Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 1 


quickly as Jonah’s gourd; and, in- stead of the place looking grave and sober as a place of worship should do, from top to bottom it bristled with timber, like a forest, abounding in crossbeams and yards, like a fl eet of ships; and was as full of bustle and noise as a market or a factory. They that turn the world upside down had come.


Sackcloth, dust and ashes


Great havoc was made of every- thing which seemed passable and decent. Where there was a tolerable show of paint the ruthless spoilers scraped it off, then picked out every fl aw they could fi nd in the ceiling and made the cracks gape twice as wide as before until the house was stripped and peeled, and made to put on sackcloth, dust and ashes, because its glory had departed. All who love this house for the sake of happy hours spent within it might well have taken up a weeping and a lamentation for it. Yet had it not been for the scraping and the pulling


down, the whole business would have been very badly fi nished in the long run. In this we have an analogy to God’s dealings with the souls of his saints when he is about to bless them, for his gracious renewings frequently commence with strippings and hum- blings of no ordinary kind. ‘When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth,’ and all this with a view of putting on the humbled soul the beauty of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel. Job thus describes the dealings of the Lord when he brings down the high looks of pride: ‘I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant. I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defi led my horn in the dust. My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death.’ This is severe treatment, but when viewed as a preparation for future blessedness, wisdom teaches us to see the hand of love in it all. If the current were always smooth, it could be a token of our gliding towards the gulf of


page 22 On Returning to the Renovated Tabernacle


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