Angels and Hornets
“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.” — Exodus 23: 20. “And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.” — Exodus 23: 28.
Canaan is not a type of heaven. When we shall have reached the golden shore, there will be no Jerichos to conquer and no Canaanites to cast out. Peace will be married to purity, and goodness to glory. The calm surface of the sea of glass will never be ruffled by a storm. The rainbow without cloud around the throne indicates that the mists have rolled away. It will be all singing and no sighing.
But Canaan is rather a symbol of the human soul, which God enters for the purpose of casting out the bad and building up the good. Jordan is not a type of death, but rather a
symbol of complete devotement to God. The
Christian bears the relation to Jordan that Caesar did to the Rubicon and Hernando Cortez did to the ships which he burnt behind him. When Caesar passed the Rubicon on his way toward Rome, he forever committed himself to conquest or death. After Cortez had destroyed his ships and thus cut himself off from the Old World, there was no return. He must conquer Mexico or be conquered by it. So there is a time in Christian experience when, after having been delivered from the bondage of sin and wandering awhile in uncertainty, there is a consecration to God, a cutting loose from the Wilderness life, and the plunging into the conquest of Canaan. Three things are said about this conquest:
i. There is to be no compromise with the enemy. Israel must not intermarry with the Canaanites. There is to be no partnership with the evil. Every man. woman, and child of sin in our souls must be cast out.
2. This conquest is to be gradual. “Little by little I will drive them out before thee.” Sanctification is sudden, and gradual. The moment one is converted, he is set apart to the work of God, as were the holy vessels in
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the temple. But there is a gradual entering upon what God has in mind for us. In His view we are sanctified at conversion. In our own experience there is a lifetime of growth. “Little by little” we make the conquest of our souls for Christ. A victory here, another there, and defeat yonder, but all the time making progress until the whole soul-land is subdued.
3. Two of God’s agents to assist in this conquest are angels and hornets. He evidently sent a real angel before the Israelites, and the Christian to-day is encompassed with angelic spirits. They are the servants of God to do the bidding of faith. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him.” There might have been real hornets sent in such swarms as to drive the people from their homes, and make them take refuge in other lands. The mission of the angel was to lead, to protect, to rebuke, and to bring the people to battle with their enemies; and whatever leads us in the good, protects us from the evil, rebukes us for our sins, is a messenger of God sent to help us make the conquest of ourselves — a true angel.
The mission of the hornet was to make the inhabitants willing to get out. The hornet is too small and weak to overcome by force: it
cannot pick up the body and fling it out. By its little sting and the fear of it. it makes men willing to take themselves out. The mosquito drives boarders from the summer hotel, not by main force, but by the annoyance which makes them willing to go. Three policemen went into a station-house in Jersey City some time ago, and finding a man sitting by the stove they asked him what was the matter. “I have the small-pox.” he replied: and the policemen departed without being cast out. That man’s presence made them willing to leave. And so God sends hornets into the lives of Christians that sting the sins out of their souls: make the evil slough off: make it so disagreeable for the bad that it will not remain in company with the good.
It is our purpose now to look for a moment at the Canaanites of evil, which need to be cast out by means of the angels and hornets which God uses for their expulsion.
I. Unbelief.
Not to believe God is a sin which makes Him a liar. The conviction of this sin is a hornet, which should drive it away. The conscience stings us for unbelief. Sometimes in prayer-meeting we speak of not trusting God, as if it were a small matter: the very thought of it should sting us like a hornet. But the angels, which lead faith are the promises. “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” was the angel that led me to Jesus.
While Christ was in the garden of Gethsemane, an angel came and ministered unto him. While Peter was in jail with his feet in the stocks, an angel touched him and whispered, “Come with me,” and led him out into the open air. You have been in Gethsemanes of sorrow, and it was the angelic touch of some promise that sustained you. You have been in prisons of grief and of doubt, and some precious promise came like an angel with its touch and its whisper, to lead you out to freedom. Thus while the hornet of conviction stings us for unbelief, the angel of promise leads us out into larger faith.
II. Lethargy.
“Why stand ye here all the day idle?” is a hornet to sting us into activity. The tree is known by its fruits, and if you have only leaves, the thought of the Master’s coming with His curse should rouse you to do something. But the reward which lies before us is an angel that ought to lead us to do good. We are saved by grace, but rewarded according to our works, and the ringing command comes, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” We may well be impatient to lay up treasures in heaven. I for one would like to die the richest man on earth, — not rich in gold and silver and bonds, but rich in treasures laid up with God. The hope of such reward should lead us to the consecration which never lets a day pass without doing something for Christ. While the fear of barrenness is the hornet’s sting, the hope of His “Well done” is the angel’s hand.
III. Pride.
“The proud He knoweth afar off.” “Pride goeth before a fall.” Nebuchadnezzar, who boasted that he had founded the great Babylon, was brought down to eat grass like the ox. These Scriptures should be hornets to sting pride out of your soul. But the beauty and blessing of humility is an angel that leads us. “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and He will exalt you in due time,” Be little, like Moses and David, in your own estimation., and you will be great in the esteem of God. Pride weakens, humility strengthens; pride debases, humility exalts; pride blurs, humility beautifies. And yet this peacock in the hearts of others sometimes becomes a very bird of paradise in our own hearts. We are long-sighted as we look at the pride of others, but very near-sighted when we look at our own. Let the angel of God’s promise to the humble lead us into a more Christ-like estimation of ourselves.
IV. Impatience.
“Fret not thyself because of evil-doers.” “Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.” Those commands should be hornets to sting impatience out of our lives. Sometimes God sends severe providences — the very things that would test our patience — in order to rid us of impatience. Rich, prosperous men are usually the most impatient; they cannot brook delay or opposition; but, after adversity comes and they find themselves sitting amid the wreck of their fortunes, patience begins to grow. It is one of the graces made purer in the furnace. The fact that God is not in a hurry, and “he that believeth should not make haste,” is an angel to lead patience into full possession of our souls. “Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.” When we have done our part, let patience have her perfect work. May the angel of patience lead us!
V. COVETOUSNESS.
The fact that covetousness is classed with the worst of sins — idolatry, drunkenness, adultery; the fact that a covetous man should not be a deacon or pastor, nor come to the Lord’s Supper, should be a hornet to sting this miserable sin out of our hearts. But the blessedness of liberality is an angel indeed. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” “The liberal soul shall be made fat.” It is so much better to be led by the angel of the joy of giving than driven by the hornet of the fear of covetousness. I have read of an old miser who stood at the door of a humble cottage, and heard a little child crying for bread. He went off and bought some loaves, opened the door, and flung them in. Then he stood for a moment and heard the child thank God for sending bread. He went away with the joy in his heart that he never felt before, and that new joy was to him the beginning of a life of liberal giving. The joy of doing good with his money was an angel that led him out into large conquest over the Canaanites of covetousness and selfishness.
We may sum up all the Canaanites in One Expression — Love of sin. The fact that every sin we commit brings guilt, pollution, slavery, with the results in this world and the next, should be a hornet to sting it out of our souls. It is better for a man not to sin, because it is a guilty thing; because it pollutes him; because it enslaves him; because it sends him to hell, — than for him to go on loving the vile thing regardless of results. But I should rather be led by the angel of purity.
Just as the things we have mentioned are angels or hornets in our lives, so we may become as angels or hornets unto others. As the angel led the Israelites, the good that God introduced into Canaan, so we should be ever ready to lead, to protect, to help on the good forces of earth. Let us ever be on the side of right and opposed to wrong — an angel to the good, a hornet to the bad.
The Gospel has its repulsions as well as its attractions. The rose is protected by the thorn. And there is a great disciplinary power in the Gospel. If it is preached faithfully Sunday after Sunday, it will attract those that love it; it will repel those that hate it: and it is just as much our duty to repel from us those who by their influence would ruin our souls as to attract to us those who by their influence would bless us. Mrs. Bottome says that, when she decided to become a Christian, she went to her friends, and told them that they must not expect her to associate with them any longer; for she believed that their influence for evil over her would be greater than her influence for good over them. She need not have troubled herself to do this. If she had simply in their presence talked of spiritual things, the love of Christ, His word and work, and had given them to understand that she was now taken up with the service of God rather than the world, this very fact wrould have been a hornet to sting them off. If you want to get rid of evil companions, you need not order them out of your house. Be Christ-like before them, and they will either be attracted to your Christ-likeness and become Christians, or repelled by it and leave you in safety. It is sweeter, however, to be angels to lead than hornets to repel. By a godly life and wTords of kindness, we shall lead others in the truly angelic way. Mr. Trumbull, in preaching to the prisoners in a penitentiary in Philadelphia, told them that he sympathized with them, and would like to help them if he could. One poor fellow grasped his hand after the sermon, and told him that those words of sympathy had made him a better man now that he knew somebody cared for him, and he would reform and become a good citizen. A reporter’s kind word about a prisoner on trial in New York led that prisoner to feel that he ought to be a better man. In the home, in the church, in the social circle, in our business associations, we may be angels of God to lead men on to conquest of themselves.