Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-03-17

many good people who shudder in pass
ing graveyard, and they hardly dare
think of Canaan because of the Jordan
that intervenes; but once they are down
on a siclx-bed, then all their fears are
gone; the waters of death dashing on
the beach are like the mellow voice of
ocean shells-they smell of the bios
SONS of the tree of life; the music of the
heavenly choir comes stealing over the
waters, and to cross now is only pleas
ant sail. How long the boat is coming!
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Christ
the Priest advances ahead, and the
dying Christian goes over dry-shod on
coral beds, and flowers of heaven, and
paths of pearl.
Oh, could we make our doubts remove
Those gloomy doubts that rise,
And view the Canaan that we love
With unbeclouded eyes!
Could we but climb where Moses stood,
And view the landscape DER,
Not Jordan's stream nor deaths cold food
Could fright us from the shore.
Again, this Jordanic passage teaches
me the completeness of everything that
God does. When God put an invisible
dam across Jordan, and it was halted,
it would have been natural you would
have supposed, for the water to have
overlooked the region all around about,
and that great devastation would have
taken place. But when God put the
dam in front of the river, he put a dam
on the other side of the river, so that,
according to the text, the water halted
and reared and stood there, and
not overlooking the surrounding
country. Oh, the completeness of
everything that God does
One would have thought that, if the
waters of Jordan had dropped until
they were only two or three feet deep,
the Israelites might have marched
through it, and have come up on the
other bank with their clothes saturated
and their garments like those of men
coming ashore from shipwreck, and
that would have been as wonderful q
deliverance; but God does something
better than that. When the priests
feet touched the waters of Jordan and
they were drawn off, they might have
thought there would have been n bed
of mud and slime through which the
army should pass Draw off the water
of the Hudson or the Ohio, and there
would be good many days, and per-
haps many weeks, before the sediment
would dry up; and yet here, in an in
slant, Immediately, God provides a
path through the depths of Jordan; it
is so dry the passengers do not even
get their feet damp. Oh, the complete
ness of everything that God does!
Does he make a universe?-it is a per-
feet clock, running ever since it was
wound up, the fixed stars the pivots,
the consultations, the Intervening
wheels, and ponderous laws the weights
and mighty swinging pendulum; the
stars in the great dome of night,
striking the midnight, and the sun
with brazen tongue, tolling the hour
of noon. The widest comet has
chain of law that cannot break. The
thistledown flying before the school
boys breath, is controlled by the same
law that controls the sun and the
planets. The rose-bush in your win
dow is governed by the same principle
that governs the tree of the universe
on which the stars are ripening fruits.
and on which God will one day put his
hand and shake down the fruit-a per-
feet universe. No astronomy has ever
proposed an amendment.
If God makes n Bible, il is a com
plete Bible. Standing amid the dread
full and delightful truths, you seem to
be it the midst of an orchestra where
the wailings over sins, and the rejoic-
ings over pardon, and the martial
strains of victory make the chorus like
an anthem of eternity. This Book
seems to you the ocean of truth, on
every wave of which Christ walks
sometimes in the darkness of prophecy,
again in the splendors with which he
walks on Galilee. In this Book, apos-
tie answers to prophet, Paul to Isaiah.
Revelation to Genesis-glorious light,
turning midnight sorrow into the
midnoon joy, dispensing every fog,
hushing every tempest. Take this
Book; it is the kiss of God on the soul
of lost man. Perfect Bible, complete
Biblel No man has ever proposed any
improvement.
God provided Savior; he is COM
plete Savior-Go d-man-Divinity and
humanity united in the same person.
He set up the starry pillars of the uni
verse and the towers of light. He
planted the cedars and the heavenly
Lebanon. He struck out of the rock
the rivers of life, singing under the
trees, singing under the thrones. He
quarried the sardonyx and crystal, and
the topaz of the heavenly wall. i. He
put down the jasper for the founda-
ton, and heaped up the amethyst for
the capital, and swung the twelve
gates which are twelve pearls, in one
instant he thought out a universe; and
yet he became a child, crying for his
mother, feeling along the sides of the
manger, learning to walk. Omnipo-
tence sheathed in the muscle and flesh
of child's arm; Omniscience strung in
the optic nerve of child's eye; in
finite love beating in child's
heart; great God appearing
in the form of a a child 1 wear