This is a reprint of a pamphlet sent out by our brother J. G. Bellett in the year 1867. Since then there has been a marked development of the principles brought before the Church of God by our departed brother.
An understanding of these fundamental principles is deeply needed in our day by the saint who seeks to walk truly and thoroughly with God. “It may be painful and trying to keep aloof from latitudinarian unity; it has an amiable form in general, is in a measure respectable in the religious world, tries nobody’s conscience, and allows of everybody’s will. It is the more difficult to be decided about, because it is often connected with a true desire for good, and is associated with amiable nature; it seems rigid, and narrow, and sectarian, to decline so to walk. But the saint who has the light of God must walk clearly in that light. God will vindicate His ways in due time. Love to every saint is a clear duty; walking in their ways is not.”
The glory of Israel was in being separate from the nations; their failure was in being like them.
Now the believer has a life that is heavenly in its source and heavenly in its nature. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 John 5:11). Thus the Lord can say: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (John 17:16). The believer is blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ (see Eph. 1:3). The hope is laid up for us in heaven (see Col. 1:5). We wait for God’s Son from heaven (see 1 Thess. 1:10). “As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (1 Cor. 15:49). We are called to press toward the mark for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus (see Phil. 3:14). Thus Paul prays that the eyes of our understanding (heart) might be enlightened, that we might “know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Eph. 1:18).
Confederacy in all its forms, whether political, social or religious, will always set aside faithful obedience to the Word in order to have a unity agreeable to man. In the book of Judges we see Samson (type of the Church’s position in relation to the world—called to Nazariteship) having intercourse with the Philistines. In the end he loses his eyesight, and then his life also in the same judgment that destroyed the Philistines.
Jehoshaphat is another believer who failed in this Nazariteship. He first made an alliance with Ahab in his wars, then later in commerce; he had to suffer under the government of God for both of these alliances.
Josiah too is a solemn example of a faithful man of God, one who restored the true worship of Jehovah in his day; yet through interference in the world’s wars he perished in the end. I have no doubt that the restoration in the days of Josiah prefigures the recovery of the truth that has been effected in the last century.
There is also a solemn voice to Christendom in the address to Sardis, Revelation 3:3—”Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.” The Spirit of God forewarns that if they did not watch His coming would be like that of a thief—but, it is just in this way that He will come upon the world! (See 1 Thess. 5:1-6.) Ought not this to awaken us to the solemn fact that if the Church takes the place of the world it must share the world’s judgments?
Farther on in Revelation (chap.18:4) we read: “I heard another voice from heaven saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.” When these judgments do take place there are none of the saints there; it is a moral call now to those who have “ears to hear,” in view of impending judgments.
The path of faith will never be esteemed wise in the eyes of those who use natural wisdom in the things of God. The Jews (represented by the chief priests and Pharisees) argued thus: “If we let Him thus alone, all men will believe on Him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation” (John 11:48). Now the Lord had warned them (see Matt. 22:1-7) that the rejection of the invitation given in grace would result in this very thing that they feared. Paul had to remind the Corinthians: “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain” (1 Cor. 3:20). We may be very zealous for the glory of God, but the greater our zeal is, the more harm it will do if it is not according to knowledge.
“He who walks by divine wisdom must be content to be accounted a fool and told that he will be a prey to the world, for the world and the unspiritual man understand not the path of faith. Yet how precious and how sweet is such a path! It preserves even a child unacquainted with the ways of the world. He needs not to know them; knowing the mind of the Lord through the Word he avoids by simple obedience all the subtlety of the enemy. The bringing in of the authority of God in the Word sets aside our will, our wisdom; we obey because we love Him, and know Him.” H.E.H.