'He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand: and they sat down
at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words.'--DEUT. xxxiii. 3.
The great ode of which these words are a part is called 'the blessing
wherewith Moses blessed the children of Israel before his death.' It is
mainly an invocation of blessing from Heaven on the various tribes, but
it begins, as the national existence of Israel began, with the
revelation of God on Sinai, and it lays that as the foundation of
everything. It does not matter, for my purposes, in the smallest
degree, who was the author of this great song. Whoever he was, he has,
by dint of divine inspiration and of his own sympathy with the inmost
spirit of the Old Covenant, anticipated the deepest things of Christian
truth; and these are here in the words of our text.
I. The first thing that I would point out is the Divine Love which is
the foundation of all.
'He loved the people.' That is the beginning of everything. The word
that this singer uses is one that only appears in this place, and if we
regard its etymology, there lies in it a very tender and beautiful
expression of the warmth of the divine love, for it is probably
connected with words in an allied language which mean the _bosom_ and a
_tender embrace_, and so the picture that we have is of that great
divine Lover folding 'the people' to His heart, as a mother might her
child, and cherishing them in His bosom.
Still further, the word is in a form in the Hebrew which implies that
the act spoken about is neither past, present, nor future only, but
continuous and perpetual. Thus it suggests to us the thought of
timeless, eternal love, which has no beginning, and therefore has no
end, which does not grow, and therefore will never decline nor decay,
but which runs on upon one lofty level, with neither ups nor downs, and
with no variation of the impulse which sends it forth; always the same,
and always holding its objects in the fervent embrace of which the text
speaks.
Further, mark the place in this great song where this thought comes in.
As I said, it is laid as the beginning of everything. 'We love Him
because He first loved us' was the height to which the last of the
Apostles attained in the last of his writings. But this old singer,
with the mists of antiquity around him, who knew nothing about the
Cross, nothing about the historical Christ, who had only that which
modern thinkers tell us is a revelation of a wrathful God, somehow or
other rose to the height of the evangelical conception of God's love as
the foundation of the very existence of a people who are His. Like an
orchid growing on a block of dry wood and putting forth a gorgeous
bloom, this singer, with so much less to feed his faith than we have,
has yet borne this fair flower of deep and devout insight into the
secret of things and the heart of God. 'He loved the people'--therefore
He formed them for Himself; therefore He brought them out of bondage;
therefore He came down in flashing fire on Sinai and made known His
will, which to know and do is life. All begins from the tender,
timeless love of God.
And if the question is asked, Why does God thus love? the only answer
is, Because he is God. 'Not for your sakes, O house of Israel ... but
for Mine own name's sake.' The love of God is self-originated. In it,
as in all His acts, He is His own motive, as His name, 'I am that I
am,' proclaims. It is inseparable from His being, and flows forth
before, and independent of, anything in the creature which could draw
it out. Men's love is attracted by their perception or their
imagination of something loveable in its objects. It is like a well,
where there has to be much work of the pump-handle before the gush
comes. God's love is like an artesian well, or a fountain springing up
from unknown depths in obedience to its own impulse. All that we can
say is, 'Thou art God. It is Thy nature and property to be merciful.'
'God loved the people.' The bed-rock is the spontaneous, unalterable,
inexhaustible, ever-active, fervent love of God, like that with which a
mother clasps her child to her maternal breast. The fair flower of this
great thought was a product of Judaism. Let no man say that the God of
Love is unknown to the Old Testament.
II. Notice how, with this for a basis, we have next the guardian care
extended to all those that answer love by love.
The singer goes on to say, mixing up his pronouns, in the fashion of
Hebrew poetry, somewhat arbitrarily, 'all _His_ saints are in _Thy_
hand.' Now, what is a 'saint'? A man who answers God's love by his
love. The notion of a saint has been marred and mutilated by the Church
and the world. It has been taken as a special designation of certain
selected individuals, mostly of the ascetic and monastic type, whereas
it belongs to every one of God's people. It has been taken by the world
to mean sanctimoniousness and not sanctity, and is a term of contempt
rather than of admiration on their lips. And even those of us, who have
got beyond thinking that it is a title of honour belonging only to the
aristocracy of Christ's Kingdom, are too apt to mistake what it really
does mean. It may be useful to say a word about the Scriptural use and
true meaning of that much-abused term. The root idea of sanctity or
holiness is not moral character, goodness of disposition and of action,
but it is separation from the world and consecration to God. As surely
as a magnet applied to a heap of miscellaneous filings will pick out
every little bit of iron there, so surely will that love which He bears
to the people, when it is responded to, draw to itself, and therefore
draw out of the heap, the men that feel its impulse and its
preciousness. And so 'saint' means, secondly, righteous and pure, but
it means, first, knit to God, separated from evil, and separated by the
power of His received love.
Now, brethren, here is a question for each of us: Do I yield to that
timeless, tender clasp of the divine Father and Mother in one? Do I
answer it by my love? If I do, then I am a 'saint,' because I belong to
Him, and He belongs to me, and in that commerce I have broken with the
world. If we are true to ourselves, and true to our Lord, and true to
the relation between us, the purity of character, which is popularly
supposed to be the meaning of _holiness_, will come. Not without
effort, not without set-backs, not without slow advance, but it will
come; for he that is consecrated to the Lord is 'separated' from
iniquity. Such is the meaning of 'saint.'
'All His saints are in Thy hand.' The first metaphor of our text spoke
of God's bosom, to which He drew the people and folded them there. This
one speaks of His 'hand.' They lie in it. That means two things. It
means absolute security, for will He not close His fingers over His
palm to keep the soul that has laid itself there? And 'none shall pluck
them out of My Father's hand.' No one but yourself can do that. And you
can do it, if you cease to respond to His love, and so cease to be a
saint. Then you will fall out of His hand, and how far you will fall
God only knows.
Being in God's hand means also submission. Loyola said to his black
army, 'Be like a stick in a man's hand.' That meant utter submission
and abnegation of self, the willingness to be put anywhere, and used
anyhow, and done anything with. And if I by my reception of, and
response to, that timeless love, am a saint belonging to God, then not
only shall I be secure, but I must be submissive. 'All His saints are
in Thy hand.' Do not try to get out of it; be content to let it guide
you as the steersman's hand turns the spokes of the wheel and directs
the ship.
Now, there is a last thought here. I have spoken of the foundation of
all as being divine love, of the security and guardian care of the
saints, and there follows one thought more:--