Sunshine
“BUT UNTO YOU THAT FEAR MT NAME SHALL THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARISE WITH HEALING IN HIS WINGS; AND YE SHALL GO FORTH, AND GROW UP AS CALVES OF THE
STALL.” — Malachi iv. 2.
HHERE is one grand distinction among men — -*- “him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not.” See last verse of previous chapter.
Fearing God is the mark which distinguishes man from man far more than wealth, rank, or nationality.
The coming of Christ is a calamity or a blessing to men according to their character.
What a change of figures! To the wicked “aw oven!” (See verse 1.) To God-fearing men a “Sun!”
Our text was fulfilled at our Lord’s first coming.
It awaits a far larger fulfilment at his second coming.
It is always true as a general principle, and it is felt to be true when the Lord Jesus spiritually draws near to his people.
I. LET US THINK OF OUK LOKD AS THE SUN.
1. He is the centre of the whole system of grace.
2. He is to us the Grand Attraction, and Holdfast,
keeping us in our places, as the sun keeps the planets in their orbits.
(378)
3. He is the source of all good. His beams are righteousness: all that emanates from him is good: all good emanates from him; even as all light and heat come, directly or indirectly, from the sun.
1. He is without variableness or shadow of turning. James i. 17. In himself he is for ever the same, shining on without ceasing.
5. To us he has his risings, and his settings. If
for a while we are in the shade, let us look for his arising.
6. To those who fear him not he never rises, for
they are blind, and know no day, and see
no light.
What the world would be without the sun, that should we be without our Lord. Can we conceive the gloom, the death, etc.?
II. LET US ENJOY THE BLESSINGS WHICH HE
SCATTERS.
1. What light of knowledge, what warmth of love,
what radiance of joy we receive from him I Let us walk in it.
2. What health he gives! Healing for the sick,
health for the strong. Every sunbeam is medicinal, every word of
Christ is life. The earlier we come to Christ the better:
his rising is attended with sparkling dewi
of joy.
8UN8HLNB. 876
The more we commune with him the better: let as bask in the sunlight.
8. What liberty he brings! “Ye shall go forth.” When the sun has reached a certain point in his annual course, the cattle which have been stalled are led for,th to the mountain pastures; so the Lord Jesus sets his people free, and they go forth —
To enjoy spiritual privileges.
To perform spiritual duties.
To reach spiritual attainments.
To carry abroad spiritual influences.
4, What growth he fosters! — “and grow up M
calves of the stall.”
When the Lord Jesus is with his people — They are abundantly fed. They are comfortably housed, They are regularly tended. They advance rapidly to maturity. A heart which communes with Jesus possesses a freshness of youth, an ease of life, and other advantages, which admirably fulfil the comparison oi 4* calves of the stall.”
As all this comes of fearing the Lord, let us be diligent in worship, careful in obedience, and reverent in spirit.
As all this conies through our Lord Jesus, let ua abide under his sweet influences, and never more out of his sunshine into that far off country, where
876 MY SERMON NOTBtt
the Arctic winter is never cheered by the San at righteousness.
We have not to make a Sun, or move the Sun, or buy the Sun; but only to step into the free and blessed sunshine. Why do we hesitate?
Why do we not by faith pass from darkness into bis marvellous light?
The late Mr. Robinson, of Cambridge, called upon a friend just as he had received a letter from his son, who was surgeon on board a vessel then lying off Smyrna. The son mentioned to his father that every morning, about sunrise, a fresh gale of air blew from the sea across the land, and, from its wholesomenesa and utility in clearing the infected air, this wind is always called the Doctor. “Now,” says Mr. Robinson, “it strikes me that the prophet Malachi, who lived in that quarter of the world, might allude to this circumstance when he says that ‘the Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings.’ The Psalmist mentions ‘the wings of the wind,’ and it appears to me that this salubrious breeze, which attends the rising of the sun, may be properly enough considered as the wings of the sun, which contain uch healing influences, rather than the beams of the sun, as the passage has been commonly understood.” — Burder’* “Oriental CVaCowu.”
There is a beautiful fable of the ancient mythology, to the effect that Apollo, who represent* the inn, killed a huge poisonous serpent by arrows surely aimed, and shot from afar. It intimates that sunbeams, darted straight from heaven, destroy manydeadly things that crawl upon the ground, and so make the world a safer habitation. The parable is, in this respect, a stroke of truth, and it coincides with a feature of the eternal covenant. Light from the face of Jesus, when it is permitted to stream right into a human heart, destroys the noisome things that haunt it, as Apollo’s arrows slew the snake. — W. Arnot.
In all the departments of vegetable, animal, moral, and spiritual life, light stands out as the foremost blessing and benefit which God confers. In physical existence this is especially true. Thousands die for lack of light. No vigorous vegetable life, no healthy animal life, can long exist without light. The pestilence “walketh in darkness “..... Sir James Wylie, late physician to the Emperor of Russia, attentively studied the effects of light as a curative agent in the hospital of St. Petersburg, and he discovered that the number of patients who were cured in rooms properly lighted was four times that of those confined in dark rooms. These different results are due to the agency of light, without a full supply of which plants and animals maintain but a sickly and feeble existence. Light is the cheapest and best of all medicines. Nervous ailments yield to the power of sunshine. Pallid faces grow fresh and ruddy beneath its glow. The sun’s rays have wonderful purifying power. — H. L. Basting*.
“Heaven be ppraised I I have once more seen the sun,” said Dr. Hayes, in his record of the experience of a certain Arctic day, when he, with others, had visited a point from which they could see the sun come up for the first time from his long winter isolation. “Off went our caps with simultaneous impulse, and we hailed this long-lost wanderer of the heavens with loud demonstrations of joy.”
A man scoffingly asked, “What advantage has a religious man over any one like myself? Does not the sun shine on me as on him, this fine day?” “Yes,” replied his companion, a pious laborer, “but the religious man has two suns shining on him at once, — one on his body, the other on his soul.” — Tk* Biblical Treasury*
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