"He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He
casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold? He
sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and
the waters flow."--PSALM 147:16-18.
LOOKING out of our window one morning we saw the earth robed in a white
mantle; for in a few short hours the earth had been covered to a
considerable depth with snow. We looked out again in a few hours and saw
the fields as green as ever, and the ploughed fields as bare as if no
single flake had fallen. It is no uncommon thing for a heavy fall of
snow to be followed by a rapid thaw.
These interesting changes are wrought by God, not only with a purpose
toward the outward world, but with some design toward the spiritual
realm. God is always a teacher. In every action that he performs he is
instructing his own children, and opening up to them the road to inner
mysteries. Happy are those who find food for their heaven-born spirits,
as well as for their mental powers, in the works of the Lord's hand.
I shall ask your attention, first, _to the operations of nature spoken
of in the text_; and, secondly, _to those operations of grace of which
they are the most fitting symbols_.
I. Consider, first, THE OPERATIONS OF NATURE. We shall not think a few
minutes wasted if we call your attention to the hand of God in frost and
thaw, even upon natural grounds.
1. Observe the _directness_ of the Lord's work. I rejoice, as I read
these words, to find how present our God is in the world. It is not
written, "the laws of nature produce snow," but "HE _giveth snow_," as
if every flake came directly from the palm of his hand. We are not told
that certain natural regulations form moisture into hoarfrost; no, but
as Moses took ashes of the furnace and scattered them upon Egypt, so it
is said of the Lord "HE _scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes_." It is
not said that the Eternal has set the world going and by the operation
of its machinery ice is produced. Oh, no, but every single granule of
ice descending in the hail is from God; "HE _casteth forth his ice like
morsels_." Even as the slinger distinctly sends the stone out of his
sling, so the path of every hailstone is marked by the Divine power. The
ice is called, you observe, _his_ ice; and in the next sentence we read
of _his_ cold. These words make nature strangely magnificent. When we
look upon every hailstone as God's hail, and upon every fragment of ice
as his ice, how precious the watery diamonds become! When we feel the
cold nipping our limbs and penetrating through every garment, it
consoles us to remember that it is _his_ cold. When the thaw comes, see
how the text speaks of it:--"_he sendeth out his word_." He does not
leave it to certain forces of nature, but like a king, "_He sendeth out
his word and melteth them: he causeth_ HIS _wind to blow_." He has a
special property in every wind; whether it comes from the north to
freeze, or from the south to melt, it is _his_ wind. Behold how in God's
temple everything speaketh of his glory. Learn to see the Lord in all
scenes of the visible universe, for truly he worketh all things.
This thought of the directness of the Divine operations must be carried
into providence. It will greatly comfort you if you can see God's hand
in your losses and crosses; surely you will not murmur against the
direct agency of your God. This will put an extraordinary sweetness into
daily mercies, and make the comforts of life more comfortable still,
because they are from a Father's hand. If your table be scantily
furnished it shall suffice for your contented heart, when you know that
your Father spread it for you in wisdom and love. This shall bless your
bread and your water; this shall make the bare walls of an ill-furnished
room as resplendent as a palace, and turn a hard bed into a couch of
down;--my Father doth it all. We see his smile of love even when others
see nothing but the black hand of Death smiting our best beloved. We see
a Father's hand when the pestilence lays our cattle dead upon the plain.
We see God at work in mercy when we ourselves are stretched upon the bed
of languishing. It is ever our Father's act and deed. Do not let us get
beyond this; but rather let us enlarge our view of this truth, and
remember that this is true of the little as well as of the great. Let
the lines of a true poet strike you:--
"If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say the Lord hath done it--
Hath he not done it when an aphis creepeth upon the rosebud?
If an avalanche tumbles from its Alp, ye tremble at the will of
Providence--
Is not that will as much concerned when the sere leaves fall from
the poplar?"
Let your hearts sing of everything, Jehovah-Shammah, the Lord is there.
2. Next, I beg you to observe, with thanksgiving, the _ease_ of Divine
working. These verses read as if the making of frost and snow were the
simplest matter in all the world. A man puts his hand into a wool-pack
and throws out the wool; God giveth snow as easily as that: "He giveth
snow like wool." A man takes up a handful of ashes, and throws them into
the air, so that they fall around: "He scattereth the hoarfrost like
ashes." Rime and snow are marvels of nature: those who have observed the
extraordinary beauty of the ice-crystals have been enraptured, and yet
they are easily formed by the Lord. "He casteth forth his ice like
morsels"--just as easily as we cast crumbs of bread outside the window
to the robins during wintry days. When the rivers are hard frozen, and
the earth is held in iron chains, then the melting of the whole--how is
that done? Not by kindling innumerable fires, nor by sending electric
shocks from huge batteries through the interior of the earth--no; "He
sendeth forth his word, and melteth them; he causeth his wind to blow,
and the waters flow." The whole matter is accomplished with a word and a
breath. If you and I had any great thing to do, what puffing and
panting, what straining and tugging there would be: even the great
engineers, who perform marvels by machinery, make much noise and stir
about it. It is not so with the Almighty One. Our globe spins round in
four-and-twenty hours, and yet it does not make so much noise as a
humming-top; and yonder ponderous worlds rolling in space track their
way in silence. If I enter a factory I hear a deafening din, or if I
stand near the village mill, turned by water dropping over a wheel,
there is a never-ceasing click-clack, or an undying hum; but God's great
wheels revolve without noise or friction: divine machinery works
smoothly. This ease is seen in providence as well as in nature. Your
heavenly Father is as able to deliver you as he is to melt the snow, and
he will deliver you in as simple a manner if you rest upon him. He
openeth his hand, and supplies the want of every living thing as readily
as he works in nature. Mark the ease of God's working--he does but open
his hand.
3. Notice in the next place the _variety_ of the Divine operations in
nature. When the Lord is at work with frost as his tool he creates snow,
a wonderful production, every crystal being a marvel of art; but then he
is not content with snow--from the same water he makes another form of
beauty which we call hoarfrost, and yet a third lustrous sparkling
substance, namely glittering ice; and all these by the one agency of
cold. What a marvellous variety the educated eye can detect in the
several forms of frozen water! The same God who solidified the flood
with cold soon melts it with warmth; but even in thaw there is no
monotony of manner: at one time the joyous streams rush with such
impetuosity from their imprisonment that rivers are swollen and floods
cover the plain; at another time by slow degrees, in scanty driblets,
the drops regain their freedom. The same variety is seen in every
department of nature. So in providence the Lord has a thousand forms of
frosty trials with which to try his people, and he has ten thousand
beams of mercy with which to cheer and comfort them. He can afflict you
with the snow trial, or with the hoarfrost trial, or with the ice trial,
if he will; and anon he can with his word relax the bonds of adversity,
and that in countless ways. Whereas men are tied to two or three methods
in accomplishing their will, God is infinite in understanding and
worketh as he wills by ways unguessed of mortal mind.
4. I shall ask you also to consider the works of God in nature in their
_swiftness_. It was thought a wonderful thing in the days of Ahasuerus
that letters were sent by post upon swift dromedaries. In our country we
thought we had arrived at the age of miracles when the axles of our cars
glowed with speed, and now that the telegraph is at work we stretch out
our hands into infinity; but what is our rapidity compared with that of
God's operations? Well does the text say, "He sendeth forth his
commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly." Forth went the
word, "Open the treasures of snow," and the flakes descended in
innumerable multitudes; and then it was said, "Let them be closed," and
not another snow-feather was seen. Then spake the Master, "Let the south
wind blow and the snow be melted": lo, it disappeared at the voice of
his word. Believer, you cannot tell how soon God may come to your help.
"He rode upon a cherub and did fly," says David; "yea, he did fly upon
the wings of the wind." He will come from above to rescue his beloved.
He will rend the heavens and come down; with such speed will he descend,
that he will not stay to draw the curtains of heaven, but he will rend
them in his haste, and make the mountains to flow down at his feet, that
he may deliver those who cry unto him in the hour of trouble. That
mighty God who can melt the ice so speedily can take to himself the same
eagle wings, and haste to your deliverance. Arise, O God! and let thy
children be helped, and that right early.
5. One other thought: consider the _goodness_ of God in all the
operations of nature and providence. Think of that goodness negatively.
"Who can stand before his cold?" You cannot help thinking of the poor in
a hard winter--only a hard heart can forget them when you see the snow
lying deep. But suppose that snow continued to fall! What is there to
hinder it? The same God who sends us snow for one day could do the like
for fifty days if he pleased. Why not? And when the frost pinches us so
severely, why should it not be continued month after month? We can only
thank the goodness which does not send "His cold" to such an extent that
our spirits expire. Travellers toward the North Pole tremble as they
think of this question, "Who can stand before his cold?" For cold has a
degree of omnipotence in it when God is pleased to let it loose. Let us
thank God for the restraining mercy by which he holds the cold in check.
Not only negatively, but positively there is mercy in the snow. Is not
that a suggestive metaphor? "He giveth snow _like wool_." The snow is
said to warm the earth; it protects those little plants which have just
begun to peep above the ground, and might otherwise be frost-bitten; as
with a garment of down the snow protects them from the extreme severity
of cold. Hence Watts sings, in his version of the hundred and
forty-seventh Psalm--
"His flakes of snow like wool he sends,
And thus the springing corn defends."
It was an idea of the ancients that snow warmed the heart of the soil,
and gave it fertility, and therefore they praised God for it. Certainly
there is much mercy in the frost, for pestilence might run a far longer
race if it were not that the frost cries to it, "Hitherto shalt thou
come, but no farther." Noxious insects would multiply until they
devoured the precious fruits of the earth, if sharp nights did not
destroy millions of them, so that these pests are swept off the earth.
Though man may think himself a loser by the cold, he is a great
ultimate gainer by the decree of Providence which ordains winter. The
quaint saying of one of the old writers that "snow is wool, and frost is
fire, and ice is bread, and rain is drink," is true, though it sounds
like a paradox. There is no doubt that frost in breaking up the soil
promotes fruitfulness, and so the ice becomes bread. Thus those
agencies, which for the moment deprive our workers of their means of
sustenance, are the means by which God supplies every living thing.
Mark, then, God's goodness as clearly in the snow and frost as in the
thaw which clears the winter's work away.
Christian, remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity. Rest
assured that when God is pleased to send out the biting winds of
affliction he is in them, and he is always love, as much love in sorrow
as when he breathes upon you the soft south wind of joy. See the
lovingkindness of God in every work of his hand! Praise him--he maketh
summer and winter--let your song go round the year! Praise him--he
giveth day and sendeth night--thank him at all hours! Cast not away your
confidence, it hath great recompense of reward. As David wove the snow,
and rain, and stormy wind into a song, even so combine your trials, your
tribulations, your difficulties and adversities into a sweet psalm of
praise and say perpetually--
"Let us, with a gladsome mind,
Praise the Lord, for he is kind."
Thus much upon the operations of nature. It is a very tempting theme,
but other fields invite me.
II. I would address you very earnestly and solemnly Upon THOSE
OPERATIONS OF GRACE, OF WHICH FROST AND THAW ARE THE OUTWARD SYMBOLS.
There is a period with God's own people when he comes to deal with them
by _the frost of the law_. The law is to the soul as the cutting north
wind. Faith can see love in it, but the carnal eye of sense cannot. It
is a cold, terrible, comfortless blast. To be exposed to the full force
of the law of God would be to be frost-bitten with everlasting
destruction; and even to feel it for a season would congeal the marrow
of one's bones, and make one's whole being stiff with affright. "Who can
stand before his cold?" When the law comes forth thundering from its
treasuries, who can stand before it? The effect of law-work upon the
soul is to bind up the rivers of human delight. No man can rejoice when
the terrors of conscience are upon him. When the law of God is sweeping
through the soul, music and dancing lose their joy, the bowl forgets its
power to cheer, and the enchantments of earth are broken. The rivers of
pleasure freeze to icy despondency. The buds of hope are suddenly
nipped, and the soul finds no comfort. It was satisfied once to grow
rich, but rust and canker are now upon all gold and silver. Every
promising hope is frost-bitten, and the spirit is winter-bound in
despair. This cold makes the sinner feel how ragged his garments are. He
could strut about, when it was summer weather, and think his rags right
royal robes, but now the cold frost finds out every rent in his garment,
and in the hands of the terrible law he shivers like the leaves upon the
aspen. The north wind of judgment searches the man through and through.
He did not know what was in him, but now he sees his inward parts to be
filled with corruption and rottenness. These are some of the terrors of
the wintry breath of the law.
This frost of law and terrors only tends to harden. Nothing splits the
rock or makes the cliff tumble like frost when succeeded by thaw, but
frost alone makes the earth like a mass of iron, breaking the
ploughshare which would seek to pierce it. A sinner under the influence
of the law of God, apart from the gospel, is hardened by despair, and
cries, "There is no hope, and therefore after my lusts will I go.
Whereas there is no heaven for me after this life, I will make a heaven
out of this earth; and since hell awaits me, I will at least enjoy such
sweets as sin may afford me here." This is not the fault of the law; the
blame lies with the corrupt heart which is hardened by it; yet,
nevertheless, such is its effect.
When the Lord has wrought by the frost of the law, he sends _the thaw of
the gospel_. When the south wind blows from the land of promise,
bringing precious remembrances of God's fatherly pity and tender
lovingkindness, then straightway the heart begins to soften and a sense
of blood-bought pardon speedily dissolves it. The eyes fill with tears,
the heart melts in tenderness, rivers of pleasure flow freely, and buds
of hope open in the cheerful air. A heavenly spring whispers to the
flowers that were sleeping in the cold earth; they hear its voice, and
lift up their heads, for "the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear
on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of
the turtle is heard in our land." God sendeth his Word, saying, "Thy
warfare is accomplished, and thy sin is pardoned;" and when that
blessedly cheering word comes with power to the soul, and the sweet
breath of the Holy Spirit acts like the warm south wind upon the heart,
then the waters flow, and the mind is filled with holy joy, and light,
and liberty.
"The legal wintry state is gone,
The frosts are fled, the spring comes on,
The sacred turtle-dove we hear
Proclaim the new, the joyful year."
Having shown you that there is a parallel between frost and thaw in
nature and law and gospel in grace, I would utter the same thoughts
concerning grace which I gave you concerning nature.
1. We began with the directness of God's works in nature. Now, beloved
friends, remark the _directness of God's works in grace_. When the heart
is truly affected by the law of God, when sin is made to appear
exceeding sinful, when carnal hopes are frozen to death by the law, when
the soul is made to feel its barrenness and utter death and ruin--this
is the finger of God. Do not speak of the minister. It was well that he
preached earnestly: God has used him as an instrument, but God worketh
all. When the thaw of grace comes, I pray you discern the distinct hand
of God in every beam of comfort which gladdens the troubled conscience,
for it is the Lord alone who bindeth up the broken in heart and healeth
all their wounds. We are far too apt to stop in instrumentalities. Folly
makes men look to sacraments for heart-breaking or heart-healing, but
sacraments all say, "It is not in us." Some of you look to the preaching
of the Word, and look no higher; but all true preachers will tell you,
"It is not in us." Eloquence and earnestness at their highest pitch can
neither break nor heal a heart. This is God's work. Ay, and not God's
secondary work in the sense in which the philosopher admits that God is
in the laws of nature, but God's personal and immediate work. He putteth
forth his own hand when the conscience is humbled, and it is by his own
right hand that the conscience is eased and cleansed.
I desire that this thought may abide upon your minds, for you will not
praise God else, nor will you be sound in doctrine. All departures from
sound doctrine on the point of conversion arise from forgetfulness that
it is a divine work from first to last; that the faintest desire after
Christ is as much the work of God as the gift of his dear Son; and that
our whole spiritual history through, from the Alpha to the Omega, the
Holy Spirit works in us to will and to do of his own good pleasure. As
you have evidently seen the finger of God in casting forth his ice and
in sending thaw, so I pray you recognize the handiwork of God in giving
you a sense of sin, and in bringing you to the Saviour's feet. Join
together in heartily praising the wonder-working God, who doeth all
things according to the counsel of his will.
"Our seeking thy face
Was all of thy grace,
Thy mercy demands, and shall have all the praise:
No sinner can be
Beforehand with thee,
Thy grace is preventing, almighty and free."
2. The second thought upon nature was _the ease with which the Lord
worked_. There was no effort or disturbance. Transfer that to the work
of grace. How easy it is for God to send law-work into the soul! You
stubborn sinner, _you_ cannot touch him, and even providence has failed
to awaken him. He is dead--altogether dead in trespasses and sins. But
if the glorious Lord will graciously send forth the wind of his Spirit,
that will melt him. The swearing reprobate, whose mouth is blackened
with profanity, if the Lord doth but look upon him and make bare his
arm of irresistible grace, shall yet praise God, and bless his name, and
live to his honor. Do not limit the Holy One of Israel. Persecuting Saul
became loving Paul, and why should not that person be saved of whose
case you almost despair? Your husband may have many points which make
his case difficult, but no case is desperate with God. Your son may have
offended both against heaven and against you, but God can save the most
hardened. The sharpest frost of obstinate sin must yield to the thaw of
grace. Even huge icebergs of crime must melt in the Gulf-stream of
infinite love.
Poor sinner, I cannot leave this point without a word to you. Perhaps
the Master has sent the frost to you, and you think it will never end.
Let me encourage you to hope, and yet more, to pray for gracious
visitations. Miss Steele's verses will just suit your mournful yet
hopeful state.
"Stern winter throws his icy chains,
Encircling nature round:
How bleak, how comfortless the plains,
Late with gay verdure crown'd!
The sun withdraws his vital beams,
And light and warmth depart:
And, drooping lifeless, nature seems
An emblem of my heart--
My heart, where mental winter reigns
In night's dark mantle clad,
Confined in cold, inactive chains;
How desolate and sad!
Return, O blissful sun, and bring
Thy soul-reviving ray;
This mental winter shall be spring,
This darkness cheerful day."
It is easy for God to deliver you. He says, "I have blotted out like a
thick cloud thy transgressions." I stood the other evening looking up at
a black cloud which was covering all the heavens, and I thought it would
surely rain; I entered the house, and when I came out again the sky was
all blue--the wind had driven the cloud away. So may it be with your
soul. It is an easy thing for the Lord to put away sin from repenting
sinners. All obstacles which hindered our pardon were removed by Jesus
when he died upon the tree, and if you believe in him you will find that
he has cast your sins into the depths of the sea. If thou canst believe,
all things are possible to him that believeth.
3. The next thought concerning the Lord's work in nature was the
_variety_ of it. Frost produces a sort of trinity in unity--snow,
hoarfrost, ice; and when the thaw comes its ways are many. So it is with
God in the heart. Conviction comes not alike to all. Some convictions
fall as the snow from heaven: you never hear the flakes descend, they
alight so gently one upon the other. There are soft-coming convictions;
they are felt, but we can scarcely tell when we began to feel them. A
true work of repentance may be of the gentlest kind. On the other hand,
the Lord casteth forth his ice like morsels, the hailstones rattle
against the window, and you think they will surely force their way into
the room, and so to many persons convictions come beating down till they
remind you of hailstones. There is variety. It is as true a frost which
produces the noiseless snow as that which brings forth the terrible
hail. Why should you want hailstones of terror? Be thankful that God has
visited you, but do not dictate to him the way of his working.
With regard to the gospel thaw. If you may but be pardoned by Jesus, do
not stipulate as to the manner of his grace. Thaw is universal and
gradual, but its commencement is not always discernible. The chains of
winter are unloosed by degrees: the surface ice and snow melt, and by
and by the warmth permeates the entire mass till every rock of ice gives
way. But while thaw is universal and visible in its effects you cannot
see the mighty power which is doing all this. Even so you must not
expect to discern the Spirit of God. You will find him gradually
operating upon the entire man, enlightening the understanding, freeing
the will, delivering the heart from fear, inspiring hope, waking up the
whole spirit, gradually and universally working upon the mind and
producing the manifest effects of comfort, and hope, and peace; but you
can no more see the Spirit of God than you can see the south wind. The
effect of his power is to be felt, and when you feel it, do not marvel
if it be somewhat different from what others have experienced. After
all, there is a singular likeness in snow and hoarfrost and ice, and so
there is a remarkable sameness in the experience of all God's children;
but still there is a great variety in the inward operations of divine
grace.
4. We must next notice the _rapidity_ of God's works, "His word runneth
very swiftly." It did not take many days to get rid of the last snow. A
contractor would take many a day to cart it away, but God sendeth forth
his word, and the snow and ice disappear at once. So is it with the
soul: the Lord often works rapidly when he cheers the heart. You may
have been a long time under the operation of his frosty law, but there
is no reason why you should be another hour under it. If the Spirit
enables you to trust in the finished work of Christ, you may go out of
this house rejoicing that every sin is forgiven. Poor soul, do not think
that the way from the horrible pit is to climb, step by step, to the
top. Oh no; Jesus can set your feet upon a rock ere the clock shall have
gone round the dial. He can in an instant bring you from death to life,
from condemnation to justification. "To-day shall thou be with me in
Paradise," was spoken to a dying thief, black and defiled with sin. Only
believe in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved.
5. Our last thought upon the operation of God was _his goodness_ in it
all. What a blessing that God did not send us more law-work than he did!
"Who can stand before his cold?" Oh! beloved, when God has taken away
from man natural comfort, and made him feel divine wrath in his soul, it
is an awful thing. Speak of a haunted man; no man need be haunted with a
worse ghost than the remembrance of his old sins. The childish tale of
the sailor with the old man of the mountain on his back, who pressed him
more and more heavily, is more than realized in the history of the
troubled conscience. If one sin do but leap on a man's back, it will
sink the sinner through every standing-place that he can possibly mount
upon; he will go down, down, under its weight, till he sinks to the
lowest depths of hell. There is no place where sin can be borne till you
get upon the Rock of Ages, and even there the joy is not that _you_ bear
it, but that Jesus has borne it all for you. The spirit would utterly
fail before the law, if it had full sway. Thank God, "he stayeth his
rough wind in the day of his east wind." At the same time, how thankful
we may be, that we ever felt the law-frost in our soul. The folly of
self-righteousness is killed by the winter of conviction. We should
have been a thousand times more proud, and foolish, and worldly, than we
are, if it had not been for the sharp frost with which the Lord nipped
the growths of the flesh.
But how shall we thank him sufficiently for the thaw of his
lovingkindness? How great the change which his mercy made in us as soon
as its beams had reached our soul! Hardness vanished, cold departed,
warmth and love abounded, and the life-floods leaped in their channels.
The Lord visited us, and we rose from our grave of despair, even as the
seeds arise from the earth. As the bulb of the crocus holds up its
golden cup to be filled with sunshine, so did our new-born faith open
itself to the glory of the Lord. As the primrose peeps up from the sod
to gaze upon the sun, so did our hope look forth for the promise, and
delight itself in the Lord. Thank God that spring-tide has with many of
us matured into summer, and winter has gone never to return. We praise
the Lord for this every day of our lives, and we will praise him when
time shall be no more in that sunny land--
"Where everlasting spring abides,
And never withering flowers.
A thread-like stream alone divides
That heavenly land from ours."
Believe in the Lord, ye who shiver in the frost of the law, and the thaw
of love shall soon bring you warm days of joy and peace. So be it.
Amen.