The Love That Will Not Let Us Go
“My God, Thou art all Love! Not one poor minute ‘scapes Thy breast But brings a favour from above — And in this Love — I rest.” HERBERT.
ISAIAH xlix. 16.)
Bi chapter is strewn with assurances to the chosen
people on the eve of their return from Babylon. They were timid, and reluctant to quit the familiar scenes of their captivity; they dreaded the dangers and privations of the journey back; and questioned whether the great empire of their captors would ever let them go, or permit their city to arise from her ruins. Therefore Jehovah’s voice takes on a tone of unusual tenderness, and speaks as He only can. Let us heed his successive assurances of comfort and compassion, “for the Lord hath comforted his people, and will have compassion upon his afflicted.”
I. HE WILL LEAD WITH A SHEPHERD’S. CARE. — The prevailing characteristic of the early Hebrews was pastoral; “Jacob kept sheep.” The patriarchs of the nation were “the stateliest shepherds of all time.” Its ideal king and its earliest prophet were taken from following the flocks. The imagery of the flock, therefore, deeply dyed the national speech, and enriched it with striking analogies. The king, and every true leader, and above all, Jehovah, was called the Shepherd of his people. ‘We are the sheep of his pasture.” This is the conception that underlies these tender assurances: ‘‘ They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite
Ghe Gentle Shepherd. IOI
them: for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them” (10).
The life of the eastern shepherd is very different from anything we are accustomed to in these northern climes. He occupies some rocky coign of vantage, whence he looks out on his sheep thinly scattered over the moorland; or leads them down to the valleys with their strips of green pasture and waters of rest; or conducts them through gloomy gorges where wild beasts have their lairs, they huddling close to his heels, wakeful, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed with club and staff, always thoughtful for the defenceless, helpless creatures of his charge. You detect the accent of the true shepherd in Jacob’s excuse for not accompanying the rapid march of Esau and his warriors. “The flocks and herds with me give suck, and if they overdrive them one day, all the flocks will die. I will lead on softly, according to the pace of the cattle that is before me.”
All this, and much more, is summed up in the exceedingly beautiful words, “He that hath mercy on them shall lead them.” What comfort is here! He knows our frame. He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities; He will not overdrive us. He will go before and lead us, but He will suit his pace to ours. The longest day’s march shall be adjusted to our capacities. The severest strain shall not overtax our powers. However rough and difficult the path, ever remember that thou art being led by Him who has mercy on thee. Hunger and thirst will be impossible for those who abide in his care and fellowship. Art thou enveloped in shadow? It is only lest heat or sun smite thee. Is the descent swift and precipitous? It is only that He may bring thee to the springs of water of life (Rev. vii. 17).
Do not murmur, Christian soul; but ever repeat to thyself, like a sweet, soft refrain, “He that hath mercy on me is leading me; even to springs of water is He guiding me. Sing, O heavens; oh, be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains!”
II], HE WILL MAKE OBSTACLES SERVE HIS PURPOSE. —
“J will thake all my mountains a way.” Mountains are prohibitory. The student of the geography of Palestine cannot fail to be impressed with the strong barricade of mountains with which God fenced in the Land of Promise on its southern frontier. “South of Beersheba, before the level desert is reached, and the region of roads from Arabia to Egypt and Philistia, there lie sixty miles of mountainous country, mostly disposed in steep ridges running east and west. The vegetation even after rain is very meagre, and in summer totally disappears. No great route leads, or ever has led, through this district. Its steep and haggard ridges are utterly inaccessible.”
Similarly, the mountains of Switzerland have sheltered liberty, and those of Afghanistan have made conquest difficult to impossibility. There were great mountains between Israel and home, yet God does not say that He would remove them;: but that they should form a pathway, as though contributing to the ease and speed of the return. “I will make all my mountains a way.”:
We all have mountains in our lives. There are people and things that threaten to bar our progress in the Divine life. That trying temperament; that large family; those heavy claims; that uncongenial occupation; that thorn in the flesh; that daily cross. We think that if only these were removed, we might live purer, tenderer, holier lives; and often we pray for their removal. O fools and slow of heart! These are the very conditions of achievement; they have been put into our life as the means to the very graces and virtues for which we have been so long praying.
Thou hast prayed for patience through long years, but there is something that tries thee beyond endurance; thou hast fled from it, evaded it, accounted it an insurmountable obstacle te the desired attainment, and supposed that.its removal would secure thy immediate deliverance and victory. Not so! Thou wouldest only gain the cessation of temptations to impatience. But this would not be patience. Patience can only be acquired through just such trials as now seem unbearable. Go back, and submit thyself. Claim to be a partaker in the patience of Jesus. Meet thy trials in Him. Thus shall the mountains that stand between thee and thy promised land become thy way to it.
Note the comprehensiveness of this promise. “1 will make all my mountains a way.” There is nothing in life which harasses and annoys that may not become subservient to the highest ends. No exception can obtain against this great though small word, all. Consider also that possessive pronoun. They are Hs mountains. He put them there.
But do not forget that the promise is in the future tense. “I will make.” We do not see the pathway from afar; but in the distance only a tumbled mass of rocks. The keenest sight cannot discern the point at which the threading path shall intersect them. But why anticipate? We know that God will not fail his promise. ‘He understandeth the way thereof and knoweth the place thereof; for He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven.” And when we come to the foot of the mountains, sve shall find the way.
III. Gop’s LovE Is MORE THAN MOTHERHOOD. — Many devout but misguided souls have placed the Virgin Mother on a level with God, and worship her, because they think that woman is more tender, more patient, more forgiving than man. “The love of woman” was David’s high-water-mark of love. And of woman’s love, none is so pure, so unselfish, so full of patient brooding pity, as a mother’s. Oh, heart of woman, it is in the first ecstasy of motherhood that thou art betrayed. Bending over the laughing babe, returning thy kisses and sallies, in an ecstasy of delight; soothing the suffering and wakeful one with snatches of lullabies and broken bits of baby-talk; watching beside the little flickering taper that will soon go out, leaving thee cold and dark; giving nights and days without a murmur or regret; prepared to surrender sleep, food, life, for thy child — that is what motherhood means. And that love follows us through life; often repelled and unrequited, it lingers near us in prayers and tears and holy yearnings; at the first symptom of illness, or summons of distress, it hurries to our side; it schemes and plans; it will stand by the felon in the dock, and hunt for a girl through Sodom; it sheds over our graves tears not less scalding than those of husband or wife.
Such love is God’s. Indeed it is a ray from his heart. If a mother’s love is but the ray, what must His heart be! But there is sometimes a failure in motherhood. “They may forget.” Maddened with frenzy, soddened with drink, flushed with unholy passion, infatuated with the giddy round of gaiety, a woman has been known to forget her sucking child. Indeed, as is recorded of the siege of Samaria, there have been times when women have stayed their hunger with the flesh of their children. But God can never so forget.
We may fall into the slough, so that our dearest will disown us; but He will not forget. We may become scarred and sin-pocked, so as to be almost unrecognisable; but He will not forget. We may be away in the far country so long that the candle will cease to burn at night in the window of the most faithful friend; but He will not forget. The fires on all human altars may have burnt to white ash; but his love will be what it was when first we knew Him. ‘
IV. God TREASURES THE THOUGHT OF HIS OWN. — The Orientals have a custom of tattooing the name of beloved friends on the hand. That is the reference here; but notice the emphasis. Not the name of Zion merely; but Zion herself, the city where David dwelt, and Solomon built his temple. This was engraved on the Divine hand. Yes, child of God, thou art photographed where God must ever behold thee, on his hands, on his heart. Thou art never for a moment out of his thought, nor hidden from his eye.
Not on one hand only, but on both. It is the plural in each case, “On the palms of my hands.”
Not tattooed or photographed, the marks of which might be obliterated and obscured; but graven. The graving tool was the spear, the nail, the cross. “Don’t write there,” said an urchin to a young exquisite scratching with a diamond on the window of a waiting-room. “Why not?” was the startled inquiry. ‘ Because you can’t rub it out,” was the instant retort. Glass will not give up its inscriptions, nor the onyx stone its seal, nor the cameo its profile; but sooner might they renounce their trust, than the hands of Christ. ‘In the midst of the throne a Lamb as it had been slain.” “He showed unto them his hands and his side.”
Not Zion’s ruins; but her walls, as they were before Nebuchadnezzar broke them down — as they were meant to be. For fifty or sixty years those walls had been in ruins. Nehemiah tells us that the débris forbad the beast he rode to pass, when he made by moonlight his first sad tour of inspection. Sanballat mocked about the heaps of rubbish. But God did not keep those ruins in mind, associated as they were with Israel’s follies and sins. Zion’s wad/s were ever before Him. Our ideal self; what we are in Jesus; what we long to be in our best moments; what we will be when grace has perfected its work and we are comely in the comeliness He shall put upon us — this is the ineffaceable conception of us that is ever before God.
What a contrast between Zion’s wail about being forsaken and forgotten, and God’s tender regard! So the believer, considering the desolations of his soul and the ruins of past joys, is apt to think himself a castaway. But it is not so. At the time of his deepest despair, God is thinking of him, as a mother of her first-born babe; and his need is ever before Him.
V. Gop’s LOVE 1S STRONG ENOUGH TO CARRY OUT ITS PURPOSE. — “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?” (24). Such is the question of despondency, asked by Israel, from the heart of the mighty empire, in which she was a helpless captive.
But Jehovah had well calculated his resources. Let but his hand be uplifted, and his people would be restored, brought back to their land by the solicitude of kings and queens. Do not consider the difficulties of thy deliverance, nor brood over past failure and mighty foes; look away from these to Him! He will become thy Greatheart, thy Champion; He will espouse thy cause and carry it through; He will show Himself strong on thy behalf. ‘Thus saith the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.”
VI. Gop’s LOVE WILL NOT PUT AWAY. — When the Jew put away his wife, he gave her a bill of divorcement (Mark x. 4). Without this piece of writing the divorce was not complete; and the husband could take his wife again without blame. Israel, away in the land of exile, thinks herself a divorced wife. She does not say as much; but she thinks, she fears it. Jehovah answers those unspoken questionings, by reminding her that she cannot produce a bill of divorce. “Thus saith the Lord, Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, wherewith I have put her away?” He may well ask where it is: He knows that it cannot be found, for He has never given it.
God cannot divorce those whom He has once taken into covenant with Himself. Backsliding, rebellious, and faithless they may be; but they are his still. Though the universe be ransacked, the bill of divorce cannot be produced. The devil himself cannot confront us with it. And the love of God will yet win back. the souls on which it has set itself. In a little wrath He hid his face for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will He forgive and gather and have mercy.