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  DIVINE EMBLEMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE AND TRUTH
  by A.B. Simpson
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Simpson's expanded collection of typological studies using biblical emblems and
symbols to illuminate spiritual realities, showing how God teaches through the
pictures and patterns embedded throughout Scripture.

  Chapters: 17

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. a Divine Emblems of Spiritual Life and Truth
    2. Book 1 Ch. 1 - Emblems From The Story Of Cre
    3. Book 1 Ch. 2 - Emblems From The Story Of Fall
    4. Book 1 Ch. 3 - Emblems From Antediluvian Times
    5. Book 1 Ch. 4 - Emblems From The Story Of Flood.
    6. Book 1 Ch. 5 - Emblems From Abraham's Tent
    7. Book 1 Ch. 6 - Emblems From The Life Of Isaac
    8. Book 1 Ch. 7 - Emblems From Jacob's Pilgrimage.
    9. Book 1 Ch. 8a - Emblems From The Story Of Joseph1
   10. Book 1 Ch. 8b - Emblems From The Story Of Joseph2
   11. Book 2 Ch. 1 - Emblems From The Life Of Moses
   12. Book 2 Ch. 2 - Emblems From Their Bondage And
   13. Book 2 Ch. 3 - Emblems From Their Pilgrimage.
   14. Book 2 Ch. 4a - Emblems From The Wilderness.
   15. Book 2 Ch. 4b - Emblems From The Wilderness.
   16. Book 2 Ch. 5 - Emblems From The Mount
   17. Book 2 Ch. 6 - Emblems Of Grace In The Ancient

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  CHAPTER 1: A DIVINE EMBLEMS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE AND TRUTH
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Divine Emblems of Spiritual Life and Truth by A. B. Simpson


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  CHAPTER 2: BOOK 1 CH. 1 - EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF CRE
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Book 1 Chapter 1 EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF CREATION.

While the Holy Scriptures are a literal and historical record of things, that
have actually occurred, yet underlying the narrative there is for us a deeper
spiritual meaning, which it is the province of faith, under the teaching of the
Holy Ghost, reverently to interpret and apply. While there is danger of excess
and extravagance in this direction, yet this must not drive us to the opposite
extreme of hard and cold literalism. The Holy Scriptures have given us the true
principle of such spiritual interpretation, and there we learn both by divine
statement and innumerable examples, that “All these things were types, and are
written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” These
underlying spiritual teachings are not confined to those things which may be
strictly termed types, but in a measure are linked with all the events of the
sacred record. In the following addresses and reflections we will not attempt to
elaborate any rigid or complete system of typology, but will with simplicity and
freedom, endeavor to draw the most practical and spiritual lessons which the
Divine Spirit may enable us from the leading types and events of the inspired
record which have more or less precisely a symbolical character and scriptural
suggestiveness.

SECTION I. -- The Creation. The first is the story of the creation. Recognizing,
of course, the literal and historical reality of the record, we have the
authority of the scriptures themselves to regard it as the figure of the new
creation, which the Divine Spirit is working out in the hearts of God's people,
and ultimately will consummate in the Kingdom of Glory. “For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before
ordained that we should walk in them.” “If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a
new creation; old things have passed away, behold all things have become new.”
The first chapter of Genesis is repeated in the twenty-first chapter of
Revelation, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and
the first earth were passed away.” Underlying the whole record of the first
creation we can trace the story of grace in figure and spiritual foreshadowing.
Like that ancient process, the new creation begins in wreck and chaos -- a
wreck, like that of primeval order. The new creation like the old emerges from a
scene of darkness and desolation. Like that, also, it is preceded and introduced
by the overshadowing presence and brooding wings of the heavenly Dove, and
brought about by the power of the personal and Almighty Word. Then also, the
first type of Christ in both creations is the dawning Light. “For God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”
Light is followed by order and the separation of the things that differ, and
this word ‘separation’ is almost a keynote of the entire spiritual life, and has
a radical reference to the principle of sanctification itself. In the old
creation there is much light before the celestial luminaries appear in the
firmament. This is not until the fourth day. So in the spiritual life the
manifestation of Jesus in His personal indwelling and glory, comes often at a
later stage, and perhaps the three days that preceded it in the creation
narrative suggest, if they do not typify, the resurrection experience which must
ever precede it. Salvation brings us the light of the Holy Spirit, but our
deeper consecration and union with Him introduces us to the full glory of the
Sun of Righteousness, and to the dawn of that day whose “Sun will no more go
down -- but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your
glory.” This is followed in the old creation by the introduction, in all its
wonderful forms and fullness, of life in the entire animal kingdom; and so in
the new creation the revelation of the indwelling Christ quickens into life the
whole spiritual being, and fills it in every part with fruitfulness and fullness
of life, until it reaches its climax in the new man in his full maturity
reflecting the glorious image of God Himself. In both the old creation and the
new there were successive stages with marked intervals like the great strata of
our globe, bearing the traces of intense convulsions and mighty upheavals; so,
with the transformation in our spiritual life, God has to break us off from the
old experiences, and bring us out into new aspirations and higher planes by
forces often as convulsive as those which molded earth's earlier ages. And in
each case it will be noticed in the records of Genesis, the progress is from the
lower to the higher, from the darker to the brighter, from the “evening to the
morning.”

Every new stage begins in comparative evening and ends in a clear morning, and
it is as true now as in the creation days, “It was evening and it was morning,
one day.” So the transformation is going forward in every Christian heart, and
“the path of the just is like the shining light, which shines more and more unto
the perfect day.” So too, the kingdom of God is going forward through the ages
of time, and by and by “it will be evening and morning,” one eternal day. “And
he that sits on the throne will say, behold I make all things new.”

SECTION II. -- The Creation of Man. The crown of the first creation was man
himself. The story of his formation is accompanied with greater emphasis and
fullness of detail than the entire universe. It is determined in the counsels of
the Eternal Trinity, “Let us make man,” and it is patterned after nothing less
than the Creator Himself, “in our image and in our likeness.” It is fitting that
such a majestic being should be the sovereign of the lower creation, and
therefore He is invested with the lordship of nature, “dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves
upon the earth.” It is natural, therefore, that if the material creation is
symbolical of redemption, much more is the creation of man the type of the Holy
Spirit's chief work of grace, namely the renewal and restoration of the human
soul. Hence, we find in the New Testament epistles such language as this: “Put
on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;”
“Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that
created him;” “If any man be in Christ Jesus he is a new creation: old things
have passed away, behold all things have become new.” As before, so here we find
many exquisite points of correspondence and resemblance. The natural man was
created by the forming hand and breathing breath of his Maker, so the spiritual
man is not only externally reformed, but internally renewed and regenerated by
the very breath and Spirit of the living God. “The Lord God breathed into man
the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” The Holy Ghost breathes into
us the spirit of life, and the new man becomes a quickened spirit. So it is
written, “The first man Adam was made a living soul, and the last Adam was made
a quickening spirit,” “and as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will
also bear the image of the heavenly.” Again, the first man was created in the
likeness of God, so the new creation reaches forward to this glorious ideal,
namely: “to be conformed to the image of His Son,” “for both He that sanctifies
and they that are sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed
to call them brethren;” for, “We know that when he will appear, we will be like
Him; for we will see Him as He is.” Further, the old creation invested man with
kingliness and lordship; so the new creation makes us kings and priests unto
God. Its consummation will be reached when in the millennial world we will reign
with Christ over the material earth, and the picture of the eighth Psalm will be
fully fulfilled, that, “He has put all things under His feet.”

Man must first regain his lost dominion in the kingdom of his own heart, and
then he will receive again the crown of nature and the lordship of creation,
when he will be prepared to administer it with the righteousness and beneficence
of a perfect nature, and a divine wisdom, and holiness.

There is a still higher emblem in the creation of man which the Apostle Paul has
developed with great power and beauty in two important epistles, namely, those
to the Romans and to the Corinthians. That is the relation that Adam sustains to
the Lord Jesus Christ as the type of His Headship for redeemed humanity. Adam
was created not merely as an isolated individual, but as the father and
representative of the entire race, and his fall has involved his entire
posterity in its bitter and baneful consequences. In like manner the Lord Jesus,
the second Adam, stands not for Himself alone, as an isolated individual, but as
the representative of His entire people, for whom His suffering and death are
accepted as an atoning sacrifice, a complete expiation, and His holy obedience
as their imputed righteousness and the ground of their complete justification
before God. Therefore we read in the passages already referred to, “as by the
disobedience of one many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one will many
be made righteous; as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to
condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all
men unto justification of life.” “As in Adam all died; even so in Christ will
all be made alive.” The extent of Christ's representation is as universal, in
the real principle, as Adam's. Adam's headship and its painful consequences,
extend to all his posterity. Christ's headship and its glorious blessings extend
to all His spiritual posterity; that is all, and only those who are born of Him.
Therefore the whole human race will not be saved, but the whole Christ race
will; and the new birth is the indispensable condition and the vital link
between Christ and His constituents. The true reading of the passage already
quoted in 1 Cor. 15, is in beautiful accord with this teaching. “As all who are
in Adam die, so all who are in Christ will be made alive.” The great question
therefore, for each one of us, is: have we passed out of the Adam life into the
Christ life? Salvation, consequently, is not in any sense a culture or
improvement of our natural life, but it is the renunciation and crucifixion, not
only of the sin, but of the self. The entire nature must die, and all that will
live forever must be born of Christ, who comes down from heaven through the Holy
Ghost into our hearts and lives. Salvation, therefore, is a radical and
inexorable death sentence upon the flesh, both in its grosser and higher parts,
and a supernatural and divine creation, more wonderful than the birth of the
universe, and equivalent to the resurrection of the dead. Stupendous fact! God's
mightiest handiwork! Reader, have you experienced it, and can you say, behold,
all things are made new?

SECTION III. -- The Creation of Woman. The story of the birth of Eve is more
exquisitely beautiful than any dream of ancient poetry or conception of art or
imagination. The nearest approach to it is the celebrated description of
Socrates in Greek literature, representing the human form as originally double,
facing both ways, and afterwards divided by the gods into the sexes, so that
every man and woman forms but a half of his or her former self, and which is
constantly searching for its counterpart. But this is clumsy and coarse compared
with the sacred idyl of woman's lovely birth, which represents her as originally
in the man, and then gently taken out of him while he slept, created into beauty
and fitness for his fellowship, and then given back to him as his partner and
helpmate for life. The exquisite signification of this in connection with the
human and social relation of man and woman; the tender unity, the perfect
equality, the mutual independence, and the sacred affection which should ever
link them together, does not belong to our present theme. But its spiritual
beauty and teaching are even finer and more wonderful, for we have here the
parable of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and His relation to the Church, His
heavenly Bride, which really contains the germ of the entire mystery of
redemption.

First, we see Eve in her original creation in Adam; so the Church was in Christ.
Adam was not merely an individual man, but rather man in the general sense,
containing in himself in his original formation the woman as well as the man; so
the Lord Jesus was not merely one of the sons of men, but the Son of Man,
humanity summed up in one complete personality, containing in himself the germ
and substance of all the spiritual lives that are to be born of Him; therefore
we are identified really with Him, and so His life and death, His sufferings and
obedience are actually ours, and for us as well as for Himself.

Secondly, Eve was taken out of Adam while he slept and really formed of his
physical substance; so, while Jesus slept in the sepulcher in death, the Church
was born out of His substance, and every believer is created anew in Christ
Jesus. Our life is part of His very being. “We are partakers of the Divine
Nature.” Christ is actually “formed” in us, and we are part of His resurrection
life as truly as Eve was of Adam's. We are described as “risen with Christ,” and
our life is hid with Christ in God. Christ is our life. This is the great
mystery of the spiritual life; it is a miracle of life; it is not mere life, but
Christ life. The Hebrew expression which describes the formation of Eve, is the
word “builded.” He builded the rib into the woman. How perfectly it describes
the whole process of the completion of the body of Christ. The same word is used
by the Apostle in describing it: “In Him you are builded together for a
habitation of God through the Spirit.” The language of Adam to his partner,
“This is now bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh,” was literally true, but
just as strikingly true is it now that “we are members of His body, of His
flesh, and of His bones.”

Thirdly: Eve was given back to Adam to be his partner and bride, and an helpmate
for him. Her very life by its origin and intention was for him, and not for
herself; therefore woman by her very constitution is made not for selfishness,
but for service and love. She finds her true destiny in living for man, and
losing her life and personality in the one she loves; so the soul born of Christ
belongs to Christ; so the Church taken out of His life is given back to Him as
the bride of His love and partner of His throne. The soul born of God must rise
to God and live for God, and every impulse and element of its spiritual life and
consecration finds its rest in losing itself in God and living only for His
glory. This wonderful truth runs like a bridal wreath all through the Holy
Scriptures. We see it not only in the marriage of Eden, but in the wedding of
Rebekah, in the love of Jacob and Rachel, in the Song of Solomon, in the vision
of Hosea, in the marriage feast of Canaan, in the parable of the Ten Virgins, in
the strange figurative language St. Paul has used of Christ and the Church, and
finally in the majestic vision of the marriage supper of the Lamb. Not only is
it true of the Church as a whole, but it must naturally be just as real in the
experience of all who are members of that mystical body. Of each of us, as
individuals, He says: “Your Maker is your Husband.” “You will call me Ishi.”
“Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear, forget also your own
people, and your father's house, so will the King greatly desire your beauty,
for He is your Lord, and worship you Him.” “The body is for the Lord, and the
Lord for the body.” “We are members of His body, and His flesh, and His bones.”
Have we learned this holy, tender, ineffable secret of the Lord and of the
heart, and within the chambers of His presence has it been true of us:

“Precious, gentle, lovely Jesus, Blessed Bridegroom of my heart. In thy secret
inner chambers, Thou hast whispered what thou art.”

SECTION IV. -- The Sabbath. The creation of the world and the family is followed
by the appointment of the Sabbath, which, with the home, forms the only relic
left to man of Eden. While undoubtedly intended to be literally understood and
observed as a day of holy rest, and while the creation Sabbath is really the
basis of all subsequent legislation regarding this day, and even the Mosaic
institution was but a re-enactment of the Sabbath of creation, and the words of
Christ concerning it look back to the very beginning -- while all this is
literally true and can never be set aside by the passing away of Judaism, yet
below and beyond the natural day and its obligations there lies a deep spiritual
symbolism. In the Fourth chapter of Hebrews the Apostle implies that it is
designed to be the figure of the deeper spiritual rest into which He would lead
his people. The source and nature of this rest are finely expressed by the words
suggested by the meaning of the day: “He that has entered into His rest, has
ceased from his own works as God did from His.” It is the true secret of
entering Christ's rest. Struggling for our own righteousness, striving for our
own will, will never bring it. “Come unto me all you that labor, and are heavy
laden,” is his cry, “and I will rest you.” When we cease from our attempts to
justify ourselves, and accept His righteousness, we have the rest of pardon.
When we cease from our attempts to sanctify ourselves, and accept His indwelling
life and holiness, we have the rest of holiness. When we cease from our
self-will, and accept His will and take His yoke upon us, we have the peace of
God that passes all understanding. Evermore will it be true:

“I struggled and wrestled to win it, The blessing that setteth me free, But when
I had ceased from my struggling, His peace Jesus gave unto me.”

It is very remarkable and beautiful that although afterwards, as a time of
measure, until Christ's resurrection, the Sabbath was the seventh day of the
week, yet actually it was the first day of Adam's life. The first sun that ever
rose on his vision was the Sabbath's sun, because he was created on the evening
of the sixth day; so that Adam's sabbath was in this respect the foreshadowing
of the Christian Sabbath. The beautiful teaching of this fact is that we need to
begin with rest, and not wait to end with it. We are not fitted for service
until we are rested first with God's peace.

Christ will not lay His burden on an overloaded heart any more than a human
person would overload a weary beast of burden; therefore the Christian Sabbath
begins the week, teaching us that we must enter into rest before we are prepared
for any service. The heaven that most people are looking for when they die
should come as soon as they begin to live and prepare them for all life's labors
and burdens. Therefore our dear Lord has said, “Come unto me,” first, and “I
will rest you.” Then “take my yoke upon you,” and “with rested hearts go forth
to serve me.” Have we entered into His rest -- His glorious rest? Have we not
only the peace, but the “peace, peace” in which He will keep the heart which is
stayed on Him? O, let us listen to the calm voice that comes down to us from
that sweet Eden morning, and from that other garden and morning by Joseph's
empty tomb, where restlessness and weariness find repose in His rest and
all-sufficiency.

Over an English cathedral door, in the Isle of Wight, rests a marble figure of a
woman lying with her beautiful head on an open Bible, at the words: “Come unto
Me all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” It is the
memorial of a royal princess, who languished for years in the prison hard by,
and at last was found one morning with her lovely head resting on that verse,
and the tears still moist upon the page. Her weariness had found its pillow on
His breast. So let us rest before the icy hand of death will still our throbbing
pulses, and leaning there on His strength find:

“His fullness lies around our incompleteness, Round our restlessness His rest.”

SECTION V. -- The Garden. The word “Eden” signifies in the Hebrew, “delight,”
and the word garden has passed into the term “ Paradise,” which represents an
enclosure of natural beauty and culture, combining exquisiteness of scenery and
all the delights of climate and production which natural conditions can secure.
It was not intended as a scene of indolence and sensual delight, but as a
congenial home, and a scene of occupation and service for a holy and happy race.
God always meant his intelligent creatures to be employed, and Heaven will be a
scene of active and continual service. This primeval paradise stands as a symbol
of our future home, and is reproduced with higher conditions of felicity and
glory in the closing chapter of Revelations, and the vision of the future state
of the glorified. That it will be a scene of delight in the physical beauty and
perfection of the millennial earth and the new earth and heaven, there can be no
question. Not forever will the soil of earth bring forth its piercing thorns and
poison plants, rugged rocks and barren wastes. The blood of Calvary has redeemed
and brought back an inheritance, infinitely more than Adam lost. “Instead of the
thorn will come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier will come up the
myrtle tree.” “For you will yet go out with joy, and be led forth with peace;
the mountains and the hills will break forth before you into singing, and all
the trees of the fields will clap their hands.” Man's highest dream of beauty
and God's divine ideal of blessing will be fully realized, and earth will smile
in all the loveliness of Paradise restored. Let us therefore look upon the
picture and hasten its realization by laboring and praying for His coming.
Without Him earth never can become a paradise again. The figure of the garden is
strangely linked with all the scenes of redemption. Not only does it recall the
happy memories of Eden, and the sad story of the fall, but it was in a garden
that the tides of sin and judgment were rolled back by a suffering Redeemer,
when with agony unutterable and sweat-like drops of blood He canceled our sins
in Gethsemane, and planted in the garden of our life by those blood-drops the
seed of hope and promise. It was in a garden, too, that he was buried and that
the seed of His own precious body was planted as a corn of wheat which fell into
the ground to die according to His own sublime figure. And it was in a garden
that He rose again; it was forth from the spring blossoms and vernal sunshine of
that Easter morning that the seed of promise sprang into immortal life and
light, and the hopes of our salvation and glory emerged in the resurrection life
of Jesus. The garden of Gethsemane, and the garden of Joseph have undone the
wrong of the garden of the Fall, and opened the gates of Eden and its innocence
and happiness again. So the figure of the garden is carried in the rich
symbolism of the prophets and poets of the Bible into the region of our
spiritual life. “A garden enclosed, an orchard of pomegranates” and precious
fruits and heavenly flowers, is the metaphor by which the Master describes his
work of grace in the consecrated heart. The graces of the Christian life are
exhibited under the figure of all the fruits of nature; the care of the
husbandman is illustrated by the methods and forms of human culture; and even
the rivers of Eden became a suggestion if not a symbol of the streams of grace
which make glad the City of God. The crown of the restored earth and the
glorified heaven is the last garden of the divine panorama. There all the
blessedness will be more than restored; the river of the water of life will flow
through its midst from the very throne of God and the Lamb; all trees of beauty
and fruitfulness will cover its banks and yield fruit not only according to the
seasons of earth, but every month, in a perpetual fullness and fruitfulness of
life and delight; and there will be no more curse, nor night, nor death, nor
even the occasional visitation of God, for it will be his personal abode and the
metropolis of all creation. The tabernacle of God will be with men, and earth
and heaven will be the eternal home of Christ and His redeemed, and the scene of
a blessedness which our highest thought cannot even conceive.

SECTION VI. -- The Tree of Life. This is described in literal terms as one of
the actual productions of the garden. It was in the midst of the garden, and
perhaps its crowning production and glory. It is evident that it was the means
of sustaining and perpetuating the physical life of man, for after the fall it
was withdrawn from his reach for the express reason that it was not now fitting
with his fallen nature that he should still partake of it and thus live forever.
A perpetual physical life in his new condition would not only be contrary to the
curse already pronounced, but would itself be a curse to him. It is therefore
plain that even in Eden his physical life was not self-sustaining, but dependent
upon supplies from sources beyond himself. Was it not designed thus to teach us
that our physical life is not self-constituted, but needs to be divinely
sustained? If the tree of life is a type of Jesus Christ, if he is the source
and center of all life to fallen man, then the lesson is most emphatic and
blessed that He is to us the source of our physical as well as our spiritual
strength and well-being. Did he not teach this expressly in His own words in the
temptation: “Man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds
from the mouth of God; “and still more clearly and vividly in his discourse
concerning the living bread, “He that eateth me will live by me; he that eateth
my flesh and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him”? It may be
objected that the tree of life was withdrawn after the fall, and that this
teaches us that we have no right to look for supernatural physical strength on
account of our fallen state and moral curse. But in the revelation of mercy made
after his fall, we are told in language which we will more fully expound in the
next chapter, that God placed at the gate of the garden cherubim, &c., “to keep
the way to the tree of life;” not to close the way, but to keep the way. Now, if
these cherubim were, as we will find, types of Christ and His redeeming work,
the meaning is very beautiful and clear, that while the fall has shut us out
from Eden and the old sources of life, and we can no longer approach the tree of
life through Eden, yet there is a new way to it provided through Christ, and
that we can approach it by way of the cherubim, that is, by the way of the Lord
Jesus, and through Him receive its life-giving strength in the measure of our
need for this mortal state; and then by and by partake of His fullness in the
resurrection glory of the Eternal Future. Have we understood these things?
“Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, is like
unto a man that is an householder, who brings out of his treasure things new and
old.” Have we received not only the truth, but “the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given us of God”? We are in the Palace
Beautiful; the Interpreter leads us, and as he shows us all its treasures, he
stops and adds, “These things are all your own.” Have we received them? -- the
new creation, the bridegroom's love, the rest of God, the flowers and fruits of
His spiritual husbandry, and the life of Christ to be made manifest even in our
mortal flesh? Then, indeed, for us is it true even now, “He that sits upon the
throne says, behold I make all things new. And he said it is done; I will give
unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that
overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be my
son.”


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  CHAPTER 3: BOOK 1 CH. 2 - EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF FALL
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Book 1 Chapter 2 EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF THE FALL. The inspired account of
man's first disobedience and its bitter fruits, is but too real and literal; but
back of the simple narrative there lies much deep spiritual symbolism and
significance, vividly illustrating not only the dark shadows of sin and misery,
but also the whole contrasted light and glory of grace and redemption.

SECTION I -- The Serpent, or Temptation

While, of course, we believe that there was a literal serpent employed as the
instrument in temptation, yet the whole language of the Bible unfolds with clear
and emphatic fullness, a mightier personality back of the ostensible agent to
whom this name is applied in many subsequent allusions. The New Testament
writers invariably speak of Satan under this figure, and the closing scenes of
the Apocalypse unveil the vision of his final judgment and destruction. THE
LITERAL SERPENT. That Satan should come to our first parents in this disguise
should not surprise us, and does not seem to have startled Eve herself. Not
knowing yet all the properties and qualities of even the natural creation, she
may have supposed that there was nothing extraordinary in the serpent addressing
her. Never having been tempted before, she could not be supposed to have been on
her guard against temptation. For us the lesson is obvious and solemn that
temptation will not assail us usually in its naked repulsiveness, and in the
undisguised form of its satanic force, but through some unexpected second cause,
and always through that which we will be least liable to suspect. The
traditional idea that the devil came to our Lord with cloven foot and demoniac
form is contrary to the very idea of temptation; such a creature would scarcely
mislead or persuade. An old Scotchman, looking at such a picture of the
temptation, smiled sarcastically at the figure of the fiend, and drily answered,
"Yon devil would never tempt me." Let us therefore be looking for the insidious
approaches of evil, not in startling apparitions, nor extraordinary
manifestations, but in the simplest concerns and most commonplace occurrences
and objects of our every day lives, and ever remember that the price of safety
is eternal vigilance. THE REAL TEMPTER.

We need not say that this was the devil; Isaiah calls him "Leviathan, the
piercing serpent, even leviathan, that serpent, and the dragon that is in the
sea." Paul calls him the serpent that deceived Eve through subtlety, and John
calls him that old serpent, the dragon which is the Devil and Satan. The literal
serpent is probably the most perfect type of his spiritual qualities. Of his
history we understand enough to know that he was originally one of the most
intelligent and brilliant of created beings -- "the anointed cherub, perfect in
his ways until iniquity was found in him -- and whose heart was lifted up
because of his beauty -- and he corrupted his wisdom by reason of his brightness
-- and had walked up and down in the midst of the stones and fire upon the holy
mountain of God. " He is the embodiment of knowledge without purity; of wisdom
devoid of principle; and the most brilliant qualities of intellect coupled with
motives the most selfish, malignant and desperately wicked. Like the serpent,
his chief resource is guile; his wiles are more to be dreaded than his direct
assaults. It is evident from this record that his career of wickedness and ruin
had already long ago begun. He had dragged down with him in his desperate course
the angels who kept not their first estate, and now he had come to wreck the
purity and happiness of the fair new world that had just sprung from the
Creator's hand. Why God should allow, even for a season, such an influence to
touch his creation, is one of the mysteries of the divine government, which is
practically the same as the question of temptation in our lives day by day. This
is probably a sufficient reason -- that good must be tested before it can be
rewarded, and that all character and righteousness must be devil-proof before it
can be finally approved and recompensed. THE METHOD OF THE TEMPTATION. His first
word to Eve is an unqualified "Yea;" a complete assent to all that he was about
to question and deny; an absolute and utterly deceiving disguise intended to
throw her off her guard by taking sides with her, in order that, from her own
standpoint, he might bring her to his. Thus he ever approaches us. He always
prefers to fight his battle from our side of the field. He would much rather
work from a Christian pulpit than from infidel press or even a theatrical stage.
His very first utterance is an unblushing lie, and from that day whenever he has
said ‘yes,’ he has always meant ‘no.’ Our Savior calls him a liar and the father
of lies. The true way to understand and checkmate him is always to read him by
contraries, and treat his promises as curses, and his terrific threats as the
pledges of divine blessing. His second word is a question. It has been said that
the interrogation punctuation is simply the figure of a crooked serpent -- so
that has ever been his favorite weapon. Not directly does he assail our faith,
but adroitly insinuates the finest shades of inquiry; and then when he has
lodged it, like the adhesive film of a spider's web, he proceeds, with exquisite
skill and celerity, to weave around it the meshes of his fatal snare. His
questions are always directed against the Word of God, "Hath God said?" is still
his favorite shaft, and it is never so effectual as when proceeded and winged by
the old "Yea" of the garden. The atheistic "God hath not said" of Voltaire or
Paine is not half so dangerous as the finely insinuating skepticism of his
chosen instrument in the religious pulpit and press. Our day is flooded with its
arrows of false and fatal liberalism. Soon comes the next stage: "Ye shall not
surely die." The spirit of skepticism in regard to the inspiration of the
Scripture is always followed by the loosening of the sanctions of divine
government, and the denial of retribution. The wide spread and pernicious
teachings of such multitudes of so-called consecrated voices in denial of future
punishment, and the attempt to establish a system of easy indulgence and
boundless probation for the impenitent and obstinate are but the voices of Eden
repeated in multiplied echoes in these last times, when the ages meet before the
end, and the prototypes of the past are receiving their last and highest
fulfillment.

Let us observe that Satan's promise to Eve: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil" was not altogether false. The devil does not always lie, else his
falsehoods would not be credited. His statements have enough of truth in them to
float them; his drugs enough sweetness to make them palatable; his promises
enough credibility in them to inveigle us into his snare. His victims do,
indeed, become as gods, even as he himself had become, by renouncing the
authority of God, and becoming the master of his own will and the lord of his
own life. But this is the very curse of our fallen state, and one from which we
can only be saved by the death of self and the resurrection life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. As we turn from this scene, what a sad and solemn picture is this
first temptation -- an Eden of delight; the rich inheritance of every blessing;
the very hour of uttermost love on the part of heaven; and yet the hour of
peril; the hour and power of darkness; the chosen hour of our temper and
destroyer; an hour which sufficed to wreck a world and overshadow a whole
eternity. It is to our Eden that the serpent comes in the moment of our most
apparent security. Let us "watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation."

SECTION II -- The Tree of Knowledge, or the First Sin. That this was a literal
tree is implied in the narrative; the name applied to it may have been given
because of some property in it to stimulate and impart a forbidden wisdom, but
more probably because through eating it and thus entering into a condition of
sin, man in his own experience obtained the secret of knowledge of evil and the
difference between good and evil. It suggests the important lesson that Satan's
chief assaults upon us are directed against our understanding, and that we are
in chief danger of falling through our intellect. The symbolical tree of evil is
a tree of knowledge; the symbol of good is the tree of life. The devil's promise
to us is superior wisdom; the Lord's gift to us is eternal life. The boasted
wisdom of the world is foolishness with God; the chief obstacle to simple faith
is the spirit of human reasoning and our over-confidence in our own thoughts and
judgments. Therefore if any man will be taught of God, "he must first become a
fool that he may be wise."

Rowland Hill used to say that the greatest need of many men was to amputate
their bodies just above their shirt collars. Before we can be truly taught and
led of the Spirit we must first be beheaded and then re-headed in Christ.
Without Christ the tree of knowledge is a curse. The process of divine knowledge
is life first, "and the life was the light of men." The knowledge of evil is
especially to be dreaded. Innocency consists largely in ignorance of evil, and
the sooner we come to realize it, the more surely will we renounce this
forbidden fruit and reach the scriptural idea, "wise concerning that which is
good, simple concerning evil." The process of sin and temptation in the mind of
Eve in connection with the forbidden tree is as instructive as on the side of
the tempter. First we see it as it touches her lower nature and excites her
physical appetites. She saw that the tree was "good for food." This is "the lust
of the flesh " which John mentions as the first stage of sinful desire. Next she
sees that it is "pleasant to the eyes;" this is the aesthetic stage, the contact
of temptation with the psychical nature, representing the solicitations that
approach our tastes, sensibilities, and intellect and emotional nature. And
finally it reaches her more spiritual sensibilities appears as a tree to "be
desired to make one wise," representing the spiritual temptations with which the
adversary still assails our higher nature, and with which John closes the
trinity of evil desire, namely: "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life." All these three stages of temptation we see in the
conflict in the wilderness, in the life of Christ Himself, in which he so
gloriously conquered where Eve had fallen, and left for us the secret and pledge
of victory. The most solemn lesson that comes to us from this emblem of sin is
the fact that in itself the act of Eve was one of comparatively trifling
importance. There was nothing in the inherent quality of the sin that appeared
to make it frightful. That eating of one simple fruit could bring very serious
consequences, naturally must have seemed improbable. Had it been an act of great
profanity, bloody crime, or incendiary violence we would have been prepared for
some disastrous consequences; but for a thing so trifling as the taste of a
single apple to be the pivot of a world's destiny is indeed startling. But here
lies the very essence of moral principle and the fine line which separates right
and wrong as wide as the poles, namely: that right is right, and wrong is wrong
in no degree because of the circumstances or the consequences, but absolutely
because of the principle; and the less important the circumstances are, the more
is the principle really emphasized. When we do a thing or refrain from doing it
because of adverse results that will follow, we are acting from some other
motive; but when it is so unimportant in itself as to be disentangled from all
other issues, and the act is performed simply because of the command itself,
then it is manifestly a more perfect act of absolute obedience. The great tests
of obedience therefore often lie in very little things. If we can disobey God in
what seems a trifle, we exhibit the spirit of disobedience pure and simple, and
when we obey him in the minutest trifle which we may not even understand, and
whose consequences we cannot be capable of reasoning out, our obedience is most
perfect and pleasing to Him. Therefore we find that Saul lost his kingdom
through one little act of disobedience, and the old prophet of Israel lost his
life by simply going home to sleep in the house of his friend contrary to the
divine command; while on the other hand, Abraham's covenant was established
through an act of rigid obedience to a command that seemed incomprehensible. Eve
wrecked the world by one little disobedience, and the issues of our lives
likewise are ever turning on pivots as fine as the jewels around which the
delicate wheels of our watches revolve. The root of sin in this sad picture is
doubt, the tree is disobedience, and the fruit is death.

SECTION III -- The Fig Leaves The first effect of sin is shame, a sense of
nakedness, a strange consciousness which makes even that which was innocent and
pure, repulsive and wrong. When we disobey God even the holiest things of life
and nature are defiled. The guilty pair at once discover that they have the
knowledge of evil, and their sense of shame and nakedness implies far more than
mere physical consciousness for it is the beginning of an evil conscience, and
the gnawing of that self-reproach which constitutes the curse of sin. The
instinct which seeks a covering for their persons in the fig leaves of the
garden is a symbol of the vain attempts of man's guilt in every age to find some
covering for its shame and from its penalty. This may stand for the excuses and
attempts at palliation with which the soul first seeks to avoid the issue and
cover its guilt. This we see in the miserable pretexts and mutual recriminations
of Adam and Eve in this chapter. Then the fig leaves may stand also for man's
self-righteousness, represented in the next chapter by the offering of Cain, and
in subsequent ages by the ceremonies and external services of earth's false
religions, which can never cover the nakedness of the sinful heart or satisfy
God's demands upon our perfect love and purity. Perhaps more than anything else
these coverings represent the innumerable devices of mankind to settle the
question of sin and satisfy the guilty conscience -- through sacrifices,
self-inflicted tortures and all the cruel and abominable rites of heathen
idolatry. All these are but filthy rags from which the hand of inexorable
justice will strip the trembling, sinner, and expose his naked guilt to the
piercing eye and impartial judgment of God. Sinner, how have you covered your
naked soul, and satisfied your guilty conscience? There is but one robe that can
hide your sin and cover your nakedness -- the seamless garment of Christ's
righteousness.

SECTION IV -- The Promised Seed The first word of judgment in this dark hour is
pronounced upon the serpent in the hearing of the two trembling sinful ones, and
it is a word for them of strange and, perhaps, at the time, incomprehensible
mercy. "Her seed shall bruise thy head." This is the first promise of
redemption. The marvelous thing about it to us is the calm and infinite
resources of divine grace which had already prepared this wonderful remedy, and,
without one expression of impatience or perplexity, proceeds to unfold the
purposes of salvation which is to undo the wreck of this awful hour. Had we been
suddenly called to face such an issue, and found our kindest purposes thus
blasted by the wickedness of our enemy and the faithlessness of our friends, we
should have been overwhelmed with disappointment and indignation. But God is
ready even for this issue. Ages before He had prepared His plan, "the Lamb was
slain from the foundation of the world;" and, reserving the judgment of the
transgressors until He has first provided the remedy, He begins to unroll the
scroll of redeeming promise which, at the last, reaches its fulfillment in the
Cross of Calvary and the consummation of redemption. Marvelous riches of grace
which loved us, even when we were dead in sins, "that in the ages to come He
might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness towards us by
Christ Jesus!" The language of this promise through all the veil of the symbol
and figure glows with the very love and effulgence of the gospel. The very term
‘seed’ suggests the figure which the Master applied to Himself as the great
natural type of life through death. He is the true seed of all spiritual life
planted like the corn of wheat in the soil to die, but springing forth to bear
much fruit in His spiritual offspring. The seed of the woman is the revealing of
the mystery on the incarnation and the babe of the virgin, and contains a gentle
hint for the comfort of poor Eve that her part in the fall should yet be
counteracted by her glorious ministry in the plan of redemption. The bruising of
the serpent's head, and the enmity which God proclaimed from this hour between
the serpent and the seed was the breach of the unholy alliance which Satan had
tried to form with the new race, and the gracious pledge that the battle of
human redemption henceforth was not between man and Satan, but between Christ
and the adversary, and should end in the triumph of redemption and the defeat
and destruction of the evil one. But one dark and sad coloring blends with all
this glory and victory, and that is the picture of a suffering Savior. "Thou
shalt bruise His heel," is a vision of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the bleeding
and dying of Satan's conqueror.

"He sank beneath our bitter woes, To raise us to His throne; There's not a gift
His love bestows, But cost His heart a groan."

SECTION V -- The Coats of Skins

"Unto Adam and his wife also did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed
them." Back of this simple statement there lies a whole world of spiritual
suggestiveness. Why should the skins of animals be taken for their covering when
so many simpler robes might have been provided, without the cost even of animal
life and suffering? Why should death so soon follow, especially upon the
unoffending creatures around them? The next chapter introduces the picture of
sacrifice, and we see the bleeding, dying lamb atoning on the altar -- the
divinely appointed victim for Abel's sin. When was this rite inaugurated? Why
not at this moment when the plan of salvation had just been revealed, and the
suffering Redeemer promised? What more proper than that our trembling parents
should have been taught in the strange mystery of suffering and death on the
part of the bleeding lamb which they were called to sacrifice, the meaning of
the death they had incurred, and the sacrificial death of Him who was to save
them from its eternal bitterness. And then, as its blood was sprinkled on the
altar, and its flesh consumed in the symbolical fire, how perfectly it would
have expressed the justifying righteousness of the coming Savior, to take its
skin and robe them with its covering instead of the fig leaves of their own
self-righteousness. A shepherd once illustrated this thought with singular
beauty. One of his sheep had just lost her lamb, and he tried to induce her to
take the care of another lamb, but in vain Then he flayed the dead lamb, and
covered the living one with its skin. At once the mother's attitude changed;
instead of rebuffing she welcomed the little nursling, and with the most
demonstrative affection gave it the place of her own. So in Christ's robe, and
united with His life and righteousness, we are accepted in the beloved and stand
in the same relation to our heavenly Father as His own dear Son. Dear friend,
have you known the blessedness of the man whose transgression is thus forgiven,
and learned to sing:

"Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness, Thy beauty is my glorious dress."

SECTION VI -- The Cherubim The last and sublimest symbol of this scene was the
figure which God placed at the gate of Eden under the name of cherubim and the
flaming sword to keep or guard the way of the tree of life. We are enabled to
discover much of the spiritual meaning of these strange figures from their
places in subsequent pictures and revelations. They reappear in the Tabernacle
as the complement and crown of the mercy-seat before the ark, and were beaten
out of the same piece of gold, implying certainly that they must have the same
significance. This imperatively points to the person and work of Jesus Christ,
of which the mercy-seat and ark were the most perfect symbols. We find them
again in the visions of Ezekiel connected with the gracious presence of God as
He reveals His purposes to save Israel, and then subsequently withdraws His
presence from the sanctuary until His plan of judgment has been fulfilled. And,
finally, we meet this symbol in the book of Revelation as the four living
creatures connected with the throne and the Lamb, and singing the song of
redemption unto Him that redeemed us out of every kindred, tribe and nation.
There they seem not only to represent the person of Christ, but more especially
His redeemed people.

Without dwelling in detail upon the argument for this opinion, it is sufficient
for the purposes of this volume to assume that they stand as divine symbols --
first, of the person and attributes of the Lord Jesus Christ, as our Redeemer
and Head; and secondly, as the representatives and types of His redeemed people
-- on the glorious principle, so divinely true, that as He is, so are we also,
and that the glory, which belongs to Him, He has given to us, and we shall
share. Therefore the symbol -- which, in the tabernacle and in the garden,
personifies Christ more especially and in the Apocalypse of John represents
rather Christ's people; having passed in the great process of redemption into
fulfillment in the glory and salvation of His followers, who at length share His
preeminence and throne -- is the type of redeemed humanity: firstly, in the
person of its glorious Head, and, finally, in His ransomed and glorified people.
With this in view the details of the symbol become most instructive and
beautiful. They comprised and combined a figure with outstretched wings and four
faces. The first represented a man, and so stands for the perfect humanity of
the Lord Jesus Christ and His people, and the human qualities of affection and
intelligence thus symbolized. The second face was that of a lion, signifying the
lordship and kingliness of Christ and His people. The third, the face of an ox,
expressed the two ideas of strength and sacrifice, which were so gloriously
exemplified in His might and suffering, and into which we must also enter in the
fullness of His fellowship. The fourth was the face of an eagle, sublimely
suggesting keenness of vision and loftiness of flight, and the exalted place of
glory and blessing to which both Christ and His followers rise in the
consummation of the plan of grace. All this is so true that the early fathers
used these four symbols as the signs of the four gospels. Matthew representing
the lion; Mark, the ox; Luke, the man, and John, the soaring eagle -- God's
fourfold picture of His Son. One by one we, too, are following in sublime
procession and entering into the spirit of the new man, and the Son of Man, the
kingliness of His Sonship, the strength and patience of His crucified and risen
life, and the intimacy and exaltation of His ascension and heavenly fellowship;
and bye and bye we shall stand with Him in all the glory of His mediatorial
throne, and shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of our Father. This was the
ideal of redeemed humanity which God placed as a group of heavenly statuary, as
a pledge of our future destiny, as the goal of our highest aspirations, at the
very threshold of man's lost inheritance, and in the very hour of man's deepest
fall and darkest gloom. So ever, when things seem the saddest and even our fears
have almost overwhelmed us, the same unconquerable love meets our helplessness,
lifts up our sinking weakness, and points our languishing eye forward and upward
to the prize set before us, and purchased for us by the glorious Captain of our
salvation. Let us rise to meet His marvelous love. Let us realize these infinite
and eternal possibilities. Let us claim these divine resources and promises,
and, from the gates of Paradise lost, begin the pathway which leads by the way
of the cherubim to the closing pictures of Revelation, and the open gates of
Paradise restored.


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  CHAPTER 4: BOOK 1 CH. 3 - EMBLEMS FROM ANTEDILUVIAN TIMES
========================================================================

Book 1 Chapter 3 EMBLEMS FROM ANTEDILUVIAN TIMES.

SECTION I -- Abel's Sacrifice In the two sons of Adam and Eve, human nature
branched into its two great families, and these two races have since filled up
the story of human life. The first born was, and still is, after the flesh. The
type of faith and spiritual life came afterwards according to the inspired
order, "that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural and
afterwards that which is spiritual." Like the spiritual seed still, Abel was
naturally weak; his very name signifies "a breath," and seems to express the
thought of his frailty as perhaps may have seemed fitting to his disappointed
mother in his infant feebleness. His chosen occupation, a shepherd, indicates,
perhaps, a quiet, thoughtful spirit, free from the world's coarse ambitions; and
brings him into the line of Abraham, David, and others of God's chosen ones, and
makes him a fitting type of the Great Shepherd whom his own death afterwards
prefigured. He is the first definite example in the Holy Scriptures of the rite
of sacrificial worship, and is mentioned in this connection in the epistle to
the Hebrews as the first type of justifying faith. No doubt the institution of
sacrifice had already been given to our first parents, but Abel is the first
whom we behold bringing his lamb to the gate of Eden, and presenting his
bleeding offering on the divine altar beneath the brooding wings of the
Cherubim. "By faith," we are told, "Abel offered unto God a more excellent
sacrifice than Cain, and by it he obtained witness that he was righteous, God
testifying of his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh." Abel's
sacrifice, therefore, speaks to us through six thousand years as the keynote of
the Gospel of Redemption. Other voices have spoken since, but this forever will
be the first. His life was brief and simple, but this one act is enough to place
its testimony in the very front of the cloud of witnesses, and to give him
throughout eternity the foremost place in the choir that shall sing around the
throne “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power and riches and
wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”

1. Abel's sacrifice was a type of Christ's atoning death, and he no doubt
understood it as the ground of his personal acceptance as a sinner in the sight
of God. The language used respecting it in the fourth chapter of Genesis seems
to identify it both with the sin offering and the peace offering of the latter
Mosaic ordinances. The words of God to Cain in the seventh verse, which may be
translated, "a sin offering lieth at the door," would seem to give this
significance to Abel's sacrifice; and the reference to the fat in the fourth
verse clearly identifies it with the peace offering of Leviticus, in which the
fat was especially offered to God as representing his part in the offering of
Christ. These two offerings, as we shall find later in the discussion of this
subject in Leviticus, expressed, with great beauty and vividness, the effect of
Christ's death in expiating and fully cancelling our sins, and bringing us into
reconciliation and communion with God. The specific idea of the peace offering
was that of a feast of fellowship between God and the sinner. He fed upon the
fat of the sacrifice, and the sinner upon the flesh, while the blood made
atonement and put away both the guilt and consciousness of sin. However fully
these details may have been revealed to Abel, it is at least certain that he
presented his lamb as an expression of simple faith in the atonement of Jesus
Christ, and was justified precisely as we are under the Gospel.

2. His doing this was an acknowledgment of sin and a taking the place of a lost
and guilty man at the footstool of mercy, deserving nothing but the judgment of
God, and the same suffering and death which he witnessed in the helpless victim
whose agonies and death before his eyes were the most affecting picture of what
he deserved and what he escaped. This was what Cain refused to do, and the real
reason why human nature ever since has also refused to accept the doctrine of
Christ's cross and found it an offence. It is the humiliating confession that we
are lost and guilty. A man will not submit to this so long as he can vindicate
or help to justify himself; therefore conviction of sin and deep penitence are
involved in true faith in Christ, and form the first stage of the Holy Spirit's
saving work in our hearts. And so, in every stage, profound humility keeps step
with highest trust, and the cross of Jesus is God's chief instrument for
convicting us of sin and crucifying us to ourselves as well as to the world. No
soul can see its Savior until it sees its sin, and then it will most deeply see
and feel its sin, when it beholds its Savior. We must take the place of the
publican, before we can take the place of the pardoned. The only believing
ground is on our face at the foot of the cross with the penitent's appeal, "God
be merciful to me a sinner."

3. Abel's act was an act of obedience and submission to God's revealed plan of
mercy as it had been already, no doubt, made known to our first parents since
the fall. This was the gospel of that early day, and in receiving it, Abel did
exactly what we are commanded to do now, and what the pride and unbelief of Cain
and all his race have ever since refused to do. "Going about to establish their
own righteousness, they have not submitted themselves unto the righteous God,
for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."
Abel did not stop to reason about the matter, but he simply came in God's
appointed way and was accepted. This is faith, and everything else is unbelief.
Cain tried to invent a way of his own and perished. Naaman thought that the
waters of Abana and Pharpar of Damascus were as good as the Jordan, and he, too,
would have perished had he not afterwards obeyed God's very instructions. The
Pharisees were of the same race, and through the pride of their unbelief they
lost the salvation of their own Messiah. And so, today, the two classes are
following in the same opposite lines; the one taking their own way, and the
other submitting to God's way. Where are we standing? Let us yield our hearts
implicitly to the obedience of faith. Let us submit ourselves to His judgment as
condemned sinners, and then to His grace as pardoned sinners; and we can claim
not only His mercy, but His justice and faithfulness to vindicate us as we meet
Him on His own ground, and approach Him through His own appointed way.

4. We are told by the apostle that Abel's sacrifice involved a still further
element, namely: believing that he was justified and righteous through the
merits of his offering. Not only did he believe that he was a sinner, but he
believed as strongly that now he was a pardoned sinner. Not only did he take the
place of condemnation at God's word, but he rose also to the place of acceptance
and sonship, "By faith he obtained witness that he was righteous." Faith must
not stop with the penitent's plea, but must rise to the song of the pardoned: "O
Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned
away, and thou comfortest me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not
be afraid." There is no presumption in this; it is simply honoring God's own
word, and it pleases Him far better than our tears and pleadings after we have
claimed the promise and the blood. His absolute word is, "If we confess our
sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." Not to believe this and take our stand upon it is to make Him
a liar, and to add the sin of unbelief to the sins which we are confessing.
There would have been no humility in the prodigal's skulking in the kitchen
after his father's tears and embraces of reconciliation. The good Francis De
Sales was once visited by a poor, trembling sinner, who proceeded to tell him,
with bitter tears, of his life of infamous wickedness. The good man listened,
and then knelt with the penitent, and claimed the divine forgiveness in a few
simple words of trust, and then, turning to the penitent, said: "Now, my dear
brother, I want you to pray for me and bless me." The man was thunderstruck.
"Bless you," he replied, with deep humility, "how can such a vile sinner as I
presume to bless a holy man like you?" "Why, my dear brother," replied the good
saint, "you are a vile sinner no more; have you not just been washed in the
blood and clothed in the spotless raiment of the Lamb, even more recently than
I, and just as perfectly as I, and therefore I want the first touch of your new
blessing." The man at once saw the position that God required him to take, and
trembling for very gladness he dared to claim his place as a child of infinite
and everlasting love.

Yes, this is indeed our place, "IN WHOM HE HATH MADE US ACCEPTED IN THE SON OF
HIS LOVE." O! what a transformation! What a miracle of divine transition! One
moment lost, the next saved; now a child of the wrath, then a child of God; in
the same hour reeking with blood-guiltiness, and whiter than the snow. O! have
you claimed your place? Will you accept this unspeakable gift?

"Helpless and foul as the trampled snow; Sinner, despair not! Christ stoopeth
low To rescue the soul that is lost in its sin, And raise it to life and
enjoyment again. Groaning, bleeding, dying for thee, The Crucified hung on the
accursed tree; His accents of mercy fall soft on thine ear -- Is there mercy for
me? Will He heed my prayer? O God! in the stream that for sinners did flow, Wash
me, and I shall be whiter than snow."

Abel received this consciousness by simply believing. There is no doubt,
however, that God added, after he believed, a visible token of the acceptance of
his sacrifice, which is expressed by the words, "God had respect unto Abel and
his offering." So our faith in Christ's promise is also sealed by the witness of
God and the stamp of the Holy Ghost upon our heart, and also by the new place of
love, honor and blessing to which God at once exalts us. This is expressed by
the word "respect." God treats us with divine respect. The moment we become
united to Christ, we are the objects of His highest consideration; we are
entitled to the regard He gives to His own dear Son; our persons, our prayers
and all our interests become infinitely important to Him, and every angel in
heaven is proud to minister to our welfare, and wait His bidding for His sons
and daughters. O! what a place of honor and dignity does Christ bring us to!
"Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be
called the sons of God."

6. But Abel also had to suffer for his faith. It cost him his life. He was not
only the first witness to faith, but also the first martyr for Jesus; and,
therefore, the word "witness" and martyr are the same word in the Greek
language, and in the 11th chapter of Hebrews. Oftentimes our testimony for
Christ must be through suffering, and sometimes through death. While we rejoice
in the honors of our high calling, let us also be true to our testimony, so that
not only while we live, but even "being dead " we shall, like Abel, "yet speak."

SECTION II -- Cain's Fruits and Flowers. The firstborn of Eve was welcomed by
her fond maternal heart with a name which expressed all the pride and promise of
earthly hope. She called him "a possession." She cried, "I have gotten a man,"
and, alas, he was but a man; the true type of flesh and humanity. His life as a
husbandman may perhaps have expressed, in some measure, his proud resolve to
overcome the curse of the fall, and force from the ground by skill and culture
something that would contradict or counteract the thorns and thistles of the
curse. He was proud of his work, and no doubt forgot that the ground had been
cursed for man's sin. Not only did it become the sphere of his occupation, but
also the symbol of his spirit. His heart and life were of the earth earthy. He
knew no higher religion than that which was born of earth, and had no higher aim
and instinct than its pleasures and pursuits. And so when the time comes for
public worship, the offering he brings is simply the fruit of his own farm, and
the products of his own works. He recognizes no condition of sin or need of
forgiveness, but treats God on equal terms, as one with whom he feels at liberty
to exchange presents as with a human friend. He is not without religion, as few
men are, but his religion has no recognition of sin, and therefore no need for
atonement. At the same time it may have been a very beautiful religion, as the
religions without Christ often are. His altar at Eden's gate must have been much
more attractive to the eye than Abel's; it was probably a tasteful rustic scene,
perhaps festooned with flowers and vines, laden with the yellow ears of harvest
and the many tinted fruits of orchard and garden, and worthy of the highest
ideals of psychical culture, which the same spirit today is employing in
oratorical ornaments, musical performances, architectural decorations and all
the splendors of a gorgeous ritual and imposing ceremonialism. As Cain's
offering had no recognition of sin, it had also no place for Christ. There was
no symbol of the coming Savior, no figure of the atoning lamb, no apprehension
of the need of suffering and righteousness to satisfy the Holy God. Such is ever
the characteristic of natural religion; such is ever the test of the true
gospel. To the old monk, in the vigils of his cell, it is said, the devil
appeared in the most fascinating form. He looked like an angel, and spoke like a
god. He said, "I am your Savior; I have come to bring you the assurance of my
love and the vision of my glory, and I want you to worship me." The saint was
almost deceived, but suddenly he turned to his visitor and said, "If you are my
Savior, I will worship you and adore you; but if you are you will not refuse me
the token I ask. If you are Jesus you will have in your hands and feet and side
the print of the nails and the mark of the spear wound." In a moment the
apparition changed; a cloud of blackness passed over his face, and with curses
and hisses he vanished from the room. So we can ever test the true faith and the
true gospel. It will ever have the marks of the crucified. Let us discard all
forms of worship and religion which do not recognize fully our sinful and lost
condition, and exalt with unmistakable definiteness the suffering and
sin-atoning Savior.

Cain's offering was simply his works; the things that he had wrought with his
sinful hands. It is the perfect type of every form of self-righteousness. They
were unacceptable because they were the works of a sinful man, and the fruits of
the accursed ground. And so our best works are tainted by the fact that we who
perform them are sinners, and that they spring from the soil of our human nature
which is already under the curse. There may be varieties and degrees of
depravity, but the highest degree is enough to taint our best righteousness and
make it as "filthy rags." And so Cain was rejected, as every such soul must be
in the presence of God. Where do you stand, dear friend? Have you still your own
righteousness, or have you the righteousness of Jesus Christ? By many persons
this question is regarded as a mere strife of words and question of dogmas, but
we find very sadly in the story of Cain that a man's faith is the real source
and spring of his life and conduct, and that a defect here will be fatal in all
the issues of character and destiny. Unbelief, in Cain, steadily developed into
wickedness of the most violent and aggravated form and led to irretrievable
ruin. The first step is simply self-righteousness and rejecting Christ; the
second is malice, envy and murder. Not all at once did sin grow into these awful
proportions. The word of God to Cain, as He gently pleaded with the erring one
and sought to hold him back from his terrible career, contained a tremendous
figure of the progress of evil. "Sin lieth at the door," has been translated,
"Sin croucheth like a wild beast at the door." His sin was then but a young
lion, and only crouching for its fatal spring. As yet it might be conquered;
"Unto thee shall be its desire, and thou shalt rule over it." That is, now you
can subdue it if you will, but if you wait till it has made its spring, you will
be destroyed. Alas, it became too late for Cain to resist, and the unbeliever
became the bloody murderer and a heaven-exiled fugitive, branded with the
judgment of God. But there is one more stage in Cain's career. This chapter
closes, not with a scene of eternal judgment, but with the bright and
fascinating picture of the first human city and the scenes of early culture,
wealth and sensual delight. Separated from God, and lost to eternal hope, Cain,
like others, turned to the world and became engrossed in its enjoyments and
prospects. The religion that was born of earth, as shown in his city, terminates
with earth. The names of Cain's family and their pursuits are all connected with
the various phases of wealth and culture. It was in his line that arts,
manufactures, riches, and social and sensual pleasures had their birth. There we
see the earliest types of physical beauty, musical taste, ambitious enterprise,
city life, polygamy, and the panorama of earthly pleasure and human culture that
have since grown into such vast proportions, and led men away from God and
righteousness. It is the birth of mammon. It is the type of the world. It is the
attempt of fallen human nature to find a paradise without God. It is the sad and
mocking effort of the heart which has lost its inheritance to find a substitute
beneath the skies; and it will end, as the picture of Cain's city ends, in the
same bloodshed and violence.

SECTION III -- Enoch's Translation

Symbolical numbers and names have a very important place in the Holy Scriptures.
We find both of these in the story of Enoch. He was the seventh from Adam, and
seven is the number of perfection. In him the race reached its ideal type, and
that which God will ultimately bring redeemed humanity to realize, both in
character and destiny; for Enoch realized God's highest ideal in both. He walked
with God, he pleased God, and God took him in a chariot of glory above the
floods of death. His name, also, which signifies “Dedicated,” was a type of his
consecrated life and the root idea of true holiness, namely: single-hearted
dedication to the will and glory of God. It is remarkable that the other race --
the race of Cain -- had an Enoch, too, and that Cain called his city after
Enoch, his firstborn son. Does this not teach us that the world is dedicated to
its aims and its gods with a singleness and strength of service which might well
be a lesson to the children of God? Cain lived for earth with all his might, and
Enoch lived for God with all his heart, and soul, and mind, and strength. The
life and character of Enoch were in bright and lovely contrast with his own age.
Three thoughts give the key to the whole:

(1.) He walked with God; it was not a self-constituted and independent holiness,
but a personal contact with the Father, on whom he leaned for every step and
supply, and with whom he kept step moment by moment, as we may still do on the
heavenly pathway with our blessed Master. The life of holiness is not our life,
but Christ in us, an ever-abiding all-sufficiency and presence.

(2.) Enoch walked by faith. Therefore it was not by works that Enoch pleased
God, but by a life of trust and simple dependence.

(3.) Enoch pleased, and had the testimony that he pleased God. His aim was to
please God; he expected to please God, and he had the consciousness that he
pleased God. He believed that God accepted his simple-hearted purposes, and God
witnessed to his consciousness the sense of an unbroken fellowship.So we may
please him, too. His will for us is not an inexorable or impossible task, but a
gentle and gracious plan adapted to our condition, fitted into the chain of
circumstances every day, and made possible to us by the constant presence and
unfailing resources of His Spirit and grace. Are we thus walking with God, thus
walking by faith, thus pleasing Him, and basking in the light and gladness of
His conscious and constant acceptance? Happy place! If it does not bring us to
heaven in immediate translation, it at least brings heaven down to us. The
fitting climax of such a life was reached at last, and was the most majestic
interposition of God's power in the antediluvian age, as well as the sublime
type and figure of the future that is awaiting the Church of God in these last
days. Without the intervention of death, without fear or pain, and perhaps in
sight of the generation to whom he had witnessed especially of the future
judgment and the coming of Christ, the holy man was translated, like Elijah in
later times, and like his glorious Master from the mount of Olivet, to the
heavenly world. Undoubtedly it is meant for us as a figure of the translation
which awaits the faithful children of God at the second coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. While Noah's deliverance through the ark and the deluge is the figure
rather of the destiny of such as shall pass through the days of tribulation that
are coming upon earth, and be brought safely to the Millennial age beyond us;
Enoch's translation represents rather the glory that awaits the watching ones
whom shall be found walking with God at the beginning of this time of
tribulation. "Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together
with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."

It would seem that this blessed hope is especially linked with a life of
holiness and a fearless testimony to the second Advent, both of which we see
exemplified in holy and faithful Enoch. He lived a life of holiness, and he
preached the Lord's coming; so God put upon his life and testimony this glorious
seal. So let us watch and keep our garments for that day. When the marriage
comes, they that are ready shall go in, and they that love his appearing shall
receive the crown of righteousness.

Thus have we seen in these ancient ages the fulness of the Gospel in type and
symbol; the faith of Abel, the holiness of Enoch, and the hope of glory; and, in
contrast, the unbelief which rejects the blood, finds its portion in the world
and bears its fruits of sin and misery. The Lord save us from the way of Cain,
and lead us and keep us in the faith of Abel, the walk of Enoch, and the hope of
our Master's coming.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 5: BOOK 1 CH. 4 - EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF FLOOD.
========================================================================

Book 1 Chapter 4 EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF THE FLOOD. The deluge has left its
impress on the traditions of all ancient nations and in the structure of the
globe itself. The Greeks have the story of a flood as vivid as the Bible
narrative. The Assyrian inscriptions give accounts of an early inundation very
similar to the account in Genesis. We read the story of the deluge also in the
traces the waters have left upon the rocks of earth, so that the truth of this
part of the Bible history is written ineffaceably in stone.

It is not historically, however, that we wish to look at it so much as in the
light of symbolism, to see what there is of deeper truth lying beneath the
narrative. It would be a great mistake to read the Bible symbolically only; but
it is beautiful to see hidden truths below the history, and above and around it,
like the nebulous light that surrounds certain stars with a cloud of glory.

I -- The Flood Itself This is full of symbolical teaching.

1. It was a sign to man that God is holy and just and pure, and will deal with
sin in righteousness. It was a great object lesson of His retribution for sin.
It was also a foreshadowing of the judgment to come. It is a type of the deluge
of flame that shall one day sweep around the world again. Both our Lord and his
apostles speak of the deluge as a foreshadowing of that coming day "when the
elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are
therein shall be burned up."

"As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of
Man."

2. The deluge is not only a type of judgment, but of salvation also. The
principle of salvation by destruction is taught all through the Bible. The
deluge destroyed sin from the earth but it saved the Church; it swept away the
world of wickedness, but it was the very means of preserving the little flock.
The plagues of Egypt illustrate the same principle; they ended in death to very
many of the Egyptians, but they saved the children of Israel. The destruction of
the Canaanites after the children of Israel entered the land of promise
exemplifies the same truth; their extermination was the salvation of the chosen
people. The cross of Calvary brings us salvation from eternal destruction by the
destruction of sin and Satan in the death of Christ. So in the epistle of Peter
we are told that eight persons were saved "by water." The deluge therefore
stands as a type of the great principle of deliverance by destruction; the
salvation that comes through the love and power of God to His own people by the
very thing that overthrew their enemies.

3. We learn also from the deluge the great principle of death and resurrection;
perhaps this thought could not have been embodied in a more definite and
striking figures In the flood, the little church was buried in a seeming grave,
and came forth on Ararat as if raised from the dead. It was the great type of
Christ's death and resurrection, and it points forward also to His second coming
when the earth shall have passed through its last baptism of suffering and come
forth to the new age of blessedness and purity. And therefore Peter connects it
with the deep spiritual significance of Christian baptism: "The like figure
whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away the filth of the
flesh, but the answer of a good conscience towards God, by the resurrection of
Jesus Christ from the dead."

II -- The Ark This also has a spiritual and typical meaning. It is the picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ as a shelter from the storms of judgment and the
tempests of life.

1. Jesus Christ, like Noah's ark, is God's provision for our safety from the
floods of judgment. The ark was not constructed according to the scientific
plans of human carpenters. It probably would not pass the building department of
our day. But it was a welcome refuge when the storm came. It was built by Noah
in exact conformity to the directions given to him, and it saved all those who
trusted it. Jesus Christ has not been prepared according to man's ideas of
things. "When we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him."
But He is a hiding-place, for those who trust Him, in every time of need. In Him
we are safe from all the floods of judgment that will come upon the ungodly, and
from all the storms and trials of life. And He is the life boat through which
alone we can reach the heights of yonder harbor.

He is the one in whom we die, and in whom we rise again to newness of life. Noah
seemed to die in yonder ark. It was only seeming, however, and he stood ere long
under the rainbow arch in the light and glory of a new world. So we lie down in
baptism in His arms. It is a symbolical tomb, but we do not die. It is in
seeming only. He had the bitterness of death. We have the safety of it. We are
as secure in our seeming death as Noah was in the ark. Through Him we enter into
death, and we come forth in Him into life eternal. Was there ever a ship before
that started from the low lands of earth and landed on the mountain tops that
touch the skies? None indeed, but the ship of grace which sails from earth to
heaven. Was ever such a voyage?

III -- The Raven As the fierce waves of the flood begin to subside, a strange
figure may be seen above the waters, the only thing that is happy and at home in
the wild conflict of the elements and the wastes of desolation. It is the raven
that Noah sent forth from the ark, and it went to and fro upon the waste of
waters until the flood had subsided from the earth. What a type of the great
personality of evil -- the prince of all evil, Satan himself. It is the same
figure of evil omen, whether it is found in him or in his followers.

1. The raven is characterized by restlessness. It went to and fro, to and fro,
constantly, but it returned not again to the ark. It fluttered hither and
thither with weary wing over the tossing wave, finding there its congenial
element in the wild sea, the reeking carrion and the decaying vegetation of
nature. It was a restless soul having no quiet and no repose. What an image of
him who goes about constantly seeking whom he may devour. Image, too, of the
restless, unquiet spirit of man. You can see this unrest in the spirit of the
world, whether in the ballroom or in the counting-house. In the ceaseless round
of excitement he is ever vainly seeking for repose and satisfaction; but he
never shall find it until the raven is cast out of him, and the dove is put
within. In heaven he would have no rest, but would break every barrier in the
wild struggle to get away to find his home in the eternal abyss of darkness, and
the society of other spirits as restless and dissatisfied as himself.

2. The raven is characterized also by great filthiness. It found a congenial
banquet in that from which everything else recoiled. It fed upon corruption. The
dead of the earth lay upon the waves, and they became its prey. There is a
spirit akin to this also in man. It is a type of impurity in life or thought or
feeling. The wild passions in the heart of man, the sensual desires that take
delight in vile pictures, in unrestrained indulgence, in filthy stories, in
abominable literature, or unclean and idle gossip -- these are the desires of
the flesh, they are ravens -- every one.

3. The raven is a bird of great melancholy. His spirit is as morbid as the food
he lives upon. He is the bird of despair. The poet pictures him as sitting above
the door of his heart and crying "nevermore." What a picture of evil,
restlessness, uncleanness and morbidness. May the dear Lord save us from the
reality.

IV -- The Dove

There is another symbol in the ark very different from this. It is the dove. You
will not find it in regions where the raven delights to dwell. It went forth
from the ark with gentle wing and moved for a while over the wild waste of
waters, but unable to stay in the place where the other found its home, it came
back again into the ark. A second time it went forth, and this time it found an
emblem of its own sweet spirit, an olive branch which it plucked from some
springing shrub, and hastened back with it into the ark. A third time Noah sent
it forth, but now the waters were abating from the earth, the flood was passed,
and it did not come back any more.

All this is suggestive of the Holy Spirit and the heart in which He rests. The
three outgoings of the dove from the ark are all symbolical of the work of the
Holy Ghost. The first time it went forth, it fluttered for a time over the
waters, but finding no place of rest, it went back to the ark. So in the ages
before Christ came the Holy Spirit went forth over the earth, looking for a
place of rest, but failing to find one. He touched men here and there, but He
did not always strive with man. He lingered with Abraham, and Isaiah, and
Jeremiah, and David, but He did not come to dwell in the earth because Jesus had
not yet come. He was abroad upon the world, seeking a place where he could build
a nest and remain, but He could not find it, and He returned again to the bosom
of the Father. A second time He came, and this time He did find something. He
came during the ministry of Jesus on the earth. He rested on Him like a dove,
and thus could linger awhile in the world. He plucked an olive leaf of peace
from the cross of Calvary, and, with this token of pardon and reconciliation for
the earth, He went back again to Heaven, with the message that the floods of
judgment were abating. A third time He went forth, and this was on the day of
Pentecost. The world was ready for Him now. The floods had gone, and there was a
place in which He could build a nest, and fold His wings, and rest. And now He
came not as a fluttering guest, but as an abiding presence. He came to build a
nest and rear his young. Beloved, has the gentle dove got a nest in your heart?
Is He rearing His brood in your house? If He has, the spirit of Christ is there,
and "the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
meekness, temperance, faith."

V -- The Altar of Noah As the flood subsided and Noah came forth, he built an
altar, and offered sacrifices unto the Lord, no doubt by divine direction. God
looked down upon the scene with satisfaction. He had long been disgusted with
what He saw on the earth. He had smelt the stench of sin until He could stand it
no longer, and He at last turned the floods of water upon the earth to wash it
away. But the judgment was not sweet to Him either. It was all a great charnel
house, and it was dreadful to Heaven. But at length there was something on earth
that pleased God. "The Lord God smelled a sweet savor."

There are people today who call themselves Christians, and who are preaching in
evangelical churches who either openly repudiate the doctrine of atonement by
the shedding of blood, or so refine it that there is nothing but an apology for
it left; they have taken the blood all out of the gospel; they have done away
entirely with all thought of vicarious suffering for sin on the part of Christ;
they say they cannot bear to hear that God would be willing to butcher His Son
for the sake of sin. It makes him like some wild Indian tiger. They cannot stand
the smell of it -- they call it a doctrine for the shambles. How different is
the story of it here in Genesis. When Noah's altar was erected and the bleeding
victim was burning upon it, we are not told that God turned away in disgust --
the odor to Him was as sweet as the breath of spring blossoms; or of the
frankincense from off the golden altar. He smelled a sweet savor; He saw that
man was no better than he was before; He looked into his heart and saw there the
same black wickedness as ever. He looked at Noah and saw that in a little while
he, too, would be drunk in his tent; and yet in spite of all He promised that He
would not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, "for the imagination
of man's heart is evil from his youth." He would not henceforth expect anything
from man, for he was a poor, helpless creature; but He would count on Jesus
Christ. The cross of Calvary has been sending a sweet odor up to Him continually
ever since. He would not curse man any more, but He would take him at his worst
for Jesus’ sake. From that time He has looked upon man's unworthiness as covered
by Christ's righteousness and counted him worthy for Jesus' sake. When Jesus is
brought to God as an offering He looks at you in Him and smells a sweet savor;
it is the sweet savor of Christ, not of you. Keep Him ever upon the heart's
altar, beloved, burning with the fires of the Holy Ghost; so shall you ever be
sprinkled with the blood of the atonement and God will ever say of you: "This is
my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." Then, too, the Dove will hover over
you and find a home for itself in the surrendered heart, where Father, Son and
Holy Ghost shall make their everlasting abode.

VI -- The Rainbow The sublime and majestic climax of this series of types is
yonder splendid arch spanning the sky as Noah looks back upon the departing
clouds. What a sight it must have been to the eye that first beheld it. Nothing
is more beautiful to the eye of a child than the lofty magnificence of the
rainbow. It is the closing symbol connected with the flood. "I do set my bow in
the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth."
So the rainbow is the token that God's covenant is with us. We read of it in the
book of Revelation as a complete circle: "There was a rainbow round about the
throne, in sight like unto an emerald."

There is a blessed meaning in this for our Christian life. It is the token of
God's covenant with you and me for spiritual blessing. It is a type of the
nearer intimacy into which He designs to bring us. It is a symbol of the
covenant of His everlasting love, "as I have sworn that the waters of Noah shall
no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I will not be wroth with thee
nor rebuke thee. Sorrow is the dark background on which He paints this token of
His love. The rainbow is formed by a combination of light and darkness; the
light shining on the small drops of rain, they are separated into these
beautiful prismatic colors. His grace can take the storm-clouds and teardrops of
our life, and turn them into arches of triumph and jewels of glorious luster.
The time is coming when our rainbow will be a complete circle. We shall not have
half victories then as now. That which we have only half seen, and which has
perplexed and bewildered us, will develop into a full circle of light and glory.
We shall know as we are known, and our sorrow shall be turned into joy.

There has been a difference of opinion as to whether the rainbow had ever been
seen before. Possibly it never had. Science tells us this is nonsense. It says
the causes which produced the rainbow must have existed ever since the creation.
They may have and yet never have caused a rainbow. We do not see a rainbow every
time it rains. God lets the light strike on the cloud frequently at such an
angle that there is no rainbow. Could He not have kept back the sun and rain
from ever getting in that position, which would produce this beautiful
appearance if He had so chosen? Undoubtedly He could. Perhaps for two thousand
years all the causes of the rainbow never combined, but God held them in
suspense until the right moment came, and then He suddenly painted it on the sky
by flashing the light at the exact angle, which should divide the rays into
their prismatic colors, and form the majestic arch for the first time.

Beloved, there are hidden causes in us which could, at any moment, produce
spiritual rainbows. God has kept them back, but some day He will bring them all
out. It is possible to be preparing every day, by patient endurance of trial, by
victories gained through faith in His name, a crown of glory for our head when
God shall let the light shine in on these troubles and temptations, and they
will take in a different aspect, and be turned into triumphal arches and jeweled
crowns on which we shall gaze in raptures of praise and wonder. Thank God, dear
friends, for the things you have not seen yet, the surprises He is preparing for
you out of the very heartbreaks that have been so terrible to you. When He wipes
your tears away you will know that promise to be true: "Our light affliction,
which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal
weight of glory."


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 6: BOOK 1 CH. 5 - EMBLEMS FROM ABRAHAM'S TENT
========================================================================

Book 1 Chapter 5 EMBLEMS FROM ABRAHAM'S TENT.

SECTION I -- Abraham's Tent, or the Pilgrims Life The first symbol we find in
the patriarch's life is his moving tent. He has left the wealth and earthly
prospects of his native home and committed himself to the vicissitudes of a
pilgrim life. While an heir of the world, he is himself to have no certain
dwelling place, but wander as a stranger on earth "looking for a better country,
and a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." The first
lesson of Abraham's tent is that of Christian pilgrimage. Like him, the children
of faith must also be separated from the world and live as strangers and
pilgrims upon earth, confessing that, here, we have no continuing city, but seek
one to come. How little this is realized in the selfishness of modern
Christianity and the worldliness of the professed followers of Christ is very
sad to contemplate. It is not necessary in order to have a spiritual state that
we get out of the world or be isolated from its practical affairs. The real
essence of worldliness is in the spirit rather than in the circumstances; in the
love rather than the possession of earthly things. One may possess millions with
a truly consecrated spirit and be a real miser over a few worthless treasures.
The spirit of consecration requires that the heart shall be detached from
worldly aims and motives, and that we should hold the world as not possessing,
and use it as not abusing it. "For the fashion of the world passeth away." We
should never have our hearts or our interests so invested in the things of life
as not to be able, like Abraham, to emigrate at Gods call to some altered
circumstances, or even to fold our tent altogether and enter upon our eternal
existence. Let us pause and ask ourselves, where is my life invested? Where is
my heart directed? Am I living in a tent, or building for myself a palace of
earthly ambition or indulgence which the hand of death will soon crumble into a
narrow tomb. But again, Abraham's tent not only tells us of the pilgrim life,
but also of the true hopes and eternal promises for which faith must wait, and
possess now only as he possessed the land, as a homeless wanderer. It was all
his own, and yet shall be his literal inheritance; but during his earthly life
he found in it no permanent resting place. So faith must still accept its
heritage and learn, not only to hope, but also quietly wait for the salvation of
God.

SECTION II -- Abraham's Altar, or the Consecrated Life.

Wherever the patriarch rested his tent, there he also erected an altar to his
God. This was the expression, in the first place, of his steadfast faith in the
plan of mercy which God had revealed at the gate of Eden, and through the
sacrifices of His own appointment. This altar represented to his piety all that
for us is involved in the Cross of Calvary and the blood of Jesus. This was ever
the spring of his consecration and the support of his future hopes. He saw afar
off the coming Redeemer, and trusted in His grace even in the dim light of the
Gospel as it was revealed to him in these simple emblems. More clearly
afterwards this mystery of the Savior's death and resurrection was unfolded in
the offering of his own Isaac on the mount, and the substitution of the victim
provided by Jehovah in his place. For us also, the cross of Jesus and the simple
faith which rests in His atoning blood must ever be the source and support of
every grace. But Abraham's altar was not only expressive of the Savior's blood,
but his own consecration. The burnt offering which he was accustomed to lay upon
that altar was the especial expression of the entire devotion of his whole being
to God, of which his obedient life was the constant pledge and evidence, and the
sacrifice even of his dearest affections and divinest promises and hopes was the
last and crowning proof. Not only did he leave his sins at the foot of that
altar and lay himself upon it a living sacrifice, but even the very son that God
had given, and the promises which were linked inseparably with him were also
laid there in unreserved surrender and committal. This is the last and sublimest
height of Christian life, not only to give to God the thing which we have called
our own, but to give back and hold as his the things that he has given, and the
most precious and sacred hopes and trusts of our life. It was this which God so
prized in the spirit of his servant and for which He so blessed and honored him.
Such trust and such consecration need never fear that they can lose aught by
this absolute surrender. Indeed, our blessings are never fully blest until like
Isaac they are given back as from the dead, and henceforth held not as our own,
but as God's deposit in our keeping. Have we come to Abraham's altar? Have we
left our sins beneath its flowing blood, and accepted the atonement of its great
sacrifice, and then have we laid ourselves upon it in identification with that
divine sacrifice, a whole burnt offering unto God? Yes, have we even placed
there our Isaacs of affection -- nay, even of divine promise and spiritual hope
and expectation, and are we holding all, even our most sacred hopes and
interests, as divine trusts committed to us for His service and glory? Thus
alone shall we know the secret of Abraham's faith, as we enter into the fullness
of his consecration. In speaking of the intimacy with which he treats him, God
gives this significant record, "for I know him." While Abraham fully trusted
God, God also felt that he could fully trust Abraham.

Dear friend, can God depend on you and your absolute singleness and fidelity to
Him? Blessed be the glorious grace, we may take Him for this perfect heart.

SECTION III -- Abraham's Seed, or the Faith Life.

It was in regard to the promise of his seed that the patriarch's faith was
chiefly exercised and tested. As first received and understood by him, the
promise referred to his literal offspring, but as the covenant became more
explicit and the light more clear, it extended into vaster meaning, and the
promised seed became to him the symbol of his coming Savior. That this was so is
plain from the Apostle's language in Gal. 3: 16, "He saith not, And to seeds, as
of many; but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ." That Abraham so
understood it, is implied in the words of Christ to the Pharisees, "your father
Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it and was glad." John 8:56. So that
Abraham's faith and promises were all summed up and centered in the personal
Christ. So let our faith find its center, and our promises always reach their
true focus in Him who is the first and the last, and the All in All of Christian
faith and hope. Let even our dearest earthly affections and expectations, like
Abraham's beloved son, be linked with and lost in the person of Jesus himself.
Then, indeed, will all our life be heavenly, and all our heart strings bind us
to His heart of love. But there is another most important thought suggested by
Abraham's seed, namely: that his faith and hope were lifted beyond himself and
the narrow limits of his own short life, to find their fruition in the lives of
others and reach their fullness not so much in the blessing which he was to
receive, as to the blessing he was to become. The linking of all his promises
with his seed was a constant challenge to the spirit of disinterestedness and
teaches us that we, too, are to lose our lives in the lives of others, and find
our blessing in being a blessing. Natural science teaches that the great design
of every plant in nature is expressed in the seed, and realized in the principle
of reproduction. While we may value the fruit tree chiefly for its rich and
luscious fruit, nature recognizes the little seed imbedded in the juicy pulp as
the true value and essential fruit of the plant; and so God estimates us, not so
much for what we are, as for what we may become in the issues of our lives. The
tree is therefore known by its fruit, and the test and standard of the fruit
laid down by Christ is, "Some thirty, some sixty, and some a hundred fold." The
promise was given to him in the form of two most striking symbols; the first of
these was the sand upon the seashore which his offspring was to outnumber. This,
no doubt, had special reference to his earthly posterity, the literal seed of
Abraham which will doubtless completely realize in the coming ages of Israel's
restoration, even the expressive fullness of this promise. The second was the
stars of heaven, whose number and splendor modern science has expanded far
beyond Abraham's highest conception; but even this shall be more than fulfilled
in the spiritual seed of the Father of the faithful. A great multitude that no
man can number, as various in their spiritual character, and infinitely more
glorious than the stars of heaven shall yet gather at his feet, and prove to him
and the universe the faithfulness of God, and the blessedness of trusting Him.
The same splendid figure is used in describing the rewards and prospects of
Christian service, "They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the
stars for ever and ever." We also may therefore claim the same glorious promises
and possibilities. This is the true aim and the most satisfying recompense of
human life. When the applause or criticisms of man shall be forgotten, when the
transient discomforts or enjoyments of life shall be past, when the fire shall
have tried every man's work, and the wood and stubble shall have drifted away in
the ashes of the last conflagration; oh, then it will be blessed indeed to
gather out of the wreck of life the treasures of precious souls we have been
permitted to save, and place them in His crown and our own. God grant that we
may have such constellations in yonder firmament.

"There needs not for such the love-written story, The name and the monument
graven in stone; The things we have lived for, let these be our glory, And we be
remembered by what we have done."

SECTION IV -- Abraham's Seal, or the Resurrection Life.

God's covenant with Abraham was ratified by a special sign which is called the
seal -- that is, a divine token intended to mark the importance and certainty of
the transaction, and the stability of the promises involved. This seal was the
rite of circumcision which from this time became the distinctive mark of the Old
Testament covenant, and the initiatory rite of Judaism. It was not a mere
arbitrary sign, but was fitted to express in its own nature the most important
truths. It was especially significant of that great principle which underlies
the whole economy of grace, namely: the death of the old and the resurrection of
the new life. Circumcision was the death of the flesh and was designed to
express the great fact that our carnal nature and our very life itself, in its
inmost center and springs, must be crucified and then divinely renewed and
purified. This is the same truth taught us in the New Testament ordinance of
Christian Baptism, only the latter gives more emphasis to the life as the former
does to the death side of the figure, as might naturally be expected from the
place of these ordinances in the two dispensations. Thus early and thus vividly
did God begin to teach His people that the new life must be a creation and must
spring out of the grave; and that man's fallen nature cannot be improved by
culture or gradually raised to purity and heaven, but that the sentence
pronounced at the deluge must be literally fulfilled: "The end of all flesh has
come before me."

Hence this figure of circumcision runs through the entire old Testament as the
picture of sanctification. "Circumcise your hearts," "uncircumcised in heart,"
etc. Have we learned this searching and humbling, yet blessed truth? And blessed
it is that we may die to this sad and sinful self, and live with Him who died
for us and rose again. Have we entered into the power of His resurrection and
been made conformable unto His death, and are we reckoning ourselves to be dead,
indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ? Failure here has been
the secret of almost all our failures. Thoroughness and faithfulness here will
save us a thousand deaths in the Christian life and make our life a joy and
power. The day prescribed for the rite of circumcision was as expressive as the
rite itself. The eighth day is the beginning of a new week, and thus expresses
most fully the idea of the new creation and the resurrection-life. God grant
that we may all know the full meaning of this ancient seal and pass out of the
seven days of nature's life into the eighth day of life's new and eternal week
of resurrection power and blessing.

If Christ would live and reign in me, I must die, I must die. Like Him I
crucified must be; I must die, I must die. Lord, drive the nails, nor heed the
groans, My flesh may writhe and make its moans, But in this way, and this alone,
I must die, I must die. When I am dead, then, Lord, to thee I shall live, I
shall live; My time, my strength, my all to thee, Will I give, will I give. Oh,
may the Son now make me free! Here, Lord, I give my all to thee, For time and
for eternity, I will live, I will live.

SECTION V -- Abraham's Name; or, the Confession of Faith. The covenant must not
only be sealed, but claimed. Abraham's faith must not only be confirmed by God's
seal, but also must "set to His seal that God is true." When God commits Himself
to His promise, He expects us to do the same as unreservedly, and so Abraham was
soon required to prove his trust by open and unequivocal confession. The
opportunity was afforded in a very striking and significant manner. God required
him to assume a new name, slightly modified in form from his old name, but
signally different in moaning. The name Abram meant the mighty father, but God
gave him the name Abraham which signifies the father of a multitude. The first
he could claim without involving any question of propriety, but the assuming of
the other involved the confession of his future hopes and expectations. And when
we remember that this was done at a time in his life when his age precluded the
natural probability or even possibility of the thing he claimed, we begin to see
how very real the test must have been. He was an old man, and his body was now
dead. The hope of natural issue was contrary to common sense, and yet the
adoption of the new name would necessarily be known to all his acquaintances,
and would require an explanation and proclamation of his unreasonable hopes. For
one possessing his dignity and influence with his family and followers, this
must have been naturally very trying, and the trial was rendered still harder
when it was protracted through a long season of apparently fruitless waiting.
But the faith of Abraham shrank not from the full ordeal. Not only did he
profess his confidence in his Father's fulfillment of the promise, but he
proceeded to act upon it as if it were already past, and thus became the witness
of that highest of all degrees of faith -- that principle which is, perhaps,
essential to all true faith, of which the apostle says that it "calleth those
things that are not as though they were." This, indeed, is the faith attributed
to God Himself by the apostle in Romans 4:17; and on this principle He is
constantly acting in treating future events as if already real. Thus his own
clear Son was regarded as slain from the foundation of the world. Thus we are
recognized even in our earthly life as seated with Christ in heavenly places and
invested already with the dignities and glories of our future inheritance. This
is the faith which God requires from his people and which he is willing to give
them; and indeed nothing but the Spirit of Christ Himself within us can enable
us thus to believe and testify. Again let us ask ourselves, what are we
witnessing to in our lives? How far have we really risked our all upon God's
promises? How much have we ventured upon His simple word and counted the things
that are not as living realities, not only in our hearts, but by the entire
witness of our lives? Have we thus accepted His pardon and confessed it? Have we
thus received his sanctifying grace and claimed our inheritance in Christ's
fullness? Have we thus taken Him for our physical and temporal needs and
ventured forth, without waiting for evidence, upon His simple and naked word? It
is the record of God's ancient saints that they were witnesses of faith. In the
eleventh chapter of Hebrews they shine like stars -- like constellations in the
firmament -- of the Old Testament. Shall our names thus shine in the annals of
this dispensation? We are writing the record every day; God help to inscribe
them as with the point of a diamond in the Rock forever; and let the record ever
be "I believe God," and "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He
is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day."

SECTION VI -- Abraham's Vision, or the Trial of Faith.

Sooner or later the test of suffering must follow every promise and confession.
To Abraham it comes in a significant symbol recorded in the fifteenth chapter of
Genesis, the vision of a smoking furnace and a burning lamp that passed between
the portions of his sacrifice, in the darkness of the evening, and the deeper
gloom that had gathered about his spirit. So for us the promises of God may be
followed by the going down of earth's sun in deep trials and even the horror of
great darkness which sometime comes upon the inner sky; and then amid the
darkness comes the fiery furnace of heart searching anguish and suffering. The
children of faith must be tested in the very fire, and the more victorious the
faith, and the more glorious the witness, the hotter must ever be the flame,
until it seems as though both life and faith must be consumed. But gold is
indestructible, and faith survives and brightens with its trial. There is
another figure in the vision, and that is the burning lamp that shines amid the
darkness and above the smoke of the furnace. This is the heavenly presence which
never forsakes us in the darkest hour. Majestic symbol of that yet grander
figure which in later days came to Israel as they came forth from Egypt's iron
furnace, the pillar of cloud and fire -- the type of the light and protection
which the Holy Spirit brings to the tried and trusting heart as it passes
through the wilderness. It was in this hour of darkness and vision of fire that
God gave to Abraham the most definite promise of his future inheritance, writing
in the vivid light of the furnace flames the very names of the nations that he
should dispossess through his seed, and speaking of it all in the perfect tense
as already accomplished. Is it not even so with us that it is in the hour of
keen suffering that God has ever spoken to us His greatest words, and burned
into our vision with a definiteness and vividness which faith can never forget,
the promises that He is now fulfilling in our grateful lives. Let us not fear
the darkness and the fire, but trust the more through that which comes chiefly
to try our trust. Suffering is not always meant to burn out the dross, but often
to burn in the promise. Let us not think it strange concerning the fiery trial
that is to try us; it is more precious, even to Him who sends it, than gold
which perisheth, and will "be found unto praise and honor and glory at the
appearing of Jesus Christ."

SECTION VII -- Melchizedek; or, the True Object of our Faith. A mysterious human
figure crosses the path of Abraham for one brief hour, and leaves an impression
so vivid that it has remained as a prophetic vision of the coming Messiah, both
in the Psalms and in the new Testament. This figure is regarded by many
authorities as really superhuman, and indeed no less than the actual and
personal Christ Himself living on the earth before His advent in human form, in
order for a little to represent to Abraham what his earthly life afterwards
represented to the world, His mediatorial character and work. We cannot accept
this view without stronger evidence than the Scriptures offer. It would seem
uncalled for that Christ should twice appear on earth in actual personality. We
believe that he did appear to Abraham in human form just prior to the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, but this was doubtless an assumed appearance.
Melchizedek is represented as an actual human personage. He was the King of
Salem, the ancient Jerusalem; he was also a true worshiper and official priest
of the most high God; probably like Job, one that had preserved the primitive
faith handed down from Noah without corruption, and that God used him as a
special type of the official character and mediatorial work of the coming
Messiah. The Apostle declares that he was without father, without mother,
without descent. He must mean by this that his record is thus mysterious and
unknown; that he stands across the course of time without introduction, a vivid
and transient figure expressing in one brief glance the aspects which God would
reveal to us concerning His Son. These are expressed by the name, position and
office of Melchizedek. His name in Hebrew signifies King of Righteousness; his
political position was that of King of Salem, which signified peace, and his
official character was that of a priest. He thus combined in his own person the
two offices of priest and king, and the two qualities of righteousness and
peace. These are the four thoughts which constituted Christ's mediatorial office
and work. He is our priest and king, and he brings us His righteousness and
peace. As our priest He settles for us the question of sin, and secures our
spiritual standing and privileges with God; as our king he protects us, subdues
us, governs us and guides us, and conquers our enemies and His. As our true
Melchizedek he combines these two offices in one person so that the king, whose
majesty we might dread, is the priest whose suffering and intercession have
saved us from our sins and reconciled us to His favor. He brings to us his
justifying and sanctifying righteousness, and becomes to us the Lord, our
righteousness. And he will bless his people with peace. His sprinkled blood
pacifies the guilty conscience. His pardoning love brings us into peace with
God. His gentle Spirit breathes upon our hearts his rest. His bosom offers us
repose for every care and fear, and in the inner chamber of his presence we find
the peace that passeth all understanding. All this he represented to Abraham.
All this Christ is to us. Have we met and accepted Him like the ancient
patriarch? Have we yielded to Him our worship and submission? Has he become our
great High Priest, our supreme and glorious King? Has he covered us with his
righteousness, and become to us our sanctification? And have we at the footstool
of His throne received Him as the Prince of Peace, and found it true in our
happy experience "of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no
end"?

Such are some of the symbols of Abraham's life. As we leave them, shall they
leave us also on our pilgrimage for the better country which he has reached, and
on the altar of sacrifice where he found all by giving all? Shall they have
brought us the vision of our seed, and sealed us with the secret of our true
life, the death of self, and the resurrection life of Christ? And shall we go
forth from them confessors, like him, of our covenant promises, even if it be in
the fiery furnace and the midnight gloom of life's deepest trials? And, above
all other lessons, greater than Abraham or Abraham's faith, have they brought us
to the feet of the Prince of Peace and the King of Righteousness, as the Author
and Finisher of our faith, and the Alpha and Omega of all our hopes and
blessings?


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 7: BOOK 1 CH. 6 - EMBLEMS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC
========================================================================

Book 1 Chapter 6 EMBLEMS FROM THE LIFE OF ISAAC. In the fourth chapter of
Galatians, the apostle gives us a key to some of the most important events in
the life of Isaac, and along with these a principle which may be applied to
other portions of the historical Scriptures, as a key to their interpretation.
He tells us that the birth both of Ishmael and Isaac was typical of the divine
dispensations; the former representing the Law and the Flesh; the latter, the
Gospel and the Spiritual Seed; and that the expulsion of Ishmael and the solo
inheritance of Isaac completed the type as respects the passing away of the law
and the permanence of the gospel. He also applies the teaching of these symbols
to the spiritual life of the individual Christian. Authorized by this divine
pattern, we shall endeavor reverently to gather the spiritual lessons, not only
of these facts, but others in the life of this remarkable character. More
reserved and passive than the other patriarchs, Isaac is, perhaps, more obscure
and less understood by most Christians than any of the characters of the book of
Genesis; but there is none that, when properly realized, impresses itself so
vividly upon the heart, and teaches such profound and searching lessons for all
Christian lives. A life very largely made up of commonplace events, it is just
the life that meets the needs, the failures and the testings of most of us; and
we trust we shall find many points of contact with that which is most real and
essential in our religious experience.

SECTION I -- The Birth of Isaac. The apostle that we have already referred to,
declares that he was born after the Spirit and according to promise. His birth
was not natural and ordinary, but extraordinary and supernatural. Not until
nature had failed, and the hope of issue from the bodies of Abraham and Sarah
was humanly improbable, did God even promise the covenant seed; and, even after
this, an interval of testing had to come before the promise was fulfilled. His
birth, therefore, was the direct result of omnipotent power, and so it stands as
the type of that greater birth, which, in later ages, came through Mary of
Bethlehem, even the Incarnation of the Eternal Son of God. This greater mystery
and mightier miracle was distinctly foreshadowed in the babe of promise that
came to Hebron's tent.

There is another miracle and mystery of grace, which was also foreshadowed by
the birth of Isaac -- that is, the new birth of all the spiritual seed of
Abraham. Just as truly as Isaac was born of the Spirit, and Jesus became
incarnate through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, so "except a man be born
of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." This is not a natural
reformation, not the result of human energy or will, but the work of the
Almighty Spirit; beyond the power of nature and after it has failed. "As many as
received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God: which were born
not of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Have we experienced this
mighty new creation? Blessed be God, it is for us as well as Abraham.

It is not only by the Spirit, but also through the promise. It is not an
arbitrary favoritism of heaven, but "as many as received Him," to them it is
given. Would you have this new life which brings you into all the blessings and
hopes of the covenant? Come to Christ, and receive the immortal life which He
waits to breathe into every living heart.

SECTION II -- The Birth of Ishmael.

Ishmael stands for the flesh and natural life, and the bondage of the law under
which it lies. When we speak of the flesh, we do not mean merely that which is
gross, sensual and basest in human nature, but all that is born of Adam and part
of the natural life. Ishmael and Esau had many lofty human qualities, and
Ishmael's race today are more noble in many things than their fellows; and so
the natural man is often a generous man, a cultivated man, even a moral man. The
unregenerate woman may be a beautiful girl, a faithful wife, an affectionate
mother, even a social benefactor; but this may be all mere instinct and
humanity. This is not to be despised; this is not depreciated even in the
Scriptures, but it cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The word "natural" in the
Epistles is literally "psychical," the man of soul rather than the spiritual
man. This is the nature which all the sons of Adam inherit, and which sin has
tainted and overshadowed with the curse.

Like Ishmael it is the firstborn and has already claimed its sovereign rights in
every human heart, before grace appears upon the scene. It is into this home,
where Ishmael has grown up with all his established rights, that Isaac comes;
and so it is in the heart that has walked after the flesh that the grace of God
implants the new life of regeneration. Dear friends, where do we stand in this
matter? Let us not deceive ourselves because our flesh is not the debased, gross
and vicious nature which we see in some. Let us remember the solemn picture of
the life which cannot enter heaven. "Wherein in times past ye walked according
to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others." May God fulfill the other picture to all who
may read these lines: "But you hath He quickened which were dead in trespasses
and sins."

SECTION III -- The expulsion of Ishmael. The position of the infant Isaac in
Abraham's tent, by the side of Ishmael, was very similar to the position of the
new born but yet unsanctified soul in the conflict with its old carnal nature.
We can readily imagine the innumerable petty tyrannies and persecutions to which
the little rival of Hagar's child was constantly exposed. It is the type of the
battle which goes on so long in many a Christian's soul; in which he strives in
his own new strength, but often in vain, against the stronger impulses and
tendencies of an evil heart. The picture is drawn in the seventh chapter of
Romans with painful vividness and ends at last in the bitter cry of the baffled
soul, “O! wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?" The strife was ended in Abraham's tent by Sarah, who, realizing at once
the impossibility of such a life, and the peril of her most precious hopes and
promises, demands the prompt expulsion of Isaac's rival. "Cast out the bondwoman
and her son!" is the hard demand, from which Abraham's sympathy recoils, but
which God's wisdom approves and confirms, and which Abraham sees at least to be
unavoidable; and so Ishmael goes forth to his own place, and Isaac remains the
undisputed heir of the covenant promises and the peaceful master of the
patriarchal nursery.

We need not say that this stands for the decisive moment when the regenerated
soul rises to its freedom. Definitely and wholly surrendering the old heart to
death and exclusion, it receives the Holy Spirit and the personal Christ to
fight the battle henceforth in the victory of faith, and possess the entire
spirit in rest, purity and complete consecration. It is not necessary that
Ishmael should cease to exist, nor can we claim that sin is dead, but Ishmael is
henceforth outside the tent of Isaac, and so, self and sin should be likewise
outside the citadel of the will, and the sanctuary of the heart. Sin and Satan
are not dead, but we are henceforth dead unto sin and alive unto God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let us stop and ask ourselves, which of these pictures is the true
representation of our inner life? Is the feeble principle of divine grace,
struggling for its very life in the midst of all the contending passions and
impulses of our carnal heart, and persecuted by the flesh from day to day, like
Isaac at the hands of Ishmael; or have we, notwithstanding all the pleadings of
nature and sympathy "crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts" and
entered into the rest and victory of a single heart and a sanctified spirit, in
fellowship with Christ, who henceforth fights our battles and garrisons our
soul.

There is a great difference how we spell a single sentence in the Epistle to the
Galatians "The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the
flesh," is the sad picture of the ceaseless warfare between our spirit and our
flesh. But "The SPIRIT lusteth against the flesh,, and the flesh against the
SPIRIT," describes the battle in which the Holy Spirit, not our spirit, wages
the warfare, and always wins the victory. May the Lord lead every weary heart to
the surrender and the decisive trust which will bring this glorious triumph.
This is our right under the Gospel just as much as it was Isaac's by the
promise. Sarah, in this, represented the Holy Ghost, who is ever demanding for
us our sanctified rights and pressing us forward to claim them. Let us yield to
her pleadings, and "cast out the bondwoman and her children."

It is also implied that this deliverance brings us not only into the life of the
Spirit, but into the liberty of the Gospel. "They that are led of the Spirit are
not under the law.”

Until we reach this experience the soul is ever acting in some sense under
bondage and compulsion. Henceforth its service springs from life and love, and
is "the glorious liberty of the children of God."

Besides the application of this incident to the individual Christian, it has
also a larger reference to the two dispensations of law and grace; Hagar and her
son representing the Mosaic system, and Isaac and his seed the dispensation of
free grace under the Gospel. Like Isaac and Ishmael the former has given place
to the latter, and we live in the enjoyment of its light and love and holy
liberty. Against the idea of returning back to the bondage of that law through
the Judaizing spirit, Paul earnestly protested in his letter to the Galatians,
and emphatically taught that the spirit of the law would ever lead to the works
of the flesh. It is as true today, and as necessary to be remembered. Mere
morality and discipline must ever fail to produce the fruits of true holiness.
They can only spring from the grace of God, the love of Christ, and the living
power of the Holy Spirit.

SECTION IV -- The Sacrifice of Isaac. The expulsion of Ishmael does not end the
trials of Abraham's covenant child; there is yet to come a deeper test and a
profounder lesson, and a test and lesson that have their parallel in every
consecrated life. The command suddenly comes one morning which consigns all this
hope and happiness to the dark and inexorable decree of death. "Take now, thy
son thine only son, whom thy lovest," is the mysterious mandate, "and offer him
for a burnt offering, on one of the mountains that I shall show thee." We are
accustomed to look at this scene chiefly from the side of Abraham, and think of
the amazing faith and fortitude of the father's heart that could yield not only
its affections, but its very faith and hope and all that was linked with God and
the future, in blind obedience and submission, and yet unfaltering faith, to
this strange and awful test. All this is true, and all is worthy of the high
approval which God Himself has placed upon it. It was the supreme test of
Abraham's faith and obedience. But have we looked at it aright from the
standpoint of Isaac? Have we thought of all that it meant to that sensitive and
shrinking boy, -- the strange and sudden separation from his mother's side, the
parting that must have been so trying, the journey of three long days of
suspense, that strange reserve of anguish in his father's face that could not
speak, yet could not conceal the overhanging shadow, the innocent question
"where is the lamb?" the sudden bursting upon his consciousness of the full
meaning, as he himself was bound and laid upon that altar, the silent
submission, all the more impressive because no word is given us of his
suffering, the strange horror of seeing his own dear father stand above him with
that gleaming knife, the awful moment of agony and suspense in which an eternity
could be felt before the hand was stayed and the tragedy averted? It was the
same to Abraham, it was the same to Isaac, as though the sacrifice had been
accomplished. The bitterness of death was past, and to all time and eternity
Isaac never could forget the memories of that hour. He had really died in the
surrender of his will, and his future life was overshadowed with the
consciousness that he was as one raised from the dead. So the Scriptures speak
of it, and so must they have felt it. Not only was it the figure, as nothing
else ever was, of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ by His Father's hand for our
salvation -- a sacrifice which had no arresting hand to stop, no voice to say,
"There is a lamb to take His place " -- but which went through all the darkness
and bitterness and mystery of death for us. But it has an equally important
meaning for our spiritual life. It is to us the symbol of the death of self and
the surrender of our inmost life to God which comes oftentimes, in Christian
experience, even after that deeper life which we saw begun in our last section.
The expulsion of Ishmael means separation from sin and the flesh. The sacrifice
of Isaac means the death of self, and the dedication of the inmost will and life
and being unto God. By various ways the searching test is made, and the soul is
led to yield itself to His will; and, in the hour of sacrifice, find its life,
and henceforth "live not unto itself, but unto Him who died for us and rose
again." Henceforth it is easy to yield to everything that God wills. The spirit
has been melted and bowed, the head has been laid low on Jesus' breast, and the
keynote of life is "not my will, but thine be done"; and while God gives back
even Isaac, and gives His higher, better will to each of us, it is henceforth
quite different. It is so linked with Him, and so mingled with our
self-renunciation that it is no longer we, "but Christ that liveth in us." Thus
must we learn to lay everything, not only the evil, but the good on His altar,
and hold even our highest hopes and sweetest promises and divinest blessings and
inmost life as His and all for Him, writing upon them: "Of Him, by Him and for
Him are all things, to whom be glory forever and ever, Amen."

SECTION V -- The Marriage of Isaac. The bridal of Isaac and the wooing of
Rebekah is a sample of sacred romance as beautiful in its way as the story of
Eve, and is as full of literary charm as it is of sacred meaning. The fact that
Isaac had but one bride in an age of polygamy was a marked type of his
illustrious Antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is gathering to Himself His one
spiritual and beloved partner in the fellowship of His glory and His kingdom.
Isaac's bride was chosen by the most deliberate counsel and care from his own
kindred in distant Mesopotamia; so God is calling out of this remote world a
people for his Son, and a race who are linked with Him by the kindred ties of
His own blood. Eleazar, Abraham's servant, who was entrusted with the choice of
the bride, is the striking type both by his name and character of the Holy
Spirit, through whom God is calling and leading us to Christ. Like the faithful
servant, the blessed Spirit comes on his long and distant journey to seek and
find the soul that he is wooing. He meets us, as they met Rebekah, in our common
life and in the simple incidents of our human experience, which often lead to
the greatest decisions of life: like Rebekah at the well and the other woman in
the parallel scene at Sychar. As he laid before Rebekah and her family the
claims of Isaac, and spake not of himself, but of his master and his son, and
all his wealth and glory, so the Holy Spirit hides Himself behind His work and
message, and ever seeks to reveal to us the glory, and beauty, and the claims of
Jesus. As Eleazar exhibited to Rebekah, and even placed upon her person some of
the treasures which Isaac had sent, so the Spirit not only shows us, but gives
us the precious things of Christ, and blesses us with the tokens of His love,
even before our full betrothal and unconditional consecration. Like that ancient
messenger He gently waits a little season for our answer, and then, like him, He
presses the urgent call, "Wilt thou go with this man?" Like Rebekah we must each
answer for ourselves. Christ will have no unwilling wedded ones, but demands our
wholehearted and joyful surrender. "Hearken, O daughter, and consider" is His
cry; "forget also thy kindred, and thy father's house: So shall the king greatly
desire thy beauty." Rebekah's reply is as prompt and unequivocal as ours should
ever be. "I will go," is the answer which links her forever with the most
glorious hopes and destinies of humanity. She has nothing to give but simply
herself; that is all He asks from us. Her very wedding robes, and even the veil
in which she is to be presented to Isaac, were brought by the servant, and were
presented to her before she meets her husband; and clothed in his robes, riding
upon his camel, led by his servant, and wholly consecrated to be all his own,
she goes forth to meet him.

What a procession! What a picture of our standing! Thus we, too, may wear the
wedding garments ere we meet Him at the marriage. He asks from us no costly
portion, but gives us all He requires from us. While we are told in one verse
that "the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready,"
we are also told in the next it "was granted to her that she should robe in fine
raiment, clean and white -- the righteousness of the saints." Her robes were
"GRANTED TO HER" like Rebekah's, and, like ancient wedding garments, at the very
door of the king's palace. We meet Him in His own beauty and character, and are
accepted not for what we are, but for what he makes us and is made unto us.
Sanctification, thus, is all of grace, for "we are His workmanship, and created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God before hath PREPARED that we should
walk in them."

Let us put on our heavenly raiment, and keep our garments with holy vigilance,
"lest we walk naked, and they see our shame." And as when Rebekah beheld her
lord approaching, she wrapped herself in his veil, and so met him with a token
that he could not mistake, so when we shall come to our Master, may we be found
not having our own righteousness, but that which is of the faith of Christ,
wearing the robes which all heaven will recognize as the token of the bride of
the Lamb. The procession is at length nearing home, and Isaac had gone out to
meet it. It is eventide, and others do not see the meeting fully, as, clasped in
each other's arms, they enter the bridal tent, and Rebekah becomes the wife of
the chosen seed, and the future mother of the Redeemer Himself. So, too, shall
it be in a little while; we shall behold on the distant horizon the signs of
home, but ere we reach it our blessed Lord will have hastened to meet us on the
way. It may be the eventide of life. It will be the eventide of the world's
history; and our meeting with Him in the air may not be seen by earth's busy
myriads, but we shall know Him and He shall recognize us by the tokens He has
given, by the robe we wear, and by the witness of the Holy Spirit who shall be
with us still. Happy meeting! Blessed hope! True home! The eternal idea of every
marriage feast and wedding veil and throb of earthly love. God grant we may be
found in that happy company.

SECTION VI -- Isaac's Wells. The later scenes of Isaac's life are not quite free
from clouds. In an hour of trial and famine, he seems to have acted without
divine counsel. He went down into the country of the Philistines, where he found
abundance of food, and had an extraordinary measure of worldly prosperity, but
where he had no recorded instance of the Divine presence, and met with continual
trouble from the inhabitants of the land. There seems to be no doubt that in
this he acted wrongly, and has become an example to us of the needless troubles
and unavoidable spiritual loss which will ever follow even tacit disobedience,
and the acting of our own wisdom, prudence and self-will. Isaac obeyed so far
that he did not go down to Egypt; but he went a little out of the land. So we,
without going into the world, may touch its spirit and get complicated with its
entanglements in some things, and so have to learn Isaac's lesson. The first
trouble arose from the lack of water, and when they dug the necessary wells or
rather opened the ancient wells of Abraham, their enemies strove with them, and
claimed the prior right to them. The world will easily get the best of us when
we fight it on forbidden ground. Isaac showed at least the power of grace in the
spirit which he manifested, notwithstanding his mistake. He did not contend with
them, but moved on from well to well, leaving them in possession, and calling
the wells by the names suggested by his bitter experiences: "Contention,"
"Hatred," and finally "Room," when at length they let him alone. We shall always
find room enough when we, like him, pursue a course of gentleness, and prefer a
temporary sacrifice to an unseemly strife. This quality of patience and
endurance appeared more strongly in Isaac than any of the patriarchs, and had
its real root in the self-sacrifice through which he had passed on Mount Moriah.
So they who have died with Christ once for all, will not find it hard to die
daily on the innumerable crosses of life's trials. At length he moves entirely
out of the land of his sojourning, and pitches his tent at Beer-sheba in the
land of promise. Immediately, that very night, God appears to him in token of
His approval, and renews with him His covenant, while his servant comes with the
tidings that "afresh and invaluable well has just poured out its abundant waters
in the camp. They give it the name of the covenant that has just been renewed,
and call it Beer-sheba, or "the well of the oath." So we shall find that a
decisive return to the exact line of God's covenant will ever bring to us
deliverance from our troubles, the presence of God, and the fountains of
blessing. Not only so, but the Philistines were glad to come to Beer-sheba and
beg an alliance with Isaac and his tribe. The man whom they persecuted and asked
to leave their presence while he was on their level, is sought for as a friend
and counselor when he rises to his true place and separates himself from them.
So we never can bless the world till we are separated from the world, and never
can lift it up until we get on a higher level than its own. The men who are not
afraid of losing their influence are the men whom God will give influence with
others. The men who are willing to risk the loss of the world's friendship, for
the sake of God, are the men to whom the world will go in its hour of need for
comfort and help and heavenly blessing. Let us be true to God! Let us ever stand
within the confines of our inheritance, and God will bless us and make us a
blessing.


========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: BOOK 1 CH. 7 - EMBLEMS FROM JACOB'S PILGRIMAGE.
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Book 1 Chapter 7 EMBLEMS FROM JACOB'S PILGRIMAGE.

More than any of the ancient patriarchs, Jacob speaks to us. He comes nearer to
our life in human infirmity, in human imperfection, in human worthlessness, in
human suffering, trial and discipline, and in the grace of God, which was
magnified by all these things.

God calls him a "worm," as a true figure of his grovelling, crooked, naturally
selfish, and supplanting nature. But God gave to the worm the mightiest of
names, the name of a "Prince with God," showing that grace can take us in our
lost estate, and seat us with Christ in heavenly places, making us partakers
even of the Divine nature.

SECTION I -- Jacob's Birth. The first symbol that comes up in the life of Jacob
is his birth. We see here a figure of his future. It would seem as if in him
there was, even in his mother's womb, some of that inborn spirit -- the
beginning of that faith which afterwards developed so mightily. So Hosea says,
"He took his brother by the heel in his mother's womb," as if in some way he had
that in him which pressed him afterward to claim the mightiest promises of God.

SECTION II -- His Birthright. The birthright to the ancient patriarchs seems to
have involved not only the headship of the tribe, but the spiritual privileges
of the Divine covenant. They seem to have understood in some measure -- Jacob
did, and Isaac at a later period -- that there was more involved in the
birthright than the mere headship of his house. Undoubtedly his mother had
taught him the hopes involved in his birth and the promises which heralded it,
and, looking down the ages to come, he may have seen afar the coming of the
Savior and linked with it the hope of his eternal future. This it was what made
the act of his claiming the birthright, notwithstanding all that was mean and
selfish in the way he got it, an act worthy of the highest commendation. Had he
claimed it by the rights that belonged to him according to the promises given
before he was born, it would have been an act of the highest faith. It is the
same act which we perform when we prize and claim the offer of our salvation and
sonship in the family of God, and let everything go to secure it. This had been
promised to him before his birth, as his mother had, no doubt, taught him, and
he should have put in his claim and let God work it out. Jacob, however, mingled
his own infirmity with the faith that would otherwise have been right.

He claimed the prize with the tenacity of faith, and then marred his faith by
adding his own works. God counted the faith, dropped out the works, and burned
out the sin with the discipline of suffering. And yet we cannot forget that he
saw its value, and Esau despised it. Esau said, "I am at the point to die, what
use is it?" Esau had no sense of the eternal future, or he would have prized the
birthright above all earthly treasures even in the dying hour. Jacob saw the
treasure, and eagerly claimed it, and made it his own. So you stand with Jacob
when you claim your birthright; when you lay hold on your gospel rights; when
you take with a firm faith, not only the covenant of mercy promised before you
were born, but when you press on to take your whole inheritance in God -- not
only to be saved, but to be sanctified; not only to believe, but to become an
heir of God, a prince with Israel, and a partner of the glory of your Savior.
This is the meaning of the birthright, and the faith that claims it. But while
we imitate his faith, let us avoid his unbelief. He that believes enters into
rest. He that works, works because he does not believe. When you are sure God
has given you the blessing, you rest. But when you are afraid God will fail or
Esau outwit, then you try to help and only succeed in hindering. Jacob's falls
were caused by the crookedness of his own nature which God had to burn out of
him. God help us to learn the lesson, and so believe that "in quietness and
confidence shall be our strength," and we shall not only hope, but "quietly wait
for the salvation of God."

SECTION III -- Jacob's Vision.

We pass on to the third emblem of his life, that is, the vision at Bethel.

It came in the darkest hour of his life, when midnight was around him, and a
stone was his pillow -- a symbol of the darker and sadder lot which seemed to
await him. And yet it was in that dark hour in the wilderness, on that stony
pillow, that the God of heaven was about to meet him in covenant blessing. The
vision of Bethel tells of God's first revealing of Himself to the soul that has
chosen Him. Jacob chose God when he chose the birthright. But God had not met
Jacob. Jacob was like us when we take the promise, and have not yet seen the
Promiser. You kneel at the altar, and claim the blessing; you hold it by faith,
but God always makes the faith a reality. The days pass by, and when He seems to
have forgotten his promise, and faith begins to faint, then it is that all
heaven gathers about you. You trust God. When it begins to grow dark and
dangerous, when Esau threatens your life, when it is with you the wilderness,
the midnight and the stony pillow, then God comes and meets you, and makes real
to your soul that which was accepted by your simple faith before. So it has been
with you in the revelation of Christ's indwelling Spirit; so, perhaps, in the
healing of your body; and so it has been in prayer for temporal things for which
you have believed. Vision first, then victory; faith first, then sight; trust
simply in His word, and then God Himself in all the fulness of a blessed
realization.

Jacob's vision is also a foreshadowing of the pathway of his own life. He sees a
ladder, and the top of it reaches to heaven, while God appears at the top as the
God of his fathers. How it teaches us that the only true ladder of life is one
that reaches to the sky. Jacob's ladder went all the way up to heaven. The
ladders of human ambition only reach a few years ahead. Man's highest ambition
is satisfied when he can mount the pinnacle of fame, or reach the fulfillment of
some cherished dream: knowledge, perhaps; friendship, perhaps; or, perhaps
wealth. That is the length of their ladder, it reaches only a very little way.
There are fifty, sixty, seventy, perhaps, it goes up as high as fourscore years,
but Jacob's ladder had scarcely begun then; it reached to heaven. O, you that
are young, and, looking to the future, and count so much on it, have you made
sure of the highest issues of life and eternity? Let your ladder reach up to the
sky. And then Jacob's ladder was not only a long one, but it ascended step by
step, rung by rung; not all at one bound, but little by little, moment by
moment; so God is leading us on, on, step by step. Are you willing thus to walk
patiently moment by moment, overcoming and ascending?

Again Jacob's ladder rose out of the darkest hour of his life; and so our
blessings are born out of our greatest trials. Is your pillow a hard one? Is
your sky very black? Look out for the ladder; it is there against the sky. You
will see it if you look up. Shut your eyes and ears to all the care, fall asleep
on Christ's bosom in the trust of faith, and it shall meet your vision with its
heavenly vistas and its Divine covenants of promise. But the best is that
Jacob's ladder ended with God, and it had God at the top of it, and God all the
way down, holding it up yonder that it might not slip, and supporting the
traveler at every step. Let your ladder be guided by His hand, not leaning
against the cloudy tower of your ambition, but by the hands that were pierced
for you. Have you never noticed a servant, or some one busy about your house,
how they wanted you to hold the stepladder while they climbed it? There is one,
dear friends, to hold the ladder while you mount to heights that would make you
tremble but for His everlasting arms. And once more we are taught that not only
is God at the top of the ladder, but the angels of His providence are moving up
and down every rung, and guarding your steps. So your way is under His
direction. Every step is under His care. And so He says to you, as to Jacob, "I
am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will
bring thee again into this land: for I will not leave thee until I have done
that which I have spoken to thee of."

Again, Jacob's vision is the symbol not only of life's pathway, but of Jesus
Christ Himself -- the open Door and the only Way of communion and communication
with heaven. Christ Himself has given us this interpretation of Jacob's vision.
Speaking to Nathaniel under the fig tree (who seems to have been reading this
very chapter) he says, "Here after ye shall see heaven opened, and the angels of
God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." As much as to say, "I am the
ladder of Jacob; it is through me that heaven is open; it is on account of my
work that the angels of God come, and henceforth it is not to be in the old
visionary way, but through the flesh of the Son of God, that you are to have
communion with God." So God is not only at the top of the ladder, but all the
way along. Jesus Christ comes from God, and reaches down to man, a living ladder
of human steps, and saying at every step, "I am the Way; I am the Shepherd; I am
the Guide; I am the Life; I am the Author and Finisher of your faith." Is Jesus
your Ladder, dear friend? your Way? your Life? Is every step you take a step in
Jesus? Is every step you take a step with Jesus? A keeping step with Jesus? A
walking in Him as well as with Him, and a finding that He is something unto you,
this week, and week by week, that He never was before? This is the blessed
meaning. It is God at the beginning, God at the end, God all the way along, and
God all and in all.

Again, we see not only the pathway, and the ladder, but the covenant and the
consecration. Jacob rises, and on the altar consecrates himself -- with poor,
imperfect words it is true -- and if it looks like wavering faith, still God
takes it, and henceforth his life is linked in tender bonds with Jehovah's
everlasting love. Have we made that consecration and claimed that covenant? Is
there a voice saying to you, beloved, "I am with thee, and I shall keep thee in
all the places thou goest; and I will not leave thee until I have done all I
have spoken to thee of"? Is it not safe to leave all in those mighty arms? Has
He given you this mighty word, "I will not stop until I have done all unto thee
that I have spoken to thee of"? How terrible life's perils without it; how
blessed with it. Have you said, like Jacob, "Of all Thou hast given me, I will
give the tenth"? Or, rather, have you cried, "It is all Thine, and I am Thine,
and Thou art mine"?

SECTION IV -- The Victory at Penuel.

We see Jacob now many years further on, but not many rounds up. He is about
where he was at Bethel, and so God has to throw across his path a tremendous
shock to arouse him to the true meaning of his life. He lets a trial come that
threatens the life of himself and his dearest ones. His infuriated brother with
hundreds of armed followers is sweeping down upon him. Here are the little ones,
and here the helpless wives and flocks, and the pilgrim with his staff is
helpless against the mighty warrior. It is an hour of most extreme trial; but
poor Jacob is at it again, putting out his feelers, sending on his presents, and
trying to coax the lion, and see what his ingenuity can effect. Then there seems
to come over him a sense of his helplessness, and putting his dear ones in the
hand of God, he goes alone at Jabbok's ford. It was night again; a dark night;
there was not a star in the sky, and I am afraid he did not even see the ladder
there now -- but he had it out with God, and God came nearer than He had in
Jacob's dream. Clouds and thick darkness are round about His throne, and in the
darkest clouds you will find Him. But it is different from the vision at Bethel.
The danger is nearer now, and God is nearer too. Then it was God at the top of
the ladder, now it is God on the level of Jacob, wrestling with him; having
Jacob in His very arms; and Jacob able to put his arms around his very God. God
has come very close to Jacob, because God wants Jacob henceforth to live very
near to him. That wrestling has much of mystery in it. That deep, convulsive
struggle some of us can understand who have ever had a night of agony, in which
it seemed as though your very loins were wrestling, and the cords of your very
heart were taking hold of something invisible. So Jacob went through the mystery
of trial, and came forth in the morning another man. It is impossible to analyze
all this without destroying the beauty. I took up a hyacinth blossom this
morning; it was beautiful and very fragrant; I took it in my fingers and pressed
it, and the fragrance was gone. So you have to take the spirit of these things.
There are lessons here that touch many points. It teaches us that out of the
thing that is hardest, we often may get the greatest blessing. Out of the thing
in your life by which you are nearly crushed, you are to have your grandest
victory. Out of the thing that seems ready to conquer and destroy you, God wants
to bring to you a faith that you never had before, and a revelation of his love
and power that you never dreamed of. That very thing you thought a stumbling
stone, God means to make a pillow for your head, and a ladder of ascension to
His very presence. So do not wait until you get into a comfortable position, and
say that then you will live a Christian life. "I am going to get to a certain
place; I am going to get things fixed up; and then I will serve God." Don't say
that, but go to God and let him fix up the things, and you will be a Christian
through the very experience your trial and deliverance have brought you.

There is something else here that we must have to be strong in prayer, and that
is the element of intense earnestness. There is something else in prayer, I know
-- a rest and trust; but I do not think the rest comes before the throes of
agony are past. There is something in prayer that takes hold of God, and cries,
"I will not let thee go until Thou bless me." It is not weakness; it is
earnestness; it is life; it is the throes and travailing of a birth that cannot
come any other way. It isn't doubting; it is power, and it will end in rest if
yon will let God have his way. This is the meaning of your distress and the
burden that is on you. It is the Holy Ghost "groaning within you with groanings
that cannot be uttered." Do not try to work up a frenzy of prayer; that is
offensive to God and good taste; but when you have the throes and the agony of
Jacob's prayer, remember Christ had it, too. And then, again, we learn at Penuel
not only the efficacy of the prayer that overcomes, but also the element that
breaks down. Jacob did not get his answer by struggling, until at last he
yielded, and fell prostrate at the feet of Him that wrestled with him; then he
received the blessing. The angel touched his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's
thigh was out of joint, and in his anguish Jacob gave a cry of despair, and he
fell at the feet of the Mighty One, crying, perhaps, "Lord, help me; I cannot
even pray any more." And God may have said, "It is done; you have your answer
and your lesson; you have been too strong; you have tried to do too much. You
thought you could wring the blessing from Esau, outwit Laban, and now propitiate
Esau; you have tried to do things yourself. O Jacob! fall a helpless child at My
feet, and let me be your strength, and carry you henceforth." And as he fell, I
am sure he did not go quite down; he fell into the arms of God and as he went
forth, though halting on his thigh, he was leaning on Omnipotence. He had not as
strong a thigh, but he had an infinitely stronger Savior. And so, beloved, when
we come to this place, too, where our strength is gone; and when we have no arm
but Christ's, I am sure that, after that, we can say, "I can do all things
through Christ which strengtheneth me."

I need not say the answer came to Jacob next morning. God came to him here, and
Esau had to follow. The next morning Esau was there -- but a tamed lion -- with
weeping eyes, and loving arms, and a brother's heart, meeting his brother with
reconciliation and tenderness. God had done all that. We must have power with
God first, and then we have it with others. But the best of all was that Jacob
was a new man. And God said as he rose, "Thou shalt no more be called Jacob, but
Israel shall be thy name, for, as a Prince, hast thou power with God and with
men, and hast prevailed." And so, brethren, we rise out of our trials, ourselves
gone -- the old man and woman canceled,, and wearing His new name. What you want
to get rid of isn't the sins of Jacob, but Jacob himself. It is to leave
yourself, and go out another person in the life of Christ.

SECTION V -- Jacob's Return to Bethel.

He did not get his full blessing at once; he seems to have got away from it for
a while, and God says a little later, "Arise, Jacob, and go to Bethel, and stay
there." After our hours of prayer and victory, we may go back. You say I had
such a blessing, but I lost it. You can go back to Bethel and dwell there.
Perhaps you cannot go to the same altar, but you can be in the same arms. Go
back to Bethel; then God will finish the work, and the covenant will be
confirmed forever. The failure of Jacob to do this fully was, perhaps, the
secret of all his later trials; Jacob went back, but he did not stay there. If
he had, I believe he would have escaped the bitter trials that followed. But a
little later we read that Jacob wandered through the land again. And soon after
came the shame of Dinah's fall; the strife of his sons; the betrayal and sale of
Joseph to the Midianites; and the wreck of Jacob's hopes for years. O,
consecrated children of God, it is a glorious thing to get over Jabbok, but it
is a more terrible thing after that to go back! Jacob went back from Bethel, and
for a time he had the bitterest cup that a mortal ever drank. I don't know
anything sadder than the second failure after consecration. We read in Judges
that after they had entered the promised land, they went back to sin, and their
fall lasted four hundred years. O, you that have come, be sure to stay at
Bethel; rear your altar, and dwell forever under the shadow of His presence! The
closing scenes of Jacob's life are full of instruction and comfort. At last it
is all right, and standing before Pharaoh he can say, "All things have worked
together for good." "The angel that led me all my life long, and hath redeemed
me from all evil, bless the lads." It was all right at last, and it will be all
right for us poor erring ones. But how many sorrows we may escape and how many
snares we shall miss if we will always literally and wholly obey our covenant
God, and abide in Him.

SECTION VI -- Jacob's Grave. The last emblem that I shall give you, is Jacob's
grave. He was dying in Egypt; he called his family about him and his beloved
Joseph, and said, "If I have found grace in your eyes, swear unto me that you
will not bury me in Egypt, but with my fathers in their burial place." So they
swore unto him, and after a time the long procession moved back again, and they
laid him in Machpelah's Cave. Jacob was looking to the time when the trumpet
should sound, and the dead arise, and he wanted to have his very bones within
the covenant of God. And so, beloved, have you chosen your grave among God's
people -- I don't mean so much your literal grave, as the future, the
resurrection glory? That was the beautiful faith of Joseph when he died; he
commanded that his bones should be carried back when Israel went through the Red
Sea. And God wants us to look out for our bones -- not as some people do,
looking forward to their funeral expenses or a grave stone -- but for the time
when you shall rise again, and your dust shall be glorified with Christ and his
ransomed ones, or covered with everlasting shame and contempt.

Dear friends, what a life; how weak, how poor, how wrong, how erring, how much
it needed the grace of God. But the God of Jacob -- how tender, how faithful,
how good, how patient; and He is willing to be your God and mine. Let us take
Him in the spirit of the old hymn, which has been the cradle song of our
childhood.

“O! God of Bethel, by whose hand Thy people still are fed, Who, through this
weary pilgrimage, Hast all our fathers led. O! spread thy covering wings around
'Til all our wanderings cease, And at our Father's loved abode Our souls arrive
in peace."


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  CHAPTER 9: BOOK 1 CH. 8A - EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF JOSEPH1
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Book 1 Chapter 8 Part 1 EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF JOSEPH. The beautiful story of
Joseph's life is the worthy climax of the first book in the Bible, and may well
stand as one of the stately and colossal pillars in the portal of the Temple of
Divine Truth. It is one of the few blameless lives of the Bible, and stands side
by side with Enoch and Daniel in its unblemished loveliness. It is full of the
most affecting and practical lessons for our Christian life, and touches at
every point our experience of suffering and trial as the children of God, and
the great principles of Divine Providence which God is ever working out in each
of our lives. And, in the higher realm of typical teaching, it foreshadows the
character, and sufferings, the grace and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ with
a vividness and power unsurpassed by any of the figures in all this wondrous
gallery of divine symbolism.

We shall glance at Joseph's life and character in both these connections, with
respect not only to our Christian life and character, but also to his great
antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ, blending both aspects as the changing panorama
may require.

SECTION I -- Joseph's Birth.

He was his father's beloved son, and so the fitting type of the well-beloved Son
of God. Nor should we fear to claim the same place and fellowship in Him, for He
Himself has taught us that if we are united to Him, and He abides in us, the
love wherewith the Father loved Him is in us also, and we are made accepted in
the beloved. It will make our trials easy if we always begin the story of our
life like Joseph's, with this blessed certainty that we are God's beloved ones.
There is something beautiful in the simplicity with which John calls himself
"the disciple whom Jesus loved," without the faintest consciousness of
presumption. So let us press close to the Divine heart, and love will usually
get the place it claims.

SECTION II -- Joseph's Dreams. The consciousness of his coming destiny was
divinely impressed on the heart of the child, and with ingenuous frankness he
gave the fullest expression to what must have seemed his extravagant pretensions
and expectations; and although rebuked and ridiculed by his jealous brothers, he
still persisted in his confidence and testimony. So upon the consciousness of
Christ's early childhood came the foreshadowing of His lofty character and
destiny even when but twelve years of age. It forces itself into His precocious
questions and confession: "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's
business?" And afterwards, even in the face of His enemies, and in spite of
their hatred and persecutions, He witnessed invariably to His own divine
character and glory until, at last, it cost Him His life. So also to the
believer, God unveils, both by His Word and Spirit, the vision of his high
calling. Sometimes the veil is lifted higher, and the soul is permitted to know
enough of the divine plan to prepare it for service, to fortify it against
trials and sufferings, and inspire it for sacrifices and triumphs in the cause
of Christ. So the great Apostle pressed on with the invincible cry, "I must see
Rome;" "I am sure that I shall come to you in the fulness of the blessing of
Christ;" "I know that in nothing I shall be ashamed;" "The Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom --" “I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have
committed unto Him against that day." So also he says to Timothy: "According to
the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them thou mightest war a good
warfare." It was for the joy set before Him that our Master endured the cross
and despised the shame, and we, too, shall overcome as we steadily hold in view
our high calling and our immortal crown.

SECTION III -- Joseph's Sufferings. The sufferings of Joseph are preeminently
typical of the sorrows laid upon his great Anti-type, our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1.) He was hated and envied of his brethren, because of his testimony
concerning himself and his claims to his father's special love; so Christ was
hated by his brethren, persecuted, rejected, and at last condemned and
crucified, chiefly on account of His claim to be the Son of God and, His
unfaltering witness to His Messiahship and glory.

(2.) Joseph was sold to his enemies for twenty pieces of silver; and so the Lord
Jesus was betrayed and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles by the council
of His own nation, and judged and condemned, in spite of the attempts of Pilate
to release Him.

(3.) Joseph was separated for many long and lonely years from his fond father,
and was really given up for dead; and so Jesus left His Father's bosom, and even
bore the very hiding of His Father's face and the anguish of His wrath and
judgment on account of sin, and at last died under the dark cloud of divine
judgment.

(4.) Joseph was exposed to the most powerful temptations from the world, the
flesh and the devil, but resisted with inflexible fidelity to the will of God
and the voice of His conscience; so Satan assailed the Son of God with all the
allurements and solicitations of evil, but found nothing in Him. Of Joseph we
have no recorded blemish or willful sin, but of Jesus we know that he was "holy,
harmless," undefiled and separate from sinners, "and was tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin."

(5.) Joseph was accounted guilty of the sin of others, and really suffered
innocently, because of another's wrongdoing; so Jesus "was made sin for us who
knew no sin," and bore "the iniquity of us all." He was crucified under the
judgment of human and ecclesiastical law as a criminal, and was so accounted by
His own contemporaries and judges. This is the keenest of all humiliations, to
be assumed guilty of that which we utterly abhor. The shadow of sin upon the
soul is darker even than its penalty.

(6.) Joseph humbled himself to a lot of the deepest degradation and the most
menial drudgery and toil, and did it willingly and with all his heart, accepting
his situation with beautiful submission and patience; so Jesus became not only
"the Man of sorrows," but a man of toil, laboring at His workbench, with sweat
of brow and weariness of frame like the poorest of men; and, to the end of his
life, knowing all the hardships of poverty and want, weariness and homelessness.
"The Son of Man hath not where to lay His head," was His uncomplaining cry, "I
am among you as he that serveth," was his chosen place.

(7.) Joseph became the companion of criminals in Pharaoh's prison; and so our
blessed Savior "was numbered with the transgressors,” crucified between two
thieves and accounted a malefactor.

(8.) Joseph was the victim of wicked men, and, in all his suffering, he knew
that they were held responsible for their voluntary wickedness; yet he
recognized in all his sad experience that it was the will of God using and
overruling the passions of men to fulfill His higher ends of benevolence and
wisdom. In speaking afterwards of his suffering, Joseph adds no word of
reflection or regret; he sees the hand of God in every step, and above every
sinful hand. He says, "God sent Me before you, it was not you that did it but
God: Ye meant it for evil, but God sent it for good to preserve much people
alive." So the Lord Jesus Christ ever recognized His sufferings and death as the
plan of His Father's wisdom and love, and the chosen path of human redemption,
and yet at the same time involving a no less degree of guilt on the part of
those who wickedly ministered to His destruction. And so Peter declares in the
beginning of Acts: "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and, with wicked hands, have crucified and
slain." And so the Lord declares himself to His earthly judge, "Thou couldst
have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above," and yet
with strange solemnity he adds, in the very spirit of the truth we have just
stated, "Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin."

(9.) The sufferings of Joseph were not lost, but were the means in God's
marvelous providence of saving his house and the whole world from death; and so
the type is transcendantly fulfilled in the glory and eternal issues of Christ's
cross and shame, in the salvation of myriads of the redeemed from eternal death.
It was this that enabled him on the threshold of that cross to cry, "Except a
corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit." "The hour is come that the Son of Man should be
glorified." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto
me."

Turning now to the application of all this to our own lives, we find in Joseph's
sufferings a beautiful example of the spirit a Christian should exemplify under
trial and affliction.

(1.) Like Joseph, our sufferings may often come from our own brethren. Many of
the bitterest cups of our lives are put to our lips by the hands of those we
love. When men attempt to polish a diamond, they either use another diamond or
diamond dust, and so God has to purify us by the hard attrition of our dearest
friends, and often our fellow Christians. Shall we not, like Joseph, see His
hand above their's, and take our lesson and hold our victory.

(2.) Like Joseph, we must also expect to be tried, misunderstood, hated,
persecuted and wronged by the world. We should not expect less than our Master,
"If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." The secret of
victory lies in the spirit of integrity and an unfailing confidence in God as
one that is mightier than the world, and that will "bring forth our
righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noonday." "Wherefore let
them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls
unto Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator."

(3.) Like Joseph's, our sufferings will often come to us through the grossest
injustice on the part of men, involving loss, and even shameful reproach. The
verdicts of public opinion and human authority are not always equitable, and
many of God's dearest children have lived long under the ban of the severest
injustice. This seems at first to human nature very hard to bear, and yet the
apostle has said it is better to suffer for well doing than for ill doing. "If
when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable
unto God. For hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us,
leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Who, when he was reviled,
reviled not again: when he suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to
him that judgeth righteously."

(4.) Like Joseph's, our sufferings may be aggravated and prolonged by the
neglect and ingratitude of others, and even those whom we have most kindly
befriended. The fellow prisoner whose release Joseph predicted, forgot him the
moment he returned to his place and escaped his own misery, and left Joseph
languishing in his neglected prison for years, when one word would have set him
free. So our hearts will often ache at the inhumanity of men and the ingratitude
of friends. Oftentimes we shall find our best services unappreciated and
unrequited, and shall even be cruelly stung by those we have benefitted or even
saved. How much suffering there is even among God's children which one word
would avert, or the smallest sacrifice would prevent. But we must learn to
endure and to wait, to render every ministry unto God, rather than to men, and
accept our recompense not from human gratitude, but from our Master's righteous
hand. How exquisite the answer of the great Christian soldier who, when parched
with thirst after a bloody battle, was handed a cup of water by his attendant,
and as he was about to hold it to his famished lips, he saw the hungry eyes of a
wounded enemy looking at the water. Hastening to his side he handed him the cup,
but the man instead of taking it made a sudden feint, and then by a quick
movement tried to strike his noble benefactor with a death wound in return for
his love. The brave officer sprang back and saved his life, but his attendant,
with fierce indignation raised his sword and was about to bury it in the body of
the miscreant. But the good man held him back, took his sword from his hand,
disarmed the wounded enemy, and then handing the cup of water to his attendant,
quietly added: "Give it to him all the same." So let us love and bless.

(5.) The hardest ingredient in suffering is often time. A short, sharp pang is
easily borne, but when a sorrow drags its weary weight through long monotonous
years, and day after day returns with the same dull routine of hopeless agony,
the heart loses its spring, and without the grace of God is sure to sink into
the very sullenness of despair. Joseph's was a long trial, and God often has to
burn His lessons into the depths of our being by the fires of protracted pain.
"He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver," but He knows how long, and
like a true goldsmith He stops the fires the moment He sees His image in the
glowing metal. "Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and
entire, wanting nothing!" "The God of all grace who hath called us unto His
eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you
perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you; to Him be glory forever and ever,
amen.”

(6.) Like Joseph, let us meet our sufferings in a spirit of courageous
cheerfulness and make the best of them. Joseph might have given up and said,
"There is no use trying; everything is against me," as many a young man is
tempted in adversity to do. But Joseph went into Potiphar's kitchen, not to
repine and fret, but to be bright and useful and do his very best; and he so
succeeded that before long he had the highest place in the household. And then,
when the scene was changed from the kitchen to the prison, Joseph again, instead
of giving up in sullen despair, and feeling that there was no use trying,
resolved to make the best of this position, and so succeeded that ere long he
was chief of the prisoners. Wherever he found himself he did his best, and
having succeeded in a pantry and a prison he was ready for a palace and a
throne. The man who cannot succeed in a trying position is not fit for an easier
one. This lesson of Joseph's life takes hold, as no other in the Scriptures, of
the practical questions that meet every man, and especially every young man, in
the battle of life.

(7.) Like Joseph, we shall find it indispensable in the time of trouble to
retain our integrity as a jewel above all price, and keep the conscience so pure
that by well doing we shall be able to silence the ignorance of foolish men and
give the devil no place for his assaults upon our faith. Joseph's heart would
surely have been crushed, if, in the dark hour he had been compelled to say like
his brothers afterwards, "I have been verily guilty, therefore this distress has
come upon me." If we have been guilty in anything let it be quickly rectified,
and it shall be forgiven, and then, with a pure conscience and a true heart, we
can stand against all the storms of trial.

(8.) The support of Joseph in his trial was the confidence and consciousness of
the Divine presence and the constant assurance which sprang from his early faith
that God's hand was overruling all his life. There can be no doubt that in these
dark hours his early dreams ever shone like a pole star of hope upon the
midnight sky, and "for the joy set before him, He endured the cross and despised
the shame." We must hold fast to our faith and hope, or we cannot overcome the
billows of sorrow. We must ever recognize the hand of infinite love in all our
trials, and never for any instant listen to the devil's whisper, "The Lord has
brought us hither that he might destroy us." This was the cowardly cry of a
wicked king, but faith's answer ever is "God is our refuge and strength, a very
present help in trouble: therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed
and the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea." "The Lord God is with me,
therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be
ashamed." We may not see now the outcome of the beautiful plan which God is
hiding in the shadow of His hand; it yet may be long concealed; but faith may be
sure that He is sitting on the throne calmly awaiting the hour when with adoring
rapture we shall say, "All things have worked together for good."

(9.) Like Joseph, let us be more careful to learn all the lessons in the school
of sorrow, than we are anxious for the hour of deliverance. There is a "need be"
for every lesson, and when we are ready, our deliverance will surely come, and
we shall find that we could not have stood in our place of higher service
without the very things that were taught us in the ordeal. God is educating us
for the future, for higher service and nobler blessings; and if we have the
qualities that fit us for a throne, all earth and hell cannot keep us from it
when God's time has come. We cannot see it now, but shall surely find in God's
"afterwards" the benefits and the necessity of the discipline which His patient
love has held us to so strictly, and yet so wisely, in the experience of life.


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  CHAPTER 10: BOOK 1 CH. 8B - EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF JOSEPH2
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Book 1 Chapter 8 Part 2 EMBLEMS FROM THE STORY OF JOSEPH.

SECTION IV -- Joseph's Exaltation. The startling suddenness and transcendent
greatness of the change which passed over Joseph's life in a few hours, seems
almost too romantic to be true, but such transitions are not so sudden as they
seem. Joseph had been quietly prepared for all this through the preceding years,
and had learned his lessons so well that the mere outward circumstances of his
promotion were much less to him than they seemed to others. He recognized in his
new position simply a divine call to new service, a situation requiring new
duties and divine support, and proceeded to fulfill his new responsibilities
with the same simple fidelity as he had shown in his humbler positions. While
virtually the ruler of Egypt and the entire world, he used his high trust as a
place of service, and went throughout the whole land of Egypt with the same
painstaking care as one of his humblest subordinates. The change that came to
Joseph was sudden and complete. His prison was exchanged for a palace; his shame
for the highest honor; his position of degradation for one of authority and
prominence, and his lonely suffering life for a happy home and the fellowship of
a beloved and noble wife and family; while as the years rolled on all that was
lost was restored, the broken ties of home were healed, his dear father and fond
brother were given back to his arms, and the very brothers that had betrayed him
were reconciled to his affections and made to see the sin and folly of their
crime in a manner so wonderful and delightful that it took out of the past every
bitter memory and painful sting, and turned the saddest trials he had known into
the sweetest blessings of his life and others. And the scene closes with that
which to him was the highest of all enjoyments, the opportunity of returning
good for evil, ministering to the happiness of those he loved, cherishing and
nourishing his father's house and his brethren with all the riches of his glory,
and seeing them and the entire world blessed and even saved through the ministry
of his suffering life. Surely this was, indeed, a transformation of suffering
into glory and blessing. All this was the type of Christ's exaltation, and the
pledge of our reward.

(1.) It foreshadows the exaltation of Jesus, after the shame and suffering of
the cross, to the resurrection life and heavenly glory upon which he entered.

(2.) The relation of Joseph to Pharaoh suggests the mediatorial office of Jesus
Christ with the Father, administering as he does the government of the universe,
and having all things delivered into His hands. Pharaoh answered every petition
that came to him with the message, "Go to Joseph!" and so we have access unto
the Father through Him, and receive the riches of grace and the blessings which
we need and claim. All the treasures of Egypt were in Joseph's hands; all the
store, which saved and fed the famishing people, was given out at his orders;
and so "it hath pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell,"
"and of His fulness have we received grace for grace."

(3.) Joseph was virtually ruler over the land of Egypt and the entire world, and
so Christ has been invested with like power in heaven and in earth. He is
established "far above all might and dominion, and every name that is named,
both in this world and that which is to come, and is head over all things to the
church." Let us ever remember, when we look at the forces around us and our
bitter trials, that "He everywhere hath sway, And all things serve His might;
His every act pure blessing is, His path unsullied light."

(4.) The marriage of Joseph, after his exaltation, has been applied by some
interpreters to the gathering of Christ's church to Himself in the heavenly
places. It was not during His life of shame and suffering, but after His
ascension, that He established the church, and her true place with Him -- even
in the present dispensation -- the place where she should ever recognize herself
as sitting, is by His side in glory. This also is part of His glory, and is to
be His eternal joy, the church of His love and the partner of His nature and His
throne.

(5.) The years of plenty, and then the years of famine which followed them, seem
to foreshadow: the first, the dispensation of grace which is now proceeding; and
the second, the time of tribulation which is coming upon the earth before the
end, out of which He "shall gather His people to meet Him in the air." It was
during this time of famine that Joseph's brethren came to him and were
reconciled. And so it shall be during the days of tribulation that Christ's
brethren after the flesh, the Jews shall recognize Him, repent of their sins,
and be restored to His friendship and blessing, and afterwards share with Him in
their own separate national life, as in Egypt of old, the blessing of His
millennial kingdom. This is to be one of the crowning glories of the once
rejected Nazarene that "they shall look upon Him they have pierced, and shall
mourn," and shall be reconciled to the Messiah that they delivered to the
Gentiles, and that God has made such a blessing to the Gentiles, as He made
Joseph of old. This whole story, therefore, is the picture in some degree at
least, of the millennial times, and, no doubt, the fulfillment will bring out
many resemblances and correspondences which we cannot now foresee. The story of
Joseph is not only a picture of Christ's exaltation, but is to us the pledge
that the trials we endure for Christ shall "work out for us a far more exceeding
and eternal weight of glory." In a little while the trials of the present will
be exchanged for glories and enjoyments which will make us ashamed that we ever
murmured or shrank in the brief ordeal, which was only God's beneficent school
to educate us for our kingdom. This is the chief lesson of Joseph's life, to
teach us the outcome of sorrow, innocently, bravely, and triumphantly endured,
according to the will of God. It cannot harm us, and the recompense is beyond
our highest thought. An ancient monarch found on ascending to the throne from
which a usurper had long excluded him, that one of his faithful adherents was
lying in a prison because he had dared to dispute the tyrant's claim, and had
been true to his exiled master through years of bondage. The victorious king
commanded the noble captain to be brought into his presence and the chains
struck from his limbs. He then ordered an attendant to weigh them in his sight
and then bring from the palace treasures bag after bag of gold, and weigh them
on the same scales. Then turning to his faithful friend, he said: "You have worn
these chains for me, now you shall have their weight in gold; you have
languished in a prison for me, now you shall have a palace, and all your
sufferings shall be rewarded by their exact equivalent in riches and honor." And
so for us "it is a faithful saying, if we be dead with Him, we shall also live
with Him; if we suffer, we shall also reign."

SECTION V -- The Grace displayed in Joseph's Life and Character.

Higher far than all his glory, is the glorious fact that he used it only for
others. The crown of Joseph's character, like his greater Antitype, is love. He
stands ever as the highest type of Jesus, our suffering, forgiving brother, and
our gracious and benignant Lord.

(1.) We see the beneficence of Joseph's spirit in his kindness, even in his
humiliation, to those about him. He ministered to his suffering fellow
prisoners. And so Christ went about continually doing good, and all who are like
Christ will live to use every station as an opportunity of service, and leave
behind them even in the vilest and meanest place, only memorials of blessing.

(2.) We see, next, his graciousness in the use he made of his exalted power. Not
for himself did he hold the scepter of Egypt, but for the people he served and
saved. The abundance that came to his care was simply regarded as a trust for
others, and husbanded for the time of their need. So Christ has been exalted to
the right hand of power, not for His own selfish magnificence and enjoyment, but
that He might be a Prince and a Savior. So he has received all the fulness of
the Father that He might give it to the race for which He died. His heavenly
life is as unselfish as His earthly, and could we behold Him now, it would still
be the ministering priest, the girded servant, the gracious and ever-willing
benefactor of all who need His help and care. He is not an Oriental despot, but
a loving, toiling, ever accessible friend; never perplexed, never overwhelmed
with any difficult situation, never preoccupied, but ever ready with open ear
and heart and hand to hear our cry and help our need. "Let us therefore come
boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to
help in time of need. Seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed
into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God. For we have not an high priest that
cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Like our exalted and beneficent
Master, so must we also use our place of privilege and blessing for service and
for others. We are trustees and stewards of the manifold grace of God, and the
more fully we receive, the more fully we must learn that "It is more blessed to
give than to receive," and that the very condition of keeping our blessing is
that we shall "be a blessing." A selfish Christian is as inconsistent and
impossible as a selfish Christ. We, too, are come to our kingdom for such a time
as this. Years of famine are coming to the souls around us; in a little while
they shall be perishing for eternal bread; they need our prayers, our help; and
even although they may not know it now as we do, yet the day is coming when they
shall reap the blessings of our faith and our foresight. Let us be true to our
trust, and thus worthy to stand with Joseph and his greater Master, as the
dispensers of God's blessings to a dying world.

(3.) The preeminent picture of Christ's heart is seen in Joseph's relation to
his brethren, and his wise, and yet tender, forgiving love. In the wronged and
injured brother we see the Savior, and his rejection by those for whom he died.
In the long years of indifference and forgetfulness that followed, we behold a
picture of the patience that waits while men go on in callousness and hardness
of heart. In the troubles that at last overtook them and brought them
unconsciously to their injured brother for help, we see how God at length
compels the obdurate heart by bitter trials to come to Him, even though it may
not yet know Him. In the position of those brethren at the feet of Joseph,
unknowing, yet not unknown, we see the sinner whom Christ is drawing to Himself,
but who yet does not even know that He is drawing, but is just driving on in
some blind course of desperate heedlessness. In the wise and even stern
discipline through which Joseph gradually brought them to reflection and the
recollection of their sin, and awakened in their breasts the slumbering voice of
conscience, we see the exquisite process through which the Holy Ghost convicts
the hardened heart of the sinner, and lets its own memories and convictions
gently prepare it to receive His mercy. In the deep tenderness that Joseph held
in check through all this long ordeal, we see the love that Christ often bides
under His sternest discipline and longs to pour out upon our breast when we are
ready to receive it. At length the hour of reconciliation comes; and as in our
case, so it begins with Joseph, and not with the guilty brothers. God is the
first to meet us in reconciliation, and it is His love that awakens our trust,
and His grace that quickens our heart into grace. How fully Joseph forgives; how
tenderly he meets the men that had so pitilessly sacrificed him; how generously
he insists that they shall forget and forgive themselves; how he tries to banish
every painful memory; how he receives them to his very heart and home, and
feasts with them in the absence of all other guests; and how royally he provides
for them and theirs, sharing with them his wealth and glory, and sending for
them to dwell with him amid the abundance of the land and in its fairest region.

All this is infinitely more realized in the love of Jesus, who has been more
cruelly wronged. He draws with wiser, tenderer influences of love and power. He
it is who says "I will heal their backslidings; I will love them freely for mine
anger is turned away." Not only does he forgive, but he forgets; not only does
he save from wrath, but He receives us to His friendship, feasts us at His
table, feeds us with His own very life, shares with us His riches and glory, and
takes us to be with Him where He is in all the riches of His kingdom and
inheritance. As we have already suggested, this will receive a literal
fulfillment bye and bye in the actual seed of Jacob, the literal brethren of
Jesus, but it is also fulfilled in the forgiveness and reconciliation of every
heart that has learned to know Him as a "friend that sticketh closer than a
brother." Have we learned to know Him by this tender name and this exquisite
type, and shall we realize with a sweetness unknown before, and reflect upon
others, in our turn, like Him, the meaning of these lines?

Yes, for me, for me He careth, With a brother's tender care; Yes, with me, with
me He shareth Every burden, every fear.

Yes, o'er me, o'er me He watcheth, Ceaseless watcheth night and day: Yes, e'en
me, e'en me He snatcheth From the perils of the way.

Yes, in me, in me He dwelleth -- I in Him, and He in me; And my empty soul He
filleth, Here and through eternity.


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  CHAPTER 11: BOOK 2 CH. 1 - EMBLEMS FROM THE LIFE OF MOSES
========================================================================

Book 2 Chapter 1 EMBLEMS FROM THE LIFE OF MOSES. And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself." "This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet
shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him
shall ye hear. This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the
angel which spake unto him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers; who
received the lively oracles to give unto us." Luke 24:27; Acts 7:37.

We need not repeat what has been said in a former volume, that all these ancient
scriptures are God's pictures of Christ. We shall now renew our study of these
emblems as we next find them, in the Book of Exodus. We have seen that the first
book of the Bible is almost a table of contents of all that was to follow; and
that the germ truths of the whole system of redemption are there made living in
the personal characters and the symbolical figures that God gave in a series of
object lessons to the infant class of His church. In the Book of Exodus the
vision grows more vivid, though not less spiritual, and not less Christly.

SECTION I -- The Ark on the Nile. The first that we call attention to is the ark
of faith, as we may call it -- that little vessel to which a Jewish mother
entrusted all her hopes and all the hopes of her people in that hour of strange
and terrible extremity; and out of which God brought through His chosen servant,
the hope and the deliverer of the church. This picture of Moses and his rescue
is the real parable of the whole story of the Book of Exodus, and all that it
means -- namely, the work of redemption. The word Exodus means "taken out," and
the word Moses means "drawn out." And so the Exodus tells how the children of
Israel were taken out of Egypt, and thus how we are taken out of the Egypt of
sin in like manner. And Moses is the figure of their deliverance and ours; and
thus his name became expressive of the whole story of the Exodus. He, too, was
condemned to die by the harsh decree of the cruel Pharaoh, and he was laid on
the altar of death by his mother's trembling hands. He was given up to die, and
to her was as really dead, almost, as though he had been taken out of her arms
and buried. And then he came back to her as much from the dead as Isaac came
back to his father. Thus he becomes the symbol of death and resurrection. There
is a trial in front of every blessing. There is a cross everywhere, and there is
a crown on the other side; and only thus can we enter into the mystery of God's
working; in the life of faith. Little Moses must die and come back to his
people, as Christ must be crucified and raised again; and your life must be laid
on the altar if you are to come up in resurrection power. So the story of Moses
is the parable of resurrection, redemption and the Christian life. And in
handing over that which is so dear to us, there must be faith. We cannot do it
unless we trust God. That mother could not have put her cherished one on the
bosom of the Nile, if she had not thought that God's hand was under him, and
God's power going to deliver him. It is really a question whether Abraham could
have yielded up Isaac as he did, if he had not had faith. It glorifies that act,
to be told that Abraham believed Isaac would somehow be given back, even from
death. It was the faith that made it possible to go through the death. It was
the joy that was set before Him that enabled Jesus to endure the cross, and
despise the shame. And so God does not take any of us as blind sacrifices, and
put us to death in a sort of brutal and hopeless surrender, but He gives us the
blessed consciousness that we are in the hands of infinite love, and that,
though we may not see how, yet somehow God has for us nothing but blessing, and
an outcome of mightier joy and service, and issues that shall reach out through
eternity for His glory and for the good of others. So it was here; little Moses,
kept in her home, would have perished. Little Moses, on the Nile, is still alive
in his work, and has become the leader of faith for the millions that have
followed in his footsteps. And so, the clinging hands that would hold back what
God is calling you to give Him are cruel, foolish hands; and your true life and
their true life must ever lie in the example of this ancient mother. Just place
all at His blessed feet, and all eternity will unfold to you an hundred fold.

Again, not only do we see faith here, but we see God's providence -- that takes
the things that we cannot keep, and guards the things for which we cannot care.
We are not walking in the dark; there are eyes above us, and around us, and on
every side, that slumber not nor sleep. And God can take the very things that
you are most afraid of; God can take the very things that are breaking your
heart; God can take the very things that seem to be your enemies, and make them
the very occasion of your deliverance, and the instruments of your highest
blessing. Poor Jochabed was perhaps haunted with the fear of the cruel Pharaoh
and his daughter; but she lived to see them the instruments of blessing. The
very thing that seemed to condemn her child to death made him the child of a
king. The hard fortune by which he was taken from her arms was the doorway by
which he was given back. And the very river to which she consigned him, and by
which it seemed she was putting him in a watery grave, carried him on the voyage
by which he passed from being a Hebrew captive to be the Lawgiver of the world.
The very things that are hard to suffer become the scaffolding for building
God's temple, without which He could not have fulfilled His purpose. And so with
the story of Joseph. He had to go into the dungeon to be a Prince. And Moses had
to be decreed to death, to be cast into the waters, to be saved, and become the
instrument of God to save these people. O let us trust that inscrutable
Providence, which is so full of mystery to many, and which hides behind His
trials and discipline plans and purposes of love and wisdom. And so, through
this little floating vessel let us learn the secret of self-renunciation; let us
learn the secret of trust, and let our trembling hands place all that is dear in
His infinite arms, and ever keep them there; and with wondering hearts we, too,
shall know how wise, how strong His hand.

SECTION II -- The Burning Bush. The second emblem in the Book of Exodus is the
fire of the wilderness, the Burning Bush. We come to it in the third chapter of
Exodus, second verse: "And. the angel of the Lord. appeared unto him in a flame
of fire, out of the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush burned
with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside,
and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that
he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and
said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not nigh hither:
put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy
ground. Moreover He said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to
look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people
which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for
I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the
Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large,
unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and
the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the
Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto
me and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them.
Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring
forth my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt." Here we see the story of
Egypt again represented in symbol, just as it was in the waters of the Nile,
only the figure here is not water, but fire. It grows more intense, more
terrible. And so God's image to us of trial and of trouble is both water and
fire, and He has given us a promise for both. "When thou passest through the
waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow
thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of
Israel, thy Savior." And so, while the waters of the Nile tell of the engulfing
tribulation, the burning bush tells of the tribulations which seem to be a
consuming fire. The bush referred to here was a little stunted shrub that still
grows in the wilderness of that country. It was not a palm tree, it was not a
beautiful bush full of blossoms. It was a fitting type of these and of the
church of God, although a despised little thing. And so it is with our Christian
life -- a root out of a dry ground, like the heath in the desert, to the eye of
man; not only obscure, but burning with fiery trial. Fire represents here what
had been represented to Abraham in the smoking furnace of his vision. It
represents the fiery trials of our lives, the things that burn down deep into
the very fibers of our being, the flames that penetrate and seem to become the
very substance of our soul. Fire is strangely intense and intrinsic, it goes
into the very substance of things. It somehow blends with every particle of the
things it touches. Somehow, there are trials that penetrate so that some of us
do not know a moment of life without them, nor a spot that does not hold them.
There are seasons of trial -- what is called, in the Bible, "the day of evil."
There are the physical trials, the social and domestic trials, and the things
that grieve the tenderest sensibilities, and break the loving, sympathizing
heart. There are the trials of uncongenial surroundings and unfavorable
circumstances. There are the severer trials that come to minds more sensitive,
to the minds that have more points of contact with what hurts; so that the
higher the nature the higher the joy, and the greater the avenues of pain that
can come. And then there are the deeper trials that come as we pass into the
hands of God, as we pass from the psychical and intellectual into the spiritual
nature; as the Apostle says, "The fiery trial that is to try you." When it first
comes, we shrink back from its unnatural and fearful breath, and we say: "O this
cannot be from the hand of a loving Father; this cannot be necessary to me."O
the fearfulness of the struggle, the strange, sulphurous smell that comes from
its exhalations, and so sickens and withers, sometimes, our spiritual
sensibilities. And then the pains and sufferings that come from God's own hand,
when He sits as a refiner and purifier of silver, when He lets it burn, and
burn, and burn, and burn in, until it seems that we must be burned to ashes, and
we are indeed at last burned to ashes, "for our God is a consuming fire." The
Holy Ghost shall baptize you with fire. And this fire sometimes means suffering
in your deeper spiritual being, until your soul becomes partaker of the virtue
of God, and then all the fires cannot consume you. I know that some of you can
understand this. This is one of the things that does not need philosophy to
explain. Christ knew it, and He talks to us as a suffering people. The Bible
avers that we are the children of affliction. Though trial does not spring from
the ground, or from the clouds, yet man is born to it as the sparks fly upward.
But, blessed be His name, if you are God's workmanship, the bush burns, but is
not consumed. If one branch of God's little shrub is reduced, or calcined by
that little flame, it does not harm anything that is real. They walk through the
midst of the fire, without the smell of the flame on their garments, and come
forth, set free from its vehemence and fury, set free from the very chains that
had been on their limbs when they entered the furnace. God tells us that trouble
cannot harm us if we are His. He was showing Moses that His people could not be
destroyed by these persecutions, for, the more they were persecuted, the more
they grew and multiplied. Our troubles have not harmed us, if we are the Lord's.
We shall suffer no loss through them. But we must get the victory through faith.
We must get above the billow, or it will sink us. The moment you cease to fear
it, that moment it ceases to harm you. He says, "The waters shall not overflow
you." He says, "The flames shall not kindle upon you." The flames will burn
something, but nothing that is divine. God must burn all else some day, and it
is better now. The fire will try men's souls to see what they are, and where
there is hay or stubble, it will burn like tinder, in the last day: is it not
better now? There are things in you that will burn, but they are not divine
things. God wants you to be made free from everything that would consume. I take
a piece of paper and put it in the gas jet, and how quickly it burns up. But I
can keep a piece of gold there all day, and yet it is not burned: it may melt,
but it is all there; it is indestructible. And so God wants to take out of you
and me that which is perishable. "O," let us say, "anything in me that will not
stand in that day, let it go, and give me that which will stand." If the faith
withers, maybe it was not faith. And if the song dies out, maybe it was only an
earth song. Possibly God is letting your natural strength wither, that you may
take the strength of God; letting your old powers shrink, that you may get
rooted in the rock. That which burns out is transient and earthly, and God is
burning it out that you may get something better. You know that He is burning
out the dross of sin; are you willing that he should? I have no doubt that there
was some way in which the children of Israel were being prepared for their
future by their sufferings. We may not understand it, but God does. And so the
peaceable fruits will come out of our trials. And is it not wonderful that here
the very figure that is used to express the suffering, the very emblem of their
terrible furnace of affliction, is the type of Christ Himself. The burning flame
is God's most ancient emblem of His own image, and the one that shines
preeminent above all other symbols among His ancient people. In Eden He appeared
as the fiery Shekinah. And preceding, or following, the children of Israel in
their journeys, was the pillar of cloud and fire. And so the symbol of God
throughout the Old Testament was fire. In the tabernacle the Spirit of God was
represented by the flame above the ark. At Mount Sinai He came down in the fire
and in the lightning. When He came to judgment, He came in fire. So, again, when
Elijah called on God on Mount Carmel, He answered by fire. When the Holy Ghost
came, we are told in the Book of Acts that cloven tongues of fire sat upon each
of the disciples. Thus fire was the special enrobing of the Divine form. It
tells not only of our sorrow, but of Him who comes to us in our sorrow. And so,
as we look at the licking tongues of flame, and think of its consuming power,
lo! suddenly it becomes transformed, and over its glowing figure we behold the
name of God and read these words: "I am that I am." And so this figure of the
burning bush not only represents the suffering church, but also God in the midst
of His people, pervading them with His life, and thus making them indestructible
in the midst of trials and temptations; sustained and upheld by His own
indwelling, and His mighty all-sufficiency. Dear friends, do we know this
indwelling fire? It is not the God of judgment who is a consuming fire, but the
language of the Apostle is: "Our God is a consuming fire " -- the God that comes
to us, the God that we love to have come to us. Has He come to us as a fire? Has
He come to consume the perishable and the corruptible, the sinful and the
narrow? Has He burned out of you the foolishness, the sinfulness, the weakness,
and the selfishness? Will you let Him? O this is a wholesome fire; it is a
blessed fire. The thing you want consumed is a wilderness of woods and swamp.
When a fire starts in a swamp, how quickly the wild things get out. How the
serpents hiss and flee, and how everything is cleansed. God wants to burn the
nest of scorpions out of your heart. Ask Him to let the fire in. If you have
anything wrong in your heart, ask Him to come and consume it. There are things
in your bosom that you want burned out. You want it as empty as a vessel that
has been through the flames. We need not only to be washed out, but to be burned
out, if we would be pure vessels fit for the Master's use. Ask Him to send the
fire, and receive it as the fire of love. O for the Divine love that endureth
all things, that hopeth all things, that never faileth. Let it burn on and on
and never cease -- the unquenchable fire of God in the heart. Then shall it be
what the fire is in the wheels of human industry, moving the machinery of life.
"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Before the day closes,
you may be like that burning bush, baptized with fire, a glowing thing -- little
and obscure, but a wonder to earth and heaven, alive with light and glory and
purity; nothing in yourself, but, like that wire which runs along your streets,
charged with electric fire so that a man would not dare touch it, it is so
alive. So you, though little and lowly, may be fiery channels to touch other
lives, and make them yield to Him. Let us realize that the dispensation of today
is supernatural as that of Pentecost. It was the Holy Ghost that was in the
shrub; He is as present here, and He can make of you all you will let Him.

SECTION III -- The Rod of Moses. The third emblem we shall look at is the rod
referred to in the fourth chapter of Exodus. Moses said: "But, behold, they will
not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not
appeared unto thee."

Then God did not say to him, I am going to give you some great sign, but He
said: "What is that in thine hand?" And he said, "A rod." That was God's sign to
Moses that God was to be with him. Dear friends, when the Lord wants to give you
a sign to the world that He is in you, He is not going to do it by an
astonishing emblem. He is going to say to you, "What is that in thine hand?" He
is going to take the commonest thing in your life, and make it mighty in His
service. He is going to prove that His presence is in you, and that He is going
to work with your nothingness and simplicity. The very thing of all on which the
commission of Moses rested, was the simplest and smallest and weakest thing
about him. That little shepherd's crook, the little thorn bush he had cut in the
desert, is to be the weapon with which he is to go to Pharaoh and challenge his
power, and open a pathway for God's redeemed people to walk through the sea on
dry land, and bring the cloud of glory to lead as they marched forth. That
little rod, the very emblem of insignificance and weakness, is the emblem of
God's power and the token of His presence. Beloved, do you want to know whether
God is in your heart, whether God is really all in all? Then, what are you doing
with that in your hand? What is God making out of your common life? And is God
using the little things about you, and your very weakness? What has God made out
of your rod? That is what it all means. It does not mean that you are to get
into an ideal state, and when you are particularly strong and adapted to your
work, God is going to use you, but God is going to start now; He wants to take
you today; and the very thing He wants to baptize with the Holy Ghost is not
something that you hope to have by the spring or the autumn, but what you have
got this morning or evening. The very trial in your life from which you want
deliverance, and then be at God's disposal, He wants to take now and make it the
opportunity of your service. The very work in your hand now, he wants to come
into and make a token of his power. The very thing you are trying to get over
and make satisfactory to yourself, He wants surrendered as it is. God meets you
with that which is in your hand, and He wants to use you with what you have, and
what you are, and then prepare you for whatever he has in reserve for you in His
purpose of wisdom. And so we find, all through the Bible, that God takes people
in the place He finds them, and in the relations His providence has already
given them, and uses them. So not only with Moses but a score of others, God has
taken their occupation, and made them illustrious examples of His power. He came
to Joshua, and used him for what he was fitted -- a soldier. He came to Deborah,
and used her as he would a woman. He came to Miriam, and said: "What have you?"
"A harp," she answered, and He used her to sing the song of Moses and the Lamb.
He came to Hannah she had a mother's heart -- and He took that, and out of it
came Samuel and his service. He came to Samson, and He did not wait for anything
better than an old skeleton bone -- that was enough. He came to David, the
shepherd boy, and made him a king before he had any military training, or knew
anything of a courtier's life. And so, at a later period, He took Paul, the tent
maker, and William Carey at his bench, and David Livingston throwing his
shuttle, a missionary before he ever saw Africa. And so He takes you; you do not
need to be anything better than the burning bush. That is not perhaps all He
will yet use. If He shall give you culture, He will use that when it is in your
hand. But He will not use you until you use what you have. If the fire is not
burning in your heart, do not put on any more green wood. What are you doing
today? or what are you letting God do? It was not Moses that did it -- it was
God. Moses tried to do it forty years before, but God would not have any of his
trying. Moses had put himself in the front, and took his sword and killed an
Egyptian and hid him in the sand; and then he said, "That is the way I am going
to treat all that misuse my brethren;" but the next day he was glad to run away
and hide from the consequences of his impulsiveness. God would not have him
then. But now for forty years He has been slowly tempering him; he has been
steeping in the waters of patient trial; he has been getting humble, so that now
God has to goad him, and push him out. He says: "I cannot speak, Lord; send
anybody, but do not send me." When God gets him there, reduced to the smallest
of proportions, the meekest of all the men that ever lived, He says: "You are
ready for work; now, Moses, I am going to take that rod, and with it break the
arms of Pharaoh, and open the way for my people, and bring waters from the
desert rock and make you an instrument of power." Is it not the New Testament
lesson? "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world, to confound the wise;
and God hath chosen the weak things of the world, to confound the things which
are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath
God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are;
that no flesh should glory in His presence." He wants only to have our
nothingness. But we must have Him. And so, as the closing lesson, we want to
learn that, back of the story of the burning bush and the rod, there is another
fact that overshadows all, transcends all -- written in the sky, written on the
sacred page, written henceforth on Moses' heart, and I hope, on ours -- the
mighty name that God pronounces for the first time, "I AM;" "I AM THAT I AM."
"Lord, how will they know? How will I get them to accept me?" "Certainly, I will
be with thee. I am that I am." You! Why you have not anything to do, but just to
go. But I AM, and you are not. You are a little shrub. I am the fire that burns
in it. And no man dare touch it any more than he dare touch that charged wire,
to harm it. What does it matter about the brush, if the right painter wields it?
What does it matter about the harp; if the right musician plays it, he can bring
music out of a broken string. And so, "I am;" and if you want anything more, "I
am that I am." It is just, "I Am -- I Am -- I Am." It is the Personal One -- the
One we have been learning to receive, trying to get out of His way and make room
for Him to come in. So, over against our nothingness, over against all we fear
or desire on earth or in heaven, let us put "I Am." He keeps on saying it
through the New Testament. He says it to His disciples on the stormy sea. He
says it to you, "It is I, be not afraid." And He is hovering over us between
earth and heaven -- and again, about to ascend, He speaks unto His disciples,
saying, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth, and, lo, I AM with
you all the days, even unto the end." It still is "I Am." And again, in the
latest book -- in the Apocalypse -- He adds, "I am He that liveth, and was dead;
and, behold, I am alive forever more." O this is the secret of power. It is not
merely ceasing from yourself, but it is seeing Him. It is not merely dying, but
it is letting Him live. It is not merely saying, I am not sufficient to think
anything of myself, but it is putting out your hands and saying, "but our
sufficiency is of God." "Having nothing" -- it would kill us if we stopped there
"but possessing all things." That is the reason He wants you to get off the old
raft, that you may get on yonder ship of power and all-sufficiency. That is the
reason He wants you to let go your old miserable way for, and be carried by the
train of His almighty power. O how many of us have stopped with the
discouragements, the nothingness. Now, beloved, take hold of His strength. For
everything you have let go there is an hundred-fold -- take it. Have you done
so? Come, that God may fill your life. Place all that you have at His feet, and
before the sun goes down you shall triumph there. Moses and Jehovah: the rod is
enough, only let God wield it. Somebody wanted once to see the sword of Richard
Coeur de Lion -- I think it was Saladin the Saracen -- and when he saw it he
said: "Why, that is not half so good a sword as mine; that is nothing but a
cleaver. Look at my sword," and he took out the burnished blade and doubled it
until the point touched the hilt. "Look, it is elastic, and this blade is like a
razor." The man quietly looked at him, and then said: " Saladin, it is not the
sword of Richard, it is the arm of Richard that wields it, that makes it what it
is." O beloved, we are enough, you are enough, if we will only let Him hide us
in His shadow, and uphold us with His hand. "I am He that holdeth the seven
stars in my hand," He says. O take His great name today. Fill up the blank in
your own covenant, and write after that: "I am; I am joy; I am power; I am love;
I am faith; I am providence; I am in the future, and in the past; I am Jesus; I
am thine; I am in thee; I am thy faith, and thy power, and thy salvation; --
nay, take me bodily, and own me utterly, for I am thy God, You are not your own.
I am not my own, but thine. I am thine and thou art mine." Amen.


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  CHAPTER 12: BOOK 2 CH. 2 - EMBLEMS FROM THEIR BONDAGE AND
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Book 2 Chapter 2 EMBLEMS FROM THEIR BONDAGE AND REDEMPTION.

SECTION I -- The Brick Fields of Egypt. And they made their lives bitter with
hard bondage, in mortar, and in brick, and in all manner of service in the
field: all their service, wherein they made them serve, was with rigor." "And
Pharaoh commanded the same day the taskmasters of the people, and their
officers, saying, Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick, as
heretofore: let them go and gather straw for themselves. And the tale of bricks,
which they did make heretofore, ye shall lay upon them; ye shall not diminish
aught thereof." "So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of
Egypt, to gather stubble instead of straw. And the taskmasters hasted them
saying, Fulfil your works, your daily tasks, as when there was straw. And the
officers of the children of Israel, which Pharaoh's taskmasters had set over
them, were beaten, and demanded, Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task in
making brick, both yesterday and today, as heretofore? Then the officers of the
children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou
thus with thy servants? There is no straw given unto thy servants, and they say
to us, Make brick: and, behold, thy servants are beaten; but the fault is in
thine own people." "And the officers of the children of Israel did see that they
were in an evil case, after it was said, Ye shall not diminish aught from your
bricks of your daily task." This is the picture which God has given us of the
bitter bondage of His ancient people, which is a type of the rigid slavery of
sin and Satan. The land which had been their asylum in the beginning, had become
to them an iron furnace and a place of oppression.

Through all the succeeding centuries the language "I am the Lord the God which
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage," has been
the strongest and most vivid picture of our redemption from the power of Satan,
and this present evil world. To us, as to them, it began with a scene of
innocence and blessing. But soon another king arose over our once holy and happy
Eden; and the prince of this world holds his captives in a thrall more perfect,
and a servitude more debasing than Pharaoh or Israel ever knew. The brick fields
of Zoan are fitting emblems of some of its rigors. The very material of which
the brick is made suggests the idea of the earthly and perishable. The symbol of
God's enduring work is not brick but stone. The heavenly house is founded upon a
rock, and its separate materials are living stones. But the houses of Egypt and
Babylon are built of clay, and symbolize the transitory and earthly character
and issue of all that pertains to this present evil world. The poor votary of
Mammon is spending all his strength to build a house which will crumble, like
himself, into dust when a few more years shall have passed away. The aggravation
of this bondage, however, was that the oppressor demanded the severest tasks,
without even supplying materials or resources. This is exactly what Satan does
with all his victims -- demands that they shall make brick without straw.

He is the great master of an evil conscience; and he loves to lay upon the
troubled heart the yoke of the law, quite as well as he does to break its
obligations. One of his favorite methods of crushing his victims is to demand of
them an impossible righteousness, and then to accuse them and condemn them and
drive them to despair because they have not fulfilled it,although he knows that
they are wholly unable to do so.

How dreadful is the bondage of a soul conscious of its sin and shortcoming,
constantly desiring to do better, and indeed, rushing into a thousand resolves
and purposes of right doing, and yet sinking deeper into the captivity of
corruption, and beaten for every failure with the cruel rod of an accusing
conscience, and a remorseful despair. How different His gentle sway, who
commands nothing without also giving the power to fulfil it; and who says to the
weary and sin-trodden world, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I
am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke
is easy, and my burden is light." The figure reaches its climax when it is added
that the wages of this pitiless service was literally death. The cruel decree
not only demanded that the race should be crushed and prostrated by these severe
exactions, but also that it should be ultimately extinguished, by the
consignment to a cruel fate, of every male child. So our hard master not only
seeks our service, but has determined upon our utter destruction. Nothing less
than the blood of our soul will ever satisfy his fiendish hate and malignity. He
is not satisfied with our physical death, but his sting strikes us with an
eternal wound, and smites with an eternal death. What fools men are. They are
building what they think are their treasure cities; but like the piles of
ancient Rameses and Pythom they pass into the hands of others, and the wretched
toilers go down to an eternal grave. "Thewages of sin is death; but the gift of
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." This cruel bondage is as
unrelenting as it is severe. Pharaoh has no idea of letting his captives go. He
may make a little compromise, and consent that they shall go for a few days into
the wilderness to worship God; but they must not go very far away. In no case
must they go out of Egypt; and even if they go they must leave their cattle and
their children as hostages. So the world holds men. It has no objections to a
moderate amount of religion, so long as it does not separate us from the world,
or lead us very far from its practices and spirit; and like Pharaoh it always
insists on holding our family and our property. Where Satan has not all the
hearts, he generally controls a large part of the capital, even of the professed
people of God. Parents who themselves would not dream of indulging in doubtful
association and pleasures, allow their children unrestrained liberty in the
enjoyment of the world.

It is a blessing when God makes the bondage so bitter that His people awake to
the realization of its meaning, and cry like Israel of old for deliverance. Like
them the cry will be met, not only by the Lord's mercy, but by the enhanced
severity of their trials. The nearer the hour of deliverance came, the more
terrific was the heat of the iron furnace. And so it is, often, that in the very
depths of despair the morning breaks and the deliverer comes to us. "When the
tale of bricks is double, then cometh Moses," is the beautiful proverb already
referred to, in which the sad story of Israel crystallizes its hope; and many a
soul has found it true in the experience of salvation or providential
deliverance.

Let us stop and ask ourselves what all this means for us. Are we in the brick
fields of Egypt, or in the free and happy tents of the redeemed? Are we building
the house of sand which will crumble into decay and ruin in a little while? or
are we building not only on the rock, but also of the precious, indestructible
materials of gold, silver, and precious stones, which will not only stand the
test, but shine the brighter in the flames of the final day? Are we serving that
cruel master, the world, who deceives us by his fair promises, and makes us
think we are building palaces for ourselves, and then snatches them from the
crumbling fingers that can hold them no longer, and repeats the story of the
world's deceiving promises in the lives that come after us? Are we the wretched
slaves of a tyrant who is not only using all our strength for his own selfish
ends, but who is slowly and inevitably crushing us to an eternal death; who has
determined not only to destroy our lives, but to devour our immortal souls? Or
are we under the bondage of an evil conscience, and a law that can no longer
save or sanctify, wasting our lives and spending our strength for nought, in a
futile endeavor to keep our resolutions, and reform our lives, overcome our
passions, and fulfil the demands of that law; and then with every failure
sinking deeper into helplessness and despair? Blessed be God! for us the hour of
redemption draweth nigh. The rigors of our bondage are but the last frantic,
convulsive efforts of our tyrant to hold us. The Great Deliverer has come to
bind up the brokenhearted; to preach deliverance to the captives; to set at
liberty them that are oppressed; to deliver us from the power of darkness and
translate us into the kingdom of His dear Son. Only let us recognize our true
condition; let us take His side against our oppressor; let us not, like them,
refuse Moses when he comes to set us free; let us lift up our cry to heaven, and
the answer is already spoken. "Behold the cry of the children of Israel is come
unto me, and I have seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. I
have surely seen the affliction of my children which are in Egypt, and have
heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows, and am
come down to deliver them."

SECTION II -- The Ten Plagues. The first stage of the deliverance of Israel was
the judgment of God upon their oppressors. And the plagues of Egypt are types of
the dealings of God with our spiritual adversaries in the great work of
redemption, both in its inception, and final consummation.

We have already seen the principle of salvation by destruction vividly
illustrated in the story of the deluge, where Noah and his family were saved by
water. The destruction of Pharaoh is a similar illustration of the same
principle. The ten plagues of Egypt were directed not only against the persons
and property of the king and nation, but more especially against the devil-gods
and deified naturalism of the land.. "Against all the gods of Egypt," God says,
"He will execute judgment.'' The ten successive plagues, which filled the river
with blood, and the land with swarms of frogs, flies, locusts; which smote the
cattle with disease, the fields with hail and fire, the sky with darkness, and
all the homes of Egypt, at length, with death, were not only tokens of God's
displeasure against the wicked tyrant and the corrupt people, but a still more
direct and fatal blow at the dragon-head of him who was the real lord of Egypt;
the Prince of the powers of the air; the Ruler of earth's ungodly nations; and
the God of this world. The Nile, the flocks, the beetles, the cattle, the sun,
and the King himself, were all representatives of the Divine principle, and
objects of idolatrous worship. And they were all in turn smitten in helpless
judgment by the hand of Heaven, that Egypt might know that they were but the
mockeries of a false religion, and the counterfeits of the true God, who was
about to magnify Himself in the redemption and history of His chosen people.

These plagues foreshadowed the judgments which began to fall upon the head of
Satan, even in the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus, and which are to each
their culmination in the plagues of judgments of the last day. The first three
of these fell alike both on Israel and the Egyptians; implying that to a certain
extent, even the people of God share the sufferings and retributions which sin
has brought upon the earth. But the last seven were exclusively confined to the
Egyptians, and seem to contain a prophecy, or at least a prefiguring shadow of
the seven last plagues, which a little while are to fill up the cup of earth's
calamities, and immediately precede the personal advent of the Lord Jesus
Christ. (Rev. 16.) The doom of Pharaoh in the Red Sea is the type of the final
overthrow of Satan and his earthly viceregents at the opening of Christ's
millennial reign. Not always will right be on the scaffold, and wrong upon the
throne. "He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." "Evil men and
seducers shall wax worse and worse; but there is an end to the wickedness of the
wicked, and his rod shall not forever rest upon the lot of the righteous." The
chain is forged, and the sword is whetted which are to find and smite the tyrant
and oppressor of the ages; and soon the cry will rise again: "The accuser of our
brethren is cast down. Rejoice, O ye heavens, and be glad, O ye inhabitants of
the earth. Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." As on the farther
shore of the Egyptian sea they sang the song of Moses, they shall finish the
refrain in a grander chorus, and sing the song of Moses, and the song of the
Lamb before the sea of glass, saying, "Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord
God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not
fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name for thou only art holy; for all nations
shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest."
(Revelation 15:3-5, Revelation 19:6.) Section III -- The Paschal Lamb.

"And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This
month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of
the year to you. In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every
man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if
the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbor next unto his
house take it according to the number of the souls. Your lamb shall be without
blemish, a male of the first year. And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth
day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel
shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on
the two side posts, and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they eat
it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened
bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it." "And thus shall ye eat it; with
your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye
shall eat it in haste; it is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the
land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt,
both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment:
I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where
ye are; and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not
be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. And this day shall
be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout
your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever." (Exodus
12:1-14.)

Thus did Jehovah mark the starting point of their national history by this
crimson token of redemption. So for the church of the New Testament, and so for
every redeemed soul, the beginning of months is the cross of Calvary, and the
shed and sprinkled blood. The Paschal Lamb was but the summing up in one
enduring ordinance of all the sacrificial types which had been already
instituted for nearly thirty centuries. The selection of the lamb on the tenth
day of the month, and its being kept until the fourteenth, suggest unmistakably
the coming of Christ in the fulness of time, and the three and a half years of
his public ministry after he was set apart to his redeeming work by his baptism
and while waiting for the accomplishment of his sacrifice. The death of the lamb
before the whole assembly of the children of Israel reminds us of how he was
delivered up by the national council of his own people, and formally condemned
to death at the hands of the Romans. The very time of its death corresponded
exactly with the sacrifice of Calvary. The sprinkled blood expresses our
personal application of the merits of his death; and the efficacy of that blood
in averting the stroke of the avenging angel, is fulfilled in the security into
which redemption brings us, and the complete justification and acceptance of the
soul that has found refuge under the precious blood. The flesh of the lamb
reminds us that Christ is not only a substitute for us, but the very substance
and subsistence of our spiritual life through his living union and communion
with us. As it was eaten that same night that it was slain, so we must feed on
Christ from the moment that we accept him. The unleavened bread helps us to
remember that our most holy faith leaves no place for the indulgence of sin, but
requires our turning from all iniquity if we would claim that redeeming blood.
And the bitter herbs spell out the story of repentance and contrition in the
life of every forgiven soul. This, then, was the ground of their redemption, and
this is the purchase of ours. "We have redemption, through his blood, even the
forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace," "not with
corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was
foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last
times for you;" "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own
blood, be glory and dominion forever and ever." Have we learned to blend the
song of Moses and the song of the Lamb? Are we resting under the precious blood?
Are we feeding upon the flesh of the Paschal Lamb? Is our bread unleavened? Are
our feet sandaled, our staves in hand, and our pilgrimage begun? "Are you sure
the blood is on the door?" An old Hebrew legend tells us this was the cry of a
little girl that first Passover night. "Father, are you sure?" They looked and
found it had been entrusted to another and neglected. With eager hands it was
quickly sprinkled, and the little heart could rest while waiting for their
journey to begin. O if any one who reads these lines is still in Egypt and under
the black wing of night and judgment, haste thee to apply it. The gentle Lamb
stands with bowed head by your side. For a little longer he offers his bosom to
death, and his blood to wash away thy sin. One cry of penitence, one look of
earnest longing, one touch of simple faith, and you shall have passed under the
protection of his death and life. The one shall cancel all your guilt; the other
shall quicken and keep all your future life in covenant love and care. And this
hour will be to you the beginning of the months of your eternal history; and
shall not be forgotten even when before the sea of glass, you sing the song of
Moses and the Lamb.

Notice most emphatically, that the safety of Israel did not depend upon their
personal feelings or merits, but on the attitude they took with respect to the
Lamb, and the blood. And so, beloved reader, your eternal future absolutely
hangs upon your relation to the Lord Jesus Christ. "He that believeth on the Son
hath everlasting life; he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life, but
the wrath of God abideth on him." Out from under the blood you are lost whoever
and wherever you may be. Under its sprinkled canopy you are as safe as an angel,
and as dear to God as his only, well beloved Son.

SECTION III -- The Passage of the Red Sea.

"And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he pursued after the children
of Israel: and overtook them encamping by the sea. And when Pharaoh drew nigh,
the children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and, behold, the Egyptians marched
after them; and they were sore afraid: and the children of Israel cried out unto
the Lord. And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the
salvation of the Lord, which he will show to you today; for the Egyptians whom
ye have seen today, ye shall see them again no more forever. The Lord shall
fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. And the Lord said unto Moses,
Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go
forward. But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and
divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst
of the sea. And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused
the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry
land, and the waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into the
midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the waters were a wall unto them on
the right hand and on the left. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after
them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his
horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned
to his strength when the morning appeared: and the Egyptians fled against it;
and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters
returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of
Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of
them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea;
and the waters were a wall unto them on the right hand and on their left. Thus
the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw
the Egyptians dead upon the seashore. And Israel saw that great work which the
Lord did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the
Lord, and his servant Moses." (Exodus 14:8-31.)

Such is the sublime type of our salvation, repeated afresh in every new and
great deliverance which comes in the life of faith. The principles are ever the
same. God alone must deliver, and we must let Him, ceasing from our own works,
implicitly trusting Him, and fearlessly obeying and following Him. This is the
beautiful figure of the committal of faith, when the soul first comes in
trembling fear to Christ for salvation. Pursued by its sins and its bitter
adversaries, it sees no way before, and there is no retreat behind. Then comes
the blessed word, "Stand still and see the salvation of God." Our first act must
be to cease from our own efforts to save ourselves; the next to keep our eye
upon God; and then the third, to go forward, not in the old and restless way of
the self-effort, but in simple obedience to His leading, and in confidence in
His promise. There may seem no pathway but the raging sea; but the soul may
commit itself securely to Him, and at once step out into the darkness of the
inevitable future and it will find a pathway for redemption and victory. So we
must act in the great crises of difficulty and danger that meet us along the
pathway of life. Our first expressions are usually those of distrust and fear,
like poor flying Israel; and our greatest danger is that we shall become so
agitated and active in our wild efforts to save ourselves, that God cannot
really help us. Therefore His word again is to stand still. We must absolutely
stop all our contriving, fretting and rushing hither and thither, and let the
Lord take charge.

Next we must get our eye on Him, and see the salvation of the Lord, and know
that He will fight for us; and as we do this we must continue to hold our peace.
We must not begin again the outcries of fear or impatience; we must rest in the
Lord, and wait patiently for Him. Then will come the moment to go forward, and
our going shall be safe and effectual. There may be no pathway visible. It may
be stepping into the cold floods for a moment. But we shall find dry land as we
advance, and on the farther shore shall have a song such as they only know who
have learned to trust in the dark, and sing in the night.

"March on then right boldly, The sea will divide, The pathway made glorious,
With shouting victorious, We'll join in the chorus, The Lord will provide." The
passage of the Red sea was not only a beautiful symbol of the committal of
faith, but also of death and resurrection. Hence it is called by the Apostle
Paul, "baptism unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea." It expresses the radical
idea of baptism very vividly -- namely, death and resurrection life. It was a
seeming grave, as our baptism is; and yet, like ours also, only a seeming death;
for they found the solid ground beneath their feet. And yet it was really death
to their enemies. And so as we become united to Christ in his death and
resurrection, the only things that die are our spiritual enemies. And on the
farther shore we see the Egyptians as helpless corpses, unable ever to harm us
again.

Thus God permits us to bury our sins, our past lives, our old selves, and even
the world of Egypt which has enslaved us, and debased us. This is the glorious
meaning of the cross of Jesus. And all who have really accepted it in its real
meaning can sing "I've passed the cross of Calvary; I'm on the heaven side."

Again, beloved, where do we stand amid these ancient figures of redemption? Have
we ceased from our own works and accepted the salvation of the Lord? Have we
gone forth in a full committal of faith, and begun like them our Christian
pilgrimage? Have we died to sin, and recognized our guilt as buried in the
depths of the sea? Nay, have we died to the spirit of self and the world, and
left the spirit of Egypt forever behind us? Are we living on the Canaan side of
the cross? Have we learned the secret of deliverance in the narrow places of
trial through the stillness of faith and the interposition of God? Let us go
forth from these meditations with a clearer view of our complete redemption, our
line of eternal demarcation and separation from the world, our real resurrection
life, and our glorious prospects as we now begin amid the teachings of these
ancient types, our Christian pilgrimage.

SECTION V -- The Song of Moses.

It only remains to add in conclusion, that the song of Moses and of Miriam on
the farther side of the Egyptian sea was the key note of the song of salvation
in every redeemed soul; the song of deliverance which every visitation of God's
providence inspires; and the song of him in which all these notes shall yet be
gathered up amid the choirs of glory. Have we learned that first song, Isaiah
12:1-2, "O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger
is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation; I will
trust and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he
also is become my salvation." Have we learned the song of deliverance, which is
first the Berachah song going before the redeemed like the choirs of
Jehoshaphat; and then bringing up the rear with praise for accomplished
blessing? And shall we have our part in that grander chorus where the multitude
that no man can number, out of all kindreds and tongues and peoples and nations
shall sing and shout, "Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and
unto the Lamb." Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches,
and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and blessing.


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  CHAPTER 13: BOOK 2 CH. 3 - EMBLEMS FROM THEIR PILGRIMAGE.
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Book 2 Chapter 3 EMBLEMS FROM THEIR PILGRIMAGE. The Pillar of Fire.

We have here a picture of the pillar of cloud and fire, the guide of the Hebrew
pilgrims through the wilderness, as it led them through many a changing scene of
trial and education. All this is a picture of our life as the Holy Spirit leads
us through the wilderness by ways we have not known. It was customary, as we
learn from history, for ancient armies to be preceded by just such a signal as
this. Alexander the Great was accustomed to send before his army vessels of fire
that sent up pillars of smoke and lurid cloud that the army might see which way
they were marching. We know this to be true of many of the ancient Egyptian
armies. So it was natural for the Israelites, it was not unnatural or rather it
was preternatural, for it was only suggested by men's customs, but was
infinitely higher and greater. The whole account of this Divine figure is
particularly sublime and instructive.

It is a little difficult for us to take in the picture. When they were on the
march it appeared, probably, like an enormous cloud of smoke, visible to all in
the pathway, and moving on with majestic form like some heavenly being guiding
their path; and when the camp was to halt, the movement would cease; and,
instead of becoming a leader in their march it would spread like a curtain, over
the camp, becoming a heavenly pavilion sheltering them from the desert sun, and
seeming to spread the wings of God's very motherhood of God about them; making
them feel as though they were hidden in the secret of His tent. What a beautiful
spectacle it must have been when this began to droop, and then spreading on
every side, like a mother bird spreading abroad her brooding wings, shutting out
the rays of the sun, and becoming better than the shade of the palm trees, or
even their desert tents. They knew they might sit down under its shadow or find
the heat of the burning desert became suddenly as cool as a summer day overcast
by the grateful clouds of heaven. And again as the night came on and the march
was weary, and protracted day after day, and they feared they might lose their
way, it became literally a light around and before them affording the cheer and
safety which light always brings. And when they feared that enemies might be
around them, or behind them, as indeed they were when the Egyptians pursued
them, it went behind and stood like a rampart with artillery and garrisons of
heaven, and looking terribly down on their foes with a fiery anger which forbade
them to approach God's protected ones.

If you trace this figure through the Scriptures, you will see that all the
references we have made are warranted. He spread it above them like a cloudy
covering to shade them from the heat of the day, and to lead them in the
darkness of the night. And sometimes from the midst of the pillar would come the
voice of God. Often we are told God spoke to Moses and one time God spoke to the
children of Israel out of the midst of the fiery cloud. It was the type of God's
presence with his ancient people, and, in the New Testament, of his presence
through the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Jesus Christ with His Church and in the
hearts of His children. Thus this precious third person of the Trinity ever
becomes the guide and guardian of our pilgrim life, and our hearts are turned to
Him with gratitude and holy confidence. May that Blessed Teacher fold us in the
shadow of His presence, that we may know by living experience what all this
means, that we shall not have to wonder about, it, but each shall say, "I know
it for myself as well as the preacher does." As a dear old lady said last night
in one of our meetings: "I can't keep still; He is singing in my heart!"
Standing there, apparently a foot higher than her ordinary stature, and her face
shining like the glory of the ancient cloud, she said, "You don't need to tell
me about that; I know it." It is the voice of the Shepherd; it is the wing of
the mother dove; it is the presence of God; it is the Holy Comforter; it is that
which has come to you; it is that which is in your heart; it is that of which He
said: "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will
rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love; He will joy over thee with
singing." Let us draw a few lessons from this figure. It was a preternatural
symbol. It did not depend on any of the laws of nature. It was not carved like a
pillar of stone. It was not an embroidered banner, such as armies carry at their
front. It was something not made by hands; it was a battle-flag presented from
the ranks of heaven, and had no touch of earth about it. Indeed, it was contrary
to the laws of nature. There it hung in the skies without any pole to support
it. It walked in midair independent of the laws of gravitation. It was a
supernatural token of the living God, who does not need to go by our rules; does
not need to be dependent upon our ideas of things, or our modes of working; but
when the Spirit of God goes before you it is not always a presence regulated by
natural laws; it is a presence which will sometimes overleap what you thought
and intended. It was not an easy way for the children of Israel to go through
the land of Arabia; and the way you are led may not be the way you would have
gone. But it is not accomplished by your provisions or your precautions, or your
reasonings. If our lives are divine, their leadership will be divine, and our
pathway divine; and we will frequently go where man would not dare to go alone;
and where we would not expect to be sustained, were we judging by the light of
our own reason, or the principles of our own sense and judgment. It is a Divine
guidance, a supernatural presence, independent of all but God's own infinite
power and will.

Again: We see in this pillar of cloud and fire the mingled elements of light and
fire, which have all their natural symbolical significance. First, there was
light; the light of truth; the light of personal spiritual vision; the light of
His presence; the light that shows us the truth, and then the way that we are to
walk. Himself the Light, Christ comes to bring us all our light, and also the
sight to see the light.

Again: The cloud as well as the light suggests something about God. Cloud is the
opposite of light; the cloud hides the light, and the breaking of a cloud
reveals the light. It suggests to us the idea of the shadow that hangs about His
Presence -- the mysteries which we cannot always penetrate or perceive, and the
fact that the leadings of the Holy Spirit are not always to be perfectly
understood!

There is not only light, but there is veiled light; light that comes to you in
clouds and thick darkness, light that comes to you with its dark side as well as
its bright side. Is it not true that He leads you by a way that you have not
known? Is it not true that your life is hid with Christ in God? that you will
not always see what He means, and you will not always behold His unclouded face?
When you look up for the light, lo it is a cloud. Is there not a dark side to
the Holy Spirit? Does he not sometimes hide you in the shadow? Does He not
sometimes take you where it seems very dark? You asked God to show you joy;
instead of joy, it was deep humiliation and tears; and you did not know until
afterwards that was His blessed answer. But when you yielded and followed, the
pillar of cloud became a day star of light. Not only is He represented as the
light and the cloud, but the fire. Fire is more than light. The fire has warmth
as well as light. Fire is the element of intrinsic purity and mighty power, that
gives us a sense of the living forces that are able to consume the evil, destroy
the adversary, and endue us with God's own might. God is a consuming fire as
well as an illuminating presence. The Holy Ghost baptizes the willing heart with
fire; a fire that consumes all that you would gladly lose; and quickens and
purifies all the energies of the soul and clothes us with God's infinite power
and righteousness.

Again: The pillar of old preceded them as their leader. So the Holy Ghost tells
us we shall be guided by His presence. The Christian that does not understand
this, is losing much that is most precious in his experience. God has told us He
will go before us; that we will not be safe without Him: and that He will make
us know His voice. Have you learned this blessed secret?

Again: The pillar of fire not only preceded them, but followed them. It went
behind them, and stood as a wall of terror and defiance to their foes. God is
not only our guide, but our guardian; and we might rather have the Holy Ghost
defend us, than all the pens or bayonets of earth. This is His blessed word,
"The Lord shall be thy rearward." In ancient times the shepherds were accustomed
to build fires in the desert to keep the wild beasts away: so He says, "I will
be a wall of fire round about, and the Glory in the midst:" The fire may burn
awhile, but Joseph comes out of prison at last. The tempter may triumph for a
while, but David sits for fifty years on his throne, and praises the Lord that
has kept him so marvelously. "They that trust him shall never be ashamed." Take
the Holy Ghost for your leader and your defender. Leave your trials and your
vindication to Him; and He will take care of them, and now if you will, leave
them, utterly leave them there, and walk on in helplessness and obedience. This
fire not only went before and behind them, but it went in the midst; for we read
that while they were passing through the Red sea, the fire just went through the
camp, for a moment enveloping the whole company, and then taking its place
behind. This is a beautiful picture of how the Holy Ghost comes through our
midst, not only walking before and behind us, but coming into our being,
possessing every faculty of our nature, and becoming the vital impulse of all
our power.

It is beautiful to notice the time that He did this. It was not at the
beginning; but in the very crisis of their life, when they were going down into
the dark floods pursued by foes from behind and about to take the hardest step
they had ever taken. But at last a power they had not known came among them. It
entered the hearts and bosoms, became one with their inmost lives; they could
feel the conscious baptism on their whole being and they were not afraid. What a
beautiful picture of the Holy Ghost in our lives. At first He is away ahead. We
see Him as a doctrine. O, how that doctrine does shine out when first we learn
the truth about the Holy Spirit! When God first showed me this blessed reality
of the Third Person of the Trinity, it seemed I could never preach about
anything else, or pray about anything else. And I could scarcely feel patience
with others because they did not always talk about it.

There was a time when this Blessed One seemed to stand as a great lurid light
against your sky. You were looking at Him, and following a little way off, as
near perhaps as you dare. But there came a time when it grew so hard and dark:
and then a voice said, "Go into this dark and angry flood; step into the Red
sea." And as you stepped in you could hear the chariots of Pharaoh behind, and
it seemed as though there were but a step between the soul and wreck. Then it
was that the doctrine of the Holy Ghost seemed to disappear; and instead of
that, in your very heart of hearts, the very depths of the soul His presence
came, the cloud moved from before and passed right through your being, and it
has seemed to pervade and cover everything from that time; a conscious life that
is part of all your existence. Do you remember that scripture in Corinthians
where the Apostle says "For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,
whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bound or free, and have all been
made to drink into one spirit?" He baptizes you until you are buried as in an
ocean, and then you begin to drink of that ocean until you are saturated with
it. But it is in the hour of difficulty, when all the resources fail, when even
He cannot be an object for you to look at any longer, but must put His arms
about you and take you closer. O, dear friends! have you ceased to look at the
Holy Ghost, have you ceased to trust the Holy Ghost to do things for you, and
even to be your guardian and have you come to take him in his indwelling,
all-pervading life? to see him less and have him more and just partake of all
the fulness of his life?

Again: This Holy Spirit was not only the Leader and Defender, the Baptizer and
the Indweller, but He was also the spirit of rest. Many times he did not march,
but stood still; and then He commanded them to stop and took them into the
secret of His presence, and bade them wait. And so with you, there will be times
when you will not see your pillar. There will be times when Jesus will be in the
hinder part of the ship asleep. There will be times when you will be so empty,
you will feel as though you never had anything in you, but are an empty shell.
There will be times when you will not have any place to go, or any of the
restlessness of natural excitement. Ah, that is what tests some Christians so
much. They get on well in the cavalry charge, and when there is action, but to
make them be still and wait on God, they fail; they break down; they cannot hear
the voice which bids them rest. But in the pilgrimage of God's ancient people,
we are told that when the pillar of clouds rested, the people rested; at its
going they went, and rested at God's bidding. The trouble with some of you is,
that you have gone before the pillar. There are a great many times when God
wants us to keep still. A great deal of the Christian life consists in the
little word of three letters, n-o-t. Read the ten commandments, and almost
everything in them is "thou shalt not." Read the story of the Christian life in
that marvelous 13th chapter of First Corinthians and you will find it full of
the things that love does not do. So the greatest work of the Holy Ghost is to
call a halt, and quiet his children, and teach them to be dead to their own
activity, and work and plans. We must learn to allow the pillar of cloud and
fire to rest; and then get quiet ourselves under His shadow from the heat of the
day. So the Lord shall be thy keeper and thy shade. Now the Lord is never your
shade unless you are still. When they were marching the pillar was not a shade.
Every little while He saw they needed to be sheltered, and rest a little. So He
made them stop. And if you are going to know the Lord as a keeper, you will have
to know Him as a shade. Then it goes on to say, "The sun shall not smite thee by
day, nor the moon by night," and then the next comes, "The Lord shall preserve
thy going out and thy coming in." Ah, now you can march again. This beautiful
psalm is the psalm of the pilgrim: the Lord leading you, and the Lord
overshadowing you, without slumbering or sleeping; and so keeping you from this
time forth, and even forevermore. And then again, this pillar was most glorious
at night. When the darkness fell and the lights of earth were gone, it loomed up
there like a celestial palace in the sky, or like the brilliance of the jasper
throne. It hung over them in darkness by day, but only by night was it bright.
And so you have found His presence brightest when every joy had fled; and how
the song has just burst out in the night, into loud hallelujahs. It was when the
sun was set and a horror of great darkness fell on Abraham, that a burning lamp
passed before him. It was when the disciples had climbed the rocky heights and
it was the midnight hour, suddenly there shone a light above the brightness of
the sun, and His garments became exceeding white, and a voice said, "My beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased." These are the hours of blessing. O, beloved!
turn them into Transfiguration mounts with Jesus in the midst.

Again: This ancient pillar sometimes spoke to them. Out of it came the voice of
God. So this is not a silent presence. "And the sheep follow Him for they know
His voice."

Finally: It was a constant presence. He took it not away all through the
wilderness, and even when they turned aside for a little time it was withdrawn,
but again he restored it and said, "My presence shall go with you, and I will
give you rest." "He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, or fire by night."
"He bore them and carried them all the days of old." "He led them through the
waste howling wilderness: he bore them as on eagle's wings." "As a flock goeth
down into the valley, so the Spirit of the Lord rested upon them; so He led them
by His own right arm, to make for Himself a glorious name." Thus God led them
ever; and even when they refused to go into the land of promise, after a little
while He forgave them, and went with them through the wilderness, in the way He
did not choose. And so this long suffering Holy Ghost for two thousand years,
nearly, has been treated by the church of God as disobediently and yet He has
not taken away for a day that illuminating presence. Through all church history
He is with His people, and will be until Christ comes. He has been with you in
your Christian life; even if not fully in you, he has been before and behind
you. This leads us to another thought. If not directly scriptural its lesson is
at least most true. The pillar of cloud and fire led the children of Israel only
to the Jordan. And when they entered the promised land with Joshua, it
accompanied them no farther, but from that time forward, the presence of God was
veiled between the cherubim, and behind the curtain of the Holy of Holies. Is
there no teaching in that for us? May it not show that during the wilderness
life, the presence of the Holy Ghost is perhaps more marvelous, more wonderful,
more startling; some might say has more of stupendousness and glory about it,
but when we get nearer to God, it is an inner presence, not an outer. It is
visible, not to the eye of sense, but in the chambers of the heart even where we
enter the holy of holies, and dwell in the secret place of the Most High. Have
we not seen something like this in our own experience? At the beginning God led
more by sense. There was more of that which the little child needs, object
lessons, and bold pictures and scenes and a great deal of nursing. But when we
get into the inner presence of God, when we had consecrated ourselves, utterly
and unreservedly, when we had become His priests and kings, and gone into the
tabernacle of Jehovah to dwell in His pavilion; then, the pillar of clouds was
not seen in the sky, but His presence was more gloriously within, like the
Shekinah presence in the ancient temple. When you pushed aside the curtain and
stood within the holy of holies, then you could see the glorious manifestation,
not a cloud reaching up to heaven, but an ever-burning flame between the
cherubim, where, until his people deserted him in the days of Ezekiel, He
revealed His glory not as the God of heaven riding on the clouds, but as the God
who loves to dwell in the very secret chambers of the lowly spirit. Quiet,
perhaps, and unknown to the world it may be, but it is a presence that fills the
heart with constant rest and satisfaction. So, beloved, there is something
better for you than even the visible presence. There is a place in your heart
where He will come if you will take Him. If you will cross the Jordan and get
out of the wilderness if you will be willing to die in the floods that separate
you from yourself and your past; if with Joshua for your leader you will pass
in, and live by faith and not by sight; then you will find that inner place,
then you will find the holy of holies in your heart, where God will dwell with
His own love and glory, and you shall know the meaning of such verses as this:
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, shall abide under the
shadow of the Almighty." "If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall
ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” "Because thou hast made the
Lord, which is my refuge, even the Most High, thy habitation, there shall no
evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." "I will be
to them a little sanctuary." “A man shall be a hiding place for the wind and a
covert from the tempest like rivers of water in dry places; and the shadow of a
great rock in a weary land." Have you come into all this? Come this day into
this inner chamber; let the pillar of the cloud and fire come a little nearer;
let it descend from the clouds to the heart; let not God be to you somebody away
up there, but somebody right here; not somebody you see in the book or the
vision, but My presence in your bosom, in your being; the life of life, and love
of love. Moses said, "Wherein shall it be known that they are thy people, and
wherein shall we be separated from all other people of the earth, except it be
in this, that thy presence goeth with us; if thy presence go not with us, carry
us not up." God had said, "I will send an angel; I will give the same power as
though I were present." "O, not so, my Lord, if thy presence go not with us,
carry us not up hence." And He said, "My presence shall go;" and that was not
enough. "Lord if you have heard my prayer in this, if I have found grace in thy
sight, Lord, I beseech thee to show me thy glory; not only thy presence, but I
want this Shekinah inside, this inner presence." And the Lord said, "Yes, you
shall see it; they can see the cloud, but come in, Moses, and I will hide thee
in the cleft of the rock, and I will make all my glory to pass before thee." And
he came and revealed the name of the Lord, a Lord God merciful and gracious,
keeping mercy for thousands; that was the inner revealing of God.

Dear friends, when He thus comes to you, and today I believe he will so come to
many of your hearts, it will be through faith. When Joshua passed over the
Jordan, his great promise was this: "Every place that the sole of your foot
shall tread upon, that have I given unto you." His was to be a life of faith; he
believed in the unseen God, and God was revealed. Take Him today by faith, and
so He will be revealed in you. As I passed out of this room on Friday, one came
and spoke to me, to whom I had spoken before, when her heart was very heavy and
longing for His presence, and I had asked the Lord to show her just what it
meant. She came to me Friday and said, "I have found it; the Lord came to me and
said, ‘Are you willing to trust Me by simple faith? Are you willing to receive
me with a heart that knows no joy, no sensible sign of my presence, and to trust
Me without fear? Are you willing to be withered?’" She said, "Yea, Lord." And
then she said all the terrors, all the darkness fled; and such tides of gladness
just swept into her being. So let us recognize that presence, even if we do not
see it in the shining signal above us. It is hidden there. Don't you know that
they of old could not always see the Shekinah? but it was always there. So trust
Him; and when you go from this place, follow Him. For that is the secret of His
eternal leadership whom God hath given to them that obey him. This is the
secret, the joy of the Holy Ghost. The Lord help you to yield, believe, obey,
and rejoice in all the joy of the Holy Ghost.


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  CHAPTER 14: BOOK 2 CH. 4A - EMBLEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS.
========================================================================

Book 2 Chapter 4 Part 1 EMBLEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS.

“And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not
through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God
said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to
Egypt; but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the
Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt."
Exodus 13:17-18.

“So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness
of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. And when
they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah; for they were
bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. And the people murmured
against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? And he cried unto the Lord; and the
Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were
made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he
proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord
thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his
commandments, and keep all his statutes,I will put none of these diseases upon
thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth
thee. And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore
and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." Exodus 15:22-27.

SECTION I -- The Pathway of Trial.

We have here a picture of the pathway through which God led his ancient people
immediately after their redemption. It is symbolical, of course, of the pathway
of our own pilgrimage, even as their redemption was the emblem of our redemption
from the bondage of sin and misery.

We are told here that the Lord led them not by the way of the Philistines, which
was near, "but about by the way of the wilderness of the Red sea." So we infer
that God does not always lead us by the nearest way, and certainly not by the
easiest way, as he calls us to Him. And this is the type of the trials of our
Christian life. A reason is given: "Lest they repent when they see war, and they
return to Egypt." God could not trust his people to go the easy way, and so he
had to lead them the longer way, and discipline them.

There are many other things about the way He led them, which apply to us. The
first was that He might have them apart with Himself, and train them for the
future. And so God has to take all His children apart to teach them. Our dear
Lord had to go apart into the wilderness forty days before He began his
ministry. Let us not wonder if we share His life. Moses had to go forty years
apart before God could use him. And Paul went three years into Arabia, where he
was separated to God, and then came forth to do his Master's work. When the
gardeners of this city are preparing their beds, they go out and find black
loamy earth, and then they can raise almost anything in the ground that comes
from the virgin soil. And so when God wants to raise spiritual harvest He says,
"I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto
her, and I will give her vineyards from thence," that is from the soil that
comes from her wilderness experience. So, beloved, if you had an easy path you
would become a coward, and run away every time you saw a Philistine. The people
that have no trials and discipline are just like this, they are soft and
cowardly. And the one that God wants to make strong to undergo the journey to
Canaan, he has to make hardy by discipline and training. He leads you by the
hard way that you may be harnessed, may be trained as a soldier to fight the
battles of your life, educated for your work by the very things you are going
through now.

Another reason he led them through the wilderness, was to show them what
worthless creatures they were. In Deuteronomy he tells them very fully, in the
eighth chapter, "Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know
what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no."
That was another reason why He led them through the wilderness. If they had gone
the short way, they would have gone in with floating banners, and the idea that
they were a wonderful people; but when God led them this way, they soon
discovered themselves. They would have found it out later, when they came into
Canaan, and would have been defeated by it. But God had to show it by the way of
trial, before they could come to their future inheritance. And so God leads us
through the wilderness to show us what we are. There are people that can go
through a hard march all right, but when they have to go through the hard little
things, they break down. They will bear severe pain; or undertake some great
service; or seem marvelously useful in some public enterprise that gives them an
eclat of success and applause. Let them go through a desert march, or where
Sherman's army had to cross the continent, or Napoleon's army had to go through
the Russian campaign, or Woolsey's army in Egypt, and they go through all right.
But the least little thing defeats them. They become sour and distrustful and
ungrateful; and if they do not go back to Egypt, they do not deserve any credit
for it, for they would go if they could; and they blame Him bitterly because he
brought them out.

Beloved, it is a wonderful thing to find out that God is not trying to show you
how much you are, but how little good you can do by yourself. It was the most
extraordinary discovery I ever made in my Christian life, when at last I fairly
found out that what the Lord wanted of me was to have a tremendous lot of
failures, until I broke completely down and gave up, and then had Him work it
out for me. I do not mean that I gave up, but I gave up trying it myself. I had
been looking to Him occasionally, but he wanted me just to depend upon Him all
the time, and to look to Him for everything. So He leads you through the
wilderness; He wants to humble you, to prove you, and see if you will keep the
commandments, or not.

Another reason is to show how little this world is worth: How little it has that
can supply an immortal soul, and how God can be the supply of the soul. He took
them out into a barren wilderness where they had not anything to support the
three millions of people for a day; and for all those years he supported them on
the sands of Arabia, day by day spreading their table, and making the water flow
from the rocks, and meeting their complaints and recriminations with blessing.
They did not get their support from the desert. There was not any water there to
supply them, nor any bread to sustain them. Modern researches have endeavored to
explain the manner and method by natural laws. There are little plants in the
desert; a few grains can be picked up under the tamarisk trees, a sort of balsam
that drops from the branches sometimes; but it is not enough to support a single
life for a day. And it is ridiculous to try to explain the Bible this way. The
boundless and permanent supply shows that it was from the hand of God. This was
intended to show that God can supply all our needs Himself. We read in
Deuteronomy, "He humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with
manna, which thou knewest not," that is, which is not a product of earth. He did
this to show them that God was enough for their supply. This shows us that God
leads us through the narrow places so that when everything fails us, He can do
it for us. God leads some people through that kind of suffering, so they can
look the devil in the face and say, "God led me through this place, and nothing
ever can be harder than the way he led me." He put Paul up as a sort of
spectacle or gazing-stock. He said, "We have had all sorts of suffering; we have
been sunk in the sea, and stoned until we have not a bit of vitality left." And
then he says, "Though sorrowful we are always rejoicing." God wanted to show
that His grace was sufficient. When the desert affords no food, and all is a
waste of desolation, then God will make it blossom as the rose.

Now, beloved, if God leads you through trying places, don't say "it is because
God wants to destroy me." It is that he may show you that he is able for that,
and he can create a supply that would have never been known, if you had not had
that need. So turn your dark cloud into a background for a rainbow, and just
begin to praise Him, and rise through it to a deeper knowledge of His character.
Will you take these lessons to yourself? It is the very way by which He is to
educate you. How little you can depend upon your resolutions, and plans; but He
is enough for your trials and difficulties, and even for the weakness and
worthlessness of your poor unreliable nature.

Now, let us look briefly at their trials, and then at the wonderful way in which
God met them. The first was, no water. The second was, bitter water. And the
third, threatening sickness. We are not told they had sickness, but the healing
implies it. God leads them into the wilderness of Shur, and they seem to be
threatened with a famine. Then they come to a fountain in the oasis; they go to
drink, but turn from it in disgust, for it is foul and bitter. And then they
turn in disappointment and anger upon Moses, and upon God, and reproach them for
having brought them on their journey. It is just like positions that come to us;
we reach places where we seem to be shut in on every side. Perhaps some of you
are there now. God wants to teach you that the old way is not to be the way any
longer. And you must look to Him and not to the springs of earth, henceforth.
And then they came to water, and they said, "We have it at last," and lo! it was
bitter. Do you not know what that is? Do you not know what it is after you have
turned to some old friend, and leaned on some arm, to find, suddenly, that it
becomes different from what it used to be? Your old friend does not understand
you. And those things in which you used to joy have no pleasure now. Perhaps the
thing you looked to becomes the opposite of what you sought. Perhaps the very
thing that comes to you as a deliverer, becomes the saddest trial of your life.
God has to let it be so. Our first resource is to go to them. Instead of looking
up, we have hunted in the desert to find springs, and found many, and God had to
turn them into gall, and show us that the only real help could come from Him.
And then there came sickness, or threatened sickness. And so it has come to us.
O how God feels for poor suffering men and women, especially those that carry
heavy burdens under the strain of infirmity. How -- as I have gone among the
humble ones that toil for bread, as I look back upon what a pastor finds in the
lives of those he lives among -- how I have felt Christ must weep for the tired
women that crowd our cities, that have the responsibilities of their children,
and sometimes their support, and yet live such weary, suffering lives through
physical disease. O how I have thanked God when I have seen His help coming to
these, and found that it can lift their burdens off their bodies as well as
their souls. There is many a poor mother working all the day, and half the
night, and carrying in her body some hidden disease. And it was upon such as
these that Christ looked with compassion, because they were like sheep without a
shepherd, and He healed them, and said to them in words that are not exhausted
yet, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you
rest."

SECTION II -- The Branch of Healing.

Let us now see the provisions of His grace for them. First, we have the
sweetening of the bitter water. He lets them find its bitterness, and then He
turns it into sweetness. "And the people murmured against Moses, saying, what
shall we drink?" And he cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree,
which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet. The bitter
waters are not taken away, but they are neutralized and turned into a source of
nourishment. You know what this means, dear friends; you know the difference
between the sweet water that was always sweet and the bittersweet, more
wholesome, and more delightful to the taste of the mature Christian heart. That
is what God does; He lets the bitter come, and when we have eaten the little
book which was bitter in the mouth, in our inner being it is sweeter than honey.
There are chastenings that seem hard and bitter, but afterwards they bear the
peaceable fruits of righteousness. Do you not know what it means to yield
yourself to God, so it seems a real death to put your dearest on the altar, and
raise the hand to strike, and when it is done, O the blessedness of knowing that
you pleased God; the ineffable sweetness of His words, "Now, I know that thou
lovest me, because thou hast not withheld thine only child." He seems to say, "I
know what you feel; I understand you as no one else, and you understand me as
you never could have done." O the delight of being with Him in the dark places
-- alone with Him: and having His communications of love and grace, and saying,
"Thou hast known my soul in adversity." And then, at last, to find the very
things you thought the gates of death become the gates of heaven. The very thing
you thought would break your heart turns into songs of joy, and pathways open up
that never could have come but for this obedience, this sacrifice of yourself to
God's will.

How does this sweetness come? It comes by casting the branch of healing into the
waters. And this branch is always at hand. God does not have to create it. It
was growing by the spring. It is always growing near the trial, and you can
always find the branch that will turn the sorrow into joy. How, sometimes, He
has shown us a verse that we never saw before, and lo! our trial was turned into
sweetness, and we arose in victory and praise. How often when you have felt as
you must sink you have found a blessed promise, and have cried out, "Thanks be
unto God who giveth us the victory?" Sometimes, when struggling with your wicked
heart, He has given you a vision of His victory and with His coming the battle
has ceased, and like the disciples you were at the land whither you went. We
have all got verses marked in our Bibles that bring back whole chapters of
life's history, and which you would not exchange for all the world.

You can go to London, and read there on the towers, written by the fingers of
martyrs and prisoners who have languished in the Tower, such promises. You can
go to Rome and see them in the ancient catacombs, promises which enabled them to
declare that the insults and torments of their persecutors were robbed of their
sting, just because the Lord Jesus Christ had made His Word real, and had caused
them to triumph over suffering.

Dear friends, have you learned to use the branch that grows beside your door,
that turns your tears to joy?

SECTION III -- The Covenant of Healing. And we have not only this branch of
healing, but the covenant of healing. "There He made for them a statute and an
ordinance, and there He proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken
to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight,
and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put
none of those diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians; for I
am the Lord that healeth thee." So not only did He provide for the trials of the
wilderness, but for the physical infirmities of life.

Here we see first, that this Divine healing is to be from Him alone. "I will do
it." It is to be a continuous thing. It is in the present tense. It is "I, the
Lord thy God am healing." Day by day, He declares "I will be the strength of
your bodies."

Again: it is to be by obedience. "If thou wilt diligently walk in my statutes."
It is necessary that we shall both hear and obey. And a great many of our
sicknesses come because we are well-meaning, but we do not understand God. We go
into the forbidden path without meaning to, and our diseases have come again. So
he bids us listen as well as do.

Again: there is to be a distinction between you and the world. The Lord wants to
put a line between the world and the Egyptians: "I will put none of these
diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians."

We see further, that this was a covenant and an ordinance for them. So this is
just as much an appointment of God as redemption. And if you do not accept it,
you are going to rob your life of one of its sweetest supports. We do not plead
for any favorite idea, but we stand on God's ancient covenant, and God forbid
that we should turn it aside. I do not see how any candid man can. The only way
that any one can try to explain this is by saying that this passage referred to
the plagues of the Egyptians. But that would be ridiculous, because they had not
feared any of the plagues of Egypt; they had not been subject to them. They had
been kept from them, and now it would seem absurd for them to need this promise.
Forty years later, God renewed the same promise and covenant again, in stronger
words, "I will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt upon thee, but will lay
them upon all them that hate thee." And we know that he did not put the plagues
of Egypt on their enemies then. And then you notice just another word in this
ancient ordinance of healing. "There he proved them." It seems that this was to
be a kind of test in our Christian lives, whether we would trust God, or go to
man. It seems sometimes as though God wants to show us whether we have a real
trust in him, or are making believe, because the things we trusted for are a
long way off. He proved them to see how far they made God real. I have found,
and I think many of you have found, that when sickness and suffering come, and
you have to find whether you have a living God, or not, it searches your soul;
and when you have got hold of Him, it makes God intensely practical thereafter
in your life.

We do not want anybody to think that this principle of God's healing should be
crowded upon any soul, or that you are to get into any bondage of conscience;
God wants you to be fully persuaded in your own mind. But if you will take this
ancient Scripture, and trace your Bible through, you will find one uniform
teaching -- that God met his people with all-sufficiency for all their trials;
and that He undertook to be for their bodies what He was for their souls --
Jehovah Rophi, the God that changeth not.

Dear friends, do take this into your lives; you that are struggling under
infirmity and debility; how much you need this Christ to breathe into you His
strength every moment. No words can tell how near it brings the Savior to your
life, to feel that every breath you draw is very part of His vital being. How
sanctifying it is; how it makes you walk with Him in constant obedience; and how
it seems to give you double strength. The strength that we get from Christ seems
to go so much longer and farther. I wish I could make you feel as He makes me
feel, in a busy life that grows busier every day. This supernatural strength is
delightful. It almost seems as though one could not stop to sleep. It is not
human, it is His; and every breath seems to accomplish more than mere earthly
power. The things we do in this Divine physical strength go farther, they reach
the hearts of men; and God seems to set them going through eternity. This is "a
statute," a Divine law, and you cannot experiment with it. You must take it with
the certainty that it is just as solid as the Rock of Ages. And if you take it,
it will keep you until your life work is done. It will not keep you forever.
There will come a time when you can say "I have finished my work." But until it
comes, there is strength for you, according to all the measures of your needs.

SECTION IV -- The Wells and Palms of Elim.

There is yet one more picture here, the wells and palms of Elim. They come just
after the waters of Marah. "And they came to Elim where were twelve wells of
water, and threescore and ten palm trees; and they encamped there by the
waters." This is a sweet break in the monotony of the picture; an oasis in the
waste of desolation. It seems to rise before us with the soft verdure of
loveliness and rest; and as we read the passage it is like a very Eden of
coolness and repose; the very name Elim speaks of rest and freshness. It is the
type of the times of refreshing that God sends us after weary seasons of
suffering trial. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning." The wells tell us of supplies of water, and the palms of freshness in
the midst of barrenness. There were twelve wells, and seventy palm trees. I love
to think of the twelve wells as standing one for every month; teaching that God
has some new revelation of Himself, some new supply of grace for every changing
season of life. And then the seventy palms tell us of a blessing for every year.
Seventy years seem to be the average of human existence, and so there are
seventy palms and twelve wells -- a well for every month, a tree for every year.
They tell us that all our life long we may be fruitful, that there is fruit to
be borne in youth, and also in old age. It does not mean that everybody ought to
live for seventy years; but as that is God's measure of life, so God has as many
palms as He has years. He has something for us to do at the beginning, and
something for the end. Beloved, let us come to drink of these wells. Shall we
call the first the heart of the blessed Jesus himself? Surely, that is where we
want to begin. And shall we call the second the blessed Comforter, the Holy
Ghost, ever running over with joy and living water? Shall we find the third in
the Father's everlasting and infinite love? Shall we find the fourth in this
blessed Word of God with its endless supplies for every kind of need? Shall we
say the next is the well of salvation, with water enough not only for our
salvation, but for all the world's! Shall we call the next the well of grace,
where we can come with our buckets every morning and fill them there? Then we
have the well of holiness; the well of healing; the well of joy, bubbling over,
and ceaseless in its flow; the well of prayer where we can continually come, and
not find it too deep, or say like the woman of Samaria, "We have nothing with
which to draw;" side by side with this stands the well of faith; and, perhaps,
best of all is that well which, like one of the geyser springs, is continually
rising even above the level of the ground, and sending forth new fountains on
every side, we shall call it the well of praise. And so God bids us come and
drink at all the wells. As the garden of God has its twelve manner of fruits, so
we have these twelve fountains of blessing. We need never wonder at the
freshness of His supplies of grace.

Some, again, apply this to the twelve tribes; it is blessed to think that there
was a well for each one. The seventy palms tell us of an infinite variety of
fruits. The very fact that the palm tree grows in the desert, shows that the
Christian can grow anywhere. The palm wants the desert sun. It will not grow in
the rich black soil. It wants the desert because it grows up and it grows down;
it strikes it roots below the sand heap; and it sends its succulent leaves up,
and if there is a breath of moisture, the palm tree can suck it in. And so God
says that we are to be like palm trees in this, that we can grow in the hardest
soil, and find what we need in Him. If you have Christ in your heart you can
grow anywhere. You can be a happy Christian in society and at home. You can be
happy in uncongenial society, in the workshop, in the boarding-house, or
wherever you are. It is not true that we have got to be ruined because our
surroundings are evil. If you have the roots, and the right kind of leaves, you
can make the desert a garden; and the people will encamp around you. The palm
tree has an infinite variety of fruit. They say they can make almost anything
out of it. Out of the roots you get sago and arrowroot, and many of the most
delicious and valuable articles of commerce. The very fibers they weave into
many useful objects. The sap yields delicious juices. Then we have the fruit,
the date, cocoanut, and many others. The palm produces about a hundred staple
articles of commerce. And so if you are a palm tree, you will be good for
everything; not only tall, stately, and nice to look at, but you will have a
shade for the people around you, and you will have practical and substantial
utility about your life. And, moreover, like this ancient tree of Elim, you
shall keep growing and multiplying year after year, until in youth and old age
you shall have fulfilled all the ministry of a consistent and beautiful life,
and it shall not have been one, but seventy, palms. But if we have the palm
trees, we must have the wells; and if we have the palm trees and the wells, we
must go by the way of Marah.; we must start by the Red sea and follow the pillar
of cloud and fire; and we must not be afraid of the wilderness. O shall we not
follow on, hearkening to His word till we shall come to the waters of Elim and
encamp there and sweetly sing:

"I've found a joy in sorrow, A secret balm for pain, A beautiful tomorrow Of
sunshine after rain. I've found a branch of healing Near every bitter spring; A
whispered promise stealing O'er every broken spring; An Elfin within its
sunshine, Its fountains and its shade; A handful of sweet manna When buds of
promise fade."

Dear friends, God help you to turn into life this desert region. It is so real,
I am sure it is real to you. And I dare tell you in His name this morning to
follow Him. You shall have the wilderness, and the waters of Marah; but there is
here a branch that will make it sweet; and O such blessed resting places by the
way; and bye-and-bye, not Elim's palms merely, but the tree of life that is in
the midst of the garden, and the water clear as crystal, and all the beauties of
the paradise of God. And bye-and-bye there shall be the river clear as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, the tree of life with its twelve
manner of fruits that yielded its fruit every month, and the tabernacle of God
with men, where the tents never will be folded, the encampment broken up, or the
lonely desert ever return again. Happy day! All hail! Amen.


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  CHAPTER 15: BOOK 2 CH. 4B - EMBLEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS.
========================================================================

Book 2 Chapter 4 Part 2 EMBLEMS FROM THE WILDERNESS. THE MANNA, THE ROCK AND THE
VICTORY.

1 Corinthians 3:1-4, 1 Corinthians 10:13 : "They did all eat the same spiritual
meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that
spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." "There hath no
temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will
not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the
temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

These three verses give us the substance of three important incidents in the
Book of Exodus, in the 16th. and 17th. chapters, describing the giving of the
manna; the opening of the Rock in Horeb; and the conflict of Israel with Amalek.
These three things, I say, are all summed up in these three verses. "They did
all eat the same spiritual meat," seems to be the manna. "They did all drink the
same spiritual drink," leads us back to the rock and its flowing rivers. And the
last verse quoted, reminds us of the conflict and victory which they obtained in
Rephidim as the type of our conflict and victory over our Amalek.

We will look a little at God's supply for our spiritual hunger, thirst and
temptations.

SECTION I -- The Manna.

First, then, the manna needs only a simple exposition, and the key to every
exposition, I think, your own heart and experience must furnish. You will not
understand this unless you know something of this hidden manna which Christ
gives to him that overcometh. We read that some of this manna was put into a
golden pot and laid up before the Lord to be kept for future generations. And
this teaches us that the real substance of this manna is kept for us through all
the ages. For Jesus says, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the
hidden manna."

1. The first thing we notice is, that this was supernatural bread. It did not
grow from the soil of the desert, but was somehow sent by the power and wisdom
of God and given to them from above. And so our spiritual life, beloved, must be
sustained from unnatural and supernatural causes. A Christian cannot subsist on
his own strength. A Christian is more helpless than a worldling. And the nearer
you get to God, the more we are dependent upon God, and the less able to draw
our life from the old sources. You will starve upon the husks of this world
unless you have learned to feed upon this manna.

Let us talk to each other's hearts today. Are you living on the spiritual bread?
Have you something in your life which is more than the breath of the oxygen and
the carbon, which is more than the nitrogen of the food, and the phosphates and
ingredients of that which is called bread? Is your soul feeding on something
more than the thoughts of men, and the affections and fellowships of life? Is
your body upheld by something better than its own cohesive forces and elements?
A poor lump of dust, how readily you fall to pieces; how you hunger and how you
thirst, if you do not know something of this. O, you have begun to follow Jesus,
are you trying to live on the old comforts? You cannot do it. You must be
constantly refreshed; you must be constantly comforted; you must be constantly
fed from the love of God; from the thoughts of God; from the life of God. For He
does not only give us His thoughts, He gives us His very heart's life.

2. I learn another thing: It was simple of bread; there was no variety. They did
not start with their different courses, and various dishes, and end with
dessert; but they had manna for the first course, and the second course, and the
dessert. It was all manna; and they got tired of the sameness. And so the
Christian has only one kind of manna. That is the trouble today, they want
variety. And if you will read the columns of yesterday's Herald, you will see
there enough dishes set forth to satisfy a French cook. I read of a church the
other day that had been killed with that kind of food in six months. You cannot
live on such things. God feeds his people on one kind of bread; it is Jesus
Christ. It may be presented in a thousand forms, but it is Christ; a living
Christ; a redeeming Christ; a faithful Christ; an overcoming Christ; the Christ
in whom, and for whom you live; Jesus only. Are you satisfied, or are you
getting sick of this one kind of Bread? I am so glad that the dear friends who
gather here, have not been drawn by dainties. I sometimes say to my friends when
they speak of this little flock, and of the insincerity of Christians, and their
desire for earthly things, I say, the little flock that comes here is not drawn
by any such things, any human agencies, splendid rhetoric, or oratory, or music;
but they have simply Christ, I trust, the living Bread. And it is a joy to think
that one is surrounded by such, for only as they love it will they come to hear
it. And did you ever notice that God said to the Hebrews that the reason He gave
them this kind of bread was to prove them and see what kind of people they were?
"Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you;
and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may
prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no."

You can prove God's children by their tastes. If they love God and his Word, you
can depend on them. He says again in Deuteronomy: "Who fed thee in the
wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee,
and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at the latter end." Dear friends,
if you have no taste for prayer and worship, and the Word of God, you will be
sure to break down. Your love for God's Word, is a test of your spiritual
character and faithfulness. And you will never love God's Word until it fills
you; you will never care for the Bible, until it becomes bread to your hearts. A
lady said to her friend, " I cannot like the Bible as you talk about liking it;
it does not seem real to me as it seems to you." And her friend said, "the
reason is, it never speaks to you. Sometime when you are in trouble," and she
was all broken down then, "you ask the Lord to lead you to some verse that He
will speak to you particularly." The very next day her face was shining when she
met her friend and said, "O, He has given me this word;" it promised her
healing; and before the week was gone, she was indeed cured. And she is in a
Western city today, among scores and scores of those that have been helped by
her simple testimony, testifying just as fully as I am preaching to you today;
and when I was there last I was met and welcomed by hundreds of Christians drawn
together by her life and testimony. Six months before she had not any interest
in the Bible; but she took the promise and lived upon it, and then she was
interested.

God wants you to turn His Word into manna for yourself, and the manna is just
Christ and His personal life.

3. And yet, although this manna only consisted of one kind of bread, it
contained all that was necessary for the nutriment and support of their life.
God just concentrated in that little round coriander-like seed all the elements
of nutrition. Just as the chemists tell us that the milk we drink contains in it
all the forms of nutriment necessary, so the manna included everything. How
beautifully it teaches us that Jesus Christ is everything. I am so glad that you
do not have to get Christ today, and then the next week hunt up some different
Gospel, and some new sensation. But it is one thing, and that thing includes all
others "As ye have received theLord Jesus Christ, so walk ye in him." It is the
same as when you first tasted it; it will be so through all the years to come;
and Jesus Christ will be the very same Jesus through all the ages of eternity.

Dear friends, do you believe that in that blessed Redeemer there are all the
supplies of your life, for pardon, for sanctification, for wisdom, for
redemption, for service, and that you can just take that personal Savior, and He
will become to you everything that you can ever need for comfort, victory, or
for blessing to others?

4. Again: this manna was a very insignificant looking thing, a thing that would
be very easily overlooked. So Christ is a root out of a dry ground and despised
of men. And this Bible is a very common looking thing in many houses, and many
think it isa very dry book. But only gather its manna and it will be, as we are
told about this manna, as sweet as oil and honey. This manna had to be gathered
every day, or it would become corrupt and breed worms. There are hearts, too,
that are corrupting, and their very religion has mortified and turned to an open
sepulcher, because the people have not maintained their communion with God. They
are living on the old manna of a century ago. The sweetest and purest truth will
become infected and unclean, if you do not constantly live on a present Christ,
and renew your communion every week and every day. You cannot live on the
blessing of this morning, you must still drink afresh, and feed on the Bread of
Life, just as the Passover must be eaten on that day, and everything that
remained was burned with fire. You will learn that this daily abiding in Christ
is the secret of your Christian life.

It is very beautiful that the manna fell on the dew. They found it in the
morning, imbedded or lying in the sparkling dew; a little grain of manna, and a
trembling drop of dew. You know the dew is the type of the Holy Ghost, the
gentle Comforter that drops upon us His promises and His commandments, as if
they fell fresh from heaven itself.

5. Again: the manna and the Sabbath are strangely linked together. This chapter
tells us about the Sabbath. For the first time since the creation we find it
still observed. You know that a little more than a month later, the Sabbath was
given in the ten commandments; but here before the commandments, we find the
Sabbath existing. It seems as though God would show us that spiritual food and
spiritual rest must go together. The Sabbath is the type of the peace that
passeth understanding. The people that are feeding on Christ, are having Sabbath
rest; such people are not agitated by the troubles of life, but can stand the
tempests of evil, and the trials of life and not be moved because their hearts
are established in Christ.

Dear friends, have you learned the meaning of this? We read this morning such
strange and mighty words as these: "I am the living bread which came down from
heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that
I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Except ye
eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As
the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me,
even he shall live by me." Do you know what that means? Jesus Christ a living
being, feeding your very being, as if a living soul were breathing life into you
every moment, sustaining you inwardly and outwardly! O may the Spirit reveal Him
to you. This alone can satisfy and sanctify. This alone can make you strong for
service. And this alone, is Christianity. It is not the brain feeding on human
thoughts, or Christian doctrine. I say deliberately, that all the Bible reveals
is husks and not bread without this experience. One of the most distinguished of
the German commentators, who wrote on every book of the Bible said, "I have
written about them all. I have explained them all. I understand them in some
sense, but I know nothing of it in my heart." That was not Living Bread; that
was feeding on husks, and on straw, and not on the kernels of His Word. Or that
was feeding, if I might change the figure, on the raw wheat, and not on the
flour. It is not the Bible only, or the church only, but Christ making it all
personal; and there is the same difference between the letter with Christ in it,
and without, as between the letter I pick up on the street and know nothing
about the writer, and the letter I get from the friend I love. There is a person
behind the latter. There is a person behind this page. As you read it this
morning, does it glow in your heart?

SECTION II -- The Water.

We turn to the second verse: "They did all drink the same spiritual drink; for
they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ."
The people had come to Rephidim, which was one of the oases in the Arabian
desert, a place where ordinarily there were fountains. Indeed, travelers tell us
today there are fountains there. It was a place of rest. They supposed they
would find water as usual; but instead they found the stream dry, the trees
withered, and everything desolate and barren. And so the people burst out into
wild clamors. They did chide with Moses, and murmured against the Lord. They
said, "Is the Lord among us, or not?" And God, instead of meeting them with
judgment as they deserved, met them as He ever did. He told Moses to call the
elders aside. They were responsible men that could bear witness of it, as the
disciples could afterward tell of the resurrection of Jesus. He took these men
with him to the place of the fountain, and there before the rock the pillar of
cloud and fire took its stand, towering above it, and Moses took the rod and
smote the rock, cleaving it asunder; and instantly there poured from it a stream
of water, and spread through the camp, and through the oasis, until the people,
with eager cries of gladness, were struggling for it and drinking its flowing
tides. Eastern travelers tell us how the caravans do when they come to water,
they are so delighted; the horses plunge in, and the people crowd upon one
another into the stream, until their cries of delight are mingled with shouts of
alarm, as they trample each other in their eagerness. And so here they brought
their suffering cattle and they all drank and drank. And it would seem that this
fountain never closed, but the waters continued to pour forth, until it became a
living stream. For Paul says they "drank of that Rock that followed them." It
went along as they went along; and though sometimes it could not be found above
the ground, they could dig down and find it, they could open a little cavity,
and it would burst forth again. And so there was water all through the desert
from this opening in the rock. They drank of the Rock that followed them, and it
was the same spiritual rock, it was Christ. Water is one of the symbols of
spiritual things. We see it in Genesis in the story of poor Hagar. We find its
preciousness again in the reign of Ahab, and the life of Elijah. Christ tells
the woman of Samaria of the well of water springing up unto everlasting life.
And John speaks of the river clear as crystal that flows from the throne of God
and the Lamb, and to which the Spirit and the Bride say come, and of which all
who will may take freely. For us, this means the fulness of salvation. More
specifically it means the work of the Holy Ghost. The bread is the type of
Jesus, and the water of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is referred to under
this image of water in His refreshing grace. Flowing around us in the ocean,
above us in the air, the moisture that fills the atmosphere, and without which
life cannot exist, one of the most important ingredients that constitute the
physical universe, water is the vivid symbol of His Infinite and Illimitable
grace. It tells also of the freeness of the Holy Ghost for all who will receive
Him without money and without price.

Notice, first, that this water comes from the riven rock. The rod of the
lawgiver had to strike the rock before the water came. And God had to smite His
Son before the day of Pentecost and the joy of the Holy Ghost could reach our
hearts. Not only was the water started, but left flowing, and ever since that
the Holy Spirit has been in the church. He is here today; He is for you today.
There is no limitation of the fulness of His blessing to those who will receive.
Not only did the water continue to flow from the rock, but through the desert; a
channel was prepared for it; and when thechannel was not there, it flowed
beneath the ground. And so the Holy Spirit does not travel in aqueducts but
everywhere. Traveling through Italy first, I was struck by the vast aqueducts of
the country, lifted up like our elevated tracks. If I had been thirsty I could
not have reached them. God's water flows in all places. The great peculiarity of
water is that it flows down. It will go as high as its fountain head, and as low
as the neediest. And so the Holy Ghost goes through your desert life; into the
hard place of your life; into your weary round of toil and down to the lowest
depths of sin and misery. The men and women before me have a struggling life. I
am glad that I know something of work, and Christ knows more. I do not believe
that a lazy, indolent man can taste of the full joys of His grace. Christ walked
the whole circle of our life Himself, and so these streams flow through your
common life. Some of you are going from here to cook your own dinners; tomorrow
you are to pass through hours of trial, of toil and business, with all its
pressure, and its monotony. It does not matter much, if you have the Divine
supply and you can have it for the morning and afternoon and evening,as well as
in the hours of sacred service. I do not know anything I am more thankful for,
than the sufficiency of Christ for the twelve hours of the day and the twelve
hours of the night. I am sure I should have died long ago if I had not found in
Him a continual refreshing and delight. I do not believe in merely getting
through. I do not believe in riding in an emigrant train; you can have a palace
car all the way. God will make it easy for you. He loves to see you put your
hand on the hardest things, and find them easy through Christ. This living water
is for the desert, and not for those glorious eminences. You dear school girls,
it will make your brain clearer, and brush the cobwebs from your mind. And it
will help you, toiling women. How God's heart goes out to you. He knows what a
life you are living. But He will go with you everywhere.

Now we want to tell the world about this sort of grace. We do not want a
religion of silver slippers, or kid gloves. But we want it to be practical heart
work. I think I sometimes seem extravagant when I talk about this side of
Christianity, but it has been so real to me, you must indulge me.

SECTION III -- Conflict and Victory. And now one more lesson; and that is, the
conflict with Amalek. I am so glad that God does not let the battle come until
you have got the bread and the water. If Amalek had come before the manna fell,
and before the rock was opened, I am afraid he would have had his own way. But
God fortifies you for the battle by filling your life and heart with His
sufficiency. In the first place, this battle with Amalek stands for the
temptations that come to us from the flesh. Amalek was a descendant of Esau, and
Esau was a man of the flesh. The whole race of Amalek includes the Canaanites;
it was at least a branch of theCanaanites. It stands for that in men and women
which is animal; but it stands not only for the coarse appetites of the animal,
but for the tastes and desires and ambitions which are fleshly, and not pure and
heavenly. We can have a business that is earthly, and we can have a business
that is consecrated. We can have joys that take hold on the earth, and yet are
rooted in God, or we can have these things all center in the earth. Do you know
what it is to have an earthly intellect as well as an earthly lust? Amalek
stands for all this.

It seems Amalek came a long distance. He came unprovoked; he was not attacked by
Israel; but he came himself, because he hated this new way, and he wanted to
destroy it before they got to Sinai and the Tabernacle. And you do not know
where the campaign will begin; perhaps on the way home today; sitting at the
dinner table; or in some of the things that will meet you before night. He will
perhaps be along to close up the Lenten season. So Amalek came to fight with
Israel. And it seems to intimate here, that Amalek will come until the end,
because it says God will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.

Another thing I want you to notice, he came not where the pillar of fire was; he
does not come there; but he came behind, in disguise, in strategy. And we are
told in Deuteronomy 25:18. "How he met them by the way, and smote the hindmost
of them, even all that were feeble behind them, when they were faint and weary;
and he feared not God." It is so like his sneaking way. He came and fought the
weary. If your face is set steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, he will not be there.
If you are away in front, you will not see him. But if you are doubting, and
lingering behind and compromising with the world, afraid to trust God with all
your heart, you will find him. He came and fought the hindmost. Don't get
feeble; don't linger behind; do not take back seats in Christ's house; always
press forward. Where God promises anything, say that is for me. If God commands
anything, say, Lord, I will do it. When your faith is weak, or your hope, the
flesh is apt to get control by its desires or its fears.

He is the type of our earthly adversaries that come in the world around us, and
come often with combined and tremendous power, O how easy it would be to prove
this, by turning back the leaves of your life. Dear young friends, what has
blighted you? it is the flesh. What has sapped the springs of your life? O if I
could tell of the young men that come sometimes to tell me the story of their
wreck, it would make your heart ache. Perhaps it was unhallowed reading, to
gratify their fleshly taste, not very grossly at first, the book that pleases,
the sensational columns of those devilish newspapers; it makes one sick all over
to read the headlines. That is where they begin, the lust of theflesh. But they
go farther. It has strange fascination; evil has a power to charm people; it
throws a glamour over them that they do not stop to think about the fearful
depths to which they are descending. I would not venture to go into certain
scenes of iniquity. One of the strongest Christian girls I know, talked of
visiting certain people. "I am going," she said, "to try to do them good." I
told her of some lovely Christian people that went a while ago to convince
certain people that they were wrong, and were lost. Another Christian woman went
to hear Ingersoll and she came to me a few nights afterwards and said, "He is
the most glorious man I ever saw." The man had thrown over her the glamour of
his intellect; and it was a week before she recovered. My friends, avoid these
earliest advances. It will come from behind, and not in front. It comes in the
theater, in the ball room, every one of them saturated with the spirit of the
flesh. And it gets more and more brutal and animal. As desire is gratified, it
is harder to gratify it next time, and it goes on and on until the coarsest
pleasures cannot satisfy its abominable thirst, and so it sinks, a rotten thing,
to death and destruction.

So, dear friends, Amalek is the one that is destroying our people. A very
authoritative voice was lifted up in one of the pulpits of this city a week ago,
and in tones that ought to make one think, when it is necessary for one in such
a place, to speak such a warning. It is ruining the life of this generation as
it did the cities of the plain. And even writing to the Ephesians and
Colossians, the Apostle Paul, after he spoke of the heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, warned them in the most solemn terms to abstain from fleshly lusts that
war against the soul.

I want to tell you the remedy for this, as we learn it from this last verse. For
all that may beset us, it tells us how to get deliverance from the flesh. You
cannot deliver yourselves, that is certain. If Joshua had gone out alone to
fight Amalek he would have been defeated. Joshua went and led the army, the same
Joshua that led them into Canaan, the same Jesus, for Joshua and Jesus are the
same; Joshua is the Old Testament Jesus. But while Joshua is leading the army,
what is Moses doing ? On the mountain with his rod, he is holding up his hand to
heaven all the day long. And when the battle is finished, he builds an altar,
and calls the name of it "JEHOVAH-nissi: Jehovah, my banner." It just meant that
he held up that hand and rod all day in token that God must fight the battle.
Jesus leads us and God works upon the throne. And so this is the Lord's battle
and not mine. A dear friend said to me in talking about this, "Do you not read
in Exodus that God will have war with Amalek all the time. Haven't you and I got
to fight all the time? that we have got to fight this battle with self?" I know
there are thousands whose lives are embittered by the ceaseless struggle with
their own thoughts. But I do not believe it is necessary. There are souls that
have gotten above this battle. Israel had to with Amalek for forty years, and
then God took the battle and Israel went in. I believe you can be delivered from
this fight with the flesh. For we read that God will put out the remembrance of
Amalek from under heaven. You will not need to be afraid all the time that you
are going to commit some sin, if you keep your eye on Jesus. I do not mean to
say you are to be presumptuous, and in no danger of falling. Any man is unless
he is abiding in Christ, and so I said to this friend, you don't read it right.
It says "the Lord will have war with Amalek." She said, "Is that what it means?"
"Yes, it means the Lord will fight the battle with the flesh." "What a comfort,"
you may well say, and you may add, "Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory
through Jesus Christ."

O, dear friend, the reason you don't get victory over the flesh is because you
fight. Like the poor monk in the cell, you try to rub out the evil by penance
and by suffering. But if you will just hand it over to the Lord, and take Jesus
for your Leader, and lift up your hand and say JEHOVAH-nissi, you will find the
passage true. "If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." God's
Almighty Spirit, not the strength of a man or woman, will prove more than
conqueror. And then there is another thought: the Lord will have war with Amalek
from generation to generation, and when an Amalek comes, the Lord will strike
him down. Perhaps there is an Amalek in your heart that the Lord is having
battle with. It is not you, but Amalek. The Lord loves you so well that he wants
to slay the evil and set you free. When anything burns it is because it is not
gold; it is tinder or stubble, and when the Lord puts his hand upon it, it is
because it is a thing that ought not to be there. So let us bring Amalek and all
his seed to execution. If you find by your failures, any place where he has
power, bring him forward as Samuel did Agag, into the presence of the Lord and
slay him. While Saul was dealing gently with the captive king, and reserving him
for triumph, Samuel took a broadaxe and hewed him to pieces. Samuel was gentle
and tender as a mother, but here was something that must be dealt with
uncompromisingly. So if you have anything, bring it to the Lord, and hand it
over to Him.

There is another thought. "Therefore the Lord will have war with Amalek from
generation to generation." That is the reading of the text. But the marginal
reading is: "Because the hand of Amalek is against the throne of the Lord." It
seems to imply that this spirit of the flesh is rebellious, and will not submit
to God. There is no good in it. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." It
cannot be improved, it must be destroyed. The teaching is, you cannot make the
old nature better, so you must give it to God. There is still another reading in
keeping with the construction, and it is very beautiful and striking: "Because
Moses' hand, your hand, the hand of faith, is on the throne of God, therefore
the Lord will have war etc." It seems to refer to the hand of Moses being lifted
up; it was grasping the throne of God. It was Moses taking hold of Omnipotence.
It was Moses not only asking, but commanding, in the name of the Lord, and
Amalek defeated by his authoritative and victorious name.

Dearly beloved, take this great thought with you. If it be true what a vantage
ground it gives to faith. You cannot only pray for Divine help and mercy, but
you can rise up and sit down in heavenly places, with Jesus Christ on the throne
as king; put your hand on yonder jasper throne, as on that lever that makes all
the planets roll, all the suns shine, and the kingdoms rise and fall. Put your
hand on the throne where Jesus reigns for you, King of Kings, and Lord of Lords,
and then you in Jesus Christ can sit down at the right hand of God, feeling that
His hand is on the throne, and if you are in Him, that your hand is on the
throne too. It is not only asking; but it is taking. It is not only beseeching
but it is commanding in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you are thus
delivered, and thus stand with Him in faith, you will not fear the power of the
flesh. You will rise even above the world and the devil, and, you shall
understand what He means when He says: "I give you the power to tread on serpe


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  CHAPTER 16: BOOK 2 CH. 5 - EMBLEMS FROM THE MOUNT
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Book 2 Chapter 5 EMBLEMS FROM THE MOUNT “For ye are not come unto the mount that
might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness,
and tempest. And the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice
they that heard entreated that the words should not be spoken to them any more:
(For they could not endure that which was commanded, and if so much as a beast
touch the mountain, it shall be stoned, or thrust through with a dart: And so
terrible was the sight, that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake:) But ye
are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly
Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and
church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of
all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect. And to Jesus the mediator of
the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things
than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh: for if they escaped
not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we
turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth:
but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only but
also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which
cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom which cannot be
moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire." These beautiful words recall our
thoughts to the mount of fire in the ancient wilderness, and they claim for us
in the Christian dispensation all that was gracious and permanent in that awful
and yet glorious manifestation of God; and leave out all that is dark, terrific
and temporary. In our review of the history of Israel, we have come at last to
Sinai. We have followed them across the Red sea and through the wilderness; we
have seen them led by the pillar of cloud and fire; fed by the hands of God;
refreshed by the streams from the desert; and made victorious over their enemies
by the banner of God. But now, the scene changes. I know nothing more vivid and
impressive in their history than the strange alteration in the manifestation of
God's presence at this time. Hitherto it has seemed as though a gentle mother
had spread out her pinions and covered them with her feathers. But suddenly she
becomes to them a form of terror. The voice that had been all gentleness, and
longsuffering and love, the God that had borne with them in their disobedience
and frailty seems to change in a moment; and as they look at Him this morning,
enthroned upon that fire-crowned mount, He is a living terror. The mountain is
all in flame. It seems to be rocking in a perpetual earthquake; quivering in the
throes of dissolution; covered from top to bottom with the thickest darkness and
smoke; while the lurid flames are flashing on every side. And more terrific than
all, the deafening roar of the trumpet; and as it seems the mingling of the
trumpets of a thousand angels, is sounding on their ears and making their hearts
to quake. Even Moses, accustomed to see God's mightiest manifestations, called
to his work from the burning bush and able to stay with God in the mount forty
days, said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." What is the meaning of this sudden
change? What is the meaning of this hour? Up to this time He had met their
murmurings with water and manna. But now, the message is, "Cursed is every one
that continueth not in all things which are written in the law to do them."
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me." "Thou shalt not touch the mount. Nay,
if a beast touch it, he shall die." "Let the priests also which come near to the
Lord sanctify themselves, lest the Lord break forth upon them." Nor can the
people hear His word. "Speak thou with us," they cry, "but let not God speak
with us lest we die." Is not this a strange and awful change, as you contrast it
with a week ago, as you contrast it with His gentle dealings with Abraham and
Isaac, and the children of Israel through the desert? What was the meaning of
this sudden coming down to the mount, and assembling them before the throne of
His immaculate purity and inexorable law? There must be some deep significance
for them, and for our lives. Yes, beloved! it was necessary that these lessons
should be taught, and taught in this way. And it is necessary in your life and
mine that the very same experience must come. And it is the experience that
comes to every soul that becomes thoroughly disciplined and established in the
life of holiness. I believe this is the very picture of God's dealings with many
of us. First, He took us out of Egypt, forgave our sins, and led us through the
wilderness with such a gentle hand. We thought there never could be any deeper
experience; we thought the work of our inner salvation was complete; we thought
we were so free from sin we should never know temptation again. As we now look
back to our early experience, and see how free it was from temptation and doubt,
we have wished that we could go back to the days of childhood, and return to
that simple faith in God. But there came a time when out of the depths there
arose the terrific forms of temptation that we never dreamed was there. And as
they came the face of God seemed darkened, and there came the revelation of God
in His majesty and holiness, as He comes to search the heart, and show us things
we did not think were in us. Then we became discouraged, and went to work to
make ourselves better. And when we sought to rise in our own strength, we were
knocked down again, by the hands of the law, and became so discouraged that we
even doubted our conversion. John Bunyan gives us a vivid picture of this. It is
after Christian has left the City of Destruction, and is on his road to the
better land. Suddenly he gets out of the way, and as he tries to get back he
meets with Moses, the man of stern face with no ray of mercy in his countenance.
Moses says, "Where have you been? What have you done?" And as Christian begins
to tell his sin, Moses knocks him down. He cries for mercy, but Moses says he
has no mercy, it is his business to give the law, and to judge by the law.
Christian rises again, and is knocked down again. The lightnings gather on the
mountain; he begins to despair, when good Evangelist comes along and shows him
the blessed way: and so he gets back again but not by the hand of Moses. And so
with us. Our disobedience terrified us. We felt ourselves weaker and more
helpless than ever. God was only showing us His own face, and our hearts: and He
was showing us all this that He might lead us to something better than we had
before. He was showing us all this that we might get rid of the evil that was in
ourselves, that we might get the strength of Christ in our hearts; that we might
get the power of the holy Ghost in our souls: that we might go forth to be
saved, not by our works; to be sanctified, not by our attempts, but by the power
of the Spirit of the living God, living and triumphing in our souls. When we get
past our Mount Sinai, we know ourselves better, and we know God better. I
believe this was the object of God's revealing Himself on Mount Sinai. It was
first, that they might see God. They did not know Him. They had been trifling
with Him. I do not believe any man can know himself, or be strong for true
service, until he has seen something of the true majesty and glory of God; until
upon his spirit there has fallen, not the vision, for men cannot see that in its
fulness, but the revelation of God in His infinite purity. So it was with
Isaiah. He was not ready for his work until in the temple yonder he beheld the
vision of God's glory, and said, "Woe is me, for mine eyes have seen the King,
the Lord of hosts." So with Job when he cried: "I have heard of thee by the
hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and
repent in dust and ashes." And so with Paul. His ideas were all confused and
wrong until in the way to Damascus he saw Jesus, and was smitten and slain and
altogether changed forevermore. There comes a time in a man's life when he gets
the thought of God, and sees his own egotism, and pride, and self-will. God lets
him see himself, and then He reveals Himself, and God and His will henceforth
are all; and the opinion of everybody else is insignificant. So it was necessary
that they should see Him who was invisible, and that mighty face should cover
all the sky and blot out everything else. And not only must we see God, not only
must we see Him in his holiness, not only must we see Him as a consuming fire,
but we must see Him as the God of love. And I do not believe we can ever
appreciate the love of God, until we have had back of it the vision of his
majestic holiness. It is when your very soul quivers in the fire of his purity,
and you say, "how can I stand in such a presence?" It is then that Jesus comes
and fills you and lets you come into that very purity. It is then that the love
of God is so seen; it is when you have seen his justice and righteousness and
his inexorable law, when you see that He will not accept anything less; that He
will by no means clear the guilty; and that He hates sin with eternal hatred; it
is then so blessed to know Him as your reconciled God, holy as Sinai, and yet
satisfying for you every demand of His law through Christ who fulfils every
requirement. It is blessed to look at His righteousness, justice and ineffable
purity, and think "how will I ever attain to that;" and then say, "Thy holiness,
O Christ, is mine; thy purity thou givest me; thy very self thou bestowest on
thy child; thy cloud in which thou art enshrouded, I wrap around myself; and
then, in thy glory and purity, I come into God's presence." I do not believe
this glory ever seems the same to those that have not had the searching of His
infinite purity. Beloved, how has it come to you? Have you tried to make God a
little easier with sin? Have you wished that God were just a little less rigid,
and would lower the standard? Or have you let the standard be the very highest,
and asked Christ to lift you up to it? God wants you to rejoice in His holiness.
He does not want you to regret that he is so pure, but to remember that if there
were any speck of sin allowed by Him in the universe, it would go to pieces in a
moment. God does not save you by relaxing his purity one bit, but by bringing
you up to it. He brings us to the heights of Sinai, and enables us to stand amid
its very fires in the robes of His own spotless righteousness. So we read a
little later, that these people who were not permitted to come nearer, and who
stood back because God was so holy, yet later could be received into His very
presence. God said to Moses, "Come thou and the elders into the mount." And we
see the very people that were not permitted to let the soles of their feet touch
the base of Sinai, ascending that hill; going higher and higher with Moses,
where the sun is shining on them with all its cloudless glory, until the clouds
are below them, and they enter within the very canopy of heaven. There is no
lightning now, no stroke, no judgment; but lo, they sit down on the mount, and
God prepares a feast for them; and we read that "they did eat and drink, and saw
God. And on the nobles of Israel He laid not His hand." They were visiting with
God, and yet they were sinful men. They were in the very same mount which Moses
and they had stood back from. What was the difference? O, this time when they
went up, they had the blood on their hands. They had slain the sacrifice at the
foot of the mount; they had sprinkled the blood over them; and with this token,
they could draw near. God was not any less holy; but that blood meant that full
satisfaction had been rendered. Nay, more, that they themselves, ceremonially at
least, and as types of us spiritually, had been purified by the very life of
Jesus, for the blood had been sprinkled upon them, and was the very type of the
living blood of Christ. I wish you could understand the meaning of Christ's
living blood. I wish you could see something more than the drops of death that
sank down into the ground at Calvary. That was not all the blood. I thank God
that he shows us that Christ has blood that is not dead. Christ has blood that
is as full of life as that in your veins. That blood He will put in your heart;
and when He puts it in your heart, you will have His life, and His nature, and
you can go into the very presence of God. It is not only that he died for you,
but he lives in you today. And so we can come in where the Shekinah cloud is
shining, and feel no spot of sin, without fear look into His face, and lean upon
His breast, and hear Him say: "Thou art mine. Thou art all fair, beloved. There
is no spot in thee." Why? Because the blood of Jesus Christ covers you; because
the blood atones for your sins; and the life of Christ fills your heart. You sit
down with God and eat, and drink, and see His face, and over you spreads the
sapphire cloud of heaven and the banner of His love. I am glad, beloved, that He
is not less holy, but brings us into His very holiness, to meet Him there.
Again: Not only was that ancient mount designed to show them God's holiness, and
the necessity of it, but to show them their utter unholiness. God never gave the
ten commandments with the idea in His mind that men were going to keep them in
their own strength. It seems a bold thing to say, but I say it reverently, God
never gave the ten commandments with the understanding in his mind that men were
able or willing to keep them, until they got something better than they had in
their nature. He wanted them to be kept, but He knew men could not keep them,
until they had the Holy Spirit in their hearts, until they had the nature of
Christ in their hearts. He gave them to show men what they could not do, and how
weak they were. Paul says that righteousness could not come by the law. He says
that the law made nothing perfect. It was our schoolmaster to bring us to
Christ. I do not mean that God intended them to break His law, but he knew they
would, and when they said, "All that thou sayest unto us we will do," God saw
them in anticipation dancing around the golden calf, and He may have smiled when
he heard that promise, and said, "Poor children, you do not know yourselves."
And so He brings many a solemn test to let you know what you are. He holds up
this standard of righteousness to show you how far you are from it. This
revelation of sin comes to every heart. We see Job pleading his own
righteousness, and telling Eliphaz and all those miserable comforters he was as
good as they were; and that it was almost a shame for God to treat him as He was
treating him. And when he got through, and had written his own autobiography,
then God came in a moment, and said: "Job, look at yourself," and Job looked,
and gave a great cry, and said: "I have been talking words without knowledge. I
abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Then Job saw his worthlessness; and
was ready for a better righteousness. Dear friends, do you not know what you
might do if God would let you? God had to let Peter down head foremost, to show
him what Peter could do. He let Abraham tell a lie, that he might see that in
the lineof his very faith he was weakest. Paul says he too had a very happy time
for a while. "Iwas alive without the law once. I thought I was good." Suddenly
there came a great trial, I do not know what it was; something that touched
Paul's pride;you know what it is when something comes and touches your pride.
You say "I will not," and God has to come and make you do it. "The commandment
came and sin revived and I died;" that made him worse. The very moment he saw it
was necessary to be done, he disliked it more than he ever had before. He found
his heart was so weak and erring, hejust gave a great gasp of despair, then he
died, and God lifted him up to a better life in and through Christ. I have not
time to dwell on this thought.The purpose of God dealing thus with us, is to
show us how wicked our hearts are, and how much we need the power of the Holy
Spirit in us, or we shall certainly fail,in the things we mean to do. And so, I
come to the third lesson of thelaw. It has shown the people what God was, and
how He would not lower His standard; and how wicked they were, and how sure to
do wrong in their own strength. The next thing was that it should be a kind of
panorama to hold up the picture of Jesus,and show them what He was. You know
that from the moment the people broke the law, God went to work to show them
that there was One coming, who would keep the law; a man, like themselves; and
that glorious One would become the end of the law for righteousness. He would
stand as their substitute and atone for their sins. He would bear the wrath of
Sinai which they deserved. He would save them from the curse of the law; and
having done that, would go to work and teach them to obey the law. He would put
the law in their hearts and enable them to keep it. Nay, better than that, would
come down into their hearts and live there, and living there, would keep them;
would be their righteousness, their wisdom, their life. He pardons me for having
broken the law. Then He comes into me and enables me to keep the law. He not
only does away with my mistake, but He says: "Now I will undo it. It is all
pardoned; I have suffered; it is all settled, and now let us go on together, and
make it right. I will come into you myself. I will put into you another Spirit.
I will put my Spirit in you. I will write my law there; I will make you love it;
I will put the desire there, so it will be natural. I will make it spring in
your breasts. This is thecovenant I will make with you after these days. Not the
covenant of Sinai which they break, although I was an husband unto them," saith
the Lord. "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of
Israel; after those days," saith the Lord, "I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their hearts;and will be their God, and they shall be my
people. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within
you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you
an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in
my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them." So they got a new
law. I am glad that Moses let the first ten commandments break. He let them fall
out of his hands, as he came from Sinai; he got discouraged when he saw the
people, and said there is no use in having a law. Well, I am glad it broke. God
gave a better. He said in a few days: "Moses, come up again. I will give you
another law. But I will not trust it to you to keep. I will put it in the ark of
the covenant." And so after that, the law was in the ark. So Christ hides the
law in His heart, and puts it in our hearts, so that the things that once we
hated, we now love. A dear friend said the other day, it seemed as though there
was someone else living in her. Some one seemed to be with her all night, and
praying in her heart even when she slept. O weary hearts, there is something
that will come in and be a living strength and victorious life. It is Christ
dwelling within you. And so, in the New Testament, the anniversary of the giving
of the law was turned into Pentecost. For on the anniversary of that very same
day that awful word came down from Heaven, "Thou shalt, and thou shalt not," on
that very same day the Holy Ghost came clown into men's hearts and said, "I will
enable you to keep the law," for the Holy Ghost is our law. And so we read in
the New Testament, "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me
free from the law of sin and death." Now, dear friends, let us spring into this
new covenant, and let the Lord's supper today be the heavenly seal. For not only
does he say, "I will put the law in your hearts," but he says, "I will be your
God, and ye shall be my people." And so we close with that triumphant picture,
"Ye are not come unto the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with
fire, nor unto blackness, and. darkness, and tempest. But ye are come unto Mount
Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an
innumerable company of angels. To the general assembly and church of the
firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the
spirits of just men made perfect." I do not know how near they are; but we are
very near to them. Let us add, "see that you refuse not Him that speaketh;" this
mighty salvation, this mighty indwelling, inworking Christ; but receiving a
kingdom that cannot be moved, a kingdom of grace and of power, let us have
grace, not our own efforts, our own desperate struggles, but the grace whereby
we may be enabled to serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear. He
does not say, "let us try our best," but let us have the grace of God to do it;
and it will keep us, and enable us to so appropriate His holiness and love, that
those words will not affright us, "our God is a consuming fire." The gold is not
afraid of the fire. The paper would be afraid, but the gold says, "come on. I
can come into your midst; you will not harm me." The paper burns; the gold grows
brighter and ever burns on. Burn on them, O celestial flame. "Refining fire go
through my heart, Illuminate my soul; Scatter thy light through every part, And
sanctify the whole."


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  CHAPTER 17: BOOK 2 CH. 6 - EMBLEMS OF GRACE IN THE ANCIENT
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Book 2 Chapter 6 EMBLEMS OF GRACE IN THE ANCIENT LAW. Wherefore the law was our
schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But
after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster." (Galatians
3:24-25.) We looked in the last chapter at the dispensation of the law as it was
especially significant and symbolical of God's spiritual order in dealing with
his children under the Gospel. We shall look now at that which immediately
followed the law; growing out of it like a flower growing out of the bosom of a
glacier, namely, the types and symbols of the grace of God, so beautifully
revealed to Moses by the Lord, and through Moses to the people, after the thick
darkness and fire of Sinai had passed. There is no part of the Bible that has so
many pictures of the grace of Jesus as this. It has been almost hidden by the
thick clouds which are but the curtain of His glory, and behind which there are
such visions of grace and beauty. The law was our schoolmaster: let us this
morning sit in the school and have the Master present the lessons. It was a
Kindergarten school, not an adult one. It was for the infancy of the church, and
so all its lessons are object lessons, and all its pictures painted upon the
canvas, or drawn upon the blackboard, and interpreted by the New Testament
writings. I will look with you this morning at five of these object lessons of
spiritual truth as they were given by God through Moses for his ancient people,
but still more for our learning on whom the ends of the world have come. THE
ALTAR OF EARTH. The first of these is at the foot of Sinai, before the smoke has
cleared away, or the reverberation of the thunder has ceased to terrify the
people. This first picture is very beautiful, but you might overlook it, it is
so small. The wise have overlooked it; the moral have overlooked it; the deists
and the rationalists have overlooked it. The poor sinner sees it, and how he
rejoices after he finds it. How glad he is after that awful fire and tempest,
and that voice that says, "Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things
which are written in the book of law to do them." How he rejoices as he looks at
the base of the mount, and there at its foot behold this little object which I
am going to show you, and which is so full of Jesus and His grace. Here in the
very chapter that contains the ten commandments (Exodus 20:24) we find it. How
different it is. The others are all, "Cursed is he that continueth not." This
is, "I will bless." The other is, "Thou shalt do." This is, "Thou shalt
sacrifice." The other is, high above our reach: this is down low and everybody
can get at it. "An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice
thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep and thy oxen: in
all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee.
And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn
stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt
thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered
thereon." I suppose that you have overlooked that a thousand times. You have
read the ten commandments, and did not see this. You saw the awful law but did
not see God's provision for the men that break it. This is the first picture.
The schoolmaster comes and touches the canvas with a few strokes, and you see
this rude altar of common clay. If built of stone it is to be the simplest
stone. There were to be no graven tools used in its construction, no figures cut
on it as on our fine churches, and there were to be no steps. Some poor and
feeble old sinner might come along, and not be able to get up there. It is the
picture of the gospel. It tells them in the first place, that Jesus Christ is
going to come to this world to die for the men that are going to break this law.
It is an altar where blood is flowing, where death is expiating sin by
suffering, where the victim bleeds for the sinner. Then it is a place of great
simplicity. It is the salvation that comes down for love of the sinner. It is
the salvation that does not require him to carve it out with a chisel. Enough if
he can heap a few stones together, and there offer the lamb of sacrifice that
can take away his sins. Ho does not need to go up, or climb into a better state
and make himself good; but anywhere and anyhow you may come just as you are, and
call upon Him that says, "And him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast
out." Thanks to the old schoolmaster for this beautiful picture. O beloved, do
not forget its lesson for yourselves and yours. And as you meet the poor and
lost, lead them gently to Him. Thank God, I see men here today that have found
Him who a week ago did not know Him. They thought it would be an awful task to
find Him; they thought they would have to work themselves to some higher place,
that they had to fulfill the law ere they could be saved. But they have seen
that Christ has died to take their sins away, and all they have to do is to come
and take Him. O, tell the lost and discouraged ones to build their altar
anywhere, and go at once to Him. You do not need a temple at Jerusalem. You can
find it on South street, or the Five Points mission, anywhere in your little
room in the tenement house, anywhere that the poor sinner may be. No stairs to
climb. "But whosoever will, let him take the Water of Life freely." "Say not in
thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from
above.) Or, who shall descend into the deep? (that is to bring up Christ again
from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and
in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.” "That if thou shalt
confess with thy month the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God
hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Beloved, are you this
morning a poor guilty sinner? Have you known the law of God and broken it? Are
you standing, conscious of your wrong, and hesitating what to do? O, you do not
need to come as far as this altar, but just where you are sitting in your seat,
you can lift your heart and say, “O, Lamb of God, I come.” THE HEBREW SERVANT.
The next picture, for we have to hurry as the canvas is withdrawn, is just as
beautiful, but perhaps not so easily understood. It is in the next chapter (Ex.
21: 2-7.) "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the
seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go
out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his
master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife
and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if
the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I
will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall
also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his
ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever." That is, the servant
is to be liberated and go, if he likes. He is a slave, you know; but he is at
liberty to claim his freedom. But here are his dear wife and children whom he
cannot leave without a breaking heart, for they belong to servitude by the
conditions of their birth. He has his choice; he can stay with them and share
their burdens, or go out selfishly into liberty. But he is a noble fellow; he
says I do not want to leave them, and I will not. So the law provides that they
can make a covenant. And he goes to his master and plainly says: "I love my wife
and my children and my master, I will not go out free." Then he and his master
go to the judges, and the master fastens the awl in his ear to show that he is
bound over forever, and is his voluntary slave. The understanding was that it
was a willing servitude, and as such, he was honored. This may seem to you a
simple thing in the Hebrew code. But as we read the Bible, we see it again and
again repeated as the type of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, when coming to this
world to suffer for you and me, uses this very language describing his coming.
He says, "Lo, I come: I delight to do thy will, O my God. Mine ears hast thou
bored, thy law is within my heart." Thou hast nailed me to the door. Thou hast
made me a slave forever. Thou hast made me a slave of love. You and I who are
called to be the bride of Jesus, the very wife of the Lamb, for that is the
picture of the church in the Scriptures, were poor slaves, bound over by our
sins to a condition of bondage and servitude. Jesus Christ, the blessed
Bridegroom, is free. Had he chosen, he could have stayed in heaven. He was under
no obligation to come down and be bound under the law, and endure the ignominies
and suffering of the world. What would He do? Would He stay with His Father and
the angels in that glorious kingdom? He said "I love my wife and children. Mine
ear hast thou bored. I will take up the burden of the law. I will take up the
sins of the people. I will take up the tasks of the heavy laden. I will be the
righteousness which they cannot provide. I will do for them what they cannot do.
I will bear their burdens, and fulfil their obligations." So Jesus Christ was
bound in the place of a servant for you and me. And God in speaking of Him says,
"My Chosen Servant in whom I delight." So He says Himself, "The Son of man came
not to be ministered unto, but to minister." And that is the reason why He was
laden and crushed by our weight of sin, He was made a slave for us. He bought
our liberty by the loss of His own. As the former picture was the picture of His
sacrifice, so this picture is that of His righteousness, His obedience for us
under the law, and His assuming for us all the burdens of our state of
helplessness and sin. Stop a moment, beloved, and ask do you understand this for
yourselves? Has this been real to you? You and I were under tremendous
obligations; have we taken Christ for them? You and I were born under sin; have
we taken Him as our Savior? We Were heavy laden; have we let Him take our guilt?
Have we thought what it meant to give up all for us? Let us say here to Him. "I
love my Master. I will not go out free." Let us be like the slave girl in New
Orleans, when her master said, "Go, I have bought you." She said, " No." He
said, " I bought you to set you free." She said, "I will not go; I will be your
slave, for you redeemed me." And so, beloved, He became a slave for us that we
might be willing servants for Him. It is easy to talk about it; but would you go
for thirty-three years and drudge your life away for an enemy? Would you become
a menial in the kitchen, a toiling slave of the brick field for some one that
had never done anything to make you love them? He did it for you and me. He was
tired for us. He endured the privations of life. He had no place to lay his
head. He was driven from his childhood's home, about to be hurled over the
precipice and finally was hung on that cross outside of the city for our sins.
Shall we not say, "I love my Master. I do not want to be free from my Savior."
As Paul said, "I am His bond slave." He became a servant for me, I will serve
him with loyal love. Come, beloved, and let Him fasten you to the door, and the
pain that pierces your hands and feet will be sweet; and there will be a joy
that selfishness never knew, as you look into His face and say, "I love Thee.
Every drop of blood loves thee. Every fiber of my flesh loves thee. Every
thought wants to be thine." If you ever want to know a joy sublime just say this
from the bottom of your heart. I have said to troubled hearts, "Give yourselves
to God;" and I have seen faces flash with glory, when they could say; "I am
thine. I give myself unreservedly for thee." You know what the old English
pillory was. A man nailed to a post by his ear. Christ was pilloried for you. O
let us return His love. THE VISION AND THE BLOOD. The schoolmaster has given us
two pictures. Here is another we will just refer to, for we spoke of it in the
last chapter morning. It is the story of the blood. The altar tells us of the
sacrifice, the servant, of Christ's righteousness and His service for us. And
this third picture tells us of our access, and our nearness to God, coming into
the most intimate fellowship with Jesus. It is in the 24th chapter of Exodus,
verses 5-12: "And Moses came and offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace
offerings of oxen unto the Lord. And he took half of the blood and put it in
basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And Moses took the
blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the
covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words. Then
went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel;
and they saw the God of Israel. And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He
laid not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink." What a beautiful
picture. It was the same mount that was smoking yesterday; but it is serene
today, calm and heavenly, like the very gates of glory. And now, Moses and these
men are going up that awful mountain; and as they go there is no awful
lightning, or muttered warning of terror. They have got basins of blood in their
hands; and are all sprinkled with blood as they go. And as they pass the skies
get clearer, as a sapphire throne, and as the body of heaven in its clearness.
And lo, as they get up to some sequestered nook of the mountain, they pause and
behold a table is spread. I do not know what was on the table, but it was the
bread of heaven. And the God of Israel was there. Perhaps it was the softened
fire cloud of the Shekinah. There was something they knew to be the presence of
God. They sat down around it, "And upon the nobles of the children of Israel He
laid not His hand: also they saw God, and did eat and drink." They looked up and
it was as clear and blue as the sapphire of His palace. And their hearts must
have thrilled as ours shall when we sit down at the banquet of the Lamb. It all
meant that the curse was gone, and that the blood had put away the sin; and that
the blood sprinkled upon them was the very life of Jesus. They were the sons of
God. They had been redeemed by the blood of Christ, and could come as near as
they liked. And we can have this blood sprinkled upon our hearts, His very life
and nature is in us. We can come fully into the mount. We can eat and drink, and
it will be the very gate of heaven. Beloved, do you understand it? The first is
the altar of sacrifice where he died. The second, is the servant taking your
task. And the third, is the blessed Intercessor bringing you into the immediate
presence of God. The blood shed and the blood sprinkled bringing you nigh. The
exposition of it in the New Testament is this, "Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living
way which He hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh;
And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true
heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Beloved, are you living
there? Have you come thus near? THE TABERNACLE. And now, we have only time for a
few moments to refer to one more picture. Again the wondrous schoolmaster
changes the scenery ,and we look at the canvas and see on it the picture of a
little house of skins and boards, a rude tent, but as we look within, it is very
beautiful. Outside it is just common boards, and a few rough badger skins for a
roof; but inside, it is all glorious. It is hung with costly embroidered
curtains of richest colors, and a flashing lining of gold reflects the light
from every side. Every article of furniture and the few simple things in this
building are all magnificent. We pass in, and as we come to the first opening we
enter the court, an altar of sacrifice, and here is the great basin full of
water where they washed. We come up to another hanging curtain, we enter that,
and are in the building itself. On the left are the golden candlestick and the
table of bread. And before us a little altar from which incense and fragrance
rise. This is the tabernacle. And had we been permitted to look in once a year,
we would have seen another set of curtains drawn aside for a moment. We would
have seen the splendidly robed person of the high priest go in, and as we looked
in we would have caught a glimpse of the little ark containing some precious
relics; and above it the cherubim, and between their wings the heavenly light
was the very eye of God. And that Shekinah arose above the tent, until it became
the pillar of cloud and fire. This is the last picture that we will look at. It
was the picture of the blessed Christ. It is the most instructive of all the
types in the Bible. I have told you that the other three pictures present Christ
to us in different aspects. A sacrifice for sin, a provision for our
righteousness, and our access to God; and I think this last picture is the sweet
thought of home. It is a house; and the idea was that God was going to be the
home of the children. He was going to make for them a home in this homeless
wilderness. He was going to spread for them the Father's table wherever they
were. Through that trackless, homeless desert with its loneliness, He was every
night to pitch his tent and be to them a sanctuary and a rest wherever they
were. O, I think it was of that Moses sang one day when they had been going on
so long, and they had been dropping, dropping, dropping to bleach upon the sands
as they passed and leave their bones on the desert. He got so tired He said,
"Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. Thou
carriest them away as with a flood; they are as asleep; in the morning they are
like grass which groweth up. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; we
spend our years as a tale that is told," etc. And then as he saw the tabernacle
with its sweet refuge and rest for the weary, he thought of the God whose wings
were spread over it; and whose bosom was within to shelter them, and he sang;
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all the generations."Or, as it is in
the more beautiful Hebrew, “Lord, Thou hast been our home in all the
generations." And the next Psalm, I should not wonder if Moses wrote it, it is
so beautiful, and fits so perfectly with the ninetieth Psalm. "He that dwelleth
in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the
Almighty." Yes, there is a home for you. We may, even here, dwell at home and
sing, as we are going home, " Abide with me from morn till eve, for without Thee
I cannot live." That home had three departments. First, the porch outside. And
in that porch there was provision for the guilty to put the uncleanness off
their souls and off their garments. There was a fountain where they left their
stains. But that was not home; that was only the porch. What a pity that so many
Christians live in the porch. They do. Lots of Christians never get any farther
in. They sit where the servants are, and the scullions. A great many Christians
come to Jesus to get their sins forgiven so as in some way they could go to
heaven. But it is not the Father's house. Putting aside the next curtain, you go
in where God's chosen servants always dwell. It was called the tabernacle. There
was the golden lamp, and table of bread fresh every week; and the sweet altar of
perfume, exquisite and homelike all the time. There they fed on God's bread, and
breathed the sweetness of heaven. It was where God's children banqueted on His
love. Some of you understand this. You know what it is to go in with Christ into
the inner chamber, and have a light shine on your heart, that is not revealed to
the world. To such, it is meat indeed, and drink indeed. You are in the secret
place of the Most High; dwelling under the shadow of the Almighty. That is what
Christ meant when he said: "Abide in me, and I in you." Do not be so foolish as
to dwell in the court. Suppose the prodigal had said, "Let me dwell in the
kitchen, I do not want to go in there;" that would have been an unworthy thing;
and if he had appeared to be so unworthy that father's love would have been
checked. You are nothing in yourself, but Christ has provided the sacrifice, and
he wants you to get the benefit. It would be a very foolish thing if you went to
some great store in this city, and deposited a hundred dollars, and said, "Mr. X
can have all he wants," for me to go down and say, "I don't feel free to take
this; I will only take two dollars and seventy-five cents' worth," and go off.
The merchant would say, "It will do me no good, you might as well have the good
of it." And so, beloved, Christ has paid for the very luxuries of grace; He has
paid for the best seats in his palace, do not let him feel that his fulness was
wasted. Then there was a third chamber beyond this so glorious that they of the
old dispensation could not go in; could not even look in. But when Jesus died on
the cross, the curtains of that inner chamber were rent asunder; when His
heart-strings broke, then there was a great rent opened, and they could see it
open; the curtains burst asunder in a moment, and every one could look in and
see the holy of holies. Even heaven itself is now opened up to you and me,
opened up so you can look in and not be afraid; so you can look in as He goes in
before. You can look in and see your seat prepared, and know that you shall go
in where the Forerunner has gone; may not only look in, but you can live under
its light and glory; making your pathway a little heaven as you go. Blessed,
blessed home! it tells us how the Christian is not merely a toiling servant, but
a child at home. And it spreads its curtains for you when there is no other
comfort and joy, and you can abide with Him until the time comes when it shall
be said, "Behold the tabernacle of God is with men; he shall dwell with them.
God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And He shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more sorrow or crying or death. For
the former things have passed away. And He that sat on the throne said, "It is
done; I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of life. The Spirit and
the Bride say come; and whosoever is athirst, let him come, and whosoever will,
let him take of the water of life freely." Come home, dear friends; come home to
God's love, and stay at home. God grant that may be true for you. "Blessed are
the homesick; for they shall find a home." There is one. Are you tired today? is
your soul lonesome? is it weary? come to Christ. He has got more than pardon. He
can love you until you can feel it warm your heart, and know that it is not you,
but He, that loves your love back again. Eye hath not seen, nor have we dreamed
what it will mean bye and bye. God be your home, and give you the blessing of
Him that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High. We bless God for the old
schoolmaster, but we say "good-bye." Lord, it is good to be here on the mount,
there is no man but Jesus here. The ministry of Moses is gone. "The law was our
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." We have been looking at the pictures on the
blackboard, and while we looked the Master has stepped in. He is here. O that we
may go forth in His presence. We will find it is not the Tabernacle now, it is a
person, it is Jesus. And so we retire into the secret of our hearts, and say:
"Blessed, gentle, holy Jesus, Precious Bridegroom of my heart, In thy secret,
inner chamber, Come and whisper what thou art."


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Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/divine-emblems-of-spiritual-life-and-truth/
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