Luke 9:34-36 While he thus spoke, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud.… The first thing that claims attention is — I. THE OVERSHADOWING CLOUD. It is not necessary for us to go on far in life before we find clouds coming to cast their shadows over us. We know that the elements are there out of which overshadowing clouds are in constant process of formation. And we know too that there are active agents all the time in operation on those elements. There are the rivers and lakes and seas about us, spreading out their broad water surfaces. And there is the sun with his genial beams, turning that water into vapour, and sending it off on its floating voyage through the air, to form into clouds which shall cast their shadows over our pathway. And just so it is in our experience of life in its moral or spiritual aspect. We carry in us, and find around us, the elements and agents that are occupied continually in forming the clouds that come and overshadow us. In the sickness and death of those we love, or in the visitation of personal sickness, in the loss of property, in the disappointment of our reasonable expectations, what clouds arise continually from all these varied sources! How darkly their shadows fall upon us! The apostles were on the Mount of Transfiguration. Jesus in all the glory of His coming kingdom stood in the midst of them. They stood at the very vestibule of heaven, with all the radiance of its glory beaming around them; and yet, even on that towering summit — a point of elevation in brightness and bliss, such as dwellers on this globe had never reached before — "there came a cloud and overshadowed them." And so it must be with us. We must expect the clouds to come and cast their shadows over us. This side of heaven we cannot get beyond their reach. "There came a cloud and overshadowed them," has been descriptive of the experience of God's people from the beginning. If we look at the lives of Abraham, Job, Jacob, David, or any of God's servants, as written in the Bible, we see how broad and deep these shadows have lain upon their pathway. II. THE FEELING WITH WHICH THIS EXPERIENCE. IS GENERALLY MET. "And they feared as they entered into the cloud." Nothing is more natural to fallen men than fear in reference to God and eternity. And it is not difficult to point out the causes of it. 1. One of these is our consciousness of sin. Fear cannot find room where sin has not gone before it. 2. There may be a failure to understand the views which the Scriptures give us of God's providence; or an unwillingness to believe those views. Either of these things will give rise to the fear of which we are speaking. This is the Bible view of God's providences towards His people. Could anything be brighter, or more cheerful? Then why should Christians fear when the cloud comes? There would be no room for fear if we only had simple faith in these Bible views of providence. Fear springs from the want of faith. In the darkest hour of Luther's trying life the Elector of Saxony was the only earthly defender who stood by him. For a time it was doubtful whether the Emperor Charles V. might not send an army against the elector and crush him. "Where will you be," said some one to Luther, "if the emperor should send his forces against the elector?" It was under the sustaining influence of the principle we are now considering that that heroic man sublimely said, "I shall be either in heaven or under heaven." He could enter the darkest cloud without fear. III. THE VOICE FROM THE CLOUD. "There came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is My beloved Son; hear Him." And this is the design of all God's afflictive dealings with His people. The cloud comes upon us, with its overshadowing gloom, to check us in the too eager pursuit of other things, and to enable us to see Jesus, and understand His character and work. A soldier had lost his right arm from the shoulder during the last war. To an agent of the Christian Commission, who visited him, he said, "It seems to me I cannot be grateful enough for losing my arm. It was dreadful to me at first." Thus he "feared as he entered into the cloud." "But," he continued, it has ended in bringing me to Jesus. And now, I can say with truth, "It is better to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into outer darkness." Thus God lets the clouds of trial come and overshadow us, that we may be prepared to see the light, and glory, and infinite sufficiency, and preciousness, that are to be found in Christ. "Sorrow touch'd by love grows bright, With more than rapture's ray; And darkness shows us worlds of light We never saw by day." And then this voice from the cloud quickens to duty, as well as points to Jesus. "This is My beloved Son; hear Him." Such was David's experience when he said, "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept Thy word." The voice from the overshadowing cloud had quickened him in duty. There are two trees. One is growing on a fertile plain, the other is perched high up on the mountain-side. The lowland tree will lean to this side or that, though it be but a summer breeze that bends it, or a bank of cowslips from which its trunk leans aslope. But let the storm and the avalanche do their worst to the hardy pine-tree of the Alps, it will cling to its little ledge on the side of the precipice and grow straight. Its roots point down to the centre of the earth; and the more the storms rock it, the hardier, and the stronger, and the straighter it will grow. And the same law holds in spiritual growth as in that which is natural. The voice from the overshadowing cloud quickens to duty and strengthens for service. And there is no nobler sight to contemplate than that of a child of God, whose confidence in Him cannot be shaken — not fearing when the clouds gather, nor faltering when the tempests burst. And thus we have attempted to speak of the overshadowing cloud; of the fear with which it is entered; and of the voice that comes from it. The cloud, the fear, the voice. There is just one lesson we may carry away with us from the consideration of this subject. It is this: If we are true Christians we never need fear the developments of God's providences. However darkly the clouds may gather, or however fiercely the storms may burst, they cannot harm us. We need not fear. (R. Newton.) Parallel Verses KJV: While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. |
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