XO 15:20-25{THE true way to enter the wilderness is in the Avoids of Rom. 5 " We rejoice in hope of the glory of God." That is the song of Moses-the chords of it: " The Lord hath triumphed gloriously." It does not say that we have done so. It is not yourself that has triumphed, as you very often find out; but the 'Chorus is a thing that you never can lose. You can say, No matter what I am, He has triumphed. And for whom? For me! Well, have you triumphed? No, but He has, and we triumph in His triumphs. The natural thought of the people when they got across the Red Sea would have been, We have done something now to be proud of. But no; it is all the Lord. Thus I enter the wilderness-enter it with a song.
Now, none of us but is conscious how different he is in the presence. of the Lord, to what he often is in the midst of his daily circumstances. Many a one enjoys the corn of the land in the quiet of his own room, who, when he comes down, has not the manna. Many a one has said before now: " I am sorry I ever came out at all; I was happy in my room; and now I cannot get on with men at all. What I want is wilderness truth. I can go in, and find myself very happy with God, but see how vexed I am, how ruffled, the moment -I step down into my daily life."
Now it was not that the joy was not real. Was not this- song real? They—had really crossed the Bed, Sea. The very fact of the women singing proved that the burden of their song had permeated society. Men work in a line; but the women singing proved it was no theory-that it had pervaded the whole.
But now a word before I go further. People say " What is the wilderness?," It is what the world, in which a man is, becomes to him as soon as he is in Christ here. He has the same house, the- same business; but yesterday he was in the world, to-day he is in the wilderness. Yesterday, as he went about his business, he comforted himself with the thought that he could depend on the political condition. of the state-that he was in a safe country-that his business could go on without risk. The next day he has done with all this; he has now no resource but in God; he has nothing but God. He is very glad the political atmosphere is calm, but he does not depend upon it. In the same way, the man selling apples at the corner of the street says, " A very-good town this; very well regulated; plenty of policemen; no disturbances to hinder me in my work." The next day he sells his apples in the very same place, but he says now, " I have no dependence on what I trusted in until now; it is my Father who cares for me, and none else." I will tell you a very extraordinary thing, though, about that man selling the apples; that is, that if he is, knocked down himself for speaking of the Lord, he will perhaps look to God only to stand for him; but if his apples are knocked over he will exclaim, " I cannot stand that; I must call the police."
What is power? It is equanimity. But it is more than that; it is doing things properly. It is not a question of exploits, but it is that everything is done rightly, and at the right time; just as a man in writing will not put a little letter instead of a big one. That is power. The Lord breathed on His disciples, after He said, "Peace be unto you." He brings peace in now down here; it is not peace up there. It is quite one thing to have peace there,' and another to have it here. He obtained the first for us, and He left us the other. We are to walk in peace: " Peace always- and by all means."
Well, we are in the wilderness, and what do we find there? The first thing the saint finds is that himself is his trial. He cannot drink the water. It has been said these waters are the waters of the Red Sea; it is death, and you cannot drink it. While you rejoice that the death of Christ has put an end to the Egyptian, you do not like that death on your mere self. That is Marah. It is bitter work, and you do not like it; no one does. But the Lord shows Moses a tree, " which, when he had cast upon the waters, the waters were made sweet." That changes the *hole aspect of things. It is bitter work, but Christ's cross takes the, whole bitterness out of it. Peter says: " Christ path suffered for us in the flesh; arm yourselves likewise with the same mind."
Now mark: what makes all the complaints is, that you cannot put up with the circumstances in which God has placed you. And what has God said to you? My Son has gone into death to suffer for that very selfishness that makes you complain. When you see your circumstances in the light of this, the cross sweetens them: all, for the cross gets rid of my selfishness. I can now say, I thought these were very painful trying circumstances, but I see they are just the very thing for me. And so there is no " complaining in our streets," for the things that we have are just the right ones. How could my Father put me anywhere but in the right place? The character of His love is like the air I breathe: it is always attentive, always waiting on me, never officious, always trying 'to get rid of the bad and bring in the good. There is no more beautiful figure of what love is than the air.
But man does not understand the love of God for him in his circumstances. Man says, I have bad health, great trials, no matter what. I ask you, if you had passed by the prison of Paul and Silas that night, what would you have said? Why, they have fine times, in there! Fine times? Yes, they were in the wilderness indeed; their backs smarting with stripes; but their. selfishness is set aside, and they can sing. Is there anything tries a father more than his child doubting Min? and what must it be to the God of all mercies when I doubt His love for me? Oh, I beg of you, as you honor that heart of love, never to allow a single complaining in your streets.. Instead of saying these circumstances are bitter, say they are sweet-they are the- very best that I can have. I am sure I never could have perfect happiness myself, but, on ' the principle that I am God's favorite child. I have no Objection to your feeling the same, but I could not go through the world without it. You say, I am breathless with such a statement, but I do believe it. Then why do you complain? Well, things come very unpleasant at times. And so they do; but I have found that things that are very trying at the time, turn out to be glorious opportunities. You may miss a train, and think, as many a one does: Well,. the Lord might have kept that train for me one minute." But you may find in the next one a soul waiting for a Word from God. The Lord went out hungry in the morning, and found barren fig tree; was He put out? Not at all. It was exactly what He wanted for a figure of the nation.
John 17 ends with the world and begins with the Father, and that is just our place. Are you satisfied With the exchange? The man may upset my apples, and he may not be punished for it either, but God will set it right somehow or other., So the waters of Marah were the first!: trial in the wilderness. The apostle says, I bear about in my body) the dying of Jesus."' The Corinthians had the knowledge of the glory, but they would not have the cross. put the cross is my friend; it clears all away that stood between me and God; it is all gone there. It is not that I have to do it myself; it is done. And am I going to hold the thing that Christ died for? No, Certainly not! This, then, is our first lesson.
But I pass on to the sixteenth chapter, and ask, How am` I to act in the wilderness? In the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. That is manna. The corn of the land is Christ in glory; the Manna is Christ in humiliation. I am united to Christ in glory, but I manifest Christ on earth, and I get it by being in concert with Him who is out of it. I ani not only in union, but I am in concert with Him to whom I am united. So I may be united to Christ, and yet be practically defective when I come to present Christ on earth. It is the life of "Jesus" that I am to bear about; the word "Lord" should be left out there. But if you are not in concert with Him in glory, you will not be what He was on earth. I believe many a person is earnestly trying to be like Christ as -He was on earth, who has not the power for it because he has not to do with Him now in glory. As Elijah says, "If thou seest me taken from thee." There is no " when there; it is a question of seeing Him. If you do not begin with the fountain, the spring Himself-if you do not see me. It is not a question of union at all; it is not a question of the Spirit dwelling in you; it is a; question of what is said in Philippians "
The supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ." Three things are stated as to the manna. First, I-get it before I require it. Second, I get as much as I require. And third, I must gather it before the sun is up-before earthly influences affect me. The manna, as we have seen, is Christ as He walked down here. Now He is glorified at God's right hand; but what He reproduces in me, is that which He was upon earth. So the apostle speaks of " the life of Jesus,"'. though he never saw Him on' earth. But he wants it reproduced here.. I do not see that the sealing of the Holy Ghost is, in itself, simply power; but He brings out what is Christ] in me, and, when that is wrought out, it is power. " Without me ye can do nothing."
Well, they gathered it every day. I do not hold that a day here is twenty-four hours, but that it is every -separate event. Many a person may read and pray every morning, and yet not get manna. Manna is the sense in the soul that Christ is sufficient for every exigency in the day.. For instance,' suppose I began business forty years ago, I might have done so with the sense that Christ would be sufficient for every exigency that might occur. If a man knows there is' bread in the cupboard, he does not want to go to the baker's shop for it. In the boat Jesus said to His disciples When there was no bread, I am here. And I believe no soul really knows what the church is who has not been in that boat. It is the step that leads-you to the Rock, to the new ground on which the church of God is built: Your soul has learned this wonderful thing,' what it is to be with Him alone in the ship where there is no bread.
And it is blessed that it should be so. Suppose you are going to see a sick person, and, before going, pray that you may be useful, probably you will-not be; hut, if you seek the Lord Himself, you will be useful', for He is adequate for everything. It is marvelous the simplicity with which I acquire! Do you suppose any great earthly person would say to me, If you look at me you shall have some of my greatness? It is just as with a mirror; there is nothing in it, but I take it up to an object and immediately it receives it.
And just the same as to peace. The moment I make my wants known to God I have peace. I may go a dozen times before I really do it, *but, as surely as I do, I get His peace. Were you more devoted than usual to get such a favor?- No! I was very small; I was indeed more 'perturbed than usual, more worried, but I went to Him- with all my troubles, and I came away a surprise to myself, to see what God could do in such a poor creature, in such a world too as this.
" When the sun waxed hot it melted." Many a man fritters away his grace by talking of what he is going to do. If a man only comes down-to his own table, and talks of what he is going to do, he is bringing the manna out into the sun, he is frittering it all away.
It is wonderful to see how low the manna comes to suit us. It is wonderful to think of the-Lord in His daily life; in the compass of a man, that wonderful One! First an infant of days, then a child, then a young man going info business; and man trying to write of it! How paltry all his thoughts of such a One! It is not what, man in his poor ken can measure, but what He was in the sight of God.
People are often put in straits, but I believe that, where there is walking with God, there is always this confidence, that, whatever meets me, the Lord is adequate. As has been said, the Lord, coming straight down from the glory, can pay the taxes: The man of real spiritual power can pass with evenness from divine things to the smallest detail of domestic life. Some people are, so stilted that they cannot come down to little details of life at all; but I 'do—not believe that such are spiritual.
I make one remark about the Spirit, and that is, that He always carries me beyond myself. The same is true of ' an evil spirit. A person often says, " I went further than I intended." Than who intended, I ask? Judas never intended to implicate Christ's life. So, when John begins to speak of spirits; he says, " Try the spirits."
We now go on to Ex. 17, where We find the enemy of the wilderness. The enemy in Egypt is Pharaoh. In the world, Satan says, You shall be so overwhelmed with cares that you shall not be able to do anything. But now I get into the wilderness, and there I find Amalek. I pass on out of, the wilderness, and there is Balaam. And then in the land there are wicked spirits. It is all one battery, but with guns of a different caliber. And I will say this, that though the enemies are greater as we go on, the power is greater too, and a power that is greater than a difficulty makes nothing of the difficulty. In the land. I am the aggressor; in the wilderness it is Amalek that is. Where is the, man that has set out to be for God in the wilderness, who does not find some plot laid for him?
I will give you an illustration of what Amalek is. Jesus says to Peter, " Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not." Satan got Judas, and then he. laid a snare for Peter. What we have to meet Amalek with is, on one side, the priesthood of Christ, which is Hebrews; on the other,. " Resist the devil," -which is Peter. Peter himself had the first, but he had not the 'second. Priesthood never fails; but ours is a very different Priest to, what a priest in Christendom is. Man sets up a priest to bring him to God; God's Priest is exactly the other way; He brings grace from God to us. And He is able to meet., us and to succor us, for 'He has gone the road Himself' before us.
And He says to me: If an enemy attack you on the road I will defend you; but for me to do this, you must be in my Spirit; you must resist the devil; you must use my grace actively.
Thus I am going through the, wilderness. All my time on earth I am in the wilderness; and, though there be—grace for every day, there are also peculiar trials, and the enemy also each day.' Thus patience is to have its perfect work, that we may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.
(J. B. S.)