Bible Emblems Part 6

Adam and G.o.d were friends. The primary effect of sin has ever been to separate man from G.o.d. The example of our first parents in hiding themselves among the trees of the garden, from the voice of the Lord, is an example which has been imitated by all the generations of their descendants. But the intervening distance between us and G.o.d has been surmounted by the Mediator. The fearful chasm has been spanned, and G.o.d now draws nigh unto us in the gospel of his Son, and invites us to draw nigh to him. Here, in the plan of salvation, he bids us accept of his grace. Here is the ark of safety, where no thunderbolts of his wrath will strike us, but where we may rest securely from the storms of the present life, and the retributions of the coming one. Here we are told to flee for refuge and hope. And once sheltered in this ark of salvation, we may have G.o.d our friend, and Jesus our Saviour. An open door is set before us, and the invitation given, "Come thou and all thy house into the ark."

But carnal man prefers to roam. Tossed upon the troubled waters of life, where all is danger and uncertainty, he still persists in neglecting the great salvation, and like the raven, flies to and fro in search of happiness and safety. Life, to men without G.o.d, is but a chartless ocean, over which they course their way amid floating wrecks and ruins, vainly bent on satisfying the soul. High on the waters rides the ark of mercy, and the voice of G.o.d is heard inviting them to enter. But though the skies of life are so changing, and its waters so dark and troubled, that they ofttimes feel the need of better resources, still they look not to the gospel, but toil and fly from one to another quarter, crying, Who will show us any good? They want nothing to do with G.o.d. They care not for his favor. They prefer to live as far away as possible, and seek all their support amid the resources of the world.

Look at the sceptic, who, giving himself over to the dominion of infidelity, would blot out eternity from the future, and would repudiate the very being and the presence of the Almighty. As he travels through life away from G.o.d, and with no hope for the future; as immortality is to him a blank, and the world naught but chaos over which destiny and chance preside, and death is an eternal night, to what shall we liken him, but to the raven, far off from home, flapping its wings in the empty air where every thing that once breathed was dead, and where all was silence, desolation, and gloom.

Watch the men that toil for the riches of this world, who day by day ply their exhausting labors, and nightly dream of treasure heaps and gold, while G.o.d is put far from their every thought, and the gospel is neglected, and eternity thrust away from them, and the soul is left to glean its only comforts amid the perishable and fading possessions of earth, like the wandering bird scouring the unbroken main, and seeking its abiding place among the floating wrecks of ruined palaces of bygone splendor.

Or what shall we say of those who banish from their minds the thoughts of G.o.d, and live only in the round of sensual indulgences, prost.i.tuting their every faculty to the service of the basest appet.i.tes, and giving an unbridled rein to sensual propensities? Where shall we find their prototype, but in the bird of prey that loved to breathe the putrid air, and gorge its appet.i.te upon the carca.s.ses which the waves washed up.

In short, differ as men may in their individual tastes and habits, there is this one prominent characteristic belonging to them all--an utter estrangement from G.o.d and Christ: an estrangement so inveterate, that all the trials and afflictions and disappointments of life are insufficient to bring them to seek security in him. Like the wandering raven, they fly from one to another refuge; "but none saith, Where is G.o.d my Maker, that giveth songs in the night?"

We turn now to consider the opposite description of character which is symbolized by the dove, which found no rest for the sole of her foot, and hastened back to the ark.

It is the Christian who has been brought near to G.o.d, and lives in the enjoyment of his presence. Once, like the raven, he loved to wander, and with the unG.o.dly around him, he careered his way without G.o.d, and chased to and fro the vanities of this world. But by the regenerating grace of G.o.d, he is changed into a man of another spirit. The alienation and distance between him and G.o.d have been overcome, and he now finds his happiness in the felt presence and communion of that G.o.d from whom he has so long turned away.

'Tis the peculiar characteristic of the Christian, that he seeks, in the favor and presence of G.o.d, those delights which the unG.o.dly strive for in vain among the objects of the world. He differs from them in his tastes and pursuits. He seeks in one direction, they in another. The current of his desires is so changed, that he feels estranged where they are most at home. What they most value he cares but little for. The company they delight in, he has no real sympathy with. He sits not in the seat of the scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

He may engage in the pursuits of secular life; he may be seen in the places of business and toil and enterprise, and bear a share in the rough struggle of the outdoor world; yet his chief pleasure is not found amid the cares of business and the schemes of profit, but in the fellowship of G.o.d and in the duties of devotion. Here his soul abides in peace. The service of Christ is congenial to his spiritual nature. His better thoughts ever dwell upon the unseen and eternal. Business and care may crowd upon him through the day; but he turns his footsteps homeward when the sun goes down, and like the dove returning to the ark, he seeks communion with G.o.d in the meditations of the closet. It is to him a welcome exchange to leave the bustling companionship of the world for the society of the Saviour. While the unG.o.dly revel amid their tumultuous gayeties, he finds in the retirement of his devotions those joys that a stranger intermeddleth not with, and feels that as the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth his soul after G.o.d. While temptations thicken around him, and strange voices are calling to him and bidding him wander further and further away, he still finds his only security in the presence of the Saviour, and flies to him like the dove to the arms of the patriarch.

G.o.d is his refuge too in the season of affliction and trial. Sometimes the world grows doubly dark, and crosses and disappointments overwhelm his soul; but the dove knows where to turn when the storm rages, and he flies for support and consolation to the presence of the Redeemer. In the time of trouble G.o.d will hide him in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle will he hide him, till these calamities be overpast. It is the prevailing desire of the Christian to seek after G.o.d. Afflictions, crosses, and disappointments all drive him there. Like the dove wandering with weary wing over the dark abyss, he finds no rest for the sole of his foot till he betakes himself to the hiding-place of Jesus, and reflects how, ere long, the rough billows of life will be pa.s.sed, and he shall be safely moored in the calm haven of eternity.

Pause here a moment, and reflect upon the radical difference between a true Christian and a worldling. The one is brought nigh unto G.o.d; the other is without G.o.d in the world. In the prevailing bent and purpose of their lives they are opposites. Their dispositions lead them in contrary directions. The providential dealings of G.o.d with them produce widely different results. The same storms of affliction which drive the Christian, like the dove, homeward to his refuge, ofttimes tempt the unG.o.dly to fly, like the raven, further and further from the Ark of safety. "The wicked will not seek after G.o.d."

These are the two great cla.s.ses of human character which the Bible everywhere distinguishes. To one or the other cla.s.s we all belong. We may multiply our distinctions between men as we please, and a.s.sign to one and another his relative position in the scale of human excellence; but at the last there will remain but one broad line of separation between those who walk with G.o.d, and those who know him not. Tried by this test, where shall we be found? When the last storm of death shall gather, and the world be swept away from us, shall we be borne in the Ark of safety to the Ararat mountains of the heavenly land, and rest beneath the effulgent bow of the Redeemer's glory; or shall we be driven out upon the sh.o.r.eless waters of an eternity where the storms never cease their fury, and where the blackness of darkness for ever broods?

This momentous question of our future state is being settled by our present character. Are you living now in the fellowship and favor of G.o.d?

We are told of the patriarch who rode out the deluge, that through the long previous years he "walked with G.o.d." Is such the temper of your soul?

Are you at home with Christ? Is G.o.d the portion of your spirit, and do you love the consciousness of his presence, and do you fly to him for aid? Can you live here within his covenant, and conform to his requirements, and lay hold upon his promises? Can you count all things but loss for him, and give up the world with its pleasures and its charms for the society and the service of the Lord Jesus? Or do you prefer to live a stranger to Christ, and a worldling in your desires and habits, without a shelter, though eternity must be to you a state of exile from all the holy and happy family of G.o.d?

VIII.

The Rainbow.

I DO SET MY BOW IN THE CLOUD, AND IT SHALL BE FOR A TOKEN OF A COVENANT BETWEEN ME AND THE EARTH. AND IT SHALL COME TO Pa.s.s, WHEN I BRING A CLOUD OVER THE EARTH, THAT THE BOW SHALL BE SEEN IN THE CLOUD.

GEN. 9:13, 14.

The old world is gone. Its teeming population has been swept away by the besom of Jehovah's wrath. The earth has been purified by the terrible baptism of water, and refitted to be the dwelling-place of new generations. Noah and his family are its sole inheritors. The human race are starting anew as it were, in a new world.

The Almighty signalized this grand era in the world's history by a special manifestation of himself to Noah, the chief representative of the future generations. He entered into covenant with him; he gave him a new grant of eminent domain, formally installed him as the rightful possessor of the earth, and bade him repeople it and rule it.

Most cheering must have been such tokens of favor and regard from the Almighty to that lone, solitary family as they looked over an empty, desolate world.

Although they were saved, yet an air of deep sadness and melancholy must have rested upon every thing around them. The recollection of those awful scenes through which they had pa.s.sed must have haunted their thoughts, and troubled their slumbers with frightful dreams. What if the sun shone again in beauty? What though their children should multiply, and they should again build cities, and repeople its desolate territories? Would not the storm clouds gather again, and the race be swept to destruction by similar successive judgments? Ah, would they not look up with terror every time the heavens grew dark, and fear lest the world should be drowned whenever the rain descended?

To allay all such apprehensions, while he commissioned them to repossess the earth, Jehovah a.s.sured the patriarch that the deluge would never be repeated. He kindly condescended to enter into covenant with Noah, that he and his posterity need have no fears of a second deluge; and promised that he would never do what he had done, and drown the world. The text declares to us what was the outward sign or token of this covenant: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pa.s.s, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud."

The idea that the rainbow was something more than a mere natural phenomenon, that it was a pledge or token of something which G.o.d had promised to men, is preserved among the traditions of many heathen nations. Homer distinctly speaks of it in a remarkable pa.s.sage in the Iliad, where he describes the glittering armor of Agamemnon as reflecting various lights, like colored rainbows--

"Jove's wondrous bow, Placed, as a sign to man, amid the skies."

Before considering the spiritual significance of this symbol, the inquiry naturally arises, Was the rainbow a new phenomenon in the natural world, seen for the first time after the deluge; or had it been a familiar sight to the antediluvians ever since the creation, and only selected by G.o.d and pointed out to Noah as a memorial of His promise made to him?

The man of science may presume to decide this question very easily by showing that the rainbow is no supernatural phenomenon, but is explained on the simplest principles of natural philosophy; that it is produced by the refraction of the sun's rays through drops of water falling from the clouds, and is always seen when the sun and the clouds come into a certain relative position to the beholder; and therefore, that through the centuries previous to the deluge, mankind must many a time have witnessed the same beautiful arch spanning the heavens, and wondered at its variegated splendors.

But there are other considerations which have inclined learned and profound scholars to the opinion that the rainbow, for the first time mentioned in the text, was indeed new to Noah and his family, and that the generations of men before the flood never gazed upon such a sight.

We confess a strong bias to this latter view. It lends peculiar interest and significancy to this token. It is the sign of the promise that G.o.d will not again drown the world. Clouds may gather, storms rage, torrents roar, but their fury shall be stayed; and on the spent and receding clouds shall be hung the sun-lit bow, and from every tint and hue of its gorgeous drapery shall come whisperings of a.s.surance to mortals who gaze upon it, that mercy triumphs over judgment.

"I will set my bow in the cloud," says Jehovah. There, in the midst of the very elements which have caused alarm; there, where the lightnings flashed and the thunders pealed, and wrath and darkness gloamed overhead, there will I write my covenant in lines of beauty, and you and your posterity shall read it and rejoice.

But we need not stop with interpreting this symbol as a pledge against a mere physical overthrow of the world by water.

We seek for a deeper spiritual significance in it. Although in its primary application it was a sign of G.o.d's covenant with Noah, it leads our minds forward to a more perfect covenant, a covenant of grace, in which are contained the promises of G.o.d which shield his people from all spiritual evils which threaten them.

The import of the rainbow in its spiritual signification is worthy of special notice. We do not explain it so generally as some who regard it as a symbol of G.o.d's willingness to receive men into favor again, or that it only indicates the Almighty's faithfulness in fulfilling his promises. We interpret it more specially as a symbol of divine protection to G.o.d's people from imminent and threatening dangers--that protection pledged in the covenant of grace in Christ Jesus to those who have fled for refuge to him. Such seems to be the idea conveyed by it in the vision of Ezekiel, where he speaks of what he saw over the throne above the heavens "as the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain." A similar sight was enjoyed by John in Patmos, where in vision he beheld the throne in heaven: "And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald."

These references to the rainbow justify us in interpreting it as a symbol of grace returning after judgments; a pledge of G.o.d's promise to stay the course of vengeance, to limit threatening evils that they shall not destroy, to arrest impending dangers, and succor his people when they are most exposed to destruction.

The bow in the cloud then is not a mere sign of G.o.d's fidelity to his promises in general, but a particular token of his grace nigh at hand in emergencies, a sign for the hour of trouble and distress and alarm, a token of grace--not when the sky is clear, but when the heavens frown, when fear comes to the soul and it looks anxiously round for help. As a physical phenomenon it had this significancy. G.o.d set it in the cloud. It was brought forth only in the darkened heavens. It was nursed and cradled in the storm.

When therefore, at summer's sunset, I gaze upon the beautiful iris arching the eastern horizon and resting on its dark background of clouds, my thoughts go out beyond the covenant of Noah to a richer covenant of grace, and I read in its gorgeous colorings a pledge of those provisions against spiritual dangers made in the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ.

While the physical eye is delighted with the beauteous spectacle in the lower heavens, faith soars upward and sees around the throne of the Almighty's glory a brighter bow set there through the mediation of the incarnate Son. It is the pledge and token of grace to sinners. It is the sign of the covenant of redemption.

When, upon the apostasy of man, the heavens gathered blackness and the clouds of divine wrath swept overhead, portending a deluge of divine justice; when the guilt of our transgressions left us with no covering from the eternal storm, the eternal G.o.d placed himself between us and h.e.l.l, and by his own sacrifice upon the cross drew upon himself those magazines of vengeance. The divine law was satisfied in his atonement; the clouds broke and scattered around the Almighty's throne. Light streamed athwart the gloom, and the Sun of righteousness, with healing in his beams, threw out its rays upon the retiring storm, and arched the clouds of justice with the brilliant bow of peace and reconciliation. Every rainbow painted in the natural heavens points us to what Christ has done in the spiritual world. The physical eyeball sees the one, faith gazes upon the other. Both are a.s.sociated with the idea of danger, both bespeak security and deliverance.

You perceive then the spiritual lesson conveyed to us by the rainbow in the clouds. It tells of G.o.d's covenant of grace with his people, and the promises under that covenant of safety in the midst of fears.

How adapted is this lesson to the condition of believers in their present state. Oh, what could faith do without the bow in this stormy, troubled world? How many are the clouds which darken the believer's way! But G.o.d has set his bow in every one of them--his pledge of deliverance and support.

Sometimes the dark cloud of his own transgressions settles terribly upon the Christian's soul. The convictions of his heinous guilt almost drive him to despair. He asks himself, How can mercy reach so vile a sinner?

how can such iniquity as mine be pardoned? Vainly does he look within himself for any thing to hope for. Ashamed and speechless, he has no satisfaction for the law's demands. That law condemns him, conscience condemns him; but faith discovers deliverance in the atonement of the Lord Jesus. The covenant breaks upon his soul--his Saviour has died for him.

His guilt is fully atoned for; and there is the bow of the covenant promises lighting up the cloud. "I will set my bow in the cloud," says G.o.d, and when Sinai thunders in the soul I will arch its summit with the iris from the cross.

Again, how do the clouds of temptation sometimes thicken over the Christian's way--temptations from within and without. And what discouragements press upon him from the rising corruptions of his heart and the onsets of the world. How often does he groan under his own weakness, and ask, Can such a one ever get through to heaven? But lo, in the covenant there are promises exactly meet for his condition, that he shall be held up to the end; and faith discovers bows in all these clouds, which whisper to him of final triumph.

In those clouds of temporal disappointment which frequently overshadow him, marked by the failure of business enterprises, want of success in one and another undertaking, and which doom him to the lot of toil and poverty--in those clouds which stamp the seal of failure upon his mere earthly life, G.o.d sets his bow to comfort all his people. It is the promised inheritance of heaven; the recompense of the reward--the treasures which wax not old. Here is the Christian's comfort under the reverses of earthly fortune, and the clouds soften and break while faith gazes upon the bow above them.

When life's blackest clouds gather, in the forms of bereavement and death, there are promises enough in the covenant to gild them all. "It shall come to pa.s.s when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud." This is G.o.d's covenant promise to his people. And would you know how faithfully he keeps it, contemplate the experience of G.o.d's true people in trials, when the world was dim with shadows. Call to mind your own experience, faithful one. Did you not find treasured in the promises of grace such comforts as you never knew before--a power in prayer, a drawing near to Christ, a witness of the Spirit--all producing a peace and resignation which kept you from despair?

In all this discipline of trials, G.o.d reveals his resources to his people; and in the abundant consolations provided for them, and which Christian faith appropriates, in the strength given in trials, in the clear shining of the promises athwart the clouds of adversity, they discover the beautiful significancy and the actual fulfilment of Jehovah's pledge and token to the patriarch, that he would set his bow in the cloud, and when he should bring a cloud over the earth, the bow should be seen in the cloud.

Have you, my friend, a vital interest in that covenant of grace, which arches life's stormiest days with the bow of peace, and contains the pledge of salvation in the future life? These blessings are _covenant_ blessings. They come not to us naturally, as a matter of course. They are secured only by a special stipulation--an arrangement which G.o.d has made through Jesus Christ, as a Saviour and a Mediator. They belong to us only by faith in Him who purchased them. Have you accepted the conditions of grace: repented, sought forgiveness, given your heart to G.o.d, solemnly embraced the covenant? Only by so doing can you enjoy the benefits. Only by resting under the everlasting covenant can you look up and see the bow.

Ah, you may stubbornly persist in impenitence, but you will find dark days ere long. Ere life be through, the skies will grow dark and troubled.

Clouds of divine wrath will hang overhead. Clouds black as those which gloomed on Sinai's summit, will marshal their fearful elements, and fill you with alarm. Persist in impenitence, and you will hear naught from them but thunder-voices of a violated law, and see naught but vivid flashes of retributive justice. No promises of deliverance fringe their edges with a thread of silver light; no sunshine of hope breaks between them to scatter them; no bright bow of safety spans the firmament, and publishes Jehovah's pledge of reconciliation. Outside the covenant they are clouds of wrath, portending an eternal deluge of fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries of G.o.d. Fly then for refuge; fly to the shelter of the covenant. Come to Christ Jesus for salvation. Come before the storm breaks in fury. Come where you can stand and see the bow when life's tempests sweep; when the heavens are dark; when the night of death settles.