How remarkable is the way in which God sets Himself and man in contrast. His name be praised that there never was a more vivid contrast! If it were not so, there would be no foundation for us, no continuance for us, no happy end for us. Man cannot communicate goodness, and his uncleanness spoils everything that is near. But now I am here, says God, and you have recognized me, and therefore there is nothing that I will not do for you.
This was always His way. It was the same when Israel danced before the calf. They had spoiled everything in principle: the living God had taken them up to be Himself their God, and they had made a calf of gold. But what does He say? " The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." I will have my own way. I defy you, Israel, with all your wickedness, hindering me having my way with all the earth. Where is Israel now? Have they succeeded in hindering Him? No! and they will be gathered yet into the land because God's word will not fail. God says, In spite of all that man can do I will have my on way; I will have my Son reigning over the earth, and my glory covering it; " I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy."
Besides this vivid contrast between God's ways and man's ways, this also comes in: man cannot hold a blessing, but if, in spite of what man is, God will give a blessing it will not be till man has got God before him as his end. If you and I have got the Lord Jesus Christ as a living person in heaven, so walking with us in our solitude going through the world, that we are living by Christ, and for Christ, and to Christ, very weak it may be, but if I have the Lord Jesus thus before me, He can bless me individually, and let the blessing appear and show itself. Everything turns on whether we are seeking the Lord's face. I ask you, are you living to Christ? Are the particular things that surround you individually occasions to bring in Christ? If so the Lord will bless you in a particular manner.
God had sold Israel into captivity. Then He bethought Himself of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and He raised up prophets to speak to them of good things to come just because it is natural to God to bless. He loves to bless. God acted and prepared things for the delivering of His people, and so a remnant had come back to the land, and their thought. ought to have been: What will Jehovah have us to do now that we have got back? But they were not thinking of Him. However He did not cease to think of them: He meant to have the altar raised up, and the temple restored, and the city built for their comfort too. Some said; " The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built." Well, how come you back in the land if the time be not come? " Is it time for you to dwell in your ceiled houses and this house to lie waste? " You have houses and have taken great pains to finish them. Are you my people? Did I send you into captivity? Did I open the gates to let you out? Well, I have come back here with you. Have you prospered while forgetting my things? It was no question that He was thinking of them; it was as plain as possible that He had come back with them; and He never would allow it for a moment that, if a people have got their glory because of their connection with HIM, He and that people can have separate interests. How close He was to Israel all the time! You have put money in your bags, but I have let it out: you have sown much, but it comes to little; you eat, but you have not enough; you would have had far better food in the barley loaves if you had had me with you. I brought that drought about. What a thing it is when God says, You can leave me out: whereas the beginning of all blessing must be that you and I are understood to be in company. How come you to think of ornamenting your own houses, carving your beautiful ceilings, and putting me off to a more convenient season?
What will the living God that raised up those mighty Gentile powers as the scourge for Israel do? He has opened the prison doors and said, I go out with you. But from them He gets no thought whatever in return. Can they stop Him from blowing on all that they do? No, He is putting His mark on everything connected with them, not because they are not loved, but that they are loved so much that He must put His name on all. Let every household thing bear my mark, and I will bless you. He would not let them know the comfort of their own houses till they could say God's altar is made. They must begin there.
Now there is a great principle in all this for us. Where are we? On our individual walk is there that stamp that people outside, and our own hearts inside, know that the journey we make is in company with the Lord Jesus Christ? It is so beautiful to see that, directly they take one step in the way, the tender love of the Lord has a word to comfort them. I am going up the mountain with you; it is not now I am putting holes in your bags and blasting the labor of your hands. No; you have set your face to do my will and I am with you. How graciously He puts Himself before them to encourage them. Have I to go the way all alone? Is the road all solitude? Are there none others treading it? The Lord knows His secret people, and can bring them out of their hiding places for the comfort of our hearts, and He does reveal them to us the moment we act on His word. He says, Never mind; you be strong; I have gone out before you, and I have got a house to build. The Lord has gone first in the path; it is not only that I have found a people on it that are living to Christ a great deal more than I am, but that He Himself is with me. If you have set your faces to live for Him, be strong, for He says, I am the one to will and to do according to my good pleasure.
There is another thing that is immensely consolatory to the heart. God says (Ver. 5.): you have forgotten all the promises, but I have not. Because you walked contrary to me I took you out of the land, but I did not forget my word to you. It is as fresh in my memory -as at the first. You had no capacity to take it in while finishing that beautiful ceiling for yourself, but now that you have taken these few steps for me I tell you; it is not a fresh coming in on my part, or that I have changed my mind; I am acting just as I did at the beginning. Do you say, how can I dare to go forward? Well, God has gone forward, and, if God have gone forward, the closer I am behind the safer I am.
The Lord never ends a dispensation without giving it a close worthy of Himself. How beautiful it is in Luke to see a widow brim full of God's thoughts and looking out for the Messiah. "They that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard." He would not let Mary and Elizabeth talk of Him without putting His ear close down to hear, and if Christ act now as He always does, what am I to expect at the end of the present dispensation? A people with whom. the Spirit can say "Come." All the churches only fit to be spued out of His mouth, but if the Spirit be in a poor sinner saved by Christ, He will with that one invite the Lord Jesus to come. What is the great thing for our day? Why it is living to Christ. People sometimes get a vague idea of living to the glory of God, but the only way of living to the glory of God is to recognize Christ with them in their circumstances where they are. The love that was in Christ's heart so dwelt in the soul of the apostle that he said, I want Christ to be magnified in my body. Could God turn away from that? Will you not live for me Paul? If thou, Lord Jesus, carest for me living for thee down here, I will live for thee. Christ shall be magnified in my body. Is that your "earnest expectation?" If instead of living for Christ I have been living for myself, those around will see that something mars the light ' shining out; they will say: If all the light that shines out is the measure of the Christ that shines in, he must have very little. It is the One whose love has never passed from me for a moment who wants me to live for Him. We shall not get away from His hand; it is impossible to go through this world without suffering; but you may choose which kind you will have: you must suffer for Christ, or you may think for yourself and have God with the rod close behind you. Which of the troubles was the better of the two; Abraham's or Lot's?
It is the mind and purpose of God to make as complete a split between flesh and spirit in these last days as in the days of Pentecost. Who is living Christ, and who is not? If your heart be fresh on Christ, and Christ come tonight, you have the enjoyment of Christ before He comes and you will meet His face in joy. The Father's thought is, that as His Christ is up there absolutely for us, so He will have us down here absolutely for Him. Do not you then pick up all the things around you; do not gather curiosities out of the gutter; but say: Through His grace I will work out what He has worked in; I will live to Christ whose eye is looking down from heaven on me, and I will make manifest to others the One to whom I live.
(G. V. W.)