III.
(Continued from p. 419.)
I admit that the question of spiritual sustenance is a serious one. There may be whole days when at most you will be able to read only a few verses of the Bible. Sometimes, for days and nights even this is not possible. But the Lord has His wonderful way of dealing with difficulties of this kind. You will find that He will make use of past sermons and portions of Scriptures memorised. How easy they come before you, how effortless is your mind in thinking on them, they just break up before you as if they were expanding with the finest of the wheat. Verily, you shall be fed. But above all the Lord will enable you to walk with a heart uncovered before Himself. While all the powers of body and mind are concentrated in intense activity towards your present duty, this walking in the very presence of the Lord; nourished and cherished; washed and fed by Him, your cross is made at once lighter and easier, and the joy of the Lord which is the strength of His people, preserves a happy balance between these two. Carry your cross in sight of the Great Cross and it will yield joy at its heaviest. A nod, a smile, a word, a look, a touch from Jesus lifts both you and your cross above the world and then it becomes light indeed.
I have been trying to direct you to Jesus and to duty, but I should like to close this letter with some word of definite encouragement. And first let me say something about your temporal preservation. There was a common saying, in the last war, that so long as one was not on a certain square foot of ground at a certain second of time one was safe. Of course that margin of safety was attributed to luck or chance by many of the men. For you that margin is always in the Lord’s hands. Some of us who came through the last war believed thoroughly in the miracles of deliverance recorded in the Bible, but we were apt to think that such interpositions of Providence belonged to a past age. But we were wrong, utterly and completely wrong. Quite clearly we came to recognise the same power at work in our own preservation and that of others as was present in the preservation of say, Jonah, or the three men in the fiery furnace. These wonders seemed to become ordinary to us. If they were miracles, and no doubt they were, then we too had our own miracles no less wonderful. In boasting you will hear men sometimes say: “The bullet is not made that will hit me.” But if the Lord has something more for you to do you may say it as a matter of sober truth. You cannot be killed. For considerable periods you will not have time so much as to think on the preservation of your own life. Then, having passed through dangers you will be impressed with the fact that your being kept did not appear to be your concern at all. Often, until afterwards, you were not aware that you were in danger and that your life was clearly in the keeping of Another. And this is just the truth—”Underneath are the everlasting arms”—arms which carry onwards and upwards; arms lasting ever; arms every moment irresistible and unfaltering. In different ways and in numerous instances, danger will come as near to you as your very breath, but—”Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold”—”it shall not come nigh thee” (Ps. xci. 7, 8). Whatever force you encounter, it is still a force of nature; truly terrible in the hands of men, but in the hands of the Lord of all nature harmless to you. “Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field.” The lifting of a finger is sufficient to make the margin of your safety impregnable. “Thus far shalt thou come and no farther.” “He has set the bounds of all living” is written with as much finality on the battle-field as anywhere else on earth. And let me encourage you to believe that your spiritual life will not only be upheld but actually prosper. At first sight this may seem impossible but it is nevertheless true. Added to the loss of the ordinary means of grace you will have to contend with a great number of influences which shall be detrimental to your spiritual welfare. But do not fear. If the mediate means cannot be used the Lord is able to use immediate ones. If outward circumstances cannot be accommodated to your need the Lord will help from within.
After five days continuous action, when the Germans were “on the run” we had to “dig in” in a turnip field. We took up our position in a hollow while the enemy had a number of machine guns round the hill top. Added to that we were completely worn out, and the men, after digging down about a foot, had to give in through exhaustion. Being N.C.O. in charge I felt extremely worried about the whole position and felt very sure that our sleep would end in a prison camp. I struggled against sleep but found my body and mind sinking into insensibility. How I wished to read a few verses of the Bible before “falling off,” but the words were just an irritating jumble before my eyes. I tried to recall one verse but none would come, and even a simple prayer refused to rise to the surface of my consciousness. For a few moments I felt the agony of being cut off from God and man and even my own ordinary powers of control. I began to sob; and then, from some uncharted inlet of my mind a prayer came, with great clearness and carrying a sense of unspeakable security. It was a child’s prayer learned long ago in childhood’s happy years—“And now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Slowly and without effort I found myself repeating the simple words so full of child-like trust. Somewhere in the mental and physical chaos there was order. Somewhere in that horror of great darkness there was a point of clear light shining. Somewhere out of the engulfing darkness there reached two inviting arms and with joy and comfort I found myself yielding body, soul, and spirit into their keeping. See my friend, the loving consideration of the Lord. Look at it. The body and the mind reduced to just a child’s strength and a childhood’s prayer long forgotten. Looking at it afterwards I could see no prayer more suitable to the conditions of the moment. “I laid me down and slept for God sustained me.” “So giveth He His beloved sleep.” The Lord of the Sea of Galilee is the Lord of the battlefield. Howling winds, then a stormy sea, still closer a heaving boat, and still nearer disciples in consternation but closest of all resting on His own almighty power is the Prince of Peace asleep. So there will always be a place in your soul which is the special abiding place of the Prince of Peace and if outward means fail he will garrison your heart with peace from within. And without question you will be kept to the end. It is as easy for the Lord to preserve over a long time and through a number of trials as it is for Him to keep through one short one. “He ever liveth to make intercession.” He has indissolubly united to His very person a continual intercession on your behalf. He has identified you with Himself in heaven and Himself with you on earth, and as a result of this He says: “I will bring the third part through the fire.” Just notice He does not say, “I will place or leave them in the fire.” No, but, I will bring, I am going with them; I am to take care of them in the fire! And, again, look—”through,” to the other side. The Lord and you together are to see the other side of this fire.
“Well, I have not met a more extraordinary man than you are. We have come through two years of the war together and I have observed you carefully. Look at me. Before I joined up I was master of a boys’ school. I was as respectable as you are and fully intended to keep myself right on these lines. I never swore, nor got drunk, nor did things of that kind. But now—slowly the influences of army life have stripped me of all my goodness. I can now curse like others, enjoy and tell a doubtful joke, and get drunk. I am ashamed of myself daily. And here you are—still reading your Bible and praying, sweet in temper and living a clean, healthy, Christian life. I cannot understand it. What has kept you? What power is it that works in you daily? What have you got that I have not?” These words were spoken by one soldier to another in a tent on the way home for leave and it was during the last month of the war. It might have been spoken of thousands of Christians who went through the last war and it will be true of numbers going through the present one. And, dear friend, may it be true of you. The covenant which is the basis of your complete safety is outwith and beyond all that happens on earth. Your Lord is about to give you a very realistic demonstration of its content and of how it works. Go forward; be something of a spiritual explorer who expects to find, as the queen of Sheba found of Solomon’s glory, that, “The half hath not been told me.” Our love and prayers go with you. And may your song be when war’s wild alarms are over:—
“But of thy power I’ll sing aloud;
At morn thy mercy praise:
For thou to me my refuge wast
And tow’r in troublous days.
O God thou art my strength, I will
Sing praises unto thee;
For God is my defence, a God
Of mercy unto me.”
—Metrical Psalms, lix. 16-17.
—A 4th Seaforth.
Satan makes fair offers of what he cannot perform. He promises many things, but does only promise them.—Thomas Manton.