Chap. 2. is specially to the priests. You see why he refers to this. (vss. 4-8) Levi had earned his place. You remember that when the children of Israel had got the calf Moses stood in the gate, and said, “Who is on the Lord’s side? let him come unto me.” He left it to them; and the sons of Levi alone gathered themselves together to him, thereby saying they were for God; while the rest were identified with the calf. What you get in Exodus is confirmed in Deut. 33, “Who said unto his father,” &c. They had been faithful in the matter of the golden calf, but now solemnly He comes to the priests and says, “Why are you in this position? Why did I make a covenant with you? It was when God was more to them than father or mother that that covenant was made.” Now, instead of being far God, they were caring more for themselves, considering more their own gain, and allowing blemished sacrifices to be brought out for God. Self had come in; and we may be against everybody but self. They were in a place which was against all contrary to God in others. When it came to themselves, they were not prepared to give Him the place He looked for; they were considering self. “All seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.” Did you never think that every circumstance is an opportunity of showing what Christ is to us? The world reads what place Christ has in your heart by your actions, in what may appear to you but trivial circumstances, “whether ye eat or drink.” God does not shut out anything. He comes down to the lowest detail of your life. If you say it would not be quite convenient to bring Christ into this circumstance, to introduce Him into this scene, to ask Him to be interested in what I am doing, it is because you well know He would be very likely to rebuke it.
You know it is a common practice with travelers to cut their initials in mountain passes or rocks, or to scrape their names on walls in favorite resorts; and these marks show they have been there. Their initials are there. It is just the same with everything we have in our pathway. We leave our marks upon them all, and the world forms its judgment by the way we have touched them. The moment we cannot bring Christ in, we know we are not in our right place. There is nothing we have to do which is not a matter of importance, and you will show by your touch what place Christ has in your heart. If God has His place you will rejoice for him to have His unblemished sacrifice, even if you would get a nice piece for yourself by lowering the standard.
Chapter 3:1-3. They were professing to be, waiting for this messenger, and so took the ground of being all right-it was all hollow, and it would not do for God. They heard the rebukes against it, but they refused to accept the sentence. Then Comes the message -He will come. Do you think He will accept this state of things. Do you think this messenger is such an one as yourselves? He will come time—the One you profess to delight in; but He will come in judgment. He will have a remnant, but it will not be the state of things He finds—which will be acceptable to Him. He will have to “sit as a refiner, and as a purifier of silver.” It will not be merely God coming in to deliver from the fiery furnace He will come in, showing the hollowness, before He descends in blessing. He must come in as He is, in His character of truth, and there must be room made for Him.
We hear a great deal at the present time about the coming of the Lord. Saints say they are waiting for Him. What is your life saying? For God will have reality. Is it inviting the return of the Lord, when you are tampering with things which you know He would disapprove of? God does not look only for an invitation for His Son in a hymn, in our lips; He looks at our desires. Go and be “like unto men that wait for their Lord.” If I am expecting friends, I go to the station to meet them. I am looking for them; so I am on the platform, and my presence there shows I am looking for them. Rev. 22:20 is a moral thing, “Come, Lord Jesus.” It is the answer when Christ says, I am coming. It is the attitude of the Church, saying, The sooner the better.
But now, can the world see in you what they saw in the Thessalonians? Paul went to them, preached to them; and when he has left them he says, I have no need to go and tell the world what I preached to them, anybody can see it; and people were saying, He has been preaching Christ to them, and he has told them that the Son of God is coining back to them, and they have given up all their idols, and they are waiting for Him. Everybody could see it. There was a different stamp about their walk; that is waiting for the Lord; it is the simplest thing possible, yet the most difficult. Our walk shows clearly the object before us. It stamps us. It is not merely separation from evil, but looking out for Christ. And it is the place Christ has got in your heart which gives the character to your walk. It was not that the Thessalonians were taken up with reproving those around, but others could see clearly what they were after.
It is a very solemn thing to be inviting Christ in such a careless way. If we are singing, “Lord Jesus, come,” we ought all to be in the attitude suitable for His coming. And what about the worldliness? what about the unjudged evil? It is right doctrine, but not what God looks for. He looks for a state of Iva in keeping with the doctrine.
What a rest to the heart as we come to verse 6! Amidst all the unfaithfulness God remains unchangeable. Heaven and earth may pass away, but God cannot change. His dealings may change, but through all the changes it is to bring about one end. You see it in John 13, “Having loved His own;” but His dealings change. Why? Because not only has He separated them from those around, but His thought has been that they might enjoy communion with Himself in His sphere. That is His heart’s desire.
The remnant persist in self-justification, yet He comes in and blesses them. He does not leave them, though they persistently shut the door to His claims. (vss. 8-10) The heart of Jehovah yearns for blessing. He longs to pour out all His heart has in store for them, so that there may not be room enough to receive it. (4:11-13) Are you not struck with the patience, the unwearying love of God? Anybody else would have been repulsed and driven away long ago. There was but one heart which would have borne it all. Yet in verse 14 they say, God has not been true to His word.
Ver. 15. Another mark of their condition. They want to break down all distinctions. “Call the proud happy,” class them all together, and make them all alike. That is the judgment of a heart not in communion with God. They “put darkness for light, and light for darkness.”
Then we get the effect on the heart which has been reached.
Ver. 16-18. Now the result of it all. The end He has had before him in all His dealings. God will come in and have His love gratified, and this last message of God to Israel produces in the hearts of a few the knowledge of what they are, and they “feared the Lord,” and they “thought upon His name.” Then He blessed them above all they could have thought of. He was hearkening for the faintest beat of a heart that responded to His deep affection. His ear was listening for the first note. It is a wonderful picture at the end of God’s dealing with them.
And do you know what He is hearkening for now? He is listening for a note, here and there, from a stray heart which owns God’s love, which beats true to Him; and God does not lose a note of it. And by-and-by He will recall it all again. Ver. 17: “When I make up my jewels,” you will return again to your land, “and I will spare you, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.” You did not see that you needed succor; but my eye looked forward to “that day.”
Another thing, in verse 18, instead of calling “the proud happy,” you will “discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not.” There will be no more writing pleasant names over those who are doing evil. If God be God, serve Him, and there will no longer be trying to paint up what is contrary to Him. The heart discerns what is true amidst a great deal that is unfaithful and untrue. True grace and true love discerns.
And now what a word this book is to us! What a place it occurs in! God has come in, has spoken to us as He never did to the house of Israel. He cannot say another word; He has not a deeper proof of love. He says, I have given the grandest proof of my love; I have given my only-begotten Son; if you are not convinced, I have nothing more I can give.
Turn to Luke 2 for a moment. There you get instances of those who were waiting for the Lord. First, in Simeon. Look at the character of the man. It was not a question of intelligence; he was a godly, sober, waiting man. You see Simeon waiting, and you get the proof of his waiting. When he has taken the babe in his arms, he says, Now I am ready to go; I have only been waiting.
Then there is Anna. In verse 37 you get a description of her. And in these two characters you get the picture of the faithful remnant who were really waiting for the first coming. Anna not only gives thanks, but she goes and speaks of Him “to all those who looked for redemption in Jerusalem.” God comes to our hearts, and He looks to see what Christ is to the Church. We have learned a great deal of truth in these last days, and we are gathered here because we have learned the place in which He would have us.
What now? “We thus judge, that if One died, then Were all dead, and that He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.” There must be something definite in our path. We own that Christ is the one round whom our hearts and affections are gathered. Is that what we are telling out in our lives? or is it as in Ephesus? You get in the Thessalonians “work of faith and labor of love.” In Ephesus get “work” and “labor”—too. To outward observers, the same as in Thessalonica; but Be comes and looks. When His eye rests upon them, He says, “I know thy works,” but “thou hast left thy first love.” The brightest church had dwindled clown to formality, and there was not a bit of power in it. The affection was gone.
Paul writes to the Corinthians: “I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband that I may present a chaste virgin to Christ.” His heart laid hold of what Christ would have the Church.
Peter could write: “Whom having not seen, we love; in whom, though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice With joy unspeakable and full of glory.” Is that the character of our hearts? Not merely waiting for an ordinary person, but as He says, “I have loved thee.” Do our hearts so throb with affection that we “rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory?”
The one thing which melts the heart of a Christian is the immutability of the heart which looks for the love, and treasures it up. There was plenty of activity in Martha. She may sweep the house, and prepare the dinner; but there are very few alabaster boxes broken for the Lord. So He says, “Open wide the windows, and let the perfume of that which has been a sweet savor to Me go out to the world.” It was what Christ was to that heart which broke the alabaster box. And it is that which is done to Christ, and for Christ, which makes a sweet savor to God.
God’s principles are unchanged: He was looking then for affection, though Israel did not know the love which is told out to us; His heart could not be satisfied with anything else. There is no use in handing out to God activity, service, anything else; yet if He sees a “cup of Scold water” given to one of His little ones, prompted by deep, real love to His name, He says, That is the thing for my heart; that is what I am looking for. And what are you each furnishing the heart of Christ with each day? Is it your desire to be satisfying His love? Can you say, It is the intense longing of my heart to know how to respond to and satisfy the yearning affection of that One who has told out such deep love to me? May the Lord grant it in every one of His beloved saints.
J. B.