Leviticus 26:36

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"And upon them that are left alive of you, I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies: and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth." Lev 26:36

So wrong-doing is never blessed. Even when men appear to succeed and to save themselves alive, their success is partial, and may only create an opportunity for further divine judgment. Do not suppose that men are successful simply because they are living. A man may have escaped the sea only to die a more terrible death on land. Marvellous are the judicious resources of God. We have an indication here of a law to whose subtle force many men can testify. Fear takes away all power, and turns the most dauntless soldier into a coward. We cannot account for faintness of heart; it has no history; it cannot be cross-examined; it is something sent into us by a higher power, and is permitted to work miracles in the spirits of otherwise brave men. We are surrounded by mystery. The sound of "a shaken leaf" is magnified by the imagination into the sound of a rushing army. Shadows are ministers of Heaven. Unexplained noises come to do the work of judgment. It is not enough to describe these things as superstition, or fancy, or nightmare: there they are, operating directly and energetically in the whole administration of life, and it is more rational to accept a spiritual interpretation of them than to regard them as mere dreams without purpose or force. By so talking of them we disprove our own argument by the very fact that we are ruled by them, and cannot resist their effect. God crushes some men as by a great weight: other men he beclouds so that reason cannot find its way through all the conditions of life's necessities: the memory of other men is taken away: men who never feared the face of man have fled before a shaking leaf, as if they were fleeing from an infinite sword. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Our God is a consuming fire. It is gracious on his part that he should be so revealed. His severity is but an aspect of his love. We read of the wrath of the Lamb. Can any wrath be so terrible? Can any surprise be so startling? Was ever such a change contemplated by the boldest imagination of man? When love becomes wrath, how hot is that perdition! Yet God is always willing to turn, anxious to be conciliated, prepared to readopt the wandering child. When we take out the element of fear from the Christian ministry, we deprive that ministry of one of its most useful auxiliaries. Christ never failed to avail himself of the uses of fear. There was a "hell" even in the gracious speech of the Saviour of the world. He did not conceal the sword; he revealed it in its strength and keenness.