Then came the journey. Alas, each step was but failure and turning aside “as a deceitful bow.” In the chapters which follow we do not find even one that is free from sorrow and ruin. What a witness are they not against us! What a testimony too, to the faithful unchangeableness of God! And God permitted them to advance, step by step, in this downward path; He never left nor forsook them all the while. At last when the deepest spring in their hearts was reached, in Num. 16, in the rebellion against the Royalty of Christ, as seen in Moses (“King in Jeshurun”), and against His Priesthood, as seen in Aaron, by Korah and his company, God’s hand must now strike, and strike it will.
Hereby shall ye know (said the Lawgiver), the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of my own mind. If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up with all that appertaineth unto them, and they go down quick into the pit: then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord (Num. 16:28-3028And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; for I have not done them of mine own mind. 29If these men die the common death of all men, or if they be visited after the visitation of all men; then the Lord hath not sent me. 30But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open her mouth, and swallow them up, with all that appertain unto them, and they go down quick into the pit; then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. (Numbers 16:28‑30)).
This was complete apostasy. This was the last and final sin: “the great transgression.” This is what Christendom has for her doom: she will “perish in the gainsaying of Core” (“Korah” Jude 1111Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. (Jude 11)).
Now comes the never-failing resources of God. How truly these things speak to us; how they recall to us that nothing happens, absolutely nothing, which has risen so high or gone so deeply down as to find His resources fail. How then is it that He, who cannot brook sin, will bring in to the Land a people, who have thus gone to these lengths in ruin? How can the plague be stayed that had begun? Who could stand between the living and the dead? None but our Great High Priest—not one! Priesthood alone can bring a failing people in, consistently with Him who will not sanction their failure and who never fails Himself. This was His resource: the Rod of Priestly grace (Num. 17), triumphant over death, which laid its deep and broad foundations by resurrection, in a sphere where its buds and blossoms and fruit—the fruit of the almond tree could flourish; apart from the storms of sin, and murmuring, and judgment. Where it could be “shown” to the Lord as that which He had chosen to lead an unfaithful, and a failing people into the Land.
Yes, my reader; we have been redeemed from the deep ruin in which we lay: when our guilt cried out for its due—the vengeance of God. We have set out in the desert with a nature which hates sin and loves and enjoys all that is in God Himself. We have another nature which takes advantage of the very fullness of the grace in which we stand, and makes it but the occasion for outraging the grace, and living in the sin it loves, if allowed. But God has His way of dealing with us, who still have the tendency to return to the hole out of which we have been digged. He has His way of holding us up in the joy and blessedness of all that our better self delights in. This is by the Priesthood of Christ—who “ever lives to make intercession for us.” Never, for one moment, are we from under that. Rod of Grace. Never will His purpose for Christ’s glory change, and this is the manner in which He works, day by day, to bring us into that good land, where sin, sorrow, and sighing are things of the past forever.
The Trumpet and the Rod then were the extremes of the path in the Wilderness. The one was the testimony—the commandment of the Lord, which began the journey, and was to have guided them all through the way. The people hearkened not to it, but turned aside.
They tempted and provoked the Most High God, and kept not his testimonies; but turned back and dealt deceitfully like their fathers: they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images (Psa. 78:5656Yet they tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his testimonies: (Psalm 78:56), &c.).
Then it was, when they had gone to destruction (Hormah), that His own unfailing resource was brought forth. His soul turned to the Man of His right hand at the end of their path of shame. The Rod that budded and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds was brought forth from the Sanctuary, to lead and guide; to take away the murmurings of the people that He might not take away themselves. The Rod came forth last when destruction was pending over them. The Trumpet was first heard, then at last the Rod, and it never failed.
But let us examine more closely this “thing which happened unto them.”
We will turn to the Hebrews—our wilderness book. Let me call it the “Book of the Trumpet and the Rod.” There the Christian is viewed as in the desert—where he follows his “heavenly calling” out of this scene, and after Christ—the Forerunner who has “entered within the vail”; “into heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God for us.” In the first chapter we find the Lord Jesus coming forth from God, at the close of all His testimonies, as the Messenger or Apostle; God spoke in the person of His Son. Then His glories pass before us; He is the effulgence of His glory; the express image of His subsistence. The upholder of all things by the Word of His power; the appointed Heir of all things; the maker of the worlds; the purger of sins: better than the Angels, because He is who He is; He is the object of their adoration; God speaks to Him as God (Heb. 1:8-98But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 9Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. (Hebrews 1:8‑9)). Jehovah addresses Him as Jehovah, in the day of His affliction (Psa. 102)
In Heb. 2 we find Him as Man; fitted to be the High Priest because of this; going back to God, and crowned with glory and honor when He sat down on high. As Apostle He had come from God to us (Heb. 1); as High Priest He had gone back from us to God, when He had passed through his pathway of suffering, and made at its close propitiation for our sins (Heb. 2).
Then in Heb. 3 we are to “consider Him” in these characters, as leading His people through the Wilderness, as Moses the Apostle from God, and Aaron the Priest, had done at another day.
The whole profession of Christianity is looked upon then as professedly in the journey from the Cross to the glory, and in the wilderness where thousands would fall and never reach the goal; as Israel’s carcases fell in the wilderness. Being thus looked at as in the way, we find the "If we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end." "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." "We are made partakers of Christ if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." Here the “if” and the warning comes in most suitably as on the journey to the rest of God.
Now you will always find, I think, that an “if” is used in false Christianity to disturb true souls, who are not thoroughly settled in grace, instead of in the way that God uses it, against the flesh. They will say, ‘O don't be too sure; salvation is not such a certain matter as you think; a great deal depends on oneself; there are conditions. Don’t you see how many times an “if” is used, and a condition pressed upon us, &c., &c. Now I think God uses an “if” to make us dependent and trustful in Him, and His faithful love, and never uses it to disturb the faith of the simplest child of God.
Suppose I was walking on the parapet of a great high building with my little child by the hand. I felt the awful danger of the place for him, and said, as he looked down and shivered with fear, “My little son, if you fell down there you would be smashed to pieces: don’t pull away your little hand from mine.” The child looks up into my face and says, “Father, you will hold me fast, you have no trace of a thought in your heart of letting me go, though you warn me.” “No, my child,” I say, “not a trace: but I want to keep you alive to the danger, and keep up the sense of dependence on me, in your heart.”
This is the way God uses an “if.” He keeps the soul alive to the sense of the danger of the place we are in; the power of the enemy; the treacherousness of our own hearts; the faithfulness of His; our constant need of dependence on Him. Surely all this is right and well: and this dealing meets the case, and the present need of the true heart, on the journey: while it vindicates the care of God, under whose conduct all profess to be, but who alas are often only the mixed multitude—the “camp followers,” of the true people of God.
Now when we come to Heb. 4 He applies all these preceding chapters to us. The Apostle had come to us from God (Heb. 1). The Priest had gone back from us to God (Heb. 2). The people were under His conduct in the way, in these two characters (Heb. 3). The Spirit would then exhort, "Let us therefore fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it (Heb. 4:11Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1))." Suppose I meet my reader, and find that although he has professed to be journeying to God’s rest, and that all his aims and hopes were there; yet his daily life and ways do not answer practically to the ways of a stranger in this scene; and a pilgrim to that other. Suppose I find him going on with the world and its spirit, and settling down on his lees; bringing up his family for the earth; placing them in it; allowing ways that were unsuited to his heavenly calling: Well, I say, you may be all you profess, but, if I were you, I would “fear.” You most assuredly “seem to come short” of it. Take care: many profess, and many fall by the way and never get in at all. Israel all came out of Egypt, but they fell in the Wilderness, and never reached the goal. There is no question raised here about a true soul going in. “We which have believed do enter”; no doubt about that; but you should remember Israel. They heard the report from the spies: the gospel of the rest of Canaan—in their day, and never got in. The word preached by the spies did not profit them, because it lacked the divine mixture of faith: “it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it.” “They could not enter in because of unbelief.”
Now here we break off suddenly in the chapter to meet the difficulty which a godly Jew would experience about this “rest of God” being still a future thing. He would naturally say, “Well: I thought God had rested when He created the world. Does it not say that in the seventh day God rested from all His works which He had created to make?” Oh yes, says the writer, “God rested from all his works.” And surely He did; but sin broke through His rest. He only rested from creating, but never rested in the works of His hands. Sin came in immediately, and disturbed His rest, and left Him with these alternatives
(1) to destroy all by judgment; or,
(2) to let all remain in its ruined state, as fallen with man, whom He had placed over all; or
(3) to begin to work again. He refuses to destroy them by judgment, and will not allow it to remain so; and so we find Him again a Worker, making coats of skins for Adam and his wife, and He has never rested since that day. Men seek religiously to keep a sabbath as a day of rest. Well, I say, you have not God with you in that fancied rest. He is a worker since the third of Genesis; and never has been a rester, and never will, till the new Heavens and new Earth come, wherein dwelleth righteousness. The Lord Himself when here, was accused of breaking the Sabbath, when He had cured the paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethesda; and His reply to the accusers was this “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” Now the Spirit works; and by-and-by the rest of God—Father, Son, and Spirit will come, and then only will God rest. There was one other difficulty to be met for the convert from Judaism. They read in Josh. 12 that the Land had rest from war. This the writer meets by telling them how their prophet King sang, hundreds of years afterward, the words of the 95th Psalm, "Again he determined a certain day, saying in David, ‘To-day’ (after so long a time) as it is said, ‘To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, then would he not afterward have spoken of another day." Adam had broken up the rest of Creation by his sin; Israel had broken up the rest of Canaan by theirs, and so God wrought, in His infinite patience and grace, and will to the end, until the time foreseen in v. 9. “There remaineth therefore a keeping of a sabbath”—a rest of God—for His people.
This break therefore disposes of the difficulties. Now the exhortation—the blast of the Silver Trumpet—is heard, "Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief." God has retreated into Christ, and there His rest is now; and will be displayed for all His own at that day.
How abruptly we again break off at verse 12 of our chapter. But no: it is the word—the blast of the Trumpet of Silver that is heard—the Word of God: quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. It pierces the joints and marrow: it discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart. It deals with every movement of the will of the flesh. All is laid bare under that which is His “eye,” looking down and discovering thoughts in your heart, my reader, that did not emanate from Him: intentions for to-day—for to-morrow -that have not Christ before them, and the goal—the rest of God. The Word comes in and stops them all.
Do you welcome that as a “joyful sound”? If you are an honest pilgrim you say, ‘Yes; it is a joyful thing to me to have my soul searched out; every corner of my heart laid bare: every secret corner exposed and brought into the light of God’s presence by His living Word.’ Still, you add, it is disheartening, to have that detector of my thoughts and intentions ever pressing down its searching and breaking power into my soul. Yes, but had Israel rejoiced in the blast of the Silver Trumpet they had never fallen, so to say, in the Wilderness, and God has this in His mind for you.
But you will remember that the Trumpet began the journey with Israel; and when all had gone to ruin, then God’s resource of the Rod was brought forth at the end. But how is it for you? The Trumpet sounds—the Word of God speaks with its searching notes to the soul, and lays all bare: then at once, the Rod of Priesthood, is introduced. He puts the Trumpet and the Rod together at the beginning of the journey, that the one may deal with the will of the flesh that would break away from Christ; and that the other may uphold the weakness of the renewed soul, prostrate under the searching power of the Word. How blessed! He does not look for the failure to become apparent before He interferes. No. He would carry His people through without the failure, and bring them in safety to that Land of rest.
But one might say, as he reads Heb. 4:1414Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. (Hebrews 4:14) "Seeing then that we have a great high Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession;" he might say ‘That great person cannot know what a poor weak thing like me has to pass through. I have a wicked heart: He had not: He could resist the temptations of the enemy: He was pure and perfect: He was the Son of God.’ How touchingly the next reassuring verse reads, "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses: but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace for timely help (see Greek)." Much better indeed than “help in time of need.” Better to be sustained in answer to our cry of weakness before we fail, than even to find a strong arm reached forth to raise us up again when we have turned aside from Him. The cry goes forth from the sense of need; the strong right arm is around us in that strength which is made perfect in our weakness; and we can say, “Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me”; and “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.”