Notes of an Address by Mr. Code.
LET us read, dear brethren, a portion of God’s word in the thirteenth chapter of the book of Exodus: “And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, Sanctify unto me all the firstborn, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine,” etc. (read to end of verse 18.)
I have not many words to say; but if they be used by the Holy Spirit according to our prayer, they shall be pointed words. As we were singing the hymn, the thought that had already occupied my mind was strengthened by the words― “My God, I am thine;” and this thought also was in my heart, that when we are spiritually happy there is not one so happy in this assembly, not one so interested in our happiness, there is not such an interested listener to all that passes among us, as Jesus Himself. Blessed Jesus! It is not merely that we can say He is ours, but He says to us individually, “Thou art mine.”
With such an expression of grace and fatherly love, God asserts His right to the firstborn, telling Moses to sanctify them unto Him. “It is mine.” It is God’s claim; His possession. The great possessor of heaven and earth finds more to value in one redeemed one, than in His possessions of heaven and earth. And these firstborn ones were His. Why? They were His by purchase: He bought them. And what did He give? He gave His own Lamb, His own beloved Son. Beloved, precious, blood-bought brethren, God has given up, and bruised, and put to grief His own beloved for us! Oh, what a word is that in Malachi: “And I will spare them as a man spareth his own son which serveth him.” It is the law of God in the nature of a father to spare his own son; and especially and emphatically the son that serves him. But when Christ was intensely serving Him―His own Son―He bruised Him for us. And, therefore, God’s love to us has risen to a height inconceivably beyond the fatherly affection He hath planted in our hearts toward our own offspring. Shall I say, He overcame that feeling of one who spareth his own son that serveth him, that He might spare us who did not serve Him, and be able to say of you and of me, “It is mine.” Oh! we are His possession. What affection is there―not a cold doctrine! it is that which appeals to our hearts― “It is mine.” Blessed be God, that could speak thus! But then, it was the “first born” that became His; because when He smote Egypt’s firstborn, He spared Israel’s. He passed over them. I need not tell you that this is a type. But why did He spare the firstborn of Israel? Just simply for the sake of the blood of the typical lamb that was “without spot or blemish.” He commanded them to kill a lamb thus described, and merely to put the blood on the doorposts; and as the door was the way into the house, no judgment could enter into it, because the judgment had already passed on the lamb for them, and they became His. And the moment we believe in Jesus, the true Lamb, because God, who only knows the depth of His atoning work, commands us to do so the moment we give up our own thoughts, and our own shallow estimate of that work, and take God’s testimony of it, in faith, believing on Jesus, then we are His. It is not my seeing I am Christ’s that makes me Christ’s; but it is believing in the blood that makes me Christ’s. I can’t touch the blood without being Christ’s; and again I say, it is not because I see I am God’s or feel I am God’s, but because I believe in the blood, the precious blood which God has provided, that He might be able to say of you and of me, “It is mine.”
But the great point in my mind, beloved, in reading this chapter was to shew something about sanctification. Now God said, “Sanctify unto me all the firstborn.” Sanctify unto me; i.e., separate unto me from the rest this peculiar people, whom I have passed over as to judgment, and made mine own. Sanctify them to me. They were sanctified unto Him, because they were His. “For they are mine.” He has a right, has He not, to feed, to instruct, to order His own? What! any one prescribe to God how to nurture His own? What, any one dispute with God, and say, “This is not good, and that is not good.” God first says, “It is mine,” and then instructs us as to our education, and nutriment, and blessedness. Moses then speaks to the people, and tells them to remember the day in which they came out from Egypt, and tells them what they were to eat, and what they were not to eat. They were not to eat leavened bread. That is the food of Egypt, that is the food the carnal mind feeds on, that puffeth up. They were not to eat leavened bread, nor was leavened bread to be seen in their houses, nor even was leaven itself to be seen in all their quarters. These three things were not the same. God gives it out, and not without meaning, that they were not only not to eat “leavened bread,” but that there was no leavened bread to be seen in their houses, and more than this, even the thing of which the leavened bread was made, not even the principle which leavens it was to be seen. Nothing of Egypt was to be fed upon. The Lamb they were redeemed by and on which they fed, was “without blemish, and without spot.” Therefore we are to pass the time of our sojourning here in fear. And, let me remark, when speaking on this text, how frequently you find persons clipping this verse of its full proportions, and quoting only thus far: “For as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold,” and leaving out the great point― “from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers.” Paul also, in Ephesians, after shewing (chap. 4:11-16) what the Church is fed with, exhorts them that they henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, for there is substance in the nurture which God gives to His people. Ah, beloved of God, we have no reason to love this Egyptian world. It is not wise nor happy to do so; for “the world passeth away, and the lusts thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”
What a difference may we have observed in our experience as regards this world when we have looked at it with the carnal, and when we have seen it with the spiritual mind! When with the mere natural mind, then we say, Ah me! how short is my time in this beautiful world; how soon I shall die―pass away, and be no more seen, while it remaineth; yea, the tree that I plant, or the house that I build, outlives me. But when I look at it in the Spirit, then the picture is reversed; then I see that the world passes away, while I remain even as Jesus, the Lord, who “in the beginning laid the foundations of the earth!”
There is another thing in this chapter. You will find, when God commanded the use of unleavened bread, and prohibited leavened bread, and commanded the commemoration of that remarkable day when He brought them out from Egypt, that the reason is given four times: first, in the 3rd verse, then in the 9th verse, in the 14th and 16th. The reason given in all these different places is, “For by strength of hand the Lord brought you out of Egypt.” What is the meaning of that? Have you ever considered that, dear brethren? The reason why they were not to eat leavened bread was, because God had brought them out “by strength of hand!” What is the meaning? Why because God and Egypt are so contrary there is such distinct moral contrariety between God and Egypt, i.e., between the Father and the world, as to His people, that for them to eat and feed on Egypt’s resources―for His people to be dependent on the world for their strength and good, or any blessing; yea, for His people to belong to it, politically or religiously, compromises the great and glorious truth of Christ and Belial, light and darkness, having no fellowship together. God’s having brought them out by strength speaks this language, ―It was not of your own will, it was not by any agreement with, or permission of Egypt, that you became my people, or that you came out of Egypt. No, said God, when forewarning Moses of that eventful night, “Against all the gods of Egypt will I execute judgment― I am the Lord” God, the true God, is in direct antagonism with the very heart, and soul, and strength, and source of Egypt, as a moral system. We should examine our ways, lest we be found confounding the things that differ, and that differ most essentially, involving the nature and character of God, in contrast to the present evil world. Its religion, and its power condemned and crucified Christ. There is―there can be―no sympathy, no fellowship, between Christ and the world. And mark you! if we want God to make us a blessing to the world, as He says, “I will bless thee, and make thee a blessing,” then He must take us thoroughly out of the world, as He did Abraham, to show plainly what the world is, and send us to it, and in proportion as we don’t come out from it, we are denying His testimony to it. The more we realize this separation from the world, the more we stand in the position of ministers of God’s mercy to those who are of it. Remember then, beloved brethren, that if we want to be used—if we want to be happy in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be separated: “Sanctify unto me the firstborn.”
Now, it is often objected, that when we press on our brethren separation from the world, we press on them a narrow and bigoted principle; and that if we obey such a call, we render ourselves incapable of being useful to our fellow-creatures. Our usefulness, say they, is in proportion to the measure in which we mix ourselves with the world. That is not a good principle. Remember that passage in the epistle of Paul (2 Corinthians 6:11), “Our mouth is opened unto you, our heart is enlarged.” That is, the apostle expressing Christ unto the saints, speaks as Christ’s mouthpiece; now that is the power, I think, of the apostle’s affectionate command. I see Christ speaking in it; He asks them for a responsive enlargement of their heart to Him, and to men. And what follows? “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” &e., i.e., separation from these is largeness of heart. Enlargement instead of narrowness! The more separate from complicity with them that are in evil, the more we are able to let our hearts go out to them in the bowels of Jesus Christ, and the more truthful will our testimony to men appear. For it seems a contradiction for me to be identified with a man in his evil, and then to try to preach and pray him out of it. If we want God to bless us, let us keep ourselves for Him.
There is another passage I would direct your attention to, it is in the 2nd epistle of Timothy the 2nd chapter and 20th verse, “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and oi silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honor, and some to dishonor. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work.” Now, do we want to be used by Christ: Do we pray that He may use us? Then let us be vessels meet for the Master’s use. Will He use an unclean vessel? Then let us be clean, and be prepared unto every good work Satan, with false promises and with false principles, deludes the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ to compromise; and with the plea of doing people good, really to do them harm. If a man’s house is on fire, I shan’t persuade him by going into it, that it is unsafe; if I go to lodge in it, I am not likely to get him to come out of it. And is not this world under condemnation, and only waiting till the sentence be executed?
One thing more. We may press principles, and press precepts, and every exhortation upon our brethren, but if we don’t show and make it plain, that it is the appeal of God’s love, and God’s wisdom, we will not persuade them. But, O beloved, have we not found this, when we have considered it, to be an irresistible appeal to our hearts, the call upon us to be the friend of Christ―His friends! Oh, if you are His friends, you will not argue, or reason, or grudge to obey Him. And if you are His friends, your services, your honest services, are insured; and what a thing it is, Christ says. “Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends.” Shall we answer to this call? my friend! when the high Jesus exalted above all, into whose hands God has given everything, because He loved Him, when this blessed Jesus stands forth before us, and says, “friends!” shall we debate? Shall we hesitate? Oh, no. This will give us a clear ground, this will give us a clear conscience within. It is better, happier, to please Jesus as His friend, when He exalts me into such confidence, far better than to possess the whole world. I can’t, I know, persuade you to do it, unless you take up the idea as a friend of Jesus; but the moment you come forward and say, I will be a friend of Jesus, owning the position His love has put you into, then you will know the blessedness of being His true-hearted servant. Let us go forth into the world, not as the friends of the world, but as the friends of Jesus; “whoever is the friend of the world, is the enemy of God.” Will you talk about Him and His gospel, and yet be a friend of the world? Oh, let us cease from this, and be the friends of Jesus. “Let us go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach; for here have we no continuing city.”