The path of the church of God is a narrow path, so much so that mere moral sense will continually mistake it. But this should be welcome to us, because it tells us that the Lord sees to it that His saints be exercised in His truth and ways, not merely learning the rights and wrongs of human thoughts, but that they may be filled with the mind of Christ.
We are reminded of the servants in the parable of the tare-field. The disciples were right according to man, and so were those servants. Is it not fitting to weed the wheat? Are not tares a hindrance, sharing the strength of the soil with the good seed, while they themselves are good for nothing? The common sense of man, the right moral judgment would say this, but the mind of Christ says the very contrary: “Let both grow together until the harvest.” Christ judged only according to divine mysteries. That is what formed the mind in the Master, perfect as it was, and that is what must form the mind in the saint. God had purposes respecting the field. A harvest was to come, and angels were to be sent to reap it, and then a fire was to be kindled for the bundled and separated tares; but as yet, in the hour of Matthew 13, there were no angels at their harvest-work in the field, nor fire kindled for the weeds, but all was the patient grace of the Master. The Lord will have the field uncleared for the present. The mysteries of God, the counseled thoughts and purposes of heaven, precious and glorious beyond all measure, demand this; and nothing is right but the path that is taken in the light of the Lord in the knowledge of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven.
Christendom
Nor is the church to go to heaven through a purified or regulated or adorned world, any more than Christ would have gone to heaven through a judged world. This is to be well weighed; for what is Christendom about? It contradicts all this. Christendom acts to regulate the world, to keep the field clean, to make the path to heaven and glory lie through a well ordered and ornamented world. It has put the sword into the hand of the followers of Christ. It will not wait for the harvest nor will it go into “another village.” It avenges wrongs instead of suffering them. It orders the church on the principles of a well-regulated nation, and not on the pattern of an earth-rejected Jesus. It is full of the falsest thoughts, judging according to the moral sense of man, and not in the light of the mysteries of God. It is wise in its own conceits.
I know full well there beats in the midst of it a thousand hearts true in their love to Christ, but they know not what manner of spirit they are of. I know that zeal, if it be for Christ, though misdirected, is better than a cold heart, or a indifference as to His rights or His wrongs. But still the only perfect path is that which is taken in the sight of the Lord, in the understanding of the mysteries of God, and the call of God, and the directions of the energy of the Spirit and not merely after the fashion or dictate of the morals and thoughts of men. And the call of God now demands that the tare-field be left unpurged, that the indignity of the Samaritans be left unavenged, that the resources and strength of the flesh and of the world be refused rather than used. The call of God also demands that the church should reach the heavens, not through the judgment of the world by her hands, but through the renunciation of it by her heart, and separation from it in company with a rejected Master.
Scattering
“He that gathereth not with me scattereth” (Luke 11:23); that is, he that does not work according to Christ’s purpose is really making bad worse. It is not enough to work with the name of Christ: no saint would consent to work without that; but if he does not work according to the purpose of Christ, he is scattering abroad. Many a saint is now engaged in rectifying and adorning the world, getting Christendom as a swept and garnished house; but this is not Christ’s purpose; it is aiding and furthering the advance of evil. Christ has not expelled the unclean spirit out of the world. He has no such present purpose. The enemy may change his way, but he is as much “the god” and “prince of this world” as ever he was. The house is his still, as in the parable (see Luke 11:24-26). The unclean spirit had gone out: that was all; he had not been sent out by the stronger man; so that his title to it is clear, and he returns and all that he finds there, had only made it more an object with him. He finds it clean and ornamented, so that he returns with many a kindred spirit, and thus makes its last state worse than its first.
More could be said, and more occasions brought forward to support the important truth that the call of God and His purposes must be ascertained in this day of God’s grace. However, one more important point should be made. It is this, that often among the saints of God we see a pure position kept with little spiritual grace. When this is so, it calls for a deep rebuke. Surely “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). Position may be quite according to God, but the practical godly grace with which it is filled and occupied may be scanty and poor.
As with Jonathan, David loved him dearly and yet he was not David’s companion. But the companions of David’s temptations were at times a trial to him, talking on one occasion even of stoning him, while Jonathan personally was always pleasant to him. And yet David’s outside place was the place of the glory then, and his companions were in the right position.
Position Without Power
And yet we see the same thing around us at this hour. There is no lesson I would press on the attention of my own soul more than this, and I think I can say I value it — position without power, principles beyond practice, jealousy about orthodoxy, and truth and mysteries with little personal communion with the Lord — all these the soul stands in constant fear of and in equal judgment and refusal.
The call of God separates us, but we need the Spirit of God to occupy the place according to God, and the loving devoted mind. “Salt is good”; the divine principle is the good thing. But salt may lose its saltness. The right position or the divine principle may be understood and avowed, but there may be no power of life in it. I dread indifference more than mixture. I would shun Laodicea more than Sardis. May we learn the lesson in both its features — Sardis, with its religious bustle which gave it a name to live, will not do; Laodicea, with its selfish, cold-hearted ease and satisfaction, will not do. Let us be diligent but pure in service; occupying talents but occupying them for a rejected Master; looking for nothing from the world that has cast Him out, but counting on everything in His own presence by-and-by.
J. G. Bellett (adapted)