THE BLESSING OF THE FATHER.
Considered as a father's blessing could anything be more appropriate than "The Lord bless thee, and keep thee"? Is not this just what every loving father seeks to do—to bless and keep his children? He does not find it an unwelcome task, but his greatest delight. Offer to relieve him of the responsibility and to adopt his child, and see what his reply will be! Nor may we confine ourselves to paternal love in thinking of this subject; but rather take it as parental love, embracing also the love of the mother, for "Thus saith the Lord, ... As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you." We all know how the mother-love delights to lavish itself on the objects of its care. With a patience that never tires, and an endurance almost inexhaustible, and a care all but unlimited, how often has the mother sacrificed her very life for the welfare of her babe. But strong as is a mother's love, it may fail; God's love never. "Can a woman forget her suckling child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee."
It was one of the objects of our Saviour's mission to reveal to us that, in Christ Jesus, God is also our Father. How He delighted in bringing out this precious truth the Sermon on the Mount bears witness: "Glorify your Father." "Love ... bless ... do good, that ye may be the children of your Father." Be "perfect, even as your Father." "Thy Father ... seeth." "Your Father knoweth," etc., etc. And well may our hearts rest in the thought which so satisfied His heart, that God is indeed our Father.
And what a glorious Father He is! the source of all true fatherhood and motherhood. We have often walked in the fields in the early morning, and have noticed how the rising sun has turned each dewdrop into a glittering gem; one ray of its own bright light makes a little sun of each of the million drops that hang from the pendent leaflets and sparkle everywhere. But it is helpful to remember that the glorious orb itself contains infinitely more light than all the dewdrops ever did or ever will reflect. And so of our heavenly Father: Himself the great Source of all that is noble and true, of all that ever has been loving and trust-worthy—each beautiful trait of each beautiful character is but the dim reflection of some ray of His own great perfection. And the sum-total of all human goodness, and tenderness, and love is but as the dewdrops to the sun. How blessed then to confide in the infinite and changeless love of such a Father—our Father in heaven!
How safe too! "There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy help, and in His excellency on the sky. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Ofttimes where the love of earthly parents has not failed, yet have they been powerless to bless and to keep. The cruel tyrant has tortured the parent in torturing the child; while there has been no power to deliver. And in the presence of human want or suffering how impotent has the strongest human love oft proved to be! Not so the love of our heavenly Father: His resources and His power are as inexhaustible as His love; and they are blest and kept indeed whom He deigns to bless and keep.
May we not add "they only"? The foolish prodigal imagines that he can secure greater happiness for himself when no longer curbed by his father's presence and will; such always come to want, and, alas! do not always return quickly to the home where reconciliation and blessing alone are to be found. He is poorly kept who tries to keep himself; and though the pleasures of sin may for a season gratify, they can never satisfy![B]
"Jehovah, the Father, bless thee, and keep thee." It is an individual blessing: and it includes every form of blessing, temporal as well as spiritual —"My God shall supply all your need"; and this "according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus," not according to our consciousness of need. He is able to bless, able to make all grace abound—to so wonderfully abound towards us, that we always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: He is able to keep—to keep us from falling, to keep us from all evil. And not only is He able, but He has already "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ," and He wants us, His children, to know and to enjoy the love that is the source of all blessing: the love that can never by finite words express its fulness: the love that eternal ages will never exhaust!
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"Best of blessings He'll provide us, Nought but good shall ere betide us; Safe to glory He will guide us, Oh, how He loves!" |
[B] When we speak of God as a Father we must not forget that He is only such in its full meaning to those who have become His children by faith in Christ Jesus; and that the sad and solemn words of the loving Saviour to the unconverted were, "Ye are of your father, the devil." The prodigal was a backslider: when furthest from home he could yet think and speak of the privileges of his father's house.