The Jews abroad had redeemed their brethren from the heathen, to whom they had been sold; while the Jews at home, or the captives returned to Jerusalem, were selling their brethren for debt. (Neh. 5) What a sad sight! What a humbling and searching fact! Is there not much that is miserably kindred with this to be known still? This is something like “form without power.” “The kingdom of God is not in word but in power.” Position may be quite according to God, but the practical godly grace, with which it is filled and occupied, may be scanty and poor. And how should this warn us not to count on the virtue of a merely pure and separated position! If it he trusted in or held with an unjudged and unwatched heart, even they among the uncircumcised may rebuke us. Much love and service is often to be found within, as I have been speaking, while little of the power of holiness, and of the mind of heaven, accompanies those who go outside. What I mean is this—that there is often less grace and moral power in the purer position than there is in the defiled connection. As with Jonathan. David loved him dearly, and yet he was not David's companion. But the companions of David's temptations were at times a trial to him, talking on one occasion of even stoning him, while Jonathan personally was always pleasant a him. What an outside and an inside was this! And yet David's outside place was the place of the glory then, and his companions were in the right position. But what exhibitions are all these! And yet we see the time around us at this hour. There is no lesson I would more press on the attention of my own soul than this—and I think I can say I value it: Position without answer, principles beyond practice, jealousy about orthodoxy and truth and mysteries, with little personal communion with the Lord—all these the soul stands in constant fear of, and in equal judgment and refusal.
The earnestness about many and many a right thing at was found at Ephesus, the stir and activity even a religious nature, that prevailed in Sardis, and the orthodoxy of Laodicea, were all challenged by the Lord, and we deeply justify the challenge. (Rev. 2; 3) The tithing of mint and anise, when judgment and mercy were passed by, was exposed by the divine mind of Christ; and in the Spirit the saint joins in the exposure, “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree corrupt and its fruit corrupt.”
We refuse position without power, as we would principles without practice; or truth, and mysteries, and knowledge without Christ Himself, and personal communion with Him. But in the stainless, perfect page of the word we find all honored, and nothing thoroughly according to God but where each and all is in its place and measure honored. As He says Himself, “These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” But here I will turn aside for a moment to what is a sweet relief to the soul: that to know Him in grace is His praise and our joy. We instinctively think of Him as one that exacts obedience and looks for service. But faith owns Him as the One that communicates; that speaks to us of the privileges rather than of the duties; of the love, and the liberty, and the blessings of our relationship to Him, rather than of the corresponding returns from us.
This is truth, beloved, we need also now-a-days, though it may be a little beside my leading thought just now.
The call of God separates us, but we need the Spirit of God to occupy the place according to God, and the loving devoted mind. “Salt is good,” the divine principle is the good thing. But salt may lose its saltiness. The right position or the divine principle may be understood and avowed, but there may be no power of life in it.
What variety of moral instruction is thus provided for the soul in the words of the Lord! But let us still listen, and we shall still learn, for the mine is never exhausted.
The history of the two tribes and a half has its peculiar instruction for us. They do not stand in company with the Lot of the days of Abraham, though in some respects they may remind us of him. For, as I have just said, it is wonderful what a variety of moral character and of Christian experience puts itself before the soul in the histories of Scripture; the lights and shades are to be traced, as well as the leading features. This strikes us forcibly in the history of this people. They are not Lot, but they remind us of him. Like him, their history begins by their eyeing well-watered plains good for cattle. While yet on the wilderness side of the Jordan they think of their cattle: Abraham, their father, had never been on that side of the river. Moses had said nothing to them respecting those plains of Gilead. Nor did their expectations, when called out from Egypt, stop short of the land of Canaan. But Ruben, Gad, and Manasseh had cattle, and they sue for an inheritance there, on the eastern or wilderness borders of the river, for there cattle might graze to advantage.
They had no thought whatever of revolting, of sacrificing the portion of Israel, or of separating themselves or their interests from the call of God. But their cattle would be nicely provided for in Gilead, and there they desired to tarry, though, of course, only as Israelites under the call of God. How natural! how common! They hold to the hope of the people of God, though not walking in the suited place of that hope. In power of character and conduct, they were not a dead and risen people, but they are one in faith with such. They would declare their alliance with the tribes which were to pass the Jordan, though they would remain on the wilderness side of it themselves. They were not, like Lot, a people of mixed principles, who deliberately form their lives by something inconsistent with the call of God; but they were a generation who, owning that call and prizing it, and resenting the thought of any hope but what was connected with it, are not in the power of it. Again I say, how common! This is a large generation. We know ourselves too well to wonder at this.
Moses is made uneasy by this movement, and he expresses his uneasiness with much decision. He tells this people that they bring to his remembrance the conduct of the spies, whom he had sent out, years before, from Kadesh-barnea, and whose way had discouraged their brethren, and occasioned forty years' pilgrimage in the wilderness. There was something so unlike the call of God out of Egypt, in the hope of Canaan, thus to linger in any part of the road; and Moses resents it. And it is bad when this is produced, when the first instinctive thought of a saint, walking in the power of the resurrection of Christ, is that of alarm at what he sees in, or hears from, a brother: and yet how common! Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh have to explain themselves, and to give fresh pledges that they by no means separate themselves from the fellowship and interests of their brethren; and they do this with zeal and with integrity too. In this they are not like Lot. They would not have taken the eastern Gilead had this been the forfeiture of their identity with those who were going to the western Canaan.
But Moses cannot let them go as Abraham parts with Lot; they are not to be treated in that way. Neither does the judgment of God visit them, as it did the unbelieving spies, who brought up an evil report of the land. But Moses eyes them and fears for them, and has his thoughts anxiously and uneasily occupied about them. What shades of difference do we find in these different illustrations of character! What various textures may we inspect in these woolens and linens! Different classes among the people of God, and shades of difference in the same class. We have Abraham and Moses and David, we have Lot and Jonathan and the tribes in Gilead, we have Jehoshaphat and Obadiah—and yet these are the people of God. Sodom was Lot's place, Saul's court was Jonathan's place, and the palace of Ahab was Obadiah's; while Abraham dwelt in a tent, David in a cave of the earth, and Elijah with the provisions of God at the brook Cherith, or in the Gentile Sarepta. Here were distances. And so as between Jonathan and others, for Jonathan was (strictly speaking or distinguishing) neither Lot nor Obadiah, though we set them, generally, together as a class. Neither was Obadiah Lot exactly. And as between Lot, Jonathan, and Obadiah on the one side, and Moses, Abraham, and Elijah, and such like on the other, we see the Reubenites, Gadites, and half-tribe of Manasseh—a generation who will not admit the thought of their separation from the call and the people of God, but who betray in moral action that which is inconsistent with that call. And this is indeed a common class—nay, this is the common class. (See Num. 32) One's own heart knows it full well. Joshua, who had the spirit of Moses, holds this same people in some fear and suspicion, just as Moses had done before. He calls them to him, and he addresses to them a special word of exhortation and warning, when the time of action in the camp of God begins. (Josh. 1) Little things of Scripture are at times very symptomatic. It is so, I doubt not, in Josh. 1. As to the tribes generally Joshua has but to say, “Prepare you victuals, for within three days ye shall pass over this Jordan to go in to possess the land, which the Lord your God giveth you to possess it.” They were free, they were in traveling order; they had but to know the hour of departure. Like Noah all was ready for the voyage into another world, and he needed only time to put himself and his family into the vessel. The two tribes and a half were not so equipped in traveling order. They were encumbered, and instinctively, as it were, Joshua acted towards them, as towards a heavy baggage in the hour of decamping. He had to challenge them—at least he felt he had—to remind them of their pledges to Israel, for they were not under his eye, as if they had been altogether Israel themselves. In measure he is to them what the angel who came to Sodom was to Lot.
So mark this same people again in Josh. 22.
The ark had gone over, the feet of the priests bearing it had divided the waters of the Jordan, and the ark had gone over conducting and sheltering the Israel of God; and it is true that Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh Each gone over too. But Israel and the ark remained there, and the two tribes and a half return—return to settle, where their brethren had but wandered—return to present this questionable and strange sight, Israelites finding their place and their interests outside the natural boundary of their promised inheritance, find a home where the ark had never rested.
Ere they set out on the return, Joshua seems to feel this, and specially warns and exhorts them, and as soon as they make the passage and but touch the place which they had chosen, they begin to feel it also. They are not quite at ease in their souls, and they raise an altar. This is full of language in our ears. An Israelite in the land of Gilead at this living day of ours understands it.
Jehoshaphat was, after this manner, uneasy when he found himself on the throne with Ahab, and under the pressure of that uneasiness (which attends on the heart of a true Israelite in an uncircumcised place) he asks for a prophet of the Lord. This is the language of the renewed mind in a foreign land. The two tribes and a half raise an altar and call it “Ed.” It was a witness, as they purposed, of this: that Israel's God was their God, that they had part in the hopes and calling of the Israel of God. But why all this? Had they taken up their portion in Canaan they would not have needed this; they would have had the original and not a reflection. Their souls would have had the witness within, and “Ed” would not have been needed without. But they were not in Canaan, but in Gilead. Shiloh was not in view, and they had to give themselves some artificial, some secondary help to prop up their confidence by some crutch of their own devising, that it might be known that they and the Israel of God were one. All this is full of meaning, and is much experienced to this day. Some witness of what we are, and who we are, as saints, is craved by the soul, and called for by others, when we get into a position in the world which the call of God does not fully combine with. Some artificial or secondary testimony is felt desirable; the countenance or acceptance of others, the examination of our own personal condition, with many a restless action of the soul, reasonings with ourselves about it all, remembrances of better days invoked now and again. Something of this secondary character, like the altar at Ed, is needed, where the soul is not fully simple and faithful: all this is still known, and all this, I judge, is the writing on this pillar in the land of Gilead. Lot's wife, the pillar of salt, has a writing upon it, which the divine Master Himself has deciphered for us, and, I doubt not, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of truth, would have us, under His anointing, read and learn the writing on this pillar, which Israelites outside the natural bounds of the promised inheritance once reared. It may warn our souls if we love quietness and assurance of heart, and deep peace of soul, not to return and find a settlement where the Church of God has duly found a pilgrimage. Does my soul read this writing? Every heart knows its own humiliation. These disturbances of spirit, this demand of Jehoshaphat for a prophet of Jehovah, this altar of Ed, witness both for and against us. They bespeak the saintly or renewed mind, but they bespeak it in such conditions, such exercises and experiences, as a more single-eyed and full-hearted love to Christ would have spared it.
Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh are challenged a second time. Joshua and the tribes in Canaan have to challenge them now, as Moses had to do before. Their altar in Gilead awakens suspicions now, as their desire to settle in Gilead had awakened suspicions then. This is all natural and common and all symptomatic. Saints in Gilead are not such as “make their calling and election sure” to the hearts of their brethren, at least without some inquiry. A great stir is made among the tribes who were now in Canaan, and within the conscious possession of Shiloh, and of God's tabernacle there, and an embassage is formed to inquire into this matter. Something, they know not what, struck their eye, which, at least, appeared to be at variance with the common call of Israel; and it must at least be explained. What a living picture this is! We are surely at home in such a spot as this, and know the customs of the place. I believe the apostle, in the Epistles to the Corinthians is very much, in the New Testament form, a Phinehas, a son of Eleazar the priest, crossing the river to inquire after the pillar in the land of Gilead. There were things at Corinth which alarmed Paul, symptoms of sad departure from the common call of the heavenly saints. They seemed to be “among the princes of this world,” to be “reigning as kings on the earth.” His ministry in the meekness and gentleness of Christ was getting to be despised, and others were getting to be valued, because of their place and advantages in the world. The way of the schools, the way of the wisdom of men, was regaining its authority, and saints seemed as though they were returning to settle where the Church was to be but an unknown stranger. In the zeal of Josh. 22, Paul crosses the river, and, whatever the discovery may be, the action is a painful one, and the need of it a scandal in the history of the Church. The tribes of Gilead may satisfy Phinehas and his brethren more than the Corinthian saints satisfied the apostle; all such differences and varieties in the conditions of the people of God are known at this hour, but there is this common sorrow and humbling that the calling and election is not made sure; and we have either to take journeys, or to occasion journeys, that our ways, our Ed, our altars, our pillars, the bleating of our flocks in the plains of Gilead, may be inspected and inquired after, instead of our resting and feeding together, and together gathering around and learning the secrets of the tabernacle and altar at Shiloh. In the New Testament, the Church at Corinth was the Israelite on the wilderness side of the river. The apostle's fears respecting the saints there, were not respecting Judaizing influences, nor were they on account of the working of liberty of thought and infidel speculations, at least at the time of the second Epistle; nor were they respecting the turning of grace into lasciviousness. These fears occupy the mind of the Spirit in addressing other saints and churches: but at Corinth it was world that was dreaded. A certain man appears to hare gained attention from the saints there; he was one who had, both from nature and from circumstances, something to attract the mere worldly heart of man. He was, I believe, as modern language speaks, a gentleman. He had a fine person and an independent fortune, and the Corinthian saints had evidently to a great extent got under his influence. To some extent they were beguiled. They had begun to look on things after the outward appearance; they were suffering a man to vaunt himself and to take occasion to be somebody among them, simply from the advantage he had from nature and from circumstances.
Such a bad condition of things the apostle had to withstand. Affection and confidence towards himself had been withdrawn in measure, because he had no such advantages to boast, which they were thus beginning to prize. And surely he was purposed not to affect such things at all. And though he had certain things “in the flesh” of which lie might glory, still be would glory rather in his infirmities. He would be “weak in Christ.” The natural or worldly advantages which this man had and used among the saints, our apostle exposed, as Moses would expose the woolen and linen garment or other mixtures. “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,” says he to the saints now; as Moses had said of old to Israel, “Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together; thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woolen and of linen together.” But Paul himself was not thus yoked and clothed; indeed he was not. He was among the foremost of the tribe of Judah in crossing the river.
Surely I may say all these things illustrate profitable lessons for us. We are not to be mixed up with that from which the call of God separates us; we are not to wear the garment of divers sorts. But if we refuse it and put on only the pure clothing, take the place and be found in the connection to which the call of God leads, we are to be there with a girded as well as with an unmixed garment, and to watch too that it be unspotted. The world is that, not to the improvement of which Christ calls us, but to separation from which He calls us. But if, beloved, in form we take the separated place, let us seek the grace and the power which alone can adorn, and furnish that place for the Lord!
And such is the character of the hour we are now passing through. The god and prince of this world is allowing the citizens to sweep and garnish his house, and they are led to admire it afresh in its adorned condition, and to flatter themselves that it is by no means the same house that it once was. But this delusion is solemn; it is as much the home of the unclean spirit as ever it was, and only the more suitable for him, because it is swept and garnished, and ere long he will use all these operations of the citizens for his final and most awful purposes. “He that gathereth not with me scattereth.” Is our labor according to the purpose of Christ? Is it by the rule of His weights and measures? If it be not, though we may labor in His name, we are but doing what the enemy will soon turn to his own account. In the parable, the sweeping and the garnishing turn out at the last to have been all for the unclean spirit to whom the house as much belonged as ever it did, though it be true he had left it for a season. Whatever is done for the improvement of the house, is done for the master of the house, and Satan is the god of the world as much as ever he was, and will be till the judgment of it by the Rider on the white horse takes place. The lengthened peace of the nations which Europe so long and till lately enjoyed, gave abundant occasion to the sweeping and garnishing of the house. In man's way the sword was turned into a plowshare. The earth and its resources, man and his skill, have been produced and cultivated beyond all that ever was known; and the house looks a different thing from what it was, now that it is under these cleansing and ornamenting labors of its servants. Advancement in letters, morals, refinement, and religion is immense; peace societies, temperance societies, literature for the million, and music for the million, with the general confederacy of the nations, loudly tell all this, as do the boasts in the age, which are heard every hour. But this diligence is according to the mind of the real master of the house, or the god of this world. This is serious truth. “He that gathereth not with me scattereth.” This is a serious word. “Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.” It is confusion. It is the illicit weaving of woolen and linen together. But, beloved, while one says this, the heart owns it and would be humbled by the confession of it, that many a dear, honest-hearted servant of Christ, who is laboring with a mistaken purpose, and working not by the weights and measures that are according to the standard of the sanctuary, with a true affection and zeal, and singleness, and diligence, and fervor, may be far before others of us who have clearly discerned their mistake.
I dread indifference even more than mixture. I would shun Laodicea more than Sardis. May we learn the lesson in both its features, Sardis with its religious bustle which gave it a name to live will not do; Laodicea, with its selfish, cold-hearted ease, and satisfaction, will not do. Let us be diligent but in pure service; occupying talents, but occupying them for a rejected Master, looking for nothing from the world that has cast Him out, but counting on everything in His own presence by and by.