If you will just allow me for a moment to refer to what we are told concerning the conduct of a remnant of God’s people, placed in similar circumstances in former times, it will help to the understanding of what becomes saints now. There was a remnant of the Jewish nation that came up from Babylon, and their history will afford us a very simple, but very vivid exhibition of what should be the conduct of saints in a day like the present.
Turn for a moment to the book of Ezra. There were two things that specially characterized this returned remnant. The first we find in chapter 2. They were not suspicious, but extremely wary as to those who professed to belong to them (vv. 6163). They did not take any one’s bare word then. Those who could not prove their title were rejected. It was not pronounced that they were not what they professed to be, but “that they should not eat of the most holy things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim”; that is, one who could determine whether they were real or not. Meantime nothing was to be done with a doubt. It was a time of confusion and weakness, and if they were to act for God at all, they must be thus vigilant.
But they were more than careful, as we see further on; to the great annoyance of their neighbors, they were exclusive. Those about them, when they heard that they were building the temple, came to them, saying, “Let us build with you.” Ezra 4:2,32Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esar-haddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. 3But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us. (Ezra 4:2‑3). They had, one might say, a good claim, for it was of long standing, but the answer was, “Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God.” They refused their cooperation. We see the result, for they immediately turn around and try to hinder, manifesting their real character as adversaries. They were the deadliest enemies of the returned remnant, yet they were the most like them of any people, and therefore the Jews required to be the more strict in rejecting their claim. For those who are most like the true, without being so, are really most to be shunned.
Two other things characterize this returned remnant. They were bent on carrying out the whole will of God fully, and not only this, but they were careful to do so exactly as it was written. No one can read their history without being struck with this fact, that they never followed a custom of their own or a former time, but went straight back to the original ground of everything. “And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses. . . . as it is written in the book of Moses.” Ezra 6:1818And they set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses, for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem; as it is written in the book of Moses. (Ezra 6:18). Again, in the next verse, “And the children of the captivity kept the passover upon the fourteenth day of the first month.” Now this is exactly according to the original institution. You may remember that in the reign of Hezekiah — and he was a king who had faith in God as no other king had — even in his day, the passover was kept on the fourteenth day of the second month. They took advantage of a provision of grace for a time of failure. (See Numbers 9:1111The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. (Numbers 9:11).) But here the remnant take their stand upon the original institution.
In the book of Nehemiah we find another and a very interesting instance of this thorough devotedness to the whole will of God: “And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month.” What then? At once, without hesitation, they act upon it. “So the people went forth . . . and made themselves booths,” etc. What do we find recorded here by the Spirit of God? That this feast had not been kept in the brightest days of Israel’s history, not even in the palmy days of David and Solomon. “For since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so.” Neh. 8:14-1814And they found written in the law which the Lord had commanded by Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month: 15And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olive branches, and pine branches, and myrtle branches, and palm branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written. 16So the people went forth, and brought them, and made themselves booths, every one upon the roof of his house, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the street of the water gate, and in the street of the gate of Ephraim. 17And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness. 18Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the law of God. And they kept the feast seven days; and on the eighth day was a solemn assembly, according unto the manner. (Nehemiah 8:14‑18). Thus the feeble remnant abandoned all that had come in meanwhile, judged all past neglect and failure, and went directly back to what was written in the book of God.
Again, in chapter 12:45, we have another example of the habit of betaking themselves to divine authority. Here it was a matter that had been first arranged and ordered according to God’s will by David. Consequently, they go back to his day, just as in what had been originally given to Moses; they go back to the law. David expressed God’s mind in the one instance, Moses’s in the other.
They were no less stringent in their discipline than they were in the first recognition. In dealing with those who had already been received, in the matter of strange wives, they were equally strict. In short, nothing would do, and they were contented with nothing, but the complete maintenance of all that God had laid down.