Old Testament Types and Teachings
Being Bible Readings showing the progressive development of Truth and Experience in the books of the Old Testament
BY
HANNAH WHITALL SMITH
Author of The Christians Secret of a Happy Life, Everyday Relition, Open Secret, etc.
NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO
Fleming H. Revell Company
Publishers of Evangelical Literature
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by
CHARLES CULLIS,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington
THIS book is not meant in any sense to be a Commentary on the Old Testament. I freely confess that there are many difficult parts about which I know nothing, but before which I have learned to sit down in the silence and contentment of faith, and await patiently the day of Gods explanations.
My object has been, not to explain the Bible, but simply to give, as far as I Have seen it, the deep inner sense of the Books of the Old Testament, in their progressive development of truth and experience. These views have been opened to me principally through the writings and teachings of a few of the Lords see-ers, or seers, chief among whom I would mention the Rev. Andrew Jukes, of England; and they have been made so great a blessing to my own spiritual life, that I long to have others share them with me.
There may be very honest doubts as to the correctness of interpreting the Old
Testament in this typical way, and I would not contend with these. But I have
found in my own heart, and in the hearts of many others, a certain spiritual
sense which has led us instinctively
Nor are we without large warrant in the New Testament for this typical or
symbolical interpretation, as in many instances the inspired writers there,
make just such an application of the Old Testament narratives. See
I feel, therefore, that we are justified in seeking for this mystic sense in that, which might otherwise be of but little value to us spiritually. And I send forth these Readings to those who can receive them, with a heart-felt prayer that the Lord may use them to His glory.
H.W.S
In the very beginning of my
Christian life, I remember being much struck with the remark that the Bible
revealed itself only to the need and the faith of those who came to it.
Wondering just what this could mean, I began to read my Bible, and soon found
that it was really true; that just as a science never reveals its secrets
except to its students, so neither does the Bible. And I discovered that the
only really necessary things for the understanding of it, were the felt need of
its teachings and a childlike faith to receive them. I feel sure that any
Christian who will come to its study with a believing
The following series of Bible lessons is the result of this sort of experimental study. They do not undertake to be critical nor exhaustive in any sense whatever. What I wanted in my own studies was to get at the inner life of the Bible, and to see what secrets it would reveal to my soul. And these lessons are simply the supplies which I have gathered out of this inexhaustible storehouse, for my own pressing and especial personal needs. Doubtless many others have gathered far richer supplies; but perhaps those which have been so unspeakably precious to my own soul, and so wonderfully suited to my needs, may be found also to meet the needs of some others. I have no desire to insist upon my own views to the exclusion of any others, I may have made many mistakes, and may have left out very important links. I am sure many others know far more about this precious Bible than I do. But I will give to my readers the best I have, and trust to their charity to cover the multitude of faults which, no doubt, will be very patent to any who look for them.
In
coming to the study of the Bible, the first and most important point of all to
be settled is as to the position
For the readers of these pages it is not necessary to go into an argument to answer this question. It has to them, doubtless, been answered long ago. And if not, the answer must be found elsewhere, as I am writing from the stand-point of an absolute conviction that this Book is God's own Book, containing an authoritative and inspired record of His mind and His ways. We must come to it, then, with this one only thought, that He has spoken and that we must believe. Whether we understand it or not, is no matter; whether its revelations look reasonable or consistent, or even possible, is of no account. He has spoken, and we must believe what He says. We must receive it just as it is, and where we cannot understand, must set it down to our limited power of comprehension, and be content to wait until the eyes of our understanding are enlightened by the Divine Spirit, and we are made able to comprehend the wondrous things out of His law.
I
do not mean, however, to ignore or look down upon
But
I have never found argument to help me here. The devil can out-argue any human
reasoner or human reasoning, and there is nothing I am sure that pleases him
more than to engage an earnest soul in a debate of this kind, in which he is so
likely to come off conqueror. Doubts, are to be overcome not by reasoning, but
by faith. I will believe; I choose to believe, have been the weapons with
which I have conquered in many a fierce battle. For the will has far more to do
with our believing than most people think. The will is king in our nature, and
what the will decides, all else must submit to and follow. And if we will put
our will in this matter over on the believing side, and choose to
believe, turning resolutely away from every suggestion of doubt, I know from
experience that we cannot fail to get the victory in the end. This will sound
unreasonable to human philosophy, but nevertheless it is a fact, and to
me it is a fact that attests the divinity of the Bible more than anything else.
For unless the Bible were a divine book, no effort of will in
It may seem like stepping off of a precipice into an apparently bottomless abyss. But it is safe to step, because God is there, and will receive us.
Such steps would be fatal indeed, if taken where no rocks were. But because God IS, and is in His truth, there is no risk. He that will do His will, by thus obeying His command to believe His word, SHALL sooner or later know of the doctrine, whether it be of God or not. I am as sure of this as of my own existence.
But
perhaps some one may refer to
In
A
moment's reflection will convince us that in our different understandings of
God's Book, we are all like people climbing up a high mountain to see the view,
and whose views would of course differ according to the different degrees of
height to which we might each have reached. The man at the foot of the
mountain, who had just begun to climb, would have a very limited view; true as
far as it went, but hedged in on all sides by the surrounding obstructions in
the shape of forests, bits of rising ground, clumps of bushes, a high piece of
rock, or even a turn in the river or the road. And unless his knowledge were
greater than his view, he would call the river a lake without any outlet, and
declare that the road ended at that turn, and say there were no fields or hills
beyond those boundary lines. But as he climbed higher his view would become
more and more extended. Soon he would see the country beyond, and the distant
windings of the river or road, and the dividing lines, so strongly
One can see at a glance how different is the view seen from the top of a mountain, to that seen from the mountain's foot, and can easily understand that should two gazers, looking from these two widely separated stand-points, undertake to compare views, they would find that although they had been looking in precisely the same direction, and over the very same landscape, their descriptions of what they saw would widely differ.
And
it is in this progressive way I believe, that we learn to understand God's
truth. So that we can easily see how, even between honest and earnest students,
there may be a great difference of view, simply arising from the difference
of stand-point from which we look. And this may well make us diffident about
asserting that our view is the only true or complete one, or from feeling that
those who do not see just what we see, are not looking at the landscape at all.
Let us rejoice in what we see, but rejoice also in what our brother
sees, and be ready
Let us come then to our study of the Bible in a spirit of childlike and receptive faith, asking to have the eyes of our understanding opened that we may behold wondrous things out of God's law. And then it may be given us to be indeed among the see-ers of truth, who see for other men, and whom men therefore call their seers.
I desire to have it thoroughly understood that in all I may say in this book I am only giving my views; that which I can see from the stand-point I occupy. If others see differently, I am quite prepared to admit that their stand-point may be higher and their view more extended, and will not contend with them on account of it. I can only give to my readers that which I have, and I trust that the view which has helped me, may help also some others whose needs may be like mine.
There are many different
ways of studying the Bible which are very interesting and valuable, but perhaps
the one which has interested me the most has been to take it up book by book,
as though each book were only a chapter of the one Book. We have been too much
accustomed I think to look upon the Bible as merely a collection of books by
different authors, thrown together promiscuously under one cover. Whereas it
really is one continuous Book, written by one Author, with a regular
We
may therefore reasonably conclude that there is no chance in the arrangement of
the contents of this Divine book, but that the Divine Author had a regular plan
in its arrangement, and has developed the truth to
The objection may be made to this, that the order and arrangement of the books of the Bible was settled by a council of men. But this does not reach the case at all, for the Divine Author of the book was living when this council met; and we cannot for a moment suppose that He, any more than any other author, would have left His Book to chance, or failed Himself to see that it was all arranged according to His own mind and will.
We may confidently expect, therefore, to see unrolling out before our careful study a wonderful plan of progressive development of truth in our wonderful Book, and to find each succeeding step linked on to the ones behind it and before it, in a way that will give us a far wider grasp of Divine truth, than any piecemeal study of the Bible could ever do, valuable and delightful as that is.
And,
first, there seem to be three great epochs developed in the Bible: that of
childhood, that of youth, and that of manhood. The childhood of our race is
represented by the patriarchal period, when, as it were, the race was in
leading-strings. They did not know much
This much as to the grand outlines of the Bible. We will next consider it more in detail; and I think we shall find that each separate book takes us forward a definite step from the one before it, and links itself to the one beyond, and that each book has, as it were, one central thought or idea running through the whole of it, which is developed in this one book in a way it is in no other. I mean that just as the chapters in any book on science take up, one after another, separate and progressive steps or aspects of that science, while all are linked closely together, so it is here; and also that each book might have a heading, as we have to chapters in any other book, giving us in a few words its central idea.
The
book of Genesis and the book of Revelation, the beginning and the end of God's
record, present us with many strange likenesses and yet contrasts. They both
treat of the same subjects; but, while one gives us these things in their
beginnings and their failure, the other gives them to us in their wonderful
consummation and
We
open the book on a garden in Genesis (ii. 8), and close it on a city in
Revelation (xxi. 9, 10). We see the garden a home for one man, we find the city
has become a home for nations.
In Genesis we read of the creation of the sun and moon to give light to the world (i. 16, 17); in Revelation we read, And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof (xxi. 23).
In Genesis we read, In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth' (i. 1); in Revelation, And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away (xxi. 1).
In Genesis we are told that the gathering together of the waters called He seas (i. 10); in Revelation we read, And there was no more sea (xxi. 1).
In Genesis the curse was pronounced (iii. 17); in Revelation we are told, And there shall be no more curse' (xxii. 3).
In
Genesis sorrow, and suffering, and death are introduced
In Genesis man was driven away from the tree of life: So He drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life (iii. 24); in Revelation nations are welcomed back to this tree: In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (xxii. 2).
In Genesis we have the marriage of the first Adam and his bride (ii. 18, 21, 22, 23); in Revelation we have the marriage of the second Adam and His bride: Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready (xix. 7).
In Genesis Satan, that old serpent, makes his first appearance (iii. 1); in Revelation he meets with his final doom (xx. 1, 2, 7, 10).
We see, therefore, how closely linked together, even in their contrasts, are the beginning and the end of the Bible. And we cannot but conclude from this, that between these two there must lie a regular and progressive plan which shall lead us surely, and by very definite steps, from one to the other.
THE Old Testament seems to me something like a great picture-gallery hung with numberless pictures of divine truth. In some countries it used to be the custom for the women of the king's household to work in tapestry all the events of that king's reign, and hang them on the walls of his palace, so that every visitor, in walking through the galleries and rooms of the palace, could read from these tapestry-pictures one story after another celebrating the praises of the king. And just so, in the Old Testament, we have hung up for us a wonderful series of pictures, progressively developing divine truth. The doctrines of our faith are taught us later on in our Book; but the typical pictures of these doctrines are given to us in the early part of it, and we can only, I think get a clear insight into the doctrines, in proportion as we study them in the light of these pictures. I believe there is not a truth revealed in the New Testament that has not its corresponding picture in the Old.
We will first take a rapid resumé of the names and order of these pictures, and then consider them more in detail.
Genesis.
-- The outcome of Adam, or Man, and what he is by nature. This book gives us
the development of human nature under many varied circumstances, and shows how
man as man, without divine help, fails under all. It is a picture of the first
lesson that every soul needs to learn, and that is, the utter failure of man as
he is by nature, let his circumstances or his efforts be what they may. It
opens with man in the garden of Eden, and leaves him a slave in the land of
Egypt. Its New Testament counterpart is to be found in
Exodus.
-- Redemption and its consequences. This book finds the people in hopeless
bondage, from which they had no power whatever to deliver themselves, and shows
us the redemption that God accomplishes for such, by His own outstretched arm
of power. It answers to the experience of conversion, or the entrance into the
Christian life. Its counterpart is
Leviticus.
-- The worship and communion of a redeemed people. In Leviticus we see God
dwelling in the midst of His people, and making known His mind to them. It
fulfils in type the words of our Lord in
Numbers. -- The wilderness-wandering of the redeemed, or the failure to go in and possess the land of promise. It answers to the experience of a Christian who knows he is redeemed out of the land of Egypt or the world, but who has failed to go in and take possession of the rich fullness that he sees stored up for him in Christ. The seventh chapter of Romans is, I think, the New Testament counterpart of this book.
Deuteronomy.
-- Practical obedience, or the Consecration of those who are redeemed. It is a
second giving of the law and a second cleansing, answering to the experience of
the soul of the believer at a certain stage, when he longs to know the power of
the resurrection, and to enter into possession of the promises. The rules and
precepts, if this is to be done, are here given. The New Testament key-note to
this book is to be found in Rom, xii. 1, 2;
Joshua.
-- The redeemed in heavenly places, or the believer entering into possession of
the promises, and realizing the victory of faith. God's people in this book
come out of the wilderness, and enter at last into possession of the land which
He had promised them; the land from which they had been turned back forty years
before by their unbelief. It is a picture of the believer seated in heavenly
places in Christ; and answers to the Epistle to the Ephesians,
Judges.
-- The failure of the redeemed in heavenly places, or the dangers which arise
even in advanced
Ruth.
-- The union of Christ and the Church. A Gentile bride was here redeemed by her
Jewish kinsman from the one who by nature had a right to possess her, and was
purchased to be his wife; even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave
Himself for it. The counterpart of this little book is to be found, I think,
in
The
next six books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles, are all really only
different chapters of one book. They contain the story of the kingdom, and I
would suggest that their title might be, The Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. They
are typical of that kingdom which exists now upon this earth, outwardly in
the Church in all its branches, and inwardly in the heart of every child of
God.
Ezra
and Nehemiah. -- Individual faithfulness in a time of general
unfaithfulness. A faithful remnant go up out of captivity to rebuild the temple
and the walls of the city. The doctrinal counterpart to these books is to be
found in
Esther. -- God's providential care over the redeemed, even though they may be in captivity, and He may be hidden from their sight. They forget Him, but He remembers them, and cares for them. It illustrates the truth of that promise so often made by the Lord to His people, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.
With
these books we close the historical series of pictures
Job.
-- The death of self. A righteous man is here brought through the refining
processes of God's chastening, in order to bring him to an end of the
self-life, and to prepare him for a revelation of the Lord to his soul. It
answers to
Psalms. -- The life hid with Christ in God. The soul that has been brought to the end of self in Job, is here seen walking in newness of life. The man who speaks here is the man of faith, and the life revealed is the life of trust. In Job it was all, I, me, my; here it is all, Thou, Thee, Thy. The Book of Psalms has sometimes been looked upon as a sort of diary kept as it were by our Lord, for Himself and His people, in which are revealed to us the deep inward emotions of His heart, under the varied aspects of His life as the Divine Man; and also the feelings proper to those in whom He dwells.
Proverbs.
-- The submission of the sanctified heart to the teachings and leadings of
Divine Wisdom. It is our Father teaching His children how to walk safely and
wisely through this world of sin and danger. Its New Testament key-note is
Ecclesiastes
teaches us the vanity of all earthly things
The
Song of Solomon is in wonderful contrast to the Book of Ecclesiastes. There the
world is searched in vain for an object to satisfy the sanctified heart. Here
the Object is found, and the heart has entered into the enjoyment of it. It is
the Old Testament typical expression of the truth in
Out of all that Solomon wrote and said, only these three books -- Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Canticles -- are given us. I feel sure therefore that they are full of a far deeper wisdom than the church has yet appreciated. Some students of Scripture have thought that these three Books of Solomon's show us the three stages in the path of wisdom. The first being the purifying stage given us in Proverbs, where we are taught practical righteousness. The second being the illuminating stage, given us in Ecclesiastes where the eyes are opened to see the world as it is, and its hollow vanity is discovered to us. And the third being the uniting stage, given us in Canticles, where the prepared soul is joined to its Beloved in an everlasting covenant of life and peace.
Concerning this progressive development of truth in the Books of the Bible, A. Jukes says, The form of the Word, and the wisdom of its form, is a subject which yet waits to receive that attention which is its just due. Four gospels have forced some to notice the distinct purpose of God in each gospel. But for the rest of scripture, why its form is what it is, -- why like a man, and with man, it grew from age to age -- why it looks and is so human, -- what connection all this has with the mystery of the Holy Incarnation, -- these are questions seldom asked . . . . . But I would here notice one fact, namely, that the Word is given to us in many books or sections, each of which, I am assured is a divine chapter, with one special end, illustrating something in God and man, or the details of some relation between the Creator and the creature. . . . . Each book has its own end, and the order and contents of all, as they describe the progressive ways of God with man, answer to His ways in every soul, for within and without His ways are one, and His works the same from age to age.
We
come now to a distinct part of God's Book, which seems to me to be to the Old
Testament what the book of Revelation is to the New. Like that, it is a
prophecy of the glorious consummation of God's purposes for His people,
revealing the future glory and blessing reserved for them. Each prophet has, I
doubt not, a special part of truth to reveal, but I do not feel competent to
speak
It
is enough for our purposes to understand the general teaching of these
wonderful prophecies. They refer mostly to the glorious time of Christ's second
coming, when He shall appear to set up His kingdom of righteousness and peace
upon earth, and the Lord of hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and before His ancients gloriously. At that time, which is called
significantly the day of the Lord, as though all were night until then, great
and wonderful blessings are promised to the children of Israel, which are, I
feel sure, to be literally and gloriously fulfilled to them in this world, in
their triumphant return to their own land, and their restoration to
righteousness and true holiness before the Lord. The church has been too much
inclined I think to monopolize these glorious prophecies to herself, and to
give them only a spiritual application. But if the blessings belong to us, then
the curses must also, for it is plainly the people who had been cursed
I believe, however, that while the primary application of these books is to the Jew, they have a very blessed typical application to Christians; and that we who now by faith enter into God's spiritual kingdom, enter also into possession of spiritual blessings that correspond very wonderfully to the temporal ones here set forth. There is a rest that yet remaineth for God's chosen people. But we which have believed may enter into that rest now and here, and may antedate the outward millennium, by an inward millennial experience, that can be described in no other language so well, as in that which is used by these old prophets to foretell the future glory of their own nation. The spiritual mind has always realized this, and from this cause perhaps has sprung the mistake of monopolizing to ourselves prophecies, which have so wonderfully expressed our soul's deepest experiences, that it has seemed hard to believe they could have been intended for anything else.
With
these prophecies the Old Testament closes, and the dispensation of law is
ended. God's first covenant
The first covenant failed, not because of any weakness in itself or its provisions, for the law was holy, just and good. But its purposes could not be accomplished, in that it was weak through the flesh, and God therefore sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, that He might condemn sin in the flesh, and might make it possible for the righteousness of the law to be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The story of this new and better covenant will be found in the New Testament. But before entering upon its consideration, we will examine more in detail the lessons of the Old.
IN the book of Genesis we have given to us, as I have suggested, the outcome of Adam, or man as he is by nature. We see here the development of human nature in many different forms of life, and its continual failure. This book gives us in type the first great lesson that every soul has to learn, and that is the lesson of its own helplessness. It shows us man tried under many different circumstances, and failing in every one, until finally the sad but sure transition is made from the garden of Eden into the bondage in Egypt.
Not that there are no
individual examples of faithfulness and its reward, given us in this book, but
the story of man as man, developed here, is one of repeated and most grievous
failure. It has always seemed to me to be a very vivid picture of the
experience of the awakened soul, seeking to make itself what it ought to be, by
continually repeated efforts of its own and ending at last by finding itself in
apparently hopeless Egyptian bondage. We all of us doubtless know something of
this experimentally.
Of all this the books of Genesis and Exodus form a wonderful picture.
The
story of man's first trial and its failure, is given us in
In this trial and failure the whole human race was involved, and all were taught the lesson, if they could but have learned it, that man as he is by nature must always fail, and that God alone can make him stand; and therefore this very fall was the occasion of the display of God's infinite grace provided to meet it, for at once the promise is made of a Deliverer, who should deliver the very race, whose destiny He was to share. Had man fully learned here the lesson of his own helplessness, who can say that this Deliverer would not have come at once? But much was yet unlearned, and the human race had many sad experiences of failure to pass through, before the fulness of time could come, when He would be revealed.
Man's second trial was made outside the garden, when he was, as it were, left to himself, without law or restraint. He might perhaps have said of his first trial, I failed because of that one law. Let me try now a life without law, and no doubt my righteousness will assert itself. But his failure this time was even worse than at first, so that we read vi. 5, 6, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually, and it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the result was that He destroyed man from the face of the earth (vi. vii.), leaving alive only one family, whose head, Noah, was a just man and perfect in his generations, and who, it is said, walked with God.
With this perfect man a third trial was made, upon a renewed earth, with all the evil surroundings and influences removed. And lest man might say that his last failure had arisen from the absence of any law to restrain him, a law was now given against the one especial sin that had proved his latest ruin--the sin of violence. ix. 5, 6: And surely your blood of your lives will I require: at the hand of every beast will I require it: and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
Moreover, God established with him now a covenant of promise, which secured him from any fear of a future destruction, such as had just taken place; and the human race, as it were, turned over a new leaf, and made a fresh start. But the end of this trial, like that of all the others, was a grievous failure. Men conceived the idea of climbing up to Heaven by a tower of their own building, and God, to save them from a worse failure, was compelled to confound their language, and to scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. xi. 1-9.
The
call of Abraham came next. God chose a man out of these scattered nations, and
called him to a walk of separation to Himself. xii. 1. Now the Lord had said
unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy
father's house unto a land that I will shew thee. It is as though man might
have
Such
to my mind is one of the chief lessons of the book of Genesis -- man's efforts
and their inevitable failure. And such is the experience. sooner or later, of
every human soul. We all have to learn this lesson before we can come to the
book of Redemption. The natural thought of the heart of man invariably is, that
we can live up to our ideal, and make ourselves what we ought to be, if only we
try hard enough, or are placed in sufficiently favorable circumstances. And we
spend months, and it may be years of our lives, in turning over new leaves, and
making fresh starts, thinking each time that we have now at last found the
secret of success, and attributing our failures, not to any fault in ourselves,
but always to the faults in our circumstances and surroundings. Until at last,
after countless failures, we discover
The
New Testament doctrinal counterpart to this book is to be found, I think, in
Dear
readers, have you learned this lesson? Have you gone through the sad experience
of this book, and are you ready to embrace with joy the story of God's
redemption which will be next unfolded to you? Or are you still dwelling in the
picture I have tried to draw, seeking to effect your own redemption by your
efforts and resolutions, and fondly hoping to turn over at last the final new
leaf which shall contain nothing but a record of righteousness? Are you in
short trying to save yourselves, or are you letting Christ save you? Only your
own hearts can answer these questions, and I pray
Throughout the story of general failure given us in this book, are mingled, however, as always in God's records, most blessed instances of individual faithfulness, which show us in beautiful pictures, the Divine ways with souls that really trust Him, and follow Him whithersoever He leadeth. In the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, we have given to us, I think, different aspects of the Christian life. Abraham shows us the life of faith; Isaac the life of sonship and liberty; Jacob the life of legal service and bondage; and Joseph the resurrection life of victory.
Abraham's
life is a wonderful illustration of the text, The just shall live by faith.
So eminent was he in this, that he is called in the New Testament the father
of the faithful, and is cited continually as the sample and pattern of faith.
By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should
after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither
he went. By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country,
dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same
promise. For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. * * * By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and
he that had received the promises offered up his only-begotten son, of whom it
was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called: Accounting that God was able
Isaac's
life as the son and heir of his father, pictures before us the Christian's life
as the son and heir of God. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son:
and if a son then an heir of God through Christ. Of Isaac we read that his
father gave unto him all that he had.
Jacob
is a type of the life of legal service and bondage. He illustrates, I think,
the error against which we are warned in the Epistle to the Galatians, of
seeking to gain by our own works that which is freely promised us in Christ.
Jacob managed in order to obtain the blessing which God's promise had
secured to him. (Comp.
Throughout
Jacob's whole life management took the place of trust, as it does in the life
of many a Christian, and yet he was forced to confess, as finally all such
legal Christians will also be, that it was not his own labor that had brought
him prosperity, but only that God had been with him and blessed him; for he
said to Laban, after recounting all his wearisome years of toil, Except the
God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac had been with me,
surely thou hadst sent me away now empty.
Joseph's
life is, I think, a type of the resurrection-life of the believer, that life
which is set before us in
It
is a life which, from the first, dreams of victory and rule over the things of
time and sense, and which attains this rule through suffering. In a dream God
revealed Joseph's future kingship to him,
But the time of Joseph's exaltation did not come at once. The road to it lay through the pit, and through slavery, and imprisonment in Egypt. Self must die before the soul can reign unhindered. We must lose our life in order to find it. Through emptying to fulness, through abasement to exaltation, is always God's order.
In
his wonderful book on the Types of Genesis,
Delayed for thirteen years, the dreamed-of exaltation came at last, (xli. 38-44), and Joseph became ruler over the land of Egypt. The soul that suffers shall also reign. The things of time and sense shall be put under our feet, and we shall walk conquerors through the very country, where before we have been slaves and prisoners.
Mere faith cannot do this. Joseph reigns where Abraham failed. Neither can the Spirit of Sonship alone accomplish this victory. Isaac was content to rest at home in the enjoyment of all the good things of his father's house. To Jacob, Egypt was only a place of wearisome toil and sorrowful exile. The resurrection-life alone can walk through the world a triumphant conqueror. It can be in it, as Jesus was, a royal King over all its allurements and all its temptations. It can be more than conqueror through Him, and can set its feet on the neck of its enemies.
Surely
we know something of this. We have seen lives, lived it may be in the midst of
the world's grandeur, or surrounded by its blackest sinfulness, that have
Such are some of the lessons taught me out of this wonderful book, which has been justly called the seed plot of the Bible. Lessons of failure on the one hand, where nature reigns, and of grand success on the other, where God is permitted to be King. Teaching thus, even in its first chapter, the lesson of the whole Book, that we are nothing and Christ is all.
Dear reader, may I ask thee to pause here, and before thou shalt read another chapter, settle the question as to whether thou hast really learned this lesson. Because, until it is learned, no further progress of the soul is possible. We have started out together, I trust, to go through our blessed Book not only intellectually but experimentally also, and this is our first step, upon which all the rest depend. In God's pathway no one can walk but the weak and the helpless. Into His kingdom none can enter but the children and the foolish ones. His strength is made perfect always and only in our weakness.
And
this means a real weakness, not a theoretical
And if in the past there has lurked in thy soul any secret thought or dream of making thyself good enough for God to save, give it all up now and forever, and out of thy hopeless slavery cry to Him, as we shall see Israel doing in our next chapter, and thy Exodus will come as speedily as did theirs.
Texts illustrating man's lost and
undone condition by nature:
REDEMPTION and its consequences,
might be given as the typical title of this book. It tells us the story of
God's way of redeeming His people, and the results that follow this redemption.
Its New Testament doctrinal counterpart is to be found, I think, especially in
In
the book of Genesis we have seen man passing, by a series of failures, out of
the garden of Eden into
All
this is a wonderful picture of the stages in our experience, by which we are
brought to know the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. We seek first of all to
redeem ourselves by our own efforts, and resolutions, and continual fresh
starts, but our failures only grow worse and worse, until at last we find
ourselves sold under sin, in apparently hopeless bondage; and then, when all
hope in ourselves is gone, and our bondage has become very bitter to us, we cry
unto the Lord, and
The way of our
deliverance is wonderfully pictured in this story of the deliverance of the
children of Israel. From beginning to end it was God's work, and not theirs,
His right hand and His mighty power alone got the victory, and He brought them
forth with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs
and wonders.
The
especial points in their deliverance which contain the most teaching for us,
seem to me to be found in
The
meaning of this ceremony, it seems to me, we simply this, that the lamb died in
the place of the man, and that the sprinkled blood was to be a token of this
fact to the destroying angel, that he might pass over that household. And in
To
my mind there is unspeakable comfort to be got out of the study of this type.
First of all the offering was of God's arranging. He wanted to save the
children of Israel. He was not an angry God needing reconciliation, but a
loving God who longed to deliver His people, and who therefore Himself provided
the way by which it could be accomplished. Just as we read in
If
for a moment we will put ourselves in the place of a Creator, and realize the
responsibilities of a Creator, I think we will be able better to comprehend
this, and to understand the declaration in
Another point in the type before us, that brings great comfort to my soul, is the fact of their perfect safety when in their blood-sprinkled houses. There were no ifs nor buts, nor trembling hopes, in the hearts of those Israelites, but perfect assurance of safety. I will pass over you, was God's word, and they believed it, and were at peace. And to us His word is, expressed over and over again in a hundred different ways, that he that believeth hath everlasting life; he that believeth is born of God; he that believeth shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life; he that believeth shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life. It is always the tenses of present possession and assured future possession that are used, and no hint of doubt is ever given. Let us then believe Him as simply as they did, and our assurance will be as undoubting as theirs.
This
sprinkling of the blood was the first step in their deliverance. The second is
given us in chap, xiv. where they crossed the Red Sea, and left behind them
forever their house of bondage. The manner of this crossing was very
significant. Shut up in a narrow pass,
In
The feeding with
manna described in
The
giving of the law comes next in chapters xix. to xxiii. And the place this
occupies, following and not preceding redemption, is very significant to me.
Man's thought always is, obedience first and redemption afterwards, but God's
way is, first redemption and then obedience. First the tree, then its fruits.
Obedience is in fact only possible where redemption has taken place. Israel in
Egypt could not have kept God's law; and the carnal mind, we are told, is
enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed
can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. (
I dwell particularly on this point, because I am sure God's order is often missed here, and we put Sinai on the wrong side of the Red Sea, and will not permit any deliverance from Egypt, until the law is first given and obeyed.
The
latter part of the book of Exodus is occupied with God's directions concerning
the preparation of a place where He might dwell in the midst of His people. Not
content with redeeming them out of Egypt, He desired also to take up His abode
with them, and to give them the unspeakable blessing of His manifested presence
in their midst. Let them make me a sanctuary
This tabernacle, and
its furniture, and its service was, as we are told in
On the day that the
tabernacle was finished and reared up, we read,
Texts illustrating
Redemption and its consequences:
THE book of Leviticus is a book of worship and communion. It gives us the results of God's presence in the midst of His people, and shows us the things that help and the things that hinder communion with Him.
It is a wonderful
typical representation of the truths taught us in
In
Leviticus we see God dwelling in the midst of His
It
is very important to notice that this book does not tell how they were to be
delivered from bondage, but only how they were to live and worship after they
were delivered. Its very position, following Exodus instead of preceding it)
shows us plainly God's order in these things. First redemption, then worship
and communion. Not worship and communion in order to be saved, but because we
have been saved. Many souls seek to reverse this order, and think if they could
only know real communion with God, then they could have some hope that He would
redeem them. They think this acceptable
If Satan can only keep us in his own land, slaves to himself, he cares very little what we do there, and is even well pleased that we should attend church, and say our prayers, and seek to serve God, as long as we will do it in the land, thinking so to blind our eyes to our slavery, and make us more willing slaves.
But Moses answered, It is not meet so to do. We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the Lord our God as He shall command us. He knew that the true worship of the God of Israel was simply impossible in the land of Egypt. And the soul now, that understands God's truth, knows also that except a man be born again, he cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God. We must be translated out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God's dear Son, before we can serve the King of that kingdom, and above all before we can expect to be told His secrets.
But Satan's devices do not stop here. When Pharaoh found. that he could not induce Moses to remain in the land, he gave up that point, saying, I will let you go that ye may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only, he added, cunningly, ye shall not go very far away. That is, when Satan sees that he cannot keep us in his kingdom, he next tries to persuade us that it is not necessary to go very far away, and that the world and the church need not be separated by any great distance after all. He knows well, as Pharaoh knew, that it is very easy to take captive those who dwell in the border land, and that it is just because they do not go very far away, that Christians suffer so much from his assaults.
The book of Leviticus, therefore, gives us, as I have said, the worship and communion of a redeemed people, a people in whose midst God was consciously present, revealing His mind, and teaching them His will. And many very deep lessons are taught here which can, I believe, only be understood aright by the soul in whoa the Holy Spirit consciously dwells as Teacher and Guide.
The
first revelation God gives is concerning the offerings, in chapters i. ii. iii.
iv. v. vi. vii. There were five of them, the burnt-offering, the meat-offering,
the peace-offering, the sin-offering, and the trespass-offering. These
offerings were types of different aspects of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ,
meeting the need of His people in their daily life and walk in His kingdom.
Exodus gives us the blood of the Lamb redeeming God's
Each offering is
believed to present some especial aspect of His work. The burnt-offering in
Chap. i., which was all burned on the altar, an offering made by fire of a
sweet savor, unto the Lord, i. 9, was a type of Christ as He is described in
The
meat-offering in Chap. ii. represents Christ in His perfect humanity as He
lived, and walked, and served down here on earth. presenting His life to God as
an offering
In
the peace-offering, Chap. iii., the leading thought is the communion of the
worshipper, And the flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offerings for
thanksgiving, shall be eaten the same day that it is offered,
Only the clean could
partake of this offering,
The
Sin-offering, chapters iv. and v., was for sins of ignorance, or involuntary
sins. If a soul sin and commit any of these things which are forbidden to be
done by the commandments of the Lord; though he wist it not, yet is he guilty,
and shall bear his iniquity, v. 17. The sin hidden to man is not hidden to
God, and while He can forgive everything, He can let nothing pass. The priest
shall make an atonement for him concerning his ignorance, wherein he erred, and
wist it not; and it shall be forgiven him, v. 19. The sin-offering is a type
of Christ bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. As we read in
The trespass-offering, chapter vi. was an offering for sins of wrong-doing, either towards God or towards man. It was not so much here what a man was, as what he did which is considered, his acts of sin; and, therefore, this offering was accompanied with restitution on the part of the sinner. He was not only forgiven, but he was to restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten: vi. 4. This signifies, I think, first, the blessed truth that where sin abounded, and even because sin abounded, grace did much more abound. And also teaches us that forgiveness is not the whole of salvation, but righteousness must accompany it.
Such were the offerings, each one revealing Christ and some especial aspect of His work for us; and each one also, I believe, teaching us what we ought to be, as one with Him and walking as He walked, even living sacrifices giving ourselves to God, and to our brethren. But I cannot dwell on this now.*
To me the one grand lesson of the offerings is to be found in the constant repetition of the declaration and it shall be forgiven him. No room was left for doubt here. God said it, and the question was settled. No Israelite could look inside at his own feelings to settle this question, nor outside at his life. The one only point was, had he brought the offering, and had it been consumed on the altar? If so, then he was forgiven, whether he felt it or not; and we cannot imagine an Israelite entertaining a doubt on the subject. Had such a thing occurred, I cannot but think that the friends and neighbors of the unfortunate man, and, in fact, the whole nation, would have been horrified at such presumption. Do you dare to doubt God's word? they would have asked. Are your feelings to be put in opposition to His express declaration? But if they could be thus sure of forgiveness, who only offered a bullock, or a lamb, or a turtle dove, surely we, for whom Christ has been offered, ought to be infinitely more sure; and doubts with us should be even more summarily dealt with. May the type teach us this all important lesson!
Priesthood
comes next in chapters viii. and ix. A type of the Lord Jesus Christ as our
High Priest interceding for us, and giving us access to God. Now of the things
which we have spoken this is the sum: we have such an High Priest, who is set
on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens; a minister of
the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not
man,
I believe that Aaron as High Priest was the especial type of Christ; and that his sons were meant to be types of believers in their position as priests unto God, built up, as Peter says, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, The priest typifies the soul in communion with God, dwelling in the secret of His presence, and handling the holy things of His sanctuary. And we, as priests, are called, as were the sons of Aaron, to a blessed separation from all the cares and burdens of the world, and to a life of consecration to the service of our Lord.
Chapters
xi. xxii. give us the discernment between clean and unclean things, the
judgment of defilements, what was to be done with defiled persons, and
directions to preserve them from defilements. These chapters touch on many things
in the daily lives of the Israelite, which were calculated to hinder or to
help communion, and show us how nothing is unimunimportant to the soul where
God dwells. The food they ate, the garments they wore, the houses they lived
in, their family relations with each other, their treatment of one another, the
sowing of their seed, the gathering in of their harvests, their births and
death, in short all the smallest details of their everyday
These
chapters are to me most precious, because they show us that our God loves us
enough to care about every little detail of our lives, and that to belong to
Him means to have each step of our way regulated by His sweet control. To the
heathen nations round about, it might have seemed an almost intolerable thing
to have God entering so minutely into all their affairs; beside their bed at
night, and around their board by day. But to the soul that knew His love,
nothing could have been more blessed. The surveillance of true and unselfish
love is always most lovely, and can bring nothing but blessing and joy. We know
that we ourselves do not care for the details of any lives but of those we
love. The majority of the people around us may live, and eat, and wear, and act
as they please, and so long as they do not interfere with us, we are perfectly
indifferent. But the moment we begin to love, all is changed, and the least
detail in the life or ways of our loved ones becomes of deepest interest to us.
It is because God loves us therefore, that He cares what we do, and it is one
of our sweetest joys, if we only knew it, to have a
In Chapter xvi. we have the provision made for defilement. For on that day shall the priest make an atonement for you to cleanse you, that ye may be clean from all your sins before the Lord, xvi. 30. This atonement was two-fold. One goat was killed and its blood sprinkled on the mercy-seat to make an atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, xvi. 16; and of the other goat we read xvi. 21, 22, And Aaron shall lay both hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness. And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.
Of
all the types of the Lord Jesus, this seems to me one of the most wonderful.
The way of access for the sinner into the presence of God is made by His death,
and the sins of the sinner are borne away into a land not inhabited, cast as
it were into the very depths of the sea, to be no more remembered, even by the
God against whom they were committed, but who has thus laid on Him the iniquity
of us all. And if that day was to be a Sabbath of rest to the soul of the
Israelite, because he was thus cleansed from all his sins, how much more ought
our souls to enter into rest, when
The Lord's feasts come next in chapter xxiii., a wonderful picture of the stages in the soul's experience, which are each one well pleasing to the Lord, and which lead onward, one by one, from the first stage of coming to Jesus and finding rest to our souls, to the culminating stage of fulness of joy in His love.
These feasts are seven -- the Sabbath, the Passover accompanied with the feast of unleavened bread, the First-fruits of the Harvest, Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets in the seventh month, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
The first, the Sabbath, verse 3, is a type of that rest into which we, which have believed, do enter; and it must always be the first stage in all real progress. Come unto me, said Jesus, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Many other things also He has in store for us, but this must come first -- rest to our souls; and without it all the others are useless.
The second, the Passover, with the feast of unleavened bread, verses 5-8, typifies the assurance of faith, and its result in a holy life. The Passover was the memorial of their deliverance in Egypt, and must have reminded them every time they celebrated it, that their deliverance was a grand fact. The feast of unleavened bread typified the separation from evil that must be the result of this; leaven always being a type of evil.
This whole feast
teaches us, I think, that it is God's will and therefore pleasing to Him for
the believer to know that his sins are forgiven, and that he has been delivered
from the bondage of Satan through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. John
says: These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son
of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life,
The
third feast, the First Fruits, verses 10-14, occurring on the day after the
Sabbath, the eighth day, was a type of the resurrection of Christ, who at the
end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, rose
triumphant from the grave, and became the first-fruits of them that slept.
The fourth feast, Pentecost, verses 15-21, typifies the outpouring of the Spirit upon the soul that has thus died with Christ and risen with Him to newness of life. A new meat offering was presented then, baken with leaven, a type of the union of Christ with His people, who, being still upon earth, have in them the taint of evil. All the different sacrifices were offered on this day, showing how, when our Pentecost comes, Christ in all His fulness will be apprehended and rejoiced in.
The fifth feast, the Feast of Trumpets, verses 24, 25, is a type of the believer bearing testimony. Endued with power from on high, on the Day of Pentecost, we can now be witnesses unto Christ.
The sixth feast, the Day of Atonement, verses 27-32, a day when they were to afflict their souls, was a type, I thank, of the death of self, the final and complete self-sacrifice, when all of self is surrendered and crucified with Christ. Afflict your souls, that is, mortify, reckon dead, take up the cross, forsake all.
And this ushered in
the seventh feast, the feast of joy. These things have I spoken unto you, that
my joy might remain in you, and your joy might be full,
This
seventh feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, verses 24-43, is the foreshadowing of
the Christian's highest
It is very striking to observe the continual recurrence of the expression throughout all of these feasts, ye shall do no servile work therein, illustrating wonderfully the truth that, from beginning to end, our salvation is not of works, lest any man should boast.
Another expression is
also to me very suggestive, and that is that these feasts were called the
feasts of the Lord. Not our feasts, but His. That is, the joy of the Lord in
our progress is far greater than ever our own joy could be. The Lord thy God
in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with
joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with singing,
Chapter
xxv. gives us the Jubilee, a beautiful type of the Millennium, the final
restitution of all things, when righteousness shall cover the earth as the
waters cover the sea. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim
liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a
jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye
shall return every man unto his family. This year was reached by an ascending
scale of Sabbaths, one Sabbath day each seven days, one Sabbath year
In chapter xxvi. we have given to us the blessings that follow obedience, and the miseries that will follow disobedience, striking pictures of the joy of the obedient Christian life, and the loss and sorrow of the disobedient.
Our book closes with chapter xxvii. which treats of God's rights in those things devoted to Him, and shows us that every such thing becomes most holy, because it is thus set apart for Him. His possession of it makes it holy, whatever it may have been before. Every devoted thing is most holy to the Lord, verse 28. A blessed truth to the poor soul that feels its unholiness, and yet longs to be all the Lord's, sanctified and meet for the Master's use, and prepared unto every good work.
Satan
continually tempts such to think that they are too unholy for the Lord to
accept, and what he suggests as to their unworthiness is so true, that it seems
impossible to gainsay his conclusions. But the answer here is simply this, that
the altar sanctifies the gift, that anything given to the Lord is made holy by
the very fact of being so given. And that even our bodies, if presented unto
Him a living sacrifice, are thereby rendered holy and acceptable. Just as we
have sometimes read in our childish tales of a water that changed everything
Such is the book of Leviticus, a book concerning the worship and communion of a redeemed people, among whom God dwells. A book that more than any other seems to show in type what it is to have the blessed gift of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts; that gift which is the promise of the Father to all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and which alone brings us nigh to God, and makes it possible for us to commune with Him. It is therefore especially full of deep teaching for Christians, and contains many blessed lessons concerning the interior life of spiritual communion, that are worthy of most careful study.
Texts illustrating
the life of communion with God:
*I would refer my reader to Jukes' Law of the Offerings, for further teaching on this part of Leviticus, for sale at the Willard Tract Repository.
THE book of Numbers gives us the
wilderness wandering of a redeemed people, and answers to the experience of the
Christian who knows that he is redeemed out of the world and brought nigh to
God, but who fails to enter into possession of the fulness of his salvation. In
this book we see the children of Israel brought to the borders of the promised
land, and failing to go in because of unbelief; and we see them, on account
of this failure, condemned to wander for forty years in the wilderness. The
seventh chapter of Romans is the New Testament counterpart of this book. Paul gives
us in that chapter the experience of a redeemed soul, who knows what it is to
delight in the law of God after the inward man, but who finds another law in
his members warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into
continual captivity. It is too common an experience to need any
That Christians could ever be willing to sing such experiences as these, seems a strange phenomenon. One would think, if it were unfortunately true, that it would be buried with shame in the deepest recesses of the heart, or spoken of only with the greatest sorrow. It is as though wives should put into verse, and sing to one another, their want of love and devotedness to their husbands. Or as though the children of Israel should have sung instead of weeping, when they found themselves turned back to wander in the wilderness.
The wilderness
wandering, however, does not fill up the whole book of Numbers. The first
twelve chapters give us the details of God's provision for His people's need,
as to service and warfare. And it is a provision so ample and complete, as to
seem to leave no possible
In chapters i. and ii. God numbers His people, and arranges them around His dwelling-place, assigning to each one his rightful position, and calling them by their names; a blessed illustration of the Good Shepherd's individual care of His flock, who calleth His own sheep by name and leadeth them out. The numbering here was especially for warfare, from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war; and typifies the especial aspect of Christians, as engaged in spiritual conflicts with their enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil. Only those who were able, were called into this warfare. The young, and weak and aged were to be spared; showing that only a vigorous Christian life can really fight the fight of faith. And all were to declare their pedigrees, i. 18, that it might be known beyond a shadow of doubt whether they really belonged to Israel. Souls who doubt whether they belong to God or not, can scarcely fight His battles, for their very doubts are a siding with the enemy against Him.
In chapters iii. and
iv. we have the Levites set apart for service: Bring the tribe of Levi near,
and present them before Aaron the priest, that they may minister unto him. And
they shall keep his charge,
In
chapter v. we have provision made for the purity of the camp: Command the
children of Israel, that they put out of the camp every leper, and every one
that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead: both male and female
shall ye put out, without the camp shall ye put them; that they defile not
their camps, in the midst whereof I dwell, v. 2, 3. God's presence requires
perfect purity on the part of those
In chapter vi. we
have given us God's mind respecting those whose hearts stir them up to a life
of peculiar devotedness to the Lord, either for a particular work, or for an
especial season: When either man or woman shall separate themselves to vow a
vow of a Nazarite, to separate themselves unto the Lord, vi. 2. Such a one may
be called for a time to deny himself from things not evil in themselves, and to
which it may be he can one day return, (compare ver. 3 with ver. 20). But if
the Lord has thus called us into separation for an especial purpose, either of
service or of training, let us beware lest our separation be defiled by any
lack of obedience to the divine command, or any want of watchfulness against
the divine forbiddings. This separateness and this self-denial will bring us to
a place of joyful communion when the days of our separation are fulfilled,
and Christ in all His manifold fulness will be
In chapter vii. we have the offerings of the princes of Israel. Willing offering is always the result of blessing. Freely ye have received, freely give, is always the Lord's way with us. These offerings are a type of the willing offerings of God's children now, who may be princes in giving, even though poor in this world's riches. And He notes it all; every bowl and every spoon, and even every cup of cold water given in the name of the Lord is written in His book of remembrance, and not one shall lose its reward.
Chapter viii. gives us further details as to the Levitical service and the cleansing necessary for it, teaching us in type the absolute necessity for purity of heart, as the basis for any effectual and acceptable service to God.
Chapter
ix. gives us the provision for keeping the Passover in the wilderness, and for
the guidance of the children of Israel in their journeys. The passover was the
memorial of their redemption out of Egypt, and was to be kept by the people,
even in the wilderness. A type, I think, of the continual remembrance on our
The
presence of the pillar of cloud and fire guiding and protecting the children of
Israel in all their journeys, (ix. 15-23), seems to me a very beautiful type of
the presence of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of God's people, guiding them day
by day in all the journey of life. And when the cloud was taken up from the
tabernacle, then after that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place
where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. At the
commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the
commandment of the Lord they pitched, ix. 17, 18. There were no roads nor
guide-posts in that great and terrible wilderness, and none of whom they
could inquire their way. Yet they journeyed without carefulness, because the
Lord led them at every step. They had
And now that all had been arranged in God's order, the journey began. And it came to pass on the twentieth day of the second month, in the second year, that the cloud was taken up from off the tabernacle of the testimony. And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran. And they departed from the mount of the Lord three days' journey: and the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them in the three days' journey, to search out a resting place for them (x. 11, 12 and 33). It is thus that the Lord, when He putteth forth His own sheep goeth before them. And how little cause for fear or anxiety can there be in a journey so guided, by such a Leader.
Yet
almost at once the evil heart of unbelief showed itself, and the people
complained (xi. I); and, seduced by the mixed multitude who accompanied them,
they began to look back longingly to Egypt We remember, they said, the fish,
which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks,
and the onions, and the garlic: but now our soul
The spirit of criticism follows swift upon spiritual leanness, as we see in chapter xii.: And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman he had married. The soul filled with the love of Christ has lost the spirit of judging. The divine charity spread abroad in the heart thinketh no evil. But an inward want of union with Christ always leads the soul to climb up on the judgment seat, and to take upon itself the task of removing the mote out of its brother's eye, regardless of the beam in its own. God deals with all such, however, sooner or later, and sounds in the inmost ear the solemn question, Wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses? And in mercy He reproves and chastens until the sin is acknowledged and the soul restored, 10-15.
In
chapter xiii. we enter upon one of the saddest epochs of the history of the
children of Israel. They are here brought to the very borders of the land which
the Lord had given them for an inheritance, and for the very purpose of
possessing which He had brought them out of Egypt. In
But the previous
rebellion had weakened the heart of the people, and when they heard from their
spies of giants, and cities walled and very great, they were afraid and
refused to go up. Whither should we go up? they said, our brethren have
discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we; the
cities are great and walled up to heaven: and more- over, we have seen the sons
of the Anakims there,
This
whole scene is a picture, I think, of a stage of Christian experience, which
is, alas! only too common. The soul, which has been translated out of the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son, is
I
know what it is to have been discouraged in the early part of my Christian
course by the story of these spies, and to have become in turn a spy myself,
bringing up a bad report of the land. When I was first converted I never
dreamed of anything but of taking possession, of course, of all the rich and
glorious things which I saw promised in the Bible to believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I had never been used to hearing Christians talk much about their
spiritual experience, and I supposed in my simplicity that to be in the kingdom
of Heaven meant really to be in a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in
the Holy Ghost. And when in the course of a few weeks the giants began to
appear in my land, and I found myself surrounded
I had found in the Lord Jesus a deliverer from the guilt of sin, but now I wanted to find in Him a deliverer from the power of sin, and I did not know how to set about it. I went therefore to a spy to find out. He was a beloved Christian teacher who had been many years in the way, and must know, I supposed, all about it. But never shall I forget my disappointment! After I had stated my case and told my need, saying that I knew it was because of my ignorance, and because I had not taken in the fulness of the gospel that I was in so sad a case, my friend said, Oh, no! You are all right. You cannot expect such a deliverance as you are seeking. We all of us are more or less under the power of sin all our lives, and we must not expect the early joy of our conversion to last for ever. The seventh of Romans is the experience of the Christian throughout his whole life. I thought my friend knew, and I received his report as final, and at once settled down to my condition as being inevitable, and therefore to be endured with the best grace I could; but my heart sank as I left the house, and, like the children of Israel, I could have lifted up my voice and cried, so great was my disappointment. And many a time in the years that followed would I recall with saddest longing the blessedness I had felt when first I knew the Lord.
But, so ignorant was I of God's ways, that I in turn became a spy, bringing a bad report of the land to the Christians who came to me for counsel, telling them it was indeed a good land and a large, but adding the fatal nevertheless of unbelief, that the people who dwelt in the land were too strong for them, and the cities were walled and very great. Many a one did I thus turn back, causing them to wander with me in the wilderness for many years.
I am sure I but relate the experience of others of my readers in thus giving my own. In prayer-meetings, in sermons, in private converse, and in books, this report of the spies is declared to us over and over; until at last if any faithful Caleb or Joshua, who have wholly followed the Lord, comes forward with the assertion that, We are well able to overcome, the church is ready, in a figurative sense, even to stone them with stones. And I think if we are, many of us, honest with ourselves, we shall be forced to confess that some of these stones have been at one time or another cast by our own hands. Let us thank God if we have learned better, and if now we also can say of the people of the land, they are bread for us; their defence is departed from them, and the Lord is with us; fear them not.
The
New Testament tells us that the cause of this sad failure of the Israelites was
unbelief. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief, (see
Their
enemies were as great and they themselves: were as weak when this song was
sung, as when the borders of the land were reached. But the people, fresh from
the Red Sea victories, had no fear on account of this. The Lord was to do it
all; and what mattered to the Lord, the giants' strength or the weakness of be
children of Israel? It is nothing to Him to work with many or with few, and no
giants or walled cities can successfully oppose Him. It was unbelief,
therefore, and unbelief alone that prevented their going
The
consequence of this failure on the part of the children of Israel was a forty
years' wandering in the wilderness. See
Other
rebellions followed this failure to go in and possess the land. They broke
God's rest, chap. xv. 32-36. They rebelled against Moses and Aaron, chap. xvi.,
and sought to assume to themselves the place which could only be received as
the gift of God. They complained
Each sin was no doubt the occasion of fresh displays of grace, but no one surely would argue from this that because grace abounded therefore sin might also abound. Rather would we cry with Paul, God forbid! How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? I would refer my readers to the seventy-eighth Psalm for the Lord's thoughts about this whole wilderness wandering.
And
yet at the close of it, when the children of Israel took up their final
encampment in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho, xxii. 1, we
have those wonderful chapters concerning Balaam and Balak, xxii., xxiii.,
xxiv., where God's richest blessings are pronounced upon this very people, who
had so often provoked and grieved Him; and where we even read these remarkable
words, xxiii. 21: He hath not beheld iniquity in
From this time the wilderness wandering was over. The camp was not removed from the plains of Moab until in the book of Joshua they crossed the Jordan into the promised 'land. In the remaining chapters of Numbers we have given to us the final arrangements that had to be made before this could be done.
In chapter xxvi. God numbers the people afresh, as heirs ready to take possession of their inheritance.
In chapter xxvii. a new leader is appointed in the place of Moses to lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep without a shepherd.
In chapters xxviii. and xxix. we have details as to worship and sacrifices.
Chapter xxx. is concerning the vows of women, showing us God's provision for folly and weakness, that those who are not responsible (as women were not among them) may have their foolish plans set aside by Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom.
Chapter
xxxi. gives us the story of a war which resulted from the sin of chap. xxv. The
conflicts in the wilderness experience are not like the conflicts in the land
of promise where actual spiritual ground is acquired
In chapter xxxi. we have the account of the children of Reuben and the children of Gad who took up their abode on the wilderness side of Jordan. They had a very great multitude of cattle, and behold, the place was a place for cattle. Therefore they said to Moses, Bring us not over Jordan. And many Christians are likewise tempted to take up their abode this side of Jordan; by the multitude of their cattle and because the place is a place for cattle. But such dwellers in the border-land are the first to fall a prey to the enemy, and are continually harassed by his attacks.
Chapter xxxiii. reviews the way by which they had come, and commands the utter destruction of all the enemies in the land of their inheritance.
Chapter xxxiv. marks the limits of the country they were to possess.
Chapter xxxv. appoints the portion of the Levites, and the cities of refuge; the last being wonderful types of Christ as the Refuge of sinners.
Chapter
xxxvi. taken in connection with the first part of chap. xxvii. shows us the
blessedness of a bold claim of faith, when regulated by the divine limitations.
These daughters of Zelophehad would not forego the privileges which belonged.
to them by inheritance, although to the eye of man they had no rightful claim.
The book closes with the children of Israel still encamped in the plains of Moab, by Jordan near Jericho, waiting for the rehearsing of the law which was to precede their final entrance into the promised land. This rehearsal we have given to us in Deuteronomy.
The practical lesson
taught us in the story contained in this book of Numbers is summarized in
THE book of Deuteronomy is a book of consecration. It shows us God's redeemed people standing a second time on the borders of the land of promise, and consecrating themselves afresh to Him, as a preparation for going in and possessing it. Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you, iv.1.
It
is the consecration of a redeemed people that is prefigured here. It is not the
surrender which the sinner is required to make before he can know the
forgiveness of his sins; but it is the surrender required from the Christian,
who already knows this, and who is seeking to enter into the full possession of
the gifts and privileges of the Christian life. It answers to
No such scene as this took place when the Israelites stood on the border of the Red Sea. The only point then was deliverance out of Egypt in the quickest way possible. And the surrender called for was only that they should consent to turn their backs on Egypt with its fish, and cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic, and should follow the Lord their God as He led them out into a land they knew not. Repent and believe the Gospel, turn your backs on the old life of sin and begin the new life of faith, is the New Testament expression of this stage in their experience.
As
long as the Israelites were in Egypt they could not keep God's law, because
they were Pharaoh's slaves; and they had to be delivered in order that they
might be able to keep it. But being delivered, and having been made God's
people, they were then ready to hear the law and to consecrate themselves to
obey it. And with us likewise, the first step in our experience must be,
deliverance out of Satan's kingdom, and the new birth into the kingdom of God's
dear Son; for the carnal mind, we are told, is not subject to the
And,
in fact, as a general thing, many points exercise our hearts before we come to
this consecration, -- how to be safe from the destroying angel; how to be
delivered out of Egypt; how to have access to God; how to be led through the
wilderness; how to overcome the enemies there. Until at last we come in our
experience, as Israel did, a second time to the borders of the land of promise,
and our souls begin to long to know something of the power of Christ's
resurrection, and to live, even now and here, in heavenly places. And at this
point the need for consecration presents itself before us. We realize that
unless we are in very truth wholly the Lord's, He cannot lead us into the land
of our inheritance. Not that there has been no consecration of ourselves
previously. There may have been one or many; there must be, in fact, a measure
of consecration in the heart of every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. The
law had been given to Israel just after their deliverance out of Egypt, and
they had promised to obey it (see
It
is necessary to keep all this clearly in mind in order to understand the
conditional character of the book of Deuteronomy. We meet here continually with
the word if, All these blessings shall come upon thee and overtake thee, if
thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, xxviii. 2. But it
shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord
thy God, to observe to do all His commandments that all these curses shall come
upon thee and overtake thee, xxviii. 15. The blessings of the gospel of the Lord
Jesus Christ are so unconditional, and His gifts are so free, that we are apt
to think there are no ifs to be found in it any where, and that the
introduction of any conditions are always a mistake of legality. But while it
is true that forgiveness is a free gift, bestowed without money and without
price upon all who need it and will take it, it is also equally true that
holiness of heart is a gift with conditions. No sick man can be healed
by a physician, be he ever so skilful, unless he will submit himself to that
physician's prescriptions and obey his orders. And no soul can be cured
of the dreadful malady of sin, until it is willing to surrender every
Consecration
is therefore, if we only understood it, not a sacrifice demanded, but a
privilege bestowed. It is the only pathway there is to the unspeakable and
inestimable blessings promised to the believer; and the Lord who calls us into
this pathway knows that He is calling us to something that will make for us
almost a Heaven upon earth. I speak strongly, but none too much so I am sure.
To be wholly the Lord's, does bring to the soul spiritual blessings that
answer, step by
How exactly these descriptions answer to those rich spiritual possessions, and that blessed land of spiritual rest and joy, into which the obedient soul enters now.
Take also the
blessings that follow and overtake the obedient in vii. 12-16 and xxviii.
1-13: The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in
all that thou settest thy hand unto. Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest
in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out. Thy enemies shall be
conquered, vii. 16; thy diseases shall be healed, vii. 15; thou shalt have
riches in abundance to
Take on the other
hand the curses which it is declared in xxviii. 15-68 will surely come upon
and overtake those who will not hearken unto the voice of the Lord; and
notice the marvellous similitude there is between them, and the spiritual loss
and suffering which we all .know invariably comes upon and overtakes the
disobedient soul now. When such spray, the heaven seems to have become as
brass, xxviii. 23; their spiritual enemies smite them and cause them to flee,
v. 25; spiritual diseases of all kinds prostrate and afflict them, and even the
old diseases of Egypt from which they had hoped to have been delivered,
return upon them, and the old temptations of their unconverted days again
overcome them, verses 27, 60; spiritual blindness overtakes them, and they
grope at noonday and cannot find their way, verses 28, 29; their strength
fails, v. 32; their work is fruitless, and they have no stores to give to
others who are in need, verses 38-44; and, in short, the Lord's word to such a
one is the same as to disobedient Israel of old, that thou salt find no ease,
neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee
there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and
But that this consecration was not to be looked upon as a painful demand; can be seen from the continual exhortations to rejoice throughout this book, see xii. 7, xiv. 26, xvi. 14, 15, xxii. 11, and from the word of warning in xxviii. 47, 48, Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and He shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until He have destroyed thee.
Faber says,--
And the soul that has learned to
know God can say, Amen, to this with eager gladness. For the will of God is the
will of love, and the will of love can never be anything but richest blessing
to the loved one. We all know this, even in our poor meagre human experience of
love. We know that where we love, our will towards the object of our affections
embraces and demands only their blessing and their happiness. Our own happiness
is as nothing in comparison, and our only trouble is that we cannot find ways
enough in which to express and pour out our love. We know that the one question
of
I confess that to me these words are among the sweetest ever put into mortal lips-- Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. It is the perfect doing of God's will that makes Heaven what it is, and to have His will done perfectly here would turn this earth into a Heaven also. And in so far as it is done in any individual life or by any individual heart it does bring Heaven down into that heart and life, and makes that man dwell in a perpetual kingdom. For he does indeed always reign who sides with God, since God's way is his way, and God's will is his.
Alas! how grievous it
is that any one should ever
Oh, dear friends, if this has been the thought of any one of you, if your heart has been afraid of your Father's will, and has hesitated to consent to it, confess your sin now with shame and sorrow, and begin from this time forward to say to Him a continual, Yes, throughout all the range of your being.
The book of
Deuteronomy may be divided into three parts. The first eleven chapters contain
mostly exhortations to obedience, with the motives of love and gratitude that
should urge to it. Moses here beseeches the people, as Paul did the Romans, by
the mercies of God, to present themselves a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable unto God, which he proves is but their reasonable service. He
begins with a narrative of their past experiences, chaps. i., ii., iii., and on
the ground of the Lord's gracious dealing with them and their own
unfaithfulness, he urges them in chap. iv. to take heed to themselves and keep
their souls diligently, lest, he says, thou forget the things which thine
eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life;
but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons, v. 9. In chaps. v. and vi. he
reminds them of the ten commandments, and shows them that they are still
binding, and still full of infinite blessing. Ye shall walk in all to ways
which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may
be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall
possess, v. 33. In chaps. vii.-xi. he reiterates over and over, in the most
touching language, God's love and care for them, declaring to them how He had
chosen them to be a special people unto Himself
In chapters xii. to
xxix. are given the new commandments which were made necessary by the new
position they were about to occupy as God's peculiar people, dwelling in a land
of enemies. These had especial reference to their worship, chapters xii., xvi.,
xvii., xxvi.; their utter separation from all evil, either of idols, chap.
xiii.; or of unclean food, chap. xiv.; or of moral sin, chaps. xxi., xxii.; or
of natural defilement, chap. xxiii.; and their dealings in love and grace with
one another, chaps. xv., xxiv., xxv. Chap. xxviii. sets before them the
blessings that follow obedience, and the curses that follow disobedience.
Chapter xxix. is the personal application to the consciences of the people of
all that has preceded. Chapters xxx. and xxxi. are prophetic of their
backsliding, and contain a blessed message of God's restoring love. Chapter
xxxii. is Moses' song, which was to be taught to the children of Israel, to be
in their remembrances as a continual witness against them when the days of
their failure should come, see xxxi. 19- 22. Chapter xxxiii. contains the
revelation of the wondrous blessings the Lord had still for His people,
although
Chapter xxxiv. gives us the death of Moses, preceded by his view into the promised land from Pisgah's height; and closes with God's testimony concerning him, that "there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face."
That Moses could not
enter the promised land seems to me significant of the fact that the law can
have nothing to do with the soul that is "seated in heavenly places in
Christ Jesus." Moses was in a very especial way the representative of the
law, as we are told "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came
by Jesus Christ,"
It may seem strange
to insist upon a perfect obedience
In chap. xxvi. we
have given us what might be called the process of consecration. The
believer comes here before the Lord bringing the first-fruits of his land as a
free will offering, and confessing his standing and his possessions, "I
profess this day unto the Lord try God, that I am come unto the country which
the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us." See also verses 5-10. No
doubts are here. "I am come;" "He hath brought;"
"He hath given." Doubts are fatal to consecration. The soul
must be assured that it belongs to the Lord, before it can consecrate itself to
His service. But being thus assured, and acknowledging it, the path
To pass through the experience of Deuteronomy therefore, brings the soul out into a large place, into a land of liberty and rest, and joy. and blessings innumerable; and I would entreat every one of my readers, before turning to another chapter of this book, to surrender themselves, gladly and unconditionally to the sweet will of God, to be its captive forever!
It may be that you
have not hitherto looked upon God's will in this light, and have shrunk from
abandoning yourselves to its control. What words can I use, dear friends, to
make you see that it is the one only desirable thing in earth or Heaven; and
that to be all the Lord's, and entirely at His dear disposal is Heaven begun
below? No human words can tell this story, for it hath not entered into the
heart of man to conceive the things which God hath prepared for them that love
Him. But to every surrendered soul He will reveal them by His Spirit, and you
shall know the fulfilment of that wondrous promise of our Lord's, "He that
hath My commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that
loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and manifest myself
to him. * * * If a man love me he will keep my words, and my Father will love
him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him,"
Joseph Cook in one of his scientific statements concerning conscience says, "It is fact of experience that whenever we submit utterly, affectionately, irreversibly to the best we know, that is to the Innermost Holiest of conscience, at that instant, and never before, there flashes through us with quick, splendid, interior, unexpected illumination, a Power and a Presence not ourselves; and we know by the inner light that God is with us in a sense utterly unknown before."
Surely for such an
end as this any surrender could be nothing but joy. Try it, dear reader, and
see if all I
Texts on the
consecration of the Redeemed soul:
THE book of Joshua gives us the
redeemed in heavenly places. It is the story of the entrance of God's chosen
people into the land of their possession, and their victories and rest there.
It answers to the book of Ephesians, where we are shown the believer as
"blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places," made to
"sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus," and wrestling
there against spiritual wickedness, or as the margin has it "against
wicked spirits in heavenly places."
God's redeemed people
in this book come out of the wilderness, and enter at last into possession of
the land which He had promised them, the land from which they had been turned
back forty years before by their unbelief. They conquer the very cities, great
and walled up to heaven, which had frightened them so then, and
The
land of Canaan is often taken as being intended for a type of heaven, and
crossing the Jordan as a type of death. But this can hardly be, since in heaven
we shall have no foes to conquer, and there will be no danger of failure there,
while in Canaan there were enemies on every hand, and many instances of
grievous defeat. In
I was once taught a
very striking lesson on this point by a dear old colored saint, who was
attending a Bible class of which I was the teacher. The portion of Scripture we
were considering was the book of Romans, and I was expounding especially the
seventh and eighth chapters. I thought the dear old sister seemed rather
puzzled by my explanations, but put this down to her want of intelligence, when
suddenly she burst out with, "Why, honey, it 'pears like you don't
understand dem chapters. You talk just as if you thought we was to live all de
time in de seventh of Romans, and only pay little visits now and then to de
eighth." "Certainly," I replied, "that is just what I do
think, do not you?" "Oh honey," she said with infinite pity and
surprise in her tone, "I'se afeard you don't know much. Why I lives in
de eighth!" And the old face shone through all its blackness with what
Joseph Cook calls the "solar light," as she said the words, and I
felt they were true; but I was actually so ignorant as to think that it must be
because she was colored and poor, that God had given her such peculiar
blessings, in order to make up to her for these misfortunes! And I almost
wished I too was colored and poor, that I might have a chance for similar
The book of Joshua
opens on the children of Israel encamped in the plains of Moab "on this
side Jordan, in the wilderness." Their long weary wanderings, since they
had refused to enter the land forty years before, had not brought them any
nearer Canaan than they were when they set out. They were on the borders then,
and they were only on the borders now. They had been moving, certainly, during
all these forty years, but like a great deal of what is called "religious
growth," their course had not been "upward and onward." They had
gone round and round in that dreary wilderness, doubling on their track
continually, and journeying onward, only to journey back again. And now a river
lay between them and the land of their possession. Had they gone in at first,
at Kadesh-barnea, they would have had only an unseen boundary to cross, and the
transition would not have been so strongly marked. And so I believe that in the
experience of the Christian, there need not be that definite step, to which so
many object, in entering into the more full enjoyment of the promises of the
gospel, if only at our conversion we were taught that we were well able to
overcome the land, and were
But there comes a time to all such, sooner or later, I believe, when they are brought a second time to the borders of the land; and to them this book is full of most blessed teaching.
It opens with the
Lord's command to His people. "Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan,
thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them." (i. 2.)
It was not only a privilege He offered them, but a command He made. His object
in redeeming them out of Egypt had been to bring them into this land. "I
am come down," He said in Exodus, "to deliver them out of the hand of
the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto," --what? the
wilderness, to wander there forty years? --no, -- "unto a good land and a
large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the
Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the
Hivites, and the Jebusites." And unless they should actually be brought
into this land, the nations round about, who knew of their going out of Egypt,
and who had heard that the Lord was among them and "was seen face to
face," and that He went "before them, by day time in a pillar of
cloud, and in a pillar of fire by night," might well say, as Moses feared
they would, that it was "because the Lord
It is the Lord's command to us, therefore, that we go in and possess the land of our inheritance. And to me God's commands are even more comforting than His promises; for if He commands me to do a thing, I am sure He will give me the power of His Spirit to do it. His commands are not grievous, we are told, but surely they would be grievous, if we were utterly unable to obey them. It would have been a grievous thing indeed had He commanded the children of Israel to go in and possess the land of Canaan, and yet, knowing that they were utterly unable to do it, had not Himself intended to supply them with the power. And, in fact, He uses His very command as the reason why they should have no fear. "Have not I commanded thee?" He asks. "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest," i. 9. As much as to say, "Thou needst have no fear in undertaking to do what I have commanded thee to do, for I am in every command I give, and will always bestow the necessary power to obey it."
Another
thing is to be noticed in this opening proclamation of the Lord to His people.
"Every place that the soles of your feet shall tread upon that have I
given unto
The children of Israel were going in to take possession of their own land. The Lord had given it to them centuries before, and it was theirs all the while, only waiting for their coming. And so of ourselves we read that God "hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ," although we very well know that until the hand of faith really closes over and appropriates these blessings, and we begin to say "they are mine," we do not actually and experimentally come into their enjoyment at all.
This
land of promise seems to me to typify, as I have said, that experience in the
Christian life which is called variously sanctification, perfect love, the rest
of faith, the interior life, full salvation, the higher Christian life, and
many other names, which all however I believe mean one and the same thing. And
what they mean is
The
way into it is like the way out of the wilderness into the promised land. It is
by the pathway of consecration and faith. Entire surrender to the will of God
and perfect trust in His love, will take thee there dear seeker, whether thou
clearly understandest the doctrines concerning it or not; and once in, thou
wilt know more about it, than I could tell thee if I should write a book full
concerning it. Let me earnestly beg of thee, therefore, to be strong and of a
good courage, for has not the Lord commanded thee? Arise then, this very day,
and, with Israel, go in to possess the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee,
to possess it. Step the foot of thy faith upon each one of His promises, and
stand
In chapter second we
have given us the history of Rahab, a wonderful picture of how acceptable faith
is to the Lord, even when exercised in the midst of great ignorance and
distance from Himself. The comment of the Holy Ghost is given us in
In
chapter third we have the wonderful scene of the crossing of Jordan,-- a
crossing which, while in many respects it is similar to, was yet very different
from the crossing of the Red Sea. At the Red Sea no preparation was needed to
make them ready, but they crossed in haste to escape from a pursuing enemy.
Here the command was, "Prepare you victuals, for within three days ye
shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your
God giveth you to possess it," i. 11. And again we read in iii. 5 that
Joshua said unto the people, "Sanctify yourselves; for to-morrow the Lord
will do wonders among you." There was no pursuing enemy now behind them,
but instead, a glorious land lay before them, and a preparation was necessary
before they could enter it. This preparation was one of consecration. The word
sanctify means set apart, separate yourselves from all evil. It means just what
Paul says in
Again, at the Red Sea
the path was made, before the Israelites were called upon to take a single step.
But here the path was only made when they stepped. "And
It required a far
stronger faith to cross the Jordan than to cross the Red Sea; and the faith
which can trust for the forgiveness of sins, needs to be greatly strengthened,
in order to believe in victory over sin. To my, this stepping into a brimming
river, when as yet there was no sign of a path, is one of the grandest pictures
of faith on record. I can fancy the heathen nations around, if they witnessed
the scene, sneering at the folly and presumption of a people who could thus
act. They must have known only too well that they could not trust their gods
after such a fashion. But I think their cry afterwards must have been,
"Surely no people have a god like unto these people!" And could the
world but see more of this sublime
But as this was an untrodden path to Israel, the Ark of the Covenant, which in one aspect typifies Christ, was in to precede them in this journey, "that ye may know the way by which ye must go; for ye have not passed this way heretofore," ii. 4. The path of faith is always a new and untrodden way to the soul, and it is only by "looking unto Jesus" that we can ever "know the way by which we must go."
The crossing of the
Jordan, it seems to me, is a type of death and resurrection; not the death of
the body, but the death to sin spoken of in
To look at it practically and experimentally, I mean that this crossing of the Jordan typifies the crossing of the soul out of the experience of the seventh chapter of Romans into the experience of the eighth. It is the step by which the believer who has been justified, comes to know what it is to be sanctified also. It is in short the obeying of the command, "Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." It is dying with Christ by faith, in order to be raised with Him into newness of life.
In experience this is
an intensely practical thing. For nothing so gives victory over sin as to
reckon one's self to be dead to it, and nothing so enables the soul to
walk in righteousness as to realize its resurrection life in Christ. It may be
difficult to explain this theologically or doctrinally; but to my mind the
great point in studying the Bible is to get at its truths experimentally; and
thousands of witnesses can testify to the blessed reality of being dead to sin
and alive to God in Jesus Christ. I have known life-long besetments conquered
in this
Take the step of faith then, dear friends, into the brimming flood, and in obedience to God, apprehend your position as dead and risen with Christ and in Christ; and henceforth walk as those ought to walk who are indeed alive from the dead.
The twelve stones
left in Jordan's bed, and the twelve brought out and set up as memorials, in
chapter iv.
Chapter v. gives us
the circumcision at Gilgal. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with
Christ in God.* * Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth."
If we are indeed dead
to sin, it is necessary that we should practically realize it.
Chapter
vi. gives us the taking of Jericho, one of those very cities "great, and
walled up to Heaven," which had discouraged the heart of the people forty
years before. The Lord Himself arranged the plan of the capture,
And so likewise I
believe the Christian is called to shout the shout of victory over his foes,
even at the moment perhaps when they seem stronger than ever. I mean just this,
that if we meet our enemy as an already conquered foe, and claim by faith our
victory over him in Christ, we shall overcome far more quickly, than if we look
upon him as an enemy who has yet to be conquered by our vigorous conflict
against him.
This victory at Jericho was followed by a disastrous defeat at Ai, in chapter vii., caused by a hidden sin. In the life of faith, our only strength is in the Lord, and if any indulged evil shall cause Him to withdraw His strength, we find ourselves utterly unable to "stand before our enemies," vii. 11-13. Nothing but perfect integrity of heart before the Lord can ensure a continuous victory. This whole story of the taking of Ai contains most striking teaching, concerning the causes of failure and the way to deal with it, in this life of faith, but I cannot here enlarge on it.
From chapters
ix.-xii. we have an account of the further conquest of the land, full of many
deeply interesting lessons of the overcoming by faith. "So Joshua took the
whole land, according to all that the Lord said
In
chapters xiii.-xxii. we have the story of the partition of the land among the
tribes of Israel, with the appointing of the cities of refuge, and the
assigning of their inheritance to the Levites. All being, I doubt not, typical
of that which is set before us in
Chapters xxiii. and
xxiv. give us Joshua's closing words to the people he was about to leave; an
address which in many things reminds us forcibly of Paul's farewell address to
the elders of the Ephesian church,
Beloved, have we not come also to a Shechem in our own experience, when with full purpose of heart we have given ourselves to the Lord our God to serve Him and Him only? And shall we not seek for a stone of witness to be raised up before our Lord, that in days to come when our enemies shall try to entice us from our allegiance, will hold us to our covenant in better fashion than Israel was held, even the witness and the seal of the indwelling Spirit, who comes to fill and possess every fully consecrated soul?
"And it came to pass after these things that Joshua died." And the significant announcement is made that Israel served the Lord "all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that overlived Joshua, which had known all the works of the Lord, that He had done for Israel;" thus preparing us somewhat for the sad story of failure that is to follow in the book of Judges.
Their Joshua died. But our Joshua never dies; and we, if we serve the Lord all our days, will serve Him forever, and need never in our experience go out of this book of triumph, nor know the sorrows and bondage of the book of failures that here succeeds it.
A chain of texts illustrating the
lesson of Joshua:--
THE book of Judges is a book of failure. We see God's redeemed people here, living in the land of their inheritance, with all their enemies subdued before them, and yet continually overcome and enslaved by the inhabitants of the land. It seems to me to be in type the story of the dangers and temptations which beset the soul that is seated in heavenly places in Christ, and the enemies they are likely to meet there; and is a book of warning written for our admonition "to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted."
The whole story of
this book may be given in a few verses out of the second chapter. "And the
children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and served Baalim: and
they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, which brought them out of the land
of Egypt, and followed other gods, of the gods of the people that were
This state of things went on from bad to worse. Each restoration was followed by a long season of backsliding, until finally we find nothing but confusion and failure on every hand, with no hope of deliverance, and the book closes with this sad record of the utter absence of rule or control. "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." xxi. 25.
And this history of Israel is too often found to be the history of the Church, or of individual souls. The failures and the restorations correspond to the times of deadness and wandering in the church, or in the Christian, and the seasons of revival which for a little while deliver them from this backsliding. The church, or the individual Christian, is carried captive by the world, the flesh, or the devil; old and apparently conquered forms of evil are continually reappearing on the scene, which mightily oppress the children of God, as Israel was oppressed under their enemies; and they cry unto the Lord, as Israel did, and the Lord raises up a deliverer in the form of some great leader, such as Luther, or some fresh revelation of a neglected and forgotten truth; such as justification by faith, or the second coming of Christ, and for a time the land has rest again and is in quietness, until the enemies afresh rise up to enslave and overcome.
Two causes lay at the
root of Israel's backsliding, and I believe they are the very causes that lie
at the root of all Christian backsliding also. They compromised with evil, and
they worshipped idols. The whole land of Canaan had been given to the children
of Israel, "from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great
river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great
sea, toward the going down of the sun." And the command of the Lord to
them concerning it was, "When ye are passed over Jordan, into the land of
Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants
Moreover He also
promised them a sure possession of it, saying, "Every place that the sole
of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you. * * * There shall
not any man be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life: as I was
with Moses, so will I be with thee. I will not fail thee nor forsake
thee."
The land of promise
was therefore all theirs in the purpose of God, and all they had to do was to
step upon it and claim it for their own. But we see, even in Joshua, that in
spite of all this there yet remained very much land to be possessed, and the
people were "slack to go up and possess it." xiii. 1, and xviii. 3.
And here in the first chapter of Judges we find, that they seem to have given
up entirely all hope or expectation of driving out the inhabitants of the land,
or even in many cases of dispossessing them from their dwelling-places. We read
over
Because they would
not drive out their enemies when they were strong and could have done it, the
Lord now refuses to enable them to do it any more; and from henceforth
throughout the whole story of the book of
The lesson of all
this for us is, that since the command of our Lord to us as Christians is that
we should drive out every enemy from our hearts and lives, and should permit
none to dwell among us, if we refuse to do this, and, instead of utterly
driving them out, seek merely to make them tribute to us, we shall find
ourselves continually enslaved and oppressed by those very enemies whom we have
suffered to remain. The promise to Israel was that not a man should be able to
stand before them all the days of their life, because the Lord would be with
them and His strength would always give them the victory. And the promise to us
is that we shall be delivered by the power of our Lord from the hands of all
our enemies, and shall be enabled always to triumph in every contest with our
foe. But if we, as they, refuse to avail ourselves fully of this promised
strength, and use it only to make our enemies tribute, instead of driving them
out utterly, we shall suffer the same results. This accounts for the condition
of so many Christians, who and themselves enslaved and oppressed continually by
their inward enemies, and whose victories, even when they cry to the Lord and
are victorious, are yet followed by ever recurring defeats. They groan under it
and cannot understand
Dear reader, this is
exceedingly practical to thee. Hast thou permitted any of thy enemies to dwell
in thy midst? Art thou seeking only to put them to tribute, and hesitating to
utterly drive them out? If so, do not wonder at the enslavement and misery that
oppress thee. Be sure that in the Lord's order it could not be otherwise,
For to us the
declaration is as sure as to them, that every place that the foot of our faith
shall tread upon, that shall be ours. "What things soever ye desire when
ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
I knew a poor Christian
woman whose life was made bitter to her through the sufferings and remorse
caused by the combination of an exceedingly irritable temper and circumstances
of peculiar trial. She had struggled against it, and sought to keep it
tributary with all her might during many years, but was continually finding it
rising up and oppressing her, until she was almost in despair. Among other
things she was obliged every morning to have a late breakfast for a son whose
work kept him out late at night, and who therefore slept long in the morning.
She was a tidy woman who liked to get her work done and things cleaned up, and
this daily recurrence of a late and uncertain breakfast hour, which kept her
pots and pans standing around, and her stove uncleaned, was a source of continual
provocation. She knew it was not only unchristian, but unreasonable as well,
and each day she resolved that the next morning she would control
herself and be sweet, but the fresh provocation always overcame her, and her
life was a
Let us die then. "He that is dead is freed from sin," the Bible tells us, and we know it must be so. And I believe it is the only freedom that is really effectual or lasting.
But a worse evil than
enslavement came from these
The typical teaching
of this sin of idolatry, is, I think, very much misunderstood. Many think it
means only loving some dear one too much, or being too fond of some earthly
comfort or pleasure. But to my mind idolatry means a far graver sin. It meant
among the Israelites worshipping a false god, and it means the same now among
Christians. And it matters little whether this god is one carved out of wood or
stone, or carved out of our own imaginings. If our thought or idea of Him is in
any way different from the Lord whom the Bible reveals, we are as really in so
far worshipping an idol, as though we had built up for ourselves a god of wood.
And in this sense idolatry is a far more common sin in these days than some of
you have been used to think. Let me illustrate what I mean by a most common
occurrence. How many people say to their children continually all through their
childhood, "the Lord
And for each of us personally, dear friends, it is a solemn question, as to how far we are guilty of this sin. Are we sure we are worshipping, and trusting, and loving, just the God whom Christ reveals, or have we let in some false notions concerning Him, which have made Him appear to us other than He really is? Do we for instance really believe that He loves us individually? Do we believe that He has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ, and that He will freely give us all things? Do we believe that He has actually made with every temptation a way of escape, that we may be able to bear it? Do we believe that He does truly care for us in all the little affairs of our lives, even to the very numbering of the hairs of our heads, and that He will carry every burden and bear every sorrow for us, if we will but let Him? Or does He seem to us like a hard task master, too far off and too grand to take much note of our petty personal trials or needs, and giving us impossible commands which He knows we are not able to obey?
I entreat of you,
dear friends, to search and see how
The children of Israel it appears served the true God as long as any were alive who remembered the wonderful deliverance out of Egypt, but when Joshua died and all the elders that outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord that He did for Israel, then they soon forgot him and served other gods. And I think this is significant of one form of idolatry which perhaps is peculiar to the higher stages of Christian experience. The soul, becoming absorbed in the deeper truths of our religion, is apt to lose sight of the fundamental doctrine of coming out of Egypt, or of justification by faith, and to speak and to think so exclusively of the fruits of the Spirit, and the life and walk of the believer, as almost or even quite to forget the necessity of pressing the foundation truths of salvation, and the way of entrance into the spiritual life. This leads to a onesided statement of truth, that may become very dangerous, especially to the soul which has had no clear teaching on the other side; and may end in very false views of God. May the lessons of warning contained in our book save us each one from such mistakes.
Chapter iii. gives us
the story of the three first captivities, and the deliverers who were raised up
in answer to the people's cry. iii. 9, 15, 31. Whenever they cried the Lord
delivered them. Let their sin against Him
Chapters iv. and v.
give us the story of Deborah, and her song of victory. I cannot but think that
all these deliverers are types of some especial forms of the revivals the Lord
sends when His people cry. But I do not feel prepared to enter upon this. To me
however Deborah seems to set forth most strikingly the lesson of God's strength
made perfect in our weakness. A woman here leads the armies of the Lord against
a captain who had nine hundred chariots of iron, and who for twenty years
mightily oppressed the children of Israel; and even Barak, whose name means
thunder, the strong captain in Israel, dared not go without her. "If thou
wilt go with me," he said, "then I will go; but if thou wilt not go
with me then I will not go." iv, 8. A picture it seems to me of Paul's
teaching in
Chapters vi., vii.
and viii. give us the story of the captivity under Midian and the deliverance
wrought out for them by Gideon. So low had the Israelites fallen by their
repeated failures, that at first one man only is found faithful enough to be
called into the work. Gideon's first thought is of his own weakness, vi. 15,
and he said, "O my Lord, wherewith shall I save Israel? behold my family
is poor in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house?" But the
Lord's answer shows him the secret of strength, "Surely I will be with
thee." And the whole story reveals to us this one grand fact that in was
the Lord who worked, and He alone. "And the Lord said unto Gideon, The
people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their
hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath
saved me." And Gideon finally learns the lesson the Lord was seeking to
teach by means of all His dealings with him, and is willing to trust Him with
entire confidence, so that with only three hundred men armed with trumpets, and
empty pitchers, with lamps within the pitchers, he was not afraid to attack the
mighty host that "lay all along in the valley like grasshoppers for
multitude;" and whose camels were "without number as the sand by the
sea side for multitude." vii. 12, 16. And so mighty was the influence of
this display of overcoming faith upon the children of Israel, and so complete
was the rout of their enemies, that for forty
But no sooner was Gideon dead, than we read that the "children of Israel turned again and went a whoring after Baalim, and made Baalberith their god." viii. 33. And in chapter ix. we have a sad scene of confusion and sin caused by divisions among themselves. Faith had failed, and contention and strife entered.
Chapter x. shows us the increasingly sad results of Israel's repeated failures. Ashen they cried to the Lord here He could not at once grant them the deliverance they sought. He had first to deal with their consciences to make them know the depth of their backsliding and of their need. "Ye have forsaken me," He said "and served other gods; wherefore I wilt deliver you no more. Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen: let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation." x. 13, 14. But he could not long delay His goodness, for "His soul was grieved for the misery of Israel." And in chapter xi. He raised up another deliverer, Jephthah, who again subdued their enemies and set them free. But although this was a real deliverance, yet the instrument used, the captain of a band of vain men, and the results in Jephthah's own sorrow, and the quarrel with Ephraim, chap. xii., show how low Israel had fallen, that even their recovery was of so poor a sort.
Chapter xiii. opens
with the sad and oft repeated words, "And the children of Israel did evil
again in the sight of the Lord." And now, so repeated had been their
failures
Again, after the death of his wife, another connection with the Philistines brought him into even greater trouble, leading him to betray the Lord's secret, xvi. 5-20, and is the occasion in the end of his losing his life; although this too God used to punish the Philistines, and help Israel, xvi. 30.
From this time
forward no deliverer was raised up for Israel, nor does it appear that they
even cried for one. So hardened had they become by the long course of sin and
idolatry, that they no longer felt the yoke of their enemy. Mind and conscience
had become defiled, and to them was fulfilled what Paul described as being
characteristic of the latter times, in
The book closes in
the final chapters on a scene of sin and confusion, and strife, almost
unparalleled in the history of Israel. Their continual backsliding of heart had
at last produced its legitimate outward results in the lives of the people, and
self-will and license seemed to
The lessons of this
book are sad and painful, but deeply needed, I am sure. No position in grace,
no height of Christian attainment can keep the soul from failing. Only the
present power of an indwelling Holy Ghost can do this, and nothing but
continual faithfulness to the Lord can secure His abiding presence. We never,
at any stage of our experience reach a place where we may relax in our
obedience, or become indifferent in our trust. Obedience must keep pace with
knowledge, and our trust must be daily and hourly fixed on our keeping Saviour,
or all will go wrong. Sanctification is not a state so much as a walk, and
every moment of that walk we need the Spirit's power and the Spirit's presence as
much as we did at first. Not even after dwelling in the land of promise for
many years, are we strong enough to do without this. Always from the beginning
to the end of our Christian life, obedience and trust are the two essential
conditions of our triumph. We must make no more compromise with evil at the end
than at the beginning. And failure, if it comes, will always arise from one or
the other of these two causes, either want of consecration or want of trust. It
is never the strength of our enemies, nor our own weakness that causes us to
fall. While the Lord continues to be with us, no man can stand before us all
the days of our life; and if we will
But, let me repeat it, there must be no compromise with sin. By faith we must put to death every one of our enemies, every day of our lives. And this death is a real thing. Our faith reckons it, and the Lord makes it real. The faith is our part, but the process is His, And the faith is a very different thing from the process. As the Rev. Andrew Jukes of England once wrote to a friend here, "The faith that you can come to Europe in ten days, and that if you take a ticket all is done for you, is a very different thing from the voyage itself, and the actual experience of crossing the Atlantic; and just so the joy of faith that in Christ you are already perfect, is not the same thing as the experience of being made perfect through suffering, even as He was. But this and this only is the royal road."
I mean therefore, a reality in all that I say. And realities are what we want. We cannot put up with any thing merely judicial here. We must have our enemies actually to die, and our souls to be actually delivered from them, or there is no peace or security. Always "bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus," is the sole pathway to having His divine life of sweetness and power, manifested in our mortal flesh. But who would shrink with such an end in view? Who would not gladly cut off hand or foot or eye, if by so doing the death to self and the life in Christ could be practically reached?
Consent then to die. Let the Lord send crosses or afflictions or pain, if only by these He will but rid us of pride, and self-will, and anger, and all others of our inward enemies, and will conform us in every thing to the image of Christ. Let us, if Israel did not, obey the command of our Lord to drive out every enemy from our land, and then we need have no fear that the sad and God dishonoring experience of the book of Judges will be ours.
A chain of texts illustrating the lesson of Judges :--
OLD TESTAMENT.
NEW TESTAMENT.
THE book of Ruth is considered by
many students of the typical teaching of Scripture, to be a type of the union
of Christ and the Church. It is the story of the marriage of a Gentile bride to
an Israelitish bridegroom, a thing forbidden in the Jewish law, and yet here
approved of God, and made an especial blessing to those concerned in it. As we
have seen in Judges, the Israelites had grievously failed, and had forsaken the
God of their fathers to worship Baalim and Ashtaroth. All was confusion and sin
in Israel. In the midst of this confusion, where Israel had so failed, a
Gentile is brought in and exalted to a place of especial honor. And in all this
we seem to see a type of that which Paul declares in
It was, as we have
seen, a sin for the Israelites to make any inter-marriages with the Gentile
nations round about. And yet here a Moabitish woman is married to one of the
chief men among the Jews, and is raised to a place of especial honor; teaching,
as I think, in type, the lesson, that "by one Spirit we are all baptized
into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and
have all been made to drink into one Spirit,"
No doubt this
interpretation of the book of Ruth will seem fanciful to some. But to me it is
full of very blessed teaching. It expresses to my mind in a beautiful story of
domestic life, the oneness of Christ and the
And I believe all this is intended to set before us a blessed experience of the love of Christ, which is far beyond our ordinary apprehensions, and which would indeed satisfy the hungriest heart; a love which would lift the soul out of the servant's place into the place of the bride, would change drudgery into delight, and cause us to rise, as one has said, "from law to love, from penance to purity, from poverty to power, from fainting to fulness, from sadness to sunlight, from indwelling sin to an indwelling Saviour, from widowhood to wedlock, from sorrowful mourning to a heavenly marriage."
The story in this little book is concerning the time in the history of Israel to which we have been brought in Judges, when all was in confusion, and the Lord seemed to be left almost without a witness, even among His own chosen people.
It opens with a
famine, i. 1; natural result of such a
And when her mother saw that she was "steadfastly minded to go with her, she left off speaking unto her," i. 18. "So they two went until they came to Bethlehem . . . and they came to Bethlehem in the beginning of barley harvest," i. 19-22. What grace was here! Naomi left in a famine, but she returned in the time of harvest. And every backsliding soul that returns to the Lord always finds, as the prodigal did, a feast prepared for him.
But better blessings even than the barley harvest were awaiting these returning wanderers, and blessings it had not entered into their hearts to conceive of. Ruth had not thought of finding a bridegroom and a home of her own in the land of Judah. She had gone there because her heart was desolate and lonely in her own land, and the religion of Naomi had attracted her. But almost at once upon her arrival, she went out to glean, and her "hap was to light on a part of the field belonging unto Boaz," her "near kinsman," ii. 1-3.
And so the souls, who
turn their backs on the world to seek the Lord, even although very ignorant of
all the
This it seems to me is the first experience of the returning sinner. He leaves, figuratively speaking, his father, and his mother, and the land of his nativity, as Ruth did, and comes unto a people which he has not heretofore known, ii. 11. Then he begins to glean, and gathers in from the Lord's harvest fields spiritual food to supply his daily needs. And for a while the soul is satisfied with this.
But a time comes when a deeper want is felt. "Then Naomi her mother-in-law said unto her, My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?" iii. 1. This expression, "seeking rest," meant among the Hebrews all that is contained in the sweet tie of married life, a home, and a care-taker, and all the joys of wedded union. And the soul of the believer begins sooner or later to hunger and thirst after this rest in a realized union with Christ, of which the marriage union is so precious a type.
Very often some older
Christian first urges the soul to press its claim for this, as Naomi did to
Ruth. And
In submission to the advice of Naomi, Ruth made her claim, using as her plea, "for thou art a near kinsman," iii. 9. The kinsman's plea was an unanswerable one among the Jews; and our Lord, in assuming the place of a kinsman, meant that we should have all the benefit of this plea. And His answer to us is always, like that of Boaz to Ruth, "And now, my daughter, fear not; I will do to thee all that thou requirest," iii. 11.
Even the very
boldness of her claim pleased Boaz. "And he said, Blessed be thou of the
Lord, my daughter, for thou hast showed more kindness in the latter end than in
the beginning." At first she sought his gifts only, now she sought
himself. The gleaner would be the wife. And just so it is with us. The work of
Christ is our first knowledge; the person of Christ is our last. At first we
are occupied with our needs, and come to the Lord simply to have them sup-
plied. But at last we lose sight of the gifts in the Giver, and can be
satisfied with nothing short of Himself. Our souls cry out for a personal
Saviour. We want not only something to enjoy, and be thankful for, and use; but
we want some One to love, and trust and serve. His manifested presence comes to
be far more to us than His
Ruth's claim looked
like presumption, but Boaz called it "showing kindness." And our Lord
also delights in every claim we make upon Him for this realized oneness with
Himself, however bold it may seem to us. It is indeed His own prayer for us,
"That they all may be one; as thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that
they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one,
even as we are one; I in them and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in
one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as
thou hast loved me." I believe indeed, that, far dearer to Him than the
greatest activities of service, is the longing of the heart to know this
oneness, and the claim of faith that comes boldly to His feet to receive it.
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by
the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us,
through the veil, that is to say, His flesh; and having a high priest over the
house of God,
Having made her
claim, Ruth then was simply to wait until she should see what Boaz would do,
for Naomi said to her, "Sit still, my daughter, until thou know how the
matter will fall; for the man will not be in rest until he have finished the
thing this day," iii. 18. And to those souls who have been stirred up by
the blessed Holy Spirit to see their need of a realized oneness with their
Lord, and to make their claim for it, the same command comes to-day, "Sit
still, my daughter, until thou know how the matter will fall." For the
Lord Himself has declared, "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for
Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as
brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth,"
I cannot but feel
that we need more of this "sitting still" in Christian experience.
There is too much restless anxiety about our prayers, too much of a feeling
that unless we help in some way, or at least unless we wrestle and agonize over
it, the matter cannot be finished satisfactorily at all. I saw an illustration
of this not long ago which will explain what I mean. I was visiting a mother in
her nursery, where her little boy was playing. We were talking on the subject of
prayer, and asking each other the question as to what sort of praying was right
-- the trusting kind, or the agonizing kind, when we were interrupted by the
child's asking for some biscuit. His mother said "Yes" at once, and
went to the closet for them, but found the biscuit can empty. She told the
child the state of the case, but said she would send for some, and the child
saw the nurse put on her bonnet, and take the money, and start out to make the
purchase. A good child, upon this, would have gone to playing again, and would
have waited quietly and trustingly until the biscuit came. But this child stood
at his mother's elbow, saying over and over, first in a plaintive tone, which
however rapidly rose to an agony of entreaty -- "Mother, give me biscuit.
I want biscuit. Please let me have some biscuit. Do give me biscuit. I must have
biscuit!" Until finally our conversation was drowned in the noise of his
wailing, and we could do
In the case of Ruth
something had to be done, before the request which she had made to Boaz could
be fulfilled. And this was typical, I think, of that which must take place in
our own case, when our souls come to the Lord, and ask for a more fully
realized union with Himself. The claims of a kinsman nearer than Boaz had
This nearer kinsman
may be taken as a type of the law, which is declared in
But if legality would be fatal in an earthly union, how much more in the heavenly. And therefore, before the soul can be "married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead," it must be fully "delivered from the law," by being "dead to that wherein it was held," in order that it may "serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." And this is brought about, as was Ruth's deliverance from her nearer kinsman, by purchase. Boaz purchased Ruth from Mahlon to be his wife, iv. 9, 10; and Christ "hath redeemed us from the curse of the law," having "purchased us with His own precious blood" that we may be united to Him in a blessed oneness, far nearer and dearer than any earthly union could be, but which the earthly one most blessedly symbolizes.
At last of Ruth we
read, iv. 13, "So Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife." And of the
Church we read, that, "Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it;
that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of
In the divine order,
the son born of this marriage was one in the line of the ancestors of our Lord.
"And Salmon begat Boaz of Rachab; and Boaz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed
begat Jesse; and Jesse begat David the king,"
The practical lesson
to be drawn from this little book would seem to be this, that, should there be
in the experience of any the sad failure typified in Judges, the remedy for it
is to be found, not in going back into the wilderness, nor, much less, in going
back into Egypt, but in coming into a nearer and deeper union with Christ,
The promise is ours.
Let us boldly make our claim, and then "sit still" until we know
"how the matter will fall;" for we may rest assured our Lord will not
be in rest, until He has perfected that which concerns us. He has made our
souls capable of a marvelous oneness with Himself, and has removed every
barrier. But He will not force it upon us. A compelled marriage can never be
other than a wretched one; and the glory of our destiny is, that, on our part,
it is to be a voluntary and glad surrender to a love that woos and wins our
hearts by its sweet constraint. We love Him because He first loved us, and we
can come to Him with unshrinking faith to claim that which He Himself has
already told us is His own purpose and prayer. "That they may be one"
-- it is all shut up in this. One with the Father as the Son is one!
Similarity of thought, of feeling, of desire, of loves, of hates. We may have
it all, dear Christian, if we are but willing. We may walk through this world,
so united to Christ, that our cares and our interests, our sorrows and our
joys, our purposes and our wishes will be the same. One will alone to govern
us, one mind to control us. He in us and we in Him; until so intermingled
Seek after this oneness then, with all thy heart, dear reader. Thy Lord intends it for thee, and will grant it, as soon as He has prepared thy soul to enter into it. Let nothing discourage thee. Though He tarry, wait for Him, for He will surely come and will not tarry; and if thou wilt but persevere, the blessed day must and will come, sooner or later, when thy soul shall be satisfied with the fullness of His love, and thou shalt abide continually in His conscious presence. He will come and take up His abode with thee, and, like Ruth, thou shalt "find rest" at last in the hear of thy Heavenly Bridegroom.
Texts illustrating
union with Christ: --
THE six books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles may all be considered as only different chapters of one book, for they all give us the story of Israel during the period of its being a kingdom. They are, I think, typical of that "kingdom of heaven" which exists now upon the earth, outwardly in the Church in all its branches, and inwardly in the heart of every child of God.
The keynote to these
books is to be found in the New Testament passages concerning the "kingdom
of God" or the "kingdom of Heaven;" which occur over one hundred
times there. And the title I would suggest would be, "The kingdom of God
both inward and outward." In these books we have given to us, as it seems
to me, types or pictures of different forms under which His kingdom is set up
in the Church outwardly, and inwardly
There are four of these pictures. The first gives us the kingdom under Saul, with the causes that led to it; the second the kingdom under David; the third the kingdom under Solomon; and the fourth the failure and division of the kingdom, and its gradual declension down to the Babylonish captivity.
The story of Saul is
to be found in the first book of Samuel, and the character of rule which he
seems to represent, is that rule which is according to the commandments and
traditions of men. The Divine comment on his character was simply this,
"He inquired not of the Lord: therefore He slew him, and turned the
kingdom unto David the son of Jesse,"
The causes which led
Israel to desire a king are given to us in the first eight chapters of 1
Samuel. The first cause was the failure of the priests; see ii. 22-36. I have
stated previously that the priests seem to me to be a type of a soul in
communion; and the failure of the priesthood, therefore, would represent the
failure of the soul's communion with the Lord. The result of this failure was
the loss of the Ark of God, which was taken by the Philistines and carried away
to their own country, and set up in the house of their god Dagon, iv. 17, v. 1,
2. The Ark was the Lord's dwelling-place in the midst of His people, where He
continually manifested His presence and revealed His will. "For
there," He had said in
The conscious
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and His blessed teaching and guiding are no
longer realized by the soul that, through unfaithfulness, has suffered this
The priesthood having
failed, and the Ark being thus carried captive, the Lord raised up a prophet to
supply their place. "And the word of the Lord was precious in those days;
there was no open vision." "And all Israel, from Dan to Beersheba,
knew that Samuel was established to be a prophet of the Lord. And the Lord
appeared again in Shiloh: for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh, by
the word of the Lord,"
For a while this was
partially effectual. The Ark was restored, not indeed to its rightful place in
Shiloh, but to Kirjath-jearim, a place within the borders of Israel,
When communion fails, teaching comes in to supply its place. Doctrines are looked to as the remedy for spiritual coldness and wandering; and lost or forgotten truths are revived. The effect at first seems blessed, communion seems partially restored, and the soul's enemies are for a time subdued. But this communion is only after all on the surface or borders of our natures, for truth alone, without the Spirit, can not reach the central home of the soul; and sooner or later, therefore, teaching also fails.
I remember a time in
my own experience when just this thing happened to me. It was before I knew the
secret of the life hid with Christ in God, and when my soul was crying out
continually, "Oh my leanness, my leanness!" I found, experimentally,
that the learning of new truth helped me for a time into greater warmth and
earnestness of Christian life, and I sought eagerly for every opportunity of
being taught. But continually I was disappointed by finding that, in a little
while, the freshness of the new discovery in truth would wear off, and with its
freshness, its power would seem to go, and my soul would be left drier than
ever; and yet the only remedy of which I then knew, was to go on learning more
new truth, hoping that at last I should discover something whose effects would
be permanent, and from which
This desire of Israel
for a king was displeasing to the Lord, because it was a token that they had
rejected Him, that He "should not reign over them." And He warned
them faithfully of the results that would certainly follow any rule but his
own: "This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you: he
will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be
his horsemen; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him
captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear
his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and
instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be
confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your
fields, and your vineyards, and your olive-yards, even the best of them, and
give them to his servants.
This whole passage
seems to me a striking picture of that which happens to every soul that yields
itself up to be governed by the "commandments and traditions of men."
The best of its strength is taken in this service, and all its powers are in
bondage to its control. Time, and talents, and money, and influence are all
used to establish and support some system of doctrine, or some form of worship,
and the "goodliest" of our powers are put to their work. And all the
while the Lord is saying to such a soul, as He did to the Pharisees of old,
"In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of
men,"
The Israelites were
not influenced by Samuel's warning, for we read: "Nevertheless, the people
refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a
king over us; that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may
judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles,"
"Like all the
nations;" these words contain the secret of the power of the
"commandments and traditions of men." The soul shrinks from the
thought of a walk alone with an unseen God, guided only by His
The Lord's warning
having failed, He consents that they shall have a king according to their
request, but His comment upon it all is to be found in
The first king, Saul,
was chosen because of his strength. To the eye of flesh he looked like a king
upon whom they could lean with confidence; "from his
Such was Saul, the king after man's own heart, whom Israel had put in God's place. And he stands, I believe, as a type of all rule which is purely vicarial; that is, a rule which does not act for the Lord, but instead of Him. Such a rule involves the idea of an absent and forgetful Lord.
Andrew Jukes, in his
book called the "Mystery of the Kingdom," says concerning this:
"Of such rule we have the most perfect expression in the Church of Rome.
. . . But in principle it exists wherever ministerial rule of any kind is
claimed or recognized as vicarial. . . . Such rule may be known by its acts
and fruits, not by its words. Like Saul, standing in the strength of gift,
rather than in the strength of God the Giver, it will ever choose seen things
and strong things to serve Israel. It can see and own God's gifts; it cannot
own Himself. . . . Zealous for gift, it denies grace; it denies God, that
which He most asks for, a place among men, as Himself, beyond and above all His
gifts, their one sufficient portion. And vicarial rule, as it puts God out of,
so it puts man into His place. Under it the Church, as Israel in Saul's case,
is brought into bondage. Indeed, it has become a proverb that spiritual
dominion, or what is commonly recognized as such, is generally a spirit of
domination; that it has a disposition to enslave, and imposes a heavy yoke, not
only on men's bodies, but on their minds. The Church of Rome, in which the
fullest manifestation of vicarial rule has as yet been seen, is proof enough of
this. Like Saul, it makes rules far beyond the word of God; and then, as Saul,
judges those like Jonathan, whose faith leads them, beyond or without rule, to
deliver Israel. . . . One word more respecting vicarial rule. Saul did not
assume his place. It was given him according to Israel's wish. So has it been
with Antichristian rule in the place of Christ.
The result of all
this in Saul's case was, that God's sentence was pronounced against him, first
in chap. xiii. 13, 14. "But now thy kingdom shall not continue: the Lord
hath sought a man after His own heart, and the Lord hath commanded him to be
captain over His people, because thou hast not kept that which the Lord
commanded thee,"
And similarly will
the Lord deal with the Church, or the individual soul now, when the rule to
which they have submitted themselves leads them contrary to His will. The
government must be rent from all such, and
Texts illustrating
the kingdom of man's traditions:--
AND the Lord said unto Samuel, how long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing that I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided me a king among his sons."
Immediately following the
rejection of Saul in
David is an exemplification of this sort of rule. He governed Israel only as a witness of the Lord's abiding presence. He was not the Lord's vicar, but the Lord's instrument. And therefore his language always was: "For the kingdom is the Lord's; and He is the governor among the nations."
To my mind this
bestowal upon Israel of a king after the lord's own heart, is a most blessed
illustration of the truth of that word that "all things work together for
good to them that love God." Al1 things -- even our very mistakes and
failures. Earthly parents seek to do this in their limited measures, striving
always to make every failure of their children a stepping-stone to the
acquirement of some greater good or some deeper lesson, which could not have
come perhaps in any other way; and surely far more will our Heavenly Father,
whose wisdom
The king after God's own heart did not, however, at once upon his anointing, gain the supremacy. For many years he was a fugitive in the very country of which he was the rightful king, hunted, as he himself says, like "a partridge in the mountains," xxii. 20. And in this he is a wonderful type of the true David, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lived in the world which belonged to Him, as a fugitive and an outcast, with no place even "wherein to lay His head." In fact, all through the Bible, David is used continually as a type of our Lord, and even as His mouth-piece, as we see in the Psalms; and we are warranted therefore in expecting to learn from the story of his life many wonderful lessons concerning his great Antitype. I cannot go into all the details of these. But the one especial lesson I desire to bring out here, is, that in reference to Christ as Head over His kingdom, and His ways as our King, both in the inward and the outward kingdom. We see Him in type here as the "Captain of our salvation," leading us on to victory, and "delivering us out of the hand of our enemies," and causing us to be "more than conquerors" through His mighty power.
David reigned to
conquer Israel's enemies. In
The very followers
David had during this time of his rejection, are wonderfully typical of the
followers of the Lord Jesus now. "Every one that was in distress, and
every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented gathered
themselves unto him," xxii. 1, 2. And of our Lord we read, that "He
came unto His own, but His own received Him not;" and that those who did
receive Him were, like David's followers, the poor, and the unhappy, and the
sinful. For we read that the "common people heard him gladly," and
that "the publicans and the harlots went into the kingdom of God"
before the religious men of that day. Moreover, the Pharisees and the Scribes
murmured concerning Him, saying, "This man receiveth sinners and eateth
with them,"
Throughout the whole
book of 1 Samuel from chap. xvi. onward, the conflict between Saul and David
went on, a striking picture of the convict between the two sorts of rule in the
heart of the believer, on the one side the commandments of men, and on the
other God's anointed King. And well will it be for us, if, during this
conflict, whether it be long or short, the language can be used concerning us,
as was used in this case, "Now there was long war between the house of
Saul, and the house of David; but David waxed stronger and stronger, and the
house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker,"
The books of 2 Samuel
and 1 Chronicles are taken up
A shepherd and a king
seem widely separated in rank, and yet, if we but understand it, their duties
are the same, and their responsibilities are alike. Each is bound to care for,
and protect, and bless to the utmost limit of his ability, those who are under
his control; and no man is fit to be a king who is not a shepherd as well.
Christians are accustomed to looking so exclusively on their side of the
question, their duties and their
I shall never forget
a scene in my past life when I first
As far as appears,
David led his people on to continuous victory, and the secret of it was his
childlike dependence upon the Lord. Every step of the way he testified
continually to his own weakness, and to God's strength. Over and over we have
the expression used concerning him, "and the Lord was with him." When
confronted with the giant he said to Saul, who told him he was not able to
fight the Philistine, "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the
lion and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this
Philistine." And to the giant himself he said, "Thou comest to me
with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the
name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom thou hast
defied. This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite
thee and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcasses of the host
of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts
of the earth: that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. And
all this assembly shall know that the Lord saveth not with sword and spear; for
the battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands,"
In everything David
saw a present God. Unlike Saul, of whom it was said that he "inquired not
of the Lord," we find David continually in every time of need going to the
Lord for advice and guidance. "And David inquired of the Lord, saying,
"Shall I go up and smite these Philistines?" "Will the men of
Keilah deliver me up?" "Wilt thou deliver the Philistines into mine
hand?" "Shall I pursue after this troop?" "Shall I overtake
them?" And the Lord always answered these inquiries as simply as they were
asked, "Go, and smite these Philistines." "The men of
Even when David
failed, he "encouraged Himself in the Lord his God,"
One of David's first
acts after his establishment upon the throne of the kingdom, was to bring up
the Ark of God from Kirjath-jearim into its rightful place in Jerusalem,
Israel's central city; the "city of David" as it was called, because
it was his presence there that made it the "throne of the Lord" for
Israel. During Samuel's rule, the Ark of the Lord had been rescued from the
hands of the Philistines, and had been brought as far as Kirjath-jearim,
As the ark was the only dwelling-place of the Lord in the land of Israel, where His presence was consciously known, all this seems to me to be a type of that restoration to the soul of the believer, of the conscious presence of the abiding Comforter, which will always be one of the first results of the establishment of Christ's rule in the heart. And the joy which accompanied this in Israel's case, as also the feeding of the people with bread and meat, and wine, are surely symbolical of the joy of restored communion, and the feeding upon Christ which it always brings. Henceforth, as we have seen, throughout the whole of David's reign they "continually inquired of the Lord" about everything. And I believe that only those souls where Christ consciously dwells can literally in everything "make their requests known unto God."
Having established
the ark in its proper place, as it
David was in fact
made king for this very purpose; for the Lord had spoken concerning him saying,
"By the hand of my servant David I will save my people Israel out of the
hand of the Philistines, and out of the hand of all their enemies,"
But although thus
victorious, David's whole reign seems to have been a time of conflict. So much
so was this the case, that when he wanted to build a House for the Lord to
dwell in, the word of the Lord came to him saying, "Thou hast shed blood
abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build a house unto my
name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth,"
The story of this peaceful kingdom will be found in our next chapter. And I would urge every one, who is travelling with me throughout the length and breadth of this land of ours, to pause here, and, before turning the page that will introduce them to the reign of Solomon, to ask themselves definitely and personally whether the kingdom of peace is their kingdom, or whether they are ready at once to enter upon it. If not, the way is plain. Crown the Lord Jesus as thy conquering David, Lord of all in thy heart and life, from this moment onward, and enter by faith into His accomplished victories. "Come unto Me," he says, "and I will give you rest." I can give it, for I have won it for you in a sore conflict with the enemy. Believe me that he is an already conquered foe. Let me deliver you out of his hands. Let my peace reign in your hearts, and claim a continual triumph. I have labored, enter ye into my labors. For "this is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith;" and "who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God."
Canst thou not hear His voice saying something like this to thee, dear soul, and wilt thou not believe Him? If thou wilt, then we may together turn our page into the kingdom of peace, and may by faith enter therein and dwell there.
Texts concerning the
kingdom of God: --
THE reign of Solomon was a reign
of peace. The Lord had said to David, "Behold a son shall be born to thee
who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round
about: for his name shall be Peaceable, and I will give peace and quietness to
Israel in his days." The result of having by faith apprehended Christ as
our King and Captain, who has fought and conquered our enemies for us, will be
rest and peace. "For we which have believed do enter into rest."
Solomon's peaceable kingdom was the result of the victories which David had
obtained. And our peace is the fruit of Christ's victories. The chastisement
of our peace was upon Him." His legacy to us is peace, "Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you." And the declaration of the Holy Ghost
throughout the whole New
In
At the close of this lxxii. Psalm we are told that "the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended." All that he had hoped for and battled for, was fulfilled in the peaceable reign of his son, and in the spirit of prophecy he saw also, in the far future, the glorious kingdom, when Christ Himself would see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, and when the need for His intercessions would be ended also.
This millennial kingdom is antedated and begun now, in the hearts of all those, who by faith enter into the "rest that remaineth for the people of God;" and such may therefore take the lessons of this glorious reign, as being lessons and promises to themselves, of practical and personal importance now and here.
One of Solomon's
first announcements was a declaration of the peace and rest of his kingdom. He
said to
As a consequence of
this rest, his kingdom was one of unexampled greatness. Power, wisdom, luxury
and magnificence were its characteristics.
Even the Gentiles,
chapter v., emblematic of the world and its desirable things, placed themselves
and their wealth at the disposal of Solomon and helped him, instead of
hindering, in all that he undertook. And similarly we read concerning
Christians, "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or
the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are
yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's,"
The world was
attracted by the report of the riches
And in the same way,
we may be sure the world will be attracted by the report of Christian lives
that are filled with spiritual riches, and power, and wisdom, and will gather
from far and near to see if the story they have heard can indeed be a true one;
and when they have seen it, and have witnessed the peace in the midst of trial,
and the inward joy overpowering the outward sorrow, and the victory over
temptation, and the overflowing wealth of grace, they will be forced to
acknowledge that it is indeed true, that "eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath
prepared for them that love Him." And thus the saying of our Lord in the
sermon on the mount will be fulfilled, that our light shall so
Dear reader, are these things the characteristics of the kingdom in which thou art dwelling now? And is the out- side world so attracted by the report of thy riches and thy spiritual power, as to come to thee to learn if what they have heard be indeed true, and to discover if possible the secret of it? Do thy children see in thee such sweetness under provocation, and such patience under trial, as to be won, by the power of these, to love and to serve thy God, who does so much for thee? Do thy servants, or thy work-people, or thy friends, have cause to know from the outward peace of thy daily life, that the God of peace reigns within, and are their hearts attracted to His service?
Alas! I am afraid
that the reverse is too often the case, and that one great cause of the small
number of conversions in a church or a community is to be found in the poor and
meagre sort of religion that exists there; and that far oftener than we think,
husbands, or wives, or children, are kept outside the fold, by what they see in
those nearest them, who profess to belong to this fold. I feel sure that if we
who are Christians, all lived in this kingdom of spiritual peace and of
abounding spiritual plenty, we should find hundreds flocking to the church,
where now there is one. How can a husband think it is a desirable thing to be a
Christian, when he sees his wife with a sort of Christianity that seems only
But it is not for
this reason only that we need to have the reign of peace established in our
hearts. Solomon's greatest work was the building of the temple. In fact he
seems to have been raised up especially for this purpose. David says concerning
him in
This temple was to be
to Israel what the tabernacle had been up to this time, the dwelling-place of
the Lord in their midst. While they travelled, dwelling only in tents, it was
necessary that their God should travel with them, and dwell also in a
"tent and a tabernacle." "For," He said, "I have not
dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but
have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another. Wheresoever I
have walked with all Israel, spake I a word to any of the judges of Israel,
whom I commanded to feed my people, saying, Why have ye not built me an house
of cedars?"
But now that their
journeyings were over, and the Israelites were settled in their own land, and
dwelling in their own houses, we cannot be surprised that "as
The Lord Himself
also, through the mouth of David, had recorded His own desire for a House to be
built for Him to dwell in, "For the Lord hath chosen Zion; He hath desired
it for His habitation. This is my rest forever; here will I dwell; for I have
desired it." "This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in; yea,
the Lord will dwell in it forever,"
From all these
passages we see, that only when Israel were at rest in their land, could this
temple be built. The Lord could accompany His people in a tent throughout all
their wanderings, and in all their wars, but He could not take up His rest among
them, until they had first found rest themselves. This is in the very nature of
things. The mother cannot go to rest at night, until all her little ones are
securely tucked in their cribs. The shepherd cannot lie down to repose, until
his flock is safely folded. A king cannot rest from war, until his people do. A
captain must not secure his own safety, until the last of his crew are saved.
Here as everywhere, ownership and control have their responsibilities. And the
Lord Himself says, "For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for
Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as
brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth,"
The temple,
therefore, could not be built in David's reign, because it was a reign of
conflict, and the Lord can dwell only in a "peaceable habitation and a
quiet resting place." David must hand the conquered kingdom over to
Solomon, whose name is Peaceable, before the Lord's house could be built, as we
read in
The building of the
Temple is described to us in
All this is, I
believe, typical of that which took place on the day of Pentecost, when the
disciples were "all filled with the Holy Ghost." And of that, also,
which takes place in every believing heart now, when it is emptied of self, and
the door is opened, and Christ comes in to take up His abode there, and ills it
with His manifested presence. It is a picture, in short, of the baptism of the
Holy Ghost. "What, know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost, which dwelleth in you?" "For ye are the temple of the living
God, as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them." "Know
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in
you?"
This is in a sense
true of all Christians, for on the day of Pentecost the Holy Ghost came to the
Church, "which is the house of God," to abide in her midst forever.
But in individual experience, the power of it is not always known, and each soul
needs to come to its own Pentecost. The conscious presence of the abiding
Comforter is not realized by every Christian. All of course must have the
Spirit, because the new birth is impossible without His presence and power. But
to some souls, there comes at a certain stage in their progress, a wonderful
experience, which they seem instinctively to call the baptism of the Holy
Spirit, and which lifts them up into a region of spiritual life that is as far
above their former level, as the mountain top is above the valley, and from
which but few ever descend. This baptism
To some this
"promise of the Father" comes as a mighty and overwhelming power, so
that their very bodies are prostrated under it; to others He comes as the
tender and gentle presence of love. But whether in one way or the other, He
always makes His presence manifest; and "at that day,"
whenever it comes, the words of our Lord which He spoke to His disciples
concerning this wondrous gift, are invariably fulfilled, "At that day ye
shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." We
may have believed it before, because God says it is so in the
Scriptures, but then and from thenceforth we know it, by the testimony
of an inward consciousness, that is unassailable by any form of questioning or
doubt. The Israelites had believed the Lord was in their midst all along in
their wanderings, and in their years of bondage, even when no sign of His
presence was to be seen among them; but now that the temple was built, when
they all "saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord
upon the house," they KNEW it; and we cannot wonder that at once, without
the need of any command from Solomon, "they bowed themselves
But as the temple could not be built, until the land had rest from its enemies all around about, and the reign of peace had begun; so neither can the heart know this conscious indwelling of Christ, and this being "filled with the Spirit," until it has "entered into rest," and has been made more than conqueror through Him. As long as our Christian life is only one of conflict, without settled peace of soul, we cannot know this experience of being "filled with all the fulness of God." The interior life of conscious communion can only exist where peace reigns. The Comforter manifests His abiding presence only to those who have overcome the world by faith, and whose hearts are at rest. The Lord goes with us in all our wanderings, and is beside us in every battle, to fight and conquer our enemies for us; but He does not take up His abode in our hearts in conscious presence, until the kingdom of peace is established there. He cannot. He is the Prince of Peace, and His kingdom is and must be always a peaceable kingdom. If therefore we would know that experience, which answers to the building of the temple, and the Lord coming in to fill it with His glory, we must advance beyond the reign of conflict into the reign of peace, and must know what it is to have the peace of God which passeth all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus continually.
And this can be only
by faith. The Israelites entered into the enjoyment of their peaceable kingdom
only by faith. David had conquered their enemies, and at the close of his reign
he announced this to all the princes of Israel, saying, "Is not the Lord
your God with you? and hath He not given you rest on every side? For He hath
given the inhabitants of the land into mine hand: and the land is subdued before
the Lord, and before His people." The princes believed the word of David,
that it was indeed as he had said, and they at once crowned Solomon, whose name
means peaceable, to be their king, and began to rejoice in the peace of his
kingdom. "And they did eat and drink before the Lord on that day with
great gladness, and they made Solomon the son of David, king the second time,
and anointed him unto the Lord to be the chief governor, and Zadok to be
priest. And Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord as king instead of David his
father, and all Israel obeyed him. And the princes, and the mighty men, and all
the sons likewise of king David submitted themselves unto Solomon the king. And
the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed
upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in
Israel,"
Had any of these
princes or mighty men doubted the word of David, and refused to believe that
their enemies were conquered, they might, I question not, have continued a
skirmishing warfare, and would doubtless have
To Christians also is the announcement made by their David, that He has met and conquered their enemies for them, and that the land is all subdued before Him. "Be of good cheer," He says, "I have overcome the world." Not I will overcome it, but I have. "I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do." "My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." But unless they believe this, and by faith enter into the rest which He has conquered for them, they will fail to submit themselves to the reign of the Prince of Peace, and will miss of the gladness and the royal majesty of His kingdom of peace. Their hearts, which were meant to be His temple, and in which He desires to dwell, will be closed against His glorious fulness, and the sweetness of His conscious and abiding presence will be unknown.
But, dear friends,
this need not be. The promise is sure that He will keep that man in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on Him, because he trusteth in Him. And if we
will but trust unceasingly and without any reserves, we shall find ourselves
dwelling "in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet
resting-places." Let us crown Him then, as our Prince of peace, and let us
so utterly submit ourselves unto His peaceable control, as that the peace of
God shall reign unrivalled throughout all our inward kingdom. And then we also,
like Solomon, can build a house for the
The Lord has always
sought for a dwelling-place in His people's midst. He loves them with such a
yearning love, that He cannot keep away from them; and at almost the very first
moment of Israel's deliverance out of Egypt, His word came to Moses, saying,
"Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them." They had
not asked Him to come, but He asked them to let Him. He wanted a home amongst
them. He might have made this home for Himself, by coming in power, and taking
forcible possession of one of their tents. But this would not have satisfied
the love that wanted to be a welcomed guest. "Of every man that giveth it willingly
with his heart, ye shall take my offering" for the building of the
sanctuary, He had said. And similarly, He will not take forcible possession of
any heart now, but knocks for admittance. "Open to me," He says to
each one of us; "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled:
for my head is filled with dew, my locks with the drops of the night,"
Words fail in seeking
to tell out the blessedness of this interior life of divine union, and the
spirit stands amazed before such glorious possibilities of experience! With
Solomon we exclaim, "But will God in very deed dwell with men on the
earth? Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much
less this house which I have built!"
My dear reader, is
this life thine? It is surely intended for thee, for it is declared in
Texts on the kingdom
of peace:--
Texts on the baptism
of the Spirit. Promised:--
THE latter part of Solomon's reign, and the divided rule which followed, seem to me to be typical of the especial dangers that are likely to beset the experience to which we have in that reign advanced, and the temptations peculiar to it. No height of spiritual blessing or spiritual power, can for a moment absolve us from the need of obedience and watchfulness. The temptation to Antinomianism has often overwhelmed the Church or the individual, after seasons of peculiar blessing, and it needs to be especially guarded against. We can never forsake the written law of the Lord with impunity, let our advancement in spiritual life be what it may. And we need to watch, lest, when seated in heavenly places in Christ, we should feel so far lifted above the usual temptations of life, as to be tempted to be less careful of taking heed to our steps, that we walk continually in the law of our God. Some have grievously failed here.
And, foreseeing this
danger, it was especially commanded concerning the king in
Three especial things
had been commanded the king in
The three especial dangers, that seem to me to be typically warned against in this history are, lest the heart begin to lean on earthly resources rather than on the Lord, as symbolized by the horses from Egypt; lest it suffer its affections to go out after things the Lord has forbidden, as symbolized by the strange wives; and lest it begin to store up for its own use and enjoyment the spiritual riches and gifts, which have been given for purposes of service to the Lord, as symbolized in the multiplying of silver.
Solomon seemed at
first to obtain by these unlawful means, the fulfillment of the promises of
prosperity made to him; but the fatal consequences followed none the less
surely. He would have received the promises just
The result of all
this failure was a divided rule. Two kings claimed the throne, and ten tribes
revolted from the house of David and set up Jeroboam, Solomon's servant, as
their king, leaving only the tribe of Judah to yield allegiance to Rehoboam,
Solomon's son. In these two kingdoms of Judah and Israel we have presented to
us, I think, that which always results when the inward kingdom of peace has
been lost through disobedience, and the heart seeks to serve two masters,
alternately yielding to the one and then to the other. Our Lord says concerning
this, "No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and
love the other; or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye
cannot serve God and mammon." Ye cannot. It does not say, ye must
not, or ye ought not, declaring the penalties that will follow if we disobey,
but simply, "ye cannot." Joseph Cook says that the
"cans" and "cannots" of the Bible are not the arbitrary
expressions of
The kings of Judah,
for the most part, seemed to want to serve the true God, but they were weakened
by the departure of the other tribes, and were continually ensnared by Israel's
influence or opposition. Of most of their kings the divine sentence was of this
sort: "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord; but not with
a perfect heart." But Israel was openly reprobate, and of their kings it
was continually said, "He did that which was evil in the sight of the
Lord." Its very first king, Jeroboam, fearing the influence of Judah and
of the worship at Jerusalem, deliberately established idolatry as the legal and
national worship, and has been from that time known throughout all ages as
"Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." "And
Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David.
If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem,
then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their lord, even unto
Rehoboam, king of Judah. Whereupon the king took counsel, and made two calves
of gold, and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem:
behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And he
set the one in Bethel, and the other put he in Dan. And this thing became a
sin: for the people went
I cannot here go into
the remaining devils of the books we are considering. From the twelfth chapter
of 1 Kings, through 2 Kings, and from
The lives of the
kings of Judah and Israel, and their battles, with their alternating victories
and defeats, are
The evil in the two
kingdoms waxed worse and worse, until no effort or pretence even, was made to
serve the Lord, but of both Judah's kings and Israel's we read, each one
"did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord;" and the doom
pronounced against them in
The doom of Judah,
though somewhat later, came none the less surely. In
Babylon was not
Egypt. Egypt, I believe, is a type of the state of nature out of which the
Church is brought, while Babylon is the state of worldliness and corruption
into which unfaithfulness brings her. Babylon seems to be always used in
Scripture to set forth Satan's counterfeit of that which the Lord has made. If
the Lord provides any good thing for His children, Satan provides a counterfeit
of it, transforming himself even into an angel of light, if only thereby he may
perchance deceive the elect. We do not hear of Babylon while Israel were in
Egypt, nor during the early freshness of their joy in escaping from Egypt. It
was an enemy who came to light only in the advanced period of their history. The
Church knew nothing of the danger which Babylon typifies, during the early
years of its existence, nor are Christians at once upon their conversion
assailed by it. It is only when Churches or individual believers have been
drawn away from their faithful allegiance to the law of the Lord, when they
have substituted the commandments and traditions of men for the commandments
A watchful walk with
the Lord would have saved Judah from it all. They had had warnings without
number, throughout the whole course of their declension, for we read that the
"Lord God of their fathers sent to them by His messengers, rising up
betimes, and sending; because He had compassion on his people, and on His
dwelling-place."
I feel therefore that the lesson of this story calls loudly upon each one of us, and especially upon those who may have advanced in their experience as far as the reign of peace, to take heed to every warning sent in love and compassion to save us from similar backsliding, even though that warning may be but the slight inward check or call of the indwelling Spirit.
The six books of Kings, and the history of the kingdom close with this captivity. But there is, notwithstanding all, a most blessed question asked in the very last sentence of 2 Chronicles, which opens up before us a possibility of return from backsliding, and of individual faithfulness, even in the time of the nation's captivity. It appears that "the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia," and charged him "to build Him an House in Jerusalem," and Cyrus made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it in writing, saying, "Who is there among you of all His people? The Lord his God be with him and let him go up!"
In the books of Ezra
and Nehemiah we have this question answered, and the remnant, whose hearts
stirred
Texts on a divided
heart:--Matt. vi. 24.
THE books of Ezra and Nehemiah contain the story of the faithful remnant, who went up out of Babylon, during the time of the captivity, to rebuild the temple and the walls of the city. They present us with a picture of restoration from backsliding, and of individual faithfulness in a time of general unfaithfulness; and seem to me to be a type of every true effort made now, by any Christian heart, after a closer walk with God.
We live in a
dispensation that seems to have failed almost as grievously as did that of the
Israelites. The Church of Christ is full of worldliness, formality, and even
idolatry. Many of the Lord's own people are carried away captive into the
spiritual Babylon; and there is needed now, as much as there was then, a
faithful
These two books of Ezra and Nehemiah set before us in type, the blessed truth, that the general unfaithfulness or corruption of all around us, need be no hindrance to a faithful walk on our part, and that there is a path opened, by which we may individually separate from all that is opposed to the Lord, and may return to Him with a renewed consecration of ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, to be His temple, and to bear witness to His indwelling presence.
No especial tokens of
God's power attended this work of the remnant. It was a humble, and, as it
were, a hidden work; and yet the promise concerning it was,
In Ezra we have the
rebuilding of the temple, and in Nehemiah the walls of the city are rebuilt.
The inward restoration must come first. As the building of the temple in the
first place, seems to me to have been a type of the soul consciously
surrendering itself to be the temple of the Holy Ghost; so now the rebuilding
of this temple, typifies, I think, the restoration of the soul from backsliding
or wandering, and a fresh surrender of the heart to the Lord, to be possessed
and indwelt by Him. It is what is happening, I believe, in very many instances
in the present day. Believers are, as we know, being brought to a sense of
their distance from the Lord, and are groaning under their captivity to their
enemies. The song has gone out of their hearts, and the language used by the
exiled Israelites to describe their own sad condition, is the language found to
be most appropriate to theirs: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat
down: yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the
willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive
required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying,
Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's songs in a
strange land?"
A few points deserve especial notice. First of all, it was a voluntary thing on the part of those who went. It was only such as went willingly, who could go at all. But of all these a loving record was kept in God's own Book; see chap. ii. "Now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity, of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city; which came with Zerubbabel." The whole number being 42,360. ii. 24.
And to all the ages of believers since, has this sample- page out of the Lord's book of record come, to teach us that not even a cup of cold water, given in the name of a disciple, shall lose its reward. Sometimes we have been inclined to wonder why there should occur, now and then, in the Bible, these long lists of names. But if we think of them thus, as sample pages out of the Divine book of records, they assume a deep and precious interest. Just so, doubtless, is our Father keeping the record of those now, who, in these days of half-heartedness and degeneracy, are offering themselves to Him in a glad surrender, to be His temple, and to be filled with His abiding presence!
None were allowed to
serve who were strangers to Israel,
In chapter iii. the
children of Israel, who were thus a numbered and recognized people,
"gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem;" and under the
direction of Joshua and Zerubbabel, they "builded the altar of the God of
Israel to offer burnt offerings thereon." This must always be the first
step in the restoration of any backslidden heart. The burnt offering altar
represented Christ as the atoning sacrifice, making us at one with the Lord.
The whole thought of this offering was at-one-ment. It was "an offering by
fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord,"
They next laid the
foundations of the Lord's house, iii. 10-13; and so great was the joy of Israel
at this, that we read "all the people shouted with a great shout, when
they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was
laid." But they were not allowed to proceed with their work unmolested. In
chapter iv. we read, that when their "adversaries" heard that
"the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the Lord God of
Israel," they came to them and said, "'Let us build with you.'"
And when this was refused, they sought to "weaken their hands," and
trouble them, and to "frustrate their purpose." Satan, who is our
adversary, cannot endure to see any soul surrendering itself to the Lord to be
His temple, and he always puts forth his utmost efforts to hinder all such. At
first he seeks to mar the work by his cooperation, trying to bring wrong
motives and unlawful means into play; and when this fails through the
believer's faithfulness to his Lord, he then rouses opposition and persecution;
see iv. 1-16. The result of this was that the "work ceased," and for
many years, until the "second year of the reign of Darius," the burnt
offering altar, and the foundations of the temple, were all that existed among
the Israelites as a witness for the Lord their God. It is true, a prohibition
came finally from the king; but many years had passed before this, and it is
evident that it was want of faith in the Israelites, that was the real
hindrance. Their
I think this is a true picture of that which often happens in the history of a returning soul. The believer restored from backsliding, realizes his acceptance with the Lord, and the foundations of the inward temple are afresh laid with joy. But discouragements arise; the hands are weakened by fear, and the adversary stirs up opposition on every side. Friends grow anxious lest there should be danger of fanaticism; the Church turns a cold shoulder; older Christians remonstrate; until finally the believer "ceases his work," and the temple remains unfinished: the soul stops short of the fulness of the blessing.
The Lord, however,
was not content with this state of things. He longed still, as always, to dwell
among His people; and in the "second year of the reign of
Darius," He sent Haggai to stir them up. "Then came the word of the
Lord by Haggai the prophet saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your
ceiled houses, and this house to lie waste?"
I believe these words will find an echo in many disappointed hearts, whose restoration from backsliding has not brought the spiritual prosperity they had hoped for, and who yet have failed to suspect the cause. Spiritual drought and poverty must always be more or less the portion of every believer, who does not know fully the inward building of the temple of the heart, for the Lord to dwell in.
We read, however,
concerning Israel, that, at the prophesying of Haggai, "they obeyed the
voice of the Lord their God," and "that the Lord stirred up the
spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the
house of the Lord of hosts,"
They then "kept the dedication of this house of the Lord with joy;" and offered abundance of sacrifices, vi. 17, and set the priests and Levites in their rightful places "for the service of God," "as it is written in the book of Moses," vi. 18. When the heart is fully surrendered to the Lord to be His temple, there will always come abundance of sacrifice, and priestly service, according to His own commandments.
Moreover they kept the Passover, the memorial of their redemption out of Egypt, of which all might partake who were purified, and who had "separated themselves from the filthiness of the heathen of the land," vi, 19, 20, 21. And finally, they kept the "feast of unleavened bread with joy; for the Lord had made them joyful," vi. 22. The feast of unleavened bread was a type of holiness, and the joy of being made a partaker of Christ's holiness, will always come to the believer, who has reached this stage in his experience, and who knows that his heart is indeed the "temple of the Holy Ghost."
In chapters vii. and
viii. we have the account of Ezra's
The coming of Ezra to
teach the law of the Lord, at once made manifest the sins into which the
remnant had fallen, ix. 1, for "the word of God is quick and powerful, and
sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul
and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart,"
It remains true
throughout all generations that "holiness becometh thine house, O Lord,
forever." And invariably, from the place where the Lord dwelleth, all
This matter of the
"strange wives" seems to me to be a type of that wandering of the
heart from the Lord, which is called "setting our affections on earthly
things." The New Testament speaks of it as the "friendship of the
world," and in
A poor woman, living
alone in a country neighbor- hood, who supported herself by keeping a little country
shop, was greatly stirred on the subject of her soul's salvation, but was
continually hindered in all her prayers and efforts, by an indulged sin. She
sold ale without a
It remains to be true throughout all ages, that as the presence of light must inevitably drive out darkness, so the realized presence of Christ in any heart or any life must inevitably drive out sin. "Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not."
This entire separation from all evil, with a list of those who "gave their hands that they would put away their wives," closes the book of Ezra; leaving Israel thus prepared for the work, which Nehemiah chronicles in the next book.
Does it leave us also
prepared for a similar work, dear readers? Has the presence of Christ in our
hearts, driven
Texts on restoration
from backsliding, and separation from all evil:--Jer. iii. 12, 14, 22.
THE book off Nehemiah gives us the
rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Like Ezra, it shows us in type, a picture
of restoration from backsliding, and of individual faithfulness in a time of
general unfaithfulness. The city of Jerusalem had been ravaged and destroyed by
the King of the Chaldees, and, as we read
While dwelling in the
palace of King Artaxerxes, the heart of Nehemiah was stirred up by the account
he received of the desolate condition of his beloved city, and he cried to the
Lord to grant him His favor, and to incline the heart of the king to permit him
to return unto
The temple having
been built, in Ezra, and God's dwelling-place having been thus provided for,
the people now can turn their thoughts to their city. Inward restoration always
paves the way and prepares the heart for outward restoration; and this
rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem seems to me to typify the outward work and
service of the Christian, in whose heart the Lord dwells. Jerusalem may be
taken as a figure of the Church, and the building of her walls and gates, as
symbolizing that building up of the Church now, of which the Apostle speaks
when he says, "Even so ye, forasmuch as ye are zealous of spiritual gifts,
seek that ye may excel to the edifying (building up) of the Church,"
In chapter iii. we have a detailed account of the work that was done, and the names of the men who did it. This is another sample page out of the Lord's book of records, similar to the one we noticed in Ezra. How precious to see Him thus taking note of each man, and of all the details of each man's work. Men may pass over lightly the work which their brethren do for the Lord, and may even think their own work not worth remembering; but the Lord never forgets the smallest thing. How little did Jehoiada the son of Paseah, and Meshullam the son of Besodeiah, as they "laid the beams of the old gate, and set up the doors thereof, and the locks thereof, and the bars thereof," amid the sneers and assaults of their enemies, think that the record of their work was to go down to untold millions; and that, wherever the Bible should go, there would it be told as a memorial of them, iii. 6. But "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labor of love which ye have showed to His name," and the weakest laborer may be sure that he is honorably mentioned in that blessed book of records, which is kept in the Lord's own house on high.
It is very striking
also to notice how often it is said that they built "every one over
against his own house," and even "over against his chamber. See iii,
10, 23, 28, 29, 30. This teaches us the comforting truth, that we never need
seek far for an acceptable service, or for one that will be valuable to our
Lord; for if each one of us
But although thus
successfully finished, the work had been carried on through great difficulties,
for a disappointed enemy beset them on every side. At first they came with
sneers, saying, "What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves?
will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the
stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned? . . . . Even that
which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone
wall" iv. 2, 3. And so likewise will our enemy seek to discourage us, when
he sees us entering into the Lord's service with earnest hearts. He will come
whispering in our hearts his sneers, and doubts, and mocking questions,
"What do these feeble Christians? will such as they be able to accomplish
anything? Even that which they build, shall it not after all come to
naught?" But we must meet all such taunts as Nehemiah did, not with angry
replies, nor even with arguments to prove our own strength and capability, but
by simply committing our cause to the Lord, and leaving it with Him to deal with
our enemy; "Hear, oh our God, for we are despised, and turn their reproach
upon their own head," iv. 3-5. And we must only build
Sneers and taunts having failed, their enemies assailed the faithful builders in another way. For it came to pass that when they "heard that the walls of Jerusalem were made up, and that the breaches began to be stopped, then they were very wroth, and conspired, all of them together, to come and fight against Jerusalem, and to hinder it." If the enemy of our souls fails to discourage us by his sneers, then he assaults us with outward difficulties and oppositions, and with his fiery darts of temptation. But, as it was with Israel, the only effect must be to cause us to "make our prayer unto our God," and to set a watch against him day and night, iv. 7-9. Their adversaries thought to surprise them, saying, "They shall not know, neither see, till we come in the midst among them and slay them, and cause the work to cease," iv. 11. But Nehemiah set a watch, and armed his people with armor, so that "every one with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held the weapon," iv. 16-18, and he said, "Be ye not afraid of them; remember the Lord which is great and terrible; and fight." "In what place therefore ye hear the sound of the trumpet, resort ye thither unto us: our God shall fight for us."
Surely the New
Testament counterpart of all this is to be found in such words as "Watch
and pray lest ye enter into temptation;" "Fight the good fight of
faith:" "Resist the devil and he will flee from you."
"Finally,
I am aware that
those who teach a life of perfect rest and peace, are sometimes supposed to
mean that there are no more assaults from our enemy in such a life. But this is
so manifestly a misunderstanding, that it hardly seems necessary to say
anything about it. And yet it is so difficult to explain just what we do mean,
that I do not wonder we are misunderstood. For it is one of those marvellous
paradoxes, in which two apparently irreconcilable things exist at the same
moment, and perfectly harmonize. Peace and war, rest and labor, are one here.
We fight, but it is the fight of faith, not of effort, for
As the result of these faithful labors on the part of Nehemiah and the people, the wall was at last finished, and the Lord according to His promise that He "will bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noonday," if we but commit our way unto Him, and trust Him fully, made even the very enemies who had begun by mocking them, confess that the work they had so much despised, was after all of God. "And it came to pass that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were round about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes; for they perceived that this work was wrought of God," vi. 16.
In chapter viii. we
find that the immediate and blessed result of the work of restoration, which
had been accomplished,
The eagerness with
which "all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the
street that was before the water-gate," to hear the reading of the book of
the law, is a picture of that "hungering and thirsting after
righteousness," which comes to every soul that has been drawn near to the
Lord. Since we have found Him so precious Himself, we begin to realize that His
From morning until midday they stood and listened to the reading, "both men and women, and all that could hear with understanding," while Ezra "read the law distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading." And we are told that "the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law." During the years of their captivity, this law had been but a vaguely remembered tradition among them, and it is no wonder that it should come to them now like a fresh and wondrous revelation.
Their first impulse
as they listened was to grieve. "For all the people wept when they heard
the words of the law." Doubtless their grief had two causes, regret at
their neglect of so wonderful a law, and fright at the discovery of their own
great distance from its perfect righteousness. And so also, to souls in the
present day, the fresh discovery of the will of God may perhaps at first cause
tears and fright, as they see how great is their want of conformity to its
blessed requirements. But in our case, as in theirs, if we only saw it aright,
this very Will is our cause of deepest rejoicing. For Nehemiah said to the
people, "This day is holy unto the Lord your God; mourn not nor weep. . .
. Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for
whom nothing is prepared; for this day is holy unto our Lord; neither be ye
sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites stilled all the
A strange cause for mirth, some would say; even among those who profess to know and love the Lord, whose will they so dread. But to my mind the greatest cause of rejoicing that our poor world can have, lies just in this, that God has chosen to give to us His holy, and blessed, and lovely law, and has taught us to say, "Thy will be done." Without the will of God, this world would indeed be a place of concentrated misery. But the presence and accomplishment of His will, transforms it into an outer court of heaven.
And did we but know our God and His love, I am sure we, too, as they did, "would make great mirth," as soon as we understood the words that are declared unto us.
I confess I feel more
deeply than I can express, the grievous wrong that is done to our Heavenly
Father, by the evident dread His own children have of His blessed will. If
they, who profess to know Him and trust Him, feel so about it, we cannot wonder
that the world looks upon the will of God as something to be feared and
resisted more than anything else, and we need not question why they are driven
away from Him. If His own children regard Him as a tyrant, what can His enemies
be expected to think? It is indeed most grievous,
For the will of God is always and under all circumstances good and best. He is love, and His will can be nothing but love. He is full of wisdom, and His will must always be wise. He is omnipotent, and His will is baffled by nothing that can oppose. He is just, and His will must be truly and perfectly just. The truth is, when I think of who and what our God is, I am amazed that it ever entered into the head of any one of us to fear or combat His will. We do not know what we are doing, when we indulge in such feelings. The idea that our Father, who loves us, can want anything but our best and truest happiness is inconceivable. His will for us must be all that is best, and sweetest, and most satisfying, and surely we can trust ourselves to it without a single shrinking or fearing thought.
And when once we have
opened our ears to listen to this will, we shall find, as the children of
Israel did, that "His commands are not grievous," as perhaps we may
have feared they would be; but that peace, and rest, and even "very great
gladness" follow quickly in the keeping of His law. For the very second
day of their reading, "they found written in the law which the Lord had
commanded Moses, that the children of Israel
It is indeed true, as some one says, that "God's will on earth is always joy, always tranquility;" and so every soul finds it, whose surrender is absolute and unconditional. "Great peace have they that love Thy law, and nothing shall offend them."
The result of this reading of the law, was great searching of heart among the Israelites, and in chapter ix. they tell their experience, and make their confession unto the Lord, and agree together solemnly to dedicate themselves unto Him, ix. 38. Chap. x. 1-27 gives us a roll of the names of "those that sealed" themselves unto this covenant, another blessed list, in which it is an everlasting glory to have been enrolled. And this list is, I believe, only a sample of the long and ever-increasing one, where are written the names of all who since then, have "sealed themselves" to be wholly the Lord's.
The terms of their
consecration are given us in x. 28-39, ending with the significant words,
"and we will not forsake the house of our God." All depends upon
this. As long as the dwelling-place of the Lord is in the midst of any people,
or in any heart, holiness of life will
In chaps. xi. and
xii. there is given us another list of those who "willingly offered
themselves to dwell at Jerusalem;" and also of those who "praised and
gave thanks" at the "dedication of the wall of Jerusalem." See
xii. 27-42. They could not sing while in captivity in Babylon, as we read in
The result of this
joy, was a renewed and still deeper consecration. Again the book of the law was
brought out, and read in the audience of the people, and it was
Besides all this, it
was found that the rest of the Sabbath was being habitually broken, by
tradesmen of different kinds, who "brought all manner of burdens into
Jerusalem on the Sabbath day." This, Nehemiah remedied, commanding the
gates to be kept shut, and, setting some of his servants at the gates to watch
"that there should no burden be brought in on the Sabbath day," xiii.
15-22. The Sabbath is a type of the rest of
A weary missionary
lady in Persia went into a church there one Sabbath afternoon, and was obliged
to sit down on a mat near the middle of the floor, as there were no other
seats. She was very tired with her previous labors that day, and longed for
rest; but with no support to her back, it seemed impossible to obtain it.
Child of my love, "lean hard,"
And let Me feel the pressure of thy care;
I know thy burden, child; I shaped it,
Poised it in Mine own hand, made no proportion
In its weight to thine unaided strength:
For even as I laid it on, I said,
"I shall be near, and, while she leans on Me,
This burden shall be mine, not hers.
So shall I keep my child within the circling arms
Of Mine own love." Here lay it down, nor fear
To impose it on a shoulder which upholds
The government of worlds. Yet closer come--
Thou art not near enough, I would embrace thy care
So I might feel My child reposing on My heart.
Thou lovest Me? I know it. Doubt not then,
But, loving Me--lean hard.
Finally, the Lord's rest having been restored, a complete separation was made from all the "strange wives," who had either been left when Ezra made the former separation, or who had been married since; and Nehemiah closes his book with the words: "Thus cleansed I them from all strangers, and appointed the wards of the priests, and the Levites, every one in his business; and for the wood offering at times appointed, and for the first-fruits. Remember me, O my God, for good."
And as Nehemiah dealt faith the Israelites, so, I believe, will the blessed Holy Spirit deal now in faithful and loving rebuke with every soul that returns afresh to the law of the Lord, teaching us and enabling us to "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."
What comfort there is
for thee here, beloved Christian. Thou mayest have wandered far from thy Lord,
and have been taken captive by cruel enemies. His law may have been lost to
thee, and thy heart may have formed many close alliances with strangers. But a
path is here opened before thee, by which thou mayest return, and which will
lead thee out of all that is contrary to His will. Do not therefore be afraid
to face the truth as to thy present spiritual condition; and do not admit the
thought that thou hast been carried captive too far and too long for restoration
to be possible to thee. For in the swift transitions of our spiritual life, the
very time that reveals a failure, may reveal the remedy also, and at once that
remedy may be applied,
"Who is there therefore among you of all his people? His God be with him and let him go up."
Texts illustrating
faithful service in times of unfaithfulness:--Matt. x. 16.
THE book of Esther closes the series of the historical books of the Old Testament. It takes up the condition of the Jews, who "had been carried away from Jerusalem with the captivity," ii. 5, 6, and who had remained behind in the land of their enemy, when the faithful remnant under Ezra and Nehemiah had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the walls of the city. These captives are shown here, to be still the objects of God's care, although they would seem to have forfeited all right to it, by their failure to return to their own land when an opportunity was afforded them.
The details of this
story are very simple. The Gentile wife of Ahasuerus, having been set aside
because of her disobedience, the king chose for her successor a lowly
Mordecai at once made application to Esther to inter- cede with the king on behalf of her nation; and Esther braved the king's displeasure, by going into his presence unsummoned, and requesting him to come that day with Haman to a banquet she would prepare for them. At this banquet she invited them to a second one on the following day, where she promised to tell out her petition. Meanwhile, on that very night, the king could not sleep, and he commanded them to bring the book of records to be read to him, vi. 1,2. There "it was found written" that Mordecai had saved the king's life from a conspiracy, and his gratitude was so stirred at the remembrance of it, that he bestowed upon Mordecai great honor, unconsciously making use of his worst enemy, Haman the Agagite, to carry out the plans. And at the second banquet the whole story of Haman's cruelty was brought out, and Haman was hanged, and the king issued a decree giving the Jews permission to "gather themselves together, and to stand for their life, to destroy, to slay, and to cause to perish all the power of the people and provinces that would assault them, both little ones and women, and to take the spoil of them for a prey," vii. 10, 11. The result of this was a general deliverance to the Jews throughout all the provinces which were from India unto Ethiopia; and the "Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honor," viii 16, 17. And "Mordecai the Jew was next to King Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the wealth of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed," x. 3.
Such is the story of the book of Esther. Some seem to have seen in it a typical picture of the Kingdom of God upon earth; taking Ahasuerus as a type of the Most High Jehovah, Vashti as a type of rejected Israel, Esther as a type of the chosen Church, Mordecai as a type of the Lord Jesus, and Haman as a type of Satan. But this seems rather fanciful to me; and I confess that I have no clear apprehension of any especial typical teaching as intended here. The story of Esther, like that of Ruth, is the story of a bride. In both a lowly maiden is exalted to a place of honor and wealth. And it seems probable, although one was a Gentile and the other a Jew, that they were both meant to typify in some way the future story of the Church of Christ, chosen from her low estate, and called to the glorious destiny of sharing the throne with her heavenly Bridegroom.
But I incline to think that the lesson to be drawn from this little book, is rather moral than typical. We have given to us here, the secret and providential care of the Lord over His people, even when they were in captivity in an enemy's country, and at a time when they seemed to be utterly unmindful of Him. God's people may forget Him, but He cannot forget them, and wherever they may be, He watches over and cares for them.
The book of Esther,
therefore, seems to me to teach the much-needed lesson that even at times,
when, on account of their unfaithfulness, the Lord may seem to have hidden
Himself, or to have forsaken His people, His care over them is as real as ever,
although it may be
I have said that the
name of the Lord was not once mentioned in this book, yet that the thought of
Him was there, and that His hand was recognized in the events that took place,
is very evident from the fact of a fast being proclaimed by Esther and
Mordecai, iv. 16, which could have no other meaning than that of prayer to the
Being whose Name is left unspoken; and also from the establishment of the
"feast of Purim" which has been celebrated by the Jews for all the
centuries since, as the memorial of a great national deliverance, ix. 17, 26.
Even as I write, the daily papers are calling attention to the fact that at
this very time the feast of Purim is being kept. One paper says, "By the
unanimous consent of the entire body of the Jewish people, the festival of
Purim has been observed for a period of about 2500 years. Devoted to rejoicing
and hilarity, without
The teaching of this book is therefore, that the Lord, though hidden, still cares for His people. And it is a teaching of great practical importance for every one of us.
The natural heart
finds it hard to trust in an unseen Care-taker; and when Christians wander away
from the Lord and forget Him, they can hardly believe that He does not forget
them. They talk about being forsaken; and, because their own love has grown
cold, they imagine that His has also. They judge Him to be altogether such as
themselves in their unfaithfulness, and
This thought would
have wonderful power to restore the soul of the backslider, were it but fully
realized continually. Coldness, and neglect, and indifference we can resist and
resent, and be only driven away the further;
No doubt, in Esther we have an insight into the Lord's providential care of His people from that time onward. The day of their "scattering" still continues, but the Lord still watches over them as faithfully as He did then, though as secretly. And in every country or nation where a single one of His chosen nation are today abiding, His providential care is, I doubt not, ordering all outward events to work together for their preservation and their final deliverance. Only in this way can we account for their marvellous history down to the present time. They are still His people, beloved and blessed, in spite of their long-continued unfaithfulness; and His sovereign unfailing care, come what will, is unceasingly exercised in their behalf.
But if all this is true of the Lord's people, when living afar off from Him in the land of their captivity, how much more true must it be of those who are seeking to follow Him closely, and to abide continually in the land of promise which He has given them! Surely to all such, no single doubt of His constant watchfulness and care ought ever to be permitted to come, even though no manifest token of His presence is discernible! And the lesson of Esther to each one of us must be, to teach us to rest in a serene and unwavering trust, even in the midst of the most mysterious dispensations, sure that He overrules and controls it all, and that nothing that affects us, whether seen or unseen, whether in the minds of others or in our own, escapes His care.
Texts on the Lord's
over-ruling and providential government:--Dan. iv. 35.
THE book of Esther, as we have seen, closed the historical series of books in the Old Testament. In Job we now enter upon another series, containing, I think, the inward exercises of the hearts of God's people, as to sanctification. This series consists of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs; and seems to give us a progressive development of heart experience, beginning with the deal of self in Job, and culminating in a realized union with the Lord in the Song of Songs.
In Job we have the
death of self. Man is taught to see himself as he really is in the Lord's
presence. His utter weakness and need are here revealed to him, and he is
brought to an end of the self-life. In Psalms we
The first step in
this developing series of heart exercises is, as I have said, that man should
be brought to an end of self; and the Lord's first dealings with him,
Job was a righteous
man, coming under the refining and purifying hand of the Lord, in order that he
might be brought to an end of self, and might have a revelation of God to his
soul. And in this he was a sample and a foretelling of the thousands of saints
since, who have had to go through similar processes, for the same glorious and
blessed end." There was a certain
It was necessary that
a righteous man should have been chosen for that which was to follow, since it
is the training of God's saints that is here set forth; and none but a good man
could have understood the lessons or profited by them. Moreover it is plain to
the simplest comprehension, that a wicked man needs to be brought to the end of
himself. But that an upright man, who "fears God and eschews evil,"
should also need this, is not so clear. And some who can look, with a complacent
comprehension of the divine purposes, on the trials that fall to the lot of the
sinners around them, are yet unable to discover any reason for the mysterious
dispensation of suffering to themselves. They are conscious, it may be, of the
integrity of their hearts, and cannot see the justice or the need of their
trials. "I was doing what I believed to be right," such a one will
say, and "why should these things come upon me?" But the subtle forms
of self-life that would ruin us, if left undiscovered and unchecked, are often
most vigorous in those whose outward walk is all that could be desired; and it
needs sometimes a very sharp discipline to uproot them. And in this fact lies
hidden, doubtless, the secret of much that is mysterious in the dealings of the
Lord with the souls of His servants. He loves us too much to permit any evil to
linger undiscovered and uncured in our natures, and He will probe us to the
very bottom by His dispensations,
Job, as I have said,
shows us the divine process by which all this is accomplished. It is
"baptism unto death." By all that happened to Job, he was brought to
a know- ledge of his own heart, and was made to abhor himself in dust and
ashes. The instrument used was Satan, but the Hand that used this instrument
was the Lord's. In both cases, when Job's possessions were taken, and also when
his own body was smitten with sores, Satan's power extended only so far as the
Lord permitted, and not
First, the Sabeans fell upon Job's oxen and asses, and the servants who were ploughing with them, and destroyed them all. Then, "the fire of God" fell from Heaven and consumed his sheep and their shepherds. Next, the Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon his camels, and carried them away. Then, there came a great wind from the wilderness and caused the house to fall upon his children and kill them, i. 13-19. And finally Satan smote Job himself "with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown," ii. 7. To all these trials were added the reproaches and misunderstanding of his friends; until Job's life seemed to be utterly ruined, and as though it must end in nothing but humiliation and defeat on every hand. But it was only the "seen thing" which was thus ruined. The "unseen thing" in the mind of the Lord, was the "exceeding and eternal weight of glory "which was to be the outcome of this ruin. The outward man, it is true, seemed to perish, but the inward man was renewed day by day. And by all that Satan was thus permitted to do, Job was brought at last to the place of emptying, where the Lord could reveal Himself in glorious fulness.
The Sabeans, and the Chaldeans, the fire, the wind, and the sore sickness, were the agencies employed to accomplish this blessed result. And man, judging by "feeble sense," would have seen only these. But the curtain has been lifted for us, and we see behind these furls of trial, One who sits as a Refiner and Purifier of silver, and who controls and guides it all. He knew the heart of His servant Job, and that his successful and prosperous career, and even his very righteousness, were in danger of building up a subtle form of self-life, that would in the end, if unchecked, drag him down into the miry clay. Therefore He used Satan to spoil it, that in the spoiling, Job himself might be saved.
This story of Job is, I believe, enacted over and over in our midst now. The righteous suffer, and we cannot tell why. "Mysterious providences," as we call them, darken and apparently ruin the lives of those who have seemed too good to need such discipline. Even to ourselves come afflictions that we cannot understand. And Satan seems so busy in the matter, that it is hard to trace the hand of the Lord in it at all. But His hand is in it nevertheless, and He overrules everything. Not a trial comes except by His permission, and for some wise and loving purpose, which, however perhaps, only eternity will disclose.
The Sabeans and the
Chaldeans may carry away our property. Fires and storms may deprive us of all
that we love and value. Sore sickness may lay its hand upon us. Friends may
misjudge and reproach us. But behind
Earthly parents deal thus continually smith their children. Their watchful eyes discover incipient diseases, long before the children perhaps feel any uncomfortable symptoms themselves, and they administer the needed medicines, often when it seems very mysterious and unreasonable to the child. And yet the parent's closet may be full of medicines, and all remain untouched for months, if no need is discovered. A parent's love is too tender to inflict unnecessary doses, and too strong to spare the dose that is needed.
We may be sure, therefore, that here lies the secret of all that seems so mysterious in the discipline of our lives, whether it is outward or inward trial. Our loving and wise Physician has discovered in us some incipient disease, that He knows will ruin us, if it remains unchecked, and He is applying the remedy. Would we stay His hand, even if we could? Surely not. For more than anything else we, too, want for ourselves soul health; and any remedy that will bring it to us, is more than welcome. Above all do we want to have that done for us which was done for Job, and to be brought to the end of self as he was, and have, as he had, a revelation of God to our souls. We sing, and we mean it,
But when the Lord takes us at our word, and begins to empty us, and to break us, the means He is obliged to use, puzzle us, and seem unreasonable, and even often unkind and unjust. No chastening for the present can seem joyous to us; but must necessarily be grievous, and we ought not to think it "mysterious" that it should be so. We must not question, therefore, nor admit the slightest inward rebellion against it, but thankfully submit to that which our Lord permits to come, let the instrumentality be what it may, whether Satan directly, or the wickedness and treachery of men. For not a sparrow falls without our Father's notice, and all that He permits to come upon us is meant to make us "partakers of His holiness," if only we are rightly exercised thereby. For it is the cross, and the cross alone, that brings us out of self. And lives that we are apt to call wasted, which have ended in sorrow and humiliation, are not really wasted, but are simply being stripped of that which separated them from the Lord, and from a perfect conformity to His likeness. And that man is happy who goes into the next world emptied of self, no matter how painful the humbling may have been.
But Job's friends, as
so many now, saw nothing of all this. They thought they entirely understood the
Lord's dealings, and that what He did must simply be a just
Job, conscious of the
integrity of his heart, and roused by the unjust reproaches of his friends,
appealed from them to the Lord. His friends, he felt, did not understand him,
but he knew the Lord did, and he was not afraid to pour out all his heart
before Him. The very freedom of his complaints and reproaches revealed the
depth of his childlike confidence in Him. "Oh that I
Job proved moreover,
that outward prosperity was no test of righteousness, by pointing out the
prosperous circumstances
Notwithstanding all
his rebellious complaints, Job knew the Lord so much better than his three
friends, and set forth His character and His ways so much more truly, that the
Lord's own verdict, given to Eliphaz the Temanite was, "My wrath is
kindled against thee, and against thy two friends; for ye have not spoken of me
the thing that is right as my servant Job has," xlii. 7. The resignation
of these three friends to Job's sorrows, and their exalting of the Lord's rigid
justice in His dealings with men, sound to a surface reader far more pious than
poor Job's rebellious complaints; but the fact remains that the Lord Himself
was angry with them for not speaking the thing that was right, as He declared
His servant Job did. And when we look below the surface, we get at the secret.
Job believed in a Saviour, they believed in a Judge. And all the rest was
included in this. Job knew something of God's love; they were ignorant of it.
But although Job had
thus spoken of the Lord that which was right, in comparison with his three
friends, yet the deep-seated evil of his heart came out at last in his
self-justifications. Sinful self had been conquered in him, but righteous self
was mighty. Chapters xxix.,
That moment came when Job could say from the depth of a convicted heart, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes," xlii. 5, 6. But it did not come, until the Lord had revealed Himself. That which all the reproaches and accusations of his friends had failed to do, one sight of God accomplished in a moment. Job had prayed that he might but see Him and hear Him speak, and the answer had come, bringing with it a revelation of self, which Job could hardly have expected, and yet which he found to be the beginning of richest blessings. He saw the Lord, but he also saw himself, as he was in the Lord's presence, and all his self-righteousness turned into filthy rags in an instant.
Chapters xxxii. to
xli. give us this revelation, first through the lips of Elihu, and then
directly from the mouth of the Lord Himself. These chapters are unspeakably
grand revelations of the Almighty. They show us His infinite greatness and His
infinite goodness in such a glorious union, as to give to every heart that
receives their teaching, an eternal rest. His ways are here declared to be
ALWAYS RIGHT, let them look as they may to the eyes of men. And we are shown,
therefore,
Job did, however, at last "answer the Lord," but it was simply by a confession of the Divine omnipotence, and his own nothingness. All his self-justifications were over forever, and from henceforth he would have eyes and ears for none but the Lord and His glory. "Then Job answered the Lord and said, I know that Thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from Thee. Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? Therefore have I uttered that I understood not, things too wonderful for me which I knew not. Hear I beseech Thee and I will speak: I will demand of Thee, and declare Thou unto me. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." xlii. 1-6.
Upon the lap of God's greatness Job could now lie down in perfect content, satisfied to be nothing in himself, since he belonged to the omnipotent One.
One deeply important lesson to be drawn from this experience of Job's is this, that all true knowledge of self and abhorrence of self must come, not from self-examination, but from beholding the Lord. Until Job had his eyes opened to see the Lord, he was very well satisfied with himself, and all his self-examination seemed to lead only to self-justification. But the moment the Lord was revealed, all was changed, and the man, who, while looking at self had seen nothing but good, now abhors himself in dust and ashes.
Self-examination is
sometimes extolled among Christians as a most commendable and necessary duty;
but in
I feel very sure that the commands to look unto Jesus, to behold His glory, to have our eyes ever toward the Lord, mean something exceedingly literal. And it is very certain that when we are looking unto Jesus, we cannot see ourselves, for if our face is to the One, our back will necessarily be to the other. It is by "beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," that we are to be "changed into His image." It is by keeping our eyes "ever toward the Lord," that our feet are to be plucked out of the net. It is by looking unto Him, that all the ends of the earth are to be saved.
And practically we
know that nothing hinders us more in our christian life, than to keep our eyes
fixed on our- selves, trying to search out evidences of our own goodness and
fitness for the mercy of the Lord, or tokens of our growth in grace. If we
think we find any, then at once we are frightened at the danger of pride; and
if we do not find any, then we are plunged into the depths
I am afraid but few will understand this, and fewer still will act upon it. Self is so enticing to us, and self-examination such an interesting and absorbing occupation, that it is very difficult for us really to take in the thought that we are to have no more of it. But experimentally I can say, that I never have any peace nor find any victory, except when I utterly ignore even the existence of self, and turn my eyes and thoughts only on the Lord.
Job's end was a
glorious triumph. The discipline had accomplished its work of purification, and
the Lord could now bestow upon him double of all his blessings. "And the
Lord turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord
gave Job twice as much as he had before," xiii. 10. The turning point was
"when he prayed for his friends;" and it seems to me that it is
because this fact was the sign of the inward death to self that had taken
place. They had utterly misunderstood and misjudged him, and had heaped
undeserved reproaches upon him. But now that he abhorred himself, he felt no
resentment towards them, and so partook of the mind of the Lord as to pray for
those
Thus was Job's discipline completed, and he was brought out of self and into God. The process bad been painful and mysterious, but the end that the Lord had in view, could have been reached by no other means; and could Job have seen into the secret counsels of the Lord from the beginning, he would doubtless have rejoiced at every blow. The "exceeding and eternal weight of glory" worked out for him by what he had passed through, a thousand times more than compensated for it all.
Let us learn the
lesson, dear friends; and without a question let us accept the sorrows, and
trials, and crosses of our lives, directly from the hands of our loving Father,
as being His own choice for us, in order for our being made "partakers of
His holiness," no matter what instrumentality may be used to bring them
upon us. What if they are mysterious? The ways of the infinite God must
be mysterious to the finite creature. Even the ways of earthly parents are
often mysterious to the minds of their children, and cannot be explained in any
terms that the children could comprehend, even if the parent should be willing
to make the explanation. But the day comes, when the children have been trained
Texts illustrating
the Lord's refining processes with his children, and their blessed fruits: --
THE book of Psalms gives us the
resurrection-life of the believer. It is the illustration of the latter part of
And my feeling is that no heart is fitted to enter fully into an understanding of this wonderful book, until it has passed through the discipline, and reached the result which the book of Job reveals. None but a soul that has come to the end of self and of all self-dependence, can enter into the blessed sweetness of the twenty-third Psalm, or dwell in the fortress of the ninety-first; for the grace which these Psalms reveal, and the blessings they set forth, are all grace and blessings for the weak and the helpless, and none but these can possibly receive or enjoy them. The man who speaks here, is the man of faith, and the life revealed, is the life of trust. "Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. But Thou, Lord, art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter up of my head." ii. 2, 3. "But mine eyes are unto Thee, O God the Lord; in Thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute." cxli. 8. "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man: it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." cxviii. 8, 9. "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." xxxiv. Such are a few out of the numberless declarations of helplessness and of trust that are found in this book.
The Psalms are the
expression of the inward feelings
Many of the Psalms refer so manifestly to Christ that they are sometimes called Messianic Psalms. And these may be looked upon as a sort of diary, as it were, kept by our Lord for the purpose of letting His people know a little of the deep, inward emotions He experienced as a Man, bearing the awful burden of humanity, partaking of our nature, and tempted with our temptations. In other parts of the Bible we have the details of His outward life while on earth, and learn what He did, and what was done to Him. But here we have the record of what He thought and felt, while going through all these.
The writer of a
little book called "Short Meditations
If this then be indeed true, what blessed intimacy does it declare, that our Lord should thus permit us to enter into the wonderful secrets of His deepest emotions while living on this earth, for us, and in our nature. And I think nothing so makes us realize His actual humanity, as to listen to these cries of human suffering and anguish, and to feel our hearts thrill over His yearning for human sympathy and appreciation.
One example will
illustrate what I mean. In
But besides those
Psalms which thus expressly refer to the Lord Jesus, there are many others
whose praises, desires, hopes and deliverances could have in Him alone their
truest realization. Only by seeing this, I think, can we understand much here
written. And only by understanding that the desires for vengeance upon
And, taken in this sense, we, His people and the flock of His pasture, can unite with our whole hearts in His cries for vengeance, and can rejoice with Him in the promised downfall of every foe. I do not of course state this view of mine as an infallibly correct one; but simply as the best explanation I can find of all that is so difficult to understand in the Psalms, and as containing experimentally much blessed help to my own soul. If it is Christ and His Church who speak here, it must be that the expressions are such as the Church can unite in, without disobeying the commands of her Lord as to her treatment of her enemies; and only by taking the view I present can this be done. But I feel that the Holy Spirit alone can teach us concerning this.
The Psalms might be
called the heart of the Bible.
No other dependence
but the Lord God of Israel is thought of or permitted here. "Some trust in
chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our
God. They are brought down and fallen, but we are risen and stand
upright,"
A poor woman was once
scoffed at by an infidel for supposing that she, in her weakness and ignorance,
could ever travel over the long and weary road from earth to heaven. "Ah,
master," she replied, "it is a very short road, and easily travelled.
There are only three steps in it." "Three steps," he repeated
scornfully, "and what are they?" The answer was a memorable one, --
"Out of self, into Christ, and into glory." If then to some of my
readers the road to present peace and victory may look long and hard, let me
assure you that after all it needs but two of these steps to take you there.
Out of self, and into Christ! That is all! And that is enough for the deepest
experiences and the richest blessings. The process that brings this about may
be hard to flesh and blood, as Job's experience surely was, but the end is
worth it all. And, although hard, it need not be long, for entire consecration
and perfect faith will hasten every stage. Job's lesson was learned in one
year, but he suffered truly the loss of all things to reach it. We often
are many years learning our lesson, because we are not able to bear such rapid
and severe strokes of the Divine chastising Hand. "Out of self" is a
step to be taken by faith, but it is also a step to be taken actually and
experimentally as well, and
In the Hebrew Bible
this Book is divided into five books, the first ending with
The book of Psalms
opens with blessing and ends with praise. The very first Psalm introduces us to
the man who is the speaker throughout. It is the godly man; that is, the man who
is like God, "conformed to the image of Christ." He not merely obeys
the law of
The introduction to the Psalms in the Commentary by Canon Cook of Exeter, England, says concerning the ideal man of the Book of Psalms that "he has these characteristics: unshaken trust in God; entire devotion to His service; submission to His will; reliance on His love, met by a corresponding affection, a more than filial tenderness; a longing for His presence in the sanctuary, and for fruition of that presence in Heaven; a thorough appreciation of the righteousness of all His dispensations; a confident, nay certain anticipation of a full manifestation of His righteousness. Faith, hope, and love assume thus their true relative position in the development of the spiritual man."
And to this godlike
man are revealed secrets concerning the Lord and His ways, that have not
heretofore in the progressive teaching of the Bible found any fitting hearer.
"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them
His covenant." Only the man who is like God, can understand God. And
therefore in this book of Psalms, for the first time in the progress of the
Bible development, does the sanctified soul find an adequate expression of its
worship and its praise. All the previous revelations of the Lord had been but
one-sided and limited, for there were no hearts prepared to understand any
other. "As it is
One of the most
blessed of these secrets thus revealed to this "godly man," is that
concerning the claim of the weak upon the strong. The language of his heart is
always, "Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak." "Turn Thee
unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted."
"Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for l am in trouble." "Attend unto
my cry; for
Throughout all the varied experiences of this book, it is still always this man who knows the Lord, that speaks to us, whether in the voice of Messiah, or of His people. And through it all he is led, doubtless by a series of deepening and widening revelations, to the paean of victorious praise that closes the Book. For only he who knows the Lord, and has seen the King in His beauty, could thus extol Him and praise His holy name.
The last six Psalms
are a series of continually rising songs of thanksgiving, beginning with,
"I will extol Thee, my God, O King; and I will bless Thy name for ever and
ever;" and closing with that wonderful, and to me most precious and
comforting command, "Let everything that hath breath praise the
Lord." As Bonar has written concerning this, "Praise is now gathered
in from every creature; every instrument of joy, and gladness, and triumph, and
jubilee are summoned
All sorts of
instruments are needed in this universal chorus, the trumpet, the psaltery, the
harp, the stringed instrument, the organ, the loud cymbal, and the
high-sounding cymbal; the cymbal which can give but one note only, being as
necessary as the stringed instrument which can give many. And all voices are
needed here also, the voices of young men and maidens, of old men and children;
the voices of those who are able only to sound one note of praise, as well as
of those who can sound many. The heart-felt, "Praise the Lord," of the
humble washer-woman, is as necessary to the grand harmony, as the reverberating
eloquence of the great
And the day will come
when this blessed command shall be literally obeyed. John saw it, and thus
described it in
Let us join in this anthem, beloved friends, now and here. Let us praise Him, whether we understand Him or not. Let us praise Him, even though His ways with us may seem to be too mysterious ever to be understood. Let us praise Him out of our weakness, and out of our ignorance, and out of our very vileness itself. Let us praise Him that we are weak, and ignorant, and covered with infirmity, because this is our most irresistible claim upon Him, and because so, and so only, can His power rest upon us. Let us praise Him that we are nothing and that He is all.
Texts concerning the
resurrection life of the believer: --
THE book of Proverbs gives us the
application of Divine wisdom to the practical details of our walk through the
labyrinth of this evil world. It is the third step in the developing series
concerning sanctification, which we are considering. The soul having
experienced a measure of the death of self and having begun to live the
"life hid with Christ in God," needs now, according to the prayer of
the Apostle in
This book was written
by Solomon, of whom we read in
Its object is
announced to us in the opening verses: "The proverbs of Solomon, the son
of David, king of Israel; to know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words
of understanding; to receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, judgment and
equity; to give subtilty to the simple, to the young man, knowledge and
discretion," i, 1-4. And in the closing verse of this chapter we are told
what will be the blessed results of hearkening to
But it is not human
wisdom and prudence that are to bring about these blessed results. These
continually lead astray. It is submission to the mind and will of the Lord. We
are expressly told to "lean not on our own understandings," "but
in all our ways acknowledge the Lord and He will direct our paths," iii.
4, 5. "For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will
bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. . . . . . Because the
foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than
men."
And for this reason
the "fear of the Lord" is put before us here as the one grand
constraining motive, and power. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom," ix. 10. "The fear of the Lord prolongeth days," x. 27.
"He that walketh in his uprightness feareth the Lord: but he that is perverse
in his ways despiseth Him," xiv. 2. "By the fear of the Lord men
depart from evil," xvi. 6. "By humility and the fear of the Lord are
riches, and honor, and life," xxii. 4. "Favor is deceitful, and
beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord shall be praised," xxxi.
30. In the very first chapter the contrast is drawn between the folly of
self-will and this spirit of submission to the Lord. "For that they hated
knowledge,
The fear meant in all
these passages is not the fear of fright, but the fear of love. It is the fear
we feel lest we should in any way grieve or wound the heart of a beloved one;
and is not the fear of the consequences to ourselves, but of the sorrow to
them. It is a fear which can exist only in connection with the highest and
tenderest forms of love, for all lower forms of affection are indifferent to
it, and cannot even comprehend it. And
The soul in Proverbs
is brought here, and consequently we find a great deal said about
"wisdom" in this Book. The word is used thirty-six times, and it is
exalted to a place of such great prominence, as to lead us to inquire, if it
has not a much deeper meaning
If by wisdom then in
this book is meant Christ, and if the indwelling of wisdom means His
indwelling, what a lesson we are here taught concerning the practical effect of
the abiding presence and teaching of the Divine
All this, and more, will most certainly be true of that life which is ordered by the Lord, and guided by His blessed Spirit; and the path of obedience to the divine requirements will always prove to be a path of richest blessing.
Our Lord has declared that His sheep shall "know His voice," but we shall need to live very near Him, and have much close communion with Him before this can be. For amid the multitude of voices abroad, it is not easy to distinguish the Shepherd's voice, unless we have become familiar with its sound. At first all voices are alike to the infant, and some time must pass before it can learn to distinguish even its mother's tones; and doubtless in the learning it makes many mistakes. But the time comes when the child knows that dear voice from every other, and cannot mistake it, and when the voice of a stranger makes it afraid. And for us also, if we but follow on to know unwaveringly, "applying our hearts" as our book says, and "inclining oar ears," "seeking for it also as for silver and for hid treasure," the time will surely come when we likewise shall be able to distinguish the Shepherd's voice, and shall "flee from the voice of a stranger."
Not long ago a friend
related to me the following story. A farmer, wishing to purchase some sheep,
made a selection from the flocks of a neighbor, and started to drive them home.
But he found it impossible
Subjection to a voice is one of the sweetest ways of learning to know it, and experimentally we shall find that each time we obey the voice of our Shepherd, when we do recognize it, it will become easier for us to distinguish it the next time. As our book tells us, "My son, keep thy father's commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:" vi. 20-23.
We must therefore bow
our necks to the yoke of this Divine guidance, if we would learn to walk in the
true
To take the yoke of
Christ upon us, means, I think that we give up utterly our own freedom of will
to Him, and consent to be in all things led and guided by His voice. This voice
will be made known to us, I believe, in three ways; through the Scriptures,
through providential
The "voice of
the stranger" is warned against in this book under the figure of the
"strange woman," whose
The practical
teaching of divine wisdom given us in this book, reaches into many details of
private and public life, and is worthy of far more careful study than it
generally receives, teaching us also that nothing is too insignificant for His
notice or advice. We are shown here what things are an abomination to the Lord.
"These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto
Him: a proud look, (or, as the margin has it, haughty eyes,) a lying tongue,
and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations,
feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies,
and he that soweth discord among brethren," vi. 16-19. Also in other
verses we are told that "they of a froward heart," a "false
balance," "divers weights and divers measures," the
"sacrifice of the wicked," the "way of the wicked," the
"thoughts
We are also taught what are the things likely to bring us into outward trial and difficulty. and are warned against them; and are encouraged in paths that will lead to outward prosperity and peace. I cannot go into these details here. But I would repeat again, what I said at first, that this book is a blessed gift of wisdom to us, who feel ourselves so far from wise and that it is great grace in our Lord to have condescended to apply His wisdom, thus, to the details of our lives, in the midst of this world's confusion, because of sin.
Let us come to it,
then, beloved readers, with receptive and submissive hearts, prepared to yield
a glad obedience to what we find here; and prepared also to listen more
attentively and obediently than ever to the inward voice as well, relying with
perfect confidence upon our Lord's own promise, "When He, the Spirit of
truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth;" and "He shall
teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I
have said unto you." This blessed doctrine of the direct and personal
teaching and guiding of the Holy Spirit has been too much neglected in the
Church, and great loss has been the result. But that it is a glorious reality,
and within the reach of even the most unlearned believer, thousands of witnesses
can testify, who have given themselves up to a "walk in the
If any doubt the
truth of this, let them try the experiment of an utter yielding to God at every
step of their way, and I feel sure they will be amazed at the rapidity with
which their souls will climb toward these wondrous heights of divine fellowship
and bliss. Let our obedience but keep pace with the outmost verge of our light,
and our happiness will reach even here and now, to the joys of the
"upper ranges of being," and a blessed foretaste of Heaven will be
granted us. But without this utter surrender, we cannot expect to advance in
the divine path; and the lesson of Proverbs therefore must necessarily be
learned, before the soul can take the next step
"Happy, therefore, is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding: for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies, and all things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her."
Texts illustrating
Divine guidance: --
THIS book shows us the utter
vanity of the world and all it contains, apart from God. It is the illustration
of those words of our Lord to the woman of Samaria, "He that drinketh of
this water shall thirst again." The world is here searched for an object
to satisfy the heart, but in vain. All is proved to be only vanity and vexation
of spirit. It is the fourth stage of the developing series concerning
sanctification, and shows us the soul completely delivered from the love of the
world and the things that are in the world. It is that inward escape from the
world's allurements, which comes from the discovery of its utter hollowness and
vanity. It is the heart made "dead" to its power. Many give up the
world outwardly, who yet long after it inwardly. But
This book gives us
the experience of the man who has found the wisdom spoken of in the preceding
book of Proverbs, and who has tried the world by this wisdom, and has proved it
all to be only vanity of vanities. "I the Preacher was king over Israel in
Jerusalem: and I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all
things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons
of man to be exercised therewith. I have seen all the works that are done under
the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit." i. 12-14. It
is the wise man trying the world by his wisdom, for others less wise, that he
"might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do
under heaven all the days of their life." The
This book gives us an
insight into what the world is to a really sanctified heart; and it has been
placed, I believe,
It may seem to some a
sad thing that the world should be so unsatisfactory. But when we understand
the reason of it, and the blessed result, we will surely praise the Lord with
all our hearts that He has so arranged it. For He has commanded us to hate the
world and to forsake it, and how could we obey Him if it was attractive and
satisfying? If there should be poison in our food, would we not be thankful if
it had so bitter a taste as to make it impossible for us to eat it? And, since
there is a fatal poison in the world to all who
And not only is the soul here set free from the seductions of outward earthly things, but even also from the more subtle snares of earthly wisdom. There are many who scorn the physical enjoyments of earth in the shape of riches or tangible pleasures, who yet take refuge in the exercise of wisdom and knowledge. But these also are here shown to be vanity and vexation of spirit. "I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge. And I gave my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," i. 16-18. "Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also as vanity," ii. 15.
Man is made for a divine destiny, and nowhere short of this can he be satisfied. It is not that he ought not to be, but he cannot. This is in the eternal nature of things. A learned man cannot be satisfied in the company of fools, neither can a man of culture and refinement be happy with coarse and brutal associations. They ought not, it is true, but there is something deeper than ought in the case, they cannot. And the soul that has tasted of divine wisdom, can never be happy with anything on a lower level.
Therefore upon all that man tries of earthly things there can be but the one same universal sentence which is here repeated over and over, "This also is vanity." See i. 2, 14; ii. 1, 11, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 26; iii. 19; iv. 4, 8, 16; v. 10; vi. 2, 9; vii. 6; viii. 10, 14; xi. 8; xii. 8.
But viewed frown this
earthly standpoint, all is not only seen to be vanity, but utter confusion as
well. Apart from the thought of God, all is darkness beyond this present life,
and all is mystery here. Neither wisdom nor reason can explain the sad
perplexity of life. Everything seems to go wrong. Wickedness triumphs,
It is the lesson of
Job repeated here, that the outward works of the Lord are not an adequate
expression of His heart towards us, and that therefore nothing is left to us
but the sublime silence of faith, which can calmly await the day of His
explanations, and can meanwhile sit down contentedly before the greatest
mysteries. To
Our book therefore,
not only teaches us the vanity and confusion of all things "under the
sun;" but it also lets us know that there is one way of relief, one outlet
from the oppressive sense of universal emptiness and mystery,
All that is really necessary is declared to us in this one sentence. We cannot understand the world, we cannot find any comfort in it; it is all hopelessly empty and mysterious. But the Lord reigns, and holds the clue; and to fear Him and keep His commandments is the only thing needed to make everything straight. Obedience is the golden key to every mystery. They that do His will, shall always come, sooner or later, to know of the doctrine; and to the obedient soul, God, with His infinity, fills every void. A walk with Him is a walk through a region of grandeur, and life is transfigured before us. Let us praise Him, then, that the one only thing which is declared to be our duty, is also the one only thing which it is possible for us to do, or the doing of which can bring us any abiding peace or rest. For the "world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever."
A dear little girl of
my acquaintance, whose life was the truest picture of childlike faith I ever
saw, said one
Such is the lesson of our book. It is the judgment of heavenly wisdom on all that happens "under the sun," and the decision of that wisdom as to the only relief from it all. It shows us the world as it looks to the man who has died to self, as in Job, and who is living the resurrection life, as in Psalms, and has been taught the "wisdom which is from above," that belongs to that life, as in Proverbs. It is the fourth stage in the progressive steps of sanctification given us in the series of books beginning with Job and ending with the Song of Songs: and is the necessary prelude to the beautiful lesson of the Canticles. Here the world is searched to find an object to satisfy the heart, but in vain. There that Object is found. And until our hearts have learned the lesson of Ecclesiastes we shall not be prepared to receive the lesson of that wondrous mystic Song.
Hast thou learned
this lesson, dear reader? Is the world "vanity of vanities" to thee,
or has it yet charms to attract thee and win thy heart? Thou hast heard the
command, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the
world." Hast thou obeyed it? If not, I would sound in thy ears the
accompanying sentence: "If any man love the world, the love of the Father
is not in him." The love of the Father may be believed
May the Lord Himself teach and lead us here!
Texts illustrating
the necessity of giving up the world, and being delivered from its bondage:--
THE Song of Songs is in wonderful
contrast to the book of Ecclesiastes. There the world is searched for an object
to satisfy the affections of the sanctified heart, but it is not found. Here
the Object is revealed, and the heart has entered into the richest enjoyment of
it. This little book gives us the fifth and last stage in the developing series
concerning sanctification, and is the consummation of all the soul's deepest
longings. It can only be understood, I believe, by those who have passed
through all the preceding stages. Self must die, as in Job, and
This Song would seem
to be the Old Testament typical expression of the truth set forth in
The same figure is
also used in many other places in Scripture to express this glorious oneness.
The Church is called "the Bride, the Lamb's wife;" the Lord Jesus
speaks of Himself as the "Bridegroom;" and the moment of the final
union in Heaven is called the "marriage supper of the Lamb." In
answer to the question as to why His disciples did not mourn or fast, Jesus
said: "Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the
Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the Bridegroom shall be
taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days."
In the Old Testament,
also, this figure of the Bridegroom and the Bride is prophetically used.
"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be
termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy Land Beulah: for
the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man
marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom
rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee."
Such, then, is the
mystery of the soul's divine Bridegroom, and the Song of Songs tells us about
it. Well may it be called the Song of Songs, for never before nor since has any
song, containing such a wondrous story as this been sung by human lips. It is
the revelation of a love that does indeed pass knowledge: the love between
But it is not every
Christian heart that can sing this song. Origen says, concerning it: "As
we have been taught by Moses that there are not only holy places, but a Holy of
holies, that there are not only Sabbaths, but Sabbaths of Sabbaths, so now we
are taught, by the pen of Solomon, that there are not only songs, but a Song of
songs. Blessed truly, is he who enters into the holy place, but more blessed he
who enters into the Holy of holies. Blessed is he who keepeth the Sabbath, but
more blessed he who keepeth the Sabbath of Sabbaths. So, too, blessed is he who
understands songs, and sings them, for no one does sing save on high festivals;
but much more blessed is he who sings this "Son of songs." And as he
who enters into the holy place, still needs much ere he is able to proceed into
the Holy of holies; and as he who keeps the Sabbath enjoined on the people by
the Lord, yet wants many things that he may keep the Sabbath of Sabbaths, so,
too, he who traverses all the songs of Holy Writ, finds it no easy thing to
ascend to the Song of songs. Thou must needs go out of Egypt, and issued thence,
cross the Red Sea, that thou mayest sing the first song, saying: "I will
sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously."
For in truth, this
song utters holy secrets, which only God's Spirit can teach, and which none but
the deeply spiritual can understand. And these secrets are the secrets of an
infinite and Divine love. St. Bernard says concerning it, "This song
excels all other songs of the Old Testament; they being, for the most part,
songs of deliverance from enemies, Solomon for such had no occasion. In the
height of glory, singular in wisdom, abounding in riches, secure in peace, he
here, by Divine
In the very latest
Commentary on the Bible, edited by Canon Cook, of Exeter, Eng., we find in the
Introduction to the Song of Solomon this passage, "And shall we then
regard it as a mere fancy which for so many ages past has been wont to find in
the pictures and melodies of the Song of Songs, types and echoes of the actings
and emotions of the highest Love, of Love Divine in its relations to Humanity;
which if dimly discerned through their aid by the Synagogue, have been amply
revealed in the Gospel to the Church. Shall we not still claim to trace in the
noble and gentle history thus presented, foreshadowings of the infinite
condescensions of Incarnate Love? -- that Love which first stooping in human
form to visit us in our low estate in order to seek out and win its object,
It is manifest from
all these extracts, that the spiritual
There are many forms
of love between heart and heart, there is filial love, and brotherly love, and
parental love and the love of friendship. But besides all these, and different
from them all, there is the love of espousals, and it is of this sort of love
our little book speaks. It is true that we do love our Lord as children love a
parent, as brethren love brethren, as a friend loves a friend. But all these do
not after all completely meet our need, nor fill our capacity. Our hearts are
susceptible of a more absorbing affection than any of them, and Christ is the
offered Object of it. He has loved us Himself with a love passing knowledge,
and He wants our utmost love in return. He wants us to be one with Him,
as He is one with the Father. He has bought us for Himself at infinite cost and
pains, and now He seeks to win our whole soul's devotion. It is intended that
there should be an interchange of affection between our hearts and His.
We love Him, it is true, because He first loved us, but we are commanded
nevertheless to love Him absorbingly, unutterably. supremely. "Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy might," is the "first and great commandment." And when we
have been enabled to obey this command, and have found our hearts possessed by
this supreme affection, we need some
The soul here makes her boast in the Lord's love. She does not refuse to listen to the tenderest expressions of it, nor to tell out her own deepest emotions. "My Beloved is mine, and I am His," is the underlying consciousness through it all, which warrants the most blessed confidence and freedom.
An English writer,
whose name I do not know, has written a very delightful book entitled
"Introduction to the Canticles," * in which he says: -- "The
Canticles do not give us the ways of filial affection, nor of the
"It is a love which commands the whole being of the one in whom it seats itself. As to service, it makes it welcome. To say that service for the object of this affection is perfect freedom, is far too cold. It makes service infinitely grateful, even though it call for self-denial and weariness. And it can render its offering without caring for any eye or heart to approve it, but that of the one whom it has made its object. It cares not that others should be able to esteem its ways. It has all the desired fruit of its service, if its object approve it, and give but His presence at the end of it. As to society, this affection wants none but that of its object. If there be no weariness felt in service, as we have been saying, so is there no irksomeness known in solitude. All that is cared for is the presence of that One who commands the heart. There is no sense of solitude, if that One alone be present; there is no sense of satiety, though that One be alway present. As to authority in the soul, it holds its place, I need not say, unrivalled. It is the man of the heart. It breaks the bands, and cuts the cords of other desires. It makes us to undervalue all things but the one. . . . Other things are esteemed only according to their connection with this. And it will control the wrong, and cultivate the right tendencies of the heart. For occasions which might wound vanity or gratify pride are not valued nor pursued, while we retain it; and yet to approve ourselves there, we will nerve the heart and hand to great and generous ways
"What intenseness is here, and what purity also. It refreshes the soul to think that we have been created susceptible of such an affection, and to know that Christ is the offered Object of it. He proposes Himself to it. He claims the supreme place in our hearts. 'He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me.' Whatever passion of the soul be moved, it is God's right to have the highest exercise of it towards Himself. . . . This may sound a solemn truth, but it is a happy one. Is it not blessed to know, that our Lord claims our hearts and their affections? Have any of us read the 'first and great commandment' without at least sometimes rejoicing in the grace that would make such a demand upon us? Is it nothing to us that God Himself values our love, that He says to us, 'My son, give me thy heart'? . . . And we want these affections to make us happy, and to set us free. It is the divine method of delivering us from the tyranny of carnal or worldly desires. It is the Spirit's way of spoiling other attractions of their power to seduce and fill the heart, and of lifting the soul above the frettings of low anxieties. "Would that this love were more shed abroad in our hearts, beloved! How should we learn, then, to entertain Christ as this affection entertains or embalms its object. And what a Heaven it will be, when He is ours in this way, feeding this fire in our souls, and giving us to know in Himself and His beauties, this seraph love, without chill, for ever and ever!"
Such is the Song of
songs. It is the soul's longing
The question of the ground of our acceptance with God, is not touched upon in this book. The whole expression is that of a soul that knows its place of union, but longs for a fuller manifestation of it; and the faults mourned, are all only such faults as are based upon the closest intimacy. No open transgression or conscious disobedience are lamented, or even apparently thought possible, only a little hesitation in responding to His call, a momentary coldness, a temporary slothfulness of soul; faults, the very nature of which reveal the fine spiritual sense of the heart that can mourn them.
There is a manifest
development of the "apprehending of that for which we are apprehended of
Christ Jesus" in the experience of this bride. In the first chapter she
longs after the Beloved. In the second chapter He is found, and her heart is
made conscious of His manifested love, and exclaims rapturously, "My
beloved is mine, and I am His." In the third chapter something, a little
slothfulness of spirit, perhaps, has caused a temporary loneliness and
darkness, and the soul has again to seek her Beloved, and again she finds Him
and rests in His love. "By night on my bed I sought Him whom my soul
loveth: I sought Him, but I found Him not. I will rise now, and go about the
city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek Him whom my soul
loveth:
In chapter iv. He declares what she is to Him, that her heart may be reassured, after its temporary slothfulness. "Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee." "Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! how much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!" It is hard for the natural man to accept such love as this, as really existing in the heart of the Lord towards His people. We can comprehend how it is that we should love Him, but that He should love us, literally and actually love us, with the intensity and delight here expressed, seems an impossibility. And yet it is all, and far more, contained in our Lord's own words, "As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you." Thou, O Father, hast loved them as Thou hast loved me." What an "as" and "so" are here! And how little of this road have our souls as yet travelled, beloved, that we find it so hard to comprehend this lovely mystic song!
Chap. v. gives us
another experience. Again a little hesitation to respond to the call of the
Beloved for communion, deprives the bride of His presence, and in the
desolation of her heart she goes out a second time to seek Him. "I sleep,
but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh, saying, Open
to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with
dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. I have put off my coat; how
shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? My Beloved
put in His hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for Him. . .
. . I opened to my Beloved, but my Beloved had withdrawn Himself and was gone:
my soul failed when He spake; I sought Him but I could not find Him; I called
Him but He gave me no answer. . . . I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
if ye find my Beloved, that ye tell Him that I am sick of love." v. 1-8.
The intensity of her desire, arouses the interest of those she questions, and
they ask, "What is thy Beloved more than another be- loved, O thou fairest
among women? What is thy Beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so
charge us?" This calls out her ardent praises of her Beloved, and in
praising Him, she is taught of God where to find Him, and advances a step
onward in her apprehension of the relationship between them. "My Beloved is
gone down into His garden, to the beds of spices, to feed in the gardens and to
gather lilies. I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine. He feedeth
In chaps. vi. and
vii., the Beloved whom she has thus regained, tells out her preciousness afresh
in stronger words than ever. He calls her "My dove, my undefiled,"
and says, "How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights."
vii, 6. And He expresses the intensity of His love in wondrous words that can
be received only by that heart which has come indeed to the utter end of self,
"Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me!" Can it be
indeed possible that our love is this to our Lord? The bride here
believes the words of her Beloved, and exclaims in answer, for the third time,
but with a far deeper expression than before of the amazing yet blessed truth,
"I am
This is the third
time that the close union and mutual affection of the Bridegroom and the Bride
are thus mentioned in this Song. First it was, "My Beloved is mine, and I
am His." ii. 16. Next it was, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is
mine." vi. 3. And here it is, "I am my Beloved's, and His desire is
toward me." vii. 10. St. Ambrose says concerning these three sayings, that
they give us a threefold diversity in the manner of the Bride's expression,
which denote the three stages of
Chap. viii. appears to be a sort of recapitulation of the whole wondrous story. The longing and the satisfying of that longing, accompanied by a glorious assertion of the might and purity of true love, are here again set forth, 1-7. The "little sister," type of the soul who has but just begun to believe on Christ, and to be fed with milk, is here encouraged to look for and expect an increase, 8, 9. And, finally, in the last verse, the Bride reiterates her invitation to her Beloved. "Make haste, my Beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountain of spices." Reminding us of the closing verses of Revelation also, "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
With this book the
developing series concerning the heart exercises of God's people as to
sanctification, closes, for the soul has made its final discovery, and has
learned at last the all-sufficiency of the love of Christ to swallow up and
extinguish everything else! And fears, perplexities, disappointments,
mysteries, questionings -- all are lost in the ocean of Divine love! It has
entered here into that realized union with the Lord, which is the consummation
of Christian experience, and which includes within itself all possible gift and
blessing. Earth
Beloved, have our
hearts entered into this "banqueting house" where joy unspeakable and
full of glory awaits us? Have we consciously realized this wondrous union, and
are our souls rejoicing in its unspeakable delights? Has this blessed
"mystery" of our faith been revealed to us, and are our hearts opened
wide to receive it? Are we walking, with the step of a possessor, through this
marvellous palace of delights, and claiming each fresh revelation of its
unutterable secrets as our own? It is a palace open to all, though all do not
enter it; it is a union intended for every one, though but few apprehend it; it
is a mystery revealed to the babes, but hid from the wise and prudent. For our
Divine Bridegroom Himself prayed while on earth "That they all may be one;
as Thou Father, art in me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in us: . .
. . I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; that the
world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved
me." "That they all may be one!" And let us praise the
Lord for this little word "all"! And let us act on it with the simple
faith of the bride about whom we have been reading, and yield ourselves to its
sweet fulfillment. For to such as do, there will begin for them straightway,
days of heaven upon earth. And then, in the blaze of this overmastering
* J. B. Bateman, London, Publisher.
PROPHECY is God's revelation of
His secret plans and purposes. It was given not for a merely temporary use, but
for all ages and all people. Paul says concerning it, Whatsoever things were
written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and
comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.
In giving to His
people these books of prophecy, the Lord is treating them as friends, for He
Himself when on earth said to His disciples "Henceforth I call you not
servants, for the servant knoweth not what His Lord doeth; but I have called
you friends, for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known
unto you." Abraham was called the "friend of God," and when God
was about to destroy Sodom, although it was not a matter that concerned Abraham
personally, He said "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do
?" And He stopped on His way to Sodom to tell His purposes to His
"friend," listening with all the condescension of a real friendship
to Abraham's plea for the doomed city, and even yielding everything that he
asked. No sweeter picture of the reality of our position as "friends of
God" could be given than this story of Abraham. And I feel that when we
come to the study of these prophetical books, we should realize ourselves as
being in this blessed position of personal intimacy, and should understand that
our Father and our Friend is here disclosing to us His secrets. "Surely
the Lord will do nothing, but He revealeth His secret unto His servants the
prophets."
Written prophecy
began about the year 800 B. C., during the reigns of the divided kingdom when
all was outward confusion and the faith of the Lord's true people
The Lord Jesus Christ
therefore, and His salvation form the centre of all prophecy, as we read in
A recent writer has said concerning these books that, "Parallel with the record of prophecy, runs a historical record of its fulfilment, up to the point when light of the gospel of Christ is shed over the world. There was a time when all that was known of God's gracious purposes was matter of prediction only; but now an important part of it has become matter of history; and the transference of events from the one record to the other is continually advancing. It is easy to see the advantage of having these records side by side. The fulfilment of any part of prophecy, besides being important in itself, gives the most confident assurance of the completion of the fulfilment. Thus if we have at first a prediction of glory as the result of suffering, the accomplishment of the predicted suffering is the surest pledge of the coming glory. . . . The great burden of prophecy is the coming of a Divine Saviour to suffer and conquer for man, and then to share the fruits of His conquest with His people. Now the first part we know is accomplished, and this stands to us the pledge of all the rest."
We are encouraged therefore by the literal fulfilment of all the details of the prophecies concerning the first coming of our Lord in humiliation, to look towards an equally literal fulfilment of the prophecies concerning His second coming in glory, and we shall find a careful study of that which is here written in reference to it, of deep interest and great practical value.
There are seventeen
books of prophecy. Hosea, Amos, Joel, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Isaiah, Jeremiah
and Habakkuk wrote previous to the carrying away of the Jews into Babylon;
Ezekiel, Daniel and Obadiah wrote during the course of the captivity; and
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, after the restoration of the Jew's under Ezra
and Nehemiah to their own land. The prophecy of Isaiah is the first in the arrangement
of the books in our Bibles, but in point of time Joel, Amos and Hosea are
supposed to have written their books earlier. A comparison of the dates at the
beginning of each book will make this clear to us. But the opening verses in
Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea all point to about the same period of time, with only
the difference of a few years. "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz which
he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and
Hezekiah, kings of Judah,"
I have no doubt the order of these books as it is given to us in our Bibles, has some spiritual revelation in it, which we have not yet perhaps fathomed; and so also, I believe, have the meanings of the names of the different prophets. These meanings can be found in chapter ii.
The prophecies deal
mostly with the dispersion of the ten tribes, the captivity and restoration of
Judah,
These prophecies take
no note apparently of the centuries of time which were to elapse between the
incipient fulfilment of the promises in Christ's first coming, and their
complete fulfilment at His second coming. The long period of the Church's
history called in
The passage quoted by
our Lord in
Many devout readers of the Bible have objected to the thought of a literal fulfilment of prophecy, and have been inclined to think that it refers only to the Church in a spiritual sense. But I believe most careful students of the present day take a different view, and agree in thinking that these prophecies refer primarily to Israel and Judah, although they have also a very blessed typical application to Christians. We who now by faith enter into the inward spiritual kingdom of our Lord, enter also into spiritual blessings, which have a wonderful correspondence to the temporal ones here set forth. There is doubtless to be a real outward millennium on this earth, when the "kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ;" but there is also now and here, for every faithful heart, an inward millennial experience, which answers spiritually, to the descriptions these prophecies give of the future earthly glory. It is doubtless from this cause that the mistake has arisen in the Church, of monopolizing to herself prophecies, which belong primarily to Israel, and which are plainly to have a literal as well as a spiritual fulfilment.
It is curious however
that, in this appropriation, Christians have taken only the blessings to
themselves, and have handed the curses over to the Jews, and this fact
In tracing the course of prophecy I have not space to dwell long upon those prophecies which refer to Christ's first coming, and their literal fulfilment, especially as they are already familiar to every student, and the references in the margins of any good reference Bible bring them all out with great clearness. I will therefore simply insert at the close of this chapter, out or the Bagster Bible, a collection of all the prophecies referring to Christ, with their parallel passages in the New Testament.
In reference to the
prophecies referring to Christ's second coming in glory, and the restoration of
the Jews, I can only give a general view. The field of unfulfilled prophecy is
too vast to be taken up in detail within the limits of a book like this.
Moreover, the views of careful and earnest students, concerning its details,
differ so
That the Lord Jesus Christ will surely come again to reign in a kingdom of universal righteousness on this world is, I think, accepted by most Christians in the present day. But as to the details of this event there are, as I have said, a variety of views. The two principal are called respectively the Pre-millennial and the Post-millennial Advent. The one states that Christ is to return before the millennium, and is to usher in that blessed time by His redeeming and purifying presence. The other states that He is to come at the close of the millennium, and that the world is to be prepared for His presence by the previous universal reign of righteousness and peace. My own view is the former, as it seems to me most in accordance with. Scripture teaching.
The story as I receive it, is simply this:--
I. The Lord will come back suddenly, like a thief in the night, to receive His saints to Himself. Those who are dead will be raised, and the having saints will be caught up with them, to "meet the Lord in the air," as we read,
"For
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in
Jesus will God bring with Him. For this we say unto you by the word of the
Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not
prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven
with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and
the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and
so shall we ever be with the Lord."
"Behold,
I shew you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. In a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall
sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed."
The Lord will not be visible to the world at large at this time, for the saints must first be gathered up to meet Him thus, "in the air;" and the only thing the world will know about it, will be the sudden and unaccountable disappearance of all the Christians out of it.
"I
tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed: the one shall be
taken, and the other shall be left. Two women shall be grinding together; the
one shall be taken and the other left. Two men shall be in the field; the one
shall be taken, and the other left."
II. While still
"in the air," the saints will be judged in reference, not to their
salvation but as to their rewards. See
"Let
us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is
come, and His wife hath made herself ready; And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of the saints."
III. Certain events
will meanwhile be taking place upon the earth. Antichrist will arise and
restore many
"For
there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very
elect. Behold, I have told you before."
"And
he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week" [seven years];
"and in the midst of the week" [at the end of three and one half
years] "he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the
overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the
consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate."
"And
from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination
that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety
days" [about three and a half years].
"When
ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the
prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth let him understand), then let
them which be in Judæa flee into the mountains."
"For
I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be
taken and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall
go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off
from the city."
IV. And now is
the time to which all prophecy points, when Christ shall come again to the
earth, bringing all His saints with Him, and His feet shall stand upon the
"And
when He had spoken these things, while they beheld, He was taken up; and a
cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward
heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which
also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as
ye have seen Him go into heaven. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the
mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath day's journey."
"Then
shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in
the day of battle. And His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which is
before Jerusalem on the east." "And the Lord shall be King over all
the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord and His name One. All the land
shall be turned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem: and it
shall be lifted up, and inhabited in her place from Benjamin's gate unto the
place of the first gate, unto the corner gate, and from the tower of Hananeel
unto the king's wine-presses. And men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no
more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited."
V. Every eye will now
see Him and all the tribes of the earth will mourn at the sight, and will call
on the rocks and the hills to cover them, and hide them from the day of His
coming. He will deliver Jerusalem, and destroy His enemies, and will gather
together His chosen
"And
then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then shall all the
tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the
clouds of heaven, with power, and great glory. And He shall send His angels
with a great sound of a trumpet; and they shall gather together His elect from
the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
"And
it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations
that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David and upon
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and
they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as
one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that
is in bitterness for his first-born."
"And
it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the
second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from
Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and
from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall set
up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and
gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the
earth."
See
also
VI. At this time the
judgment of the nations who are living on the earth, spoken of in
"When
the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then
shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: and before Him shall be gathered all
nations: and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth
his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the
goats on the left."
"And
in mercy shall the throne be established: and He shall sit upon it in truth in
the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking judgment, and hasting
righteousness."
"And
He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall
beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more."
"And
I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon Him was
called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His
eyes were as a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns; and He had a
name written that no man knew but He Himself. And was clothed with a vesture
dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which
were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and
clean. And out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He should smite
the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treadeth the
winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His
vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord of
Lords."
VII. The creation
will now be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and restored to its
original glory. Jerusalem will become again a holy city inhabited by the
For the earnest expectation of the creature
[creation] waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature
[creation] was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him who
hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature [creation] itself shall
be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
pain together until now."
VIII. During the millennium the Lord Jesus Christ will reign over the earth, and His saints will share His throne. As we read,
"Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I
will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper,
and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be
saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is His name whereby He shall be
called, The Lord our Righteousness."
"And
I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I
saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the
word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither the image, neither
had received
"For
unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be
upon His shoulders: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The
mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His
government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon
His kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice
from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform
this."
"I
saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the
clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him near
before Him. And there was given him a dominion, and glory,, and a kingdom, that
all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him: His dominion is an
everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which
shall not be destroyed. . . . . But the saints of the Most High shall take the
kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever even for ever and ever, . . . And the
kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the dominion under the whole heaven,
shall be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is
an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey Him."
IX. At the end of the
millennium, Satan will be loosed again for a little season, and will induce men
again to rebel. A great army will be gathered against the Lord, and will be
defeated. Satan will be cast into the lake of
"And
when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison;
and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the
earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is
as the sands of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and
compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came
down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived
them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the
false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. And
I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heavens fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the
dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another
book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of
those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the
sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead
which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
And death and hell were cast into the take of fire. This is the second death.
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake
of fire. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the
first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. . . And I heard a
great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself
shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes, and there shall be no more death neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed
away."
X. Finally, the Lord
Jesus Christ, having accomplished the purposes of His mediatorial coming
"For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in
his own order; Christ tie first-fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at His
coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to
God, even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority
and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The
last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under
His feet. But when He saith, All things are put under Him, it is manifest that
He is excepted which did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be
subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him that put
all things under Him, that God may be all in all."
Such are the outlines
of the story of the latter days, as I have learned it. Of the times and
seasons, I believe, it is not meant for us to know, as these God has put into
His own power,
"Knowing
this first, that there shall come in the last day scoffers, walking after their
own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? For since the
fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation. For this they willingly are
ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth
standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was,
being overflowed with water perished: But the heavens and the earth which are
now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved
I am well aware that this is a subject which does not interest all Christians, and which is considered fanciful and unprofitable by many. But if it is indeed a truth, as the angel declared to the disciples on the Mount of Olives, while they looked toward the heavens where a cloud had just received their Lord out of their sight, that "this same Jesus which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into Heaven," then it must certainly be important for us to know it, and to enter into the mind of God about it. And I believe myself that there is hardly any truth which has so great an effect in making Christians unworldly as this.
For, if we expect one
who is absent from us to return
"Watch,
therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come." "Therefore
be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man
cometh,"
I am convinced that
these passages teach us that the thought of the unexpectedness of our Lord's
return is a far more powerful incentive to holiness than the thought of death;
and I believe the Church has suffered great loss from having overlooked this.
It all depends upon how much we love Him, whether we are longing to see Him
back. And our present walk and life will surely be greatly modified by a firm
belief on our part, that at any moment
We may well pause and
think, therefore, whether we are ready for our Lord's coming. Are our
houses, and our lives, and our churches prepared to receive Him? Would His
coming just at this present moment be inconvenient or ill-timed to us? If we
knew of a certainty that He were coming next week should we go on with our
lives as they are, and carry out our present plans and purposes for the few
intervening days? I remember being very much impressed with hearing of John
Wesley, that, upon being asked by a friend one morning how he would spend the
day if he knew he
We may not perhaps understand all the details. But enough is plain to teach us that our Lord is surely coming again, and to stir our hearts with a triumphant hope of our own personal share in His glory. For if He should come to-morrow, what human tongue could put into words the unimagined and unspeakable joy and gladness that would become the portion of all His people! To see Him face to face, the Desire of all nations, and our own Beloved! To be made like Him! To be done with sin forever! To have our vile bodies fashioned like unto His glorious body! To be presented faultless before His Father's throne with exceeding joy! To sit down with Him in His kingdom! To be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of His house, and to drink forevermore of the river of His pleasures! Ah, who can tell or dream of what this would be?
The books of prophecy close with Malachi in the year 397 B. C. No prophet was to arise after him, and the Jewish nation were left from henceforth to wait, for nearly four hundred years, until "the consolation of Israel" should come. The closing words are a solemn and yet blessed warning and promise:
"For,
behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and
all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them
up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with
healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the
stall. And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the
soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of hosts.
Remember ye the law of Moses, My servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb
for all Israel,
Had Israel heeded this warning, and received Christ at His first coming as their King, who can say whether the world's salvation would not then have been accomplished? But they rejected Him, and the day of triumph has been deferred until the "times of the Gentiles" shall be fulfilled.
But the Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness, and the glorious" times of restitution of all things which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began" shall surely come at last. And the day will dawn finally, according to the promise, when in "the dispensation of the fulness of times," God will "gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth;: and when "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
"He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly; Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."
The great Prophecies and Allusions to Christ in the Old Testament, which are expressly cited, either as predictions fulfilled in Him, or applied to Him in the New Testament. From Hale's Analysis of Sacred Chronology.
FIRST SERIES:
DESCRIBING CHRIST IN HIS HUMAN NATURE, AS THE PROMISED SEED OF THE WOMAN, IN THE GRAND CHARTER OF OUR REDEMPTION (GEN. iii. 15); AND HIS PEDIGREE, SUFFERINGS, AND GLORY, IN HIS SUCCESSIVE MANIFESTATIONS OF HIMSELF UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD.
I. THE SEED OF THE WOMAN.--Ge. 3.15.
II. BORN OF A VIRGIN.--Ps. 22.10; 69.8;
86.16; 116.16.
III. OF THE FAMILY OF SHEM.--Ge. 9.26.
IV. OF THE RACE OF THE HEBREWS.--Ex.
3.18.
V. OF THE SEED OF ABRAHAM.--Ge. 12.3;
18.18; 22.18.
VI. OF THE LINE OF ISAAC.--Ge. 17.19;
21.12; 26.4.
VII. OF JACOB OR ISRAEL.--Ge. 28.4-14.
VIII. OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH.--Ge.
49.10.
IX. OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID.--2 Sam
7.12-15.
X. BORN AT BETHLEHEM THE CITY OF
DAVID.--Mi. 5.2.
XI. HIS PASSION OR SUFFERINGS.--Ge.
3.15.
XII. HIS DEATH ON THE CROSS.--Nu. 21.9.
XIII. HIS INTOMBMENT AND
EMBAL-MENT.--Is. 53.9.
XIV. HIS RESURRECTION ON THE THIRD
DAY.--Ps. 16.10; 17.15; 49.15; 73.24.
XV. HIS ASCENSION INTO HEAVEN.--Ps.
8.5, 6; 47.5; 68.18; 110.1.
XVI. HIS SECOND APPEARANCE AT THE
REGENERATION.--Is. 40.10; 62.11.
XVII. HIS LAST APPEARANCE AT THE END OF
THE WORLD.--Ps. 50.1-6.
SECOND SERIES:
DESCRIBING HIS CHARACTER AND OFFICES, HUMAN AND DIVINE
I. THE SON OF GOD.--2 Sa. 7.14.
II. THE SON OF MAN.--Ps. 8.4, 5.
III. THE HOLY ONE, OR SAINT.--De. 33.8.
IV. THE SAINT OF SAINTS.--Dan. 9.24.
V. THE JUST ONE, OR RIGHTEOUS.--Zec.
9.9.
VI. THE WISDOM OF GOD.--Pr. 8.22-30.
VII. THE ORACLE (OR WORD) OF THE LORD,
OR OF GOD.--Ge. 15.1-4.
VIII. THE REDEEMER, OR SAVIOUR.--Job
19.25-27.
IX. THE LAMB OF GOD.--Ge. 22.8.
X. THE MEDIATAOR, INTERCESSOR, OR
ADVOCATE.--Job 33.23.
XI. SHILOH, THE APOSTLE.--Ge. 49.10.
XII. THE HIGH PRIEST.--Ps. 110.4.
XIII. THE PROPHET LIKE MOSES.--Deu.
18.15-19.
XIV. THE LEADER, OR CHIEF CAPTAIN.--Jo.
5.14.
XV. THE MESSIAH, CHRIST, KING OF
ISRAEL.--1 Sa. 2.10.
XVI. THE GOD OF ISRAEL.--Ex. 24.10, 11.
XVII. THE LORD OF HOSTS, OR THE
LORD.--2 Sa. 7.26.
XVIII. KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF
LORDS.--Ps. 89.27; 110.1.
Genesis
1 21:63-67 24:36 25:23 29:16-28 31:38-41 31:42 32:24-31 37 39:1-6 48
Exodus
1:13 1:14 2:23 3:7 3:7 3:8 3:8 3:8 4 4 8:25 12 14:11 14:12 14:13 14:14 15 15 15:1-19 16 17:14-16 19:5 19:5-8 22:22 23:33 25:22 25:22 34:11-16 40:34 40:35
Leviticus
1:9 7:15 7:20 7:21 20:7 20:8 20:26
Numbers
4 6 11:15-22 14:14-16 14:33 14:34 19 24 33:51-56 33:51-56
Deuteronomy
1:20 1:21 1:21 1:28 7:1-6 7:7 7:8 7:16-24 8:2-5 9:1-4 12:1-3 12:9-11 17:16 17:17 17:18-20 20:1-4 25:17-19 26:8 28:36 28:37 28:63-68
Joshua
1:2-9 1:3 1:5 3:13 5:9-12 6:2 7 9 10
Judges
1 Samuel
3 3:1 3:20 3:21 5 7:1 7:2 7:13 7:14 8:19 8:20 13:14 15 15:22 16:1 17:45-47 23:2 23:4 23:10 23:11 23:12 30:6 30:8
2 Samuel
2:1 3:1 3:18 3:18 5:1-3 5:19 5:23 6:11 6:12 7 7 7:1-13 21:1 21:1-14 22:38 22:40 22:41
1 Kings
4:21-34 4:29-34 5:3 5:4 5:4 6 8:56 10:4-9 10:26-28 11:1-8 11:10 11:11 17
2 Kings
1 Chronicles
5 5 7:12-16 10:13 10:14 12 12 13:3 13:3 13:9-14 14:10 14:14 15 17 17 17 17 17 17:1-6 18 18:1 22:8 22:18 22:18 28:5 28:6 28:7-9 29:22-25
2 Chronicles
2 5:1-7 5:13 5:14 6 6:1-2 6:18 6:36 6:40 6:41 10 18:1 18:2 20:6 36 36:15
Ezra
Nehemiah
Job
5:17 9:30 9:31 12:9 12:10 12:16 19 37:5-19 65:29
Psalms
2 2 2:2 2:7 9:7 9:8 14 14:1-4 14:7 16 16 16:8-11 19 20:7 22 22 22:28 24 25:9 29:6 31:3 32:8 33 33:10-15 34 38 38:11 38:12 39:9 40:6-8 41 41 41:9 42:3 45:1-17 45:10 45:11 45:11 48:14 51:12 51:16 53:1-4 62:12 68:16 69:5-9 71 72 72 72 76:9 78:40 78:40 78:52 78:72 89 89 89 89:6-14 89:14 94:7-10 94:12 94:13 95:8 96:10-13 97:1-6 99:1 99:2 102:16 103:11 103:12 103:19 106 106:15 106:15 106:24-27 110:1 115:3 118 119:44 119:45 119:98-100 127:1 132:13 132:14 135 136 136:6 136:23 137:1-4 137:1-4 139:10 139:24 145:13 149:4 150
Proverbs
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
1:1 2:4 2:19-21 4:3 4:4 6 7 9 9:6 9:6 9:7 9:7 10 10:20-22 10:21 11:1-9 11:1-9 11:6-9 11:10 11:11 11:11 11:12 13:3-6 13:4 13:6-11 16:5 18:21-22 19:22-25 23:1 24:23 25:10 26:3 26:20 26:21 29:13 31:4 31:5 32:1 32:15-18 32:18 33:20-22 40 40:15 40:17 41 41 41 42:4 42:16 43:13 43:25 44:24-28 45 45:5-9 48:17 48:18 49:10 49:15 49:16 51:3 51:11 52:10 52:10 52:11 52:12 52:14 53 53 53 53 53:1-2 53:3 53:4-6 53:6 53:7 53:9 53:10 54:5 54:5 54:13 55 57:18 57:18 58:11 59 60 60 61 61 61:1 61:4-11 62 62:1 62:1 62:1 62:4 62:5 62:5 66:12 66:14-16 66:15 66:15-21
Jeremiah
2:22 7:23 14 18:6 23 23 23 23:5 23:5 23:6 23:24 24:7 25 30:4-9 30:4-11 30:9 30:10 30:17 31 31:18 31:19 33:6 33:14-17 35:3 35:7 50
Ezekiel
8 11:19 11:20 19:5 34:23 34:23 34:25 36:26 36:26 36:27 36:27 36:31 39:11-22 43:1-4
Daniel
3 3:12-18 3:28 3:29 7 7 7 7:9-14 7:13 7:13 7:14 7:14 7:18 7:21 7:21-26 7:22 7:27 8:11-27 9 9 9 9 9:26 9:27 9:27 12 12:1 12:1 12:11
Hosea
1:1 2:14-20 2:14-23 2:16-20 3 3:4 3:5 3:5 6:1 11 13:10 13:11 14:1-2 14:4
Joel
2:1-11 2:1-32 2:21-27 2:25 2:28-32 3:12-16 3:16-20
Amos
Jonah
Micah
4 4:1 4:1-5 4:2 4:3 5 5 5 5 5:7-8
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
1:3 1:4 1:7-11 1:12-14 2 2:7 2:9 2:9 2:21 2:22
Zechariah
6:12 6:13 6:13 8 9:9 12:8-14 12:10 13 13:8 13:9 14 14:1 14:2 14:3 14:4 14:9 14:9 14:9-11 14:12-15 14:16
Malachi
Matthew
1 1 1 1 1:5 2 2 2 2 3 3:2 3:17 5:3 5:9 5:10-12 5:20 6:10 6:13 6:24 6:24 6:24 7:14 7:18-21 7:21 7:21 9:15 9:15 10:19 10:20 10:22-25 10:37-39 10:37-39 10:37-39 11 12 12 12:28 13:11 15 15 15:1-9 15:2-9 16 16:24-25 16:27 17:5 18:1-4 18:8 19:27-29 19:28 19:28 20 22:44 23:2-4 24 24:15-29 24:24 24:25 24:30 24:31 24:42 24:44 25 25:1-13 25:1-13 25:1-13 25:1-13 25:30-46 25:31-33 25:33 26 26 26:56 26:62 26:63 27 27:1 27:39-44 27:46 28 28:18
Mark
1:14 1:15 1:18 2:19 2:20 7:1-13 7:9 7:9 8:34 8:35 8:36 8:37 10:15 11:22-24 11:23 11:24 13:33-37
Luke
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1:31-33 1:32 1:33 1:68-75 1:69-75 1:71 1:74 1:74 1:75 1:75 1:79 1:79 2 2 4 4:16-19 4:22 5:11 5:34 5:35 6:21-26 8:1 10:3 11 11:1-13 11:34 11:46 12:32 12:35 12:36 12:40 14:26 14:33 14:33 15:2 16:13 17:20 17:20 17:20 17:21 17:21 17:21 17:26-37 17:34 17:35 17:36 19:12-26 21 21:36 22:29 23 23 23 23:2 23:27-30 23:34 24 24 24:44 24:49
John
1:3 1:17 2:17 3:3 3:14-18 3:15-16 3:16 3:28 3:28 3:29 3:29 3:35 4:9 4:10 4:14 4:14 5:22 5:24 5:39 5:44 6:31-35 6:48-56 6:53-57 7:5 7:38-39 8:23 8:41-44 10:3 10:4 11:25-26 11:49-52 12:14-16 12:26 13:18 13:25 13:26 13:27 14:16 14:16 14:16-17 14:17 14:17 14:20 14:20-23 14:21 14:21-23 14:23 14:25 14:26 14:27 15:4 15:4 15:4-7 15:5 15:9 15:11 15:15 15:15 15:15 15:18 15:19 15:19-21 15:19-21 15:25 15:26 15:26 16 16:7 16:13-14 16:13-15 16:33 16:33 17:6 17:14-16 17:14-18 17:21 17:21-23 17:22 17:23 18:36 20:25-27
Acts
1 1:3 1:4 1:5 1:6 1:7 1:8 1:9-12 2 2 2:1-4 2:4 2:16-18 2:25 2:34 2:38-39 2:39 3 3 3 3:15 3:24 3:26 4 4:18 4:19 5 5:28 5:29 5:32 8 8 8:12 8:14-17 8:29 8:32-35 10 10:10-16 10:19 10:20 13:2 13:33 13:37 13:38 13:46 14:22 15:1-29 15:16 15:17 16:6-7 17 17:7 20 20:28-31 21:4 22:3 22:4 26:22 26:23 28 28:28-31
Romans
1 1 1 1:17 3:9-19 3:9-19 3:21 3:21-26 3:21-31 3:22 3:23-31 3:26 4 5:3 5:5 5:8 5:8 5:10 5:12 5:17 5:17 6 6 6 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:4 6:6 6:6 6:6 6:11 6:11 6:11 6:12 6:13 6:13 6:13 6:16 7:1-4 7:1-6 7:9-24 8 8:1-4 8:1-4 8:2 8:2-4 8:5 8:7 8:7-8 8:8 8:9 8:9 8:10 8:10 8:10 8:19-22 9 9:14-23 9:27 11 11 11:11-27 11:26 11:27 12 12:1 12:1 12:1 12:2 12:2 12:2 12:2 12:5 14:10-14 14:17 14:17 15 15:3 15:12 15:13
1 Corinthians
1 1 1:24 2:10 2:13 3:1-4 3:1-4 3:8-15 3:12-15 3:16 3:16 3:21-23 4:3-6 5:6-8 5:8 6 6:2 6:3 6:17 6:19 9:24 9:25 10:1-11 11:31 11:32 12 12:3 12:4-11 12:11 12:12 12:13 12:13 12:13 14:12 15 15 15 15 15:20 15:22-28 15:25 15:25 15:25 15:50 15:51 15:52
2 Corinthians
2:14 4:10 4:10-11 4:11 4:14 5:10 5:19 6:10 6:11 6:14-18 6:14-18 6:14-18 6:16 6:16 6:16-18 6:16-18 6:17 6:18 6:21 7:1 7:1 7:1 7:1 10:4 11 11:2 11:2 12:7-10
Galatians
1:4 1:10 1:10 1:13 1:14 2:11-16 2:20 2:20 2:20 3:22 4 4 4:6 4:19 4:22-13 5:16 5:16 5:16-18 5:18 5:22 5:23 5:24 5:25 5:25 6:1 6:14
Ephesians
1:3 1:3 1:3-7 1:10 1:13 1:14 1:16-19 1:17 1:18 1:20 1:21 2:1-3 2:4-10 2:5 2:6 2:6 2:6 2:11 2:12 2:13 2:13-18 2:13-22 2:17 2:18 2:18 2:18-22 3:3-6 3:14-19 3:14-19 3:16-19 4:3 4:11 4:12 4:21-24 4:21-24 4:22-24 4:30 5:1-11 5:2 5:9 5:14 5:18 5:18-19 5:19 5:22-32 5:23-33 5:23-33 5:25-27 5:32 5:2333 6:5 6:6 6:6 6:12 6:16 6:22-32
Philippians
1:9-11 1:29 2 2 2:13 3 3:4-9 3:8-10 4:6 4:7 4:19
Colossians
1:9 1:9-11 1:10 1:12-14 1:13 1:20 1:22 2 2:12 2:20 2:20-23 3 3 3:1-3 3:1-5 3:3 3:4 3:5 3:5-7 3:9 3:10 3:10-12 3:15 3:15 3:22 4:11
1 Thessalonians
2:4-6 3:13 4:1-4 4:3 4:4 4:8 4:14-17
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Hebrews
1:2 1:8 1:13 2:9-15 2:11 2:12 2:14 3 3:8-15 3:15-19 4:1 4:2 4:12 5 5:12 5:12-14 6:1 7 7:23-25 7:25 8:1 8:2 8:10 8:10-12 8:11 9 9 9:11-14 9:14 10 10:5-9 10:19-22 10:19-22 10:19-22 10:19-23 10:35-38 11:3 11:8 11:9 11:10 11:17 11:18 11:19 11:30 11:31 12:5-11 12:5-11 12:5-11 13:5 13:5 13:6 13:6 13:14
James
1:2 1:3 1:5 1:5 1:6 1:6 1:12 1:22-26 1:27 2:10 3:2 4:1-5 4:4 4:4 4:4 4:4 4:14 5 5:10 5:11
1 Peter
1 1 1:3-5 1:7 1:10-13 1:18 1:19 2:19-23 2:24 2:25 4:12 4:13 4:13 5:1-4
2 Peter
1 John
1:7 1:7 1:8 1:9 1:10 2:1 2:15 2:15 2:15-17 2:15-17 2:15-17 2:20 2:20 2:27 2:27 2:27 2:28 3:1 3:3 3:13 3:16 3:24 3:24 3:24 4:9 4:10 4:10 4:12 4:12-16 4:13 4:15 4:16 4:17 5:4 5:4-5 5:11-12 5:13 5:14 5:14-15 5:15
Jude
Revelation
1 1 1:5 1:6 2:26 2:27 3:19 3:20 3:21 5 5 5 5 5:13 6:15-17 7:14 11:2 11:15 11:15 11:18 12 12 13:1-8 13:1-8 16:14 17:1-6 19 19 19:2 19:6 19:7 19:7 19:7-9 19:8 19:8 19:11-16 19:11-16 19:11-21 19:17-21 20 20 20:1-3 20:4 20:4-6 20:7-15 21:2 21:2 21:9 21:9 21:24 22 22:12
i ii iii iv 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395