089. A Brooding God

A Brooding God

Rth_2:12 : ’93The Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.’94

Scene: An Oriental harvest-field. Grain standing. Grain in swaths. Grain in sheaves. At the side of the field, a white tent in which to take the nooning, jars of vinegar or of sour wine to quench the thirst of the hot working-people. Swarthy men striking their sickles into the rustling barley. Others twisting the bands for the sheaves, putting one end of the band under the arm, and with the free arm and foot collecting the sheaf. Sun-burned women picking up the stray straws and bringing them to the binders. Boaz, a fine-looking Oriental, gray-bearded and bright-faced, the owner of the field, looking on, and estimating the value of the grain and calculating so many ephahs to the acre; and, with his large, sympathetic heart, pitying the overtasked workmen and the women, with faces white enough to faint, in the hot noonday sun. But there is one woman who especially attracts the man’92s attention. She is soon to be with him the joint owner of the field. She has come from a distant land for the sole purpose of being kind to an aged woman. I know not what her features were; but when the Lord God sets behind a woman’92s face the lamp of courage and faith and self-sacrifice there comes out a glory independent of features. She is to be the ancestress of Jesus Christ. Boaz, owner of the field, as soon as he understands that it is Ruth, accosts her with the blessing: ’93A full reward be given thee of the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.’94

Christ compares himself to a hen gathering the chickens under her wings. In Deuteronomy, God is represented as an eagle stirring up her nest. In a great many places in the Psalms, David makes ornithological allusions; while my text mentions the wings of God, under which a poor, weary soul had come to trust. I ask your attention, therefore, this morning, while, taking the suggestion of my text, I speak to you in all simplicity and love of the wings of the Almighty.

First, I remark that they were swift wings under which Ruth had come to trust. There is nothing in all the handiwork of God more curious than a bird’92s wing. You have been surprised, sometimes, to see how far it could fly with one stroke of the wing; and, when it has food in prospect or when it is affrighted the pulsations of the bird’92s wing are unimaginable for velocity. The English lords used to pride themselves on the speed of their falcons. These birds, when trained, had in them the dart of the lightning. How swift were the carrier-pigeons in the time of Antony and at the siege of Jerusalem! Wonderful speed! A carrier-pigeon was thrown up at Rouen and came down at Ghent’97ninety miles off’97in one hour. The carrier-pigeons were the telegraphs of the olden time. Swallows have been shot in our latitude having the undigested rice of Georgia swamps in their crops, showing that they had come four hundred miles in six hours. It has been estimated that, in the ten years of a swallow’92s life, it flies far enough to have gone around the world eighty-nine times, so great is its velocity. And so the wings of the Almighty, spoken of in the text, are swift wings. They are swift when they drop upon a foe, and swift when they come to help God’92s friends. If a father and his son be walking by the way and the child goes too near a precipice, how long does it take for the father to deliver the child from danger? Longer than it takes God to swoop for the rescue of His children. The fact is that you can not get away from the care of God. If you take the steamship, or the swift rail-train, he is all the time along with you. ’93Whither shall I go from thy spirit, and whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed in hell, behold! thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there thy hand shall hold me.’94

The Arabian gazelle is swift as the wind. If it gets but one glimpse of the hunter, it puts many crags between. Solomon four or five times compares Christ to an Arabian gazelle (calling it by another name) when he says: ’93My beloved is like a roe.’94 The difference is, that the roe speeds the other way; Jesus speeds this. Who but Christ could have been quick enough to help Peter, when the water-pavement broke? Who but Christ could have been quick enough to help the Duke of Argyle, when, in his dying moment, he cried: ’93Good cheer! I could die like a Roman, but I mean to die like a Christian. Come away, gentlemen. He who goes first, goes cleanest?’94 I had a friend who stood by the rail-track at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, when the ammunition had given out at Antietam; and he saw the train from Harrisburg, freighted with shot and shell, as it went thundering down toward the battlefield. He said that it stopped not for any crossing. They put down the brakes for no grade. They held up for no peril. The wheels were on fire with the speed as they dashed past. If the train did not come up in time with the ammunition, it might as well not come at all. So, my friends, there are times in our lives when we must have help immediately or perish. The grace that comes too late is no grace at all. What you and I want is a God’97now. Oh! is it not blessed to think that God is always so quick in the rescue of his dear children? When a sinner seeks pardon, or a baffled soul needs help, swifter than thrush’92s wing, swifter than swallow’92s wing, swifter than ptarmigan’92s wing, swifter than flamingo’92s wing, swifter than eagle’92s wing, are the wings of the Almighty.

I remark further, carrying out the idea of my text, that the wings under which Ruth had come to trust were very broad wings. There have been eagles shot on the Rocky Mountains with wings that were seven feet from tip to tip. When the king of the air sits on the crag, the wings are spread over all the eaglets in the eyrie, and when the eagle starts from the rock, the shadow is like the spreading of a storm-cloud. So the wings of God are broad wings. Ruth had been under those wings in her infantile days; in the days of her girlhood in Moab; in the day when she gave her hand to Mahlon, in her first marriage; in the day when she wept over his grave; in the day when she trudged out into the wilderness of poverty; in the day when she picked up the few straws of barley dropped by ancient custom in the way of the poor.

Oh! yes, the wings of God are broad wings. They cover up all our wants, all our sorrows, all our sufferings. He puts one wing over our cradle, and he puts the other over our grave. Yes, my dear friends, it is not a desert in which we are placed; it is a nest. Sometimes it is a very hard nest, like that of the eagle, spread on the rock, with ragged moss and rough sticks, but still it is a nest; and, although it may be very hard under us, over us are the wings of the Almighty. There sometimes comes a period in one’92s life when he feels forsaken. There has been such a period in your life. You said, ’93Every thing is against me. The world is against me. The Church is against me. No sympathy; no hope. Everybody that comes near me thrusts at me. I wonder if there is a God, anyhow!’94 Everything seems to be going slipshod and at haphazard. There does not seem to be any hand on the helm. Job’92s health fails. David’92s Absalom gets to be a reprobate. Martha’92s brother dies. Abraham’92s Sarah goes into the grave of Machpelah. ’93Woe worth the day in which I was born!’94 has said many a Christian. David seemed to scream out in his sorrow, as he said: ’93Is his mercy clear gone forever? And will he be favorable no more? And hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies?’94 Job, with his throat swollen and ulcered until he could not even swallow the saliva that ran into his mouth, exclaims: ’93How long before thou wilt depart from me, and leave me alone, that I may swallow down my spittle?’94 Have there never been times in your life when you envied those who were buried? when you longed for the grave-digger to do his work for you? I have seen such days. Oh, the faithlessness of the human heart! God’92s wings are broad, whether we know it or not.

Sometimes the mother-bird goes away from the nest, and it seems very strange that she should leave the callow young. She plunges her beak into the bark of the tree, and then drops into the grain-field, and into the chaff at the barn-door, and into the furrow of the plowboy. Meanwhile, the birds in the nest shiver and complain and call and wonder why the mother-bird does not come back. Ah! she has gone for food. After a while there is a whirr of wings, and the mother-bird stands on the edge of the nest and the little ones open their mouths and the food is dropped in; and then the old bird spreads out her feathers, and all is peace. But sometimes God leaves us. He goes off to get food for our soul; and then he comes back after a while to the nest, and says, ’93Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it;’94 and he drops into it the sweet promises of his grace, and the love of God is shed abroad, and we are under his wings’97broad wings of the Almighty.

Yes; they are very broad! There is room under those wings for the thousand millions of the race. You say: ’93Do not get the invitation too large, for there is nothing more awkward than to have more guests than accommodations.’94 I know it. The Seamen’92s Friend Society is inviting all the sailors. The Tract Society is inviting all the destitute. The Sabbath-schools are inviting all the children. The Missionary Society is inviting all the heathen. The printing-presses of Bible societies are going night and day, doing nothing but printing invitations to this great Gospel banquet. And are you not afraid that there will be more guests than accommodations? No! All who have been invited will not half fill up the table of God’92s supply. There are chairs for more. There are cups for more. God could with one feather of his wing cover up all those who have come; and when he spreads out both wings, they cover all the earth and all the heavens. Ye Israelites, who went through the Red Sea, come under! Ye multitudes who have gone into glory for the last six thousand years, come under! Ye hundred and forty-four thousand, and the thousands of thousands, come under! Ye flying cherubim and archangel, fold your pinions, and come under! And yet there is room! Ay! if God would have all the space under his wings occupied, he must make other worlds, and people them with other myriads, and have other Resurrection and Judgment days; for broader than all space, broader than thought, wide as eternity, from tip to tip, are the wings of the Almighty! Under such provision as that can you not rejoice? Come under, ye wandering, ye weary, ye troubled, ye sinning, ye dying souls! Come under the wings of the Almighty, Whosoever will come, let him come. However ragged, however wretched, however abandoned, however woebegone, there is room enough under the wings’97under the broad wings of the Almighty! Oh, what a Gospel! So glorious, so magnificent in its provisions! I love to preach it. It is my life to preach it. It is my heaven to preach it.

I remark, further, that the wings under which Ruth came to trust were strong wings. The strength of a bird’92s wing’97of a sea-fowl’92s wing, for example’97you might guess it from the fact that sometimes for five, six or seven days it seems to fly without resting. There have been condors in the Andes that could overcome an ox or a stag. There have been eagles that have picked up children and swung them to the top of the cliffs. The flap of an eagle’92s wing has death in it to everything it strikes. There are birds whose wings are packed with strength to fly, to lift, to destroy. So the wings of God are strong wings Mighty to save. Mighty to destroy. I preach him’97’94the Lord, strong and mighty’97the Lord, mighty in battle!’94 He flapped his wing, and the antediluvian world was gone. He flapped his wing, and Babylon perished. He flapped his wing, and Herculaneum was buried. He flapped his wing, and the Napoleonic dynasty ceased. Before the stroke of that pinion a fleet is nothing. An army is nothing. An empire is nothing. A world is nothing. The universe is nothing. King’97Eternal, Omnipotent’97he asks no counsel from the thrones of heaven. He takes not the archangel into his cabinet. He wants none to draw his chariots, for they are the winds. None to load his batteries, for they are the lightnings. None to tie the sandals of his feet, for they are the clouds. He is the Lord God Almighty’97a truth that is sad or glad, just according to the position you occupy’97just as the castle is grand or terrible, according as you are inside or outside of it. If you are inside of it, it is your defense. If you are outside of it, it is your destruction. The Lord God is a tower, a stronghold, a fortress. Found in him’97oh, the gladness of this truth I am preaching! The mighty God. Mighty to save. Our enemies may be strong. Our sorrows may be violent. Our sins may be great. But quicker than an eagle ever hurled down from the crags a hawk or a raven, will the Lord God strike back our sins and our temptations if they assault us when we are once seated on the eternal rock of his salvation. What a blessed thing it is to be defended by the strong wing of the Almighty! Stronger than the pelican’92s wing, stronger than the albatross’92s wing, stronger than the condor’92s wing, are the wings of the Almighty.

I have only one more thought to present. The wings under which Ruth had come to trust were gentle wings. There is nothing softer than a feather. You have noticed, when a bird returns from flight, how gently it stoops over the nest. The young birds are not afraid of having their lives trampled out by the mother-bird. The old whip-poor-will drops into its nest of leaves, the oriole into its casket of bark, the humming-bird into its hammock of moss’97gentle as the light. And so, says the Psalmist, ’93He shall cover thee with his wing.’94 Oh, the gentleness of God! But even that figure does not fully set it forth; for I have sometimes looked into the bird’92s nest and seen a dead bird’97its life having been trampled out by the mother-bird. But no one that ever came under the feathers of the Almighty was trodden on.

Blessed nest! warm nest! Why will men stay out in the cold, to be shot of temptation and to be chilled by the blast, when there is this divine shelter? More beautiful than any flower I ever saw are the hues of a bird’92s plumage. Did you ever examine it? The blackbird, floating like a flake of darkness through the sunlight; the meadow-lark, with head of fawn and throat of velvet and breast of gold; the red flamingo, flying over the Southern swamps, like sparks from the forge of the setting sun; the pelican, white and black’97morning and night tangled in its wings’97give but a faint idea of the beauty that comes down over the soul when on it drop the feathers of the Almighty. Here fold your weary wings! This is the only safe nest. Every other nest will be destroyed. The prophet says so: ’93Though thou exalt thyself like the eagle, and set thy nest among the stars, yet will I bring thee down, saith the Lord of Hosts.’94 Under the swift wings, under the broad wings, under the strong wings, under the gentle wings of the Almighty, find shelter until these calamities be overpast. Then, when you want to change nests, it will only be from the valley of earth to the heights of heaven; and instead of ’93the wings of a dove,’94 for which David longed, not knowing that in the first mile of their flight they would give out, you will be conducted upward by the Lord God of Israel, under whose wings Ruth, the beautiful Moabitess, came to trust.

God forbid that in this matter of eternal weal or woe we should be more stupid than the fowls of heaven; ’93for the stork knoweth her appointed time; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their going; but my people know not the judgments of the Lord.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage