Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 3335
“As am eagle stirs up her nest, flutters over her young, spreads abroad her wings, takes them, bears them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.” Deuteronomy 32:11,12.
MOSES in this Chapter is speaking concerning Israel in the wilderness. When the great host came out of Egypt, they were, through the debasing influences of slavery—which are not easily or quickly shaken off—not much better than a mere mob. They were not at all fitted to march at once to take possession of Canaan, nor to take part in the compacts of organized social life. Therefore God, instead of taking them by the short way along which they might have passed in a very few days, ordained it so in His Providence that they should wander about for 40 years in the wilderness—partly, it is true, as a punishment for their unbelief, but also in order that the nation might be trained and educated for its future destiny—made as fit as it could be, to be the custodian of the oracles of the Truths of God and to be the receiver of the Revelation which God intended to give to men.
If you will read carefully over the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness, I think you will see that the practical training which God adopted was—if they had been right-minded men—splendidly adapted to bring them to the very highest state of spiritual life. In some respects it was weak through their flesh, but the method, itself, was superlatively excellent. Here was a people taken away from the multitude of gods which they had been known to see on every hand in Egypt and they were taught to reverence an unseen God for whom they had no symbol whatever for some time. And afterwards, when symbolical worship in some form was ordained, yet there was still so little of symbol that Moses could say, “They saw no similitude.” They were trained to worship a spiritualGod—in spirit and in truth. They never saw Him, but every morning they had the best testimonies of His existence, for round about the camp lay the manna like hoarfrost, or dew, upon the ground! Their feet grew not weary, neither did their garments become old all those years, and thus about their very clothes on their bodies and before them on their tables, they had constant proofs of the great God existing and caring for the sons of men. The whole of their training, while it educated and developed their patience and their faith, had also the high purpose of teaching them gratitude and to bind them by the cords of love and the bands of a man to the service of God. It was not because the training was not wise in the highest degree, but because they were children that were corrupters and, like ourselves, an evil and stiff-necked generation, that they did not learn even when God, Himself, became their Teacher.
Now in drawing a parallel between the children of Israel and ourselves, we shall invite you to notice, first, in the text—the Divine Instructor,’ ‘the Lord alone did lead them.” And then the method of instruction illustrated—they were trained as an eagle trains the eaglet for their flight. First, then, we have—
I. A Divine Instructor
The Israelites had for their Guide, Instructor and Tutor, in order to prepare them for Canaan, none other than Jehovah, Himself! He might employ Moses and Aaron and He did also make use of those marvelous picture books, if I may so call them, of sacrifice, type and metaphor, but still, God, Himself, was their Guide and their Instructor. And it is so with us. The Holy Spirit is the teacher of the Christian Church. Although He uses this Book, of which we can never speak too highly. Although He still uses the ministry of the Word, for which we are thankful as for a candlestick which we trust may never be taken out of its place, still, our true Teacher is God the Holy Spirit. He instructs us in the Truths of God and, meanwhile, it is also God, who, in the rulings and guiding of Providence, is our Instructor if we will but learn. He is
teaching us, sometimes by sweet mercies and at other times by bitter afflictions, instructing us from our cradles to our graves if we will but open our eyes to see and our ears to hear the lessons which He writes and speaks. We, alas, are often as the horse and as the mule which have no understanding—and will not be taught by the Providential teachings, but still we have God to be our Teacher—and it is none other than our heavenly Father who is daily training us for the skies. If we are, indeed, His children and can say, “Our Father, which are in Heaven,” we may also go to Him as our Teacher, believing He will, notwithstanding all our folly, make us “meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”
The text speaks of “the Lord alone.” Brothers and Sisters, it is well for us that in Providence we are led by “the Lord alone.” There is an over-ruling hand after all, notwithstanding our follies and our willfulness, so that God’s purposes are ultimately fulfilled. But I wish this were more true to our consciousness—that we are led by “the Lord alone.” I mean that we waited upon Him at every step of life. I am persuaded that the holiest of characters take more matters to God than you and I are accustomed to do. I mean they not only consult Him, as we do, upon certain great and critical occasions, but those saints who live nearest to Christ, go to Him about little matters, thinking nothing to be too trifling to speak into the ear of Christ.
Some things about which they will not even consult their kindest and wisest human friends will be matters of consultation between them and their Savior. Oh, what mistakes we would escape, what disasters we would avoid, if “the Lord alone” did guide us! And if we watched the signs of His hands in guiding us, if our eyes were to Him as the eyes of the handmaidens are to their mistress, anxious to know the Lord’s will and always saying to our own self-love, “Down, down, busy will! Down proud spirit! What would You have me do, my Master, for Your will shall be my will and my heart shall always give up its fondest wish when once I understand what Your will is concerning me.” Beloved, I am afraid that some strange god is often with us, even with us who are the people of God! We are united to God and He will gladly teach us—and from Him, alone, should we learn! But oftentimes we harbor idolatrous thoughts in our heart. All selfishness is idolatry! All repining against the Providence of God has in it the element of rebellion against the Most High! If I love my own will and if I desire my own way in preference to God’s way, I have made a god of my own wisdom, or my own affection—and I have not been true in my loyalty to the only living and true God, even Jehovah! Let us search, look and see if there is not some strange god with us. It may be hidden away, perhaps, and we may scarcely know it. It may be hidden, too, in that very part of us where our dearest affections dwell. Some Rachel may be sitting in the tent on the camel furniture under which the false gods are concealed! Let us, therefore, make a thorough search and then invite the Great King, Himself, to aid us. “Search me, O God, try me, and know my ways, and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”
The great Truth of God which I want to bring forward, if I can, is this—that God in His Providence and in Grace, as far as we have been made willing to learn of Him, is educating us for something higher than this world! This world is the nature in which we dwell. Sometimes we who love the Lord mount up from it with wings as eagles, but we do not stay on the wing. We drop again—we cleave to earth. ‘Tis our mother and it seems as though we can never rise permanently above our kinship to it. Very powerful is it in its attraction over us. Down we go again. We have not yet learned to keep up yonder where the atmosphere is clear and where the smoke of the world’s cares will not reach us. But God is educating us for the skies! The meaning of these trials of ours, the interpretation of our sorrows is this—God is preparing us for another state, making us fit to dwell with angels and archangels and the spirits of the just made perfect! If this earth were all, then, your teachers at school, or your tutors when you passed through college, might have sufficed. But this world is but the vestibule to the next and if you know, as well as man can teach you, how to play your part here with a view only to secular advancement, you are not yet educated at all in the highest sense! God Himself must teach and train you, that you may be fit to sit among the princes of the royal blood before His Throne and to have communion with those celestial spirits who—
” With songs and choral symphonies Day without night circle His throne rejoicing.”
God is teaching you! God alone can do it and He will do it—but take care that you put away all strange gods and give yourselves up wholly to His guidance, submitting your will and your affections and all parts of your spirit and nature to His teaching so that you may be found fully ready when He shall say, “Come up here to dwell with Me forever.” Now, passing from that, we shall notice very briefly, indeed—