Part 5 (2/2)

First of all, have we really any light to shed around us? A mere profession is worthless as an empty lamp. Have our hearts been illuminated by divine grace? Has the darkness of guilt and ignorance and error been scattered there; and have we tasted the sweets of pardon, peace, and sanctification?

Depend upon it, we can give no light to others without first having our own hearts illuminated by the Holy Spirit. A mere profession of religion, unaccompanied by the active virtues of piety, will give no light. Let us then look closely within, and ask, Have we any light of grace ourselves?

And in connection with this, and following it, will come the inquiry, What good are we doing to the world by it? Oh, my brethren, the Saviour bids us look around us upon our fellow-men and ask, What has all our religion amounted to? What have we accomplished for G.o.d's glory? How much light have we scattered? Whom have we enlightened and saved through our Christian influence? What souls have we led to repentance and belief in Jesus Christ? Has our light shone to any purpose? Have we been the instruments of instructing and saving others? Inquiries like these must come up, for G.o.d's people are the light of the world, and their mission is to reflect his glory as no seraph even can do it. It therefore follows that the question of your influence upon the world around has vitally to do with the question whether you are a child of G.o.d at all; for if there is no light radiating from your life, there is none in you. If your light does not s.h.i.+ne, it is because you have none; wherever it exists in the soul it must s.h.i.+ne out.

Every Christian has a positive influence for good. All do not s.h.i.+ne with equal power and brilliancy, but they s.h.i.+ne. Some scatter their rays far and wide, and become the moral lights of their generation, and some only glimmer like a feeble taper; but even the taper gives light to some, and so every Christian must shed rays of light upon some soul.

Christian friends, where are those rays falling from your lives and conversation? Whose way do they enlighten? Do your children see them? And have you, by the l.u.s.tre of your Christian example, led a single soul to Christ? Oh look well to the influence you are exerting. Beware lest your profession be in vain; for ”if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

VII.

The Raven and the Dove.

AND IT CAME TO Pa.s.s AT THE END OF FORTY DAYS, THAT NOAH OPENED THE WINDOW OF THE ARK WHICH HE HAD MADE: AND HE SENT FORTH A RAVEN, WHICH WENT FORTH TO AND FRO, UNTIL THE WATERS WERE DRIED UP FROM OFF THE EARTH. ALSO HE SENT FORTH A DOVE FROM HIM, TO SEE IF THE WATERS WERE ABATED FROM OFF THE FACE OF THE GROUND. BUT THE DOVE FOUND NO REST FOR THE SOLE OF HER FOOT, AND SHE RETURNED UNTO HIM INTO THE ARK; FOR THE WATERS WERE ON THE FACE OF THE WHOLE EARTH. GENESIS 8:6-9.

The narrative which contains these words introduces us to one of the darkest and most desolate periods in the history of our world. Rapid and appalling had been the progress of human degeneracy. Religion and virtue had well-nigh become extinct, and all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. The good men of the antediluvian age were dead, while but one of the h.o.a.ry patriarchs was left to bear witness for Jehovah before a G.o.d-despising generation, and to perpetuate the succession of the faithful in the world. It was time for G.o.d to work, for men had made void his law.

The vast population of this globe was swept away by a deluge of waters--that most awful visitation of divine vengeance, the evidences of which are to this day found, and the traditions of which are preserved among the primitive nations of every continent.

Righteous Noah and his household were alone preserved by special divine interposition. Forewarned of G.o.d, he prepared an ark for the saving of himself and his family, which in due time was freighted with the remnant of the human race and pairs of the various tribes of the irrational creation, and floated upon the wide waste of waters, beneath which lay buried all the monuments of an apostate and heaven-daring generation.

Forty long days were numbered after the flood began to abate, and still the huge ark floated on the boundless deep, and the patriarch's heart grew anxious about the future. With a trembling hand he opened the window of the ark, and sent forth the raven to seek for some tidings of a buried world; but the bird came not back. Though the waters were dark and the desolation unbroken, still she returned not to the friendly shelter which had so long protected her, but chose to allay the cravings of hunger, and live amid the wrecks and ruins which drifted to and fro upon the broad abyss. Days again pa.s.s slowly away. Another messenger is dispatched to seek for tidings. The dove leaves the window of the ark, and spreads her pinions and soars away over the wild expanse; but the unpropitious skies are overhead, the green fields and shady woodlands are gone; no nourishment is found amid the shattered fragments, and no objects of delight are seen across the dreary wastes. The raven may perch upon the drifting offal, and screech out its hoa.r.s.e notes amid the awful solitudes; but the timorous dove, finding no rest for the sole of her foot, hastens her flight back to the patriarch, and nestles securely in the friendly ark.

There are materials for profitable reflection in this simple story. Let us condescend to learn lessons of true wisdom from the raven and the dove.

1. In the solitary ark floating securely on the flood you may discover no unfit emblem of that _only spiritual refuge_ which G.o.d has provided for our ruined race in the person and work of his Son Jesus Christ. The fearful apostasy of our first parent drove our race out upon an ocean of gloom and of peril. The special presence and favor of the Almighty was withdrawn, though his providential care over us as his creatures remained.

But purposes of mercy were yet cherished in the divine mind, and the plan of salvation was revealed through Jesus Christ.

Here alone, in Christ, G.o.d manifests to us his gracious presence. Nowhere else in all the departments of his works does he admit us to his fellows.h.i.+p, or speak to us of his mercy. Take away from the world the special manifestation of G.o.d in Christ, and there is no way left for man to hold any communion with his Maker, no pledge of mercy or grace to him, no hope of security and happiness in the favor of his Sovereign. Man is left to drift on the dark billows of sin without a ray of deliverance, and without a single speck floating upon the wide expanse to tell him that he is not utterly abandoned to destruction.

But never has our world presented such an aspect of hopeless desolation.

Even in the awful catastrophe of the deluge, when continents and isles with their teeming population were buried deep in the abyss of waters, and the sunbeams glistened only upon the boundless sea--then, when this rolling orb, which on the day of its creation looked fair and beauteous among the morning stars, had been transformed into a wandering beacon of almighty wrath--there was left one memento of lingering mercy, one solitary testimonial that Jehovah's presence and favor were not clean gone for ever; for the ark floated upon the face of the waters. Terrible as was the spectacle which the deluged globe presented of G.o.d's vengeance, still the storm-proof ark which sheltered the patriarch proclaimed the precious truth that there was one spot left where G.o.d appeared in mercy, one place of refuge and security for those who would embrace it, one point where hope gleamed over the future, and where G.o.d delighted to be gracious.

The ark was the symbol of that more glorious Ark of safety provided for lost men in the salvation of Jesus Christ. Out of Christ the world is dark and stormy, and G.o.d is a consuming fire. On the tempestuous ocean of guilt we are tossed to and fro, and no bright isles of innocence lift their heads along the horizon and invite us to their secure retreats. The salvation scheme of Jesus Christ is the only refuge. Here alone G.o.d is seen hovering over the waters, and speaking of reconciliation and fellows.h.i.+p. Nowhere else has he offered to us a shelter; but to this G.o.d-provided Ark we are bidden to flee for refuge, which is amply furnished against every emergency, and which will safely bear us up through the floods of temptation and the billows of death, and finally bring us to the haven of rest beyond the grave.

To its sacred enclosure we are invited, as the last spot where the soul can find its reconciled G.o.d. Outside the elements are raging, the night of guilt is brooding, the thunders of Sinai are muttering, and the dun-colored sky is lurid with the flashes of impending wrath; within is the presence of G.o.d, the a.s.surance of peace, and the hope of heaven. Over the wastes of a fallen and sin-ruined world appears the salvation of Jesus Christ like the ark of the patriarch riding out the storms of the deluge.

Here G.o.d is dwelling with men. Here is rest to the storm-driven soul. Here its guilt and alienation are put away from it, and it no longer lives without G.o.d and without hope. We have then discovered, in the ark which G.o.d directed Noah to build for the saving of himself and his family, a type of Christ and his salvation.

Let me now ask you to advance a step, and contemplate in the raven and the dove a representation of _two opposite descriptions of human character_.

The one, that which finds no enjoyment in the presence and favor of Christ, and sees and feels no necessity for the provisions of salvation which are made in him; the other, that which is ever turning from the supports of this world and its delusive promises to seek its refuge and its resting-place in the presence of Christ and the favor of G.o.d, which flies to the hope set before it in the gospel, and nestles securely in the bosom of the Saviour. These two characters are the unG.o.dly and the Christian--the children of this world and the children of G.o.d--differing in their tastes and habits and conduct from each other as the raven differs from the dove.

The ark where G.o.d and the patriarch dwelt together was no welcome retreat for the raven. Though it had saved the wild bird from inevitable destruction, and for many a weary day had carried it safely above the angry flood, still in the society which it afforded or the a.s.sociations which it furnished there was naught that was congenial to its untamed nature; but preferring to roam unprotected, even amid solitude and gloom, it instinctively seized upon the first opportunity to escape what was indeed its friendly asylum, but which appeared to it only a prison-house.

On the threshold of the open window the raven flapped its wings and soared away. Farewell to the ark, screamed the wild bird in the air, while the good old patriarch stood for a moment to watch its flight.

Though the scene without was one of unbounded desolation, where the storm clouds revelled and the fierce winds blew and dashed the dark-crested waves madly against the sky; though the fields where it once fed, and the tall trees where it was wont to build its nest were buried many a fathom deep beneath the floods, and all that was once fair and beautiful on earth was gone, still the bird of storm turned not homeward to the quiet ark; still in vain the patriarch opened again and again the window, and leaned upon the cas.e.m.e.nt long and anxiously, to look out for the absent messenger. The bird would not come back. The sun goes down in clouds, and night settles slowly on the deep, but no return. The cravings of hunger are felt, but the carnivorous rover despises the well-stored granaries of the ark, and makes its evening meal out of the carca.s.ses that drift upon the waters. Perched upon some floating ruin, it croaks out its hoa.r.s.e requiem over the sepulchres of the unnumbered dead, and sleeps without a dream of the far-off ark.

Look yonder at that RAVEN, and behold an emblem of lost and straying man without G.o.d in the world. No truth is more universally certain, than that man's real happiness and welfare is to be sought only in the smile and favor of his G.o.d. The more the human soul is brought into unison with its Maker--the nearer it advances to Deity--the more immediately it feels the presence of G.o.d and draws its supplies from him, the more sure is its present peace and its future bliss. It was once happy in this condition.

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