“They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way” (Ps. cvii. 4).
All who fight the Lord’s battles must be content to die to all the
favorable opinions of men and all the flattery of human praise. You cannot
make an exception in favor of the good opinions of the children of God. It
is very easy for the insidious adversary to make this also all appeal to
the flesh. It is all right when God sends us the approval of our fellow
men, but we must never make it a motive in our life, but be content with
the “solitary way” and the lonely “wilderness.”
All such motives are poison and a taking away from you of the strength
with which you are to give glory to God. It is not the fact that all that
see the face of the Lord do see each other.
The man of God must walk alone with God. He must be contented that the
Lord knoweth that God knows. It is such a relief to the natural man within
us to fall back upon human countenances and human thoughts and sympathy,
that we often deceive ourselves and think it “brotherly love,” when we are
just resting in the earthly sympathy of some fellow worm!