MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 4:19
THE DIVINE PRECAUTION FOR THE SAFETY OF CHRISTIAN WORKERS
I. It is sometimes manifested by removing good men and great workers from dangerous associations. The Divine Being uses every precaution for the safety of those employed in the great moral enterprises of humanity. He does not achieve their safety by miracles, but by prudence, even though it may involve delay in the completion of His plan. Sometimes we hear Christian workers say that they can go fearlessly into danger, because they are assured of the protection of heaven; they are not warranted in talking or acting thus, for, as a rule, God gives the truest safety to those who keep the furthest from peril. It is the Divine plan to take Moses away from Egypt until those who would will him are dead, rather than expose him to their continued rage.
1. Christian workers are sometimes removed from the pride of high society. Moses was providentially removed from the pride and splendour of the Egyptian palace, in order that he might retain the simplicity of a true servant of God. Gaiety is a great temptation to a Christian worker. It has ruined many men of early promise. How many workers in the world and in the Church to-day owe their utility and success to the fact that God removed them from the social allurements of their youth. True, the change from the palace of Pharaoh to the solitude of the desert may not have been welcome at first, but now it is the gladdest recollection of your life.
2. Christian workers are sometimes removed from the contamination of great sin. The palace of Pharaoh was most unfavourable to the cultivation of a pure life. It was the seat of despotism, and despotism is generally allied to almost every other sin. In this royal court Moses was in danger of contamination, and that at the most susceptible period of his life. Hence God removed him from this school of vice, and brought him into the primitive simplicity of a desert family. Many a youthful worker for God has been ruined by a bad example.
3. Christian workers are sometimes removed from the pedantry of great learning. In the Egyptian palace Moses had every facility for acquiring knowledge, and there was a possibility that he might become mentally proud, and think the claims of religious service beneath his talent and education. Multitudes have been turned aside from moral service by the conceit of imagined Wisdom
4. Christian workers are sometimes removed from physical peril.
II. It is sometimes manifested by informing good men and great workers of the removal of danger. God informs Moses that the men who sought his life are dead. See the folly of men who oppose themselves to the plans of heaven; they will soon die, and their death will be the signal of victory to the servant whose moral fitness has been enhanced by the solitude rendered necessary by their rage. Time aids the enterprises of heaven. Death subdues the hatred and passion of men. God is interested in the mission of His servants, so that He aids them in its fulfilment.
III. That the Divine Precaution does not allow an abandonment of the work committed to the good. Moses was to go to his work again. Temporary perils and hindrances are not to entirely set aside Christian toil. Israel must be emancipated. The servant of God must fulfil his calling, even though he has to wait years in the desert before he can commence it.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE
REV. WM. ADAMSON
(17)—Parental Dealing!—On one occasion a minister of God was counselling a little girl to evince gratitude always for the kind father whom God had graciously given her, when she looked up in his face with her soft, blue eyes, and exclaimed, “He never speaks kind to me.” Can we wonder if that child grows up undutiful—disobedient—void of all confiding tenderness towards her parent?
(18)—Presumptuous Christian!—That sailor is a fool who wilfully runs his vessel among the foaming breakers because his ship is stout—bears a lifeboat on her deck, and can be rescued by watchers on the shore. Trench relates the visit of a gentleman to the scene of a colliery explosion. The mine was full of chokedamp; and yet his guide persisted in entering it with his Davy-lamp. That light was invented to protect miners, and not to make them presume. Christians presume on the providence of God when they rush recklessly and uncalled into danger.
“Whate’er our thoughts or purpose be,
They cannot reach their destined end,
Unless, oh God. they go with Thee,
And with Thy thoughts and purpose blend.
(19)—Confidence!—Luther, when making his way into the presence of Cardinal Cajetan, who had summoned him to answer for his heretical opinions at Augsburg, was asked by one of the cardinal’s minions where he would find a shelter if his patron the Elector of Saxony deserted him. His immediate reply was, “Under the shield of heaven.” Under that shield Moses was to enter Pharaoh’s presence.
“A strong tower is the Lord our God,
To shelter and defend us;
Our shield His arm, our sword His rod.
Against our foes befriend us.”
—Luther.