THE RAINBOW IN THE CLOUDS by
John McDuff PART 2 CHAPTER 16 MOURNING ENDED The days of your
mourning shall be ended. ISAIAH 60 VERSE 20 The believer
has mourning days. The place of his sojourn is a
valley of tears. Adam went weeping from his paradise. We go weeping on the way to ours. But, pilgrim of grief, your tears
are numbered. A few more aching sighs, a few
more gloomy clouds, and the eternal sun shall burst on you, whose
radiance shall never more be obscured. Life may be to you
one long valley of Baca, a protracted scene of weeping. But soon you
shall hear the sweet chimes wafted from the towers of the new Jerusalem. Enter into the joy of your Lord. The Lord God shall wipe away
all tears from off all faces. The days of your mourning, it
is a consoling thought that all these days are appointed, meted
out, numbered. Unto you it is given, says the
Apostle, to suffer. Yes, and if you are a child of
the Covenant, your mourning days are days of special privilege,
intended to be fraught with blessing. To the unbeliever they are pledges
of everlasting woe. To the believer they are preludes
and precursors of eternal glory. Affliction to the one is the
cloud without the rainbow, to the other It is the cloud radiant
and lustrous with gospel promise and gospel hope. Are you now
one of the many members of the family of sorrow? Be comforted. Soon the long night watch will
be over. Pain, sickness, weakness, weariness. Soon the windows of the soul
will be no more darkened. Soon you shall have nothing to
be delivered from. Your present losses and crosses
will turn into eternal gains. The dews of the night weeping,
nature's teardrops, will come to sparkle like beautiful gems
in the morning of immortality. Soon the Master's footsteps will
be heard, saying, The days of your mourning are ended, and
you shall take off your sackcloth and be girded with gladness.
Up to that moment Your life may have been one long day of mourning,
but once past the golden portals, and the eye can be dim no more,
the very fountain of weeping will be dried. The period of
your mourning is counted by days, of your eternal rejoicing by
eras and cycles. Why are you then cast down, O
my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? hope in God. I will gaze through my tears
on this celestial rainbow, and sing this song in the night,
which the God, who is to wipe my tears away, has put into my
lips. And there shall be no more death,
neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain,
for the former things are passed away. CHAPTER XVII THE ABIDING FRIEND
I will never leave you, nor forsake you. HEBREWS XIII VERSE 5 No
human friend can say so. The closest and dearest of earthly
links may be broken, yes, have been broken. Distance may part,
time estranged, and the grave separate. Loving earthly looks
may now only greet you in mute smiles from the portrait on the
wall. But here is an unfainting, unvarying,
unfailing friend. Sorrowing one, amid the wreck
of earthly joys which you may be even bewailing, here is a
message sent from your God. I will never leave you, nor forsake
you. Your gourd has withered. But
he who gave it to you remains. Surrender yourself to his disposal. He wishes to show you his present
sufficiency for your happiness. As often your heart is silence
and sadness weaves its plaintive lament, Joseph is not, and Simeon
is not. Think of him who has promised
to set the solitary in families, and to give unto them a name
and a better place than of the sons or of the daughters. Alone? You are not alone. Turn in self-oblivion
to Jesus. It is not, it cannot be night
if He, the Son of your soul, be ever near. In the morning
He comes with the earliest beings that visits your chamber. When
the curtains of night close around you, He, to whom the darkness
and the light are both alike, is at your side. In the stillness
of the night, when, in your wakeful moments, the visions of the departed
flip before you like shadows on the wall, He, the sleepless
Shepherd of Israel, is tending your couch, and whispering in
your ear, Fear not, for I am with you. your experience may
be that of Paul, all forsook me. But, like him also, you will
doubtless be able to add in the extremity of your sorrow, nevertheless,
the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me. He can compensate by his
own loving presence for every earthly loss. Without the consciousness
of his friendship and love, the smallest trial will crush you. With Him in your trial, supporting
and sustaining you under it, yes, coming in the place of those
you mourn, you will have an infinite and inexhaustible portion. In
place of a finite and mutable one, many a cloud is there without
a rainbow in nature, but never in grace. Every sorrow has its
corresponding and counterpart comfort. in the multitude of
my thoughts within me, your comforts delight my soul. If, in the midnight
of your grief, your earthly sun appears to have set for ever,
an inner but not less real sunshine lightens up your stricken heart.
This stream of life may have been poisoned at its source,
but blessed be his name if it has driven you to say, All my
springs are in you. The Lord is my portion, says
my soul, therefore will I hope in Him. Chapter 18 UNWILLING DISCIPLINE
He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of man. Lamentations 3 verse 33 In our seasons of trial, when
under some inscrutable dispensation, how apt is the murmuring thought
to rise in our hearts! All these things are against
me. Might not this overwhelming blow
have been spared? Might not this dark cloud which
has shadowed my heart and my home with sadness have been averted? Might not the accompaniments
of my trial have been less severe? Surely the Lord has forgotten
to be gracious. No, these afflictions are errands
of mercy in disguise. He afflicts not willingly. There
is nothing capricious or arbitrary about your God's dealings. Unutterable
tenderness is the character of all His allotments. The world
may wound by unkindness. Trusted friends may become treacherous. A brother may speak with unnecessary
harshness and severity, but the Lord is abundant in goodness
and in truth. He appoints no needless pang. When he appears like Joseph to
speak roughly, there are gentle undertones of love. The stern
accents are assumed because he has precious lessons that could
not otherwise have been taught. Ah, be assured there is some
deep necessity in all he does. In our calendars of sorrow we
may put this luminous mark against every trying hour. It was needed. Some unfruitful branch in the
tree required pruning, some wheat required to be cast overboard
to lighten the ship and avert further disaster. Sorrowing one! He might have dealt far otherwise
with you. He might have cut you down as
a fruitless, worthless cumberer. He might have abandoned you to
drift disowned and unpiloted on the rocks of destruction.
Joined to your idols, he might have left you alone to settle
on your lees and forfeit your eternal bliss. But he loved you
better. It was kindness which blighted
your fairest blossoms, and hedged up your way with thorns. Without
this hedge of thorns, says Baxter, on the right hand and on the
left, we would hardly be able to keep on the way to Heaven.
We, in our blind unbelief, may speak of trials we imagine might
have been spared, chastisements that are unnecessarily severe.
The day is coming when every step of the Lord's procedure
will be vindicated, when we shall own and recognize each separate
experience of sorrow to have been an unspeakably precious
and important period in the history of the soul. Yes, child of God,
the messenger of affliction has an olive branch in one hand,
a love-token plucked from the bowers of Paradise. and, in the
other, a chalice mingled by one too loving and gracious to insert
one needless ingredient of sorrow. Remember, every drop of wrath
in that cup was exhausted by a surety saviour. In taking it
into your hand, be it yours to extract support and consolation
from what so mightily sustained a greater sufferer in a more
awful hour. This cup which you give me to
drink, shall I not drink it?" CHAPTER XIX DEATH VANQUISHED
I am he that lives, and was dead, and, behold, I am alive for evermore. and have the keys of hell and
death. Revelation 1 verse 18. An enthroned Savior speaks, I
am the living one. Others have passed away, but
I ever live, and ever love. I am now living, a personal Savior,
Christ your life. Are you stooping over some treasured
house of clay, which the whirlwind has made a mass of ruins? I roused
the whirlwind from its chamber. I appointed the startling dispensation. I ordered the shroud, and prepared
the grave. Let not accident, chance, or
fate enter into the vocabulary of your sorrow. I am the Lord
of Death, as well as of Life. I have the keys of hell and of
the grave, suspended at my belt. The tomb is never unlocked but
by me. Let others talk of the might
of the king of terrors. He has no might but by my permission. More than this, mourning one,
I was dead. I myself once entered that gloomy
portico. I sanctified and consecrated
it by my presence. I was a tenant of the tomb. This
now glorified body was once laid by human hands in a borrowed
grave. Can you dread to walk the valley,
trodden by your lord, to encounter the last enemy which he fought
and conquered? Death! It has been converted
by him into a parenthesis in endless life. I am he that was
dead. I am he who lives. What more
could the Christian desire than this twofold assurance? On the
day of atonement of old, the blood was sprinkled alike on
the mercy-seat. The voice of blood arose from
the floor below and the mercy-seat above. So it is with the voice
of our elder brother's blood. It cried first from the earth
beneath. and now from heaven. His dying
love is now ever living, imperishable, and immutable as his own being. As the rainbow in the material
firmament can never cease to appear so long as the present
laws of nature continue and there is a sun in the heavens, so the
rainbow of the everlasting covenant and all its blessings can only
fail when Christ, the Son of Righteousness, ceases to shine,
and ceases to be. With such a rainbow overarching
the future, with one side resting amid the cloud-lands of life,
the other melting its hues into the deeper shadows of the valley
of death, I will fear no evil, for you, O Saviour God, are with
me. Your rod and your staff, they
comfort me. Chapter 20 THE GREATEST GIFT
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Romans
8 verse 32. These are amazing words. God,
the Infinite God, identifying Himself, so to speak, with the
experiences of human sorrow, silencing every murmur with the
unanswerable argument, I spared not my own son. I gave my greatest
gift for you. Will you not cheerfully surrender
your best to me? Can you refuse, after this unspeakable
gift of my love, to trust me in lesser things? The greater
gift may surely well be a pledge for the bestowment of all needed
subordinate good. He promised to give all things. These all things are in his hand. They will be selected and allotted
by his loving wisdom. Crosses as well as comforts,
sorrows and tears, as well as smiles and joys. Mourning one,
this very trial which now dims your eye is one of these all
things. Trust his faithfulness. He would
as soon wound the son of his love as wound you. Shall he not
with him also freely give us all things? There is a blessed
impossibility, after the bestowment of the gift of gifts, that he
would inflict one unnecessary trial, or withhold one needed
benefit. Think of His love when He offered
His Isaac on the altar. It is the same at this hour,
infinite and immutable. Yes, we may well be reconciled,
even to the denial of earthly blessedness, because ordered
by Him who gave Jesus. Lying meekly in the arms of His
mercy, be it ours to say in filial confidence, Lord, Anything with
your love, anything but your frown. All things, the whole
range of human needs and necessities is known to him. The care he
invites me to cast upon him is all my care. The need, all my
need. This is his own special promise. and God is able to make all grace
abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to every good work. He will give
me nothing, and deny me nothing, but what is for my good? Let
me not question the appointments of infinite wisdom, let me not
wound him by one dishonoring doubt. Let me lean upon Him in
little things, as well as in great things. After the pledge
of His love in Jesus, nothing can come wrong that comes from
His hands. If tempted at times to harbor
some unkind misgivings, let the sight of the cross dispel it.
Looking to the rainbow in the cloud, gleaming with the words,
He loved me and gave Himself for me, Be it mine to say, Lord,
though you bend my spirit low, love only will I see. The very
hand that strikes the blow was wounded once for me. Chapter 21 Sleeping and Waking
Those also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. 1 Thessalonians
4 Or, as these words have been rendered, those who are laid
asleep in Jesus. We bid an earthly friend good
night, in the pleasing expectation of meeting next morning. The
saints are laid asleep in the grave of Jesus, in the sure and
certain hope of meeting Him in the morning of immortality. Child
of God! Weep not for those who have departed
to be with Christ. It is with them far better. Do not think of them gone. That
is a word taken from the vocabulary of death, and which, it is to
be feared, is often employed with many in the heathen sense
of annihilation. Seek not the living among the
dead. Think rather that the last sigh
was scarcely over on earth. when the song was begun in heaven. The spirit winged its arrow-like
flight among ministering seraphim. Hear that voice stealing down
in the soft whisper of heaven's music, and saying, If you loved
me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto my Father. The casket of this immortal jewel,
the soul, is left for a season to the dishonours of the tomb.
But it is only for a brief night-watch. That dust is precious, because
redeemed. Body as well as soul was purchased
by the life-blood of Emmanuel. Angels guard these slumbering
ashes, and the day is coming when God shall send His angels
with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together
his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other. Oh, if there be joy among the
angels of God over one sinner who repents, what shall be the
joy of those blessed beings over the myriads of rising dead, hastening
at their summons to their crowns and thrones? Christian mourner
Your brother shall rise again. Wish him not back amid the storms
of the wilderness. Be thankful, rather, that the
wheat is no longer out in the tempest and rain, but safely
garnered, eternally housed. Would you, if you could, weep
that blessed one back from glory? Would you ask him to unlearn
Heaven's language and be once more involved in the dust of
battle? no, rather rejoice in the hope
of the glory of God. Death is not an eternal sleep. Yet a little while, and He that
shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Jesus is now whispering
in your ear the glorious secret hidden from ages and generations,
and which was left to Him as the abolisher of death, to disclose
your dead shall live, together with my dead body shall they
rise. He is pointing you onward to
that hour of jubilee, when the summons shall be addressed to
all his sleeping saints. Awake and sing, you that dwell
in dust! O happy day, when I shall see
my Saviour God in all the glories of His exalted humanity, and
with Him The once loved and lost, now the loved and glorified,
never to be lost again. The Lord my God shall come, and
all the saints with you. Not one shall be lacking. In
concert with those whose tongues are now silent on earth, we shall
then unite in the lofty anthem, sung by the ingathered church
triumphant. O Death! Where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be to God, who gives us
the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ. Chapter 22 Invisible Harmonies
We know that all things work together for good to those who
love God. to them who are called according
to his purpose. Romans 8 verse 28 We are apt
to limit the Holy One of Israel and to say, Some things have
worked together for our good. God says, All things, joys, sorrows,
crosses, prosperity, health, sickness, the gourd bestowed
and the gourd withered, the cup full, and the cup emptied, the
lingering sick-bed, the early grave. Often, indeed, would sight
and sense lead us to doubt the reality of the promise. We can
see, in many things, scarcely a dim reflection of his love. Useful lives taken, blossoms
permanently plucked, spiritual props removed, benevolent schemes
blown up. But the Apostle does not say,
We see, but We know. It is the province of faith to
trust God in the dark. The uninitiated and undiscerning
cannot understand or explain the revolutions and dependencies
of the buried wheels in the complicated machine, but they have confidence
in the wisdom of the engineer, that all is designed to work
out some great, useful end. Be it ours to write over the
mysterious dealing, this also comes from the Lord of hosts,
who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working. Let
us be still, and know that he is God. We have a wonderful advertisement
of the Physician from the Spirit of Truth, says one, who heals
all your diseases. He requires but one thing, to
take all he has prescribed, bitter as well as sweet. He will yet
vindicate his own rectitude and faithfulness in our trials. Our own souls will be made better
for them. he himself will be glorified
in them. Doubt not, my love, he seems
to say, the day is coming when you shall have all mysteries
explained, all secrets unraveled, and this very trial demonstrated
to be one of the all things working together for your good. Men see
not the bright light in the clouds, but it shall come to pass that
at evening time it shall be light. Chapter 23 THE UNCHANGING NAME
JESUS CHRIST THE SAME YESTERDAY, TO-DAY, AND FOREVER HEBREWS 13
VERSE 8 All is changing here. Life is a kaleidoscope made of
shifting forms, new scenes, new tastes, new feelings, new associations,
an alternation of cloud and sunshine, tempest and calm. Its joys are
like the airy bubbles on the stream, tinted with sunlight,
we touch them and they are gone. We have to tell of vacant seats
in our sanctuaries, vacant seats in our homes, the music of well-known
voices hushed. Often, just when we imagine we
have at last obtained a stable footing, the scaffolding gives
way, the props on which for a lifetime we had been leaning fails, and
we feel ourselves out amid the pitiless storm. But is there
nothing stable amid all this mutability, nothing secure and
abiding amid these fleeting shadows? Yes, Jesus is without any variableness. Nineteen hundred years have rolled
by since He left our world. The world has changed, but He
is to this hour the same. We can follow Him Through all
his wondrous pilgrimage of love on earth, we can behold penitence
crouching at his feet, and sent away, forgiven. Sorrow tracking
his footsteps with tears, and sent away with her tears dried,
and her wounded spirit healed. Pain and sickness, pleading with
pallid lip and wasted feature, and disease, at his omnipotent
mandate, taking wings to itself, and fleeing away. And he who
is now on the heavenly throne is that same Jesus. His ascension
glories have not altered his changeless heart, or alienated
his affections. In him we have a rock which the
billows of adversity cannot shake. The spent fury of the chafing
waves may reach us no more. and this only endearing the security
and value of the abiding refuge. How often does God rouse the
storm to drive us from all creature confidences to this stable one? How often does He poison and
pollute the stream to lead us to seek the everlasting fountainhead? We may have lost much, but if
we have found You, O blessed Jesus, We possess infinitely
more than we have forfeited. We can glory in the persuasion
that nothing can ever separate us from your love. A look may
alienate us from our best earthly friends. An unintentional word
may estrange. The grave must sunder. But the Lord lives. and blessed
be my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted. What you have been yesterday,
yes, from everlasting ages, you are to this day, and you shall
be for ever and ever. We can look to the rainbow of
your promises, and behold all of them in you. Yes, and Amen. You are addressing us from your
throne in glory. that throne spoken of in Revelation,
as encircled with the rainbow of Emerald, the emblem of perpetuity,
and saying, Fear not, I am he that lives and was dead, and,
behold, I am alive for evermore. Because I live, you shall live
also. CHAPTER XXIV. STRENGTH FOR THE
DAY. AS YOUR DAYS, SO SHALL YOUR STRENGTH
BE. DEUTERONOMY XXXIII. VERSE XXV. BELIEVER, have you
not felt it so? Have you not found plants distilling
balm, growing beside sorrow's path? Supports vouchsafed, which
were undreamed of until the dreaded cloud had burst? and the day
of trial had come. Trouble not yourself regarding
an unknown and veiled future, but cast all your cares on God. Our sandals, says a saint now
in glory, are a poor proof against the roughest path. He whose name
is the God of all grace is better than his word. He will be found
equal to all the emergencies of his people, enough for each
moment and each hour as they come. He never takes us to the
bitter morrow-streams, but he reveals also the hidden branch. Paul was hurled down from the
third heavens to endure the smarting of the thorn. but he rises like
a giant from his fall, exalting in the sustaining grace of an
all-sufficient God. The beautiful peculiarity in
this promise is that God proportions His grace to the nature and season
of the trial. He does not give an advance supply
of grace, but when the needed season comes, then the appropriate
strength and support are imparted. He does not send the rainbow
before the cloud, but when the cloud appears, the rainbow is
seen in it. He gives sustaining grace for
a trying day, and dying grace for a dying gray. Do not morbidly
brood on the future, live on the promise. When tomorrow comes
with its trials, Jesus will come with tomorrow, and with its trials
too. Present grace is enough for present
necessity. Trust God for the future. We
honor Him not by anticipating trial, but by confiding in His
faithfulness, and crediting His assurances that no temptation
will He send greater than we are able to bear. Even if you
should see fresh storm-clouds returning after the rain, be
ready to say, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Insufficient you are of yourself
for any trial, but your sufficiency is of God. The promise is not
your grace, but my grace is sufficient. O trust His all-sufficiency in
all things. Jehovah-Jireh THE LORD WILL PROVIDE. SEE WRITTEN OVER EVERY TRYING
HOUR OF THE FUTURE. SO SHALL YOUR STRENGTH BE. CHAPTER XXV THE GRAVE SPOILED
I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them
from death. O death! I will be your plagues. O grave, I will be your destruction. Hosea 13 verse 14 Christian,
the grave is lit with Emmanuel's love. The darkest of all clouds,
that which rests over the land of Hades, has the brightest rainbow
in it. These gloomy portals are not
to hold your loved and lost ones forever. The land of forgetfulness,
where your buried treasures lie, is not a winter of unbroken darkness
and desolation. A glorious springtime of revival
is promised, when the mortal shall put on immortality, and
the corruptible shall be clothed within corruption. THE RESURRECTION
OF THE BODY It is the climax of the work of Jesus, its culminating
glory. Paul represents a longing church
as waiting for the adoption, the redemption of the body. It
was the preeminent theme of his preaching. He preached unto them
Jesus and the resurrection. It was the loved article in his
creed which engrossed his holiest aspirations, if by any means
I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. It was the grand
solace he addressed to other mourners. It is not when speaking
of the immediate bliss of the departed spirit at the hour of
death, but it is when dwelling on the last trump, the dead rising
incorruptible, and caught up in their resurrection bodies,
to meet the Lord, that he says, therefore comfort one another
with these words. Blessed day! the Easter of creation,
the dawn of the sabbatic morn, the jubilee of a triumphant church. Christian mourner, go not to
the grave to weep there! Every particle of that mouldering
dust is redeemed by the oblation of Calvary. And the great abolisher
of death is only awaiting the ingathering of the elect to give
the commission to his archangels regarding all his saints which
he gave of old regarding one. Loose him, and let him go! And
who can paint the glory of these resurrection-bodies, reunited
to their companion-spirits, fashioned like their lords? Every sense,
every faculty, purified, sublimated, overflowing with holiness, emulus
with ardor in his service, eager to execute his will, retaining,
it may be, the personal identities of earth, the old features worn
in the nether valley. The Lamb, in the midst of the
throne, leading them and feeding them, climbing along with them,
steep by steep, in the path of life, and saying at each ascending
step in the endless progression, I will show you greater things
than these. Meanwhile he has himself risen
as the pledge of this resurrection of all his people. The great
sheaf has been waved before the throne as the pledge of the mighty
harvest, Christ the first fruits, afterwards those who are Christ's
at his coming. Blessed and holy is he that has
part in the first resurrection. Chapter 26 EVERLASTING LOVE I
have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore with lovingkindness
have I drawn you. Jeremiah 31 verse 3 BELIEVER Are you tempted now to doubt
his love? Are his footsteps lost amid the
night shadows through which he is now conducting you? Remember,
he had his eye upon you before the birth of time—yes, from all
eternity. What appears to you now some
sudden capricious exercise of his power or sovereignty is determination
and decree of everlasting love. I have loved you, he seems to
say, suffering one, into this affliction. I will love you through
it, and when my designs regarding you are complete, I will show
you that the love which is from everlasting is to everlasting. Child of God, if there is a ripple
now agitating the surface of the stream, trace it up to this
fountainhead of love. God is faithful. He cannot deny
himself. If some dark clouds are now intercepting
those gracious beings, he must have some wise end to subserve. For a brief moment I abandon
you, but with great compassion I will bring you back. In a moment
of anger I turned my face away for a little while, but with
everlasting love I will have compassion on you. says the Lord
your Redeemer. Just as I swore in the time of
Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth and
destroy its life, so now I swear that I will never again pour
out my anger on you. For the mountains may depart
and the hills disappear, but even then I will remain loyal
to you. My covenant blessing will never
be broken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you. God sets His
rainbow in the dark sky, and, as if it were not enough that
His people should look upon it and take comfort in its many
and varied promises, He Himself graciously becomes a party in
gazing on the covenant pledge. And the rainbow shall be in the
cloud, and I shall look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant." He puts himself, so to speak, in mind of his own
everlasting love. In his saints' dark and cloudy
day, when they imagine that their eyes are alone resting on the
tokens of covenant faithfulness, the eye of a covenant-keeping
God is resting upon them too. I will look upon my own promises,
he seems to say. They shall be memorials to myself,
of my purposes of unchanging mercy. Nor is this love merely
a general indiscriminate affection. The verse speaks of each individual
member of the Covenant family. I have loved you. O my father,
said Madame Guillaume. It seems to me sometimes as if
you did forget every other being, in order to think only of my
faithless and ungrateful heart. Let us seek to view our trials
as so many cords of loving-kindness, by which our God is seeking to
draw us—yes, and will draw us—near Himself. Who knows what mercy
may be bound up in what may seem to us dark and mysterious dispensations? We are apt to misname and misinterpret
his ways. We call his dealings severe trials. He calls them loving-kindness. Drooping saint, let your eyes
rest on the rainbow overarching the throne of God. spanning from
eternity to eternity, and read for your comfort the gracious
declaration, The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon those who fear Him. Chapter 27 INVIOLABLE ATTACHMENT
There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs
18, verse 24. Close is the tie which binds
brother to brother, the companions of infancy, shares of one another's
joys and sorrows, cast in the same human mould, having engraved
on their heart of hearts the same hallowed associations of
life's early mourning. The time for separation, at last,
comes. The birds must leave the parents'
nest, and try their pinions beyond their native valley. The world's
call to work and warfare is imperious. The old homestead, like a dismembered
vessel, is broken to pieces, and the inmates, like the vessel's
planks, are strewn far apart on life's ocean. The world's
duties sever some. Unhappy estrangements at times
may sever others. Death, at some time, must sever
all. But there is one whose friendship
and love circumstances cannot estrange, distance cannot affect,
and death cannot destroy. The kindest of earth's relatives
may say to us regarding this true elder brother, as Boaz said
to Ruth, It is true that I am your near kinsman, however there
is a kinsman nearer than I. He is a brother, yes, more than
a brother, friend, counselor, portion, physician, and shepherd
all combined. Happy for us, when the old avenues
of comfort are closed up, to hear him, whose faithfulness
is unimpeachable, saying, I will not fail you or forsake you. Happy for us, when the old moorings
give way, to have one safe anchorage that cannot be removed or shaken. I shall now go to sleep, said
a remarkable saint, who, driven about with storm and tempest,
at last found the safe shelter. I shall now go to sleep on the
rock of ages. TRIED BELIEVER, HE HAS NEVER
FAILED YOU AND NEVER WILL. WITH HIM ARE NO ALTERED TONES,
NO FITFUL AFFECTIONS. THE REED MAY BE SHAKEN, BUT THE
ROCK REMAINS IMMUTABLE. HE IS HIMSELF THE TRUE RAINBOW
IN THE CLOUD. THE PROMISES OF SCRIPTURE, LIKE
THE VARIED HUES IN THE NATURAL RAINBOW, ARE MANIFOLD. But all
these promises are in Him. Yes, and it is in the cloudy
day that this divine encircling rainbow most gloriously appears. Never would we have known Christ
as the brother born for adversity, unless by adversity. It is trial
that unfolds and develops His infinite worth and preciousness. When the love of earthly friends
is buried in the grave, The love of the Heavenly Friend shines
forth more tenderly than ever. As Jonathan of old, wandering
faint and weary in the woods, found honey distilling from a
tree, and was revived by eating it, so faint and weary one, wandering
among the tangled thickets, the deep glades of affliction, seat
yourself under your Beloved's shadow with great delight. and let his fruit be pleasant
to your taste. This tree of life distills a
balm for every broken, wounded, bleeding heart, every faint and
downcast spirit. Yes, Jesus will make, in this
the hour of your loneliness and sorrow, his own life-giving,
life-sustaining words and promises to be sweeter also than honey
and the honeycomb. Though now exalted on the throne,
inhabiting the praises of eternity, he still manifests the brother's
heart and the brother's tenderness. He is not ashamed to call them
brethren. Chapter 28 THE SUPPORTING PRESENCE
When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be
with you. When you go through rivers of
difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire
of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not
consume you. Isaiah 43 verse 2 What a diversity
of afflictions in this trial world! Waters, rivers, floods,
flames, fires, The Christian is herefore warned that he will
encounter these in some one of their innumerable phases, whether
it be loss of health, loss of wealth, loss of friends, baffled
schemes, or blighted hopes. But, blessed thought, these trials
have their limits. The floods will not overflow. The fires will not burn. The flames will not consume. God will stay his rough wind
in the day of his east wind. He will say, Thus far shall you
go, and no farther. And better still, Jesus will
be in all these trials, and prove sufficient for them all. He shall
hear in the midst of the great fight of afflictions the sound
of our Master's footsteps. He Himself has passed through
these flames, braved these floods, and bowed His guiltless head
to these storms. He comes to us, as He did to
His disciples in the very midst of the tempest, and says, Fear
not, it is I. Do not be afraid. Believer, what
is your experience? Is it not that of the triumphant
Israelites? They went through the flood on
foot. There did we rejoice in him. The flood? The very scene
of your trial? You were able to march boldly
through it, unparalleled by the threatening waves? Yes, with
your lips vocal with praise. How this moral heroism, this
strange rejoicing? It was because the god of the
pillar-cloud was at your side. Your rejoicing was in him. He made you more than conqueror.
You may have many adversaries ranged against you—tribulation,
distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, sword—but there
is One in the midst of fires, flames, and floods, mightier
than all, and with Him at your side you can boldly utter the
challenge to the heights above and the depths beneath. Who shall
separate me from the love of Christ?" Oh, sirs," said Thomas
Brooks, there is in the crucified Jesus something proportionable
to all the difficulties, needs, necessities and trials of his
poor people. CHAPTER XXIX. FELLOW FEELING. For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one
who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was
without sin. Hebrews 4, verse 15. Like the appearance of a rainbow
in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the
likeness What an elevating truth! The
sympathy of the God-man-mediator, the true rainbow in the cloud,
Jesus in our sorrows! What a source of exalted joy
to the stripped and desolate heart! What a green pasture to
lie down upon, amid the windy storm and tempest! or in the
dark and cloudy day. The sympathy of man is cheering
and comforting, but thus far shall you go and no farther.
It is finite, limited, often selfish. There are nameless and
numerous sorrows on earth, beyond the reach of all human alleviation. The sympathy of Jesus is alone
exalted, pure, infinite, removed from all taint of selfishness. He has Himself passed through
every experience of woe. There are no depths of sorrow
or anguish into which I can be plunged, but His everlasting
arms are lower still. He has been called the great
sympathetic nerve of his Church, over which the afflictions and
oppressions and sufferings of his people continually pass. Child of sorrow, a human heart
beats on the throne, and he has your name written on that heart. He cares for you as if none other
claimed his regard. As the great High Priest He walks
in the midst of his temple-lamps, his golden candlesticks, replenishing
them, at times with oil, trimming them if need be, but all in order
that they may burn with a steadier and purer luster. He was tempted
in every way. Blessed assurance! I never can
know the sorrow into which the man of sorrow cannot enter. Rather,
in the midst of earth's most lacerating trials, let me listen
to the unanswerable challenge from the lips of a suffering
Saviour. Was there ever any sorrow like
unto my sorrow? Yet he refused not to drink the
cup of wrath. He shrunk not back from the appointed
cross. He set his face steadfastly to
go to Jerusalem. And even when he hung upon the
bitter tree, he refused the vinegar that would have assuaged the
rage of thirst, and mitigated physical suffering. Are we tempted
at times to murmur under God's afflicting hand? Consider him
who endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest
you be wearied and faint in your minds. Shall we hesitate to bear
any trial? our Lord and Master sees fit
to lay upon us, when we think of the infinitely weightier cross
He so meekly and uncomplainingly carried for us. Afflicted one,
have your eye on this radiant rainbow in your cloud of sorrow. You may, like the disciples on
the transfiguration mount, fear to enter the cloud, but hear
the voice issuing from it, This is my beloved son. Hear him. Jesus speaks through these clouds. He tells us our cares are his
cares, our sorrows his sorrows. He has some wise and gracious
end in every mysterious chastisement. His language is hear the rod
and he who has appointed it. He has too kind and loving a
heart to cause us one needless or superfluous pang. O that we
may indeed hear the voice out of the cloud, and seek that the
trials He sends in love may be greatly sanctified! Let us not
dream that affliction of itself is a pathway to heaven. clouds
do not form the material rainbow, these glorious hues come from
the sunbeams alone. Without the latter, we could
discern nothing but blackened heavens and dismal rain-torrents. It is not because those clad
in white robes had come out of great tribulation that they were
enjoying the beatific presence, but because they had washed their
robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We have
only reason to glory in affliction when it has been the means of
bringing us near the Saviour, and leading us to the open fountain. Jesus, my only hope Thou art,
strength of my failing flesh and heart, O could I catch a
smile from Thee, and drop into eternity! Chapter 30 A SPEEDY COMING Yet
a little while, and he shall come, and will not tarry. Hebrews 10, verse 37 A little
while, and the unquiet dream of life will be over, and the
morning without clouds shall dawn. A few more tossings on
life's tempestuous sea, and the peaceful haven shall be entered. A few more night-watches, and
the Lord of Love will be seen standing on the heavenly shore,
as once He stood on the shores of an earthly lake, with an eternal
banquet of love prepared for His children. Yes, He comes. That is the Church's blessed
hope. It is the voice and presence
of Her Beloved which will turn the shadow of death into morning
The dead, the ransom-dead, shall hear his voice and come forth. Those asleep in Jesus, God is
to bring with him. His final invitation is not,
Go, you blessed to some bright paradise of angels prepared elsewhere
for you, but rather come, share my bliss, be partakers in my
crown. enter into the joy of your Lord. Paul's heaven was described in
two words, with Christ. John's heaven was made up of
two elements, of likeness to Jesus and fellowship with Jesus. We shall be like him. We shall
see him as he is. In his sublime apocalyptic visions,
when the door was opened in heaven, The first object which attracts
his arrested gaze is one who sat upon the throne, around whom
was a rainbow like unto an emerald. Our happiness will not be complete
until we are ushered into the full vision and fruition of Jesus. We are nourished in this far-off
land from the king's country, but we shall not be satisfied
until we see the king himself. Jacob received full wagon-loads
from Joseph, but he could not rest until he had seen Joseph
with his own eyes. When he did so, the aged man's
spirit revived. We receive manifold pledges of
covenant mercy from the true Joseph. in this house of our
pilgrimage, but we long to behold His face in righteousness. We
shall only be satisfied when we awake in His likeness. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! He will not tarry. Each sun,
as it sets, is bringing us nearer the joyful consummation. Time
is hastening with gigantic footstep to the advent throne. The sackcloth
attire of a now burdened creation will soon be exchanged for the
full robe of light and beauty, which is to deck a Sabbath world. Happy day, when the rainbow in
a nobler sense shall be seen in the cloud, not the rainbow
of promise, but he in whom all the promises blend and center. Behold, he comes with clouds. Seek ever to be in an attitude
of watchfulness. Like the mother of Cicera, let
faith be straining its ear for the whirr of the chariot-wheels,
that when the cry shall be heard, Behold, it is he, we may be joyfully
able to respond, Yes, this is our God, we have waited for him. It will be good for those servants
whose master finds them watching when he comes. I tell you the
truth, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline
at the table, and will come and wait on them. Chapter 31 ETERNAL JOY And the
ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. Isaiah 35 verse 10. Believer, leave your rainbow
in the cloud behind you, and with your eye on the rainbow
round about the throne, think of the glad return of God's ransomed
ones to Zion. Every teardrop dried, every pang
forgotten. Once, wanderers in the wilderness,
in a solitary way, prisoners, bound with affliction and iron,
mariners, struggling in a tempest, mark the termination of their
checkered history. God is not only represented as
supporting their fainting souls, shivering in pieces their chains,
and enabling them to buffet the angry surges, but he leads the
pilgrims to a city of habitation. He rescues the captives from
darkness and the shadow of death. He brings the storm-tossed seamen
to their desired haven, and puts the everlasting song into the
lips of all. Oh, that men would praise the
Lord for his goodness! and for his wonderful works to
the children of men. Sorrowing one, tossed on life's
stormy sea, soon will that peaceful haven be yours. From the sunlit
shores of glory, each and all of your trials will be seen to
be special proofs of your Heavenly Father's faithfulness, circled
with a halo of love. You may now be going forth weeping. bearing your precious seed. But
you shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing your
sheaves with you. As some seeds require to be soaked
in water before they germinate, so is immortal seed often here
soaked in tears. But those who sow in tears shall
reap in joy. Though weeping may endure for
the night, joy comes in the morning. You are, says Rutherford, upon
the entry of Heaven's harvest. The losses that I write of are
but summer showers, and the sun of the new Jerusalem shall quickly
dry them up. The song of the night shall then
blend with the song of the skies, and inner, glorious meanings
will be disclosed to the sight, which are now hidden from the
eye of faith. Sorrow and sighing shall forever
flee away. No sickness, no sorrow, no pain,
said an aged saint now entered on these glorious realities.
But this is only your negative. What, O God, must be your positive? Songs, everlasting joy, joy and
gladness, it will be song upon song, Joy upon joy! Gladness upon gladness! These songs of heaven will be
songs of degrees. The ransomed will be ever graduating
in bliss, mounting from glory to glory, each song suggesting
the keynote of a louder and loftier one. Are you mourning the loss
of those who are not, the music of whose voices is hushed for
the forever of time, and who have left you to travel companionless
and alone the wilderness journey. A few more years, a few more
tears, and you shall meet them in the daybreak of glory. No,
more, they have but anticipated you in an earlier crown. If they
have left you behind for a little season to continue your night-song,
think with bounding heart of that eternal day, when, looking
back on the clouds floating in the far distance in the nether
valley, you shall be able to join in the anthem said to be
sung by the twenty-four elders, as they gaze on the throne encircled
by the rainbow of emerald. For they rest not, day and night,
saying, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, LORD GOD, This concludes The Rainbow in
the Clouds by John McDuff.