Part 1.
“Who hath despised the day of small things?” Zechariah 4:10.
The testimony which the Lord’s people are called to maintain in these last days has a twofold character:
First: The unity of the Church—the body of Christ—constituted by the personal presence of the Holy Ghost, sent down from heaven at Pentecost; and,
Second: The character of a Remnant who have emerged from the ruin and devastation into which the Church has lapsed, who are maintaining this testimony with uncompromising purpose and devotedness of heart.
To this Remnant character I desire to draw the attention of my readers, and to trace from Scripture some of the characteristics which distinguished the faithful from time to time, in periods of declension from the first calling of God; or marked the paths of individuals who typify or personate a remnant in days of failure and ruin. They afford much instruction and example, as well as warning, to those who now, through mercy, occupy this grave and yet deeply blessed place.
We shall find another feature, too, of marked and painful interest; i.e. how soon failure came in, and energy flagged, after the first fine efforts of faith, which had extricated itself from corruption, and returned to a divine position. Alas, man fails—the saints fail in the things of God in every way. Still there is no failure which can break the link of faith with the power of God; and the brightest exhibitions of faith are ever found where all around is darkest. It is not to serve, or love the saints of God, to sink to their level, and be submerged in the confusion.
We never can cope with the evil that has flowed in by letting go first principles. In no place do we find such strong injunctions to hold them fast as when all was darkest, and the failure most apparent. Witness Paul’s instructions in 2 Timothy:
“Hold fast the form of sound words.”
“Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
“Continue in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them,” etc.
He serves the Lord’s people best, who, while he follows them as long as there is an ear to hear, never himself loses his liberty, or enfeebles the truth by identity with that which is not according to God.
A Gideon must first throw down the altar of Baal before “Abi-ezer” is gathered after him.
A Lot may preach true things to his circle, but it was truth without the power of God, because he had not first extricated himself from Sodom:
“He seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law” (Gen. 19).
It is clear that there must first have been the calling of God announced and accepted; something set up of God from which the general mass had departed, in order that there should be a holding fast of the fundamental calling, by a remnant; or a return to original principles, when all had lost the divine place of testimony.
I think that the first remnant having this character, is Caleb and Joshua.
When God came down to deliver Israel out of Egypt, He announced His purpose to Moses in Exodus 3:8,
“I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Here was the purpose distinctly enunciated. Not one word about “the great and terrible wilderness” which lay between.
I pass over their deliverance, and subsequent history, till we come to the moment when Israel, about two years after, were to go up to the mount of the Amorites, and take possession of the land of Canaan. Their faith was not up to the call of the Lord, and they begged that some should be sent to spy out the land. To this the Lord assented, commanding that twelve men—out of every tribe a man—(see Num. 13; Deut. 1) should go up. Among them were “Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.” The spies returned with a good report of the land; but ten of them caused the unbelief of the heart of Israel to manifest itself by their own fears. At this critical moment we find Israel slipping away from the call of Jehovah, and the solemn words were then spoken,
“Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.”
They “despised” the pleasant land! Here one of these two faithful men—men of “another spirit” —who had “wholly followed the Lord God of Israel,” stilled the people with his words,
“If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us; a land which floweth with milk and honey.”
He “held fast” the calling and purpose of Jehovah at this critical moment. Israel had to go back and wander for the rest of the forty years in the desert, till all the men of war died that came out of Egypt.
Joshua and Caleb, too, had to accompany them in their sorrow and toil, yet not in their sin. But there was not one in that great company who with more firm unfaltering tread, and cheerful heart, wandered for that forty years. True to the purpose and call of God, they hoped for what they saw not, and in patience waited for it. They got their portion in the land they looked for, when the time came; and the testimony of Moses was that Caleb “wholly followed the Lord” (Josh. 14:8-14).
(To be Continued)