The Revelation That Rewarded

 "And the Lord appeared unto Isaac the same night." Genesis 26: 24.

       "Appeared the same night " - the night on which he went up to Beersheba. Do you think this revelation was an accident? Do you think the time of it was an accident? Do you think it could have happened on any other night as well as this? If so, you are grievously mistaken. Why did it come to Isaac in the night on which he reached Beersheba? Because that was the night on which he reached rest. In his old locality he had been tormented. There had been a whole series of petty quarrels about the possession of paltry wells. There are no worries like little worries, particularly if there is an accumulation of them. Isaac felt this. Even after the strife was past, the place retained a disagreeable association. He determined to leave. He sought change of scene - a spot where there would be nothing to remind him of the old troubles. He pitched his tent away from the place of former strife. That very night the revelation came. God spoke when there was no inward storm. He could not speak when the mind was fretted; His voice demands the silence of the soul. Only in the hush of the spirit could Isaac hear the garments of his God sweep by. His still night was his starry night.

       My soul, hast thou pondered these words, ''Be still, and know"! In the hour of perturbation thou canst not hear the answer to thy prayers. How often has the answer seemed to come long after! The heart got no response in the moment of its crying - in its thunder, its earthquake, and its fire. But when the crying ceased, when the stillness fell, when thy hand desisted from knocking on the iron gate, when the interest of other lives broke the tragedy of thine own, then appeared the long delayed reply. Why so long delayed? Because it is only in the cool of the day that the voice of the Lord God is heard walking in the garden. Would'st thou hear that voice, O my soul? Get thee up to Beersheba - up to the land of rest. Did not thy Lord before distributing the loaves "command the multitude to sit down''! Thou too must sit down ere thou canst be fed. Thou must rest if thou wouldst have thy heart's desire. It comes not to the heart on the wing. Cease thy migrations. Pause in thy flight. Arrest thy wanderings. Still the beating of thy pulse of personal care. Hide thy tempest of individual trouble behind the altar of a common tribulation. And, that same night, the Lord shall appear to thee. Heaven shall open to the dove-like spirit. The rainbow shall span the place of the subsiding flood; and in thy stillness thou shalt hear the everlasting music.