: when shall I come and appear before God?"—Verse
2.
In the two former chapters, we listened to the first sigh
of the exile—the first strain of his plaintive song. It was the groping and
yearning of his soul after God, as the alone object of happiness.
You may have watched the efforts of the plant, tossed amid
rack and weed in some dark cellar, to climb to the light. Like the captive in
the dungeon longing to cool his fevered brow in the air of heaven, its sickly
leaves seem to struggle and gasp for breath. They grope, with their blanched
colors, towards any chink or crevice or grated window, through which a broken
beam is admitted. Or garden flowers choked amid rank weeds, or under the shade
of tree or wall, how ambitious to assert their freedom, and pay homage to the
parent sun, lifting their pendant leaves or petals as a target for his golden
arrows!
The soul, away from the great Sun of its being, frets and
pines and mourns! Every affection droops in languor and sadness when that
light is away. Its abortive efforts to obtain happiness in other and lower
joys, and its dissatisfaction with them, is itself a testimony to the strength
and loftiness of its aspiration—a manifesto of its real grandeur! The human
affections must be fastened on something! They are like the clinging
ivy which creeps along the ground, and grasps stones, rocks, weeds, and
unsightly ruins, if it can find nothing else on which to fix its tendrils; but
when it reaches the root of the tree, or base of the castle wall, it spurns
its groveling existence, and climbs its upward way until it hangs in graceful
festoons from the topmost branch or turret.
We are to contemplate, now, a second breathing of this
exiled supplicant—a new element in his God-ward aspiration.
"My soul thirsts for God, FOR THE LIVING GOD: when shall I
come and appear before God?"
This is no mere repetition of the former verse. It invests
the believer's relationship to the object of his faith and hope with a new and
more solemn interest.
For David's present condition and experience in the land of
his exile—the feeling of utter isolation throbbing through the pulses of his
soul—there were required some extraordinary and peculiar sources of comfort.
The old conventional dogmas of theology, at such seasons, are insufficient.
Who has not felt, in some great crisis of their spiritual being, similar to
his, when all the hopes and joys of existence rock and tremble to their
foundations; when, by some sudden reverse of fortune, the pride of life
becomes a shattered ruin; or, by some appalling bereavement, the hope and
solace of the future is blighted and withered like grass—who has not been
conscious of a longing desire to know more of this infinite God, who holds the
balances of Life and Death in His hands, and who has come forth from the
inscrutable recesses of His own mysterious being, and touched us to the quick?
What of His character, His attributes, His ways! There is a feeling, such as
we never had before, to draw aside the veil which screens the Invisible. It
may be faith in its feeblest form, awaking as from a dream; lisping the very
alphabet of Divine truth, and asking, in broken and stammering accents, "Does
God really live?—Is it, after all, Deity, or is it Chance, that is
ruling the world? Is this great Being near, or is He distant? Does He take
cognizance of all events in this world; or are minute, trivial occurrences,
contingent on the accidents of nature or the caprice of man? Is He THE
LIVING ONE?"
God, a distant abstraction shrouded in the dreadful mystery
of His own attributes, will not do—we must realize His presence; our cry, at
such a time, is that of the old patriarch at the brook Jabbok, or of his
descendant at the brooks of Gilead—"Tell me your NAME." (Gen. 32:29.)
Is it merely love, or is it the loving ONE? Is it omnipotence,
or is it the almighty ONE? Is it some mysterious, impalpable principle, some
property of matter or attribute of mind—or is it a personal Jehovah,
one capable of loving and of being loved? Have the lips of incarnate truth and
wisdom deceived us by a mere figure of speech, when, in the great Liturgy of
the Church universal, in the prayer which is emphatically "His own," He has
taught us, in its opening words, to say, "Our FATHER who is in heaven,
hallowed be your NAME!"
How earnestly do the saints in former times, and especially
in their seasons of trial, cleave to the thought of this personal
presence; in other words, a thirst for "the living God!" What was the
solace of the patriarch Job, as he was stretched on his bed of sackcloth and
ashes, when other friends had turned against him in bitter derision, and were
loading him with their reproaches? It was the realization of a living
defender who would vindicate his integrity—"I know that my Redeemer
lives." (Job 19:25.)
God appeared to Moses in a burning bush. The symbol taught
him encouraging truths—that the Hebrew race, after all their experience of
fiery trial, would come forth unscathed and unconsumed. But the
shepherd-leader desired more than this: he craved the assurance of a LIVING
GOD—an ever-present guardian, a pillar to guide by day, and a column of
defense by night. It was the truth that was borne to his ear from the desert's
fiery oracle. There could be no grander watchword for himself, or for the
enslaved people—"God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM!" No comment is
subjoined—nothing to diminish the glory of that majestic utterance. The
Almighty Speaker does not qualify it by adding, "I am light, power, wisdom,
glory;" but He simply declares His being and existence—He unfolds
Himself as "the living God!" It is enough!
Elijah is in his cave at Horeb. All nature is convulsed
around him. The rocks are rent with an earthquake. The sky is lurid with
lightnings. Fragments of these dreadful precipices are torn and dislocated by
the fury of the tempest, and go thundering down the Valley. Nature testifies
to the presence, and majesty, and power of her God: but He is not in any of
these! "The Lord is not there!" The Prophet waits for a further disclosure. He
is not satisfied with seeing the skirts of God's garment. He must see the
hand, and hear (though it be in gentle whispers) the voice of Him who sits
behind the elements He has awoke from their sleep. Hence this formed the
closing scene in that wild drama of the desert. "After the fire there came
a still small voice." The Lord is there! He is proclaiming Himself the
prophet's God! with him in the depths of that howling wilderness, as He had
been with him on the heights of Carmel. "And it was so, when Elijah heard
it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the
entrance in of the cave." (1 Kings 19:12, 13.)
Shall we go for illustration of the same truth to New
Testament and gospel times? The disciples are tossed with storm in the Sea of
Tiberias. The voice of a living Savior proclaims His name. "It is I
(lit. I AM); be not afraid!" The assurance, in that night of gloom
and tempest, lulls their trembling spirits to rest.
John, in Patmos, beheld, in a vision of surpassing
brightness, his Lord arrayed in the lusters of exalted humanity. Overpowered
by the glory which unexpectedly burst upon him, "he fell at His feet as one
dead." His misgivings are stilled; his confidence and hope restored, by the
proclamation of a living Savior-God. "I am He that LIVES" (lit. the
Living One)—and a similar comforting symbol was given him in a subsequent
vision, when he saw that same covenant angel "ascending from the east, having
the seal of the Living God." (Rev. 1:18, and 7:2.)
This was "the living Jehovah" whom David now sought
in the forest-depths of Gilead. He goes out to that solitude to meditate and
pray. But it is no dream of earthly conquest that occupies him. Deeper
thoughts have taken possession of his soul than the loss of a kingdom and the
forfeiture of a crown! A fiercer battle engrosses his spirit than any mortal
conflict. "Let me have God," he seems to say, "as the strength of my heart and
my portion forever, and I need not other portions besides." At another time
that lover of nature would have caught inspiration from the glories of the
impressive sanctuary around. He would have sung of the water-brooks at his
side, the trees bending in adoration, the rocky gorges through which Jordan
fretted his tortuous way, the everlasting hills of Hermon and Lebanon—the
silent guardians of the scene—"the wild beasts of the forest creeping forth"
and "seeking their food from God." But now he has but one thought—one longing—"YOU
are more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey." (Ps. 76:4.)
None was more dependent on the realized consciousness of the Divine favor than
he. His Psalms seem to utter the language of one who lived in God's presence,
and to whom the withdrawal of that endearing communion and communion would be
death indeed. His expressions, in these holy breathings of his soul to the
Father of spirits, seem like those of one loving friend to another. God, the
abstraction of the Philosopher, has no place in his creed. He speaks of "the
Lord thinking upon him," "putting his tears into His bottle," "guiding him
with His eye," "His right hand upholding him," he himself "rejoicing under the
shadow of His wings;" and as if he almost beheld some visible, tangible form,
such as Peter gazed upon when the question was put to him on the shore of
Gennesaret, "Do you love me?" we hear this warm, impulsive Peter of Old
Testament times thus avowing his personal attachment—"I love you, O Lord my
strength;" "I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my
supplications;" "The Lord LIVES; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my
salvation be exalted."
Reader, do you know what it is thus to exult in God as a
living God? Not to think of Him as some mysterious Essence, who, by an
Almighty fiat, impressed on matter certain general laws, and, retiring into
the solitude of His own being, left these to work out their own processes. But
is there joy to you in the thought of God ever near, compassing your path and
your lying down? Do you know of ONE, brighter than the brightest radiance of
the visible sun, visiting your chamber with the first waking beam of the
morning; an eye of infinite tenderness and compassion following you throughout
the day; a hand of infinite love guiding you, shielding you from danger, and
guarding you from temptation—the "Keeper of Israel," who "neither slumbers nor
sleeps?"
And if gladdening it be, at all times, to hear the
footsteps of this living God, more especially gladdening is it, as, with the
Exile-King of Israel, in the season of trial, to think of Him and to own Him,
in the midst of mysterious dealings, as One who personally loves you, and who
chastises you because He loves you. The world, in their cold vocabulary, in
the hour of adversity, speak of Providence, "the will of
Providence," "the strokes of Providence." PROVIDENCE! What is that?
Why dethrone a living God from the sovereignty of His own world? Why
substitute a cold, death-like abstraction in place of a living One, an acting
One, a controlling One, and (to as many as He loves) a rebuking One and a
chastening One? Why forbid the angel of bereavement to drop from his wings the
balmy fragrance, "Your Father has done it?" How it would take the sting from
many a goading trial thus to see, as Job did, nothing but the hand of God—to
see that hand behind the gleaming swords of the Sabeans, the flash of the
lightning, and the wings of the whirlwind—and to say like David, on the
occasion of his mournful march to these very wilds of Gilead, "I was dumb,
I opened not my mouth; because YOU did it." (Psalm 39:9.)
The thought of a living God forms the happiness of Heaven.
It is the joy of Angels. It forms the essence and bliss of glorified Saints.
The redeemed multitude, while on earth, "thirsted" for the living God,
but they had then only some feeble foretastes of His presence. They sipped
only some tiny rills flowing from the Everlasting Fountain; now they have
reached the living spring; and the long-drawn sigh of the earthly valley is
answered—"When shall we come and appear before God?"
And what this living God is to the Church above, He is also
to the Church below. In one sense we need Him more! The drooping, pining
plant, battered down by rain, and hail, and tempest, stands more in need of
the fostering hand and genial sunbeam than the sturdy tree whose roots are
firmly moored in the soil, or sheltered from the sweep of the storm. Pilgrims
in the Valley of Tears! seek to live more under the habitual thought of God's
presence. In dark passages of our earthly history we know how supporting it is
to enjoy the sympathy of kindred human friends. What must it be to have
the consciousness of the presence, and support, and nearness of the Being of
all beings; when some cherished "light of the dwelling" is put out, to have a
better light remaining, which sorrow cannot quench! All know the story of the
little child who, in simple accents, quieted its own fears and that of others
in the midst of a storm. When the planks were creaking beneath them—the hoarse
voice of the thunder above mingling with that of the raging sea—his tiny
finger pointed to the calm visage of the pilot, who was steering with brawny
arm through the surge, "My father," said he, "is at the helm!"
Would you weather the tempests of life, and sit calm and unmoved amid "the
noise of its many waters," let your eye rest on a living God—a
loving Father—a heavenly Pilot. See Him guiding the Vessel of your temporal
and eternal destinies! Let Faith be heard raising her triumphant accents amid
the pauses of the storm—"O Lord our God, who is a strong Lord like unto
You? You rule the raging of the sea; when the waves thereof arise, You still
them." (Psalm 89:9.)
Above all, be it yours to enjoy what David knew
imperfectly, the conscious nearness of a living SAVIOR—a Brother on the throne
of Heaven—"Christ our life"—God in our nature—"the man Christ
Jesus,"—susceptible of every human sympathy—capable of entering, with infinite
tenderness, into every human need and woe—bending over us with His pitying
eye—marking out for us our path—ordering our sorrows—filling or emptying our
cup—providing our pastures, and "making all things work together for our
good!" The words at this moment are as true as when, eighteen hundred years
ago, they came fresh from His lips in Patmos—"I am the living One:
Behold, I am alive for evermore!" (Rev. 1:18.)
What is the great lesson from this meditation? Is it not to
strive to be like God? What does "thirsting" for God mean, but a
longing of the soul after likeness and conformity to the Divine image? Let us
not lose the deep truth of the text under the material emblem. To thirst for
God is to desire His fellowship; and we can only hold fellowship with a
congenial mind. No man is ever found to covet the companionship of those whose
tastes, likings, pursuits, are opposed to his own. Place one whose character
is scarred with dishonor and his life with impurity, introduce him into the
company of high-souled men—spirits of sterling integrity and unblemished
virtue, who would recoil from the contaminating touch of vice, who would scorn
a lie as they would a poisoned dart—he could not be happy; he would
long to break away from associates and associations so utterly distasteful and
uncongenial. No man can thirst after God who is not aiming after assimilation
to His character. God is HOLY. He who thirsts for God must be athirst for
holiness—he must scorn impurity in all its forms, in thought, word, and
deed. He who longs for the pure cistern must turn with LOVE. Love is pencilled
by Him on every flower, and murmured in every breeze. The world is resonant
with chimes of love, and Calvary is love's crowning triumph and consummation.
He who "thirsts for God" "in him verily is the love of God perfected."
He must have the lineaments in outline, at least, of a loving nature. He must
hate all that is selfish, delight in all that is beneficent, and seek an
elevating satisfaction in being the minister of love to others. "He that
dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him."
And what shall be said to those who know nothing of this
thirst for God—to whom all that is here written is but as an idle tale? You
may pant not for Him. You may have no spiritual thirst for Him—no longing for
His presence—no aspiration after His likeness. But still He is to you, as to
the believer, a LIVING God. Yes—scorner of His mercy! ignore the truth as you
may, the God to whom you are responsible, the God with whom you will yet have
"to do," that God LIVES! His eye is upon you—His book is open—His pen
is writing—the indelible page is filling! You may see no trace of His
footstep. You may hear no tones of His voice. His very mercy and forbearance
may be misconstrued by you, as if it indicated on His part indifference to His
word and forgetfulness of your sin. You may lull yourselves into the atheist
dream, that the world is governed by blind chance and fate, that His heaven
and His hell are the forged names and nullities of credulity and superstition.
As you see the eternal monuments of His power and glory on rock and mountain,
you may affect to see in these only the dead hieroglyphics of the past—the
obsolete tool-marks of the God of primeval chaos, who welded into shape the
formless mass, but having done so, left it alone. The scaffolding is removed,
the Architect has gone to uprear other worlds, and abandoned the completed
globe to the control of universal laws!
No—GOD LIVES! "He is not far from any one of us." He is no
Baal divinity, "asleep or taking a journey." The volume of every heart is laid
open to the eye of the great Heart-searcher, and vainly do you seek to elude
His scrutiny. Terrible thought! this living God against you!
You living, and content to live His enemy! rushing against His shield! and
if you were to die, it would be in the attitude of one fighting against
God!
No longer scorn His grace or reject His warnings. He is
living; but, blessed be His name, He is living and waiting to be gracious! You
may be as stranded vessels on the sands of despair; but the tide of His
ocean-love is able to set you floating on the waters. Repair, without delay to
His mercy-seat. Cast yourselves on His free forgiveness. Every attribute of
His nature which you have now armed against you, is stretching out its hand of
welcome and entreaty. Each is like a branch of the tree of life, inviting you
to repose under its shadow. Each is a rill from the everlasting fountain,
inviting you to drink of the unfailing stream.
See that you refuse not Him that speaks. He who unlocked
that fountain is even now standing by it; and saying, as He contrasts it with
all earth's polluted cisterns, "Whoever drinks of THIS water shall thirst
again: but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never
thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life."