Notice one or two particular features of the leadings in the wilderness.
I. The Israelites had a very little way to go, and they were a very long time about it. What seemed a matter of days took many years. Is it so with you? Have you been a very long time getting on a very little way?
II. The fightings of God's people in the wilderness were all at the beginning and at the end of it. It is generally so with God's saints.
III. They had strange ups and downs. Their road, as we trace it on the map, is a perfect riddle, now quite near and then back again, far, far away, almost to where they set out.
IV. It was all in dependence most absolute and humble dependence for everything. Not a drop nor a crumb, nothing, came from the wilderness, all direct from God Himself. Who ever went the road to heaven without learning, temporally and spiritually, the same humiliating but assuring lesson?
V. The leading was the clearest where the need was the greatest, God's universal method. In our sunny days His hand dimly seen, and His voice low, but in our darkest hours bright, distinct, glorious.
VI. It was a restless life they lived these forty years, just as perhaps life has been to us. We are but strangers and pilgrims. We must sit loose and not tarry long by the way. It is "the right way," but it is only a way. And we are prone to say, "It was good for me to be here!" and mistake our tabernacles for our houses, while He is all the while leading us forth to go to a city of habitation.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,12th series, p. 213.
I. The company. Any considerable company of men is imposing; but here is a company more illustrious than any other upon earth, a company overwhelming in its vastness and yet ever growing in numbers, calm in aspect and yet irresistible in power. These are "the redeemed of the Lord, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy." We are redeemed from spiritual perils and foes: from sin, from wrath, from the lure of the world, from the wiles of the devil, and from selfishness, sluggishness, lust, passion, pride, fear, doubt, dismay. It is impossible that a man can be "led forth into the right way" until this deliverance is accomplished, until it is at least begun.
II. The Leader. The Leader of this ransomed company is the Lord Himself. " Heled them forth." The Bible abounds with intimations of the nearness of God, and particularly with assurances of His actual and perpetual presence with His people as their Guide, and Guard, and everlasting Friend. "Be still, and know that He is God" God to supply all your need, to guide all your way, to give far more than He takes, to do for you "exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or think."
III. The way. This way, as God's appointed way, is right, whatever may be its present aspect to us. Haply to some it is covered with the clouds of disappointment; to others it is bleak and cold with the gales of adversity; to others it is drenched with the rains of sorrow. It has places of heart-wringing separation from fellow-pilgrims, and even deep, dark gulfs of sin; but notwithstanding all its mystery, as God's way, it is always right.
IV. The end. The end is arrival and rest in "the city of habitation" in some secure and permanent abode; the wanderer finds at last a settled rest: the lost and worn traveller is conducted back into the way, and the way leads him home. And what more appropriate end could there be to such a way as that of the Christian through this life than the heaven that has been promised and prepared for all who are truly seeking it? The mystic company has not been gathered and redeemed with such cost and toil only to be scattered again and lost. The Leader has not assumed His position at their head to see them falling and vanishing away, for "He is able to make them stand." The way has not been opened and consecrated for short distances only, with gulfs and deserts left in it that cannot be crossed; it stretches away beyond earthly territory and mortal sight, and ends at the open gate of heaven.
A. Raleigh, Farewell Sermon Preached in Glasgow,Dec. 12th, 1858.
References: Psalms 107:7. Spurgeon, Morning by Morning,p. 143; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 127; T. L. Cuyler, Preacher's Monthly,vol. iii., p. 29; J. Eadie, Good Words,1861, p. 413; M. Nicholson, Redeeming the Time,p. 18. Psalms 107:8. Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 338.