IV. Every truth is a call to duty. To what duties does our text call us? If we have had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, it says—1. Praise God. Would not a storm-driven traveller give thanks for “a covert,” the thirst-consumed for “rivers of water,” the faint and weary for “the shadow of a great rock?” Let us remember what Christ has been to us, and give “thanks unto God for His unspeakable gift!” 2. Take courage. Usually as years increase troubles multiply: but what Christ has been to you in the past, He will be in the future—an all-sufficient Saviour! 3. To those who have not yet had a personal experience of the truth of its declarations, my text says, Come to Jesus. Its promises are invitations. Is not a well of water in itself an invitation to a thirsty man? You need all that the text promises; and in the experience of millions of men living now, you have abundant evidence that its promises are worthy of your trust. Familiarise yourself with the “hiding-place” before the tempests of life burst upon you, that in the day of storm you may know whither to flee. Blessed are they who have made the Man of whom our text speaks their friend. According to His word (Matt. xxviii.), He is with them “always,” “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.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] We arose with the sun, and went out to saddle our dromedaries, when we found to our great surprise that their heads were buried in the sand; and it was not possible for us to draw them out. We called the Bedouins of the tribe to our aid, who informed us that the instinct of the camels led them to conceal their heads thus, in order to escape the simoom; that their doing so was an infallible presage of that terrible tempest of the desert, which would not be long in breaking loose; and that we could not proceed on the journey without meeting a certain death. The camels, who perceive the approach of this fearful storm two or three hours before it bursts, turn themselves to the side opposed to the wind, and dig into the sand. It is impossible to make them stir from that position either to eat or drink during the whole tempest, were it to last for several days. Providence has endowed them with this instinct of preservation, which never deceives them. When we learned with what we were threatened, we partook the general consternation, and hastened to take all the precautions which they pointed out to us. It is not sufficient to put the horses under shelter; it is requisite also to cover their heads and stop up their ears, otherwise they will be suffocated by the whirlwinds of fine impalpable sand, which the storm sweeps furiously before it. The men collect under their tents, block up the crevices with the greatest care, and provide a supply of water, which they keep within reach; they then lie down on the ground, their heads covered with the mashlas, and thus remain all the time that the tornado continues.
The camp was thrown into the greatest bustle, each bent on providing safety for his cattle, and afterwards withdrawing precipitately under his tent. We had scarcely got our beautiful Negde mares under cover ere the tempest burst. Impetuous blasts of wind buried clouds of red and burning sand in eddies, and overthrew all upon whom their fury fell; or, heaping up hills, they buried all that had strength to resist being carried away. If, at this period, any part of the body be exposed, the flesh is scorched as if a hot iron had touched it. The water, which was intended to cool us, began to boil, and the temperature of the tent exceeded that of a Turkish bath. The hurricane blew in all its fury for six hours, and gradually subsided during six more; an hour longer, and I believe we had all been stifled. When we ventured to leave the tents, a frightful spectacle presented itself; five children, two women, and a man were lying dead on the still burning sand, and several Bedouins had their faces blackened and entirely calcined, as if by a blast from a fiery furnace. When the wind of the simoom strikes an unfortunate wretch on the head, the blood gushes in streams from his mouth and nostrils, his face swells, becomes black, and he shortly dies of suffocation.—Lamartine: Travels in the East, p. 213.
“A hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest.” Soon Red Sea and all were lost in a sand-storm, which lasted the whole day. Imagine all distant objects entirely lost to view,—the sheets of sand fleeting along the surface of the desert like streams of water; tempest of sand, driving in your face like sleet. Imagine the caravan toiling against this—the Bedouins each with his shawl thrown completely over his head, half of the riders sitting backwards,—the camels, meantime, thus virtually left without guidance, though, from time to time, throwing their long necks sideways to avoid the blast, yet moving straight onwards with a painful sense of duty truly edifying to behold. . . . Through the tempest, this roaring and driving tempest, which sometimes made me think that this must be the real meaning of ‘a howling wilderness,’ we rode on the whole day.—Dean Stanley: Sinai and Palestine, pp. 68, 69.
[2] I was reading, a day or two ago, one of our last books of travels in the wilderness of the Exodus, in which the writer told how, after toiling for hours under a scorching sun, over the hot white marly flat, seeing nothing but a beetle or two on the way, and finding no shelter anywhere from the pitiless beating of the sunshine, the three travellers came at last to a little Retem bush only a few feet high, and flung themselves down and tried to hide at least their heads from those ‘sunbeams like swords,’ even beneath its ragged shade. And my text tells of a great rock, with blue dimness in its shadow, with haply a fern or two in the moist places of its crevices, where there is rest and a man can lie down and be cool, while all outside is burning sun, and burning sand, and dancing mirage.—A. Maclaren.
[3] When I was at Nuremberg, among the scenes of interest, I visited the tower where are preserved some of the instruments of torture which were used both by the Inquisition and the Municipality in the Middle Ages. As one looked at them, the heart grew sick at the thought of the pain which by means of them had been inflicted upon countless victims; and as instruments by which human beings had been tortured, they were hateful. On the other hand, when one thinks what this verse has been to countless human souls, what consolation and courage it has ministered to those who were sick at heart in many generations, it is impossible not to look upon it with love.
[4] It is one of a large number of passages which I like to think of as Scripture’s lamps. Starting at mid-day from a railway terminus, you wonder to see that the lamps in the carriages are lighted; but very soon the train plunges into a tunnel, and you perceive that they were not lighted a moment too soon. So with these lamps of Scripture: get them hung up in your soul at the outset of your journey in life. Sooner than you think you will find yourself in some dark tunnel of trial. It will be too late then to think of furnishing yourself with them. Blessed are those then in whom they are brightly shining!
[5] It is not to be expected that the young will fully appreciate it. They have not had the experience necessary to enable them to do so. At the outset of a voyage, passengers are apt to think most about those things in a ship which are comparatively unimportant—the size of their berths, the elegant decorations of the cabin, &c.; but before it is ended, especially if the voyage is a stormy one, they come to think more about the staunchness of the vessel, the strength of the rigging, the seamanship of the captain rather than of his fitness or unfitness for a drawing-room. So in dealing with the Bible: at the outset of life, we are apt to give our whole attention to things comparatively unimportant, such as the possibility of reconciling the first chapter of Genesis with the teaching of modern science, &c.; but, by and by, trouble teaches us to value the Scriptures as our only sure guide amidst life’s moral perplexities, as our only true comforter amidst life’s sorrows. It is trouble that teaches us that the promises are “precious promises;” and therefore I may fairly expect that the promise of our text will be prized by the aged.
[6] One day—one of the most beautiful and happy days I have ever known—I and some friends visited the Valley of Rocks, at Lynton, in North Devon. We had selected for our dining-place the shaded side of one of the largest of the rocks which have made that valley famous. Just as we were finishing our repast, an aged gentleman approached us, and asked to be permitted to share our resting-place. “I should not have intruded upon you,” he said, “but I am very weary.” Instantly my text recurred to my memory, and I saw somewhat of its power and beauty: “As the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” In such a land, on such a day, how welcome is the sight of a great rock! How sweet and refreshing to rest in its cooling shade! Amid the toils and troubles of life we often need rest and refreshment. Have you found them in Christ? Are the declarations of our text true?