The word rendered _image_ is properly shadow, and hence copy or
likeness, and hence image. Here, however, the simpler meaning is the
better. 'Thou shalt despise their shadow.' The men are shadows, and all
their goods are not what they are called, their 'substance,' but their
_shadow_, a mere appearance, not a reality. That show of good which
seems but is not, is withered up by the light of the awaking God. What
He despises cannot live.
So there are the two old commonplaces of moralists set forth in these
grand words--the unsatisfying character of all merely external delights
and possessions, and also their transitory character. They are
non-substantial and non-permanent.
Nothing that is without a man can make him rich or restful. The
treasures which are kept in coffers are not real, but only those which
are kept in the soul. Nothing which cannot enter into the substance of
the life and character can satisfy us. That which we are makes us rich
or poor, that which we own is a trifle.
There is no congruity between any outward thing and man's soul, of such
a kind as that satisfaction can come from its possession. 'Cisterns that
can hold no water,' 'that which is not bread,' 'husks that the swine did
eat'--these are not exaggerated phrases for the good gifts which God
gives for our delight, and which become profitless and delusive by our
exclusive attachment to them. There is no need for exaggeration. These
worldly possessions have a good in them, they contribute to ease and
grace in life, they save from carking cares and mean anxieties, they add
many a comfort and many a source of culture. But, after all, a true,
lofty life may be lived with a very small modicum. There is no
proportion between wealth and happiness, nor between wealth and
nobleness. The fairest life that ever lived on earth was that of a poor
Man, and with all its beauty it moved within the limits of narrow
resources. The loveliest blossoms do not grow on plants that plunge
their greedy roots into the fattest soil. A little light earth in the
crack of a hard rock will do. We need enough for the physical being to
root itself in; we need no more.
Young men! especially you who are plunged into the busy life of our
great commercial centres, and are tempted by everything you see, and by
most that you hear, to believe that a prosperous trade and hard cash are
the realities, and all else mist and dreams, fix this in your mind to
begin life with--God is the reality, all else is shadow. Do not make it
your ambition to get _on_, but to get _up_. 'Having food and raiment,
let us be content.' Seek for your life's delight and treasure in
thought, in truth, in pure affections, in moderate desires, in a spirit
set on God. These are the realities of our possessions. As for all the
rest, it is sham and show.
And while thus all without is unreal, it is also fleeting as the shadows
of the flying clouds; and when God awakes, it disappears as they before
the noonlight that clears the heavens. All things that are, are on
condition of perpetual flux and change. The cloud-rack has the likeness
of bastions and towers, but they are mist, not granite, and the wind is
every moment sweeping away their outlines, till the phantom fortress
topples into red ruin while we gaze. The tiniest stream eats out its
little valley and rounds the pebble in its widening bed, rain washes
down the soil, and frost cracks the cliffs above. So silently and yet
mightily does the law of change work that to a meditative eye the solid
earth seems almost molten and fluid, and the everlasting mountains
tremble to decay.
'Wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not?' Are we going to be
such fools as to fix our hopes and efforts upon this fleeting order of
things, which can give no delight more lasting than itself? Even whilst
we are in it, it continueth not in one stay, and we are in it for such a
little while! Then comes what our text calls God's awaking, and where is
it all then? Gone like a ghost at cockcrow. Why! a drop of blood on your
brain or a crumb of bread in your windpipe, and as far as you are
concerned the outward heavens and earth 'pass away with a great'
silence, as the impalpable shadows that sweep over some lone hillside.
'The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate,
Death lays his icy hand on kings.'
What an awaking to a worldly man that awaking of God will be! 'As when a
hungry man dreameth, and behold he eateth, but he awaketh and his soul
is empty.' He has thought he fed full, and was rich and safe, but in one
moment he is dragged from it all, and finds himself a starving pauper,
in an order of things for which he has made no provision. 'When he
dieth, he shall carry nothing away.' Let us see to it that not in utter
nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe, and rich
in those possessions that cannot be taken away from us, which they have
who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Let
us pierce, for the foundation of our life's house, beneath the shifting
sands of time down to the Rock of Ages, and build there.
IV. Finally, death is for some men the annihilation of the vain shows in
order to reveal the great reality.
'I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.'
'Likeness' is properly 'form,' and is the same word which is employed in
reference to Moses, who saw 'the similitude of the Lord.' If there be,
as is most probable, an allusion to that ancient vision in these words,
then the 'likeness' is not that conformity to the divine character which
it is the goal of our hopes to possess, but the beholding of His
self-manifestation. The parallelism of the verse also points to such an
interpretation.
If so, then, we have here the blessed confidence that when all the
baseless fabric of the dream of life has faded from our opening eyes, we
shall see the face of our ever-loving God. Here the distracting whirl of
earthly things obscures Him from even the devoutest souls, and His own
mighty works which reveal do also conceal. In them is the hiding as well
as the showing of His power. But there the veil which draped the perfect
likeness, and gave but dim hints through its heavy swathings of the
outline of immortal beauty that lay beneath, shall fall away. No longer
befooled by shadows, we shall possess the true substance; no longer
bedazzled by shows, we shall behold the reality.
And seeing God we shall be satisfied. With all lesser joys the eye is
not satisfied with seeing, but to look on Him will be enough. Enough for
mind and heart, wearied and perplexed with partial knowledge and
imperfect love; enough for eager desires, which thirst, after all
draughts from other streams; enough for will, chafing against lower
lords and yet longing for authoritative control; enough for all my
being--to see God. Here we can rest after all wanderings, and say, 'I
travel no further; here will I dwell for ever--_I shall be satisfied_.'
And may these dim hopes not suggest to us too some presentiment of the
full Christian truth of assimilation dependent on vision, and of vision
reciprocally dependent on likeness? 'We shall be like Him, for we shall
see Him as He is,'--words which reach a height that David but partially
discerned through the mist. This much he knew, that he should in some
transcendent sense behold the manifested God; and this much more, that
it must be 'in righteousness' that he should gaze upon that face. The
condition of beholding the Holy One was holiness. We know that the
condition of holiness is trust in Christ. And as we reckon up the rich
treasure of our immortal hopes, our faith grows bold, and pauses not
even at the lofty certainty of God without us, known directly and
adequately, but climbs to the higher assurance of God within us,
flooding our darkness with His great light, and changing us into the
perfect copies of His express Image, His only-begotten Son. 'I shall be
satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness,' cries the prophet Psalmist.
'It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master,' responds the
Christian hope.
Brethren! take heed that the process of dissipating the vain shows of
earth be begun betimes in your souls. It must either be done by Faith,
whose rod disenchants them into their native nothingness, and then it is
blessed; or it must be done by death, whose mace smites them to dust,
and then it is pure, irrevocable loss and woe. Look away from, or rather
look through, things that are seen to the King eternal, invisible. Let
your hearts seek Christ, and your souls cleave to Him. Then death will
take away nothing from you that you would care to keep, but will bring
you your true joy. It will but trample to fragments the 'dome of
many-coloured glass' that 'stains the white radiance of eternity.'
Looking forward calmly to that supreme hour, you will be able to say, 'I
will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for Thou, Lord, only makest me
dwell in safety.' Looking back upon it from beyond, and wondering to
find how brief it was, and how close to Him whom you love it has brought
you, your now immortal lips touched by the rising Sun of the heavenly
morning will thankfully exclaim, 'When I awake, I am still with Thee.'