Numbers 21:11
It was here that Israel pitched soon as they “set forward.” It was a great thing that they were able to “set forward”; it is the very opposite to lagging behind or looking back, not to speak of going back; but what was that which imparted to them both liberty and vigor? In the beginning of the chapter they are in bondage to discouragement and murmuring: the way tried them, its thorns and briars tested them, and in the end they “spake against God.” This led to the judgment of the fiery serpents, and the dying of much people of Israel; Moses cries to God, and He interposes, as we know, in a way suitable to Himself, not removing the judgment, but in type and figure, removing in judgment the offending thing which necessitated the bringing in of the judgment.
The serpent of brass set upon the pole, was not only an ending judicially before God, in type I mean, of that which was proved irremediable, but it was the bringing in of a new thing entirely. “Shall live.” Observe further, this blessed deliverance was not found anywhere on earth; it was “lifted up,” even as the Son of man “must be lifted up” (see John 3) on the cross; Christ is not on the earth, but lifted up from it, rejected ignominiously by man, but withal through this, presented as a Victim on the altar to God. How solemn this as an exposition of man’s condition before God, the divine testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself being rejected by man, was the evidence that man as he was here, was not capable of receiving blessing from heaven: it was necessary that man should be treated according to the truth of his own condition before God, as well as according to God’s own righteous character.
Now herein was found their liberty to “set forward”—as set free, extricated, they can march on. It is so too, thank God, in a far higher way with Christians: the cross of Christ is morally the end of man’s history, the beginning of God’s; that is the root of all Christian setting forward, until thus liberated, the true prospect for faith is not before the soul. The position of this Ije-Abarim, or heaps of Abarim, has moreover its own voice of instruction and comfort for our souls; we are told it was “in the wilderness which is before Moab, toward the sun rising”—observe those last words, for they are most blessed.
The rising sun is especially and peculiarly the hope of the nation, after their long night of sorrow and weeping they are destined to enjoy the light and heat of the rays of the sun; for us who believe, ere the Sun of Righteousness arises, a hope of a brighter nature remains: we wait for Him who now has Himself spoken to us as the “bright morning star”; He, and He alone, is our Ije-Abarim. It is towards Him we “set forward”—a heavenly Savior, in whom is centered all our blessedness and our joy; and thus it is that as the bright morning star, the blessed Lord, is held out before our souls, in brilliance and a solitariness peculiar to it. How blessed and comforting for our poor hearts to know that there is none like Him; He stands alone in all His brightness and blessedness.
But there is a deep moral lesson, too, in the fact that liberated Israel set forward and pitched at Ije-Abarim; for the morning has been ever the prospect, whether of the earthly or the heavenly company. The world rejoices in the night, it is to it, the moment of its pleasures and pursuits, and in these it sleeps an intoxicated sleep, and so it is written, “for they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night” (1 Thess. 5:7). What a picture of a drunken world! But now observe the contrast; “Let us who are of the day be sober”;—again, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night nor of darkness.” What a character this gives the saint of God, a child of light, a child of the day, and that too, observe, while passing through the world’s night, the far spent night; night all around him, but he in conscience and heart in the day.
I am here constrained to pause, and ask, Is it really so with us? Is it so in relation to all that we have to say to, and do with? Are we plainly declaring that we, having our citizenship in heaven, wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ? Let us court the reflection of the coming morn and day upon every circle with which we are related. How does our home and family circle appear in the light of it? Is that a witness to the fact of our sunrise being at hand? How, next, as to our business and occupation in life? Is that a witness to the reality of the coming light? Do we conduct our business “like men who wait for the Lord”? Do we conduct our business as those who are not of the night, not of the world? I may be told this is impossible. I have been told it is transcendental and seeking to walk with one’s head in the clouds. To all such I reply thus: Not so, beloved brethren, unless indeed Christianity consists in a correct creed which was never intended or designed to have any bearing, either formative or corrective, upon the details of everyday life; unless such descriptions as, “not of the world,” “not of the night,” have no bearing whatever on our ways. Let us not be deceived by such siren words, or taunts, or sneers, rather let us set forward, openly, plainly, manifestly and pitch our tent toward our Ije-Abarim – “toward the sun rising.” I cannot conceive any words that could more forcibly express a Christian’s present attitude and hope, than “set forward”—“pitched”—“toward the sun rising.” Here it is set forth in striking type, the pressing on of pilgrims toward their prospect. The Lord grant that it may be ours through His grace.
No doubt there is much outside in the world, and within, amongst the saints, to account for the absence of that decided strangership which surely becomes those who profess to expect at any moment to be caught away, and who in heart and affection, and therefore in their ways, have set forward and pitched their pilgrim tent toward the sun rising; still there is far more in Christ Himself, to make one wonder and ashamed, that anything but Himself is worthy of even a pass- ing thought. One other reflection will bring these thoughts to a close.
In this world everything is going toward the sun setting—everything is passing away, and will soon be gone. What a solemn reflection for any Lot of the present day, or world- borderer, into whose hands this little paper should come! All here is going down, “The world passeth away, and the lust thereof.” “The fashion of this world passeth away.” In every city and great town, the west is the commanding quarter; there the fashion of the world and its lusts are to be found at home; all goes toward the west, the unpurposed witness of this solemn reality, namely, that all on earth is rapidly going down, its sun will soon have set. On the other hand, all that is really bright and beautiful is coming up with day dawn. The children of light and of the day, can see the morning star, the dawn along its edge, and they can say to each other in heavenly anticipation, “the morning cometh.”
“There’s nothing left to fix the gaze
But this one blessed orb of light;
And oh, how purely beam its rays
Athwart the dark and wintry night.
“A little while! and ere the day
In all its splendor shall be shown,
Thy vigil-keepers rapt away
Shall find Thy glory, Lord, their own.”