The question, I apprehend, which is troubling many minds now, is suggested in this denunciation of the prophet Jeremiah. The breaking up of formal unity, the breaking up of a testimony really coming in great measure from God, troubles saints. They are not prepared for it. They count it a strange thing. Yet let us look at God's ways, He guiding us. The general truth of the failure of every dispensation in man's hands used -to be very familiar with us: we begin with the first, "man made upright;" and we find (Gen. 6:6), "And it repented the Lord that he had made man upon the earth, and it grieved him at his heart " (because of man's corruption). And then comes the flood. But without going into the great outlines of dispensation, let us look more intimately into the record that Israel affords us. In Num. 14 we find that, God, having brought up Israel out of Egypt, next year orders spies to be sent up to search the land. They are to have definitely before them, what is the nature of the land they are going to possess. Ours is a reasonable hope. God likes us to know what we are laboring for (Heb. 4). They do learn this: it is a good land, but they despise it. They deliberately turn back in heart into Egypt. Well, God says (verse 28), " As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you. Doubtless ye shall not come into the land: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness: ... and ye shall know (verse 34) my breach of promise." So then, there is such a thing as breach of promise with God. In one sense, we know with joy, "His gifts and calling are without repentance." But as to testimony and blessing upon earth, there is such a thing as those entirely failing to whom that testimony and blessing is committed, and God committing it to others, that His purposes may be accomplished. " Your little ones, they shall know the land which ye have despised;" and by them was God's promise really fulfilled.
Look onward, as to Eli: the question, I suppose, of priesthood. What says the Lord? (1 Sam. 2:30). "The Lord God of Israel saith, I said indeed that thy house, and the house of thy father, should walk before me forever; but now the Lord saith, Be it far from me: for them that honor me I will honor; but they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." And mark how searching is that question of honoring. "Thou honourest thy sons above me," etc. The Lord's quarrel was " against the iniquity which he [Eli] knoweth: because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not." He did speak, and speak very solemnly to them. He said (2:25), " If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall intreat for him?" Still he did not use the proper means and authority which God had given to him as a father, and a priest, to put down the evil, which he knew, which was deeply dishonoring God. God will be dealt with in a true, bond fide way. Words, even felt in some measure, will not do when actions are called for. We may make light of sin; but He never does.
In this breach of promise, we see again God's substitution, to carry on his own testimony, etc. etc. (verse 35). " And I will raise me up is faithful priest, that shall do according to that which is in mine heart, and in my mind."
Heavily, therefore, I apprehend, would this denunciation come upon the ears of Israel by the prophet Jeremiah "Except ye repent, I will make this house like Shiloh;" so 7:12-15. It was a national witness to them, that whilst they were resting in the external thing, as though it was theirs by right,-clinging to their land, though but a waste, and saying, as man ever does, " Abraham was on and he inherited the land, but we are many; the lam is given to us for inheritance" (Ezek. 33:24), say, it was a witness to them that God had once before given up His own house, " the tent which He placed among men," affecting thought!); He had given up His own glory apparently because of the iniquity of those to whom it was committed. They might send, in bold and unprecedented self-confidence, for the Lord's ark from Shiloh; but "the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God." This is the Spirit's record; and a preparation for all that followed. "The bellows are burned, the lead is consumed of the fire; the founder melteth in vain, for the wicked are not plucked away" (Jer. 6:29).
How unaccountable, doubtless, has it often appeared to many souls, that God can so let His name be dishonored by His own people, who should testify for Him. And yet so it is. God would rather give up His own glory for the present, and give up His strength into captivity, in the words of Psa. 78:61, than His children should go on unrebuked, and suffer damage. He loves their profit better than His own present glory, though all will finally be to His glory.
In passing on to our own dispensation, I only remark, that our standing is simply and entirely that of faith. We have no other. We are Gentiles-the wild olive-tree. The moment that we begin to think that we have a standing-place, apart from faith, we forget the fundamental principles of our calling. "Thou standest by faith," Paul said at the first to the church. And so the first word that Jesus said to the church, when he came to visit it at Ephesus, and found it declining from first love, was, "Repent, and do the first works, or else I will come unto thee quickly, and remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent." The candlestick, the glory, could not stand apart from faith.
In conclusion, I would just say, Let these things speak for themselves. Alas for us, if we will not let God's word speak to us simply, nakedly, and by its own power! Only one thing I would say- surely it says to all; "Be not high-minded, but fear." However free we may be, by grace, from the present condemnation of such truth, still the lesson will surely be of little value to us, if we affix it upon others and neglect to apply it to ourselves. Sweet to be driven from "confidence in the flesh," yet know who to look to in the sustainment of our responsibility (Rom. 16:25). And yet one word further. Whilst thus seeing the incompatibility of God's presence and blessing with evil, let not these things make us careless about separation. Separation is never the thing that God loves, unless it be forced upon Him by man's evil. Especially is it needful to dwell upon this now; because Satan's aim always is whatever truth God is working upon, to throw us into the extreme of it. I doubt not this is an invariable wile, and one just now to be guarded against. Let us not forget, that though faithfulness must be used when called for, yet love still has its own indispensable place in the church. It is the cement of God's habitation by the Spirit. We may mistake a quick finding-out of others' faults and weaknesses for spirituality. It is not so, Love still " hopeth all things, believeth all things; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth.' Love will still cover a multitude of sins, though it will not cloak any.
I say these things. Yet let the solemn passages adduced leave that thought upon the mind, that there can be no trifling with positive evil. May we still maintain our true standing as unleavened in connection with the Paschal Lamb. May we still eat with it the bitter herbs, and thus know all the better the pure joy and blessedness of that Paschal feast, until the day dawn, and the shadows flee away.
Abergele.