The Raven and the Dove.

The narrative which contains these words introduces us to one of the darkest and most desolate periods in the history of our world. Rapid and appalling had been the progress of human degeneracy. Religion and virtue had well-nigh become extinct, and all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth. The good men of the antediluvian age were dead, while but one of the hoary patriarchs was left to bear witness for Jehovah before a God-despising generation, and to perpetuate the succession of the faithful in the world. It was time for God to work, for men had made void his law. The vast population of this globe was swept away by a deluge of waters—that most awful visitation of divine vengeance, the evidences of which are to this day found, and the traditions of which are preserved among the primitive nations of every continent.

Righteous Noah and his household were alone preserved by special divine interposition. Forewarned of God, he prepared an ark for the saving of himself and his family, which in due time was freighted with the remnant of the human race and pairs of the various tribes of the irrational creation, and floated upon the wide waste of waters, beneath which lay buried all the monuments of an apostate and heaven-daring generation.

Forty long days were numbered after the flood began to abate, and still the huge ark floated on the boundless deep, and the patriarch’s heart grew anxious about the future. With a trembling hand he opened the window of the ark, and sent forth the raven to seek for some tidings of a buried world; but the bird came not back. Though the waters were dark and the desolation unbroken, still she returned not to the friendly shelter which had so long protected her, but chose to allay the cravings of hunger, and live amid the wrecks and ruins which drifted to and fro upon the broad abyss. Days again pass slowly away. Another messenger is dispatched to seek for tidings. The dove leaves the window of the ark, and spreads her pinions and soars away over the wild expanse; but the unpropitious skies are overhead, the green fields and shady woodlands are gone; no nourishment is found amid the shattered fragments, and no objects of delight are seen across the dreary wastes. The raven may perch upon the drifting offal, and screech out its hoarse notes amid the awful solitudes; but the timorous dove, finding no rest for the sole of her foot, hastens her flight back to the patriarch, and nestles securely in the friendly ark.

There are materials for profitable reflection in this simple story. Let us condescend to learn lessons of true wisdom from the raven and the dove.

1. In the solitary ark floating securely on the flood you may discover no unfit emblem of that only spiritual refuge which God has provided for our ruined race in the person and work of his Son Jesus Christ. The fearful apostasy of our first parent drove our race out upon an ocean of gloom and of peril. The special presence and favor of the Almighty was withdrawn, though his providential care over us as his creatures remained. But purposes of mercy were yet cherished in the divine mind, and the plan of salvation was revealed through Jesus Christ.

Here alone, in Christ, God manifests to us his gracious presence. Nowhere else in all the departments of his works does he admit us to his fellowship, or speak to us of his mercy. Take away from the world the special manifestation of God in Christ, and there is no way left for man to hold any communion with his Maker, no pledge of mercy or grace to him, no hope of security and happiness in the favor of his Sovereign. Man is left to drift on the dark billows of sin without a ray of deliverance, and without a single speck floating upon the wide expanse to tell him that he is not utterly abandoned to destruction.But never has our world presented such an aspect of hopeless desolation. Even in the awful catastrophe of the deluge, when continents and isles with their teeming population were buried deep in the abyss of waters, and the sunbeams glistened only upon the boundless sea—then, when this rolling orb, which on the day of its creation looked fair and beauteous among the morning stars, had been transformed into a wandering beacon of almighty wrath—there was left one memento of lingering mercy, one solitary testimonial that Jehovah’s presence and favor were not clean gone for ever; for the ark floated upon the face of the waters. Terrible as was the spectacle which the deluged globe presented of God’s vengeance, still the storm-proof ark which sheltered the patriarch proclaimed the precious truth that there was one spot left where God appeared in mercy, one place of refuge and security for those who would embrace it, one point where hope gleamed over the future, and where God delighted to be gracious.

The ark was the symbol of that more glorious Ark of safety provided for lost men in the salvation of Jesus Christ. Out of Christ the world is dark and stormy, and God is a consuming fire. On the tempestuous ocean of guilt we are tossed to and fro, and no bright isles of innocence lift their heads along the horizon and invite us to their secure retreats. The salvation scheme of Jesus Christ is the only refuge. Here alone God is seen hovering over the waters, and speaking of reconciliation and fellowship. Nowhere else has he offered to us a shelter; but to this God-provided Ark we are bidden to flee for refuge, which is amply furnished against every emergency, and which will safely bear us up through the floods of temptation and the billows of death, and finally bring us to the haven of rest beyond the grave.

To its sacred enclosure we are invited, as the last spot where the soul can find its reconciled God. Outside the elements are raging, the night of guilt is brooding, the thunders of Sinai are muttering, and the dun-colored sky is lurid with the flashes of impending wrath; within is the presence of God, the assurance of peace, and the hope of heaven. Over the wastes of a fallen and sin-ruined world appears the salvation of Jesus Christ like the ark of the patriarch riding out the storms of the deluge. Here God is dwelling with men. Here is rest to the storm-driven soul. Here its guilt and alienation are put away from it, and it no longer lives without God and without hope. We have then discovered, in the ark which God directed Noah to build for the saving of himself and his family, a type of Christ and his salvation.

Let me now ask you to advance a step, and contemplate in the raven and the dove a representation of two opposite descriptions of human character. The one, that which finds no enjoyment in the presence and favor of Christ, and sees and feels no necessity for the provisions of salvation which are made in him; the other, that which is ever turning from the supports of this world and its delusive promises to seek its refuge and its resting-place in the presence of Christ and the favor of God, which flies to the hope set before it in the gospel, and nestles securely in the bosom of the Saviour. These two characters are the ungodly and the Christian—the children of this world and the children of God—differing in their tastes and habits and conduct from each other as the raven differs from the dove.

The ark where God and the patriarch dwelt together was no welcome retreat for the raven. Though it had saved the wild bird from inevitable destruction, and for many a weary day had carried it safely above the angry flood, still in the society which it afforded or the associations which it furnished there was naught that was congenial to its untamed nature; but preferring to roam unprotected, even amid solitude and gloom, it instinctively seized upon the first opportunity to escape what was indeed its friendly asylum, but which appeared to it only a prison-house. On the threshold of the open window the raven flapped its wings and soared away. Farewell to the ark, screamed the wild bird in the air, while the good old patriarch stood for a moment to watch its flight.

Though the scene without was one of unbounded desolation, where the storm clouds revelled and the fierce winds blew and dashed the dark-crested waves madly against the sky; though the fields where it once fed, and the tall trees where it was wont to build its nest were buried many a fathom deep beneath the floods, and all that was once fair and beautiful on earth was gone, still the bird of storm turned not homeward to the quiet ark; still in vain the patriarch opened again and again the window, and leaned upon the casement long and anxiously, to look out for the absent messenger. The bird would not come back. The sun goes down in clouds, and night settles slowly on the deep, but no return. The cravings of hunger are felt, but the carnivorous rover despises the well-stored granaries of the ark, and makes its evening meal out of the carcasses that drift upon the waters. Perched upon some floating ruin, it croaks out its hoarse requiem over the sepulchres of the unnumbered dead, and sleeps without a dream of the far-off ark.

Look yonder at that RAVEN, and behold an emblem of lost and straying man without God in the world. No truth is more universally certain, than that man’s real happiness and welfare is to be sought only in the smile and favor of his God. The more the human soul is brought into unison with its Maker—the nearer it advances to Deity—the more immediately it feels the presence of God and draws its supplies from him, the more sure is its present peace and its future bliss. It was once happy in this condition. Adam and God were friends. The primary effect of sin has ever been to separate man from God. The example of our first parents in hiding themselves among the trees of the garden, from the voice of the Lord, is an example which has been imitated by all the generations of their descendants. But the intervening distance between us and God has been surmounted by the Mediator. The fearful chasm has been spanned, and God now draws nigh unto us in the gospel of his Son, and invites us to draw nigh to him. Here, in the plan of salvation, he bids us accept of his grace. Here is the ark of safety, where no thunderbolts of his wrath will strike us, but where we may rest securely from the storms of the present life, and the retributions of the coming one. Here we are told to flee for refuge and hope. And once sheltered in this ark of salvation, we may have God our friend, and Jesus our Saviour. An open door is set before us, and the invitation given, “Come thou and all thy house into the ark.”

But carnal man prefers to roam. Tossed upon the troubled waters of life, where all is danger and uncertainty, he still persists in neglecting the great salvation, and like the raven, flies to and fro in search of happiness and safety. Life, to men without God, is but a chartless ocean, over which they course their way amid floating wrecks and ruins, vainly bent on satisfying the soul. High on the waters rides the ark of mercy, and the voice of God is heard inviting them to enter. But though the skies of life are so changing, and its waters so dark and troubled, that they ofttimes feel the need of better resources, still they look not to the gospel, but toil and fly from one to another quarter, crying, Who will show us any good? They want nothing to do with God. They care not for his favor. They prefer to live as far away as possible, and seek all their support amid the resources of the world.

Look at the sceptic, who, giving himself over to the dominion of infidelity, would blot out eternity from the future, and would repudiate the very being and the presence of the Almighty. As he travels through life away from God, and with no hope for the future; as immortality is to him a blank, and the world naught but chaos over which destiny and chance preside, and death is an eternal night, to what shall we liken him, but to the raven, far off from home, flapping its wings in the empty air where every thing that once breathed was dead, and where all was silence, desolation, and gloom.

Watch the men that toil for the riches of this world, who day by day ply their exhausting labors, and nightly dream of treasure heaps and gold, while God is put far from their every thought, and the gospel is neglected, and eternity thrust away from them, and the soul is left to glean its only comforts amid the perishable and fading possessions of earth, like the wandering bird scouring the unbroken main, and seeking its abiding place among the floating wrecks of ruined palaces of bygone splendor.

Or what shall we say of those who banish from their minds the thoughts of God, and live only in the round of sensual indulgences, prostituting their every faculty to the service of the basest appetites, and giving an unbridled rein to sensual propensities? Where shall we find their prototype, but in the bird of prey that loved to breathe the putrid air, and gorge its appetite upon the carcasses which the waves washed up.

In short, differ as men may in their individual tastes and habits, there is this one prominent characteristic belonging to them all—an utter estrangement from God and Christ: an estrangement so inveterate, that all the trials and afflictions and disappointments of life are insufficient to bring them to seek security in him. Like the wandering raven, they fly from one to another refuge; “but none saith, Where is God my Maker, that giveth songs in the night?”We turn now to consider the opposite description of character which is symbolized by the dove, which found no rest for the sole of her foot, and hastened back to the ark.

It is the Christian who has been brought near to God, and lives in the enjoyment of his presence. Once, like the raven, he loved to wander, and with the ungodly around him, he careered his way without God, and chased to and fro the vanities of this world. But by the regenerating grace of God, he is changed into a man of another spirit. The alienation and distance between him and God have been overcome, and he now finds his happiness in the felt presence and communion of that God from whom he has so long turned away.

’Tis the peculiar characteristic of the Christian, that he seeks, in the favor and presence of God, those delights which the ungodly strive for in vain among the objects of the world. He differs from them in his tastes and pursuits. He seeks in one direction, they in another. The current of his desires is so changed, that he feels estranged where they are most at home. What they most value he cares but little for. The company they delight in, he has no real sympathy with. He sits not in the seat of the scorners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

He may engage in the pursuits of secular life; he may be seen in the places of business and toil and enterprise, and bear a share in the rough struggle of the outdoor world; yet his chief pleasure is not found amid the cares of business and the schemes of profit, but in the fellowship of God and in the duties of devotion. Here his soul abides in peace. The service of Christ is congenial to his spiritual nature. His better thoughts ever dwell upon the unseen and eternal. Business and care may crowd upon him through the day; but he turns his footsteps homeward when the sun goes down, and like the dove returning to the ark, he seeks communion with God in the meditations of the closet. It is to him a welcome exchange to leave the bustling companionship of the world for the society of the Saviour. While the ungodly revel amid their tumultuous gayeties, he finds in the retirement of his devotions those joys that a stranger intermeddleth not with, and feels that as the hart panteth after the water brook, so panteth his soul after God. While temptations thicken around him, and strange voices are calling to him and bidding him wander further and further away, he still finds his only security in the presence of the Saviour, and flies to him like the dove to the arms of the patriarch.

God is his refuge too in the season of affliction and trial. Sometimes the world grows doubly dark, and crosses and disappointments overwhelm his soul; but the dove knows where to turn when the storm rages, and he flies for support and consolation to the presence of the Redeemer. In the time of trouble God will hide him in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle will he hide him, till these calamities be overpast. It is the prevailing desire of the Christian to seek after God. Afflictions, crosses, and disappointments all drive him there. Like the dove wandering with weary wing over the dark abyss, he finds no rest for the sole of his foot till he betakes himself to the hiding-place of Jesus, and reflects how, ere long, the rough billows of life will be passed, and he shall be safely moored in the calm haven of eternity.

Pause here a moment, and reflect upon the radical difference between a true Christian and a worldling. The one is brought nigh unto God; the other is without God in the world. In the prevailing bent and purpose of their lives they are opposites. Their dispositions lead them in contrary directions. The providential dealings of God with them produce widely different results. The same storms of affliction which drive the Christian, like the dove, homeward to his refuge, ofttimes tempt the ungodly to fly, like the raven, further and further from the Ark of safety. “The wicked will not seek after God.”

These are the two great classes of human character which the Bible everywhere distinguishes. To one or the other class we all belong. We may multiply our distinctions between men as we please, and assign to one and another his relative position in the scale of human excellence; but at the last there will remain but one broad line of separation between those who walk with God, and those who know him not. Tried by this test, where shall we be found? When the last storm of death shall gather, and the world be swept away from us, shall we be borne in the Ark of safety to the Ararat mountains of the heavenly land, and rest beneath the effulgent bow of the Redeemer’s glory; or shall we be driven out upon the shoreless waters of an eternity where the storms never cease their fury, and where the blackness of darkness for ever broods?

This momentous question of our future state is being settled by our present character. Are you living now in the fellowship and favor of God? We are told of the patriarch who rode out the deluge, that through the long previous years he “walked with God.” Is such the temper of your soul? Are you at home with Christ? Is God the portion of your spirit, and do you love the consciousness of his presence, and do you fly to him for aid? Can you live here within his covenant, and conform to his requirements, and lay hold upon his promises? Can you count all things but loss for him, and give up the world with its pleasures and its charms for the society and the service of the Lord Jesus? Or do you prefer to live a stranger to Christ, and a worldling in your desires and habits, without a shelter, though eternity must be to you a state of exile from all the holy and happy family of God?