NEARLY every child knows What a tent, or tabernacle, is. It is a sort of portable house, usually made of canvas or goat's hair, and used by people of wandering habits, such as the Turkomans, or Arabs. Tents were used even before the Flood; and we read that Jabal "was the father of such as dwell in tents." (Gen. 4:2020And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle. (Genesis 4:20).) The patriarchs, who represented the people of God, in the early days of the world's history, were dwellers in tents. They had no settled home in a world that was full only of sin and sorrow. "Abraham removed... unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent." (Gen. 12:88And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Beth-el, and pitched his tent, having Beth-el on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. (Genesis 12:8).) "Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents." (Gen. 25:2727And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. (Genesis 25:27).) "And Isaac pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there." (Gen. 26:1717And Isaac departed thence, and pitched his tent in the valley of Gerar, and dwelt there. (Genesis 26:17).) What a contrast between these three tent-men and the murderer Cain! Cain, who wanted to do without God, "builded a city." (Gen. 4:1616And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. (Genesis 4:16).) Abraham "by faith... sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Heb. 11:9, 109By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: 10For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:9‑10).) Cain built himself a city; the patriarchs waited for a city which God would build for them. Meanwhile, they were content to be as pilgrims in the world, moving their tents from place to place, as they passed through it, and looking upon it as a desert land, a waste, howling wilderness.
The Israelites, until they got into Canaan, were dwellers in tents. When Balaam went to the top of Mount Peor to curse them, he "lifted up his eyes and.... saw Israel abiding in his tents;" and instead of cursing them he blessed them, and was moved to exclaim, "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!" (Num. 24:2-52And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents according to their tribes; and the spirit of God came upon him. 3And he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said, and the man whose eyes are open hath said: 4He hath said, which heard the words of God, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: 5How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! (Numbers 24:2‑5).) But directly the people got into Canaan their tent life came to an end, for the wilderness journey was over, and they could settle down in the shelter of more substantial houses.
Now, every Christian, dear reader, is a pilgrim—a pilgrim through a wilderness of sorrow, sin, and death—and he has his tent, which he must carry about with him to the end of his journey. If you are a Christian you have your tent; and I will tell you what it is. It is your body. Yes, your body. St. Paul says that, "We know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;" and he is speaking of a believer's body. Often he found his own tent very heavy to carry; and we hear him saying, "We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened" (2 Cor. 5:1, 41For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)
4For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. (2 Corinthians 5:4)); and I am sure that this is the language, more or less, of every Christian pilgrim. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; and who, among the children of God, would not welcome such a change?
In eastern countries a great deal of money is sometimes spent on tents. I have read of a king of Persia, who "caused a tent to be made that cost £150,000. It was called the ‘House of Gold,’ because there was nothing but gold that glistened in every part of it." I have heard, also, of a magnificent tent, which was covered on the outside with scarlet cloth, and on the inside with violet-colored satin, and ornamented with animals and flowers, formed, of precious stones and pearls. Another tent was lined with camel's hair, took three years to build, and cost 25,000 piasters.
But the tent which a Christian carries is not to be so adorned. Our bodies are bodies of sin and humiliation, and are not worth lavishing money upon. I know some little people who are very fond of adorning themselves with trinkets and gay dresses; but then, I am sorry to say, they are not Christians, and on that account they can scarcely be expected to know better. Christians are told not to let their adorning "be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price." And so St. Paul tells the women to adorn themselves with "modest apparel," "not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;" but, I am afraid, his words are often forgotten now-a-days, even by Christians.
But although a Christian should not adorn the outside of his tent, he has a Guest inside of it, which more than makes up for the plain exterior. And who is that? you ask. It is the Holy Spirit of God. "Know ye not," says the apostle Paul, "that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you?”
What! you say, a Person in a person. How can that be? Well, dear reader, did you ever read the Bible story of the man with the unclean spirits? You may read all about him in the fifth chapter of Mark; and if you look at the verses carefully you will find that these wicked spirits were actually dwelling in the man, and further, that they could both hear and speak. Now, if wicked spirits could take up their abode in people in this way, could not the Holy Spirit of God do the same? To be sure He could. Every believer in Jesus, then, carries about with him this divine Person; and it is His gracious office to comfort, counsel, and correct us, as well as to teach us how to worship God and pray to Him. When our hearts are troubled it is He who comforts them; when they are needing guidance it is He who illuminates them; when they are getting cold and careless it is He who revives them, for He takes "of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us." (John 16:1414He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you. (John 16:14).) As worshippers He leads our praises; as suppliants at the throne of grace He gives us right words to utter; and when the difficulties of the way so crush our hearts that we cannot pray at all, he "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." What a wondrous Guest to carry about in these tents of ours, is He not? How careful this should make us in all we think, or say, or do! Though He is always with us, and can never be taken from us, we may grieve Him; and if we grieve Him, all our happiness for the time is gone.
But there is another dweller in our tents besides the gracious Guest of whom I have just spoken-not as a guest, however, for he has, lived in us since the day of our birth-and that is Self. He is a greedy, worthless monster, who has a great idea of his own importance, and will lead us into all sorts of trouble if we are not careful. The Bible has another name for Self, and that is the flesh. He is told to make no provision for it (Rom. 13:1414But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. (Romans 13:14)), "but to starve it, trample it under foot, and not allow it to have a voice." "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh," and on that account we may treat it like a dead person. Directly we allow it to become active, and begin coddling it with the sinful pleasures of the world, we stir up strife in the tent; "for the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." (Gal. 5:1717For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. (Galatians 5:17).) If we would be of service to others, we must walk in the Spirit, and not fulfill the lusts of the flesh; but we cannot do this so long as we are making excuses for our bad tempers, our pride, our selfishness, and so on. "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Gal. 5:22,2322But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. (Galatians 5:22‑23)); and if we were only “filled with the Spirit,” as God would have us to be, what a tent full of happiness would be ours!
Now that I have brought you into the desert, or wilderness, I should like to speak a little more on this subject. Did you ever hear of a mirage? Well, I will tell you a story of one, or, at least, will let the traveler himself, who saw the mirage, tell you the story in his own words. Having related how he entered the Egyptian Desert in company with some friends, and told of what happened during the first few miles of his journey, he continues: "By degrees the conversation flowed into another channel, and our imagination became occupied by the singular features of the landscape. Here and there the rocks, though never rising to any great height, put on the appearance of houses, fortresses, or ruined castles, perched on gray cliffs, overhanging ravines, narrow and tortuous, whose mouths only presented themselves to the eye as we passed. To these succeeded broad, flinty, or sandy valleys; long reaches, like the bed of a great river, between bare, stony mountains, alternating with extensive plains of sand or gravel; hillocks of various colors; and winding tracks through passes, where a few Bedouins might easily rout a whole caravan I had been riding along in a reverie, when, chancing to raise my head, I thought I perceived, desertwards, a dark strip on the far horizon. What could it be? My companion, who had very keen sight, was riding in advance of me, and, with a sudden exclamation, he pulled up his dromedary, and gazed in the same direction. I called to him, and asked him what he thought of yonder strip, and whether he could make out anything in it distinctly. He answered, that water had all at once appeared there; that he saw the motion of the waves, and tall palms and other trees, bending, up and down over them, as if tossed by a strong wind. An Arab was at my side, with his face muffled up in his burnous. I roused his attention, and pointed to the object of our inquiry. “Mashallah!” cried the old man, with a face as if he had seen a ghost, and stared with all his might across the desert. All the other Arabs of the party evinced no less emotion; and our interpreter called out to us, that what we saw was the evil spirit of the desert, that led travelers astray, luring them farther and farther into the heart of the waste, ever retreating before them as they pursued it, and not finally disappearing till its deluded victims had irrecoverably lost themselves in the pathless sands. This, then, was the mirage. My companion galloped towards it, and followed him, though the Arabs tried to prevent us; and, ere long, I could, with my own eyes, discern something of this strange phenomenon. It was, as my friend had reported, a broad sheet of water, with fresh green trees along its banks; and yet there was nothing actually before us but parched yellow sand. The apparition occasioned us all very uncomfortable feelings, and yet we congratulated ourselves on having seen, for once, the desert wonder.
“The phenomenon really deserves the name the Arabs give it, of Goblin of the Desert; an evil spirit that beguiles the wanderer from the safe path, and mocks him with a false show of what his heated brain paints in glowing colors. Whence comes it that this illusion at first fills with uneasiness, I might say, with dismay, those even who ascribe its existence to natural causes! On a spot where the bare sands spread out for hundreds of miles, where there is neither tree nor shrub, nor a trace of water, there suddenly appeared before us groups of tall trees, proudly girding the running stream, on whose waves we saw the sunbeams dancing. Hills clad in pleasant green rose before us, and vanished; small houses, and towns with high hills and ramparts, were visible among the trees, whose tall boles swayed to and fro in the wind like reeds.
“Far as we rode in the direction of the apparition, we never came any nearer to it. The whole seemed to recoil, step for step, with our advance. We halted, and remained long in contemplation of the magic scene, until whatever was unpleasant in its strangeness ceased, by degrees, to affect us. Never had I seen any landscape so vivid as this seeming one; never water so bright, or trees so softly green, so tall and stately. Everything seemed far more charming there than in the real world; and so strongly did we feel this attraction, that, although we were not driven by thirst to seek for water where water there was none; still we would willingly have followed on and on after the phantom; and thus we could well conceive how the despairing wanderer, who, with burning eyes, thinks he gazes on water and human dwellings, will struggle onward to his last gasp to reach them, until his fearful, lonely doom befalls him.
“We returned slowly to our Arabs, who had not stirred from the spot where we left them. Looking back once more into the desert, we saw the apparition gradually becoming fainter, until at last it melted away into a dim hand, not unlike a thin mist sweeping over the face of a field.”
The Christian pilgrim, traveling through the desert scenes of this world, will sometimes see the mirage. When he first becomes a pilgrim, his thoughts are all of Christ; his affections are set on things above, where Christ is; he is "looking unto Jesus," the Author and Finisher of his faith; and so the wilderness through which he is passing, affects him but very little. Presently, however, he gets a little weary; he sees difficulties and dangers around him, which he never saw while he was looking off to Jesus; and then he begins to chafe and fret, and to sigh a little for the pleasures which he had forsaken when he became a Christian. And then the evil spirit of the desert, Satan, conjures up before him a beautiful mirage, and beguiling him from the safe path, leads his stumbling and half willing feet towards it. At first the sight fills him with uneasiness and dismay; he knows that he is doing wrong, and will have to suffer for it; but his eyes are off their proper Object, and he will not look away from the false but beauteous scene towards which he is hastening. Farther and farther he wanders from the narrow path, and his eyes get more and more fascinated with the garish picture; but as he advances it recedes before him, and presently he begins to find that, with all his efforts, he can get no pleasure from it after all. It is only a mirage. In the days before he became a pilgrim, things were different; the world could give him a little pleasure then; he could squeeze a certain amount of happiness (sinful happiness, of course) out of it; but now, the pleasure vanishes at his approach, and he cannot grasp it. Somehow or other everything below seems changed; the world is not a bit like what it was; and he finds that there is no longer any possibility (so far as he is concerned) of getting satisfaction out of it; and that which was once so real to him, is no longer a reality: it is a mirage, a delusion, a snare.
And now, with shamed face and sorrowful heart, he turns once more towards the One from whom he has wandered, whose love he has trifled with, and whose heart he has grieved. But he finds Him still unchanged. He finds that He who loved him yesterday, loves him to-day, in spite of all his wanderings; and then he begins to learn the meaning of those words, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." (Heb. 13:88Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8).) And so, with a baser opinion of himself, but with a deeper sense of the grace which shines in Jesus, he again prepares to follow in His steps. He knows that Jesus has trodden all the way before Him; and he knows, too, that his path can never be so lonely as was the path of that lonely One, so he gains new confidence, and continues his pilgrimage journey. Gladly he sings:"
There is not a trace on the wilderness sands,
Where the foot of a saint hath trod:
No marks have they left who have pass'd on before,
Save the word of a faithful God.
There is not a trace on the wilderness sands,
Save the steps of the Son of God.
“My eye must be upwards, afar from the world,
In this desert I find no cheer;
The footsteps of Jesus are under the cloud,
Yet my eye must be fix'd up there.
There is not a trace on the wilderness sands.
Save the steps of the Son of God.”