"Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep His charge, and
His statutes, and His judgments, and His commandments, _alway_. And
know ye this day; for I speak not with your children which have not
known, and which have not seen the chastisements of the Lord your God,
His greatness, His mighty hand, and His stretched-out arm, and His
miracles, and His acts, which He did in the midst of Egypt unto
Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land; and what He did unto
the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their chariots; how He
made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them as they pursued after
you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day; and what He
did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came into this place; and
what He did unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of
Reuben; how the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and
their households, and their tents, and all the substance that was in
their possession, in the midst of all Israel; but your eyes have seen
all the great acts of the Lord which He did."
Moses felt it to be of the very highest importance that all the mighty
acts of Jehovah should be kept prominently before the hearts of the
people, and deeply engraved on the tablets of their memory. The poor
human mind is vagrant, and the heart volatile, and notwithstanding all
that Israel had seen of the solemn judgments of God upon Egypt and
upon Pharaoh, they were in danger of forgetting them, and losing the
impression which they were designed and eminently fitted to make upon
them.
It may be we feel disposed to wonder how Israel could ever forget the
impressive scenes of their history in Egypt from first to last--the
descent of their fathers thither as a mere handful, their steady
growth and progress as a people, spite of formidable difficulties and
hindrances, so that from the insignificant few, they had become, by
the good hand of their God upon them, as the stars of heaven for
multitude.
And then those ten plagues upon the land of Egypt! How full of awful
solemnity! how pre-eminently calculated to impress the heart with a
sense of the mighty power of God, the utter impotency and
insignificance of man, in all his boasted wisdom, strength, and glory,
and the egregious folly of his attempting to set himself up against
the almighty God! What was all the power of Pharaoh and of Egypt in
the presence of the Lord God of Israel? In one hour all was plunged
into hopeless ruin and destruction. All the chariots of Egypt, all the
pomp and glory, the valor and might, of that ancient and far-famed
nation--all was overwhelmed in the depths of the sea.
And why? Because they had presumed to meddle with the Israel of God;
they had dared to set themselves in opposition to the eternal purpose
and counsel of the Most High. They sought to crush those on whom He
had set His love. He had sworn to bless the seed of Abraham, and no
power of earth or hell could possibly annul His oath. Pharaoh, in his
pride and hardness of heart, attempted to countervail the divine
actings, but he only meddled to his own destruction. His land was
shaken to its very centre, and himself and his mighty army overthrown
in the Red Sea, a solemn example to all who should ever attempt to
stand in the way of Jehovah's purpose to bless the seed of Abraham His
friend.
Nor was it merely what Jehovah had done to Egypt and to Pharaoh that
the people were called to remember, but also what He had done amongst
themselves. How soul-subduing the judgment upon Dathan and Abiram and
their households! How awful the thought of the earth opening her mouth
and swallowing them up! And for what? For their rebellion against the
divine appointment. In the history given in Numbers, Korah, the
Levite, is the prominent character; but here, he is omitted, and the
two Reubenites are named--two members of the congregation, because
Moses is seeking to act on the whole body of the people by setting
before them the terrible consequence of self-will in two of their
number--two ordinary members, as we should say, and not merely a
privileged Levite.
In a word, then, whether the attention was called to the divine
actings without or within, abroad or at home, it was all for the
purpose of impressing their hearts and minds with a deep sense of the
moral importance of obedience. This was the one grand aim of all the
rehearsals, all the comments, all the exhortations, of the faithful
servant of God who was so soon to be removed from their midst. For
this, he ranges over their history for centuries, culling, grouping,
commenting, taking up this fact and omitting that, as guided by the
Spirit of God. The journey down to Egypt, the sojourn there, the heavy
judgments upon the self-willed Pharaoh, the exodus, the passage
through the sea, the scenes in the wilderness, and specially the awful
fate of the two rebellious Reubenites--all is brought to bear, with
marvelous force and clearness, upon the conscience of the people, in
order to strengthen the basis of Jehovah's claim upon their
unqualified obedience to His holy commandments.
"Therefore shall ye _keep all the commandments_ which I command you
this day, _that ye may be strong_, and go in and possess the land,
whither ye go to possess it; and that ye may prolong your days in the
land, which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give unto them and to
their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey."
Let the reader note the beautiful moral link between those two
clauses--"keep _all_ the commandments"--"that ye may be strong." There
is great strength gained by unreserved obedience to the Word of God.
It will not do to pick and choose. We are prone to this--prone to take
up certain commandments and precepts which suit ourselves; but this is
really self-will. What right have we to select such and such precepts
from the Word, and neglect others? None whatever. To do so is, in
principle, simply self-will and rebellion. What business has a servant
to decide as to which of his master's commands he will obey? Surely
none whatever; each commandment stands clothed with the master's
authority, and therefore claims the servant's attention; and, we may
add, the more implicitly the servant obeys, the more he bends his
respectful attention to every one of his master's commands, be it ever
so trivial, the more does he strengthen himself in his position and
grow in his master's confidence and esteem. Every master loves and
values an obedient, faithful, devoted servant. We all know what a
comfort it is to have a servant whom we can trust--one who finds his
delight in carrying out our every wish, and who does not require
perpetual looking after, but knows his duty and attends to it.
Now, ought we not to seek to refresh the heart of our blessed Master,
by a loving obedience to all His commandments? Only think, reader,
what a privilege it is to be allowed to give joy to the heart of that
blessed One who loved us and gave Himself for us. It is something
wonderful that poor creatures such as we can in any way refresh the
heart of Jesus; yet so it is, blessed be His name. He delights in our
keeping His commandments; and assuredly the thought of this should
stir our whole moral being, and lead us to study His Word, in order to
find out, more and more, what His commandments are, so that we may do
them.
We are forcibly reminded, by those words of Moses which we have just
quoted, of the apostle's prayer for "the saints and faithful brethren
in Christ at Colosse." "For this cause we also, since the day we heard
it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be
filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord _unto all
pleasing_, being fruitful in every good work, and _increasing in the
knowledge of God; strengthened with all might_, according to His
glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness;
giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers
of the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from
the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the
Son of His love; in whom we have redemption through His blood, the
forgiveness of sins." (Col. i. 9-14.)
Making allowance for the difference between the earthly and the
heavenly--between Israel and the Church, there is a striking
similarity between the words of the lawgiver and the words of the
apostle. Both together are eminently fitted to set forth the beauty
and preciousness of a willing-hearted, loving obedience. It is
precious to the Father, precious to Christ, precious to the Holy
Ghost; and this surely ought to be enough to create and strengthen in
our hearts the desire to be filled with the knowledge of His will,
that so we might walk worthy of Him to all pleasing, being fruitful
_in every good work_, and increasing in the knowledge of God. It
should lead us to a more diligent study of the Word of God, so that we
might be ever finding out more and more of our Lord's mind and will,
learning what is well-pleasing to Him, and looking to Him for grace to
do it. Thus should our hearts be kept near to Him, and we should find
an ever-deepening interest in searching the Scriptures, not merely to
grow in the knowledge of truth, but in the knowledge of God, the
knowledge of Christ--the deep, personal, experimental knowledge of all
that is treasured up in that blessed One who is the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. Oh, may the Spirit of God, by His most precious and
powerful ministry, awaken in us a more intense desire to know and to
do the will of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that thus we
may refresh His loving heart and be well-pleasing to Him in all
things.
We must now turn, for a moment, to the lovely picture of the promised
land which Moses holds up before the eyes of the people.--"For the
land whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt,
from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it
with thy foot, as a garden of herbs; but the land whither ye go to
possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the
rain of heaven; a land which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of
the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year
even unto the end of the year." (Ver. 10-12.)
What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from
heaven; it was all human effort there. Not so in the Lord's land; the
human foot could do nothing there, nor was there any need, for the
blessed rain from heaven dropped upon it; Jehovah Himself cared for it
and watered it with the early and latter rain. The land of Egypt was
dependent upon its own resources; the land of Canaan was wholly
dependent upon God--upon what came down from heaven. "My river is mine
own," was the language of Egypt; "the river of God" was the hope of
Canaan. The habit in Egypt was to water with the foot; the habit in
Canaan was to look up to heaven.
We have in the sixty-fifth psalm a lovely statement of the condition
of things in the Lord's land, as viewed by the eye of faith. "Thou
visitest the earth, and waterest it; Thou greatly enrichest it with
the river of God, which is full of water; Thou preparest them corn,
when Thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof
abundantly; Thou settlest the furrows thereof; Thou makest it soft
with showers; Thou blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the
year with Thy goodness, and Thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the
pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills rejoice on every
side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are
covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." (Ver.
9-13.)
How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges and
settling the furrows! think of His stooping down to do the work of a
husbandman for His people! Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the
joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His refreshing showers upon
the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people. It was refreshing to
His spirit, as it was to the praise of His name, to see the vine, the
fig-tree, and the olive flourishing, the valleys covered with the
golden grain, and the rich pastures covered with flocks of sheep.
Thus it should ever have been, and thus it would have been, had Israel
only walked in simple obedience to the holy law of God. "It shall come
to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto My commandments which I
command you this day, _to love the Lord your God, and to serve Him
with all your heart and with all your soul_, that I will give you the
rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter
rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine
oil. And I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou
mayest eat and be full." (Ver. 13-15.)
Thus the matter stood between the God of Israel and the Israel of God.
Nothing could be simpler, nothing more blessed. It was Israel's high
and holy privilege to love and serve Jehovah; it was Jehovah's
prerogative to bless and prosper Israel. Happiness and fruitfulness
were to be the sure accompaniments of obedience. The people and their
land were wholly dependent upon God. All their supplies were to come
down from heaven; and hence, so long as they walked in loving
obedience, the copious showers dropped upon their fields and
vineyards, the heavens dropped down the dew, and the earth responded
in fruitfulness and blessing.
But, on the other hand, when Israel forgot the Lord, and forsook His
precious commandments, the heaven became brass and the earth iron;
barrenness, desolation, famine, and misery were the melancholy
accompaniments of disobedience. How could it be otherwise? "If ye be
willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if ye
refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth
of the Lord hath spoken it."
Now, in all this there is deep, practical instruction for the Church
of God. Although we are not under law, we are called to obedience; and
as we are enabled, through grace, to yield a loving, hearty obedience,
we are blessed in our own spiritual state, our souls are watered,
refreshed, and strengthened, and we bring forth the fruits of
righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of
God.
The reader may refer with much profit, in connection with this great
practical subject, to the opening of John xv.--a most precious
scripture, and one demanding the earnest attention of every
true-hearted child of God. "I am the true vine, and My Father is the
Husbandman. Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away;
and every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, _that it may bring
forth more fruit_. Now ye are clean through the word which I have
spoken unto you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear
fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except
ye abide in Me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: he that abideth in
Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without [or
apart from] Me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in Me, he is cast
forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them
into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in Me, and My words
abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto
you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall
ye be My disciples. As the Father hath loved Me, so have I loved you;
continue ye in My love. _If ye keep My commandments, ye shall abide in
My love_; even as I have kept My Father's commandments, and abide in
His love." (Ver. 1-10.)
This weighty passage of Scripture has suffered immensely through
theological controversy and religious strife. It is as plain as it is
practical, and only needs to be taken as it stands, in its own divine
simplicity. If we seek to import into it what does not belong to it,
we mar its integrity and miss its true application. In it we have
Christ, the true vine, taking the place of Israel, who had become to
Jehovah the degenerate plant of a strange vine. The scene of the
parable is obviously earth, and not heaven; we do not think of a vine
and a husbandman (γεωργος) in heaven. Besides, our Lord says,
"I _am_ the true vine." The figure is very distinct. It is not the
head and the members, but a tree and its branches. Moreover, the
subject of the parable is as distinct as the parable itself; it is not
eternal life, but fruit-bearing. If this were borne in mind, it would
greatly help to an understanding of this much-misunderstood passage of
Scripture.
In a word, then, we learn from the figure of the vine and its branches
that the true secret of fruit-bearing is, to abide in Christ, and the
way to abide in Christ is, to keep His precious commandments. "If ye
keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept
My Father's commandments, and abide in His love." This makes it all so
simple. The way to bear fruit in season is, to abide in the love of
Christ, and this abiding is proved by our treasuring up His
commandments in our hearts and yielding a loving obedience to every
one of them. It is not running hither and thither in the mere energy
of nature; it is not the excitement of mere fleshly zeal displaying
itself in spasmodic efforts after devotedness. No; it is something
quite different from all this; it is the calm and holy obedience of
the heart--a loving obedience to our own beloved Lord, which
refreshes His heart and glorifies His name.
"How blest are they who still abide
Close sheltered by Thy watchful side;
Who life and strength from Thee receive,
And with Thee move and in Thee live."
Reader, may we apply our hearts diligently to this great subject of
fruit-bearing. May we better understand what it is. We are apt to make
great mistakes about it. It is to be feared that much--very much of
what passes for fruit would not be accredited in the divine presence.
God cannot own any thing as fruit which is not the direct result of
abiding in Christ. We may earn a great name among our fellows for
zeal, energy, and devotedness; we may be abundant in labors, in every
department of the work; we may acquit ourselves as great travelers,
great preachers, earnest workers in the vineyard, great
philanthropists and moral reformers; we may spend a princely fortune
in promoting all the great objects of Christian benevolence, and all
the while not produce a single cluster of fruit acceptable to the
Father's heart.
And, on the other hand, it may be our lot to pass the time of our
sojourn here in obscurity and retirement from human gaze; we may be
little accounted of by the world and the professing church; we may
seem to leave but little mark on the sands of time; but if only we
abide in Christ, abide in His love, treasure up His precious words in
our hearts, and yield ourselves up to a holy and loving obedience to
His commandments, then shall our fruit be in season, and our Father
will be glorified, and we shall grow in the experimental knowledge of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
We shall now look for a moment at the remainder of our chapter, in
which Moses, in words of intense earnestness, presses upon the
congregation the urgent need of watchfulness and diligence in
reference to all the statutes and judgments of the Lord their God. The
beloved and faithful servant of God, and true lover of the people, was
unwearied in his efforts to brace them up to that whole-hearted
obedience which he knew to be at once the spring of their happiness
and their fruitfulness; and just as our blessed Lord warns His
disciples by setting before them the solemn judgment of the unfruitful
branch, so does Moses warn the people as to the sure and terrible
consequences of disobedience.
"Take heed to yourselves, that _your heart be not deceived_, and ye
turn aside, and serve other gods, and worship them." Sad progress
downward! The heart deceived. This is the beginning of all declension.
"And ye turn aside." The feet are sure to follow the heart. Hence the
deep need of keeping the heart with all diligence; it is the citadel
of the whole moral being, and so long as it is kept for the Lord, the
enemy can gain no advantage; but when once it is surrendered, all is
really gone,--there is the turning aside; the secret departure of the
heart is proved by the practical ways,--"other gods" are served and
worshiped. The descent down along the inclined plane is terribly
rapid.
"And then"--mark the sure and solemn consequences--"the Lord's wrath
be kindled against you, and He _shut up the heaven_, that there be no
rain, and that the land yield not her fruit; and ye perish quickly
from off the good land which the Lord giveth you." What barrenness and
desolation there must be when heaven is shut up! No refreshing showers
coming down, no dew-drops falling, no communication between the heaven
and the earth. Alas! how often had Israel tasted the awful reality of
this! "He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into
dry ground; a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of
them that dwell therein."
And may we not see in the barren land and the desolate wilderness an
apt and striking illustration of a soul out of communion through
disobedience to the precious commandments of Christ? Such an one has
no refreshing communications with heaven--no showers coming down--no
unfoldings of the preciousness of Christ to the heart--no sweet
ministrations of an ungrieved Spirit to the soul; the Bible seems a
sealed book; all is dark, dreary, and desolate. Oh, there cannot be
any thing more miserable in all this world than a soul in this
condition. May the writer and the reader never experience it. May we
bend our ears to the fervent exhortations addressed by Moses to the
congregation of Israel. They are most seasonable, most healthful,
most needful, in this day of cold indifferentism and positive
willfulness. They set before us the divine antidote against the
special evils to which the Church of God is exposed at this very
hour--an hour critical and solemn beyond all human conception.
"Therefore shall ye lay up these _my words_ in _your heart_ and in
_your soul_, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be
as frontlets between your eyes. And ye shall teach them your children,
speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou
walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up; and
thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy
gates, that your days may be multiplied, and the days of your
children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give
them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."
Blessed days! And oh, how ardently the large, loving heart of Moses
longed that the people might enjoy many such days! And how simple the
condition! Truly nothing could be simpler, nothing more precious. It
was not a heavy yoke laid upon them, but the sweet privilege of
treasuring up the precious commandments of the Lord their God in their
hearts, and breathing the very atmosphere of His holy Word. All was to
hinge upon this. All the blessings of the land of Canaan--that goodly,
highly favored land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land on
which Jehovah's eyes ever rested in loving interest and tender
care--all its precious fruits, all its rare privileges, were to be
theirs in perpetuity, on the one simple condition of loving obedience
to the word of their covenant-God.
"For if ye shall _diligently keep all_ these commandments which I
command you, to do them, _to love the Lord your God, to walk in all
His ways_, and _to cleave unto_ Him; then will the Lord drive out all
these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations
and mightier than yourselves." In a word, sure and certain victory was
before them, a most complete overthrow of all enemies and obstacles, a
triumphal march into the promised inheritance--all secured to them on
the blessed ground of affectionate and reverential obedience to the
most precious statutes and judgments that had ever been addressed to
the human heart--statutes and judgments every one of which was but the
very voice of their most gracious Deliverer.
"Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be
yours; from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river
Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea, shall your coast be. There
shall no man be able to stand before you; for the Lord your God shall
lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye
shall tread upon, as He hath said unto you."
Here was the divine side of the question. The whole land, in its
length, breadth, and fullness, lay before them; they had but to take
possession of it, as the free gift of God; it was for them simply to
plant the foot, in artless, appropriating faith, upon that fair
inheritance which sovereign grace had bestowed upon them. All this we
see made good in the book of Joshua, as we read in chapter xi.--"So
Joshua took _the whole land_, according to all that the Lord said unto
Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel, according to
their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war." (Ver.
23.)[8]
[8] No doubt it was in faith that Joshua took--and could take nothing
less than--the whole land; but as to actual possession, chapter xiii.
1 shows there was "yet much land to be possessed."
But alas! there was the human side of the question as well as the
divine. Canaan as promised by Jehovah and made good by the faith of
Joshua was one thing, and Canaan as possessed by Israel was quite
another. Hence the vast difference between Joshua and Judges. In
Joshua, we see the infallible faithfulness of God to His promise; in
Judges, we see Israel's miserable failure from the very outset. God
pledged His immutable word that not a man should be able to stand
before them, and the sword of Joshua--type of the great Captain of our
salvation--made good this pledge in its every jot and tittle; but the
book of Judges records the melancholy fact that Israel failed to drive
out the enemy--failed to take possession of the divine grant in all
its royal magnificence.
What then? Is the promise of God made of none effect? Nay, verily; but
the utter failure of man is made apparent. At "Gilgal," the banner of
victory floated over the twelve tribes, with their invincible captain
at their head: at "Bochim," the weepers had to mourn over Israel's
lamentable defeat.
Have we any difficulty in understanding the difference? None whatever.
We see the two things running all through the divine Volume. Man fails
to rise to the height of the divine revelation--fails to take
possession of what grace bestows. This is as true in the history of
the Church as it was in the history of Israel;--in the New Testament,
as well as in the Old, we have Judges as well as Joshua.
Yes, reader, and in the history of each individual member of the
Church we see the same thing. Where is the Christian, beneath the
canopy of heaven, that lives up to the height of his spiritual
privileges? where is the child of God who has not to mourn over his
humiliating failure in grasping and making good practically the high
and holy privileges of his calling of God? But does this make the
truth of God of none effect? No; blessed forever be His holy name. His
Word holds good in all its divine integrity and eternal stability.
Just as in Israel's case, the land of promise lay before them in all
its fair proportions and divinely given attractions; and not only so,
but they could count on the faithfulness and almighty power of God to
bring them in and put them in full possession; so with us, we are
blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ.
There is absolutely no limit to the privileges connected with our
standing, and as to our actual enjoyment, it is only a question of
faith taking possession of all that God's sovereign grace has made
ours in Christ.
We must never forget that it is the privilege of the Christian to live
at the very height of the divine revelation. There is no excuse for a
shallow experience or a low walk. We have no right whatever to say
that we cannot realize the fullness of our portion in Christ, that the
standard is too high, the privileges are too vast, that we cannot
expect to enjoy such marvelous blessings and dignities in our present
imperfect state.
All this is downright unbelief, and should be so treated by every true
Christian. The question is, Has the grace of God bestowed the
privileges upon us? has the death of Christ made good our title to
them? and has the Holy Ghost declared them to be the proper portion of
the very feeblest member of the body of Christ? If so--and Scripture
declares it is so--why should we not enjoy them? There is no hindrance
on the divine side. It is the desire of the heart of God that we
should enter into the fullness of our portion in Christ. Hear the
earnest breathing of the inspired apostle on behalf of the saints at
Ephesus and of all saints.--"Wherefore I also, after I heard of your
faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to
give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the
spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him: the eyes of
your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the
hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints, and what the exceeding greatness of His
power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty
power, which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead,
and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that
is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
and hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head
over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him
that filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 15-23.)
From this marvelous prayer we may learn how earnestly the Spirit of
God desires that we should apprehend and enjoy the glorious privileges
of the true Christian position. He would ever, by His precious and
powerful ministry, keep our hearts up to the mark; but, alas! like
Israel, we grieve Him by our sinful unbelief, and rob our own souls of
incalculable blessing.
But, all praise to the God of all grace, the Father of glory, the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He will yet make good every jot
and tittle of His most precious truth, both as to His earthly and
heavenly people. Israel shall yet enjoy to the full all the blessings
secured to them by the everlasting covenant; and the Church shall yet
enter upon the perfect fruition of all that which eternal love and
divine counsels have laid up for her in Christ; and not only so, but
the blessed Comforter is able and willing to lead the individual
believer into the present enjoyment of the hope of God's glorious
calling, and the practical power of that hope, in detaching the heart
from present things and separating it to God in true holiness and
living devotedness.
May our hearts, beloved Christian reader, long more ardently after the
full realization of all this, that thus we may live more as those who
are finding their portion and their rest in a risen and glorified
Christ. God, in His infinite goodness, grant it, for Jesus Christ's
name and glory's sake.
* * * * *
The remaining verses of our chapter close the first division of the
book of Deuteronomy, which, as the reader will notice, consists of a
series of discourses addressed by Moses to the congregation of
Israel--memorable discourses, most surely, in whatever way we view
them. The closing sentences are, we need hardly say, in perfect
keeping with the whole, and breathe the same deep-toned earnestness in
reference to the subject of obedience--a subject which, as we have
seen, formed the special burden on the heart of the beloved speaker in
his affecting farewell addresses to the people.
"Behold, I set before you this day a blessing and a curse;"--How
pointed and solemn is this!--"a blessing, if ye obey the commandments
of the Lord your God, which I command you this day; and a curse, if ye
will not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside
out of the way which I command you this day, to go after other gods,
which ye have not known. And it shall come to pass, when the Lord thy
God hath brought thee in unto the land whither thou goest to possess
it, that thou shalt put the blessing upon Mount Gerizim, and the curse
upon Mount Ebal. Are they not on the other side Jordan, by the way
where the sun goeth down, in the land of the Canaanites, which dwell
in the champaign over against Gilgal, beside the plains of Moreh? For
ye shall pass over Jordan, to go in to possess the land which the Lord
your God giveth you, and ye shall possess it, and dwell therein. AND
YE SHALL OBSERVE TO DO ALL THE STATUTES AND JUDGMENTS WHICH I SET
BEFORE YOU THIS DAY." (Ver. 26-32.)
Here we have the summing up of the whole matter. The blessing is
linked on to obedience; the curse, to disobedience. Mount Gerizim
stands over against Mount Ebal--fruitfulness and barrenness. We shall
see, when we come to chapter xxvii, that Mount Gerizim and its
blessings are entirely passed over. The curses of Mount Ebal fall,
with awful distinctness, on Israel's ear, while terrible silence
reigns on Mount Gerizim. "As many as are of the works of the law, are
under the curse." The blessing of Abraham can only come on those who
are on the ground of faith. But more of this by and by.