people, in language of touching simplicity, the facts connected with
the appointment of the judges, and the mission of the spies. The
appointment of the judges, Moses here attributes to his own
suggestion: the mission of the spies was the suggestion of the people.
That dear and most honored servant of God felt the burden of the
congregation too heavy for him; and assuredly it was very heavy;
though we know well that the grace of God was amply sufficient for the
demand, and, moreover, that that grace could act as well by one man as
by seventy.
Still, we can well understand the difficulty felt by "the meekest man
in all the earth" in reference to the responsibility of so grave and
important a charge; and truly the language in which he states his
difficulty is affecting in the highest degree. We feel as though we
must quote it for the reader.
"And I spake unto you at that time, saying, 'I am not able to bear you
myself alone [Surely not; what mere mortal could? But God was there
to be counted upon for exigence of every hour.]: the Lord your God
hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of
heaven for multitude.' (The Lord God of your fathers make you a
thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as He hath
promised you.)" Lovely parenthesis! Exquisite breathing of a large and
lowly heart! "How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your
burden, and _your strife_?"
Alas! here lay the secret of much of the "cumbrance" and the "burden."
They could not agree among themselves,--there were controversies,
contentions, and questions; and who was sufficient for these things?
what human shoulder could sustain such a burden? How different it
might have been with them! Had they walked lovingly together, there
would have been no cases to decide, and therefore no need of judges to
decide them. If each member of the congregation had sought the
prosperity, the interest, and the happiness of his brethren, there
would have been no "strife," no "cumbrance," no "burden." If each had
done all that in him lay to promote the common good, how lovely would
have been the result!
But, ah! it was not so with Israel in the desert; and, what is still
more humbling, it is not so in the Church of God, although our
privileges are so much higher. Hardly had the assembly been formed by
the presence of the Holy Ghost ere the accents of murmuring and
discontent were heard. And about what? About "neglect," whether
fancied or real. Whatever way it was, _self_ was at work. If the
neglect was merely imaginary, the Grecians were to blame; and if it
was real, the Hebrews were to blame. It generally happens, in such
cases, that there are faults on both sides; but the true way to avoid
all strife, contention, and murmuring is to put self in the dust and
earnestly seek the good of others. Had this excellent way been
understood and adopted, from the outset, what a different task the
ecclesiastical historian would have had to perform! But, alas! it has
not been adopted; and hence the history of the professing church, from
the very beginning, has been a deplorable and humiliating record of
controversy, division, and strife. In the very presence of the Lord
Himself, whose whole life was one of complete self-surrender, the
apostles disputed about who should be greatest. Such a dispute could
never have arisen had each known the exquisite secret of putting self
in the dust and seeking the good of others. No one who knows aught of
the true moral elevation of self-emptiness could possibly seek a good
or a great place for himself. Nearness to Christ so satisfies the
lowly heart, that honors, distinctions, and rewards are little
accounted of; but where self is at work, there you will have envy and
jealousy, strife and contention, confusion and every evil work.
Witness the scene between the two sons of Zebedee and their ten
brethren, in the tenth chapter of Mark. What was at the bottom of it?
Self. The two were thinking of a good place for themselves in the
kingdom, and the ten were angry with the two for thinking of any such
thing. Had each set self aside, and sought the good of others, such a
scene would never have been enacted,--the two would not have been
thinking about themselves, and hence there would have been no ground
for the "indignation" of the ten.
But it is needless to multiply examples. Every age of the church's
history illustrates and proves the truth of our statement that self
and its odious workings are the producing cause of strife, contention,
and division, always. Turn where you will--from the days of the
apostles down to the days in which our lot is cast, and you will find
unmortified self to be the fruitful source of strife and schism; and
on the other hand, you will find that to sink self and its interests
is the true secret of peace, harmony, and brotherly love. If only we
learn to set self aside, and seek earnestly the glory of Christ and
the prosperity of His beloved people, we shall not have many "cases"
to settle.
We must now return to our chapter.
"How can I myself alone bear your cumbrance, and your burden, and your
strife? Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your
tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And ye answered me, and
said, 'The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.' So I
took the chief of your tribes, _wise_ men, and _known_"--men fitted of
God, and possessing, because entitled to, the confidence of the
congregation--"and made them heads over you, captains over thousands,
and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains
over tens, and officers among your tribes."
Admirable arrangement! If indeed it had to be made, nothing could be
better adapted to the maintenance of order than the graduated scale of
authority, varying from the captain of ten to the captain of a
thousand; the lawgiver himself at the head of all, and he in immediate
communication with the Lord God of Israel.
We have no allusion here to the fact recorded in Exodus xviii, namely,
that the appointment of those rulers was at the suggestion of Jethro,
Moses' father-in-law; neither have we any reference to the scene in
Numbers xi. We call the reader's attention to this as one of the many
proofs which lie scattered along the pages of Deuteronomy that it is
very far indeed from being a mere repetition of the preceding sections
of the Pentateuch. In short, this delightful book has a marked
character of its own, and the mode in which facts are presented is in
perfect keeping with that character. It is very evident that the
object of the venerable lawgiver, or rather of the Holy Ghost in him,
was to bring every thing to bear, in a moral way, upon the hearts of
the people, in order to produce that one grand result which is the
special object of the book from beginning to end, namely, a loving
obedience to all the statutes and judgments of the Lord their God.
We must bear this in mind if we would study aright the book which lies
open before us. Infidels, skeptics, and rationalists may impiously
suggest to us the thought of discrepancies in the various records
given in the different books; but the pious reader will reject, with a
holy indignation, every such suggestion, knowing that it emanates
directly from the father of lies, the determined and persistent enemy
of the precious revelation of God. This, we feel persuaded, is the
true way in which to deal with all infidel assaults upon the Bible.
Argument is useless, inasmuch as infidels are not in a position to
understand or appreciate its force; they are profoundly ignorant of
the matter. Nor is it merely a question of profound ignorance, but of
determined hostility; so that, in every way, the judgment of all
infidel writers on the subject of divine inspiration is utterly
worthless and perfectly contemptible. We would pity and pray for the
men, while we thoroughly despise and indignantly reject their
opinions. The Word of God is entirely above and beyond them. It is as
perfect as its Author, and as imperishable as His throne; but its
moral glories, its living depths, and its infinite perfections are
only unfolded to faith and need. "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of
heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."
If we are only content to be as simple as a babe, we shall enjoy the
precious revelation of a Father's love, as given by His Spirit in the
holy Scriptures; but on the other hand, those who fancy themselves
wise and prudent--who build upon their learning, their philosophy, and
their reason--who think themselves competent to sit in judgment on the
Word of God, and hence on God Himself, are given over to judicial
darkness, blindness, and hardness of heart. Thus it comes to pass that
the most egregious folly and the most contemptible ignorance that man
can display will be found in the pages of those learned writers who
have dared to write against the Bible. "Where is the wise? where is
the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made
foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God
the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of
preaching to save them that believe." (1 Cor. i. 20, 21.)
"If any man will be wise, let him become a fool." Here lies the grand
moral secret of the matter. Man must get to the end of his own wisdom,
as well as of his own righteousness. He must be brought to confess
himself a fool ere he can taste the sweetness of divine wisdom. It is
not within the range of the most gigantic human intellect, aided by
all the appliances of human learning and philosophy, to grasp the very
simplest elements of divine revelation; and therefore, when
unconverted men, whatever may be the force of their genius or the
extent of their learning, undertake to handle spiritual subjects, and
more especially the subject of the divine inspiration of holy
Scripture, they are sure to exhibit their profound ignorance, and
utter incompetency to deal with the question before them. Indeed,
whenever we look into an infidel book, we are struck with the
feebleness of their most forcible arguments; and not only so, but in
every instance in which they attempt to find a discrepancy in the
Bible, we see only divine wisdom, beauty, and perfectness.
We have been led into the foregoing line of thought in connection with
the subject of the appointment of the elders, which is given to us in
each book according to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, and in perfect
keeping with the scope and object of the book. We shall now proceed
with our quotation.
"And I charged your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the causes
between your brethren, and _judge righteously_ between every man and
his brother, and _the stranger_ that is with him. _Ye shall not
respect persons_ in judgment; but _ye shall hear the small as well as
the great_; _ye shall not be afraid of the face of man_; for the
judgment is God's; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it
unto me, and I will hear it.'"
What heavenly wisdom is here! what even-handed justice! what holy
impartiality! In every case of difference, all the facts on both sides
were to be fully heard and patiently weighed. The mind was not to be
warped by prejudice, predilection, or personal feeling of any kind.
The judgment was to be formed, not by impressions, but by
facts--clearly established, undeniable facts. Personal influence was
to have no weight whatever. The position and circumstances of either
party in the cause were not to be considered. The case must be
decided entirely upon its own merits. "Ye shall hear the small as well
as the great." The poor man was to have the same even-handed justice
meted out to him as the rich; the stranger as one born in the land. No
difference was to be allowed.
How important is all this! how worthy of our attentive consideration!
how full of deep and valuable instruction for us all! True, we are not
all called to be judges or elders or leaders; but the great moral
principles laid down in the above quotation are of the very utmost
value to every one of us, inasmuch as cases are continually occurring
which call for their direct application. Wherever our lot may be cast,
whatever our line of life or sphere of action, we are liable, alas! to
meet with cases of difficulty and misunderstanding between our
brethren,--cases of wrong, whether real or imaginary; and hence it is
most needful to be divinely instructed as to how we ought to carry
ourselves in respect to such.
Now, in all such cases, we cannot be too strongly impressed with the
necessity of having our judgment based on facts--all the facts on both
sides. We must not allow ourselves to be guided by our own
impressions, for we all know that mere impressions are most
untrustworthy. They may be correct, and they may be utterly false.
Nothing is more easily received and conveyed than a false impression,
and therefore any judgment based on mere impressions is worthless. We
must have solid, clearly established facts--facts established by two
or three witnesses, as Scripture so distinctly enforces. (Deut. xvii.
6; Matt. xviii. 16; 2 Cor. xiii. 1; 1 Tim. v. 19.)
But further, we must never be guided in judgment by an _ex parte_
statement. Every one is liable, even with the best intentions, to give
a color to his statement of a case. It is not that he would
intentionally make a false statement, or tell a deliberate lie; but
through inaccuracy of memory, or one cause or another, he may not
present the case as it really is. Some fact may be omitted, and that
one fact may so affect all the other facts as to alter their bearing
completely. "_Audi alteram partem_" ("Hear the other side") is a
wholesome motto. And not only hear the other side, but hear all the
facts on both sides, and thus you will be able to form a sound and
righteous judgment. We may set it down as a standing rule, that any
judgment formed without an accurate knowledge of all the facts is
perfectly worthless. "Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge
righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that
is with him." Seasonable, needed words, most surely, at all times, in
all places, and under all circumstances. May we apply our hearts to
them.
And how important the admonition in verse 17! "Ye shall not respect
persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great;
ye shall not be afraid of the face of man." How these words discover
the poor human heart! How prone we are to respect persons--to be
swayed by personal influence--to attach importance to position and
wealth--to be afraid of the face of man!
What is the divine antidote against all these evils? Just this: the
fear of God. If we set the Lord before us, at all times, it will
effectually deliver us from the pernicious influence of partiality,
prejudice, and the fear of men. It will lead us to wait humbly and
patiently on the Lord for guidance and counsel in all that may come
before us, and thus we shall be preserved from forming hasty and
one-sided judgments of men and things--that fruitful source of
mischief amongst the Lord's people in all ages.
* * * * *
We shall now dwell for a few moments on the very affecting manner in
which Moses brings before the congregation all the circumstances
connected with the mission of the spies, which, like the appointment
of the judges, is in perfect keeping with the scope and object of the
book. This is only what we might expect. There is not, there could not
be, a single sentence of useless repetition in the divine volume;
still less could there be a single flaw, a single discrepancy, a
single contradictory statement. The Word of God is absolutely
perfect--perfect as a whole, perfect in all its parts. We must firmly
hold and faithfully confess this in the face of this infidel age.
We speak not of human translations of the Word of God, in which there
must be more or less of imperfection; though even here, we cannot but
be "filled with wonder, love, and praise" when we mark the way in
which our God so manifestly presided over our excellent English
translation, so that the poor man at the back of a mountain may be
assured of possessing, in his common English Bible, the revelation of
God to his soul. And most surely we are warranted in saying that this
is just what we might look for at the hands of our God. It is but
reasonable to infer that the One who inspired the writers of the Bible
would also watch over the translation of it; for inasmuch as He gave
it originally, in His grace, to those who could read Hebrew and Greek,
so would He not, in the same grace, give it in every language under
heaven? Blessed forever be His holy name, it is His gracious desire to
speak to every man in the very tongue in which he was born,--to tell
us the sweet tale of His grace--the glad tidings of salvation in the
very accents in which our mothers whispered into our infant ears those
words of love that went right home to our very hearts. (See Acts ii.
5-8.)
Oh that men were more impressed and affected with the truth and power
of all this, and then we should not be troubled with so many foolish
and unlearned questions about the Bible.
Let us now hearken to the account given by Moses of the mission of the
spies--its origin and its result. We shall find it full of most
weighty instruction, if only the ear be open to hear and the heart
duly prepared to ponder.
"And I commanded you at that time all the things which ye should do."
The path of simple obedience was plainly set before them. They had
but to tread it with an obedient heart and firm step. They had not to
reason about consequences, or weigh the results; all these they had
just to leave in the hands of God, and move on with steady purpose in
the blessed path of obedience.
"And when we departed from Horeb, we went through all that _great and
terrible wilderness_, which ye saw by the way of the mountain of the
Amorites, as the Lord our God commanded us; and we came to
Kadesh-barnea. And I said unto you, 'Ye are come unto the mountain of
the Amorites, which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Behold, the
Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up and possess it, as
the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee; fear not, neither be
discouraged.'"
Here was their warrant for entering upon immediate possession. The
Lord their God had given them the land and set it before them. It was
theirs by His free gift--the gift of His sovereign grace, in pursuance
of the covenant made with their fathers. It was His eternal purpose to
possess the land of Canaan through the seed of Abraham His friend.
This ought to have been enough to set their hearts perfectly at rest,
not only as to the character of the land, but also as to their
entrance upon it. There was no need of spies. Faith never wants to spy
what God has given. It argues that what He has given must be worth
having, and that He is able to put us in full possession of all that
His grace has bestowed. Israel might have concluded that the same
hand that had conducted them "through all that great and terrible
wilderness" could bring them in and plant them in their destined
inheritance.
So Faith would have reasoned; for it always reasons from God down to
circumstances, never from circumstances up to God. "If God be for us,
who can be against us?" This is Faith's argument, grand in its
simplicity and simple in its moral grandeur. When God fills the whole
range of the soul's vision, difficulties are little accounted of. They
are either not seen, or, if seen, they are viewed as occasions for the
display of divine power. Faith exults in seeing God triumphing over
difficulties.
But, alas! the people were not governed by faith on the occasion now
before us, and therefore they had recourse to spies. Of this Moses
reminds them, and that, too, in language at once most tender and
faithful.--"And ye came near unto me, _every one of you_, and said,
'We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land,
and bring us word again, by what way we must go up, and into what
cities we shall come.'"
Surely, they might well have trusted God for all this. The One who had
brought them up out of Egypt, made a way for them through the sea,
guided them through the trackless desert, was fully able to bring them
into the land. But no; they would send spies, simply because their
hearts had not simple confidence in the true, the living, the almighty
God.
Here lay the moral root of the matter; and it is well that the reader
should thoroughly seize this point. True it is that, in the history
given in Numbers, the Lord told Moses to send the spies; but why?
Because of the moral condition of the people. And here we see the
characteristic difference and yet the lovely harmony of the two books.
Numbers gives us the public history, Deuteronomy the secret source of
the mission of the spies; and as it is in perfect keeping with Numbers
to give us the former, so it is in perfect keeping with Deuteronomy to
give us the latter. The one is the complement of the other. We could
not fully understand the subject had we only the history given in
Numbers. It is the touching commentary given in Deuteronomy which
completes the picture. How perfect is Scripture! All we need is the
eye anointed to see and the heart prepared to appreciate its moral
glories.
It may be, however, that the reader still feels some difficulty in
reference to the question of the spies. He may feel disposed to ask
how it could be wrong to send them when the Lord told them to do so.
The answer is, The wrong was not in the act of sending them when they
were told, but in the wish to send them at all. The wish was the fruit
of unbelief, and the command to send them was because of that
unbelief.
We may see something of the same in the matter of divorce in Matthew
xix.--"The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto
Him, 'Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?'
And He answered and said unto them, 'Have ye not read, that He which
made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For
this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to
his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no
more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together,
let not man put asunder.' They say unto Him, 'Why did Moses, then,
command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He
saith unto them, 'Moses _because of the hardness of your hearts_
suffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not
so.'"
It was not in keeping with God's original institution, or according to
His heart, that a man should put away his wife; but, in consequence of
the hardness of the human heart, divorce was permitted by the
lawgiver. Is there any difficulty in this? Surely not; unless the
heart is bent on making one. Neither is there any difficulty in the
matter of the spies. Israel ought not to have needed them: simple
faith would never have thought of them. But the Lord saw the real
condition of things and issued a command accordingly; just as, in
after ages, He saw the heart of the people bent on having a king, and
He commanded Samuel to give them one.--"And the Lord said unto Samuel,
'Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee;
for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected Me, that I
should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have
done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this
day, wherewith they have forsaken Me, and served other gods, so do
they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice: _howbeit
yet protest solemnly_ unto them, and shew them the manner of the king
that shall reign over them.'" (1 Sam. viii. 7-9.)
Thus we see that the mere granting of a desire is no proof whatever
that such desire is according to the mind of God. Israel ought not to
have asked for a king. Was not Jehovah sufficient? was not He their
King? could not He, as He had ever done, lead them forth to battle and
fight for them? Why seek an arm of flesh? why turn away from the
living, the true, the almighty God to lean on a poor fellow-worm? What
power was there in a king but that which God might see fit to bestow
upon him? None whatever. All the power, all the wisdom, all real good,
was in the Lord their God; and it was there for them--there at all
times, to meet their every need. They had but to lean upon His
almighty arm--to draw upon His exhaustless resources, to find all
their springs in Him.
When they did get a king, according to their hearts' desire, what did
he do for them? "All the people followed him trembling." The more
closely we study the melancholy history of Saul's reign, the more we
see that he was, almost from the very outset, a positive hindrance
rather than a help. We have but to read his history, from first to
last, in order to see the truth of this. His whole reign was a
lamentable failure, aptly and forcibly set forth in two glowing
sentences of the prophet Hosea,--"I gave thee a king in Mine anger,
and took him away in My wrath." In a word, he was the answer to the
unbelief and self-will of the people, and therefore all their
brilliant hopes and expectations respecting him were most lamentably
disappointed. He failed to answer the mind of God, and, as a necessary
consequence, he failed to meet the people's need. He proved himself
wholly unworthy of the crown and sceptre, and his ignominious fall on
Mount Gilboa was in melancholy keeping with his whole career.
Now, when we come to consider the mission of the spies, we find it
too, like the appointment of a king, ending in complete failure and
disappointment. It could not be otherwise, inasmuch as it was the
fruit of unbelief. True, God gave them spies, and Moses, with touching
grace, says, "The saying pleased me well; and I took twelve men of
you, one of a tribe,"--it was Grace coming down to the condition of
the people and consenting to a plan which was suited to that
condition; but this by no means proves that either the plan or the
condition was according to the mind of God. Blessed be His name, He
can meet us in our unbelief though He is grieved and dishonored by it.
He delights in a bold, artless faith; it is the only thing in all this
world that gives Him His proper place. Hence, when Moses said to the
people, "Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee: go up
and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee;
fear not, neither be discouraged," what would have been the proper
response from them? Here we are: lead on, almighty Lord--lead on to
victory. Thou art enough. With Thee as our leader, we move on with
joyful confidence. Difficulties are nothing to Thee, and therefore
they are nothing to us. Thy word and Thy presence are all we want. In
these we find at once our authority and power. It matters not in the
least to us who or what may be before us: mighty giants, towering
walls, frowning bulwarks--what are they all in the presence of the
Lord God of Israel, but as withered leaves before the whirlwind? Lead
on, O Lord.
This would have been the language of Faith; but, alas! it was not the
language of Israel on the occasion before us. God was not sufficient
for them. They were not prepared to go up, leaning on His arm alone:
they were not satisfied with His report of the land; they would send
spies. Any thing for the poor human heart but simple dependence upon
the one living and true God. The natural man cannot trust God, simply
because he does not know Him. "They that know Thy name will put their
trust in Thee."
God must be known, in order to be trusted; and the more fully He is
trusted, the better He becomes known. There is nothing in all this
world so truly blessed as a life of simple faith; but it must be a
reality and not a mere profession. It is utterly vain to talk of
living by faith, while the heart is secretly resting on some
creature-prop. The true believer has to do exclusively with God. He
finds in Him all his resources. It is not that he undervalues the
instruments or the channels which God is pleased to use; quite the
reverse. He values them exceedingly; and cannot but value them, as the
means which God uses for his help and blessing; but he does not allow
them to displace God. The language of his heart is, "My soul, wait
thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him. He _only_ is my
rock."
There is peculiar force in the word "only." It searches the heart
thoroughly. To look to the creature, directly or indirectly, for the
supply of any need, is, in principle, to depart from the life of
faith; and, oh! it is miserable work, this looking, in any way, to
creature-streams. It is just as morally degrading as the life of faith
is morally elevating. And not only is it degrading, but disappointing.
Creature-props give way, and creature-streams run dry; but they that
trust in the Lord shall never be confounded, and never want any good
thing. Had Israel trusted the Lord instead of sending spies, they
would have had a very different tale to tell; but spies they would
send, and the whole affair proved a most humiliating failure.
"And they turned, and went up into the mountain, and came unto the
valley of Eschol, and searched it out. And they took of the fruit of
the land in their hands, and brought it down unto us, and brought us
word again, and said, 'It is a good land which the Lord our God doth
give us.'" How could it possibly be otherwise when God was giving it?
Did they want spies to tell them that the gift of God was good?
Assuredly, they ought not. An artless faith would have argued thus:
Whatever God gives must be worthy of Himself; we want no spies to
assure us of this. But, ah! this artless faith is an uncommonly rare
gem in this world; and even those who possess it know but little of
its value or how to use it. It is one thing to talk of the life of
faith, and another thing altogether to live it,--the theory is one
thing, the living reality quite another. But let us never forget that
it is the privilege of every child of God to live by faith, and,
further, that the life of faith takes in every thing that the believer
can possibly need, from the starting-post to the goal of his earthly
career. We have already touched upon this important point; it cannot
be too earnestly or constantly insisted upon.
With regard to the mission of the spies, the reader will note with
interest the way in which Moses refers to it. He confines himself to
that portion of their testimony which was according to truth; he says
nothing about the ten infidel spies. This is in perfect keeping with
the scope and object of the book. Every thing is brought to bear, in a
moral way, on the conscience of the congregation. He reminds them that
they themselves had proposed to send the spies; and yet, although the
spies had placed before them the fruit of the land, and borne
testimony to its goodness, they would not go up.--"Notwithstanding ye
would not go up, but rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your
God." There was no excuse whatever. It was evident that their hearts
were in a state of positive unbelief and rebellion, and the mission of
the spies, from first to last, only made this fully manifest.
"And ye murmured in your tents, and said, 'Because the Lord hated
us'--a terrible lie on the very face of it!--'He hath brought us forth
out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites,
to destroy us.'" What a strange proof of hatred! How utterly absurd
are the arguments of unbelief! Surely, had He hated them, nothing was
easier than to leave them to die amid the brick-kilns of Egypt,
beneath the cruel lash of Pharaoh's taskmasters. Why take so much
trouble about them? Why those ten plagues sent upon the land of their
oppressors? Why, if He hated them, did He not allow the waters of the
Red Sea to overwhelm them as they had overwhelmed their enemies? Why
had He delivered them from the sword of Amalek? In a word, why all
these marvelous triumphs of grace on their behalf if He hated them?
Ah! if they had not been governed by a spirit of dark and senseless
unbelief, such a brilliant array of evidence would have led them to a
conclusion the direct opposite of that to which they gave utterance.
There is nothing beneath the canopy of heaven so stupidly irrational
as unbelief; and, on the other hand, there is nothing so sound, clear,
and logical as the simple argument of a childlike faith. May the
reader ever be enabled to prove the truth of this.
"And ye murmured in your tents." Unbelief is not only a blind and
senseless reasoner, but a dark and gloomy murmurer. It neither gets
to the right side of things nor the bright side of things. It is
always in the dark--always in the wrong, simply because it shuts out
God, and looks only at circumstances. They said, "Whither shall we go
up? our brethren have discouraged our hearts, saying, 'The people is
greater and taller than we'--but they were not greater than
Jehovah--'and the cities are great and _walled up to heaven_'--the
gross exaggeration of unbelief--'and moreover we have seen the sons of
the Anakims there.'"
Now, Faith would say, Well, what though the cities be walled up to
heaven, our God is above them, for He is _in_ heaven. What are great
cities or lofty walls to Him who formed the universe, and sustains it
by the Word of His power? What are Anakims in the presence of the
almighty God? If the land were covered with walled cities from Dan to
Beersheba, and if the giants were as numerous as the leaves of the
forest, they would be as the chaff of the threshing-floor before the
One who has promised to give the land of Canaan to the seed of
Abraham, His friend, for an everlasting possession.
But Israel had not faith, as the inspired apostle tells us in the
third chapter of Hebrews, "They could not enter in because of
unbelief." Here lay the great difficulty. The walled cities and the
terrible Anakims would soon have been disposed of had Israel only
trusted God. He would have made very short work of all these; but, ah!
that deplorable unbelief! it ever stands in the way of our blessing.
It hinders the outshining of the glory of God; it casts a dark shadow
over our souls, and robs us of the privilege of proving the
all-sufficiency of our God to meet our every need and remove our every
difficulty.
Blessed be His name, He never fails a trusting heart. It is His
delight to honor the very largest drafts that Faith hands in at His
exhaustless treasury. His assuring word to us ever is, "Be not afraid;
only believe." And again, "According to your faith be it unto you."
Precious soul-stirring words! may we all realize more fully their
living power and sweetness. We may rest assured of this, we can never
go too far in counting on God; it would be a simple impossibility. Our
grand mistake is that we do not draw more largely upon His infinite
resources. "Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe, thou
shouldest see the glory of God?"
Thus we can see why it was that Israel failed to see the glory of God
on the occasion before us,--they did not believe. The mission of the
spies proved a complete failure. As it began, so it ended--in the most
deplorable unbelief. God was shut out: difficulties filled their
vision.
"They could not enter in." They could not see the glory of God.
Hearken to the deeply affecting words of Moses. It does the heart good
to read them. They touch the very deepest springs of our renewed
being.--"Then I said unto you, 'Dread not, neither be afraid of them.
The Lord your God which goeth before you, He shall fight for
you'--only think of God fighting for people! think of Jehovah as a Man
of war!--'He shall fight for you, according to all that He did for you
in Egypt before your eyes; and in the wilderness, where thou hast seen
how that _the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bear his son_, in
all the way that ye went, until ye came into this place.' Yet in this
thing _ye did not believe the Lord your God_, who went in the way
before you, to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire
by night, to show you by what way ye should go, and in a cloud by
day."
What moral force, what touching sweetness in this appeal! How clearly
we can see here, as indeed on every page of the book, that Deuteronomy
is not a barren repetition of facts, but a most powerful commentary on
those facts. It is well that the reader should be thoroughly clear as
to this. If in the book of Exodus or Numbers the inspired lawgiver
records the actual facts of Israel's wilderness-life, in the book of
Deuteronomy he comments on those facts with a pathos that quite melts
the heart. And here it is that the exquisite style of Jehovah's acts
is pointed out and dwelt upon with such inimitable skill and delicacy.
Who could consent to give up the lovely figure set forth in the words,
"As a man doth bear his son"? Here we have the style of the action.
Could we do without this? Assuredly not. It is the style of an action
that touches the heart, because it is the style that so peculiarly
expresses the heart. If the power of the _hand_ or the wisdom of the
_mind_ is seen in the _substance_ of an action, the love of the
_heart_ comes out in the _style_. Even a little child can understand
this, though he might not be able to explain it.
But, alas! Israel could not trust God to bring them into the land.
Notwithstanding the marvelous display of His power, His faithfulness,
His goodness, and loving-kindness, from the brick-kilns of Egypt to
the very borders of the land of Canaan, yet they did not believe. With
an array of evidence which ought to have satisfied any heart, they
still doubted. "And the Lord heard the voice of your words, and was
wroth, and sware, saying, 'Surely there shall not one of these men of
this evil generation see that good land, which I sware to give unto
your fathers, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it; and to
him will I give the land that he hath trodden upon, and to his
children, because he hath wholly followed the Lord.'"
"Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest
see the glory of God?" Such is the divine order. Men will tell you
that seeing is believing, but in the kingdom of God, believing is
seeing. Why was it that not a man of that evil generation was allowed
to see the good land? Simply because they did not believe in the Lord
their God. On the other hand, why was Caleb allowed to see and take
possession? Simply because he believed. Unbelief is ever the great
hindrance in the way of our seeing the glory of God.--"He did not many
mighty works there because of their unbelief." If Israel had only
believed, only trusted the Lord their God, only confided in the love
of His heart and in the power of His arm, He would have brought them
in and planted them in the mountain of His inheritance.
And just so is it with the Lord's people now. There is no limit to the
blessings which we might enjoy, could we only count more fully upon
God. "All things are possible to him that believeth." Our God will
never say, You have drawn too largely; you expect too much.
Impossible. It is the joy of His loving heart to answer the very
largest expectations of Faith.
Let us, then, draw largely. "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it."
The exhaustless treasury of heaven is thrown open to Faith. "_All
things_ whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall
receive." "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth
to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, _nothing wavering_." Faith is the divine
secret of the whole matter--the main-spring of Christian life from
first to last. Faith wavers not, staggers not: Unbelief is ever a
waverer and a staggerer, and hence it never sees the glory of God,
never sees His power. It is deaf to His voice and blind to His
actings; it depresses the heart and weakens the hands; it darkens the
path and hinders all progress. It kept Israel out of the land of
Canaan for forty years; and we have no conception of the amount of
blessing, privilege, power and usefulness which we are constantly
missing through its terrible influence. If faith were in more lively
exercise in our hearts, what a different condition of things we should
witness in our midst. What is the secret of the deplorable deadness
and barrenness throughout the wide field of Christian profession? How
are we to account for our impoverished condition, our low tone, our
stunted growth? Why is it that we see such poor results in every
department of Christian work? Why are there so few genuine
conversions? Why are our evangelists so frequently cast down by reason
of the paucity of their sheaves? How are we to answer all these
questions? what is the cause? Will any one attempt to say it is not
our unbelief?
No doubt, our divisions have much to do with it; our worldliness, our
carnality, our self-indulgence, our love of ease. But what is the
remedy for all these evils? How are our hearts to be drawn out in
genuine love to all our brethren? By faith, that precious principle
"that worketh by love." Thus the blessed apostle says to the dear
young converts at Thessalonica, "Your faith groweth exceedingly." And
what then? "The love of every one of you all toward each other
aboundeth." Thus it must ever be. Faith puts us into direct contact
with the eternal spring of love in God Himself, and the necessary
consequence is that our hearts are drawn out in love to all who belong
to Him--all in whom we can, in the very feeblest way, trace His
blessed image. We cannot possibly be near the Lord and not love all
who in every place call upon His name out of a pure heart. The nearer
we are to Christ, the more intensely we must be knit, in true
brotherly love, to every member of His body.
Then as to worldliness, in all its varied forms, how is it to be
overcome? Hear the reply of another inspired apostle.--"For whatsoever
is born of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that
overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" The new
man, walking in the power of faith, lives above the world, above its
motives, above its objects, its principles, its habits, its fashions;
he has nothing in common with it. Though in it, he is not of it; he
moves right athwart its current; he draws all his springs from heaven;
his life, his hope, his all is there, and he ardently longs to be
there himself when his work on earth is done.
Thus we see what a mighty principle faith is. It purifies the heart,
it works by love, and it overcomes the world. In short, it links the
heart in living power with God Himself, and this is the secret of true
elevation, holy benevolence, and divine purity. No marvel, therefore,
that Peter calls it "precious faith," for truly it is precious beyond
all human thought.
See how this mighty principle acted in Caleb, and the blessed fruit it
produced. He was permitted to realize the truth of those words,
uttered hundreds of years afterwards, "According to your faith be it
unto you." He believed that God was able to bring them into the land,
and that all the difficulties and hindrances were simply bread for
faith. And God, as He ever does, answered his faith. "Then the
children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal; and Caleb the son of
Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, 'Thou knowest the thing that the
Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in
Kadesh-barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the
Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy out the land; and I brought
him word again as it was in my heart'--the simple testimony of a
bright and lovely faith.--'Nevertheless my brethren that went up with
me made the heart of the people melt; but I wholly followed the Lord
my God. And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon
thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children's
forever, because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. And now,
behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, _as He said_, these forty and
five years, ever since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the
children of Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, lo, I am this
day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I
was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is
my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now
therefore give me this mountain, whereof the Lord spake in that day;
for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the
cities were great and fenced: if so be the Lord will be with me, then
I shall be able to drive them out, as the Lord said.'"
How refreshing are the utterances of an artless faith! How edifying!
how truly encouraging! How vividly they contrast with the gloomy,
depressing, withering accents of dark, God-dishonoring unbelief! "And
Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron
for an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb
the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he
wholly followed the Lord God of Israel." (Joshua xiv.) Caleb, like his
father Abraham, was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and we may
say, with all possible confidence, that inasmuch as faith ever honors
God, He ever delights to honor faith; and we feel persuaded that if
only the Lord's people could more fully confide in God, if they would
but draw more largely upon His infinite resources, we should witness a
totally different condition of things from what we see around us.
"Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest
see the glory of God?" Oh for a more lively faith in God--a bolder
grasp of His faithfulness, His goodness, and His power! Then we might
look for more glorious results in the gospel-field; more zeal, more
energy, more intense devotedness in the Church of God; and more of the
fragrant fruits of righteousness in the life of believers
individually.
We shall now, for a moment, look at the closing verses of our
chapter, in which we shall find some very weighty instruction. And,
first of all, we see the actings of divine government displayed in a
most solemn and impressive manner. Moses refers, in a very touching
way, to the fact of his exclusion from the promised land.--"Also the
Lord was angry with me _for your sakes_, saying, 'Thou also shalt not
go in thither.'"
Mark the words, "for your sakes." It was very needful to remind the
congregation that it was on their account that Moses, that beloved and
honored servant of the Lord, was prevented from crossing the Jordan,
and setting his foot upon the land of Canaan. True, "he spake
unadvisedly with his lips," but "they provoked his spirit" to do so.
This ought to have touched them to the quick. They not only failed,
through unbelief, to enter in themselves, but they were the cause of
his exclusion, much as he longed to see "that goodly mountain and
Lebanon." (See Ps. cvi. 32.)
But the government of God is a grand and awful reality. Let us never
for one moment forget this. The human mind may marvel why a few
ill-advised words, a few hasty sentences, should be the cause of
keeping such a beloved and honored servant of God from that which he
so ardently desired; but it is our place to bow the head in humble
adoration and holy reverence, not to reason or judge. "Shall not the
Judge of all the earth do right?" Most surely. He can make no mistake.
"Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true
are Thy ways, Thou King of nations." "God is greatly to be feared in
the assembly of the saints; and to be had in reverence of all them
that are about Him." "Our God is a consuming fire;" and "it is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."
Does it in any wise interfere with the action and range of the divine
government that we, as Christians, are under the reign of grace? By no
means. It is as true to-day as ever it was that "whatsoever _a man_
soweth, that shall he also reap." Hence, therefore, it would be a
serious mistake for any one to draw a plea from the freedom of divine
grace to trifle with the enactments of divine government. The two
things are perfectly distinct, and should never be confounded. Grace
can pardon--freely, fully, eternally; but the wheels of Jehovah's
governmental chariot roll on, in crushing power and appalling
solemnity. Grace pardoned Adam's sin; but Government drove him out of
Eden, to earn a living by the sweat of his brow, amid the thorns and
thistles of a cursed earth: Grace pardoned David's sin, but the sword
of Government hung over his house to the end,--Bathsheba was the
mother of Solomon, but Absalom rose in rebellion.
So with Moses; Grace brought him to the top of Pisgah and showed him
the land, but Government sternly and absolutely forbad his entrance
thither. Nor does it in the least touch this weighty principle to be
told that Moses, in his official capacity as the representative of the
legal system, could not bring the people into the land. This is quite
true; but it leaves wholly untouched the solemn truth now before us.
Neither in the twentieth chapter of Numbers nor in the first chapter
of Deuteronomy have we any thing about Moses in his official capacity.
It is himself personally we have before us, and he is forbidden to
enter the land because of having spoken unadvisedly with his lips.
It will be well for us all to ponder deeply, as in the immediate
presence of God, this great practical truth. We may rest assured that
the more truly we enter into the knowledge of grace, the more we shall
feel the solemnity of government, and entirely justify its enactments.
Of this we are most fully persuaded. But there is imminent danger of
taking up, in a light and careless manner, the doctrines of grace
while the heart and the life are not brought under the sanctifying
influence of those doctrines. This has to be watched against with holy
jealousy. There is nothing in all this world more awful than mere
fleshly familiarity with the theory of salvation by grace. It opens
the door for every form of licentiousness. Hence it is that we feel
the necessity of pressing upon the conscience of the reader the
practical truth of the government of God. It is most salutary at all
times, but particularly so in this our day, when there is such a
fearful tendency to turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness. We
shall invariably find that those who most fully enter into the deep
blessedness of being under the reign of grace, do also most
thoroughly justify the actings of divine government.
But we learn, from the closing lines of our chapter, that the people
were by no means prepared to submit themselves under the governmental
hand of God; in short, they would neither have grace nor government.
When invited to go up at once and take possession of the land, with
the fullest assurances of the divine presence and power with them,
they hesitated and refused to go. They gave themselves up completely
to a spirit of dark unbelief. In vain did Joshua and Caleb sound in
their ears the most encouraging words, in vain did they set before
their eyes the rich fruit of the goodly land, in vain did Moses seek
to move them by the most soul-stirring words; they would not go up
when they were told to go. And what then? They were taken at their
word. According to their unbelief, so was it unto them. "Moreover,
your little ones, which ye said should be a prey, and your children,
which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil, they shall
go in thither, and unto them will I give it, and they shall possess
it. But as for you, turn you, and take your journey into the
wilderness, by the way of the Red Sea."
How sad! and yet how else could it be? If they would not, in simple
faith, go up into the land, there remained nothing for them but
turning back into the wilderness. But to this they would not submit.
They would neither avail themselves of the provisions of grace nor bow
to the sentence of judgment.--"Then ye answered and said unto me, 'We
have sinned against the Lord; we will go up and fight, according to
all that the Lord our God commanded us.' And when ye had girded on
every man his weapon of war, ye were ready to go up into the hill."
This looked like contrition and self-judgment; but it was hollow and
false. It is a very easy thing to _say_, "We have sinned." Saul said
it in his day; but he said it without heart, without any genuine sense
of what he was saying. We may easily gather the force and value of the
words "I have sinned" from the fact that they were immediately
followed by "_Honor me_ now, I pray thee, before the elders of my
people." What a strange contradiction!--"I have sinned," yet "Honor
me." If he had really felt his sin, how different his language would
have been! how different his spirit, style, and deportment! but it was
all a solemn mockery. Only conceive a man full of himself, making use
of a form of words, without one atom of true heart-feeling; and then,
in order to get honor for himself, going through the empty formality
of worshiping God. What a picture! Can any thing be more sorrowful?
How terribly offensive to Him who desires truth in the inward parts,
and who seeks those to worship Him who worship Him in spirit and in
truth! The feeblest breathings of a broken and contrite heart are
precious to God; but, oh, how offensive to Him are the hollow
formalities of a mere religiousness, the object of which is to exalt
man in his own eyes and in the eyes of his fellows! How perfectly
worthless is the mere lip-confession of sin where the heart does not
feel it! As a recent writer has well remarked, "it is an easy thing to
say, 'We have sinned,' but how often we have to learn that it is not
the quick, abrupt confession of sin which affords evidence that sin is
felt! It is rather a proof of hardness of heart. The conscience feels
that a certain act of confessing the sin is necessary, but perhaps
there is hardly any thing which more hardens the heart than the habit
of confessing sin without feeling it. This, I believe, is one of the
great snares of christendom from of old and now, that is, the
stereotyped acknowledgment of sin--the mere habit of hurrying through
a formula of confession to God. I dare say we have almost all done so,
without referring to any particular mode; for, alas! there is
formality enough; and without having written forms, the heart may
frame forms of its own, as we may have observed, if not known it, in
our own experience, without finding fault with other people."[4]
[4] "Lectures Introductory to the Pentateuch," by W. Kelly.
Thus it was with Israel at Kadesh. Their confession of sin was utterly
worthless; there was no truth in it. Had they felt what they were
saying, they would have bowed to the judgment of God, and meekly
accepted the consequence of their sin. There is no finer proof of true
contrition than quiet submission to the governmental dealings of God.
Look at the case of Moses. See how he bowed his head to the divine
discipline. "The Lord," he says, "was angry with me for your sakes,
saying, 'Thou also shalt not go in thither. But Joshua the son of Nun,
which standeth before thee, he shall go in thither: encourage him; for
he shall cause Israel to inherit it.'"
Here, Moses shows them that they were the cause of his exclusion from
the land; and yet he utters not a single murmuring word, but meekly
bows to the divine judgment, not only content to be superseded by
another, but ready to appoint and encourage his successor. There is no
trace of jealousy or envy here. It was enough for that beloved and
honored servant if God was glorified and the need of the congregation
met. He was not occupied with himself or his own interests, but with
the glory of God and the blessing of His people.
But the people manifested a very different spirit. "We will go up and
fight." How vain! How foolish! When commanded by God and encouraged by
His true-hearted servants to go up and possess the land, they replied,
"Whither shall we go up?" and when commanded to turn back into the
wilderness, they replied, "We will go up and fight."
"And the Lord said unto me, 'Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight;
for I am not among you; lest ye be smitten before your enemies.' So I
spake unto you; and ye would not hear, but rebelled against the
commandment of the Lord, and went presumptuously up into the hill. And
the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and
chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Hormah."
It was quite impossible for Jehovah to accompany them along the path
of self-will and rebellion; and, most assuredly, Israel, without the
divine presence, could be no match for the Amorites. If God be for us
and with us, all must be victory; but we cannot count on God if we are
not treading the path of obedience. It is simply the height of folly
to imagine that we can have God with us if our ways are not right.
"The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it
and is safe." But if we are not walking in practical righteousness, it
is wicked presumption to talk of having the Lord as our strong tower.
Blessed be His name, He can meet us in the very depths of our weakness
and failure, provided there be the genuine and hearty confession of
our true condition; but to assume that we have the Lord with us while
we are doing our own will and walking in palpable unrighteousness, is
nothing but wickedness and hardness of heart. "Trust in the Lord, and
do good"--this is the divine order; but to talk of trusting in the
Lord while doing evil, is to turn the grace of our God into
lasciviousness, and place ourselves completely in the hands of the
devil, who only seeks our moral ruin. "The eyes of the Lord run to and
fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong in the behalf
of them whose heart is perfect toward Him." When we have a good
conscience, we can lift up the head and move on through all sorts of
difficulties; but to attempt to tread the path of faith with a bad
conscience, is the most dangerous thing in this world. We can only
hold up the shield of faith when our loins are girt with truth, and
the breast covered with the breastplate of righteousness.
It is of the utmost importance that Christians should seek to maintain
practical righteousness, in all its branches. There is immense moral
weight and value in these words of the blessed apostle Paul, "Herein
do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense
toward God and men." He ever sought to wear the breastplate, and to be
clothed in that white linen which is the righteousness of saints. And
so should we. It is our holy privilege to tread, day by day, with firm
step, the path of duty, the path of obedience, the path on which the
light of God's approving countenance ever shines; then, assuredly, we
can count on God, lean upon Him, draw from Him, find all our springs
in Him, wrap ourselves up in His faithfulness, and thus move on, in
peaceful communion and holy worship, toward our heavenly home.
It is not, we repeat, that we cannot look to God in our weakness, our
failure, and even when we have erred and sinned. Blessed be His name,
we can; and His ear is ever open to our cry. "If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness." (1 John i.) "Out of the depths have I cried unto
thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice: let Thine ears be attentive to the
voice of my supplications. If Thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O
Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou
mayest be feared." (Ps. cxxx.) There is absolutely no limit to divine
forgiveness, inasmuch as there is no limit to the extent of the
atonement, no limit to the virtue and efficacy of the blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, which cleanseth from all sin; no limit to the
prevalency of the intercession of our adorable Advocate, our great
High-Priest, who is able to save to the uttermost--right through and
through to the end--them that come unto God by Him.
All this is most blessedly true; it is largely taught and variously
illustrated throughout the volume of inspiration; but the confession
of sin, and the pardon thereof, must not be confounded with practical
righteousness. There are two distinct conditions in which we may call
upon God: we may call upon Him in deep contrition and be heard, or we
may call upon Him with a good conscience and an uncondemning heart and
be heard. But the two things are very distinct; and not only are they
distinct in themselves, but they both stand in marked contrast with
that indifference and hardness of heart which would presume to count
on God in the face of positive disobedience and practical
unrighteousness. It is this which is so dreadful in the sight of the
Lord, and which must bring down His heavy judgment. Practical
righteousness He owns and approves; confessed sin He can freely and
fully pardon; but to imagine that we can put our trust in God while
our feet are treading the path of iniquity, is nothing short of the
most shocking impiety. "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The
temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord,
are these. For if ye throughly amend your ways and your doings; if ye
throughly execute judgment between a man and his neighbor; if ye
oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, and shed not
innocent blood in this place, neither walk after other gods to your
hurt: then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I
gave to your fathers, forever and ever. Behold, ye trust in lying
words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery,
and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other
gods whom ye know not; and come and stand before Me in this house,
which is called by My name, and say, 'We are delivered to do all these
abominations?'" (Jeremiah vii.)
God deals in moral realities. He desires truth in the inward parts;
and if men will presume to hold the truth in unrighteousness, they
must look out for His righteous judgment. It is the thought of all
this that makes us feel the awful condition of the professing church.
The solemn passage which we have just culled from the prophet
Jeremiah, though bearing primarily upon the men of Judah and the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, has a very pointed application to
christendom. We find, in the third chapter of 2 Timothy, that all the
abominations of heathenism, as detailed in the close of Romans i, are
reproduced in the last days under the garb of the Christian
profession, and in immediate connection with "a form of godliness."
What must be the end of such a condition of things? Unmitigated wrath.
The very heaviest judgments of God are reserved for that vast mass of
baptized profession which we call christendom. The moment is rapidly
approaching when all the beloved and blood-bought people of God shall
be called away out of this dark and sinful, though so-called
"Christian world," to be forever with the Lord, in that sweet home of
love prepared in the Father's house. Then the "strong delusion" shall
be sent upon christendom--upon those very countries where the light of
a full-orbed Christianity has shone, where a full and free gospel has
been preached, where the Bible has been circulated by millions, and
where all, in some way or another, profess the name of Christ and call
themselves Christians.
And what then?--what is to follow this "strong delusion"? Any fresh
testimony? any further overtures of mercy? any further effort of
long-suffering grace? Not for christendom! not for the rejecters of
the gospel of God! not for Christless, Godless professors of the
hollow and worthless forms of Christianity! The heathen shall hear
"the everlasting gospel"--"the gospel of the kingdom;" but as for that
terrible thing, that most frightful anomaly called christendom--"the
vine of the earth," nothing remains but the wine-press of the wrath
of Almighty God, the blackness and darkness forever, the lake that
burneth with fire and brimstone.
Reader, these are the true sayings of God. Nothing would be easier
than to place before your eyes an array of Scripture proof perfectly
unanswerable: this would be foreign to our present object. The New
Testament, from cover to cover, sets forth the solemn truth above
enunciated; and every system of theology under the sun that teaches
differently will be found, on this point at least, to be totally
false.