THE RAINBOW IN THE CLOUDS by
John MacDuff Chapter 1 Sovereignty THE LORD
REIGNS Psalm 93, Verse 1 No rainbow of promise in the dark and cloudy
day shines more radiantly than this. God, my God, the God who
gave Jesus, orders all events and over-rules all for my good. When I, says he, send clouds
over the earth, he has no wish to conceal the hand which shadows
for a time earth's brightest prospects. It is he alike who
brings the cloud, who brings us into it, and in mercy leads
us through it. His kingdom rules over all. The lot is cast into the lap,
but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord. He puts the burden
on, and keeps it on, and at his own time will remove it. Beware
of brooding over second causes. It is the worst form of atheism. When our most fondly cherished
gourds are smitten, our fairest flowers lie withered in our bosom,
This is the silencer of all reflections. The Lord prepared the worm. When
the temples of the soul is smitten with lightning and its pillars
rent, the Lord is in His holy temple. Accident, chance, fate,
destiny, have no place in the Christian's creed. He is no unpiloted
vessel left to the mercy of the storm. The voice of the Lord
is upon the waters. There is but one explanation
of all that befalls him. I will be mute. I will open not
my mouth. Because you did it." Death seems
to the human spectator the most capricious and severe of all
events. But not so. The keys of death
and Hades are in the hands of this same reigning God. Look at the parable of the fig-tree.
Its prolonged existence, or its doom as a cumberer, forms matter
of conversation in heaven. The axe cannot be laid at its
root until God gives the warrant. How much more will this be the
case regarding every tree of righteousness, the planting of
the Lord? It will be watched over by Him,
lest any one hurt it. every trembling fibre he will
care for, and, if made early to succumb to the inevitable
stroke, who knows not in all these things that the hand of
the Lord has done this? Be it mine to merge my own will
in his, not to cavil it his ways or to seek to have one jot or
tittle of his will altered, but to lie passive in his hands. to take the bitter as well as
the sweet, knowing that the bitter cup is mingled by one who loves
me too well to add one ingredient that might have been spared.
Who can wonder that the sweet psalmist of Israel should seek,
as he sees it spanning the lower heavens, to fix the arrested
gaze of a whole world on the softened tints of this rainbow
of comfort? The Lord reigns. let the earth
rejoice. Chapter 2 A LOVING PURPOSE THE
LORD HAS PLEASURE IN THE PROSPERITY OF HIS SERVANT. Psalm 35 verse
27 What is prosperity? Is it threads of life weaved
into a bright outcome? A full cup? Ample riches? Worldly applause? An unbroken
circle? No, these are often a snare,
received without gratitude, dimming the soul to its nobler destinies. Often, spiritually, it rather
means God taking us by the hand into the lowly valleys of humiliation,
leading us, as he did his servant Job of old, out of his sheep,
oxen, camels, health, wealth, children, in order that we may
be brought before him in the dust, and say, Blessed be his
holy name. Yes, the very reverse of what
is known in the world as prosperity, generally, forms the background
on which the rainbow of promise is seen. God smiles on us through
these rainbows and teardrops of sorrows. He loves us too well. He has too great an interest
in our spiritual welfare to permit us to live on in what is misnamed
prosperity. When he sees duties languidly
performed or coldly neglected, the heart, deadened and loved
to himself congealed by the absorbing power of the present world, he
puts a thorn in our nest, to drive us to the wing, and prevent
our being grovelers for ever. I may not be able now to understand
the mystery of these dealings. I may be asking through the tears,
why this unkind arrest on my earthly happiness? Why so premature
a lopping of my boughs of promise? Why such a speedy withering of
my most cherished gourd? The answer is plain. It is your
soul's prosperity he has in view. Believe it, your true Ebenezers
will yet be raised Close by your Xerophaths, the place of Furnace. His afflictions are no arbitrary
appointments. There is righteous necessity
in all he does. As he lays his chastening hand
upon you, and leads you by ways you know not, and which you never
would have chosen, he whispers the gentle accents in your ear,
Beloved, I wish above all things that you would prosper and be
in health. Rest in the quiet consciousness
that all is well. Murmur at nothing which brings
you nearer his own loving presence. be thankful for your very cares,
because you can confidently cast them all upon him. He has your
temporal and eternal prosperity too much at heart to appoint
one superfluous pang, one needless stroke. Commit, therefore, all
that concerns you to his keeping, and leave it there. Chapter 3 THE SAFE REFUGE A man
shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the
tempest, as streams of water in a dry place, as the shade
of a great rock in a weary land.—Isaiah 32, verse 2. A man—this first
word forms the key to the precious verse. It is the man, Christ
Jesus. And when and where is he thus
revealed to his people as their hiding-place and shelter? It
is as with Elijah of old, in the whirlwind and the storm.
Amid the world's bright sunshine, in the tranquil skies, uninterrupted
prosperity, they seek him not. But when the clouds begin to
gather, and the sun is swept from the firmament, When they
have learned the insecurity of all earthly refuges, then the
prayer ascends, my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher
than I. The earthquake, the tempest,
the fire, and then the still small voice. Sorrowing believer,
you have indeed a sure refuge, a strong tower which cannot be
shaken. The world has its refuges, too,
but they cannot stand the day of trial. The wind passes over
them, and they are gone. But the louder the hurricane,
the more will it endear to you the abiding shelter. The deeper
in the clefts of this rock, the safer you are. A man, delight
often to dwell on the humanity of Jesus. You have a brother
on the throne, a living kinsman, one who knows your frame, and
who, by the exquisite sympathies of his exalted human nature,
can gauge, as none other can, the depth of your sorrow. An earthly friend comes to you
in trial. He has never known bereavement,
and therefore cannot enter into your woe. Another comes. He has been again and again in
the furnace. His heart has been touched tenderly
as your own. He can feelingly sympathize with
you. It is so with Jesus. As man,
He has passed through every experience of suffering. He has Himself
known the storm from which He offers you shelter. He is a rock,
yet a man, mighty to save, yet mighty to compassionate. Emmanuel,
God with us, he is like the rainbow in the material heavens, which,
while its summit is in the clouds, each base of its arc rests on
earth, or like the oak, which, while it can wrestle with the
tempest, yet invites the most feeble bird to fold its wing
on its branches. Mourner, go sit under your beloved's
shadow with great delight, hide in his wounded side. The hand
which pierced you is ordering your trials. He who roused the
storm is the hiding-place from it. And as you journey on, gloomy
clouds mustering around you, let this bright rainbow of comfort
ever arrest your drooping eye. For this reason he had to be
made like his brothers in every way. Since he himself has gone
through suffering and temptation, he is able to help us when we
are being tempted. Chapter 4 The Reason for Chastisement
Whom the Lord loves, he chastens. HEBREWS 12 VERSE 6 WHAT, GOD
LOVES ME WHEN HE IS DISCHARGING HIS QUIVER UPON ME, EMPTYING
ME FROM VESSEL TO VESSEL, CAUSING THE SUN OF MY EARTHLY JOYS TO
SET IN CLOUDS? YES, O AFFLICTED, TOSSED WITH
TEMPEST, HE CHASTENS YOU BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU. This trial comes
from his own tender, loving hand, his own tender, unchanging heart. Are you laid on a sick-bed? Are
sorrowful months and worrisome nights appointed to you? Let
this be the pillow on which your aching head reclines. It is because
he loves me. Is it bereavement that has swept
your heart and desolated your dwelling? He appointed that chamber
of death because He loves you. As it is the suffering child
of the family which claims a mother's deepest affections and most tender
solicitude, so have you at this moment embarked on your side
the most tender love and solicitude of a heavenly Father. He loved
you into this sorrow, and will love you through it. There is
nothing capricious in His dealings. Love is the reason of all he
does. There is no drop of wrath in
that cup you are called to drink. I do believe, says one, he has
purchased these afflictions for us, as well as everything else. Blessed be his name, it is part
of his covenant to visit us with the rod. What says our adorable
Lord himself? The words were spoken, not when
he was on earth. a sojourner in a sorrowing world,
but when enthroned amid the glories of heaven. As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten. Believer, rejoice in the thought
that the rod, the chastening rod, is in the hands of the living,
loving Saviour who died for you. Tribulation is the King's highway,
and yet that highway is paved with love. As some flowers, before
shedding their fragrance, require to be crushed, so does your God
think it suitable to bruise you. As some birds are said to sing
their sweetest notes when the thorn pierces their bosom, so
does He appoint affliction to lacerate, that you may be driven
to the wing, singing in your upward soaring. My heart is fixed,
O God, my heart is fixed. Be it ours to say, Lord, I will
love you not only despite your rod, but because of your rod. I will rush into the very arms
that are chastening me. Chapter 5 IMMUTABILITY I, the
Lord, change not. Therefore you sons of Jacob are
not consumed. Malachi 3 verse 6 The unchangeableness
of God! What an anchor for a storm-toss
sea! Change is our portion here. Scenes
are altering. Joys are fading. Friends, some
of them are removed at a distance. Others have gone to their long
home. Who, amid these checkered experiences, does not sigh for
something permanent, stable, enduring? The vessel has again
and again flipped its earthly moorings. We long for some secure
and sheltered harbor. I change not. Heart and flesh
may faint, yes, do faint and fail, but there is an unfainting,
unfailing, unvarying God. All the changes in the world
around cannot affect Him. Our own fitfulness cannot alter
Him. When we are depressed, downcast,
fluctuating, our treacherous hearts turning aside like a broken
bow. He is without one shadow of turning. God, who cannot lie, is the superscription
on His eternal throne, and inscribed on all His dealings. I change
not. Precious name! It forms a blessed
guarantee. that nothing can befall me, but
what is for my good? I cannot doubt his faithfulness.
I dare not arraign the rectitude of his dispensations. It is covenant
love which is now darkening my earthly horizon. This hour he
is the same as when he spared not his own son. Oh, instead
of wondering at my trials, let me rather wonder that he has
borne with me so long. It is of the Lord's unchanging
mercies that I am not consumed. Had He been man, changeful, vacillating
as myself, long before now would He have spurned me away, and
consigned me to the doom of the cumberer. But my thoughts are
not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. He is without any variableness. CHAPTER VI. DIVINE SYMPATHY I
know their sorrows.—Exodus 3, verse 7. Man cannot say so. There are many sensitive fibres
in the soul the best and most tender human sympathy cannot
touch. But the Prince of Sufferers,
he who led the way in the path of sorrow, knows our frame. When crushing bereavement lies
like ice on the heart, when the dearest earthly friend cannot
enter into the peculiarities of our grief, Jesus can. Jesus does. He who once bore
my sins also carried my sorrows. That I, now on the throne, was
once dim with weeping. I can think in all my afflictions. He was afflicted. In all my tears,
Jesus wept. I know their sorrows. He may
seem at times thus to forget and forsake us, leaving us to
utter the plaintive cry, Has God forgotten to be gracious?
when all the while He is bending over us in the most tender love.
He often allows our needs to attain their extremity, that
He may stretch forth His supporting hand and reveal the plenitude
of His grace. The Lord is very compassionate
and of tender mercy. And, knowing our sorrows, is
the guarantee that none will be sent but what he sees to be
needful. I will not, says he, make a full
end of you, but I will correct you in measure. All he sends
is precisely meted out, wisely apportioned. There is nothing
accidental or fortuitous, no unneeded thorn, no superfluous
pang. He puts our tears in a bottle. Each one is counted, drop by
drop, tear by tear. They are sacred things among
the treasures of God. Suffering believer, the iron
may have entered deeply into your soul, yet rejoice. How great is your honor! You
are partaker with Christ in His sufferings. Jesus, a sorrowing,
sympathizing Jesus, knows your aching pangs and burning tears,
and He will come down to deliver you. Chapter 7 A GRACIOUS CONDITION
If need be. What a blessed motto and superscription
over the dark lentils of sorrow! If need be, every sharp arrow
from the quiver of God is feathered with it. Write it, child of affliction,
over every trial your God sees fit to send. If He calls you
down from the sunny mountain heights to the dark glades, hear
Him saying, There is a need be. If he has dashed the cup of prosperity
from your lips, curtailed your creature comforts, diminished
your basket and your store, hear him saying, There is a need be. If he has ploughed and furrowed
your soul with severe bereavement, extinguished light after light
in your dwelling, hear him therefore stilling the tumult of your grief,
There is a need be. Yes, believe it, there is some
profound reason for your trial, which, at present, may be indiscernible. No furnace will be hotter than
he sees to be needed. Sometimes, indeed, his teachings
are mysterious. We can, with difficulty, spell
out the letters, God is Love. We can see no bright light in
our cloud. It is all mystery. Not one break
is there in the sky. No, hear what God the Lord speaks,
if need be. He does not long leave his people
alone. If he sees the chariot-wheels
dragging heavily, he will take his own means to sever them from
an absorbing love of the world, to pursue them out of self, and
dislodge usurping clay idols. that may have vaulted on the
throne, which he alone may occupy. Before your present trial he
may have seen your love waxing cold, or your influence for good
lessening. As the sun outbrilliances an
earthly fire, the sun of earthly prosperity may have been extinguishing
the fires of your soul. You may have been shining less
brightly for Christ affecting some guilty compromise with an
insinuating and seductive world. He has appointed the very discipline
and dealing needful. Nothing less could have done.
Be still, and know that he is God. That need be, remember,
is in the hands of infinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite power. Trust him in little things as
well as great things, in trifles as well as emergencies. Seek
to have unquestioning faith. Though other paths, doubtless,
would have been selected by you, had the choice been in your hands,
be it yours to listen to his voice at every turn in the road,
saying, This is the way, walk in it. We may not be able to
understand it now, but one day we shall come to find that affliction
is one of God's blessed angels, a ministering spirit, sent forth
to minister to those who are heirs of salvation. Lovelier
indeed to the eye is the azure blue, the fleecy summer vapors,
or gold and vermilion of western sunsets, but what would become
of the earth if no dark clouds from time to time hung over it,
distilling their treasures, reviving and refreshing its drooping vegetable-tribes. Is it otherwise with the soul?
No. The cloud of sorrow is needed.
Its every raindrop has an inner meaning of love. If, even now,
afflicted one, these clouds are gathering, and the tempest sighing,
Lift up your eye to the divine scroll gleaming in the darkened
heavens, and remember that he who has put the rainbow of promise
there saw also a need be for the cloud on which it rests. Chapter VIII Presence and rest. My presence shall go with you,
and I will give you rest. Exodus 33 verse 14. Moses asked to be shown the way. Here is the answer. The way is
not shown. But better than this, God says,
trust me, I will go with you. Afflicted one. Hear the voice
addressing you from the cloudy pillar? It is the wilderness
promise which God still speaks to His spiritual Israel. He who
led His people of old, like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron,
will manifest towards you the same shepherd love. The way may
be very different from what we could have wished, what we would
have chosen. But the choice is in better hands. he had his own wise and righteous
ends in every turning in it. Who can look back on the past
leadings of God without gratitude and thankfulness? When his sheep
have been conducted to the rougher parts of the wilderness, he,
their shepherd, has gone before them. When their fleece was torn,
and they were foot-sore and weary, he has borne them in his arms. His presence has lightened every
cross and sweetened every care. Let us trust Him for an unknown
and checkered future. Other companionships we cherished
may have failed us, but one who is better than the best goes
before us in His gracious pillar-cloud. With Him for our portion, take
what He will away, we can be happy. we can rise above the
loss of the earthly gift, in the consciousness of the nobler
possession and heritage we enjoy in the Great Bestower. He may
have seemed fit to level clay idols, that he, the All-Satisfying,
might reign paramount and supreme. He may have seemed to take earthly
presences away, to make us breathe more earnestly the prayer If
your presence go not with us, carry us not there. He will not
allow us to rear havens on earth, and to write upon them, this
is my rest. No, tenting-time here, resting-time
yonder. But fear not, he seems to say,
you are not left without a friend or without solace on the way,
pilgrim, in a pilgrim-land. My presence shall go with you
in all your dark and cloudy days, in your hours of faintness and
depression, in sadness, in life and in death. And when the journey
is ended, the pillar needed no more, I will give you rest. The pledge of grace will be followed
with the fruition of glory. Chapter 9 THE GIVER AND THE TAKER
The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name
of the Lord. Job 1, verse 21 Noble posture,
this, to kneel and to adore, To see no hand but one. Sibeans, fire, whirlwind, sword,
are all overlooked. The patriarch recognizes alone
the Lord who gave, and the Lord who has taken. What is the cause
of so much depression, needless sorrow, and gospel murmuring
in our hours of trial? It was what Rutherford calls
our looking to the confused rollings of the wheels of second causes.
A refusal to rise to the height of the great argument, and confidently
to say, The will of the Lord be done. A refusal to hear his
voice, his own loving voice, mingling with the accents of
the rudest storm. It is I. Is there evil in the
city, and the Lord has not done it? Is there a bitter drop in
the cup, and the Lord has not mingled it? He loves his people
too well. to entrust their interests to
any other. We are but clay in the hand of
the potter, vessels in the hand of the refiner of silver. He
meets out our portion. He appoints the bounds of our
habitation. The Lord God prepared the gourd. The Lord God prepared the worm. He is the Author alike of mercies
and sorrows, of comforts and crosses. He breathes into our
nostrils the breath of life, and, it is at His summons, the
spirit returns to the God who gave it. O that we would seek
to regard our own lives, and the lives of those dear to us,
as alone! God, as the great Proprietor,
who, when He sees fit, can revoke the grant or curtail the lease
He gave, all mercies by Him bestowed by him continued, by him withheld? And how often does he take away,
that he may himself enter the vacuum of the heart, and fill
it with his own ineffable presence and love? No loss can compensate
for the lack of him, but he can compensate for all losses. Let
us trust his love and faithfulness, as a taking as well as a giving
God. often are sense and sight tempted
to say, Not so, Lord. But faith, resting on the promise,
can exult in this rainbow, spanning the darkest cloud. Even so, Father,
for it seems good in your sight. Chapter 10 DELIVERANCE IN TROUBLE
Call upon me in the day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you will
glorify me. Psalm 50, verse 15 How varied
are our days of trouble! Sickness, with its hours of restlessness
and languor, Bereavement, with its rifled treasures and aching
hearts, Loss of substance, the curtailment or forfeiture of
worldly possessions, riches taking to themselves wings and fleeing
away, or, severer than all, the wounds from friends, abused confidence,
withered affections, hopes scattered like the leaves of autumn. But
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Tried one, he leaves not your
defenseless head unsheltered in the storm. Call upon me. he invites you into the pavilion
of his presence. Better the bitter Mara waters
with his healing than the purest fountain of the world and no
god. Better the hottest furnace-flames
with one there, like the sun of god, than that dross should
be allowed to accumulate and the soul left to cleave to the
dust. He, the purifier of silver, is
seated by these flames. tempering their fury. Yes, he
gives the special promise, I will deliver you. It may not be the
deliverance we expect, the deliverance we have prayed for, the deliverance
we could have wished. But shall not the most severe
trial be well worth enduring, if this be the result of his
chastening love? You will glorify me?" Glorify
him? How? by a simple, unreasoning
faith, by meek, lowly, unmurmuring acquiescence in his dealing,
these dealings endearing the Saviour and His grace more than
ever to our hearts. The day of trouble led his saints
in all ages to glorify him. David never could have written
his touching psalms, nor Paul his precious epistles, had not
God cast them both into the crucible. to be teachers of the Church
of the future, they had to graduate in the school of affliction.
If he is appointing similar discipline, let it be our endeavor to glorify
him by active obedience, as well as passive resignation, not abandoning
ourselves to selfish, moody, sentimental grief, but rather
going forth on our great mission. our work and warfare with a vaster
estimate of the value of time and the grandeur of existence. Give glory to the Lord your God,
before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon
the dark mountains, and while you look for light, He turn it
into the shadow of death, and make it a gross darkness. Chapter 11 PITYING LOVE LIKE
AS A FATHER PITIES HIS CHILDREN, SO THE LORD PITIES THOSE WHO
FEAR HIM. Psalm 103, verse 13. Abba, Father, is a gospel word,
a father bending over the sickbed of his weak or dying child, a
mother pressing in tender solitude an infant sufferer to her bosom. These are the earthly pictures
of God. As a father pities, as one whom
his mother comforts, so will I comfort you. When tempted in
our season of overwhelming sorrow, to say, never has there been
so dark a cloud, never a heart so stripped and desolate as mine,
let this thought hush every murmur. It is your father's good pleasure.
The love and pity of the most tender parent is but a dim shadow
compared to the pitying love of God. If your Heavenly Father's
smile has for a moment been exchanged for the chastening rod, be assured
there is some deep necessity for the altered discipline. If
there be unutterable yearnings in the soul of the earthly parent
as the lancet is applied to the body of his child, Infinitely
more is it so with your Covenant God, as He subjects you to those
deep wounds of heart. Finite wisdom has no place in
His ordinations. An earthly father may err, is
ever erring, but, as for God, His way is perfect. This is the
explanation of His every dealing. Your Heavenly Father knows you
have need of all these things. Trust his heart when you cannot
trace his ways. Do not try to penetrate the cloud
which he brings over the earth and to look through it. Keep
your eye steadily fixed on the rainbow. The mystery is God's. The promise is yours. Seek that
the end of all his dispensations may be to make you more confiding. Without one misgiving, commit
your way to him. He says, regarding each child
of his covenant family, what he said of Ephraim of old, and
never more so than in a season of suffering. I do earnestly
remember him still. While now bending your head like
a bulrush, your heart breaking with sorrow, remember his pitying
eye is upon you. Be it yours, even through blinding
tears, to say, Even so, father. CHAPTER XII THE BLESSED HOPE
THAT BLESSED HOPE AND THE GLORIOUS APPEARING OF THE GREAT GOD AND
SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST TITUS 2 VERSE 13 What a bright rainbow for
a storm-wreathed sky! Hope is a joyous emotion. Poetry
sings of it. Music warbles its lofty aspirations. How often does it weave fantastic
visions, then vanish! In the morning the flowers of
life are flourishing and growing up. In the evening a mysterious
blight comes. They lie withered garlands at
our feet. The longing apparitions of the
whole life seem realized. One wave of calamity overtakes
us and washes all away. But there is one blessed hope.
beyond the possibility of blight or decay, the hope of the glory
of God, the hope which makes not ashamed, the glorious appearing
of the great God and Saviour. If we long on earth for the return
of an absent friend or brother, separated from us for a season,
by intervening oceans or continent, if we count the weeks or months
until we welcome him back again to the parental home, How should
the Christian long for the return of the brother of brothers, the
friend of friends? I will come again, is his own
gracious promise, to receive you unto myself. O happy day,
when he shall be glorified in his saints, when his people will
suffer no more, and sin no more! No more couches of sickness or
aching hearts, or fevered brows. no more open graves or bitter
tears, and, better than all, no more guilty estrangements
and traitorous unholy hearts. It will be the bridal day of
the soul. The body slumbering in the dust
will be reunited, a glorified body, to a redeemed spirit. The grave shall be forever spoiled,
death swallowed up in eternal victory. So shall we be forever
with the Lord. Do you love His appearing? Are
you looking with eager expectant attitude of those who are looking
for and hastening unto the coming of God? Yet a little while, and
He that shall come, will come. If you are a child of the covenant,
having conscious filial nearness to the throne of grace, you need
not dread the throne of glory. True, He is the great God. But He is our Saviour. It is
a kinsman-redeemer who is ordained to judge the world in righteousness. Yes, turn your eye oftener towards
this bright rainbow spanning a glorious future. For remember,
it is to them who look for Him that He shall appear the second
time, without sin, unto salvation. CHAPTER XIII. A GRACIOUS REMOVAL. THE RIGHTEOUS IS TAKEN AWAY FROM
THE EVIL TO COME. HE SHALL ENTER INTO PEACE. THEY
SHALL REST IN THEIR BEDS. ISAIAH 57, VERSES 1 AND 2. HOW THIS THOUGHT RECONCILES TO
EARTH'S SADDEST SEPARATIONS. THE EARLY, WHAT WE ARE APT TO
THINK THE TOO EARLY, GRAVES OF OUR LOVED AND LOST, have saved
them from much sorrow, much suffering, much sin. Who can tell what may
have been brooding in a dark horizon? The fairest vessel,
the life, freighted with the greatest promise, might have
been made shipwreck on this world's treacherous sea. My God knows
what is best! If he plucked his lily soon,
it was to save it some rough blast. If he early folded his
lamb, it was to say that having its fleece soiled with earthly
corruption. If the port of glory was soon
entered, it was because he foresaw the threatening tempests that
were screened from our limited vision. So he brought them to
the haven where they would be. Yes, the quiet haven. The storms of life are over. That shore is undisturbed by
one murmuring wave. He shall enter into peace, the
rest which remains. Did the ransom-dead at the hour
of their departure sink into blank oblivion, inherit everlasting
silence, sad indeed would be the pangs of separation. But
weep not, she is not dead, but sleeps. Yes, weep not! She is not dead, but lives. At the very moment earth's tears
are falling, the spirit is sunning in the realms of everlasting
day, safely housed, safely home. The body rests in its bed. The grave is its couch of repose. We bid it the long good-night
in the joyful expectancy of a glorious reunion at the waking time of
immortality, the morning without clouds, whose sun shall no more
go down. Child of sorrow, mourning over
the withdrawal of some beloved object of earthly affection,
dry your tears. An early death has been an early
crown. The tie, sundered here, links
you to the throne of God. You have a brother, sister, a
child in heaven. You are the relatives of a ransomed
saint. We are proud when we hear of
our friends being advanced in this world. What are the world's
noblest promotions in comparison with that of the believer at
death, when he graduates from grace to glory, when he exchanges
the pilgrim warfare for the eternal rest? in your hours of sadness,
contrast the certainty of present bliss with the possibilities
of a suffering, sorrowing, sinning future, the joys in possession
with the evils which might have been in life. You may now, like
the Shunemite of old, be gazing with tearful eye on some withered
blossom, But when the question is put, is it well with you,
is it well with your husband, is it well with the child, in
the elevating confidence that they have entered into peace
and are resting in their beds, be it yours joyfully to answer,
it is well. CHAPTER XIV UNVEILED MYSTERIES
You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand. John 13, verse 7. Much is baffling and perplexing
to us in God's present dealings. What, we are often ready to exclaim,
could not the cup have been less bitter, the trial less severe,
the road less dreary? Hush your misgivings, says a
gracious God. Array not the rectitude of my
dispensations. You shall yet see all revealed
and made bright in the mirror of eternity. What I am doing,
it is all my doing, my appointment. You have partial view of these
dealings. They are seen by the eye of sense
through a dim and distorted medium. You can see nothing but plants
crossed, and gourds laid low, and beautiful rods broken. But
I see the end from the beginning. Shall not the judge of all the
earth do right? Later you will understand. Wait
for the later revelation. An earthly father puzzles not
the ear of infancy with hard sayings and involved problems. He waits for the child's manhood,
and then unfolds all. So it is with God. We are now
in our infancy, children lisping in earthly infancy a knowledge
of His ways. We shall soon learn the deep
things of God, in the manhood of eternity. Christ now often
shows Himself only behind a lattice, a glimpse, and He is gone. But
the day is coming when we shall see him as he is, when every
dark hieroglyphic in the role of Providence will be interpreted
and expounded. It is unfair to criticize the
half-finished picture, to censure or condemn the half-developed
plan. God's plans are here in embryo. We see, says Rutherford, the
broken links in the chain of his Providence. Let the Moulder
work his own clay in whatever frame he pleases. But a flood
of light will break upon us from the sapphire throne. In your
light, O God, we shall see light. The need be, muffled as a secret
now, will be confided to us then, and become luminous with love. Perhaps we may not have to wait
until eternity. for the realization of this promise,
we may experience its fulfillment here. We not infrequently find,
even in this present world, mysterious dispensations issuing in unlooked-for
blessings. Jacob would never have seen Joseph
had he not parted with Benjamin. Often the believer never would
have seen the true Joseph had he not been called on to part
with his best beloved. His language at the time is that
of the Patriarch. I am indeed bereaved. All these
things are against me. But the things he imagined to
be so adverse have proved the means of leading him to see the
Heavenly King, in his beauty, before he dies. Much is sent
to humble us, and to prove us. It may not do us good now. but
it is promised to do so at our latter end. I shall not dictate
to my God what his way should be. The patient does not dictate
to the physician. He does not reject and refuse
the prescription because it is nauseous. He knows it is for
his good, and takes it on trust. It is for faith to repose in
whatever God appoints. Let me not wrong his love or
dishonor his faithfulness by supposing that there is one needless
or redundant drop in the cup which his loving wisdom has mingled. Now we know in part, but then
shall we know even as also we are known. CHAPTER XV THE CHOOSING PLACE
I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48, verse
10 THE FURNACE OF AFFLICTION It is God's meeting-place with
His people. I have chosen you, says He, in
the furnace of affliction. I will keep you there until the
purifying process is complete, and, if need be, in a chariot
of fire I will carry you to heaven. Some fires are for destruction,
but this is for purification. He the refiner is sitting by
the furnace, regulating the flames, tempering the heat, not the least
filing of the gold, but what is precious to him. The bush
is burning with fire, but he is in the middle of it, a living
God in a bush, a living Saviour in the furnace, and has this
not been the method of his dealing with his faithful people in every
age? First trial, then blessing, first
difficulties, then deliverances. Egyptian plagues, darkness, brick
kilns, the Red Sea, forty years of desert privations, then Canaan. First the burning-firing furnace,
then the vision of one like the Son of God. Or, as with Elijah
on Carmel, the answer is first by fire, and then by rain. First the fiery trial, then the
gentle descent of the Spirit's influences, coming down like
rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth.
Believer, be it yours to ask, Are my trials sanctified? Are
they making me holier, purer, better, more meek, more gentle,
more heavenly-minded, more Saviour-like? Seek to glorify God in the fires. Patience is a grace which the
angels cannot manifest. It is a flower of earth. It blooms
not in Paradise. It requires tribulation for its
exercise. It is nurtured only amid wind. and hail and storm. By patient,
unmurmuring submission, remember, you, a poor sinner, can thus
magnify God in a way that the loftiest angelic natures cannot
do. He is taking you to the inner
chambers of His covenant faithfulness. His design is to purge away your
dross, to bring you forth from the furnace reflecting His own
image, and fitted for glory. Those intended for great usefulness
are much in the refining pot. His children, says Romaine, have
found suffering times happy times. They never have such nearness
to their father, such holy freedom with him, and such heavenly refreshment
with him, as under the cross. Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, but rejoice.