WHEN MOSES was giving his parting
blessing to the tribes of Israel, "on this side of Jordan,"
he promised Zebulon and Issachar that they would rejoice in,
and profit by, "treasures hid in the sand." (Deuteronomy
33:18,19.) It is unthinkable that he referred to pirates'
caches, to find which many people search the sands; or to
gold dust, the search for which has loaded the record books
of heaven with countless crimes. For the worshipful mind the
Creator has many a spiritual treasure hid in the sand.
The Bible tells us that sand is a barrier
to the proud waves of the sea, the power of God being
demonstrated by His use of so flimsy and shifting a medium
to control the mad sea's raging. But the sand, when thus
used, is no longer flimsy and shifting. Held together by the
capillary attraction of water, shifting sand becomes a
smooth, solid foundation, a barrier to the sea, able to
support the weight and wear and tear of the automobile speed
tests. Sand gives no flimsy effect to one who walks over the
"measured mile" on Daytona Beach where Sir Malcolm Campbell
won his racing laurels. Sand bound together by water becomes
substantial.
To grasp the spiritual lessons hid in the
sand one needs to start from God's simile of sand and the
saved. The redeemed, He repeats in the Bible, are like the
sand of the sea. "In number," He frequently adds, and we
usually take the figure simply for His ecstatic joy over
"bringing many sons unto glory." But not every time God
likens the saved to sand does He mention mere quantity;
quality is involved. The redeemed, He says, are "as the
sand"—like it in qualities and characteristics.
That is why the sand of the sea can
successfully oppose the fury of the waves. Composed of
grains each one of which is utterly powerless in itself, the
mass of sand can be held together by an interpenetration of
water that coats each grain and holds it tight against its
neighbors until the sand becomes this mighty barrier against
the sea. The powerful capillary adhesion is exerted by an
element we think of as fluid and unstable—"unstable as
water." Yet the combination of the two movable constituents,
sand grains and water drops, forms this wall against the
waves.
Thus it is when the Holy Spirit has His
way with human beings. The usual translation that appears in
our Bible as "filled with the Spirit" carries in the
original the idea of "clothed with the Spirit." The Holy
Spirit is the water; we individual children of God are the
weak and shifting sand grains. If we allow the Holy Spirit
to clothe us, cover us, swallow up our weakness in His
power, He will bind us one to another and to Himself until
God's true Israel becomes a mighty wall before which all
Satan's waves fall back defeated. One sand grain does not do
it alone; but God and I will win—bound up with God's true
children.
