Part 4
I pass on to another interesting scene when a faithful one is standing fast alone, unsupported by the fellowship of his brethren, where his testimony is rather the refusal to act so as to deny fundamental truth, than actively to engage himself with others in extricating themselves from iniquity. I allude to the case of Mordecai the Jew (Esther).
Far away from the land of Israel, the people were subject to the powers of the world. An Amalekite, named Haman, wielded the power next to that of the king. A poor Jew, “an exile in the strange land,” refused to bow his, head to the Agagite. To be faithful, when all were unfaithful, is a great thing in God’s eye.
“Thou hast not denied My Name,” is great commendation when all were doing so. To keep one’s Nazariteship in secret with God, when no eye sees but His, is never forgotten. To stand firmly for Him in an evil day of temptation, is to do great things!
“Yet I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal,” shows that God’s eye saw and valued their faith, where even Elijah had not discerned them. They had refused to do that which all others had done, in that dark day.
Mordecai was ready to give a reason for the hope that was in him; and his simple answer was, I am a Jew! God had not forgotten His oath of old (Ex. 17), even if Israel were reaping the fruit of their sins under the Eastern Kings. He had said,
“Remember what Amalek did unto thee by the way, when ye were come forth out of Egypt; how he met thee by the way, and smote the hindmost of thee, when thou wast faint and weary, and he feared not God... Thou shalt not forget it.” Deuteronomy 25.
Therefore the Lord had sworn that He would have war with Amalek from generation to generation. Mordecai refuses to surrender this fundamental truth in the calling of Israel. You may say, He is a stiff-necked man, and is imperiling the lives of his nation. I admit it: but his trust is in God! Firmly did this man, trusting in God, and refusing to surrender fundamental truth, stand singlehanded against all the malice of the enemy. Post after post was dispatched with the orders to smite all the Jews. Still no faltering in his faith—his head bowed not as the son of Amalek passed by! He had counted upon God, whose Word never alters; and God had tried his faith, but it stood the test; and, when the day comes for having faithfulness owned, it will be found, through grace, that Mordecai had had an opportunity for faithfulness to the Lord—that he had stood firm, and God has not forgotten it.
What cheer of heart his story must afford to those whose path is isolated; when they have not even one faithful companion, yet are enabled in an evil day to be firm and faithful in their solitary pathway, sustained and owned by God.
In Daniel, Hannaniah, Mishael and Azariah, we find another striking example. Faithfulness and standing fast in trial and temptation, shows the power of the Spirit, quite as much as energy in action. They were at this time captives in Babylon; the necessity of faithfulness seemed to have passed away. Where was the profit of standing fast when all their hopes were gone? But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s meat, or his wine. He would drink water, and eat pulse, and nothing more. He kept his Nazariteship in the land of captivity; and he kept it according to the thoughts of God (compare Ezek. 4:9-139Take thou also unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentiles, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof, according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side, three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof. 10And thy meat which thou shalt eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels a day: from time to time shalt thou eat it. 11Thou shalt drink also water by measure, the sixth part of an hin: from time to time shalt thou drink. 12And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight. 13And the Lord said, Even thus shall the children of Israel eat their defiled bread among the Gentiles, whither I will drive them. (Ezekiel 4:9‑13)), and the time came when God stood by him, and made him the vessel of His mind and will, revealing to him the history of the times, and end of the Gentile in whose grasp he was for his nation’s sin.
I might go on with many other examples; such as Jeremiah, the Five Wise Virgins, etc., etc.; but I pass on to notice another solemn lesson. How soon the thing failed, and the energy flagged, which supported the emerging remnant in extricating themselves from the evil, and regaining a divine position. Failure and weakness thus ensued once more.
It is a sad but common case. You will often see the lovely efforts of faith struggling to win a divine position through difficulties and dangers and trials without end. Yet when the goal is won, the zeal grows cool, self is remembered, God forgotten, and the blessing is gone. Alas! one trembles, when one sees these first lovely efforts of faith, lest the day should come when they are seen no more. It is much harder to keep what we have won in divine things than to win, because it must be by the winner abiding in the energy by which he won. The fear of man comes. Self-interest, self-sparing, and self-indulgence enter. God in mercy interposes at times, and stirs up the sleeping energy, and is ever ready to bless; still it is painful and humbling to think of it. We see a sad example of this in Israel when gaining the land under Joshua, and then sinking into premature decay.
It comes out strikingly in the after history of this returned remnant in Ezra, etc., to which I have referred. The fear of man stopped the work of the Lord (Ezra 4:4, 5, 244Then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah, and troubled them in building, 5And hired counsellors against them, to frustrate their purpose, all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia. (Ezra 4:4‑5)
24Then ceased the work of the house of God which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia. (Ezra 4:24).) The energy and beauty of their first efforts of faith were gone. God sends the prophets Haggai and Zechariah to stir up the people to the work of the Lord. They had begun to settle in their hearts that the time had not come to build the Lord’s house (Hag. 1:22Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, This people say, The time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built. (Haggai 1:2)); yet they had ceiled their own. Thus stirred up, we find that they obeyed the voice of the Lord, and did the work of the Lord. The fear of man gave place to the fear of the Lord; and God was there to own and bless the renewed efforts of faith.
If we follow their history, we find their faith again grew dim. In Malachi the state of things is painful and depressing. The blind ones of the flock, and the sick, and the lame, were offered in sacrifice to Jehovah. What man refused—what was worthless to him, was good enough for God! (Even Saul, in his worst day, reserved the best of the sheep and oxen to do sacrifice to the Lord). No one would open the doors of the Lord’s house for nothing, nor light a fire on His altar for naught (ch. 1:7-10). They robbed God in tithes and offerings (ch. 3:8); called the proud happy; and said,
“It is vain to serve God, and what profit is it that we have kept His ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts?” This, too, sad to tell it, when in a divine position. It was not when
far away in the land of the Chaldean, but in the city of the great King! Still we find a remnant within a remnant, if I may so say, faithful to the Lord.
The persistent aim of the enemies of the truth, is ever to blot out if possible the fact of the Church of God, as to its practical bearing on the saints. It is not that there is a denial of the existence of the Church of God here upon earth: but that such a truth is binding on the saints in gathering to the Name of the Lord, even be they but a remnant at best.
(To be continued)