Part 2 Nourishment for the Journey
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Ah, how often has the Lord by His present dealings anticipated the future events of your life! For what circumstances of danger, of trial, and of need, has Jesus provided! He well knew- for He had appointed every step and every incident of your journey- the deep and dark waters through which you here to wade, the sands you were to cross, the mountains you were to climb, and the valleys into which you were to descend. That cup of sorrow was not mixed, nor that fiery dart winged, nor that heavy cross sent; before all the necessities it would create, and all the supplies it would demand, had been thought of and provided for by Him who knew the end from the beginning. And when the voice of love gently awoke you as from the stupor of your grief, you marveled at the table spread, and wondered at the supply sent; and you could not define the reason why so much love took possession of your heart, and so much grace flowed into your soul, and so much nerve clothed your spirit, and so much hope and joy bathed you in their heavenly sunlight, and shed their radiance upon your onward way- little thinking that this was the Lord's mode of providing nourishment for the journey. And when the period and event of your life, thus anticipated, arrived, then the recollection of God's preparatory dealings rushed upon your memory, and in an instant you saw how for the 'forty days and the forty nights" solitary travel, your God and Savior had been graciously and amply providing. But all this mystery the life of faith, by which the justified live, fully explains.
"O faith, faith! you blessed companion of the children of God! your wondrous power deprives the wilderness of its horrors, and the deepest solitude ceases to be solitary under your guidance! All that earth and heaven possess of beauty is yours, and with the treasures of heights and of depths you enrich your possessors! That which is distant is brought near by you; you develop hidden things, and awaken past events to new life. You merge the gloom of the present into the bliss of the future, and paint the sky of many a departing sun with the dawning radiance of a better world. In the midst of sublunary changes, you anticipate a peaceful paradise. You people our bereaved family circles with holy and heavenly company; you associate both worlds in close connection, and unite things past, present, and to come. In your light the sacred narratives seem acted over again, and our own personal history becomes a sacred record of providence. You have the power of realizing the dead as if they were alive; the patriarchs are our contemporaries, although their ashes repose in the sepulcher of near six thousand years. By your voice they still converse with us, although to human ears they speak no more; by your realizing aid they visit us in our darkness with kindness and consolation; by your light we see a cloud of them as witnesses encamped around us; and every grace they experienced is through these appropriated to ourselves. You nourish us with the promise made to Abraham; sustain us with the strong consolation of the oath divinely sworn unto Isaac; you give us the staff of Jacob to support our steps; you enable us with Moses's rod to divide the sea, and with David to leap over the wall and rampart! O faith, faith! you door-keeper of every sanctuary, you master over all the treasures of God! may He who is your Author draw near unto us, and He who is your Finisher bend down Himself towards us."
A circumstance in the life of our blessed Lord will suggest itself to the Christian reader, as affording an eminent and impressive illustration of this mode of God's dealings with His people, the study of which will be found replete with encouragement to those who are especially called to "walk by faith, and not by sight." The incident to which I allude, is Christ's temptation in the wilderness. For a period of 'forty days and forty nights' He fasted; at the end of which He was subjected to the most powerful and malignant attack of the great foe of God and man. It was one of those events in our Lord's history upon which hung results the most momentous- nothing less than the salvation of the Church and the eternal interests of the divine government. It was, so to speak, the great moral battle of the universe, the result of which would decide the right of government, and the salvation of countless myriads. It would be incongruous with all our ideas of the Savior's character, to suppose that He would anticipate such a conflict with indifference, or enter upon it unprepared; or that the Father, whose honor was so deeply concerned in the result, would withhold from His Son the resources demanded by an occasion of such interest and magnitude. Happily we are not left to doubt or conjecture.
In view of this great event, behold how God prepared Him for the trial- in other words, nourished Him for the forty days' travail in the wilderness. We read, that "Jesus, being full of the Holy Spirit, returned from Jordan," where He had been to offer an act of personal obedience to His Father, thus fulfilling in His baptism 'all righteousness.' And then follows the account of the temptation: "And was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted by the devil." Who does not see that our Lord's preparation for the conflict was His being 'filled with the Holy Spirit'? His human nature, replenished to its utmost with all the grace and strength and consolation of the Divine Spirit, was prepared for the terrific shock through which it was to pass. And thus nourished and strengthened, He passed through those forty days and forty nights, battling and vanquishing His mighty foe.
And can you not look back, dear reader, upon all the way the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these many years, and tell how He has gone before you, not only preparing the trial for you, but in adjusting your spirit to the trial? Can you not testify, to the praise of the glory of His grace, how He has trained you for the race, disciplined you for the conflict, and strengthened your back for the burden? Once and again the Angel of the covenant has surprised you; weak, exhausted, and ready to die, in some lonely path of your journey, and He has stooped and gently touched you, and bade you rise and partake of a new supply of grace and truth; and upheld by that grace, and in the strength of that truth, you have started afresh towards the mount of God. Oh what a loving, faithful God, and what a kind, tender Savior, are ours!
We may gather from the subject of this chapter some NEEDED AND HOLY LESSONS. We learn that the life most blessed to us, and most honoring to Christ, is a life of believing and perpetual dependence upon God. For forty days and nights the prophet traveled with no resources in hand, but having all in God. It was the travel of faith. Such is ours. "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?" It is the Church of God, emerging from the world, and in her life of faith upon the Son of God, traveling towards the celestial mount. We cannot too frequently nor too deeply study the profound meaning of those words, "The just shall live BY FAITH." God will have His child perpetually looking to, leaning upon, and receiving from Him. At present we are but in a state of spiritual childhood. We are not therefore in a condition to be trusted with grace for the future. Improvident and careless, we should soon squander and exhaust our resources; and when the emergency came, we should find ourselves unprepared to meet it. The Lord, in wisdom and love, keeps all our grace in His own hands, and deals it out just as our circumstances demand.
O, who that knows his own heart, and the heart of Christ, would not desire that all his supply should be in God, and not in himself! Who, so to speak, would wish to be his own spiritual treasurer? Who that knows the blessedness of the life of faith, the sweetness of going to God in everything, and for everything, would wish to transfer his mercies from Christ's keeping to his own, or wish to hold in the present the supply of the future? Be satisfied, dear reader, to walk by faith, and not by sight. You have a full Christ to draw from, and a faithful God to look to. You have a 'covenant ordered in all things and sure,' and the precious promise, "As your days, so shall your strength be," to lean confidently upon all your journey through. Be content, then, to be poor and dependent. Be willing to travel on empty-handed, seeing God's heart opened, and Christ's hand outstretched to supply your 'daily bread.'
Oh, it is sweet to be a dependent creature upon God- to hang upon a loving Father- to live as a poor, needy sinner day by day, moment by moment, upon Jesus- to trace God in ten thousand ways, to mark His wisdom here, His condescension there; now His love, and then His faithfulness, all combining and exerted for our good- truly it is the most holy and blessed life upon earth. Heaven itself has nothing to be compared with it.
Yet another lesson. The Lord imparts extraordinary strength to meet an extraordinary occasion. Why should we, then, shrink from any trial, or flee from any duty, or turn aside from any cross, since for that trial, and for that duty, and for that cross, Jesus has provided its required and appropriate grace? You are perhaps exclaiming, "Trouble is near!" Well, be it so. So also divine grace is near- and strength is near- and counsel is near- and deliverance is near- and Jesus is near- and God is near- and a throne of grace is near. Therefore why need you fear, though trouble is near? "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." There is a table in the wilderness. There is a supply in the desert. "I sat under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto my taste." Our Joseph lives. And in anticipation of the seven years of famine, He has amply provided for His brethren; and He will send them on their journey with full sacks, and with their money in their sacks' mouth, that free grace might have all the glory.
And forget not, O believer, that you are journeying to the mount of God, and will soon be there. Behold it in the distance! What wonders encircle it! What glory bathes it! The exile of Patmos, lifting a corner of the veil, has presented it to our view: "And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Zion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written on their foreheads." O what a spectacle of magnificence is this! There is Jesus, the Lamb as it had been slain. To Him every face is turned, on Him every eye is fixed, before Him every knee bends, and every tongue chants His praise, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." Around Him are gathering each moment the one Church of God, redeemed from among men. In the light and splendor of the scene all distinctions are absorbed, all minds assimilate, all hearts blend, all voices harmonize, and the grand, visible manifestation of the unity Of the Church is perfected.
To this consummation you are hastening- keep it fully in view. Do not turn aside, yielding to the enchanting scenes through which you pass; but forgetting the things that are behind, press forward to the mark of the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To Mount Zion you will certainly arrive at last. Your feet shall stand upon its summit. Your voice shall blend with its music. Your heart shall thrill with its gladness. Your soul shall bathe in its glory. Oh! does not your spirit kindle with ardor, and is not your heart winged with love, while the mount of God unveils its splendor to your view?
Speak, Elijah! for you have reached that mount, and tell us what it is to be there! No! you cannot tell. You have heard its deep songs of joy- but their strains are unutterable. You have seen its ineffable glory- but that glory is unspeakable. Let your mantle fall upon us, and a double portion of your spirit be ours; and at our departure let your chariot of fire convey us to the skies, and we will be content to wait and gaze for awhile upon the distant vision- like some early traveler pausing upon the mountain's side to admire the ascending sun, until his features and his vestments borrow the crimson glow- until changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord, we reach it at last, and lose ourselves forever amid its transcendent beams- ceasing from our conflict, and reposing from our toil, in the beatific presence of God!
"And then shall cease the life of sin,
The conflict and the woe;
And then have thrown the destined dart,
My last, my conquered foe."
"And then shall come the morning light,
The golden noon of grace,
The gates of pearl, the sea of glass,
The Lamb's unveiled face."
"And then shall come the days of strength,
The awful form and wing;
When as a crowned prince I sit
With you, my Lord, my King."
"And then shall come the time of joy,
The golden harp and song;
The heart with love that overflows
Amid the ransomed throng."
"Thus patient wait, my tranquil soul,
And trust your Father's love
Though earth may bring the cloud and storm,
Bright sunshine reigns above."
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