Hath not where to lay his head.

“Yes, my babe, sweet sleep enfolds thee

On thy fainting mother’s arm;

God in his great love beholds thee,

Angels guard thy rest from harm.

Earth and hell in vain beset thee,

Kings against thy life conspire;

But our God can ne’er forget thee,

Nor his arm that shields thee, tire.”

Mark well, that, if the Lord Jesus Christ had willed it, even though but a babe, he might have blasted Herod as he did another Herod in after days, and he might have made him to be eaten of worms. The glorious Jehovah could have sent a legion of angels, and have driven the Idumæan dynasty from off the throne, if so it had pleased him; but no violence was used-a gentler course was chosen. When Jesus stands up to fight he wars by non-resistance. He says, “My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight.” He conquers by flight rather than by fight. He taught his people when persecuted in one city to flee to another; and never did he bid them form bands, and battle with their persecutors. That is not according to Christ’s law or example. A fighting church is the devil’s church, but a bearing and enduring church-that is Christ’s church. His parents fled with him by night, and took him down into Egypt, that he might be sheltered there. Traditions tell us wonderful stories about what happened when Jesus went into Egypt, but as none of them are inspired, I need not waste your time with them. The only one that might look like fact is, that his parents sheltered themselves in a temple wherein idol gods were ranged, and when the child entered all the images fell down. Certainly, if not actually true, it is a poetical description of that which happens wherever the holy child puts in an appearance. Every idol god falls before him. Down he must go, whether it be Dagon, or Baal, or Ashtaroth, or whatever the god may be called; ay, and he that wears the triple tiara on the seven hills, and calls himself the vicar of God on earth, must come down, and all his empire must sink like a millstone in the flood. We do not know how the young child and Joseph and Mary lived in Egypt, except that they had received gold from the Magi, and that being a carpenter, not a hedge carpenter, but one skilled in joinery and wheelwrighting, Joseph could find plenty of work in Egypt, where vast multitudes of Jews were already settled. Whether our Lord was carried to Alexandria or not we cannot tell. The probability is that there he was housed, for it was the great rendezvous of his nation and the centre of their learning: there had the Bible been translated into the Greek tongue by the seventy, and there flourished schools of Jews much more liberal than those in Judea. It is, therefore, not unlikely that the Prince of Peace went to that region where we have most unhappily illustrated Christianity with cuts-not all of wood, nor all innocent of blood. But Jesus could not stop in Egypt. “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” His parents by a brave act of faith went back at the command of the angel to the Holy Land: thy land, O Immanuel! Jesus could not stay in Egypt, for he was no Egyptian. He did not come to exercise a ministry among the Egyptians. He was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, in his public working. Being called out of Egypt the heavenly vision was not disobeyed. His foster-parent Joseph took him back, and they settled in Nazareth. Yet remember he had been in Egypt, and this was a prophecy of blessing to that land; for wherever Jesus goes the air is sweetened. Every plot of land that his foot hath ever trodden on shall be his for ever. What said God to Jacob? “The land whereon thou liest will I give thee.” And the same is true to Jacob’s great descendant. Jesus has slept in Egypt, and Egypt is his own. God has given it to him, and his it shall be; glory be to his blessed name.

Let us turn to think of the chosen seed that shall be brought out of Egypt. Here I would remark that this passage may be taken, and should be taken literally. God has a chosen people who shall assuredly come out of the very Egypt which now exists. It is remarkable that early in the gospel day the truth was gladly received in Egypt. Egypt became the land of saints and divines, and as it had once been the source and home of civilization, so it became an active camp for the soldiers of the cross. Under the successors of Mahomet all this was swept away, and now the Crescent’s baneful beam falls where once the heavenly sun shed out its infinite glory, and scattered health among the sons of men. Egypt did turn to God, and it will turn again. Let me read you this passage (Isaiah 19): “In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the Lord of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction. In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord, and perform it. And the Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them. In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians. In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.”

So that we feel clear that our God has yet a son to call out of Egypt, and he will call him. There shall be a seed to serve him even in the midst of the down-trodden people who live by the Nile-floods, for God hath said it. There is one passage to which I should like to refer you, because it is so full of comfort. (Jeremiah 43:12): “And he shall array himself with the land of Egypt,”-think of that-putting it on as Joseph put on his coat of many colours,-“as a shepherd putteth on his garment; and he shall go forth from thence in peace.” Yet shall Christ wear as a robe of honour this land of Egypt, and again shall it be true, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Let us learn from this that, out of the strangest and oddest places God will call his son. Certain brethren among us go the lodging-houses in Mint-street, Kent-street, and other places. Can any good thing come out of them? Assuredly, it can, for “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Out of Thieves’ Acre and Ketch’s Warren saints shall come. Some of you perhaps know of holes and corners in London where a decent person scarcely dares to be seen: do not pass by these abominable haunts, for out of such Egypts will the Lord call his sons. The worst field is often the most hopeful. Here is virgin soil, unploughed, untilled. What harvests may be won by willing workers! Oh ye brave hands, thrust in the. ploughshare and break up this neglected soil, for thus saith the Lord, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Many of you who live in the midst of Israel, and hear the gospel every day, remain disobedient; but some from the lowest and vilest parts of the earth shall yet be called with an effectual calling, and they shall obey, for it is written, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

But we will take the text, and conclude with it, in a spiritual sense. All men are in Egypt spiritually, but God calls out his own sons. Sin is like Pharaoh, a tyrant that will not yield: he will not let men go; but he shall let them go, for God saith, “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” We are in a world which is the destroyer of grace as Pharaoh was the destroyer of Israel’s little ones. You do not think a good thought but what it is laughed out of you: you scarcely catch a word of Scripture, but as soon as you get home you are compelled to forget it. Nevertheless out of that,-“Out of Egypt have I called my son.” You shall be delivered yet. Put you your trust in Jesus Christ, for “to as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God,” and out of Egypt will he call every son of his.

Perhaps you are in the dark, as the Egyptians were during the plague, or as when God turned the dark side of the pillar to Egypt. Ah, but if you are one of his, if you will but trust Jesus, which is the mark of being God’s elect, out of darkness will God call you; out of thick Egyptian night will he fetch you, and your eyes shall be made glad with the light of the gospel of Christ.

Perhaps you dwell in the midst of superstition, for the Egyptians were horribly given to superstition, but yet out of that will God call his people. I look to see priests converted. I hope yet to see leaders of the gospel found among men that were once steeped to the throat in superstition. Why not? “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” Where did Luther come from but from the monastery, and he preached the word with thunder and lightning from heaven, and God blessed it to the emancipation of nations. He will bring others of that kind; out of all sorts of ignorance and superstition he will fetch them, to the praise of the glory of his grace. I feel encouraged to pray for those who appear to be hopeless: I feel as if I must cry to God, “Bring them out of Egypt, Lord, the worst, the vilest.” You here that know what Egypt is, and are in it, and know you are in it, oh, believe that the Emancipator has come, the Redeemer has appeared; with an offering of blood has he stood before God, and given Egypt for a ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for you. Oh, that he might win those with power whom he has bought with price, and to him be glory, world without end. Amen

Portions of Scripture read before Sermon-Hosea 11; Matthew 2:1-15.

Hymns from “Our Own Hymn Book”-34, 266, 965.