Jonah in the Ship: Achan in the Camp

“Then said they unto him, Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? What is thy country? and of what people art thou? And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear Jehovah, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land,” — Jonah i. 8, 9. ‘* AndJoshua said unto Achan, My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him: wnd tell me now what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” — Joshua vii. 19.

THERE is a strong resemblance between the ordeal which Jonah is now undergoing for having fled from the presence of the Lord and the land of Israel, and that to which a far less distinguished member of his nation was subjected soon after that land of Israel was entered on by the sacred people. That land had been inhabited by transgressors whose wickedness had grown up to heaven, and on whom God had now resolved to execute a final work of judgment in their remorseless extermination, side by side with His work of grace and faithfulness in establishing Israel in the land promised to their fathers. The first city doomed to destruction after the believing, triumphant entrance of Israel on the consecrated territory, the Lord resolved to destroy in a peculiar manner. He designed to read His people a lesson, in the very commencement of their warfare of invasion, to the effect that all their success depended on the forth-putting of power on His part and the forth-putting of faith on theirs. It was a trial of their faith, — their meek submission to the will, their confidence in the word, their dependence on the power, of God. For six successive days, the whole camp of Israel, the armed men, the priests, with the ark of the Lord’s covenant, move round the strong-walled city. Not a blow do they essay to strike. Not a shout of defiance do they send towards the fortress. Not a sound of war is uttered. Not a move do they make towards victory, or even towards conflict. Not a sound of any kind is heard, save yonah in the Ship. 1 2 1

the seven trumpets of the seven priests before the ark of the Lord. Day after day nothing comes of it. Night after they return into the camp and lodge there in peace. Jericho also sleeps in peace; no advance made whatever towards its destruction; free to laugh at the absurd movements, the childish pageantry and empty procession of Israel’s mad and moon-struck tribes!

Yes; it was, day after day, an increasing trial to Israel’s faith; — a strange procedure; to the men of Jericho “foolishness;” “to the Jews,” save for their faith, “a stumbling-block.” But “by faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days” (Heb. xi. 30).

Thus singularly given up, by God’s sole power, to Israel’s single faith, Jericho was to be entirely a devoted thing; a whole and unreserved victim to God’s righteous wrath. “And the city shall be accursed.” Such were the stern and clear and most unmistakeable instructions of the Lord to Joshua, and from the Lord, through Joshua, to the people: “the city shall be accursed,” — or devoted, — “even it, and all that is therein, to the Lord. And ye, in any wise, keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it. But all the silver, and. gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are consecrated to the Lord: they shall come into the treasury of the Lord” (Joshua vi. 17-19).

This command Achan disobeyed. And the next solemn move in Israel’s camp, the next solemn chapter in Israel’s history, after the splendid miracle of Jericho’s destruction, opens thus sadly and gloomily: “But the children of Israel committed a trespass in the accursed thing: for Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed thing: and the anger of the Lord was kindled” (Joshua vii. 1). This kindled anger the Lord kept for manifestation in a suitable manner. The accursed thing detained — yea, “stolen “— from the Lord, of the spoils of the first city, shall fatally bar them from conquering a second. They flee before the men of Ai. Joshua rends his clothes, and falls down before God in broken-hearted alarm and prayer.” Get thee up: wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned, and they have also trespassed my covenant which I commanded them; for they have even taken of

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the accursed thing, and have also stolen, and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies” (verses 10, 11). Directions are then given by the Lord for the discovery of the offender, and next day the multitudes of Israel stand forth to be searched of the Lord.

It is a solemn scene. Every movement in it, as another and another knell strikes strong, and with ever mounting force, upon the evil conscience. A first step — a somewhat distant approach to the discovery, is made: from the many thousands of Israel, the tribe of Judah is selected. The eleven tribes breathe free. On Judah all eyes are bent. By families, Judah now is tried. The lot falls on the family of Zerah. The ground is narrowed and narrowing. Justice is hemming in the guilty one. The family of Zerah, man by man, passes in review, and the lot falls on Zabdi, and “Zabdi was taken.” “And he brought his household, man by man; and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.” For “be sure your sin will find you out.”

Is it not expressly said by an Apostle, speaking at the mouth of the Spirit of God, that the events of Israel’s history are recorded “for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come?” And what can be better fitted to speak to us in terms the most overpowering and impressive, than the very silence, the breathless silence, with which a scene like this is transacted among the people whom the Lord had chosen to dwell among them? And was it not designed to produce this solemn and awful impression, that every one who saw or heard of it might “stand in awe and sin not,” and do not thus wickedly? Ordinary providence, indeed, oftentimes worketh in this very way, though without, it may be, those specialities and miracles that appertained to Jehovah’s dealings with Israel. How often has the criminal become a spectacle to a whole camp — the object of a whole nation’s thought and speech! For the finger of God is in his trial; and that finger of the living God, itself unseen, yet points to this circumstance and that, lays them side by side, places and pieces them together, carries them and places them beneath the eyes of those staid and anxious men of jury and of judgment’; and, on being asked to read and tell what they have seen, amidst

A chart in tJie Camp. 123

the silence of a camp, or of a nation, they simply read what their eyes have seen, because God’s finger had written: — Proven: Guilty!

Let it be observed how tremendously conspicuous a man may become, solely and alone, by reason of sin; — as Achan did. No public servant of the Lord; no bearer of office among His people; no prophet like Jonah; but in private life, it may be in humble rank, Achan, save for his sin, had passed in all probability through life, with nothing to mark him out to others — certainly with nothing to hand down his name to us. But a look of covetousness flashes from his eye; the ready hand executes the will of lustful eye; a few hours pass away in secret self-contempt or shameless sin-drugged deep insensibility, or some average feeling midway between these two extremes; and lo! by the finger of God pointing to his sin, he is the spectacle of many hundreds of thousands of eyes, all unanimously, simultaneously bent on him; he is the theme of many hundreds of thousands of tongues, soon as a solemn awe releases them from breathless silence.

There may be worlds in space, inhabited by races of unfallen beings, — worlds far more numerous than the crew of Jonah’s ship — yea, far more numerous than the spectators in the twelve tribes of Israel — “the many thousands of Israel “— as they crowd the plain in silent excitement, in the early sunlight of this solemn judgment day near Ai. And they may be worlds of magnificence and glory, and ofiicial dignity, one might say, in the grand priestly service of the universe — as far transcending the native place and position or capacity of this small world of ours, as countless priests, and noble warriors, and girded Levites, and princes, and great men in Israel, transcended in talent, in birth, in ofiice, in honour, in fame, the poor and unnoticeable Achan. But as he, for sin became the centre of all Israel’s breathless regard: so may this sinful world, and thou, 0 sinner, be conspicuous in the families of the wide, wide universe, solely, ay solely, because of sin. This is thy tremendous distinction, O man! thy terrible conspicuousness — even that thou hast sinned. Thou art become wonderful as having dared to rebel — rebel against the Most High God. Thou art attracting much attention. Myriads of flashing holy eyes fall on thee. God’s tribes, and families, and households, and holy ones, look on thee.” I charge thee before God and the

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elect angels!’ Oh! how canst thou stand their gaze? How canst thou see them, silent and breathless concerning thee? Get thee to thy hiding-place; to that “man that is an hiding-place;” that God-man, for whose sake thou shalt be infinitely more conspicuous to the holy ones than even sin against the Highest can make thee. Get thee into Him. Make Christ thy all; while the Father makes Him thine. And thus release the holy ones from breathless silence. Give them leave — give them cause — 0 man! to sing, “This our brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.” Yea! lest the tribes stone thee with stones, and burn thee with fire; lest the angels, binding the bundles, bind thee among them, and cast thee into everlasting fire! yea, lest the ship cast thee out into the raging lake that burneth. For whether thou be Jonah, high in name and labours, or Achan, mean and unknown, if thou meet the judgment and the lot impenitent: if thou “stand in thy lot in the end of days,” thy sin not till then finding thee out, thy true and engrossing sorrow for sin only then beginning; thy sorrow shall be sorrow unto death, and thy sin be unhealed and eternal.

Let thy sin find thee out now; now, while thy Saviour seeks thee — thy Saviour who came to seek and to find — and who is offended, disoblioed, defeated in a loving, lonojins: wish, if He is not gratified in being allowed to succeed in finding thee; — thee, O trembling, smitten soul: thee, whom thy sins are finding.

Achan was taken. The lot fell on Jonah.

The treatment to which these two men were subjected immediately on their criminality being revealed deserves special consideration, and the comparison of the two cases suggests not a few lessons of value. Thus, in the case of Jonah: “Then said the mariners unto him. Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is upon us! what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou?” In the case of Achan: “Joshua said unto him. My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the God of Israel, and make confession unto Him, and tell me now what thou hast done, hide it not from me.” Such are the two addresses delivered to the two criminals respectively, in the moment of their detection or discovery; the one by heathen sailors to the troubler of the ship, the other by

Joshua, the man of God, to the troubler of the camp. And they even invite comparison, while they promise to reward it.

I. Compare, then, these respective investigations.

1. First of all, observe the onanner of them. Mark the alarm of the heathen: the calm solemnity of the man of God.

See the loss of self-possession on the part of the Gentile sailors; the alarmed haste, mingling wath irrepressible and excited curiosity, as question after question comes pouringforth, each tripping on the heels of the former; “What is thine occupation? And whence earnest thou? What is thy country? And of wiat people art thou?” See, on the other hand, the dignity and deliberateness of the holy Joshua: “My son, give glory, I pray thee, to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him; and tell me what thou hast done; hide it not from me.” No one can thoughtfully read these two expostulations to the prisoner, these two adjurations to him to tell the truth, to speak out the fact, without feeling that in the one case there is alarm, selfish fear, ungoverned curiosity, heathen haste; in the other, holy deliberation, reverential solemnity; a far higher governing desire than selfish excitement on the theme or fear of danger; a majestic, peaceful discharge of duty, as of one who puts himself forward only as the instrument and servant of Jehovah. The moral littleness of Jonah’s inquisitors comes out, as tossed on a sea of mental anxiety, they have scarcely power or time decently to ask a question, — not to speak of waiting for an answer; but forth flows a torrent of queries, very far in their jumbled haste from the solemn dignity, the grave order of judicial righteousness. The moral greatness of Joshua, on the other hand, is seen in the stern, yet mild and quiet, resolve in which he conducts and carries out the trial. There is righteousness in his manner — righteousness inflexible in his manner, movements, countenance, voice, and word: righteousness so strong that it does not need to brace itself up nervously, exhibiting and revealing its weakness. And there is compassion also — compassion so holy, so true, that it does not seek to prove itself by many words. “My son,” he says; “my son,” even to the man stained with the accursed thing. With such majesty does holy character naturally clothe itself; holy character and holy office, held direct and in faith from God.

2. But, secondly, compare the two addresses to the criminals respectively in regard to the ‘matter of them.

There are two things to which an address, an adjuration, a charge or inquiry directed to an offender in these circumstances will have, or at least ought to have, respect. It will, or it ought to be, designed to lead him to an admission of the fact, and to lead him to an acknowledgment of the guilt. Now the two styles of address before us are in marked contrast, as to the prominence or proportion in which these two several elements are set forth. The heathen mariners are almost exclusively bent on ascertaining from Jonah the fact of his offence; the guilt of it, his feelings as to the guilt of it, his admission of the guilt of it, they scarcely concern themselves about at all. Joshua, on the other hand, while in duty required to search the fact, puts forward, first of all, and prominently, his poor prisoner’s duty to God to confess the guilt.

Read now, again, in this light, the heathen sailors’ series of hot and hasty queries. There is not a single question concerning guilt. Not a single word directed to Jonah to strengthen his conscience towards confession unto God of his inexcusable transgression. They are quite in a lower sphere with their questions altogether. The event, the fact, the action, — not whether there be that in it which adorable rectitude cannot but relentlessly and rio-hteously pursue: but the act, the incident, the fact itself: give them that; satisfy them about that. Yes, satisfy them upon the fact; not glorify God concerning the guilt of Jonah and God’s righteousness in thus pursuing Jonah. Tell us, we pray thee, for whose cause this evil is come upon us; what is thine occupation? and whence comest thou? what is thy country? and of what people art thou? Give us the facts; these bear on us — bear on us and on our safety. Not, Own the guilt to God; the aruilt that bears on Him; that bears on Him and His rights; that has been touching and tampering with His glory. To this higher and holier element in the case the heathens do not rise.

It is otherwise with Joshua. With him this element is in the foreground. “My son, give glory unto God, and Tvialze confession to Him.” Thou hast troubled us, indeed. For thee, our victorious march has been arrested; our arms soiled with dishonour and defeat; our brothers vilely driven back and slain, their shields vilely thrown away; the hearts of the people melted also, and become as water. Verily thou hast troubled us and smitten us with grief, making amongst us “many a sweet babe fatherless, and many a widow mourning.” But while thou hast troubled us, against God, against Him, Him only, hast thou sinned. My son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto Him. Tell me, indeed, what thou hast done; hide it not: for “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;” and the evil leaven, the accursed thing, must be purged away. For against the camp as well as thee, against the camp of Israel by and for thee, is the anger of the Lord God of Israel kindled. Tell me, therefore, what thou hast done; but my son, give the glory to God, and make confession of the guilt to Him. The sin, in the fad of it. He knows: I know it not; tell it to me. Thy sin, in the guilt of it, is not against me; ’tis against Him: to Him acknowledge it. Give Him the glory of confessing to Him, — the true King and Sovereig-n, the Most High, the Holy One in Israel.

Mark well the difference between the mere fact and the a-uilt of your sin; and more especially the difference between the admission of the fact and the admission of your guilt. Jehovah comes into the garden in the cool of the day, and brings the criminals from their hiding-place of shame into His presence. The question is: Adam, hast thou eaten? Eve, hast thou eaten? Not to ascertain the fact; — for of that, apart from the Omniscience of the Judge, their every look, every move, every attitude is a sad, and sore, and sufficient demonstration; — but to induce a confession of sm, of guilt, of inexcusable offence, of righteous liability to anger and punishment. What are the replies? “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did eat.” “I did eat.” The fact is admitted. But is the guilt? Nay; if it were, why this preface to the fact; this dwelling so fully on fact, and fact alone; this brief history of the fact; brief, yet clung to so firmly — expected to be made so much of? “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me, and I did eat.” Clearly, the design is, while admitting the fact, to disown the guilt; to put the guilt on Eve; “She gave me:” — to put the blame, if need be, on God; — “the woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me:” — and but for the woman giving me the fruit, and but for Thee giving me the woman, I had not eaten

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—for then it %yould have been wholly inexcusable. It is an elaborate effort to disentangle the fact from the guilt; to acknowledge the one and disown the other. There is no giving glory to God and making confession to Him. It is rather throwing over the responsibility on Him; laying blame at His door in the enmity of falsehood: not taking blame to self, and lying down at His feet in the confidence and confession of trvith and candour.

And the woman, she also admits the fact; — “I did eat.” But she too rejects the guilt; “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Were it not for him having beguiled me; had I done it without him beguiling me; I would have been guilty indeed, silent, speechless, inexcusable, without a plea, and my guilt without palliation. As it is, I have this to say for myself — this plea, this answer, this defence, this shield, this extenuation, this claim against condemnation and death; “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.”

What are your repentings? What are your admissions at a throne of grace? Is it merely the fact of your sin that you admit? Is it the exceeding sinfulness of sin, rather, that you feel? The former you may do, and that may satisfy a heathen. It is the latter that satisfies God, — and a man of God. “Give glory unto God, my son, and make confession to Him.”

Give glory unto God! What glory? and unto what God; or, unto God, under what aspect or relation, shall I give glory? Unto the Lord God of Israel, my son. Unto the God of His people, the God of salvation, standing to thee in Christ in that relation — thy God, O poor offender; the God of thy salvation, notwithstanding all the guilt and blackness of thy sin. Thee He is seeking to save, by this very discipline by which He makes thy sin to find thee out. To number thee among the Israel to whom He is the God of salvation — this is His design in sending forth thy sin — letting loose thy sin — to hunt and harass thee with fear of death, of judgment, of eternal wrath, with present pain of bitter shame and burning conscience. See Him in Christ — too soon thou canst not. Thou canst not too soon realise Him in Christ the God of righteous, holy mercy to thee, the God of thy salvation. And as suchlet Him have glory from thee.

And what glory? Glory, as the heart-searching, all-seeing God: “Thou God seest me; ““0 God thou knowest my foolish-Achan in the Cajup. 129

ness; and my sins are not hid from Thee.” Glory as the Sovereign One, the Ruler, the Lawgiver, the King, the high and lofty One, throned in the court of last appeal, into which, until I come, I never know the greatness and honour of my nature as responsible there. Glory, as the Being who alone can decide on my case: who alone can master all its intricacies; witness, and attest, and understand all its facts; weigh and measure all its criminality; scan and foresee all its fruits and issues: who alone can master and reverse all its evils. Glory, as the Just One, who can do me no wronof: the Judge of all the earth, who will ever do that which is right. Glory, as a just God and a saviour, freely justifying the ungodly who believe in Christ; and who, with His Son’s most glorious and evermore amazing cross, and by its efficacy ministered unto me continually by His gospel and His Spirit, opens and searches all my heart, penetrates it with the power of His Son’s most terrible but saving death, draws out from their recesses all my lingering enmities, and jealousies, and distrusts, and dislikes, and constraining me to make a clean breast in telling all its foulness. Himself then purges me with hyssop that I may be clean, creates a clean heart within me, and makes me whiter than snow. Yes; let my sin be before me as Achan’s was. Let me realise God and His holy ones looking on me — “I charge thee before God and the elect angels” — let me have no door of escape, and above all let me seek none; let me give glory to God, and make confession to Him. Glory be to God, there is room yet for giving glory to Him — vile though I may be in His sight and in my own — though I be of all earth’s poor prisoners, and caught ones, and convicts, the very chief. Still I may give Him glory; and He will not refuse it at my hands. Only let me feel that I deserve His anger. And only let the cross of His beloved Son arise, in the Spirit’s light, more and more to my view. Oh, that cross of Christ! Oh, the blessedness of perfect expiation of sin effected there, that sin may be forgiven there, — freely, fully, for ever forgiven if I only carry it there! Oh, the dawning, the fast breaking hope that beams and brightens there I Oh, how it makes me honest, how it makes me true, if I really see it! I give glory to God, and make confession to Him at His Son’s cross. And the light of His countenance beams even now on me above it; and the glory of His eternal home bursts open for me yonder behind it. What matters the complexion of my lot ‘twixt now and then? Weary years of varying, vexing care; sharp, swift trials, following fast on each other; trying duties manifold, it may be; the thousand ills of man’s estate in changing combinations, in fast succession, or in slow detail; I may have to prove them all. But what although, if I have been able only to glorify God in making confession to Him, and He has not rejected the ‘glory, but been indeed glorified in me? It is but a little while, and He shall straightway glorify me with Himself. And even now, if stern, relentless justice should require, as with Achan, that I be offered up a victim to the peace and welfare of the camp; let me only see that it is God who deals with me and demands it; let me only hold fast by His justice, satisfied in atonement by the Lamb — and His love, certified and sealed in atonement by the Lamb — and even still, I can give Him glory; for though I be “delivered over for the destruction of the flesh,” and “though the outward man perish,” and “I have the sentence of death in myself;” it is “that I may trust in Him who quickeneth the dead,” that the “inward man be the more renewed,” and “that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Nay; all lengths can I go through

the cross of Christ. Let the Spirit only bring forth upon my heart more and more of the power of that cross (and its power is altogether endless and supreme), and let me even, if need be — and it is well to study even the extremest case — let me even, if need be, be carried down with Achan to the valley of Achor, and let the people stone me there: — Give me only, still, and always, and there, the cross of Christ, as the Lord still, and always, and there, doth give me; and, nerved anew vinto the uttermost of all my need, I have even “the valley of Achor for a door of hope.”

In this spirit, as we have ground in holy charity to hope, Achan met and acquiesced in his fate. In this spirit, we know that Jonah more than acquiesced in — himself pointed out — his.

II. Having contrasted the two appeals made to the respective parties in their so similar circumstances, let us in like manner compare their respective answers. And the point of interest turns here again on the relative importance assigned to the admission of the fact on the one hand, and the admission of the guilt on the other.

Thus, in the one case, Achan with much simplicity and meekness owns the guilt against God. ‘“‘And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done.” And then, because the case required the minuteness of fact also, in order that the last rack of the cursed thing should be purged away, he goes on minutely to specify every particular, with all the exactness that his preface — “thus and thus have I done” — would seem to promise.

Again, on the other hand, in the case of Jonah, the admission of the fact is out of all comparison the least of it. The fact, indeed, he admits, briefly, oft’-hand; fully, without reserve; also without dwelling upon it. What he dwells upon, what he aggravates, is his’ guilt, his blame-worthiness, his criminality, his illdeservingness, his entire deservingness of all that God is doing. “And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which made the sea and the dry land.” There is the acknowledgment of his guilt. And these are the things that aggravate his guilt. He is “an Hebrew;” one of the favoured people, of whom he knoweth, and hath had rich experience, that God dealt not so with any nation. And he knows “the God of heaven,” and “fears” Him, the God that “made the sea and the dry land,” the living God, the Supreme, the Creator, the Preserver of all the ends of the earth, the Answerer of Prayer unto His people, answering them at times by “terrible things in righteousness,” yet still “the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of all them that are afar off upon the sea” (Ps. lxv). For such an one to sin, and to sin thus; for a Hebrew to cast himself out among the heathen; for a believer in the God of heaven, the Maker of the sea and of the dry land, to flee from land to sea, away from the presence of the Maker of both, this indeed was deep-dyed guiltiness and sin. And all this, to his own humiliation, Jonah distinctly speaks out and specifies. The mere fact, the mere admission of the fact, is with him a small matter; all the more so, as his interrogators seemed to count it the most engrossing. With him, the matter of the guilt, the offensiveness, the aggravated and inexcusable criminality, is by far the most important thing calling for admission, for acknowledgment; all the more so because his interrogators made so light of it, so little of it, overlooked it indeed so completely. With him now, in his returning integrity and rising penitence, the admission of his guilt is the great point. He disposes quickly of the fact. Accordingly, in our narrative the admission of the fact is thrown quite into a parenthesis, quite into a corner, into the shade, into the background. It is set aside quite in an ofF-hand way. His telling them the fact is recorded as a matter of course; no attention is concentrated on that. It is not engrossed among the other parts of his reply, but merely stated to have formed a part of it. It seems as if it had been engrossed in the narrative as by a hair-breadth escape: “The men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” In this slight, and unnoticeable way, — scarcely for a moment breaking the deep solemnity of the record as it discloses the action of a fallen but godly man’s conscience of the guilt, — the mere admission of the deed is disposed of and set at rest. On the solemn owning of the guilt all our notice is concentrated. And not only so in Jonah’s original converse on the very scene itself. But, as we are to remember, Jonah himself is afterwards the writer and author, under God’s Spirit, of this very record before us. It is he who tells the story. It is he who so quickly disposes of his own acknowledgment of the fact: “The men knew that he had fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.” And it is he who, on the the contrary, recounts and puts on record for all generations the full statement of his aggravated guilt and shame: “I am an Hebrew, and I fear the God of heaven, who, made the sea and the dry land.” I who have fled from His X presence, did so in the face of such light, such privileges, such / responsibilities as an Hebrew, a fearer of the living God, alone ’ can know. The

admission of the fact is secondary; and both as a penitent groaning under God’s hand at the time, and as a prophet writing God’s Scriptures afterwards, Jonah brings out its second ariness. He makes no secret of it, indeed; but he makes no great matter of it. The great matter — the great point with him is “giving glory” to God; owning his deep guilt; shielding and glorifying, even in his own punishment, God’s unspotted righteousness. Is not this the proof that he is, that he is still, that he is once more, a true fearer of the Lord, a leal-hearted son and servant of God Most High? Is not this the action, and test, and proof of filial truth and trustfulness; of a true son’s true, and loyal, and holy heart; even amidst sin’s acknowledgment; yea, never more truly than in the very fact and moment of sin acknowledged in all its guiltiness, its utter inexcusableness, its exceeding sinfulness? Never is one more intensely a son than in the very act of confession, when confession is heartfelt, ingenuous, true and full. “Give glory unto God, my son, and make confession to Him.”

O fallen prophet! 0 rising man of God! thou art a Hebrew; thou fearcst God! Not, Thou didst once fear God, thou didst once belong to the commonwealth of Israel and covenant of promise. Fallen thou hast greatly; pursued thou art hotly; punished with strong cords of chastisement, by the strong hand of the Almighty. Yet still thou boldest thine integrity; still thou fearest God. O blessed word! “I fear, I do fear, I am fearing, the God of heaven.” Yes; hold fast thy fear of God. Hold to it, and protest that still thou fearest God. Say not, I once feared the Lord; once in days gone by, before I disobeyed Him and fled. The enemy would have thee to put it all to the past, to set it all aside as past. Nay; hold to it that still, disobedient as thou hast been, miserable as thou art, still thou fearest God, truly, reverently, filially, penitently, giving Him Glory. Fallen thou hast. Yet let this be thy challenge to the foe: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall rise again; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.” Fallen thou hast. Yet, challenging and defying the enemy, appeal also to the Lord; even as the Lord, by this very punishment, appeals to thee. For is He not appealing to thee? Hark! the terms of His appeal! Jonah, son of Amittai, fearest thou Me — Me the Maker of this raging sea, and of the dry land? Seest thou not, 0 Jonah, that thy God is keeping fast hold of thee; and not even thy sin shall pluck thee out of thy Saviour’s, thy Father’s hand? Seeth thou not that He is keeping fast hold of thee, that thou mayest keep fast hold of thine integrity and of Him? Seest thou not that this very raging of the sea, raging against thee, raging against thy sin, is sent forth to keep alive, to quicken, to stimulate, to restore thy true and trusting and obedient fear of God? Doth not every wave, in its tumultuous terror, as it dashes on the ship, cry as from God: “Jonah, son of Amittai, fearest thou Me?” A brother of thine in after days, as foully fallen, shall hear a still small voice beside the soft rippling wave of Galilee’s lake, say, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me?” And canst thou not reply, somewhat as he shall, “Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I fear Thee “?

Yes; there is uprightness in thee still, 0 man of God; and by thine uprightness thou shalt rise again, through the mercy of thy God, into righteous peace and dignity, into labours and usefulness still in His service. Cast not away thy fear of God, which hath great recompense of reward. Only be true. Only be truthful to man and true to God. Come what may, give God the glory. He can do thee no wrong, even unto eternity. Is He not thy God? And is He not also, O sinning, fallen, troubled, penitent, rising brother, is He not the God of the sea? That raging sea can never hurt thee, true to thy God, who is also the God of heaven, of the sea, and of the dry land. Confess to Him. Return to Him. Give glory unto Him. Come of it whatsoever may, Give Him glory. Though He slay thee, yet still do thou trust in Him. None of them that trust in Him shall be desolate.