The Two Departures: The Hopeful and the Hopeless
14 The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.” — xiv. 32.
THE peculiarities of the Hebrew proverb shine conspicuously in this specimen. The two arms of the sentence are nicely balanced, and move round a common centre. There is a mixture of similarity and difference, which makes the meaning perspicuous and the expression memorable. But if there is peculiar beauty in the words, there is terrible sublimity in the thoughts which they convey. Unspeakably great are the two things which the two balanced branches of this proverb hold in their hands. These two arms, outstretched and opposite, direct the observer, by their piercing finger-points, to Death on this side, and Life on that — endless both. Looking this way, you read the doom of the wicked; that way, you descry the hope of the just.
1. The doom of the wicked. — He “is driven away in his wickedness.” As smoke is driven by the wind, so will the wicked perish in the day of wrath. I think I hear arguments fitfully muttering through pauses of the blast, that “God would not make creatures, and then torment them.” The smoke complains that it is hard to be driven by the wind; and yet it is driven by the wind. This very word will justify the Judge, and shut the convict’s mouth: it comes to warn the wicked, that he may turn and live. If he come out of his wickedness at God’s invitation, he will not be driven away in it by His wrath.
We are not able to form a right conception of what it is to be and abide in wickedness: because it is so near us, we do not know it. If it were a body standing before us, we could examine its proportions, and describe its appearance; but because it is a spirit transfused through us, we remain ignorant of its character and power. To be in sin is a fearful condition; yet he who is in it may be at ease. A ship is lying in a placid river when winter comes, and is gradually frozen in. The process was gentle, and almost imperceptible. There was no commotion, and no crash. The ice crept round, and closed in upon the ship without any noisy note of warning. If it had been a foreign body brought by human hands to bind the ship withal, the operation would have been observed. If men, whether professing to be friends or foes, had earned trees or stones, and piled them round the ship, suspicion would have been aroused; the owners would have heaved their anchors, and worn her down to the sea for safety. As it was, no one approached the ship. Her own element, the water on which she lay, closed and held her. It was not possible to prevent that lockfast, except by taking the ship out of the river in time.
But what is the effect 1 The ship is not shaken. No creaking is heard — no strain is felt. She feels firm and easy. Even when the pines of the neighbouring forest are bending to the blast, she sits unmoved in her solid bed. That bed she has made for herself, and therefore it fits her. This is very like the wicked in his iniquity, and before he is driven away. When it closed round him, he was not afraid. It was not some danger threatening from without, and pressed forward by another. It was his own; it was what he had always been in. It was his element. Silently and surely, that which he lived in congealed and locked him fast. Nor is he in any way alarmed. In its closing embrace, it does not thwart him. It humours him all round. It yields to every feature of his character, only it holds him fast. He is more at ease now than others, or than himself was before. His neighbours may be sometimes agitated, but he is at peace. He stands steady in his element, and no ripple disturbs its surface.
When the ice of the river goes away, the imbedded ship goes with it. It is a dreadful departure. The rupture of the ice on a large river is one of the sublimest scenes in nature. The water swells beneath the ice holds by the crooked banks a while; but after a period of suspense, the flood prevails, and the trembling rending mass gives way. Eeeling icebergs and foaming yellow waves tumble downward in tumultuous heaps, and the ship is swept away like a feather on a flood.
If we had a sense for perceiving spiritual things, the most heart-rending sight in the world would be a sinner set fast in hia element, and the flood of wrath secretly swelling from beneath. They speak of angels weeping, and the figure may in its own place be useful; but we do not need the aid of such a supposition here. The Lord of angels wept indeed, when he saw sinners fixed and easy in their sin, with the tide of divine vengeance rolling forward to drive them away. That same Jesus looks in pity now on the wicked in their wickedness, and continues sweetly calling, “Come unto me.”
No remedy is possible to the wicked in his wickedness; and the remedy which consists in bringing him out, he is not willing to accept. For all who are sinners — that is, for all men — a rending is prepared. Every one must either be riven out of his wickedness, or driven away in it. This tearing or that every one must endure. The alternative is, Come out of her, my people; or, Be partaker of her plagues. Pain there must be; either the pain of the new birth, or that of the final judgment. A process is ready for drawing the victims out. The power is Christ’s love; the means the gospel message. Some lie locked fast in wickedness, who know that wrath is coming, and yet refuse to let the line of that Almighty love be laid about their souls. Why do they choose death rather than life? Because they are so closely bedded in their element, that to be drawn out of it is to be torn asunder. Such is the feeling of the captive soul; and the answer which the possessing spirit suggests is, “What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus; art thou come to torment us before the time]” But the love of Christ, when a repentant sinner casts himself confidently upon it, melts the fastenings away, and makes the outcome easy. When from the iron icy bondage, hope, the anchor of the soul, goes out, and up, and into Jesus our Advocate within the veil, not only is ultimate safety secured, but present severance accomplished. Down the line of hope’s hold flows a melting heat from the Sun of righteousness, which loosens the gripe of sin, and sets the soul at liberty. But the sentence remains sure; he who is not so drawn out of wickedness, will be driven away in it.
2. The hope of the just. — “The righteous hath hope in hia death.” Certain it is that the faithful in ancient times believed
God, and it was counted to them for righteousness; but at this distance of time we are not able to determine how far their faith was like an appetite of the renewed nature, and how far it attained to understanding also. The regenerate in the childhood state of the Church were alive, and lived upon the sincere milk of the word, and grew thereby, whatever the measure of their knowledge or their ignorance may have been. The righteousness that justified Abraham was the same as that which Paul put on. The righteous of those days knew that, by birthright and personal desert, he was on the same standing with the wicked, and that the difference was due to redeeming love. If Israel’s first-born were not destroyed like Egypt’s, it was because the Lamb’s blood marked their dwellings. On the ground of a perfect righteousness imputed, an actual obedience begins: he is bought with a price, and therefore serves the Lord. By birthright he was a child of wrath: he has been “begotten again into a living hope.” This man has hope at the time when humanity needs it most — when death draws near. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Stars are a grateful mitigation of the darkness; but we do not want them by day. Hope, always lovely, is then sweetest when it beams from heaven through the gloom that gathers round the grave.
There are diversities in this department of the Spirit’s ministry. Some even of the children depart under a cloud, and others in sunlight, softer at the setting than it was at noon. Some are glad when they are passing through the flood, and others do not begin their song till they are safe on the further shore. The various notes of their varied experience, when the redeemed tell the story of their life, will give richer music to the hymns of heaven.
There is one class of experiences of which many examples occur. A youth who has been seeking first the kingdom of God with alternate hope and fear, but without violent emotions on either side, comes suddenly and unexpectedly in sight of death. There is at first, and for a time, a very great tumult of alarm. When that tumult subsides, a peace that passeth all understanding keeps the heart and mind, until the spirit is released from flesh, and darts away.
The ship has set sail, and kept on her course many days and nights, with no other incidents than those that are common to all
Suddenly land appears; but what the character of the coast may be, the voyagers cannot discern through the tumult. The first effect of a near approach to land is a very great commotion in the water; for it is one of the coral islands of the South Pacific, encircled by a ring of fearful breakers at some little distance from the shore. The waves are higher and angrier than any they hava seen in the open sea; but forward they must go. Partly through the surf, partly over it, they are borne at a bound; strained and giddy, and almost senseless, they find themselves within that sentinel ridge of crested waves that guard the shore, and the portion of sea that still lies between them and the land is calm and clear like glass. It seems a lake of paradise, and not an earthly thing at all. It is inexpressibly sweet to lie on its bosom, after the long voyage and the wild tossing of the barrier ridge. All the heavens are mirrored in the water, and along its edge lies a flowery land. Across the belt of sea the ship glides gently, and gently touches soon that lovely shore.
It is thus that I have seen a true pilgrim thrown into a tumult when the shore of eternity suddenly appeared before him. A great fear tossed and sickened him for some days; but when that barrier was passed, he experienced a peace deeper, stiller, sweeter, than any he ever knew before. A little space of life’s voyage remained, after the fear of death had sunk into a calm, and before the immortal felt the solid of eternal rest. On life’s sea, as yet, was the spirit lying, but the shaking had ceased; and when at last the spirit passed from a peaceful sea to a peaceful land, the change seemed slight. The righteous had hope in his death. “Blessed hope!”
Cratjr in fobs.