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Palms of Elim: Chapter 9 - The Gracious Word

By John MacDuff


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

      "Your promises have been thoroughly tested, and your servant loves them." Psalms 119:140

      This is the precious dew of the Spirit dripping from the branches of the heavenly Palm. As Jonathan, when faint and downcast and weary, found strength and refreshment in partaking of the honey dropping from the trees in the tangled thicket (1 Samuel 14:27); so can every true believer--every true Jonathan ("the beloved of God,") tell as their experience, "Your Word is sweet unto my taste." "Sweeter than honey, than honey from the comb" (Psalms 19:10).

      In the midst of our duties and difficulties, our cares and perplexities, how many a pang and tear would it save us, if we went with chastened and inquiring hearts to these sacred pages! How many trials would be eased--how many sorrows soothed, and temptations avoided, if we forestalled every step in existence with the inquiry, "What says the scripture?"--if we preceded every desert encampment with the inquiry what the will of the Lord is? How few, it is to be feared, make (as they should do), the Bible a final court of appeal--a judge for the settlement of all the vexed questions in the consistory of the soul; allaying all misgivings with the resolve, "I will hear what God the Lord will speak." May we be preserved from that saddest phase of modern infidelity, the Sacred Volume classed among the worn and barren books of the past, regarded only with that misnamed "veneration" which the collector bestows on some piece of mediaeval armor--a relic and memorial of bygone days, but unsuitable for an age which has superseded the cruder views of these old "chroniclers," and inaugurated a new era of religious development. Vain dreamers! "Forever, O God, Your Word is settled in heaven." "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." "The Word of the Lord is tried."

      What a crowd of witnesses could be summoned to give personal evidence of its preciousness and value. How many aching heads would raise themselves from their pillows and tell of their obligations to its soothing messages of love and power! How many deathbeds could send their occupants with pallid lips to tell of the staff which upheld them in the dark valley. How many, in the hour of bereavement, could lay their finger on the promise that first dried the tear from their eye and brought back the smile to their saddened countenances! How many voyagers in life's tempestuous ocean, now landed on the heavenly shore, would be ready to hush their golden harps, and descend to earth with the testimony that this was the blessed beacon-light which enabled them to avoid the treacherous reefs--perilous rocks of temptation--and guided them to their desired haven!

      Reason, with your flickering torch, you have never yet guided to such sublime mysteries as these! Philosophy, you have never yet, as this Book has done, taught a man how to die! Science, you have penetrated the mysteries of nature, sunk your shafts into earth's recesses, unburied its stores, counted its strata, measured the height of its massive pillars down to the very pedestals of primeval granite; you have tracked the lightning, traced the path of the tornado, revealed the distant planet, foretold the coming of the comet and the return of the eclipse. But you have never been able to gauge the depths of the human soul, with its mighty cravings and yearnings, or to answer the question, "What must I do to be saved?"

      No; this antiquated Volume is still the "Book of books," the oracle of oracles, the beacon of beacons; the poor man's treasury, the sick man's health, the dying man's life. It has shallows for the child to walk in, depths for giant intellect to explore and adore! Philosophy, if she would admit it, is indebted here for the noblest of her maxims. Poetry, for the loftiest of her themes. Painting has gathered here her noblest inspiration. Music has ransacked these golden stores for the grandest of her strains. And if there be life in the Church of Christ--if her ministers and missionaries are carrying the torch of salvation through the world, where is that torch lighted but at these same altar fires? When a philosophy, "falsely so called," shall become dominant, and seek, with its proud dogmas, to supersede this divine system; when the old Bible of Augustine and Luther, of Baxter and Bunyan, of Brainerd and Martyn, is clasped and closed--the only code of morality worth speaking of will have perished from the earth. Dagon will have taken the place of God's ark; the world's funeral pile may be kindled.

      Let us value our Bibles, "dwelling," like Deborah, under these heavenly palm-trees. As they are the souvenirs of our earliest childhood, the gift of a mother's love, or the pledge of a father's affection, so let them be our fondest treasures--the directory of daily life, the friend of prosperity, the solace in adversity, the soothing in suffering, the balm in bereavement; and in the prospect of our own departure let them be the keepsakes and heirlooms which we are most desirous to transmit to our children's children. As we sat under this Elim shade in life's earliest morning, let us be found under it at life's sunset hour; when, stirred by the breath of evening, the fronds whisper to the last, the name of Jesus!

      "We praise Thee for the radiance
      Which from the hallowed page,
      A lantern to our footsteps,
      Shines on from age to age.

      "It is the golden casket
      Where gems of truth are stored;
      The never-failing Treasure
      Of the Eternal Word.

      "It is the chart and compass
      That o'er life's surging sea,
      Mid mists and rocks and quicksands,
      Still guide, O Christ, to Thee.

      "Instruct Thy wandering pilgrims,
      By this their path to trace,
      Until, clouds and darkness ended,
      They see Thee face to face."

      "I wait on the Lord, my soul waits, and in His word I put my hope."

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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