DEVOUT AND EXPLANATORY REFLECTIONS ON IMPORTANT PORTIONS OF GOD'S WORD; OR, A Short Sermon and a Short Song FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR. INTENDED AS AIDS TO PRIVATE AND DOMESTIC WORSHIP. BY GEORGE WYARD, To be completed in Four Issues. ISSUE III., COMPRISING JULY, AUGUST, AND SEPTEMBER. London: PRINTED BY J. BRISCOE, BANNER STREET, FINSBURY; And may be had from him by all Booksellers in Town or Country, or direct from the Author, 197, Downham-road, Islington, London, N. REFLECTIONS, &c. REFLECTION CLXXXIII.-JULY 1. "He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in dry places like a river.”—Psa. cv. 41. GOD presently lays nature under a tribute, rather than that his word shall fail, or that his people should lack that which is needful. It is nothing for him to make dry land springs of water, or springs of water dry land. God can create when nothing is at hand; and the flinty rock must yield the liquid stream at his bidding. God takes care of body and soulmiraculously and marvellously. Why should they despond, who have God for their Guide and supply,-defence and protection. Here is the literal rock, the literal water, and the literal people; and the whole testifies literally of an historical fact, concerning a people wonderfully cared for by God; and whom God, for the time being, formed for himself, and gave them laws and institutions, that they might be the happiest people of all nations upon the earth. And all this he did for them, because he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant. God will never forfeit his word. What God promised through Abraham, he will do; and oh, what God promises through Christ, he will do. The rock, the hard, flinty rock, was smitten for the literal and temporal supplies of God's people in the wilderness; but oh, the "Rock, Christ," must be smitten for God's people, whom he hath chosen out of every nation, tongue, and people under the whole heavens. Water literally gushed out when that rock was smitten; but oh, when Christ "the Rock was smitten, there gushed out blood and water ;-blood to cleanse and atone, water to satiate and allay the thirst of poor sinners seeking pardon through Jesus Christ. The smiting of that rock was attended with no inconvenience or pain to any one; but the smiting of the Rock, Christ, was attended with inconceivable pain and suffering. The one was smitten in benevolence and kindness, and to give a temporal relief; the other was smitten in wrath and indignation, and to obtain satisfaction to offended justice and neglected law, and, withal, to deliver from the lowest hell,-the desert of all transgressors-the Tophet ordained of old; "for the wages of sin is death." Permit me, dear reader, to speak to you from these words, of Christ under the similitude of a rock-the opening of that rock, and the waters gushing out, and their running in dry places like a river. 1. That Christ is often spoken of under that figure, I need only remind you of two or three scriptures. He is spoken of as the "Rock of Israel"-" Rock of salvation "—"Rock of refuge "—Rock that is higher than the saints" Rock of strength' "The shadow of a great Rock in a weary land;" and many others besides. Reader, may Jesus be all these to thee, and thou shalt find thyself in safe keeping. 2. The opening of this Rock. First, Typically. All types and symbols under the patriarchal, Mosaic, and prophetic dispensations, had to do with Christ-all testified of him; and all were, more or less, to open up the person and work of the promised Messiah. Secondly, Judicially, by the hand of justice. When Jesus appeared, justice made its demands. It was justice that smote, and thereby opened the fountain which should ever run to cleanse and purify from all sin. From the smitings of justice gushed forth the living stream. Thirdly, Opened proclamatively by the gospel. A smitten Saviour is to be preached everywhere, and to all people. The sum and substance of which is, "For the transgression of my people was he stricken ;" "and with his stripes we are healed." Fourthly, Opened convincingly and efficaciously, by the power of God's Spirit. Then it is the soul sees and discovers the fulness and fitness of Jesus Christ, as the alone and all-sufficient Saviour of sinners, ruined in themselves. Oh, then what gushings forth of living water are seen to flow out from the smitten Rock! How preciously do they bring life and peace into the soul; how full and free all is seen to be. How dry and barren where they come not; how fruitful, fertilizing, and enriching, where these waters like a river flow! How full and free the mercy here! How great and blessed is the salvation acknowledged to be! How are dry places turned into pools of water! in other words, how are hearts made happy and cheerful in a possession of life divine, and a hope of heaven by resting in the smitten Rock! A rock of rocks my Jesus is, Compared with him there can be none: In wid'ning streams doth constant run. His fulness is a boundless deep, The dry land now becomes a pool, And hearts are cheered and gladdened well; And ransomed saints delight to tell. These gushings forth of streams of life, Which from the Saviour's wounds do flow, May we more largely now partake, And find our heaven begun below. |