'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy days, so shall thy
strength be.' DEUT. xxxiii. 25.
There is a general correspondence between those blessings wherewith
Moses blessed the tribes of Israel before his death, and the
circumstances and territory of each tribe in the promised land. The
portion of Asher, in whose blessing the words of our text occurs, was
partly the rocky northern coast and partly the fertile lands stretching
to the base of the Lebanon. In the inland part of their territory they
cultivated large olive groves, the produce of which was trodden out in
great rock-hewn cisterns. So the clause before my text is a benediction
upon that industry-'let him dip his foot in oil.' And then the metaphor
naturally suggested by the mention of the foot is carried on into the
next words, 'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,' the tribe being
located upon rocky sea-coast, having rough roads to travel, and so
needing to be well shod. The substance, then, of that promise seems to
be--strength adequate to, and unworn by, exercise; while the second
clause, though not altogether plain, seems to put a somewhat similar
idea in unmetaphorical shape. 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be,'
probably means the promise of power that grows with growing years.
So, then, we have first that thought that God gives us an equipment of
strength proportioned to our work,--shoes fit for our road. God does
not turn people out to scramble over rough mountains with thin-soled
boots on; that is the plain English of the words. When an Alpine
climber is preparing to go away into Switzerland for rock work, the
first thing he does is to get a pair of strong shoes, with plenty of
iron nails in the soles of them. So Asher had to be shod for his rough
roads, and so each of us may be sure that if God sends us on stony
paths He will provide us with strong shoes, and will not send us out on
any journey for which He does not equip us well.
There are no difficulties to be found in any path of duty, for which he
that is called to tread it is not prepared by Him that sent him.
Whatsoever may be the road, our equipment is calculated for it, and is
given to us from Him that has appointed it.
Is there not a suggestion here, too, as to the sort of travelling we
may expect to have? An old saying tells us that we do not go to heaven
in silver slippers, and the reason is because the road is rough. The
'primrose way' leads somewhere else, and it may be walked on
'delicately.' But if we need shoes of iron and brass, we may pretty
well guess the kind of road we have before us. If a man is equipped
with such coverings on his feet, depend upon it that there will be use
for them before he gets to the end of his day's journey. The thickest
sole will make the easiest travelling over rocky roads. So be quite
sure of this, that if God gives to us certain endowments and equipments
which are only calculated for very toilsome paths, the roughness of the
road will match the stoutness of the shoes.
And see what He does give. See the provision which is made for patience
and strength, for endurance and courage, in all the messages of His
mercy, in all the words of His love, in all the powers of His Gospel,
and then say whether that looks as if we should have an easy life of it
on our way home. Those two ships that went away a while ago upon the
brave, and, as some people thought, desperate task of finding the North
Pole--any one that looked upon them as they lay in Portsmouth Roads,
might know that it was no holiday cruise they were meant for. The
thickness of the sides, the strength of the cordage, the massiveness of
the equipment, did not look like pleasure-sailing.
And so, dear brethren, if we think of all that is given to us in God's
Gospel in the way of stimulus and encouragement, and exhortation, and
actual communication of powers, we may calculate, from the abundance of
the resources, how great will be the strain upon us before we come to
the end, and our 'feet stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.' Go into
some of the great fortresses in continental countries, and you will
find the store-rooms full of ammunition and provisions; bread enough
and biscuits enough, as it seems, for half the country, laid up there,
and a deep well somewhere or other in the courtyard. What does that
mean? It means fighting, that is what it means. So if we are brought
into this strong pavilion, so well provisioned, so massively fortified
and defended, that means that we shall need all the strength that is to
be found in those thick walls, and all the sustenance that is to be
found in those gorged magazines, and all the refreshment that is to be
drawn from that free, and full, and inexhaustible fountain, before the
battle is over and the victory won. Depend upon it, the promise 'Thy
shoes shall be iron and brass.' means, 'Thy road shall be rocky and
flinty'; and so it is.
And yet, thank God! whilst it is true that it is very hard and very
difficult for many of us, and hard and difficult--even if without the
'very'--for us all, it is also true that we have the adequate provision
sufficient for all our necessities--and far more than sufficient! It is
a poor compliment to the strength that He gives to us to say that it is
enough to carry us through. God does not deal out His gifts to people
with such an economical correspondence to necessities as that. There is
always a wide margin. More than we can ask, more than we can think,
more than we can need is given us.
If He were to deal with us as men often deal with one another, asking
us, 'Well, how much do you want? cannot you do with a little less?
there is the exact quantity that you need for your support'--if you got
your bread by weight and your water by measure, it would be a very poor
affair. See how He actually does--He says, 'Child, there is Mine own
strength for you'; and we think that we honour Him when we say, 'God
has given us enough for our necessities!' Rather the old word is always
true: 'So they did eat and were filled; and they took up of the
fragments that remained seven baskets-full,' and after they were
satisfied and replete with the provision, there was more at the end
than when they began.
That suggests another possible thought to be drawn from this promise,
namely, that it assures not only of strength adequate to the
difficulties and perils of the journey, but also of a strength which is
not worn out by use.
The 'portion' of Asher was the rocky sea-coast. The sharp, jagged rocks
would cut to pieces anything made of leather long before the day's
march was over; but the travellers have their feet shod with metal, and
the rocks which they have to stumble over will only strike fire from
their shoes. They need not step timidly for fear of wearing them out;
but, wherever they have to march, may go with full confidence that
their shoeing will not fail them. A wise general looks after that part
of his soldiers' outfit with special care, knowing that if _it_ gives
out, all the rest is of no use. So our Captain provides us with an
inexhaustible strength, to which we may fully trust. We shall not
exhaust it by any demands that we can make upon it. We shall only
brighten it up, like the nails in a well-used shoe, the heads of which
are polished by stumbling and scrambling over rocky roads.
So we may be bold in the march, and draw upon our stock of strength to
the utmost. There is no fear that it will fail us. We may put all our
force into our work, we shall not weaken the power which 'by reason of
use is exercised,' not exhausted. For the grace which Christ gives us
to serve Him, being divine, is subject to no weariness, and neither
faints nor fails. The bush that burned unconsumed is a type of that
Infinite Being who works unexhausted, and lives undying, after all
expenditure is rich, after all pouring forth is full. And of His
strength we partake.
Whensoever a man puts forth an effort of any kind whatever--when I
speak, when I lift my hand, when I run, when I think-there is waste of
muscular tissue. Some of my strength goes in the act, and thus every
effort means expenditure and diminution of force. Hence weariness that
needs sleep, waste that needs food, languor that needs rest. We belong
to an order of being in which work is death, in regard to our physical
nature; but our spirits may lay hold of God, and enter into an order of
things in which work is not death, nor effort exhaustion, nor is there
loss of power in the expenditure of power.
That sounds strange, and yet it is not strange. Think of that electric
light which is made by directing a strong stream upon two small pieces
of carbon. As the electricity strikes upon these and turns their
blackness into a fiery blaze, it eats away their substance while it
changes them into light. But there is an arrangement in the lamp by
which a fresh surface is continually being brought into the path of the
beam, and so the light continues without wavering and blazes on. The
carbon is our human nature, black and dull in itself; the electric beam
is the swift energy of God, which makes us 'light in the Lord.' For the
one, decay is the end of effort; for the other, there is none. 'Though
our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.'
Though we belong to the perishing order of nature by our bodily frame,
we belong to the undecaying realm of grace by the spirit that lays hold
upon God. And if our work weary us, as it must do so long as we
continue here, yet in the deepest sanctuary of our being, our strength
is greatened by exercise. 'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass.' 'Thy
raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these
forty years.' 'Stand, therefore, having your feet shod with the
preparedness of the Gospel of peace.'
But this is not all. There is an advance even upon these great promises
in the closing words. That second clause of our text says more than the
first one. 'Thy shoes shall be iron and brass,' that promises us powers
and provision adapted to, and unexhausted by, the weary pilgrimage and
rough road of life. But 'as thy days, so shall thy strength be,' says
even more than that. The meaning of the word rendered 'strength' in our
version is very doubtful, and most modern translators are inclined to
render it 'rest.' But if we adhere to the translation of our version,
we get a forcible and relevant promise, which fits on well to the
previous clause, understood as it has been in my previous remarks. The
usual understanding of the words is 'strength proportioned to thy day,'
an idea which we have found already suggested by the previous clause.
But that explanation rests on, or at any rate derives support from, the
common misquotation of the words. They are not, as we generally hear
them quoted, 'As thy day, so shall thy strength be,'--but 'day' is in
the plural, and that makes a great difference. 'As thy days, so shall
thy strength be,' that is to say: the two sums--of 'thy days' and of
'thy strength'--keep growing side by side, the one as fast as the other
and no faster. The days increase. Well, what then? The strength
increases too. As I said, we are allied to two worlds. According to the
law of one of them, the outer world of physical life, we soon reach the
summit of human strength. For a little while it is true, even in the
life of nature, that our power grows with our days. But we soon reach
the watershed, and then the opposite comes to be true. Down, steadily
down, we go. With diminishing power, with diminishing vitality, with a
dimmer eye, with an obtuser ear, with a slower-beating heart, with a
feebler frame, we march on and on to our grave. 'As thy days, so shall
thy weakness be,' is the law for all of us mature men and women in
regard to our outward life.
But, dear brethren, we may be emancipated from that dreary law in
regard to the true life of our spirits, and instead of growing weaker
as we grow older, we may and we should grow stronger. We may be and we
should be moving on a course that has no limit to its advance. We may
be travelling on a shining path through the heavens, that has no
noon-tide height from which it must slowly and sadly decline, but tends
steadily and for ever upwards, nearer and nearer to the very fountain
itself of heavenly radiance. 'The path of the just is as the shining
light, which shineth more and more till the noon-tide of the day.' But
the reality surpasses even that grand thought, for it discloses to us
an endless approximation to an infinite beauty, and an ever-growing
possession of never exhausted fulness, as the law for the progress of
all Christ's servants. The life of each of us may and should be
continual accession and increase of power through all the days here,
through all the ages beyond. Why? Because 'the life which I live, I
live by the faith of the Son of God.' Christ liveth in me. It is not my
strength that grows, so much as God's strength in me which is given
more abundantly as the days roll. It is so given on one condition. If
my faith has laid hold of the infinite, the exhaustless, the immortal
energy of God, unless there is something fearfully wrong about me, I
shall be becoming purer, nobler, wiser, more observant of His will,
gentler, liker Christ, every way fitter for His service, and for larger
service, as the days increase.
Those of us who have reached middle life, or perhaps gone a little over
the watershed, ought to have this experience as our own in a very
distinct degree. The years that are past ought to have drawn us
somewhat away from our hot pursuing after earthly and perishable
things. They should have added something to the clearness and
completeness of our perception of the deep simplicity of God's gospel.
They should have tightened our hold and increased our possession of
Christ, and unfolded more and more of His all-sufficiency. They should
have enriched us with memories of God's loving care, and lighted all
the sky behind with a glow which is reflected on the path before us,
and kindles calm confidence in His unfailing goodness. They should have
given us power and skill for the conflicts that yet remain, as the Red
Indians believe that the strength of every defeated and scalped enemy
passes into his conqueror's arm. They should have given force to our
better nature, and weakening, progressive weakening, to our worse. They
should have rooted us more firmly and abidingly in Him from whom all
our power comes, and so have given us more and fuller supplies of His
exhaustless and ever-flowing might.
So it may be with us if we abide in Him, without whom we are nothing,
but partaking of whose strength 'the weakest shall be as David, and
David as an angel of God.'
If for us, drawing nearer to the end is drawing nearer to the light,
our faces will be brightened more and more with that light which we
approach, and our path will be 'as the shining light which shines more
and more unto the noon-tide of the day,' because we are closer to the
very fountain of heavenly radiance, and growingly bathed and flooded
with the outgoings of His glory. 'As thy days, so shall thy strength
be.'
The promise ought to be true for us all. It _is_ true for all who use
the things that are freely given to them of God. And whilst thus it is
the law for the devout life here, its most glorious fulfilment remains
for the life beyond. There each new moment shall bring new strength,
and growing millenniums but add fresh vigour to our immortal life. Here
the unresting beat of the waves of the sea of time gnaws away the bank
and shoal whereon we stand, but there each roll of the great ocean of
eternity shall but spread new treasures at our feet and add new acres
to our immortal heritage. 'The oldest angels,' says Swedenborg, 'look
the youngest.' When life is immortal, the longer it lasts the stronger
it becomes, and so the spirits that have stood for countless days
before His throne, when they appear to human eyes, appear as--'young
men clothed in long white garments,'--full of unaging youth and energy
that cannot wane. So, whilst in the flesh we must obey the law of
decay, the spirit may be subject to this better law of life, and 'while
the outward man perisheth, the inward man be renewed day by day.' 'Even
the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly
fall; but they that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.'