FAITH finds it easy indeed to see such an one as the Son Steward of prayer and dominion and royal honors when He comes to sit on a throne, just as He was a Steward when He traversed, in weakness and humiliation, the path of life. Can glory and a kingdom elevate Him? But He who entered with sorrow in its season will enter with joy in its season. The Man of Sorrows will take the cup of salvation. To Him that was despised and rejected, insulted and scorned, every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. The Person is the same throughout. Give man belief in one Christ, and faith receives it, that, having been the Steward of the Father’s will and grace in days of humiliation, He may still be Steward of the Father’s Kingdom in days of exaltation and strength. The Son of God delights to be the Servant or Steward of the will of God, and brethren in grace or in glory, in humiliation or in power.
GIDEON experiences at first the sense of his own littleness, whatever may be the relationship between the Lord and the people. The Lord’s answer shows him the one simple means “Surely I will be with thee.” When God acts powerfully on the heart, the first effect shows itself always in connection with Himself. Gideon’s thoughts are occupied with the Lord’s. It is by worship that he expresses his feelings when he receives an answer from the Lord to all his thoughts. He builds an altar to the God of peace.
HEZEKIAH is a type of the true Emmanuel of Him before whom the Assyrian, the desolator of Israel, will fall. This is a very important history, as foreshadowing the events of the last days. We find here again the principle with which Israel’s deliverance and that of all men is connected―a principle pointed out in Elisha and accomplished in Jesus. Hezekiah is raised as from the dead.
IF we apprehend things and present them to men such as they are in the sight of God, the Holy Ghost accompanies the testimony, and the conscience is reached. When God gives us this simplicity which makes us occupy ourselves with things in the manner in which God sees them, we ought to speak to any one according to the state he is in before God. If I see that he is lost, I tell him so, simply, and the simplest addresses are the best and most blessed.
JOSHUA, type of the energy and the mind of the Spirit in one who enjoys communion with the Lord, is certain of success, and in this assurance of faith he acts without hesitation. In effect all the strength of the enemy falls to the ground, without the use of any means that could account for it. Another principle is that there must be no fellowship whatever with that which constitutes the power of the enemy of God, with the world and that which is its strength. “Keep yourselves from the accursed thing.” God may use these things by consecrating them to Himself if He wish, but if man, if the Christian meddle with them, the Lord must judge him. Cities walled up to heaven, the greatest obstacles are as nothing. Complete separation from the world, because power is of God, that is the condition of strength.
KING of Tyre, Hiram (representing the Gentile’s glory of the world) supplied all that Solomon needed to accomplish his designs. But it is not only within the borders of the land that the power and glory of Solomon are known, his fame spreads among the heathen, even to distant lands, and the Queen of Sheba comes to bring him her tribute of admiration and the precious things of the Gentiles, who thus contribute to the splendor and glory of the place chosen by God, whose light had come (in type), and upon which the glory of the Lord had risen. It is a glory, the report of which attracts the nations; one which, when seen, surpasses all that could be said of it, and which one must be near to appreciate. It is a glory that excels all that the world had seen―a wisdom never equaled.
“LABAN and Bethuel answered and said, ‘The thing proceedeth from the Lord.’” If, instead of spending our time in reasoning, we were more simple and obedient, and presented things as the Holy Ghost tells them to us, the result would be better. But we often substitute our human wisdom for the commands of God. Often the things which are most simply said produce the greatest effect. Peter said to the Jews “You killed the Prince of Life.” This is what you did, and what I have to tell you on the part of God (Acts 3).
MOSES’ faith is seen in his giving up, when grown to age, all the advantages of the position in which God had set him by His providence. Providence may, and often does, give that which forms, in many respects, the servants of God for their work, but could not be their power in their work. It gives that, the giving up of which is a testimony of the reality of faith and of the power of God which operates in the soul. It is given that it may be given up. This is part of the preparation.
No possible experiences can ever have the effect which the presence of God produces on a soul. Such experiences are useful to humble us, they are a means of stripping us of ourselves. Nevertheless, it is only the presence of God as light which can cause us to condemn ourselves and gives us power to purify ourselves from our well known; though hidden, idols. Abraham had nothing to do either with Jacob’s idols or Jacob’s experiences.
ONE secret of the Christian’s life as soon as he knows God’s will is to do his work, to occupy himself with it and let no delay interfere with it, even to satisfy the wants of his body. This is the effect of the sign of the Holy Spirit’s work. Eliezer wishes to deliver his errand. And what was it that was in question? The interests and the honor of Abraham his master. He had entrusted to him the interests of Isaac his son; and God has committed to us, down here, the glory of Jesus His Son; and the glory, occupies us by the Holy Ghost who is given to us, that is, where there is a single eye in spiritual discernment, according to the position in which God has placed us. If we are there, there is no hesitation; being in our place we act with liberty and joy.
PEOPLE sometimes come before God because they have forgotten Him in the place where they ought to have stood and borne testimony for Him. And thus He asks Elijah “What doest thou here, Elijah?”
Terrible question―like those addressed to Adam, to Cain, and now to the world with respect to Jesus. God has still seven thousand souls who had not bowed the knee to Baal, although Elijah had not been able to discover them. Oh, when will the heart of man, even in thought, rise to the height of God’s grace and patience? If Elijah had leant more upon God, he would have known some of these seven thousand. He would, at any rate, have known Him who knew them, and who raised up his testimony to strengthen and comfort them.
“QUIETNESS and confidence.”―Do not make yourself uneasy; the One who holds that reins of the need-be is God. He does not take pleasure in afflicting. The great secret is to have entire confidence in the love of God, in the certainty that He is the Doer of it―not looking at circumstances or at second causes, but seeing the hand of the Lord in it—that it is the trial of our faith, and that it is only on the way. When the day comes in which God has His own way, these very trials will be found to praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
RUTH furnishes a kind of intermediate link between the fall of Israel under God’s immediate government, and the future fulfillment of His purposes. Prophecy, which unfolds these purposes and gives moral proof of this fall, begins with Samuel. We have this from the lips of Jesus, who is Himself the object of prophecy. Samuel, consecrated to God in a new and extraordinary manner, comes in, with the special testimony of the Lord.
SHADRACH, Meshech, and Abednego are cast into the burning fiery furnace. But it is in the sufferings of His people that God in the end appears as God. He allows their faithfulness to be tried in the place where evil arises, that they may be with Him in the enjoyment of happiness in the place where His character and His power are fully manifested, whether on this earth or in a yet more excellent manner in heaven. Faith and obedience are as absolute as the will of the king. Outwardly the king’s will is accomplished. But this is only to manifest more brightly the power and faithfulness of God, who comes even into the midst of the fire to prove the interest he takes in the fidelity of His servants. The effect to them of the fire is, that their bonds are consumed, and that they have His presence whose form is like the Son of God.
THE Church is called to answer the desires of the Lord Jesus, to be this to Him, either in the Holy Ghost now, or in the kingdom by and bye; to enter now, in spirit, into His thoughts and affections, His joys and His sorrows, and hereafter to shine in His glory and to sit on His throne. The Church, now endowed with the indwelling Spirit, and destined to sit, glorious herself, in the inheritance of His dominions, is the answer to these deepest desires of the Lord Jesus in the days of His flesh. He sought and claimed a kingdom when He was here; He desired the sympathies of His saints when He was here. But His people were not prepared to own His royalty; His saints were not able to give Him this fellowship. A kingdom, however, He is receiving in heaven, and He will return and administer it here. This fellowship He is beginning to find was through the Spirit indwelling in His elect, and it will be in its fuller measure made good to Him in the day of their perfection. The kingdom will be His glory and joy, but this fellowship in which the Church will stand with Him will be still more to Him. It was His desire here, and it will be His richest enjoyment by and bye. Eve was more to Adam than all his possessions besides.
UZZAH’s death was the result of David’s conduct, and he is angry with the Lord when this result takes place. This was truly the flesh. God made David sensible of that which was becoming to the service of the God of Israel (see 1 Chron. 15), and He restored his soul by showing him that He was the true source of blessing, and that the leaving the ark aside was leaving blessing aside too.
VICTORY leads to negligence. The work is thought easy. After the manipulation of God’s power there is a kind of confidence, which in reality is only self-confidence, for it neglects God. What proves this is that God is not sought. Ai was but a small city, two or three thousand men could easily take it. They went up and viewed the country, but God was forgotten. They did not sea His counsel, they went forward and they were defeated. When he who has the Spirit was taken by surprise not having acted in the Spirit. He must fall on his knee before the Lord. “Israel hath sinned.”
WHEN Satan’s power in superstition, in whatever way it may be outwardly manifested, is despised, it is destroyed, supposing always that God is with him who pours contempt on it and that he is in paths of obedience. Gideon overthrows Baal, and what can this god do said even he to whom the altar belonged. The power of God acted on their minds, for faith was there. Satan will incite men to open hostility against those who throw down his altars, but if we are standing on God’s side the only effect of this will be to give us victory, deliverance, and peace.
XT. gives us depth. If Xt. be not there, all is shallow.
YES, “we have an altar whereof they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle.” We have a sphere in which the divine life communicated to us can exercise its own faculties and find its own resources. The church has its own joys, its own interests, its own treasures, its own sphere of life, its own field for the affections, its own world, in short, in which there is fruit found to God.
ZEBULON, Asher, and Naphtali came up also with Gideon against Midian. The power of the Spirit which sways the minds of men is with the faith that acknowledges God, that acknowledges Him in His relationship to His people and faithfully puts away the evil which is incompatible with that relationship. Thirty-two thousand men follow Gideon. But the Lord will not have so many. He alone must be glorified in their deliverance. Ten thousand men are still too many. The Lord’s hand alone must be seen. Those only may remain who do not stop to quench their thirst at their ease, but who refresh themselves hastily as opportunity offers, more occupied with the combat than with their own comforts by the way. This was what was needed for Israel, that the Lord should have His place in their hearts and faith.