The Righteous Are Set Aloft

“He shall set him up aloft.”

The believer in his high-days, and they ought to be every day, is like an eagle perched aloft on a towering crag. Yonder is a hunter, down below, who would fain strike the royal bird; he has his rifle with him; but his rifle would not reach one third of the way; so the royal bird looks down upon him; sees him load and prime, and aim; and looks in quiet contempt on him, not intending even to take the trouble to stretch one of his wings; he sees him load again, hears the bullet down below, but he is quite safe, for he is up aloft.

Such is the faithful Christians state before God. He can look down upon every trial and temptation; upon every adversary and every malicious attack, for God is his strong tower, and “he is set up aloft.”

When some people go to the newspaper and write a very sharp, bitter, and cutting letter against the minister, oh, think they,

“How he will feel that; how that will out him to the quick!”

And yet, if they had seen the man read it through, double it up, and throw it into the fire, saying,

“What a mercy it is to have somebody taking notice of me;”

if they could see the man go to bed and sleep all the better because he thinks he has had a high honor conferred on him, for being allowed to be abused for Christ, surely they would see that their efforts are only “hate’s labor lost.” I do not think our enemies would take so much trouble to make us happy, if they knew how blessed we are under their malice.

“Thou prepared a table before me
in the presence of mine enemies,” said David.
(Psalm 23:5)

Some soldiers never eat so well as when their enemies are looking on; for there is a sort of gusto about every mouthful which they eat, as they seem to say,

“snatched from the jaw of the lion, and from the paw of the bear, and in defiance of you all, in the Name of the Most High God I feast to the full, and then set up my banner.”

The Lord sets His people up aloft.

There are many who do not appear to be much up aloft. You meet them on the corner market, and they say,

“Wheat does not pay as it used to; farming is no good to anybody.”

Hear others, after those gales, those equinoctial gales, when so many ships have gone down, say,

“Ah I you may well pity us poor fellows that have to do with shipping, dreadful times these, we are all sure to be ruined.”

See many of our tradesmen —

“This Exhibition has given us a little spurt, but as soon as this is over there will be nothing doing; trade never was so dull.”

Trade has been dull ever since I have been in London, and that is nine years! I do not know how it is, but our friends are always losing money, yet they get on pretty comfortably too. Some I know begun with nothing; and they are getting pretty rich now, but, it is all with losing money, if I am to believe what they tell me.

Surely this is not sitting up aloft; surely this is not living up on high. This is a low kind of life for a child of God. We should not have liked to see the Prince of Wales in his boyhood playing with the children in the street, and I do not suppose you would like to see him now among coal-heavers at a hustling match.

Nor should the child of God be seen pushing and grasping as if this world were all, always using that muck-rake to scrape together the things of this world; instead of in full satisfaction, being content with such things as he has, for God has said,

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
(see  Hebrews 13:5)

I am not a little ashamed of myself that I do not live more on high, for I know when we get depressed in spirits and down cast, and doubting, we say many unbelieving and God-dishonoring words. It is all wrong. We ought not to stay here in these marshes of fleshly doubts. We ought never to doubt our God. Let the heathen doubt his God, for well he may, but our God made the heavens. What a happy people ye ought to be! When we are not, we are not true to our principles.

There are ten thousand arguments in Scripture
for happiness in the Christian;

but I do not know that there is one logical argument for misery.

Those people who draw their faces down, and like the hypocrites pretend to be of a sad countenance, these, I say, cry,

“Lord, what a wretched land is this, that yields us no supplies.”

I should think they do not belong to the children of Israel; for the children of Israel find in the wilderness a rock following them with its streams of water, and manna dropping every day, and when they want them there are the quails, and so the wretched land is filled with good supplies.

Let us rather rejoice in our God. I should not like to have a serving man who always went about with a dreary countenance, because do you know people would say,

“What a bad master that man has.”

And when we see Christians looking so sad, we are apt to think they cannot have a good God to trust to.

Come, beloved, let us change our notes,
for we have a strong tower and are safe.

Let us take a walk upon the ramparts, I do not see any reason for always being down in the dungeon, let us go up to the very top of the ramparts, where the banner waves in the fresh air, and let us sound the clarion of defiance to our foes again, and let it ring across the plain, where yonder pale white horsed rider comes, bearing the lance of death; let us defy even him. Ring out the note again; salute the evening, and make the outgoings of the morning to rejoice.

Sinner, again I say the door is open.

Run to the mercy of God in Christ and be safe.