HOW dark would be the future, not to say the present, had we no revelation from God!
If you have made a voyage of more than a few days’ duration, you probably know the meaning of “taking an observation.” At mid-day the sun is directly over our heads. If he be visible at that hour, the ship’s officers are enabled to determine the position and course of the ship more accurately than by other means. But all depends on seeing the sun, and only those who have crossed the dreary Atlantic, and been perhaps for several days in a storm or without his welcome beams, can know the gloomy feeling that invades the passengers, as day after day they see the captain on the bridge vainly endeavoring to take an observation. It is to this that Luke probably refers when he says: “When neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away” (Acts 27:2020And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. (Acts 27:20)). They were in darkness, “tossed with a tempest,” without means of shaping their course, and in danger of shipwreck!
Thank God that we have light from heaven that we can order our steps according to His Word, and that we know our way. We need not “grope as if we had no eyes,” nor “stumble at noonday as in the night.” “The Dayspring from on high has visited us,” and has given us light.
Not only was the Lord Jesus here as the Light and Life of men—a light which shone in darkness—but God has given us His Word to be our compass and chart. “Thy Word is a light.” “All Scripture is profitable for instruction.” May we not despise it! May we not forget to take observations I King Josiah came to the throne at Jerusalem in dark and evil days. Idols had been usurping God’s place. But one day the news came from the High Priest: “I have found a book!” (2 Chron. 34). It was passed from hand to hand, and at last it was read before the king. He rent his clothes, he took heed to it, and there was peace in his days.
Some twenty-five years later, Josiah’s son Jehoiakim was on the throne. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, and He bade him write His words in a roll of a book, and caused them to be read in the ears of the people. The words were words of judgment. Then the chief ones said: “We will surely tell the king” (Jer. 36) So the book was carried in to the king, who sat before the fire. When a few pages had been read aloud to Jehoiakim, he took the roll, and with a penknife he cut it and cast it into the flames. That man had the burial of an ass. It is a question for us all today.
Will we give heed to God’s Word, and shape our course thereby, or will we cut it up, and cast it away? Either God’s Word criticizes and changes us, or we criticize and seek to destroy it. Not that we can really succeed in the latter, for it is a living word, and “sharper than any two-edged sword.” Even King Jehoiakim had to find this out. God caused His words to be re-written, and He added thereto many and sore judgments, chiefly to come upon the man who had despised His counsel and would none of His reproof.
Let us then take heed to our ways. Read Jeremiah 36.
H. L. H.