Found by God (in His changeless grace, and in His delight in Christ, and in His body the church), amid the ruins of a sevenfold failure of all that is merely human,-I see nothing now left to us but that which I may call, in a peculiar sense, the obedience of faith. Obedience (and suffering the will of God is often the highest part of obedience, as it was in the case of our Lord, Phil. 2), and nothing but obedience, cost what it may. Yet obedience, not to the letter of texts (which repeated failure on man’s part, has made, often, to be impossible; and the attempt to do so, to involve the pride of rebellion), but to the Spirit and mind of God-the living God-His written word taken in connection with His own leading of His people: His word in its real, present bearing upon His people.
If any one will study Acts 20:29-32; 2 Tim. 3 (note ver. 15); Jude 20-25, they will see plainly enough, so I judge, that the word of God as given through the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, predicted a state of failure of the church upon earth; and that, in the trial so created by man’s failure on earth, there would be no succession, no apostles, no official authorities to turn to, no new revelation; but that, to the humble and truthful amid their failed circumstances, God and the word of His grace would be sufficient.
The portions, Lev. 26:40-45; Deut. 30 (as also many other parts of the Old Testament) bear witness to the same truth: as did, in one aspect of it, our Lord’s most blessed walk when He was upon earth,
There are three points in this obedience of faith (of faith as contrasted with obedience to the letter) which I have ever found to be of primary importance.
1St. Never to gloss, or cover over past failure, in any. way whatsoever.
2ndly. Not to dissociate myself from the sorrows brought upon God’s people by failure-be it theirs or my own.
3rdly. When taking, thus, my stand amid failure and its fruits,—a failed one amid failed ones in the circumstances of to-day, not to refuse subjection to God and His word, and the responsibility of caring for His honor today because of past failure.
To nature, there oft seems an easy and a short cut out of present difficulties, which really involves rebellion against God, and the refusal to submit to Him.
The testimony given to us in Num. 14:39 -45, is a solemn warning-a warning which Protestantism, Nonconformity, and Reformers have too generally neglected.