CERTAIN SINGULAR SUBJECTS – Charles Spurgeon
CERTAIN SINGULAR SUBJECTS
History and the Hand of God in It
“And I gave unto Isaac, Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.” Joshua 24:4. This passage, though audibly uttered by the mouth of Joshua, is to be regarded as the immediate voice of God. Joshua said unto all the people, “Thus says Jehovah, God of Israel.” Jehovah reminded the tribes, their elders and judges, of all that He had done, and of all that He had been to them. And from this, He challenged their allegiance, requiring that they should henceforth be loyal unto their great Benefactor. Addressing them Himself, His argument became all the more impressive. I reverence all Scripture more than tongue can tell, but yet I venerate most of all those portions of the word which are God’s own voice—the thought of Deity interpreted into human speech by Deity itself. The passage now before us, though it reads like a piece of ordinary history, such as might have been composed by a common scribe, has about it a vastness of meaning such as can only be found in the language of the infinite God. When God inspires David, or Isaiah or Paul, He teaches us most graciously, but when He condescends to speak Himself, how shall we sufficiently reverence the word? We have here, not so much a letter dictated by God, as the actual autograph of the great Father. My text is written with the finger of God. A glory blazes along the lines. The letters are all illuminated, the words glow like the sapphire work of heaven’s pavement. Our text has a world of meaning in it. It may, as we notice its plain words and prosaic statements, seem to be a mere common box, but it is in very deed an ark of precious perfumed wood, overlaid with pure gold, and filled with gems and jewels rich and rare. May the Holy Spirit give us eyes with which to perceive the treasures which lie before us in these words—“I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau: and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.”
The first thing that I discern here is History and the Hand of God in It. See, “I gave,” and then again, “I gave.” It is not merely that Esau and Jacob were born of Isaac and Rebekah, but the Lord says, “I gave unto Isaac Jacob and Esau.” How plainly does this declare that the hand of God is in human history! At first sight, history seems a great tangle, a snarl, confusion, but on looking at it more closely we perceive that it is only in appearance a maze, but in fact, a marvelous piece of arrangement, exhibiting perfect precision and never-failing accuracy. Our carnal reason sees the wrong side of the carpet, and it appears to be without design or order. But there is another side to history, and looked at from that standpoint, it reveals a wonderful pattern of beauty, displaying wisdom and goodness unparalleled. The histories of nations are, from the human side, little more than a narration of the crimes of kings and the follies of their people. And yet, viewed from another quarter, they are the record of the dealings of God with men—the story of love’s labor to reclaim the lost. Look at Calvary’s sacrifice as it rises above all other events, even as this morning I saw the hills and the tops of tall trees standing out above the morning mist. What a sight it is! The Cross towering over the ages; looking down on their sins and sorrows! Calvary—what is it? What but the climax of human iniquity, where man became not so much a regicide, though he slew his King, as a Decide, for to the utmost of his power he slew his God! On the cross, human enmity of God reached its most dread extremity. With wicked hands men crucified and slew the Son of God. Yet it is equally true that on Calvary we see more of the goodness, grace, mercy, justice, and long-suffering of God than anywhere else. The cross is at once our crime and our salvation, an exhibition of man’s foulest sin and of God’s richest grace. Calvary is of all spots the blackest and the brightest, the place where hell displayed its most deadly power, and yet the very gate of heaven.
Thus is all human history, according to its measure and proportion, a bittersweet. Where man’s mischief and misery abound, there do God’s goodness and grace much more abound. We see the hand of God in history very strikingly in the raising up of remarkable men at certain special periods. It is true, as the Lord says, “I gave unto Isaac, Jacob and Esau.” Children are the gift of God. This is true not only of Isaac but of all mortal men. God gave to a worthy couple, George Washington, to another pair, John Howard, and to a third, George Whitefield. Each of these, in his own special way, was a divine gift to men. Children are born with differing talents, and varied capacities, but all about them which will make them blessings is the gift of God. I shall not tarry to mention great men whose names mark epochs in history from which men date an increase of light and happiness, but let no man think of these friends and leaders of mankind without admitting the hand of God in their birth, training, disposition, and ability.
The greatest blessing which God ever gave to man was the man Christ Jesus, and under Him, the next best blessings are men. You remember the passage, “When He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. And He gave some apostles,” and so forth. Ascension gifts are sure to be worthy of the occasion, and therefore eminently precious, and lo! These are all men. Within a man, poor, lowly, humble, and even sinful though that man may be in himself, there may lie concealed an almost infinite blessing from the Most High. Even as within an acorn sleeps a forest, or within a flint lies light for a nation’s watch-fires.
The Hand of God in the Prosperity of Worldly Men
The Lord says, “I gave unto Esau Mount Seir, to possess it.” That is to say, Esau, as compared with Jacob, appeared to have the best of it, for he had “Mount Seir, to possess it,” but poor Jacob had not a foot of land that he could call his own except the family sepulcher at Machpelah, in which afterwards he slept the sleep of the righteous. Why does God so often give possessions to ungodly men? Why do they flourish? Why do they have their portion in this life? Is it not, first, because God thinks little of these things, and therefore gives them to those of whom He thinks little? “Why,” said Luther, in his day, “the whole Turkish empire is but a basket of husks that God gives to the hogs, and therefore He hands it over to the unbelievers.” So, often, wealth and riches are but so much wash, which the great Husbandman gives to the swine on His estate. Something infinitely better is reserved for the Lord’s own family. The rich blessing of true grace He reserves for His children and heirs. It shows how little God thinks of kingdoms, and empires, and great riches, for He leaves these full often to the worst of men.
How few saints have ever worn crown or coronet! A holy man once said that the kings who have gone to heaven might almost be counted on your fingers. See what small account the Lord makes of the world’s best store. Do you wish that ungodly men should have less? For my part, I am reconciled to their present prosperity, for it is all they will ever have. Poor souls; let them have as much of it as they may here, they will have nothing hereafter. Besides, they have no God, and having no God, it would take a great many fortunes to make a godless man’s portion worth a straw. If the graceless could gain all worlds, what use would they be to them when they come to die? Their own souls lost, and no comfort in Christ, and no joy in the Spirit, what have they gained after all?
The Chosen of God and Their Trials
Now comes the fourth point and a great mystery too. Here are The Chosen of God and Their Trials. “I gave unto Esau Mount Seir, to possess it; but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.” That is their portion. They must go down into Egypt because of famine. And they must suffer there under a tyrant’s iron rod, so that they may become familiar with the drudgery of slaves. They must be strangers in a strange land, and be sorely bruised beneath the foot of the oppressor. The escutcheon of their nation was to be “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp.” Moses saw Israel as well as God when he beheld a bush burning with fire but not consumed. Is not this a strange thing? To him whom God loves best He allots the hardest conditions. Esau’s sons are dukes, but Jacob’s seed are drudges. Esau reigns, but Israel serves. Esau set his nest on high, but Israel crouched by the reeds of the river.
The worldling would read the Scripture as if it said, “As many as I love, I caress and pamper,” but the Lord speaks not so. His Words are, “As many as I love I rebuke and chasten.” “Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges”—those are very hard words—“scourges every son whom He receives.” To carnal reason this seems strange. Faith alone can explain it. But Israel and his children went down into Egypt, first, for their preservation. So God brings His people into trial often to preserve them from the world and its evil influences, from themselves and their natural pride, from Satan and his puffing up. By sorrow and adversity, the children of God are driven to their knees, brought near to their great Father, and kept in fellowship with Him. Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions.
The salt and bitterness of sorrow often preserve men from the gall and bitterness of sin. They went down into Egypt, next, for their improvement, for the family of Jacob was in a mournful condition, and by no means fit to be used of the Lord. The story of Jacob’s family is a strangely sad one. Perhaps Scripture does not contain a more mournful page. The evil influence of polygamy is clearly seen, blended within the errors of Laban’s house, and envenomed by the foul example of the Canaanites among whom they sojourned. It was time that they should shift their quarters, they were neither getting good nor doing good. It looked as if the patriarch would beget an ignorant, quarrelsome, vicious race, and so they were sent down into Egypt that trouble might teach them better manners. God often thrusts His people into adversity that He may improve them, awaken them, instruct them, and ennoble them. See to it, brethren, that the Lord’s design be fulfilled in you to the fullest. May the anvil and the file, the crucible and the flame, work in you a clearance of dross and rust, and make you pure and bright.
They also went down into Egypt for their education. The chosen seed needed teaching. They were getting to be rustic, not to say barbarous, in their manners, acquirements and knowledge were scant among them. They must go down into the seat of ancient learning to acquire arts and sciences, and civilization. In Egypt, a race, which otherwise had been a mob, must be consolidated into a nation. A band of willful men must be trained to discipline and obedience. The Lord said, “Out of Egypt have I called My son,” because Egypt was his school of learning, his drill ground of discipline. We are ignorant, rebellious, and willful till the Lord trains us. “Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now have I kept Your Word.” The Lord teaches us on the blackboard of adversity, and we are often rapped over the knuckles by the stern Master. It is wonderful what we learn when we are taken among the thorns. I hardly think that I have learned anything except in affliction. At least I know this—I owe more to the hammer, and the anvil, and the file, and the furnace, than I do to all the green meadows and flowing brooks and singing birds that I have ever seen or heard. I fear that I have learned little beyond that which has been whipped into me. And though I am not fonder of the rod than you are, I confess that such sweet fruit grows on the bitter branch of trial that I would fear to be long without it. I would rather weep within the Lord’s chosen than laugh within the reprobate. By unhallowed mirth fools grow more foolish, but by sanctified trials wise men become yet wiser. For future usefulness it is well that we have present sorrow, and like Jacob, go down into Egypt.
And they went down to Egypt again, that God might display His great power in them. I would not care to be Esau on Mount Seir when once I see Pharaoh’s hosts drowned, and Israel marching through the depths of the sea, and when I hear the song of the Israelite maidens, and the shouts of the men, “Sing you to Jehovah, for He has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider has He thrown into the sea.” It is worth while to go down into Egypt to come out of it with a high hand and an outstretched arm. Oh, the glory of the Lord in His redeemed. Oh, the lofty destiny of the tried people of God! Oh, the sublimity of their lives, even now! There is God in them. There is God about them. He heads the van, and brings up the rear. They are as signs and wonders in their generations. He has blessed them, yes, and they shall be blessed. It matters little that Esau has Mount Seir for a possession, Israel has her God. No foot of land perhaps you call your own, you do not know where your next suit of clothes will come from, and God has kept you on short commons, and multiplied your straits and needs. Never mind—yours is the lot of the chosen, for “Jacob and his children went down into Egypt.” That is where the story ends, according to my text, but you know the story does not end there at all, for out of Jacob and his children came the Star, the Scepter and the Throne. The Godhead took up the seed of Israel, and now today He that sprang of Jacob’s loins, according to the flesh, sits on the highest throne of God and reigns supreme. The Shiloh has come, and it matters nothing what Egypt brought of sorrow unto Jacob’s seed, seeing that out of them at the last came the King and Savior of men. If Jesus is ours, the rest is a small affair. Give me Christ, and I ask for nothing else. Having faith in Jesus, I can leave all things with the great Disposer of events. Christ and a crust, the promise and a parish coat, grace and an almshouse! Cannot a saint be more than content with these?