There is a very real sense in which Israel's history was written for our learning. We see not only how that God was their strength and stay in every hour of need, full of camp: sion and loving-kindness, bearing with their waywardness and frail ties, forgiving their sins and rescuing them from the evil consequences of their wrongdoing, but we also see the power that was engendered by the memory of what they had learned and experienced. Remembering what he had done of old and confident in His presence with them in the way of His commandment, they press forward into the flowing waters of Jordan in flood and through and on against fenced cities and strongly entrenched enemies, a source of encouragement all should be to us in these dark days. We too can go forward in the strength of God, "We have heard with our ears and our fathers have declared unto us the noble works that thou didst in their days and in the old time before them.
But it is not only in material things that their experience was written for our learning. They are a type and symbol of our spiritual experience as well. Were they delivered out of Egypt, we too have been in bondage, a slavery worse than that of the children of Israel under Pharoah, but from that bondage He is able and willing to deliver us, He can save from the guilt and power of sin, He can break the force of evil habits. He can deliver from the grip and fascination of evil, He can town our weak efforts with victory. We can say with a fulness of meaning impossible to the ancient world, "I believe in God", We have noi only Sinai and the history of God's dealing with His chosen people: we have the New Testament, we have the history of the Christian ages. We ido not stop when we have said, El am the Lord Thy God which brought thee out of Egypt" We go on to point to Bethlehem and Calvary, to ihe Resurrection and the Ascension, to Pentecost and to the Acts of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.