BEFORE passing on let us look again at verse 13, because it has often struck me what a different thing death is to believers now to what it was to the Old Testament saints. " These all died in faith, not having received the promises." A blessed thing surely, but we have what is far better than promises and better than dying in the faith of those promises, blessed as that was; we have Christ Himself, and " all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him amen." (1 Cor. 1:2020Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? (1 Corinthians 1:20)) Then, too, how differently death came to one of them to what it comes to one of us! It was the thing of all others they could but dread and avoid, if possible. And why? Because sin had not then been put away, and there was therefore a sting in death-" The sting of death is sin."
Now, how different! Death to a believer, if he be truly living by faith, is the blessedest thing that can possibly happen to him, save of course the coming of the Lord to make good all His word. Yet one often finds believers terribly upset at the thought of death. It is very sad that those who have, not only promises, but God's beloved Son, that they should be so upset and terrified at death. It proves two things: 1st, that the effects of redemption are not fully known; and 2nd, how little is known of Christ Himself and how little He only is loved. If I love my Savior much, I shall not care by what means I get to Him; and if I know fully what redemption is, and has done for me, I shall not fear death; for how can I? Sin is put away-the cross has put away, not only my sins, but sin.. There is then now no sting; and more, death is ours! (1 Cor. 3:2222Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; (1 Corinthians 3:22).) We once belonged to death, now death belongs to us; it is part of our possessions—a gift to us as much as eternal life.
Beloved friends, suppose God gave us power to use this possession of ours, and He does so far as our hearts are concerned, how would we use it? I believe most of us, if we were honest, would say, " I would not use it at all;" but this is very sad, for it shows how little Christ is the object of the heart, If I want very much to be with Him, I shall not care how I get to Him. Some say, " Oh, I would like to be with Jesus, but I should not like to die to get to Him." They do not like the way. God has given us death-it is ours as part of what belongs to us in Christ, not that we may use it as we will, but by it test our hearts, I believe, how far they are right as to Christ.
Suppose I had put a hundred pounds in the bank for my child, it would belong to her, but she might not have the power to use it as she liked, as she might do something foolish with it, and hurt or injure herself; but, as I want to know what she would do if she could use it, I say to her, " My child, that money is yours, what will you like to do with it?" I get a secret at once out of my child's heart. If she is occupied with herself, she will say, " I should like so-and-so "-something that will gratify herself; but if she is occupied with me, she will say, " I should like to get so-and-so, for you "-selecting according to her intelligence, that which would best please me. That is the child that satisfies a father's heart.
Well, if you had your choice to live, or die, which would it be? Paul could say, " Willing rather to be absent from the body;" but while longing to go, he says also, " To me to live is Christ "-in the kingdom by serving longer here, he would have a greater reward, and so to live was gain to him, still he adds, " to die is gain." If we are longing to be with Christ, we shall not think so much of what we shall get there. I know there will be a kingdom, and all sorts of blessed things, but it is Himself I long to be with. Do I want to rejoice the heart of God?-precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints-then I shall want to die; though, of course, DEATH is not what I look for-I look for the Lord Jesus!
Beloved, how has it been with us to-day? Have we
been looking out eagerly, watching earnestly for Him all day, so that we can, as it were, say, We wonder He has not come; we have been so looking for and expecting Him, that we are astonished He has not yet come? Have we been declaring plainly that we expect the Lord Jesus? Ah, you say, it makes one so unsettled to be always expecting. Not so. I believe no one will be so thorough in doing things in all the relationships of daily life as the one who looks out really for the Lord. If I believe He is coming, I shall want every single thing I do to meet His approbation. I shall want to have everything in order, and be then just waiting.
Verse 15 of our chapter brings before us the solemn thought that there is such a thing as " going back;" and I believe that for each fresh measure of light and blessing God gives, He gives also the opportunity to go back if we will. Do not misunderstand me, I do not mean He ever gives a believer the opportunity to be lost, but that, as He leads on the believer, He gives the opportunity for the heart to chew itself as to the world, that He has in grace brought us out of. He saves once, and forever, but then, as it were, He leaves us free to follow our inclinations. He does not bind us to follow Him. We can do so or not. It was so with blind Bartimeus; the Lord Jesus opens his eyes, and then says, " Go thy way;" but what do we find? " He followed Jesus in the way." He might have gone on with the multitude, but no! Jesus had given him his sight, and he would follow Him. So with the Old Testament saints, they did not go back, but went on seeking a country. And yet, as to heart and ways, Christians now, who have got Christ, often go back; actually back into the world, as belonging to it, they never can, any more than the Israelites could to Egypt, for the same thing which delivers from hell delivers also from the world-the cross, I mean. What is it that is directly behind me? The cross of Christ. Then I must, so to speak, tread over the cross to go back. It is a very solemn thought.
If the Old Testament saints held on so truly to the promises, how much more should we, who have a living Lord, who ever intercedes for us! They desired a better country, wherefore God was " not ashamed to be called their God." How blessed! Abram trusted God for 2, city, and God was not ashamed to be called his God, for He had prepared for him a city.
Were it not for His sovereign grace, I think God might very often be ashamed of His people now, ashamed to be called on by them, not but that He owns them as His children, He must do that for His Son's sake, but may He not often be much ashamed of our ways? You know what it is to be ashamed of some brother, or sister, who has behaved very badly, and how, if you are with one, for whose good opinion you care much, and meet that brother, or sister, you will pass them as though you had no connection with them, and if asked who it is, you will let out as little as possible what you know about them.
Was not God so ashamed of Lot, as not to go to him Himself? He sent His angels, and even they were ashamed, and would not go in at first, and when they did, it was only to get Lot out as fast as they could. " Come out, come out," they said, and then they left him as soon as possible. They were ashamed of him. How different the case of Abram! " Abram is my friend," said God, " and shall I hide from him the thing which I do?" How few of us there are whom God can thus own! We are so taken up with ourselves and our own affairs that we do not leave room, so to speak, for God to walk with us and make us His friends.
With such thoughts passing through our minds, how blessed to remember, that though God has often to be ashamed of His people, He 'never takes back what He has once given them. When He saves He saves to the uttermost. Look for a moment at Peter; he failed, and failed terribly. Does the Lord take the keys of the kingdom from him? No; He restores his soul and then gives him in addition, even what was more precious than His kingdom, the care of His lambs and His sheep.
In verses 17, 18, 19, faith, as the power of true devotedness to God, is strikingly exhibited, and thus these three verses are entirely different to any of those we have been looking at up till now. The others have been skewing what God gave to Abram; these three chew us Abram giving back to God a little of what God had in love given him. Abram had a son, and one, too, quite different to his other sons, this one had come to him not at all in the usual course of nature, but had been given simply and solely in answer to faith; and God told him that in, Isaac his seed should be called; so to speak, with Isaac everything rose and fell. God tells him He will give him a son, Abram believes it, and gets one, and that, too, when he was well stricken in years, and Sarah past age -he gets Isaac altogether outside nature; God. tells him also that, " in Isaac," He would make of him " a great nation;" and then we find Him tempting Abram-trying his faith and putting it to the test.
Let us here notice, it is not when God first calls Abram that He tries his faith. No; He first calls him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and leads him on step by step, until He has strengthened him; then He gives him a gift, and afterward comes and asks for it back again. God found Abram ready and willing to give up Isaac, notwithstanding that in him was centered and contained every blessing. How little we know of this! We give up, so to speak, our sins, glad enough to be rid of them, because we know they would damn us, but how little we know of giving up our blessings!
God had been filling Abram to the full-He could give him no more. Abram had been walking with God, in the familiar intercourse of a friend, and now God is willing, as it were, to take a little return of what He had given. He calls " Abraham," and he at once answers, " Behold here am I." There is no questioning as to whether God meant him, or called him, but he replies at once, as one who is in friendly intercourse with another would. How simply he speaks-" Here am I." We often hear people speak to one another in one tone, then turn and speak to God in quite another. Why is it? There is want of
simplicity. Ought we not all to be able to say, " There is no one to whom I can speak so freely as to God"? I find, for myself, there is no one so simple and real as God.
You see people go into places of worship, so called, with bowed heads and bated breath. What does it spew? They have not been consciously and habitually walking in God's presence in their daily life. God looks not at a bowed head; He looks at a bowed heart. We must be humble. He is " the High and Holy One," who dwells with " the humble," as we read in Isa. 57:1515For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. (Isaiah 57:15). We may be sure Abram was humble, and that his heart was contrite, still he was simple; and the more, beloved, we have to do with God, the simpler we shall be. Did God answer the Pharisee who stood making long prayers, amid all the outward symbols of religion in the temple? But just see how God really speaks to His creatures, all sinners as they are, if only simple and real. See the lowly Jesus of Nazareth talking with Peter the fisherman, or with James or John. See Him, too, at Bethany, sitting with all kinds of people at the feast; Martha serving; Mary sitting at His feet. Look again at Abram, he asks God to dine with him. Well, He does it. All this is God holding simple intercourse with His children. Jesus talking to Peter the fisherman is God in intercourse with working men, for Jesus was God.
If man had had Abram's story to tell, he would have put in a deal of needless details and coloring to exalt Abraham. How simple is God's narrative! It is just " Abraham," and Abram's answer, " Here am I." God goes on to say, " Take now thy son," (He did not regard. Ishmael as his son at all), " Take now thy son, thine only son"-how it must have proved Abram's heart! that "only son whom thou lovest "-and offer him up. Abraham, however, says not a word; he asks not how God is going to fulfill His promises; he does not even say, "Why?" but just simply and unquestionably gives him up. He does not do it in a hurry, he knows he must get to the place God had told him of, and so he goes a three days'
journey. He gets up early; then he saddles an ass; takes two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and a knife, and wood, and sets off quietly and calmly. Faith could do all this, but nature had no place there.
The three days' journey is more, I believe, than Abraham leading along Isaac his son in faith to the place of offering; I believe it is a type of God Himself leading His own well-beloved Son to give Him up " for us all." But here we see a difference, " He who spared not his own Son," spared Abraham's to him. What must God's heart have felt during those three years that He was leading His Son along on this earth to the cross!
On the third day Abram lifted up his eyes and saw the place afar off, and he speaks to the young men, and bids them tarry there, while he goes yonder to worship; and Isaac and he go on alone. Here, I think, we get the secret of the whole thing. It is all worship; and the truest worship, let me say, is that which no eye sees, no ear hears but God's. There is nothing so abominable to God as worship done for man to hear and to see.
Abraham and Isaac going together to Mount Moriah seem to me rather like Gethsemane, and I have no doubt that Abram passed through, in measure, during those three days what Christ did in Gethsemane. He takes the wood and lays Isaac upon it; he takes the knife to slay his son-he does God's will, and then it is all over; God has got what He wanted out of Abram, and He gives him back his son. (Gen. 22:22And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. (Genesis 22:2).)
Beloved, how is it with ourselves? Are we treading in Abraham's footsteps? We have some precious possession that God has given us. He gave it to us in His love, and now He asks us for it back again. Do we willingly, joyfully give it up? It may be the dearest, sweetest, most loved object of our heart? If by grace we surrender it, what a testimony to the power of faith! It is what we shall not have in heaven; it is here on this earth only that we have faith, and God tests and tries it for His own glory and our blessing. He tries the faith of His people to prove whether they can trust Him, and when He sees they can He ever gives back much more than He has taken.
The treasury of God is being enriched by the faith of His people, and He passes His people through manifold trials, as Peter tells us, " That the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."
The Lord give us all to know more of the power of that faith which, with open heart, takes every blessing God can give us, and with open hand gives back to Him, in the spirit of worship, whatever He may ask from us.
c. W. (Continued front page 63.)
"CONSIDER HIM."
WHEN the storm is raging high,
When the tempest rends the sky,
When my eyes with tears are dim,
Then, my soul, " consider Him."
When my plans are in the dust,
When my dearest hopes are crush'd,
When is pass'd each foolish whim,
Then, my soul, " consider Him."
When with dearest friends I part,
When deep sorrow fills my heart,
When pain racks each weary limb,
Then, my soul, " consider Him."
When I track my weary way,
When fresh trials come each day,
When my faith and hope are dim,
Then, my soul, " consider Him."
Cloud or sunshine, dark or bright,
Evening shades, or morning light,
When my cup flows o'er the brim,
Then, my soul, " consider Him."
W. B.