THE GREATNESS OF HIS GENTLENESS.
By Ellet Joseph Waggoner
In the words of Hosea the Lord says, “I will be as the dew unto Israel.” The figure conveys the idea of gentleness, refreshing, and strength. Fresh every evening, the dew wets the fields, and gives the reviving and strength which vegetation needs for the growth it must make with each day’s sun. Thus it is with grace, and the mercies of the Lord. “They are new every morning.” There must be daily growth, and every day we must have the refreshing and reviving from the Lord. He reveals himself to the believing heart as gently and noiselessly as the dew distils upon the blade of grass; but there is strength in his mercies, that fortifies the soul in the stress of sin, and in the heat, “when the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.” There is so much lost to many because they are not content to rest daily in the Lord, and drink in of his quiet presence. When Job, in his time of affliction, spoke of the days of his strength, when he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, and the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him, he said: “My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch. My glory was fresh in me.” Chapter 29:19, 20. The message to every believer is, “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” This glory seen upon the Christian, as fresh and glistening as a dew-bespangled meadow in the morning sun, is the testimony of the Christian life. The Lord often uses the figure of the dew and the rain to describe the nature of his word,—the word by which we are born again, and grow, and are sanctified. He says by Moses, “My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.” Deut. 32:2. “For as the rain cometh down, . . . so shall my word be.” Isa. 55:10, 11. It is a divinely appropriate simile. Faraday showed that there is stored in a dewdrop sufficient electric force to rend a rock. Each drop of dew or rain is bringing life and power into vegetation; and thus the force that would shatter the rock, if pent up, is working itself out in nourishing delicate tissues, and carrying the water of life to all animate creation. So is God’s word. “No word from God shall be void of power,” said the angel to Mary; and the Lord says, “Is not my word . . . like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” The power of the word is the almighty power of God. And there is in it the same combination of power and gentleness, carried to an infinite degree. All the power is for the faint and the weary, and the word comes as a still small voice to the soul. In the heart of the believer it becomes a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. It is everlasting strength and everlasting consolation. This mingling of gentleness and strength that is in the word, reproduces itself in those who take the word in its fulness. “I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon.” Hosea 14:5. The glory of the Lord is risen upon the believer, and he will reflect the beauty and the grace of Jesus’ character. In his meekness and humility, and divine beauty of soul, he was “the Lily of the valley;” and to those who take him he brings the same life that he lived. They are made partakers of the divine nature. Then there is the infinite strength of his character, which he also shares with those who are his. The life, for beauty, is as the lily, but for strength, it casts forth its roots as the cedars of Lebanon. It is rooted and grounded in love, rooted and built up in him. The firmness and constancy of the character that is rooted in the word can not be shaken tho all the world is removed. It is a rare combination, this blending of consummate gentleness and grace with unflinching firmness and unyielding strength. It can only come as the gift of God. The Lord works this in the believer; for it is his own way of dealing with his children. His providences may appear otherwise to the natural heart and eyes, but in the end every soul that is subdued wholly to God will recognize his infinite tenderness in all his ways. David’s was a rough and stirring school of instruction, but in the end he was able to say, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” E. J. W.