The Rebukes of Love

“This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest, atid this is the refreshing” —

“3s iiiang as E lofac, 31 rrbuJic anlJ cfjastcn.”

—Rev. iii. 19.

, T T What! speak of rest and refreshment when, - „,, it may be, the rmgmg sound of the axe is

heard amid cherished earthly palm-groves all around, and the sands are strewn with lopped branches and scattered leaves! Yes. It is even so. “The wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more! But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him” (Pri. ciii. 16, 17).

The words of our motto-verse, too, observe, were spoken, not by the lips of Christ the Sufferer on earth, but by the glorified lips of Christ the Exalted King. They are whisperings of the Heavenly Palm, which come wafted to us from the groves of Paradise.

“No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous!” The divine dispensations are often incomprehensible. Jehovah’s name to His people is at times that which He gave to Manoah — “Wonderful,” “Secret,” “Mysterious.” That wearing sickness, that wasting heritage of pain, these long tossings on a fevered, sleepless pillow; wheie can there be love or mercy there? But the silence

THE REBUKES OF LOVE. 16i

and loneliness of the sickbed is the figurative “wilderness,” whither He “allures” that He may “speak comfortably unto them, and give them their vineyards from thence” (Hosea ii. 14, 15); rousing them from the low dream of earth, from the sordid and the secular, from busy care and debasing solicitude, to the divine and the heavenly. Or, that unexpected heritage of penury — the crash of earthly fortune, the forfeiture of earthly gain, the stripping the walls of cherished and familiar treasure, and sending those nursed in the lap of luxury penniless on the world — where is there mercy or love here? But it is through this salutary though rough discipline that He weans from the enervating influence of prosperity, leading them to exchange the mess of earthly pottage for the bread of life, perishable substance for the fine gold of heavenly gain and durable riches. Or, that cruel blighting of young hope and pure affection — the withering of some cherished Elim-palm; the opening of early graves for the loving and beloved; holiest ties formed, but the memory of which is all that remains; where is there kindness and mercy in creating bonds only to sever them, raising up friends only to bury them? The plaintive experience and utterance of the lone mother in Israel is that of many — “Call me not Naomi, call me Mara, for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me” (Ruth i. 20). But the rills are dried by Him in order to lead to the great Fountainhead; the links of earthly affection are broken, in order that stronger and more enduring ones may be formed above; the rents have been made in the house of clay, only to render more inviting “the building of God — the house not made with hands;” stimulating to live more for that world where all is perfection, where we shall stand “without fault before the throne.” A writer notes, that migratory birds are carried high by contrary winds, and that, by being

SO carried, their flight is assisted. So is it with trial. “The wind is contrary,” but it impels to an upward and a Godward flight. As it is often in the cloudy and rainy day that the mountains look near us, so often in the soul’s gloomiest seasons the hills of God are brought nighest. Tribulation is the first link in the Apostle’s golden chain. Dr. Trench, in his “Study of Words,” tells us that ‘■^tribulation’^ is derived from the Latin tribuluni, which was the machine by which the grain was sifted. Tribulation is the process of sifting, by which God clears away the chaff and the golden grain is retained. See, too, the gracious result of this sifting process. ‘Tribulation,’ to use the comment of an earnest speaker in applying the reference, ’ worketh, what? We might have expected the natural result, ‘impatience.’ It is the reverse; by the imparted grace of Him in whose hands the tribuliim is, “tribulation worketh /a//>;/r ‘” (Rom. v. 3).

Suffering Christian, you may well trust Him who uttered the startling saying which heads this meditation — who gave the mightiest pledge of love He could give, by giving His own life, — that there is some all-wise “needs be” in the trials He has laid upon you. They are designed to bring you nearer Himself. They are His own appointed gateways, opening up and admitting to great spiritual blessings. Be assured the day will come, when these mysteries in your present lot will extract nothing from your lips but grateful praise; when you shall joyfully testify — ‘Had it not been for these wilderness experiences; that protracted sickness, that loss of worldly position, the death of that cherished relative or friend, I would still have been clinging to earth as my portion, content with the polluted rill and the broken cistern, instead of drawing water out of the wells of salvation.’

An earthly father often manifests a false leniency by never tendering the needful rebuke which, timeously given, might have averted many a bitter life-sorrow. God rebukes and chastens just because He loves; and never is His love more tender than when the rod is in His hand and the rebuke on His lips. The rebukes of an earthly father are often mistimed; the result, it may be, of passion or caprice. “They verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure, but He for our profit, that we might be partakers of His holiness” (Heb. xii. 10). These withered branches, stripped from some favourite grove in the valley, may yet, afflicted one, form, in your case, the imagery of that sublime picture of the future, where the sainted multitude in the upper sanctuary are seen “clothed with white robes and pabns in their Iiands.”

God our Maker, God the Almighty Chastener, is said to give “songs in the night.” The birds of earth which “sing among the branches” are silent save in the day; but the boughs of these Elim-palms seem most alive with melody in hours of darkness. In the gloom of sorrow, their fronds may appear only to be dripping with rain, when they are in truth laden with the night-distilled dews of heaven!

“How could a moment’s pang destroy

My heart’s confirmed repose in Thee?
Thy presence is sufficient joy

To one reclaimed and spared like me.
It is enough that I am thine,

Almighty to redeem from sin;
Thou shalt subdue, correct, refine

The soul which Thou hast died to win.
I see the desolated ground

With dews of heavenly kindness fed,
And fruits of joy and love surround

The heart which Thou hast comforted.”’

“NOW NO CHASTENING FOR THE PRESENT SEEiMETH TO BE JOYOUS,

I-.UT GRIEVOUS: NEVERTHELESS AFTERWARD IT YIELDETH

THE PEACEABLE FRUIT OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.”