The Star of Jacob

“thibe bhall come a stab out op Jacob.” — Num. xxiv. 11.

Tuis prophecy may have some reference to David; but we feel persuaded that the true design of the Holy Spirit is to set forth an emblem of our Lord Jesus Christ. All nature, above as well as around us, is laid under contribution to set forth our Lord. All the flowers of the field and mftny of the beasts of the plain, and now the very orbs of heaven, are turned into metaphors and symbols by which the glory of Jesus may be manifested to us. Where God takes such pains to teach, we ought to be at pains to learn. When he makes heaven and earth to be the ilhistration of his book, we ought to be most ardent in its study. Oh, you who have neglected to learn of Christ, may that neglect come to an end, and may some word be spoken at this time which shall be as the beaming of a star into the darkness of your soul, that henceforth you may know Christ, and be found in Inm.

Our Lord then is compared to a star, and we shall have seven reasons to assign for this, upon each of which we shall endeavor to speak with brevity.

1. In the first place; he is called a star as tiik symbol

OF GOVERKJIENT.

You wall observe how evidently it is connected with a Boeptre and with a conqueror. Jacob was to be blessed with a valiant leader who should become a triumphant sovereign Very frequently in Oriental literature their great men and especially their great deliverers, are called stars. The star has been constantly associated with monarchy, and even in our own country we look upon the star as one of the emblems of lofty rank. Behold, then, our Lord Jesus Christ as the star of Jacob, lie is the captain of his people, the leader of the Lord’s hosts, the King in Jeshurun, God over all, glorious and blessed forever I

We may say of Jesus, in this respect, that he has an authority which he has inherltedhy rUjld. He made all things, and by him all things consist. It is but just that he should rule over all things. As thei-e is not a tongue that can move, in heaven or in earth, except by his permission, it is meet that every tongue should “confiss that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Oh! that men were just towards the Son of God! Would that th.e:r rebellious souls would give way to the force of rectitude, tlriat they woul<J no longer say, “Let us break his bands asunder, and casl away his cords from us!” Unconverted man, I would that you would yield to Jesus. He has a right to you. It is through his intercessions that your forfeited life is still spared. It is by his Divine goodness that you are where you are to-night, and through his mediatorial sovereignty it is that you are suffered to be on praying grounds and pleading terms with God. Give him his due, then. Rob him not of the allegiance which he so justly claims. Give not your spirit over to that exacting tyrant who seeks to compass your destruction. “Bow the knee and kiss the Son,” even now, “lest he be angry, and ye perish fi-om the way.” Acknowledge him to be your Lord.

Our Lord as a star has an authority xohich he has valiantly won. Wherever Christ is King he has had a great and stern fight for it. Remember the dread conflict in Gethsemane, of which he says, “I have trodden the wine press alone.” When, red with his own gore, he came from Calvary, he had in fact there and then put to flight the hosta of Bozrah and of Edom, and stained his garments with the crimson of the vanquished. He travelled in the greatness of Ids strength and he is mighty still to save. In every human heart where Jesus rules, he reigns through having dislodged by the force of arms the old tyrant who had fixed his dominion there. The maintenance of his sovereignty ^ithin the heart is the result of his powerful sceptre of love and grace. Oh, that King Jesus would put forth his power and get a throne in more hearts! Believers, do you not long to see him glorious? I know you do, if you love him. You would live for this: you would die for this, — that Christ might have his own, and drive the milk-white steeds of triumph through the streets of Jerusalem, all his people bowing before him, and strewing his pathway “svith their honors. Oh! sinners, would to God that you would yield to him; I pray that now he may gird his sword upon his thigh, and by the power of grace constrain you to bow your willing necks to his silver sceptre. Brethren and sisters, it is a mournful fact that Christ has so small a part of the world as yet in his royal power. See, the gods of the heathen stand fast upon their pedestals. The old harlot of Rome svill flaunts her scarlet. The crescent of Mahomet wanes, but still its baleful light is cast athwart the nations. Why tarries he! Perhaps his finger is on the latch; it may be that he will come ere long. Come quickly. Lord! our yearning hearts beseech thee, come! But meanwhile, it is for you and for mo to be fighting — each soldier in his rank, each man standing in his place, as his Master has bidden him, contending with heart and soul and strength for the right and for the true, for faith, for holiness, for the Cross and all that that Cross indicates amongst the sons of men. Blessed star of Jacob! Thou shinest with no borrowed raj’s; thou shinest with a mysterious power which none gave to thee,’ for it is inherently thine own.

Before leaving this point, I will only add, that this kingdom of Christ, icherever it is, is most beneficent. Wherever this star of government ^hines its rays scatter blessings. Jesus is no tyrant. He rules not by oppression. The force he uses is the force of love. There was never a subject of Christ’s kingdom that complained of him. Those who have served him most have longed to serve him more. Why, even his poor martyrs in the catacombs of RomCj lying of starvation, or dragged up to the Colosseum to be devoured by wild beasts, never said an ill word of hinu Certainly if it was hai’d to any, it was hard to them; but the more they were troubled the more they rejoiced; and there never were sweeter songs than those which came from dying lips, when men were crackling on the faggot, or being torn limb from limb by wild horses, or sawn asunder with cruel saws. Just in proportion as the bodily pains become acute, the spiritual joy became intense; and while the outward man decayed, the inner man leaped up into newness of life, anticipating the joys of the first-born before the thi’one. He is a good Master. Young people, I would that you would serve him! Oh! that you were enlisted in his service. It is now two-and-twenty years since I gave my heart to him, but I cannot say a word against him. Nay, but I wish I had always served him; I wish I had served him before, and I do pray that he may use me to the fullest extent even to old age. If he will make but a door mat for his temple of me I shall be but too glad. If he will let my name be cast out as evil and give my body to the dogs, I do not care so long as his truth does but prosper, and his name be great. But alas! there is so much self in uSj so much pride, and I know not what besides, that we who really know the Master have reason to ask him to bring in I, is great artillery, and blow down the castles of our natu rul corruption, conquer us yet again, and rule in us by main force of grace, till in every part and corner of our sj»irii there shall be nothing but the love of Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.

By the star, then, in the first place, we undersiaul the symbol of govennncp.t.

II. In the second place, the star is the iaiage ow

BKIGHTNESS.

When men wish to speak of brightness they talk of the stars. They who are righteous are as the stars, and “they that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars foj’ ver and ever,” Our Lord Jesus Christ is brightness itsc.C The star is but a poor setting forth of his inefiable splendor. Oh! let the thought come home to you. He is the brightney>> of his Father’s glory — unutferably bright as the Deity. He is brightness himself in his human nature., for in him there is neither spot nor wrinkle. As Mediator, exalted on high, enjoying the reward of his pains, he is bright indeed. Observe, that our Lord as a star is a bright particular star in the matter of holiness. In him was no sin. Look, and look, and look again into his star-like character; even the lynx eyes of infidels have not been able to discover a flaw, while the attentive eyes of critics, when they have been believers, have been made to water again and again, and then to glisten and sparkle, as they have seen the mingling of all the perfections in his adorable character, making up one inimitable perfection.

As a star he shines also with the light of knowledge, Moses was, as it were, a man of the mist, but Christ is the prophet of light. “The Law was given by Moses “— a thing of tyypes and shadows — “but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” If any man be taught in the things of God he must derive his light from the star of Bethlehem. You may go as you will to the universities, to the tomes of the learned, to the schools of the philosophers, but in spiritual things you receive no light till you look up to Jesus, and then in his light you see light, for there is transcendent brightness in him. He is the wisdom of God as well as the power of God; he is the way, the truth, iud the life. Divine light has found its centre in him!

His light, too, is that of comfort. Oh! how many in the darkness of their souls have first found peace by looking ap to thin star of Jacob, the Lord Jesus Christ! Well did our bymu put it: —

“He is my soul’s bright morning star.
And he my rising sun.”

One glimpse of Christ, and the midnight of unbelief is over. A clear sight of the five wounds, and your sins are covei’ed, and your iniquities put away. Happy day, happy day, when first the soul beholds a crucified Redeemer, and gives herself up to him, relying upon him for eternal salvation. Shine, sweet star; shine into some benighted heart just now! Give holiness, give light, give the knowledge of God, give joy and peace in believing.

When speaking upon Christ as a star, “the symbol of government,” I said, submit to him; now speaking of him as a star, the image of-brightness, I say look to him. Look to him. It is the gospel’s precept. “Look unto me, and be J? saved, all ye ends of the earth;” and well do we sing —

“There is life for a look at the Crucified One.”

Poor sinner, delay no longer. You are not asked to do any thing, nor to be any thing, nor to feel any thing; you are simply bidden to look away from self to what Christ has 4one, and you shall live.

“View him prostrate in the garden.
On the ground your Maker lies;
On the bloody tree behold him,
Hear him cry before he dies — ‘It is finished,’
Sinner, will not this suffice?”

Look unto him, and be saved, all ye ends of the earth 1

in. Thirdly, our Lord is compared to a star, to bring twi the fact that ub is the PArxEKX of oon->taxcy.

Ten thousand things have chano;ed since the world t«« gan, but the stars have not. There they remain. Wo dreamed at one time that they moved. Untaught imaginations said that all those stars revolved aroxmd this little globe of ours, but we know better now. There they are both day and night — always the same, and we may say they have not changed since the world begun, nor, probably, will they, till, like a vesture, God shall roll creation up because it is outAvorn. It is very delightful to recollect that the same star which I looked at last night was viewed by Abraham, perhaps with some of the self-same thoughts. And when we have gone, and other generations shall have followed us, those that come after will look up to the self-sam.e star. So with our Lord Jesus, he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. What the prophets and apostles saw in him we can see in him, and what he was to them that he is to us, and shall be to generations yet unborn. Hundreds may be looking at the same stars at the same time without knowing it, for they are a meeting-place for many eyes. We may be diifted to Australia, or to Canada, or to the United States, or we may be sailing across the great deep, but we shall see the stars there. It is true that on the other side of the world we shall see another set of stars, but the stars themselves are always the same. As far as we in this northern hemisphere are concerned, we shall look upon the same stars, so wherever we may be we look to the sam Christ. Yonder brother has learning; but he looks to Christ, and he sees the same Christ as the poor unlettered woman in the aisles. And you, poor man, who have not, perhaps, a sixpence in the world, you have the same Christ to ti’ust in as the richest man in all the world. And you who think you are so obscure that no one knows you but your God, you look to this same star, and it shines with the game beams for you as for the Christian who leads the van in the Lord’s hosts. Jesus Christ -s still the same, the same to all his people, the same in all places, the same for evei and erer, and may well be compared to those bright starj that shine now as Ihey did of old.

rV. In the fonith place, we may trace this comparison of i»ur Lord to a star as the fountain of influence.

The old astrologers believed very firmly in the influence of the stars upon men’s destinies. “Without endorsing their exploded fallacies, we meet in Scripture with expressions like this —” Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? “— alluding, no doubt, to the fact that the Pleiades are in the ascendant in the sweet months of spring, when the sweet influences of the spring are bringing forth the May flowers and all the loveliness of the season, and Orion is in the ascendant as a wintery sign, when the bands of frost are binding up the former liberties of nature. )jut, whether there be an influence in the stars or not, as touching this world, I know there is great influence in Jesus Christ. He is the fountain of all holy influences among the sons of men. Where this star shines upon the graves of men who are dead in sin they begin to live. Where the beams of this star light upon captives, their chains drop oft”, “the prisoner leaps to lose his chains.” When this star gleams upon a Christian, he begins to bud and blossom, and precious fruits are brought forth. When this star shines upon the backslider he mends his ways, and follows, like the eastern sages, its light till he finds his Saviour once more. This star has an influence upon our nativity; it is through its benign rays that we are born again, and in our horoscope it has an influence upon our death, for it is in i-^ light that we fall asleep, believing that Ave shall wake up in the image of the Lord Jesus. Oh! sweet star, slniic on me always! Never let me miss thy rays; but may I always walk in thy light till I be found sitting in the full noontide heat of the Sun of Righteousness for ever and ever.

V. Li the fifth place, the Lord Jesus Christ may be com- ( ircd t” a star as a source of guidance.

Certain stars are extremely useful to sailors. I scarcely know how else the great and. wide sea would be navigated, especially if it were not for the Pole Star. Jesus is the Pole Star to us. How the i)Oor runaway in the olden times, when slavery had not been abolished, must have blessed God foi that pole star — so easy to find out and so sure a guide. Any child with but a moment’s teaching will soon discover it in the midst of its fellows at night, and when the negro had once learned to distinguish the star that shone over the land of freedom, he followed it through the great dismal swampg, or along the open roads, which were more dreadful stitl; lie forded the streams, and climbed the mountains, cheered by freedom’s star. Such is Jesus Christ to the seeker. He leads to liberty; he conducts to peace. Oh! I wish you would follow him, some of you who are going about a thousand ways to find peace where you never will find it. From this pulpit I think there is never a Sunday but what I try to speak, sometimes in gentler tones, and at other seasons with thundering notes, the simple truth that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I do try to make it plain to you that it is not your prayers and tears, your doings, your willings, your any thing, that can save you, but that all your help is laid upon One that is mighty, and that you must look alone to him. Yet, sinners, jov are still looking to yourselves. You rake the dung-hills of your human nature to find the pearl of great price which is not there. You will look beneath the ice of your natural depravity to find the flame of comfort which is not there. You might as well seek in hell itself to find heaven as look into your own works and merits to find sure ground of trust. Down with your self-reliances! Down with them, every one of them! Away with all those confidences of yours, for

“None but Jesus, none but Jesus,
Cau do helpless sinners good.”

Just reverse that helm, and shift that sail, and tack about! Follow not the wrecker’s beacon on yonder shore, luring fou to the rocks of self-delusion, but where that pole staf guide:y you, thither let your vessel drift, and pray the favoring gales of the blessed Spirit to guide you rightly to the port of peace.

YJ, Our Lord is compared to a star, surely, as the oi>

J EOT OF WONDER,

Among the first lines which full many of you ever learnid to recite, were these simple ones —

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.”

That is precisely what Galileo might have said, and exactly what the greatest astronomer that ever lived might say. You have sometimes looked through a telescope and have seen the planets, hut after you have looked at them you do not know much about them, and those who are bjfcy all day and all night long taking constant observations, will also confess that the result is rather that of astonishment than of intelligence. Still it is

“How I wonder what you are.”

So to those of US who are in Christ Jesus, he is a star; but oh! brethren, we may well wonder what he is. We used to think when we were little ones that the stars were holes picked in the skies through which the light of heaven shone, or that they were little pieces of gold-dust that God had strewn about. We do not think so now; we understand that they are much greater than they look to be. Now, when we were carnal, and did not know King Jesus, we esteemed him to be very much like anybody else; but noAV we begin to know him, we find out that he is much greater, infinitely greater, than we thought he was. And as we grow in grace we find him to be more glorious still. A little star to our view at first, lie has grown, in our estimation, into a Bun now, a blazing sun by whose beams our soul is refreshed. All! but when we get to him what will he be? Imagine you arc taken up now l)y an angel’s wing to take a journey to a star. Travelling at an inconceivable rate you open your eyes on a sudden and say — “How wonderful! Why, that which was a star just now has become as largt lo my vision as the sun at noon-day.” “Stop,” says the angel; “you shall see greater things than these,” and as you speed on, the disc of that orb increases till it is equal to a hundred suns; and now you say, “But what? Am I not near it now? ‘■ ‘’ No,” says the angel; “that enormous globe is still far, fai away,” and when you come to it you will find it to be such a wondrous world that arithmetic could not compute its size, nor imagination belt it with the zone of fancy. Now, such is Jesus Christ. I said he grows upon his people here, but what must it be to see him tJiere, when the veil is lifted, and we behold him face to face? Sometimes we long to find out what that star is, to know him, to comprehend with all saints %hat are the heights and depths, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge; but meanwhile we are compelled to sit down and sing —

“God only knows the love of God,
Oh I that it now were shed abroad
In this poor frozen heart.”

We have to confess that

“The first-born son’s of light
Desire in vain its depth to see,
They cannot reach the mystery,
The length, the breadth, the height.”

VII. But to conclude; the metaphor used in the text may well bear this seventh signification. Our Lord is compai-ed to a star, as he is the heealp of glory.

The bright and mornino; star foretells that the sun is on its way to gladden the earth with its light. Wherever Jesus comes he is the prophet of good. Let him come inti A heart, and as soon as he appears you may ref.t assured that there is a life of eternity and joy to come. Let .Jesua Christ come into a family, and what changes he makes there;

Let him be preached with power in any town or city, and what a herald of good tilings he is there. To the whole world Christ has proclaimed glad tidings. His coming has been fraught with benedictions to the sons of men. Yea, the coming of Christ in the flesh is the great prophecy of tlic glory to be revealed in the latter days, when all nations shall bow before him, and the age of peace, the golden age shall come, not because civilization has advanced, not because education has increased, or the world grown better, but because Christ has come. He is the first, the fairest of the stars, the prognostic of the dawn.

Ay, and because Christ has come,there will be a heaven for the sons of men who believe in him. Sons of toil, because Christ has come there shall be rest for the weary. Daughters of sorrow, because Christ has come there shall be healing for the weak. Oh! you whom chill penury is bowing down, there shall be lifting up and sacred wealth for you because the star has shone. Hope on! hope ever! Now that Jesus has come there is no room for despair.

I conclude by commending these thoughts to you, antl earnestly asking you once again if you have never looked to Christ, to trust in him now; if you have never submitted to Jesusjto submit to him now; if you have never confided in him, to confide in him now. It is a very simple matter. ]Jay God the Holy Spirit teach you what it is. It is but to give up all your own trust and make him every thing. Here it is in one short rhyme.

“A guilty, weak, and helpless worm.
On thy kind arms I fall:
Be lliou my strenli, my righteousness.
My Saviour and my all.”

If this be done by you, all is done for you by Christ. You are his, and he is yours, and where he is, shall be your pertion, and you shall be like him, for you shall see him as he is. It will be a blessed Sabbath evening for you, if you are led now to give yourselves to him. I well recollect when my heart yielded to his Divine grace; -when I could no longer look anywhere else, and was compelled to look to the Star of Bethlehem. Oh! come ye to him! I know not what words to employ or what persuasions. For your own sake, that you may be happy now; for etern’ty’s sake, that you may be happy hereafter, that you may escape from hell; that you may enter into heaven, look to Jesus. You may never be bidden to do so again. The bidding of this present moment may be the last, and its rejection the concluding measure which shall fill up the heap of your guilt. Oh! do not do so. Let the prayer go up quietly now from your spirit, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” and let your soul, though you speak not with ycui tongue, say within itself —

“I’ll to the gracious King approach.
Whose sceptre pardon gives;
Perhaps he may command my touch.
And then the suppliant lives.

“I can but perish if I go,
I am resolved to try;
For if I stay away, I know
I must forever die.

“But, if I die with mercy sought.
When I the King have tried,
That were to die, delightful thought.
As smner never died.”