nor to inaction or indolence; but to the rest which is possible amid swift activity and strenuous work; to perfect equilibrium between the outgoings and incomings of the life; to a contented heart; to peace that passeth all understanding; to the repose of the will in the will of God; and to the calm of the depths of the nature which are undisturbed by the hurricanes which sweep the surface, and urge forward the mighty waves. This rest is holding out both its hands to the weary souls of men throughout the ages, offering its shelter as a harbor from the storms of life.
But is it certain that this rest has not already been entered and exhausted by the children of men? That question is fully examined and answered in this wonderful paragraph. The Sabbath did not realize that rest (ver. 3). We cannot prize its ministry too highly. Its law is written, not only in Scripture, but in the nature of man. The godless band of French Revolutionists found that they could not supersede the week by the decade, the one-day-in-seven by the one-day in-ten. Like a ministering angel it relieves the monotony of labor, and hushes the ponderous machinery of life, and weaves its spell of rest; but it is too fitful and transient to realize the rest of God. It may typify it, but it cannot exhaust it. Indeed, it was broken by man's rebellion as soon as God had sanctified and hallowed it. Canaan did not realize that rest (ver. 8). The Land of Promise was a great relief to the marchings and privations of the desert. But it was constantly interrupted, and at last, in the Captivity, broken up; as the forms of the mountains in the lake by a shower of hail. Besides, in the Book of Psalms, written four hundred years after Joshua had led Israel across the Jordan, The Holy Spirit, speaking by David, points onward to a rest still future (Psalm xcv. 7). Surely, then, if neither of these events has realized the rest of God, it remains still, waiting for us and all the people of God. "There remaineth, therefore," unexhausted and unrealized, "a Sabbath-keeping to the people of God."
And there is yet a further reason for this conviction of God's unexhausted rest. Jesus, our Forerunner and Representative, has entered into it for us. See what verse 10 affirms: "He that is entered into his rest; " and who can he be but our great Joshua, Jehovah-Jesus? He also has ceased from his own work of redemption, as God did from his of creation. After the creative act, there came the Sabbath, when God ceased from his work, and pronounced it very good; so, after the redemptive act, there came the Sabbath to the Redeemer. He lay, during the seventh day, in the grave of Joseph, not because he was exhausted or inactive, but because redemption was finished, and there was no more for him to do. He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High; and that majestic session is a symptom neither of fatigue nor of indolence. He ever liveth to make intercession; he works with his servants, confirming their words with signs; he walks amid the seven golden candlesticks. And yet he rests as a man may rest who has arisen from his ordinary life to effect some great deed of emancipation and deliverance; but, having accomplished it, returns again to the ordinary routine of his former life, glad and satisfied in his heart. Nor is this rest for Christ alone; but for us also, who are forever identified with him in his glorious life. We have been raised up together with him in the mind and purpose of God, and have been made to sit with him in the heavenlies; so that in Jesus we have already entered into the rest of God, and have simply to appropriate it by a living faith.
How, then, may we practically realize and enjoy the rest of God ?-( 1) We must will the will of God. So long as the will of God, whether in the Bible or in providence, is going in one direction and our will in another, rest is impossible. Can there be rest in an earthly household when the children are ever chafing against the regulations and control of their parents? How much less can we be at rest if we harbor an incessant spirit of insubordination and questioning, contradicting and resisting the will of God! That will must be done on earth as it is in heaven. None can stay his hand, or say, What dost thou? It will be done with us, or in spite of us. If we resist it, the yoke against which we rebel will only rub a sore place on our skin; but we must still carry it. How much wiser, then, meekly to yield to it, and submit ourselves under the mighty hand of God, saying, "Not my will, but thine be done!" The man who has learned the secret of Christ, in saying a perpetual "Yes"to the will of God; whose life is a strain of rich music to the theme, "Even so, Father"; whose will follows the current of the will of God, as the smoke from our chimneys permits itself to be wafted by the winds of autumn, that man will find rest unto his soul.
We must accept the finished work of Christ. He has ceased from the work of our redemption, because there was no more to do. Our sins and the sins of the world were put away. The power of the adversary was annulled. The gate of heaven was opened to all that believe. All was finished, and was very good. Let us, then, cease from our works. Let us no longer feel as if we have to do aught, by our tears or prayers or works, to make ourselves acceptable to God. Why should we try to add one stitch to a finished garment, or append one stroke to the signed and sealed warrant of pardon placed within our hands? We need have no anxiety as to the completeness or sufficiency of a divinely finished thing. Let us quiet our fears by considering that what satisfies Christ, our Saviour and Head, may well satisfy us. Let us dare to stand without a qualm in God's presence, by virtue of the glorious and completed sacrifice of Calvary. Let us silence every tremor of unrest by recalling the dying cry on the cross, and the witness of the empty grave.
We must trust our Father's care. "Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." Sometimes like a wild deluge, sweeping all before it, and sometimes like the continual dropping of water, so does care mar our peace. That we shall some day fall by the hand of Saul; that we shall be left to starve or pine away our days in a respectable workhouse; that we shall never be able to get through the difficulties of the coming days or weeks; household cares, family cares, business cares; cares about servants, children, money; crushing cares, and cares that buzz around the soul like a swarm of gnats on a summer's day, what rest can there be for a soul thus beset? But, when we once learn to live by faith, believing that our Father loves us, and will not forget or forsake us, but is pledged to supply all our needs; when we acquire the holy habit of talking to him about all, and handing over all to him, at the moment that the tiniest shadow is cast upon the soul; when we accept insult and annoyance and interruption, coming to us from whatever quarter, as being his permission, and, therefore, as part of his dear will for us, then we have learned the secret of the Gospel of Rest.
We must follow our Shepherd's lead. " We which have believed do enter into rest" (ver. 3). The way is dark; the mountain track is often hidden from our sight by the heavy mists that hang over hill and fell; we can hardly discern a step in front. But our divine Guide knows. He who trod earth's pathways is going unseen at our side. The shield of his environing protection is all around; and his voice, in its clear, sweet accents, is whispering peace. Why should we fear? He who touches us, touches his bride, his purchased possession, the apple of his eye. We may, therefore, trust and not be afraid. Though the mountains should depart, or the hills be removed, yet will his loving kindness not depart from us, neither will the covenant of his peace be removed. And amid the storm, and darkness, and the onsets of our foes, we shall hear him soothing us with the sweet refrain of his own lullaby of rest: "My peace I give unto you; in the world ye shall have tribulation, but in me ye shall have peace."
[ Continued...See Link Below... ]