SERMON V.

THE SHAKING OF THE NATIONS.

HAGGAI II. 6, 7.

For thus saith the Lord of Hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations; and the Desire of all nations shall come; and I will fill this House with glory, saith the Lord of Hosts.

OUR last sermon on the prophecies of Haggai ended with a short consideration of those cheering and inspiriting words, whereby the prophet, after assuring the Israelites that the Spirit of God was remaining among them, commanded them not to fear and we saw how the same exhortation would come home with its full force to all of us in these days, if we did but feel a right assurance that the Spirit of God is abiding with us. Now the words which I have just read to you, come immediately after that cheering exhortation. The prophet had assured the Israelites that God was with them in their work. I am with you, saith the Lord of Hosts. According to the word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, so My Spirit remaineth among you fear ye not. He then goes on in these words: For thus saith the Lord of Hosts: Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations. These words are connected with those which come before them, by the little word for, and thus seem meant to give a reason for them. Yet at first sight one

might rather suppose them meant to give a reason for the very opposite. At first thought one would rather have expected the prophet to have said, Fear ye, and be ye cast down with trembling; for the Lord of Hosts will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and will shake all nations. When the Lord is about to shake the heavens and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land, and when He is about to shake all nations, surely the natural effect of these threats must be to make all nations tremble with fear. Yet the prophet's word to the Israelites is, Fear ye not. How can this be?

Why, this, my brethren, is only another proof how the order of things in this world is clean contrary to that which prevails in the Kingdom of Heaven. When the children of this world hear that the heavens and the earth and all nations are to be shaken, they are smitten with fear and consternation. When the children of the Kingdom hear the same tidings, they lift up their hearts more freely to heaven. Even among the children of the world, there have indeed at times been some, one or two, it may be, in an age, whose spirits have mounted with dangers, and felt most at home in a storm, men who have been endowed with such energy and elasticity, that they seemed to require some strong pressure to shew all that was in them. Such men however have always been rare, and only become bolder in danger, when they can act, and take the lead in acting. When they have to suffer, without acting, their spirits flag and droop. But they who have the assurance that the Spirit of God remains with them, will become more fearless in the midst of dangers, even though they have only to suffer, than when everything is calm and prosperous around them.

For they feel,-so sadly is the common order of Nature fallen away from God,-that God is manifesting Himself more plainly, when He is shaking the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. They seem to see His hand more clearly, to read His will more intelligibly, as Daniel read the letters on the wall of king Belteshazzar's palace, when the enemy was about to destroy it. They seem to feel too that, when God is shaking the heavens and the earth, He also shakes off the dust of this world, which is wont to gather upon their souls, yea, that He bursts the fetters by which their souls were bound in their earthly prisonhouse, even as the fetters of Paul and Silas were burst by the earthquake.

There is a beautiful poem, in which a mariner, having committed a grievous sin, is visited with a terrible punishment; and whereas most poets in such cases would represent the offender as being overtaken with a violent storm, even as Jonah was when he fled from the presence of the Lord, the punishment of the mariner consists in his being becalmed in the midst of the sea, under "a hot and copper sky," where no breath was or motion, until the very deep did rot, and slimy things crawled about upon the slimy sea. This punishment of the unhappy mariner is a sort of type of what the state of the world would be, if God did not from time to time shake it. Were the world becalmed for a continuance, it would grow stagnant and rot; and all manner of vices, which ordinarily are concealed, would walk about openly in the sight of day. Thus it was, for instance, in the days before the Flood. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, when God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only

evil continually. There had been nothing for ages to startle men out of their sins, nothing to rouse them out of their torpour, nothing to disturb their trust in the earth and its pleasures; and unless God had arisen, and shaken the heavens and the earth, and the sea and the dry land, the wickedness of man would have gone on increasing, and heaping up higher piles of sins all over the world. Selfishness would have become more selfish, vanity more vain, cruelty more cruel, deceit more deceitful, lust more lustful and rampant and riotous. Again, if the Israelites had continued in Egypt, dwelling in Goshen, feeding on the fat of the land, prospering under the favour of Pharaoh, how entirely would they have forgotten the God of their fathers, and their promist inheritance! how would they have given themselves up to the fleshpots of Egypt, and to the idolatries of Egypt! Therefore, when a wise and farsighted man, a man wise in heavenly wisdom and in the knowledge of God's counsels, was raised up amongst them, what did he wish? Did he wish,-could a wise man in the place of Moses have wisht,-that the children of Israel should continue prospering in Goshen, under the countenance of Pharaoh, feeding on the fleshpots of Egypt? Surely he who chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, knew and understood what was really to be desired, and what was really to be feared? He knew that the wrath of Pharaoh, and the scourges of the taskmasters, were not to be feared, so much as the pleasures and riches and the other manifold temptations of Egypt. He knew that the pleasures of Egypt were sure to breed the plagues of Egypt, frogs and lice and flies, that they who gave themselves up to those pleasures, would have their hearts hardened, and would

perish by the plagues,-but that to them who know that the Spirit of God is remaining with them, the plagues themselves would be the means of preservation, not of destruction.

These are two examples out of the ancient history of God's Church, which prove that, if God did not ever and anon shake the earth and the heavens, the Church would perish, and that, when He does so shake the world, He thereby delivers and preserves His Church; so that all they who know that the Spirit of God remains with them, will not fear when God shakes the world. They alone will not fear. They who trust in the earth, or in anything beneath the heavens, they whose hearts are set on anything that the sea or the dry land brings forth, will fear; because that in which they trust will be shaken from under them; that on which they have set their hearts will be swallowed up before them. But they with whom the Spirit of God remains, have a stay and a joy that abide, even though the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land are shaken, a stay and a joy that become more manifest and stronger, when all that usually veils them, or interferes with them, is swept away. In like manner I might shew you by a number of examples taken out of the history of the Church of Christ in all ages, ever since her Lord and Founder went up into heaven, that what the Church has to fear is, not the enmity, but the friendship of the world; not when the heavens and the earth and all nations are shaken by God, but when a numbing calm creeps over them, and the lusts of the flesh crawl out of their lurking-places over the stagnant waters. I might shew you how time after time, in such seasons of peril, God has saved His Church by shaking the world; whence they who labour in building