We were reading last week that the ant teaches us something about the right time. Now the coney has a lesson to teach us about
The Right Place.
The coney is an animal in appearance between a rat and a rabbit, which lives in all rocky parts of Palestine. It is a very weak, timid little thing. It is not able to contend with its enemies. It cannot even dig a hole for itself in the sand. All it can do is to run out of danger into a hole among the rocks, and the sound of a footstep or a shout is enough to send it scampering into the clefts of the rock. What a simple type of a believer! He has no strength of his own, no power to protect or save himself, but he makes his refuge in Christ — the Rock of Ages.
We find a great deal of figurative language in the Word of God. Divine truths are presented to us in figures and parables, and by similitudes which are easy to be understood, and we find the Lord Himself very often spoken of as a ROCK.
Moses says in his wonderful song (Deut. 32), “He is the ROCK.” In the Psalms David says, “The Lord is my ROCK,” and speaks of the Lord as being “the ROCK” of his salvation. A rock is the standing type of everything that is solid, secure, and steadfast, and when we have the Lord spoken of as a ROCK it makes us understand the blessed security of the one who puts his trust in Him.
The conies know that they are “a feeble folk,” and they make their refuge in a strong place. The believer rejoices in the great fact that “when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” In Deut. 14:77Nevertheless these ye shall not eat of them that chew the cud, or of them that divide the cloven hoof; as the camel, and the hare, and the coney: for they chew the cud, but divide not the hoof; therefore they are unclean unto you. (Deuteronomy 14:7) the coney is mentioned as an unclean animal, and in this respect is a type of an “ungodly” sinner. Our whole condition as natural boys and girls, and men and women, is thus strikingly set forth by the coney "a feeble folk” and “unclean” — or in the language of the New Testament, “without strength” and “ungodly.”
Do you believe that you are “without strength"? It is a solemn fact that nothing you have done, or are doing, or ever will be able to do, will bring you an inch nearer God, or remove the weight of a feather from the awful load of your sins. A lifetime of prayers, an ocean of tears, the combined merits of all the saints who ever lived, would utterly and eternally fail to secure the absolution of a single sin. Oh! sinner, Christ is the only and the all-sufficient refuge. The Gospel of God declares that the work of redemption has been “FINISHED” by Christ on the cross, and now guilty sinners, who cannot help themselves, receive the full blessings which are the result of that glorious work by simple faith in the Person who has done it all.
ML-04/17/1960