WOOLLEN AND LINEN
"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together" Deuteronomy 22:11 KJV.
The path of the church of God is a narrow path, such a one
that the mere moral sense will continually mistake it. But this should be
welcome to us, because it tells us that the Lord looks that His saints be
exercised in His truth and ways, unlearning the mere right and wrong of human
thoughts that they may be filled with the mind of Christ.
Elijah (Luke 9:52-56)
The case of Elijah
judging the captains of the king of Israel, referred to as it is in the course
of the gospels, brings these thoughts to mind. The Lord had steadily set His
face toward Jerusalem under the sense of this, that "he should be received up".
Something of the thought of glory and of the kingdom was stirring in His soul.
I believe the consciousness of His personal dignity and of His high
destiny, as we speak among men, was filling Him as He began His journey toward
Jerusalem. "It came to pass, when the time was come that he should be received
up, he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before
his face".
The expression of conscious dignity breaks forth from this
and gives character to the moment, and the disciples feel it. They appear to
catch the tone of His mind, and therefore, when the very first village, through
which the path of their ascending Lord lay, refused Him entrance they resent
it, and would fain, like Elijah in other days, destroy these insulting captains
of Israel.
This was nature, the natural sense also of right and wrong.
Why then did the Lord rebuke it? It was not wanting in either righteousness or
affection. The day will come when the enemies of Christ, who would not that He
should reign over them, shall be slain before Him. There was nothing
unrighteous in the demand, "Wilt thou that we command fire to come down from
heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did?", if we but think for a moment of
the person and rights of Him who was thus wronged and insulted.
Nor
was there a wrong affection in this motion of the heart. Jealousy for their
divine Master stirred it; this motion may be honoured, the moral sense may
justify it fully; but Christ rebukes it: "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye
are of", said the Lord to them.
But why, again I ask, this rebuke? Was
it because they were exacting beyond the claims of Him whom they sought to
avenge?
No, as we have said, for such claims will have their day; but the
disciples were not in the spiritual intelligence of the moment through which
they were passing.
They had not "the mind of Christ"; they did not
discern the time so as to know what Israel ought to do, 1 Chronicles 12:32;
they were not distinguishing things that differ; they were not rightly dividing
the word of truth.
This was their error: "Ye know not what manner of
spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is not come to destroy mens lives,
but to save them". It was not a wrong principle of moral action which the Lord
discovers in their souls, but ignorance of the real or divine character of the
moment through which they were passing. They did not perceive what
thousands (disciples of this day, as they were of that day) do not yet perceive
that the path of Christ to glory does not lie through the judgment of
the world, but through the surrender of it; not through self-vindication, but
through self-renunciation.
This was their mistake, and this is what
the Lord rebuked. They naturally thought that this indignity must be
recognised; that, if the prospect of glory was filling the mind of their
Master, and if they themselves, in the spirit of such a moment, had gone before
His face to prepare His way, whatever stands in the way must surely be set
aside. Nature judged thus; and nature thus judging would be justified by the
moral sense of man.
But the mind of Christ has its peculiar way, and
nothing guides the saint fully but that: analogy will not do, there must be the
spiritual mind to try and challenge even analogies.
Certain
correspondences were remarkable here: Elijah was but a stage or two from the
glory, just going onward to be "received up", when he smote again and again the
captains and their fifties.
He was on a hill, full of great anticipations,
we may say, and the chariots and horsemen of Israel and his heavenly journey
were lying but a little before him in vision.
The soul of their Master
appeared to the disciples on this occasion to be much in company with that of
Elijah. But analogies will not do, and the use of them here was confounding
everything, taking the Lord Jesus out of His day of grace into the time of His
judgments; inviting Him or urging Him to act in the spirit of the times of
Revelation 11 when He was in the hour of Luke 4.
The witnesses of
Revelation 11 may go to heaven through the destruction of their enemies, fire
going out of their mouth to consume them that hurt them, as after the pattern
of Elijah; but analogies are not the rule.
They must be challenged by
that "mind of Christ" which distinguishes things that differ, and which teaches
in the light of the word that Jesus goes to heaven through a path which
procures the salvation and not the destruction of men; through His renunciation
of the world and not His judgment of it.
Elijah avenged himself on the
insulting captains and then went to heaven; the witnesses will ascend to
heaven, and their enemies shall behold them, Revelation 11:3-11. But Jesus
takes the form of a servant, and is obedient unto death, and then God highly
exalts Him. And so the saint: so the church. "Ye are they which have continued
with me in my temptations. I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath
appointed me".
Here was the mistake: here was the not knowing what
manner of spirit they were of. Analogy strongly favoured the motion of their
minds. The moral sense, which judges according to mans thoughts and not
in the light of Gods mysteries, justified it. But He who divinely
distinguishes things that differ rebuked it: "Ye know not what manner of spirit
ye are of". The way of the disciples here would have disturbed everything,
counteracting all the purpose of God.
The
Parable of the Tares: Matthew 13
They remind me of the servants
in the parable of the tare-field. The disciples were right according to man,
and so were those servants.
Is it not fitting to weed the wheat? Are
not tares a hindrance, sharing the strength of the soil with the good seed,
while they themselves are good for nothing? The common sense of man, the right
moral judgment, would say all this, but the mind of Christ says the very
contrary: "Let both grow together until the harvest".
Christ judged
only according to divine mysteries. That is what formed the mind in the Master,
perfect as it was; and that is what must form the like mind in the saint. God
had purposes respecting the field. A harvest was to come and angels were to be
sent to reap it, and then a fire was to be kindled for the bundled and
separated tares; but as yet, in the hour of Matthew 13, there were no angels at
their harvest-work in the field, nor fire kindled for the weeds, but all was
the patient grace of the Master.
The Lord will have the field
uncleared for the present. The mysteries of God, the counselled thoughts and
purposes of heaven, precious and glorious beyond all measure, demand this; and
nothing is right but the path that is taken in the light of the Lord, in the
knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Nor is the church
to go to heaven through a purified or regulated or adorned world, any more than
Christ would have gone to heaven through a judged world. This is to be well
weighed; for what is Christendom about? Just practically gainsaying all this.
Christendom affects to regulate the world, to keep the field clean, to make the
path to heaven and glory lie through a well ordered and ornamented world.
It has put the sword into the hand of the followers of Christ. It will
not wait for the harvest, nor will it go into "another village". It avenges
wrongs instead of suffering them. It orders the church on the principles of a
well regulated nation and not on the pattern of an earth-rejected Jesus. It is
full of the falsest thoughts, judging according to the moral sense of man and
not in the light of the mysteries of God. It is wise in its own conceits.
I know full well there beat in the midst of it a thousand hearts true
in their love to Christ; but they know not what manner of spirit they are of.
I know that zeal, if it be for Christ, though misdirected, is better
than a chill at the heart or indifference as to His rights or His wrongs. But
still, the only perfect path is that which is taken in the sight of the Lord in
the understanding of the mysteries of God, and the call of God, and the
directions of the energy of the Spirit, and not merely after the fashion or
dictates of the morals and thoughts of men.
And the call of God now
demands that the tare-field be left unpurged, that the indignity of the
Samaritans be left unavenged, that the resources and strength of the flesh and
of the world be refused rather than used, and that the church should reach the
heavens, not through the judgment of the world by her hands, but through the
renunciation of it by her heart, and separation from it in company with a
rejected Master.
"He that gathereth not with me scattereth", Luke
11:23; that is, he that does not work according to Christs purpose is
really making bad worse. It is not enough to work with the name of Christ: no
saint would consent to work without that; but if he do not work according to
the purpose of Christ he is scattering abroad.
Many a saint is now
engaged in rectifying and adorning the world getting Christendom as a
swept and garnished house; but, this not being Christs purpose, it is
aiding and furthering the advance of evil. Christ has not expelled the unclean
spirit out of the world. He has no such present purpose.
The enemy may
change his way, but he is as much "the god" and "prince of this world" as ever
he was. The house is his still, as in the parable (Luke 11:24-26). The unclean
spirit had gone out, that was all; he had not been sent out by the stronger Man
so that his title to it is clear; and he returns, and all that he finds there
had only made it more an object with him. He finds it clean and ornamented; so
that he returns with many a kindred spirit and thus makes its last state worse
than its first.
David and
Peter
Mistakes of this kind are very old mistakes. David was
erring this way when he purposed to build a house for the Lord; but it was an
error, though committed with a right desire of the heart.
The time had
not come for building the Lord a house, because the Lord had not yet built
David a house. The land was still defiled with blood; and till it was cleansed
there was no place for the rest and kingdom of the Lord.
David
therefore greatly erred, yet not through double-mindedness but through
ignorance. Davids error was this that the Lord could take His
throne in the earth before the earth was purged.
The servants in the
parable erred on the other hand in this, that the church was made the
instrument of purging the earth or the world.
I might say, in the
language of the Levitical ordinance, that David was about to put on a garment
of "divers sorts", but the Lord prevented it. The motion of his heart as
far as it was expressive of himself was acceptable with the Lord, but
still it was hindered and disappointed.
Something to tell us how
jealous the Lord is that His own principles be observed and the position in
which He has set His servants and witnesses be maintained; nay, that even the
most affectionate and jealous desire of the saint, though it be valued by the
Lord and get its personal reward or acceptance, can never reconcile the mind of
the Lord to an abandonment of His thoughts and purposes.
All would be
confusion. Davids thoughts, however innocent and in some sense to be
approved of God, would have confused everything, bringing about this strange
result the Lord taking His throne in an uncleansed kingdom and allowing
His servant to give Him rest before He had given His servant rest!
What confusion this would have been! What an evil testimony these mixed
principles would have produced! Who could have read in the result, had it been
allowed, either the grace or the glory of the God of Israel?
The
rebuke of Peter at Antioch was more peremptory; for Peter erred, not like
David, through ignorance, but through the occasional fear of man, which, as we
are taught and as we experience, "bringeth a snare"; and it was something worse
than confusion, it was perversion in Deuteronomy 20:19-20 we have an
ordinance against perversion, or turning things to a wrong use.
But
still, even if it amount only to confusion, and that by the hand of the dearest
and most loved servant, it is not to be allowed, as this case of David shews;
as also in his other act of bearing the ark from Kirjath-jearim.
The
confusion there was not made excusable by all the true-heartedness and
religious joy that attended it, 1 Chronicles 13: it could not be. Place by
subjection was not to be given to it for an hour, and, however acceptable with
God the motion of Davids heart was, these ways must be withstood, because
the way, and purpose, and counsel, and thoughts of the Lord are precious in His
sight and are to stand for ever.
It is not that David and Peter were
men of mixed principles, as the word is, or were wearing, as the ordinance
speaks, garments of woollen and linen, but these instances in their history
illustrate a serious truth, which is much to be remembered, that the Lord will
vindicate His own principles in the face of even His dearest servants, that He
will and He must withstand the motions of their hearts if they go to obscure or
disturb His purpose and His testimony, even though such motions have much of a
personal, moral character in them which He can accept and delight in.
Double-Mindedness
But, beside these
cases of David and of Peter, and of the disciples in Luke 9, who, in mistaken,
misapplied zeal for the Lord whom they loved, would have avenged His wrongs
with a true and righteous affection, there is a generation who are seen apart
from the way of God through double-mindedness.
Such a generation may
be tracked all through Scripture, a people of mixed principles, as we say, who
wear garments of woollen and linen contrary to the call of God and the pure
ordinances of His house. It may be humbling to oneself more than to most others
to look at such a generation, but it has its profit for the soul and its
seasonableness in this hour.
Lot
Lot was associated with the call of God.
Like Abram, his uncle, he left Mesopotamia, and then after the death of Terah,
his grandfather, he came with Abram into Canaan, and he was a righteous man,
there was no palpable blot upon him.
Abram betrayed the way of nature,
again and again recovering himself, with shame too, from the snare of Egypt and
of Abimelech. But Lot was not so rebuked all the time he sojourned in Sodom. We
only read of him that his righteous soul was vexed with the filthy conversation
of the wicked. But withal, he was sadly of the generation I am now speaking of.
If Abrams garment was soiled now and again it was not "a garment
of divers sorts", but Lots garment was "woollen and linen". He was untrue
to the call of God; he became a citizen when he ought to have been only a
sojourner, choosing well-watered plains and taking a house in a city, when
Gods witness was going over the face of the country from tent to tent,
and from one tabernacle to another.
Fewer mistakes are recorded of
him; but what then? He was a man of mixed principles all his days, while
Abraham all his days was true to the call of God. And his life of false
principles leads him into sorrows that are his shame, and that is the real
misery of sorrow. He was taken captive while he lived in the plains of Sodom,
and was nigh unto destruction after he had removed to the city of Sodom; and he
is still, and ever has been in the church, the witness of one, saved it is
true, but "so as by fire".
He had no comfort in his soul; his
righteous soul was vexed day by day. This is told of him, but no brightness is
there: no joy, no strength, no triumph of spirit is told of him. The angels
held much reserve towards him, while the Lord of angels was in nearness and
intimacy with Abraham.
He had to escape with his life as a prey when
Abraham was on high beholding the judgment afar off. And, what is full of
meaning, we observe that after he had taken his own course and become a man of
mixed principles, departing from the track where the call of God would have
kept him, he and Abraham had no communion.
Abraham will run to his
help in the day when his principles were bringing him into jeopardy; but there
is no communion between them. They could not meet in spirit. The saint of God
will own him as his kinsman, and do him the kinsmans service; but there
is no present communion between them. And this is no uncommon case to this day.
Such was Lot. Instead of making his calling and election sure, he is
one whom the people of God receive on the extraordinary testimony of the Holy
Ghost, rather than on the necessary and blessed credit of his assured call of
God, or as one of that people of whom Paul could say, "Knowing, brethren
beloved, your election of God".
Jonathan
Nature prevails sadly and variously in
all the recorded saints of God; in some more, in some less, just as the
fruitfulness of the Spirit is seen in them in affections and services; in some
thirtyfold, in some sixty, and in some an hundred.
But this is a
different thing from being men of mixed principles. It was so with David.
Nature prevailed in him at times, but he was never a man of mixed principles.
He never deliberately sat down in a connection which was untrue to the
call of God under which he had to act. His character was formed by that call
and his ways were according to it: but it was not so with his friend Jonathan;
his life was not formed by the call of God, and the energy of the Spirit
working in the rule of that call. He acted nobly and graciously at times, but
still he was not the separated man. He was not true to the pure principles of
God made manifest in that day. He was a man of faith, and of many endearing
spiritual affections, such as give him, without reserve, a place in the
recollections of the saints. But withal he was not where the call of God would
have had him. Sauls court was a defiled, even an apostate, place then.
God was with David then. The glory was in the wilderness with him; the
dens and caves of the earth hid it in that day. The ephod was with David, the
priest, the sword of Gods strength, the witness of victory. The flower
and promise of the land were with him also, those who gain a name in the cave
of Adullam, or in the day of vengeance at Ziklag. Such sons of Israel as these,
such as shine afterwards in the court and camp of the kingdom, were all with
David then.
The call of God was then to the caves and dens of the
earth with the son of Jesse, and the energy of the Spirit worked there; but
Jonathan was not there. That is the sad story. Jonathan was not where the glory
was, where the priest with the ephod was, where the rejected man after
Gods own heart was, where all the promise of the coming kingdom was. That
is the sad story.
Jonathan was lovely individually, he had done some
noble deeds and was breathing some heavenly affections; and to the end we may
be sure David lived in his heart; and many misgivings about his own father, we
may be equally sure, that same heart was troubled with. He never personally
gave David anything but joy; while we know those who companied with him, even
in his afflictions, were betimes both a shame and a sorrow to him. But still
his position was not true to the call of God in that day. It kept him apart
from all that was of God then, though he had the Lord with himself personally.
Till he falls on Mount Gilboa, he is with the camp and the court that fall with
him there, dishonoured and defeated as they were, having ere then lost the
glory, and all that was of God nationally departed from them.
A common
case he illustrates. Was it ignorance of the call of God, or double-mindedness?
We will not say; but still in this our day there is, like Jonathan, many a
saint dear to ones heart, and outshining in personal graces the larger
number of the day, who is found apart from the place where the energy of the
Spirit, according to the rule of the dispensation, works.
Noble and
generous deeds are done by them individually, but their connection is their
dishonour, as it was Jonathans linked with a world which is
speedily to meet the judgment, and in courts and camps which are to lie in the
midst of the uncircumcised, with them that be slain with the sword.
"Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon". Jonathan
illustrates this, and this is known abundantly to this hour. But Jonathan
cannot sanction the place; Jonathans presence did not make Sauls
camp or court other than it was.
The only impression the soul has of
Lot in Sodom is that of a tainted Lot and not of a sanctified, purified Sodom.
According to the word in Haggai, "If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his
garment, and with his skirt do touch bread, or pottage, or wine, or oil, or any
meat, shall it be holy? And the priests answered and said, No". But "If one
that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the
priests answered and said, It shall be unclean".
There are, however,
"things that differ", and the soul exercised of God is to distinguish them.
There is a soiled garment which is, however, at the same time not a mixed
garment, a garment of "divers sorts", of "woollen and linen".
Our way
under the Spirit is to keep our garments undefiled; and anything other or less
than that is not the way of communion with the Lord. But still, a soiled
garment is not a mixed garment; nor is a garment with a thread now and again of
another sort to be mistaken for one whose texture is wrought on the very
principle of "woollen and linen".
Scripture, ever fruitful and
perfect, exhibits characters formed by what has been termed "mixed principles"
and characters which occasionally become tainted by such, but are not
throughout formed by them.
The life of Lot, as we have been seeing,
was formed of mixed principles throughout. There was double-mindedness in Lot;
I say not the same with the same clearness of Jonathan; but still the life of
each of them from the outset to the close, when the scene of temptation set in,
was tainted by connection with evil.
Lot, though associated with the
call of God, was a man of the earth; Jonathan, though witnessing the sorrows
and the wrongs of David, continued in the interests of the persecutor unto the
end. Their life was thus formed by connections which were untrue to the way of
God and the presence of the glory all through. The garment upon each of them
was made of divers sorts, of woollen and linen.
But look at Jacob in
contrast, and in him we find one of another generation; he was a cautious man
who had his worldly fears and schemes and calculations; and they greatly
disfigure several passages of his life. His building of a house at Succoth, his
buying of a piece of ground at Shechem, were things untrue to the pilgrim life,
the tent life, which a son of Abraham was called to know.
But Jacob is
not to be put with Lot; his life was not formed by Succoth and Shechem, though
we thus see him there, and out of character there, but he was a stranger with
God in the earth. And in the closing days of his pilgrimage, when he was in
Egypt, though with many a circumstance around him there to tempt him to have it
otherwise, we have many a beautiful witness of the healthful and recovered
state of his soul.
The Days of
Ahab
The days, for instance, of Ahab king of Israel, king of the
ten tribes, were fruitful in illustrations of this kind. There were in those
days an Elijah and a Micaiah, a Jehoshaphat and an Obadiah, beside seven
thousand who had not bowed the knee to the image of Baal; and all these in the
midst of the foulest departure from the ways of God, the times of Jezebel and
her abominations.
But all these are not to be classed together. To use
the language of "woollen and linen", or "garments of divers sorts", I might say
there was no mistaking the cloth of Elijah and Micaiah. The leathern girdle of
the one and the prison bands of the other tell us what men they were and
bespeak their complete separation.
The seven thousand we cannot speak
of particularly; we know them only under the hand of God as "a remnant
according to the election of grace", and that in an evil day they "had not
bowed the knee to the image of Baal".
But Obadiah was not Elijah, and
again, as between him and Jehoshaphat, we are still to distinguish; such was
the moral variety illustrated for our admonition in these days.
Jehoshaphat
Jehoshaphat, king of Judah,
of the house and lineage of David, was a separate man, but a man who at times,
and that too pretty largely, is found in defiling connection. He was of
Jacobs generation, though it may be more faulty than Jacob in that
generation. Vanity betrayed him again and again, as worldly policy betrayed the
patriarch.
Jehoshaphat joined affinity with Ahab. In the day of the
battle he put on the royal apparel, a garment sadly and shamefully of "divers
sorts"; and it was near costing him his life, as the same clothing nearly cost
Lot his life in the city of Sodom.
He acted there in terrible
inconsistency with the sanctity and separateness of the house of David. But,
though all this is so, I am not disposed to put Jehoshaphat in company with
Lot. His life was not one of mixed principles; his garment was not advisedly
wrought of "woollen and linen" together, though sadly and shamefully untrue to
the testimony which became a son of David and a king in Jerusalem. Very noble
deeds were done by his hands, and very dear affections were breathed by his
spirit, and the God of his father owned him; but, like Jacob, and to a more
painful extent, he was betrayed; he was betrayed into connections which make
his testimony a very mixed, imperfect thing.
It was not merely nature
prevailing at times that may be seen in all, in those of the best
generation, in Abraham, and in David. It was not merely a soiled garment whose
blot is palpable, but a garment the texture of which is scarcely discernible,
whether indeed it be of one sort or a condemned garment of "woollen and linen";
so shamefully do the "divers sorts" appear in it at times, but not throughout.
Obadiah
But the garment which
Obadiah wore in those days cannot be mistaken. It needs no close inspection to
make out what it is. The "divers sorts" of woollen and linen are to be seen in
it from head to foot. His life was of that texture. It was not that he was
betrayed at times merely, nor was it that his way was stained at times, but his
whole life evinces a man of mixed principles.
He was a godly man, but
his ways were not according to the energy of the Spirit in that day. He had
respect to the afflictions of the prophets, hiding them in caves from the
persecution and feeding them there; but all the while he was the adviser, the
companion, and the minister of king Ahab, in whose kingdom the iniquity was
practised. The "linen and woollen" thus formed the garment that he wore all his
days. It was not the leathern girdle of Elijah; and when they come together
this difference is preserved and expressed most strikingly.
Obadiah is
at some effort to conciliate the mind of Elijah. He reminds him of what he had
done for the persecuted prophets of God in the day of their trouble and tells
him that he feared the Lord; but Elijah moves but slowly and coldly towards
him. Painful all this between two saints of God, but it is far from being
rarely experienced; it is a common thing, I would say, but much more commonly
felt than owned. 1 Kings 18.
There could have been no blending of the
spirits of Abraham and Lot after Lot took the way of his eye and of his heart
and continued in that direction a citizen of Sodom. We are not told
this, it is true, in the history; but we find from the history, as I observed
before, that they never meet after that, and we may easily know why. Because
such things are real and living things still. The Abrahams and the Lots of this
day do not meet; or if they meet it is not communion. They do not enjoy
refreshment in the bowels of Christ.
Abraham rescued Lot from the
hands of the king Chedorlaomer, but this was no meeting of saints; they could
not blend. And if the people of God cannot come together in character they had
better be asunder. In spirit they are already severed.
So was it in a
far more vivid expression of it in Elijah and Obadiah. The man with the
leathern girdle Gods stranger in the land in the days of Ahab
could not be found much in company with the governor of Ahabs
house. But they meet in an evil day, a day which may remind us of the day of
the valley of the slime pits, the day of Lots captivity.
Ahab
his master had divided the land with Obadiah to search for water in the day of
drought. The Lord his God had put the sword of His servant Elijah over the land
to give it neither rain nor dew; and in an hour of Obadiahs perplexity
and of Elijahs commission under God they meet. The occasion is one of
interest and meaning and has lessons for our souls. There is effort on the part
of Obadiah and reserve with Elijah. This is naturally and necessarily so.
Obadiah seeks to combine with Elijah, but Elijah resents the effort. Obadiah
calls Elijah his lord, but Elijah reminds him that Ahab is his lord.
For this will not do. We are not to be serving the world and going on in the
course of it behind each others backs and then, when we come together,
assume that we meet as saints. This will not do; but the attempt to have it so
is very natural, nay, it is very common to this hour.
But Elijah acted
in character, faithful to his brother now as he had been to his Lord before;
and beautiful this is, and precious it ought to be whenever we get it. Obadiah
had been walking with the world in Elijahs absence, and Elijah cannot let
him now assume that he was one with him though in his presence.
Obadiah
pleads: "What have I sinned that
". But why this? Elijah had not accused
him of sinning. Why this alarm and perturbation of spirit? Elijah was not
hazarding his life or safety, or any of his interests; he was disturbing
nothing that belonged to him.
Why this alarm and taking refuge in the
thought of finding his plea in the fact that he had not sinned? It is a poor,
low state of soul when a saint has only the consciousness of this, that he has
not sinned. Is that enough to enjoy the communion or understand the mind of an
Elijah?
Had not Obadiah been in Ahabs palace when Elijah was by
the brook Cherith? That is the question, and not the question whether he had
sinned or not. Had Obadiah been with him over the barrel of meal or the cruse
of oil?
Elijah had not told him that he had been sinning; he need not
shelter himself or commend himself thus. But Elijah cannot but let him know
that their spirits were not blending; for they had met from different quarters.
"Was it not told my lord what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets?"
What was all this to the point? Elijah had not been going over his past
history; it was better to leave the most of it untold; and it is a miserable
thing for a saint of God to be trading after this manner on his character or
his past ways. This is no title, no sufficient title, for the present communion
of the saints, nor competency for it either.
And these are
Obadiahs thoughts and refuges and pleadings now that he is in the
presence of a faithful witness of Christ. He had not sinned, and in days past
he had done service.
What a low sense of the common calling of the
people of God the soul must have that can think it can be maintained and that
saints can go on together on such a title and competency as this!
If the
world be served when we are behind each others back, though we may not
have sinned, as people speak, and though we may have had character and done
services in past days, we are not fit for each others presence as saints
of God.
Have we been in the heavenlies or in Ahabs court? Have
we been making provision for the flesh or desiring the things of Christ?
There are other things than pleading "we have not sinned", or trading
on established character and past services. These are what alone fit us for the
true communion of saints.
Obadiah was governor over Ahabs house;
how could such a one as Elijah be comfortable or at ease with him? He felt
reserve, and he expressed it in manner if not in words. Obadiah is the man of
words on the occasion that was natural also, and is the ordinary style
of such occasions or of such intercourses between Elijahs and Obadiahs to this
hour. For indeed it is not communion when there is effort on the one side and
reserve on the other. This is surely not the communion of saints.
But
it all has a voice in it, and is common enough now-a-days. They were not in
company with each other; that was the fact. Their spirits could not blend. The
garment of divers sorts, of woollen and of linen, which a saint of God could
not but wear in Ahabs court, ill-matched the leathern girdle of a
separated, suffering witness of Christ. We see this saint of God thus in his
party-coloured dress but once; but this voice is thus full of holy, serious
meaning to us.
The poor widow of Zarephath, whom Elijah had lately
left, enjoyed the full flow of Elijahs sympathies; and that humble,
distant homestead, with its barrel of meal and its cruse of oil, had witnessed
living communion between kindred spirits, and presented a scene which had its
spring and its reward with God.
But Elijah and Obadiah were not thus
in company with each other. Elijah is too true to let Obadiah come near to him
in spirit or to answer the effort he was making to conciliate him.
There is character in all this I am fully sure. Abraham and Lot never met, as
we have said, after they parted on Lots lifting up his eyes on the
well-watered plains of Sodom. There was moral distance quite sufficient to keep
them asunder, though a sabbath days journey might have brought them
together. Very significant evidence that is!
And so Elijah and
Obadiah: their meeting was no meeting. As well might Abrahams rescue of
Lot out of the hands of Chedorloamer be called a meeting. This was not "the
communion of saints". This was not refreshment of bowels in the Lord. But all
this repeats for the heart an oft-told tale.
Ebed-Melech
Ebed-melech, in the days of another
Elijah, was a man of this Obadiah generation, not, however, so strongly marked
as his elder brother.
Like him he loved the prophet of God, and in the
face of an injurious and insulting court, and hindered by the timid policy of
the king, pleaded for Jeremiah and served him with gracious personal service.
But he was not a witness as the prophet was. He was afraid of the
Chaldean Jeremiah 39:17 the sword of the Lords anger, and
such was not the condition of the Lords witness. But his weakness was not
despised in the rich grace of God. His measure received its measure again, and
in the day of the judgment of the Lord Ebed-melech got his life for a prey when
Jeremiah was had in honour. Ebed-melech was saved then, but that was all; the
prophet was rewarded.
Thus have we seen a generation in other days
who, though the people of the Lord, shew themselves sadly apart from the place
to which the call of God would have led them. Such was Lot and such was
Jonathan, and such were Obadiah and Ebed-melech. It was more or less
double-mindedness in them or love of the world in greater or smaller power in
their souls.
But such a generation is abundant to this hour. Saints
are seen in situations and connections from which the call of God would
separate them just as surely as it would have kept Lot out of Sodom.
But this may be added with equal sureness in a multitude of cases: this impure
connection arises from ignorance or want of hearts instructed in the kingdom of
God. They have not listened to the voice of the mysteries of the kingdom but
conferred with flesh and blood. They have not heard the Shepherds voice
calling them outside.
They have not understood the church as a
heavenly stranger on the earth, and that connection religious connection
with the world is Lot in Sodom, or an Israelite with a garment of
"divers sorts, as of woollen and linen". The world is marked for judgment even
more surely than Sodom was; ten righteous would have spared the cities of the
plain, but nothing can cancel the judgment of "this present evil world".
Here let me add, however, that the distinction of Lot and of Jonathan
may be seen in many a soul now a days. Lot had nothing to sanction Sodom to
him; all that he knew to be of God was outside; and even nature had no plea to
plead for Sodom.
Abraham and Sarah were outside, the witnesses of the
call and presence of God, and his kindred in the flesh. All that was sacred in
religion or nature were outside; and providences pleaded with him to the same
end, for the plains of Sodom had already brought him into jeopardy of life and
liberty, and warned him to dread the city.
It was the world and
nothing else that was heard in Lots heart in favour of Sodom. But with
Jonathan nature had a plea. All that was of God, it is true, was in that day
outside Sauls court and camp; but the claims of kindred, the voice of
nature, nay, the authority of nature, were known and felt from within. The
father and the family were there though David and God were not.
And so
now-a-days. There is many a thing that pleads from within. Nature, things moral
and religious, plead there; opportunities of service and testimony, obedience
to authority, maintenance of order, the dangers and evils threatened to the
social well-being, the peace of families, and example to children and servants:
these things are pleaded, and they all come from within, and put in various
claims for the course of the world. But these, and all such put together, can
never speak to the saint or plead with him with the authority of the call of
God.
If the church be a heavenly stranger on the earth, alliance with
the world defiles her, nay, ruins her as a witness for God; and to defile after
this manner, to seduce from the place of testimony, is the enemys purpose
and has been so from the beginning.
Was not the serpent in the garden
seducing Adam from the place the Lord God had set him in? Nay, earlier even
than that, are we not told about the angels that sinned that they kept not
their first estate?
So afterwards with Israel, "Ye are my witnesses",
says the Lord of them; but the enemy prevailed till the testimony was gone.
"His house shall be called a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of
thieves". Here were successful attempts of the enemy to drag from the place in
which God had set His witness.
It is not merely that there was a soil,
or a blemish, or a rupture, but a revolt, a departure, a yielding up to the
enemy the great purpose or thought of God.
The contrary effect
precisely, in the precisely like attempt, as has been observed by another, is
seen in Jesus. "If thou be the Son of God", said the tempter. His design was to
lead Him to the abandonment of His place, His place of perfect and entire
subjection which knows only Gods will.
But all was perfection
and victory in Jesus, but in Jesus only, whether before Him or after Him; for
the witness of this dispensation has been as corrupted as others. That which
was set to be a heavenly stranger on earth, the companion of the rejected
Christ, has faithlessly allied herself with the rejecting world; and what ruin
can be more complete than this?
The Man of
God from Judah
The "man of God" who was deceived by the old
prophet would have had security in the divine principles had his soul been
alive to them. The word received, it is most sure, would have secured him; for
it expressly forbade his eating and drinking in that place.
But divine
principles would have been his shelter also. The word he had received when he
set out on his journey was founded upon them, as we may easily perceive. For
how, I ask, could the Lord employ an unclean vessel? The old prophet had been
clearly laid aside as unfit for the Masters use. He was dwelling in the
very city where the Lord had a business to be done, but he was passed by. The
Lord had gone down to Judah to get a witness against the altar at Bethel,
though a saint of His own was living on the very spot. How could "the man of
God" think that the Lord could employ the prophet of Bethel as His vessel? He
had already passed him by. He had already after this manner treated him as
unfit for His use, according to the principles of His own house that an
unpurged vessel is not fit for service, 2 Timothy 2. How could the man from
Judah be careless about all this?
The word he had received was enough
to tell him how this principle of Gods honour was at that moment, so to
speak, alive in Gods thoughts, because he was enjoined neither to eat not
to drink in that unclean place, nor was he to return by the way that he came:
so particular was the commandment in keeping him apart from all fellowship with
that against which He was employing him to testify.
And yet "the man
of God" is beguiled to receive a message as from the Lord by the hand of one
who was in contact and communion with the unclean thing, against which he has
been brought all the way from Judah to testify! Strange forgetfulness! Sad and
shameful carelessness about the principles of the house of God. A saint as he
was, and servant as he was, faithful too in the face of the offers of a king
his carcase is not to come to the sepulchre of his fathers. 1 Kings 13.
Micaiah versus Jehoshaphat
When the eye is single the whole body is full of light. There is consistency
and harmony in the action when the moving principle is maintained single and
unmixed.
Micaiahs action in 2 Chronicles 18 was of such a
nature, but Jehoshaphats body was then anything but "full of light". In
the hour when he left Micaiah to go to the prison of king Ahab while he himself
accompanied that same king of Israel to the battle, who would have known him to
be a saint of God?
Where was the body "full of light" then? It was the
clouding and overcasting of all the illumination which he really partook of.
There was no harmony, there was no pure and cloudless noonday marking the
pathway of Jehoshaphat then; no making of "his calling and election sure", as
the apostle speaks.
It is happy to follow that dear man a stage
farther, 2 Chronicles 20. For in the days of Ammon, Moab and Mount Seir,
Jehoshaphats body is again "full of light". He acts as a son of David
ought to act; he seeks the Lord and the Lord only; and all is faith and victory
and joy.
But when in the earlier day Micaiah was sent to the prison of
Ahab and he himself went to the battle of Ahab, where was the son of David
then? The whole body was full of darkness.
The Returned Captives
The captives, returned
from Babylon to the land and city of their fathers, in like manner read us an
instructive lesson on this subject of the garment of "divers sorts"; and their
history affords both encouragement and warning.
They do not refuse to
accept the punishment of the nations sin, and therefore they take their
place in subjection to the Gentile power whom God had set over them for their
sins. They accept the favour of Cyrus, of Darius, and of Artaxerxes, in the
spirit of the injunction "honour to whom honour, fear to whom fear". They speak
of a Gentile power as "the great and noble Asnapper", and evidently feel
grateful for the kindness shewn to them by one after another of these powers,
blessing God because of them, and ready-hearted, I am sure, to pray for the
life of the king and of his sons.
But with all this they were a
separated people. Their refusal of Samaritan connection was as earnest as their
acceptance of the favours of the Gentiles. The zeal and revenge, and clearing
of themselves of the mixed principle and of the abomination of bringing Greeks
into the temple to pollute that holy place, was as simple and firm as it would
have been in the days of Joshua or of David.
They refused the garments
of divers sorts. If they would have worn that livery, it might have saved them
much trouble in the progress of the work of their hands, which was also the
work of the Lord; but they could not and would not. The thing was not according
to the ordinance; and they would not.
Paul might have saved himself a
prison if he had accepted the testimony of the damsel at Philippi; but it was
Samaritan help again, or something worse, and he could not; and the man who on
that occasion refused the garment of woollen and linen must therefore for his
faithfulness have his feet made fast in the stocks and wear prison bands. But
all is right in the end whether with Paul or the returned captives. Their God
pleads their cause.
Here, however, some new and serious points of
instruction on the matter of mixed principles occur. I feel I can pursue this
with a sense of personal need and application.
The further history of
the captives from Babylon warns us as well as instructs us. They refuse the
strange alliance, they will not wear the garment of divers sorts, but then they
wear their own garments without a girdle; that is the moral of the story.
They go to build their own houses when the Samaritan enmity stops
their building of the Lords. This is warning to us, as it was shame to
them, and the Spirit of the Lord has to awaken them as from sleep and
intoxication. They served themselves when the service of the Lord was
interrupted. Ease and indulgence and self-pleasing take the place which had now
been left vacant.
Haggai and Zechariah have to call them to the
girding of their loins and the trimming of their lamps. By no means do they
send them back to make terms with the Samaritans. They do not tell them that
they erred in refusing the garment of divers sorts, they only call on them to
gird up the pure garments they were wearing to do the Lords work
in the Lords way though Samaritans might again withstand them.
All this is full of meaning for us. The Spirit of God, let the exigency be what
it may, will never have the saint in "woollen and linen"; but at the same time
He would have the pure garment girded. An ungirded garment though pure is not
after His mind; and often does He find that wanting, as in the days of Haggai
and Zechariah, and this is our deep rebuke a pure position kept with
little spiritual grace.
The returned captives were in the right
position. Their place was a better place than that of their brethren who dwelt
still in the distant cities of the uncircumcised, and they did well, as I have
been saying, when they refused alliance with the Samaritans; such alliance
would be but the wearing of garments of divers sorts, of "woollen and linen".
This they did not do; but those who stand such a trial fail under
another. Though they thus refuse to wear mixed clothing their garments, as we
have seen, were not girded, and even worse than that, they were sadly soiled
and spotted. These returned Jews were doing much worse than their brethren who
were off in the distant lands of the heathen. Their ways in the Holy Land were
deeply rebuked by the ways of their brethren among the Gentiles. The Jews
abroad had redeemed their brethren from the heathen to whom they had been sold,
while the Jews at home or the captives returned to Jerusalem were selling their
brethren for debt.
Nehemiah
What a sad sight! What a humbling and searching fact! Is there not much that is
miserably kindred with this to be known still? This is something like "form
without power". "The kingdom of God is not in word but in power".
Position may be quite according to God, but the practical godly grace with
which it is filled and occupied may be scanty and poor. And how should this
warn us not to count on the virtue of a merely pure and separated position! If
it be trusted in, or held with an unjudged and unwatched heart, even they among
the uncircumcised may rebuke us. Much love and service is often to be found
within, as I have been speaking, while little of the power of holiness and of
the mind of heaven accompanies those who go outside.
What I mean is
this that there is often less grace and moral power in the purer
position than there is in the defiled connection. As with Jonathan, David loved
him dearly and yet he was not Davids companion. But the companions of
Davids temptations were at times a trial to him, talking on one occasion
of even stoning him, while Jonathan personally was always pleasant to him.
What an outside and an inside was this! And yet Davids outside
place was the place of the glory then, and his companions were in the right
position. But what exhibitions are all these!
And yet we see the same
around us at this hour. There is no lesson I would more press on the attention
of my own soul than this and I think I can say I value it:
*
Position without power,
* principles beyond practice,
* jealousy
about orthodoxy, and truth and mysteries
* with little personal communion
with the Lord all these the soul stands in constant fear of and in equal
judgment and refusal.
The earnestness about many, and many a right thing
that was found at Ephesus, the stir and activity even of a religious nature
that prevailed in Sardis, and the orthodoxy of Laodicea, were all challenged by
the Lord, and we deeply justify the challenge. Revelation 2, 3.
The
tithing of mint and anise when judgment and mercy were passed by, was exposed
by the divine mind of Christ; and in the Spirit the saint joins in the
exposure, "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree
corrupt and its fruit corrupt".
We refuse position without power as we
would principles without practice; or truth and mysteries and knowledge without
Christ Himself and personal communion with Him. But in the stainless, perfect
page of the word we find all honoured, and nothing thoroughly according to God
but where each and all is in its place and measure honoured. As He says
Himself, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone".
But here I will turn aside for a moment to what is sweet relief to the
soul: that to know Him in grace is His praise and our joy. We instinctively
think of Him as One that exacts obedience and looks for service. But faith owns
Him as the One that communicates; that speaks to us of the privileges rather
than of the duties; of the love, and the liberty, and the blessings of our
relationship to Him rather than of the corresponding returns from us.
This is truth, beloved, we need also now-a-days, though it may be a little
beside my leading thought just now. The call of God separates us, but we need
the Spirit of God to occupy the place according to God, and the loving devoted
mind. "Salt is good", the divine principle is the good thing. But salt may lose
its saltiness. The right position or the divine principle may be understood and
avowed, but there may be no power of life in it.
What variety of moral
instruction is thus provided for the soul in the words of the Lord! But let us
still listen and we shall still learn, for the mine is never exhausted.
The Two Tribes and a Half
The
history of the two tribes and a half has its peculiar instruction for us. They
do not stand in company with the Lot of the days of Abraham, though in some
respects they may remind us of him. For, as I have just said, it is wonderful
what a variety of moral character and of christian experience puts itself
before the soul in the histories of Scripture; the lights and shades are to be
traced as well as the leading features. This strikes us forcibly in the history
of this people.
They are not Lot but they remind us of him. Like him
their history begins by their eyeing well-watered plains good for cattle. While
yet on the wilderness side of the Jordan they think of their cattle: Abraham
their father had never been on that side of the river. Moses had said nothing
to them respecting those plains of Gilead. Nor did their expectations when
called out from Egypt stop short of the land of Canaan. But Reuben, Gad and
Manasseh had cattle, and they ask for an inheritance there on the eastern or
wilderness borders of the river, for there cattle might graze to advantage.
They had no thought whatever of revolting, of sacrificing the portion
of Israel, or of separating themselves or their interests from the call of God.
But their cattle would be nicely provided for in Gilead and there they desired
to tarry, though, of course, only as Israelites under the call of God. How
natural! How common!
They hold to the hope of the people of God though
not walking in the suited place of that hope. In power of character and conduct
they were not a dead and risen people but they are one in faith with such. They
would declare their alliance with the tribes which were to pass the Jordan
though they would remain on the wilderness side of it themselves.
They
were not, like Lot, a people of mixed principles who deliberately form their
lives by something inconsistent with the call of God; but they were a
generation who, owning that call and prizing it, and resenting the thought of
any hope but what was connected with it, are not in the power of it. Again I
say, how common! This is a large generation. We know ourselves too well to
wonder at this.
Moses is made uneasy by this movement and he expresses
his uneasiness with much decision. He tells this people that they bring to his
remembrance the conduct of the spies whom he had sent out years before from
Kadesh-barnea, and whose way had discouraged their brethren and occasioned
forty years pilgrimage in the wilderness. There was something so unlike
the call of God out of Egypt, in the hope of Canaan, thus to linger in any part
of the road, and Moses resents it.
And it is bad when this is
produced, when the first instinctive thought of a saint walking in the power of
the resurrection of Christ is that of alarm at what he sees in, or hears from,
a brother: and yet how common!
Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of
Manasseh have to explain themselves and to give fresh pledges that they by no
means separate themselves from the fellowship and interests of their brethren;
and they do this with zeal, and with integrity too.
In this they are
not like Lot. They would not have taken the eastern Gilead had this been the
forfeiture of their identity with those who were going to the western
the Canaan inheritance.
But Moses cannot let them go as Abraham parts with
Lot; they are not to be treated in that way.
Neither does the judgment
of God visit them as it did the unbelieving spies who brought up an evil report
of the land. But Moses eyes them and fears for them and has his thoughts
anxiously and uneasily occupied about them.
What shades of difference
do we find in these different illustrations of character! What various textures
may we inspect in these woollens and linens! Different classes among the people
of God and shades of difference in the same class.
We have Abraham and
Moses and David; we have Lot and Jonathan and the tribes in Gilead; we have
Jehoshaphat and Obadiah and yet these are the people of God.
Sodom was Lots place, Sauls court was Jonathans place, and
the palace of Ahab was Obadiahs; while Abraham dwelt in a tent, David in
a cave of the earth, and Elijah with the provisions of God at the brook Cherith
or in the Gentile Sarepta. Here were distances!
And so as between
Jonathan and others, for Jonathan was strictly speaking or
distinguishing neither Lot nor Obadiah, though we generally set them
together as a class. Neither was Obadiah Lot exactly.
And as between
Lot, Jonathan and Obadiah on the one side, and Moses, Abraham and Elijah and
such like on the other, we see the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of
Manasseh a generation who will not admit the thought of their separation
from the call and the people of God, but who betray in moral action that which
is inconsistent with that call. And this is indeed a common class; nay, this is
the common class, Numbers 32. Ones own heart knows it full well.
Joshua, who had the spirit of Moses, holds this same people in some fear and
suspicion, just as Moses had done before. He calls them to him and he addresses
to them a special word of exhortation and warning when the time of action in
the camp of God begins. Little things of Scripture are at times very
symptomatic. It is so, I doubt not, in Joshua 1. As to the tribes generally,
Joshua has but to say, "Prepare you victuals, for within three days ye shall
pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land which the Lord your God
giveth you to possess it". They were free; they were in travelling order; they
had but to know the hour of departure. Like Noah all was ready for the voyage
into another world and he needed only time to put himself and his family into
the vessel.
The two tribes and a half were not so equipped in
travelling order. They were encumbered, and instinctively, as it were, Joshua
acted towards them as towards a heavy baggage in the hour of decamping. He had
to challenge them at least he felt he had to remind them of their
pledges to Israel, for they were not under his eye as if they had been
altogether Israel themselves. In measure he is to them what the angel who came
to Sodom was to Lot.
So mark this same people again in Joshua 22. The
ark had gone over, the feet of the priests bearing it had divided the waters of
the Jordan, and the ark had gone over conducting and sheltering the Israel of
God; and it is true that Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh had gone over too.
But Israel and the ark remained there and the two tribes and a half return
return to settle where their brethren had but wandered; return to
present this questionable and strange sight Israelites finding their
place and their interests outside the natural boundary of their promised
inheritance, finding a home where the ark had never rested.
Ere they
set out on the return Joshua seems to feel this and specially warns and exhorts
them; and as soon as they make the passage and but touch the place which they
had chosen they begin to feel it also. They are not quite at ease in their
souls, and they raise an altar. This is full of language in our ears. An
Israelite in the land of Gilead at this living day of ours understands it.
Jehoshaphat was after this manner uneasy when he found himself on the
throne with Ahab, and under the pressure of that uneasiness which
attends on the heart of a true Israelite in an uncircumcised place he
asks for a prophet of the Lord. This is the language of the renewed mind in a
foreign land.
The two tribes and a half raise an altar and call it
"Ed". It was a witness, as they purposed, of this: that Israels God was
their God; that they had part in the hopes and calling of the Israel of God.
But why all this? Had they taken up their portion in Canaan they would
not have needed this; they would have had the original and not a reflection.
Their souls would have had the witness within, and "Ed" would not have been
needed without. But they were not in Canaan, but in Gilead. Shiloh was not in
view and they had to give themselves some artificial, some secondary help, to
prop up their confidence by some crutch of their own devising, that it might be
known that they and the Israel of God were one.
All this is full of
meaning and is much experienced to this day. Some witness of what we are and
who we are as saints is craved by the soul, and called for by others, when we
get into a position in the world with which the call of God does not fully
combine.
Some artificial or secondary testimony is felt desirable; the
countenance or acceptance of others, the examination of our own personal
condition, with many a restless action of the soul, reasonings with ourselves
about it all, remembrances of better days invoked now and again.
Something of this secondary character like the altar at Ed is needed where the
soul is not fully simple and faithful: all this is still known, and all this I
judge is the writing on this pillar in the land of Gilead.
Lots
wife, the pillar of salt, has a writing upon it which the divine Master Himself
has deciphered for us; and I doubt not the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth,
would have us under His anointing read and learn the writing on this pillar
which Israelites outside the natural bounds of the promised inheritance once
reared.
It may warn our souls, if we love quietness and assurance of
heart and deep peace of soul, not to return and find a settlement where the
church of God has duly found a pilgrimage. Does my soul read this writing?
Every heart knows its own humiliation. These disturbances of spirit,
this demand of Jehoshaphat for a prophet of Jehovah, this altar of Ed, witness
both for and against us. They bespeak the saintly or renewed mind, but they
bespeak it in such conditions, such exercises and experiences, as a more
single-eyed and full-hearted love to Christ would have spared it.
Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh are challenged a second time. Joshua and the tribes
in Canaan have to challenge them now as Moses had to do before. Their altar in
Gilead awakens suspicions now as their desire to settle in Gilead had awakened
suspicions then. This is all natural and common, and all symptomatic.
Saints in Gilead are not such as "make their calling and election sure" to the
hearts of their brethren, at least without some inquiry. A great stir is made
among the tribes who were now in Canaan and within the conscious possession of
Shiloh and of Gods tabernacle there, and an embassage is formed to
inquire into this matter.
Something, they know not what, struck their
eye which appeared to be at variance with the common call of Israel; and it
must at least be explained. What a living picture this is. We are surely at
home in such a spot as this and know the customs of the place.
I
believe the apostle in the epistles to the Corinthians is very much, in the New
Testament form, a Phinehas, a son of Eleazar the priest, crossing the river to
inquire after the pillar in the land of Gilead.
There were things at
Corinth which alarmed Paul, symptoms of sad departure from the common call of
the heavenly saints. They seemed to be "among the princes of this world", to be
"reigning as kings on the earth". His ministry in the meekness and gentleness
of Christ was getting to be despised and others were getting to be valued
because of their place and advantages in the world. The way of the schools, the
way of wisdom of men, was regaining its authority, and saints seemed as though
they were returning to settle where the church was to be but an unknown
stranger.
In the zeal of Joshua 22, Paul crosses the river, and
whatever the discovery may be the action is a painful one and the need of it a
scandal in the history of the church.
The tribes of Gilead may satisfy
Phinehas and his brethren more than the Corinthian saints satisfy the apostle;
all such differences and varieties in the conditions of the people of God are
known at this hour, but there is this common sorrow and humbling, that the
calling and election is not made sure, and we have either to take journeys or
to occasion journeys that our ways, our Ed, our altars, our pillars, the
bleating of our flocks in the plains of Gilead, may be inspected and inquired
after instead of our resting and feeding together, and together gathering
around and learning the secrets of the tabernacle and altar at Shiloh.
Corinth
In the New Testament the church
at Corinth was the Israelite on the wilderness side of the river.
The
apostles fears respecting the saints there were not respecting Judaising
influences; nor were they on account of the working of liberty of thought and
infidel speculations, at least at the time of the second epistle; nor were they
respecting the turning of grace into lasciviousness.
These fears
occupy the mind of the Spirit in addressing other saints and churches: but at
Corinth it was worldliness that was dreaded. A certain man appears to have
gained attention from the saints there; he was one who had, both from nature
and from circumstances, something to attract the mere worldly heart of man. He
was, I believe, as modern language speaks, a gentleman. He had a fine person
and an independent fortune, and the Corinthian saints had evidently to a great
extent got under his influence. To some extent they were beguiled.
They had begun to look on things after the outward appearance; they were
suffering a man to vaunt himself and to take occasion to be somebody among
them, simply from the advantage he had from nature and from circumstances. Such
a bad condition of things the apostle had to withstand. Affection and
confidence towards himself had been withdrawn in measure because he had no such
advantages to boast which they were thus beginning to prize. And surely he was
purposed not to affect such things at all. And though he had certain things "in
the flesh" of which he might glory, still he would glory rather in his
infirmities. He would be "weak in Christ".
The natural or worldly
advantages which this man had and used among the saints, our apostle exposed as
Moses would expose the woollen and linen garment or other mixtures. "Be ye not
unequally yoked together with unbelievers", says he to the saints now, as Moses
had said of old to Israel, "Thou shalt not plough with an ox and an ass
together. Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and
linen together". But Paul himself was not thus yoked and clothed; indeed he was
not. He was among the foremost of the tribe of Judah in crossing the river.
Surely I may say all these things illustrate profitable lessons for
us. We are not to be mixed up with that from which the call of God separates
us; we are not to wear the garment of divers sorts. But if we refuse it and put
on only the pure clothing, take the place and be found in the connection to
which the call of God leads, we are to be there with a girded as well as with
an unmixed garment, and to watch, too, that it be unspotted.
The world
is that, not to the improvement of which Christ calls us, but to separation
from which He calls us. But if, beloved, in form we take the separated place,
let us seek the grace and the power which alone can adorn and furnish that
place for the Lord!
And such is the character of the hour we are now
passing through. The god and prince of this world is allowing the citizens to
sweep and garnish his house, and they are led to admire it afresh in its
adorned condition, and to flatter themselves that it is by no means the same
house that it once was. But this delusion is solemn; it is as much the home of
the unclean spirit as ever it was, and only the more suitable for him because
it is swept and garnished, and ere long he will use all these operations of the
citizens for his final and most awful purposes.
"He that gathereth not
with me scattereth". Is our labour according to the purpose of Christ? Is it by
the rule of His weights and measures? If it be not, though we may labour in His
name we are but doing what the enemy will soon turn to his own account.
In the parable the sweeping and the garnishing turn out at the last to
have been all for the unclean spirit, to whom the house as much belonged as
ever it did, though it be true he had left it for a season. Whatever is done
for the improvement of the house is done for the master of the house, and Satan
is the god of the world as much as ever he was, and will be till the judgment
of it by the Rider on the white horse takes place.
The lengthened
peace of the nations which Europe so long and till lately enjoyed gave abundant
occasion to the sweeping and garnishing of the house. In mans way the
sword was turned into a ploughshare.
The earth and its resources, man
and his skill, have been produced and cultivated beyond all that ever was
known, and the house looks different from what it was now that it is under
these cleansing and ornamenting labours of its servants. Advancement in
letters, morals, refinement, and religion is immense; peace societies,
temperance societies, literature for the million, and music for the million,
with the general confederacy of the nations, loudly tell all this, as do the
boasts in the age which are heard every hour.
But this diligence is
according to the mind of the real master of the house, or the god of this
world. This is serious truth: "He that gathereth not with me scattereth". This
is a serious word: "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers". It is
confusion. It is the illicit weaving of woollen and linen together.
But, beloved, while one says this, the heart owns it and would be humbled by
the confession of it, that many a dear, honest-hearted servant of Christ who is
labouring with a mistaken purpose, and working not by the weights and
measures that are according to the standard of the sanctuary with a true
affection and zeal, and singleness, and diligence and fervour, may be far
before others of us who have clearly discerned their mistake.
I dread
indifference more than mixture. I would shun Laodicea more than Sardis. May we
learn the lesson in both its features
* Sardis, with its religious
bustle which gave it a name to live, will not do;
* Laodicea, with its
selfish, cold-hearted ease and satisfaction, will not do.
Let us be
diligent but in pure service; occupying talents, but occupying them for a
rejected Master; looking for nothing from the world that has cast Him out, but
counting on everything in His own presence by and by. J G Bellett