Verses 10-30
Old Enemies Pursuing
Some resemblances between the condition of the children of Israel in Egypt, in their flight from the tyranny of Pharaoh, and the condition of man in sin and his escape from the tyranny of the devil are obviously suggested. The state of Israel in Egypt was one of the severest depression. At every point the Israelites were overborne; their manhood was insulted; they had no rights, privileges or claims. Their time was not their own. If ever they looked up complainingly into the face of the taskmaster, their answer was another stroke of the lash. The light of their best nature was put out, and they were treated simply as beasts of burden. The political condition of Israel in Egypt in these particulars very fitly resembles the spiritual condition of man in a state of sin. However loud may be his boasting, he is a slave; however much he may think he has liberty which he can enjoy as he pleases, he can only go the length of a chain. Sin is slavery; sin is continual oppression. No man who has tasted of the bitterness of sin will contradict the statement, that a state of sin is a state of exhausted manhood. All that is noble, true, pure, and beautiful has been expelled from the nature; and there is nothing left behind but great gaps, blanks and voids, which the world cannot fill, and what hopes remain are only turned to the bitterness of disappointment and mortification. The enemy of Israel was powerful. Pharaoh had everything at his command; a nod was law; the lifting of a finger was equal to the extension of a sceptre; whenever Israel threatened to become rebellious he could bring forces to bear upon the rising that could soon crush it. He was powerful, they were weak; he was on the throne, they were under his feet and Pharaoh's feet were heavy! The spiritual condition of mankind in a state of sin is precisely the same. The enemy of man is powerful. When he is described by earthly figures, those figures themselves are terrible. He is a roaring lion going about seeking whom he may devour; he is a prince; he is the prince of the power of the air; he has all but unlimited resources; his hand is heavy and cruel, his arm is long, and we have no power to break it; he is subtle; he comes to us in a thousand ways we do not dream of; he comes to us along the streaming of music; he looks at us through the beauty of pictures; he meets us on the highway, smiles himself into our confidence, entangles us in many peculiar combinations. And when we say, "Now we shall be free," he says, " Will you?" No man who has lived deeply, who understands life, who has seen below the outside of things, but knows that sin gets a daily increasing power over him. The habit which to-day we can snap because it is but half-formed, will, in the course of a few weeks, become so strong as to mock all our strength. The young man says that he knows when to turn back. He may be perfectly sincere in saying that he has that good knowledge, but is his power equal to his information? He says, "I will go down this way a certain distance; I will drink so much worldly pleasure; I shall sit so long at the devil's table; I shall just peep in behind the curtain which conceals hell; and then I will come back again after I have formed some idea of the reality of things in that direction." His purpose is very good; he fully intends to do what he says, but the footprints which he made on the road are rubbed out, and he has not gone down the road a mile before he loses all his bearings; he knows not which is east, west, north, south; going back and going forward are the same thing; he is locked up in the most terrible of jails the prison of darkness! I point out these things with this care, not to wound or shock anyone's sensibilities or tastes, but to show who it is that has the sinner under his foot, and whose hand it is that strikes at everything good, and true, and beautiful in human nature. The enemy of man is powerful.
Israel escaped from the hand of Pharaoh. By a strong and mighty deliverance Israel was brought out from Egypt The Israelites had gone along the road of promise and liberty so far, but they turned round to look back, and behold, the Egyptians were after them! The Israelites had said, "Now we have escaped at last"; and behold the breath of the destroyer was breathed upon their necks! That is precisely the case with redeemed and liberated man in a spiritual sense. Upon this point I would speak with a good deal of remonstrance in one direction and hopefulness in another. With a good deal of remonstrance thus:
Here is a man who professes to have been redeemed from sin, and who has taken upon himself the Christian profession, and there is one who is watching him at a little distance who is expecting that the man will instantly step out of Egypt right into Canaan; and because the man is weak and worn, and less than half himself, some cruel word is used when he stumbles or falters a little! Is that right? Is that decent? Look at the man's condition, as typified by the circumstances. Israel in Egypt bowed down, the hand of cruel tyranny upon his neck, the lash of cruel oppression cutting his back to the bone. He has only been liberated a day. Do you expect him to stand erect, as if he had been a man for half a century? This is precisely what so many persons do in interpreting moral character and spiritual profession. Let me suppose that, at the age of forty, you have been saved from your sin; you have lifted up your face towards the light; you have taken the solemn pledge in the name and strength of God to be good and to do good. But your forty years' history is behind you, forty years of moral exhaustion, forty years of spiritual tyranny; and because you cannot step right out of Egypt into Paradise you will find some persons who will mock you, and will say, "Ha, ha! Is this your piety? I thought you had become a Christian now. Is this your Christianity?" The mocker is never wanting in the good man's path. Those who have the cruel gift of taunting are never wanting to mock men who would live well, who would go in the right direction, and hold their worn faces and their streaming eyes towards the light of God.
I would speak hopefully. I would remind you that you cannot expect to escape from all your old associations in a moment. I would speak hopefully, because I know some of you have been distressed by the uprising of forces in your heart which you thought had been settled and quenched for ever. A man cannot throw off his old past as he can throw off an old garment; he cannot strip himself and throw the old slave into the fire, and say, "Now I will begin at this point, and never have any connection with the past." Old slaveries, old tyrannies, old recollections, and habits, and companionships, will assert themselves in one way or another. It is more than a step from hell to heaven. You are now a professor of Christianity. Let me suppose you are sincere in your profession. You are ardent in your pursuit of Christian knowledge, you omit no opportunity of improving your spiritual faculties, you pray, you search the Scriptures, you attend helpful ministries; and yet you say, just when you think you are becoming safe and can take a little rest, and enjoy somewhat of the beauty and prospect of the scene, just then the old devil, that you had supposed to be dead, turns over in your heart! It is not unnatural, it is not some strange thing that has happened to you. It is a long way from evil to goodness, from darkness to light, from the depths of sin to the highest attainments of grace! There will be many a struggle, many a reappearance of your old self; your old self will become a thousand ghosts, and they will frighten you. It is so with us all. We think now, after this lesson or that prayer, or some well-accepted appointments of God, that at last we have attained, and are something like already perfect; and suddenly an unexpected event occurs, and, to our own surprise, we find that, notwithstanding our hope of rest, we are in some respects as weak and as bad as ever we we're I am. I am no separated priest; but a man, a fellow-sufferer. I know this, and my heart cries over it bitterly; because it seems as though one never could be at rest, and never could say that we are complete and beyond the region of fear. In some directions we are so happy, so buoyant, so full of glad expectancy, and softened and chastened by the most hallowed influences, and yet in a moment we slip right down, back again into the old Egypt, where our condemnation was written in the dust, and the air was filled with the voice of our torment.
And there are persons who mock us! When a Christian man makes any slip at all, you know how bitter is the taunt that is levelled against him, as though he ought to have stepped clear out of Egypt right up to the throne of God, as though there had been no wilderness, and no Red Sea, and no long wandering, and no daily severe discipline. Let us be gentle with one another. We were in Egypt but yesterday, and the enemy will not let us go easily. The devil does not say, "You are going, are you? Yes; well, good-bye." No, no. Just as a man is going into heaven lie makes a dash at the skirts of his garments; he fights battles in the chamber of death; he troubles the last hours of the saint, and it is not until heaven's door shuts upon the redeemed man that the devil gives up the pursuit with a sob of disappointment, and falls back to be the severer with those who are yet upon the earth!
There was an omnipotent and gracious Redeemer in the case of Israel; so there is in the case of redeemed men. We are not saved by sheer power. Power in itself considered is a terror; it is something very awful and unapproachable. But power in the hands of mercy becomes redemption. The Redeemer of Israel was not only powerful but gracious. The Israelites upon this occasion were sore afraid, they lifted up their eyes and they cried unto the Lord. They were weak; they had no strength left in them; and as for weapons of war, what had they? or if they had them, how could they use them with any successful effect when they had been so long trampled upon and unmanned and disquieted? There they were; and Egypt, mighty in her pride and cruel in her wrath, was upon their track. Egypt never knew the mystery of mercy. What was to be done then? The word reads so sweetly, the word is this: "Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord." Precisely the gospel that was adapted to their weak condition. If the command had been, "Rouse you; fight!" it would have been like asking dead men to light those who were in the very bloom and pride of their strength. But the command is, "Stand still." The adaptation of God's message to our condition is so perfect, so gracious, so sufficient. When we are weak and cannot fight he says, "Stand still, and I will fight for you." When we have our energies in all their completeness, he says, "Rise! fight!" He meets us according to the condition that we are in. The Lord shall fight for you and ye shall hold your peace.
The Egyptians were to be seen that day for the last time. "The Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever." How so? "Because the Lord will fight for you." When God shuts his hand he crushes Egypt. There will be no stir, or tumult, or great ado; the lifting up of his hand is destruction; the outlook of his eye annihilation; the breath of his nostrils is a wind that carries with it desolation and death, when he is so pleased. Here a little mistake was made by the great leader of Israel. I am so thankful when men like Moses stumble, because their stumbling gives inferior men hope and heart. Moses began to make it too much a question of prayer; he began to talk to the Lord as if it were a great case of grief and despondency, as if all difficulties had culminated in one terrific crisis. The Lord said unto him, "Moses, do not pray at all." He told them to do just as they were doing when they saw the Egyptians coming after them, namely, to go on.
Consider the circumstances. Israel was going on. Israel turned round and saw the Egyptians; and Israel was full of weakness, and trembling, and despair; and Moses spake unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Moses, "Go on as if this thing had not happened; do not take it into your calculations at all; leave the Egyptians in my hands; there is a time to pray, but not now; only lift up thy rod, and stretch thy hand over the sea, and divide it, and behold I will get me honour upon Pharaoh and upon all his host, upon his chariots, and upon his horsemen." "All!" with holy, mighty scorn, he named them, and they seemed to perish whilst he enumerated them! Mighty in their degree, but when compared with Jehovah but so many insects fluttering in the air a breath being able to destroy them.
Then occurred this beautiful incident. The angel of the Lord, which went before the camp of Israel all the journey long up to this hour, removed and went behind them. The angel of the Lord could do as he pleased. God is not the victim of law. God is the Lawgiver. Life is above law. For ages he has been yonder, in the front; when it pleaseth him he can turn round and be at the rear of things. He has a right to every chamber in his own house; he built it; he has the key of every room, he can enter when he pleases. On this occasion it pleased him to reverse the order of things, and from the van he came to the rear. So beautiful are his adaptations! He said to Israel, in effect and substance, "Are the Egyptians behind thee, O Israel? Then I will come behind thee." "But the Egyptians are so very near to us, Lord!" "I can come between you and them, how near soever they be; I made all spaces, and have them all under my control, and though the Egyptians were just upon thy neck I could come in between you, I will go behind." And Israel sang a song unto the Lord: "Thou hast beset us behind and before, and laid thine hand upon us." There are men who tell us that God must move in this direction and must move in that; they have been looking into affairs, they have been adding things up, and they have been drawing their conclusions, and the conclusion of the thing is this that we are prisoners in the great jail of law. I am not. I am a prisoner of God's love; I am shut up in the great sanctuary of his heart. I believe he is greater than aught he has made; that the Lawgiver is greater than the law, and that he who established the universe has the key of its secret in his own heart. I teach this gracious truth because I have lived it; I have known its completeness, its excellence, and its redeeming power. God can be at one point to-day and at another tomorrow. He can be before them in this case, behind them in that; he determines all things by a sovereignty we cannot control. His sovereignty is his grace, at its highest point. The supremacy of love is the sovereignty of God. I will trust myself with the Most High, I will cast myself solely upon him, I will call him my Father and my King!
We are, then, in the wilderness; we have had long and bitter experience of sin, and that experience has made us very weak, we have been under a most powerful and oppressive enemy; he has never spared us, he has been severe with us; he has taken away from us all that made life strong and desirable and useful, and we have been redeemed by a gracious and omnipotent Redeemer; and still the great enemy has pursued us, as though he never, never would give us up whilst there seemed, even to himself, to his infernal hope, the slightest possible chance of recapturing us, and locking us up in his great prison-house. This is our condition; we are still in the wilderness; old associations still remind us of their existence, evil memories still trouble our recollection, ghosts and spectres of the past come to terrify us, even when we sit down at the board of Sacrament, and when we repeat the oath of Christian love at the Cross. But our Redeemer is sufficient; he says to us in the time of despair, "I will come behind thee." When we are just giving up, and asking, "Who is sufficient for these things?" he says to us, in his own sweet voice, "My grace is sufficient for thee; thy shoes shall be iron and brass, and as thy days so shall thy strength be; no weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper. Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, hath it not been told thee from the beginning, that the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?" "He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint" They shall be troubled on every side, but not distressed; cast down, but not destroyed; persecuted, but still there shall be room enough left for the triumphing of the grace of God. Sirs, your redemption is not of your own skill, energy, or wit. "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself; but in me is thine help." When there was no eye to pity and no arm to save, his own eye pitied, and his own arm brought salvation. And I am persuaded that he who hath begun this good work will continue it even unto the end.
Let us hope in this. Are you persecuting anybody? Are you pursuing any one who has escaped the clutches of your evil influence? Know this, that if their hearts be set on God, you cannot get at them. "Cannot get at them?" No. "But they are now within sight." But God could blind you, if you were within an inch of them. "Not get at them? Why, I can almost touch them now." Yes, you can almost do it, but your "almost" is to God as wide as infinitude. Are you pursued? Do you say you cannot get away from old influences, companions, associations, and conditions? Not all at once, but little by little. If you be in God and love his truth, the pursuit of the enemy will bring salvation nearer to you; if you cast your heart's poor weakness and distrust entirely upon his keeping, then, nor mountain nor sea shall keep the pilgrim back from the Canaan of God!
Be the first to react on this!
