THE PILLAR OF FIRE AND TONGUES OF FIRE
"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.... And there appeared unto them tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them."—Acts 2
WHAT a thrice wonderful moment it is for the soul in the Land of Loneliness when the blessed Light of God shows it the shelter of the blood of Christ! I once stood under an archway while a sudden thunder shower swept the streets, with mingled rain and hail. "Sheltered," I said to myself as I watched the streaming gutters, "sheltered; and so am I sheltered by Christ from the storm of divine judgment." It was true, but oh, how little I knew! Yet that little made me very happy. The soul in its Land of Loneliness, where no one sees it but God, where no one hears it but God, congratulates its idol Self on being sheltered from the righteous judgment of a holy God. "Saved!" it cries; "saved from death and judgment through the mercy of my righteous God." But is that all No; it would be a poor thing if you were left to dwell in the gloomy Land of Loneliness, afar from the God who has saved you. When Israel had fed on the Lamb "roast with fire," they were not left to find their way out of Egypt as best they could. The Fire that Abraham had seen coming in through the avenue of Death, the Fire that Moses had seen glowing in the mountain bush, that Fire could come nigh them, through the death of the Passover Lamb, and not consume them; it came to be to them their Guide, their Guard, their Comfort. It came to lead them out of the house of bondage home to God.
Do you remember how the Pillar of cloud and of fire led them to the borders of the Red Sea? and how, when they heard the roar of the pursuing host of Egypt, and cried out in their terror, it passed quickly from before them, and took up its post behind them, standing betwixt them and the foe while they passed through the sea? Jehovah was there, shrouded in that fiery glow; for we are told that He looked from out of it upon the foe, and fought for His redeemed people. The Egyptians had entered upon the domain of Death unsheltered by the Passover Blood, and the roar of the advancing waves as they closed over them told Israel that Jehovah had fought for them, and had redeemed them unto Himself.
When the Israelites came up on to the shore on the other side of the Red Sea, they were like a people that had gone through death, and had come to life on the other side of it. They were free. And then it was, if you remember, that they began to sing; and their song was not about themselves, it was about Jehovah. "The Lord hath triumphed gloriously," was the song; and we are told that all these things "are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the age are come" (1 Cor. 10:1111Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. (1 Corinthians 10:11)).
Now, I daresay you have sometimes wished, as I used to do, that you could go on pilgrimage on the earth, with the fiery cloud in front of you, rather than have this spiritual pilgrimage of which we are talking. But, believe me, it is just as real as the other. Do you think God has left your soul alone to find your way out of the Land of Loneliness as best you can? Oh, no! His Light and His Fire are with you, just as surely as the Pillar of cloud and of fire swept on before Israel's host. Listen. John the Baptist said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with Fire" (Matt. 3:1111I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire: (Matthew 3:11)). And not long after Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us, and after His disciples had seen Him rise from earth to heaven on the Mount of Promise, with the roar like as of a rushing mighty wind, God the Holy Ghost came down to earth. He came down heralded by wind and Fire. The Fire of God fell, and "cloven tongues like as of fire" sat upon each head of those men and women gathered together in that blood-stained city of Jerusalem.
Did a "horror of deep darkness," such as Abraham felt, fall upon those orphan souls as that Fire fell? No. Did they hear the warning Voice n of mercy that Moses heard out of the midst of the burning bush crying, "Draw not nigh"? No. Did they hear the voice of the demanding trumpet pealing from its throne of fire and smoke, on Sinai's Mount, crying, "Keep afar off! Keep afar off!"? No. The tongues like as of fire rested on each believer's head, and crowned each feeble brow with a glory not of earth. For where the Fire of God could rest the Holy Spirit of God could dwell, and He entered in through the avenue of Death to testify that the "Jesus" whom Adam's race had crucified in weakness on Calvary's Cross of shame was the Son of God, and that He had been raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, and that He sat a Man, at the right hand of God. He came to tell that Christ was there a Victor over Satan, death, and judgment, as head of a new creation which He would form according to the purpose of God, out of Himself, as the Last Adam. And strange, new realities were thus to burst upon their souls, for He had come through the avenue of Death, to reveal to their hearts that secret purpose of God, formed ere the world was, that their souls should live, and pass by His power from the Land of Loneliness into the joys of Relationship. He had come to be their Guide, their Guard, their Comfort on their journey through the world; to make good in them all that had been accomplished for them. The mighty Power of God had come in through the death of Christ to save them.
But was that wonderful Gift only for them? No; every believer is indwelt by the same Spirit, for God sets His seal on every one who believes, and the Holy Spirit is His seal.
What does a seal mean? I once had some very valuable papers given to me. I was told to put them into a deed-box, and place the box at the bank. When I reached the bank, the manager said, "Have you sealed the box?" "No," I answered. "We prefer to have it sealed," he answered. So I had to get some sealing wax, and make a seal upon the cord, and then to stamp the hot wax with my own name. That seal showed that all that was in that box was my very own. Now, God sets His seal on every believer. Do you think He would set His holy seal upon a heap of sins? Never. He has purged the sins away by the blood of Jesus, and He sets His seal upon a forgiven person. "My own": He means by that "My very own." "In whom after that ye believed, ye were sealed with the holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1:1313In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, (Ephesians 1:13)).
There is a very solemn word to be found in the Bible; it is this, "Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His" (Rom. 8:99But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. (Romans 8:9)). And this has terrified many a soul still in the Land of Loneliness which is really sheltered under the Passover Blood. Many a trembling Christian has said to me, "How am I to know that I have the Spirit of God?" I have answered, "Because the Word of God says so." But an aged servant of God, now gone to his rest, answered that question far better, I think. He wrote something like this, "Have you one spark of love for the Lord Jesus? If you have, where did it come from? It never came from your own cold heart. You would not have one spark of love for Christ but by the presence of the Holy Ghost. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us'" (Rom. 5:55And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. (Romans 5:5)). Ah! that is the glow of heat about which we are talking this evening. The Comforter dwells within the sealed person, and the warm glow of love is there, where all was once cold and dead.
And now I have come to a most important point in the soul's history, and one without which it can go no further in its escape from its dreary Land of Loneliness. The Holy Spirit attaches the soul to a living Person who loves it. Now stop. Do not pass on, listening to this lightly, and saying, "Yes, of course, it is in the Bible, Christ is risen from the dead,' and I believe in the resurrection." That will not do. Do you know Him? I ask you solemnly, "Do you know Him? " I do not want to know how much you know about Him, but do you know Him Himself? I have been a Christian many years, and I have, through His grace, known Him Himself for many years, but I have been astonished to find how many who know a great deal of truth do not know Him. I have said to those who are guides over us, "What is to be done to help those who do not know Christ Himself as a Person?" They have shaken their heads and answered sadly, "Nothing can be done but to pray for them." So, you see, here I stand helpless as I ask you, "Do you know Him?" You say, "I do love Him; the report of Him has won my love." That is not enough; you must know Him if you would go a step further in this wonderful journey from Loneliness to Relationship. The Holy Spirit has come to reveal to you that Jesus Christ is living at the Right Hand of God in glory. Saul of Tarsus saw dim there, Stephen saw Him there; your soul by the Spirit can know Him there. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor" (Heb. 2:99But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Hebrews 2:9)).
What would those citizens have said, in that beleaguered city of which I told you, if by any means they could have raised those two heroes alive out of the deep waters? The report of their gallant deed had made them love their memory, but how they would have lavished their love upon them could they but have known them as living men! And, oh! how can I tell you, if you do not know it for yourself, the deep, wonderful joy of the soul that looks up the ray of Light that has reached it in its Loneliness, and discovers that the Person who died for it on Calvary's Cross lives for it in heaven. That it is His Voice that has called it, His Spirit that has warmed it, His arm of Power that is drawing it unto Himself. Oh, what joy! Jesus lives, "who was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification" (Rom. 4:2525Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. (Romans 4:25)).
If resurrection is real to your soul through the Power of the Holy Ghost, you can burst into songs of praise. For you are free.
Years ago, I traveled in Switzerland, and during my excursion I went to stay for some weeks at a hotel which had been built very high up upon a mountain's side. One evening, when we were all seated at dinner in the large dining-room, I noticed a number of people leave their seats and crowd round the windows. What are they looking at so intently? I said to myself, and I hastily rose and followed their example. Ah I shall never forget what I saw. Opposite those windows, towering up into the very clouds, stood the snowy peaks of a mountain range. High up as we were upon our mountain side, those snowy peaks rose thousands of feet above us, and on that evening they were glowing with the loveliest rosy tint I ever saw. The sun setting behind our mountain crest was throwing a deep shadow on the valley between us, but was swathing those snowy peaks high up in the clear vault of heaven with a glory all of its own. No one who has not seen that rosy sunset glow on those crests of perpetual snow can have the least idea of the loveliness of the scene. Those mountains in their fairy loveliness appeared to be quite close to us, but really they were miles away, and if we had wished to reach their snow-wrapped crests we must have descended our mountain-side, and then have crossed a valley some miles wide, and then have toilsomely climbed as far as we should dare up those lofty heights.
Now, I was telling you a few evenings ago that the purpose of God, formed in His own eternity, spanned all time, and He sees things in what we call the future as though they already were. So He sees your soul, as it stands like Israel on the resurrection shore, in all the glory and the blessings of the great inheritance which He has for it. It makes no difference to Him that you do not yet understand the love of His heart or know the great power of His arm, or that you think a great deal of your dear idol, Self, and think it will learn to love God and be able to serve God. No; all this on your part makes no difference to God at all. He only sees you swathed in the preciousness of His Christ. He looks at you in Him, and He has nothing but love and grace for you, but you have to go through the deep valley, that you may learn by experience what He already knows about you. He led Israel "forty years" through that valley. Do you ask, Why is this necessary? God suffered His people to hunger that they might value His manna; and so when your soul has the experience of hunger, it will know how to value Christ. You have to learn two great lessons. One is what God is, the other, and I think the harder, is what your dear idol, Self, is.
I can well remember, when I was a very little child, how on one sunny summer afternoon I was running about with my little brothers arid, sisters, on a grassy slope near a flowing river. My nurse was sitting amidst the flowers upon the grass, and we were gathering the daisies and buttercups and bringing them to her. Such beautiful daisies they were, and she made them into daisy-chains for us; and some of them were so large, and, oh, I was so happy! She saw my childish glee, and presently she said sadly, "Ah, this will soon be over for you; you will have to stay indoors and work at your lessons. There is a governess coming for you." Her words came all too true. That was the last sunny summer afternoon that I spent with my kind nurse among the daisies, and my life grew clouded and sad. I had to be fitted for life. My father did not love me the less because he wished me to be educated, and to be fitted to enter into his mind and plans for me.
And so it is that our souls have to go to God's school of experience, in which we learn to prove what His great heart of love is yearning to teach us about Himself, and also what Self is really like. Before children go to school, their parents set up their clothes for the term. New coats and jackets and dresses and books are bought, and everything is neatly packed into new boxes. The father's love provides all that may be wanted beforehand. And the soul that is starting on its journey of experience is furnished with two great realities—it has the actual forgiveness of all its sins, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
I used to think that I must believe I had the Holy Spirit. Nothing of the sort. The Holy Spirit is actually within the one who has come to Christ. It is no matter for faith; it is fact. He is the gift of God to you. Every glow of love towards Christ that warms your heart springs from His presence within; and if He is there, as we have seen, the heap of sins is gone. Forgiveness has been administered. It is not for faith; it is fact.
The Holy Spirit is not only God's seal; He is also spoken of as the "earnest of our inheritance."
Do you know what this means? For before you start on the journey it is well to look thoroughly at the Gift with which your Father has furnished you. "Earnest" means, a little portion of a vast blessing which He has for us.
I heard some time ago a touching little story of a poor lady whose history will, I think, help you to understand this subject, and I will tell it to you as nearly as I can remember it. At the time when I first heard of her she was living in a small room in a cottage not far from the place where I resided. She had been a governess, and she still earned her daily bread by giving lessons in German, for she was a German by birth, and had been brought up in her native country in wealth and luxury. Her health had failed, and she was a victim to rheumatism; little by little she had spent her savings, and in her old age and feebleness she was chiefly dependent on the help of others. Her father was still a very rich man, rolling in wealth, and she was in a foreign land in poverty and suffering because she had early in life heard and answered the Call of which we were speaking last evening. She had learned the shelter of the Blood of Christ, she had received the Holy Spirit, and she had turned to leave the world in which her father lived. He had entreated and he had threatened, but she had counted the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, and at last he had turned her out of her home and told her that she need expect nothing from him, she might earn her daily bread as best she could.
When I first heard of this poor lady, she was no longer young, and poor and sick and aged, she lived in poverty and struggled hard to pay her way. A short time afterward she became so very weak and ill that, as winter was approaching, her English friends advised her to move to the South of France, and by their kind help she went to that warmer climate. There she settled in the deepest poverty, hoping to eke out her existence by teaching English and German.
Weeks and months passed on in need and suffering, and yet, strange to say, for some time she had been possessed of an immense fortune, for her father had repented of his act, and when he died, his will declared her to be the sole possessor of all he had. Far and wide they sought for the wandering exile, from place to place they traced her, till one day a letter that had been following her hither and thither was put into her hand, and on opening it she found that she had been for some time entitled to a large inheritance. Dazed and bewildered, she read and re-read that letter; she believed its report, and wrote to tell her friends that she was a wealthy woman. Yet at that time not one penny had she touched of her golden store. Her actual surroundings were unchanged, she still dwelt in her cottage room, she still lay on her poor 'led, she still wore her worn and shabby garments, she still ate her plain and scanty fare. In a sense, she was in the possession of wealth but she was not yet in the enjoyment of it. The father's will, laid up in her native land, silently, yet surely, maintained her right to it, but many a legal form had to be gone through ere she became the actual possessor and enjoyer of all that it bestowed on her.
That is very much like the case of the soul sheltered under the Blood of Christ, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and just starting to leave the Land of Loneliness; only the illustration would have answered better if the solicitor who wrote to the poor governess had put a twenty-pound note in the letter, as an earnest of the fortune that was to follow. You could not take one step in the journey from Loneliness to Relationship if you had not this blessed earnest.
So now you are ready for your journey, and singing the glad song of your Savior's triumph, you start in earnest from the Land of Loneliness. God, from the height of His lofty eternity, sees you already at your journey's end, enjoying His vast inheritance. You on the little line of Time see only the rolling waters of the sea of Death before you, which encircles your gloomy prison land.
The Israelites, when they left Egypt, packed up all their treasures, and just so you are bringing with you in the arms of your affection the idol Self. He is heavy to carry. You feel the weight at once, but you love him dearly, and now that he is, as you hope, converted, you feel sure that he will help, and not hinder you on your journey. You smile: "How could I leave myself behind?" You cry: "It is true I am converted, and I am off on pilgrimage with a right good will." Well, it is not for me to tell you at this early stage of your journey what God thinks of that willful idol of yours, but I know His eye does not see him in the bright inheritance reserved for you. You are there in His purpose, but not your idol. Yet you smile and you sing as you start away—
“Through Christ to God—the God most high,
Praise for all grace be given,
Whose girls through all eternity
We'll gladly sing in heaven.
His Christ has loved us, given Himself,
And died to do us good,
Has washed us from our scarlet sins
In His most precious blood."
I once started with a party of young friends to go to an island which lay in the midst of a lovely lake; there were deep waters all around it, and there was no way by which we could reach it but by taking a boat, and by rowing from the mainland to its heather-grown shore. When we reached the place, we moored our boat to the stump of a tree, and gladly landed on the lovely spot. Then we climbed up the wooded banks, and sat down on the flowering heather to enjoy ourselves. We were alone there, and no one could reach us save by crossing the waters, nor, if our boat had drifted away, could we have escaped from our island home. But the soul finds no boat waiting for it as it stands before the great sea of Death that surrounds the Land of Loneliness.
Not long ago I saw a bridge building across the waters of a flowing river. To me it was a marvelous sight to see the mighty shafts of iron that were being placed in order, and then to look at the tiny men perched here and there upon the stupendous work. They were busily hammering the bolts into the iron shafts, or moving the machines, which were much larger than themselves, for they were making a strong highway over the flowing waters. But the soul finds no bridge over the broad sea by which it stands. Death cannot be bridged.
Only a few weeks ago there was quite a commotion in the neighborhood where I live. The shop windows were decorated, and streaming flags were spanning the streets; the church bells were ringing merry peals, and clashing again and again, as though they were too full of joy to sound as they usually did; crowds of people were gathering in the streets. What was it all about? The heir to England's throne was coming by, after opening a great tunnel that had been made under the deep waters of the flowing river. He was to drive to the opening on one side of the river, and pass under the waters and come up on the other side. But the soul finds no tunnel under the waves of Death by which it can pass from the land of Death and bondage to the land of life and liberty beyond. Through death to life is the only route.
What does this mean? It means that the only way for the soul to pass consciously from the Land of Loneliness, in which it is by nature, to the joys of Relationship, where God sees it in Christ, is through a living death.
Does the thought terrify you? It need not. For the Son of God has trodden the path before you, and the proud waters are scattered to right and left; and remember your gifts. Sins only could sink you in death—they are gone, and the Power of the risen Christ is in you to bear you on in the steps of your Forerunner to your journey's end. As the Pillar of Fire brooded over Israel, so the warm love of God broods over you, and every step of the way through Time you will learn His grace and His love and His power.
Now bear in mind that this journey is not acts of your body done on the earth: it is the acts and sufferings of your soul gone through in its inner sphere. The acts of your body will often show to other people which direction your soul is taking, though the soul is out of their sight.
I was once staying on the shore of a Scotch loch when a small whale came into the loch.
How did we know it? We could not see him, but we saw the water thrown up from his nostrils when he spouted. We could tell the way which he was taking by his spouting. He was underneath the water, but his acts were shown on the surface.
And so the direction which your soul is taking under the guidance of God's Holy Spirit will be shown to others by the words and acts of your body. Listen: Through the solitude of the Land of Loneliness, a Voice reaches your soul; it is, "Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." In your own strength? No. "When I am weak, then am I strong," cried Paul. You do not understand it, you do not know it yet; but a chariot of fire, as it were, is yours to bear you from earth to heaven.
As soon as your soul starts out of the Land of Loneliness through the secret pathway that Christ has opened for it through the sea of Death, the mouth declares upon the upper earth that it is off for heaven, and as soon as "confession is made with the mouth unto salvation," the Holy Spirit floods the soul with light and warmth, and, full of the joy of the Lord, it sings as it goes. Have you tried it? Then you have known the joy of the Lord, but like Israel you soon, oh, so soon! reach Marah. Do you want to know what is meant by Marah? Bitterness is the meaning of the word. You have, as it were, to drink the bitter waters of death. "I cannot go here, I cannot go there," you have to say to worldly relations and friends. "I cannot join with you in idling time away, or in dressing my body gaily, or in reading foolish books. I am off for heaven." Then down on you fall taunt and jeer and bitter sneer, and your friends forsake you, and cast you out of their company. Self groans: "This is death to me; I smart under all this; but how can I go with them-they will not hear about Him whom my soul loveth?" But what happens within? "If the world hate you," whispers a Voice, "ye know that it hated Me before it hated you." "He has been here before me!" cries the soul. "How sweet to prove Him with me in these bitter circumstances! Why, this strange, new joy makes even sorrow sweet to me!"
It is not my purpose, nor indeed in my power, to touch on all the steps of your wilderness journey through death. The Israelites drank of Marah, sweetened for them by the tree cut down and cast into it, and passed on; but we drink of a sweetened Marah to our journey's end: only we daily learn more and more of what the tree cut down means, which I cannot even explain to you yet. Enough for you at present that it is in times of trial and sorrow, when suffering directly or indirectly from following Christ, that He reveals Himself to your soul as "the Lord that healeth thee." He binds up the broken heart, He cheers the fainting spirit, He nerves the failing arm—Jesus does it; and the sweetened water strengthens your soul. You learn in all these things His power and His love. There are times of cheer, as at Elim, when you get over the Word of God, and draw water out of the wells of salvation, and rejoice under the waving palms of future victory; and there are times of temptation from within, as at the wilderness of Sin, when Self suddenly asserts himself, complains of the straitness of the way, and craves for the pleasures of the world; and the soul grows faint and hungry because its idol murmurs incessantly.
Do you remember when Israel came near before the Lord after their murmurings at Sin that the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud? The Fire was there; but it did not break out upon them. No; God loved them, and He had redeemed them. It was all grace. The warm glow of His love was there, and He gave them two kinds of food.. In the evening the quails covered the camp, and in the morning the manna lay upon the face of the wilderness; the quails were ready to hand in the camp, the manna had to be gathered from the wilderness. Jehovah said that He did it "to prove them" (Ex. 16:44Then said the Lord unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. (Exodus 16:4)). So at Rephidim, they murmured again, and Jehovah gave them water from the smitten rock. Grace met them at every turn, and the more naughty they were the more full was Jehovah's grace.
Do you wonder at them? Take care; you are treading a wilderness too, and their hearts are only a picture of yours. I heard an old gentleman say one day, "I believe God chose the Jew because he was the very worst type of man that ever was, to prove that He can save the worst." Ah! when we come to be "proved" in our soul's journey we learn that Self is just the same sort of idol, whether in Jew or in Gentile. He is always grumbling, always murmuring against God and His ways.
I have often wondered why there were two kinds of food given to Israel; but I think I see now. The quails were to satisfy hungry Self, and the manna was for the fainting soul. When God comes in, in His love and power to relieve us in our circumstances on earth, I think those acts of His are the quails for us. We get wonderful answers to prayer about things here; and Self is delighted with God's many mercies. His murmurings are hushed for a little while, for he loves to use God's grace and power for the things of this life. I once thought that it was the very height of Christian experience to get these delightful answers to prayer about earthly things. I gazed in wonder on those who had them, and when I had them myself I greatly enjoyed them.
Yes; savory quails suit Self, and he grows fat and flourishing on God's mercies, and too often, I fear, the heaven-sent manna lies ungathered, while we try to persuade ourselves that the hungry soul can thrive on mercies, instead of on Christ Himself. Has your soul fed on manna to-day? Has it rejoiced in the grace of Christ to it to-day? Has it availed itself of His grace?—wonderingly, rejoicingly proved that, however it fails and stumbles, Christ is always the same, always nigh to help it, always at its service; that His unfailing grace is the heaven-sent food for its pilgrim journey? Thirsty! How can it thirst, when He cries, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink?" Ah! I shall never forget how once when I had been trying to feed my soul with quails, and it had become very thirsty and very weak, I went to a large hall where meetings were held, and there I sat, weary and down-hearted. Speaker followed speaker, but there seemed nothing for my fainting soul, and Self cried that Egypt was better than this, that it was better to return to the world and enjoy it, rather than to perish in the wilderness. Presently, I lifted my eyes, and blazoned on the wall of the building, just opposite the spot where I sat, were these words, "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink." Down into my inmost soul plunged that living word; the hall, the people, the speakers faded from sight and sense, while my weary soul drank its fill from the living stream that ever flows from the Smitten Rock.
Grace, grace, nothing but grace. "My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus" (2 Tim. 2:11Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:1)). That means, feed well on manna.
There are terrible times in the journey, too, and things seem to get worse and worse as you go on. The enemy, always on the alert, offers Self, who has grown fat and strong by feeding on God's providential mercies, sudden outward temptations. Something that you have given up for Christ comes before you again. It may be drink, it may be gambling, it may be novel-reading or story-making, it may be swearing or foolish talking, and jesting, or passion, or some other vice. You are off your guard, the Spirit of God is grieved and silent, Self-will asserts itself, you yield, you fall. "There's a Christian for you 1" jeers the world. "That's following Christ, is it?" sneer your friends.
Now perhaps my voice is reaching some one of you to-night who has been thus tempted, and thus has fallen. Is it all over with you? Will the waves of Death cover you? Will the Fire of judgment break out upon you? Perhaps you have taken some step which you cannot undo, made some worldly alliance which no power of yours can break? You cannot undo what is done. You cannot escape the consequences. Oh, terrible position! I knew a young girl once who, in the anguish of her mind at such a fall, hurried her soul into the presence of its God, rather than face the world's triumph over her failure. Ah, downcast soul! Who turned and looked at Peter as the oaths and curses fell from his lying lips? Who sought his love again with the tender yet searching rebuke, "Lovest thou Me more than these?" Unseen by you, amidst the storm of your struggling and of your failing, Christ, your Advocate, lifts up His hands on your behalf, and the grieved Spirit within awakes your soul to cry for help, and the power of God delivers you from the foe who was too strong for you. It is a power outside yourself that delivers you. Take heart, commit yourself to God. God is for you.
It is not my purpose however to enter into all the difficulties and dangers of your journey. You will each learn for yourselves the tireless grace and love of your God in guiding, guarding, feeding and warning you on your onward way. My subject is Fire, but I want you just to notice, ere we close this evening's subject, that at every step of the journey from Marah to the wilderness of Sinai, Israel's murmurs grew louder and louder. The grace, and mercy, and goodness of Jehovah never reached their hearts.
And have you not found in this school of experience that there is an evil heart of unbelief within you? that you still doubt the love of God at every fresh turn of the way? that there is a principle of murmuring and self-will within you that grows worse, instead of better, all the way along? I am sure you have. Now it seems to me that every one comes to the point, sooner or later, when the idol Self springs up and cries, "I will fail no more; I will find my own way back to God, and I make up my mind once for all that I will live to please Him."
We are only too apt to do as a young man I was hearing about the other day did: try to find our own way to our journey's end. That young man started with a party of friends on a day's excursion. His friends chose to take the train and be carried to their destination, but he said the way by the sea-coast was the nearer way, and he would walk there by himself. He thought it a short cut, and so it was, but it did not prove a short cut to him. His friends who went by rail reached the place in good time. Hour by hour slipped by, but the young man did not join them. At last the sun sank in the west, and fears arose as to his safety; the tide had swept in over the shore, and the ocean waves washed the precipitous cliffs that formed the coast. As the darkness settled down, the anxiety of his friends changed to alarm; they appealed to the weather-beaten men who knew the coast, and they hastily formed a search-party, and, armed with lanterns and ropes, set off along the cliffs.
The guides knew the way, they knew its dangers too, and they knew the point where they thought they should find the young traveler set fast. They were right; there he lay asleep upon a ledge of rock, utterly worn out with his vain exertions to gain his destination. He had struggled and struggled to get further in vain; the rolling waves washed the foot of the cliffs, the ramparts of the rocks towered above him. Writing his name upon a slip of paper and placing it in his pocket, he had climbed up to a ledge where the surf could not reach him, and slept upon his rocky bed from sheer exhaustion. It was the strength of others that rescued him from his perilous position: And, like this, we too often leave, in our soul's journey, the line of God's way for us, and struggle by efforts of our own to reach the end of our journey. Our efforts only hinder us, and we have to begin again the pathway of faith and dependence just where we left it. We learn by failure after failure that Self was a very heavy weight when we started carrying him, but now that he essays to lead us, it is a very bad case indeed, for converted Self takes us straight away on to the plains of Sinai.
Farewell, then, for to-night; and to-morrow we will talk of the difficulties of those who, rejoicing in converted Self, believe that his energies—and talents, it may be—and devotion will find the way for them through the Fire into the very presence-chamber of a holy God.