“I WISH you had been with us yesterday, Aunt Edith,” said Charley; “we had such a nice talk with a friend of papa’s, who has just come from Syria. He told us ever so many stories about the country and the people; just think, he met with robbers, and men almost as wild as wild beasts in his journeys along the banks of the Jordan; and he has lived quite a long time in the very places of which we read in the Bible. I do wish you had heard him, for I can never tell you half he said.”
“I am sure I should have enjoyed hearing the stories, Charley, and I should like, too, to have seen your papa’s friend, for I have heard of him as one who has suffered many hardships, leaving country, and friends, and home-pleasures and comforts behind, that he might be the means of bringing the pure Word of God to many who, though they live in Bible lands, are yet in darkness and the shadow of death. I suppose you know, May, that this gentleman, who was so good to you, is a missionary, who has spent many a long year traveling about the most unfrequented parts of Palestine and Egypt, sometimes speaking the Name which is above every name to ears which had never heard it, leaving here and there in lonely places an Arabic gospel, or a little book which should tell, when he was far away, the story of Jesus and His love; quietly, day by day, bearing poverty, and loneliness, and toil for the sake of Him who said, ‘If any man serve Me, let him follow Me, and where I am there shall also My servant be; if any man serve Me, him will My Father honor.’ I believe this servant of Christ has suffered many things in His service, but we need not be sorry for him; no one ever yet was unhappy while suffering for Christ’s sake.”
“I am glad to think of that, Auntie; then the martyrs were really happy people, though they had to bear such terrible pains,” said May. “But I did not know this missionary had suffered hardships and dangers; he only told us of pleasant things, of the blue sky without a cloud, and of the lovely flowers, and how he had bathed in the Dead Sea and in the River Jordan.”
“Oh, and he showed us beautiful pictures, too, which he had drawn—pictures of Bethlehem and Nazareth, and of the Mount of Olives,” said Charley.
“I liked best of all that one where some Jews were crying over the stones of their temple; a few stones—such large ones they looked in the picture—are built into an old wall; and there the poor Jews stood, pressing their faces close to them, and praying that God would soon build their City and Temple again.”
“And Jerusalem will be a beautiful happy City one day; the joy of the whole earth,” papa said; “and then God’s Temple will be there,” said Charley. “But, Aunt Edith,” he added, thoughtfully, “a great deal was said about this which I did not understand, and I could not ask questions just then. Papa said it pleased God to dwell with men, and he spoke of God having chosen a place on this earth to dwell in, and of how wonderful it was to think of such a thing. I thought when he spoke of the ‘Sanctuary of God’ he must mean the Temple, but May says that was the Tabernacle. You know we saw a model of it not long ago.”
“I should like to make this, if I can, plainer to you, Charley; fetch May’s Bible and your own, and we will have a little talk about it; there is plenty of time before you go home.”
“Where shall we begin?” said Charley, “I suppose I had better find about King Solomon’s reign,”
“By-and-bye we shall turn to the books of Kings and Chronicles to find the description of the ‘exceeding magnifical’ house which God allowed Solomon to build for His dwelling-place; but just now I want you to go farther back in the history of God’s ancient people, that we may see where the wonderful fact of His being pleased to dwell in the midst of His redeemed is first recorded. You remember, do you not, that when the Israelites stood upon the shores of the Red Sea, in their first joy and thankfulness for the great deliverance God had wrought for them, they sang a song of triumph and victory? Will you find this song, Charley, it is in Ex. 15, and read the first two verses?”
Charley read, “I will sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath He thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and He is become my salvation: He is my God, and I will prepare Him an habitation; my Father’s God, and I will exalt Him.”
“Now will you, May, turn to Rev. 21, the last chapter but one in the Bible, and read the third verse.”
“Here it is, Auntie,” said little May, and she read, slowly and carefully, “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
“I asked you to read these verses,” said her aunt, “that you might see that as soon as God had a redeemed people upon this earth, He put into their hearts the desire to prepare a dwelling-place, that they might have their God ever with them, and then graciously answered the desire He had Himself given, by saying to Moses, ‘Let him make me a Sanctuary, that I may dwell among them’; and that, at the very end of God’s book, there is the same thought still, for there we read the wonderful words, ‘Behold the Tabernacle of God is with men.’”
“I remember, when I was learning the eighth chapter of Proverbs to say to you, Aunt Edith, you told me that it is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself who says there, My delights were with the sons of men:”
“I am glad you remember so well, Charley; by-and-bye I hope you will be able to trace all through the Book of God the thought, wonderful beyond all our comprehension, of His being pleased to make Himself known, not only as a God of power, but as a God of love, and even to seek a dwelling-place among creatures such as we, first taking up His abode with His redeemed people in the wilderness, where the cloud, resting on that mystic Tent, which was a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, gave token of His presence amongst them.”
“You mean that God first dwelt on earth when the Tabernacle was set up; but did He not dwell with Adam and Eve long ago, before they had sinned?”
“It is true that Adam and Eve in Eden heard the voice of God, walking in the garden; but then, God could not dwell with His creatures, who, because of their sin, hid from Him. Abraham was called the friend of God, but it was not to Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob that God spoke of making Him a Sanctuary that He might dwell among them, but to those people whom He had rescued from the cruel bondage of Egypt—those people upon whose doors the blood of the paschal lamb had been sprinkled, who were emphatically called ‘the redeemed of Jehovah.’”
“I know that when the Israelites had killed those lambs and put the blood outside their houses they were perfectly safe, and, although the destroying angel was going all through the land of Egypt smiting the firstborn in every house, they were saved from death by the blood of the Passover lambs; but is that why you call them a ‘redeemed people’?”
“They were a blood-bought people, belonging to God, His own redeemed possession. God had said, ‘When I see the blood I will pass over you’; we know from the New Testament, which so wonderfully explains to us what is taught in types and figures in the Old, that the blood of a lamb could not really avail to take away sin, but that all the sacrifices, from that first lamb which Abel offered to God, pointed to the ‘Lamb without blemish and without spot,’ who ‘was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world,’ the precious ‘Lamb of God’ whose blood cleanseth from all sin. You know why Abel brought a lamb as His offering to God, do you not, May?”
“It was because Abel believed what God had told him, was it not, Auntie?”
“Cain did not bring anything to die instead of himself, so his sacrifice could not be accepted,” said Charlie. “I suppose,” he added, “the blood on the doors showed that a life had been given instead of the lives of the people inside; a lamb sacrificed for them so that their lives should not be taken.”
“Yes, it was only on the ground of the sacrifice of the lamb accepted, by God in his stead, that any Israelite could be saved from the destruction which was all around, and it was because they were His blood-bought people that God said (Ex. 29:45, 4645And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God. 46And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them: I am the Lord their God. (Exodus 29:45‑46)), I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them.
“I suppose when the Israelites saw the cloud on the Tabernacle they knew that God had accepted the sacrifices which that had offered, for you said the cloud was the sign His presence with them.”
“Yes, Charley; that beautiful Shekinah, or glory-cloud, which rested on the Tabernacle, and afterwards filled the house which Solomon had built was the sign of the presence of God among His people until the sad day came when the glory departed, driven away by the sin of the people, as we read in the prophecy of Ezekiel.”
“Then did the cloud never come back?”
“The Shekinah, or glory-cloud, did shine again upon this earth, May, but there were few who saw it or knew that the blessed Babe who was born in Bethlehem, whose coming was announced by the heavenly in the words, ‘on earth, peace, good will toward man,’ was, in reality, the one in whom every type and shadow was fulfilled, Emmanuel, God with us.
“Some of the Lord’s disciples saw it also when they were with Him on the mountain and the voice from heaven said, ‘This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.’
“But our time is short; we must talk more about the Tabernacle on a future occasion.” C. P.