From the beginning faith counts upon the end. The hymn puts the thought this way:
"The guilt of twice ten thousand sins One moment takes away;
And grace, when first the war begins, Secures the crowning day."
This calculation upon the end is found in Moses's song at the beginning of Israel's wilderness journey. (See Exod. 15:17-19.) It is a fine exercise of the soul. His faith knows what the end must be, from knowing what the beginning has been.
Our life's journey is pictured in Israel's journey from Egypt to Canaan (Exod. 12 to Josh. 4). Their journey began-and ours must too-with the full and perfect settlement of the greatest question of all, the question of our relationship with God.
This relationship is the subject in Exod. 12 It was not a time of conflict between Israel and Egypt, but a time of God's judgment. The blood on the doorpost settled the matter of God's judgment, and settled it forever.
"The guilt of twice ten thousand sins One moment takes away."
The Destroyer is turned aside by the blood on the doorposts and lintel of that house, where most surely, but for the blood, He would have entered carrying death with Him. That blood was God's provision for settling matters between Himself and Israel in the doomed land of Egypt. It effectually blunted the sting or power of death, and it did it all alone, in great simplicity. Nothing else could have done anything at such a moment. That blood alone, however, did everything that was required at that moment, a moment that was to decide whether the firstborn in Israel were to live or die, to be saved or perish.
As sheltered by the blood, Israel begins the journey. The greatest of all questions was settled -their relationship to God-and this being so, they begin, as it were, to live, so that the very month in which all this took place was to be to them the beginning of months (Exod. 12:2).
It is well when the soul owns that its relationship to God is the first great matter to settle. Other matters, whatever they may be, are secondary to this.
Having peace with God, Israel now starts their journey. Soon they find themselves at their wits' end. The strength of Pharaoh is behind them, and the Red Sea in front. It seems as though it is only a choice of deaths, the slaughter or the flood. But He who was in Egypt with them yesterday, is with them today on the road out of it. The pillar can do its business as effectually as the blood. It may be a different business, but it is accomplished with equal ease. The blood is not in use now, but the pillar serves because the blood had already served; the pillar defends because the blood had already redeemed. Accordingly, the pillar comes between the two camps. It is darkness to the one and light to the other, so that Egypt does not touch Israel, and the hosts of Israel go on through the sea while the hosts of Egypt in all their strength and power perish in it.
Thus the journey began. They were taking the journey as a blood-bought people, and such a people shall be a defended and a conquering people. The blood was God's pledge that it would be so. The song declares this (Exod. 15:1-19). There had been no song till now. The hour of redemption from the judgment of the Lord in Egypt had been enjoyed in silence but this hour of deliverance at the Red Sea was celebrated in song. The silence may have been of a deeper tone than even the song, but it was also a more fitting expression of the joy of the moment. Israel enjoyed the thought of the blood that was redeeming them from the righteous judgment of God by feeding on the paschal lamb in silence; they now enjoyed the sight of the vanquished enemy by the lifting up of their voices in a shout of praise. These distinctions are full of beauty. The silence of the paschal hour was of a deeper character, but it was fitting that it should not have been after the manner of the fervent, triumphant hymn of the Red Sea.
Redeemed from judgment and delivered from the enemy that would have overwhelmed them, Israel proceed on their way through the wilderness. There they encounter necessities which call for supplies as well as infirmities and trespasses which need forgiveness and healing. The Lord is present and supplies the resources of His grace. He feeds, He disciplines, He rebukes, and He pardons. No matter what the demands on Him may be, or how often they may be repeated, He never leaves them. If Israel bring a pilgrimage of forty years upon themselves, the Lord will be in the wilderness with them for forty years. As God over all, blessed forever, He is seated between the cherubim, in the sanctuary, the Lord of the very holy of holies. The same glory, however, abides continually in the cloud outside. The God of the camp is the Guide and Companion of the camp, and though He may be grieved and have to express His displeasure, He never leaves them. His hand is not shortened, nor is His ear heavy. In the very heart of the wilderness their circumstances have changed from those in Egypt, but God has not changed. Here the wilderness is all around them, while in Egypt it was only the wilderness before them. The very wilderness in all its circumstances is given to them in order to prove whether they would indeed obey the Lord, and thus to learn what was in their hearts toward Him (Deut. 8:2). Were they ungrateful for such an opportunity or was it unwelcome to them? How would we feel today if we loved someone? Should we resent some call to serve, some occasion to give proof that we had him in our heart, that there was something there for him? We know we should not. We know that we should rather welcome such opportunities, if indeed we loved him.
The wilderness gave to Israel the opportunity to prove their love for the Lord. Life in this world gives the same opportunity to His people today. As often as we are "lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God," we shall be uneasy and fretted and impatient and disappointed. But as often as we love to prove that our hearts are with Christ, these times of journeying through abundance and through need, through good report and through evil report, through humblings and changes, through weariness and solitude, will not be resented.
In themselves, chastenings are not joyous. Nothing can make them other than what they are, grievous. But "the pillar" tells us of the presence of a glorious Friend who condescends to be our Companion from first to last. We are to be a happy people all along the road. The blood, the song and the pillar are different tokens of the very same Jesus who meets all our needs.
At the end of the journey there was a confederacy on the heights of Peor against Israel, as at the beginning there was a confederacy on the borders of the land at the Red Sea. After forty years' sore trial with Israel the Lord had a great occasion to prove Himself to be the very same to them as He had been at the outset. And so He did. (However we may feel about such opportunities, we may say He welcomes them to prove what is in His heart toward us.) The Lord alone met Balaam and Balak who came with their altars and their enchantments to the heights of Baal and of Peor. Israel was stretched out in the valleys beneath. Their very rest was not allowed to be disturbed by even a report of what was going on, although in one sense it was a moment full of imminent peril to them. As in the day of Pharaoh and the sea, Israel did not need to raise a hand or strike a blow, and all the efforts of the enemy were frustrated. There was no enchantment against Israel. The Lord let the Moabite and the Ammonite know this, while Israel remained in peace and at rest.
If we only valued what we have in Him, if we only estimated our condition in relation to the Lord and not in relation to circumstances, all would be joy in the spirit. In this we fail. We love circumstances and not the divine favor. We live in the power of circumstances and not in the light of the Lord's countenance and this makes us dull and halfhearted. If it were not so with us, our journey, troubled as it may be, would find us as happy a people in the difficult circumstances as in the hour when we first rejoiced in our soul's salvation. It is one and the same Jesus throughout, whether it be in the day of the blood, of the song, or of the pillar. It is the same Jesus who is here with us amid the circumstances of human life who died for us on the cursed tree, who lives in heaven for us, and who will give us His unchanged Self in the glory forever.
For Israel the passage through the Jordan was the hour when the wilderness was put behind them forever, just as there had been the hour in Egypt when the wilderness was all before them. After they crossed the sea, there had been the time when the wilderness was all around them.
At the Jordan it is not the blood, or the song, or the pillar, but the ark, and the feet of the priests. New occasions may display new resources, but it is always the same Lord. There are different administrations, but the same Jesus. His hand is not shortened, and the help of Israel for the Jordan is as perfect as is the help for the Red Sea. Not a wave of the swellings and overflowings of the river touches the sole of the foot of the feeblest or most distant of all the tribes. The waters are again a wall on the right hand and on the left.
The ark stations itself in the very midst of the river, and there it stands till all had gone clear over. Its presence more than encourages them when nature might sink and have a thousand misgivings. Might not these watery walls give way? Will the river from above assert its right and claim its possession of a thousand years? Will the source of that river force its title on the trespassers? The calm and assured presence of the priests, as they bear the ark and stand with it in the very place of the river's height of pride and strength, give all such questionings their answer, and still every misgiving.
The people all pass over dryshod while the ark remains in the river till all are safely over. The waters would have to overwhelm the ark first, before they could touch even a sole of the foot of the feeblest of the people. All this mercy visits them without the Lord for a moment calling to their remembrance a single evil they have committed previously. He gives to them liberally indeed, and upbraids not. He sees no iniquity in Jacob, no perverseness in Israel.
Everything God does, is done by an arm of conquering strength and by a heart of perfect, unreproving love. Israel passed on to their inheritance under the very same God of grace by whom they had passed out from the place of death and judgment. God's grace will see us safely through from the beginning to the end of the journey. As the hymn so nicely puts it:
"And grace, when first the war begins, Secures the crowning day."