ARE you ready, girls, for another chat about the stars? You have been waiting for me, you say? I am very glad to hear that, for I am afraid we shall not be able to go outside to look at any tonight, it seems cloudy and dull, and I can show you nothing in the actual heavens. So instead of that we will look at “the star of the East," and the One to whom that star pointed.
We read of this star as first telling the Magi, or wise men, that the “hope of Israel ' was come to Zion, though the people of Zion did not know or receive Him—saw no beauty in Him, no beauty in His brightness, for they loved their own darkness. Now let us see how they learned of His appearing in that holy land of promise.
Can we not imagine that down the rugged mountains that surround the city of the great King, along its narrow winding streets, came a company of bright-eyed, swarthy-cheeked strangers from the East? Princes, in their own far off land, perhaps, for they bear royal treasures amongst the things that lade their camels' backs. But what are they asking of the wondering group of Jews and Romans who throng around them as they dismount from their camels, glad, no doubt, that the long desert journey is ended at last?
Listen to their question: “Where is he that is born king of the Jews, for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him.”
The king of the Jews! why, they were no longer possessed of a king; as far as they knew, they were ruled over by the Romans, and the only king they knew was Caesar, and Herod, whom they hated. But was it possible that Jehovah had remembered His people whom He had cast off for their sins, and was Messiah really going to appear and save them from the tyranny of their cruel oppressors?
All these and many other such thoughts, may have passed through the minds of those who heard the words of the travelers. And so it was that these wise men found no answer at first to their question; for they had come into the midst of a people who did not even know where their own king was to be born.
Only the scribes and rulers knew, it was their business to study the law: The common people never troubled much about reading the law or the prophets. Why should they? they heard it on Sabbath days in the synagogues, that was all they had time for; and as these and similar words may have fallen from the lips of the gazers there, it must have reminded them, I think—this question of the eastern strangers—of their sin and folly in giving up the blessed law of Jehovah. Reminded them that Judea was captive, that the chosen people of Jehovah, and Zion the perfection of beauty, were trodden under foot by a people from a far off country of the Gentiles; so they were troubled, and as they spoke of these strangers coming on their mysterious journey, the news spread from one to the other, till all Jerusalem had heard. Many a Jewish schoolboy, I have no doubt, went home that night to tell the news he had heard in the streets.
At any rate, it passed from lip to lip, till it even reached the stately palace where the cruel, crafty Idumean, Herod, who hated the Jews as much as they feared and hated him, was holding his court under Roman power.
Surely such news would not affect him?
Ah, but it did, and he was troubled, too; for if these strange men were right, and the true king of the Jews was coming at last, why, it would cast him down from his borrowed greatness, and he had no mind to give up the purple and gold of royalty—not he.
And so it was that he set to work to get all the wise scribes together that they might tell him where the Messiah was to be born. And they could tell him; for God had had it all plainly written down long ages before, that whoever sought might find. And so at last the strangers got the answer, and they heard that not at far-famed Jerusalem was Jehovah's anointed King to be born into this world. How must they have wondered, surely, those wise men, when they saw the trouble their visit caused; and glad, I know they were, when they turned their backs upon poor fallen, guilty, yet lovely Jerusalem, and set their faces towards Bethlehem.
And now hear the glad words of surprise and delight that they utter as they see shining above them a glittering star, the very same star that they had seen in the East!
Can you not imagine their joy, and as they see it gleaming brightly over their heads, how it would assure them that they were watched over by the only One who could command the stars? And as the celestial guide moves on before them, do you not think they would follow in awe-struck silence, on and on up the winding hillside, past the groves of cedar and fig trees, past the vineyards and olive gardens that lie outside the holy city? until at last the star stays its shining course over the lowly place where He who came to save His people from their sins, was first "God manifest in flesh"—the young child who came in such lowly guise, that none but those who saw with the eye of faith could pierce through the veil that hid His glory, and see that
“To Him belong'd the words,
King of kings, and Lord of lords.’
But it was true. He who was lying there in that manger, was the same One that created the world; this world, that when formed by His word, when as it were, it was fresh from His hand, He Himself had looked upon it and pronounced it to be very good. But this world, and we ourselves as forming part of it, had gone away from God; who would call us back? No angel could reach us, no angelic voice could pierce the hard hearts that hated God, yes, hated Him even to death. And so God's own Son “came from Godhead's highest glory," and entered this earth in the form of a servant; and in the lowly spot where He chose to make His entry into the world of darkness, the wise men find Him, and all their longings are now fulfilled, the object of their pilgrimage gained. And they pour out all their gifts at His feet.
I wonder very often how much they knew; to us now as we look back in the light of all that God has revealed in His word, it seems as if they must have known and believed a very great deal. What did the treasures signify that they had brought from their own country to present before Him, as gifts to the One whom they worshipped now? By the gold His royal birth was owned; for by it they owned that He was a king. The frankincense, or incense, was to be offered to God alone. Did they then know Him, whom they saw lying in the form of a little child, as the Mighty God? Ah! we do not know; but it always seems to me that, led of divine power as these wise men were—for the star was just God's messenger to guide them—they must have been led, too, in the choice of their gifts. And so I delight to think that these star-led travelers really owned the truth that the Child of Bethlehem was the Creator God.
Then what did myrrh point to? Well, we know that it was the one ingredient used in embalming the dead that was most indispensable, and these men, perhaps, looked past all the long pathway of thirty-three years of loving toil in going about doing good, that was to be trodden by the One before whom they bowed, and they looked on to that one day that stands alone in the history of the world. When the mighty sun was darkened, when darkness was over all the earth, because He who made the world, who even then was upholding all things by the word of His power, had been taken by wicked hands, and lifted up between heaven and earth on that dreadful cross, there crucified—dying—dead.
Ah! well may tears come to our eyes as we think of it! Well may we bow down in adoration, and shame, too, for oh, dear young friends, it was for us—we of the race of Adam throughout this guilty world. It was for us He stooped to death, even the death of the shameful cross. Have you ever thanked Him for it, owned Him as your Lord, your God, your Savior through death as these wise men did? Have you? It is the only way to get into the light out of the region of death and darkness. Will you let this star of the East do for you what it did for those wise men—lead you to the feet of the only Savior? Will you? or shall it be only a pleasant story merely, leaving your heart untouched?
Listen now to a voice of warning from our star, let it speak to you tonight; of what does it tell us? Far away through the mist of centuries it tells me that there stood a man on the lofty peak of Mount Peor, in the land of Moab, uttering some of the saddest words that ever fell from human lips.
Listen to him as he stands on the hill-top, surrounded by the rude pomp and state of the king and princes of Moab: “I shall see him, but not now, I shall behold him, but not nigh."Just think of uttering such words, to know that he would one day see the only One who could redeem him, but not now, now is the day of salvation; he would behold Him, but not nigh, not brought nigh by the blood of Christ; but when he is raised from the dead and stands before the great white throne to hear his doom from the lips of the Judge who might have been his Friend. Do you not agree with me that these words of Balaam are some of the saddest ever spoken? Then he went on to say, “there shall come a star out of Jacob and a scepter shall rise out of Israel," a scepter or king. And I have very little doubt but that his words were known to the magi of the East, and when they saw the star, they at once connected it with the prophecy, and believed that the king must also have appeared to His people in that land that the nations of the earth knew was the promised land to Jehovah's peculiar people. And so they set out on their long, weary desert journey to find Him “of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did speak—Jesus of Nazareth the king of the Jews.”
Well, has all this no voice for us to-day? Does it not tell us that God will have His Son honored? And it also tells us how He delights to lead on those who are really seeking Him. And if His own people are not ready, a new world, a star, shall have the honor of leading the seekers to the feet of God's Anointed. Does not the voice ask us, too, whether we have honored this glorious One, whether we know anything of the earnestness that leads us through any and every difficulty, to Christ Himself, never satisfied till we bow before Him, and own Him as the One who has gained everything for us, whom we long to know better, to follow fully!
Some of you do really want to belong to Him—are you saying this, dear young friends? Well, what hinders? Are you thinking that your companions will laugh and jeer at you, and you cannot stand that? And you know the things you are so fond of now would have to be given up. Is that what you are thinking? Take care! oh, take care!
Those excuses kept me from Christ many a day and year, and caused me such bitter sorrow as I would fain save you from.
Do you know where those thoughts come from? Why, straight from Satan himself, to keep you in his kingdom.
Now just pass over in your minds the next hundred years or thousand years. Where will you be then if you let these thoughts keep you away from God—from the Light of life? Shall I tell you? In hell you will lift up your eyes, being in torments. Set that against the trifles that hinder you now! are they worth thinking of? And let me tell you this, that those who obey the word, who own that in themselves they are guilty and lost, and so flee for refuge to God's Savior for the lost, they find that in the exceeding joy and sweetness of being one of "His own," all these things that hinder and seem so terrible now are scarcely noticed at all.
Who mind being laughed at when they have the arm of their Savior to lean upon? and who would mind giving up the rags of this world in exchange for the best robe of heaven? No, dear girls and boys, if you obey God's word and "believe on him whom he hath sent," you will have quite enough to think about, in the joy that will pour into your heart, to walk about in this world, and to know that you, too, are one of "Christ's own." As a young girl wrote me some months ago, “I am so very happy now, and I do not belong to this world at all, for I belong to Jesus—for I have taken of the water of Life, and I am His forever.”
Now which shall it be for you? Christ, and happiness, and heaven; or, the world and the pleasures of sin for a while, and then hell—hell forever and ever?