At the Seaside

I SUPPOSE there is not a little boy or girl anywhere who does not like to go to the sea; to watch the white crested waves rolling in, to dig with wooden spades in the golden sands, or look for bright-colored sea-weeds, or lovely sea-anemones in the pools amongst the rocks. But I think what I liked best at the sea was to watch the waves steadily advancing, till they reached a high reef of rocks, and then it was they looked so lovely. If the tide were rising and the wind high, then the spray rose highest and pleased me most. It looked nearly alive.
You can understand that I wished to see the reef where all this happened myself. So one day, when the tide was out, my sister and I resolved to make the venture. It looked so easy and safe. We never thought of danger, still less of going into it. So we started, going down a zig-zag stair in the cliff—that was not hard—and then we jumped from rock to rock, and, in a few minutes, climbed up first one ledge of rock and then another, gradually getting higher and higher, till we reached one of the lofty peaks we could see from the beach. I remember it all so well though it is so many years since it happened. Then we sat down, facing right out to sea; the sun shining brightly, and the rock towering high above us. I never could remember how long we stayed, but it must have been for more than an hour. At last we thought it time to go borne.
We had failed to remember that each ledge of rock which led back to the zig-zag stair, became lower and lower, nearly to the level of the sea, and that each tide would cover the rocks we had crossed. It was quite plain as we got on to these lower rocks that the tide had risen and was coming in very quickly, covering the flat rocks of our path. We could not see one spot where we could cross to the higher rocks, leading to the cliff path. We were puzzled what to do. We could not stay where we were; we dared not venture on the high reef again, for even it sometimes was nearly covered by the sea. What should we do? Ah! how God takes care of His children. A gentleman had seen our difficulty, though we had not seen him, and in a clear voice called to us, "There is a safe way on here!" and he pointed with his outstretched arm. Yes! there it was indeed, safe, dry, easy; just the one way off the rocks. We crossed and were safe. We wished to thank the gentleman, but when we got to the top of the cliff he was gone.
You will say, "What a kind man!" Yes; he was kind indeed. But what if we had not taken the safe way he pointed out. And it was the only one! "Oh," you say, "you would have been mad. What else could you do? “Ah, yes; what else! And yet, when the Bible tells us to come to the Lord Jesus for salvation, to wash us from our sins in His blood—to come just as we are, as sinners, and He will save us—how many fail to come!
Ah! surely, dear children, you do not listen to the account of all this love and say, " It is nothing to me." Remember, like the rising tide on the rocks, there is no time to wait—death may come at any time. A dear little boy I knew, not more than nine years old, died lately. He learned of Jesus' love. He is with Him now—so happy—so blessed! I love to think of him. You may meet him in heaven, for there is room for all—a welcome for all there. Everybody washed in the precious blood of Jesus will meet there. But, remember, if you stay where you are, in your sins, if you try any other way of salvation, you will be lost forever. There is just one way. May God by His Spirit lead you to it, for Jesus' sake.
Figures and Shadows
THE MEETING PLACE FOR GOD AND MAN.
THE altar in Israel was the meeting place for God and man; and, indeed, we may say, as a broad and general principle, that at the altar God meets sinful man and sinful man may meet God. But more-no other meeting place on earth exists for man; and if we do not meet God as to our sins at the place designed by His appointment for our eternal blessing, we must meet Him at His solemn judgment throne to our eternal doom.
These are Jehovah's words in reference to the altar of His sanctuary in Israel: "There I will meet with the children of Israel"; and of the altar which the pious Israelite might erect, Jehovah said "In all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee." As we consider the goodness of God in providing a meeting place for man and Himself, and as the fact fills the mind, that there, was only one such place allowed by Him, both the grace and the solemnity of, the position of the altar are present to us in all their importance.
It was not left for the teachers of Israel to determine the locality of the altar—God Himself arranged its position—for we now have Jehovah's sanctuary in view. The position designed for it by Jehovah was such that everyone in the camp—or in later years in the court of the temple—could perceive it at once; and, as it was situated in immediate connection with the gateway, or entrance to the sanctuary, everyone coming: to Jehovah could approach it at once. There was no manner of hindrance to debar the Israelite in approaching the altar. Indeed, how could such a thing be? The meeting place was by Jehovah's appointment open to all—to rich and poor—who would receive the blessing of God.
It is remarkable that, as the Church lost her early or apostolic simplicity, and changed the table of communion into an altar for sacrifice, she located it in exact opposition to the divine order in Israel. Instead of placing it in front of the worshipper who would approach God, she set it as far from him as the extent of the building would allow. It might be more correct to say, she did this by degrees—for, at the first, the altar had a row of seats, or a long bench behind it, whereon sat the elders and the bishop in his chair; but, as time proceeded, this bench was removed. And, that there should be no doubt as to her intention, she also erected a railing or a fence between the altar and the people—thus doing all that in her lay to write upon men's minds that the meeting place between God and sinful man was difficult of approach.
Again, in process of time, the priest officiating, instead of facing the people, stood with his back to them in his ministrations. The Church, in her departure from apostolic truth, taught that no approach could be obtained unless the services of the priest were brought into requisition. The contrast between the position of the altar as developed by the Church and that as commanded by Jehovah in Israel is so absolute, that everyone who trembles at Jehovah's word should earnestly consider it.
The teaching of Jehovah by sign and symbol was, the accessibility for man to reach the place where God would meet him. The altar stood in the open air, in broad daylight, and had no mystery about it. It proclaimed its lessons to all. The teaching of the Church by sign and symbol developed difficulty upon difficulty for the man who would reach God. Even the place to which the ordinary man was denied access, as the Church evolved her false ideas, became shrouded with drapery and lighted artificially!
The Reformation destroyed a great deal of this false symbolism. It laid a heavy and righteous hand upon a vast amount of priestly sacrilege, and ecclesiastical acts of despite to the cross of Christ, and ways of despising the grace of God. But, alas! a rage of fashion subverting the teaching of God and perverting His symbols, has again set in in the land. Yet, be human fashion what it may, God never changes, and, blessed be His Name! He never changes in His grace which the position of the altar proclaims to every sinner who would approach Him. Nay, since the cross of His Son, which the altar prefigured, God has adorned the place where He meets man in his sins with glories and beauties such as Israel never knew and the heart of man never conceived.
Not only was the altar hard by the gate of the sanctuary, and a witness to all of accessibility, it was set to the four quarters of the earth, looking outward, as it were, to all the world. It was the moral center where every creature might meet God. In this characteristic it was an on looking to the fulfillment of Christ's own words: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me. This He said signifying what death He should die." "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.''
We will now observe briefly the witness of the sacrificial blood upon the altar. The blood was either cast upon the altar, or some of it was placed upon the altar's horns. This latter action related to the sacrifices for sin. Now, whatever was the manner of the disposal of the blood, the object lesson was enacted thousands of times a year in the sight of Israel, and was familiar to all. The manner of the disposal of the blood was ordained by Jehovah Himself in His instructions to Moses, and for centuries the priests of Israel obeyed those instructions. As for the objection that those instructions were the invention of the priests of Ezra's time, it is very well known that heathen priests did not deal with the blood of their sacrifices after the manner of Israel. The teaching contained in the disposal of the blood is divine: man's mind did not conceive it; no, it shadowed forth the glory of God in reference to the cross of His Son.
Our space confines our thoughts to the placing of the blood of the sin offering upon the four horns of the altar. Horns are emblematic of power. With them the bull and the ram offered in sacrifice used their strength. The horns upon the altar were formed of brass, and they made a terminal at each corner rising upwards, and thus completed its symbolism. The crowning power of the altar arose towards heaven, and bent towards the four ends of the earth. Upon these horns the sacrificial blood was placed. The blood proclaimed pardon. Thus was the power of the altar before heaven and towards man witnessed in the pardon of sins. Before eternal justice it proclaimed the death of the victim on behalf of the guilty; unto the guilty it proclaimed forgiveness through satisfied righteousness.
The teaching of the New Testament in reference to the sin offering expresses itself in plain words such as these: "He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him"; " Christ... His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree " —words which teach the power of the sacrifice of Christ in its effects upon His people. Now, how did the Church act in reference to this teaching? She erected an altar having no symbol of power attached to it. The Church lowered in the eyes of her children, the divine conception of the altar and deformed it. Neither had she shedding of blood in her sacrifice upon her altars, and without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. God declared through Christ "the forgiveness of sins" and justification "from all things" to all who believed, and remission of sins and iniquities by virtue of Christ's one offering for sin. God by His Holy Spirit, by apostolic teaching, magnified the power of Christ's cross; but the Church, by her altars, did her best to eclipse from man's eye the glory of Christ's sacrifice and the majesty of His work, and to substitute in their place a faint and faulty idea. And such as emulate the altar of the Church, and make light of the altar of God, have to confess to their weakness by the fact that their altar has not even the symbol of power connected with it. From such an altar the testimony in heaven of Christ's fulfilled sacrifice is lacking, and by it the conscience of the worshipper is unpurged from dead works. The fashion of the day perverts the communion table into an altar for sacrifice, and does so with all the pomp and pride of incense, garments, and candles; but the fashion is but the garb of a mean and feeble religion, having no true resemblance to the majesty and the glory, the wealth and the grace of the Gospel of God.
Glimpses of the Golden Thread
IN NUMBERS AND DEUTERONOMY.
WE resume the theme of the coming glory of the kingdom as it shines before us in the different books of the Bible. The Book of Exodus closes with the grand scene of Jehovah's glory in the midst of men—a foreshadowing of the kingdom in its noblest character—and from that glory the Book of Leviticus opens out its teaching of access to God. Now, as the Book of Numbers unrolls before us, we see men surrounding the sanctuary of Jehovah, and arrayed in their noble estate as the army of Jehovah about His dwelling place. The tents of Israel form in the picture the outer enclosure of the sanctuary of God; anticipatively, it almost might be said, "The tabernacle of God is with men."
After the camp of Israel was thus arranged, the marching order was given. Would Israel march to victory, and bring in the kingdom to the glory of God? Alas! the Book of Numbers is stamped with the backslidings of Israel, and their consequent wanderings in the wilderness—not, indeed, as the army of Jehovah, but as a mere mass of men. Close upon the marching order to Israel, instead of the obedience of the people came their murmurings, their weariness of the manna, and the "very great plague" sent upon them by Jehovah. So that instead of beholding the army of Jehovah in its designed order and array, we see a great graveyard where the bodies of the murmurers were laid. We seem to have lost sight of the coming kingdom altogether; and, indeed, if its coming depended upon human effort, we should give up all hope of its appearing.
Further great murmurings of Israel are chronicled. Then a rebellion of the princes and the people of such a nature occurred, that Jehovah was ready to consume them all in a moment. But in the sequel once more there arose, shining out from the very darkness of Israel's ways, a picture of the grace and the glory of the coming kingdom.
Let us note the ways of God at this time with backsliding Israel. Israel had scorned the priesthood of Jehovah. The princes had claimed honors equal with Aaron, and had perished in their contempt of the High Priest chosen of God. What, then, would Jehovah do? He stilled their murmurings and rebellion by bidding Moses take the rods of Israel—the emblems of tribal authority—and place them before Him in His sanctuary. He would make to cease from before Him the murmurings of Israel in reference to His chosen leaders. And He would do so by making the rod of priestly authority fruitful before Israel's eyes. The rod of Aaron, in company with the rods of the heads of the tribes, was laid up before the ark, and on the morrow it was brought forth with the others. They retained their lifelessness, but Aaron's rod bore "buds," "blossoms," and "almonds"; it was abundant in the energy and fruitfulness of life.
In this wonder we see once more the golden thread of the glory of the coming day. Over the dark background of man's rebellion, against God's Great High Priest, the grace of God is wrought. The sin of the rebellion related in Numbers is distinctly referred to prophetically by St. Jude as the climax of latter-day apostasy.
The religious sin of our times is particularly in relation to the priesthood of Christ. The priesthood of the day asserts for itself power and virtue which belong alone to God's High Priest in heaven. Yet while the princes of the religious world may exalt themselves against His authority, none of them is capable of truly blessing his fellow men. Their authority is like the lifeless rods of the chiefs of Israel. But the rod of Christ's priestly authority is full of blessing. In His priesthood flowers and fruit are simultaneously put forth. He saves to the uttermost, He intercedes for His people, He brings them home to God. And in the end grace shall triumph over man's murmurings and over man's rejection of the Christ of God, and our High Priest shall come forth in power to reign in all the fullness of His excellence and glory. For where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. The kingdom shall be introduced by virtue of the intercession of our Great High Priest.
The Book of Deuteronomy reiterates the words of Jehovah, and lays down principles which should govern Israel when possessing their own promised land. After what had been recorded of Israel in the wilderness, it is not surprising that laws and statutes should be earnestly pressed upon the people to induce their obedience.
The Book of Deuteronomy closes with a song and a blessing. Let us linger for a moment over the song. There is a moral fitness in the fact that Moses, the Man of God, who introduced Israel into the wilderness, and their journey to the promised land, with a song, should, as they were about to enter that land, and as he took his leave of them, do so with a song! In his second song he joined Joshua with himself in its recital to the people of Israel. But how vastly different was his first song of unbroken victory, from his last of chastened reliance on God. Forty years in the wilderness, spent as to the greater part by Israel in sin and failure, necessarily altered the, great composer's thoughts about the people, and it could not be otherwise. And he taught them his last song in order that they should set their hearts to its words, and thus by its means prolong their years in the promised land. And this spirit is necessary for all who have experienced a little of themselves; a chastened spirit, or a sense of our sins and follies, should fill us with greater thoughts of divine grace. The song recites the sorrowful ways of Israel, their idolatries and perverseness, and looks forward on to the end, when, in the coming day, at length, Israel shall learn itself. But it does far more; the song rejoices in Jehovah, in His judgment and His fruitfulness, and calls to mind His first purposes when, in separating the sons of Adam, He fixed the boundaries of the nations of the earth according to the number of the children of Israel. Here, indeed, the absolute certainty of the coming kingdom shines forth. It shall be; for it is the purpose of God. Egypt had seemed to overmaster the divine purpose in Israel's slavery, but Jehovah had triumphed gloriously over Egypt; now worse enemies than Egypt had seemed to gain the victory—even the unbelief, and rebellion, and perverseness of the chosen people—but Jehovah would yet prevail —Israel should be blessed. The kingdom should surely come. The nations should rejoice, and the sins of Israel should be forgiven.
After Moses's song came his blessing. As we regard it in its broad aspect as relating to Israel at large, and the realization of the kingdom, we especially rest upon the well-known words: “There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms... Who is like unto thee, O people saved by Jehovah?"
In the glory and the character of God lie the sure foundation of all our blessings. We may, like Israel, by our ways forfeit everything; but in God is our trust—in Him we hope. He will give us grace and glory—underneath are the everlasting arms. And thus shall it be in the coming day for this earth. Man has forfeited all blessing by his sins and rebellion; but the Lord has promised, and according to His own great name, He will bless. He will establish His sure word through the burnt offering and the incense-through the sacrifice and the intercession of Christ.