asked for the good you have done in the world around you; when your
efforts for Christ seem all to prove abortive; when your kindly warnings
are disregarded, and in spite of your prayers and solicitude, iniquity
abounds, and none turn to the Lord; when the more you strive for the
Redeemer, the more your good is evil spoken of; when the wicked around you
seem growing worse and worse, and disappointment and unbelief becloud
your heart, and you see no hope, and the wilderness is around you--Oh,
when thus the heart droops, do you not feel that you are in the
wilderness? 'Tis indeed a dreary situation. But in life's pilgrimage, the
Christian sometimes journeys that way. He has his hours of sadness, of
heart-sickness, of deep despondency and dejection, of bitterness which a
stranger intermeddleth not with. He is at times left to experience the
burdens of life, the faintings of faith and hope--to feel that
notwithstanding his long trial of the Christian life, all is jeoparded,
and that nothing remains for him but to cast himself down with the
fugitive prophet under the juniper-tree, and say, "It is enough; now, O
Lord, take away my life."
But what we would observe is this: that the Saviour has provisions for his
children however desolate may be their condition. It was in this dreary
extremity of the prophet, that God revealed unto him his presence. Worn
out with hunger and fatigue, despairing of hope, and feeling even life
itself to be a burden, the fugitive drops to sleep. And now God, by a
miracle, comes to his rescue. A cake baken on the coals is beside him, and
the cruse of water, to refresh him and keep him from destruction. Here God
came to his prophet and revived his confidence. Here he gives him a token
that he has not given him up, but sends his Angel to rouse him from his
dejection and bid him eat.
Not to the prophet alone has God manifested his presence and aid, but to
all his dear children as they sit and sigh under the tree where the
prophet slept. Not that, when we are cast down and desolate, we actually
feel a hand touching us, and see before us the cruse of water and the cake
upon the coals; but we find the same deliverance, and the rustic table is
virtually set before us and served by a spirit hand. In the appointed
means of grace we find the aliment that sustains our souls. The divine
ordinances seem to us more precious than ever while we sit under the
juniper-tree. In the sweet promises of the word of God, in the dawn of
Sabbath hours, in the tender and timely lessons of the sanctuary, in the
Bethel seasons of prayer, in these means afforded to us, we find the
cruse of water and the cake that will refresh us. We may lightly esteem
them in a time of ease and plenty; we may think little of a cruse of water
and a cake when we repose in abundance; but in the wilderness, when hunger
and faintness come over us, and the juniper boughs are our only covering,
then they are as sweet to us as to the weary Tishbite.
When spiritual famine is gnawing at our hearts, and all is desolate and
forsaken around us; when sickness has prostrated us, or death has cut down
our companions around us, till the world seems empty, and a hue of decay
and death tinges all the objects which we look at; when darkness and
disappointment and disaster all weigh upon our spirits, and God is all
that is left to us--how should we live were it not for the cake and the
water cruse? How do we grasp the very means which we before had too often
slighted.
We call up the neglected promises, and there is life in them. Our troubled
thoughts find vent in earnest prayer; and whether we lie stretched on the
bed of languishing, or wrestle in the closet, or meditate in the
sanctuary, we find the water cruse is beside us, and we are kept from
fainting. Oh, it is when, under the load of crushing sorrow and dejection,
the wanderer sinks down by the shrub of the desert, it is then he prizes
the cruse and the cake. Many of you, I doubt not, were you to call to mind
the season when you valued most the presence of the Master, when you
wrestled nearest the mercy-seat and experienced the most surprising
deliverances, would point to the days of sore trial and weariness, when
you gave up all hope, and when, turned out from the world, you sat alone
and sighed under the juniper and waited for death. There you fed upon the
bread of life. And though you felt that you were pilgrims in the desert,
you still felt that you were not forsaken.
But, brethren, we need not only the provisions made for us in the means of
grace, but we need also a friendly hand to help us to partake of them. We
need our attention called to them with a voice that can reach the inner
ear; for too often, with all our distress and dejection, there comes also
a lethargy and insensibility which, if unbroken, must at last prove fatal.
The care-worn prophet, with all his wretchedness and despair, still
reclined his head and slept. Hungry and weak and way-worn, a drowsiness
nevertheless came over him, and he must needs be aroused if he was to be
strengthened. The cake is there, and the cruse of water is there, and the
coals are glowing, but the pilgrim heeds them not. What a figure is this
of the complaining and dejected Christian who is starving for the
spiritual food that is beside him, and at the same time sleeping in his
sorrow. Despondency and unbelief have so paralyzed his heart that he takes
no nourishment, even though the promises and the Sabbath and the sanctuary
are before him; but they are dead to him, they are useless to us all, so
long as we sleep on.
But beside the man of God, as he lay and slept under the juniper-tree,
there was not only the cake and the water cruse, but the Angel too. And
here, in the touch and the call of the Angel, methinks I discover a most
beautiful emblem of the Holy Spirit standing by the means of grace, and
bidding the believer "_arise and eat_." The presence of that ministering
spirit was necessary to the prophet's preservation. Without his friendly
touch, he would doubtless have slept on, and death closed the scene ere
the day dawned, and the cruse of water and the cake have been in vain.
Thus too we need a present Spirit to rouse us to partake of the blessings
that are brought to us; for though we may complain of want, we are too
indifferent to the supplies afforded us. Though we feel that we are
pilgrims in the desert, though we sigh and faint by the juniper boughs, we
sleep there too. Our eyes are heavy, and we do not see the water cruse,
though it is at our side. We do not appreciate our privileges, nor draw
nourishment from them. They may all be at hand--the Sabbath with its
sacredness, the Bible with its promises, the sanctuary with its lessons,
the mercy-seat with its covenant--but not till the Holy Ghost shall bid
you arise and eat, will these means avail you aught.
That Spirit is sent out to accompany the means of grace. He bids you arise
and eat. He comes to rouse you from your slumbers. He comes to stop your
murmurs. He comes to point you to the provisions at your side, and bid you
rise and eat. Eat of these means of grace; use them to revive your
fainting spirit, to increase your strength. Though you may have used them
many a time before, still you are called upon to eat and eat again. The
Spirit and the bride say, Come.
We would second the Spirit's voice, and call to you in the wilderness to
arise and eat. It becomes you to-day to heed the call. There is reason for
the Spirit's rousing you, for you are yet away from home, and the journey
is too great for you. Perhaps you may feel no pressing need. Perhaps, like
the Tishbite, you have tasted a little, and you would lie down to sleep.
But the prophet knew not what was before him, as the Angel did; and hence
he is again aroused with the warning, "The journey is too great for thee."
Christian, you know not what awaits you. You need these ordinances. You
need this Lord's table spread before you. You need these means of grace,
for you are in the wilderness, and the desert must be crossed. Your
strength and patience will be sorely tried, and your provisions will be
short. Arise and eat, for you will have no other supply but this. You must
take up with a pilgrim's fare. The remainder of life's journey is before
you, and it will be too great for you unless you prepare in time.
You may stand aloof from this our table, and despise our humble
ministrations as though they were not good enough for you. We do not
pretend that our supper is equal to the one above. We can give you but
travellers' fare, but such as it is it will sustain you on your journey.
Our entertainment to-day is as simple as the prophet's rude meal which he
ate beneath the juniper-tree; but remember, that but for that water cruse
and baken cake he would have perished in the lonely solitudes. And we lay
as high a claim for the gospel institutions to-day. Without them you must
faint and die. Underrate them as you will, God has appointed them to
sustain his children in the desert. Your neglect of them will be followed
by exhaustion, for "the journey is too great for thee."
We cannot indeed anticipate the circumstantial history of any one of you.
We cannot trace out in the wild desert sands the pathway over which each
one of you must wander. No, we cannot discover where one of us will be
to-morrow. Our experiences may be far different from each other. We shall
each have our peculiar difficulties, and no two of us will travel with the
same footstep and the same burden.
But though we cannot tell the future to a single one of you, though we
cannot calculate your reckoning at all, still we can assure you that "the
journey is too great for you." We shall all of us need the cruse of water
and the cake ere we get through, for we have no abiding place here. There
will doubtless be many days when this world will look more desolate than
ever, days of temptation and of conflict. The adversary will doubtless
harass your wanderings, and hedge up your way; you must yet fight "the
world, the flesh, and the devil."
Again and again will you be obliged to retrace your wayward steps, and
water your path with the tears of bitter repentance and regrets. Again and
again will the world so bedim your eyesight and bewilder your thoughts
that you shall have lost sight of heaven and plunged in its vanities. And
the heart-work too is not yet all done. You must yet keep up the warfare
with corruption. You must yet keep up the struggle of grace and fight the
fight of faith.
"The journey is too great for you." There may be years of conflict yet
before you. There may be fiery trials in reserve. Light as may seem the
enterprise now, you will find it great enough before you get to heaven.
'Twill seem great when sorrow and disappointment shall gather round us,
and when the hours of fierce temptation give way only to the hours of
deepest darkness; 'twill seem long when the cross seems ever to stand by
the roadside, and when year after year we get no clearer views of heaven,
our home.
Great is the journey; and we shall feel it so when onward and onward we
travel, and our companions one by one drop at our side, till we are left
to tread our way alone. 'Twill be great when the dependencies of life
fail, and the calamities of life shall thicken around us. When the hopes
of earth shall wither, and the friendships of earth shall vanish; when the
past shall appear as vanity, and the heart shall recoil from the future;
when fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, and all the loved ones
of our early days, shall have vanished from our sight, and no long
familiar voice shall speak to us in the solitudes of earth's wilderness;
then, as we stagger on, with our staff trembling in our hand, shall we
feel that the journey is too great for us.
You may say that it will be short to some of us; that even now the sandals
are loosening and the city is coming nearer. Yes, some of us will not
journey long. But short as may be that journey, it is too great for you.
For remember how it winds up with the death-groan, the faintness, the
weakness, the sinking, the dimness, the muffled farewell. Great journey
this through the dark valley and through the wild surges--_too great_ for
us. We cannot explore the pathway; 'tis dark and dubious. We have seen
multitudes set foot upon it, and they all turned pale. The pilgrims have
not come back to us to tell us of it, but we know enough about it to know
that the journey is "too great for us."
Yet, brethren, we are all hurrying thitherward. Are we strong enough? What
shall sustain us in the desert? Behold, God has supplied us with his
gifts. Behold, ye who are desponding, ye who are wayworn, ye who are
despairing beneath the juniper-tree, the cruse of water is beside you.
Rise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. Oh, who of us will not
gladly come?
What should we do without these blessed ordinances and precious
privileges? To-day the Master spreads our table in the wilderness. Once
more he would refresh our hearts and lend vigor to our graces. He meets us
with the tokens of his love. Come, beloved, and meet the Master. Come from
your murmurings at the waters of Meribah. Come from your drowsiness and
despondency beneath the juniper. Arise and eat, for the wilderness is yet
before you. Take the cruse of water and the cake to-day, for it may be
long before you have another opportunity. Supplies in the desert are at
best precarious; and so uncertain is our pilgrimage, that we know not that
we shall meet again.
Have we full strength for the onward advancement? Would not a look at the
Master profit us? Would not a friendly seat by the side of our
fellow-pilgrims, and a kind look and a mutual, fervent prayer encourage
us? Or are we equal to the journey without all this? Beware, my Christian
friend, how you neglect the gospel means which are given you. Beware how
you turn a cold shoulder to the simple cruse of water which God sends down
to you, for he tells you that the journey is too great for you.
XII.
The Other Side.
LET US PASS OVER UNTO THE OTHER SIDE. MARK 4:35.
The facts and incidents in the history of our blessed Lord which the Holy
Ghost has seen fit to preserve and hand down to us through the
evangelists, furnish us materials for instruction and profitable
meditation. The gospel is not all didactic; nor need the religious
discourse be wholly such. It is well at times to omit the carefully framed
propositions of a systematic theology, and dwell upon the simple
narratives of the New Testament not merely as naked facts, but as pleasing
allegories, or reflections of spiritual things. May we not read this
narrative with such a purpose? As we follow the disciples in their night
expedition across the sea of Galilee, may we not have suggested to our
minds the Christian's course through the voyage of life towards the
distant, unseen shore of eternity? Let us carry this idea with us while we
study the parts of this simple, but graphic narrative of the evangelist.
1. It was _at the call and command of Christ_ the disciples embarked upon
their expedition. "Let us pass over unto the other side." There is no
intimation that they had planned the journey, or had thought of leaving
Capernaum before; but they took their departure solely in obedience to the
direction of their Master. They acknowledged his authority; they trusted
in his wisdom. Their faith and confidence in him prompted them to do his
bidding; and without questioning the reasons of his orders, they at once
loosed from the harbor and set their sails, outward bound, for the other
side.
It is even so with the believer when he forsakes the world of sin and
vanity, and sets out on a Christian life. He hears a call from God, like
that which Abraham heard when he left his country and his kinsmen for
another land which God would show him. The invitations and commands of
Christ prompt him to give up the world. Were it not for such a call he
would live and die in his natural state of sin. No inward promptings of
his own; no feelings of dissatisfaction with his present condition; no
mere natural longings and aspirations, however deep felt, would move him
to an earnest outlook beyond the present vanity, and to a heartfelt
separation from the seen and the temporal which is around him. But when
the external call of the gospel is attended by the internal call of the
Holy Spirit, he feels a quickening power; he hears and obeys the divine
command. Faith in the Redeemer leads him to obedience. He quits the world;
he tears himself away from its deceitful charms, and consents to follow
Christ.
2. I speak of their destination as expressed in the command of the Master.
It was, "_The other side_." They set sail, not for a short excursion along
the coast, or an evening trip off from the mainland, and then to return;
but across the sea to another country and a different shore. The words of
the Master point onward, onward beyond the billows to the far-off land. To
"the other side" is the sailing order by which the disciples set their
helm and trim their sail; to "the other side" they point while they loose
from their moorings at Capernaum, and say good-by to the fishermen left
behind upon the beach.
And is there not another side to our existence than the one we are now on?
Is there not some shining shore beyond this one--beyond the billows,
beyond the cloud-banks; something, if not discernible by our sense vision,
at least discoverable by faith?
_This side_ is familiar enough to us. We have trodden it and explored it;
we know its features--a state of sin and disappointment, of temptations
and illusions, a thousand vanities and shams; life ofttimes seeming a
chaos of contradictions, pleasures glittering, syrens singing, sorrows
brooding, hopes decaying.
"_This side_" where we are is a strange side, a dim, dubious shore, where
tides ebb and flow we know not how; where the mirage plays upon our
vision, and fills the atmosphere with phantoms which seem to us realities;
where we seek for happiness in vain, till death removes us from the
fitful, toilsome scene.
But is this all? Is there not another side, a different state, a better
life to look to? The Christian who has heard the call of Christ has
learned of another side than this one, another life besides the present.
The call of Christ to him is to _the other side_. It directs him not to
the things seen and temporal, but to the unseen and eternal. It points him
far over the sea of life to the distant shore, the other and the better
country. This is the Christian's destination. For this he sails when he
cuts loose from the world of sense and sin. Faith catches glimpses of its
glories; for it is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of
things not seen." For this he lives in expectation; for this he parts with
sinful pleasures, and waits with patience till it comes. So long as he
hears the Saviour's voice saying, "_To yonder shore_," he can content
himself with being a stranger here. Oh it is this "looking for a better
country" that sustains him in temptations now. How cheering is the
prospect!
When, Christian, you are troubled on every side here, how refreshing the
Master's words, To "the other side." Yes; the pious heart often exclaims,
Blessed be God, there is the other side, far different from this side; a
future unlike the present; a heavenly land, whose scenery and surroundings
are not those of earth. That other side is what you live for, Christian.
Oh forget it not when tempted here; remember it, my brother voyager, when
you hear the music along these shores of time, and would steer towards the
havens of carnal ease and lie becalmed among the spice islands of worldly
indolence and pleasure; remember, when the Saviour called you to a
Christian life, he pointed far away and said, To "_the other side_."
3. The time of their departure. "When the even was come, Jesus said unto
them, Let us pass over unto the other side." The din and turmoil of the
day were past; shadows thickened; the world was growing dark; the curtain
of night was silently overspreading the land and the sea: it was time to
embark for the other side. And is not this suggestive of the circumstances
under which the Christian enters upon a Christian life and sets out for
heaven?
Oh if the present life had no shadows, we should never look beyond it; if
this side was always bright, we should care little for the other. But it
is a part of our heavenly Father's discipline, to visit us with trials and
disappointments to wean us from this world. Ofttimes the sun of our
prosperity goes suddenly down at noon; worldly plans miscarry; sickness
preys upon us; friends die, and families are broken up; the world don't
seem so bright as it used to be: this side gathers gloom and shadows. Then
it is the soul is more open to the call of Christ; then it is, often, that
the sinner is brought to forsake the world, and obey the voice of the
Master saying, "Pass over unto the other side." It is at evening, when
this world is growing dark, that the believer obeys the command of Christ,
tears himself away from his sinful lusts with bitter, repenting tears, and
exchanging sight for faith, embarks on his voyage to the distant heavenly
shore.
It is evening; for although there be no temporal calamities sore pressing
you when you become a Christian, it is still a time when the world has
lost its sunlight to your soul, and when eternal things have flung their
shadows over the heart and made every thing on these shores of time look
dim and fading. Then we are ready for Christ. Then, when conscience is
aroused, and the overhanging clouds of divine justice darken this side and
alarm us, then we set out for heaven, and heed the invitation of the
Saviour which beckons us to the other side. It is at such a time the
believer enters on a Christian life.
4. We follow him on his voyage to the other side, and notice the important
fact that _Christ's presence_ is with his people through all their way.
Standing on the seaside at Capernaum, he sent not the disciples away
alone. His word to them was not, "_Go yonder_;" but stepping on board
their vessel, he says, "Let _us_ pass over unto the other side." He
himself will share their fortunes; he will go with them; though night be
setting in, and dangers hover on the deep, they shall not go alone. No
more shall the Christian. "Lo, I am with you always," is the blessed
assurance of his Saviour. The presence of Christ is the great source of a
Christian life.
This is all the saint can depend upon; this is what the gospel promises to
him. Christ is said to dwell in his disciples--to abide with them. His
divine influences are their only guarantee of safety. As well might the
mariner be far at sea in a night of tempests, without helm or chart or
compass, as the Christian attempt to navigate the troubled waters of life
without the Saviour with him.
Better not _attempt_ the voyage than start out alone for the other side.
If you would leave these shores of sin and worldliness at all, see to it,
first of all, that Jesus is with you in the ship, and that it is _his_
voice alone you hear, as you set sail, saying, "Let us pass over unto the
other side."
Once more, in the night voyage of the disciples over the sea of Galilee I
see shadowed forth the changing phases of a Christian life. As they cast
off from Capernaum, the evening breezes gently pressed their sails; the
silvery ripples murmured on the shore; their little ship moved smoothly
out at sea. The disciples sit in the cool evening air on deck, and watch
the stars which, one by one, light up the vault above them as the shadows
deepen and the shores grow dim. They have hardly missed their Master. They
scarcely noticed that he had retired from their presence. But as the night
wore on, alarmed at the dangers which surrounded them, the affrighted
disciples look around for their absent Lord; and finding him asleep, they
waken him with their cries for help. The Saviour, calmly rising from his
pillow, looks out upon the angry elements, and speaks the word of power:
"_Peace, be still_." And the mad winds cease their roar, and the wild
waves lie down to rest.
"'Ye waves,' he whispered, 'peace, be still.'
They calmed like a pardoned breast."
Once more propitious breezes waft them onward, till the morning dawn
slowly glimmers in the eastern sky, and reveals, in dim outline, the
mountain summits of the other side.