WHEN sin becomes, as it does, to those who are under its conviction, exceeding sinful, the remedy for it becomes exceedingly precious.
Men think lightly of Christ, and of His atoning work, because they have shallow convictions of sin.
The death of Christ is a provision for a felt need. Its preciousness, to the believer, is in proportion to the reality of the need as it is felt. Christ in His atoning work is intended to meet a case like that of the publican, who, “standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” Here is a man in sore distress. Persons under ordinary circumstances do not smite their breasts, they do not feel too sinful to raise their eyes to heaven, nor do they stand afar off. In the case of the publican this was in no way pretentious but real. He had discovered that he was a sinner, and the cry to God for mercy rises of necessity and without effort from his distressed heart to the ear of God. There is ever for such sinners a full provision of grace in the atoning death of the Lord Jesus. When the necessary divine judgment of all sin becomes a reality to those who have a conscience of sins, the sufferings of the Saviour are valued beyond expression.
But the working of the truth in our hearts―it may be the law of God through the power of the Holy Spirit―by which we learn our state, is no less a provision of grace than is the gift of the Saviour Himself. The way we are led up to a full sense of our need, the weariness we feel of the world and its ways, the conviction of what is due to God, the desire to be right before Him, the wounding as well as the healing of the spirit of a man are all the outcome of His grace. God is to be praised for every sigh we heave for better things. The hunger for righteousness in us, as well as the righteousness for us in Christ which satisfies that hunger, are both alike the fruit of God’s grace.
The gospel of rest is offered to the weary and heavy laden, but none are weary and heavy laden, in this sense, who have not been made so by the Spirit of God. The world and its pleasures would satisfy us still, we should still smile at and with those who are rebels to God, and should in fact be rebels ourselves, if divine grace did not ordain otherwise. We have nothing that we have not received. A crucified and risen Saviour is a divine provision for a divinely prepared condition of heart. It is because men’s hearts have not been prepared that they neglect the great salvation.
It is great mercy for God to give us the Scriptures, but is it not great mercy that He should open our understandings that we may understand them? Who gives us the disposition and the intelligence to read with profit the Word of God?
We are in danger of forgetting that what is to us more precious than thousands of gold and silver is only foolishness to men of the world, while it is of sovereign mercy that we receive His Word. If we remembered this we should not be surprised at the rejection of our message, and that what seems a weary burden to others, should afford the greatest joy and refreshment to ourselves.
If we study the building of God’s tabernacle in the wilderness we shall see how completely all things connected with it were of God. The pattern was God’s pattern, not only in general outline, but in minute detail. The offerings of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen were brought by those who gave willingly with their hearts; so was it with all the material―more than enough―brought by the people for the sanctuary and service of the Lord. But the material was originally belonging to God, and each might well say, “Of Thine own have we given Thee.” Not only so, but the willingness to bring for the service of God the good things which they possessed, whether in the case of men or women, whether gold, or silver, or precious stones, was not a natural willingness, but a willingness given to them of God, as it is written―
“Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power” (Ps. 110:3).
But this teaching holds good not only in the case of those who brought the material, but also in the case of those who made all the furniture, covering, and vessels of the sanctuary. It is an interesting study how Bezaleel and Aholiab made everything―from the altar of incense to the outermost ring of the curtains, according to all that the Lord had commanded; but the secret of it all is, that these men were inspired by God to do the work. When Moses received the pattern of the tabernacle from God the question may well have arisen in his mind, “How is all this wonderful work to be done?”
But God had an answer for this question, as He had and has for every other.
“See,” saith the Lord, “I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri.... And I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship... And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab... and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee” (Exod. 31:2, 62See, I have called by name Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah: (Exodus 31:2)
6And I, behold, I have given with him Aholiab, the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan: and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded thee; (Exodus 31:6)).
But when all the various things in their separate pieces were completed, then the tabernacle was reared by Moses, and everything was put in its place according to the divine commandment. As to this we read―
But it will not be denied that God’s power made Moses willing, and directed him, too, in this final and perfect completing of the tabernacle of the Lord.
In the realm of the new creation “all things are of God.” The Saviour and His work; the reconciliation to God, which is the outcome of His atonement; the great doctrines of the righteousness of God, and justification by faith alone; the divine records of these things handed down to us; the inspiration of apostles to give to us the mind of God; the great unfolding of the truth as seen in the teachings of the apostle Paul; the miraculous powers to witness to the truth as seen in the historic account of apostolic times; the natural providential deliverances as well as the seeming miraculous ones, of His servants engaged in His work; the eager attention given by men to the message, the message itself to which men were made ready to listen―all these things were of God. Human helplessness, apart from God’s help, is never more displayed than in the lives of the servants of God. Even Christ Himself became a perfect pattern of dependence upon God. It pleased Him to spend the night in prayer before He called unto Him the disciples. The words which He gave to His disciples were the words which His Father had given Him, and it was through the Holy Ghost that He gave commandment unto the apostles whom He had chosen. He would make manifest that all things were of God in the life of the man Christ Jesus, who was indeed in Himself the God-man.
It was necessary that God’s servants should have the sentence of death in themselves― otherwise they would be found trusting in themselves, instead of in God who raiseth the dead.
Are we fitted to serve God before we thus know ourselves? Can we tell how much we have needed, and perhaps still need, trial and discipline to teach us this lesson? The apostle could, do all things through Christ who strengthened him. He could be content in whatsoever state he found himself, he knew how to suffer need, as well as to abound. He could endure to be abased as well as to be honored. He could stand, forsaken by his brethren, to answer charges before the world-emperor; but he tells us he was strengthened by the power of Christ for all these things, and he is careful to admit, concerning the sufferings he endured, and also regarding the more abundant labors in which he was engaged, that these sprang not from himself, but were because of the grace of God that was with him.
This is the secret of all Christian devotedness, of the faith, too, which God’s people have exercised, and of the loveliness seen in the lives of saints, whether in the Old Testament or the New, or in all the Christian centuries until now.
The apostle James is moved to deplore the sin which he may have known in himself, and which he saw manifested in the people around him. Appealing to the Word of God he asks,
“Do ye think that the Scripture saith in vain, ‘The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy’?”
He saw envy on every hand, and knew that what Scripture said was true, for envy was generally characteristic of human nature. Scripture is everywhere latent with this truth about man, as well as the truth about God. But the apostle did not therefore despair as some do, of himself and others, but goes on to say, “But He giveth more grace” (Jas. 4:66But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble. (James 4:6)). Envy, therefore, need not be in exercise in the lives of Christians.
It ought not to be―shall we not say, it must not be?―while there is the rich provision of divine grace to subdue and control our otherwise envious hearts. And grace, too, to show us that as children of God all things that are true and abiding and good are ours; while that which is earthly, even life itself here, is but a vapor which appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.
But grace is not for the proud.
It is something to learn practically that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, and that we are only earthen, and therefore brittle, vessels; that we can only be a channel of blessing to others, and that all the excellency and greatness are of God and not of us.
It may well be that our want of greater success in service for the Lord, our slowness to see the great possibilities of blessing in the Christian life, and, still more, our slowness to attain to those possibilities, all arise from the lack of a true knowledge of ourselves. Not that we do not know the teaching of Scripture on the subject, but that the Scripture knowledge has not become experimental. It is good to frankly and honestly own before God our helplessness, and then as frankly and honestly believe in the Word of His grace.
Christian life and service was not a mere ideal, as we have seen, to the apostle Paul. The teachings of Jesus throughout the Gospels are not meant to be only ideals. Unlike heathen religions, there is the provision of grace in Christ for the disciple to practice all that the Master has taught. The one who hears the sayings of Jesus and does not practice them is likened unto a foolish man who
“built his house upon the sand, and the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house and it fell; and great was the fall of it.”
Christ insists on being obeyed, because He is stronger than the strong, and because there is no reason why we should not obey Him. Our inability as believers to obey is removed by virtue of the new life that we have in Him; then again because our old man was crucified with Him and also by the gift of His Spirit. His disciples know that “His commandments are not grievous.”
Let us, as those who confess we have been redeemed by His blood, fully own to the Lord, and to one another, if need be, wherein we have failed as living witnesses for Christ. Let us tell Him that, in view of the ample provision made for our life and service here, we are without excuse when we disobey. The best obedience we can render is a poor response to what He has done for us. Our failure was in no case because He was not abundantly able to save.
His glory and His service require our fullest devotedness.
Christian life is not to be less strenuous because it is not legal. But we must see plainly, and believe fully, that
“His divine power hath given us all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue!”
T. H.