EH 8:1-20{EH 9:1-3{This portion of God's word is of deep interest to us, because there is in it a principle that holds good for ourselves. We are all acquainted with what this book of Nehemiah brings before us: the broken-down state of the remnant that had returned to Jerusalem some years before, and Nehemiah getting leave from the king to go to their help.
They were a feeble people, but they had faith in God; so in all their feebleness they knew that God was working for them. If I have no faith in God, I shall have thoughts like those of Sanballat and Tobiah: " What do these feeble Jews? If a fox go up he shall even break down their stone wall." But if I get God before me, how different are my thoughts. I shall see that He is working for me, no matter what my own feebleness.
They were mixed with that with which they ought not to have been, but, in spite of that, God was working for them. They had the law, and they read it; and they were recovering truth out of it. And that is what we are doing in the present day. We cannot say that we have a fresh revelation; but, through God's grace, we can say that He has recovered truth for us. These people were no doubt looking back and remembering what their nation had been in times past; and they were weeping and making confession to God. And what does Nehemiah say? " This day is holy unto Jehovah your God; mourn not, nor weep. Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared; for this day is. holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." He recalls their hearts from occupation with themselves, from remembering the bright days in the past in contrast with those in which they were, to one sole point, and that was to God Himself-to Jehovah. This poor, feeble people, that had cause to weep, were recalled from all that to be occupied on this one particular occasion with what God was for them; and in the power of this they were able afterward to keep the Feast of Tabernacles-that feast which will be kept in its integrity by and by. The reason that they could keep it was that they were occupied with God.
Now God would bring us up to this point at the Lord's table. We have a tendency to be occupied here-in our prayers, in our words, in our hymns -with similar thoughts to those which occupied these people when they wept. But the Lord has set us in a place where we may say, " The joy of the Lord is our strength; " and, wore it so, nothing would flow out of our hearts but worship; because thoughts of ourselves would be then set aside, and we should have the power which enabled these people to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and to occupy, as purged worshippers in the presence of the Lord, the very place in which God has set us now in His Son, and which we shall occupy in body by and by.
Neither the land nor the people were in a state suited to the feast; and if we take the ground of our state as that upon which we stand before God, I am sure we shall only weep. If I am occupied with my own wretched heart, how can I sing with any reality such a hymn as, "Not a cloud above, not a spot within " 2 They had occasion to weep, and the day came when they did; but they were not to do it on this particular day. I an sure that the more we realize what the work of Christ has done for us in setting us in all His own acceptance before His God and Father, and our God and Father, the more our prayer-meetings will take the character of confession, for the place in which I am set in the Beloved is that which should give character to my walk here. So, when the time, the due time, comes, we shall be upon our faces on the ground, that we so little answer to the place in which He has set us. But there is a day in which we are " to eat the fat and drink the sweet." I do not say that we are to force ourselves up to it, but I do say, if we are not up to it, do not let us be satisfied with being thus below it. When we are gathered here it is that, for the time, we may be done with everything, even to His gifts, so that there may be nothing but simple praise and adoration from our lips because we are occupied with Himself.
(J. G. H.)
" Then Jacob said, Put away the strange gods." Bethel was filling the gaze of his soul, commanding the powers of his heart, and he says everything must be suitable to that. The hindrances are discovered.
It is sometimes said, "What are the hindrances? How am I to know them?"
If you set out to be for God, you will soon find out what they are. When the soul has Bethel before it, it seeks to answer it, and everything that is unsuited to it must go. Do not tell me things will drop off like autumn leaves. They must be "put away."
(W.T. T.)