The word “salvation” is a spring which if touched by the feeblest finger instantly swings open the colossal gates of Paradise and lets out upon our brows, “in all triumphant splendor,” the golden flood of that holy light, the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, shining from the face of Jesus Christ. Directly Jonah said, “Salvation is of the Lord,” he is delivered from his darkness and misery. “The old, old sea, as one in tears” casts him from his “foamy lips.” Moses says, “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,” and at once the divine command goes forth, and the affrighted multitude cross the yawning gulf in safety. Sinking Peter cries, “Lord save me! and IMMEDIATELY Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him.” The importance of this principle cannot be overrated. In Mark 10 the disciples are dismayed to find that even a rich man is not sure of entering the kingdom, and inquire in dismay, “Who then can be saved?” That last word instantly brings the response, “With God all things are possible.”
From the moment therefore that Jacob, hopeless of all else, exclaims, “I HAVE WAITED FOR THY SALVATION, O Lord,” the whole character of his dying charge changes: old things have passed away, and all things become new. No longer do we read a melancholy record of sensuality, wickedness, and judgment, but promises of beneficence, happiness, and triumph. The electric current has touched the black rough carbon and it gleams with celestial light.
It proceeds: “Gad, a troop, shall overcome him, but he shall overcome at the last:” that is the inevitable character of the new order of things—conflict and at first defeat, but ultimate victory. So “to him that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me,” says Christ, “in My throne, even as I overcame and am set down with My Father in His throne.”
But that is a strange starting for the glorious new life. If we had the arrangement of matters, we would have it settled quite differently no doubt; but perhaps it is as well that we have not (besides, do not even the kings of the earth always put their young sons into the army to “endure hardness,” discipline and conflict: And they cannot promise ultimate triumph, or should we ever hear of a Prince Imperial, death-stricken with the savage assegais?). This new life begins mostly with the cry of suffering, with pain, struggling and constriction. The bitter waters of Marah come soon after the salvation at the Red Sea bank.
We should have more care and patience towards the newly converted, if we considered how painful a time of transition the beginning of the new life is; what “troops” attack and often overcome them; what a tearing of tendrils, as old habits and associations are broken away from; what a sense of flatness and disappointment when enthusiasm cools, and persecution, contempt, and disparagement arise; what surprise to find that the ordinary calamities of life strike and hurt as much as ever; what dismay to discover that Christians have faults still, and even that from his own heart the convert hears the language of doubt and sin—like that poor pilgrim, sore beset, crossing the valley of the shadow of death. These are amongst the troops that attack the nascent life. Let us not yield to that wide-spread instinct of adding to them, to carp and snarl and think we are being “faithful “; let us protect it from needless blows, and cherish it in love and wisdom, for Moses says, “Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad” —he has a glorious future, though a painful present. The ugly duckling may prove to be a young swan after all: meanwhile most of the fowls of the farm-yard hiss and peck a little at the new corner, awkward as he is, with a world of conceit in his head, and a bit of shell still clinging to his wing.
“But he shall overcome at the last.” In the battle of spiritual life some Blücher shall come before the night falls, and bring with him the victory that was never really doubtful, though it often seemed so.
The wilderness is not all desert; there are oases, Elims as well as Marahs: “out of Asher his bread shall be fat.” “Happiness” comes now, and fruitfulness. “Let him be acceptable to his brethren “: they no longer look askance and with suspicion on him. “Let him dip his foot in oil,” that is, walking in the grace of the Holy Spirit. “Shoes iron” —what pertains to his walk shall be in strength; “and brass,” capable of bearing judgment. “As his days so shall his strength be." We should often prefer this promise reversed so as to read, As thy strength [is little] so shall thy days be [easy]—the difficulties smoothed and accommodated to our weakness.
The unclean writer Sterne's phrase, “God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” is generally quoted as scripture, while it is peculiarly the reverse of the spirit of scripture. God does not usually temper the wind, putting the whole world out of gear for the lamb's accommodation. He does something much more simple, natural, and wise: He strengthens the lamb to bear it. It is His way, much more natural and far better for us, that He should strengthen us to walk on a rough road, than that He should polish the surface of the wilderness smooth for our behoof. If the road is too rough, we may stumble; it might be too smooth, and then we may slip: people stumble forwards; they slip backwards.
But Asher is happy nevertheless, for happiness really is much less dependent on outward circumstances than we are apt to think. It “does not consist in strength, or Myro and Ofellius would have been happy; nor in riches, or Croesus would have been so......” Why should Socrates go to Philip, when he had all he wanted at Athens, “four measures of wheat flour for an obolos, and abundance of good spring water for nothing”? Why, indeed! All Diogenes wanted from Alexander was for him to get out of his sunshine; and Diogenes content with his kennel and crust was a happier man than Alexander weeping for other worlds to conquer. Then observe how happiness is ever connected with fruitfulness; “Let Asher be blessed with children.” Whatever person or community is fruitful in gospel work is sure to be characterized by a rejoicing spirit: the words “rejoice” and “fellowship in the gospel” characterize the epistle to the Philippians, and the Philippian spirit everywhere.
“He shall yield royal dainties” too—not only taste them but supply others with them. The chief thing that makes the queen-bee so much larger and more regal than the others is the different food supplied to it in its early life. The egg and young larva are just the same as the others; it is the fact of its being nourished on “royal dainties” that causes its royal development in body and mind. So those who nourish their spirits with royal dainties become royal-spirited.