Part 3
That chorus had been sung in the bright day of David’s success: when he brought up the Ark of God from the house of Obed Edom, the Gittite, to Jerusalem (1 Chron. 16:4141And with them Heman and Jeduthun, and the rest that were chosen, who were expressed by name, to give thanks to the Lord, because his mercy endureth for ever; (1 Chronicles 16:41)). It had again resounded when the house of the Lord at Jerusalem was filled with the cloud, and the glory of His manifested presence in the days of Solomon (2 Chron. 5:1313It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the Lord; (2 Chronicles 5:13)). When the glory and brightness and successes of those days had passed away, and the failure and ruin of Israel was complete, the returned remnant could raise the very same old note of praise,
They had been faithless, but He was faithful. The fathers of Israel who had seen the house of the Lord before the captivity, could weep when they thought of the unfaithfulness of the people. The younger ones could sing with joy when they celebrated the faithfulness of the Lord. The weeping and the rejoicing were both good—to weep was right, when they thought of the failure of the people to Jehovah; but to rejoice was right, when they thought of the faithfulness of God!
Others, too, who called upon the same Lord, as they said, claimed the right of being with them in the work (Ezra 4). But this could not be. They who were careful that even a priest of Israel, who could not show his genealogy, should not eat of the holy things in the day of extrication from Babylon, were careful too that those who had mixed up the fear of Jehovah with the service of idols, should have nothing to do with them in His work. It was not a question with them of having people together; but, with widowed hearts as to the past, their fixed purpose remained to strengthen the things that remained, but to strengthen them according to God—refusing all cooperation with those who could not have the same end in view in the Lord’s testimony. Thus it was pure and unmingled;
1st, To Israel as it had been—God’s separated people on the earth;
2nd, This testimony maintained by a remnant whose sole trust was in God, and whose guide was His Word.
All this has its instructive lessons for us. The unity of the Church remains. It is maintained by the Spirit of God. Tongues have gone—apostolic power has gone—signs have passed away; also healings and gifts of adornment to call the attention of the world. Still the Word of God abides. To it, God has directed us in the last days. Were the tongues, etc., here now, the Word would apply, for “the Word of the Lord abideth forever.” But they have all gone. Still the faithful can take that Word and walk in obedience to it, when all these things of the former glory of the Church have passed away forever.
The remnant extricated from Babylon, as it were, and gathered together to the name of the Lord (Matt. 18:2020For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:20)), on the divine basis and never-failing principle of the Church’s existence— “one body and one Spirit” (Eph. 4:44There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; (Ephesians 4:4))—do not by this pretend to be “the Church of God;” that would be to forget that there are children of God still scattered in the Babylon around. They can set up nothing—reconstruct nothing. But they can remember that “He that is holy, He that is true; He that shutteth and no man openeth, and openeth and no man shutteth,” is with them. He is ever to be trusted and counted upon. If He sends a prophet or a help among them, they can thank God, and accept it as a token of His favor and grace—they can appoint none. To do so would be to forget the total ruin which never can be restored, and to presume to do that for which they had no warrant in the Word of God.
If a fresh action of the Spirit of God causes a Nehemiah-like company to follow from Babylon, they are glad to welcome them to the divine ground they occupy themselves. If the Nehemiah-like company comes, they find before them a remnant who had previously, through grace, occupied the divine position. They must gladly and cheerfully fall in with what God had wrought—there was no neutral ground—no second place. They dare not set up another it would be but schism. It was the same Spirit who had wrought, and who, if followed, could not but guide them to the same divine position to which He had guided others. How completely this sets aside the will of man; and independency of the movements of the present day which stop short of that to which God has called His people to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace;” for “there is one body and one Spirit.” and only one!
How fully too this meets the questions which so agitate souls in the movements of the day. How impossible for this fresh company of Jews, (Nehemiah), if led of God, to assume that because they were of Israel, they could gather together in some other city, apart from those who went before, (Ezra); and take up divine principles in the letter, and to claim that because they were Jews, and had separated from Babylon, that they could act independently of those who had gone before, and had preoccupied that divine position. It was wide enough for all of Israel, and surely contemplated (as faith ever does) them all. But as it was a return, they were careful to maintain it intact in its purity and divine character, refusing entrance to all that was unsuited to the presence and Name of Israel’s God.
It has been a successful device of the enemy—sad to say—to use the divine and blessed truths of the Church of God to cover what is really schism; and to support a counterfeit and, Jannes and Jambres like, to deceive. For this is not a day of violence—but of deception and resistance of the truth by counterfeits in divine things.
It is simple and plain, that those who have had grace to separate from the evils of the professing Church, even though members of Christ, cannot use this fact to the disowning of that which God had wrought in others in this way before them. If led of “one Spirit,” they cannot but link themselves practically in the unity of the Spirit, with those who had preoccupied the divine platform; cheerfully and thankfully owning what God had wrought, and following where “one Spirit” had led their brethren before them, to the Name of the Lord, as “one body,” to break “one loaf” in remembrance of Him!
(To be continued)