In the rift of the rock

Contents

Chaptbb Page

I. The Rock That Was Smitten 7

TI. The Nest in the Side of the Rock. . 18

Chapter II The Nest In The Side Of The Rock

You never would have looked for a nest in such a place as that. Knee-deep in the meadow where the grass grows sweet and rich in its fragrance you have found many a cozy place where the little friends of the feather have tucked away their nests. Prom more than one pasture bush, close-set about with thorns though it was, you have caught sight of bareheaded birdlings swinging, safe from softfooted foes and hawk-eyed pirates of the sky. It did not surprise you to discover them in even so forbidding a place as that. It was worth while to stop and pull aside the sharppointed branches of the thorn-bush to peep in upon the family of wee ones.

But here, far up on the side of the hill, just where you never would have thought of looking for it, by the side of a beetling rock, a bird has built her nest. You might not have seen a trace of it, had not the mother bird,

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scared by the footfall of tlie approaching stranger, fluttered out of her nest when you caught hold of a low-hanging bush by which to pull yourself up to the top of the cliff.

Here it was, however, with its heart-shaped basket of hair, gathered on many a day of gleaning through forest, field and glen, its coarser fibers shot through and through with threads of silken beauty, torn from tree and shrub and mossy bank, all so delicately lined with softest wool, picked up where the sheep lie in the heat of the day. You know she does all this in anticipation of the day when the speckled eggs will be gone. Only God and the mother bird know the secret of those broken eggshells and the nestlings which come in their place. He furnishes the wool, while she gathers it up and weaves it into downy quilts for the little ones she loves. For a moment you stand there looking in upon that mystery, and then you creep softly down, as if from some heart-treasure too sacred to be touched or even looked upon by one like you.

As you turned your unwilling feet to go by another way to the summit of the rock, you fell to wondering why the mother bird sought that lonely place as the home for her birdlings. Down yonder in the meadow the sun was shining and the flowers nodding everywhere. The air was soft. A thousand songsters were fairly splitting their throats in songs of cheer and good will to the w^orld. Up here you might listen an hour and not catch a single bird note, save only the frightened chirp of the bird you just now scared from her nest. Only now and then a ray of sunshine fell between the thick leaves overhead to w^arm the nest by the side of the rock. Always is the light dim there, and the only sounds the whisperings of the branches and the music of the rippling brook down yonder at the foot of the cliff.

But up here the old bird knows she and her wee ones will be safe. Ah, yes, up here is safety. Where is the hawk with eyes keen enough to find the nest in the cleft of the rock? Even should any cruel four-footed hunter of the forest suspect the presence of the bird watching so faithfully up yonder, by no means could he set his claws deep enough into the face of that steep to draw himself as high as that nest is. Here she might sit and wait the hour of God's unfolding secret with calm-

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beating heart. She and her little brood are safe, sheltered by the rock!

"Strong is Thy Dwellingplace"

Yes, "strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock."

Away down, in the land of Midian in the days when Moses was sitting at the feet of God and waiting the dawn of heaven's greater day for Israel, his fortunes were closely linked with those of the Kenites. Jethro, his fatherin-law, and Hobab, who no doubt in after days served as eyes for the wilderness wanderers, were both Kenites. It would seem that the family of Jethro, at least, went along with the children of Israel all the way until they reached the promised land, where they lived a nomad life, dwelling, so far as such a restless people can be said to dwell anywhere, among the Amalekites.

When and how the Kenites first gained their knowledge of the true Jehovah we may never know; but somewhere and somehow they seem to have accepted him to be their leader and commander. May we not well believe that the wilderness experience, when they were sojourning with Moses and the chosen people, served to foster and strengthen the faith which had had its birth in the land of Midian? True it is that all the way through that trying period which came after the tribe had been engrafted into the people of Amalek, Jethro and his immediate household held to the ancient belief of Jehovah, so that when the command came to Saul, "Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have/' the king, remembering the past, with a fine sense of honor, while lying in the valley waiting for a favorable moment in which to attack the doomed people, dispatched a messenger with this word to the Kenites: "Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites: lest I destroy you with them; for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt/^

"So'^ — thus runs the narrative — "the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites.'^ Just where they went, and what was the future history of the people, nobody knows; but we cannot help wondering if they did not take refuge in some part of the land of Judah which was so strong that when that strange prophet, Balaam, the son of Beor, "saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance,

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but having his eyes open/^ was warranted in saying what he did of the home of the Kenites.

"And he looked on the Kenites, and took up his parable, and said, Strong is thy dwellingplace, and thou puttest thy nest in a roek.'^

Safe in the rift of the rock! Storms may howl about thee; war with its devastation may surge on every hand, sweeping the nations out of the way like chaff from the winnowing wheat; God may thresh Amalek with the flail of Israel until its sin is all purged away; but thou, little band, art safe, because thou hast showed kindness to the people of Jehovah in the day of their great trouble !

Nesting Out of the Reach of Evil

Lifers fairest meadows have their perils. The birds find it so. Yesterday they hung their beauty-woven homes down among the waving grasses. Daisies bent over them tenderly. How sweetly the brook murmured in its wandering seaward ! What could there be of danger in a nesting-place like that ! It was only last night that the mother bird, when the sunshine was flashing its good-night over the world, peeped in upon her birdlings with happy heart, for all was well.

But that was last night. This morning the little bird home is a ruin. The threads which fastened it to the bush are broken, broken the white and purple cords with which it wa^ bound. Torn and spoiled are the lining of wool and the silken mattress. While the shadows lay deep over meadow and hill an enemy passed by, and only a wreck is left. Mother bird driven from her home, little ones gone, dreams all shattered — ^lif e a mockery !

We have seen it so many a time, friend of my heart! It was but a few days ago that we put the last touches on the house which we hoped would be our dwellingplace as long as we would need one anywhere on this old earth. How long we had been planning for this, our nestingplace ! Through many a year we had been working and sacrificing and saving that one day we might move into a home of our own. It would be for the last time until we went out when God would whisper to us, ^^Oome up to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'^ We were so happy when at last we put off the sandals of our pilgrimage and leaned back in our easy chairs to dream, to rest our souls and to love our birdlings.

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The morning light broke, but it burst on a place of desolation. Not our home, surely? Ah, but it is so. Something came through the gloaming and struck the place which was so dear to us. Was it sin? It must have been. Nothing else could ever be so cruel. Gone the hopes of the years, gone the day dreams, gone the little plans that made past days so happy in prospective, gone the visions, the long looking into the rapture that was to be !

Now what? Shall the soul grow bitter and the sunlight of the heart be changed to midnight blackness? Shall we give up the striving, the hoping, the dreaming?

That is not what the bird does. She wings her way to the heights in search of a safer home. She had to be driven from the meadow that she might seek the mountain peak. Patiently she gathers up the fragments of her broken nest, all the shreds of cord, the bits of wool, the very ravelings of cloth, and bears them away from the lowlands, away from the rippling brook. She flits to the cleft in the side of the rock. Here she builds once more, and builds for peace and love and joy.

Shall we not bQ wise enough to learn from this little dweller up yonder the lesson of the life which is hid with God? Because he knows the peril of the valley he invites us to the hiding of the Rock. He whispers to us, if we but lean out our souls to listen : "The clover blossoms are enchanting; I know it; but their beauty does not last. A little while and they will all be cut down and wither as the leaf. The brook sings a sweet song now. Yet a little while and the heat of the day will smite its waters and you will listen for their music in vain. Come up with me! I will hide thee in the cleft of the Eock! I will be to thee everything thou thoughtest to find in the valley meadow! Come, dear heart! Come with me."

And shall we not place our hands in the hands of God and let him lead us whithersoever he will? High up yonder he has riven a place for us all, in the very heart of the Eock which is Christ Jesus. It is always noonday up there. He will slit the leaves for us in many a place. The sunshine will filter in to light up every experience of life — "the Lamb shall be the Light thereof.'^ Here we may build our home, knowing that it will last. Here nothing can ever come to molest us or

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make us afraid — ^we are safe in the rift of the Bock!

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,

Safe on his gentle breast.

There by his love o'er-shaded.

Sweetly my soul shall rest!

Hark! 'tis the voice of Jesus

Borne In a song to me.

Over the fields of glory.

Over the jasper sea.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus,

Safe from corroding care.

Safe from the world's temptations.

Sin cannot harm me there.

Free from the blight of sorrow.

Free from my doubts and fears. Only a few more trials.

Only a few more tears!

"Jesus, my heart's dear refuge,

Jesus has died for me; Firm on the Rock of Ages,

Ever my trust shall be!

Here let me wait with patience.

Wait till the night is o'er; Wait till I see the morning

Break on the Golden Shore.

"Safe in the arms of Jesus, Safe on his gentle breast.

There by his love o'er-shaded, Sweetly my soul shall rest!"

(Fanny Crosby.)

Chapter III Fire Out Of A Rock

When did the eye of mortal man ever behold a scene like this before or since? A naked rock under a wide-spreading oak; on its top a "kid of the goats/' slain and tastefully arranged in a wicker basket; a few cakes of unleavened bread and a measure of flour — all constituting a meat offering unto the Lord; on one side of the stone a man in the humble garb of a tiller of the soil; on the other the angel of the Lord, staff in hand.

A moment they stand there, the man pale with suppressed emotion, looking with eager, questioning gaze into the face of his visitor; the heavenly messenger, searching deep into the soul of the man who stood over against him. Suddenly the hand which holds the staff is stretched out. Its far end touches the flesh of the kid and the unleavened cakes. Up from the rock rises a slender pillar of smoke, out of which soon shoots a flame of fire, licking up the sacrifice and dying only when the last morsel has been consumed. Another moment

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and with wondering eyes the man of the hills sees the mysterious visitant vanish from his eight.

A Great Call to a Great Man

A great call had come to Gideon. For a moment it must have stunned him when the angel of the Lord appeared to him with the message, "Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites.'' What wonder that a simple man of the fields, all unused to the ways of war, should stagger back with the startled cry, "O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold, my family is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least of my father's house. '^ What could it mean that such a summons should come to him?

It was a time of great stress in Judah. As he had done many a time in the past, and as he must often do in the future, Jehovah was writing the story of his people with a pen dipped in blood, the blood of their own veins. Lulled by the prosperity which had come to them, a condition of great wickedness, manifested in idolatry and a gradual slipping away from God, had developed. At last Jehovah was provoked to rise in judgment. And the instrument he was using to lash Israel back into the old pathway of peace was the wild tribe of Midian, perhaps in alliance with the fierce Amalekites and other Arab neighbors.

Bound together in a vast federation a hundred and twenty thousand strong, these tribes, a veritable scourge in the hand of Jehovah, poured across the Jordan. Not once only did they come, but over and over again, year after year, carrying away the cattle of the Israelites, robbing them of their grain and trampling under foot all that they did not care to use, until the harassed people fled out of the country from Esdraelon to Gaza, up into the hills and even into the torrent-chiseled rocks — anywhere, so that they might escape the torment inflicted upon them by this pitiless flail of Jehovah.

Hunted thus even to the caves and holes of the earth, Israel longed for deliverance, promising, as so many times before, to return to the true God and never let go his hand again. But where was the man brave enough and stout enough of hand and heart to free them from their oppressors? He must be a man clean without and within, as well as strong of limb; they were sure of that now.

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God could not use any but a man of the purest heart. The day was indeed a dark one ; and the worst of it was that the people had with their own hands woven the curtain which shut them away from the sunlight of God's presence. And is it not ever so?

"Before They Call I Will Answer'^

And God had a man in training, although that man was all unaware of the honor which was so soon to come upon him. God never lacks a man when he needs one. Human eyes, searching ever so closely, may discover no sign of the coming of the deliverer. All unknown, even to the man of God's choosing it may be, the divine passion may be slumbering in his heart, strength may be developing in his arm, love and hope and faith to move mountains may be springing up within him like flowers from the ashes of a fire-swept forest; and when the clock strikes — God's great clock of destiny — he steps forth to take his place and to do the work God knows he will do.

How carefully has God set down the line of ancestry, as well as the geographical location of the man upon whom he would put his finger in this the hour of Israel's extremity! ^^And there came an angel of the Lord, and sat under an oak which was in Ophrah, that pertaineth unto Joash, the Abiezrite; and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites." Threshing wheat while God seeks thee ! Thou blessed of the Lord, how we do envy thee! Busy about thy day's work, pressing from morning until night the duties of thy humble calling, all unaware of the heavenly eyes that are watching thee, and the shining hosts which are keeping their never-ceasing vigil over thee, surely thou art just where we should be! Just there, and never anywhere else, will our sacred mission come to us, if ever it comes at all. How oft do we sit in the shade of the friendly tree, hands folded in our lap, eyes seeking to pierce the distance, peering as far as our dull vision may into the future, in the hope that soon the word may come to us, "Go ! I have work for thee to do!'' Help us to know that God does not thus choose his workmen. We must unfold our hands, we must up and away to the winepress; we must grip the flail and thresh our bit of wheat with all our might; we must prove our worth on the threshing

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floor before God will promote us to service on the field of battle.

Gideon's very name proves that he had always been a man of work. ^^The tree-feller" his father and mother had named him. His tools were the tools of the man of the field — the ax, the sickle, the plow, the flail. It was his to clear the earth of its brush and rubbish, to cut away the trees, to put in the plow and to make the earth bud, bring forth, blossom and bear fruit. Driven from the old home acre, he had succeeded somehow, in spite of the harassing of the Midianites, in growing a bit of wheat. Snatching the bundles from the furrow, he had borne them away to a sheltered spot, and here he was threshing the grain to keep his dear ones from hunger.

But the tree-feller had not been so busy with his work that he had not thought long and deeply about the sad condition of his people. He knew why it was so. In his soul he had felt the steel of sorrow, sorrow that such trouble should have come upon Israel, and deeper sorrow that it should find its source in sin. That was the bitterest part of it. Sin had worked its inevitable havoc in the public and private life of the people. How it humiliated him! How earnestly did he long for some sign of a day when the black shadow would lift and Jehovah smile once more on the land of his choosing !

Many a time, it must be, Gideon had brought his meat-offering to the rock in the shadow of the great oak, in the great hope that Jehovah would catch the sweet-smelling flavor and listen to the cry that a better day might come to Israel; that repentance, sincere, earnest, might bring relief from pain and suffering and national disaster. Never before had there been any sign that God was listening. Always until now the smoke had curled upward to mingle with the clouds of the still sky above; the incense had seemed to bring no divine favor; Gideon went back to his work with a weary heart, and yet with a faith unshaken.

And when at last the hour comes and the leader is to be called to the front, Gideon starts back in amazement that God^s choice should fall on him. Can it really be true that he is to be the one by whom the invaders are to be driven out and the new day brought to Israel? See how he puts God to the test. There is something about God's patience with Gideon as he dictates whether the fleece of

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wool on the floor shall be wet or dry, as a proof that Jehovah is not mocking him, that fills the heart with mingled wonder and hope ; wonder that the Lord of heaven and earth should be so long suffering with his children, and hope that the same forbearance may be extended to us, his doubting, questioning, almost faithless children. Think of it! How steadily the narrative goes on, just as if it were two men who were arguing with one another, and not a puny thing of the dust leading the Lord God Almighty to accept his plan for showing him what it was his duty to do! Listen !

^^And Gideon said unto God, If thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. Behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the floor ; and if the dew be on the fleece only, and it be dry upon all the earth beside, then shall I know that thou wilt save Israel by mine hand, as thou hast said. And it was so; for he rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece, a bowl full of water. And Gideon said unto God, Let not thine anger be hot against me, and I will speak but this once: let me prove, I pray thee, but this once with the fleece; let it now be dry only upon the fleece, and upon all the ground let there be dew. And God did so that night: for it was dry upon the fleece only, and there was dew on all the ground.''

At last the token of God as given in the fire flaming to lick up Gideon's sacrifice under the oak at Ophrah is substantiated by the fleece lying on the floor, and the tree-feller lays aside his ax and his threshing tools and takes up the sword in Jehovah's service!

The Call of the Flaming Rock

God loves a modest man. See how he kept watch and ward over Moses, patiently going out with his flocks in the morning, choosing for them the choicest bits of grass, bringing them in at eventide and counting them carefully to see if any are missing. Just when God's hour struck, the bush burst forth into the flame which burned but did not destroy. All through those lonely years at the back side of the desert, Moses had been thinking about God's leading as shown in his own life, and wondering why it was so, perhaps sometimes feeling that a great mistake had been made. Was not his place really out there

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in the glare of the world, doing things that would bring him the glory of men, instead of being buried here with the sheep? Very slowly must Moses have learned patience, for that was not his characteristic in the beginning. Little by little he came to see that it is fatal to try to run ahead of God, and that God knew him better than he knew himself. So true was this that when Moses, at last overwhelmed by a sense of his own unworthiness, shrank from God's call, declaring that he could not do the work to which he had been summoned, Jehovah insisted: ^^Surely, thou canst. I have read thine heart. I know thee, and I will be with thee."

In a later day God sought the young man Saul. Where was he? Pushing himself ahead somewhere with brazen effrontery as a claimant for the kingdom? Riding post haste over the hills of Judaea, with blatant and widemouthed declarations that he was best fitted of all to sit on the throne, and stopping here and there to demonstrate the truth of his assertions by feats of throwing the javelin or other deeds of prowess likely to appeal to the unthinking? If this had been the way Saul pressed his claim for first place in the kingdom, God never would have spent a single moment looking for him. No. When God sought Saul for the anointing, he found him down among the wagons — hiding! And why hiding? Ah! God knew Saul's heart, and he lifted him from the furrow to the scepter.

Like that was the calling of Gideon. God knew his heart. He was sure that, in spite of his shrinking from the summons which had so strikingly come to him, when the time came he would stand four-square for God and win battles in his name for the chosen people. And Gideon measured up to God's expectations. If he were told to send home thirty thousand men and go against the enemy with three hundred, he did it. If lamps and pitchers were placed in his hands to fight with, he took them and marched bravely away, sure that he was on the way to victory, for God was with him. God had touched the bare rock and it had flamed heavenward, a symbol of Jehovah's approval in the hour of the people's extremity.

And there is an uplifting hand ever under the arm of the man who trusts not in his own strength but in the God of Gideon and of Moses and of David. Up from the rock will

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flame the fire of conviction. If he asks that the fleece may be dry in the morning, not a drop of dew will moisten the wool at daybreak. If he still stands uncertain before his prospective task and pleads that the fleece may lie one night more on the bare threshing floor, so that God may dampen it to show that he really means what he says, water by the bowlful will drip from heaven in the night shadows, upon the wool, while all the earth around is as dry as the drought of summer can make it.

So patient is God with you and me! A thousand times he calls us to go and we do not go. We pretend that we have not heard the summons. We do not want to hear. How can we hear? The clang and the clatter of the world ring so in our ears. We grow to love its sounds, once so distracting to us. What if they do tire us and wear life out? We do not realize it until at last God says, "I must speak to you. I have a right to your life, my child ! I cannot let you go this way ! It is the way of doubt and of death ! I need you. Come from the noise and the clangor. Come from the sheep herding! Come from the threshing floor. Come from the hiding among the baggage and give me all that is left of thy life. I will make it so much richer. Thou shalt win victories for me. Hast thou been content too long to lag in the rear, a campfollower in the army of God? I will make thee a winner of souls. Thou hast found thy greatest joy in gathering poppies in the meadow. I will help thee to harvest armfuls of golden grain, until thy store house can no longer hold it. Only come ! Give thy life into my keeping. Come! Be a king for me.'' And shall we not go?

"God caUing yet! ShaU I not hear? Earth's pleasures shall I still hold dear? Shall life's swift passing years all fly. And still my soul in slumber lie?

"God calling yet! And shall he knock, And I my heart the closer lock? He is waiting to receive; And shall I dare his spirit grieve?

"God calling yet! And shall I give No heed, but still in bondage live? I wait — but he does not forsake; He calls me still — my heart, awake!

"God calling yet! I cannot stay! My heart I yield without delay; Vain world, farewell! From thee I part! The voice of God has reached my heart."

(Gerhard Terstergen.)

Chapter IV Dwelling On The Top Of The Eock

When the light of the soul dies to a dim flicker and faith almost loses its grip, we love to turn to that part of the Book where Paul sets down for us the list of the men of the long ago, who by reason of their hold upon God were able to win mighty victories, the like of which no man of a doubting heart can ever hope to gain. Very majestically the story goes on from Abraham down through the line of the patriarchs. We have some account of the details of the great and grand things they were able to do by means of their trust in Him who is invisible and yet who was very real to them. Then at last, as if tired of mentioning particulars, the sacred writer begins to gather up God's heroes into one splendid cluster, as one might fill his arms with rare flowers from a field through which he is passing never to return. How swiftly the narrative hurries on !