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Palms of Elim: Chapter 8 - Higher Uses

By John MacDuff


      "This is the resting place, let the weary rest; and this is the place of repose"--

      "The Lord needs them."--Matthew 21:3

      Greatly would an Israelite, in the "Desert of the Wandering," have been startled and saddened, if, as he sat reclining under the shadow of one of these Elim palms, he had seen an axe suddenly placed at its root; and that which hour after hour had been gladdening him with its screening boughs, laid prostrate with the ground.

      Similar, often, is it in the case of the bereaved; when loved ones, under whose shadow they have rested, have suddenly succumbed to the stroke of the Great Destroyer! In a moment, the joy and zest of life seems gone. Today, it was the gentle rustling of the green leaf overhead. Tomorrow, the place that once knew it knows it no more. "The shadow from the heat" is exchanged for the pitiless rays of the scorching sun and a dreary outlook of drifting sands. "How is the staff broken, and the beautiful rod!"

      "What do you mean by this waste?" are the words which in such seasons and experiences ring their dreary echo in the ear. Why that life of consecrated activity so suddenly paralyzed? Why this Isaac laid on the altar of sacrifice? Why is yonder Lazarus laid low in the prime of youthful manhood? Why that loving and useful existence lost prematurely to the Church and the world? The seared and withered leaves of autumn drop in their season to the ground; but why this withering of the early blossom--this abnormal falling of the green and tender foliage? The blighted thorns of the wilderness may be swept away, but why make havoc among that Elim palm-grove?

      One reply we have placed at the head of this meditation. They are words once put by the Divine Savior Himself into the lips of His disciples. We need not stop to note upon what occasion. But like many of the gracious utterances which proceeded from His lips, they were intended and designed to be a quieting solace for His people in all time of their tribulation--"The Lord needs them." There are flowers needed to waft their perfume and swing their censers in the gardens of immortality. There are "ministering ones" needed in the Sanctuary above. Yes, if there are no battles there to fight--no armor to prove--no harps "on the willows" forbidding to sing the Lord's song--there are noble positions of active service in which the unresting energies of the glorified are engaged.

      Christian mourners! who, it may be, are now lamenting over your withered flowers--the empty places at your table--the music of cherished voices hushed for the forever of time. They formed a part of yourselves; sharers of your thoughts and toils, identified with all your plans in life: soothers and strengtheners in your anxious hours--ministering angels at your beds of pain. Their presence had become apparently indispensable: and now their absence or withdrawal is like the blotting out of the sun from his place in the firmament.

      Too truly you may feel, day by day, in the depths of your lonely, aching hearts, how you could ill afford--how much you had "need" of 'the loved and lost.' But take this as the explanation--let all murmurs be stilled by the higher claim and Claimant. It is a beautiful thought in one of the finest of the sonnets of Dante, as he wails the absence of Beatrice, that "the angels had asked God for her." We do not have to imagine the intervention of angels--"The Lord has need" of the crowned and glorified. At such deathbeds we are too apt, like Jacob with the mysterious Wrestler at Jabbok, in the agony of nature's fond struggle, to say, "We will not let you go!"--But hark! as the wing is pluming for its immortal flight, let the gentle whisper come to us, rebuking all tears, "Let me go, for the Day breaks!"--let me go, for "the Lord needs me!"--"If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said, I go unto my Father!" Glorify God by meek submission to His holy will.

      "You have done well to kneel and say,
      'Since He who gave can take away,
      And bid me suffer, I obey.'"

      Rejoicing, that the loss you mourn is not that of a treasure hidden in the earth: no, rather, a golden coin stamped in the mint of heaven is withdrawn from its uses in the Church below, for the higher and holier purposes of the Great Master in the Church of the glorified. It is the infant life of the present, passed, it may be at a bound, to its full development in the manhood of heaven. "The Master has come, and calls for you" (John 11:28); and the word accompanying the call is this: "Friend, come up higher!" If it was from strength to strength and from grace to grace on earth, it is now from glory to glory!

      "Up above, the tree with leaf unfading,
      By the everlasting river's brink,
      And the sea of glass, beyond whose margin
      Never yet the sun was known to sink.

      "Up above, the host no man can number,
      In white robes, a palm in every hand,
      Each some work sublime forever working
      In the spacious tracts of that great land.

      "Up above, the thoughts that know not anguish,
      Tender care, sweet love for us below;
      Noble pity, free from anxious terror,
      Larger love, without a touch of woe.

      "Up above, a music that entwines
      With eternal threads of golden sound,
      The great poem of this strange existence,
      All whose wondrous meaning hath been found.

      "O the rest forever, and the rapture!
      O the hand that wipes the tears away!
      O the golden homes beyond the sunset,
      And the hope that watches o'er the clay!"

      "At the Lord's command they encamped, and at the Lord's command they set out."

Back to John MacDuff index.

See Also:
   Chapter 1 - Divine Immutability
   Chapter 2 - All For Good
   Chapter 3 - The Sympathy of Jesus
   Chapter 4 - The Wind Tempered
   Chapter 5 - The Fatherhood of God
   Chapter 6 - Transcendently Able
   Chapter 7 - Right Guidance
   Chapter 8 - Higher Uses
   Chapter 9 - The Gracious Word
   Chapter 10 - A Reigning Savior
   Chapter 11 - Divine Leading
   Chapter 12 - The Farewell Gift
   Chapter 13 - The Compassion of Jesus
   Chapter 14 - The Lord Upright
   Chapter 15 - Full Satisfaction
   Chapter 16 - The Secret of Submission
   Chapter 17 - A Risen Christ
   Chapter 18 - The Creator and Redeemer
   Chapter 19 - Proof and Triumph of Love
   Chapter 20 - Future Unfoldings
   Chapter 21 - A Great Salvation
   Chapter 22 - Fears Quieted
   Chapter 23 - The Way Known
   Chapter 24 - Prayer
   Chapter 25 - Tender Dealings
   Chapter 26 - Sleeping and Waking
   Chapter 27 - The Return to Zion
   Chapter 28 - The Great High Priest
   Chapter 29 - Fatherly Chastisement
   Chapter 30 - God Unchanging
   Chapter 31 - Healing for All
   Chapter 32 - Divine Power
   Chapter 33 - Providence and Grace
   Chapter 34 - Transformation at Death
   Chapter 35 - The Incarnate Savior
   Chapter 36 - The Rebukes of Love
   Chapter 37 - The Unspeakable Gift
   Chapter 38 - Jehovah Jireh
   Chapter 39 - Glorious Attributes and Ways
   Chapter 40 - The Second Coming
   Chapter 41 - Imputed Righteousness
   Chapter 42 - Christ Ever the Same
   Chapter 43 - The Soul's Portion
   Chapter 44 - Hope
   Chapter 45 - The Supreme Rule of Jesus
   Chapter 46 - The Perpetual Presence
   Chapter 47 - Christ's Deity
   Chapter 48 - THE Imperishable Gift
   Chapter 49 - The Recompense of Trust
   Chapter 50 - The Riches of God's Mercy
   Chapter 51 - Acceptance of the Little
   Chapter 52 - None Cast Out
   Chapter 53 - The Blessed Hope
   Chapter 54 - The Divine Way Perfect
   Chapter 55 - Perseverance
   Chapter 56 - Delight in God's Law
   Chapter 57 - Christ the Propitiation
   Chapter 58 - Fullness of Joy
   Chapter 59 - Inviolable Security
   Chapter 60 - The Safe Deposit
   Chapter 61 - All Power of Jesus
   Chapter 62 - Help in Extremity
   Chapter 63 - Prevailing Intercession
   Chapter 64 - A Pardoning God
   Chapter 65 - A Gracious Message
   Chapter 66 - Perfect Trust
   Chapter 67 - God All Satisfying
   Chapter 68 - Salvation to the Uttermost
   Chapter 69 - Asleep in Jesus
   Chapter 70 - The Last Musing

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