Voices That Speak to the Heart
‘* The word were but a blank, a hollow sound,
If He that spake it were not speaking still;
If all the light, and all the shade around
Were aught but issues of Almighty will.
‘* Sweet girl, believe that every bird that sings,
And every flower that stars the elastic sod,
And every thought that happy summer brings
To thy pure spirit, is a word of God.”
H. COLERIDGE,
(ISAIAH xl. 2.)
HEN the heart is sad, and the years bring no relief, be sure to turn from the fret of circumstance, the confused murmur of human life, the many voices that speak from the crowds around; and listen with ear attent, until the soul distinguishes those other deeper voices that penetrate the barrier of sense from the land of the unseen, where God is, and life is at the full. There may be no shape or form, no speaker that can be recognised, no angel-messenger with radiant glory and wing of noiseless strength; but there will be voices, not one or two only, but sometimes, as in this marvellous paragraph, four at least. Each the voice of God, but each with a different accent, a different tone. /
The anonymity of the voices is unimportant. The multiplication table is anonymous; but it is not less true. Some of the sweetest of the Psalms, and the Epistle to the Hebrews are anonymous; but they carry their credentials on their face, everywhere in their fabric is the hall-mark of inspiration. That these voices speak out of the void, borne down the wind from eternity, whilst the heralds themselves are veiled in twilight which is slowly opening to dawn, makes nothing against their credibility and comfort. A strain is sweet, though we know not the composer; a picture is noble, though we know not the artist; a book is true and helpful, though no name stands on the title-page. The heart of man, made in the image of God, recognises instinctively the voices that speak from God; as a child, far from home in the blackest night, would recognise instantly any of the voices that it had been wont to hear from its cradle-days.
This is one characteristic of the voices that reach us from God: They speak home to the heart (R.V., marg.) The phrase in the Hebrew is the ordinary expression for wooing, and describes the attitude of the suppliant lover endeavouring to woo a maiden’s heart. Love can detect love. The heart knows its true affinity. Many voices may speak to it, but it turns from them all; it heeds them not; till one day the true prince sounds on the horn the blast for which all was waiting — the spell is broken, and the sleeping maiden awakes to welcome her true lover. So thy heart will recognise its Immortal Lover by this token. “I was asleep, but my heart waked; it is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh.”
I. THE VOICE OF FORGIVENESS. — The first need of the soul is forgiveness. It can endure suffering; and if that suffering, like the Jewish exile, has been caused by its own follies and sins, it will meekly bow beneath it, saying with Eli, under similar circumstances, “It is the Lord; let Him do what seemeth good to Him.” But the sense of being unforgiven! God’s clouded face! The dark shadow on the heart! Neither sun nor star shining for many days! The oppressive weight of unforgiven sin! The question whether God’s mercy may not be clean gone for ever, and that He will be favourable no more! This bitterness of heart for sin is the first symptom of returning life. It does not justify, but it prepares the soul eagerly to seek and tenaciously to hold God’s method of righteousness. And before God can enter upon his great work of salvation, before He can clear away the débris and restore the ruined temple, before He can reproduce his image, it is needful to assure the penitent and believing soul that its “Speak ve Comfortably.’ 17
time of service is accomplished, that its iniquity is pardoned, and that it hath received at the Lord’s hand double for all its sins.
In dealing with the question of sin and its results, let us always distinguish between its penal and natural consequences. The distinction comes out clearly in the case of drunkenness or criminal violence. Society steps in and inflicts the penalties of the fine, the prison, or the lash; but in addition to these, there is the aching head, the trembling hand, the shattered nervous system. So in respect to all sin. Its violation of the holy law of God; its affront to the majesty of Divine government; its personal injury to the Lawgiver — could only be atoned for by the death of the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. He bore our sins in His own body on the tree — He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. He was made sin, therefore our trespasses cannot be imputed to us; and God in Him has reconciled the world unto Himself.
But the natural consequences remain. David was forgiven, but the sword never left his house. The drunkard, the dissolute, the passionate, may be pardoned, and yet have to reap as they sowed. The consequences of forgiven sin may be greatly sanctified; the Marah waters cured by the tree of the cross — yet they must be patiently and inevitably endured. It was thus that Jerusalem was suffering, when these dulcet notes reached her. She was loved with an everlasting love. Though the literal city was in ruins, and her sons in exile, yet to God they were Jerusalem still — ‘‘ Speak ye comfortably to /erusalem.” But, nevertheless, the backsliding and rebellious people were doomed to serve their appointed time and captivity, and suffer the natural and inevitable results of apostasy. Hence the double comfort of this first announcement; not only that all iniquity was pardoned, but that warfare was accomplished, and that she had suffered double enough of natural punishment to serve the Divine purpose of sanctification.
Thou too hast been suffering bitterly. Those early indiscretions and errors of thy life have brought a terrible revenue of pain. Thou hast passed many days over a path
paved by burning cinders, and thy feet are blistered. But B
God will not always be threshing thee. The sword shall not devour for ever. The billows of the sea shall pursue thee to their limit, but not beyond. Thy time of hard service as a conscript (lit. rendering) is accomplished, thine iniquity pardoned, thou hast received double for all thy sins. It has appeared to come from thy foes; but it has been meted out by the Lord’s hand, and He says, It is more than enough.
Il. THE VOICE OF DELIVERANCE. — Between Babylon and Palestine lay a great desert of more than thirty days’ journey. But the natural difficulties that seemed to make the idea of return chimerical, were small compared with those that arose from other circumstances. The captives were held by as proud a monarchy as that which refused to let their fathers go from the brick-kilns of Egypt. Mountains arose in ranges between them and freedom, and valleys interposed their yawning gulfs. But when God arises to deliver his people who cry day and night unto Him, mountains swing back, as did the iron gate before Peter; valleys lift their hollows into level plains; crooked things become straight; and rough places smooth.
When Eastern monarchs travel through their dominions, they are preceded by couriers, who require the towns through which they pass to repair the roads and highways. This is the purport of the herald voice, which rings out on the startled and trembling silence, ‘‘ Prepare ye in the wilderness the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God”; and which foretells the levelling of obstacles, as a woman’s hand may smooth creases out of linen, or the steam roller level the sand.
If thou hadst ears to hear, thou too shouldst hear it. Thou art sitting solitary and desolate; the Lord’s song has long been hushed on thy tongue; the hand of the oppressor is heavy; and it seems useless to expect other deliverance than that of death. Thou hast, like Job, courted and fondled the idea of dying. “Now should I have lien down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest.” But God has some better thing awaiting thee in the near future, when his “@ait only upon God.” 19
glory is revealed. Dawn is at hand, and with dawn deliverance.
It seems impossible. The tangle is so great, the obstacles so many, the hold of captivity so tenacious. There are, doubtless, smiling Italian landscapes; but the Alps stand as an impassable barrier, with inaccessible crags, and walls of ice, and yawning crevasses. Things are too crooked ever to be straightened in this world; too rough to admit of further progress, which is as impossible as of sledges over hummocks of ice. But wait only upon God; let thine expectation be from Him. He will come with a strong arm; and as He leads thee forth — as the angel led Peter — to thine amazement insuperable obstacles shall disappear: Red Seas and Jordans shall yield pathways; mountains shall fill valleys; ropes shall be as tow in fiame; and netted snares shall be like cobwebs, which a touch destroys.
III. THE VOICES OF DECAY AND IMMORTAL STRENGTH. — As man’s soul is still, and becomes able to distinguish the voices that speak around him in that eternal world to which he, not less than the unseen speakers, belongs, it hears first and oftenest the lament of the angels over the transcience of human life and glory. Ina stillness, in which the taking of the breath is hushed, the soul listens to their conversation as they speak together. “Cry,” says one watcher to another. “What shall I cry?” is the instant inquiry. “There is,” continues the first, “but one sentiment suggested by the aspect of the world of men. All flesh is grass, and all its beauty like the wild flowers of the meadow-lands, blasted by the breath of the east wind, or lying in swathes beneath the reaper’s scythe.”
The words meet with a deep response in the heart of each thoughtful man. “Man cometh forth as a flower, and is cut down.” “As for man, his days are as grass; as the flower of the field, so he flourisheth.” We have all seen it. Our goodly sons, our sweet, fair girls, our little babes, have faded beneath our gaze, and lie among the grass of ordinary folk. Jerusalem had long been in exile; one by one her heroes and defenders, her statesmen and prophets, had died in captivity. Her sons were now of a smaller type. Nehemiahs. in the place of Isaiahs; Ezras instead of Jeremiahs; Zerubbabels for Hezekiahs. Where was the Moses to lead this second Exodus; the Joshua to settle them in their land; the Solomon to build their temple? There seemed no reply, save that given by the sigh of the wind from the great Lone-land, and the edge of Death’s sharp reaping-hook. Thus the deliverers and champions of earlier days have passed away. Who now shall succour?
But listen further to the voices of the heavenly watchers. The failure of man shall not frustrate the Divine purpose. Lover and friend may stand aloof, or be powerless to help; the strong arm may be powerless to fulfil its olden promises; the prop of the family may have fallen; the bread-winner may be on his bed, unable to do aught to maintain wife and children: but God will do as He has said. He is independent of men and means. He can make ravens bring food. “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the Word of the Lord shall stand for ever.”
It is good to hear this angelic testimony to the permanence of the Word of God. Of course we could not doubt it. By it were the heavens made, and all the host of them; and by it the wheel of natural revolution is ever kept in motion; and yet since our all depends on it, since it is the basis of our hope in the Gospel, we may be forgiven for hailing gladly the confirmation of heavenly testimony, that the Word of our God shalJ stand for ever.
IV. VoIcEs TO HERALD THE SHEPHERD-KING. — The Old Version and the margin of the R.v. are perhaps preferable to the R.v. Zion, the grey fortress of Jerusalem, is bidden to climb the highest mountain within reach, and to lift up her voice in fearless strength, announcing to the cities of Judah lying around in ruins that God was on his way to restore them. “Say unto the cities, Behold your God! Behold the Lord God will come.”
All eyes are turned to behold the entrance on the scene of the Lord God, especially as it has been announced that He will come as a mighty one. But, lo! a Shepherd conducts His flock with leisurely steps across the desert sands, gathering the lambs with His arm, and carrying them in His bosom, and gently leading those that give suck. It is as when, in after centuries, the beloved apostle was taught to expect the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and, lo! in the midst of the throne stood a Lamb as it had been slain.
Do not be afraid of God. He has a shepherd’s heart and skill. He will not over-drive. When He puts forth his own sheep, He will certainly go before them, and they shall follow Him. He will suit his pace to theirs. Words can never tell his tender considerateness. If the tract lies over difficult and stony roads, it is because there is no other way of reaching the rich meadow-lands beyond. When strength fails, He will carry thee. When heavy demands are made, He will be gentleness itself. He is the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep, as the Father knows Him.
These are the voices that speak to us from the Unseen. Happy is he who makes a daily parenthesis of silence in his heart, that he may hear them speak! It was a good habit of a devout servant of God to sit before the Lord for an unbroken period at the end of each day, that he might hear what God the Lord might speak. Ours be the cry of Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth,”