Refuge, Refreshment, and Rest in Christ!
Refuge, Refreshment, and Rest in Christ!(TOC)
"And a man shall be …
as a hiding place from the wind;
and a covert from the tempest;
as rivers of water in a dry place;
as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."
—Isaiah 32:2
In this language, peculiar to oriental countries, the prophet sets forth the security, refuge, refreshment, and rest that the believer shall find in Jesus the Messiah. Let us analyze, in a few brief words, the language of the text, and then apply it to Jesus Christ.
The "wind" spoken of, is either the hot desert-breath which sweeps up from the arid sandy wastelands on the east and south of Palestine, blasting and wilting health, strength, life, and producing intense, and often fatal suffering—or the desolating "east wind," technically so called, which caused great destruction of dwellings, fruits, and crops throughout the western coast of Judea.
"A hiding place" from such a wind would be a peculiar blessing, where one could abide until its fury was spent, and the gentle south wind again blew.
The "tempest," unlike the dry wind-storm of the desert, was a fierce gale, accompanied with rain, thunder, lightning, and hail—the fury of which is well known. By it Paul was shipwrecked; and its violence and destructiveness on land and sea are matters of common notoriety. Those who have been tossed about days and nights in such tempests, when neither sun nor star appeared, or who have been exposed to its peltings without the shelter of a cave or shelter, well know the blessing of "a covert" from such a storm.
The "rivers of waters in a dry place," indicate the abundant refreshment that there would be in those hot and parched lands, where rivers were few, small, and uncertain, where springs were scarce, where wells were found only at long intervals and of scanty depth. Over those Arabian deserts the traveler, borne upon the camel's back—journeys day after day without seeing a stream, a spring, or a well. to him, the most delightful idea is that of cool and flowing water; water so plenteous as to be styled rivers, where he could not merely slake his thirst, but bathe his almost sun-baked body, and gain new vigor and strength from its reviving waves.
Still borrowing his images from the lands in and around the Arabian deserts, the prophet introduces one more figure—"the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Trees, in those sandy wastelands, are rare—but there are frequently found immense masses of rocks, the spurs of mountains or outcropping ledges of stone, which afford protection from the sun; and, as there is generally some herbage around the rock, comfort and coolness to man and beast. The tired traveler has traversed a weary land; nothing has met his eye but burning sand, and stunted saline shrubs. At length he sees the dark rock afar off. He is thirsty and hungry, wilted with heat, and sore with fatigue; and he longs to descend from his "ship of the desert," and, in the cool "shadow" and refreshing moisture of this "great rock," recruit his exhausted strength.
There is, then, great force in the language of the prophet—far greater than we can conceive unless we have traveled in those Eastern lands. and yet, as forcible and pertinent as these illustrations are, they afford but slender ideas of the refuge, refreshment, and rest—which the soul finds in Jesus Christ.
Let us consider, then, these several NECESSITIES of the soul, and the full PROVISION made to meet its wants.
1. We Need a Refuge From the Stormy Wind of God's Wrath
The Bible declares that "the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven against all ungodliness of men," and it necessarily must be so, so long as God is holy and man sinful. Consequently all impenitent people are exposed to this wrath, for they are in the hands of one of whom it is said, "He is angry with the wicked every day." a moment's calm reflection should convince such of the extreme peril of their position. They have not a moment's security against Divine punishment, and yet, to see them in their pride and recklessness, in their hardened indifference and daily transgression—one would suppose that they had taken out life-leases for a thousand years! When the real fact is, that they stand on slippery places, and unless plucked thence by the Spirit of God, their "feet shall slide in due time!"
The traveler by land or sea who casts his eye around the horizon and sees the dense cloud gathering blackness, and the tempest rolling itself up for the onslaught—makes all preparation to meet the coming storm, or seeks a refuge from its fury. and he who attempted to brave the storm when a covert was at hand—would expect nothing better than to perish in the blast. But the impenitent are warned of this coming wrath day by day; they are pointed to the words of the Bible, which declare it; their consciences tell them that it is even so; their reason pronounces God's course a just and merciful one; they assent to the importance of having a saving interest in the Lord Jesus. Yet, hoping to brave the storm a little longer, presuming upon God's mercy still further—they go on in sin, in rejecting Christ, in struggling against the Spirit, in rebelling against God—until, in the language of Job, "Terrors take hold of him as waters! a tempest steals him away in the night, and he departs, and as a storm hurls him out of his place," for the Psalmist solemnly declares, "Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire, and brimstone, and a horrible tempest—this shall be the portion of their lot!"
But what a blessed truth is it, that there is provided a refuge in Christ Jesus! that which so threatens us with vengeance, is the holy law of God pronouncing its just curse on every act of disobedience. It is the transgression of this law, which is sin. It is the justice of God, which requires that this sin should be punished; for the decree of this holy lawgiver is, "Cursed is every one who continues not in all things written in the book of the law, to do them." From this curse, and consequent punishment, we can be freed only in two ways: by perfect personal obedience—or by the obedience and suffering of a recognized substitute and surety. to roll off the curse from our heads by personal obedience to all the precepts of the law is impossible, because we inherit such sinful natures that "we go astray as soon as we are born." and consequently what the Apostle says is necessarily true: "By the deeds of the law, shall no flesh living be justified."
But when, by the fall of our first parents—this way of personal obedience was forever closed against us. We were exposed, unsheltered, to the full penalty of the violated law and its attendant curse. Christ opened a way of escape, by condescending to take the sinner's place, bear the sinner's curse—and thus, by his own obedience and death, create a new title to life; the covenant …
being devised in the counsels of the Godhead,
being written in the blood of the cross,
being sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Christ, then, having "satisfied the law and made it honorable," having "borne our sins in his own body on the tree"—"has redeemed us from the curse of the law," has effected a reconciliation with God, has made it possible for him "to be just and yet the justifier of him who believes in Jesus." and the simple condition upon which we are put in full and eternal possession of all the blessings of this scheme of redemption—is to "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." to believe in him in such a way as …
to commit to him the undivided interest of our souls,
to look to him alone for salvation,
to cast away every other help and refuge, and
to come to Christ in the simplicity of a faith that takes him at his word, exclaiming with one of old, "Lord, I believe—help my unbelief!"
When the sinner has done this he has, in the emphatic words of the Bible, "fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before him in the gospel" …
he has "put on Christ;"
he has "hidden his life with Christ in God;"
he has "made the Lord his stronghold and tower of defense;"
he has found "a covert from the storm,"
for there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus. The law's dread curse cannot reach him whose life "is hidden with Christ in God." Justice cannot arrest him who has gained the refuge of God's own providing. He boldly pleads what Christ has done. He boldly declares Christ to be his surety—and the destroying angel cannot touch a hair of the head of those, upon the lintel and door-posts of whose heart—is seen the blood of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Thus it is that Christ became a full "covert from the storm" of divine justice, and a full "refuge from the wind" of God's consuming wrath! the tempest which was due to us—was poured in its fury on him, and we are spared its blast, because our surety has borne its brunt, and now offers to all who will believe in him, the sheltering refuge of his atoning grace.
2. We Need that which will slake the thirsting of the Immortal Soul
"Rivers of water in a dry place." the soul is of celestial origin; it will never die; and it is ever panting after that which is adapted to its spiritual need, and which will satisfy its aspirations. It is the possession of this immortal soul, which makes man a being so "fearfully and wonderfully made." and though the great majority of men seem to lose sight of their souls, and are perfectly reckless as to what becomes of them—there is still at times a startling assertion of their rights, and an importunate putting forth of their needs, which shows that, though debased—they are not destroyed; though chained down to earth by the fetters of flesh and blood—they yet struggle for freedom and for relief.
The world, however, can offer nothing but "dry places" to the soul. Sin has blasted its pastures, and dried up its well-springs—so that, in a spiritual sense, we live "in a parched and barren land." the world can never satisfy the desires of the soul; these desires are unbounded by time, and unlimited by space—they stretch away into the future, they rise above the seen and the temporal. The soul has insatiate longings. There is in it, when not completely palsied by sin, and choked in all its utterances—a thirsting after more light, more happiness, more knowledge; and such light, and happiness, and knowledge as earth can never give, because they do not pertain to earthly things. Who can recount the unsatisfied yearnings of his soul!
You feel in your own consciousness, the intense thirst of the spirit for something that you have not; and as aspiration after aspiration lures you on with the promise of satisfying waters—how does your heart sink within you as you find, after weary efforts to reach these rivers of pleasure—that it is only the mirage of the desert, the tantalizing mockery of a thirst made more painful by the very effort to reach the delusive stream! and when the soul, under the convicting influences of the Holy Spirit, is made to feel, in a very peculiar sense, the thirstings after the new birth—feeling, as it has never before felt, the worthlessness and unsatisfyingness of all that earth can offer—then how does it strain after something that will slake its thirst and satisfy its cravings; but nothing earthly contains it, and nothing earthly can impart the blessing.
To the soul thus situated, Christ offers himself as "rivers of water in a dry place." He presents himself as the one who alone can satisfy its needs and meet its aspirations. He stands beside every earth-hewn cistern, and laying his hand upon its curb, says of it, as he said to the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, "Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again—but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst." He sends out his prophets and apostles with the cry, "Ho! Every one that thirsts—come to the waters." His own language is, "If any man thirsts—let him come unto me and drink." While the Church, the bride of Christ, catching up the tones of her beloved, and joined by the stirring voice of the Spirit, exclaims, "Come! Whoever will, let him take of the water of life freely!"
There is no need of the soul which is not met and satisfied in Jesus Christ. He …
fills it with his own fullness,
restores it to more than pristine joy,
reunites its lost affections to God,
calls out its highest aspirations,
leads it on from one stage of glory to another, from one peak of knowledge to another, forever widening its vision, forever expanding its powers—forever making it to quaff of the waters of that "river of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb!"
With what great propriety may the prophet term Christ, "rivers of water!" Not a fountain, bubbling up today and exhausted tomorrow; not a mountain stream, swollen with winter's snows and dry in summer's heats; not a single river even, that in time of drought might perchance shrink within its bed. But to express the exhaustless fullness and overflowing abundance, Jesus is styled "rivers of water!" the flocking crowd of Christians may here drink and drink again; the nations of the earth may quaff its pure water—but cannot drain it dry! There is in Christ sufficiency for every soul! All its holy longings, all its heavenly aspirations, and all its thirstings after righteousness—are met, and more than satisfied. When Christ is once apprehended as the true fountain of pleasure—then we are assured that we could ever be satisfied with the broken cisterns of earthly comfort, which can hold no water.
3. The soul needs spiritual rest
"The shadow of a great rock" in this "weary land." It has tried many plans of worldly greatness—and found them vain! It has traversed many ways of promised pleasure—and found them painful! It has sought out many inventions to hold it up in the day of its prosperity—and found them "miserable comforters all."
It is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit, to cause men to perceive the weariness and burdensomeness of sin. for so accustomed are we to sin, so infatuated with it, so blinded by nature to its evils and its sorrows—that unless made to see it with a spiritual vision imparted by the Holy Spirit—we would never feel our real wretchedness and our intolerable burden. But when we do begin to feel and acknowledge this—then do we eagerly seek for true relief and rest.
To all such, Christ is revealed as "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." He gives rest to the soul …
by pardoning the sins which so weigh it down;
by removing the curse which we so justly deserve, and
by imparting new life to the fainting spirit.
And when our sins are forgiven, and the penalty of death removed, and the spirit of Christ infused into us—then, of course, there will be such a sense of relief and comfort as the traveler experiences who comes, after long hours of travel over a burning sandy waste—to "the shadow of a great rock," and in its refreshing coolness finds the desired rest.
Such is the gracious aspect in which Christ manifests himself to his believing people:
a refuge from the wind of adversity,
a covert from the storm of divine anger,
a source of unfailing refreshment to the hungry and thirsting pilgrim,
and a secure and blessed rest to the sin-weary and guilt-laden soul.
Sadly, then, are they deceiving themselves, who refuse the offered grace of Jesus Christ. and why do they refuse? Because they dare not rise above the fear of man; and, in face of the taunts and jeers of so-called friends, go to Jesus. or because they are so pleased with their own garments of self-righteousness—that they will not put on the offered robe of Christ's righteousness. or because the pride of their heart is so great that they will not humble themselves upon their knees and confess that they are great and hell-deserving sinners in the sight of God, and are willing to receive salvation as the free gift of sovereign grace, "without money and without price."
And will you for these reasons …
reject the Savior?
lose Heaven?
ruin your soul?
Look at them! Will they bear examination? Hold them up in the light of eternity, and with the fearful realities of the future unfolded before you—how do they look there?
Utter them at the bar of God, and tell him who "sits on the great white throne," surrounded by angels, and with the book of judgment open before him—tell him, and tell it out so loud that all the universe can hear: "I rejected you, O Christ, as my 'refuge!' I refused you as 'a covert!' I turned away from you 'as rivers of water!' I sought you not as the 'shadow of a great rock in that weary land!' and all …
because I feared what man should do unto me;
because I could not brook the ridicule of my fellows;
because I was so engrossed in buying and selling and getting gain;
because I was so delighted with my own morality;
because I was too proud to bend the knee to you, O Christ!"
How will such excuses sound at the Judgment Seat of Christ?
Yet at that Judgment Seat—you must stand; before that rejected Savior—you must bow! and as you cannot stand acquitted there except through faith in him, as you cannot meet him in peace except through the salvation of his own providing—so let me urge you, pilgrim to eternity, traveler through this weary and stormy land …
to seek this only "hiding place from the wind;"
to flee to this only "covert from the storm" of wrath;
to drink only at these "rivers of water" in the dry places of earth,
and to sit down only beneath this "shadow of a great rock" in this weary land of earth—yielding with a glad mind and heart to the invitation of Jesus, "Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavy laden—and I will give you rest!" Yes, "rest!" Rest to your souls, rest on earth, rest in Heaven—a rest that will never end!
"Let me not see the death of the child!"—Genesis 21:16
Thus spoke an Egyptian mother in the day of her hopeless sorrow. Moved by the jealousy of Sarah, and directed also by the Lord; Abraham, on the complaint of his wife that Ishmael, the son of Hagar, was mocking Isaac, rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a bottle of water, and gave it unto Hagar, and sent her away; and she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beer-Sheba. It was a sad morning to her, when she was thus cast out from the patriarchal dwelling, and forced not only to leave a home where most of her life had been spent—but also to seek now with her only boy a new lodging place, a new master, and a new country.
Her aim, most likely, was to return to Egypt—but after entering the wilderness of Beer-Sheba she soon became entangled in its depths, and lost her way. The bottle of water which she bore upon her shoulder served but a short time to slake the thirst of herself and son; and now that it was all gone, and no means at hand of refilling the empty cruse, her heart fainted within her. The heat of a Syrian sun, the toils of a Syrian wilderness, the pains of gnawing hunger, the cravings of a tongue, and mouth, and lips parching with thirst, broke down their spirits and their strength, and the poor mother, placing her feeble dying son under the shelter of one of the shrubs of the desert, left him there, and "went a great way off, for she said: Let me not see the death of the child: and she sat about a bowshot away, and lifted up her voice, and wept."
Bond-woman though she was, she loved her son, and when she saw him failing through toil, and wilting with heat, and parching with thirst, and dying for lack of bread and water; her maternal feelings became so strong that she turned away from beholding the last scene of her son's agony, saying in the bitterness of her soul, "Let me not see the death of the child."
In this sentence, Hagar spoke as nearly every parent would speak. Let one of our children become sick, let his case wax more and more doubtful, let medicine be of no avail, let the skill of the physician be at a stand, let life seem to be ebbing away, and the post of observation grow darker every hour; at such a time what father, what mother would not utter the impassioned cry, "Let me not see the death of the child!"
There is no position of peril in which one of our children can be placed that will not at once awaken anxious thought, and call out deep solicitude. We are keenly alive to all their physical suffering and exposure, and leave nothing undone to secure their health and comfort. for our children's good, we will …
suffer almost any pain,
endure any hardship,
labor with unflagging zeal,
bear any trials;
and we consider …
no effort too great,
no sacrifice too costly,
no toil too drudging,
no exposure too reckless—
if we can thereby serve their interests and secure for them honor, and competence, and health. It is right that we should feel thus. It is the natural outgrowth of those ties which God has linked with our inmost affections; and we can almost as soon forget ourselves, or be indifferent to the needs of our own bodies—as forget and be indifferent to, our beloved children.
But though we all sympathize with Hagar in the disconsolate outburst of her soul, "Let me not see the death of the child," though we all acknowledge the intense interest which we feel in our child's welfare—yet many of us are, after all, doing that to and for our child which is not merely sitting by, and seeing him die—but which is helping on his death, and making ready his grave!
This may seem severe language, and sensitive minds may shrink from its roughness—but it is nevertheless true; and my duty, as a watchman on the walls of Zion, is to sound this truth in the ears of parents, if so be, God blessing me, I can make them sensible of …
the danger of our children,
the responsibility for that danger which rests upon us,
and the means which we should at once put in operation to avert the threatened evil, and secure the promised blessing.
The proposition that I lay down is this. that a large number of parents in Christian lands are pursuing with their children, a course of conduct that must inevitably work out their spiritual death! While they shrink with horror from doing that which would cause them to see the physical death of their child—they are doing that which, unless checked, will procure the spiritual death of the child. So grave a charge must needs be sustained by ample proof. Alas! the proof is too startling and overpowering to be either gainsaid or set aside.
The infinite superiority of the soul to the body, and of eternity to time, being acknowledged—I proceed to remark, that the first way in which parents, who cry out in view of physical dissolution, "Let me not see the death of the child," are yet accomplishing their child's spiritual death, is—by showing the child, that they regard the body more than the soul. Every parent is anxious to secure for his child sound health, and they will put themselves to much trouble and expense to preserve this health or recover it if lost. At the first threatening of disease, they apply the most effective remedies, call in the best medical advice, and cease not in their remedial efforts—until health returns, or death supervenes.
Each parent also is desirous of giving his child proper food, and so unnatural is it for one to do otherwise, that our Savior bases on this impossibility, one of His strongest reasons why men should trust their heavenly Father. "For what man of you," He says, "whom if his son ask bread—will he give him a stone? or if he ask an egg—will he give him a scorpion? or if he ask a fish—will he give him a serpent?" Such a course of action is so unnatural, that instances of it cannot be found in well-regulated parental feelings. We restrain our children from partaking of that food which we fear will be injurious, we urge them to eat that which is wholesome, and no affectionate father and mother is wholly indifferent as to the diet of their child.
Parents are also desirous to clothe their children in a befitting manner—and how much pride, and display, and money, and folly—is expended on the garments that are to cover them. These are objects of constant parental thought, occupying hours and days, taxing mind and strength, and purse and time, to an extent we little imagine, until we seriously attempt to estimate the sum.
Parents also are desirous of making their children lovely and attractive. to this end they are particular in checking any clumsy habits or evil propensities; and they aim to remove every little personal defect, or develop every personal grace—subjecting to their scrutiny their walk, their posture, their complexion, their carriage, their whole system of habits; pruning the exuberance of this idiosyncrasy, stimulating the undergrowth of that virtue; curbing this trait, and spurring on that sluggish excellence; leaving nothing undone to give them beauty of features, grace of form, attractiveness of demeanor; instilling these things by repeated lessons and perpetual superintendence.
This is what most parents will do for their children; and, to a reasonable extent—what they ought to do. But in doing this, we too often do it so as to impress the child with the superiority of the body to the soul, and in a large majority of cases, the soul is thrust out of view as if it were a thing of no importance.
I proceed to remark, secondly, that we are procuring the spiritual death of our child—by showing that child that we regard the things of time more than the things of eternity. this superior regard for temporal over eternal things, is evidenced by the fact that we lay our plans so much for time—and few or none, perhaps, for eternity. The ends and aims that we seek for our children, and which we teach them to seek also—are mostly earthly: the getting of money, or a name, or high place, or literary renown, or social pre-eminence. and to the securing of these, we toil and drudge through weary years in the hope that our child will reward all our efforts by one day gaining the coveted and sought-for blessing.
The same thing is also shown by the sedulous manner in which we cultivate our temporal interests. Whatever concerns our earthly state and condition, whatever affects our business or profession, whatever influences our relations to our family, and social circle, and the neighboring community—is a subject of great interest; and we manifest our interest by thinking deeply, and plotting wisely, and acting judiciously, taxing all the faculties of mind, and all the powers of the body to advance these interests. Our children are daily and almost hourly witnesses of our absorption in the things of time and sense. They hear our conversation, they perceive our changes of feeling, they note our devotion to business, to our profession, to politics, to pleasure; and …
their young hearts enter with zest into many of our schemes,
they catch the infection of our worldliness,
they grow up in the same earthiness of mind, and
the present, and the worldly, and the temporal, engross the soul!
Our children rarely hear us speak of religion, unless indeed to criticize a sermon, or the conduct of some lax member of the Church. We do not, as we should, aim to draw off their hearts, too readily, alas, linked with carnal views—from the scenes around, and fasten them on things above. We do not, as we ought, strive to win them to Christ, or to secure for them a crown of righteousness. What these children shall be after death and throughout eternity—seldom employs our thoughts, and if circumstances force it upon our minds, it is too often thrown out as unwelcome. The horizon of our thoughts, and plans, and hopes reach only to this present world; thus excluding from their minds as far as our precept and example go—the outlying interests of the soul which are to occupy the whole field of eternity.
Thus, those who would in view of physical danger, cry out in agony, "Let me not see the death of the child!" are doing that which will necessarily lay the soul of the child in the winding-sheet of eternal death!
How many budding hopes that might have bloomed in Heaven—lie blasted beneath the golden sandal of wealth! How many eternal interests are stranded by the courted gale of popular renown! How many a soul has been made to sell its immortal birthright, for some earthly bowl of pottage, a respectable marriage, or a fashionable establishment!
And when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed at the judgment seat—what amazing revelations will then be made, of the sacrifices of children's souls which parents were willing to make, in order to gain some present end or some worldly advantage!
A third way in which parents accomplish the spiritual death of their children, is by showing them that they regard the favor and opinions of men, more than the favor and Word of God. We are very careful to instruct our sons and daughters in all the proprieties and conventional rules of good society. We teach them to shun whatever is not in accordance with the spirit and regulations of the fashionable world. We aim to make them favorites in their respective circles, and to win the good opinions of their fellows. in all this, we are governed by the opinions of the people among whom we move; we catch up their views and spirit, and shape our own and our children's views accordingly.
The child soon learns that these are our standards; he adopts our ways of thinking, looks to these alone as rules of conduct; and as in the education of the child, all reference to God's law and favor, is well near excluded—so the child excludes God, and Heaven, and Hell from his thoughts and plans, and he contracts his soul within the pent-up lines of an earthly existence, and makes his immortal spirit which might dwell and shine among angelic beings in glory—drudge as a menial in the service of a dying body—and all through the precepts and examples which we perhaps have, year by year, brought to bear upon his mind and heart!
What a Moloch is human opinion! How many thousands of children are cast into its burning arms, and sacrificed to the favor or frowns of a deceitful world, while the deafening din of fashion's giddy throng drowns the shrieks of agony which burst from their spirits as they die without hope, without pardon, without Christ! the judgment day will reveal that through timidity in braving the opinions of godless friends; or through fear of losing the favor of fashionable associates; or through dread of being put under the ban of some particular clique or circle—the soul of many a child has been left by its parents to perish forever!
Lastly: We aid and abet the spiritual death of our children by our irreligious example—both in doing that which is positively wrong, and in neglecting to do what is as positively required. As young as our child is—it has learned to join together precept and practice. and if we are professors of religion, it has put along side of this profession—our daily walk and conversation, and is perpetually drawing inferences from the one to the other, either for, or against, the truth which we profess.
Uncurbed tempers, ill-governed passions, unbridled tongues, uncharitable words;
lack of meekness, and gentleness, and truth;
lack of sobriety of mind, and kindliness of heart;
the absence of that strict conscientiousness which should mark all our actions;
neglect of the Bible and of prayer;
disregard of the means of grace;
irrepressible worldliness, in ever dwelling upon "what shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and with what shall we be clothed?"
—are leaving indelible impressions upon the minds of our offspring! So that, copying our habits of thought, speech, and action—our child's character in its essential characteristics, may be formed for eternity; before its mind is able to receive the precepts which, for consistency's sake, perhaps we occasionally teach.
And not only are the positive errors and influences working out the child's death—many are still further aiding their destruction, by neglecting altogether to teach the child the way of salvation. There are multitudes of parents whose children would never even know that they are professors of religion—did they not see them now and then at church. They never think of taking their children into their closets, and there kneel down with them before God, and give them to Jesus Christ. They never think of urging upon them the necessity of now making their peace with God. They are voluble on all other topics—but silent on this! They are alive to all other interests of their children—but dead to this. and the child sees the difference, and sets down all religion as being like its father's or its mother's religion—a thing to put on on Sundays—a garb to be worn in certain society, and under solemn circumstances—and then to be put off as an absolutely useless robe, in daily private life.
Could we who are parents take any one day of our lives, and carefully recalling all our acts—trace out the influence of each one on the moral character of our child, marking how each left its indelible impress for good or evil; and could we go a step further and observe how our omissions of duty respecting them—our neglecting to pray with and for them, to talk to them, to lead them to Jesus—left as fearful ravages as our positive misdeeds—we would be amazed at the molding power which, insensibly to ourselves, we put forth; and we would at the same time cease to wonder that so few children grew up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
On the contrary, each child snatched by the Holy Spirit as a brand from the burning, would be an astounding miracle of grace, all the more marvelous because of the immense counteracting influences of parents and home!
I believe that the moral character of children, to a great extent, depends on parents. God has placed us at the head-springs of their minds. The responsibility of this position, even an angel might shrink from. Yet there we are. Our child is given to us with a blank and unformed mind—that it may bear our inscriptions and our shaping. The babe of days …
grows up a child of months;
passes through a youth of changing seasons;
develops into a man of years—and through all these plastic periods is …
molded by our example,
instructed by our precepts, and
made to take on its eternal character!
For it is a startling fact that the great majority of conversions to Christ, take place before the time of manhood; so that each year from that point of time, lessens the probabilities of their ever becoming Christians.
Suppose that you gain all that you desire for your children; they have wealth, health, honor, happiness, and all desirable earthly good. You feel satisfied that your labor has not been in vain, and that you have not spent your strength for nothing. is this worth the sacrifice you have made? in giving an immortal soul as the price of such earthly ends—have you not paid too dearly for your temporal and carnal gains? is it not like Judas's thirty pieces of silver, "the price of blood"—the shekels of a soul's betrayal to its fiendish adversary? and will not the time soon come, when houses, money, fashion, rank—everything that earth has given in exchange for the child's soul—will be cast from you as Judas did his cursed coins, saying as he did so, "I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent blood!"
Father, mother, parents! What is it in your child, that you love?
Is it beauty? Time will erase it.
Is it grace of person? Age will bow that form, and wither those limbs.
Is it accomplishment of mind and heart? One touch of the finger of mania will unseat that mind; one stroke of sickness will still that heart!
And is it so, that we only love that which is ephemeral and perishing? and that all our parental affections are clasping themselves like the ivy around the crumbling and decaying flesh and blood of our offspring? Do we love in them, that which will never die—that which constitutes their highest claim upon our care—their souls? Our lips say yes—but our lives, alas! too often say no! Oh! before it is too late, let us aim to look at our child as an immortal being, and teach him …
that he has a soul,
that there is an eternity,
that he is a sinner,
that there is a Savior, and
lead him to that Savior for pardon and peace.
Teach him …
to love his Bible,
to pray,
to use God's means of grace,
to consecrate himself and all that he has to Christ.
Teach him these things by your …
personal example of weanedness from the world,
personal holiness of life,
daily precepts distilling in the heart, like the gentle dew.
Let every hour of our life, and every act of our life, proclaim aloud, that we regard the salvation of our child's soul as the first great aim and object of his existence.
Then, God blessing us, though we may be called to see "the child die"—the death that must pass on all the living; we will not be called to see him die that other and infinitely more dreadful death—the second death; but will be enabled to rejoice that our child when it passes from its earthly home and its earthly parents; has entered on its new life—that it has left forever a region of sin and woe, and gone to dwell forever in a land of holiness and love in Heaven!