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Deuteronomy Chapter
Eight
Deuteronomy 8
Chapter Contents
Exhortations and cautions
enforced by the Lord's former
dealings with Israel
and his promises. (1-9) Exhortations and cautions further
enforced. (10-20)
Commentary on Deuteronomy 8:1-9
(Read Deuteronomy 8:1-9)
Obedience must be
1. Careful
observe to do; 2.
Universal
to do all the commandments; and 3. From a good principle
with a
regard to God as the Lord
and their God
and with a holy fear of him. To
engage them to this obedience. Moses directs them to look back. It is good to
remember all the ways
both of God's providence and grace
by which he has led
us through this wilderness
that we may cheerfully serve him and trust in him.
They must remember the straits they were sometimes brought into
for mortifying
their pride
and manifesting their perverseness; to prove them
that they and
others might know all that was in their heart
and that all might see that God
chose them
not for any thing in them which might recommend them to his favour.
They must remember the miraculous supplies of food and raiment granted them.
Let none of God's children distrust their Father
nor take any sinful course
for the supply of their necessities. Some way or other
God will provide for
them in the way of duty and honest diligence
and verily they shall be fed. It
may be applied spiritually; the word of God is the food of the soul. Christ is
the word of God; by him we live. They must also remember the rebukes they had
been under
and not without need. This use we should make of all our
afflictions; by them let us be quickened to our duty. Moses also directs them
to look forward to Canaan. Look which way we will
both to look back and to
look forward
to Canaan. Look which way we will
both to look back and to look
forward will furnish us with arguments for obedience. Moses saw in that land a
type of the better country. The gospel church is the New Testament Canaan
watered with the Spirit in his gifts and graces
planted with trees of
righteousness
bearing fruits of righteousness. Heaven is the good land
in
which nothing is wanting
and where is fulness of joy.
Commentary on Deuteronomy 8:10-20
(Read Deuteronomy 8:10-20)
Moses directs to the duty of a prosperous condition. Let
them always remember their Benefactor. In everything we must give thanks. Moses
arms them against the temptations of a prosperous condition. When men possess
large estates
or are engaged in profitable business
they find the temptation
to pride
forgetfulness of God
and carnal-mindedness
very strong; and they
are anxious and troubled about many things. In this the believing poor have the
advantage; they more easily perceive their supplies coming from the Lord in
answer to the prayer of faith; and
strange as it may seem
they find less
difficulty in simply trusting him for daily bread. They taste a sweetness
therein
which is generally unknown to the rich
while they are also freed from
many of their temptations. Forget not God's former dealings with thee. Here is
the great secret of Divine Providence. Infinite wisdom and goodness are the
source of all the changes and trials believers experience. Israel had many
bitter trials
but it was "to do them good." Pride is natural to the
human heart. Would one suppose that such a people
after their slavery at the
brick-kilns
should need the thorns of the wilderness to humble them? But such
is man! And they were proved that they might be humbled. None of us live a
single week without giving proofs of our weakness
folly
and depravity. To
broken-hearted souls alone the Saviour is precious indeed. Nothing can render
the most suitable outward and inward trials effectual
but the power of the
Spirit of God. See here how God's giving and our getting are reconciled
and apply
it to spiritual wealth. All God's gifts are in pursuance of his promises. Moses
repeats the warning he had often given of the fatal consequences of forsaking
God. Those who follow others in sin
will follow them to destruction. If we do
as sinners do
we must expect to fare as sinners fare.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Deuterronomy》
Deuteronomy 8
Verse 1
[1] All the commandments which I command thee this day shall
ye observe to do
that ye may live
and multiply
and go in and possess the
land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.
Live — Live comfortably and happily.
Verse 2
[2] And 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.
All the way — All the events which befel three
in the way
the miraculous protections
deliverances
provisions
instructions
which God gave thee; and withal the frequent and severe punishments of thy
disobedience.
To know — That thou mightest discover to thyself and others that
infidelity
inconstancy
hypocrisy
and perverseness
which lay hid in thy
heart; the discovery whereof was of singular use both to them
and to the
church of God in all succeeding ages. It is good for us likewise to remember
all the ways both of God's providence and grace
by which he has led us
hitherto through the wilderness
that we may trust him
and chearfully serve
him.
Verse 3
[3] And he humbled thee
and suffered thee to hunger
and
fed thee with manna
which thou knewest not
neither did thy fathers know; that
he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only
but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live.
By every word — That is
by every or any thing
which God appoints for this end
how unlikely so-ever it may seem to be for
nourishment; seeing it is not the creature
but only God's command and blessing
upon it
that makes it sufficient for the support of life.
Verse 5
[5] Thou shalt also consider in thine heart
that
as a man
chasteneth his son
so the LORD thy God chasteneth thee.
As a man chastiseth his son — That is
unwillingly
being constrained by necessity; moderately
in judgment remembering mercy; and
for thy reformation not thy destruction.
Verse 7
[7] For the LORD thy God bringeth thee into a good land
a
land of brooks of water
of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and
hills;
Depths — Deep wells or springs
or lakes
which were numerous
and large.
Verse 9
[9] A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness
thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron
and out of
whose hills thou mayest dig brass.
Whose stones are iron — Where are mines of
iron in a manner as plentiful as stones
and upon which travellers must tread
as in other parts they do upon stones.
Verse 10
[10] When thou hast eaten and art full
then thou shalt bless
the LORD thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.
Bless the Lord — Solemnly praise him for thy food;
which is a debt both of gratitude and justice
because it is from his
providence and favour that thou receivest both thy food and refreshment and
strength by it. The more unworthy and absurd is that too common profaneness of
them
who
professing to believe a God
from whom all their comforts come
grudge to own him at their meals
either by desiring his blessing before them
or by offering due praise to God after them.
Verse 14
[14] Then thine heart be lifted up
and thou forget the LORD
thy God
which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt
from the house of
bondage;
Lifted up — As if thou didst receive and
enjoy these things
either
by thy owns wisdom
and valour
and industry
or
for thy own merit.
Verse 16
[16] 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 thy latter end;
That he might humble thee — By keeping thee in a
constant dependence upon him for every day's food
and convincing thee what an
impotent
helpless creature thou art
having nothing whereon to subsist
and
being supported wholly by the alms of divine goodness from day to day. The
mercies of God
if duly considered
are as powerful a mean to humble us as the
greatest afflictions
because they increase our debts to God
and manifest our
dependance upon him
and by making God great
they make us little in our own
eyes.
To do thee good — That is
that after he hath
purged and prepared thee by afflictions
thou mayest receive and enjoy his
blessings with less disadvantage
whilst by the remembrance of former
afflictions. thou art made thankful for them
and more cautious not to abuse
them.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Deuteronomy》
08 Chapter 8
Verse 1-2
Remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee.
Remembering and forgetting
(with Philippians 3:13):--Thou shalt remember
and thou shalt forget. We need a good memory and a good forgettery.
I. First
then
the past; we are to remember it. The old lawgiver sought to make the nation’s
great history sacramental. Much might well be forgotten. The old rebellions
the old murmurings
their lapses from loyalty
and the heavy
hard work they
had made for their great spiritual leader--they had better break with much of
this unsavoury record. But they must remember the lessons of history.
Unfortunate is the man or the nation without the memories of great providences
that has never known the discipline of heaven. We are never to forget the past:
the fact that we are the product of the past
that the ground on which we stand
is made soil; that if you sink your pick into it you cut into the layer of forty
or fifty centuries; that all our sowing is upon the prepared ground and top
dressing contributed by all the older periods. God has been working and good
men have been building at all the substructures that are the foundations on
which we start the work we have in hand. Providence is not the mintage of
yesterday
and God has not been waiting for us to appear on the scene before He
set His plough in the furrow. We had better not be too ready to quit with the
past. Foundations have been made for us; we are ourselves the creations of the
past
and most of the instruments with which we work are contributions from the
past. We may easily exaggerate our abilities and resources
especially our
originality. We are a little inflated just now with our physical resources. The
greatest moulders of men
the greatest teachers of the world are not any of
them above ground
when we come to think of it. The mightiest forces that reach
forth their transforming energies to mould human life come to us from sources
back of all contemporary history. For our greatest literature
for the most
truly constructive
forces for shaping history
and for our religion we must go
to the past. The history of the great peoples of the world is a veritable mine
of wealth if we could better afford to throw all our gold into the sea than to
lose our past and the past of the divinely led nations among whom God has been
so visibly working. We had better remember all the way the Lord hath led
us
--remember it because it has made us what we are
and because God’s
footprints are visible upon it. God has been here before us; has been
forehanded with us; has wrought at the basis of all our individual and national
life.
II. The first word
is remember
the second is forget. We are to remember the past and we are to
forget it. The made soil on which we sow is an inheritance from the past
but
we are to add a new layer of soil on which others are to sow. Our best use of
the past
Phillips Brooks tells us
is to get a great future out of it. Many
people and many nations overwork their past
give themselves in excess to
retrospection
build the sepulchres of the fathers
and give themselves to
criticism of their own age and time. They behold God and nature through older
eyes alone
forgetting the individual relation of each personal soul. “Why
”
asks Emerson
“should we not enjoy our original relation to the universe and
demand our own works
laws
and worship? The past is for us
but the sole terms
on which it can become ours are its subordination to the present.” And so one
way of forgetting the past and leaving the things that are behind is to go and
do better things. Good precedents are good
but we ought to improve on them. We
ought to swing clear of the mistakes of predecessors
and do a better work than
they did. We need in the interests of personal growth to forget many things
which we insist on loading ourselves with. It is very human to blunder
but it
is a Divine thing in imperfect people not to repeat blunders. Past sins too
if
repented of
are good things to forget. And old sorrows we had better leave
with the dead yesterdays: the tomorrow of hope is already kindling in the east.
Even old successes had better be left with the past
if we are making them the
limit of responsibility and the end of duty. The future should be reserved in
all eases for constructive work: for new undertakings
for larger tasks
for
better fidelities. Learn new things; do new things every week you live. Our
life stagnates when poised on the older standards of duty or achievement. (S.
H. Howe
D. D.)
Looking backward
I. The divinely
governed life. “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these forty years in the wilderness.” Now
it is not difficult for us to
believe in the Divine government when we look up into the midnight sky. Ten
thousand times ten thousand stars moving in their orbits
and pursuing from age
to age their march of light
compel us to believe that this is a divinely
governed cosmos. It is also easy to believe in the government of God when we
look upon this world in which we live. This planet is evidently a rational and
ordered sphere. The form of the argument for design may change
but the
conviction of design persists in the consciousness of mankind. They feel that
at the back of earth and sea is an Architect building with a plan; an Artist
working out a distinct ideal and purpose; a Dramatist fitting perfectly each
act of the drama. Looking on the beautiful world
it is easy to believe this
it is almost impossible to disbelieve it. Again
it is not difficult to believe
in the Divine government when you consider the history of the human race. It is
as difficult to resist the idea of order
progress
purpose in contemplating
the course of human history as it is to resist that idea in surveying nature.
There is a doctrine known as the doctrine of purposelessness
a doctrine that
maintains the inconsequence and irrationality of nature and history
but it has
found few defenders. And
once more
it is not difficult to believe in a Divine
government when we mark the career of extraordinary men. When we consider Cyrus
and Caesar
St. Paul and Luther
it is easy to believe in the divinity that
shapes men’s ends. The real difficulty of believing in a supernatural order
arises when we begin to think of a Divine government ordering the individual
lives of such obscure and mediocre beings as we are. Any unbelief here is fatal
indeed. We must believe that the same infinite knowledge and power which shape
the destinies of orbs
races
and heroes
shape the life history of the
lowliest man and woman on the face of the earth. What did our Lord teach us on
this very matter? “If God so clothe the grass of the field
shall He not much
more clothe you?” And certainly the science of the day helps us to the same conclusion.
The world is built upon the atom; the microbe in many ways teaches the grandeur
of insignificance. We may be very obscure and ordinary people
but it is our
joy to remember that we are certainly embraced by the government of God
and
that He ever seeks to lead us and guide us as a shepherd guides his sheep. And
have we not many of us a very vivid consciousness of this overshadowing
Providence? Do you say
“I am the architect of my own fortune”? If you are
you
are the architect of a precious jerry building. If your life is really rich and
successful
ye are God’s husbandry
ye are God’s building. And if God has
blessed us marvellously
has He not also wonderfully kept us amid the
temptations and perils of the pilgrimage? The man who congratulates himself
upon his character and standing
and imputes all to his own strength
and
caution
and skill
is strangely blind and forgetful. What would you think if
an ocean liner were to flatter itself because it had found its way from New
York to Liverpool? “How cautiously I crept through that fog; how skilfully I
kept clear of those icebergs; how cleverly I piloted myself past those
sandbanks; what a wide berth I gave those rocks; how delicately I threaded my
way along the Mersey!” Forgetting all the time the captain on the bridge. We
must not forget the Captain on the bridge
the Captain of our salvation. How
wonderfully God has disappointed our fears and misgivings! We have often looked
forward with solicitude and even anguish to impending
threatening trials
and
yet God has brought us safely through. God has been with us through all the
years
filling us with good things
delivering us in the evil day
scattering
our fears
bringing us onward to the appointed rest.
II. The Divine
purpose in our life. “To humble thee
and to prove thee
to know what was in
thine heart
whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.” The moral idea
is the grand end to which God governs the race
the nation
and governs us. God
seeks to bring men to the knowledge of Himself
to purify them from false love
and lusts
to teach them obedience
to make them fit for their great and holy
inheritance. The Egyptian historian
the Greek historian
the Roman historian
simply gave a series of grand pictures of kings
cities
marches
battles won
and lost
and ended with such pictures; but the Jewish lawgivers and prophets
grasped the fact of the moral character and aim of the Divine government. The
aim of God’s government is not the material enrichment of men. The great
symbols of His final purpose are not L.S.D. He does not rule the world to
create rich nations or individuals. He has not led you for forty years that you
might make a big pile
and get at length an embroidered shroud. And the final
idea of God is not intellectual. He is not satisfied with genius
scholarship
taste. Some seem to think that the ultimate purpose of the governing Power of
the universe is to produce a sensual race with a magnificent environment of
palaces and pictures
like Victor Hugo’s devil fish in the enchanted cave. The
great end of God’s government is stated in the text. For forty years God
disciplined Israel in the wilderness
that they might pass from being a nation
of coarse slaves into a nation of saints
losing their sensuality and
wilfulness
being weaned from idols
growing into righteousness and
spirituality; and it is precisely for the same great end that God disciplines
us today. He anticipates
disposes
adjusts
rules
and overrules
so that we
may taste His love
keep His law
reflect His beauty
and be prepared to see
His face. How far has this great end been answered in us? God has greatly
blessed us
humbled us; what is the result? How do we bear the moral test? Some
of us are in many worldly respects far worse off than we were forty years ago.
Life is a wonderful process for spoiling dreams and frustrating hopes
and some
of you feel that your life has not been the success you expected
that you have
been sorely disappointed
that life ends in frustration
if not in a general
breakdown. Are you at last humble
spiritual
godly
looking for the mercy of
our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life? Then glorify God with all your
ransomed powers. Blessed humiliation! You are no failure. You are a splendid
Divine
eternal success. (W. L. Watkinson.)
Looking backward
Memory is said to be sometimes quickened to an unusual activity at
the end of life. The dying
and especially the drowning
are said to have set
before them in swift panorama view the varied experiences of the life which is
hurrying to a close. “Son
remember”--is the thrilling admonition--“that thou
in thy lifetime
receivedst thy good things.” It is in a more merciful and
hopeful way that we are called upon to exercise our memory today. While we
still live and the result of our life may be influenced
we are required to
pass it in review. Occasionally circumstances arise which seem to set us upon
this duty in an altogether special way. You pass along a road where you have
not been for fifteen or twenty years. You see a face that you have not seen
since you were a child
or you meet a man that was your friend in youth. Or
perhaps it is some particular crisis in life
or the return of some birthday
that sets the past in review. Life is here regarded as a discipline
and we
have set before us first of all--
I. The agent of
this discipline. “The Lord thy God.” Think of the multitude of influences to
which these Israelites were exposed in their great migration. Moses to lead
them
Korah
Dathan
and Abiram to mislead them
Aaron to do sometimes the one
and sometimes the other; the Red Sea to bar their way at the beginning of their
journey
and the Jordan at the end; famine and pestilence
quails and manna;
Caleb and Joshua to encourage
the unfaithful spies to discourage
the
Egyptians to drive them
Moabites
Amorites
and the rest to harass and hinder
them. Yet as they look back they are taught to see One Hand at work
and that
the hand of the Lord their God. The great lesson which this old Hebrew history
has to teach us is the clear recognition of God in everything. There is no
lesson
surely
which our strained and worried modern life more urgently
requires than this. If our lives
and lives dearer to us than our own
are to
be the sport of every malign influence
and every wilful or foolish person; if
we are at the mercy of all those varied calamities and deaths which ride upon
the breeze and lurk in the dust and lie in wait at every point
we may well be
driven to distraction.
II. The sphere of
this discipline. “In the wilderness.” The place in which the discipline was
conducted was not without its bearing on the result. It was a place in which
the influence of things seen was as weak almost as it could be upon the earth.
If you wish to teach a child a specially important lesson you will take him
into some quiet room
where he shall not be interrupted
and where in the room
itself there shall be as little as possible to distract attention. Such a
school room was this desert place
where God took the nation to Himself
and
taught them the great lessons in regard to His nature and character which
through them
in after ages have been taught to the world. Our life
as a
whole
is not a wilderness; it is rather a garden
which ever tends to become
richer and more fruitful as generation after generation toils upon it. Yet
there is in many of our lives what may be termed a wilderness experience--a
time of affliction
bereavement
disappointment
perplexity; in which God is
doing for us in a briefer period what He did for the Israelites during this long
forty years. If God does give us a taste of the wilderness life
let us
remember that He is not doing it without a purpose.
III. The definite
term of this discipline. “These forty years.” The Israelites were not to be on
trial forever. At the end of forty years a result had been arrived at and
ascertained which would not now be materially altered. There is a loose idea
only too common nowadays
that probation is to be extended indefinitely into
the future. People allow themselves to think that if a man does not come right
at first he is to be kept on with till he does come right
so that the
drunkard
the Pharisee
and the miser
though they grow worse and worse
and
pass out of this life drunken
pharisaic
or miserly
are yet by some
unexplained process in the indefinite future to become saints. Now
such an
idea not only sets itself squarely against the main body of Scripture teaching
but altogether fails to commend itself to common sense. Indeed
a wide
observation will lead us to this
that even within this life character tends to
final permanence
so that forty years
for example
do not pass without leaving
a mark
and setting character into a form. Professor Drummond has said that a
man cannot alter his collar after he is forty
much less his character.
IV. The purpose of
this discipline “To humble thee
to prove thee
to know what was in thine
heart
whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.” It was to humble
them
that is
to bring them by means of privation and distress to feel their need
of His help
and their dependence upon Him. To prove them
to put them
that
is
in such positions as would drive them to show what was in them. Times come
to us also when we are obliged to speak out
and to take our stand
and to do
distinctly either right or wrong. Young people at the beginning commonly regard
life mainly or chiefly as a sphere or opportunity of enjoyment. And we must not
be unsympathetic. It is natural
and perhaps unavoidable
that they should take
this view at first. This aspect of life
however
very soon turns out to be
utterly unsatisfactory. Then
after the thought of enjoyment there often comes
with earnest young people the higher and better thought of achievement. They
say: I will accomplish something; I will make a mark; I will get to the top of
the tree. But the top of the tree is so hard to reach
so few can reach it
those who do reach it have to pay such a heavy price
and find it
after all
such a barren and comfortless elevation
that this view of life frequently ends
in disappointment too. Then it is that the Divine view of life comes to our
rescue. Enjoyment is not left out of the account. It comes in
not as the
object of life
but as the divinely given accompaniment of service. Achievement
also finds its proper place. The faithful servant shall have the “Well done.”
But above the thought either of enjoyment or achievement there rises the
thought of discipline. In forming our estimate of a man we ask
What has he
done? God asks
What has he become? There is no subject on which greater
mistakes are made than in the matter of getting on in the world. We all want to
get on
and for our children to get on
but few have the right idea of what
getting on really is. A man thinks he is getting on when his business prospers
and everything turns to gold in his hands. Not necessarily. He may be losing
ground all that time. No! When he can stand in the presence of temptation
without yielding to it; when he can bear humiliation and disappointment without
murmuring; when he can see the unscrupulous competitor go in front of him
and
yet refuse to be unscrupulous himself
and let the best bargain he ever saw in
his life go past him
rather than secure it by doing or saying that which is
unworthy; when he can toil all day and accomplish very little
and go home at
night and neither scold the wife nor be angry with the children
that’s when he
is getting on. When we get into such a position that our word is always
listened to with respect and deference
and “when we ope our lips no dog durst
bark
” we think we are getting on. No! When we can bear hard and cruel speech
and not resent or retaliate; when we can give the soft answer that turneth away
wrath
or even be reviled and not revile again
that’s when we are getting on.
A woman thinks she is getting on when she is moving into a bigger house
when
her drawing room is splendid and crowded
and she a gay and brilliant queen in
the midst of it. But it is quite possible that she may be suffering loss at
such a time as that. No! When she can move into a smaller house
and make every
corner of it radiant with her smile; when she can work in narrowed
circumstances without becoming soured
or meet affliction and distress and bear
it like a heroine
that is when she’s getting on. (Sidney Pitt.)
The power of memory
I. The agency of
memory and its attendant faculty recollection in the work of spiritual
advancement.
1. Among the faculties with which God has beneficently endowed man
memory ranks with the most important. It is a gallery lined with the pictures
of past events
and with scenes on which we have gazed--a gallery sometimes
vocal with sounds that fill the heart with gladness
or pierce it with keenest
pain. It is memory that makes the record to which conscience points when it
speaks in tones of menace. It is in memory that there is stored up the
treasures knowledge has patiently amassed
and it is with memory we take
counsel when we would investigate
or must decide.
2. Illustrate the influence on spiritual work. These are not merely
intellectual faculties. These have a moral work to do. It may be illustrated in
the aid given to convince Joseph’s brethren (Genesis 42:21). It ever presents to us
the teachings of God’s dealings with us. To lead to avoid past errors
and to
show that the purpose was to do us good at our latter end.
II. The Israelite
who thus remembered would perceive that God’s purpose had been to humble.
III. To prove thee
to know what was in thine heart. Not to show God
but to show us our faults.
The great gun is taken to a proof house
and tried with the great charge
and
if some crack is revealed men say it was well it did not burst and spread
dismay at some crisis of the fight. The anchor and chain is tested link by
link
to see if any flaw should be revealed. If it had gone untested
how great
the peril! (J. R. Hargreaves.)
The advantages of a devout review of the Divine dispensations
I. Explain the
solemn charge.
1. The object of remembrance is extensive: the way--all the
way which the Lord our God has led us; that is
the whole tenor of the Divine
dispensations toward us--their nature
means
seasons
relatives
tendencies
and actual effects.
2. It supposes that this exercise
interesting and beneficial as it
is
we are prone to neglect
II. enforce
obedience to the charge.
1. An enlightened and devout retrospect of the dispensations of God
to you will present you with many impressive displays of His glory.
2. This devout retrospection will supply us with many affecting
displays of our own corruption.
3. This remembrance will supply the saints with pleasing discoveries
of the sanctified tendencies of their souls.
4. This remembrance will confirm our faith in the Scriptures as the
Word of God
and improve all our practical views both of things seen and
unseen. (James Stark.)
Remembrance of God’s dealings
I. On the duty of
remembering the dealings of God towards us. Look back to the earliest period of
your history--the time and place of your birth--the varied circumstances of
your education--the business or the profession in which you have been
engaged--the measure of prosperity or adversity you have experienced--the
various connections and engagements you have formed--the sicknesses
accidents
and dangers you have encountered
and the merciful deliverances which you have
received;--all these come under the general idea of the dealings of God with
you
which it becomes you to remember. But this review of the providential
dispensations of Almighty God should lead us to contemplate also that grace and
mercy with which we have been favoured. Ever let us remember that we were not
born in Egyptian darkness
or consigned from our birth to a waste
howling
wilderness. We were born in a highly favoured land
brought by Christian
parents and pious friends to the house of God; early baptized in the Saviour’s
name; accustomed to worship God in His house. And has not God graciously
vouchsafed to meet with and bless us in His house
and under those ordinances
which through His mercy have been administered among us?
II. The means to be
adopted in order to remember the Divine dealings towards us. We are prone to
forget the God of our mercies
to lose sight of His dispensations
to sink into
carelessness and neglect
to regard passing events as matters of course
not
calling for any special recollection or acknowledgment. Now
to guard against
this forgetful disposition it becomes us ofttimes to stir up ourselves
and all
with whom we are connected
to record and remember God’s mercies; and
especially to improve those times and seasons which He hath set apart for this
purpose. And while we carefully observe seasons which are especially set apart
in commemoration of the Divine dispensations
we should also diligently improve
the ordinances which are appointed for the same important end.
III. The end which
this remembrance of the Divine dispensations is calculated to produce:--Namely
“to humble us
to prove us
to show what is in our hearts.” When we observe the
conduct of Israel in the wilderness we are compelled to feel how foolish
perverse
and ungrateful that people were; but when we review our own conduct
must we not too often pronounce the same sentence upon ourselves? The
remembrance
therefore
of the dealings of God with us should deeply humble us
under a sense of our unprofitableness and ingratitude. When duly considered
it
will show us what has been in our hearts
how foolish
how vain
how deceitful
they are
and how often our own conduct has been inconsistent with our
profession
and what need we therefore have of pardon. It will teach us the
fallacy of many of those excuses which we have made for the neglect of duty
and evince that God has been merciful and gracious to us all our journey
through. This remembrance of God’s dealings with us is especially calculated to
bring us afresh
as sinners
to our gracious and merciful Saviour. (T.
Webster
B. D.)
A protecting providence
This is emphatically a day of remembrance. Parted families meet
and recount the course of providence since they were last together. The
monuments of Divine love are crowded so closely together that we are prone to
pass them by unnoticed. The experience of all of us is so much alike that we
cease to marvel at it.
I. In helping you
in the performance of this duty
I would first ask you to reflect on the amount
of happiness which you as an assembly represent. There is probably not one of
you to whom
in the sight of God
this is not a happy day; not one whose glad
do not outnumber his regretful thoughts. How many sources of happiness flow for
us! In a thousand ways must an incessant providence watch
guard
and guide
avert peril
and bestow aid
in each of our households
with every new day
to
make health the rule
disease and death the rare exception
--joy the current
grief the transient ripple on its surface. I have spoken of common blessings.
Have we not each special mercies which we would own with devout
gratitude
--mercies adapted to our peculiar wants
as distinctly marked
so to
speak
with our names
as keepsakes from a friend might be? How often have we
received the very favours which we most needed
and dared not anticipate
sent
in at the only moment and in the only mode in which they could have been
availing! In this connection it is well for us to consider how little we can do
for ourselves. We are too prone to feel as if our own industry
energy
and
forethought could accomplish much. But think how many sources of joy must all
flow together
how many departments of nature and of being must all be brought
into harmony
in order for us to pass a single hour in comfort.
II. What are the
duties to which this review calls us? Does it not make the gratitude of the
most thankful seem cold? What but unceasing praise can worthily respond to this
incessant flow of mercy? And yet
do not some of us live without thanksgiving?
Oh
that every soul might feel the love in which it is embosomed
and might
send heavenward the blended anthem of all its powers and affections
“Bless the
Lord
and forget not all His benefits!” In these mercies
hear we not also the
voice of religious exhortation
“My son
give Me thy heart”? (A. P. Peabody.)
The common levels of life
The forty years’ wanderings! What remains of them? A list of
unknown names
no more. The dust of time has settled on the stations; and the
events
big at the time with interests to millions
are without a note in
history. What weary years of plodding marches through a dark
unheavenly
country; what dreads and dangers
what wants and distresses
what keen agonies
and fierce complaints
that oblivious silence covers! They are all there
days
of fighting
nights of weeping
years of trudging. They seemed at the moment as
if they were burning an indelible mark deep into life records; but they are
already behind us
dim in the distance
a softening veil has fallen over the
whole pilgrimage; a broad sense of pain conquered
shame endured
duty done;
the consciousness that we have come out of the wanderings richer
braver
stronger
more earnest
but sadder
than when we entered the desert
is all
that is left to us. In order that we may better understand the method of God in
ordering our wilderness marches let us consider--
I. The reason of
“the wanderings.” Why is so large a portion of our years spent under the yoke
of undistinguished duties
leaving no record but “the wanderings” behind?
Briefly
because a few critical experiences do not make a character; a few
impassioned
enthusiastic moments do not make a life. The inevitable falling
off of the common hours and experiences seems to me to be the great teaching of
this passage of Israel’s history. It is a broad fact in the history of every
life; in a measure
of every day’s life
for the great cycles repeat themselves
in little
as the organs of the body are present potentially in every part. But
these narratives gather up the scattered incidents of our moral life into one
grand incident
and show us with a large dramatic point and emphasis what we
are daily doing under the eye of the great Leader
which makes these long
dry
unnoted wanderings inevitable; what it is which compels Him to impose what I
have called the yoke of undistinguished duty
and to lead us up and down in the
wilderness
that we may
if we will yield ourselves to His hand
work the sublime
lessons
which we cannot learn and practise in a moment
into the common daily
texture of life
that is
of eternity.
II. The purpose of
the wanderings. Briefly
again
to work godly principles of action into the
common texture of our daily lives. To make it a matter of perpetual
quiet
choice and habit to square every action by the rule of the mind of God.
III. The
“wanderings
” in view of their eternal results. They
obscure and unprofitable
as they may seem are the builders for eternity. The quiet
undistinguished
years decide the matter for the moments when the election is finally and openly
made. It takes years to give a form and bent to a character. Temperament we are
born with
character we have to make; and that not in the grand moments
when
the eyes of men or of angels are visibly upon us
but in the daily quiet paths
of pilgrimage
when the work is being done within in secret
which will be
revealed in the daylight of eternity. Habits
like paths
are the result of
constant actions. It is the multitude of daily footsteps which go to and fro
which shapes them. Let it light up your daily wanderings to know that there--in
the quiet bracing of the soul to uncongenial duty
the patient bearing of
unwelcome burdens
the loving acceptance of unlovely companionship--and not on
the grand occasions
you are making your eternal future. (J. B. Brown
B. A.)
The journey of life
I. Life is a
journey. “All the way.”
1. Intricate. Perplexities and difficulties in every stage and turn.
2. Eventful. Changes in every step. All is shifting.
3. Unretraceable.
4. Perilous. Poisonous streams
noxious herbs
venomous serpents.
5. Solemn. Leads body to grave and spirit to heaven or hell.
II. Life’s journey
has a guide. “The Lord thy God led thee.”
1. The guide thoroughly understands the way.
2. The guide has resources equal to all possible emergencies.
III. Life’s journey
can never be forgotten. “Thou shalt remember.”
1. Some memory of it is a matter of necessity.
2. A right memory is a matter of obligation.
Remember it so as to awaken contrition for past sins
gratitude
for past mercies
resolutions for improved conduct. (Homilist.)
Human life
I. A Divine
superintendence of human life.
1. The fact of this superintendence. “The way of man is not in
himself.”
2. The purpose of this superintendence. Moral discipline.
II. A symbolic
representation of human life. Morally
we are all in a wilderness
intricate
perilous
privational. It is only as we get the true manna from heaven that we
can live spiritually in the wilderness of our present life.
III. A solemn
obligation of human life. “Remember.”
1. Man does remember the past. Cannot help it; linked to it by a
necessity of his nature.
2. Man does not always remember God in the past. This is the duty
here commanded--to see God in the past
to see Him in all
in the tempest and
the calm
the darkness and the sunshine.
IV. An eternal
necessity of human life. Bread is not more necessary to support material life
than the Word of God to sustain spiritual. The soul can only live as it receives
communications from the Great Father of spirits. (Homilist.)
The Christian called to review the dealings of God with him
I. The way in
which we are led.
1. The way of providence.
2. The way of grace.
II. The end for
which we are led in this way.
1. “To humble thee.” Consider the vast importance of this in order to
our obtaining
retaining
and increasing in grace (Matthew 5:3-4; Isaiah 57:15; 1 Peter 5:5-6; James 4:6; James 4:10).
2. “To prove thee.” God tries the genuineness of our repentance when
He permits temptations to assault us
and suffers sin to wear a pleasing dress.
Of our faith
when difficulties seem to arise in the way of His fulfilling His
declarations and promises. Of our trust in Him when dangers
wants
enemies
distresses
assault us. Of our resignation to His will
in reproach and
affliction
and in the death of those we love. Of our patience
in
long-continued pain
or in a succession of calamities. Of our contentment with
our lot in poverty. Of our meekness
gentleness
and forgiving spirit amidst
provocations and injuries. Of our long suffering amidst the follies and sins of
those round about us. Of our love to mankind
and to our enemies
amidst the
hatred and ill-will of others. Of our love to God
when the world courts us
and we must of necessity abandon one or the other. Of our obedience when
difficult duties are enjoined
and we are called to deny ourselves and take up
our cross. Of our hope of everlasting life
when both the wind of temptation
and the tide of our corruption are strongly against us.
3. “To know what was in thy heart.” God
who searches the heart and
knows what is in man
infallibly knows what is in thine heart; but thou must
know thyself
and discover to others what is in the heart.
4. “Whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.” Whether thou
wouldest be brought to love Him with all thy heart
as thou art commanded; to
serve Him with all thy strength; to make His will thy rule in all thy actions;
to make His glory thy end
and not thy own honour
or interest
or pleasure. (J.
Benson.)
The way of the past
I. The way of
providence.
1. This we have experienced nationally.
2. Socially.
3. Personally.
II. The way of
privilege.
1. We have possessed the Word of God.
2. All have been welcome to the house of God.
3. As Christians we have enjoyed fellowship with the people of God.
III. The way of
experience.
1. Each of us has had his share of conflict.
2. To each has come deliverance in times of perplexity.
3. Even in the midst of trial we have
through faith in Christ
realised a measure of peace.
4. To every believer there has been vouchsafed spiritual joy.
Application: The past should thus be remembered
Remembrance of past trials
I. The duty of
remembrance. The world likes to forget. There is so much that is
self-humiliating in the past
so much that is disagreeable
that men would like
to get it out of their thoughts. But not so the Christian. He is taught that it
is his duty to bear in mind all the incidents of his past. It is an important
duty. The way has been rough and varied
but it has been fraught with momentous
issues. Have all the varied experiences been given us in order that they might
at once pass from our ken? Some forget from indifference; they never can
remember. Go through what they may
they never learn experience. Some forget
from loose habits of mind; from long indolence. Others forget because they want
to avoid the pain of remembrance. But none of them realise that remembrance is
an important duty
an absolute command of God. It is important in worldly
things
for it does much to form our human character. But it is still more
important in spiritual things
for it does still more to form our spiritual
character.
II. The profit to
be derived. Our past lives have been directed for two ends--
1. To humble us. How insignificant we appear to ourselves in the
light of the past! How our plans have been thwarted
our ambition damped
our
desires crushed! Where is our pride at the end of the journey of life?
2. To prove us. There is much alloy in the best of our services
much
sin even in holy things.
III. The comfort to
be imparted. At first sight it seems that no affliction for the present seemeth
light. It is always painful. Nevertheless it worketh out an abundant weight of
glory. Persecutors mean evil
but God causes it to be good. Consider--
1. The future good more than counterbalances the present evil. When
the rod is removed the purified soul will rejoice in the eternal presence of
God.
2. Trials by the way are proofs of Divine love. “Whom the Lord loveth
He chasteneth. God sees better and further than we do. (Preacher’s
Analyst.)
To bring to remembrance
I. Why we are to
remember the beginning. It was almost the first business of Moses
in giving
this long address which we have in Deuteronomy
to show that the Israelites
for want of remembering all the way the Lord had led them
lost the promised
land. Let us
then
take a three-fold view of the beginning
as applicable to
us spiritually.
1. What is the first thing that we shall call the beginning? That
which the people of God as a general rule come to last
and that which is
almost everywhere despised. The beginning was a manifestation of the pure
sovereignty of God. In Exodus 11:1-10
the Lord said that He
would put a difference--as the margin reads it
a redemption--between the
Egyptians and Israel; referring to the paschal lamb. Now
how did the Lord
begin with you? Why
by making a difference
not only between you and others
but by making us something very different from what we had been before.
2. Then the second thing in the beginning was that beautiful
circumstance as a type of the Saviour. “When I see the blood I will pass by the
house
and the sword shall not come near to hurt you. Oh
let us remember that
the original way of escape was by Jesus Christ; if we were left of the sword
it was by the blood of the Lamb.
3. Then the third thing in the beginning was the victory which was
wrought. Look at the victory the Lord gave to the Israelites; see how He
divided the sea. God did in that case what none but God could do. Now apply
this closer home. Who but the God-man Mediator could have divided a greater
sea? Who but the God-man Mediator could bring in such a victory as Jesus Christ
hath brought in? Who but Jesus Christ could penally bear our sins?
II. Why we are to
remember the present. How much wilderness experience the people of God have!
what solitude! “Like an owl of the desert
” “like a sparrow alone upon the
house top”; and “that He will hear the prayer of the destitute
and not despise
their prayer”; and “they wandered in a solitary way
and found no city to dwell
in.” I dare say some good Christians think that ministers have not much of this
wilderness experience; but I can tell you this
if they have not
they will not
be of much use to the people. They may pretend to weep with the people
but
they cannot feel as they would if they had these experiences. The doctor may be
very sympathising over the dying patient
but the doctor cannot feel what the
parent feels
the doctor cannot feel what near and dear relatives feel. The
apostle saith
“We have ten thousand instructors
but not many fathers.” For a
minister
therefore
to be of that sympathising nature that he shall strengthen
file diseased
heal the sick
bring again that which is driven away
he must
from time to time know what this wilderness experience is; and then he will
think when he comes into the pulpit
and say to himself
I am a poor
dark
helpless creature
no more fit to preach the Gospel than to create a world; and
thus the man is humbled down like a little child
and the Lord knows that is
just the time for Him to come; so in the Lord steps
the man’s heart is warmed
his soul is enlarged
Satan flies off
and the man is astounded how it is he is
so strong; and one thought comes
and another; and the man that one half his
time perhaps is little more than a stammerer
all at once becomes eloquent
and
pours forth torrents of thoughts
and blessing after blessing
until the people
lose their troubles and their sorrows
and he loses his.
III. How we are to
look at the future. With confidence in Him who has been so gracious to us up to
the present. (J. Wells.)
The retrospect
I. The call to
remembrance. If knowledge is important
memory is important in precisely the
same degree; for knowledge is nothing unless it be applied
and it cannot be
applied unless it be remembered. But there are many who resemble the workmen in
the days of Haggai
who received wages to put them into a bag of holes. And
therefore says the apostle to the Hebrews
“Give the more earnest heed to the
things you have heard
lest at any time you should let them slip”; for we are
now considering memory not in reference to the scholar
or the man of business
but with regard to religion; and it is remarkable that the whole of religion is
expressed by the word
“Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth.” One
thing
however
is worthy of consideration--that in all these instances the
remembrance is to be considered
not as a speculation
but as experimental and
practical. The sacred winters never regard remembrance as an end
but as an instrument;
to call forth such feelings
and to produce such actions as will correspond to
the things we are required to remember. As they consider knowledge without
practice to be no better than ignorance
so they consider remembrance without
influence and efficiency as no better than forgetfulness.
II. The subject to
be reviewed.
1. The place--“the wilderness.”
2. Their conductor--“the Lord thy God.” God guides the people with
His eye
He leads them by His word and His Spirit and His providence. He is a
very present help to them in every time of trouble
and He will never leave
them nor forsake them till they have entered the promised land.
3. The passages--“all the way.” Not that everything in their journey
was equally important and interesting; this could not be; but all had been
under the appointment and discipline of God
and all would be rendered
profitable.
4. The period--“these forty years.” (W. Jay.)
The advantages of a frequent retrospect of life
I. The way which
we are here called on to remember
is
“all the way which the Lord our God has
led us”; the whole course of His dispensations towards us from the day of our
birth to the present hour. Even the most minute occurrences in our history have
had some influence on our condition and character; they are affecting us now
and will continue to affect us through an endless eternity. But while all the
events of our life ought to be preserved in our memories
those events ought
especially to be treasured up there which are more immediately connected with the
way that is leading us to heaven.
1. And among these the means by which we were first brought into this
way should hold a chief place.
2. We are called on to remember also the afflictions with which we
have been visited since we have been walking in the path of life.
3. Neither must our mercies be forgotten in the retrospect of our
lives.
4. The sins we have committed in the midst of our afflictions and
blessings must also be often retraced; not merely viewed in a mass
but
like
our mercies
contemplated one by one with all their aggravations.
II. The remembrance
of these things
however
in order to be beneficial to us
must be accompanied
with a lively conviction of the overruling providence of God in all that has
happened to us
and as lively a sense of His close connection with us. The text
points out to us the ends which God had in view in afflicting the Jews
and it
consequently affords us the means of ascertaining the reasons of His
diversified dispensations towards ourselves.
1. They are intended to humble us. All is humility in that kingdom
where God dwells. Here
in this fallen world
the meanest sinner lifts up
himself against Him; but there the loftiest archangels cast down their crowns
before His footstool. Before we can enter that glorious world we also must
learn to abase ourselves.
2. The various changes in our condition have been designed also to
prove us.
3. They have a tendency to teach us the insufficiency of all worldly
things to make us happy
and the all-sufficiency of God to bless us.
III. These
then
are the immediate purposes for which the Lord has led us through so many trials
and mercies in our way to heaven. There are
however
other ends which they
have been designed to answer; and that these may be accomplished He commands us
to look back on the course in which we have walked
and has connected with the
retrospect many spiritual benefits.
1. A review of the past is calculated to confirm our faith in the
Bible. Our lives are practical illustrations of this blessed book. Indeed the
whole world and all that is passing therein is one continued commentary on it
and confirmation of its truth.
2. A retrospect of the past has a tendency also to increase our
knowledge of ourselves.
3. The remembrance enjoined in the text is calculated also to
strengthen our confidence in God. It brings before our mind the help we have
received in our difficulties
the supplies in our wants
the consolations in
our troubles; and reasoning from the past to the future
we are naturally led
to infer that He who never has forsaken us never will forsake us; that the
goodness and mercy which have followed us all the days of our life will follow
us still; that no vicissitudes in our condition
no tribulation
no distress
no persecution
no peril
“shall be able to separate us from the love of God
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (C. Bradley
M. A.)
The lesson of memory
I. What we should
be mainly occupied with as we look back. Memory
like all other faculties
may
either help or hinder us. As is the man
so will be his remembrance. The tastes
which rule his present will determine the things that he likes best to think
about in the past. There are many ways of going wrong in our retrospect. Some
of us
for instance
prefer to think with pleasure about things that ought
never to have been done
and to give a wicked immortality to thoughts that
ought never to have had a being. Such a use of the great faculty of memory is
like the folly of the Egyptians who embalmed cats and vermin. Then there are
some of us who abuse memory just as much by picking out
with perverse
ingenuity
every black bit that lies in the distance behind us
all the
disappointments
all the losses
all the pains
all the sorrows. And there are
some of us who
in like manner
spoil all the good that we could get out of a
wise retrospect by only looking back in such a fashion as to feed a sentimental
melancholy
which is
perhaps
the most profitless of all the ways of looking
backwards. Now here are the two points in this verse of my text which would put
all these blunders and all others right
telling us what we should chiefly
think about when we look back. “Thou shalt remember all the way by which the
Lord thy God hath led thee.” Let memory work under the distinct recognition of
Divine guidance in every part of the past. That is the first condition of
making the retrospect blessed. Another purpose for which the whole panorama of
life is made to pass before us
and for which all the gymnastics of life
exercise us
is that we may be made submissive to His great will
and may keep
His commandments.
II. And now turn to
the other consideration which may help to make remembrance a good
namely
the
issues to which our retrospect must tend if it is to be anything more than
sentimental recollections.
1. Remember and be thankful. If it be the case that the main fact
about things is their power to mould persons and to make character
then there
follows
very dearly
that all things
that come within the sweep of our memory
may equally attribute to our highest good.
2. Remember
and let the memory lead to contrition.
3. Let us remember in order that from the retrospect we may get
practical wisdom.
4. The last thing that I would say is
Let us remember that we may
hope. The forward look and the backward look are really but the exercise of the
same faculty in two different directions. Memory does not always imply hope; we
remember sometimes because we do not hope
and try to gather round ourselves
the vanished past because we know it never can be a present or a future. But
when we are occupied with an unchanging Friend
whose love is inexhaustible
and whose arm is unwearied
it is good logic to say
“It has been
therefore it
shall be.” (A. Maclaren
D. D.)
A call to remembrance
When Charles I was executed
January 30
1649
the last word he
was heard to utter was “Remember.” Memory is a power that may be vivid to the
last moment on earth; it may echo its terrors in hell
or carry its blessed
lessons and reviews to the heavenly world. It is a mighty faculty of the human
mind. It is meant to be useful as a storehouse of information and a granary of
knowledge. Again
it is intended to remind us of the lessons gathered by
experience and observation. These lessons may have been dearly learnt
but may
be all the more precious as they serve to correct our pride
and to reveal our
sinfulness and weakness.
I. Mark the stages
of Israel’s journey.
1. Border of Red Sea.
2. March.
3. Elim.
4. Wilderness of sin.
5. Rephidim.
6. At foot of Mount Sinai.
II. Mark the
suggestiveness of that journey to us. It is a parable of the journey taken by
God’s children by faith in Jesus Christ.
1. They also leave the slavery and sin of Egypt.
2. They too must go forward in the way of repentance and faith
in
discharge of Christian duty
in cultivation of Christian graces
and in the
path Providence and grace has ordained.
3. They often drink the bitter waters of sorrow and trial; but these
waters are sweetened by Christ.
4. They drink of the waters of Elim
where they find joy and
refreshment.
5. They also have to learn lessons of Divine care and Divine trust.
6. What rich supplies of the water of life flow around the camp of
the spiritual Israel.
7. Where Israel encamps before Sinai
it reminds us that the law
written on tables of stone is by the covenant of grace written on the tables of
our hearts
and we are to remember those commandments of Jehovah that are a
rule of life for all time
even the Ten Commandments.
III. Great facts
Israel would remember.
1. Surely Israel remembered they had a glorious Guide.
2. Surely they would remember their full supplies. No good thing will
God withhold from them that walk uprightly.
3. Israel would remember with sorrow their sins
and so must we.
4. They were to remember their rebukes and chastisements.
5. They were to remember their conflicts.
6. Surely they would remember the devious way they took.
7. Surely Israel might say
Mercy has ever been mingled with
judgment.
8. Would not Israel remember all the way in the light of the glorious
end then in view?
IV. The purpose to
be served by the way that Israel journeyed.
1. To humble the people.
2. To prove the heart.
3. To lead to God and heaven. (F. A. Warmington.)
Divine leading
I. The way in
which the Lord led His people.
1. A way not chosen by themselves. Grace--freely bestowed (John 5:16).
2. A trying way. Walking by faith
not sight (1 Peter 1:7).
3. A mysterious way.
4. A discouraging way (Numbers 21:4-5). So the Christian is
often discouraged. He wants to feel that he is going on spiritually; but he
feels
more and more
his own helplessness. Some days he has most cheering and
delightful thoughts of God; on others he feels bereft of faith
love
joy
hope
comfort
and every spiritual gift.
5. A way of tribulation (John 16:33).
6. A way in which God went before them (Exodus 13:21-22). He is with every one of
His people every moment
to keep them by His Almighty power
in the way of
grace.
II. The place in
which the Lord led His people His people into the wilderness.
1. To humble. In order that He may magnify Christ in them.
2. To prove. That He may convince them of their own weakness.
3. That He may know what is in his heart--its secret corruptions
etc. (J. J. Eastmead.)
Human life a pilgrimage
I. The wandering
of the Israelites through the wilderness to Canaan is a lively image and
representation of a Christian’s passage through this world to heaven.
1. The passage of the Israelites through the wilderness was a very
unsettled state; so is ours through this world. If we do not continually wander
about from place to place as the Israelites did
yet we are far from having any
fixed and constant abode. The perpetual alterations we see about us
either in
our friends
our neighbours
or ourselves
our persons
tempers
estates
families
or circumstances
and in short
the vast change which the compass of
a few years makes in almost everything around us
is sufficient to convince us
that we are in no settled condition here.
2. The travel of the Israelites through the wilderness was a
troublesome and dangerous state. Now
here is another fit emblem of a
Christian’s pilgrimage through this world which to him is not only a barren but
a hostile land. From the very nature of things
and the circumstances of his
present state
he meets with many inconveniences and sufferings
and from the
malice of his enemies more. Setting aside the natural evils which he bears in
common with others
sickness
pains
crosses
disappointments
personal and
family afflictions
he is exposed to many spiritual evils and dangers as a
Christian which create him no small concern; particularly frequent instigations
to sin
from a depraved nature
from an ensnaring and delusive world
and from
a wily and watchful enemy going about indefatigably seeking whom he may devour.
3. In the wilderness through which the Israelites travelled to
Canaan
there were many by-paths or devious tracts by which they might be in
danger of going astray. And how much this resembles a Christian’s walk through
this world is very apparent.
4. Notwithstanding all the by-paths and windings in the wilderness
the Israelites had an infallible Guide to lead them in the way they should go.
5. Though the Israelites travelled forty years in the wilderness
yet
they were all that while not far from the promised land. We have here another
circumstance of similitude to a Christian’s state in this world. If he be in
the right way to heaven
he is never far from it; he lives on the borders of
it. A very little and unexpected incident may let him suddenly into the eternal
world
which should every day therefore be in his thoughts.
6. The reason why the children of Israel wandered so long in the
wilderness before they reached the promised land is given us in the text. Now
whether it be not sometimes by way of punishment that God is pleased to detain
some of his people from their state of rest and happiness for a long time
as
He did the Israelites from the land of Canaan
I will not take upon me to say.
But without all doubt
this world is a state of trial and temptation to them
all; in which they are detained the longer that they may be more fit for and
more ardently desirous of the heavenly Canaan when they are well wearied with
the labours and difficulties of this their earthly pilgrimage. And there are
three graces which the trials of life are very proper to cultivate
and to the
exercise of which the Israelites were more especially called during their
passage through the wilderness. And they are faith
hope
and patience: all
proper to a state of suffering and mutually subservient to each other. Faith
keeps its eye on God in all we suffer; looks beyond the agency of second
causes; views the direction of the Divine band and adores it. Patience
under
the influence of faith
submits to the hand of God in all. And hope
enlivened
by faith and confirmed by patience
looks beyond all to that future and better
state of things where we shall meet with an unspeakable recompence for all we
can go through to obtain it.
7. In order to keep up the faith
patience
and hope of the
Israelites
full and frequent descriptions were given them of the goodness of
that land to which they were travelling. Nor are our faith and patience and
hope without the like supports in respect to the heavenly Canaan. Oh
what
great and glorious things are told us of the city of the living God
the
metropolis of the universal King!
8. When the Israelites were come to the end of their pilgrimage
before they could enter the promised land
they were obliged to pass over the
river Jordan which separated the wilderness from Canaan. Here lay their
greatest difficulty at the very end of their journey. Now to apply this part of
the history to the Christian’s life and pilgrimage. The last enemy he is to
overcome is death. And as it is the last
so to some Christians it is the most
terrible of all their trials; and all their faith and hope and patience is
little enough to support them under it. But there is no arriving at the
heavenly Canaan without first passing through the fatal Jordan. And as the
Israelites by the long and frequent exercise of their faith and hope and trust
in God were better prepared for this last difficulty of passing over Jordan
so
the more these graces are wrought into a lively habit
the more composed will
the soul be under the apprehensions of approaching death.
I shall now conclude this with a few reflections:
1. Let these thoughts
then
be improved to abate our desires after
the pleasures of the present life and excite them after those of a better.
2. What reason have we to be thankful that we have so sure a Guide
through this dangerous desert! The Israelites themselves had not one more safe.
3. Though our state and condition in this world be much the same as
that of the Israelites was in the wilderness
let us however take care that our
temper and disposition be not the same. They are set up as our warning
not as
our pattern.
4. Whilst we are in this wilderness let us keep the heavenly Canaan
always in our eye. The frequent thoughts of it will speed our progress towards
it
quicken our preparations for it
and be a sovereign support under all the
trials we may meet with in our way to it; will soften our sorrows
and
reconcile us to all our earthly disappointments. And indeed
what is there
which a man need call a disappointment whose heaven is secure? (John Mason
M. A.)
The way to improve past providences
I. I am to specify
some of those providential dispensations which we ought in a more especial manner
to recollect and consider. And this review ought to be universal. We should not
willingly let pass any of the ways and dispensations of Providence towards us
without a serious remark. But as we cannot remember them all
we should take
the more care to retain the impression of those that are more remarkable
as a
testimony of our dutiful acknowledgment of God and our dependence upon Him in
all our ways.
1. Then we should often call to mind God’s afflicting and humbling
providences. Have we been afflicted in our bodies? let us remember how it was
with us in our low estate; what thoughts we then had of our souls and another
world; what serious impressions were made upon our minds which we should
endeavour to renew and retain. Again
have we been afflicted in our spirits? By
sore temptations
grievous dejections
severe conflicts with sin and Satan
little hopes
great fears
dreadful doubts
and terrifying apprehensions
concerning the state of our souls
and what is like to become of them
hereafter. These kinds of troubles ought by no means to be forgotten. And when
they are remembered
our proper inquiry is
How we got rid of them? For there
is a very wrong and dangerous way of getting rid of such spiritual concern of
mind. If stupidity and indolence
neglect or worldly-mindedness
carnal
security or prevailing vanity
have contributed to overbear and drown those
convictions
and banish that serious thoughtfulness and religious sorrow we
once had
our state is really worse than it was then; and we have more reason
now to be concerned than we had before. Again
have we been afflicted in our
family or friends by the death of some
or the sickness and distress of others
let us not soon forget these kinds of afflictions when they are past. It is
possible we may know very well from what immediate cause they flowed
yet let
us not overlook the sovereign hand of God therein. And if they have in any
degree been owing to some neglect or fault in us
they should especially be
remembered
to humble us and make us more wise and cautious for the future.
2. We should likewise remember the merciful providences of God
towards us. For instance
our temporal mercies should be frequently
remembered--the health
the peace
the prosperity
and the worldly advantages
we enjoy above so many others. Again
our spiritual mercies and religious
advantages should be thankfully recorded by us
and especially that invaluable
one of a good and pious education. Again
family mercies should be often
remembered by us--family health
peace and prosperity
the comfort of
relations
the blessing of children
especially if they be found walking in the
way of truth. And so should public mercies; especially the signal
interpositions of Providence in preserving us from our enemies and restoring to
us the blessings of national prosperity and peace.
II. Let us now
consider in what manner the past providences of God are to be recollected and
considered by us.
1. We should review them very intently and seriously
call to mind as
many particulars as we can
reflect upon them
dwell upon the reflection till
the heart be deeply impressed with it.
2. We should review past providences with thankfulness (Ephesians 5:20). What! are we to give
thanks for afflictions
pains
and crosses; for those humbling providences
under which we mourn? Yes; there is no providence
though ever so adverse
in
which a Christian may not see much of the Divine goodness
and for which
upon
the whole
he will not see abundant cause to be thankful. He hath reason to be
thankful that his afflictions are not greater; that when some of his comforts
are gone he hath so many others left; that some honey is thrown into his bitter
cup; that there is such a mixture of mercy with judgment; that his supports are
so seasonable and effectual; that under these strokes he can eye the Father’s
hand and look upon them as the effect of His love
for He chasteneth every son
He loves. But especially are kind favourable providences to be gratefully
recorded. It is not to be supposed but that every one of us may call to mind
many a merciful providence which has contributed greatly to the comfort of our
lives
and laid the foundation of our present happiness and future hopes.
3. Our remembrance of the past providences of God should be improved
for the confirmation of our hope and trust in Him. By what God hath done for us
we see what He is able to do. Our experience
then
should support our hope
and past mercies establish our trust in God for future.
4. When we call to mind the past ways of God towards us
we should
seriously reconsider in what manner we behaved under them and what good we have
gained from them. Every providence hath a voice
some a very loud one calling
us in a more especial manner to practise some particular duty
or forsake some
particular sin. Have merciful providences made us more active
diligent
and
steadfast in the service of God? and together with greater power given us a
better heart to do good? Again
what effect have providential afflictions had
upon us? And all afflictions are to be deemed such excepting those that are the
genuine effects of our own sin and folly. Have they humbled us? mortified our
worldly-mindedness? checked our false ambition? or subdued any secret lust that
before too much prevailed? Have they fixed our hope and dependence on God? and
made us think more seriously of death and another world? and
in a word
been
the means of making us more circumspect and better Christians?
III. I am now to lay
before you some of those considerations that are most proper to induce us
hereunto.
1. The express command of God should be a sovereign motive to this
duty.
2. The duty recommended in the text is necessary as subservient to
the great end for which such providences are intended--namely
to do us good in
the latter end. So that if we seldom or superficially reflect upon them
we
frustrate the chief design of them
and lose the benefit intended thereby.
3. This is a very pleasant as well as useful employment of the mind;
and a very happy way of filling up those leisure minutes which
through the
vagrancy and dissipation of thought
do so frequently run to waste.
4. Such a serious reflection on past providences may be of use to
direct us in our future conduct.
5. The shortness and uncertainty of life makes this duty more
especially necessary. What is past we know
what is to come we know not. For
anything that we know
by far the most important periods and occurrences of
life may be past with us. If the hand of Providence therein hath not yet been
properly attended to and improved by us
it is high time it were. (John
Mason
M. A.)
Remember the way
I. What it was
that God did.
1. God kept the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness ten
times longer than would be necessary for a man’s passing through it. We hasten
because we are impatient
distrustful
and uncertain. “He that believeth shall
not make haste.” We do not believe
and therefore we are in a hurry. We see
only brief time before us as our day in which to work. God does not hasten
for
eternity is before Him as His working day
and He has no misgiving about
accomplishing His purposes: for He saith to Himself and of Himself continually
“I am that I am”--“I am the Almighty God.” The great question with our God is
not our getting through so much of our course as quickly as possible
but our
so passing through it as that all things shall work together for our good. A
man is in a hurry to secure a certain object and to get to a certain position;
and God hedges his way with thorns and there he stops
and a voice from heaven
saith to him
“Be still
” and he is obliged to “be still.”
2. God exposed the people to much difficulty and hardship
but He did
not suffer them to sink under their troubles. They were long kept back from
Canaan
but God did not forsake His people. The glory
the pillar of cloud and
fire
and every Divine ordinance were as so many tokens and symbols of His
presence.
II. What did God
mean by dealing thus with the people? God has a meaning in everything. You know
one great design embraces our whole life
from the beginning to the end; and
then a still larger design takes in the lives of all living things: so that God
is not only dealing with me in His dispensations toward me
but He is dealing
with all His creatures in dealing with me. There is an end to which everything
that happens is subjected. What did God mean by dealing as He did with the
people before us?
1. He treated them in this way to humble them. They thought of
themselves more highly than they ought to think. They had been accustomed
some
of them
to stand by Him as though they were on a level with Him
and to ask
Him what He did this for
and what He did that for--not
mark
as an obedient
and trustful child
but as a rebel would inquire of some ruler against whom he
had risen up. Well
the people had been accustomed in this way to ask God
“Why?” and God brought them down from this. And we say that this is a sublime
spiritual spectacle
a man injuring himself by pride
and God lowering that
man’s estimate of himself. There is something sublime in this--in the great God
occupying Himself with one of us men
having our abasement for His object
and
so ordering all things as that our pride shall be laid low.
2. God dealt with the people thus to show them what material they
were made of. He knew them
but they did not know themselves
and He would have
them know themselves. Is the eye evil? Is the ear deaf? Is the tongue fired by
hell? Is the neck an iron sinew? Is the heart stone? God knew: they did
not--and He dealt with them as He did to show them what they were.
3. God dealt thus with them to show them further what He could do.
“That He might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only
but by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”
4. God’s end in His dealings with Israel was instruction and
correction
and all the spiritual advantages to be derived from that
instruction and correction.
III. What God
requires in respect of this instruction and correction. What a mighty effect
upon life memory has! It adds the past to the present. Now among the several
moral and religious advantages of memory is your being spared the toil of
learning the same lesson over and over again. (S. Martin
D. D.)
The duty
benefits
and blessings of remembering God’s
commandments
I. The duty of
remembrance. “Thou shalt remember
” etc. Here we have the same form as in the
Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt have none other God but Me”; “thou shalt keep
holy the Sabbath
” etc. It is
therefore
a positive duty
an obligation
insisted on
to remember God’s dealings with us and those before us. But now
what is the general course of the world about this important duty? Altogether
opposed to it. Some persons we see and know never do remember. Go through what
they will
suffer what they may
they never learn experience
or what is called
common sense. They continue the same thoughtless
headstrong
violent people
they ever were. They never remember. Some there be
however
whose habit of
mind is so loose from long indolence
that they really find it difficult so to
do; others because it is painful--the thoughts of past years have so much pain
in them. There are the false steps that we wilfully made
the neglected
opportunities of both doing and getting good
old instances of influence
abused
courses of sin persevered in
misgivings of conscience disregarded. To
look back on all these is contrary to that peace which we strive to say to
ourselves when there is no peace. Instead of meditating and examining
themselves
and praying for God’s grace to become altered characters
these men
shut out all such reasonings as far as they can
and go on with self-willed
eagerness in their old plans: sometimes
if driven from them
they go on only
in other courses of the same character
and these
too
with their old
eagerness. But if this duty of remembrance is important in a worldly point of
view
as it regards our mutual relations on earth
it is of far greater
consequence in heavenly things. It is possible to get through our earthly
career
though never happily
without remembering; but heaven
the city of our
God
we never shall attain unless we do remember all the way the Lord our God
hath led us. We must remember Him in our ways
bear in our minds our old sins
and what led us into them. Thence we shall think of what befell us in
consequence; and
calmly weighing these over in our minds
we shall pray to God
for grace in the future
and will avoid those occasions of sin which previously
tried us.
II. In remembering
all the way which we have been led
we shall find it highly profitable; because
each of our lives is so directed
sooner or later
for two ends--to humble us
and to prove us whether we will serve God or no.
1. Here we see
first
that all events are ordered for our
humiliation. Is it not so? Have you had no remarkable turns in your lives
when
yourself or your friends intending one thing
another has come to pass?
Have you had no answers to prayer
when
in your helplessness or agony
you
besought God and He hearkened? Look back to your youth; how He controlled your
self-wickedness
overruled your ignorance
directed your forwardness. It may
be
He answered your prayers and punished your inventions; or that what you
were so eager for and prayed to obtain so earnestly
as thinking it would
without fail make you happy
He refused
and you now find greatly to your
comfort. You must bear these in mind; they were so ordained to humble you. We
hear men say of their troubles that they are humbling; how they will try in
consequence to remove them
to fling themselves out of them. They are thwarted:
this causes irritation; it shows them a glimpse of what they really are
poor
and weak
blind and naked
and humbles them. God sends these troubles for this
purpose--to humble you. Let no Christian therefore try
for it is a vain work
to shake them off; God sends them to humble him. Let the prayer of this man
rather be
Let me be humbled. God exalteth the humble
but casteth away the
proud.
2. But in discussing this branch of our subject we have another end
also laid open to us; this is to prove us. Christ
by Malachi
says
that His
coming will have the same effect on the world as the fire of the refiner on
silver. And as all the multiplied complications of our chequered lives are
ordered to fit us for Christ’s kingdom
we may well suppose they are calculated
to produce this same effect--that of refining or proving. We are told that God
will do this in several passages: “I will refine them as silver is refined: the
Lord your God proveth you.” Now there is so much alloy
even in our best
services
that all this is necessary.
III. Do these things
seem hard? Listen to the great comfort to be derived from our subject. It is
all--if you turn to verse 16--to do thee good at the latter end. It is true
enemies mean mischief; false friends wish confusion of face: but
as Joseph
said to his brethren who had sold him
and instrumentally had brought on him
the miseries he suffered in Egypt
“Ye meant it for evil; but lo
God hath
brought it to good
” so with Christians; the different tribulations and
unevenness on their road
are the spurs which should quicken their pace to
Jerusalem above
the mother of us all. (J. D. Day
M. A.)
Past recollections
I. Those words
were addressed by God Himself to the Israelites. God has a right to call on
each one of us to remember His guidance. Observe--
II. These words
were spoken to a people
the great majority of whom were ungodly
wicked
people. God has been leading them. They do not think so.
III. In calling us
to remember
God has the most important practical purposes to answer. There is
a moral purpose to every man’s life.
1. Humility.
2. Experience.
3. Freedom.
IV. There are many
things we ought to remember. Infancy. Childhood. Opportunities of receiving
truth. Trifling with religious impressions.
V. There must come
a time when we shall be obliged to remember.
VI. Remembrance now
will save us from all this. VII. The first effort to remember will be owned and
blessed by a gracious Saviour. “I will arise
” etc. (W. G. Barrett
M. A.)
A New Year’s meditation
I. Let us
emphasise the all
for on that word the emphasis of the sentence truly lies.
Survey one part
and then not only the whole
but even that particular portion
will inevitably be misunderstood. Take it all together. The very principle of
it implies a wholeness
a continuity of purpose
which can only be fully
comprehended in the result. It is a way somewhither. No way explains itself at
every step. And believe that a Being of unerring wisdom laid the plan of your
life course
the nature and conditions of your journey
and the certainty that
that was the straightest way to your home. Believe that a Father’s wise and
loving eye has surveyed the whole of it; and that not a quagmire
not a perilous
passage
not a torrent
not a mountain gorge
not a steep
rocky path
not a
bare
sandy plain
has been ordained that could have been spared. Thou shalt
consider all the way. Consider--
1. That it is a way. That the character of the path is to be
estimated not by the present difficulty or danger
but by the importance of the
end. God says to you
as you would say to every traveller along a difficult
path
“Look up; leave caring for the track at thy feet; look on to the end that
is already in sight.” Full little cares the weary pilgrim for the roughness of
the path or its peril; his heart strains on--Rome
Jerusalem
will reward it
all. Is the end worth the toil? That is always the one question.
2. Consider the infinite variety of the way
the many rich elements
and influences which it combines to educate your life. A dead and dreary
monotony is no part of the plan of God in the education of His sons. If you
want to see vast monotones
broad sand tracks
boundless plains
go to Asia and
Africa
the continents of slaves and tyrants. If you want to see rich variety
hill and valley
tableland and plain
lakes
rivers
inland seas
and broken
coastlines
come to Europe
the home of civilisation
the continent of freeborn
and free-living men. And manifold in beauty
in variety
in alternations of
scenes and experiences
is this wilderness way by which God is leading His
sons. The valley
remember
is part of the mountain. If you will have the
height of the one with its exhilaration
you must have the depth of the other
with its depression. It is the memory of the depths that makes the heights so
grand and inspiring.
II. Thou shalt
consider the beauty of the way. I believe the wilderness to have been only less
beautiful than Canaan. In many points
if not more beautiful
more striking and
grand. It was a bright contrast to the dismal monotony and fatness of Egypt.
And through the forty years’ journey that people had spread round them all the
pomp and splendour of Nature
her grandest aspects
her most winning
witching
smiles: “And thou shalt consider all the way by which the Lord thy God hath led
thee.” Lift up thine eyes and take in all the beauty and goodness of the world.
“O Lord
how manifold are Thy works
how beautiful; in wisdom and in goodness
hast Thou made them all.” We none of us take half joy enough
the joy we have a
right to take
in the goodly world which our God hath built. Poor we may be and
struggling
and all the higher interests and joys of life
art
literature
music
may be tasted but rarely
and in drops. But the Great Artist has taken
thought for the poor. He wills that their joys shall not be Song of Solomon.
The beauty
the glory
which art at its highest faintly adumbrates
is theirs
in profusion Thou shalt consider the good world through which the Lord thy God
hath led thee.
III. Thou shalt
consider the bread of the wilderness (Exodus 16:11-15). This miracle of the
manna is a very wonderful miracle
repeated every day before our eyes. The God
who made the manna their food makes bread of corn your food. It is good
sometimes to get behind all the apparatus of laws which hide the hand of the
living God from us
and take our daily bread
our daily breath
as the sparrows
and the lilies take their food and their beauty
direct from the hand of our
Father in heaven.
IV. Thou shalt
remember the perils of the wilderness. It is distinctly by a perilous path God
leads us
that we may see as well as dimly guess at our dependence
and ascribe
our deliverances to the hand from which they spring. Life is one long peril.
Physiologists say that if we could but see the delicate tissues which are
strained almost to bursting by every motion
every breath
we should be afraid
to stir a step or draw a breath lest we should rupture the frail vessels and
perish. “Strange that a harp of thousand strings should keep in tune so long.”
But it does keep in tune; it is in full tune this day. Remember the perils of
the way. Remember the moments of sickness and agony
when death seemed to stand
over you. There are deadlier perils than death around us each moment
perils
which threaten the second death. Temptations of no common strain. Some of you
by a wonderful chain of providential agencies
have been delivered from
positions which you felt to be full of peril
in which
had you continued
you
must have fallen; but the net was broken and you have escaped. Thou shalt
remember the sins of the wilderness.
VI. Thou shalt
remember the chastisements of the way
and consider “that as a man chasteneth
his son
so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.”
VII. Thou shalt
remember the Elims of the way
the sunny spots
the living verdure
the
murmuring fountains
the rustling
shadowing palms
where not seldom you have
been permitted to lie down and rest. The wilderness had nooks as fertile
as
beautiful as Canaan. Earth has joys
though rare
pure and deep as the joys of
heaven. We are ever moaning over our sorrows. We take our mercies as a thing of
course. “The people came down to Elim
where were springs and palms.” I do not
catch the notes of a song of praise. Remember the way and count the Elims by
which it has been gladdened
the moments of rapture in which the full heart
swollen almost to bursting
has murmured out its thanksgiving
and realised
that “it is a blessed thing to be.”
VIII. Thou shalt
consider the end of the way. Forget that
and it is all a mystery. “Be patient
brethren
and see the end of the Lord” (7-11). “The Lord doth bring thee in.”
Every sorrow
toil
pain
chastisement He sends is to bring thee in with joy
with glory; to make thee rich for eternity. (J. B. Brown
B. A.)
Retrospect exhilarating
The face which the sculptor chisels or the artist paints as
looking backwards is usually expressive of the extreme of sadness. Yet the
recollection of the past which such a countenance suggests need not be full of
gloom. There is a retrospect which only adds to the keenness of enjoyment. A
few years ago a party crossed the backbone of Europe by one of the most
picturesque of the passes that cleave the Alps. It was a steep pathway.
Reflected by the rocky walls
the sun flung into his glances a heat like a
tropic day. But at last they reached the summit. Before descending the other
side they stopped and looked back upon the way they had already climbed.
Winding far below
the difficult road was mapped out upon the shaggy slope.
There were the cliffs they had scaled
the precipices along the edge of which
their path had led
the dizzy chasms spanned by bridges seemingly as fragile as
that the spider builds. And to stand upon that breezy elevation
to look back
on such a pathway
and to know that over such obstacles they had triumphantly
gained the very summit
was to drink the wine-cup of mental exhilaration. So do
men generally look back from the summit of success. Such a retrospect is the
ripest sheaf in the harvest of life. (Bishop Cheney.)
Memory a scribe
Aristotle calls it the scribe of the soul. (T. Watson.)
God’s leading
However quiet your life may have been
I am sure there
has been
much in it that has tenderly illustrated the Lord’s providence
the Lord’s
deliverance
the Lord’s upholding and sustaining you. You have been
perhaps
in poverty
and just when the barrel of meal was empty
then were you supplied.
You have gone
perhaps
through fire and water
but in it all God’s help has
been very wonderful. Perhaps you are like the Welsh woman
who said that the
Ebenezers which she had set up at the places where God had helped her were so
thick that they made a wall from the very spot she began with Christ to that
she had then reached. Is it so with you? Then tell how God has led you
fed
you
and brought you out of all your troubles. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
To humble thee and to
prove thee.
The stages of probation
I. There has ever
been a struggle between good and evil proceeding in the world--a struggle in
which some have arrayed themselves on one side
some on another.
II. Again
the
world grows in experience
increases its stores of knowledge
and its power
over matter.
III. But now to come
to a more definite illustration of the truth
that the individual is but the
species in miniature. Ever since the creation of man
God has been proving His
rational creatures by various dispensations.
1. Man
when ejected from Paradise
had a certain limited degree of
light and help.
2. Man was next put under the restraints of human law--the warrant
for the whole compass of human law being contained in that sentence
“Whoso
sheddeth man’s blood
by man shall his blood be shed.” This was a new help
a
new light. Did man recover himself under it from the ruins of the fall? Alas
no! Consider that one saying to Abraham
“The iniquity of the Amorites is not
yet full.” It shows that mighty nations had sprung up upon the earth’s surface
who were forgetful of God
and among whom stalked oppression and lust
such as
called down vengeance from heaven.
3. So a law was henceforth to be revealed from heaven
and to be made
plain upon tables of stone
so that he who ran might read it. Surely when it
was so explicit
when it had so manifestly the attestation of heaven
man’s
evil propensities would not dare to break through its restraints. But the third
dispensation failed
as the two preceding ones had done.
4. Subsequently the precepts of the law were expanded and
spiritualised by the prophets
those inspired preachers raised up in orderly
succession to bear their testimony for God in the midst of a crooked and
perverse generation. Still
man was unreclaimed: walked
as ever
in the way of
his heart
and in the sight of his eyes. The servants who were sent to receive
of the fruits of the vineyard were sent away empty
beaten
stoned
slain.
5. A pause
during which the voice of prophecy was hushed
and then
full of augury and hope
the new dispensation
with its covenant of pardoning
mercy and sanctifying grace
broke upon a world
which had as yet been stricken
down and foiled in its every conflict with evil. A revealed Saviour
joining
in His mysterious Person
man with God--this was the new Light. A revealed
forgiveness through His blood
of every transgression--this was the new
encouragement. A revealed Sanctifier
who should take up His abode in the abyss
of the human will
and there meet evil in its earliest germ--this was the new
strength. In the long-suffering of God this dispensation is still running its
course. (Dean Goulburn.)
Divine providence a moral discipline
I. Let us regard
the text as indicating an enlarged experiment upon human nature
and
illustrating the morality of Divine providence. The moral ends of providence
are manifested--
1. In overruling the curse pronounced at the fall of man. Affliction
pain
and all the various ills that flesh is heir to are the means of bringing
men to their right mind
of showing them the vanity of earthly things
and of
maturing moral virtues and Christian graces. How few would regard their
spiritual destitution but for this discipline! Even death itself is made a
moral blessing. Its terrors lead men to seek Christ and a preparation for
heaven; its uncertainty induces watchfulness.
2. There is a moral lesson in the present usual consequences of vice
and virtue. The vices which are most injurious to society being poverty and
shame
the virtues which are most conducive to the welfare of society are most
favourable to the temporal welfare of individuals. Filthiness of the flesh
usually has its fit punishment in the diseases of the flesh; filthiness of the
spirit
its appropriate penal visitation in the disappointments and vexations
of the spirit. The largest amount of temporal misery may be traced to idleness
indecision
improvidence
and transgression. And neglects from
inconsiderateness
not looking about us to see what we have to do
are often
attended with consequences altogether as dreadful
as from any active
misbehaviour from the most extravagant passion. The consequences tread upon the
heels of the fault; and indeed
vice generally becomes its own punishment.
3. Observe
also
the encouragements which providence furnishes to
seek pardon at the hand of God. We are sinners
and have forfeited every
blessing and enjoyment but such things as are essential to us as accountable
beings--necessary to endow us with that responsibility in which the law of God
contemplates us. Nevertheless
God continues to us innumerable forfeited
blessings; and the continued bestowment
notwithstanding that they are abused
and converted into occasions of unthankfulness
or weapons of rebellion
marks
a forbearance admirably calculated to “lead men to repentance.”
II. The particular
ends of God’s providential dispensations towards the Church.
1. Since humility is the proper counter working of the fall
the
first design named by Moses is “to humble thee.”
2. A second great object of the discipline of providence over the
Church is here specified: “To prove thee
to know what was in thine heart
whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.” Not that the principles and
fluctuating feelings of the heart are not fully known to God
but that we know
not our own hearts. It belongs essentially to probation that we should be
proved. Something must ever be left as a test of the loyalty of the heart.
Every day offers a test to some part of our character. Some duty is required
which is painful or disadvantageous to our temporal interests; or we are placed
in such circumstances that our precise duty is involved in considerable
obscurity
and requires patient thought and a conscientious balancing of
reasons and scrutiny of motives. Thus God proves what value we set on acts of
disobedience as such
and shows us that our virtue is to be estimated by the
amount of temptation and the difficulties of obedience. (F. A. West.)
The blessing of temptation
It is the privilege of God’s people “that all things work together
for their good.” St. Paul
when speaking of this
speaks of it as a certain and
well-known truth. He does not say
“We know that all things are good”; but
“that all things work together for good.” Pain and sickness
poverty
contempt
provocations
wrongs and injustice
these are evils to the believer as much as
to the unbeliever. But though evil in themselves
they work together for his
good; like the storms and tempests
the cold frosts and piercing winds--they
are often as necessary and useful to the harvest as the warm dews and gentle
sunshine. It was so with God’s Israel of old. The words of the text show us
this. It may seem strange to the carnal ear to affirm that temptation may be a
great blessing; and even the believer
when hardly tried
may scarcely think it
can be so; yet it is certainly true that temptation is a source of blessing to
the real Christian. And thus
through the goodness and mercy of Almighty God
even Satan himself is made an instrument of good to His believing people.
1. We will consider how God proves us
and what we are to understand
by this part of our subject. We at once see that by proving us the Lord must
mean
not the finding out what we are
but the showing it. Man’s heart is not
like a boxed mainspring of a watch
all but wound up from God’s sight
as it is
from ours
and of which only a part of the chain
a few links now and then
may
be seen moving across and over it
as the chain works round; but there is no
covering over the mainspring of our hearts to God’s eye: glass is transparent
and hearts are glass to God. When God is said to have led His people “forty
years in the wilderness
to prove them and know what was in their heart
” it
was to show them and others what was in their heart
and not to know and find
out for Himself. During these forty years He suffered them to pass through a
variety of trials and temptations
all calculated to prove and show which among
them would keep His commandments and which would not. So is it still with the
professing Church of Christ. We must be proved as Israel was; for only they
that are proved shall enter the heavenly rest. And temptations alone can prove
us. Our honesty is proved when we were tempted to be dishonest
and through
God’s grace resisted the temptation. Our truth is proved when we might have
gained by untruth
and yet were enabled to overcome the temptation. Our
chastity is proved when the allurements to sinful lusts were thrown in our way
and we shrank from the snare. Our trust in God is proved when we were in want
or difficulties. But further
“They also help to make known what is in our
hearts.” When God’s grace first comes into the Christian’s soul it is as when
the windows of some old ruined house
long shut up in dust and neglect
are
opened
the light is let in upon the rooms. It is as when those who have
undertaken thoroughly to repair it
take up the floor
and take down the
skirtings
and examine the timbers
and lay bare the drains. No one could have
thought
even from the outward appearance
that such a mass of rotten timber
such a heap of dust and filth
and so many vermin
could have got together. And
it is not till the work of repairing begins in our hearts that we begin to know
anything of their real condition. While there is no light of God’s Spirit
shining in us
we know nothing of our inward corruptions. We are like persons
long used to the close
foul
and unhealthy air of some sick room; it
is not
till we have left it
and felt the freshness and sweetness of the air of
heaven
that we know what the other was. We cannot know what our heart is till
we know what is in our heart; and we cannot know what is in our heart till that
which is in is drawn out; and temptation alone can draw it out. It is
temptation which shows us what is in our hearts--that brings out in various
ways the miserable pride and self-conceit
the hypocrisy and dissimulation
the
vain self-confidence
the impurity and uncleanness
the fear of man’s shame and
love of man’s praise
the envy and jealousy
and all those other evil tempers
and dispositions which are in every soul of man by nature
but which man only
learns to know and feel by grace; and the great object of all the various
trials and circumstances through which the believer is made to pass
as Israel
through the wilderness
is “to show him what is in his heart.”
II. The effect of
all this is “to humble him.” The self-righteous sinner is always a proud man:
he has
indeed
nothing to be proud of
and everything to be ashamed of; but
because he is blind to his sins and faults
blind to the real character of his
heart
and ignorant of himself
he is proud
Now
no proud man ever came to
Christ--no man that thinks himself righteous ever came to Christ. He may call
himself a miserable sinner; but he does not feel or really believe what he says.
The Christian wishes to be humble; but he is not what he wishes to be. He
wishes “to learn of Him who is meek and lowly of heart
” and he is a learner in
Christ’s school; but he is often humbled for his want of humility. Still
the
growing experience of his heart is humbling him: he is becoming daily better
acquainted with himself
and likes himself every day less and less. He once
thought that
excepting a few faults (and those very few and very excusable and
natural)
there dwelt in him many good things. Now he can say
even from what
he already knows
“that in him” (that is
in his flesh) “there dwelleth no good
thing.” (W. W. Champneys
M. A.)
The moral discipline of man
I. It is a
humbling work. To bring the soul down from all its proud conceits
vain imaginations
and ambitious aims
and to inspire it with the profoundest sense of its own
moral unworthiness.
II. It is a self
revealing work. “The evil principle sleeps in the spirit as the evil monster in
the placid waters of the Nile; and it is only the hot sun
or the sweep of the
fierce tempest
that can draw or drive it forth in its malignant
manifestations.”
III. It is a divine
work God alone is the true moral schoolmaster; He alone can effectually
discipline the soul.
1. By the dispensation of events.
2. By the realities of the Gospel.
3. By His influence on conscience.
IV. It is a slow
work. Goodness is not an impression
an act
or even a habit; it is a
character
and characters are of slow growth. It is a growth
and requires
cultivation--planting
nourishing
and seasonal changes. (Homilist.)
God “proves” His children
The suffering you see around you hurts God more than it hurts you
or the man upon whom it fails. But He hates things that most men think little
of
and will send any suffering upon them rather than have men continue
indifferent to them. Men may say
“We don’t want suffering: we don’t want to be
good.” But God says
“I know My own obligations
and you shall not be
contemptible wretches if there be any resource in the Godhead.” The God who
strikes is the God whose Son wept over Jerusalem. (George Macdonald.)
The discipline of life
A touching story was told of a young man whose mother and father
died
leaving him in the care of a guardian. He was put to work at a trade
and
worked faithfully for years. When he was eighteen a companion said to him
“Why
do you work so hard? Your father was rich
worth $500
000 and your guardian is
keeping the money.” The young man then began to entertain hard feelings towards
his guardian
and stopped calling upon him. But he kept on working. The day
before he was twenty-one he was invited to take tea with his guardian and his
wife. Just before supper his guardian called him aside and said to him
“Before
your father died he asked me to be your guardian
and to withhold from you a
knowledge of his circumstances. He wished you to learn a trade and to earn your
own subsistence. I was only to assist you when you were in real need. He wished
you to acquire industrious habits.” The young man was broken down. He wanted to
explain. But the guardian would not permit it; no explanation or forgiveness
was needed. So we are to pass through the discipline of life patiently
faithfully
industriously
until we enter into the inheritance above.
That He might humble thee.--
Afflictive dispensations of providence
I. The afflictive
dispensations of providence are intended to humble believers by teaching them
absolute and constant dependence on God for everything that they enjoy.
II. The afflictive
dispensations of providence are intended to prove the sincerity and to increase
the strength of religion in the heart of the godly. ‘Tis the battle that tries
the soldier
and the storm the pilot. How would it appear that Christians can
be not only patient
but cheerful in poverty
in disgrace
and temptations
and
persecutions
if it were not often their lot to meet with these? He that formed
the heart knows it to be deceitful
and He that gives grace knows the weakness
and strength of it exactly. The Word of God speaks to men; therefore it speaks
the language of men. “Now
” said the Lord to Abraham
“I know that thou fearest
God
seeing thou hast not withheld thy son
thine only son
from Me.” In the
wisdom of God
believers are thus put in possession of an undeniable evidence
of their own sincerity
and which goes further to assure them of their final
salvation than a thousand inward feelings
which are often the effect of
imagination alone. It is of importance
besides
to observe that every such
trial is a means not only of proving the reality of their religious principles
but of confirming and increasing them. It is with the mind as with the body.
Exercise and exertion increase its vigour and strength.
III. Consider the
ultimate desire and effect of all these dispensations. “To do thee good at thy
latter end.” When entered into heaven
their knowledge will be enlarged and
perfected; and what is at present concealed from them will burst on their view
as a necessary part of the discipline of grace in conducting and completing
their everlasting salvation. They will then perceive that by poverty they were
guarded from the dangers to which wealth would have exposed them
or that the
meanness of their station preserved them from the snares of ambition
or that
sickness was the means of correcting their tendency to the pursuit of sensual
pleasures and worldly joys. Penetrating into the counsels of the Lord
they
will see the mercy even of His heaviest judgments
and the wisdom of His most
unsearchable ways. At present they may be in heaviness through many
tribulations
but the trial of their faith being much more precious than that
of gold which perisheth
though it be tried with fire
shall be found to praise
and honour and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (D. Dickinson
D. D.)
The design of affliction
There is a two-fold design of chastening. The first is
self-revelation
“to know what was in thine heart.” Some things can only be got
at by fire. There are depths in our consciousness that nothing can sound but
pain
anguish
bitterness
sorrow. And these are not all bad; sometimes pain
works its way down to our better nature
touches into gracious activity our
noblest impulses
and evokes from our heretofore dumb lips the noblest prayer.
Sometimes we see further through our tears than through our laughter. Many a
man owes all that he knows about himself
in its reality and in its best
suggestiveness
not to prosperity
but to adversity; not to light
but to
darkness. The angel of trouble has spoken to him
in whispers that have found their
way into the inmost hearing of the heart. The next design of affliction given
in this quotation is “whether thou wouldest keep His commandments or no.”
Obedience is the purpose which God has in view. There can be no grand life
until we have learned to obey. It is good for a man to have to obey. It is a
continual lesson
a daily discipline. He gathers from it a true consciousness
of his own capacity and his own strength
and he begins to ask questions of the
most serious intent. From the beginning God’s purpose was that we should obey.
You cannot obey in any good and useful sense the spirit of evil. You only get
good from the exercise of obedience when that exercise goes against your own
will and chastens it into gracious submission. Self-revelation and filial
obedience--these are part of God’s design in sending afflictions upon us. Take
another explanation: “I will forsake them
and I will hide My face from them
and they shall be devoured
and many evils and troubles shall befall them
so
that they will say in that day. Are not these evils come upon us
because our
God is not among us?” Sometimes God’s withdrawments evolve from the heart
conscious of His absence the most poignant and eager prayers. He says
“I will
go away that they may miss Me.” He says
“I will withdraw and cause the walls
of their security to tremble and the roof of their defence to let the storm
pour down through it
in order that they may begin to ask great questions.” He
will not have us fretting the mind with little inquiries and petty
interrogations. He will force us to vital questionings: “Are not these things
come upon us because our God is not among us?” Why deal with symptoms and not
with real diseases? Take another answer: “They shall bear the punishment of
their iniquity . . . that the house of Israel may no more go astray from Me.”
Punishment--meant to bring men home again. That is God’s weapon
and you cannot
steal it. You do wrong
and the scorpion stings you. You cannot bribe the
scorpion
or tame it
or please it. Do what you will
it is a scorpion still.
You say you will eat and drink abundantly
and grow your joys in your body
and
the blood saith
“No!” And every bone says
“No!” And the head and the heart
say
“No! we are God’s
and not in us shall you grow any joy that is not of the
nature of His own purpose and will.” The bones
the joints
the sinews
the
nerves
the whole scheme of the physical constitution of man
all fight for
God. What is God’s purpose in this? To bring you home again
and nothing else.
Take another statement of the cause and purpose of God in this matter of
afflicting men: “I will cause you to pass under the rod
and I will bring you
into the bond of the covenant
. . .there shall ye remember your ways
and all
your doings
wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall loathe yourselves in
your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed.” There
again
is the
internal mystery. It is not the heart that needs must be revealed. You cannot
argue with a man who is running down to hell with the consent of all his
powers. Argue with him! Your argument and eloquence would be thrown away upon
him. You must so show the evil of his doings as to work in the man
self-loathing. You may show him pictures of evil
and he will gaze upon
them--nay
he will buy them and hang them up in his rooms at home and point
them out to his friends as works of vigour and power and wondrous artistic
skill. He will not regard them as mirrors reflecting his own image. The work
must be done in his soul He must so see evil as to hate himself--self-disgust
is the beginning of penitence and amendment. We all have affliction. Yours
seems to be greater than mine; mine may seem to be greater than yours. But let
us know that there cannot be any affliction in our life without its being under
God’s control
and He will not suffer us to be tried above that we are able to
bear
and with every trial He will make a way of escape. He does not willingly
grieve the children of men. He is pruning us
cutting us
nursing us
purifying
us by divers processes to the end that He may set us in His heavens--princes
that shall go out no more forever. Let us next consider how variously
as to
spirit and interpretation
affliction may be received at the hands of God. By
“affliction” do not narrowly understand mere bodily
suffering
but trial of
every kind
yea
the whole burden and discipline of life. We must go to history
for our illustration
and
turning to history for my first illustration
I find
that the discipline of life may be received impenitently. Hear these words in
solemn and decisive proof: “If ye will not be reformed by Me by these things
but will walk contrary unto Me
then will I also walk contrary unto you
and
will punish you yet seven times for your sins.” I warn you
God will not give way--God
cannot give way. The one thing God can do is to multiply your affliction seven
times
and to cover up the arch of the sky with a night denser than has yet
blackened the firmament. Turning to history again
I find that affliction may
be received self-approvingly or self-excusingly
and so may fail of its benign
purpose. The proof is in these words: “In vain have I smitten your children;
they received no correction Thou sayest
Because I am innocent
surely His
anger shall turn from me.” The correction has been administered
but has not
been received. It has been misunderstood. It has been taken in hardness. It has
been resented as an injustice. It has been treated as if it came from an enemy
and not from a friend. The deadly sophism of your innocence must be rooted out
before you can be cured. The Pharisee must be destroyed before the man can be
saved. Will you understand that? Turning again to history for illustration and
argument
I find that affliction may be received self-deceivingly. The proof is
in these words: “They have not cried unto Me with their heart
when they howled
upon their beds.” Heart crying is one thing
and mere howling is another. Men
come to us with sad stories of distress
and they make long moans about pain
and fear
about poverty and uselessness. They use the words which penitents
might use
but not in a contrite spirit. It is the flesh that complains; it is
not the spirit that repents. When a bad man complains of his head
is he
complaining of his sin? Is he not only waiting till he can gather himself
together again that he may renew the contest against heaven
and endeavour to
find on earth a root that was never planted there? One more point there is
which I dare scarcely touch. How few know that the passage is in the Bible. It
is a passage that proves that affliction may be received
in the fourth place
despairingly. Are there in any poems made by men such words as these? Tell me
if any poet dare write such words: “They gnawed their tongues for pain
and
blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores
and
repented not of their deeds.” “My soul
come not thou into their secret.” Some
man wrote these words who had seen hell. Do not trifle with the idea of future
punishment. Whatever it be
it is the last answer of Omnipotence to rebellious
man. “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” This is
not a question to be argued. When logician and speculist have accomplished
their task there remains the unexplained word--hell! How are we receiving our
afflictions? “Come now
let us reason together.” Ephraim of old was described
as a “bullock unaccustomed to the yoke.” In some countries the bullock is used
for ploughing and for drawing vehicles. The poor ox is yoked
and
being
unaccustomed to the yoke
it chafes under it. Its great shoulders protest
against the violation of liberty. By and by the bullock becomes accustomed to
the treatment
and submits itself to the service to losses. It is not natural
that we should do so; but
seeing that we have incurred them
we must receive
them at God’s hand
and become accustomed to the discipline
and eventually
submit ourselves to the service of God
which is the true liberty. (J.
Parker
D. D.)
Development and discipline
The point of comparison brought to view in the text is between
God’s treatment of the Israelites in the wilderness and His treatment of His
peculiar people--or
if you please
of all mankind--in this world of probation.
I. We have here
God’s providential treatment of men in this world set forth as a process of
discovery. “God led them forty years in the wilderness
to prove them
and to
know what was in their heart.” Under God’s providential economy earthly and
practical life is but practical development. Man’s business on this sublunary platform
is to work out his hidden character in the face of the universe--to make
manifest his secret thoughts even in forms of materialism. The fashion of the
man’s garments
the furniture of his dwelling
the pictures he hangs upon his
walls
the volumes he places in his library
the places of his favourite
recreation
the style of men with whom be delights to associate; yea
his very
bearing as he mingles with men and walks in the market place--are all but the
visible expression of the quality of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And
this practical manifestation of character in life is with a great Divine
purpose. In the case of the Israelites it was to show who
of the wanderers in
the Exodus
were proper men to go over to Canaan; and in our case it is to show
who
of these dwellers upon earth
are becoming meet for the heavenly
inheritance. Not that God needs to learn this
but that He would have His
universe know that He is just when He judges and clear when He condemns. And
this
this is life! The development in actual forms of the hidden things of the
spirit! This making known to a universe what there is in the heart! Oh
then
how awfully solemn a thing it is to live--just to live!
II. And it brings
us to consider this other providential design--a process of discipline. “The
Lord God led them forty years in the wilderness to humble them.’ Here
by a
common scriptural figure
the great grace of humility is put metonymically for
all the distinguishing graces of Christian character. And the meaning is
that
God led them about in the wilderness as in a state of pupilage and preparation
for the civil and ecclesiastical immunities of Canaan. And in illustrating this
thought we only ask you to observe how earthly trials and affliction are the
finest means of sanctification. You perceive at once
in the case of the
Israelites
that if God had allowed them to pitch a permanent encampment in
some fair oasis of the desert
then
instead of becoming more humble
they
would have waxed worse and worse in arrogance and carnality. And it needed the
burning sun
and the hot sand
and the fiery serpents
and the constant
assaults of the fierce men of Amalek and Moab to humble them before God
and
make them meet for a citizenship in the theocracy of Canaan. And so of Christians
on earth--a moment’s consideration will show you how afflictions are
after
all
the finest discipline of sanctification. Yes
yes
it is thus God
sanctifies--He takes away the earthly
that the heart may rise to the heavenly;
He tears the bark from its mortal moorings
that it may launch forth toward the
eternal haven; He stirs up the nest of the slumberous eagle
that
with
exulting pinion
it may soar to the sun! (C. Wadsworth.)
God’s training of men
This is the lesson of our lives. This is God’s training
not only
for the Jews
but for us. We read these verses to teach us that God’s ways with
man do not change; that His fatherly hand is over us
as well as over the
people of Israel; that their blessings are our blessings
their dangers are our
dangers; that
as St. Paul says
all these things are written for our example.
I. “He humbled
thee and suffered thee to hunger.” How true to life that is! How often there
comes to a man
at his setting out in life
a time which humbles him
when his
fine plans fail him
and he has to go through a time of want and struggle! His
very want and struggles and anxiety may be God’s help to him. If he be earnest
and honest
patient and God-fearing
he prospers--God brings him through; God
holds him up
strengthens and refreshes him
and so the man learns that man
doth not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God.
II. There is
another danger which awaits us
as it awaited those old Jews--the danger of
prosperity in old age. It is easy for a man who has fought the battle with the
world
and conquered more or less
to say in his heart
as Moses feared that
those old Jews would say
“My might and the power of my wit hath gotten me this
wealth
” and to forget the Lord his God
who guided him and trained him through
all the struggles and storms of early life
and so to become vainly confident
worldly and hard-hearted
undevoted and ungodly
even though he may keep
himself respectable enough
and fall into no open sin.
III. Old age itself
is a most wholesome and blessed medicine for the soul of man. Anything is good
which humbles us
makes us feel our own ignorance
weakness
nothingness
and
cast ourselves on that God in whom we live
and move
and have our being
and
on the mercy of that Saviour who died for us on the Cross
and on that Spirit
of God from whose holy inspiration alone all good desires and good actions
come. (C. Kingsley
M. A.)
He humbled thee
and suffered thee to hunger
and fed thee with
manna.
The pilgrims’ grateful recollections
I. Let us pass in
review the favours of the lord
taking what He did for Israel as being typical
of what He has done for us.
1. The first blessing mentioned is that of humbling: “And He humbled
thee
and suffered thee to hunger.” Not very highly esteemed among men will
this favour be; and at first
perhaps
it may be regarded by ourselves as being
rather a judgment
one of the terrible things in righteousness
than a great
favour from the Most High. But rightly judged
this is one of the most
admirable proofs of the Lord’s loving kindness
that He does not leave His
people in their natural pride and obstinacy
but by acts of grace brings them to
their right minds. Note in the text
that the humbling was produce by hunger.
What makes a man so humble as to be thoroughly in want? Oh
happy season when
He stripped me of what I thought my glory
but which were filthy rags!
2. Notice
in the second place
the Divine feeding. We shall now see
ourselves mirrored in the case of Israel as in a glass. “He humbled thee
and
suffered thee to hunger
and fed thee.” How sweetly that follows: “suffered
thee to hunger and fed thee”; the light close on the heels of the darkness.
“Blessed are ye that do hunger and thirst after righteousness
for ye shall be
filled.” That “and” in the text is like a diamond rivet
none can ever take it
out or break it. “He suffered thee to hunger and fed thee.” He who
suffers thee to hunger will be sure to feed thee yet upon the bountiful
provisions of His grace. Be of good cheer
poor mourning soul.
3. The third favour mentioned is the remarkable raiment. “Thy raiment
waxed not old upon thee.” Though subject to the ordinary wear and tear
incidental to travelling
their garments still continued to be as good at the
end of forty years as they were when first they left the land of Egypt. I
believe that to be what the text means. Anyhow
spiritually
it is the case
with us. You cannot point me to a stale promise in all God’s book
neither can
you find me a worn-out doctrine. In the way of perseverance we have been
maintained and preserved. Personally I admire the grace which has kept me in my
course
though assailed by many fierce temptations and exposed to great perils
in my position.
4. The next blessing for which we ought to be grateful is that
sustained personal strength. Our spiritual vigour has still. Your foot has not
swelled in the way of perseverance. Neither have you been lamed in the way of
service. Perhaps you have been called to do much work for Christ
yet you have
not grown tired of it
though sometimes tired in it; still
you have kept to
your labour
and found help in it. So
too
your foot has not swollen in the
way of faith. Such little faith you bad at first that you might well have
thought it would all die out by now. But it has not been so. God has not
quenched the smoking flax
nor broken the bruised reed. In addition to all
this
your foot has not swollen in the way of fellowship. You have walked with
God
and you have not grown weary of the holy intercourse. Moreover
your foot
has not swollen in the way of joy. You were happy young men in Christ Jesus
and you are happy fathers now. The novelty has not worn off
or rather one
novelty has been succeeded by another
fresh discoveries have broken out upon
you
and Jesus is still to you the dew of youth. He who walks with God shall
never weary
though through all eternity he continues the hallowed march. For
all this we give to God our thanks yet again.
5. Notice the memorable blessing of chastisement. “Thou shalt also
consider in thine heart.” That unswollen foot
and that unworn garment
you
need not so much value as this
for this you are specially bidden to consider
your deepest thoughts are to be given to it
and
consequently
your highest
praises. “Consider in thine heart
that as a man chasteneth his son
so the
Lord thy God chasteneth thee.” I am sure I have derived more real benefit and
permanent strength and growth in grace
and every precious thing
from the
furnace of affliction
than I have ever derived from prosperity.
II. The inference
from all this. All this humbling
feeding
clothing
strengthening
chastening
what of it all? Why this--“therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the
Lord thy God
to walk in His ways
and to fear Him.” Take the model of the
text.
1. Let your obedience be universal. Keep the commandments of the
Lord
walk in His ways.
2. Let your obedience be entire. In nothing be rebellious.
3. Let that obedience be careful. Doth not the text say
“Keep the
commandments
” and doth not the first verse say
“Ye shall observe to do”? Keep
it as though you kept a treasure
carefully putting your heart as a garrison
round it. Observe it as they do who have some difficult art
and who watch each
order of the teacher
and trace each different part of the process with
observant eye
lest they fail in their art by missing any one little thing.
Keep and observe. Be careful in your life. Be scrupulous. You serve a jealous
God
be jealous of yourself.
4. Let your obedience be practical. The text says
“Walk in His
ways.” Carry your service of God into your daily life
into all the minutiae
and details of it. Whereas others walk up and down in the name of their God
and boast themselves in the idols wherein they trust
walk you in the name of
Jehovah
and glory always to avow that you are a disciple of Jesus.
5. Let your obedience spring from principle
for the text says
“Walk
in His ways
and fear Him.” Seek to have a sense of His presence
such as holy
spirits have in heaven who view Him face to face. Remember He is everywhere;
you are never absent from that eye. Tremble
therefore
before Him with that
sacred trembling which is consistent with holy faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Man doth not live by bread
only.
True life
What is the life for which we seek and hope? Mere existence? No.
But conscious happiness--a large preponderance of success over disappointment
and joy over sorrow. This is what all desire; but they seek it in different
ways. Our text suggests two theories of life;--the one
the living by bread
alone; the other
by obedience
duty
and love
by angels food
by the manna
that comes down from heaven.
I. Man doth not
live by bread only. Yet multitudes think thus to live--by things outward and
earthly
by the accumulation of material
perishable objects of enjoyment
or
of wealth
which can represent and command them all. Can wealth sustain or
comfort the bereaved husband or father? When the strong ties of natural
affection are sundered
is it a solace to know that they had been gilded and
jewelled? If they were not strengthened and sanctified by Christian communion
by the fellowship of heaven-seeking souls--if the only common interests have been
sordid
then has the prosperity enjoyed together left the survivor only the
heavier burden of remembrances not again to be realised
and of joys forever
fled.
II. What
then
are
the elements of this higher life? Since man
spiritually speaking
cannot live
by bread only
by what is he to live?
1. First by faith--faith in an all-seeing Father
whose sceptre
ruleth over all
and who
if our hearts are His
will cause all things outward
to work together for our good--faith in a Redeemer
who has loved us and given
Himself for us as our Saviour from sin
and our Guide to duty and heaven.
2. Again
man
by the appointment of God
is to live by hope--by the
hope of heaven
which alone can anchor the soul amidst the fitful fortunes of
our earthly pilgrimage.
3. By God’s appointment
we are also to nourish our souls by charity
by sympathy with our brethren
by bearing their burdens and helping their joys.
There can be no life worth living without brotherly love--without a ready heart
and hand for the needy
the suffering
and the erring.
4. Finally our true life must he connected with
and flow from
the
testimony of a good conscience
which
if merited
no outward condition can
suppress or pervert.
III. Such are the
heaven-appointed means of life and growth within the reach of all of us. It is
these that our Saviour proffers to us. They were His peace and joy. They are
the fountain still flowing at the foot of His Cross. Other streams there are
sparkling
attractive
rolling over golden sands and beneath a brilliant sky;
yet there is a voice in their murmur
ever saying
--“He that drinks of us shall
thirst again
and thirst as often as he comes to draw.” But from the mountain
of the beatitudes
and again from the olive shade of Gethsemane
and from the
darkness and agony of Calvary
I hear the voice
--“If any man thirst let him
come unto Me and drink
and the water that I will give him shall be in him a
well of water springing up unto everlasting life.” (A. P. Peabody.)
The food of man
If this be true
what a strange comment on it is the world around
us at this hour! Turn to what class of our countrymen you like
and in every
variety of expression upon their countenance you will see written deep their
conviction
in every changeful accent of their voices you will hear uttered
their practical belief
that they can live by bread alone. It is for
bread--using “bread” in the largest sense as meaning all material things--that
men toil
and exhaust their finest energies. And as statesmen
and
philosophers
and priests behold these things
each comes forward with his
gospel for mankind.
I. First
we have
the “gospel of education.” Let us take care that each child learns the
elementary principles of knowledge
and we may hope that the coming generation
shall have a higher idea of national and of social life. Well
certainly the
very last persons in England to depreciate the blessings of secular instruction
are the clergy. But let not educational enthusiasts think because they have
provided partially against material deterioration that they have discovered a
moral cure. It may change the form of crime; it will not touch the root from
which it springs.
II. We have then
from others the message of the philosophers. “Let us eat of this tree
and live
forever.” Now
while we gladly acknowledge all the past successes of science
and of philosophy
and while we thankfully receive every new discovery as a
further revelation of the wisdom and the love of the Creator
we say this is
not the bread of life for sorrowing
sinning humanity. This is no gospel for
all mankind. Clad in the purple of her pride
and the white linen of her
fine-spun theories
philosophy’s few cultured friends may fare sumptuously
every day in her high hall of state; but humanity
like Lazarus
with hunger in
its soul
and its body covered with festering sores of sin
lies helpless at
her gate.
III. The more
experience I have
the more deeply I am persuaded that the power to accomplish
it is the preaching of a personal crucified christ. That--the incarnate Word of
God--is still and ever the bread by which nations and men must live. It was not
a new science
it was not an advanced thought
it was not an improved
philosophy
it was not a merely exalted morality
it was not the idyllic life
of a Galilean peasant
that men preached in the early days
in the purple dawn
of Christianity
and by the preaching of it shook the Empire and revolutionised
the world. And it is not by any such means
or by anything which appeals
exclusively to the intellect; nay
not even by a vague “accommodating theology”
with no doctrinal articulation--which
polype-like
floats on the tides of
human thought
rising as they rise
falling as they fall--that men and nations
can be saved now. It is as of old--by the preaching of the Word
Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. “I am the Bread of Life
” said Christ. (T. T. Shore
M.
A.)
The staff of life
I. We are to
consider what our peril is. In one word
it is the peril of an over-mastering
materialism. Look on England today
the England that speaks to us through
Liverpool and Manchester
through Cabinet and Parliament
her stout hand not
upon her heart but upon her pocket
cold towards us
sneeringly indifferent to
the triumph of law
order
and right
anxious only about the cargoes of cotton
which are to feed her whirling spindles. Tell us
ye British statesmen
tell
us
ye sordid sons of heroic sires
are Constitutions only parchment? Are
nations only herds of farmers
artisans
and traders? Is chartered freedom only
sounding rhetoric? Is duty only a name? Is honour dead? And is there nothing
for us
in this nineteenth century
but to delve and spin and trade
to clutch
and hoard
to eat and drink
and bloat and rot and die
and make no sign?
II. What our
deliverance must be. Deliverance is what we want; not mere respite
lifting the
agony from our spirits to lay it over upon our children; deliverance
complete
and final. What avails it in a raging fever
rapidly nearing its crisis
that
we comfort ourselves with cooling drinks
while the disease is striking boldly
at our vitals? It is written in God’s Word
and written in all the history of
the race: “Man shall not live by bread alone
but by every word that proceedeth
out of the mouth of God.” Such is the Divine regimen for the nations. They
live
if they live at all
by no felicity of position
soil
or climate
by no
abundance of material good
but by the living word of the living God. Work we
must
and shall
and should. And work will bring us wealth. And wealth will
bring us power. What then? Need wealth be idolised
or spent upon our lusts?
Need power he vaunted and abused? If so
we perish
as Tyre and Sidon perished;
perish
as Carthage perished; perish
as
according to the Indian legend
the
last of our gigantic mastodons perished
smitten down by the thunderbolt of the
Great Spirit. Thank God
it need not be so. Nor is it our task to lay our
feeble
ineffectual finger upon this vast revolving wheel
which carries the
whole machinery of our earthly life
and bid it pause. It is not our task to
slay this giant of our material prosperity
and stretch his huge corpse out
across the continent. Ours is the far grander task of teaching the giant
wisdom
and subduing his earth-born energies to Him who has told us that “Man
shall not live by bread alone.” How
then
shall men and nations live? “By
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”; so reads our text. The
Hebrews in the desert had no need of bread; they were fed with manna from the
skies. But our Lord proved that there was no need even of manna. It was enough
for Him
as the Son of Man
that He had faith in God. On this He feasted
while
He fasted
the forty days. It was God’s commandment
which He obeyed in
fasting
and this commandment
thus obeyed in faith
was the bread He ate. The
commandments of God
then
are the bread of life for the nations. If a
Christian people
then we must be loyal to our calling
baptising our
unexampled material prosperity into the name of Christ
and dedicating our
wealth
with a wise and eager generosity
to Christian uses. (R. D.
Hitchcock
D. D.)
Bread for the hungry
I. Let us
that we
may get the meaning of this text with regard to providence
reflect upon the
children of Israel in the wilderness. God has proved by miracle
that although
He chooses to act usually according to certain rules
and nourish the body with
bread and with meat
yet He is not tied to rules
but is absolute King and
Master
and can do as He wills; and even in the subtle processes by which food
is digested and assimilated to the flesh and blood
and bone and sinew
He can
work without the means of ordinary chemistries. He can dissolve without
alembics
and fuse without crucibles. But you say
“Ah! but that cannot concern
us
for He never works miracles now.” Ay
but I reply
it is most marvellous
for God to be able to do a miraculous thing without a miracle. I have seen many
miracles
which were not miracles
but yet all the more miraculous. The poor
have lacked bread; stones were not turned into bread for them
but they had
their bread as much by miracle as if rocks had crumbled into food. We have seen
the poor merchant reduced to distress
and he said
“Now I cannot see any hope
for me. God must rend His heavens
and put His hand through the very windows to
deliver me.” No heavens were rent
but the deliverance came. Now
the Lord can
this day without a miracle work such a miracle that we shall have all our wants
supplied
for “man doth not live by bread alone
but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” You have heard the story of the martyr who
was condemned to die. The judge said railingly: “You will be in prison. I shall
make you no allowance for food
and what can your God do for you? How can He
feed you?” “Why
” said the poor prisoner
“if He wills it
He can feed me from
your table”: and it was so
though unknown to his cruel judge; for until his
day of burning came
the wife of the judge
touched with sympathy
always
secreted food and fed him abundantly even from the persecutor’s board.
II. The spiritual
bearing of the text. Man shall not live by bread alone; that does but nourish
the mere coarse fabric of clay; he lives by every word which proceedeth out of
the mouth of God--that nourishes the immortal spirit; that sustains the
heavenly flame which God has put there by the work of regeneration and
conversion.
1. The text speaks of a hunger and of its consequences. Very many of
you understand what this hunger means. There was a time when the world suited
us well enough. But suddenly God put a new life into us; we knew not how. The
first evidence we had of that life was that we began to hunger; we were not
satisfied; we were unhappy. The soul was conscious of sin
and hungered for
pardon; conscious of guilt
and hungered for purity; conscious of absence from
God
and hungered and thirsted after His presence.
2. Notice
the heavenly bread and its surprising excellency. This
bread
you see
is the Word of God. Now
the Word is given to us first here in
the Bible
as it is written; it is given to us
secondly
from the lips of God’s
own chosen and appointed ambassadors. He that despises either of these two
will soon find himself growing lean in spirit. But now
why is it that we need
this food at all? I answer first
we need it to sustain the life which we have
received. As life spiritual depends upon God to give it
so upon God to sustain
it. Only He who makes us Christians can keep us so. We need this Divine food
not only to keep us barely alive
but to make us grow. Besides
this food is
necessary to strengthen us when we have grown up. How can we wonder that a man
is weak if he does not eat? It is no wonder if Christians find themselves weak
in prayer
weak in suffering
weak in action
weak in faith
and weak in love
if they neglect to feed upon the Word of God. Moreover
we need to have
spiritual food also for our joy as well as for our strength. How often do you
see a man sad and troubled
who
if he had sufficient sustenance
would soon
have sparkling eyes and a shining face! Many Christians
I do not doubt
are
very low and miserable because they do not feed upon the Word. Are you starving
your souls? If so
there is no wonder that your joys are dead
and hang their
heads like withered things. I trust many of us know what it is to feed to the
full upon the Word of God. And do you not bear me witness that it is rich food?
3. A great privilege involving a consequent duty. We have been made
to eat manna
as angels’ food which we did not know. It was far above our
carnal judgments
yet they who feared the Lord said it was like wafers made
with honey. Israel found it to be very sweet
and indeed it is said by the
Rabbis that the manna had such a peculiarity about it
that it was always the
flavour that a man wished it to be
and I think it is very much so with Gospel
preaching; if a man chooses it to be disagreeable to him
it will be; but if he
desires it to be sweet to him
it will be; he will be sure to be fed if he
wants to be fed. For so is it with the precious Book; very much of its flavour
is in our own mouths
and when our mouths are out of taste
we think the Bible
has lost its savour. It is often your ears that are to blame
not the preacher;
do not be so quick to blame him
but be a little more rapid in examining
yourself. “Neither did our fathers know.” By nature
however much we may
respect them
they are no better than ourselves
and they knew nothing about
this subtle
mysterious
munificent way by which God supplies the needs of the
souls of His people. Well now
if God has given us such food as this
I think
the least thing we can do is to go and gather it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The true life of man
This passage is composed of two propositions
a negative and an
affirmative. The verb is the same in both
and therefore can only have one and
the same meaning in both propositions. The first taken literally is an obvious
truism. The second
taken literally
is unintelligible. That man cannot live by
bread alone is patent to all. At least two more substances are needful for
existence
namely
air and water. Nor can air
water
and bread alone suffice
for human life. Man must undergo some exertion in order to derive nourishment
from the air
water
and bread
and he needs likewise to sleep and to have
shelter or else he will die. As man rises in the scale of being
many more things
become necessary to life which a primitive savage never thought of. The second
proposition
“Man doth live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth o
the Lord
” taken literally
is manifestly unintelligible. We can understand
that bread eaten and assimilated is one of the many things required to support
human life
but in no sense can we understand the process of eating and
assimilating to be applied to any words human or Divine. The second proposition
is therefore so manifestly figurative that the literal interpretation must be
abandoned. And if the second proposition be figurative
so likewise must be the
first; for the verb which gives meaning to the second is the same in both. The
key to the meaning of the passage lies in the sense given to the verb “live”
and to the phrase “every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.”
The author used this term “live” in a very exalted sense. It was much more than
mere existence. We all know what kind of torpid
stupid life we mean to
describe by the term “to vegetate”; a life of motionless
passionless
inactivity--mere existence without exertion
without animation. A higher life
than this belongs in common to all animals; but a mere animal life was not
I
think
what the author intended when he said “man cannot live by bread alone.”
Just as we use the term “vegetate” to express inactivity
so we use the term
“animalism” to express a brutish kind of life of which selfish indulgence is
the alpha and omega. The life of man is something higher than the life of the
beast
and cannot be sustained by the mere supply of animal wants. Taking the
word “bread” to embrace typically every possible object needful for animal
sustenance
vigour
and enjoyment
man wants for his life much more than bread.
Man cannot live by bread alone. If he lives by bread alone
he has either never
been a man at all or has ceased to be a man
he is only an animal. And
I
venture to say
is one lesson that has to be re-learnt in our own times.
Whether things were worse or better in times that are gone
one thing is most
obvious now. Many men and women are steeped in the notion that it is only by
bread that man can live and by nothing else--that is to say that their whole
lives depend upon the constant and adequate supply of those things which go to
furnish animal health
animal strength
animal spirits
and general animal
enjoyment; that this earthly bread is all they ever want
or all that they need
ever seek; that when these things are provided
the rest of everything can go
to the wall
and the kingdom of God along with it. Too often parents by precept
or example instill this animalism into the minds of their children
impressing
it upon them by word and deed that their first and last duty in life is to get
all they can; or else they tacitly acquiesce in their children’s downward
tendency and take no pains to eradicate their selfishness or to cultivate
within them higher pursuits. It takes little from the sadness of this outlook
to know that in a very large measure the state of society in which we live is
very much to blame for much of this concentration on earthly good. On the one
hand competition and the struggle for existence has made it very hard for some
people to live at all
and on the other hand luxurious habits have not only grown
in number but have gradually taken their place in the category of the
necessaries of life. The wisdom of the Stoic which commended the restraint of
desire as a means of conferring happiness is now all but forgotten; and parents
and children together seem to act as if the attainment of desired objects was
the whole secret of happiness
and the multiplication of gratified wishes led
only to satisfaction. It is a wonder they do not see that the more we have the
more we want; it is feeding the disease of longing to gratify wish after wish;
and I must add it is cruelty to the young to let them grow up with the idea
that the true happiness of mail’s life consists in getting all we want and
having our own way. If the course of Divine Providence with Israel be any guide
to parents in the training of their children--and I think it is entitled to
that place by those words
“Thou shalt remember in thine heart that as a man
chasteneth his son
so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee”--we may well lay to
heart that to deny our children some longed for pleasure
to submit them to
mild privations and to disappoint them in the execution of their will is to be
following a Divine example which seeks the truer
higher
and more enduring
happiness of His children by the temporary infliction of some needful
chastisement. But no parent can do this with judgment or moderation
or can
conduct the process of disappointing his children’s wishes properly unless he
has learnt for himself the lesson
“Man cannot live by bread alone
” unless he
knows by experience that his life in its truest sense “does not consist in the
abundance of things which he possesseth
” but that his troubles and cares have
been part of his most valuable treasure
and that his life has been enriched
more often by what he has lost than by what he has gained. And this brings us
to consider what is meant by the assertion of the text that “man doth live by
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” This phrase becomes
intelligible to us the moment we understand what is meant by the term “live.”
The truest and highest life of man is not mere existence
nor the fullest
enjoyment of his physical nature
but the highest exercise of his noblest
functions as a moral and spiritual being
as a member of the great brotherhood
of mankind
as a child of God. From such an elevation
the wants and cares of
this lower life lose much of their overwhelming importance. Gains and losses
are less felt as changes in the atmospheric pressure upon the soul. Daily bread
is no longer regarded as the sum total of aspiration
as the sustenance of a
heaven-born spirit. In the devout language of Job
“I have esteemed the words
of His mouth more than my necessary food.” Now to live such a life we must not
be content with bread
or with the most ample supply of all our physical wants
but we can only live it by the word of God
i.e. by following the higher
law of our being
by seeking for and finding all possible truth
by acting in
harmony with the known laws of Nature and with the known laws of human nature
which are moral and spiritual as well as physical. If we but endeavour to have
God in all our thoughts
to set God always before us
then our life will be a
human life
and not the life of the vegetable or the life of the beast that perisheth.
Why
even for the perfection of our lower life--the purely physical--we must
attain to the knowledge of God’s good laws
and follow them faithfully
or else
the bread of life will fail to nourish us; all its thousand embellishments will
destroy and not promote our happiness. How much more
then
must we seek
in
active obedience to His good laws
that perfection of moral and spiritual
health in which alone the highest life of man consists! It still holds good
that “he that seeketh his life shall lose it
and he that loseth his life the
same shall find it.” Paradoxical as it may sound
the law of self-denial for
the well-being and comfort of others is the only condition in which our own
well-being and comfort are attainable
or when attained can be made enduring. (C.
Voysey
M. A.)
Spiritual food
A few years ago died
at one of the missionary stations of India
a native called Brindelbund. He had spent sixty or seventy years in the service
of Satan. Talking to his Hindoo brethren
he would say
“And whom do you need
but Him whom I have found?” He would take his wallet of books
and travel two
or three hundred miles to distribute them; and this he did for fourteen or
fifteen years. Mrs. Chamberlain
in his last days
would go to his
bedside
and say
“Brindelbund
shall I get you some tea? Can you eat bread?” He would
lay his hand on the New Testament: “Sister
this is my tea--this is my bread;
man was not made to live by bread alone
but by every word that proceedeth out
of the mouth of God.” How valuable the Gospel
which can thus give happiness to
a man who had spent the greater part of his life in the slavery of idolatry!
Feeding on the Word
In her autobiography the late Frances Ridley Havergal says that
after giving up her soul to the Saviour
“For the first time my Bible was sweet
to me
and the first passage which I distinctly remember reading in a new and
glad light was the fourteenth and following chapters of St. John’s Gospel. I
read them feeling how wondrously loving and tender they were
and that now I
too might share in their beauty and comfort.” In this statement we have the
secret of that lady’s symmetrical piety and eminent usefulness. As she began
her spiritual life by feeding it on the Divine Word
so she continued. She made
it her daily bread. By reading it constantly
by meditating upon it
by
implicitly believing it
by praying for light upon it
and by claiming its
promises as her own
she learned to see and to know God
and to possess in very
large measure that “eternal life” which consists in knowing Him. Hers was
therefore
a Scriptural piety. Her faith pushed its roots deep into God’s Word.
And whoever wishes to be truly and actively pious
must
like her
nourish his
heart with Scripture truth
since no Christian ever did
or ever can
attain
deep piety who does not learn to sip sweetness from God’s words as bees suck
honey from the flowers of the field.
Spiritual assimilation
In a town in Japan I once wanted to hold a meeting in the hotel
but only two fishermen came. I entered into conversation about Christ and His
salvation with them instead of preaching. I told them that all men were
descended from one pair
the present difference in the appearance of the people
in separate countries being caused by the climate
food
and water. One of the
men replied
“I understand it is just the same with fish; if they feed on green
seaweed they become green themselves.” It is the same with Christians
if they
read and meditate upon the Word of God
they will become like God. If they
follow the world and feed upon its pleasures
then they will become like the
world
and no one will see the difference between them and those who
without
disguise
are on the way to perdition. (R. Davison.)
Living by bread alone
What is it
therefore
to live by bread alone? Let us contemplate
the present age. Behold a workman of the fields always looking down upon his
plough
and who never gives himself time to look up towards the heaven whence
fertility descends; behold a workman of the town for whom all days are alike
and who quits his trade only for pleasure
or what he believes to be such;
behold a man who has dividends
and who lulls himself to sleep in a selfish
indolence
whence he awakes only twice a year to receive them; behold an
employe
that is to say a man who during his life gives six days to writings of
which he is weary and the seventh to amusements of which he will become weary
also; behold a wealthy man
and when one asks what is his occupation
he has
only one
that of administering his fortune
and
if possible
augmenting it;
and those savants who deal only in science
searching unceasingly into
the truth of facts
and forgetting the voice which said: “I am the truth”; and
those artists who pursue the beautiful whilst forgetting the supreme beauty;
and those literary men
who seek the sublime
whilst forgetting that religion
is the chief sublime; and those magistrates
who only judge or administer; and
those potentates of the earth
who only skim and rule . . . All those men are
perhaps
good and honourable
incapable of staining their reputation
of
dishonouring themselves . . . But they live by bread only; the earthly life
rules them
carries them away
preoccupies them
to the point of leading them
to egotism and indifference; they are so mindful of themselves that they forget
God; of the world
that they forget heaven; of life
that they forget death and
immortality; they take so much care of themselves that they take none of their
neighbour; and as to their family
they dream of its advancement. They live in
a manner most honourable
doubtless; but they live by bread only . . . only
and this is their folly and transgression. (Athanase Coquerel.)
As a man chasteneth his
son
so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee.--
The afflictions of god’s people
I. The afflictions
of God’s people--however complicated
however prolonged
of whatever materials
they may be made--proceed from the purest benignity of our Heavenly Father.
Suffering does not come from God at all. I know that He overrules it
and that He
makes up
if I may so speak
of the briars and thorns which so plentifully grow
in this wilderness a hedge by which His children are kept in and restrained.
But He did not cause your sufferings. If man had continued in his primeval
state of innocence
there would have been no aching heart. But suffering is to
be considered as destructive or as corrective. Now
where it is destructive
it
is an expression of displeasure. We know that punishment ultimately inflicted
will be destructive; but
remember
afflictions may be considered also as
corrective. Then they issue from love. Following up the beautiful idea of the
text--that of parental discipline--I say they proceed from a solicitude to
improve the child
to correct many vices
to form the character of the child as
perfectly as it can be formed. Now
remember
that the love of your Heavenly
Father regulates all this.
II. Your
afflictions are brought about by Divine wisdom--no chance
no accident. God
cannot explain Himself to you
but before Him everything is arranged in the
most exquisite order
in the most luminous combination. Not an atom floats
without His permission; the hairs of your head are all numbered.
III. All afflictions
will issue in your highest good. Yon must take God’s word; “All things work
together for good to them that love God.” This is the secret--“to them that
love God.” God loves you--you love God; what is the consequence? God is
employing His attributes for you; God is taking care that there shall be
nothing hostile
however inexplicable may be the circumstances of your life.
They shall work for your good--perhaps not for your gratification. The
physician’s prescriptions do not work for the pleasure of the party; the
probing instrument of the surgeon gives the patient pain
but it is all for
good. God is not absent from you; He is present. This is a consolatory thought:
your Father never leaves you for a moment; He is educating you for Himself. (T.
Lessey.)
On the purposes of God in chastening man
I. The way in
which God tried the Israelites in the wilderness was this: he was perpetually
exposing them to difficulties and dangers
which were calculated to try the
strength of their faith and trust in Him.
II. What
then
were the designs which God had in view in thus bringing the Israelites into
these difficulties
and in thus correcting them?
1. The first was that they might know themselves
to know their
hearts
whether they would keep His commandments or no.
2. But the second point
in which it was the intention of God to
instruct the Israelites
and in them all mankind
was their absolute dependence
upon Himself. He fed them with manna
which neither they nor their fathers had
known
in order that He might make them know that men do not live by bread
only
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord do men
live. More important knowledge than this of the providence of God cannot be
learned by men. While we thus practically know the power and presence of God
we shall feel the dispositions which that knowledge ought to inspire; we shall
watch over our conduct with a filial dread of offending Him; we shall place an
unbounded confidence in His wisdom to direct
His power to strengthen
His
providence to defend
His goodness to bless us.
III. Having thus
taken a view of the purposes of God toward the Israelites in the desert
it
remains that we consider for whose instruction these designs were accomplished.
1. In the first place
He makes use of afflictions and trials to
prove you
as He did the Israelites of old. These trials you have doubtless
felt
but have you seen the hand of God in them?
2. What
then
is His aim? It is to teach thee to know thyself and
Him. To know thyself. You will tell me
perhaps
you do not know yourself
sufficiently; you will acknowledge you are a weak
sinful Creature. To say this
from theory only is a very different thing from saying it from experience.
Self-knowledge is not soon taught. You cannot acquire it merely by reading
books
or by meditating on it in your study; it must be the result of long and
painful observation of your own heart.
3. But God designs also to teach you to know Him. You are amazed at
the stupidity of the Israelites; they had so many proofs of the presence of
God! And have not you as many? (J. Venn
M. A.)
Divine correction
Divine correction may be considered--
I. As the means of
religious improvement.
1. Affliction is a restraint from evil
without which we should
frequently fall the victim of our folly and impetuosity.
2. Affliction is an excitement to duty.
3. Affliction is a needful ordeal.
4. Affliction is a seasonable monitor.
II. As the
discipline of paternal regard. A father corrects his children--
1. With reluctance. Tries everything else first.
2. With wisdom.
3. With tenderness.
4. With design. For our good.
III. As the subject
of filial attention. How awful is it when affliction is useless
when
correction hardens
when medicine poisons! Beware of this--“Consider in thine
heart
” etc.
1. Acknowledge His hand. Trace your afflictions to their proper
cause.
2. Submit to His authority. Submission is the perfection of
Christianity--the submission not of apathy
but sensibility. Shall a scholar
murmur against the discipline of wisdom and goodness?
3. Improve His design. This must be known to be improved. You cannot
know each particular design
but you may the grand and ultimate one. (Sketches
of Four Hundred Sermons.)
Design of God’s chastisements
This is the manner of God’s proceedings--to send good after evil
as He made light after darkness; to turn justice into mercy
as tie turned
water into wine; for as the beasts must be killed before they could be
sacrificed
so men must be killed before they can be sacrificed--that is
the
knife of correction must prune and dress them
and lop off their rotten twigs
before they can bring forth fruit; these are the cords which bind the ram unto
the altar
lest when he is brought thither he should run from thence again;
this is the chariot which carrieth our thoughts to heaven
as it did
Nebuchadnezzar’s. This is the hammer which squareth the rough stones till they
be plain and smooth and fit for the temple. (H. Smith.)
God’s chastening
A bystander in the market place of a country town saw a group of
boys quarrelling and fighting. In a few moments he observed a man from a side
street cross the place
enter the group
bring out one boy
and severely rebuke
him. The bystander pondered
his thoughts shaping themselves thus: That is a
father
selecting his own boy
plucking him from the evil out of fatherly love
and dealing with him in such a manner as to make him fear a repetition of the
conduct. “We are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the
world.” This is the paternal motive. (Mrs. Umpleby.)
Chastisement a proof of love
I had a teacher
when I was a boy
who used to love me and let me
off easy in my lessons
and I thought he was splendid. I had another teacher
who
out of school and out of doors
was almost like a brother and a father to
me
but who was very rigid with me in the mathematical room--and with me especially;
and when I once complained to him that he did not treat any other boy as he did
me
he said
“No
I do not
for I do not love any other boy as much as I do
you.” He brought the screw down on me tremendously
but it was the only thing
that carried me through mathematics. At last he developed in me an energy and
an enterprise in that direction that led to results that I never should have
achieved under any other culture than that. “Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth
and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth . . . But if ye be
without chastisement
whereof all are partakers
then are ye bastards
and not
sons
” saith the Word of the Lord. (H. W. Beecher.)
God the best Ruler
Man would have God go according to his mind in chastening and
afflicting him. He would have God correct him only in such a kind
in such a
manner and measure as he would choose. He saith in his heart: “If God would
correct me in this or that
I could bear it
but I do not like to be corrected
in the present way.” One saith: “If God would smite me in my estate
I could
bear it
but not in my body”; another saith: “If God would smite me with
sickness
I could bear it
but not my children”; or
“If God would afflict me
only in such a degree
I could submit
but my heart can hardly submit to so
great a measure of affliction.” Thus we would have it according to our minds as
to the measure of the continuance of our afflictions. We would be corrected for
so many days
but months and years of trouble are not according to our mind.
Man would have God govern not only himself
but the whole world
according to
his mind; man hath much of this in him. Luther wrote to Melanchthon when he was
so exceedingly troubled at the providence of God in this world: “Our brother
Philip is to be admonished that he would forbear governing the world.” We can
hardly let God alone to rule that world which Himself alone hath made. (J.
Caryl.)
Therefore thou shalt keep
the commandments of the Lord thy God.--
Incitements to the Divine service
Time and again Israel was called to remember that God’s goodness
to them was designed to lead to more faithful service. They were to beware lest
forgetfulness of this and a life of self-indulgence should lead to their
undoing. In chap. 28
the terrible results of ingratitude and disobedience were
set before them. See
especially in verses 63
64 of that chapter
a graphic
picture in general outline of the state of the Jewish race for the past
eighteen hundred years. For those who have no time or inclination to study the
history of the race
the graphic description of their position in Scott’s Ivanhoe
and the historical notes appended to that work
will give a clear
conception of their miserable condition. The passage teaches us that when men
have received blessing from God it is fitting for them to render Him a willing
service
and that ingratitude here means destruction.
I. The
reasonableness of rendering a grateful service to God.
1. This was clearly evident in the case of Israel. God rightly
demands as the Creator obedience and service from all men. Surely
then
from a
people so highly favoured as Israel! Delivered from slavery; given a noble
system of laws; brought under the direct rule of Jehovah in the theocracy; and
given in promise “a land flowing with milk and honey.” They were highly
favoured
and in gratitude should have consecrated themselves to the Divine
service.
2. If they had reasons for thankfulness
etc.
we have greater
reasons. Contrast the state of our native land since the time when Columba
Cuthbert
Austin of Canterbury
etc.
began their apostolic labours among its
tribes with our present preeminence among the nations.
3. As individual subjects of this empire we have great reason to
offer to God a grateful service. How blessed our lot compared with that of many
peoples whose manner of life and customs have been portrayed by a Livingstone
Stanley
J.G. Paten
and others! Contrast the state of less highly favoured
peoples with our own individual lives
” under righteous government
religious
liberty
even-handed justice
etc. There are many reasons why we should render
to God gratitude
praise
and willing
joyful service.
II. The folly of
the sin of ingratitude toward God.
1. What we are to beware of is the danger that whilst we enjoy the
gifts
the gracious Giver should be forgotten--of spending all our time and
energy on the acquisition of God’s gifts to be used for our own pleasure rather
than in seeking the Divine glory.
2. Into this sin the Israelites fell once and again in the course of
their history. Even after the stern lesson of the Babylonian exile they fell
into this sin (Haggai 1:1-15
etc.). In our Lord’s time
this sin was aggravated by hypocrisy. The formal religionists drew near to God
with outward devotion
but their hearts were far from Him. The self-pleasing
worldly agriculturist of the parable was
it may be surmised
a typical figure
(Luke 12:15-21).
3. There is too much of this spirit in our own time. Among all
classes there is a feverish grasping after riches and pleasure; there is a
striving after wealth
not that those who strive may become better men and
women
and be better enabled to serve God
but that they may have more of ease
of passing pleasures. Possessions gained and received without thankful
gratitude to God and more earnest effort in His service turn to dust and ashes
in the using.
4. This results from the failure of men to desire first and receive
God’s best gifts in Jesus Christ.
III. The effect of
either spirit on national and individual life.
1. When a nation rests on God in its government and institutions
and
shows grateful loyalty to Him
that nation will grow in righteousness and strengths
and become a power for good in the world.
2. To the individual who serves Him in grateful love He will give His
richest blessings. Material gifts may sometimes be withheld as not for their
good; but joyful assurance of His presence will be given to them
and of the
certainty of His promises.
3. Far otherwise will it be with those who forget God. Israel’s
history tells how the curse has fallen (Isaiah 1:8). God-forgetfulness led to
hardness of heart
spiritual pride
and the invocation on themselves of the
awful sentence
“His blood be on us and on our children.”
4. Are there not many among us who fall into the same error--who reap
luxuriant fields
who amass enormous gains without any thought of gratitude to
God
or any effort in His service? Such love of money--of the possessions of
this life--“is a root of all evil
” leading to the hardening of the heart and
the materialising of the life.
5. The Divine rule is the only safe one: “Seek ye first the
kingdom of God
etc. “Through Israel’s failure to render God a grateful service
they failed to carry out the Divine commission confided to them as a nation
i.e.
to make God’s name
etc.
known (Psalms 67:1-7.). Does our thankful
gratitude to God lead us to do so? (Wm. Frank Scott.)
Verses 7-9
The Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land.
The land of promise
We will first take the central picture which is presented to us
and we shall then notice the neighbouring thoughts held up to us. “The Lord
bringeth thee into a good land.” These words were uttered
as you know
to a
number of people who had never seen anything but the wilderness. They had not
an actual knowledge
but they had only heard by description
by their fathers’
memory lingering upon what they had once enjoyed
and talking of them to their
children. And their children had grown up in the desert and wondered what those
nations could be of which they had heard their fathers speak. These words would
seem to be a description which was intended to convey a contrast between Egypt
and the land of promise. The feeling that lingered still upon their minds as to
what Egypt was would render the contrast stronger still in their own minds.
“The land whither thou goest in to possess it is not as the land of Egypt from
whence ye came out
where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy foot.
But the land whither ye go to possess it is a land of hills and valleys
and is
watered by the rain from heaven.” Some think this is a figure of speech
intended to represent human labour
that the country had to be watered by labour
physical exertion; others seem to think it may be literal
and intended to
apply to the way either in which by mechanism or by the use of the foot the
water was raised to an elevation; or as
perhaps
very likely
afterwards it
was spread abroad over the land in little streams; a man could just walk from
place to place and with his foot let it out into different streams. In the land
of promise
instead of there being any process of human labour
or any
contrivances of the kind--“The land to which ye go
” said the prophet
“shall
be watered by the rain from heaven.” It shall come down upon it like a gift
from God. For in Egypt there was no rain--and in the wilderness nothing but
sand
nothing but desert. There is also the suggestion
you know
of green hills.
Egypt was very flat
but this was a land of hills and valleys
of valleys and
hills. “A land of wheat
and barley
and vines
and fig trees”--the staff of
life
all that is necessary for support. And what is given for
enjoyment--luxury? “A land of oil olive
and honey. A land wherein thou shalt
eat bread without scarceness.” They had been living on manna
and their souls
loathed this light bread. They were to have bread without scarcity--“Thou shalt
not lack anything in it. A land whose stones are iron
and out of whose hills
thou mayest dig brass.” This was a fine picture set before these
people--setting forth the love of God to them
His Divine purposes
His
Fatherly protection
and exciting them to devotion to His will. The surrounding
words also suggest a grand idea. The idea is that of obedience
at all times
and under all circumstances. In the desert
in the city
whatever be your
circumstances or your needs
God’s law is to be recognised. He is lord over
all. God hath made the earth
and placed man upon it
and hath given him
everything richly to enjoy. And so he presents a picture of discipline with the
enjoyment of abundance. There is the suggestion of preparatory discipline
in
order that a man may be fitted for the right appreciation and right use of
these sources of physical enjoyment. God gives you all things richly to enjoy
and you may enjoy them; but there can be nothing in the present world and in
the present condition of our nature--there can be nothing without peril and
moral danger. There is danger in the desert surrounded by sterility and want;
and there is danger in abundance
surrounded with wheat and barley and vines
and olives
and all these luxuries. God had led them through scenes of
preparatory discipline; He had given them a taste of sorrow; He had disciplined
their souls by labour and by want; He had tested them that it might be seen
what was in their hearts. There was moral danger and peril. The great truth
which the whole discipline was intended to impress upon their souls was this
that man does not live by bread alone. Of far more importance is the attainment
of the higher and diviner life than to attend merely to the physical life. It
is better to die through absolute starvation and want than to supply those
wants by anything which would be a violation of the Divine law. And there is
set forth the warning--warning them of the danger and the peril which they had
to encounter--“Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God
in not keeping His
commandments and His statutes
which I command thee this day
” under the
circumstances in which thou art placed
surrounded by abundance
“Lest when
thou hast eaten and art full
” etc. How prone is man to forget God
and then to
sink into worldliness! Oh
what a fall is there! The Great Being excluded from
his thoughts
and the poor inflated heart filled with its own image
and the
man thinking about himself. Forgetting God
who had done everything in him and
for him
then looking upon God’s gifts and their very magnitude and number
hiding God
concealing the Giver
and man tempted to say
“My own power and my
skill have gotten me all this.” In a certain sense you exercise skill
but God
gave you the power. It is through Him everything is done. Thus our religion in
all things takes us from ourselves and throws us back upon God. Then comes the
last thought of all
which is the prophetic denunciation
“It shall be if thou
do at all forget the Lord thy God
and walk after other gods
and serve them
and worship them
I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish.”
God loved your fathers
and loves you
and He selected you for a great mission
has told you what to do in the world
He sets before you the course you are to
pursue; but if the heart be not with Him
if you forget Him and disobey Him
ye
shall likewise perish
in spite of God’s love to your fathers and His love to
you and your children--ye shall utterly perish; He will find others to do the
work
that will not stand still. I merely throw out these few thoughts to guide
you. There are principles embodied here of a general and universal application
to individuals and nations. In the reading of the Bible you have the law of
Divine government set forth. You not only hear God saying to an individual or
to a nation
“At a particular time so and so shall be
” but in consequence of
having the whole
history of the other nations spread out before you
you can
see the actual workings out of the law in history
and character
and fortunes
of the individual or nation. Now
if you read the Bible so
then I take it
there are great moral principles in this chapter
which it would be very easy
to dwell upon in relation to individuals and nations; it is God’s way in the
education of most of us. Men sometimes have a great deal to bear in their youth.
We have seen men go through very severe self-denial
hard work and little
enjoyment
harsh words and disappointment. Oh
the youthful heart
and the
heart of early manhood--how very often does God school it
and set it a
tremendously hard lesson! It is to discipline it. And how very often do we see
this very process succeeding
producing submission
peace
industry
integrity--these are the virtues which spring out of discipline and suffering
and they have their reward. Then there comes the fruit of the reward: in the
middle life of the man you may see
in consequence of the preparatory
discipline
the fruit of it springing up--the man surrounded with riches and
affluence and possessions
and you see him in the land
which is not like the
land of Egypt
the land of his youth
where he had to labour and suffer; no
he
has his wheat and his barley and vines and olive oil and pomegranates
and all
things about him like the good land. Then comes the rest. Then we shall see
what is in the man. Ay
and how very often do we see that man forget the rock
out of which he was hewn
and the pit from which he was digged--the discipline
and the ways through which God led him
ay
and the lesson
the very lesson
which he learned. When he was little in his own eyes
and had little of the
appliances of luxury about him
he had his mind filled with what was Divine.
And now he has fallen upon the lap of earth
and it is very pleasant to the
flesh to lie down and enjoy; the wings of his spirit are clipped
and he has
fallen down into the mire; the man becomes sensual and worldly
his heavenly
aspirations have departed
he has forgotten God
and is filled with
worldliness. Sometimes God comes down upon such a man and blasts him. He was
like a bay tree
and in a moment he is not. We look
and behold he cannot be
found. Or he may live on and on
but he shall not be what he was; he is doing
nothing for God or man; all his Divine aspirations are dead
and he dies
and
his name is forgotten. Nobody has anything to remember of him
but perhaps the
few to whom his property comes
which comes with a curse rather than a
blessing. But in the other case
where the individual remembers the discipline
the lesson
and the hard history through which he passed when he was rising up
and struggling nobly with circumstances
and then when his position changes the
man’s inward and better life keeps up
and all things are kept in their proper
subordination
and used for God. When men hear of his prosperity they bless and
thank God; his righteousness endureth forever
and his name is held in
everlasting remembrance; he has the blessings in relation to this world and
that which is to come
and he dies amid the benedictions of his children and
the blessings of society. These principles have to do with you. Are there young
men here who sometimes think their lot is hard
and perhaps it is; their lot
may be very hard; they may be placed in circumstances and pressed by duties
that may be hard to bear; but still
it may be and it is God
it is God
teaching you
it is God disciplining yon
and if you will accept this teaching
Chat is the great secret--accept it
take it lovingly
and then half the
difficulty is gone. If affliction or toil through God’s providence should come
upon you
accept it cheerfully
and then only half the burden falls upon you.
It is only half what it was as soon as you lovingly accept it and say
“I take
it
and will make the best of it; I will by Thy strength
bear it like a man.”
And so now
if there are many young men here who have to endure a great many
hardships
look up to your Father and bear it bravely; seek for God’s strength
and depend upon it that this very hardness and the discipline through which you
are passing now is a sort of wilderness
a desert which will lead you to the
good land. Only
take care to remember the lesson that you are learning now; in
whatever circumstances you may hereafter be placed do not forget God. (T.
Binney.)
Verse 10
When thou hast eaten and art full
then thou shalt bless the Lord
thy God.
Prosperity a test
These words occur in Moses’ farewell charge to the Israelites.
Moses had long stood to his people in the relation of father as well as
general
and
like a father
has at the end a good many last words to speak.
This whole Book of Deuteronomy is made up of last words; his last will and
testament to the Hebrew people. He wanted to clinch the instruction that had
been given them already. His anxiety outran his responsibility. He had been
their saviour in the past
and now would like to take out a policy of insurance
in their behalf for the time to come. And they needed everything in the shape
of counsel and insurance that could be given them. They had hardly earned the
confidence of their leader. He did not much believe in the Israelites. He did
not expect with any confidence that they would bless the Lord when they had
eaten and were full. They had hardly been a match for adversity
still less
could they be expected to be for prosperity. He had carried them forty years
and been one of them a hundred and twenty. He understood their composition and
drift. They were a nation of backsliders. Their history was full of ebb tides.
They were not to be trusted. God had kept them worn down into manageableness
simply by force of disaster; had always driven them with a curb and a check.
Liberty they regularly corrupted into license. The point is reached now
however
where a new experiment is to be tried with them. There are some
elements in the case that warrant at least a hope that the experiment will
succeed. The wilderness and the manna are now put behind them; in front is the
Jordan
and across the Jordan cities and well-watered plains--a land flowing
with milk and honey. How will they bear the longer
laxer tether of plenty and
prosperity? It
lay in Moses’ thought as a question. It is important to
understand that it is God’s desire for His people to load them as heavily with
luxuries and gladnesses as they can bear. Evil and suffering are all around us
but it is a part of our faith in the Fatherliness of God to believe that “He
doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men”; and to say with the
Psalmist. “I know
O Lord
that Thy judgments are right
and that Thou in
faithfulness hast afflicted me.” The universe is in the interests of comfort
and happiness and joy. It is God’s desire that we should eat and be full.
Everything looks to a good time coming. Everything is contrived to bend toward
a blessing; God started man in Paradise--as good a Paradise as he could bear
and a good deal better; and all that lies after Paradise is preparation for a
Paradise improved. There is no sorrow that has not lodged in it the possible
seed kernel of fruition. Faith in the Fatherliness of God involves all this.
When we experience vexation and tribulation we must always bethink ourselves of
the issue to which in our Christian faith we are sure it is divinely designed
to conduct. “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him.” The mountain
sermon begins with the promise of blessing. A whole octave of blessedness
ushers in the Gospel. This is a wholesome reflection for our mind to rest in.
That there is sin in the world and suffering we can get along with as soon as
we learn to interpret them instrumentally. Suffering is a means of grace
and
is education toward a better holiness. It is a singular thing
however
that
although gladness is the soul’s destination
and a destination that God is
concerned to have us reach
yet the fact of the matter with us is that gladness
is itself very apt to impair our capacity for gladness
and to hinder our
attainment of it. We are in this respect like a sick man who requires
nourishment
but has not the power to digest it
and so is harmed by the very
thing he needs. Recognising
as we do
that every good gift is from God
it
would certainly seem as though everything we obtained from Him would be a fresh
reminder of Him and a new bond to bind us to Him. But we know how it works with
children sometimes
whose parents
the more they do for their children the less
are they regarded and loved by their children. This was the point of Moses
anxiety in our text. This fact of the corrupting power of prosperity is a
practical and a serious one. Prosperity is dangerous
dangerous for a man
a
family
a country; it makes men indifferent
infidel
atheistic
if not in
their creed
at least in their life. The more God gives us
the less
as a
rule
we have of God. It is not easy to escape being injured by mercies. It is
easy to be ruined by success
success is very often failure
and failure
success. To our eye God gets eclipsed by His own bestowments. We bless God when
we want anything
and congratulate ourselves when we get it. “When thou hast
eaten and art full
then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God.” It takes
considerably more piety to make a man thankful to God for what He has done than
prayerfully dependent upon God for what we would like to have Him do. It is for
that reason that thanksgiving forms so small an element in our prayers; and one
reason
most likely
why our petitions bring us so little that is new
is that
our thanksgivings so scantily recognise what is old. It is the tendency of the
heart to forget God
and the more sunshiny things are
the more likely is that
tendency to become realised. Our thoughts and regards are continually slipping
away from Him. Our eyes drop from God to some representation of Him
and we
become idolaters; from God to some theories of Him
and we become philosophers;
from God to the gifts He confers
and in our fulness we fondle the gift and
ignore the Giver. Sunshine is not the only parent of the harvest. Men fell in
Paradise. Angels fell in heaven. I do not know that there is any good thing
that cannot be given in so great measure as to alienate the recipient from the
Giver. The fruits of the Holy Ghost can be produced in us so profusely as to
work disaster. You remember how when the Seventy returned from their
evangelistic tour they commenced to parade the fact of the submissiveness of
the devils unto their word. And the Lord rebuked them
and bade them rejoice
rather that their names were written in heaven. We sometimes think it is well
and possible for us to have all the grace we are willing to receive. I am not
sure of that. I have met people that I thought had more grace given them than
they had grace to bear; people that were really so holy as to be conscious of
it
Men get puffed up oven by their heavenly enrichments. Any possession or
power we may happen to have stimulates self-consciousness
and that alienates
us from God. I once heard a professor in one of our popular classical schools
make this petition at evening prayers: “O Lord
Thou to whom the darkness is as
the light
we commit ourselves unto Thee for the night
praying that Thou wilt
care for us in those hours when we cannot so well take care of ourselves. It is
so easy to think that we can almost get along alone
and should hardly need to
put our trust in God were it not for dark nights
and days that are stormy. It
is such facts as these that explain why it is that our lives have sometimes to
be made desolate and vacant. Read the entire Book of Judges
and you will find
it the continuous repetition of the same sequence of events. When the Israelites
had gone across Jordan and tasted the milk and the honey and were full
they
stopped blessing God
just as Moses told them not to do
but as he feared all
the while they would do. Then the Lord sent in upon them an invasion of
Philistines
or of Hivites
or Jebusites
or Moabites
or Midianites
or
Ammonites
who ground them
and trampled upon them
and devoured them till they
were willing to cry unto the Lord and acknowledge Him again. This gives to us
the philosophy of disasters in national life
and explains to us as well the
impoverishments and emptinesses that have to be wrought in our individual
lives. Men are quite uniformly disposed to be devout when they get into
difficult places. Men are like certain kinds of vegetation
which do best in
poor soil. I have somewhere met with this illustration: “The Alpine flower does
not bear transplanting
and can only thrive
perhaps like some souls
amidst
wind and tempest
with only brief summer sunshine and heat.” I do not believe
there is any man but what prays when there is nothing else left that he can do.
It is a large part of the philosophy of distress that it makes us look up. We
ask when we are hungry. When we are empty we are devout. “When He slew them
then they sought Him
” said the Psalmist. “In their affliction they will seek
Me early
” wrote Hosea. The prodigal went back to his father when he got down
as low as the husks. The bruised flower yields the sweetest perfume
and the
finest poetry of the Church has been inspired in seasons of persecution. Horace
Bushnell once said: “I have learned more of experimental religion since my
little boy died than in all my life before.” It was he also who wrote: “Deserts
and stone pillows prepare for an open heaven and an angel-crowded ladder.” St.
John did not receive his revelations till he was shut up in a little sea-girt
Patmos. St. Paul’s most jubilant epistle was written in gaol; as birds
sometimes have their cage darkened in order to teach them to sing. I trust that
if we have eaten and are filled with the pleasant outward gifts of the Lord
we
are able still to live in distinct and hourly recognition of Him from whom they
flow
and to walk with Him in relations of reverent but friendly intimacy. We
often pray that God would enable us to bear adversity; there is quite as much
need of His grace to keep us from falling in seasons of prosperity. (C. H.
Parkhurst
D. D.)
Thou shalt bless the Lord
thy God for the good land.
Possession and praise
Now that there is no longer need for strenuous effort
Moses fears
that
like other conquerors
they will become lax in their morality and
luxurious in their habits: that they will forget the help they have received
from God
and act as though their own strength or cleverness had secured these
blessings.
I. The novelty of
new possessions quickly passes away. Persons who suffer misfortune often think
they must be happy who escape it. They rejoice at the first removal of such
misfortune
but soon become so accustomed to their new freedom as to scarcely
give it a thought. The pleasure we derive from new joys seldom lasts longer
than the novelty. On the other hand
troubles are ever new.
II. Possessions
that cost little personal effort are but lightly valued. It is proverbial that
receivers of gifts seldom estimate them at sufficient value; also
that those
who have not experienced the toil and self-denial needful in acquiring wealth
squander that for which their fathers laboured long years. There is danger that
the greatness of God’s gifts shall be a cause of ingratitude.
III. Prosperity is a
severer test of faithfulness than poverty. Then will be the time to see if they
can cling to the Lord. Many a man serves God well so long as he is afflicted
but forgets Him when the affliction is removed. There was a saying of the
heathen that altars rarely smoke on account of new joys. Solomon found the
possession of wealth his greatest trial. Temptations could be resisted in days
of strenuous effort and toil which were yielded to in days of ease and
prosperity.
IV. God appreciates
man’s gratitude. To “bless” is really to praise in worship. Yet the thought
underlying the conception is that man can render to God that which will add to
His joy. Though He is the ever-blessed God
He cares for the love of His
children. His nature is love
and therefore He both gives us blessing and
craves our hearts in return. (R. C. Ford
M. A.)
Beware that thou forget not the Lord.
National wealth
Here we have Moses’ answer to the first great question in
politics--What makes a nation prosperous? To that wise men have already
answered
as Moses answered
“Good government; government according to the laws
of God.” But the multitude
who are not wise men
give a different answer. They
say
“What makes a nation prosperous is its wealth. If Britain be only rich
then she must be safe and right.”
I. Moses does not
deny that wealth is a good thing. He takes for granted that they will grow
rich; but he warns them that their riches
like all other earthly things
may
be a curse or a blessing to them. Nay
that they are not good in themselves
but mere tools which may be used for good or for evil.
II. And herein he
shows his knowledge of the human heart; for it is a certain fact that whenever
any nation has prospered
then they have
as Moses warned the Jews
forgotten
the Lord their God
and said
“My power and the might of my hand hath gotten me
this wealth.” And it is true
also
that whenever any nation has begun to say
that
they have fallen into confusion and misery
and sometimes into utter
ruin
till they repented and remembered the Lord their God
and found out that
the strength of a nation did not consist in riches
but in virtue. For it is He
that giveth the power to get wealth. He gives it in two ways. First
God gives
the raw material; secondly
He gives the wit to use it. This
then
was what
Moses commanded--to remember that they owed all to God. What they had
they had
of God’s free gift. What they were
they were by God’s free grace. Therefore
they were not to boast of themselves
their numbers
their wealth
their
armies
their fair and fertile land. They were to make their boast of God and
of God’s goodness. This they were to remember
because it was true. And this we
are to remember
because it is more or less true of us. God has made of us a
great nation; God has discovered to us the immense riches of this land. It is
He that hath made us
and not we ourselves.
III. You will see
that Moses warns them that if they forgot God the lord
who brought them out of
the land of Egypt
they would go after other gods. He cannot part the two
things. If they forget that God brought them out of Egypt
they will turn to
idolatry
and so end in ruin. And so shall we. If we forget that God is the
living God
who brought our forefathers into this land
who has revealed to us
the wealth of it step by step as we needed it
who is helping and blessing us
now
every day
and all the year round--then we shall begin worshipping other
gods
worshipping the so-called laws of nature
instead of God who made the
laws
and so honouring the creature above the Creator; or else we shall worship
the pomps and vanities of this world--pride and power
money and pleasure--and
say in our hearts
“These are our only gods which can help us
these must we
obey.” Which if we do
this land of England will come to ruin and shame
as
surely as did the land of Israel in old time. (C. Kingsley
M. A.)
Forgetful of God
“Forget not.” God hates forgetfulness of His blessings--
1. Because He has commanded that we should not forget them (Deuteronomy 4:9).
2. Because forgetfulness is a sign of contempt.
3. It is the peculiarity of singular carelessness.
4. It springs from unbelief.
5. It is the greatest mark of ingratitude. (Thos. le Blanc.)
Danger of riches
Mr. Cecil had a hearer who
when a young man
had solicited his
advice
but who had not for some time had an interview with him. Mr. C--one day
went to his house on horseback
being unable to walk
and after his usual
salutations
addressed him thus: “I understand you are very dangerously
situated.” Here he paused
and his friend replied
“I am not aware of it
sir.”
“I thought it was probable you were not
and therefore I have called on you. I
hear you are getting rich; take care
for it is the road by which the devil
leads thousands to destruction!” This was spoken with such solemnity and
earnestness
that it made a deep and lasting impression.
Prosperity and spiritual ruin
A friend recently told me of a beautiful elm in his garden that
for centuries had withstood the fury of winter’s storms. On one still summer’s
morning
however
he was startled by a crash
followed by the rustling fall of
a huge limb. The thing was unaccountable
for not a breath of air was stirring
and the broken branch was perfectly sound. At length the gardener gave the
explanation. It was the calm itself that had wrought or occasioned the
mischief. All through the tranquil night copious dews had fallen
and every
leaf had caught and held as in a closed chalice the copious deposit
whose
countless drops bore with an oppressive weight upon the branches until the one
in question could no longer endure the strain
Had the slightest breath of air
been stirring
so as to disturb the leaves and empty their tiny reservoirs
they would have rained their riches of moisture upon the soil beneath
and the
elm would have continued to flourish in unmutilated majesty. Prosperity often
accomplishes the spiritual ruin that adversity failed to effect. (J. Halsey.)
God forgotten
A Glasgow minister was sitting on a coach beside the driver on a
lonely Highland road
and saw in the distance an old woman
who looked
wistfully towards the coach. As it came near her face showed by turns anxiety
hope
and fear
and as the coach passed
the driver
with downcast eyes and sad
expression
shook his head
and she returned disappointed to her cottage. Being
much affected by what he saw
the minister asked an explanation of the driver.
The driver said that for several years she had watched daily for the coach
expecting either to see her son or to receive a letter from him. The son had
gone to one of our great cities
and had forgotten the mother who loved him so
dearly. But the mother went every day to meet the coach
trusting that one day
her son would return to her. Such a tale makes our heart bleed for the parent
who was cruelly forsaken
but many forget how badly they are treating their heavenly
Father when they forsake Him and refuse to return to Him.
Forgetfulness of God
Among the legends of Hindostan is this:--Rawana
a Brahmin
was
offered by his god anything that lie might name. Rawana prayed his god to
bestow upon him the government of the world. His god immediately granted his
wish. Then he prayed for ten heads with which to see and rule the world. After
Rawana had well fortified himself
and was surrounded by riches
honours
and
praise
he forgot his god Ixora
and bade all the people worship him
an act
which greatly angered the god Ixora
and he destroyed Rawana. How true to human
nature was the course of Rawana! and how many we find today that have forgotten
the God that gave them all they possess! (J. Bibb.)
Who led thee through that
great and terrible wilderness.
The Christian aspect and use of politics
It is a common saying in these days that politics
as the phrase
is
“run high
” and are likely to continue to run high for some years to come.
And this is perfectly true
so far as the present is concerned
and is likely
to prove true in the future also. Great issues have to be fought out. The area
too
over which the interest in politics is felt has been
widened by the
spread of education and the extension of political rights. Men’s convictions
and affections and prejudices and passions are deeply engaged in the questions
of the day. They feel and speak warmly on one side and on the other. And the
result is what we see
and perhaps
to a certain extent
suffer from. The
Christian ministry would stand self-condemned if it had not a word in season to
say at a time like the present. To bring the whole subject to the purest light
which is the light of Christ; to lift our thoughts to the highest point of
view; to connect present trials and difficulties with our life as men
and as
Christian men
so that they may become no longer injurious to us
but a
wholesome discipline--this is the object of the present discourse.
1. A time of political stir and agitation
when great questions are
being discussed and settled
is in many ways much better than a time of apathy
and stagnation. If it calls out some of the fiercer passions of our nature
it
calls out also the nobler qualities. It helps to make the political atmosphere
if more stormy
yet less liable to become venal
corrupt
and impure. A recent
traveller in America
an observer of much acuteness
has remarked upon the
gravity
the seriousness
the seeming melancholy of the American character. Can
it be matter of surprise that it should be so? Could a nation pass through a
tremendous crisis like that of the still recent civil war without bearing the
mark of it upon its brow for many a long year afterwards? Is it the dream of a
visionary or of an enthusiast to hope that the critical times through which our
own beloved country is passing may leave a permanent impress for good upon the
national character?
2. But this view of the gain which may accrue to all true manliness
of character
through the demand at present made upon it
requires to be extended
and modified by an additional consideration. We must not forget that what we
want is not a heathen
but a Christian manliness. And this involves higher
qualities
such as gentleness
considerateness
courtesy
sympathy
as well as
the sterner stuff of truth and courage and endurance. England’s great need at
the present day is of wise counsels and of gentle hands
to heal the wounds of
society
to interpret the various sections and classes to each other
and to
unite them together
so that all may seek the common good and feel that they
are all members of one commonwealth. Those wounds of society are deep and many.
Pauperism
drunkenness
crime
ignorance
vice
misery; who can reflect on
these giant evils
these horrible sores
of our social state
without feeling
that the triumph of a party is not worth a moment’s thought compared with the
removal of such evils and the cure of such diseases?
3. If I were to look for a motto
which I might take it upon me to
recommend to all those who are in any way engaged or interested in politics
I
should select that noble Christian rule which St. Peter gives us
“Honour all
men.” No three words that I know of cut more decisively at the root
whether of
the false Toryism which delights in patronising and domineering
or of the
false Liberalism which hates all that is above itself and longs to pull it down
to its own level
but has no wish to raise what is below
and whose ruling
spring is not a genuine human sympathy
but pure selfishness and scorn. Yes
“honour all men”; not the few only who are above us
but the many who are below
us. The grounds of this noble Christian motto lie deep in the Gospel of Christ.
That common human nature
which Christ Himself
the Son of God
has
condescended to wear
cannot but be a sacred thing in the eyes of all His
followers. But more than this
it stands in such close fundamental connection
with Him
and He with it
that in honouring it we are in fact honouring Him.
4. In sober truth and earnest
the responsibility which attaches to
every citizen
even the humblest
of our common country at a time like this
is
a heavy one
and might well avail to call out all the dignity
honour
and
manliness that are in each
though too often
it may be
latent there. Each
contributes something by word
by influence
by sympathy
to present
tendencies. Each contributes some drop
as it were
to the mighty tide
which
is bearing us onwards into the future. Each is therefore helping now to
determine what that future shall be; our own future
our children’s future
our
country’s future. Act neither from fear nor favour. Act as in the sight of God
looking to Him to purify our motives
to inspire us with wisdom and courage
to
make us tolerant
too
and conciliatory
as well as steadfast and resolute. Then
we shall be blessed ourselves
and our country will be blessed also.
5. Lastly
let it never be forgotten by us that
come what may
God’s
kingdom is over all. (Canon D. J. Vaughan.)
The journey towards the promised land
These words were addressed by Moses to the Israelites when
having
at length reached the end of their protracted wanderings through the
wilderness
they were on the point of taking possession of the promised land.
The veteran leader exhorts his companions in toil and suffering to cast a
retrospective glance on the memorable period of their existence which is now
drawing to its close
and to consider it as a time of humiliation
of trial
of
providential education
necessary to fit them for the possession of Canaan
after the thraldom of Egypt. The application of this text is simple: Israel is
the people of God. Egypt
that house of bondage
is sin; the slavery of the
prince of darkness. Canaan
that promised land
is heaven. The wilderness
the
great and howling wilderness through which God leads us
is the world of sin
and suffering
in which He leaves us yet awhile. Let us consider these words in
relation to our past
present
and future
and endeavour to understand the
solemn significance and sublime end of our earthly pilgrimage.
I. The past. The
time which immediately followed the rescue of Israel from Egypt was undoubtedly
one of the grandest epochs in the history of that people. With one voice they
sang that magnificent song
the most ancient and one of the finest monuments of
that noblest of all poetry--Hebrew poetry (Exodus 15:1-27). But alas! how
short-lived was this enthusiasm! Deliverance was followed by protracted trial.
Instead of the gates of Canaan open to receive them
the Israelites found only
a great and terrible wilderness through which God led them
against their will
towards the ultimate good He had in view for them. Is not this an image of
ourselves? Who is there that has not felt similar emotions to those experienced
by the Israelites on the morrow of the passage of the Red Sea? On the high road
to the promised land
with the foretaste of eternal life in our hearts
in the
fervour of our first love
in the outburst of our gratitude
we gladly exclaim
with Simeon: “Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” And it is from the
very depths of our heart that
as we take our first step towards the
fatherland
we renew the engagement of the Israelites of old
and promise that
“All the Lord hath spoken we will do.” But the descent from these sublime
heights soon commences. To what may our experience at such times be compared?
You have seen
after a dark night
the sun begin its daily course in more than
ordinary radiance
the sky is a glowing canopy of gold and purple
the earth
revels in floods of light;. . .then
by degrees
this brightness dims; clouds
at first almost imperceptible
thicken and condense in the atmosphere; the sky
becomes overcast
and the horizon is dull and cold; the rain begins to fall
thin
uninterrupted
penetrating
and the heart grows heavy and chill. Such
in
most cases
is the long day of human life after the transient dawn which
announces or precedes conversion
and from the depths of your soul do you not
call this a great and terrible wilderness? Have you never murmured or asked
yourself the question: “Wherefore this long journey through this barren land?”
II. The present.
“The Lord thy God hath led thee.” What memories were these words calculated to
awaken in the mind of the Israelites? If God ever manifested the providence of
Omnipotence in a striking manner upon earth
it certainly was during the
wanderings of His people through the desert. And though the Divine providence
that leads us on in our turn be not miraculous
as during the journey of the
Hebrews
it is
however
none the less real and marvellous. That which the
people of God witnessed by the eye of the body may yet be manifest to the eye
of faith. The mercies of former days are pledges of those we are permitted to
expect in the present. But wherefore this wilderness? Why not immediate peace
triumph
and glory? Hear the answer of Him whose every act tends to an
excellent end: “That He might humble thee
to prove thee.” The purpose of the
Lord was to bring the will of His people into subjection
to train them to
obedience
to sanctify them in the highest and noblest sense of the word. And
everything down to the minutest details was chosen
ordained
calculated with a
view to the ultimate result. Thus it is with us. We are placed
here below
in
presence of a maturity to be attained; and no fruit can ripen unless it has
felt the burning rays of the sun. We are being educated
and there can be no
thorough education without stern discipline. We are going towards a promised
land
but the path to it lies through a valley of tears. Between this
conception
which is that of faith and a blind fatalism
the very thought of
which is bewildering
there is no middle course. It is good for us to be tried.
If we knew naught of “the sufferings of this present time
” should we know “the
weight of glory which shall be revealed to usward” which they are meant to
bring forth? Let us beware
however
lest by our folly we add to our measure of
affliction
and thus constrain the Lord to humble and chasten us beyond His own
purpose.
III. The future. “To
do thee good at thy latter end.” The constant end of God is good. Faith reveals
to us and the Scriptures declare that “all things work together for good
” etc.
Even upon earth
whoever remembers all the way which the Lord his God hath led
him
finds at the end of each trial a mature fruit
“the peaceable fruit of
righteousness
” to be received ultimately. And what shall it be when the
fashion of this world hath passed away
and all the ends of the Lord with a
view to the final good of His saints shall be manifested? These forty years of
pilgrimage through the wilderness were a sore trial for Israel. But how
glorious was the day when at length they reached the end
and obtained the
reward of so much toil and suffering! Who
then
remembered the weariness of
the road save to praise Jehovah
who had led them to so goodly an inheritance?
For us also there shall be a crossing of Jordan and an entrance into the
heavenly Canaan
of which the earthly was but a feeble type. We
too
shall
have our day of triumph
a day when the sun
which marks the stages of our
journey
shall set amid the shadows of a last eventide
to rise again for us
radiant and cloudless for evermore. God’s purpose is to do us good at our
latter end! Forward
then
in peace and hope! Soon all things shall become new!
Faith today; sight tomorrow! Weariness now; rest by and by! Here the desert;
beyond the promised land! Forward! Excelsior! (Frank Coulin
D. D.)
Scorpions.
The scorpion
Our subject is the scorpion--a dreadful insect which is as full of
lessons as it is of venom. The scorpion is in reality a terrible kind of
spider
and has the venom claw at the end of its body
not in its jaw.
Scorpions do not look unlike lobsters
as we see them collected in a basket on
their way to the market. These uncomfortable creatures
the scorpions
manage
in some way to secrete themselves in hidden nooks and corners
and one
experienced in travelling in the East--where scorpions abound--will be careful
where he takes his seat until he has discovered whether there are any scorpions
or venomous spiders hidden under the rocks near where he may happen to be. The
scorpion has a peculiar venom
some of the larger scorpions being able to make
a man very ill
and even to kill him if he should be one subject to
inflammation. The scorpions were so much feared by the early Christians and the
apostles of our Lord
that we find tie promised them safety from their stings
and the bite of poisonous reptiles. So much
then
for the scorpion. Let us now
learn the lessons which this venomous creature teaches us.
I. First of all
we learn from the scorpion--the lesson of the hidden power of venom. Venomous
thoughts are thoughts of malice
and spite
and malignity; that is why we
always want to kill a viper
or a snake
or a black spider
because we know
that it is filled with venom
or poison
or some noxious material
which will
give us pain or perhaps cause our death. A venomous writer is one who is
malignant and mischievous. A venomous neighbour is one who is spiteful
and has
evil designs upon us. We don’t know how it is that we have this evil within us;
but it is very evident that in some way venom is within us
just as truly as it
is within the poisonous scorpion. Let us beware of this hidden power of venom
within us
for the poison as “of asps” is indeed under our lips.
II. The second
lesson we learn from the scorpion is--the lesson of the poisoning power of sin.
The following illustrates what we mean. In the chemical laboratories of our
colleges there are many experiments made which show us the wonderful power of a
single drop of poison. A great bottle of colourless water will become a thick
and clouded white in an instant by the addition of a single drop of the prepared
chemical; and one drop of poison
such as strychnia
will paralyse in an
instant a living being
such as the goldfish
turtles
and tadpoles which we
see in a vase of water. But none of these poisons is so powerful as the poison
of sin (James 1:15). I was reading
some time
ago
a story which shows us the poisoning power of sin. A man who wished to buy
a handsome ring went into a jeweller’s in Paris. The jeweller showed him a very
ancient gold ring
remarkably fine
and curious on this account
that on the
inside of it were two little lion’s claws. The buyer
while looking at the
others
was playing with this. At last he purchased another
and went away. But
he had scarcely reached home
when first his hand
then his side
then his
whole body became numb and without feeling
as if he had a stroke of palsy; and
it grew worse and worse
till the physician
who came in haste
thought him
dying. “You must have somehow taken poison
” he said. The sick man protested
that he had not. At length someone remembered this ring; and it was then
discovered to be what used to be called a death ring
and which was often
employed in those wicked Italian States three or four hundred years ago. If a
man hated another
and desired to murder him
he would present him with one of
them. In the inside was a drop of deadly poison
and a very small hole out of
which it would not make its way except when squeezed. When the poor man was
wearing it
the murderer would come and shake his hand violently
the lion’s
claw would give his finger a little scratch
and in a few hours he was a dead
man.
III. The third
and
last
lesson that we learn from the scorpion is--the lesson of the misery of
spitefulness. There is nothing in life so miserable and contemptible as the
spirit of spitefulness; that is
the spirit of envy at another’s success. There
is something spiteful and venomous about the bite of an insect or reptile: a
bite from a mosquito
a spider
or a snake will always make us think of the
spitefulness of the creature that has bitten us. (R. Newton
D. D.)
Who fed thee in the
wilderness with manna.--
The manna which humbled Israel
What was there in God’s gift of manna to humble Israel? We should
rather think it placed them in a high and distinguished rank among nations.
Whom else did God feed thus? It did exalt Israel; it did point him out and
distinguish him far above the Hittites or Jebusites
or even the voluptuous and
powerful Egyptians; and yet it humbled him. To humble is not to humiliate;
humility is not humiliation. When shall humility be at its height? When tears
and sighs and sickness and poverty have brought you down to the very grave? No
such thing. When death has paralysed every power of body
and perhaps shaken
the mind itself into a wreck? No such thing. When the world sneers and contemns
your piety
and calls you the filth and offscouring of all things? No such
thing. But look onward! look upward! Who are they falling down before Him that
sitteth upon the throne
and casting their crowns at His feet? They are
redeemed
and crowned
and glorified spirits; they are the most humble of our
race; humility is made perfect
not in sorrows and scoffs
but there
midst
harps and crowns and palms and songs. And since the Lord will thus perfect your
humility by crowning you and receiving you to heaven
it is no hard matter to
suppose that God might give Israel manna “to humble” them. The fact
then
is
certain; but how is it brought about? by what process did the manna humble
Israel? First of all it did so by the mystery of its dispensation; and thus
Moses distinctly calls it “manna which thy fathers knew not.” Neither Abraham
nor Isaac nor Jacob had seen such a thing; the oldest Israelite had never eaten
such food; it was “manna which thy fathers knew not.” And the Israelites then
alive were equally ignorant of its nature; with the manna actually before them
it was still a mystery to them. They could not tell how it came
or whence it
came
they simply could say they gathered it. And then there was the gathering
equally unaccountable. It was gathered in the morning
yet if any man should
grudge his daily labour of collecting it
and his daily recognition of Him who
gave it--if any man should try to make one morning’s collection do for two
days’ food
behold on the morrow his pot of manna is a pot of corruption
and
instead of food he finds worms. And then if any Israelite should dare to forget
or to outrage the Sabbath by not collecting a double portion on the sixth day
he finds the ground all bare; the wilderness is arid and fruitless as ever; for
bread he finds stones. But how did all this mystery humble them Why
it taught
them
and made them feel their own ignorance. Let the Jew take up that “small
round thing as small as the hoar frost on the ground
” and let him tell me how
it is made or whence it came. Not all the subtle learning of Egypt
which some
of them doubtlessly possessed
could teach them this lesson; that grain of food
is a puzzle for 603
000 men besides the Levites; the manna tended to humble
them. And so with you. True
you have no food sent and gathered in a most
incomprehensible manner; but every mercy you have which you do not understand
takes its place side by side with the manna
and on the self-same principle
ought to humble you. How
Christian
wast thou born again?
“The wind bloweth
where it listeth
” etc. And what is every step in the believer’s career but a
mystery of love--a mystery of grace? “Great is the mystery of godliness” great
in the work of redemption by Christ--great in the application of that work by
His Spirit--all
all
a great mystery from first to last. And shall we
standing as we do amidst the crowd of deep and awful truths--shall we
feeling
in our own hearts that love “which passeth knowledge
” and that power which
like a hidden magnet draws us to holiness and God--shall we
surrounded by the
“deep things of God”--shall we be aught else than nothing in our own sight?
But
again
the gift of manna tended to produce this humbling effect by its
greatness. I am not disposed to elevate the importance of the meat which
perisheth
or to prove the vastness of God’s gift to Israel by the fact that
myriads of lives depended on the regular supply of this food. Neither will I dwell
on the abundance in which manna strewed the spot of Israel’s encampment; there
was no lack in any tent of Jacob; the patriarch of a large family fared as well
as though he had been childless and alone. Want was unknown in that mighty
camp; all was plenty. Now this abundance alone would prove the greatness of
God’s gift; but we may rest our proof on higher grounds
and assert that
whatever the nature of the manna
and whether sparingly or profusely given
the
simple fact that God gave it makes it at once a great and unspeakable gift. A
present from a great man is esteemed great from the very greatness of the
donor. If the King were to give you some token of his regard
let it be
trifling as it will--a mere bauble--yet how highly would you prize it! a case of
gold is not too precious a casket for it. What
then
must be a gift from God!
The greatness therefore of Him who gave Israel manna
and the love which the
provision displayed
made it a great gift. But how did its magnitude tend to
humble Israel? Why
by calling to Israel’s continual remembrance their own
unworthiness
and God’s matchless and free mercy. And
surely the bounty of
your Lord affects you in the same way; it must teach you your unworthiness.
“The goodness of God leadeth you to repentance;” and thus Paul entreats the
Romans
“I beseech you by the mercies of God.” It must be a callous and a dead
heart which does not feel its baseness whilst filling itself with new and full
supplies of Divine goodness. The son may be hardened by rebuke or by punishment;
he may be callous to recollections of past affection and care; but often as he
holds out his hand to receive some gift of his pardoning father
that seared
conscience speaks
that hard heart breaks
that rebellious arm trembles
and he
who could dare a father’s curse shrinks and quails before a father’s gift
his
unworthiness pressing on him with a weight he never felt before
and mercy
accusing him more powerfully than all the reproaches which lips could utter.
And in spirituals you will find there is nothing which impresses the soul with
so deep a sense of guilt as a sense of Divine mercy. I may reckon up a long
catalogue of your sins; I may tell you of all the guilty deeds you have done
since childhood; but if I can
by the grace and power of the Spirit
put into
your heart one evidence of Christ’s love for sinners
I have done more towards
your conviction of guilt than if I had opened the two tables of law
and tried
your every act by the light of judgment. Sins will strike a man low
but God’s
mercies will gently lay him lower still. The penitent often sinks deeply and
more deeply in the slough of despond; but there is a place where his position
is lower still--it is the Cross of Christ; and when we need to learn or teach a
lesson of self-renunciation
you may depend upon it the best subject for study
is not the magnitude and the multitude of your sins alone
but the magnitude
and the multitude of the Lord’s mercies. (D. F. Jarman
M. A.)
Verse 18
Remember the Lord thy God
for it is He that giveth thee power to
get wealth.
To remember God is the way to get wealth
1. The duty enjoined. Thou shalt remember the Lord
etc.
1. In point of contemplation to remember Him
that is
to think of
Him
and to have Him often in our minds. There’s no man that forgets his
treasure; wherever that is
there will be also his heart
as our Saviour tells
us. We need not call upon worldly men to remember their gold and silver and riches
they will think upon these of their own accord
and all because such things as
these are dear with them. In like manner will it be with us to God; if He be
our treasure
we shall remember and daily think of Him
as it is fitting for us
to do.
2. As in point of contemplation
so also in point of affection. We
are said to remember anyone
not when barely we think upon him
but when we
think upon him with respect
when he is not only in our thoughts but in our
hearts. And thus likewise are we said to remember God.
3. In point of obedience to remember God is to be subject to Him
and
to do that which He requires. Those that Walk in ways of opposition and
contrariety to God
they are said to forget Him. Consider this ye that forget
God (Psalms 50:22).
4. In point of address and seeking to Him
and reliance and
dependence upon Him. When anything is to be done by us
or for us
that we be
sure to call upon God Himself for the prospering of it to us (Proverbs 3:5-6).
5. In point of thankfulness and acknowledgment we are then said to
remember God
when we own Him in all the mercies which we enjoy from Him. This
is the proper drift of this present Scripture
as we may see by the context
in
Deuteronomy 8:10-11
etc.
of this
chapter. When thou hast eaten and art full
thou shalt bless the Lord thy God
for the good land which He hath given thee. Beware that thou forget not the
Lord thy God
in not keeping His commandments and His judgments
etc. Because
indeed
it is that which we are naturally and commonly too prone and subject
unto.
II. The reason
annexed. For it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth
which passage may
be considered two ways. First
in its absolute consideration; and
secondly
in
its connexion. We will look upon it first of all in the former consideration
as it is absolute
and by way of proposition.
1. Emphatically. When it is said here He gives power
this power
it
may be said
laid forth according to sundry explications.
2. Exclusively. When it is said here that He gives this power
this
is to be taken not only emphatically
but exclusively; and so there are these
intimations in it.
The theology of money
What a blow this text strikes at one of the most popular and
mischievous fallacies in common life
namely
that man is the maker of his own
money! Men who can see God in the creation of worlds cannot see Him suggesting
an idea in business
smiling on the plough
guiding the merchant’s pen
and
bringing summer into a brain long winter-bound and barren. Lebanon and Bashan
are not more certainly Divine creations than are the wool and flax which cover
the nakedness of man. To the religious contemplation
the sanctified and
adoring mind
the whole world is one sky-domed church
and there is nothing
common or unclean. God wishes this fact to be kept in mind by His people. In this
instance
as in many others
God makes His appeal to recollection: “Thou shalt
remember.” The fact is to be ever present to the memory; it is to be as a star
by which our course upon troubled waters is to be regulated; it is to be a
mystic cloud in the daytime
a guiding fire in the night season. The rich
memory should create a rich life. An empty memory is a continual temptation.
Mark the happy consequences of this grateful recollection. First of all
God
and wealth are ever to be thought of together. “The silver and the gold are
Mine.” There is but one absolute proprietor. We hold our treasures on loan; we
occupy a stewardship. Consequent upon this is a natural and most beautiful
humility. “What hast thou that thou hast not received?” When the trader sits
down in the evening to count his day’s gains
he is to remember that the Lord
his God gave him power to get wealth. When the workman throws down the
instrument of his labour that he may receive the reward of his toil
he is to
remember that the Lord his God gave him power to get wealth. When the young man
receives the first payment of his industry
he is to remember that the Lord his
God gave him power to get wealth. Thus the getting of money becomes a sacred
act. This
then
is the fundamental principle upon which Christians are to
proceed
namely
that God giveth man power to get wealth
and consequently that
God sustains an immediate relation to the property of the world. Take the case
of a young man just entering business. If his heart is uneducated and
unwatched
he will regard business as a species of gambling; if his heart be
set upon right principles
lie will esteem business as a moral service
as the
practical side of his prayers
a public representation of his best desires and
convictions. In course of time the young man realises money on his own account.
Looking at his gold and silver
he says
“I made that.” There is a glow of
honest pride on his cheek. He looks upon the reward of his industry
and his
eyes kindle with joy. Whilst he looks upon his first-earned gold
the Bible
says to him gently and persuasively
“Thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for
it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth.” Instantly his view of property
is elevated
enlarged
sanctified. He was just about to say that his own arm
had gotten him the victory
and to forget that
through the image
is Caesar’s
yet the gold is God’s. What
then
is the natural line of thought through which
the successful man would run under such circumstances? It would lie in some
such direction as this: What can be the meaning of this word “remember”? Does
it not call me to gratitude? Is it not intended to turn my heart and my eye
heavenward? As God has given me “power to get wealth
” am I not bound to return
some recognition of His goodness and mercy? “Honour the Lord with thy
substance
and with the first fruits
of all thine increase.” Supposing this to
be done
what is the result which is promised to accrue? That result is stated
in terms that are severely logical: “So shall thy barns be filled with plenty
and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” The text has called us to an
act of remembrance
and in doing so has suggested the inquiry whether there is
any such act of remembrance on the part of God Himself? The Scripture is abundant
in its replies to this inquiry: “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work
and labour of love
which ye have showed towards His name
in that ye have
ministered to the saints
and do minister.” Jesus Christ Himself has laid down
the same encouragement with even minuter allusion: “Whosoever shall give to
drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a
disciple
verily I say unto you
he shall in no wise lose his reward.” (J.
Parker
D. D.)
The philosophy of worldly success
1. How worldly success is to be obtained. By strict obedience to
God’s laws; by this only. Work is what He demands
and work is the only
condition under which the prize may be won.
2. The nature of the profit we are to look for. Not merely worldly
profit. No life so dreary
so deadly as that of the mere millionaire. The joys
of the true man’s life he cannot taste; the holy fellowships of spiritual being
he cannot enter
: God stamps him reprobate. There is a vast wealth of faculty
in him
“fusting” from want of use. And power unused soon gets acrid
and
mordant
and gnaws and wears within.
3. Why we should remember the Lord God. Because--
God acknowledged
When Speaker Crooke was presented to Queen Elizabeth in the House
of Lords on the occasion of his election
he said that England had been
defended against the Spaniards and their Armada by Her Majesty’s mighty arm.
The Queen interrupted him and from her throne
said: “No; but by the mighty
hand of God
Mr. Speaker.”
God the original source of wealth
He that would thus critically examine his estate upon
interrogatories
put every part of it upon the rack and torture to confess
without any disguise from whence it came
whether down the ladder from heaven
or up out of the deep--for there it seems by the poets Plutus or riches hath a
residence also--by what means it was conveyed
by whose directions it travelled
into that coast
and what the end of its coming is
and so learn the genealogy
as it were of all his wealth
would certainly acknowledge that he were fallen
upon a most profitable inquiry. For beside that he would find out all the
ill-gotten treasure
that gold of Toulouse that is so sure to help melt all the
rest
that which is gotten by sacrilege
by oppression
by extortion
and so
take timely advice to purge his lawful inheritance from such noisome
unwholesome acquisitions
and thrive the better forever after the taking so
necessary a purgation--he will
I say
over and above see the original of all
his wealth
all that is worthy to be called such
either immediately or
mediately from God
immediately without any cooperation of ours
as that which
is left to us by inheritance from honest parents--our fortunes and our
Christianity together
mediately as that which our lawful labour
our planting
and watering hath brought down upon us
wholly from God’s prospering or giving
of increase.
If thou do at all forget the Lord.
Forgetfulness of God
destruction to the Soul
I. What is that
forgetfulness of god of which the present effects on our moral and religious
character are so highly injurious
and of which the future consequences in
regard to our eternal prospects are so dreadfully fatal.
1. If any persons can rise up and lie down
go out and come in
day
after day
and week after week
with scarcely a transient thought of Him whose
hand has sustained them
whose long-suffering has borne with them
and whose
bountiful goodness has supplied their various wants
those persons are clearly
chargeable with forgetfulness of the Lord their God.
2. The same guilt must also lie at our door
if we are habitually
unmindful of the attributes of God; and
particularly
of His omnipresence.
3. The same may justly be said of him who allows himself to think of
his Creator under a different character from that in which He has revealed
Himself to mankind in His holy Word.
II. The fearful
doom which is denounced in the words of the text against those who are guilty
of the sins there forbidden. The expression
“to perish
” when used in the
Scriptures in a judicial sense
to describe the punishment of sin
does not
mean the suffering of temporal death only--it further signifies the spiritual
death of man’s immortal part. (C. Townsend
M. A.)
A caution against forgetfulness of God
I. Men are liable
to forget god.
1. We infer our liability to forget God
from the mysteriousness of
His nature.
2. We infer our liability to forget God
from the moral dislike we
have to Him.
3. We infer our liability to forget God
from the facts that fall
under our notice.
4. We infer our liability to forget God
from the testimonies of the
Scriptures (Psalms 10:4; Psalms 14:1-3; Job 21:14-15; Romans 1:28).
II. Forgetfulness
of god is an evil against which we should be peculiarly on our guard. This is
the intimation in the text
and the reasons on which it is founded are--
1. They who forget God must necessarily remain ignorant of Him.
2. They who forget God must necessarily disobey Him.
3. They who forget God must necessarily prove ungrateful to Him.
4. They who forget God must necessarily be punished by Him (Psalms 9:17; Judges 3:7-8).
III. Means should be
used for the avoidance of this heinous crime. This is the object of the charge:
“Beware that thou forget not
” etc.
1. Serious consideration should be exercised on all the things that
belong unto our peace.
2. Fervent and unremitting prayer should be offered up to God for a
change of heart.
3. We should constantly avoid those things which tend to exclude God
from our thoughts.
4. Let us use all the means which tend to turn our thoughts towards
God. Let us associate with the pious--frequent religious ordinances--read God’s
most holy Word--contemplate death
judgment
and eternity. In conclusion--
Gratitude and ingratitude toward God
Such a passage belongs to the prophetico-historical order. The
warnings are repeated with added force in chap. 28. The experience of Israel
brings this general lesson
that the thought of the Divine goodness should lead
men to show thankful gratitude to God
and to offer Him a willing service.
Notice--
I. The
reasonableness of rendering a grateful service to god.
1. In the case of Israel the propriety for such a grateful service is
clearly seen. All men owe obedience to God; but we should expect a highly
favoured people like Israel to render it in a high degree. Israel had been
brought from slavery to freedom
and were promised and received as their
inheritance a land most highly favoured.
2. Above all
the system of moral law and social order
and the
Divine rule of the theocracy elevated them far above surrounding nations. In
view of it all
there was reason that the people should yield to God a grateful
service.
3. If the Israelites had reason for this
much more we. What was
Britain when Imperial Rome held sway? What is it now
when Rome and many
another proud dominion are but names? Do we not owe our higher light and
liberty to the truth and freedom of the Gospel? As a nation we owe our God
thankful gratitude and service.
4. As individual members of a great Christian people we owe gratitude
to God. Contrast our condition with the savage tribes discovered by a
Livingstone or Stanley; with the higher yet still idolatrous and superstitious
Hindu; with a cannibal of the race so graphically described by a John G. Paten
or the semi-barbarous Chinaman with his history reaching far into the past ages
before our own began
but who yet has not risen above the grossest superstition
and a most materialistic idea of existence. Contrast our blessings alike
bestowed on cottage and palace
with the darkness that prevails among the
peoples
and reason will be found for the exercise of grateful service.
II. The sin of
ingratitude.
1. The passage warns us against the danger of receiving and enjoying
the gifts at the risk of forgetting the Divine Giver; all thought and energy
are not to be applied to the acquisition of more and more of the gifts of this
life to use them for our own use
etc.
2. Into this sin Israel fell. They became practical materialists.
Even after the return from Babylon their enthusiasm for God’s work soon faded (Haggai 1:1-15). So was it in our Lord’s
day; and the ingratitude was then heightened by hypocrisy (Matthew 21:33-46; Matthew 23:26-39). Self and their own
ease and glory were to them in reality
first; loving service toward God shown
in works of love to their fellow men was far from them.
3. Is not this the spirit of too many in our time? There is a
perpetual striving after the gains and pleasures of time
not that they may
better serve God and become better men and women
but that they may have more
of ease
more of the passing fleeting joys of this brief existence. This
feature is seen in every class of the community. The socialistic schemes of the
toiling millions are simply attempts to gain the kingdom of the material. But
material possessions gained and received without due thankfulness to God and
endeavours in His service
turn to dust and ashes in the using. Whereas if
received with thankful hearts and used in His service
they may be transmuted
and transformed into spiritual treasures
eternally enduring.
III. The effect of
cultivating the spirit of gratitude or its opposite on material and individual
life.
1. When a nation
in its government and institutions
publicly
acknowledges its indebtedness to God
and makes public profession of loyalty to
Him
God shall add to its blessings. Examples are not wanting.
2. So with individuals. God may not send material wealth
etc. But He
will give them reasons for the joyful assurance that He is with them
and of
the certainty of His promises. Hope for time
and assured hope for eternity.
The effect will be closer communion and more consecrated service.
3. Far other is the effect of forgetting God whilst receiving His
gifts. Remember how it was with Israel (Isaiah 1:3; Matthew 23:38-39). Hardness of heart
material living
God-forgetfulness
idolatry--these were the steps of descent.
Nothing so tends to harden the heart and quench the spiritual life than
God-forgetfulness and ingratitude in using the Divine gifts. There are still
too many who reap luxuriant fields without due gratitude to Him who sent
sunshine and rain
etc.
who attribute their success
wealth
etc.
to their own
skill and industry
who add possession to possession without one thought of
using them beyond the narrow circle of their own lives.
4. The Divine rule is the only safe one: “Seek ye first the kingdom
of God
” etc. (Matthew 6:33). Let the soul be right with
God through forgiveness
etc.
in Christ
then we shall be guided to seek and
enabled to find what is best for our mortal life
and will best avail us in
thankfully doing our Heavenly Master’s work. (Wm. Frank Scott.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》