THERE is a verse in Jeremiah 12 over which I have often pondered. It is this: “If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? And if in the land of peace wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan?”
In a day dark with ominous clouds gathering on every side, do not these words speak with solemn appeal to us all? Life is difficult, often, even for the young, under normal conditions. But what if some dire emergency should confront us — “the swelling of Jordan!” Are we prepared?
We have read in the papers of the necessity for taking precautionary measures against bombs and shrapnel and poison gas, lest all these terrors of modern warfare be suddenly launched against us. But it is of a different preparedness that I would speak here: “The people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits;” Do we know our God?
Alas, alas, for those 20,000 poor little “Hitler children” who were initiated into the Nazi Pagan cult at the summer solstice festival lately held on the Hesselberg — the highest peak in Franconia! “Herr Julius Streicher, the Jew-baiter, acted as master of ceremonies. The rites began at sundown with the lighting of a huge ‘sacrificial’ bonfire. Herr Streicher told the boys and girls that they were standing on holy ground. The Hesselberg, he said, had been the scene of the sacrificial flames which had been lit by their German forefathers. This had made the hill-top more hallowed than any Christian altar. ‘We free ourselves from Hades when we mount this hallowed hill. If we but cast our petty sins and errors into these cleansing fires we can descend into the valley purified and as new human beings.’”
Woe unto those who thus deliberately teach foul lies to little children, depriving them of the saving knowledge of God in Christ! “Whosoever shall cause one of these little ones that believe on Me to stumble,” said the Lord, “it were better for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea.”
From Nairobi comes the following report:—
“The witch doctors have been making big profits from the sale of charms against lions, and on several occasions, after natives have been seized and eaten, the witch doctors have deliberately obliterated the lion spoor to prevent the game rangers tracking the beasts. The lions have worked in a group, two lionesses usually keeping watch while a lion clawed its way through a mud hut, seized a native, carried him a few yards and ate him, sometimes in full view of the village. The villagers were told by the witch doctors that harm would befall them if they attacked the lions, and this they believed.”
“Be sober, be vigilant: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith....” But how shall the little children learn to resist him if they be robbed of that faith? Truly others, beside African witch doctors, deliberately obliterate the lion spoor, whilst they threaten the followers of the Saviour-God Who became man and overcame the lion on our behalf.
In seeking to be prepared to face “the swelling of Jordan,” we must remember that we may be called upon to do so, not in the company of others like-minded with ourselves, but in utmost loneliness. I have often sought to realize this, because in any great emergency we should almost certainly be separated from those whom we love and who love us; even, under some extreme conditions, we might find ourselves isolated from all human companionship. How necessary, then, that whilst we are in quiet we should acquaint ourselves with the Friend Who sticketh closer than a brother. “Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone”: said our Lord to His disciples on the eve of His death; “and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” — “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all forsook me,” wrote Christ’s apostle Paul; “notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me.” Let us sometimes, as it were, withdraw ourselves from the dear support of earthly loved ones, that we may be prepared, if need be, to stand alone; yet not alone, because resting our whole weight upon Him from Whose presence and love neither death nor life nor things present nor things to come shall be able to separate us (Romans 8).
In the light of a gorgeous autumnal sunset, a party of schoolgirls, returning from a walk, met Dr. Chalmers. Years later one girl recalled “that calm and lovely face with heaven stamped on it — the soft silvery white hair—the Scotch accent. Dr. Chalmers asked me about my studies then, when bidding me good-bye, he said, But oh! my dear young friend, SEEK ABOVE ALL KNOWLEDGE TO KNOW CHRIST.’” Timidly she replied, “‘I will try — and wish to be so good and hope to meet you in heaven.’ ‘Cling to Christ, then,’ he said, ‘and we will meet again — if not here, up there’ pointing upward as he spoke. I never met him again, He died in the May following. His words did not die with him. They will remain with me forever.”
H. R.