Chapter 67

UNDER THE CAMEL'S SADDLE.

Rachel had been affianced to Jacob, and one day while her father, Laban, was away from home she eloped with Jacob. Laban returned home and expressed great sorrow that he had not been there when his daughter went away, saying that he would have allowed her to go, and that she might have been accompanied with a harp and the dance and with many beautiful presents.

Laban started for Rachel and Jacob. He was very anxious to recover the gods that had been stolen from his household. He supposed that Rachel had taken them, as she really had. He came up in the course of a few days to the party and demanded the gods that had been taken from his house. Jacob knew nothing about the felony, but Rachel was secreting these household gods.

Laban came into the tent where she was, and asked for them. She sat upon a saddle of a camel, the saddle having been laid down at the side of the tent, and under this camel's saddle were the images. Rachel pretended to be sick, and said she could not rise. Her father, Laban, supposed that she told the truth, and looked everywhere but under the camel's saddle, where really the lost images were. He failed in the search, and went back home without them.

It was a strange thing for Laban to do. He pretended to be a worshiper of the true God. What did he want of those images? Ah, the fact was, that though he worshiped God, he worshiped with only half a heart, and he sometimes, I suppose, repented of the fact that he worshiped him at all, and really had a hankering after those old gods which in his earliest days he had worshiped. And now we find him in Rachel's tent looking for them.

Do not let us, however, be too severely critical of Laban. He is only the representative of thousands of Christian men and women, who, once having espoused the worship of God, go back to their idols. When a man professes faith in Christ on communion-day, with the sacramental cup in his hand, he swears allegiance to the Lord God Almighty, and says, "Let all my idols perish!" but how many of us have forsaken our fealty to God, and have gone back to our old idols!

There are many who sacrifice their soul's interests in the idolatry of wealth. There was a time when you saw the folly of trying with, money to satisfy the longing of your soul. You said, when you saw men going down into the dust and tussle of life, "Whatever god I worship, it won't be a golden calf." You saw men plunge into the life of a spendthrift, or go down into the life of a miser, like one of old smothered to death in his own money-chest, and you thought, "I shall be very careful never to be caught in these traps in which so many men have fallen, to their souls' eternal discomfiture."

But you went down into the world; you felt-the force of temptation; you saw men all around you making money very fast, some of them sacrificing all their Christian principle; you felt the fascination come upon your own soul, and before you knew it, you were with Laban going down to hunt in Rachel's tent for your lost idols.

On one of our pieces of money you find the head of a goddess, a poor inscription for an American coin; far better the inscription that the old Jews put upon the shekel, a pot of manna and an almond rod, alluding to the mercy and deliverance of God in their behalf in other days. But how seldom it is that money is consecrated to Christ! Instead of the man owning the money, the money owns the man. It is evident, especially to those with whom they do business every day, that they have an idol, or that, having once forsaken the idol, they are now in search of it, far away from the house of God, in Rachel's tent looking for the lost images.

One of the mighty men of India said to his servants: "Go not near the cave in such a ravine." The servants talked the matter over, and said: "There must be gold there, or certainly this mighty man would not warn us against going." They went, expecting to find a pile of gold; they rolled away the stone from the door of the cave, when a tiger sprang out upon them and devoured them.

Many a man in the search of gold has been craunched in the jaws of destruction. Going out far away from the God whom they originally worshiped, they are seeking in the tent of Rachel, Laban's lost images.

There are a great many Christians in this day renewing the idolatry of human opinion. There was a time when they woke up to the folly of listening to what men said to them. They soliloquized in this way: "I have a God to worship, and I am responsible only to Him. I must go straight on and do my whole duty, whether the world likes it or don't like it;" and they turned a deaf ear to the fascinations of public applause. After a while they did something very popular. They had the popular ear and the popular heart. Men approved them, and poured gentle words of flattery into their ear, and before they realized it they went into the search of that which they had given up, and were, with Laban, hunting in Rachel's tent for the lost images.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock one June night, Gibbon, the great historian, finished his history. Seated in a summer garden, he says that as he wrote the last line of that wonderful work he felt great satisfaction. He closed the manuscript, walked out into the moonlight in the garden, and then, he said, he felt an indescribable melancholy come upon his soul at the thought that so soon he must leave all the fame that he would acquire by that manuscript.

The applause of this world is a very mean god to worship. It is a Dagon that falls upon its worshipers and crushes them to death. Alas for those who, fascinated by human applause, give up the service of the Lord God and go with Laban to hunt in Rachel's tent for the lost images!

There are many Christians being sacrificed to appetite. There was a time when they said: "I will not surrender to evil appetites." For a while they seemed to break away from all the allurements by which they were surrounded, but sometimes they felt that they were living upon a severe regimen. They said: "After all, I will go back to my old bondage;" and they fell away from the house of God, and fell away from respectability, and fell away for ever.

One of the kings in olden times, the legend says, consented that the devil might kiss him on both shoulders, but no sooner were the kisses imprinted upon the shoulders than serpents grew forth and began to devour him, and as the king tried to tear off the serpents he found he was tearing his own life out. And there are men who are all enfolded in adders of evil appetite and passion that no human power can ever crush; and unless the grace of God seizes hold of them, these adders will become "the worm that never dies." Alas for those who, once having broken away from the mastery of evil appetites and passion, go back to the sins that they once renounced, and, with Laban in Rachel's tent, go to hunt for the lost images!

There are a great many also sacrificed by indolence. In the hour of their conversion they looked off upon the world, and said: "Oh how much work to be done, how many harvests to be gathered, how many battles to be fought, how many tears to be wiped away, and how many wounds to be bound up!" and they looked with positive surprise upon those who could sit idle in the kingdom of God while there was so much work to do. After a while they found their efforts were unappreciated, that some of their best work in behalf of Christ was caricatured and they were laughed at, and they began to relax their effort, and the question was no more, "What can I do for Christ?" but "How can I take my ease? where can I find my rest?" Are there not some of you who in the hour of your consecration started out nobly, bravely and enthusiastically for the Saviour's kingdom who have fallen back into ease of body and ease of soul, less anxious about the salvation of men than you once were, and are actually this moment in Rachel's tent hunting up the lost images?

Oh, why go down hunting for our old idols? We have found out they are insufficient for the soul. Eyes have they, but they see not; ears have they, but, they hear not; and hands have they, but they handle not. There is only one God to worship, and He sits in the heavens.

How do I know that there is only one God? I know it just as the boy knew it when his teacher asked him how many Gods there are. He said, "There is but one."

"How do you know that?" inquired the teacher.

The boy replied, "There is only room for one, for He fills the heavens and the earth."

Come into the worship of that God. He is a wise God. He can plan out all the affairs of your life. He can mark out all the steps that you ought to take. He will put the sorrows in the right place, and the victories in the right place, and the defeats in the right place; and coming to the end of your life, if you have served Him faithfully, you will be compelled to say, "Just and true are thy ways; thou art, O Lord, always right."

He is a mighty God. Have Him on your side, and you need not fear earth or hell. He can ride down all your spiritual foes. He is mighty to overthrow your enemies. He is mighty to save your soul. Ay, He is a loving God. He will put the arms of His love around about your neck. He will bring you close to His heart and shelter you from the storm. In times of trouble He will put upon your soul the balm of precious promises. He will lead you all through the vale of tears trustfully and happily, and then at last take you to dwell in His presence, where there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore. Oh, compared with such a wise God, such a mighty God, such a loving God, what are all the images under the camel's saddle in the tent of Rachel?