Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

THE LORD GOD A SUN AND SHIELD.

REV. T. DUNN,

FOOT'S CRAY, KENT, MAY 10, 1835.

"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."-PSALM lxxxiv. 11.

A CHRISTIAN is distinguished for his attachment to the sanctuary. This attachment is the fruit of divine influence, and by that influence it is animated and maintained. Hence the sanctuary of the Most High is, to a believer, like a little heaven below: rather would he be a door-keeper within its hallowed precincts, than occupy a throne of state: turning from the riches and honours of time, his renewed nature will prompt him to say, "One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after-to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life; to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his holy temple." And there is every thing to justify the believer's cherished and glowing attachment to the means of grace; for it is in the sanctuary that the God of love records his name. There he promises to come in all the benign manifestations of his gracious character: there he deigns to bless: there the accents of mercy are heard, the ministry of reconciliation is proclaimed, spiritual illumination is imparted, heavenly consolation enjoyed, a sense of pardon realized the fetters of sin and chains of inbred corruption are there broken: the trials and sorrows of mortality are there frequently lost sight of: while there the earnest of the incorruptible inheritance is granted.

It is not surprising, then, that the renewed mind should glow with desire for communion with the Living God, even as the thirsty hart panteth after the refreshing stream; nor surprising that the Psalmist should say, "How amiable are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord." There he had realized spiritual blessings, had seen his guilt cancelled, had eaten heavenly manna, had beheld the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Hence the expression of his intense solicitude to have these enjoyments repeated. All that the earth could impart of delight and joy was within his reach; yet he declares his readiness to resign it for a day in the courts of the Lord, because in his ordinances the Lord God is a sun and shield, giving grace and glory (in its earnest and foretaste) and withholding no good thing. O I could wish that each one now assembled felt an equal regard to the means of grace, that you were in the spirit on this day, hungering and thirsting after righteousness! It is a state of mind connected with the holiest delight, issuing in communion with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ, and therefore most earnestly to be

desired while the absence of this state of mind proclaims that spiritual life is unknown, that spiritual blessings and joys have never been experienced. Our grief is intensely excited by the recollection of the vast numbers in every district that altogether neglect the ordinances of divine appointment; nor can we refrain from weeping in spirit over those who, while they attend, are apathetic and indifferent satisfied with the form, while destitute of the reality of religion. Alas! you enter the house of God, but it is not to you the gate of heaven; for the voice of prayer was not previously uttered, that you might behold the beauty of the Lord, and drink of the river the streams whereof make glad the city of God. It is not surprising, then, that you continue through the exercise, and retire at its termination unenlightened and unsanctified. O, we beseech you, deprecate this indifference to the ordinances of the Gospel, and fervently entreat its removal. The sanctuary is appointed to be to you what the Pool of Bethesda, was to the sick and dying. As that was the chosen spot for their recovery, so the sanctuary is the place in which the healing of your diseased spirit is to be begun and perfected. Of Zion it shall be said, "This and that man was born. in her." O, desire then, when the Sabbath dawns, that it may be to you a day of spiritual feasting and holy joy; that when you attend the means of grace you may enjoy the grace of the means; that when you regard the ordinances of heaven's appointment, you may realize intimate communion with the God of ordinances!" 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."

Here we are furnished, first, with a description of what the Lord God is to his people; and, secondly, with a declaration of what he will do for them.

First, WHAT THE LORD GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE: He is "a sun and shield."

In attempting to exhibit to you the beauty and appropriateness of this metaphorical language, I remark, first, that the Lord God is a Sun, enlightening the dark mind. The natural sun is the source of light: this heavenly luminary disperses the gloomy horrors of the night, and forms our day. In this it is emblematical of the influence of the Sun of Righteousness. In order to form a just conception of man, you must imagine a being over whose understanding there is a veil of thick darkness; whose mental vision is beclouded and impervious to the light of heaven; so that he has no correct view of the extent and spirituality of the divine law, no realizing consciousness of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, or the unceasing suffering to which he stands exposed in consequence of being infected therewith. Such is man by nature: his mind, once the receptacle of spiritual light, is now benighted, gloomy, and dark: even what he does discern is perceived through a false medium. Hence he calls that prudence which is declared by Holy Scripture to be covetousness, that proper dignity which it denounces as abominable pride, that allowable which it reprobates, that a doing God service which it affirms to be odious in his sight. So that we find it written, “Darkness has covered the earth, and gross darkness the people." "There is none that understandeth, that seeketh after God." Observation and experience demonstrate that the human mind is enveloped in a thick mantle of ignorance, prejudice, and unconcern; many are so blinded by the god of this world that they are hewing out to themselves cisterns that can hold no water; are seeking

repose on a bed that is too narrow for them; are striving to adorn themselves with a garment that is too short for them; are crying "Peace, peace;" but so miserably short-sighted are they, that they see not the pit of destruction that is yawning to receive them. They are very earnestly asking, "Who will shew us any good?" but are so benighted, they cannot perceive that a full, an overflowing, an ever-increasing, an immortal felicity, can result only from the light of the divine countenance. Many, too, have the Bible in their hands, the ordinances of religion administered amongst them, the great truths of revelation and the principle of the everlasting Gospel exhibited in all their glory and majesty, and the lamp of reason to shed its concurrent ray over the stupendous facts which inspiration hath disclosed to their view, while the destinies of eternity hover with mysterious and awful majesty over the scenes of their future prospects to stimulate their inquiries and quicken their apprehensions; in addition to which, the great teacher, Death, reads his monitory lessons in their ears, and the proceedings of the last judgment are announced to them in terms replete with terror and alarm, that their illumination may be effected: and yet they are still found to walk in darkness, advancing along the path of guilt and sin, with all the indifference and composure of the most perfect blindness, though every step they take brings them nearer and still nearer to` destruction.

There is, then, abundant proof that men by nature are destitute of spiritual perception; and indeed that they are unaffected by the darkness in which they are enveloped. "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world; but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." Such is the mournful condition of the human race through the triumph effected over us by our arch adversary. Nor is this moral gloom cleared away until the Sun of Righteousness arises and rests upon the spirit with power and energy divine. Then the clouds of ignorance, the mists of error and depravity are dispersed; then the moral chaos is converted into the radiance of noon-day; thus illuminated, the sinner perceives an enormity in his transgressions such as he never before supposed them to possess; he learns to say with the Apostle, "I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Or with Job, "I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He sees himself infected and defiled by sin, in every mental affection, that his sins have subjected him to endless suffering, that justice is inflexible, and that the penalty he has, incurred must be enforced but the beam of heavenly light resting upon the opaque mass, not only discovers to the sinner his danger, but reveals to his admiring and delighted view a door of hope in the valley of Achor; it shews him an open fountain, the efficacy of whose waters can cleanse away his every stain; exhibits to him a most gracious friend who is able and willing to take away his guilt, bring in everlasting righteousness for his justification, and finally, conduct him to yon unearthly temple in the skies, where he may enjoy the long and splendid glories of an everlasting day.

The change, therefore, effected by illuminating grace, while it humbles and abases the sinner, eventually introduces him to the experience of refined and exalted happiness. It is like the beauty and pleasure which the rising morning

diffuses over the earth after a night of storm and darkness; it is so much of heaven let into the chambers of the soul; it is a light that carries with it a divine heat and life, causing the existence and ascendancy of holiness, hope, peace, and joy, where impurity, despair, discord, and misery formerly prevailed. O, my hearers! has this ray of light divine penetrated your dark minds? Are you that " once were darkness," now "light in the Lord?" It cannot be if you are not conscious of sin, mourning its existence, dreading its prevalence, and sighing for its extirpation. It cannot be if you are not admiring the light of the world, and desiring its enlightening beams to guide you all your journey through. But if this is your happy case, you may, and you will say, with adoring gratitude, "Whereas I was blind, now I see.”

Secondly, the Lord God is a Sun, fertilizing the barren mind. The natural sun is not only the fountain of light-it is the source of fruitfulness: without its vivifying influence universal barrenness would pervade our earth-nay, universal death; but by its enlivening rays your barns are filled with plenty, your presses burst out with new wine, and all nature wears the hue of gladness and delight.

What the natural sun is in this respect to the vegetable world, that, and infinitely more, is the Sun of Righteousness to the moral world. By its influence the barren mind is fertilized, and all the fruits of heavenly grace produced. The sterility of the heart of man is naturally as entire and universal as its darkness it is so unfruitful that one good thought, one holy desire, never grew spontaneously there; and were an eternity to pass over it in its unchanged state, it would be an eternity unlovely, unproductive, and void of celestial fruit. The sterility of the eastern desert or of the barren rock is not surpassed by the sterility of the human heart. The Most High looked upon the earth, and behold it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. While, therefore, it is affectingly true that the roots and weeds of pride, passion, anger, and all ungodliness, grow with our growth and strengthen with our strength, still the fruits of righteousness are wholly withered and gone-the hand of sin, and the concurrent depravity of man, having uprooted every plant of celestial growth; so that we are without beauty, void of fragrance, as the thorns and briers of the desert-nigh unto cursing, and whose end is to be burned. This alarming state of sterility and barrenness, however, passes away when the Sun of Righteousness arises upon the spirit, with healing under his wings in regeneration the fallow ground of the human heart is broken up; then the incorruptible seed is sown; then the wilderness becomes like a fruitful field, the desert resembles the garden of the Lord, the cumberer of the ground becomes a tree of Righteousness, the planting of the Lord, to shew that he is gracious. Instead of the thorn, there is the fir-tree; instead of the brier, there is the myrtle-tree and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. For as the fir and myrtle are evergreens, so the Spirit thus fertilized shall have its fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life. In every such case the divinely gracious promise is fulfilled, "I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon his branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon. They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine: the scent thereof shall be

:

[ocr errors]

as the wine of Lebanon." Ephraim shall say, What have I any more to do with idols? I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir-tree: from me is thy fruit found."

Thus the mind upon which the celestial Sun doth shine is pre-eminently enriched and beautified: every grace springs up; the once wretched spirit appears gay and blooming; the libertine becomes continent, the churl bountiful, the debauchee pure, the blasphemer devout: the formalist in religion is induced to worship God in spirit and truth: the bitterest enemy of the cross is transformed into the humble, devoted follower of the Redeemer; vanity is succeeded by seriousness; carnality by a deep solicitude for the welfare of the immortal spirit; the once useless, nay, injurious member of society, becomes a blessing to himself and to others.

The comparison instituted in the text is still further descriptive of the tender mercy of the Lord God to his people as he, thirdly, consoles the cheerless mind. The presence of the natural sun not only makes our day and fertilizes our earth; it is also in an eminent degree a source of comfort. Were we deprived of its genial warmth, life would be a misery and burden insupportable. How welcome its heat, how reviving its powerful beams, when the earth is bound by frost, or covered with snow! Then we enter into the truth of the wise man's declaration, "A pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." From it all natural delight arises. At this season of the year what gaiety, pleasure, and innocent vivacity it infuses into animals! what vigour and beauty into the herbage of the fields! Equally cheering and reviving are the sweet rays of the Sun of Righteousness to a sin-burdened conscience: it is the smile of our Redeemer indeed that fills heaven itself with ecstatic joy; and the light of the Divine Countenance imparts unutterable consolation to the Church of God in its militant state. Then it is we take down our harp from the willow; then it is we are strengthened to run the race set before us; then it is the broken heart is healed, the wounded conscience restored; then it is that the pleasures of sin are divested of their alluring qualities, and sin itself, thus stripped of its enticements, becomes disgusting to our sight. "Its pleasures are no more to be compared with those resulting from a sense of the divine favour, than the pale light of morning faintly gleaming in the East, is to be compared to the exhilirating brightness of the meridian sun; or the trifling and unsatisfying enjoyments we can call our own, in this state of probationary and fleeting existence, to the pleasures which are at God's right hand for evermore."

It is the distinguishing nature of Christian joy that it for ever palls the taste for every carnal enjoyment; the living water which the adorable Saviour imparts to the thirsty spirit is of that satisfying nature, that those who drink of it never thirst again. O there is nothing like the sweet rays of the Sun of Righteousness to make the soul happy! God is the believer's joy, his exceeding great reward. "I will go in unto the altar of God, unto God my exceeding joy: for he is the health of my countenance and my God."

"The opening heavens around me shine,

With beams of heavenly grace;

While Jesus shews that he is mine,

And whispers I am his."

« EdellinenJatka »