Pillar of Cloud, the Protection of God’s People – Charles Spurgeon

I DO not think of the pillar of cloud as being simply a column of smoke arising from the center of the Tabernacle; it was such, but besides that it covered the whole camp as a vast canopy or pavilion, so that in the great and terrible wilderness they fainted not under the burning heat of the sun; but this pillar of cloud interposed a friendly shade, so that they passed through the wilderness beneath the wings of God. At night their encampment would have been like a great city wrapped in darkness, but the pillar of fire supplied to them a light far superior to that which glows in London or in Paris through the art of man; that great flaming pillar lit up every house and habitation, so that in point of fact there was no night there. They were always sheltered by God both by day and by night. If they strayed away from the camp for a little time in the heat of the sun, they had only to come flying back, and there that emblem of the present God became their shelter; or at night, if they wandered for awhile, that vast blazing lampion conducted them back again to their place of rest. So it is with us. In nights of trouble and grief, the fire of divine comfort glows within us, the precious promises are round about us, and we rejoice in the Holy Spirit, the Comforter; and when by day we travel over this burning wilderness to the rest appointed, God interposes perpetually the sweet presence of his love to screen us from the sharper sorrows of the world, that we may still, while walking onward to Heaven, behold the shield of Heaven uplifted above our heads.