Is not this terrible picture fulfilled before our very eyes? and is not this merchandise wicked in God’s sight, though one of the most respectable professions of this day? So fashionable is it that many of God’s own children are entangled in it, and follow its pernicious ways. If you would read a further description of this modern camp of Samaria, read 2 Timothy 3.
God in His sovereign grace has been working in this camp, and many souls, we trust, have been saved. He can work in Greece, in Babylon, or Rome. Satan has used this circumstance, like Sanballat of old, and repeated have been the temptations to come down to some one of the villages in the plain of one. Only give up your narrow, illiberal exclusiveness, and come down to the level of the craftsmen; only acknowledge the clergy, and you may hold what you like. Do only come down from that hateful wall around the true ground of God; or, if you will not come down and acknowledge us, then you are but a sect in Jerusalem, as much as we are. You are the exclusives. Come down now; come, let us take counsel together.
Those who are separated to Christ can say, All this is feigned out of your own hearts. You know we are no sect. You know that we do not exclude any one that God has gathered to Christ, and who only seeks His honor and glory. Is it not a solemn thing to oppose the present work of God, as Sanballat did of old?
“But,” says an eminent evangelist, who remains in and approves the camp of Samaria, “will you not go with us to the preaching’s?”
“I don’t know that I will,” said a young Christian.
“What! will you not go where God is working?”
“No, I do not know that I will.” “How is that?”
“Why, God is a sovereign; but I am a subject.”
The same evangelist said to another. “I am sorry you are not with us.”
“Indeed, I am more happy to be with the Lord.”
“Why, is He not with us?”
“That may be in His grace, and I pray He may use you much; but you know you are not with Him outside the camp.”
No, we cannot be with the army of Samaria, and at the same time with the few within the sacred enclosure of the rebuilt wall. “Let us go forth, therefore UNTO HIM without the camp, bearing His reproach” (Heb. 13:13).
There is the sacred enclosure of the feeble ones in Philadelphia (Rev. 3), those who have gone forth from Sardis (Protestantism), unto Him, the holy and the true. And there is the boasting camp of Laodicea, outside of which the precious Lord knocks at the door. Are you, my reader, in the camp of Laodicea, that which is rich, increased with goods and have need of nothing? Then you have never yet gone forth unto Him, bearing His reproach. May God by His Holy Spirit make this clear to you. How could the gathered saints to Christ, outside the camp, come down and sanction the craftsmen in the valley of one? No; surely twenty thousand on the plain of One should not attract my soul from Christ.
It is a great work that God is doing by the Holy Spirit, greater far than the work He did by Nehemiah. And the enclosed remnant in Jerusalem were not more distinct from the camp of Samaria than the souls gathered to Christ are distinct from the camp of Christendom.
O, that they who have been thus gathered were more true to Christ. They have failed, but they cannot give up the only true ground of gathering around Him. They own their failure, but they cannot give up Christ.
This brings us to the seventh form of opposition to the work of God – danger within. This will illustrate the cunning subtlety of Satan. In the last case it was the temptation from without to go down to the platform of one – to compromise all that God has taught us, and sanction the craftsmen and merchandise of Christendom. Now the mischief is within. We shall do well carefully to consider it.
Sanballat does not appear on the surface. “Afterward I came unto the house of Shemaiah, the son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabeel, who was shut up; and he said, Let us meet together in the house of God, within the temple: and let us shut the doors of the temple, for they will come to slay thee; yea, in the night will they come to slay thee.” Does not this look very plausible? Surely it is right to meet together in the house of God. But to shut the doors of the temple would be with us to put the light under a bushel. The temptation is to give up the testimony. If we will not join the religious activities of the camp, then let us seek in shut-up selfishness, and fear of man, to enjoy that sacred place of blessing and communion among ourselves, and take care of ourselves.
The opposition may indeed become more grave. But shall we give up the testimony, if it be even to save our lives? or shall we flee?
Shall we through fear shut ourselves up? Is this the mind of God? “And lo I perceived,” said Nehemiah, “that God had not sent him....Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him.” Let us also, then, having this certainty that the work is of God, not be weary, or shrink from it.
It seems to me the greatest trial and danger was from false brethren. The enemy knew that the wall was built: “They were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God” (Nehemiah 6:16). But the false brethren, even “nobles of Judah, sent many letters unto Tobiah, and the letters of Tobiah came unto them. For there were many in Judah sworn unto him.” This is, indeed, sad, and a great trial, when those who outwardly take the place of being gathered to Christ, yet like these mixed marriages of Judah, we find some dear brethren in the Lord seeking to mingle the principles of the camp with those of God. Nor should this surprise us, remembering the words of the apostle, “Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things” (Read Acts 20:29-35). No doubt these half-an-half brethren are the greatest stumbling-blocks in the way of inquiring souls. Let those gathered to Christ beware of evil associations – the greatest present danger.
(Continued from page 80).
(To be continued).