UNDER THE CAMEL'S SADDLE.
Rachel had been affianced to Jacob, and one day while her father, Laban,
was away from home she eloped with Jacob. Laban returned home and expressed
great sorrow that he had not been there when his daughter went away, saying
that he would have allowed her to go, and that she might have been
accompanied with a harp and the dance and with many beautiful presents.
Laban started for Rachel and Jacob. He was very anxious to recover the gods
that had been stolen from his household. He supposed that Rachel had taken
them, as she really had. He came up in the course of a few days to the
party and demanded the gods that had been taken from his house. Jacob knew
nothing about the felony, but Rachel was secreting these household gods.
Laban came into the tent where she was, and asked for them. She sat upon a
saddle of a camel, the saddle having been laid down at the side of the
tent, and under this camel's saddle were the images. Rachel pretended to be
sick, and said she could not rise. Her father, Laban, supposed that she
told the truth, and looked everywhere but under the camel's saddle, where
really the lost images were. He failed in the search, and went back home
without them.
It was a strange thing for Laban to do. He pretended to be a worshiper of
the true God. What did he want of those images? Ah, the fact was, that
though he worshiped God, he worshiped with only half a heart, and he
sometimes, I suppose, repented of the fact that he worshiped him at all,
and really had a hankering after those old gods which in his earliest days
he had worshiped. And now we find him in Rachel's tent looking for them.
Do not let us, however, be too severely critical of Laban. He is only the
representative of thousands of Christian men and women, who, once having
espoused the worship of God, go back to their idols. When a man professes
faith in Christ on communion-day, with the sacramental cup in his hand, he
swears allegiance to the Lord God Almighty, and says, "Let all my idols
perish!" but how many of us have forsaken our fealty to God, and have gone
back to our old idols!
There are many who sacrifice their soul's interests in the idolatry of
wealth. There was a time when you saw the folly of trying with, money to
satisfy the longing of your soul. You said, when you saw men going down
into the dust and tussle of life, "Whatever god I worship, it won't be a
golden calf." You saw men plunge into the life of a spendthrift, or go down
into the life of a miser, like one of old smothered to death in his own
money-chest, and you thought, "I shall be very careful never to be caught
in these traps in which so many men have fallen, to their souls' eternal
discomfiture."
But you went down into the world; you felt-the force of temptation; you saw
men all around you making money very fast, some of them sacrificing all
their Christian principle; you felt the fascination come upon your own
soul, and before you knew it, you were with Laban going down to hunt in
Rachel's tent for your lost idols.
On one of our pieces of money you find the head of a goddess, a poor
inscription for an American coin; far better the inscription that the old
Jews put upon the shekel, a pot of manna and an almond rod, alluding to the
mercy and deliverance of God in their behalf in other days. But how seldom
it is that money is consecrated to Christ! Instead of the man owning the
money, the money owns the man. It is evident, especially to those with whom
they do business every day, that they have an idol, or that, having once
forsaken the idol, they are now in search of it, far away from the house of
God, in Rachel's tent looking for the lost images.
One of the mighty men of India said to his servants: "Go not near the cave
in such a ravine." The servants talked the matter over, and said: "There
must be gold there, or certainly this mighty man would not warn us against
going." They went, expecting to find a pile of gold; they rolled away the
stone from the door of the cave, when a tiger sprang out upon them and
devoured them.
Many a man in the search of gold has been craunched in the jaws of
destruction. Going out far away from the God whom they originally
worshiped, they are seeking in the tent of Rachel, Laban's lost images.
There are a great many Christians in this day renewing the idolatry of
human opinion. There was a time when they woke up to the folly of listening
to what men said to them. They soliloquized in this way: "I have a God to
worship, and I am responsible only to Him. I must go straight on and do my
whole duty, whether the world likes it or don't like it;" and they turned a
deaf ear to the fascinations of public applause. After a while they did
something very popular. They had the popular ear and the popular heart. Men
approved them, and poured gentle words of flattery into their ear, and
before they realized it they went into the search of that which they had
given up, and were, with Laban, hunting in Rachel's tent for the lost
images.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock one June night, Gibbon, the great
historian, finished his history. Seated in a summer garden, he says that as
he wrote the last line of that wonderful work he felt great satisfaction.
He closed the manuscript, walked out into the moonlight in the garden, and
then, he said, he felt an indescribable melancholy come upon his soul at
the thought that so soon he must leave all the fame that he would acquire
by that manuscript.
The applause of this world is a very mean god to worship. It is a Dagon
that falls upon its worshipers and crushes them to death. Alas for those
who, fascinated by human applause, give up the service of the Lord God and
go with Laban to hunt in Rachel's tent for the lost images!
There are many Christians being sacrificed to appetite. There was a time
when they said: "I will not surrender to evil appetites." For a while they
seemed to break away from all the allurements by which they were
surrounded, but sometimes they felt that they were living upon a severe
regimen. They said: "After all, I will go back to my old bondage;" and they
fell away from the house of God, and fell away from respectability, and
fell away for ever.
One of the kings in olden times, the legend says, consented that the devil
might kiss him on both shoulders, but no sooner were the kisses imprinted
upon the shoulders than serpents grew forth and began to devour him, and as
the king tried to tear off the serpents he found he was tearing his own
life out. And there are men who are all enfolded in adders of evil appetite
and passion that no human power can ever crush; and unless the grace of God
seizes hold of them, these adders will become "the worm that never dies."
Alas for those who, once having broken away from the mastery of evil
appetites and passion, go back to the sins that they once renounced, and,
with Laban in Rachel's tent, go to hunt for the lost images!
There are a great many also sacrificed by indolence. In the hour of their
conversion they looked off upon the world, and said: "Oh how much work to
be done, how many harvests to be gathered, how many battles to be fought,
how many tears to be wiped away, and how many wounds to be bound up!" and
they looked with positive surprise upon those who could sit idle in the
kingdom of God while there was so much work to do. After a while they found
their efforts were unappreciated, that some of their best work in behalf of
Christ was caricatured and they were laughed at, and they began to relax
their effort, and the question was no more, "What can I do for Christ?" but
"How can I take my ease? where can I find my rest?" Are there not some of
you who in the hour of your consecration started out nobly, bravely and
enthusiastically for the Saviour's kingdom who have fallen back into ease
of body and ease of soul, less anxious about the salvation of men than you
once were, and are actually this moment in Rachel's tent hunting up the
lost images?
Oh, why go down hunting for our old idols? We have found out they are
insufficient for the soul. Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have
they, but, they hear not; and hands have they, but they handle not. There
is only one God to worship, and He sits in the heavens.
How do I know that there is only one God? I know it just as the boy knew it
when his teacher asked him how many Gods there are. He said, "There is but
one."
"How do you know that?" inquired the teacher.
The boy replied, "There is only room for one, for He fills the heavens and
the earth."
Come into the worship of that God. He is a wise God. He can plan out all
the affairs of your life. He can mark out all the steps that you ought to
take. He will put the sorrows in the right place, and the victories in the
right place, and the defeats in the right place; and coming to the end of
your life, if you have served Him faithfully, you will be compelled to say,
"Just and true are thy ways; thou art, O Lord, always right."
He is a mighty God. Have Him on your side, and you need not fear earth or
hell. He can ride down all your spiritual foes. He is mighty to overthrow
your enemies. He is mighty to save your soul. Ay, He is a loving God. He
will put the arms of His love around about your neck. He will bring you
close to His heart and shelter you from the storm. In times of trouble He
will put upon your soul the balm of precious promises. He will lead you all
through the vale of tears trustfully and happily, and then at last take you
to dwell in His presence, where there is fullness of joy, and at His right
hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. Oh, compared with such a wise
God, such a mighty God, such a loving God, what are all the images under
the camel's saddle in the tent of Rachel?