|
「我所作的，你如今不知道，後來必明白。」（聖經約翰福音十三章 7 節）
我們現在所看見的神的作為，只是局部的 ── 一個半完成、半發展的計劃；到永生的殿完成的時候，全部工程就要清清楚楚地顯露出來 ！
讓我們上利巴嫩山頂去看看。在那裡有高大的香柏樹，它是同輩的光榮，狂風的對手！夏天喜歡對著它微笑；夜晚喜歡用露珠鑲飾它的葉子； 飛鳥喜歡巢居在它的枝幹上；疲倦的旅客、流浪的牧童都喜歡在它的蔭下憩息 ── 躲避日中的炎熱、狂暴的風雨。雖然這樣，有一天，它卻 被砍倒了；多年在林中享有權利的香柏樹，竟死在樵夫手下！
當斧子砍下去的時候，樹枝都從樹身上脫下來了，那株高大的香柏樹，嘩啦一聲，倒在地上了。那時候，我們禁不住和先知一般喊叫說： 「松樹阿，應當哀號。因為香柏樹傾倒了！」（聖經撒迦利亞書十一章 2 節）
但是等一等。讓我們跟著希蘭的工人將那株大樹運下山來：從那裡沿著藍色的地中海漂去；看啊，這株香柏樹最後成了神殿中的棟樑 ── 一根榮耀光澤的棟樑。當你看見了它的結局 ── 被安置在聖殿的至聖所裡、萬王之王的宮殿裡 ── 你會不會再可惜利巴嫩的香柏樹被砍倒了呢？
「這殿後來的榮耀，必大過先前的榮耀。」（聖經哈該書二章 9 節）
多少時候，我們正像那香柏樹！上帝的斧子將我們剝削得一無所有。我們看不出有甚麼理由叫我們遇見這樣黑暗神秘的對付，但是上帝自有祂的目的在：上帝預備永遠用我們來做天上的棟樑、屋椽；要叫我們「在耶和華的手中作為華冠，在上帝的掌上作為冕旒」（賽六十二3）。──馬克特夫（Macduff
****************************
"What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." (John 13:7.)
WE have only a partial view here of God's dealings, His half-completed, half-developed plan; but all will stand out in fair and graceful proportions in the great finished Temple of Eternity! Go, in the reign of Israel's greatest king, to the heights of Lebanon. See that noble cedar, the pride of its compeers, an old wrestler with northern blasts! Summer loves to smile upon it, night spangle its feathery foliage with dewdrops, the birds nestle on its branches, the weary pilgrim or wandering shepherd reposes under its shadows from the midday heat or from the furious storm; but all at once it is marked out to fall; The aged denizen of the forest is doomed to succumb to the woodman's stroke!
As we see the axe making its first gash on its gnarled trunk, then the noble limbs stripped of their branches, and at last the "Tree of God," as was its distinctive epithet, coming with a crash to the ground, we exclaim against the wanton destruction, the demolition of this proud pillar in the temple of nature. We are tempted to cry with the prophet, as if inviting the sympathy of every lowlier stem-invoking inanimate things to resent the affront- "Howl, fir tree; for the cedar has fallen!"
But wait a little. Follow that gigantic trunk as the workmen of Hiram launch it down the mountain side; thence conveyed in rafts along the blue waters of the Mediterranean; and last of all, behold it set a glorious polished beam in the Temple of God. As you see its destination, placed in the very Holy of Holies, in the diadem of the Great King-say, can you grudge that "the crown of Lebanon" was despoiled, in order that this jewel might have so noble a setting?
That cedar stood as a stately prop in Nature's sanctuary, but "the glory of the latter house was greater than the glory of the former!"
How many of our souls are like these cedars of old! God's axes of trial have stripped and bared them. We see no reason for dealings so dark and mysterious, but He has a noble end and object in view; to set them as everlasting pillars and rafters in His Heavenly Zion; to make them a "crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of our God." --- Macduff.
"I do not ask my cross to understand.
My way to see-
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand,
And follow Thee."
|