Psalms 68:7-8

Here is a magnificent description, though in few words, of that great event which the church in all ages desires to keep in remembrance, namely, God's presence and movement in a pillar of cloud by day, when he went before Israel in the wilderness, together with the solemn and awful appearances at Mount Sinai. Never, surely, did the history of mankind furnish the like. Several of the sacred writers of the Old Testament refer to it, as denoting the love of Jehovah to his people: Such as Moses' dying blessing, Deborah's song, and Habakkuk's prayer. Deuteronomy 33:2; Judges 5:4; Habakkuk 3:3, etc. But while we admire and adore those tokens of divine love, let us not overlook the spiritual mercies which, in allusion to the times of the gospel, those manifestations shadowed. Is not Jesus now going forth, in the marches of divine grace, through the whole of the wilderness dispensation of his redeemed? Are not his people still coming up out of it, leaning upon Jesus? Hath Jesus brought them out of Egyptian bondage, and doth he bring them into wilderness dispensations? Still he is leading them by a right way to a city of habitation, and going before them through all the borders of it. The enemy may say of us, as the Egyptians did of our fathers, The wilderness hath shut them in; and our rebellious and unbelieving hearts may sometimes be discouraged, as our fathers were, by reason of the way: but Jesus will bring us through a new and living way, even his blood. We are not come indeed to the mount that burned with fire, and to blackness, and darkness, and tempest; but we are come to mount Zion; to God the judge of all; to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling! Blessed be God the Holy Ghost, for teaching his servant the apostle so to explain the superiority of the gospel state over the law. Reader! do not forget to look at those sweet scriptures, Song of Solomon 8:5; Psalms 107:7; Exodus 14:3; Hebrews 12:18; Hebrews 12:18.