052. The Giant’s Bedstead

The Giant’92s Bedstead

Deu_3:11 : ’93Only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth of it.’94

The story of giants is mixed with myth. William the Conqueror was said to have been of overtowering altitude, but, when, in after time, his tomb was opened, his bones indicated that he had been physically of only ordinary size. Roland the hero was said to have been of astonishing stature, but when his sepulcher was examined, his armor was found only large enough to fit an ordinary man. Alexander the Great had helmets and shields of enormous size made and left among the people whom he had conquered, so as to give the impression that he was a giant, although he was rather under than over the usual height of a man. But that in other days and lands there were real giants is authentic. One of the guards of the Duke of Brunswick was eight and a half feet high. In a museum in London is the skeleton of Charles Birne, eight feet four inches in stature. The Emperor Maximin was over eight feet. Pliny tells of a giant nine feet high, and two other giants nine and a half feet. So I am not incredulous when I come to my text and find King Og a giant, and the size of his bedstead, turning the cubits of the text into feet’97the bedstead of Og, the king, must have been about thirteen and a half feet long. Judging from that, the giant who occupied it was probably about eleven feet in stature, or nearly twice the average human size. There was no need of Rabbinical writers trying to account for the presence of this giant, King Og, as they did, by saying that he came down from the other side of the Flood, being tall enough to wade the waters beside Noah’92s Ark, or that he rode on the top of the Ark, the passengers inside the Ark daily providing him with food. There was nothing supernatural about him. He was simply a monster in size.

Cyrus and Solomon slept on beds of gold, and Sardanapalus had one hundred and fifty bedsteads of gold burned up with him, but this bedstead of my text was of iron’97everything sacrificed for strength to hold this excessive avoirdupois, this Alp of bone and flesh. No wonder this couch was kept as a curiosity at Rabbath, and people went from far and near to see it, just as now people go to museums to behold the armor of the ancients. You say what a fighter this giant, King Og, must have been. No doubt of it. I suppose the size of his sword and breastplate corresponded to the size of his bedstead, and his stride across the battle-field and the full stroke of his arm must have been appalling. With an armed host he comes down to drive back the Israelites, who are marching on from Egypt to Canaan. We have no particulars of the battle, but I think the Israelites trembled when they saw this monster of a man moving down to crush them. Alas for the Israelites! Will their troubles never cease? What can men five and a half feet high do against this warrior of eleven feet, and what can short swords do against a sword whose gleam must have been like a flash of lightning? The battle of Edrei opened. Moses and his army met the giant and his army. The Lord of Hosts descended into the fight and the gigantic strides that Og had made when advancing into the battle were more than equaled by the gigantic strides with which he retreated. Huzza for triumphant Israel! Sixty fortified cities surrendered to them. A land of indescribable opulence comes into their possession, and all that is left of the giant king is the iron bedstead. ’93Nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth of it.’94

Why did not the Bible give us the size of the giant instead of the size of the bedstead? Why did it not indicate that the man was eleven feet high instead of telling us that his couch was thirteen and a half feet long? No doubt among other things it was to teach us that you can judge of a man by his surroundings. Show me a man’92s associates, show me a man’92s books, show me a man’92s home, and I will tell you what he is without your telling me one word about him. You cannot only tell a man according to the old adage, ’93By the company he keeps,’94 but by the books he reads, by the pictures he admires, by the church he attends, by the places he visits. Moral giants and moral pigmies, intellectual giants and intellectual pigmies, like physical giants or physical pigmies may be judged by their surroundings. There is a man who has been thirty years faithful in attendance upon churches and prayer-meetings and Sunday-schools, and putting himself among intense religious associations. He may have his imperfections but he is a very good man. Great is his religious stature. The other man has been for thirty years among influences intensely worldly, and he has shut himself out from all other influences, and his religious stature is that of a dwarf. No man ever has been or can be independent of his surroundings, social, intellectual, moral, religious. The Bible indicates the length of the giant by the length of his bedstead. Let no man say, ’93I will be good,’94 and yet keep evil surroundings. Let no man say, ’93I will be faithful as a Christian,’94 and yet consort chiefly with worldlings. You are proposing an everlasting impossibility. When a man departs this life, you can tell what has been his influence in a community for good by those who mourn for him and by how sincere and long-continued are the regrets of his taking off. There may be no pomp of obsequies and no pretense at epitaphiology, but you can tell how high he was in consecration, and how high in usefulness, by how long is his shadow when he comes to lie down.

What is true of individuals is true of cities and nations. Show me the free libraries and schools of a city, and I will tell you the intelligence of its people. Show me its gallery of painting and sculpture, and I will tell you the artistic advancement of its citizens. Show me its churches, and I will tell you the moral and religious status of the place. From the fact that Og’92s bedstead was thirteen and a half feet long, I conclude the giant himself was about eleven feet high. But let no one by this though be induced to surrender to unfavorable environments. A man can make his own bedstead. Chantrey and Hugh Miller were born stonemasons, but the one became an immortal sculptor and the other a Christian scientist whose name will never die. Turner, the painter, in whose praise John Ruskin expended the greatest genius of his life, was the son of a barber who advertised, ’93a penny a shave.’94 Dr. Prideaux, one of the greatest scholars of all time, earned his way through college by scouring pots and pans. The late Judge Bradley worked his own way up from a charcoal burner to the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States. Yes, a man can decide the size of his own bedstead.

Notice, furthermore, that even giants must rest. Such enormous physical endowment on the part of King Og might suggest the capacity to stride across all fatigue and omit slumber. No. He required an iron bedstead. Giants must rest. Not appreciating that fact, how many of the giants yearly break down. Giants in business, giants in art, giants in eloquence, giants in usefulness. They live not out more than half their days. They try to escape the consequences of overwork by a voyage across the sea or a sail in a summer yacht or call on physicians for relief from insomnia or restoration of unstrung nerves or the arrest of apoplexies, when all they need is what this giant of my text resorted to’97an iron bedstead. Let no one think because he has great strength of body or mind that he can afford to trifle with his unusual gifts. The commercial world, the literary world, the artistic world, the political world, the religious world, are all the time aquake with the crash of falling giants. King Og, no doubt, had a throne but the Bible never mentions his throne. King Og, no doubt, had a crown, but the Bible never mentions his crown. King Og, no doubt, had a scepter, but the Bible does not mention his scepter. Yet, one of the largest verses of the Bible is taken up in describing his bedstead. So God all up and down the Bible honors sleep.

Adam, with his head on a pillow of Edenic roses, has his slumber blest by a divine gift of beautiful companionship. Jacob, with his head on a pillow of rock, has his sleep glorified with a ladder filled with descending and ascending angels. Christ, with a pillow made out of the folded-up coat of a fisherman, honors slumber in the back part of the storm-tossed boat. The only case of accident to sleep mentioned in the Bible was when Eutychus fell from a window during a sermon of Paul, who had preached until midnight, but that was not so much of a condemnation of sleep as a censure of long sermons. More sleep is what the world wants. Economize in everything but sleep. William H. Seward, the renowned Secretary of State, in the midst of his overmastering toils longed for the capacity to rest, writing in his memorandum-book: ’93I have never found but one invaluable recipe for having a good night’92s rest, and that is to have been restless and sleepless the night before.’94 When President John Quincy Adams and the distinguished Josiah Quincy went to hear Judge Story lecture on law to his students, and, when invited to sit beside the judge and both fell asleep, the judge appropriately pointed to them, and said to his students: ’93Behold the evil effects of early rising.’94 In Bible times, when people arose at the voice of the bird, they retired at the time the bird puts his head under his wing. One of our national sins is robbery of sleep. Walter Scott was so urgent about this duty of slumber that, when arriving at a hotel where there was no room to sleep in, except that in which there was a corpse, inquired if the deceased had died of a contagious disease, and, when assured he had not, took the other bed in the room and fell into profoundest slumber. Those of small endurance must certainly require rest if even the giant needs an iron bedstead.

Notice, furthermore, that God’92s people on the way to Canaan need not be surprised if they confront some sort of a giant. Had not the Israelitish host had trouble enough already? No! Red Sea not enough. Water famine not enough. Long marches not enough. Opposition by enemies of ordinary stature not enough. They must meet Og, the giant of the iron bedstead. ’93Nine cubits was the length thereof and four cubits the breadth of it.’94 Why not let these Israelites go smoothly into Canaan without this gigantic opposition? Oh, they needed to have their courage and faith further tested and developed! And blessed is the man, who, in our time, in his march toward the Promised Land does not meet more than one giant. Do not conclude that you are not on the way to Canaan because of this obstacle. As well might the Israelites conclude they were not on the way to the Promised Land because they met Og, the giant. Standing in your way is some evil propensity, some social persecution, some business misfortune, some physical distress. Not one of you but meets a giant who would like to hew you in twain. Higher than eleven feet this Og darkens the sky and the rattle of his buckler stuns the ear. But, you are going to get the victory, as did the Israelites. In the name of the God of Moses and David and Joshua and Paul, charge on him, and you will leave his carcass in the wilderness. You want a battle shout! Take that with which David, the five-footer, assailed Goliath, the nine-footer, when that giant cried, with stinging contempt both in manner and intonation: ’93Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air and to the beasts of the field,’94 and David looked up at the monster of braggadocio and defiantly replied: ’93Thou comest to me with a sword and with a spear and with a shield; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee unto mine hand; and I will smite thee and take thine head from thee, and I will give the carcasses of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.’94 Then David, with probably three swirls of the sling about his head got into sufficient momentum and let fly till the cranium of the giant broke in, and he fell, and David leaped on his carcass, one foot on his chest and the other on his head, and that was the last of the Philistine. But, be sure you get the right battle shout, and that you utter it with the right spirit, or Og will roll over you as easily as at night he rolled into his iron bedstead.

Brethren, I have made up my mind that we will have to fight all the way up to the Promised Land. I used to think that after a while I would get into a time where it would be smooth and easy, but the time does not come, and it will never come in this world. By the time King Og is used up so that he cannot get into his iron bedstead, some other giant of opposition looms up to dispute our way. Let us stop looking for an easy time and make it a thirty years’92 war or a sixty years’92 war or a hundred years’92 war, if we live so long.

Must I be carried to the skies

On flowery beds of ease,

While others fought to win the prize,

And sailed through bloody seas?

Do you know the name of the biggest giant that you can possibly meet’97and you meet him? He is not eleven feet high but one hundred feet high. His bedstead is as long as the continent. His name is Doubt. His common food is infidel books and skeptical lectures and ministers who do not know whether the Bible is inspired at all or inspired in spots, and Christians who are more infidel than Christian. You will never reach the Promised Land unless you slay that giant. Kill Doubt or Doubt will kill you. How to overcome this giant? Pray for faith, go with people who have faith, read everything that encourages faith, avoid as you would ship fever and smallpox the people who lack faith. In this battle against King Og use not for weapons the crutch of a limping Christian or the sharp pen of a controversialist, but the sword of truth, which is the Word of God. The word ’93if’94 is made up of the same number of letters as the word ’93Og,’94 and it is just as big a giant. If the Bible be true. If the soul be immortal. If Christ be God. If our belief and behavior here decide our future destiny. If. If. If. I hate that word ’93If.’94 Noah Webster says it is a conjunction; I say it is an armed giant. Satan breathed upon it a curse when he said to Christ: ’93If thou be the Son of God.’94 What a dastardly and infamous ’93If.’94 Against that giant ’93If’94 hurl Job’92s ’93I know’94 and Paul’92s ’93I know.’94 ’93I know that my Redeemer liveth.’94 ’93I know in whom I have believed.’94 Down with the ’93If’94 and up with the ’93I know.’94 Oh, that giant Doubt is such a cruel giant! It attacks many in the last hour. It could not let my mother alone even in her dying moments. After a life of holiness and consecration such as I never heard of in any one else, she said to my father: ’93Father, what if, after all, our prayers and struggles should go for nothing?’94 Why could she not, after all the trials and sicknesses and bereavements of a long life and the infirmities of old age, be allowed to go without such a cruel stroke from Doubt, the giant? Do you wonder I have a grudge against the old monster? If I could I would give him a bigger bounce than Satan got when, hurled out of heaven, the first thing he struck was the bottom of perdition.

Another impression from my subject: the march of the Church cannot be impeded by gigantic opposition. That Israelitish host led on by Moses was the Church, and when Og, the giant, him of the iron bedstead, came out against him with another host’97a fresh host against one that seemed worn out’97things must have looked bad for Israel. No account is given of the bedstead of Moses, except that one in which he first slept’97the cradle of aquatic vegetation on the Nile, where the wife of Chenephres, the king, found the floating babe, and, having no child of her own, adopted him. Moses of ordinary size against Og of extraordinary dimensions. Besides that, Og was backed up by sixty fortified cities. Moses was backed up seemingly by nothing but the desert that had worn him and his army into a group of undisciplined and exhausted stragglers. But the Israelites triumphed.

If you spell the name of Og backward, you turn it into the word ’93Go,’94 and Og was turned backward and made to go. With Og’92s downfall all the sixty cities surrendered. Nothing was left of the giant except his iron bedstead, which was kept in a museum at Rabbath to show how tall and stout he once was. So shall the last giant of opposition in the Church’92s march succumb. Not sixty cities captured but all the cities. Not only on one side of Jordan, but on both sides of all the rivers. The day is coming. Hear it all ye who are doing something for the conquest of the world for God and the truth, the time will come when, as there was nothing left of Og, the giant, but the iron bedstead kept at Rabbath as a curiosity, there will be nothing left of the giants of iniquity except something for the relic hunters to examine. Which of the giants will be the last slain I know not, but there will be a museum somewhere to hold the relics of what they once were. A rusted sword will be hung up’97the only relic of the giant of War. A demijohn’97the only relic of the giant of Inebriation. A roulette ball’97the only relic of the giant of Hazard. A pictured certificate of watered stock’97the only relic of the giant of Stock Gambling. A broken knife’97the only relic of the giant of Assassination. A yellow copy of Tom Paine’97the only relic of the giant of Unbelief. And that museum will do for the later ages of the world what the iron bedstead at Rabbath did for the earlier ages. Do you not see it makes all the difference in the world whether we are fighting on toward a miserable defeat or toward a final victory? All the Bible promises prophesy the latter, and so I cheer you who are the troops of God, and though many things are dark now, like Alexander, I review the army by torchlight and I give you the watchword which Martin Luther proclaimed: ’93The Lord of Hosts!’94 ’93The Lord of Hosts!’94 and I cry out exultingly, with Oliver Cromwell at the battle of Dunbar: ’93Let God arise; let his enemies be scattered.’94 Make all the preparations for the world’92s evangelization. Have the faith of Robert and Mary Moffat, the missionaries, who, after preaching in Bechuanaland for ten years without one convert, were asked what they would like to have sent them by way of gift from England, said: ’93Send a communion service for it will be surely needed,’94 and sure enough the expected in-gathering of many souls was realized and the communion service arrived in time to celebrate it. Appropriately did that missionary write in an album when his autograph was requested:

My album is the savage breast,

Where darkness reigns and tempests wrest,

Without one ray of light,

To write the name of Jesus there,

And point to worlds both bright and fair,

And see the savage bowed in prayer,

Is my supreme delight

Whatever your work and wherever you work for God’97forward. You in your way and I in my way. With holy pluck fight on with something of the strength of Thomas Troubridge, who at Inkermann had one leg shot off, and the foot of the other leg, and when they proposed to carry him off the field replied: ’93No. I do not move until the battle is won.’94 Whatever be the rocking of the Church or State, have the calmness of the aged woman in an earthquake that frightened everybody else, and who, when asked if she was not afraid, said: ’93No, I am glad that I have a God who can shake the world.’94 Whether your work be to teach a Sabbath class or nurse an invalid or reform a wanderer or print a tract or train a household or bear the querulousness of senility or cheer the disheartened or lead a soul to Christ, know that by fidelity you may help hasten the time when the world shall be snowed under with white lily and incarnadined with red rose. And, now, I bargain with you that we will come back some day from our superstellar abode to see how the world looks when it shall be fully emparadised’97its last tear wept, its last wound healed, its last shackle broken, its last desert gardenized, its last giant of iniquity decapitated. And when we land, may it be somewhere near this spot of earth where we have together toiled and struggled for the kingdom of God, and may it be about this hour in the high noon of some glorious Sabbath, looking into the upturned faces of some great audience radiant with holiness and triumph.

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage