Exodus 33:14

A NEW YEAR’S PROMISE

‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.’

Exodus 33:14

To-day we stand at the parting of the ways, the old year behind us, the new year before us.

I. The call to service.—To-day there is a call to consecrate again ourselves and our time to the service of Almighty God: as this new year stretches before us all uncertain in its issue, to step out, upheld by the great resolve that by God’s help our feet shall be set upon a higher ridge than before, that we shall go across a battlefield where we shall not always be the vanquished, that our lives shall have less of self in them and more of God, that we will cast away some garment that impedes our every step and rise and come to Jesus, that we will take the wider views, look for larger horizons. Dim and misty and all uncertain lies before us this coming year. You and I may perhaps think we can see some part of our probable life, some part of our journey; but how indistinct it is! As you and I have sat upon some hill in the early morning, and have seen all the country covered with a mist, here and there perhaps some hill top or mountain standing out, so lies our life before us to-day. But read these words of the text into that life, and they will intershine it, will irradiate it and make it to glow with the purpose and the power of our God.

But our hearts sink down sometimes, brethren, do they not? Yet the uneasiness that comes to us, however sad, however terrible, is to be welcomed if it brings us to the feet of our Christ again in penitence and in contrition, if for us those awful words are never spoken which once were spoken, telling of the utter alienation of God from the soul, ‘Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone.’ That God may not let us alone we may pray, that we may have no peace until we have put away all conscious sin before the feet of Jesus Christ Our Lord, till we resolve that we will enter into this new year free, freemen, taking as our motto the words of our text: ‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.’

II. Freedom in service.—Freedom is a necessity if we would enter into the meaning of the words of our text. Freedom is not licence to live to self, but power to live to God. And how is the presence here spoken of manifested but through love? What are the desires that we are conscious of from time to time, desires for something better, something purer, something higher than we ourselves ever yet attained to—what are these but God bending down to the soul to draw it up to Him, and the soul reaching up to God that it may answer to that attraction? In order that I may be able to render the free service of love, God has given me the power of refusing His love, and of refusing His service, in order that my service which is evoked by the love of God may be the service of a free and willing man. So through the love of God raising in us an echo, the returning love of our soul, there comes the free service that we would render to God. In the family life and in the life of the family of God, first there comes the love, and then the love issues into the desire of obedience or of service on the part of the members of the family, and so that love of God that evokes my love in willing service is to me an abiding proof of the presence in me of One Who not only attracts but upholds, supports, uplifts me. And then there comes that mysterious guiding of the hand of God of which we must be conscious from time to time in our lives. Looking back, we can see that there has been something mysterious from time to time that has shaped and guided our life, and we recognise the finger-marks of God upon the life.

III. The promised rest.—And the rest that is promised, what are we to understand by that?

(a) Partakes of God’s Character.—If it is to come from God it is clear that it must partake of the character of God. When God rested from the work of creation, as we read, did it mean inactivity, or did it mean a passing on to further and still greater work? Our Lord has answered that question for us, ‘My Father worketh hitherto and I work’—work, progress in work, change in work. In active loving service there is rest for the spirit of man. There stands before us the Central Figure in the history of the world, and from His lips is coming the precious promise, ‘Come unto Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ and He goes on to tell us still, ‘Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ To take the yoke, the daily burden under the guiding hand of God, to do the Lord’s work that He sets for you and me to-day, to live the life of God by the power that God can give us—thus may we find rest unto our souls. In doing the will of God alone is there rest for the soul of man. We look into the Garden of Gethsemane and we see the Lord battling there with all the evil weight of temptation, and we see at last the human will bending to the will of God the Father; then it is that the rest begins and the agony is over, ‘Nevertheless not My will but Thine be done.’

(b) Sanctified by the Presence of God.—In proportion as you and I learn to recognise the presence of God with us we shall be able to bow our will before God. In that surrender and in the active service of God that follows depend upon it we shall experience the promised rest. To-day once more we try by the power of God to prepare our hearts that the presence of God may be there. Let us rise to the height of our vocation! Try sometimes to take wider views, to look to more boundless horizons; not always to walk with our heads down and hearts heavy and lives depressed, but to look up into the sunshine. All things are yours; won’t you stretch out your hand? Won’t you believe God? Won’t you believe that there is power from God not only to forgive sin but to give life and strength for service? Do we not serve One Who forgiveth all our sins and healeth all our infirmities? We can be temples of this living God—in a word, reconciled to God by Christ. The world may babble around us; there may be the same troubles, the same difficulties, the same hindrances, and yet there will ever be within the heart one chamber where there will be the hush that betokens the presence of our God, and thither we can retire in the midst of the turmoil and find rest.

Bishop E. R. Wilberforce.

Illustration

(1) ‘Ah! Lord, it was good of Thee to revoke the penalty—to say, “Depart, go up to the land; I will drive out thine enemies.” But, Lord, the great thing is riot the land, nor any material blessings—other nations have lands and vaster empires than ours can ever be; but what marks out us from all other peoples is this, that we have Thy presence—that God is with us as He is with no other people. Lord, that was what fired my heart at the burning bush, and animated me through all these years. If that is not to be, I do not want to go up. We were to be a nation of priests, a holy nation, and so a witness to the world. But wherein shall it be known that I and my people have found grace in Thy sight? It can only be by Thy kindling, creative presence. We have no power inherent for so great an enterprise. But God being with us, filling our lives, permeating our activity, we shall be separated from every other people, an incontestable witness to Him. In the Kingdom of God everything must be of grace—not by man, but of God working in and through man. Would He deny the outshining of His power, would He extinguish the witness which He Himself had kindled in the world?’

(2) ‘My guiding presence, My sustaining presence, My protecting presence. Rest—not from conflict, but the heart-rest of one who has learned the secret of victory. Rest—not from proper forethought respecting the things of this life, but rest from worrying, anxiety, and care. Rest—not from progress, but in progress; not from work for Christ, but in work for Him.’