God unhindered by fears of man.
We fear and tremble before boastful words and a great show of force, but we may well remember that God does not. He reckons it all at its true worth, and goes on with his Divine working quite unmoved by all the rage. The figure in this verse needs careful explanation. The allusion is to the boastings and threatenings of Sennacherib. God has undertaken to defend the city of Jerusalem. As the lion will not give up his prey, so Jehovah will not allow the Assyrians to rob him of his "peculiar treasure," Jerusalem. The vast armies of the Assyrians were as nothing in the estimation of Jehovah. He viewed unperturbed their attempt to seize the locality which he had chosen as his special residence. Matthew Henry, with quaint force, says, "Whoever appear against God, they are but like a multitude of poor simple shepherds shouting at a lion, who scorns to take notice of them, or so much as to alter his pace for them." Taking an illustration from another sphere of nature, the Divine calmness under excitement that alarms men may be illustrated by the following passage from Gosse: "There was a heavy swell from the westward, which, coming on in broadly heaving undulations, gave the idea of power indeed, but of power m repose, as when a lion crouches in his lair with sheathed talons and smoothed mane and half-closed eyes. But no sooner does each broad swell, dark and polished, come into contact with these walls and towers of solid rock, than its aspect is instantly changed. It rears itself in fury, dashes with hoarse roar, and apparently resistless might, against the opposition, breaks in a cloud of snowy foam, which hides the rocky eminence, and makes us for a moment think the sea has conquered. But the next, the baffled assailant is recoiling in a hundred cascades, or writhing and groveling in swirls around the feet of those strong pillars which still stand in their majesty, unmoved, immovable, ready to receive and to repel the successive assaults of wave after wave with ever the same result." There is a quality or power in man, which we call in a good sense sang-froid—a power of keeping calm in times of excitement, which we are accustomed to admire, and which may help us to realize the figure of God given in this passage. A remarkable story is told in connection with Prince Bismarck, who is a striking example of persistent keeping on at his designs, however loud may be the howlings around him. It is said that he wears an iron ring, on which is inscribed the Russian word "Nitschewo," or "It does not matter." In the winter of 1862 he was hurriedly journeying in Russia, and in answer to various appeals to his driver, he could get nothing from him save this one word, "Nitschewo." At last the sledge was upset, and taking an iron bar which had become detached from the sledge, Bismarck, in his annoyance, thought of striking the man, but feeling he had learned a life-lesson from the frequent repetition of this word, he kept the bar, and had a ring made of it to remind him, in the worryful times of life that "it does not matter." Consider—
I. THE THINGS WHICH GOD DOES NOT HEED. They go under this heading—the boasts of the proud. Empty words. Noisy deeds. The material forces which lie at the command of men. These greatly alarm us. Let but a sound of threatening rise into the air, and we cry in our fright, "The Church is in danger!" God is not disturbed. His Church is safe; the "gates of hell shall not prevail against her." Let but the nations unite for some act of violence towards the Lord's Jerusalem, and in fright her statesmen run off to Egypt for help. Jerusalem is in no real danger—a wall of Divine guardian fire is all round about her, and God will defend his own.
II. THE THINGS WHICH GOD DOES HEED. These will go under the heading—the cry of the humble. He who is best beard by man when he speaks with a "still, small voice," best hears man when he speaks to him with a "still, small voice." Not the thunder of men's anger, but the quiet evening breeze of men's humble prayer, goes right in to the throne of God. We may learn from this figure of God's patient indifference to what seems so alarming, how we may rightly estimate opposing forces and persons who show enmity to us. Most of such forces and persons had better just be passed by, left alone. "Nitschewo"—"It does not matter." We all of us make too much of evil things and noisy oppositions. We magnify them until they fret and weary and hinder us. Would that we were more like God, who—
"Moves on his undisturbed affairs!"
R.T.