WHAT do these words mean? To understand them we must go back to the days of the wicked and cruel king Louis XIV. of France, who was persuaded by his Jesuit advisers in 1685 to revoke the Edict of Nantes, which had for about one hundred years preserved the religious liberties of the Protestants of France. What was the consequence of this? Nearly a million in the face of great difficulties succeeded in escaping from France to other countries—England, Germany, etc.; and to these new lands they brought, through their skill and diligence in crafts and agriculture, a great blessing. On those that remained the persecution was so severe that they seemed to be well-nigh exterminated, and the land was like a desert.
There were at the time very few preachers who were able to minister to the scattered flock; but amongst them was one who stood pre-eminent—Paul Rabant, who labored incessantly for forty years, in constant danger of death. Yet in the providence of God he was permitted to pass peacefully away at the ripe age of eighty-four. This was in the very year (1795) in which the Constitution restored again to the Protestants of France their long-lost liberty of conscience.
But may we not draw from this some very useful lessons? In the history of the Huguenots we see, in spite of fiercest persecution, a people that yet throve and increased like the Israelites in the hard bondage of Egypt, who "multiplied and waxed very mighty." Thus we see how God can, and does, even in the most unfavorable circumstances (humanly speaking) preserve His own and carry on His work.
But let us turn to a Scripture example of a preacher of the desert in the days of our Lord. John the Baptist preached and lived in the wilderness of Judea. His clothing and food were also, suited to the desert. There too did his hearers go to receive from him a heavenly message. They went where there was the least of earthly comfort that their minds and hearts might dwell on what was of God rather than on what was of nature. There they heard from John the glad tidings of the coming Messiah and His kingdom—they showed their readiness for the same by turning to God away from their sins, confessing them, and proving in life that the change was real. This was because grace worked in their hearts to show them that death (typified in baptism) meant an end to the past and a start in the ways of God.
The preservation of the Huguenots in the desert, in spite of their enemies, was in its way not unlike the sojourning of the Israelites in the wilderness when God showed them His acts and to Moses His ways. How many a soul has been made to feel that in this world all is vanity, and it is the realization of this that makes one ready to drink of the heavenly streams which never run dry. When no eye could see or mind could tell whence bread was to come, God sent it down from heaven. When Samaria was besieged by the Assyrians, God used the outcast lepers to find, and bring the news of, plenty at the very gates of the city.
I would relate an instance from the life of Paul Rabant to show how these despised and persecuted ones understood and obeyed God's mind in "resisting not evil." No less than ten thousand of the Huguenots were gathered in a valley of Bas-Languedoc to hear Rabant preach, when suddenly a few soldiers (fifteen or twenty) were seen who commenced at once to fire on the assembly. In a moment (as he says), at a signal from him, the multitude could have fallen on these few soldiers and have torn them to pieces. But no, as witnesses of the One who came not to "destroy” men's lives but to "save," instead of retaliating on their enemies they chose rather to flee, carrying with them their dead and wounded, whilst now and again continuing the interrupted psalm.
What, let me ask, but a greater than any human power could have effected such a result? The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; He shows them His truth. This world must become to the heart as a desert before heavenly things can be appreciated. It was the cross—the death—of Christ which separated the converted Saul from the world and set his mind on heavenly things. The new nature in the believer is of God, and cannot therefore find its food in this scene; but the heavenly supply is abundant and never failing. For "eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him, but God hath revealed them" to those who, feeling their need and lost state, as also the emptiness of this scene, have by faith turned to the Saviour, and, believing in themselves no longer, have learned to rest on Christ and His atoning work. Thus, cleansed by His precious blood, and made free from Satan, it is henceforth their joy to walk in His ways, obeying God's word. To His name be all the praise who gives songs in the night to the travelers through the desert.
J. C. B.