But while we put away all that injures our own life or the lives of others, let us be very careful to discriminate, to draw the line where God would have it drawn, exaggerating and extenuating nothing. It is important to remember that while the motto of the old covenant was Exclusion, even of innocent and natural things, that of the new is Inclusion. Moses, under the old, forbade the Jews having horses; but Zechariah said that in the new they might own horses, only "Holiness to the Lord" must be engraven on the bells of their harness. Christ has come to sanctify all life. Whether we eat, or drink, or whatever we do, we are to do all to his glory. Disciples are not to be taken out of the world, but kept from its evil. "Every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the Word of God, and prayer." Natural instincts are not to be crushed, but transfigured.
This is the great contrast between the Baptist and the Son of Man. The Nazarite would have felt it a sin against the law of his vocation and office to touch anything pertaining to the vine. Christ began his signs by changing water into wine, though of an innocuous kind, for the peasants' wedding at Cana of Galilee. John would have lost all sanctity had he touched the bodies of the dead, or the flesh of a leper. Christ would touch a bier, pass his hands over the seared flesh of the leper, and stand sympathetically beside the grave of his friend. Thus we catch a glimpse of our Lord's meaning when He affirms that, though John was the greatest of women born, yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.
III. THERE WAS THE SCHOOL OF THE DESERT.--"The child was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel." Probably Zacharias, and Elisabeth also, died when John was quite young. But the boy had grown into adolescence, was able to care for himself, and "the hand of the Lord was with him."
Beneath the guidance and impulse of that hand he tore himself from the little home where he had first seen the tender light of day, and spent happy years, to go forth from the ordinary haunts of men, perhaps hardly knowing whither. There was a wild restlessness in his soul. A young man, pleading the other day with his father to be allowed to emigrate to the West, urged that whereas there are _inches_ here there are _acres_ there; and something of this kind may have been in the heart of John. He desired to free himself from the conventionalities and restraints of the society amid which he had been brought up, that he might develop after his own fashion, with no laws but those he received from heaven.
Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, sisterless--a lone man, he passed forth into the great and terrible wilderness of Judaea, which is so desolate that the Jews called it the abomination of desolation. Travellers who have passed over and through it say that it is destitute of all animal life, save a chance vulture or fox. For the most part, it is a waste of sand, swept by wild winds. When Jesus was there some two or three years after, He found nothing to eat; the stones around mocked his hunger; and there was no company save that of the wild beasts.
In this great and terrible wilderness, John supported himself by eating locusts--the literal insect, which is still greatly esteemed by the natives--and wild honey, which abounded in the crevices of the rocks; while for clothing he was content with a coat of coarse camel's hair, such as the Arab women make still; and a girdle of skin about his loins. A cave, like that in which David and his men often found refuge, sufficed him for a home, and the water of the streams that hurried to the Dead Sea, for his beverage.
Can we wonder that under such a regimen he grew strong? We become weak by continual contact with our fellows. We sink to their level, we accommodate ourselves to their fashions and whims; we limit the natural developments of character on God's plan; we take on the colour of the bottom on which we lie. But in loneliness and solitude, wherein we meet God, we become strong. God's strong men are rarely clothed in soft raiment, or found in kings' courts. Obadiah, who stood in awe of Ahab, was a very different man from Elijah, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, and stood before the Lord.
Yes, and there is a source of strength beside. He who is filled and taught, as John was, by the Spirit, is strengthened by might in the inner man. All things are possible to him that believes. Simon Bar-Jona becomes Peter when he touches the Christ. The youths faint and are weary, and the young men utterly fall; but they that wait on the Lord renew their strength: they who know God are strong and do exploits.