'I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and
cast forth his roots as Lebanon. 6. His branches shall spread, and
his beauty shall be as the olive-tree ...'--Hosea xiv. 5, 6.
Like his brethren, Hosea was a poet as well as a prophet. His little
prophecy is full of similes and illustrations drawn from natural
objects; scarcely any of them from cities or from the ways of men;
almost all of them from Nature, as seen in the open country, which he
evidently loved, and where he had looked upon things with a clear and
meditative eye. This whole chapter is full of emblems drawn from the
vegetable world. The lily, the cedar, the olive, are in my text. And
there follow, in the subsequent verses, the corn, and the vine, and the
green fir-tree.
The words which I have read, no doubt originally had simply a reference
to the numerical increase of the people and their restoration to their
land, but they may be taken by us quite fairly as having a very much
deeper and more blessed reference than that. For they describe the
uniform condition of all spiritual life and growth,' I will be as the
dew unto Israel'; and then they set forth some of the manifold aspects
of that growth, and the consequences of receiving that heavenly dew,
under the various metaphors to which I have referred. It is in that
higher signification that I wish to look at them now.
I. The first thought that comes out of the words is that for all life
and growth of the spirit there must be a bedewing from God.
'I will be as the dew unto Israel.' Now, scholars tell us that the kind
of moisture that is meant in these words is not what we call dew, of
which, as a matter of fact, there falls, in Palestine, little or none at
the season of the year referred to in my text, but that the word really
means the heavy night-clouds that come upon the wings of the south-west
wind, to diffuse moisture and freshness over the parched plains, in the
very height and fierceness of summer. The metaphor of my text becomes
more beautiful and striking, if we note that, in the previous chapter,
where the Prophet was in his threatening mood, he predicts that 'an east
wind shall come, the wind of the Lord shall come up from the
wilderness'--the burning sirocco, with death upon its wings--'and his
spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up.' We have
then to imagine the land gaping and parched, the hot air having, as with
invisible tongue of flame, licked streams and pools dry, and having
shrunken fountains and springs. Then, all at once there comes down upon
the baking ground and on the faded, drooping flowers that lie languid
and prostrate on the ground in the darkness, borne on the wings of the
wind, from the depths of the great unfathomed sea, an unseen moisture.
You cannot call it rain, so gently does it diffuse itself; it is liker a
mist, but it brings life and freshness, and everything is changed. The
dew, or the night mist, as it might more properly be rendered, was
evidently a good deal in Hosea's mind; you may remember that he uses the
image again in a remarkably different aspect, where he speaks of men's
goodness as being like 'a morning cloud, and the early dew that passes
away.'
The natural object which yields the emblem was all inadequate to set
forth the divine gift which is compared to it, because as soon as the
sun has risen, with burning heat, it scatters the beneficent clouds, and
the 'sunbeams like swords' threaten to slay the tender green shoots. But
this mist from God that comes down to water the earth is never dried up.
It is not transient. It may be ours, and live in our hearts. Dear
brethren, the prose of this sweet old promise is 'If I depart, I will
send Him unto you.' If we are Christian people, we have the perpetual
dew of that divine Spirit, which falls on our leaves and penetrates to
our roots, and communicates life, freshness, and power, and makes growth
possible--more than possible, certain--for us. 'I'--Myself through My
Son, and in My Spirit--'I will be'--an unconditional assurance--'as the
dew unto Israel.'
Yes! That promise is in its depth and fulness applicable only to the
Christian Israel, and it remains true to-day and for ever. Do we see it
fulfilled? One looks round upon our congregations, and into one's own
heart, and we behold the parable of Gideon's fleece acted over
again--some places soaked with the refreshing moisture, and some as hard
as a rock and as dry as tinder and ready to catch fire from any spark
from the devil's forge and be consumed in the everlasting burnings some
day. It will do us good to ask ourselves why it is that, with a promise
like this for every Christian soul to build upon, there are so few
Christian souls that have anything like realised its fulness and its
depth. Let us be quite sure of this--God has nothing to do with the
failure of His promise, and let us take all the blame to ourselves.
'I will be as the dew unto Israel.' Who was Israel? The man that
wrestled all night in prayer with God, and took hold of the angel and
prevailed and wept and made supplication to Him. So Hosea tells us; and
as he says in the passage where he describes the Angel's wrestling with
Jacob at Peniel, 'there He spake with us'--when He spake, He spake with
him who first bore the name. Be you Israel, and God will surely be your
dew; and life and growth will be possible. That is the first lesson of
this great promise.
II. The second is, that a soul thus bedewed by God will spring into
purity and beauty.
We go back to Hosea's vegetable metaphors. 'He shall grow as the lily'
is his first promise. If I were addressing a congregation of botanists,
I should have something to say about what kind of a plant is meant, but
that is quite beside the mark for my present purpose. It is sufficient
to notice that in this metaphor the emphasis is laid upon the two
attributes which I have named--beauty and purity. The figure teaches us
that ugly Christianity is not Christ's Christianity. Some of us older
people remember that it used to be a favourite phrase to describe
unattractive saints that they had 'grace grafted on a crab stick.' There
are a great many Christian people whom one would compare to any other
plant rather than a lily. Thorns and thistles and briers are a good deal
more like what some of them appear to the world. But we are bound, if we
are Christian people, by our obligations to God, and by our obligations
to men, to try to make Christianity look as beautiful in people's eyes
as we can. That is what Paul said, 'Adorn the teaching'; make it look
well, inasmuch as it has made you look attractive to men's eyes. Men
have a fairly accurate notion of beauty and goodness, whether they have
any goodness or any beauty in their own characters or not. Do you
remember the words: 'Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are
of good report, whatsoever things are venerable ... if there be any
praise'--from men--'think on these things'? If we do not keep that as
the guiding star of our lives, then we have failed in one very distinct
duty of Christian people--namely, to grow more like a lily, and to be
graceful in the lowest sense of that word, as well as _grace full_ in
the highest sense of it. We shall not be so in the lower, unless we are
so in the higher. It may be a very modest kind of beauty, very humble,
and not at all like the flaring reds and yellows of the gorgeous flowers
that the world admires. These are often like a great sunflower, with a
disc as big as a cheese. But the Christian beauty will be modest and
unobtrusive and shy, like the violet half buried in the hedge-bank, and
unnoticed by careless eyes, accustomed to see beauty only in gaudy,
flaring blooms. But unless you, as a Christian, are in your character
arrayed in the "beauty of holiness," and the holiness of beauty, you are
not quite the Christian that Jesus Christ wants you to be; setting forth
all the gracious and sweet and refining influences of the Gospel in your
daily life and conduct. That is the second lesson of our text.
III. The third is, that a God-bedewed soul that has been made fair and
pure by communion with God, ought also to be strong.
He "shall cast forth his roots like Lebanon." Now I take it that simile
does not refer to the roots of that giant range that slope away down
under the depths of the Mediterranean. That is a beautiful emblem, but
it is not in line with the other images in the context. As these are all
dependent on the promise of the dew, and represent different phases of
the results of its fulfilment, it is natural to expect thus much
uniformity in their variety, that they shall all be drawn from
plant-life. If so, we must suppose a condensed metaphor here, and take
"Lebanon" to mean the forest which another prophet calls "the glory of
Lebanon." The characteristic tree in these, as we all know, was the
cedar.
It is named in Hebrew by a word which is connected with that for
"strength." It stands as the very type and emblem of stability and
vigour. Think of its firm roots by which it is anchored deep in the
soil. Think of the shelves of massive dark foliage. Think of its
unchanged steadfastness in storm. Think of its towering height; and thus
arriving at the meaning of the emblem, let us translate it into practice
in our own lives. "He shall cast forth his roots as Lebanon." Beauty?
Yes! Purity? Yes! And braided in with them, if I may so say, the
strength which can say "No!" which can resist, which can persist, which
can overcome; power drawn from communion with God. "Strength and beauty"
should blend in the worshippers, as they do in the "sanctuary" in God
Himself. There is nothing admirable in mere force; there is often
something sickly and feeble, and therefore contemptible in mere beauty.
Many of us will cultivate the complacent and the amiable sides of the
Christian life, and be wanting in the manly "thews that throw the
world," and can fight to the death. But we have to try and bring these
two excellences of character together, and it needs an immense deal of
grace and wisdom and imitation of Jesus Christ, and a close clasp of His
hand, to enable us to do that. Speak we of strength? He is the type of
strength. Of beauty? He is the perfection of beauty. And it is only as
we keep close to Him that our lives will be all fair with the reflected
loveliness of His, and strong with the communicated power of His
grace--"strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might."
Brethren, if we are to set forth anything, in our daily lives, of this
strength, remember that our lives must be rooted in, as well as bedewed
by, God. Hosea's emblems, beautiful and instructive as they are, do not
reach to the deep truth set forth in still holier and sweeter words; "I
am the Vine, ye are the branches." The union of Christ and His people
is closer than that between dew and plant. Our growth results from the
communication of His own life to us. Therefore is the command stringent
and obedience to it blessed, "Abide in Me, for apart from Me ye can
do"--and are--"nothing."
Let us remember that the loftier the top of the tree and the wider the
spread of its shelves of dark foliage, if it is steadfastly to stand,
unmoved by the loud winds when they call, the deeper must its roots
strike into the firm earth. If your life is to be a fair temple-palace
worthy of God's dwelling in, if it is to be impregnable to assault,
there must be quite as much masonry underground as above, as is the case
in great old buildings and palaces. And such a life must be a life "hid
with Christ in God," then it will be strong. When we strike our roots
deep into Him, our branch also shall not wither, and our leaf shall be
green, and all that we do shall prosper. The wicked are not so. They are
like chaff--rootless, fruitless, lifeless, which the wind driveth away.
IV. Lastly, the God-bedewed soul, beautiful, pure, strong, will bear
fruit.
That is the last lesson from these metaphors. "His beauty shall be as
the olive-tree." Anybody that has ever seen a grove of olives knows that
their beauty is not such as strikes the eye. If it was not for the blue
sky overhead, that rays down glorifying light, they would not be much to
look at or talk about. The tree has a gnarled, grotesque trunk which
divides into insignificant branches, bearing leaves mean in shape, harsh
in texture, with a silvery underside. It gives but a quivering shade and
has no massiveness, nor symmetry. Ay! but there are olives on the
branches. And so the beauty of the humble tree is in what it grows for
man's good. After all, it is the outcome in fruitfulness which is the
main thing about us. God's meaning, in all His gifts of dew, and beauty,
and purity, and strength, is that we should be of some use in the world.
The olive is crushed into oil, and the oil is used for smoothing and
suppling joints and flesh, for nourishing and sustaining the body as
food, for illuminating darkness as oil in the lamp. And these three
things are the three things for which we Christian people have received
all our dew, and all our beauty, and all our strength--that we may give
other people light, that we may be the means of conveying to other
people nourishment, that we may move gently in the world as lubricating,
sweetening, soothing influences, and not irritating and provoking, and
leading to strife and alienation. _The_ question after all is, Does
anybody gather fruit off us, and would anybody call _us_ 'trees of
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified'? That
is lesson four from this text. May we all open our hearts for the dew
from heaven, and then use it to produce in ourselves beauty, purity,
strength, and fruitfulness!
* * * * *