Even in the awful catastrophe of the deluge, when continents and isles
with their teeming population were buried deep in the abyss of waters, and
the sunbeams glistened only upon the boundless sea--then, when this
rolling orb, which on the day of its creation looked fair and beauteous
among the morning stars, had been transformed into a wandering beacon of
almighty wrath--there was left one memento of lingering mercy, one
solitary testimonial that Jehovah's presence and favor were not clean gone
for ever; for the ark floated upon the face of the waters. Terrible as was
the spectacle which the deluged globe presented of God's vengeance, still
the storm-proof ark which sheltered the patriarch proclaimed the precious
truth that there was one spot left where God appeared in mercy, one place
of refuge and security for those who would embrace it, one point where
hope gleamed over the future, and where God delighted to be gracious.
The ark was the symbol of that more glorious Ark of safety provided for
lost men in the salvation of Jesus Christ. Out of Christ the world is dark
and stormy, and God is a consuming fire. On the tempestuous ocean of guilt
we are tossed to and fro, and no bright isles of innocence lift their
heads along the horizon and invite us to their secure retreats. The
salvation scheme of Jesus Christ is the only refuge. Here alone God is
seen hovering over the waters, and speaking of reconciliation and
fellowship. Nowhere else has he offered to us a shelter; but to this
God-provided Ark we are bidden to flee for refuge, which is amply
furnished against every emergency, and which will safely bear us up
through the floods of temptation and the billows of death, and finally
bring us to the haven of rest beyond the grave.
To its sacred enclosure we are invited, as the last spot where the soul
can find its reconciled God. Outside the elements are raging, the night of
guilt is brooding, the thunders of Sinai are muttering, and the
dun-colored sky is lurid with the flashes of impending wrath; within is
the presence of God, the assurance of peace, and the hope of heaven. Over
the wastes of a fallen and sin-ruined world appears the salvation of Jesus
Christ like the ark of the patriarch riding out the storms of the deluge.
Here God is dwelling with men. Here is rest to the storm-driven soul. Here
its guilt and alienation are put away from it, and it no longer lives
without God and without hope. We have then discovered, in the ark which
God directed Noah to build for the saving of himself and his family, a
type of Christ and his salvation.
Let me now ask you to advance a step, and contemplate in the raven and the
dove a representation of _two opposite descriptions of human character_.
The one, that which finds no enjoyment in the presence and favor of
Christ, and sees and feels no necessity for the provisions of salvation
which are made in him; the other, that which is ever turning from the
supports of this world and its delusive promises to seek its refuge and
its resting-place in the presence of Christ and the favor of God, which
flies to the hope set before it in the gospel, and nestles securely in the
bosom of the Saviour. These two characters are the ungodly and the
Christian--the children of this world and the children of God--differing
in their tastes and habits and conduct from each other as the raven
differs from the dove.
The ark where God and the patriarch dwelt together was no welcome retreat
for the raven. Though it had saved the wild bird from inevitable
destruction, and for many a weary day had carried it safely above the
angry flood, still in the society which it afforded or the associations
which it furnished there was naught that was congenial to its untamed
nature; but preferring to roam unprotected, even amid solitude and gloom,
it instinctively seized upon the first opportunity to escape what was
indeed its friendly asylum, but which appeared to it only a prison-house.
On the threshold of the open window the raven flapped its wings and soared
away. Farewell to the ark, screamed the wild bird in the air, while the
good old patriarch stood for a moment to watch its flight.
Though the scene without was one of unbounded desolation, where the storm
clouds revelled and the fierce winds blew and dashed the dark-crested
waves madly against the sky; though the fields where it once fed, and the
tall trees where it was wont to build its nest were buried many a fathom
deep beneath the floods, and all that was once fair and beautiful on earth
was gone, still the bird of storm turned not homeward to the quiet ark;
still in vain the patriarch opened again and again the window, and leaned
upon the casement long and anxiously, to look out for the absent
messenger. The bird would not come back. The sun goes down in clouds, and
night settles slowly on the deep, but no return. The cravings of hunger
are felt, but the carnivorous rover despises the well-stored granaries of
the ark, and makes its evening meal out of the carcasses that drift upon
the waters. Perched upon some floating ruin, it croaks out its hoarse
requiem over the sepulchres of the unnumbered dead, and sleeps without a
dream of the far-off ark.
Look yonder at that RAVEN, and behold an emblem of lost and straying man
without God in the world. No truth is more universally certain, than that
man's real happiness and welfare is to be sought only in the smile and
favor of his God. The more the human soul is brought into unison with its
Maker--the nearer it advances to Deity--the more immediately it feels the
presence of God and draws its supplies from him, the more sure is its
present peace and its future bliss. It was once happy in this condition.
Adam and God were friends. The primary effect of sin has ever been to
separate man from God. The example of our first parents in hiding
themselves among the trees of the garden, from the voice of the Lord, is
an example which has been imitated by all the generations of their
descendants. But the intervening distance between us and God has been
surmounted by the Mediator. The fearful chasm has been spanned, and God
now draws nigh unto us in the gospel of his Son, and invites us to draw
nigh to him. Here, in the plan of salvation, he bids us accept of his
grace. Here is the ark of safety, where no thunderbolts of his wrath will
strike us, but where we may rest securely from the storms of the present
life, and the retributions of the coming one. Here we are told to flee
for refuge and hope. And once sheltered in this ark of salvation, we may
have God our friend, and Jesus our Saviour. An open door is set before us,
and the invitation given, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark."
But carnal man prefers to roam. Tossed upon the troubled waters of life,
where all is danger and uncertainty, he still persists in neglecting the
great salvation, and like the raven, flies to and fro in search of
happiness and safety. Life, to men without God, is but a chartless ocean,
over which they course their way amid floating wrecks and ruins, vainly
bent on satisfying the soul. High on the waters rides the ark of mercy,
and the voice of God is heard inviting them to enter. But though the skies
of life are so changing, and its waters so dark and troubled, that they
ofttimes feel the need of better resources, still they look not to the
gospel, but toil and fly from one to another quarter, crying, Who will
show us any good? They want nothing to do with God. They care not for his
favor. They prefer to live as far away as possible, and seek all their
support amid the resources of the world.
Look at the sceptic, who, giving himself over to the dominion of
infidelity, would blot out eternity from the future, and would repudiate
the very being and the presence of the Almighty. As he travels through
life away from God, and with no hope for the future; as immortality is to
him a blank, and the world naught but chaos over which destiny and chance
preside, and death is an eternal night, to what shall we liken him, but to
the raven, far off from home, flapping its wings in the empty air where
every thing that once breathed was dead, and where all was silence,
desolation, and gloom.
Watch the men that toil for the riches of this world, who day by day ply
their exhausting labors, and nightly dream of treasure heaps and gold,
while God is put far from their every thought, and the gospel is
neglected, and eternity thrust away from them, and the soul is left to
glean its only comforts amid the perishable and fading possessions of
earth, like the wandering bird scouring the unbroken main, and seeking
its abiding place among the floating wrecks of ruined palaces of bygone
splendor.
Or what shall we say of those who banish from their minds the thoughts of
God, and live only in the round of sensual indulgences, prostituting their
every faculty to the service of the basest appetites, and giving an
unbridled rein to sensual propensities? Where shall we find their
prototype, but in the bird of prey that loved to breathe the putrid air,
and gorge its appetite upon the carcasses which the waves washed up.
In short, differ as men may in their individual tastes and habits, there
is this one prominent characteristic belonging to them all--an utter
estrangement from God and Christ: an estrangement so inveterate, that all
the trials and afflictions and disappointments of life are insufficient to
bring them to seek security in him. Like the wandering raven, they fly
from one to another refuge; "but none saith, Where is God my Maker, that
giveth songs in the night?"
We turn now to consider the opposite description of character which is
symbolized by the dove, which found no rest for the sole of her foot, and
hastened back to the ark.
It is the Christian who has been brought near to God, and lives in the
enjoyment of his presence. Once, like the raven, he loved to wander, and
with the ungodly around him, he careered his way without God, and chased
to and fro the vanities of this world. But by the regenerating grace of
God, he is changed into a man of another spirit. The alienation and
distance between him and God have been overcome, and he now finds his
happiness in the felt presence and communion of that God from whom he has
so long turned away.
'Tis the peculiar characteristic of the Christian, that he seeks, in the
favor and presence of God, those delights which the ungodly strive for in
vain among the objects of the world. He differs from them in his tastes
and pursuits. He seeks in one direction, they in another. The current of
his desires is so changed, that he feels estranged where they are most at
home. What they most value he cares but little for. The company they
delight in, he has no real sympathy with. He sits not in the seat of the
scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth
he meditate day and night.
He may engage in the pursuits of secular life; he may be seen in the
places of business and toil and enterprise, and bear a share in the rough
struggle of the outdoor world; yet his chief pleasure is not found amid
the cares of business and the schemes of profit, but in the fellowship of
God and in the duties of devotion. Here his soul abides in peace. The
service of Christ is congenial to his spiritual nature. His better
thoughts ever dwell upon the unseen and eternal. Business and care may
crowd upon him through the day; but he turns his footsteps homeward when
the sun goes down, and like the dove returning to the ark, he seeks
communion with God in the meditations of the closet. It is to him a
welcome exchange to leave the bustling companionship of the world for the
society of the Saviour. While the ungodly revel amid their tumultuous
gayeties, he finds in the retirement of his devotions those joys that a
stranger intermeddleth not with, and feels that as the hart panteth after
the water brook, so panteth his soul after God. While temptations thicken
around him, and strange voices are calling to him and bidding him wander
further and further away, he still finds his only security in the presence
of the Saviour, and flies to him like the dove to the arms of the
patriarch.
God is his refuge too in the season of affliction and trial. Sometimes the
world grows doubly dark, and crosses and disappointments overwhelm his
soul; but the dove knows where to turn when the storm rages, and he flies
for support and consolation to the presence of the Redeemer. In the time
of trouble God will hide him in his pavilion, in the secret of his
tabernacle will he hide him, till these calamities be overpast. It is the
prevailing desire of the Christian to seek after God. Afflictions,
crosses, and disappointments all drive him there. Like the dove wandering
with weary wing over the dark abyss, he finds no rest for the sole of his
foot till he betakes himself to the hiding-place of Jesus, and reflects
how, ere long, the rough billows of life will be passed, and he shall be
safely moored in the calm haven of eternity.
Pause here a moment, and reflect upon the radical difference between a
true Christian and a worldling. The one is brought nigh unto God; the
other is without God in the world. In the prevailing bent and purpose of
their lives they are opposites. Their dispositions lead them in contrary
directions. The providential dealings of God with them produce widely
different results. The same storms of affliction which drive the
Christian, like the dove, homeward to his refuge, ofttimes tempt the
ungodly to fly, like the raven, further and further from the Ark of
safety. "The wicked will not seek after God."
These are the two great classes of human character which the Bible
everywhere distinguishes. To one or the other class we all belong. We may
multiply our distinctions between men as we please, and assign to one and
another his relative position in the scale of human excellence; but at the
last there will remain but one broad line of separation between those who
walk with God, and those who know him not. Tried by this test, where shall
we be found? When the last storm of death shall gather, and the world be
swept away from us, shall we be borne in the Ark of safety to the Ararat
mountains of the heavenly land, and rest beneath the effulgent bow of the
Redeemer's glory; or shall we be driven out upon the shoreless waters of
an eternity where the storms never cease their fury, and where the
blackness of darkness for ever broods?
This momentous question of our future state is being settled by our
present character. Are you living now in the fellowship and favor of God?
We are told of the patriarch who rode out the deluge, that through the
long previous years he "walked with God." Is such the temper of your soul?
Are you at home with Christ? Is God the portion of your spirit, and do you
love the consciousness of his presence, and do you fly to him for aid? Can
you live here within his covenant, and conform to his requirements, and
lay hold upon his promises? Can you count all things but loss for him, and
give up the world with its pleasures and its charms for the society and
the service of the Lord Jesus? Or do you prefer to live a stranger to
Christ, and a worldling in your desires and habits, without a shelter,
though eternity must be to you a state of exile from all the holy and
happy family of God?
VIII.
The Rainbow.
I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUD, AND IT SHALL BE FOR A TOKEN OF A
COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THE EARTH. AND IT SHALL COME TO PASS, WHEN I
BRING A CLOUD OVER THE EARTH, THAT THE BOW SHALL BE SEEN IN THE CLOUD.
GEN. 9:13, 14.
The old world is gone. Its teeming population has been swept away by the
besom of Jehovah's wrath. The earth has been purified by the terrible
baptism of water, and refitted to be the dwelling-place of new
generations. Noah and his family are its sole inheritors. The human race
are starting anew as it were, in a new world.
The Almighty signalized this grand era in the world's history by a special
manifestation of himself to Noah, the chief representative of the future
generations. He entered into covenant with him; he gave him a new grant of
eminent domain, formally installed him as the rightful possessor of the
earth, and bade him repeople it and rule it.
Most cheering must have been such tokens of favor and regard from the
Almighty to that lone, solitary family as they looked over an empty,
desolate world.
Although they were saved, yet an air of deep sadness and melancholy must
have rested upon every thing around them. The recollection of those awful
scenes through which they had passed must have haunted their thoughts, and
troubled their slumbers with frightful dreams. What if the sun shone again
in beauty? What though their children should multiply, and they should
again build cities, and repeople its desolate territories? Would not the
storm clouds gather again, and the race be swept to destruction by similar
successive judgments? Ah, would they not look up with terror every time
the heavens grew dark, and fear lest the world should be drowned whenever
the rain descended?
To allay all such apprehensions, while he commissioned them to repossess
the earth, Jehovah assured the patriarch that the deluge would never be
repeated. He kindly condescended to enter into covenant with Noah, that
he and his posterity need have no fears of a second deluge; and promised
that he would never do what he had done, and drown the world. The text
declares to us what was the outward sign or token of this covenant: "I do
set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between
me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the
earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud."
The idea that the rainbow was something more than a mere natural
phenomenon, that it was a pledge or token of something which God had
promised to men, is preserved among the traditions of many heathen
nations. Homer distinctly speaks of it in a remarkable passage in the
Iliad, where he describes the glittering armor of Agamemnon as reflecting
various lights, like colored rainbows--
"Jove's wondrous bow,
Placed, as a sign to man, amid the skies."
Before considering the spiritual significance of this symbol, the inquiry
naturally arises, Was the rainbow a new phenomenon in the natural world,
seen for the first time after the deluge; or had it been a familiar sight
to the antediluvians ever since the creation, and only selected by God and
pointed out to Noah as a memorial of His promise made to him?
The man of science may presume to decide this question very easily by
showing that the rainbow is no supernatural phenomenon, but is explained
on the simplest principles of natural philosophy; that it is produced by
the refraction of the sun's rays through drops of water falling from the
clouds, and is always seen when the sun and the clouds come into a certain
relative position to the beholder; and therefore, that through the
centuries previous to the deluge, mankind must many a time have witnessed
the same beautiful arch spanning the heavens, and wondered at its
variegated splendors.
But there are other considerations which have inclined learned and
profound scholars to the opinion that the rainbow, for the first time
mentioned in the text, was indeed new to Noah and his family, and that the
generations of men before the flood never gazed upon such a sight.
We confess a strong bias to this latter view. It lends peculiar interest
and significancy to this token. It is the sign of the promise that God
will not again drown the world. Clouds may gather, storms rage, torrents
roar, but their fury shall be stayed; and on the spent and receding clouds
shall be hung the sun-lit bow, and from every tint and hue of its gorgeous
drapery shall come whisperings of assurance to mortals who gaze upon it,
that mercy triumphs over judgment.
"I will set my bow in the cloud," says Jehovah. There, in the midst of the
very elements which have caused alarm; there, where the lightnings flashed
and the thunders pealed, and wrath and darkness gloamed overhead, there
will I write my covenant in lines of beauty, and you and your posterity
shall read it and rejoice.
But we need not stop with interpreting this symbol as a pledge against a
mere physical overthrow of the world by water.
We seek for a deeper spiritual significance in it. Although in its primary
application it was a sign of God's covenant with Noah, it leads our minds
forward to a more perfect covenant, a covenant of grace, in which are
contained the promises of God which shield his people from all spiritual
evils which threaten them.
The import of the rainbow in its spiritual signification is worthy of
special notice. We do not explain it so generally as some who regard it as
a symbol of God's willingness to receive men into favor again, or that it
only indicates the Almighty's faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. We
interpret it more specially as a symbol of divine protection to God's
people from imminent and threatening dangers--that protection pledged in
the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus to those who have fled for refuge to
him. Such seems to be the idea conveyed by it in the vision of Ezekiel,
where he speaks of what he saw over the throne above the heavens "as the
appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain." A similar
sight was enjoyed by John in Patmos, where in vision he beheld the throne
in heaven: "And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like
unto an emerald."
These references to the rainbow justify us in interpreting it as a symbol
of grace returning after judgments; a pledge of God's promise to stay the
course of vengeance, to limit threatening evils that they shall not
destroy, to arrest impending dangers, and succor his people when they are
most exposed to destruction.
The bow in the cloud then is not a mere sign of God's fidelity to his
promises in general, but a particular token of his grace nigh at hand in
emergencies, a sign for the hour of trouble and distress and alarm, a
token of grace--not when the sky is clear, but when the heavens frown,
when fear comes to the soul and it looks anxiously round for help. As a
physical phenomenon it had this significancy. God set it in the cloud. It
was brought forth only in the darkened heavens. It was nursed and cradled
in the storm.
When therefore, at summer's sunset, I gaze upon the beautiful iris arching
the eastern horizon and resting on its dark background of clouds, my
thoughts go out beyond the covenant of Noah to a richer covenant of
grace, and I read in its gorgeous colorings a pledge of those provisions
against spiritual dangers made in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ.
While the physical eye is delighted with the beauteous spectacle in the
lower heavens, faith soars upward and sees around the throne of the
Almighty's glory a brighter bow set there through the mediation of the
incarnate Son. It is the pledge and token of grace to sinners. It is the
sign of the covenant of redemption.
When, upon the apostasy of man, the heavens gathered blackness and the
clouds of divine wrath swept overhead, portending a deluge of divine
justice; when the guilt of our transgressions left us with no covering
from the eternal storm, the eternal God placed himself between us and
hell, and by his own sacrifice upon the cross drew upon himself those
magazines of vengeance. The divine law was satisfied in his atonement; the
clouds broke and scattered around the Almighty's throne. Light streamed
athwart the gloom, and the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his
beams, threw out its rays upon the retiring storm, and arched the clouds
of justice with the brilliant bow of peace and reconciliation. Every
rainbow painted in the natural heavens points us to what Christ has done
in the spiritual world. The physical eyeball sees the one, faith gazes
upon the other. Both are associated with the idea of danger, both bespeak
security and deliverance.
You perceive then the spiritual lesson conveyed to us by the rainbow in
the clouds. It tells of God's covenant of grace with his people, and the
promises under that covenant of safety in the midst of fears.
How adapted is this lesson to the condition of believers in their present
state. Oh, what could faith do without the bow in this stormy, troubled
world? How many are the clouds which darken the believer's way! But God
has set his bow in every one of them--his pledge of deliverance and
support.