The Morning
The watchman said, The morning cometh” (Isa. xxi. 12); and though, while making this answer, he forewarns us of night, he also assures us of morning. There is a morning, says he, therefore do not give way to faintness of spirit; but there is a night between, therefore take warning: that you may not be surprised nor dismayed, as if the promise were broken, or some strange thing allowed to befall you.
There may be delay, he intimates, before the morning, — a dark delay, for which we should be prepared. During this he calls to watchfulness: for the length of the night is hidden, the time of day-break is
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left uncertain. We must be on the outlook, with our eyes fixed on the eastern hills. We have nothing wherewith to measure the hours, save the sorrows of the church and the failing of hearts.
During this delay the watchman encourages us to inquire,” to return,” to
come.” He expects us to ask how long,” and say, When will the night be done?” He takes for granted that such will be the proceeding of men who really long for morning. To the hills of Seir they will again and again return, to learn from the watchman what is the promise of day. For no familiarity with the night can ever reconcile them to its darkness, or make morning less desirable and welcome.
It is right for us to desire the morning, to hope for it, to weary for it, to inquire as to the signs of it hour after hour. God has set this joy before us, and it were strange indeed if, when compassed about with so many sorrows, we could forget it.
or be heedless as to its arrival. For the coming of the morning is the coming of Him whom we long to see. It is the coming of Him who turneth the shadow of death into the morning.” (Amos v. 8.) It is the return of Him whose absence has been nighty and whose presence will be day. It is the return of Him who is the resurrection and the life, and who brings resurrection with Him; the return of Him who is creation’s Lord, and who brings with Him deliverance to creation.; the return of Him who is the church’s Head, and who brings with Him triumph and gladness to his church.
All the joy, the calm, the revivifying freshness of the morning are wrapt up in Him. When He appears, day appears, life appears, fruitfulness appears. The curse departs. The bondage of corruption” is no more. Clouds, storms, troubles, sorrows vanish. The face of nature reassumes the smile of unfallen times. It is earth’s fes-THE MORNINa.
tival the world’s jubilee. The heavens rejoice, the earth is glad, the sea roars and the fulness thereof, the fields are joyful and all that is therein, the trees of the wood rejoice, the floods clap their hands, and the hills are joyful together before the Lord; for He has come, for He has come to judge the earth; with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with his truth.” (Psa. xcvi. 11; xcviii. 7.)
This morning has been long anticipated. Age after age it has attracted the church’s eye, and fixed her hope. On the promise of it her faith has been resting, and towards the hastening of it her prayers have gone forth. Though afar off, it has been descried, and rejoiced in as the sure consummation towards which all things are moving forward according to the Father’s purpose.
There is a morning” has been the word of consolation brought home to the burdened heart of many a saint when ready to say, with David, I am desolate,” or with
Jeremiah, He hath set me in dark places as they that he dead of old.”
Let us dwell for a little on some of these Old Testament allusions to the morning. Let us take first the 30th Psalm.
David had been fn sorrow, and in com* ing out of it he makes known to the saints his consolations: — Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. For there is but a moment in his anger; in his favour is life; weeping may endure for a night, but joy COMETH IN THE MORNING.” (Psa. XXX. 4,5.) The earnest of that morning he had already tasted, but the morning itself he anticipates. Then joy has come. Then he can say, (verse 11,) Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.” But it is the voice of a greater than David that is heard in this Psalm. It is one of Christ’s resurrection Psalms, like the 18th and the 116th. He was ^Hifted
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up,” SO that his foes were not made to rejoice over him. He cried, and was healed.” His soul was brought up from the grave.” There was anger against Him for a moment,” when as the sinner’s substitute he bore the sinner’s curse. But in Jehovah’s favour there was life.” He had a night of weeping, a night of strong crying and tears,” when his soul was sorrowful even unto death,” and when beneath the waves of that sorrow he sunk, commending his spirit into the Father’s hands. But it was a night no more. Morning came, and with morning, joy. Coming forth from the tomb, he left all his sorrow behind: his sackcloth was put off, and he arose girded with gladness.” He found morning and joy; and he is the first-fruits of them that slept.” His rising was the rising of his saints. There was a morning for him, therefore there shall be one for us, — a morning bright with resurrection -glory.
Let us next take Psalm forty-ninth.
These are Christ’s words as is proved from the quotation of verse 4th in Matt. xiii. 35. He summons the whole world to listen. He speaks of wisdom,” for he is Wisdom. He points to the vanity of riches and their insufficiency to redeem a soul; and who knew so well as he what a ransom was needed? He sees men going on in their wickedness, self-confidence, and vainglory. He proclaims their madness and guilt, — speaking of them as incurable from generation to generation. He contrasts the end of the wicked and the end of the righteous; like sheep the former are laid in the grave,” — buried out of sight, forgotten, unmourned. Over them the righteous shall have dominion in the MORNING.” The morning then brings dominion to the righteous, — redemption from the powder of the grave. In this Jesus rejoiced; in this let us rejoice. This joy of the morning was set before him; it is the same joy that is set before us. Dominion
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in the morning is that to which we look forward — a share in the first resurrection, of which they who are partakers live and reign with Christ.
Look again at the forty-sixth Psalm. It is the utterance of the faith of Israel’s faithful ones, in the time of Jacob’s trouble.” The earth is shaken (verse 2, compared with Haggai ii. 6; and Heb. xii. 26, 27); the sea and the waves roar (ver. 3, comp, with Luke xxi. 25): but there is a river whose streams gladden them. God is in the midst of her. Nay,
God helps her when the morning ap-PEARETH,” (ver. 5, margin,) just as in the morning loatch he looked out from the fiery cloud and troubled the Egyptians. Then the heathen are scattered at his voice, — he sweeps off every enemy, he makes wars to cease, and sets himself on high over the nations, as King of kings,
exalted in the earth.” From which we gather that the morning brings with it de-THE MORNIKH*
Hvetance from danger — victory over enemies — the renewal of the earth, - — peace to the nations, — the establishment of Messiah’s glorious throne. What a morning of joy must that he, for the church, for Israel, for the whole earth! — resurrection for the church, restoration for Israel, retitution for the earth!
Look at the 110th Psalm. We see Jesus at Jehovah’s right hand, — waiting till his enemies he made his footstool; and then He who said unto him Sit,” shall say Arise.” (Psa. lxxxii. 8.) He is yet to have dominion on earth, and to sit upon the throne of his father David. Instead of a gainsaying people,” as he had in the day of his weakness, he is to have a willing people in the day of his power;” all arrayed in the beauties of holiness; more numerous and resplendent than the dew from the womh of the morning. Willingness, heauty, holiness, brightness, number; — these shall mark his people in that
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morning of joy which his coming shall produce. The dew (says one) is deposited in greatest plenty about the breaking of the dawn and refresheth with its numerous drops the leaves and plants and blades of grass on which it resteth; so shall the saints of God, coming forth from their invisible abodes out of the womb of the morning, refresh the wmld with their benignant influence; and therefore are they likened to the dew, for all nature is so constituted of God, as to hear witness of that day of regeneration which then shall dawn.”
Read also the last words of David,” (2 Sam. xxiii. 1 — 4,) in which, as in the 72nd Psalm, the prayers of David are ended,” or summed up. There shall be a just one ruling over men, ruling in the fear of God; as the light of the morn-
* It is interesting to notice, that while David speaks of “the womb of the morning in connexion with the dew, Job asks, “Who hath begotten the drops of dew? out of whose womb came the ice?** Job xxxviii. 28.
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ING shall he arise the Sun of an unclouded morning, shining after rain upon the tender grass of the earth.” Not till that Just One comes is the morning to dawn, for he is its light; and from his countenance is to break forth that light in which all earth is to rejoice. Then the darkness of the long night shall disappear, and the brief tribulation tasted in the time of absence be forgotten in the abounding blessedness of his everlasting presence.
Let us hear how, in the Song,” the bride refers to this same morning. She rejoices in the Bridegroom’s assured love, and her desires or longings are not questionings as to the relationship in which she stands to him. This is with her a settled thing, for she has tasted that the Lord is gracious. I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine.” What direction then do her longings take? Her eyes are towards the hills,” over which she expects to behold him coming like a roe. Thus she
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pleads with him not to tarry; Make haste my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.” (viii. 14.) Thus also she anticipates the morning of fuller joy, even while enjoying present fellowship; He feedeth among the lilies until the day break and the shadows flee away.” (ii. 16, 17.) And thus the Bridegroom himself, feeling, if one may so speak, the loneliness of the night, and that it is not good to be alone,” longs, like herself, for day, and resolves to climb the hills, where he may not only be regaled with freshest odours, but may catch the earliest gleam of dawn: Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense.” (iv. 6.) On that hill let us meet him in faith, and watch with him in hope, yet ever remembering, that though this joy which faith gives here is unspeakably comforting, it is not the gladness of the marriage supper, — it is not the blessedness of the bridal day. For he himself, while telling his disciples, Lo, I am with you always,” says also this, I will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine until the day that I shall drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matt. xxvi. 29.)
Thus we see all kinds of joy brought within the circle of this morning. It is a morning of joy, because it is the morning introduced by Him, who said, These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might he full” (John xv. 11); by Him in whose presence there is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” (Psa. xvi. 11.) But let us mark the different kinds of joy and the different figures denoting it.
There is the joy of deliverance from overwhelming danger. This was the joy
of the Jews when their adversary perished,
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and Mordecai was exalted; The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour, .... the Jews had joy and gladness, a feast and a good day.” (Esther viii. 16.) Such shall be the church’s joy in the morning of her great deliverance. There is the joy of escape from captivity and return from exile, such as made Israel feel as men that dream.” Such shall be the church’s joy when her long captivity is done. Then shall her mouth be filled with laughter, and her tongue with singing; having sowed in tears she reaps in joy.” (Psa. cxxvi. 2.) There is the joy of harvest (Isa. ix. 3); and such shall be the church’s joy. There is the mother’s joy when her pangs are over, and the child is born into the world. ( J ohn xvi. 20.) With such joy shall we rejoice, and our joy no man taketh from us. The joy in reserve for us is manifold and large; it will abide and satisfy; it is the joy of the morning; — a long glad day before us; no evening with its lengthening shadows.
no night with its chills and darkness.
There shall be no night there, and they need no candle neither light of the sun, for the Lord God giveth them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever.” (Rev. xxii. 5.)
The prospect of this morning — this morning of joy” — nerves and cheers us under all our tribulation. Were this morning an uncertainty, how dark would the night»’seem! how difficult for us to fight against faintness and despair! But the thought of morning invigorates and braces us. We can set our faces to the storm, for behind it lies the calm. We can hear the parting, for the meeting is not distant. We can afford to weep, for the tear shall soon be wiped away. We can watch the tedious sick bed, for soon the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.” We can look quietly into the grave of buried love and cherished hope, for resurrection shines beyond it. Things may be against us here.
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but they are for us hereafter. The here is but an hour; the hereafter is a whole eternity.
But for the world — the heedless, pleasure-chasing world, they have no such brightenings for their dark hours of sorrow. No morning comes to them. Their sun sets, but rises not again; their life goes down in darkness, without a hope. It is night — night infinite and endless, to them; the blackness of darkness for ever!” No healing of their wounds, no wiping away of their tears, no binding up of their broken hearts! They reject the infinite sacrifice, they sport away their day of salvation, and their history winds up in judgment and the second death. ^^If they speak not according to this wordf (says the prophet,) there is no morning for them’* (Isa. viii. 20, margin.) This word
which by the gospel is preached unto them,” (1 Peter i. 25,) they slight or scorn, and vengeance overtakes them for rejection! Therefore,” says the same prophet, shall evil come upon you; thou shalt not know its morning.^^ (Isa. xhui. 11, margin.) An evil without a deliverance, a night without a morning, is their portion!
Sad closing of a life-time’s weariness! Joy they have never known, though its full cup has often been handed to them by God, and they pressed to drink it 1 For what is each message, each summons, each warning, but God saying to them, Come share my love, come taste my joy 1” Sorrow they have known, for how could they miss knowing it in such a world! Heavy burdens, keen griefs, sharp stings, bitter memories, hard misgivings, intolerable forebodings, dark self-questionings, What am I, or what shall I be?” all these, crowding in upon a soul that has no God, pouring into a heart that has no outlet for its sorrows in the bosom of a Saviour, are enough to dry up life’s springs even when
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deepest * Yet all these are but the beginning of sorrows! There is a fuller cup yet to he given to them to drink — eternal wormwood! Then the heart would fain break, but cannot.. For the sorrow is as eternal as it is infinite. They shall seek for death, but shall not be able to find it; for the second death is the death that never dies.
* Goethe, the world’s favourite, if one may so speak, confessed when about eighty years old, that he could not remember being in a really happy state of mind even for a few weeks together; and that when he wished to feel comfortable he had to veil his self-consciousness! And the following is the closing sentence of his self-biography: “Child! child! no more. The coursers of time, lashed, as it were, by invisible spirits, hurry on the light car of our destiny; and all that we can do, is in cool self-possession to hold the reins with a firm hand, and to guide the wheels, now to the left, now to the right, a stone here, a precipice there. Whither it is hurrying who can tell f And who indeed can remember the point from which it started 2 Alas! for the poor world, that, with all its refinement and poetry and philosophy, knows not whither it is hurrying! As if no voice (more than man’s) had ever said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.**