MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 14:19-22
THE DIVINE PRESENCE IN ITS RELATION TO THE LIFE OF THE GOOD
The angel of God went before the camp of Israel. Who was this angel? It was no created messenger. It was none other than the Son of God (Exodus 14:24). The same appeared to Moses in the burning bush. The same wrestled with Jacob. All who set themselves against the good are in reality in conflict with the Son of God. They are engaged in a hopeless task, as we shall presently see.
I. That the Divine presence is not always straight before the inner eye of the Christian, and its apparent absence may occasion a momentary perplexity. “And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them.” So far on the journey the pillar of cloud had remained in front of the Israelites, so that all could easily see and derive comfort from it. And so the presence of God is generally before the eye of the pure soul, that it can be closely followed; and if it remove from this position anxiety is awakened. When life is an uneventful march in the desert, the Divine presence is ahead; but when the march becomes eventful, then the movements of God are adapted thereto. Christ adapts the manifestation of Himself to the circumstances of the Christian life. He is interested in the welfare of the people He guides. Why is He absent from the eye of the soul? has sorrow come between? has sin grieved Him? or has He only removed for our good? He is lovingly near, even though we see Him not.
II. That though the Divine presence be removed from before the eye of the Christian, yet it is somewhere near him, exercising a beneficent ministry toward his life. “And stood behind them.” Thus, though the Divine presence had removed from before the eye of the Israelites, it had not forsaken them. Christ never leaves His people while they are in the wilderness: He knows that they cannot do without Him. Sorrow may come. All may be dark. Christ may be unseen. We may be sure He is somewhere near us. If we look in the rear we shall find Him. He does not always sustain the same position to our life. He thus educates His people to seek for Him. All His movements are for the good of the life He leads. He goes to the rear to hide our enemies from view.
III. That loving adaptations of the Divine presence to the need of the Christian life is the comfort, protection, and illumination of all pilgrim souls. “But it gave light by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the night.” Thus the movements of the Divine presence are adapted to the need of the Christian life. The Egyptians were following Israel. God came between His people and their foes. So He does now. He comes between us and our sins and difficulties, or they would overtake and ruin us. See His mercy. See His power. We know not what blessings we receive through the movement of the Divine presence to the rear of us. We get light in the night of sorrow. We get comfort in the hour of trial. We get protection in the time of danger. The presence of Christ is always found where His people most need it. Few earthly friends come between us and our troubles; Christ our best friend.
IV. That the Divine presence presents a different aspect to the good from what it does to the ungodly multitude. “It was a cloud and darkness to them.” Thus, to the good, the Divine presence is always as a beauteous, refreshing, and guiding light; but to the unholy crowd it is ever as gloomy and mysterious as a dark cloud. We cannot wonder that the men of the world call religion a thing of sadness: they do not get a right vision of God. Religion is a joy. It lights up the darkest night of the soul. We see God from the standpoint of our own character. To the sinful He is as a cloud; to the pure He is as a light. Truth has a dual aspect. The cross has a dual aspect,—to some foolishness, to others wisdom. The Gospel is to some the savour of life, to others the savour of death. All the great objects of the moral universe are seen as lights or clouds. Our state of heart will determine the vision. Only a pure heart can see God. LESSONS:—
1. That the Divine presence is near to each one of us.
2. That the Divine presence is especially the comfort of the good.
3. That the Divine presence is adapted to the need of the soul.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Exodus 14:19-20. The movements of Christ:—
1. Adapted to the need of the Church.
2. Discomforting to enemies.
3. A signal for victory.
The interposition of God keeps the wicked world from destroying the Church.
The same means God makes to darken His enemies which lighten His people.
Exodus 14:21-22 God’s instruments must be obedient to doing signs for working salvation when God commands.
Jehovah assists the signal obedience of His servants to give them salvation.
All miracles of raising winds and cleaving seas must be attributed to Jehovah.
The drowning waters are made walls to God’s people at His word; so all afflictions are good by promise.
Waters may be made walls; dangers may be made by the grace of God into safeguards.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WM. ADAMSON
Divine Interposition! Exodus 14:20. The pillar symbolised the Bible. As the pillar interposed divinely between Israel and their foes, so the Bible steps in, and protects God’s people. At the battle of Frederichsburg, a soldier carried a Bible in his pocket. During the engagement a ball pierced the book through the whole of the Old Testament, and stopped at the Gospel of St. Matthew. His life was thus spared; as but for the interposition of the Bible, the bullet would have penetrated his heart. The presence of Christ in the Word, makes it to the righteous a light to their feet and a lamp to their path. How dark to the unbelieving Pharaoh and his host of mail-clad charioteers! On what a scene that night did the light from the fire-pillar shine—did the darkness from the cloud-pillar shadow! Safely the little feet of Hebrew children trod the coral-strewn depths, where never before a living foot had left its impress. Not so Pharaoh’s host in the gloom, deep and intense, that brooded over them. Ignorant of God—enveloped in darkness, they did not know that the waters had been riven, and that the ground over which their chariots were rapidly rolling was the bottom of the Red Sea covered with large trees or plants of white coral. How often the Word of God is dark to unbelievers! They cannot see the miraculous workings of God’s Great Hand. Blindly they grope on in their relentless persecution of God’s people, until the dawnlight of eternity flashes on them; and too late they discover their perilous position, as the Waves of Judgment roll in and over.
“How sinks his soul!
What black despair—what horror fills his heart!”—Thomson.
Refuge! Exodus 14:21. Many figures are employed to convey the shelter which sinners have from the fires of wrath—as well as which saints enjoy when waves of temptation sweep over a nation or community. Others have also been hailed to enforce the hairsbreadth escape of which the apostle speaks as being saved yet so as by fire; or as our English proverb of homely phrase says, “by the skin of his teeth.” All these might be illustrated of the incident of a prairie-fire. Schomburgh describes such a scene. We had not penetrated far into the plain, when we saw to the south-east high columns of smoke ascending to the skies—the sure signs of a savannah conflagration. As the burning torrent would most likely roll in our direction, we were full alive to the extreme peril of our situation, for in whatever direction we gazed, we nowhere saw a darker patch in the grass plain announcing the refuge of a water-pool. We could already distinguish the flames of the advancing column—already hear the bursting and crackling of the reeds, when fortunately the sharp eye of the Indians discovered a small eminence in front of us only sparingly covered with vegetation, and to this we now careered as if death were pursuing us. Half a minute later we could not have been alive to relate this hairsbreadth escape from a fiery fate. As the smoke and flames overtook us, we reached our vantage ground, to await the dreadful decision. We were in the midst of the blaze. Two arms of fire encircled the base on the little hillock on which we stood, and united before us in a waving mass, which—rolling onwards—receded farther and farther from our gaze. We were saved—the fire having found nothing at the base or on the slopes of the eminence upon which to feed. When the sinner’s eyes first descry the advancing flames of wrath, he looks around for water in which to plunge, but all in vain. There is no salvation in man, and he is ready to despair. His attention is called to the rock, whereon is no guile or defilement of sin upon which the fires of hell can lay hold. To this he hastens: when my heart is overwhelmed, I will look to the Rock that is higher than I. Here standing, all is well; the flames and fumes of judgment roll on their way; and while whole swarms of voracious vultures, which have followed in circling flight the fiery column, pounce upon the half-calcined buffaloes, antelopes, and agotis, the sheltered sinner, saved through grace, retraces his steps—striking towards the city of the living Go. What a picture also of the Last Judgment, when all who are not found in Christ, become the prey of evil angels; and while the redeemed know no alarms—
“Though heaven’s wide concave glow with lightnings dire,
All ether flaming, and all earth on fire.”
—Thomson.