Beauty for ashes

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Table Of Contents

I. The Travelling Stranger n

II. Marah and Elim 31

III. Elim and Marah 55

Chapter I

"I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." — Psalm xxxix. 12.

COULD we hear the descendant of some Siberian exile, after gazing long and sadly over the icywastes that lay between him and the land he has been taught to love, speak these words to his weeping brother near him ; or could we hear them moaned out by some poor slave to his fellow-slave, as the weary days went slowly by, they would not surprise us so much : because the language then would be in exact correspondence with the outward condition of the speakers.

But he who gave them utterance originally was neither an exile nor a slave; but, strange as it may seem, was one to whom princes bowed in reverence, and a mighty nation was obedient. The marks and emblems of royalty were round about him. A stately palace, to build and beautify which Lebanon had been shorn of its choicest cedars and Ophir had bled its purest gold, reared its fretted roof above his crowned head; a shining sceptre was in his hand, and owning him for king, with loving loyalty, Jerusalem and all the pleasant land of Palestine, now rich to overflowing- with material wealth, delighted to do him honor. And yet, compassed about with all these signs of permanence, crowned King David says, " I am a stranger."

Looking out from the latticed window of his imperial mansion, he could see the strong tower which he himself had builded for an armory; the burnished housetops that broke, like waves, beside it; and the massive walls that in their rough, strong setting closed round "The joy of the whole earth" 1 like a jewel. And still further on beyond, he could catch the glimmer of that goodly land, which was " the glory of all lands," 2 now groaning beneath its blessed burden of "milk and honey"; and glowing with more golden tints than gladdened the eye of Moses, when his dying gaze was fixed upon it from "the top of Pisgah." 3

Seeing all this, David might have felt and said, "This goodly land is mine, this is my continuing city, this is my abiding home : here will I dwell and delight myself all the days of my life." Bat with a truer feeling, and a more faithful utterance, he turns his eyes away from these vanities, and lifts up his voice to his companion God, saying, "I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were." His heart was not at home amid the glories that surrounded him ; but, weary with the loneliness of royalty, it panted for that highest and happiest home where it might be at rest indeed, and in truth, and forever. Earth Avas its sojourning place ; heaven 1 Lam. ii. 15. 2 Ezek. xx. 6. 3 Deut. xxxiv. 1.

the abiding city towards which all its aspiration and its effort tended.

Such strangers, in every sense of the word, were Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the pilgrim fathers spoken of in the text who " sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country." 1 The altar and the pillar, the staff and the tent, were indeed their true, and often their only, possessions; "with my staff I passed over this Jordan ; " 2 and by their daily lives and visible movements they proved the characters to which they were called: "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." 3

Such strangers are Christians now, for Christian experience is mainly the same everywhere and in all ages. When by the grace of God we are passing over from the "old man" into the "new man," the heart beats responsively at every step to the language of the text. No outward sign of moving tent, or wayworn feet, or supporting staff, may mark its progress; but in its inner life, and along the pilgrimage of personal experience, these things are as truly represented as in the early nomadic days. And although about the Christian now, as about the life of David, there may seem to gather attachments, and earth to wear a look of permanence, still, in his heart of hearts, he feels as David felt, that he is a stranger here and a sojourner. ■

In the character thus portrayed the true Christian finds his counterpart, and lifted into a standard, ' Heb. xi. 9. * Gen. xxxii. 10. 3 Heb. xi. 14.

the confession in the text becomes the test of his sincerity.

In a broad and comprehensive sense, it is true of all the inhabitants of the world, that they are strangers and sojourners on its surface. The present generation knows not the generation that preceded it, nor can it tell the features of the generation that is to come after it. From his birth to his burial man lives in a strange land. He wanders to and fro, gazing curiously up at the dome of the universe, gilded with the light of suns, or sprinkled with the dust of stars. He looks out on eternity as from the shore of some wide sea, watching the great tide of life as it ebbs and flows at his feet; but knowing nothing of the mystery or the meaning of its motion. He picks up some pebble truth, or finds the pearly shell of some secondary cause, admires, wonders, and listens to its music, but comprehends it not. He does not even know himself, the language of his own being he can not understand. His very thoughts, purposes, and impulses are marvels to his mind; and so, living, wondering, wandering, toiling, fretting, a stranger to the world in which he lives, a stranger to himself, each lonely individual fills out his little sojourn here, and straight is seen no more.

But while in reality the character of the stranger may justly attach to all, it is peculiarly the Christian's own. He indeed lives in the world, but is not of it. By his first birth he is a citizen of earth, but by his second birth from above, he becomes a native of the " better country," and henceforth heaven is his home. Beyond time and space, and above the little hum of things of sense, his adoring mind catches glimmerings of its distant glory, and murmurings of the blessed music of its courts. " I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sung as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders: and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." 1

Who wonders, then, in view of heaven's everlasting blessedness, and the immortal thoughts and delightful occupations that will engross him there, the Christian's heart should grow weary with his residence on earth, and indifferent to the petty schemes, and cheap concerns, that bubble up and burst around him here? Who Avonders that the stranger feeling, as of one alone in a foreign land, should control and crush his spirit; "for all his days are sorrows," 2 and his sojourn here the cruel absence from a happy home ?

The home feeling of the heart ! who does not know something of its gentleness and its power? How lovingly it garners up and invests with a kind of sacredness scenes and associations which but for it would have no permanence in the mind! How it links men to localities, binds them in families, and becomes the very life of the nation ! What spot on earth has such radiant sunshine resting on it as that which gilds and • Rev. xiv. 2, 3. 2 Eccl. ii. 23.

glorifies the dear acres round our early childhood's home ? In memory's never fading light the well, the brook, the trees, the grass, the flowers seem purer, sweeter, nobler, greener, brighter there than we have found them elsewhere, and we who played about them seem to ourselves less sinful then than now.

Home, how sweet it sounds ! What a bundle of myrrh it is ! and behold, and count up if you can, how many loves are bound up in it! There is a mother's love, and a father's love, and a sister's love, and a brother's love, and the love of kindred scarcely less dear than a mother's own. Is it any wonder that the heart should nestle in a place so full of love as this, or that its recollection is always so fresh ? After years of absence, from the uttermost parts of the earth, it reaches back with an earnest longing that can not be satisfied, and under the influence of a spell that can not be broken.

A simple sound, the sight of some familiar article, by reason of their home associations have unmanned the stoutest hearts. Their native airs, when played before them in foreign countries, have rendered whole regiments of fierce, stern soldiers unfit for duty. Even death itself has often followed from excessive longing to return to one's native land. To be at home, is the soldier's wish from the tented field; and on the eve of battle, a few moments are snatched from the busy hours to write letters to the loved ones at home. To be at home, is the earnest desire of the suffering invalid, hurrying from some more friendly clime to which he had vainly gone in quest of health; and

THE TRAVELLING STRANGER. \J

nerving every flagging energy, he dies contented, if only he may catch the sight, or lay himself beneath the old roof-tree at last.

Now, we need scarcely say that whatever shows the power and the depth of feeling binding men to their earthly home illustrates the real Christian's deeper love and yearning for his heavenly home. We have always regarded home as the best earthly image of heaven. It is that part of paradise Avhich was never lost, and to this day it is the remnant and the emblem of Eden's bliss. Home and heaven are not so far separated as we sometimes think. Nay, they are not separated at all, for they are both in the same great building. Home is the lower story, and is located down here on the ground floor: heaven is above stairs, in the second and "third" 1 stories; and as one after another the family is called to come up higher, that which seemed to be such a strange place begins to wear a familiar aspect; and when at last not one is left below, the home is transferred to heaven, and heaven is home. And while we are absent from it, it can not be expected that we should be perfectly happy. Away from home ! away from heaven ! away from our best Father ! away from our best Brother ! away from our best Comforter ! away from our dearest kindred, who have gone to dwell above in light and love and peace and "joy unspeakable and fall of glory," 2 is it any wonder if we are homesick sometimes; and that our experience is that of a stranger in a strange land ?

« II Cor. xii. 2. * I Pet. i. 8.

But the stranger is not the exact image of the Christian. Pie is something more than a stranger, and so another word is added, by the Psalmist, to make the portrait more complete, — " I am a stranger and a sojourner." This last word though near of kin to the first is not quite the same. There is a shade of difference in its meaning, which will give a little more of coloring to the picture, and help to make it a more lifelike likeness of the Man of God. A stranger is one who belongs to another countiy. A sojourner is a temporary resident. The one may have a permanent abode in a strange land; but the moving tent must needs be the habitation of the other, who is always and everywhere a wayfaring man.

Such being the signification of these words, both were needed in order to describe the Christian, who is a stranger and a sojourner. Or, if we may put the two words in one, we would say, he is a pilgrim. A man with the shoes on his feet, the staff in his hand, and the bundle on his back; a travelling stranger, a man of another country going home, a pilgrim on the world's highway. His back is turned on the earth, and his face is set towards heaven. Here he is a stranger. Up in heaven he will be no more a foreigner but a fellow-citizen. Here he has the heart of a stranger. Up in heaven he will have the heart of a child at home. Here he is a sojourner and dwells awhile in a shelter tent. Up in heaven he will be a wayfaring man no more, but abide always in the house of many mansions. "Weary-footed, wearyhearted, and often weeping, is it any wonder if he longs for the time to come, when he shall put off his pilgrim shoes, at the gate of heaven, and enter his Father's house, — his sweetest, best, and most blessed home.

Perhaps some of you may be able to sympathize with him in his earnest desire to reach the heavenly country. You had been away from home for a long season, and you can not forget how anxious you were to return, especially after the journey was commenced. The swiftest conveyance was too slow for you, when you were coming home to hear your father's welcome, your mother's soft, sweet, loving voice, and your sister's gentle greeting. To your heart the Avings of love were given, and it went on ahead, and, in the special express train, you were slowly coming after. But that sweet home is not half so sweet as heaven. It may be happy now, but it must be unhappy in a little while. Not many days hence the cheerful circle will be in tears around an empty cradle, or in an empty chamber.

Come with me to a father's house, it may be your father's house, we will tarry but a moment. It is the morning of Thanksgiving Day. The children and the children's children are all come home to keep the feast. All did I say ? Let me turn to the family record in the old family Bible, and call their names and see. Joseph? "Joseph is not." Simeon? "Simeon is not." 1 And, sorer still, there is a prophetic flush on his cheek that threatens to take dear little Benjamin away.

1 Gen. xlii. 3G.

Such is the earthly home. To-day the golden chain is unbroken, and every chair is occupied. All the "olive plants" 1 are growing round about the table, beautiful and goodly to look to. To-morrow one is missing here, and another is missing there. But the heavenly home is always happy. Not one is missing there. There is no time there "to pluck up that which is planted." 2 There is no cemetery near the New Jerusalem, nor are there any graves anywhere in the "better country." And the house of many mansions will never be a house of mourning. " God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." 3 "They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them." *

But the best, the brightest, and the most beautiful gem yet remains to be taken from the casket of the text. The previous thoughts were pearls, and very precious, but this last is the most precious of all, " I am a stranger with Thee."

With whom ? with my pilgrim companions by the way? No. With those who are at home in my house? Not so: "I am a stranger with Thee," my best Father in heaven, my best Friend upon earth. A stranger with God. What a transporting thought ! What a great and glorious truth! King David was

J Ps. cxxviii. 3. 2 Eccl. iii. 2.

3 Rev. xxi. 4. * Isa. xlix. 10.

on his bended knees, his face was turned up toward heaven, when this bundle of myrrh fell from his anointed lips: "Hear my prayer, Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were."

This part of the text presents on its surface this splendid, soul-filling, and sublime truth:

"Awake, asleep, at home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God."

Blessed be His name, He is near enough to hear my lowest whisper; and plenteous enough to supply all my wants. His wisdom is mine to direct me in the way that I should go, and His power is mine to protect me in the time of danger; "For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly."' This is the surface thought of these words of David's prayer: "I am a stranger with Thee." It floats and shines like amber on the ocean, and when we are strangers in a strange land, it is .confessedly comforting to think, to feel, and to know that we are guided and guarded by that God who hath promised to "Keep the feet of His saints," 3 and make their shoes out of "iron and brass," 3 and who is always saying unto them, "There shall not a hair of your head perish." 4

But, deeper down in the text, there is a dearer

• Ps. Ixxxiv. 11. 2 1 Sam. jj. 9.

3 Deut. xxxiii. 25. * Luke xxi. 18.

thought than this. "I am a stranger with Thee:" that is, if I may express it so, Thou, my God, art my travelling companion, "alone, and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me ; " ' the Father of my Lord Jesus, and my Father. He shares my pilgrimage, and helps me over every hill of difficulty. " Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her Beloved?" 2

You remember when the two burdened and broken-hearted disciples were returning to the village of Emmaus, "Jesus Himself drew near, and went with them." 3 And as they walked their sorrow was turned into joy. The engaging and entertaining Stranger charmed away their sadness, and changed their pain into pleasure. His timely and tender conversation, concerning Himself, caused their hearts to burn within them, and before they were aware they were at their journey's end. And we need not tell you that an agreeable travelling companion will smooth the roughest road, and make it seem much shorter than it really is.

One of the brightest pages in the Old Testament is that which records the affectionate friendship of David and his Jonathan. They loved each other, as they loved their own souls, and seemed to have but one heart and one mind. They lived for each other, and labored for each other with a self-sacrificing spirit, as remarkable as it is rare; and it was the chief end of each, to promote the other's happiness. And when David learned that his leal-hearted friend > John xvi. 32. * Cant. viii. 5. 3 Luke xxiv. 15.

was slain in battle, in that lamentation, every letter of which seems a tear, he said, "I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women." 1 Without controversy they twain were the truest yoke-fellows that ever shared each other's joys and sorrows ; and if David had been speaking to Jonathan in the text, there would have been much sweet comfort to the Psalmist in the thought that he had the companionship of such a tried and never failing-friend. But Jehovah was a better friend than Jonathan, and He, His own self, was David's fellow-traveller; a stranger, with the man after His own heart, and a sojourner.

Do you not remember well the manner in which the children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness with their God ? The tabernacle and the tent travelled both of them together; and wherever the one was pitched, there the other was pitched also; the tent always in the shadow of the tabernacle. And have you not often read their morning and (•veiling prayer while on their march? How as the ark set forward Moses said, "Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered: and let them that hate Thee llee before Thee: "'- just as if Jehovah had been t.iiiying with them where they tarried; and He had. And how again when the ark rested the prayer went up, "Return, Lord, unto the many thousands of [srael:" 8 just as if Jehovah had Ween travelling in their company. And so lie had; with His pilgrim ' II Sam. i. 2G. * Num. x. 35. 3 Num. x. 36.

shoes on His mighty feet, and His pilgrim staff in His mighty hand; a wayfaring God with His wayfaring people and their companion in tribulation, according to the promise, " My presence shall go with thee and I will give thee rest." y

What then if we are in the wilderness ! Our wilderness God is with us here to choose all our changes? And what if we are so thoroughly weary, since we nightly pitch the moving tent beside the moving tabernacle, and both a day's march nearer home. Our pilgrim God, glory be to His blessed name, will have no temple to dwell in while His pilgrim people have nothing better than a tent. It was not till after David had a " house of cedars " 2 that David's Lord ceased to dwell "under curtains." "I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle." 3

It is a pleasant Hebrew fancy that gives to every child of God a guardian angel to attend him in all his ways. It is a precious Scripture truth that the angels are " all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation." 4 As we pitch our tents day after day, it is pleasant to think the angels encamp round about us ; but if we are His "peculiar people," 5 God Himself is our Guardian Angel and better to hold us up, and help us on our way, than all the heavenly hosts.

1 Exod. xxxiii. 14. 2 I Chron. xvii. 1. s II Sam. vii. 6. * Heb. i. 14. s I Peter ii. 9.

Dearly beloved, such is the real meaning of the text, as we understand it. Behold, what a sweetening branch it brings for all the bitter waters by the way! "Ye know the heart of a stranger," 1 how sad, how silent it sometimes is ! " How shall we sing the Lord's song in a .strange land? " 2 But our hearts are sad and our harps are silent only, when we forget our fellow Traveller, the One who says, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 3

It is very pleasant to think that we are strangers together. Our companionship with one another helps to relieve that feeling of loneliness that often comes over us, like a cloud, and we can comfort and cheer one another along our weary earth way. But this better, this blessed, this Bible thought, that we are strangers with God, causes our brimming cup to overflow. Oh how much better it is, to be a stranger here with God, and have a home in heaven, than to be a citizen of this poorer country without God, and be an emigrant in eternity. Dear brethren, I give you joy, and I ask you to rejoice with me, because though we be strangers in a strange land, we are going home and Jehovah- Jireh, Jehovah- Jesus, is going with us, and He will never leave us nor forsake us; "For this God is our God forever and ever: II<- will be our guide even unto death." *

I may not close without a word of warning to myself, and my companions "in tribulation, and in fche kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ." 5 Dearly

1 Exod. xxiii. 9. 2 Ps. cxxxvii. 4. 3 Mat. xxviii. 20. * Ps. xlviii. 14. fi Rev. i. 9.

beloved, we are wayfaring men, and as such it is better for us not to be burdened with too much baggage. A staff, a pair of shoes, and one coat are all that we really need. Come then, and "let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset;" 1 and, ou our journey home, let us take with us only such other things as we can conveniently carry. " A good conscience " 2 is never cumbersome; and "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," 3 are more in number, and better every way, than the "six wings " * of the seraphim. And always and everywhere, let us wait on the Lord: "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." 5

Some strangers, after a short season of homesickness, are so bewitched with the beauty of the charming country through which they are passing, that they cast away the stakes and curtains of their tents, and gather stones and cut down trees, and build themselves magnificent mansions, and in a little while they lose all love for the heavenly home, toward which their faces once were set. Strange to say, in this " snare of the fowler," 6 King Solomon

THE TRAVELLING STRANGER. 2J

was taken. On the grandest scale, he tried to make for himself a happy home in this world, and in the saddest book of the Bible he has left on record the result of his experiment, showing clearly that the wisest man was the greatest fool. " I made me great works ; I builded me houses ; I planted me vineyards : I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of^all kind of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees: I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house ; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me : I gathered me also silver and gold, and peculiar treasure of kings and provinces : I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. So I was great, and increased more than all that Avere before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me. And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy: for my heart rejoiced in all my labor: and this was my portion of all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun." '

My beloved brethren, if any of you are tempted to do likewise, let me warn you to have a care and count the cost. " Set your affection on things above, not ' Eccl. ii. 4-11.

on things on the earth." 1 Forget not that you are travelling strangers, and fix not your habitation here below, lest you learn at last, too late, and to your eternal loss, that he builds too low who builds beneath the skies.

"Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. Amen." 2

i CoL iii. 2. 2 Eph. vi. 22-24.

MARAH AND ELIM.

Chapter II

"And when they came to Mar ah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Mar ah. And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink ? And he cried unto the Lord; and the Lord showed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the -Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee. And they came to Elim, where were twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm trees: and they encamped there by the waters." — E.XODUS xv. 23-27.