All that the children of Israel had to do was to follow the cloud. If
the cloud rested, they rested; if the cloud moved forward, then they
moved. I can imagine that the first thing Moses did, when the grey
dawn of morning broke, was to look up and see if the cloud was still
over the camp. By night it was a pillar of fire, lighting up the camp,
and filling them with a sense of God's protecting care; by day it was
a cloud shielding them from the fierce heat of the sun's rays, and
sheltering them from the sight of their enemies.
Israel's Shepherd could lead them through the pathless desert. Why?
Because He made it. He knew every grain of sand in it. They could not
have a better leader through the wilderness than its Creator.
And, sinner, can you, in all your difficulties or doubts and fears,
have a better leader than Jehovah? Oh, I do like that good old hymn:
"Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more."
Yes, that is the true prayer of the bewildered sinner, God is _able_,
and still more, He is _willing_, to lead us, and to feed us. "Thou
gayest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth
water for them out of the rock for their thirst" (Nehemiah ix. 15). He
is still as able to lead any of us as He was four thousand years ago
to lead the children of Israel, "For I am the Lord; I change not." To
every one of us He says, "Fear not, I will lead thee; I will help
thee." Wonderful thing, is it not, to have God to help us on our way?
In our Western countries, when men go out hunting into the dense
backwoods, where there are no roads or paths of any kind, they take
their hatchet and cut a little chip out of the bark of the trees as
they go along, and then they easily find their way by these "blazes."
They call it "blazing the way." And so, if you will allow me the
expression, Christ has "blazed the way." He has travelled the road
Himself, and knowing the way, He tells us to follow Him, and He will
lead us safe on high.
5. Now we have seen Christ is our Saviour, Redeemer, Deliverer,
Leader, or Way. But He is more than all that;