MY DEAR SIR,
—I have been too long in replying to your welcome letter. Do you think letters ever passed between the families of Moses and Jethro? Would not Moses or his son Gershom write occasionally to their friends in Midian, and tell of the wilderness journey?
Suppose the following letter from Gershom to his grandfather Jethro : 'Peace be to thee from Jehovah, God of heaven and earth! Wonder not if I am like a heath in the desert such as we see daily here, or like one of the sunburnt and time-worn rocks that occasionally meet our view.'
'Alas, grandfather, I am a stranger in a strange land, and my heart often wanders back to the fields where you taught me to worship Jehovah among the flocks of sheep, at the well at which you used to tell, my father first met my mother. I hope you are not forgetting us, who are often up and often down, sometimes getting a day's rest at such a well as Elim, sometimes moving over arid sand. My father is much tried by the people, but I think every day's provocation makes him meeker than ever, though he does not himself see it, and often sighs for deliverance. Our health is, on the whole, good; we have a good deal to try it, heat by day, frost by night, hot winds, flinty soil, and such other annoyances. But our foot swells not, and, wonderful to tell, our raiment is not exhausted! our shoes not worn out! our manna still at our tent-door every morning, and our guardian Pillar-Cloud above us! Help us to praise, and join us in praying that we may soon see that goodly mountain and Lebanon!'
Jethro replies: 'My son, the messenger who travelled by the way of the Amalekites arrived here and brought us tidings of you all'.
'But, my son, do ye often enough rejoice in the Lord alone, and forget the desert? Do you not remember your father's remarkable words about the sacrifice, how he told us of the glimpse he got of its meaning? He saw Jehovah Himself preparing to die! I have never been able to get this thought for a moment out of my mind. Herein indeed is love! Since then Midian has been to me far less than it was, for from Midian I am now looking to the bosom of Jehovah. Do the same, my son, and the desert will daily be forgotten. And you know how He is very near you in yonder Pillar-Cloud, and His face smiles on you at yonder ark and mercy-seat, from the highest Glory! There was a dark parable too, which your father spoke, about Jehovah gathering us all together at last in some glorious city, when Shiloh shall be there too! I often try to comfort myself with these thoughts. But my heart longs for more light and truth!'
Dear brother, pilgrims have been always pilgrims, and the desert always has been the desert, but Christ is always Christ, 'the same yesterday' when John lay on His bosom, and 'to-day' when you and I may do the same, 'and for ever,' when at His coming we shall know and feel all the bliss of being one with Him!
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Andrew Bonar (1810 - 1892)
He was a well-known pastor in Scotland with the Free Church. His brother Horatius was another well-known minister who was contemporary with Robert Murray Mchyene and others in those days. They saw a move of revival in their churches where the Spirit brought many immediate conversations in a short period of time.He is best known for his work on compiling the life of the prophet of Dundee: Robert Murray Mchyene: "Memoir and Remains of Robert Murray McCheyne." One cannot read this volume and feel the sobriety of eternity and the fear of the Lord. He also wrote a wonderful volume on Leviticus.
Andrew Alexander Bonar was a minister of the Free Church of Scotland, and the youngest brother of Horatius Bonar.
He studied at Edinburgh; was minister at Collace, Perthshire, 1838 - 1856 (both in the Church of Scotland and the Free Church); and of Finnieston Free Church, Glasgow, 1856 till his death.
He was identified with evangelical and revival movements and adhered to the doctrine of premillennialism. With Robert Murray McCheyne he visited Palestine in 1839 to inquire into the condition of the Jews there. During the visit of Dwight L. Moody to Britain in 1874 and 1875, Moody was warmly welcomed by Bonar, despite the latter receiving considerable criticism from other Calvinist ministers in the Free Church.
Andrew Bonar preached from the whole Bible, the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation. When one of his friends remarked on his originality in finding subjects for preaching, and wondered where he got all his texts, he just lifted up his Bible. He did not ignore any part of it, but explained it all. He did not shy away from any passages that might be seen as unpopular or unpleasant. Even the first chapters of Chronicles became 'God calling the roll of mankind.' He made it come alive as a history of men and women, living in their time, as we live in ours, accountable to God.
Christ and Him crucified was at the centre of all his preaching, in all parts of the Bible. He declared 'the whole counsel of God', and was deeply aware of his responsibility as a man of God. He spent hours every day in prayer and meditation of the Scriptures, and asking for the Holy Spirit to show the truth to him, so that he might pass it on to his flock. He wrote in a letter: "Persevering prayerfulness is harder for the flesh than preaching."
Above all, he was aware that his personal holiness would be of crucial importance to his preaching, as his remark shows: "Sins of teachers are teachers of sins."