DEUTERONOMY, Section 4 of 6. (Deut. 8 - 13).
C H Mackintosh

Deuteronomy 8
"All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that
ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord aware unto
your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee
these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what
was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no." (Vers. 1,
2.)

It is, at once, refreshing, edifying and encouraging to look back over the whole course
along which the faithful hand of our God has conducted us; to trace His wise and
gracious dealings with us; to call to mind His many marvellous interpositions on our
behalf, how He delivered us out of this strait and that difficulty; how, oft-times, when
we were at our wits' end, He appeared for our help, and opened the way before us,
rebuking our fears and filling our hearts with songs of praise and thanksgiving.

We must not, by any means, confound this delightful exercise with the miserable
habit of looking back at our ways, Our attainments, our progress, our service, what we
have been able to do, even though we are ready to admit, in a general way, that it was
only by the grace of God that we were enabled to do any little work for Him. All this
only ministers to self complacency, which is destructive of all true spirituality of
mind. Self-retrospection, if we may be allowed to use such a term, is quite as
injurious in its moral effect as self-introspection, In short self occupation, in any of its
multiplied phases, is most pernicious; it is, in so far as it is allowed to operate, the
death-blow to fellowship. Anything that tends to bring self before the mind must be
judged and refused, with stern decision; it brings in barrenness, darkness and
feebleness. For a person to sit down to look back at his attainments or his doings, is
about as wretched an occupation as any one could engage in. We may be sure it was
not to any such thing as this that Moses exhorted the people when he charged them to
"Remember all the way by which the Lord their God had led them"

We may here recur, for a moment, to the memorable words of the apostle in
Philippians 3. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I
do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in
Christ Jesus."

Now, the question is, what were the "things" of which the blessed apostle speaks? Did
he forget the precious dealings of God with his soul, throughout the whole of his
wilderness journey? Impossible; indeed we have the very fullest and clearest evidence
to the contrary. Hear his touching words before Agrippa: "Having therefore obtained
help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great." So also, in
writing to his beloved son and fellow-labourer, Timothy, he reviews the past, and
speaks of the persecutions and afflictions which he had endured: "But," he adds, "Out
of them all the Lord delivered me." And again, “At my first answer no man stood with
me, but all forsook me; I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.
Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the
preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was
delivered out of the mouth of the lion."

To what then does the apostle refer when he speaks of "forgetting the things which
are behind"? We believe he refers to all those things which had no connection with
Christ things in which the heart might rest, and nature might glory—things which
might act as weights and hindrances; all these were to be forgotten in the ardent
pursuit of those grand and glorious realities which lay before him. We do not believe
that Paul, or any other child of God or servant of Christ, could ever desire to forget a
single scene or circumstance, in his whole earthly career, in any way illustrative of the
goodness, the loving kindness, the tender mercy, the faithfulness of God. On the
contrary, we believe it will ever be one of our very sweetest exercises to dwell upon
the blessed memory of all our Father's ways with us while passing across the desert,
home to our everlasting rest. " There with what joy reviewing

Past conflicts, dangers, fears,
Thy hand our foes subduing,
And drying all our tears;
Our hearts with rapture burning,
The path we shall retrace.
Where now our souls are learning
The riches of thy grace."

But let us not be misunderstood. We do not, by any means, wish to give countenance
to the habit of dwelling merely upon our own experience. This is often very poor
work, and resolves itself into self occupation. We have to guard against this as one of
the many things which tend to lower our spiritual tone and draw our hearts away from
Christ. But we need never be afraid of the result of dwelling upon the record of the
Lord's dealings and ways with us. This is a blessed habit, tending ever to lift us out of
ourselves, and fill us with praise and thanksgiving.

Why, we may ask, were Israel charged to "remember all the way" by which the Lord
their God had led them? Assuredly, to draw out their hearts in praise for the past, and
to strengthen their confidence in God for the future. Thus it must ever be. "We'll
praise Kim for all that is past, and trust Him for all that's to come." May we do so
more and more! May we just move on, day by day, praising and trusting, trusting and
praising. These are the two things which redound to the glory of God, and to our
peace and joy in Him. When the eye rests on the "Eben-ezers" which lie all along the
way, the heart must give forth its sweet "Hallelujahs" to Him who has helped us
hitherto, and will help us right on to the end. He hath delivered, and He doth, deliver,
and He will deliver. Blessed chain! Its every link is divine deliverance.

Nor is it merely upon the signal mercies and gracious deliverances of our Father's
hand that we are to dwell, with devout thankfulness, but also upon the "humblings"
and the "provings" of His wise, faithful and holy love. All these things are full of
richest blessing to our souls. They are not, as people sometimes call them, "mercies in
disguise," but plain, palpable, unmistakable mercies for which we shall have to praise
our God throughout the golden ages of that bright eternity which lies before us.

"Thou shalt remember all the way"—every stage of the journey, every scene of
wilderness life, all the dealings of God, from first to last, with the special object
thereof, "to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart."

How wonderful to think of God's patient grace and painstaking love with His people
in the wilderness! What precious instruction for us! With what intense interest and
spiritual delight we can hang over the record of the divine dealings with Israel in all
their desert wanderings! How much we can learn from the marvellous history! We,
too, have to be humbled and proved, and made to know what is in our hearts. It is
very profitable and morally wholesome. On our first setting out to follow the Lord, we
know but little of the depths of evil and folly in our hearts. Indeed, we are superficial
in everything. It is as we get on in our practical career that we begin to prove the
reality of things; we find out the depths of evil in ourselves, the utter hollowness and
worthlessness of all that is in the world, and the urgent need of the most complete
dependence upon the grace of God, every moment. All this is very good; it makes us
humble and self-distrusting; it delivers us from pride and self-sufficiency, and leads
us to cling, in child-like simplicity, to the One who alone is able to keep us from
falling. Thus as we grow in self-knowledge we get a deeper sense of grace, a more
profound acquaintance with the wondrous love of the heart of God, His tenderness
toward us, His marvellous patience in bearing with all our infirmities and failings, His
rich mercy in having taken us up at all, His loving ministry to all our varied need, His
numberless interpositions on our behalf, the exercises through which He has seen fit
to lead us for our souls' deep and permanent profit.

The practical effect of all this is invaluable; it imparts depth, solidity and mellowness
to the character; it cures us of all our crude notions, and vain theories; it delivers us
from one-sidedness and wild extremes; it makes us tender, thoughtful, patient and
considerate toward others; it corrects our harsh judgements and gives a gracious
desire to put the best possible construction upon the actions of others, and a readiness
to attribute the best motives in cases which may seem to us equivocal. These are
precious fruits of wilderness experience which we may all earnestly covet.

"And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which
thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that
man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth
of the Lord doth man live." (Ver. 3.)

This passage derives special interest and importance from the fact that it is the first of
our Lord's quotations from the book of Deuteronomy, in His conflict with the
adversary in the wilderness. Let us ponder this deeply. It demands our earnest
attention. Why did our Lord quote from Deuteronomy? Because that was the book
which, above all others, specially applied to the condition of Israel, at the moment.
Israel had utterly failed, and this weighty fact is assumed in the book of Deuteronomy,
from beginning to end. But not withstanding the failure of the nation, the path of
obedience lay open to every faithful Israelite. It was the privilege and duty of every
one who loved God, to abide by His word, under all circumstances; and in all places.

Now, our blessed Lord was divinely true to the position of the Israel of God; Israel
after the flesh had failed and forfeited everything; He was there, in the wilderness, as
the true Israel of God, to meet the enemy by the simple authority of the word of God.
"And Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the
Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he
did eat nothing; and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said
unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread. And
Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but
by every word of God." (Luke 4.)

Here then is something for us to ponder. The perfect Man, the true Israel, in the
wilderness, surrounded by the wild beasts, fasting for forty days, in the presence of
the great adversary of God, of man, of Israel. There was not a single feature in the
scene to speak for God. It was not with the second Adam as it was with the first; He
was not surrounded with all the delights of Eden, but with all the dreariness and
desolation of a desert, there in loneliness and hunger—but there for God!

Yes; blessed be His Name, and there for man; there to show man how to meet the
enemy in all his varied temptations; there to show man how to live. We must not
suppose, for a moment, that our adorable Lord met the adversary as God over all; true,
He was God, but if it were only as such that He stood in the conflict, it could not
afford any example for us. Besides, it would be needless to tell us that God was able
to vanquish and put to flight a creature which His own hand had formed. But to see
One who was, in every respect, a man, and in all the circumstances of humanity, sin
excepted; to see Him there in weakness, in hunger, standing amid the consequences of
man's fall, and to find Him triumphing completely over the terrible foe; it is this
which is so full of comfort, consolation, strength and encouragement for us.

And how did He triumph? This is the grand and all-important question for us, a
question demanding the most profound attention of every member of the church of
God, a question the magnitude and importance of which it would be utterly
impossible to overstate. How then did the Man Christ Jesus vanquish Satan in the
wilderness? Simply by the word of God. He overcame not as the Almighty God, but as
the humble, dependent, self-emptied, and obedient Man. We have before us the
magnificent spectacle of a man, standing in the presence of the devil, and utterly
confounding him with no other weapon whatsoever save the word of God. It was not
by the display of divine power, for that could be no model for us; it was simply with
the word of God in His heart and in His mouth, that the second Man confounded the
terrible enemy of God and man.

And let us carefully note that our blessed Lord does not reason with Satan He does not
appeal to any facts connected with Himself—facts with which the enemy was well
acquainted. He does not say, “I know I am the Son of God; the opened heavens, the
descending Spirit, the Father's voice have all borne witness to the fact of my being the
Son of God." No; this would not do; it would not and could not be an example for us.
The one special point for us to seize and learn from is that our Great Exemplar, when
meeting all the temptations of the enemy, used only the weapon which we have in our
possession, namely, the simple, precious, written, word of God.

We say, "all the temptations," because in all the three instances our Lord's unvarying
reply is, "It is written." He does not say, "I know"—"I think"—I feel"—"I believe"
this, that or the other; He simply appeals to the written word of God—the book of
Deuteronomy in particular, that very book which infidels have dared to insult, but
which is pre-eminently the book for every obedient man, in the face of total,
universal, hopeless wreck and ruin.

This is of unspeakable moment for us, beloved reader. It is as though our Lord Christ
had said to the adversary, "Whether I am the Son of God or not, is not now the
question, but how man is to live, and the answer to this question is only to be found in
holy scripture; and it is to be found there as clear as a sunbeam, quite irrespective of
all questions respecting me. Whoever I am, the scripture is the same, “Man doth not
live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord."

Here we have the only true, the only safe, the only happy attitude for man, namely,
hanging in earnest dependence upon "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
the Lord." Blessed attitude! we may well say; there is nothing like it in all this world.
It brings the soul into direct, living, personal contact with the Lord Himself, by means
of His word. It makes the word so absolutely essential to us, in everything; we cannot
do without it. As the natural life is sustained by bread, so the spiritual life is sustained
by the word of God. It is not merely going to the Bible to find doctrines there, or to
have our opinions or views confirmed; it is very much more than this; it is going to
the Bible for the staple commodity of life—the life of the new man; it is going there
for food, for light, for guidance, for comfort, for authority, for strength, for all, in
short, that the soul can possibly need, from first to last.

And let us specially note the force and value of the expression, every word." How
fully it shows that we cannot afford to dispense with a single word that has proceeded
out of the mouth of the Lord. We want it all We cannot tell the moment in which
some exigency may present itself for which scripture has already provided. We may
not; perhaps, have specially noticed the scripture before, but when the difficulty
arises, if we are in a right condition of soul, the true posture of heart, the Spirit of God
will furnish us with the needed scripture; and we shall see a force, beauty, depth and
moral adaptation in the passage which we had never seen before. Scripture is a divine,
and therefore exhaustless treasury in which God has made ample provision for all the
need of His people, and for each believer in particular, right on to the end. Hence we
should study it all, ponder it, dig deeply into it, and have it treasured up in our hearts,
ready for use when the demand arises.

There is not a single crisis occurring in the entire history of the church of God, not a
single difficulty in the entire path of any individual believer, from beginning to end,
which has not been perfectly provided for in the Bible. We have all we want in that
blessed volume; and hence we should be ever seeking to make ourselves more and
more acquainted with what that volume contains so as to be "thoroughly furnished"
for whatever may arise, whether it be a temptation of the devil, an allurement of the
world, or a lust of the flesh; or, on the other hand, for equipment for that path of good
works which God has afore prepared that we should walk in it.

And we should further give special attention to the expression, "Out of the mouth of
the Lord." This is unspeakably precious. It brings the Lord so very near to us, and
gives us such a sense of the reality of feeding upon His every word, yea, of hanging
upon it as something absolutely essential and indispensable. It sets forth the blessed
fact that our souls can no more exist without the word than our bodies could without
food. In a word, we are taught by this passage that man's true position, his proper
attitude, his only place of strength, safety, rest and blessing is to be found in habitual
dependence upon the word of God.

This is the life of faith which we are called to live, life of dependence—the life of
obedience—the life that Jesus lived perfectly. That blessed One would not move a
step, utter a word, or do a single thing save by the authority of the word of God. No
doubt He could have turned the stone into bread, but He had no command from God
to do that; and inasmuch as He had no command, He had no motive for action. Hence
Satan's temptations were perfectly Powerless. He could do nothing with a Man who
would only act on the authority of the word of God.

And we may also note, with very much interest and profit, that our blessed Lord does
not quote scripture for the purpose of silencing the adversary; but simply as authority
for His position and conduct. Here is where we are so apt to fail; we do not
sufficiently use the precious word of God in this way; we quote it, at times, more for
victory over the enemy than for power and authority for our own souls. Thus it loses
its power in our hearts. We want to use the word as a hungry man uses bread, or as a
mariner uses his chart and his compass; it is that on which we live and by which we
move and act, and think and speak. Such it really is, and the more fully we prove it to
be all this to us, the more we shall know of its infinite preciousness. Who is it that
knows most of the real value of bread? Is it a chemist? No; but a hungry man. A
chemist may analyse it and discuss its component parts, but a hungry man proves its
worth. Who knows most of the real value of a chart; is it the teacher of navigation?
No; but the mariner as he sails along an unknown and dangerous coast.

These are but feeble figures to illustrate what the word of God is to the true Christian.
He cannot do without it. It is absolutely indispensable, in every relationship of life,
and in every sphere of action. His hidden life is fed and sustained by it; his practical
life is guided by it; in all the scenes and circumstances of his personal and domestic
history, in the privacy of his closet, in the bosom of his family, in the management of
his affairs, he is cast upon the word of God for guidance and counsel.

And it never fails those who simply cleave to it, and confide in it. We may trust
scripture without a single shade of misgiving. Go to it when we will, we shall always
find what we want. Are we in sorrow? Is the poor heart bereaved, crushed and
desolate? What can soothe and comfort us like the balmy words which the Holy Spirit
has penned for us? One sentence of holy scripture can do more, in the way of comfort
and consolation, than all the letters of condolence that ever were penned by human
hand. Are we discouraged, faint-hearted and cast down? The word of God meets us
with its bright and soul-stirring assurances. Are we pressed by pinching poverty? The
Holy Ghost brings home to our hearts some golden promise from the page of
inspiration, recalling us to Him who is "The Possessor of heaven and earth," and who,
in His infinite grace, has pledged Himself to "supply all our need according to his
riches in glory, by Christ Jesus." Are we perplexed and harassed by the conflicting
opinions of men, by the dogmas of conflicting schools of divinity, by religious and
theological difficulties? A few sentences of holy scripture will pour in a flood of
divine light upon the heart and conscience, and set us at perfect rest, answering every
question, solving every difficulty, removing every doubt, chasing away every cloud,
giving us to know the mind of God, putting an end to conflicting opinions by the one
divinely competent authority.

What a boon, therefore, is holy scripture! What a precious treasure we possess in the
word of God! How we should bless His holy Name for having given it to us! Yes; and
bless Him, too, for everything that tends to make us more fully acquainted with the
depth, fullness and power of those words of our chapter, "Man shall not live by bread
only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live."

Truly precious are these words to the heart of the believer! And hardly less so are
those that follow, in which the beloved and revered lawgiver refers with touching
sweetness to Jehovah's tender care throughout the whole of Israel's desert wanderings.
"Thy raiment," he says, "waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell, these
forty years."

What marvellous grace shines out in these words! Only think, reader, of Jehovah
looking after His people, in such a manner, to see that their garments should not wax
old or their foot swell! He not only fed them, but clothed them and cared for them in
every way. He even stooped to look after their feet, that the sand of the desert might
not injure them! Thus, for forty years, did He watch over them, with all the exquisite
tenderness of a father's heart. What will not love undertake to do for its object?
Jehovah had set His love upon His people, and this one blessed fact secured
everything for them, had they only understood it. There was not a single thing within
the range of Israel's necessities, from Egypt to Canaan, which was not secured to them
and included in the fact that Jehovah had undertaken to do for them. With infinite
love and almighty power on their side, what could be lacking?

But then, as we know, love clothes itself in various forms. It has something more to
do than to provide food and raiment for its objects. It has not only to take account of
their physical but also of their moral and spiritual wants. Of this the lawgiver does not
fail to remind the people. "Thou shalt also consider," he says, "in thine heart"—the
only true and effective way to consider—"that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the
Lord thy God chasteneth thee."

Now, we do not like chastening; it is not joyous, but grievous. It is all very well for a
son to receive food and raiment from a father's hand, and to have all his comforts
provided by a father's thoughtful love; but he does not like to see him taking down the
rod. And yet that dreaded rod may be the very best thing for the son; it may do for him
what no material benefits or earthly blessings could effect; it may correct some bad
habit, or deliver him from some wrong tendency, or save him from some evil
influence, and thus prove a great moral and spiritual blessing for which he shall have
to be for ever thankful. The grand point for the son is to see a father's love and care in
the discipline and chastening, just as distinctly as in the various material benefits
which strew his path from day to day.

Here is precisely where we so signally fail, in reference to the disciplinary dealings of
our Father. We rejoice in His benefits and blessings; we are filled with praise and
thankfulness as we receive, day by day, from His liberal hand, the rich supply of all
our need; we delight to dwell upon His marvellous interposition on our behalf, in
times of pressure and difficulty; it is a most precious exercise to look back over the
path by which His good hand has led us, and mark those "Eben-ezers" which tell of
gracious help supplied all along the road.

All this is very good, and very right, and very precious; but then there is great danger
of our resting in the mercies, the blessings and the benefits which flow, in such rich
profusion, from our Father's loving heart and liberal hand. We are apt to rest in these
things, and say with the psalmist, "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.
Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong." True it is, "by thy
favour," but yet we are prone to be occupied with our mountain, and our prosperity;
we allow these things to come in between our hearts and the Lord, and thus they
become a snare to us. Hence the need of chastening Our Father, in His faithful love
and care is watching over us; He sees the danger and He sends trial, in one shape or
another. Perhaps a telegram comes announcing the death of a beloved child, or the
crash of a bank involving the loss of our earthly all. Or, it may be, we are laid on a
bed of pain and sickness, or called to watch by the sick bed of a beloved relative.

In a word, we are called to wade through deep waters which- seem to our poor feeble
coward hearts absolutely overwhelming. The enemy suggests the question, "Is this
love?" Faith replies, without hesitation and without reserve, "Yes!" it is all love,
perfect love; the death of the child, the loss of the property, the long, heavy, painful
illness, all the sorrow, all the pressure, all the exercise, the deep waters and dark
shadows—all, all is love—perfect love and unerring wisdom. I feel assured of it, even
now; I do not wait to know it by-and-by, when I shall look back on the path from
amid the full light of the glory; I know it now, and delight to own it to the praise of
the infinite grace which has taken me up from the depth of my ruin, and charged itself
with all that concerns me, and which deigns to occupy itself with my very failures,
follies and sins, in order to deliver me from them, to make me a partaker of divine
holiness, and conform me to the image of that blessed One who "loved me and gave
himself for me."

Christian reader, this is the way to answer Satan, and to hush the dark reasonings
which may spring up in our hearts. We must always justify God. We must look at all
His disciplinary dealings in the light of His love. "Thou, shalt also consider in thine
heart, that, as a man chasteneth his son, so the Lord thy God chasteneth thee." Most
surely we should not like to be without the blessed pledge and proof of sonship. "My
son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
him; for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he
receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is
he whom the father chasteneth not?" But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all
are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. Furthermore, we have had fathers of
our flesh, which corrected us, and we gave them reverence; shall we not much rather
be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days
chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be Partakers
of his holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;
nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them
which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the
feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned
out of the way; but let it rather be healed." Heb. 12: 5-13.

It is, at once, interesting and profitable to mark the way in which Moses presses upon
the congregation the varied motives of obedience arising from the past, the present
and the future. Everything is brought to bear upon them to quicken and deepen their
sense of Jehovah's claims upon them. They were to "remember" the past; they were to
"consider" the present; and they were to anticipate the future; and all this was to act
on their hearts, and lead them forth in holy obedience to that blessed and gracious
One who had done, who was doing, and who would do such great things for them.

The thoughtful reader can hardly fail to observe in this constant presentation of moral
motives a marked feature of this lovely book of Deuteronomy, and a striking proof
that it is no mere attempt at a repetition of what we have in Exodus; but, on the
contrary, that our book has a province, a range, a scope and design entirely its own.
To speak of mere repetition is absurd; to speak of contradiction is impious.

"Therefore thou shalt keep the commandments of the Lord thy God, to walk in his
ways, and to fear him." The word "therefore" had a retrospective and prospective
force. It was designed to lead the heart back over the past dealings of Jehovah, and
forward into the future. They were to think of the marvellous history of those forty
years in the desert, the teaching, the humbling, the proving, the watchful care, the
gracious ministry, the full supply of all their need, the manna from heaven, the stream
from the smitten rock, the care of their garments and of their very feet, the
wholesome discipline for their moral good. What powerful moral motives were here
for Israel's obedience!

But this was not all, they were to look forward into the future; they were to anticipate
the bright prospect which lay before them; they were to find in the future, as well as
in the past and the present, the solid basis of Jehovah's claims upon their reverent and
whole-hearted obedience.

"For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of
fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat, and barley,
and vines, and fig-trees, and pomegranates, a, land of oil olive, and honey; a land
wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it; a
land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass."

How fair was the prospect! How bright the vision! How marked the contrast to the
Egypt behind them and the wilderness through which they had passed! The Lord's
land lay before them in all its beauty and verdure, its vine-clad hills and honeyed
plains, its gushing fountains and flowing streams. How refreshing the thought of the
vine, the fig-tree, the pomegranate and the olive! How different from the leeks, onions
and garlic of Egypt! Yes, all so different, It was the Lord's own land: this was enough.
It produced and contained all they could possibly want. Above its surface, rich
profusion; below, untold wealth, exhaustless treasure.

What a prospect! How the faithful Israelite would long to enter upon it!—long to
exchange the sand of the desert for that bright inheritance! True, the desert had its
deep and blessed experiences, its holy lessons, its precious memories. There they had
known Jehovah in a way they could not know Him even in Canaan; all this was quite
true, and we can fully understand it; but still the wilderness was not Canaan, and
every true Israelite would long to set his foot on the land of promise, and truly we
may say that Moses presents the land, in the passage just quoted, in a way eminently
calculated to attract the heart. "A land," he says, "wherein thou shalt eat bread without
scarceness, thou shalt not lack anything in it." What more could be said? Here was
the grand fact, in reference to that good land into which the hand of covenant love
was about to introduce them. All their wants would be divinely met. Hunger and thirst
should never be known there. Health and plenty, joy and gladness, peace and blessing
were to be the assured portion of the Israel of God, in that fair inheritance upon which
they were about to enter. Every enemy was to be subdued; every obstacle swept away;
"the pleasant land," was to pour forth its treasures for their use; watered continually
by heaven's rain, and warmed by its sunlight, it was to bring forth, in rich abundance,
all that the heart could desire.

What a land! what an inheritance! What a home! Of course, we are looking at it now
from a divine standpoint; looking at it according to what it was in the mind of God,
and what it shall, most assuredly, be to Israel, during that bright millennial age which
lies before them. We should have but a very poor idea indeed of the Lord's land, were
we to think of it merely as possessed by Israel in the past, even in the very brightest
days of its history, as it appeared amid the splendours of Solomon's reign We must
look onward to "the times of the restitution of all things," in order to have anything
like a true idea of what the land of Canaan will yet be to the Israel of God.

Now Moses speaks of the land according to the divine idea of it. He presents it as
given by God, and not as possessed by Israel. This makes all the difference.
According to his charming description, there was neither enemy nor evil occurrent:
nothing but fruitfulness and blessing from end to end. That is what it would have
been, that is what it should have been, and that is what it shall be, by-and-by, to the
seed of Abraham, in pursuance of the covenant made with their fathers—the new, the
everlasting covenant, founded on the sovereign grace of God, and ratified by the
blood of the cross. No power of earth or hell can hinder the purpose or the promise of
God. "Hath he said, and shall he not do it?" God will make good to the letter every
word, spite of all the enemy's opposition, and the lamentable failure of His people.
Though Abraham's seed have utterly failed under law and under government, yet
Abraham's God will give grace and glory, for His gifts and calling are without
repentance.

Moses fully understood all this. He knew how it would turn out with those who stood
before him, and with their children after them, for many generations; and he looked
forward into that bright future in which a covenant God would display, in the view of
all created intelligences, the triumphs of His grace in His dealings with the seed of
Abraham His friend.

Meanwhile, however, the faithful servant of Jehovah, true to the object before his
mind, in all those marvellous discourses in the opening of our book, proceeds to
unfold to the congregation the truth as to their mode of acting in the good land on
which they were about to plant their foot. As he had spoken of the past and of the
present, so would he make use of the future; he would turn all to account in his holy
effort to urge upon the people their obvious, bounden duty to that blessed One who
had so graciously and tenderly cared for them all their journey through, and who was
about to bring them in and plant them in the mountain of His inheritance. Let us
hearken to His touching and powerful exhortations.

When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good
land which he has given thee." How simple! How lovely! How morally suitable!
Filled with the fruit of Jehovah's goodness, they were to bless and praise His holy
Name. He delights to surround Himself with hearts filled to overflowing with the
sweet sense of His goodness, and pouring forth songs of praise and thanksgiving. He
inhabits the praises of His people. He says, "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me." The
feeblest note of praise from a grateful heart ascends as fragrant incense to the throne
and to the heart of God.

Let us remember this, beloved reader. It is as true for us, most surely, as it was for
Israel, that praise is comely. Our grand primary business is to praise the Lord. Our
every breath should be a hallelujah. It is to this blessed and most sacred. exercise the
Holy Ghost exhorts us, in manifold places. "By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually, that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name."
We should ever remember that nothing so gratifies the heart and glorifies the Name of
our God as a thankful worshipping spirit on the part of His people. It is well to do
good and communicate. God is well pleased with such sacrifices. It is our high
privilege, while we have opportunity, to do good unto all men, and especially unto
them who are of the household of faith. We are called to be channels of blessing
between the loving heart of our Father and every form of human need that comes
before us in our daily path. All this is most blessedly true; but we must never forget
that the very highest place is assigned to praise. It is this which shall employ our
ransomed powers, throughout the golden ages of eternity, when the sacrifices of
active benevolence shall no longer be needed.

But the faithful lawgiver knew but too well the sad proneness of the human heart to
forget all this, to lose sight of the gracious Giver, and rest in His gifts. Hence he
addresses the following admonitory words to the congregation-wholesome words,
truly, for them and for us. May we bend our ears and our hearts to them, in holy
reverence and teachableness of spirit!

"Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments,
and his judgements, and his statutes, which I command thee this day. Lest when thou
hast eaten and art full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein; and when thy
herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is multiplied, and all that
thou hast is multiplied; then thine heart be lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God,
which brought thee forth out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, who
led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and
scorpions, and drought; where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out
of the rock of flint, who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers
knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at
thy latter end: and thou say in thine heart, My power, and the might of mine hand
hath gotten me this wealth. But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God; for it is he that
giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant, which he sware
unto thy fathers, as it is this day. And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy
God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against
you this day, that ye shall utterly perish. As the nations which the Lord destroyeth
before your face, so shall ye perish, because ye would not be obedient unto the voice
of the Lord your God." (Vers. 11-20.)

Here is something for us to ponder deeply. It has, most assuredly, a voice for us, as it
had for Israel. We may perhaps feel disposed to marvel at the frequent reiteration of
the note of warning and admonition, the constant appeals to the heart and conscience
of the people as to their bounden duty to obey, in all things, the word of God; the
recurrence again and again to those grand soul-stirring facts connected with their
deliverance out of Egypt, and their journey through the wilderness.

But wherefore should we marvel? In the first place, do we not deeply feel and fully
admit our own urgent need of warning, admonition and exhortation? Do we not need
line upon line, precept upon precept, and that continually? Are we not prone to forget
the Lord our God, to rest in His gifts instead of Himself? Alas! alas! we cannot deny
it. We rest in the stream, instead of getting up to the Fountain. We turn the very
mercies, blessings and benefits which strew our path, in rich profusion, into an
occasion of self-complacency and gratulation, instead of finding in them the blessed
ground of continual praise and thanksgiving.

And then, as to those great facts of which Moses so continually reminds the people,
could they ever lose their moral weight, power or preciousness? Surely not. Israel
might forget and fail to appreciate those facts, but the facts remained the same. The
terrible plagues of Egypt, the night of the passover, their deliverance from the land of
darkness, bondage and degradation, their marvellous passage through the Red Sea, the
descent of that mysterious food from heaven, morning by morning, the refreshing
stream gushing forth from the flinty rock: how could such facts as these ever lose
their power over a heart possessing a spark of genuine love to God? And why should
we wonder to find Moses, again and again, appealing to them and using them as a
most powerful lever wherewith to move the hearts of the people? Moses felt the
mighty moral influence of these things himself, and he would fain lead others to feel
it also. To him they were precious beyond expression, and he longed to make his
brethren feel their preciousness as well as himself. It was his one object to set before
them, in every possible way the powerful claims of Jehovah upon their hearty and
unreserved obedience.

This, reader, will account for what might, to an unspiritual, unintelligent, cursory
reader, seem the too frequent recurrence to the scenes of the past, in those wonderful
discourses of Moses. We are reminded, as we read them, of the lovely words of Peter,
in his second epistle: "Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in
remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present
truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting
you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as
our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will endeavour that ye may be able
after my decease to have these things always in remembrance." (2 Peter 1: 12-15.)

How striking the unity of spirit and purpose in these two beloved and venerable
servants of God! Both the one and the other felt the tendency of the poor human heart
to forget the things of God, of heaven and of eternity; and they felt the supreme
importance and infinite value of the things of which they spoke. Hence their earnest
desire to keep them continually before the hearts and abidingly in the remembrance of
the Lord's beloved people. Unbelieving, restless nature might say to Moses or to Peter,
"Have you nothing new to tell us? Why are you perpetually dwelling on the same old
themes? We know all you have got to say; we have heard it again and again. 'Why not
strike out into some new field of thought? Would it not be well to try and keep abreast
of the science of the day? If we keep perpetually moping over those antiquated
themes, we shall be left stranded on the bank while the stream of civilization rushes
on. Pray give us something new."

Thus might the poor unbelieving mind, the worldly heart reason; but faith knows the
answer to all such miserable suggestions. We can well believe that both Moses and
Peter would have made short work with all such reasonings. And so should we. We
know whence they emanate, whither they tend, and what they are worth; and we
should have, if not on our lips, at least deep down in our hearts a ready answer—an
answer perfectly satisfactory to us, however contemptible it may seem to the men of
this world. Could a true Israelite ever tire of hearing of what the Lord had done for
him, in Egypt, in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness? Never! Such themes would be
ever fresh, ever welcome to his heart. And just so with the Christian; can he ever tire
of the cross and all the grand and glorious realities that cluster round it? Can he ever
tire of Christ, His peerless glories and unsearchable riches—His Person, His work,
His offices? Never! No, never, throughout the bright ages of eternity. Does he crave
anything new? Can science improve upon Christ? Can human learning add ought to
the great mystery of godliness which has for its foundation God manifest in the flesh,
and for its topstone a Man glorified in heaven? Can we ever get beyond this? No,
reader, we could not if we would, and we would not if we could.

And even were we, for a moment, to take a lower range, and look at the works of God
in creation; do we ever tire of the sun? He is not new; he has been pouring his beams
upon this world for well-nigh six thousand years, and yet those beams are as fresh and
as welcome today as they were when first created. Do we ever tire of the sea? It is not
new; its tide has been ebbing and flowing for nearly six thousand years, but its waves
are as fresh and as welcome on our shores as ever. True, the sun is often too dazzling
to man's feeble vision, and the sea often swallows up, in a moment, man's boasted
works; but yet the sun and the sea never lose their power, their freshness, their charm.
Do we ever tire of the dew-drops that fall in refreshing virtue upon our gardens and
fields? Do we ever tire of the perfume that emanates from our hedgerows? Do we
ever tire of the notes of the nightingale and the thrush?

And what are all these when compared with the glories which cluster round the
Person and the cross of Christ? What are they when put in contrast with the grand
realities of that eternity which is before us?

Reader, let us beware how we listen to such suggestions, whether they come from
without or spring from the depths of our own evil hearts, lest we be found, like Israel
after the flesh, loathing the heavenly manna and despising the pleasant land; or like
Demas who forsook the blessed apostle, having loved this present age; or like those of
whom we read in the sixth of John, who, offended by our Lord's close and pointed
teaching, "went back, and walked no more with him." May the Lord keep our hearts
true to Himself, and fresh and fervent in His blessed cause, till He come!

Deuteronomy 9.
"Hear, O Israel; thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations
greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven; a people great
and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast
heard say, Who can stand before the children of Anak!" (Vers. 1, 2.)

This chapter opens with the same grand Deuteronomic sentence, "Hear, O Israel."
This, we may say, is the key note of this most blessed book, and especially of those
opening discourses which have been engaging our attention. But the chapter which
now lies open before us presents subjects of immense weight and importance. In the
first place, the lawgiver sets before the congregation, in terms of deep solemnity, that
which lay before them, in their entrance upon the land. He does not hide from them
the fact that there were serious difficulties and formidable enemies to be encountered.
This he does, we need hardly say, not to discourage their hearts, but that they might
be forewarned, forearmed, and prepared. What that preparation was we shall see
presently; but the faithful servant of God felt the rightness, yea, the urgent need of
putting the true state of the case before his brethren.

There are two ways of looking at difficulties; we may look at them from a human
stand-point, or from a divine one; we may look at them in a spirit of unbelief, or we
may look at them in the calmness and quietness of confidence in the living God. We
have an instance of the former, in the report of the unbelieving spies, in Numbers 13;
We have an instance of the latter, in the opening of our present chapter.

It is not the province nor the path of faith to deny that there are difficulties to be
encountered by the people of God; it would be the height of folly to do so, inasmuch
as there are difficulties, and it would be but fool-hardiness, fanaticism, or fleshly
enthusiasm to deny it. It is always well for people to know what they are about, and
not to rush blindly into a path for which they are not prepared. An unbelieving
sluggard may say, "There is a lion in the way;" a blind enthusiast may say, "There is
no such thing;" the true man of faith will say, "Though there were a thousand lions in
the way, God can soon dispose of them”.

But, as a great practical principle of general application, it is very important for all the
Lord's people to consider deeply and calmly what they are about, ere they enter upon
any particular path of service or line of action. If this were more attended to, we
should not witness so many moral and spiritual wrecks around us. What mean those
most solemn, searching and testing words addressed by our blessed Lord to the
multitudes that thronged around Him, in Luke 14? "He turned and said to them, If any
man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother his wife, and children, and
brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And
whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. For
which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost,
whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation,
and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man
began to build, and was not able to finish" (Vers. 26-30.)

These are solemn and seasonable words for the heart. How many unfinished buildings
meet our view, as we look forth over the wide field of Christian profession, giving sad
occasion to the beholders for mockery! How many set out upon a path of discipleship,
under some sudden impulse, or under the pressure of mere human influence, without
a proper understanding or a due consideration of all that is involved; and then when
difficulties arise, when trials come, when the path is found to be narrow, rough,
lonely, unpopular, they give it up, thus proving that they had never really counted the
cost, never taken the path in communion with God, never understood what they were
doing.

Now, such cases are very sorrowful; they bring great reproach on the cause of Christ,
give occasion to the adversary to blaspheme, and greatly dishearten those who care
for the glory of God and the good of souls. Better far not to take the ground at all
than, having taken it, to abandon it in dark unbelief and worldly-mindedness.

Hence, therefore, we can perceive the wisdom and faithfulness of the opening words
of our chapter. Moses tells the people plainly what was before them; not, surely, to
discourage them, but to preserve them from self-confidence which is sure to give way
in the moment of trial; and to cast them upon the living God who never fails a trusting
heart.

“Understand therefore this day, that the Lord thy God is he which goeth over before
thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before
thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said
unto thee."

Here, then, is the divine answer to all difficulties, be they ever so formidable. What
were mighty nations, great cities, fenced walls, in the presence of Jehovah? Simply as
chaff before the whirlwind. "If God be for us, who can be against us?" The very things
which scare and stumble the coward heart afford an occasion for the display of God's
power, and the magnificent triumphs of faith. Faith says, "Grant me but this, that God
is before me and with me, and I can go anywhere." Thus the only thing in all this
world that really glorifies God is the faith that can trust Him and use Him and praise
Him; and inasmuch as faith is the only thing that glorifies God, so is it the only thing
that gives man his proper place, even the place of complete dependence upon God,
and this ensures victory and inspires praise-unceasing praise.

But we must never forget that there is moral danger in the very moment of victory—
danger arising out of what we are in ourselves. There is the danger of self-
gratulation—a terrible snare to us poor mortals. In the hour of conflict, we feel our
weakness, our nothingness, our need. This is good and morally safe. It is well to be
brought down to the very bottom of self and all that pertains to it, for there we find
God, in all the fullness and blessedness of what He is, and this is sure and certain
victory and consequent praise.

But our treacherous and deceitful hearts are prone to forget whence the strength and
victory come. Hence the moral force, value and seasonableness of the following
admonitory words addressed by the faithful minister of God to the hearts and
consciences of his brethren, "Speak not thou in thine heart—here is where the
mischief always begins—"after that the Lord hath cast them out from before thee,
saying, For my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land; but for
the wickedness of those nations the Lord doth drive them out from before thee."

Alas! what materials there are in us! What ignorance of our own hearts! What a
shallow sense of the real character of our ways! How terrible to think that we are
capable of saying in our hearts such words as, "For my righteousness!" Yes, reader we
are verily capable of such egregious folly; for as Israel was capable of it so are we,
inasmuch as we are made of the very same material; and that they were capable of it
is evident from the fact of their being warned against it; for, most assuredly, the Spirit
of God does not warn against phantom dangers or imaginary temptations. We are
verily capable of turning the actings of God on our behalf into an occasion of self-
complacency; instead of seeing in those gracious actings a ground for heartfelt praise
to God, we use them as a ground for self exaltation.

Hence, therefore, we would do well to ponder the words of faithful admonition
addressed by Moses to the hearts and consciences of the people; they furnish a very
wholesome antidote for the self-righteousness so natural to us as well as to Israel. "
Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess
their land; but for the wickedness of those nations the Lord thy God doth drive them
out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the Lord sware unto
thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand therefore, that the Lord giveth
thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked
people. Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in
the wilderness; from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye
came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord." (Vers. 5-7.)

This paragraph sets forth two great principles which, if fully laid hold of, must put the
heart into a right moral attitude. In the first place, the people were reminded that their
possession of the land of Canaan was simply in pursuance of God's promise to their
fathers. This was placing the matter on the most solid basis—a basis which nothing
could ever disturb.

As to the seven nations who were to be dispossessed, it was on the ground of their
wickedness that God, in the exercise of His righteous government, was about to drive
them out. Every landlord has a perfect right to eject bad tenants; and the nations of
Canaan had not only failed to pay their rent, as we say, but they had injured and
defiled the property to such an extent that God could no longer endure them; and
therefore He was going to drive them out, irrespective altogether of the incoming
tenants. Whoever was going to get possession of the property, these dreadful tenants
must be evicted. The iniquity of the Amorites had reached its highest point, and
nothing remained but that judgement should take its course. Men might argue and
reason as to the moral fitness and consistency of a benevolent Being unroofing the
houses of thousands of families and putting the occupants to the sword; but we may
depend upon it the government of God will make very short work with all such
arguments. God, blessed for ever be His holy Name, knows how to manage His own
affairs, and that too without asking man's opinion. He had borne with the wickedness
of the seven nations to such a degree that it had become absolutely insufferable; the
very land itself could not bear it. Any further exercise of forbearance would have been
a sanction of the most terrible abominations; and this of course was a moral
impossibility. The glory of God absolutely demanded the expulsion of the Canaanites.

Yes; and we may add, the glory of God demanded the introduction of the seed of
Abraham into possession of the property to hold, as tenants for ever under the Lord
God Almighty, the most High God, Possessor of heaven and earth. Thus the matter
stood for Israel, had they but seen it. Their possession of the land of promise and the
maintenance of the divine glory were so bound up together that one could not be
touched without touching the other. God had promised to give the land of Canaan to
the seed of Abraham, as an everlasting possession. Had He not a right to do so? Will
infidels question God's right to do as He will with His own? Will they refuse to the
Creator and Governor of the universe a right which they claim for themselves? The
land was Jehovah's, and He gave it to Abraham His friend for ever; and although this
was true, yet were not the Canaanites disturbed in their tenure of the property until
their wickedness had become positively unbearable.

Thus we see that in the matter both of the outgoing and incoming tenants, the glory of
God was involved. That glory demanded that the Canaanites should be expelled
because of their ways; and that glory demanded that Israel should be put in possession
because of the promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

But, in the second place, Israel had no ground for self-complacency, as Moses most
plainly and faithfully instructs them. He rehearses in their ears, in the most touching
and impressive manner, all the leading scenes of their history from Horeb to Kadesh-
barnea; he refers to the golden calf, to the broken tables of the covenant, to Taberah
and Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah; and sums all up, at verse 24, with these pungent
humbling words, "Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the day that I knew
you."

This was plain dealing with heart and conscience. The solemn review of their whole
career was eminently calculated to correct all false notions about themselves; every
scene and circumstance in their entire history, if viewed from a proper standpoint,
only brought to light the humbling fact of what they were, and how near they had
been, again and again, to utter destruction. With what stunning force must the
following words have fallen upon their ears! "And the Lord said unto me, Arise, get
thee down quickly from hence, for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of
Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I
commanded them; they have made them a molten image. Furthermore, the Lord spake
unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; let me
alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will
make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they." (Vers. 12-14.)

How withering was all this to their natural vanity, pride and self-righteousness! How
should their hearts have been moved to their very deepest depths by those tremendous
words, "Let me alone, that I may destroy them!" How solemn to reflect upon the fact
which these words revealed—their appalling nearness to national ruin and
destruction! How ignorant they had been of all that passed between Jehovah and
Moses, on the top of mount Horeb! They had been on the very brink of an awful
precipice. Another moment might have dashed them over. The intercession of Moses
had saved them, the very man whom they had accused of taking too much upon him.
Alas! how they had mistaken and misjudged him! How utterly astray they had been in
all their thoughts! Why the very man whom they had accused of self-seeking and
desiring to make himself altogether a prince over them, had actually refused a
divinely given opportunity of becoming the head of a greater and mightier nation than
they! Yes, and this same man had earnestly requested that if they were not to be
forgiven and brought into the land, his name might be blotted out of the book.

How wonderful was all this! What a turning of the tables upon them! How
exceedingly small they must have felt, in view of all these wonderful facts! Surely as
they reviewed all these things, they might well see the utter folly of the words, "For
my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess this land." How could the
makers of a molten image use such language! Ought they not rather to see and feel
and own themselves to be no better than the nations that were about to be driven out
from before them? For what had made them to differ? The sovereign mercy and
electing love of their covenant God. And to what did they owe their deliverance out of
Egypt, their sustenance in the wilderness, and their entrance into the land? Simply to
the eternal stability of the covenant made with their fathers, "a covenant ordered in all
things and sure," a covenant ratified and established by the blood of the Lamb, in
virtue of which all Israel shall yet be saved and blessed in their own land.

But we must now quote for the reader the splendid paragraph with which our chapter
closes—a paragraph eminently fitted to open Israel's eyes to the utter folly of all their
thoughts respecting Moses, their thoughts respecting themselves, and their thoughts
respecting that blessed One who had so marvellously borne with all their dark
unbelief and daring rebellion.

"Thus I fell down before the Lord forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the
first; because the Lord had said he would destroy you. I prayed therefore unto the
Lord, and said, O Lord God, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance which thou
hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with
a mighty hand. Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look; not unto the
stubbornness of this people, nor to their uncleanness, nor to their sin : lest the land
whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the Lord was not able to bring them into
the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them
out to slay them in the wilderness. Yet they are Thy people, and thine inheritance,
which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power, and by thy stretched out arm."

What marvellous words are these to be addressed by a human being to the living God!
What powerful pleadings for Israel! What self-renunciation! Moses refuses the
offered dignity of being the founder of a greater and mightier nation than Israel. He
only desires that Jehovah should be glorified, and Israel pardoned, blessed and
brought into the promised land. He could not endure the thought of any reproach
being brought upon that glorious Name so dear to his heart; neither could he bear to
witness Israel's destruction. These were the two things he dreaded; and as to his own
exaltation, it was just the thing about which he cared nothing at all. This beloved and
honoured servant cared only for the glory of God and the salvation of His people; and
as to himself, his hopes, his interests, his all, he could rest, with perfect composure, in
the assurance that his individual blessing and the divine glory were bound together by
a link which could never be snapped.

And oh! how grateful must all this have been to the heart of God! How refreshing to
His spirit were those earnest, loving pleadings of His servant! How much more in
harmony with His mind than the intercession of Elias against Israel, hundreds of years
afterwards! How they remind us of the blessed ministry of our Great High Priest who
ever liveth to make intercession for His people, and whose active intervention on our
behalf never ceases for a single moment!

And then how very touching and beautiful to mark the way in which Moses insists
upon the fact that the people were Jehovah's inheritance, and that He had brought
them up out of Egypt. The Lord had said, "Thy people which thou hast brought forth
out of Egypt." But Moses says, "They are Thy people, and thine inheritance, which
Thou broughtest out." This is perfectly exquisite. Indeed this whole scene is full of
profound interest.

Deuteronomy 10
"At that time the Lord said unto me, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first,
and come up unto me into the mount, and make thee an ark of wood: and I will write
on the tables the words that were in the first tables which thou brokest, and thou shalt
put them in the ark. And I made an ark of shittim wood, and hewed two tables of
stone like unto the first, and went up into the mount, having the two tables in mine
hand. And he wrote on the tables, according to the first writing, the ten
commandments, which the Lord spake unto you in the mount out of the midst of the
fire, in the day of the assembly: and the Lord gave them unto me. And I turned myself
and came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made? and
there they be, as the Lord commanded me." (Vers. 1-5.)

The beloved and revered servant of God seemed never to weary of rehearsing in the
ears of the people, the interesting, momentous and significant sentences of the past.
To him they were ever fresh, ever precious. His heart delighted in them. They could
never lose their charm in his eyes; he found in them an exhaustless treasury for his
own heart, and a mighty moral lever wherewith to move the heart of Israel.

We are constantly reminded, in these powerful and deeply affecting addresses, of the
inspired apostle's words to his beloved Philippians, "To write the same things to you,
to me is not grievous, but for you it is safe. "The poor restless, fickle, vagrant heart
might long for some new theme; but the faithful apostle found his deep and unfailing
delight in unfolding and dwelling upon those precious subjects which clustered, in
rich luxuriance, around the Person and the cross of his adorable Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. He had found in Christ all he needed, for time and eternity. The glory of
His Person had completely eclipsed all the glories of earth and of nature. He could
say, "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless,
and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my
Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung,
that I may win Christ." (Phil. 3: 7, 8.)

This is the language of a true Christian, of one who had found a perfectly absorbing
and commanding object in Christ. What could the world offer to such an one? What
could it do for him? Did he want its riches, its honours, its distinctions, its pleasures?
He counted them all as dung. How was this? Because he had found Christ. He had
seen an object in Him which so riveted his heart that to win Him, and know more of
Him, and be found in Him was the one ruling desire of his soul. If any one had talked
to Paul about something new, what would have been his answer? If any one had
suggested to him the thought of getting on in the world or of seeking to make money,
what would have been his reply? simply this, " I have found my ALL in Christ; I want
no more. I have found in Him 'unsearchable riches'—'durable riches and
righteousness.' In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. What do I
want of this world's riches, its wisdom or its learning? These things all pass away like
the vapours of the morning; and even while they last, are wholly inadequate to satisfy
the desires and aspirations of an immortal spirit. Christ is an eternal object, heaven's
centre, the delight of the heart of God; He shall satisfy me throughout the countless
ages of that bright eternity which is before me; and surely if He can satisfy me for
ever, He can satisfy me now. Shall I turn to the wretched rubbish of this world, its
pursuits, its pleasures, its amusements, its theatres, its concerts, its riches or its
honours to supplement my portion in Christ? God forbid! All such things would be
simply an intolerable nuisance to me. Christ is my all, and in all, now and for ever!"

Such, we may well believe, would have been the distinctly pronounced reply of the
blessed apostle; such was the distinct reply of his whole life; and such, beloved
Christian reader, should be ours also. How truly deplorable, how deeply humbling to
find a Christian turning to the world for enjoyment, recreation or pastime! It simply
proves that he has not found a satisfying portion in Christ. We may set it down as a
fixed principle that the heart which is filled with Christ has no room for ought beside.
It is not a question of the right or the wrong of things; the heart does not want them,
would not have them; it has found its present and everlasting portion and rest in that
blessed One that fills the heart of God, and will fill the vast universe with the beams
of His glory, throughout the everlasting ages.

We have been led into the foregoing line of thought in connection with the interesting
fact of Moses' unwearied rehearsal of all the grand events in Israel's marvellous
history from Egypt to the borders of the promised land. To him they furnished a
perpetual feast; and he not only found his own deep personal delight in dwelling upon
them, but he also felt the immense importance of unfolding them before the whole
congregation. To him, most surely, it was not grievous, but for them it was safe. How
delightful for him, and how good and needful for them, to dwell upon the facts
connected with the two sets of tables—the first set smashed to atoms, at the foot of
the mountain and the second set enclosed in the ark.

What human language could possibly unfold the deep significance and moral weight
of such facts as these? Those broken tables! How impressive! How pregnant with
wholesome instruction for the people. How powerfully suggestive! Will any one
presume to say that we have here a mere barren repetition of the facts recorded in
Exodus? Certainly no one who reverently believes in the divine inspiration of the
Pentateuch.

No, reader, the tenth of Deuteronomy fills a niche and does a work entirely its own. In
it the lawgiver holds up to the hearts of the people past scenes and circumstances in
such a way as to rivet them upon the very tablets of the soul. He allows them to hear
the conversation between Jehovah and himself; he tells them what took place during
those mysterious forty days upon that cloud-capped mountain. He lets them hear
Jehovah's reference to the broken tables—the apt and forcible expression of the utter
worthlessness of man's covenant. For why were those tables broken? Because they
had shamefully failed. Those shattered fragments told the humiliating the of their
hopeless ruin on the ground of the law. All was gone. Such was the obvious meaning
of the fact. It was striking, impressive, unmistakable. Like a broken pillar over a grave
which tells, at a glance, that the prop and stay of the family lies mouldering beneath.
There is no need of any inscription, for no human language could speak with such
eloquence to the heart as that most expressive emblem. So the broken tables were
calculated to convey to the heart of Israel the tremendous fact that, so far as their
covenant was concerned, they were utterly ruined, hopelessly undone; they were
complete bankrupts on the score of righteousness.

But then, that second set of tables, what of them? Thank God, they told a different
tale altogether. They were not broken. God took care of them. "I turned myself and
came down from the mount, and put the tables in the ark which I had made; and there
they be, as the Lord commanded me."

Blessed fact! "There they be." Yes, covered up in that ark which spoke of Christ, that
blessed One who magnified the law and made it honourable, who established every
jot and tittle of it, to the glory of God and the everlasting blessing of His people. Thus,
while the broken fragments of the first tables told the sad and humbling tale of Israel's
utter failure and ruin, the second tables, shut up intact in the ark set forth the glorious
truth that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth, to
the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.

We do not, of course, mean to say that Israel understood the deep meaning and far-
reaching application of those wonderful facts which Moses rehearsed in their ears. As
a nation, they certainly did not then, though, through-the sovereign mercy of God,
they will, by-and-by. Individuals may, and doubtless did enter into somewhat of their
significance. This is not now the question. It is for us to see and make our own of the
precious truth set forth in those two sets of tables, namely, the failure of everything in
the hands of man, and the eternal stability of God's covenant of grace, ratified by the
blood of Christ, and to be displayed in all its glorious results, in the kingdom, by-and-
by, when the Son of David shall reign from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends
of the earth; when the seed of Abraham shall possess, according to the divine gift, the
land of promise; and when all the nations of the earth shall rejoice under the
beneficent reign of the Prince of peace.

Bright and glorious prospect for the now desolate land of Israel, and this groaning
earth of ours! The King of righteousness and peace will then have it all His own way.
All evil will be put down with a powerful hand. There will be no weakness in that
government. No rebel tongue will be permitted to prate, in accents of insolent
sedition, against the decrees and enactments thereof. No rude and senseless
demagogue will be allowed to disturb the peace of the people, or to insult the majesty
of the throne. Every abuse will be put down, every disturbing element will be
neutralised, every stumbling-block will be removed, and every root of bitterness
eradicated. The poor and the needy shall be well looked after; yea, all shall be
divinely attended to; toil, sorrow, poverty and desolation shall be unknown; the
wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and
blossom as the rose. "Behold a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule
in judgement. And a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from
the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place as the shadow of a great rock in a weary
land."

Reader, what glorious scenes are yet to be enacted in this poor sin-stricken, Satan-
enslaved, sorrowful world of ours! How refreshing to think of them! What a relief to
the heart amid all the mental misery, the moral degradation, and physical
wretchedness exhibited around us, on every side! Thank God, the day is rapidly
approaching when the prince of this world shall be hurled from his throne and
consigned to the bottomless pit, and the Prince of heaven, the glorious Emmanuel
shall stretch forth His blessed sceptre over the wide universe of God, and heaven and
earth shall bask in the sunlight of His royal countenance. Well may we cry out, O
Lord, hasten the time!

"And the children of Israel took their journey from Beeroth of the children of Jaakan
to Mosera; there Aaron died, and there he was buried; and Eleazar his son ministered
in the priest's office in his stead. From thence they journeyed unto Gudgodah; and
from Gudgodah to Jotbath, a land of rivers of waters. At that time the Lord separated
the tribe of Levi, to bear the ark of the covenant, to stand before the Lord to minister
unto him, and to bless in his name, unto this day. Wherefore Levi hath no part nor
inheritance with his brethren; the Lord is his inheritance, according as the Lord thy
God promised him."

The reader must not allow his mind to be disturbed by any question of historical
sequence in the foregoing passage. It is simply a parenthesis in which the lawgiver
groups together, in a very striking and forcible manner, circumstances culled, with
holy skill, from the history of the people, illustrative, at once, of the government and
grace of God. The death of Aaron exhibits the former; the election and elevation of
Levi, presents the latter. Both are placed together not with a view to chronology, but
for the grand moral end which was ever present to the mind of the lawgiver—an end
which lies far away beyond the range of infidel reason, but which commends itself to
the heart and understanding of the devout student of scripture.

How utterly contemptible are the quibbles of the infidel when looked at in the
brilliant light of divine inspiration! How miserable the condition of a mind which can
occupy itself with chronological hair splittings in order, if possible, to find a flaw in
the divine Volume, instead of grasping the real aim and object of the inspired
writer!

But why does Moses bring in, in this parenthetical and apparently abrupt manner,
those two special events in Israel's history? Simply to move the heart of the people
toward the one grand point of obedience. To this end he culls and groups according to
the wisdom given unto him. Do we expect to find in this divinely taught servant of
God the petty preciseness of a mere copyist? Infidels may affect to do so; but true
Christians know better. A mere scribe could copy events in their chronological order;
a true prophet will bring those events to bear, in a moral way, upon the heart and
conscience. Thus, while the poor deluded infidel is groping amid the shadows of his
own creation, the pious student delights himself in the moral glories of that peerless
Volume which stands like a rock, against which the waves of infidel thought dash
themselves with contemptible impotency.

We do not attempt to dwell upon the circumstances referred to in the above
parenthesis; they have been gone into elsewhere, and therefore we only feel it
needful, in this place, to point out to the reader what we may venture to call the
Deuteronomic bearing of the facts—the use which the lawgiver makes of them to
strengthen the foundation of his final appeal to the heart and conscience of the
people, to give pungency and power to his exhortation, as he urged upon them the
absolute necessity of unqualified obedience to the statutes and judgements of their
covenant God. Such was his reason for referring to the solemn fact of the death of
Aaron. They were to remember that, notwithstanding Aaron's high position as the
high priest of Israel, yet he was stripped of his robes and deprived of his life for
disobedience to the word of Jehovah. How important, then, that they should take heed
to themselves! The government of God was not to be trifled with, and the very fact of
Aaron's elevation only rendered it all the more needful that his sin should be dealt
with, in order that others might fear.

And then they were to remember the Lord's dealings with Levi in which grace shines
with such marvellous lustre. The fierce, cruel, self-willed Levi was taken up from the
depths of his moral ruin and brought nigh to God, "to bear the ark of the covenant of
the Lord, to stand before the Lord, to minister unto him, and to bless in his name.

But why should this account of Levi be coupled with the death of Aaron? Simply to
set forth the blessed consequences of obedience. If the death of Aaron displayed the
awful result of disobedience, the elevation of Levi illustrates the precious fruit of
obedience. Hear what the prophet Malachi says on this point. "And ye shall know that
I have sent this commandment unto you, that my covenant might be with Levi, saith
the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to
him for the fear wherewith he feared me, and was afraid before my name. The law of
truth was in his mouth, and iniquity was not found in his lips; he walked with me in
peace and equity, and did turn many away from iniquity." Mal. 2: 4-6.

This is a very remarkable passage, and throws much light upon the subject now before
us. It tells us distinctly that Jehovah gave His covenant of life and peace to Levi "for
the fear wherewith he feared" Him on the terrible occasion of the golden calf which
Aaron (himself a Levite of the very highest order) made. Why was Aaron judged?
Because of his rebellion at the waters of Meribah. (Num. 20: 24.) Why was Levi
blessed? Because of his reverent obedience at the foot of mount Horeb. (Ex. 32.) Why
are both grouped together in Deuteronomy 10? In order to impress upon the heart and
conscience of the congregation the urgent necessity of implicit obedience to the
commandments of their covenant God. How perfect is scripture in all its parts! How
beautifully it hangs together! And how plain it is to the devout reader that the lovely
book of Deuteronomy has its own divine niche to fill, its own distinctive work to do,
its own appointed sphere, scope and object! How manifest it is that the fifth division
of the Pentateuch is neither a contradiction nor a repetition, but a divine application
of its divinely inspired predecessors! And, finally, we cannot help adding—how
convincing the evidence that infidel writers know neither what they say nor whereof
they affirm, when they dare to insult the Oracles of God—yea, that they greatly err,
not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God!* At verse 10 of our chapter, Moses
returns to the subject of his discourse. "And I stayed in the mount, according to the
first time, forty days and forty nights; and the Lord hearkened unto me at that time
also, and the Lord would not destroy thee. And the Lord said unto me, Arise, take thy
journey before the people, that they may go in and possess the land which I sware
unto their fathers to give unto them."
{*We have, in human writings, numerous examples of the same thing that infidels
object to in Deuteronomy 10: 6-9. Suppose a man is anxious to call the attention of
the English nation to some great principle of political economy, or some matter of
national importance; he does not hesitate to select facts however widely separated on
the page of history, and group them together in order to illustrate his subject. Do
infidels object to this? No; not when found in the writings of men. It is only when it
occurs in scripture, because they hate the word of God, and cannot bear the idea that
He should give to His creatures a book-revelation of His mind. Blessed be His Name,
He has given it notwithstanding, and we have it in all its infinite preciousness, and
divine authority, for the comfort of our hearts, and the guidance of our path, amid all
the darkness and confusion of this scene through which we are passing home to
glory.}

Jehovah would accomplish His promise to the fathers, spite of every hindrance. He
would put Israel in full possession of the land concerning which He had sworn to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give it to their seed for an everlasting inheritance.

"And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy
God, to walk in all His ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all
thy heart and with all thy soul. To keep the commandments of the Lord, and his
statutes, which I command thee this day, for thy good." It was all for their real good,
their deep, full blessing to walk in the way of the divine commandments. The path of
whole-hearted obedience is the only path of true happiness; and blessed be God, this
path can always be trodden by those who love the Lord.

This is an unspeakable comfort, at all times. God has given us His precious word, the
perfect revelation of His mind; and He has given as what Israel had not, even His
Holy Spirit to dwell in our hearts whereby we can understand and appreciate His
word. Hence our obligations are vastly higher than were Israel's. We are bound to a
life of obedience by every argument that could be brought to bear on the heart and
understanding.

And surely it is for our good to be obedient. There is indeed "great reward" in keeping
the commandments of our loving Father. Every thought of Him and of His gracious
ways, every reference to His marvellous dealings with us—His loving ministry, His
tender care, His thoughtful love—all should bind our hearts in affectionate devotion
to Him, and quicken our steps in treading the path of loving obedience to Him.
Wherever we turn our eyes we are met by the most powerful evidences of His claim
upon our heart's affections and upon all the energies of our ransomed being. And,
blessed be His Name, the more fully we are enabled by His grace to respond to His
most precious claims, the brighter and happier our path must he. There is nothing in
all this world more deeply blessed than the path and portion of an obedient soul.
"Great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." The lowly
disciple, who finds his meat and his drink in doing the will of his beloved Lord and
Master, possesses a peace which the world can neither give nor take away. True, he
may be misunderstood and misinterpreted; he may be dubbed narrow and bigoted,
and such-like; but none-of these things move him. One approving smile from his Lord
is more than ample recompense for all the reproach that men can heap upon him. He
knows how to estimate at their proper worth the thoughts of men; they are to him as
the chaff which the wind driveth away. The deep utterance of his heart, as he moves
steadily along the sacred path of obedience, is

"Let me my feebleness recline
On that eternal love of Thine,
And human thoughts forget;
Child-like attend what Thou wilt say
Go forth and serve Thee while 'tis day,
Nor leave Thy sweet retreat."

In the closing verses, of our chapter, the lawgiver seems to rise higher and higher in
his presentation of moral motives for obedience, and to come closer and closer to the
hearts of the people. "Behold," he says, "the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the
Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is. Only the Lord had a delight in
thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all
people, as it is this day." What a marvellous privilege to be chosen and loved by the
Possessor of heaven and earth! What an honour to be called to serve and obey Him!
Surely nothing in all this world could be higher or better. To be identified and
associated with the Most High God, to have His Name called upon them, to be His
peculiar people, His special possession, the people of His choice, to be set apart from
all the nations of the earth to be the servants of Jehovah and His witnesses. What, we
may ask, could exceed this, except it be that to which the church of God, and the
individual believer are called?

Assuredly, our privileges are higher, inasmuch as we know God in a higher, deeper,
nearer, more intimate manner than the nation of Israel ever did. We know Him as the
God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as our God and Father. We have the
Holy Ghost dwelling in us, shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts, and leading
us to cry, Abba, Father. All this is far beyond anything that God's earthly people ever
knew or could know; and, inasmuch as our privileges are higher, His claims upon our
hearty and unreserved obedience are also higher. Every appeal to the heart of Israel
should come home, with augmented force to our hearts, beloved Christian reader;
every exhortation addressed to them should speak, far more powerfully to us. We
occupy the very highest ground on which any creature could stand. Neither the seed of
Abraham on earth, nor the angels of God in heaven could say what we can say, or
know what we know. We are linked and eternally associated with the risen and
glorified Son of God. We can adopt as our own the wondrous language of? John 4.17,
and say, "As he is so are we in this world." What can exceed this, as to privilege and
dignity? Surely nothing save to be, in body, soul and spirit, conformed to His adorable
image, as we shall be, ere long, through the abounding grace of God.

Well then let us ever bear in mind—yea, let us have it deep, deep, down in our hearts,
that according to our privileges are our obligations. Let us not refuse the wholesome
word " obligation" as though it had a legal ring about it. Far from it; it would be
utterly impossible to conceive anything further removed from all thought of legality
than the obligations which flow out of the Christian's position. It is a very serious
mistake to be continually raising the cry of "Legal! Legal!" whenever the holy
responsibilities of our position are pressed upon us. We believe that every truly pious
Christian will delight in all the appeals and exhortations which the Holy Ghost
addresses to us as to our obligations, seeing they are all grounded upon privileges
conferred upon us by the sovereign grace of God, through the precious blood of
Christ, and made good to us by the mighty ministry of the Holy Ghost.

But let us hearken still further to the stirring appeals of Moses. They are truly
profitable for us, with all our higher light, knowledge and privilege.

"Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart and be no more stiff-necked. For the
Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible,
which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgement of the
fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment."

Here Moses speaks not merely of God's doings and dealings and ways, but of Himself,
of what He is. He is high over all, the great, the mighty and the terrible. But He has a
heart for the widow and the fatherless—those helpless objects deprived of all earthly
and natural props, the poor bereaved and broken-hearted widow, and the desolate
orphan. God thinks of, and cares for such, in a very special way; they have a claim
upon His loving heart and mighty hand. " A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of
the widow is God in his holy habitation." "She that is a widow indeed and desolate
trusteth in God, and continueth in supplications and prayers night and day." "Leave
thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me."

What a rich provision is here for widows and orphans! How wondrous God's care of
such! How many widows are much better off than when they had their husbands!
How many orphans are better cared and provided for than when they had their
parents! God looks after them! This is enough. Thousands of husbands and thousands
of parents are worse by far than none; but God never fails those who are cast upon
Him. He is ever true to His own Name, whatever relationship He takes. Let all
widows and orphans remember this for their comfort and encouragement.

And then the poor stranger! He is not forgotten. "He loveth the stranger, in giving him
food and raiment." How precious is this! Our God cares for all those who are bereft of
earthly props, human hopes, and creature confidences. All such have a special claim
upon Him to which He will, most surely, respond according to all the love of His
heart. The widow, the fatherless and the stranger are the special objects of His tender
care, and as such have but to look to Him, and draw upon His exhaustless resources in
all their varied need.

But then He must be known in order to be trusted. "They that know thy name will put
their trust in thee; for thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee." Those who
do not know God would vastly prefer an insurance policy or a government annuity to
His promise. But the true believer finds in that promise the unfailing stay of his heart,
because he knows, and trusts, and loves the Promiser. He delights in the thought of
being absolutely shut up to God, wholly dependent upon Him. He would not, for
worlds, be in any other position. The very thing which would almost drive an
unbeliever out of his senses is to the Christian—the man of faith, the very deepest joy
of his heart. The language of such an one will ever be, "My soul, wait thou only upon
God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock." Blessed position! Precious
portion! May the reader know it as a divine reality, a living power, in his heart, by the
mighty ministry of the Holy Ghost! Then will he be able to sit loose to earthly things.
He will be able to tell the world that he is independent of it, having found all he
wants, for time and eternity, in the living God and His Christ.

"Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find."

But let us specially note the provision which God makes for the stranger. It is very
simple—"food and raiment." This is enough for a true stranger, as the blessed apostle
says to his son Timothy, "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can
carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content."

Christian reader, let as ponder this. What a cure for restless ambition is here! What an
antidote against covetousness! What a blessed deliverance from the feverish
excitement of commercial life, the grasping spirit of the age in which our lot is cast!
If we were only content with the divinely appointed provision for the stranger, what a
different tale we should have to tell! How calm and even would be the current of our
daily life! How simple our habits and tastes! How unworldly our spirit and style!
What moral elevation above the self-indulgence and luxury so prevalent amongst
professing Christians! We should simply eat and drink to the glory of God, and to
keep the body in proper working order. To go beyond this, either in eating or
drinking, is to indulge in "fleshly lusts which war against the soul."

Alas! alas! how much of this there is, specially in reference to drink! It is perfectly
appalling to think of the consumption of intoxicating drink amongst professing
Christians. It is our thorough conviction that the devil has succeeded in ruining the
testimony of hundreds, and in causing them to make shipwreck of faith and a good
conscience, by the use of stimulants. Thousands ruin their fortunes, ruin their
families, ruin their health, ruin their souls through the senseless, vile and cursed
desire for stimulants.

We are not going to preach a crusade against stimulants or narcotics. The wrong is not
in the things themselves but in our inordinate and sinful use of them. It not
infrequently happens that persons who fall under the horrible dominion of drink seek
to lay the blame on their medical adviser; but surely no proper medical man would
ever advise his patient to indulge in the use of stimulants. He may prescribe the use of
"a little wine, for the stomach's sake and frequent infirmities," and he has the very
highest authority for so doing; but why should this lead any one to become a
drunkard? Each one is responsible to walk in the fear of God in reference to both
eating and drinking. If a doctor prescribes a little nourishing food for his patient, is he
to be blamed if that patient becomes a glutton? Surely not; the evil is not in the
doctor's prescription, or in the stimulant, or in the nourishment, but in the wretched
lust of the heart.

Here, we are persuaded, lies the root of the evil; and the remedy is found in that
precious grace of God which while it bringeth salvation unto all men, teacheth those
who are saved "to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." And be it
remembered that " to live soberly" means a great deal more than temperance in eating
and drinking; it means this most surely, but it takes in also the whole range of inward
self-government—the government of the thoughts, the government of the temper, the
government of the tongue. The grace that saves us not only tells us how to live, but
teaches how to do it, and if we follow its teachings we shall be well content with
God's provision for the stranger.

It is, at once, interesting and edifying to notice the way in which Moses sets the divine
example before the people as their model. Jehovah "loveth the stranger, in giving him
food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of
Egypt." This is very touching. They were not only to keep before their eyes the divine
model, but also to remember their own past history and experience, in order that their
hearts might be drawn out in sympathy and compassion toward the poor homeless
stranger. It was the bounden duty and high privilege of the Israel of God to place
themselves in the circumstances and enter into the feelings of others. They were to be
the moral representatives of that blessed One whose people they were, and whose
Name was called upon them. They were to imitate Him in meeting the wants and
gladdening the hearts of the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger. And if God's
earthly people were called to this lovely course of action, how much more are we who
are "blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus." May we
abide more in His presence, and drink more into His Spirit, that so we may more
faithfully reflect His moral glories upon all with whom we come in contact!

The closing lines of our chapter give us a very fine summing up of the practical
teaching which has been engaging our attention. "Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God;
him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt thou cleave, and swear by his name. He is thy
praise, and he is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which
thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten
persons; and now the Lord hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude." Vers.
20-22.

How thoroughly bracing is all this to the moral being! This binding of the heart to the
Lord Himself by means of all that He is and all His wondrous actings and gracious
ways, is unspeakably precious. It is, we may truly say, the secret spring of all true
devotedness. God grant that the writer and the reader may abidingly realise its motive
power!

Deuteronomy 11
"Therefore thou shalt love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and
his judgements, and his commandments, alway. And know ye this day; for I speak not
with your children which have not known, and which have not seen the chastisements
of the Lord your God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out arm, and
his miracles and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto Pharaoh the king of
Egypt, and unto all his land; and what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their
horses, and to their chariots; how he made the water of the Red Sea to overflow them
as they pursued after you, and how the Lord hath destroyed them unto this day; and
what he did unto you in the wilderness, until ye came unto this place; and what he did
unto Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben; how the earth opened
her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their households, and their tents, and all the
substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel; but your eyes have
seen all the great acts of the Lord which he did."

Moses felt it to be of the very highest importance that all the mighty acts of Jehovah
should be kept prominently before the hearts of the people, and deeply engraved on
the tablets of their memory. The poor human mind is vagrant, and the heart volatile;
and, notwithstanding all that Israel had seen of the solemn judgements of God upon
Egypt and upon Pharaoh, they were in danger of forgetting them, and losing the
impression which they were designed and eminently fitted to make upon them.

It may be we feel disposed to wonder how Israel could ever forget the impressive
scenes of their history in Egypt from first to last—the descent of their fathers thither
as a mere handful, their steady growth and progress, as a people, spite of formidable
difficulties and hindrances, so that from the insignificant few they had become, by the
good hand of their God upon them, as the stars of heaven for multitude.

And then those ten plagues upon the land of Egypt! How full of awful solemnity!
How pre-eminently calculated to impress the heart with a sense of the mighty power
of God, the utter impotency and insignificance of man, in all his boasted wisdom,
strength and glory, and the egregious folly of his attempting to set himself up against
the Almighty God! What was all the power of Pharaoh and of Egypt in the presence of
the Lord God of Israel! In one hour all was plunged into hopeless ruin and
destruction. All the chariots of Egypt, all the pomp and glory, the valour and might of
that ancient and far-famed nation—all was overwhelmed in the depths of the sea.

And why? Because they had presumed to meddle with the Israel of God; they had
dared to set themselves in opposition to the eternal purpose and counsel of the Most
High. They sought to crush those on whom He had set His love. He had sworn to bless
the seed of Abraham, and no power of earth or hell could possibly annul His oath.
Pharaoh, in his pride and hardness of heart, attempted to countervail the divine
actings, but he only meddled to his own destruction. His land was shaken to its very
centre, and himself and his mighty army overthrown in the Red Sea, a solemn
example to all who should ever attempt to stand in the way of Jehovah's purpose to
bless the seed of Abraham His friend.

Nor was it merely what Jehovah had done to Egypt and to Pharaoh that the people
were called to remember, but also what He had done amongst themselves. How soul-
subduing the judgement upon Dathan and Abiram and their households! How awful
the thought of the earth opening her mouth and swallowing them up! And for what?
For their rebellion against the divine appointment. In the history given in Numbers,
Korah, the Levite, is the prominent character; but here he is omitted, and the two
Reubenites are named—two members of the congregation, because Moses is seeking
to act on the whole body of the people by setting before them the terrible consequence
of self-will in two of their number—two ordinary members, as we should say, and not
merely a privileged Levite.

In a word, then, whether the attention was called to the divine actings without or
within, abroad or at home, it was all for the purpose of impressing their hearts and
minds with a deep sense of the moral importance of obedience. This was the one
grand aim of all the rehearsals, all the comment, all the exhortations of the faithful
servant of God who was so soon to be removed from their midst. For this he ranges
over their history for centuries, culling, grouping, commenting, taking up this fact and
omitting that, as guided by the Spirit of God. The journey down to Egypt, the sojourn
there, the heavy judgements upon the self-willed Pharaoh, the exodus, the passage
through the sea, the scenes in the wilderness, and specially, the awful fate of the two
rebellious Reubenites—all is brought to bear, with marvellous force and clearness,
upon the conscience of the people, in order to strengthen the basis of Jehovah's claim
upon their unqualified obedience to His holy commandments.

"Therefore shall ye keep all the commandments which I command you this day, that
ye may be strong, and go in and possess the land, whither ye go to possess it; and that
ye may prolong your days in the land, which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give
unto them and to their seed, a land that floweth with milk and honey."

Let the reader note the beautiful moral link between those two clauses, "Keep all the
commandments"—"That ye may be strong." There is great strength gained by
unreserved obedience to the word of God. It will not do to pick and choose. We are
prone to this, prone to take up certain commandments and precepts which suit
ourselves; but this is really self-will. What right have we to select such and such
precepts from the word, and neglect others! None whatever. To do so is, in principle,
simply self-will and rebellion. What business has a servant to decide as to which of
his master's commands he will obey? Surely none whatever; each commandment
stands clothed with the masters authority, and therefore claims the servant's attention;
and, we may add, the more implicitly the servant obeys, the more he bends his
respectful attention to every one of his master's commands, be it ever so trivial, the
more does he strengthen himself in his position and grow in his master's confidence
and esteem. Every master loves and values an obedient, faithful, devoted servant. We
all know what a comfort it is to have a servant whom we can trust, one who finds his
delight in carrying out our every wish, and who does not require perpetual looking
after, but knows his duty and attends to it.

Now, ought we not to seek to refresh the heart of our blessed Master, by a loving
obedience to all His commandments? Only think, reader, what a privilege it is to be
allowed to give joy to the heart of that blessed One who loved us and gave Himself
for us. It is something wonderful that poor creatures such as we can in any way
refresh the heart of Jesus; yet so it is, blessed be His Name! He delights in our
keeping His commandments; and assuredly the thought of this should stir our whole
moral being, and lead us to study His word, in order to find out, more and more, what
His commandments are—so that we may do them.

We are forcibly reminded, by those words of Moses which we have just quoted, of the
apostle's prayer for "the saints and faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse." "For this
cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire
that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will, in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding; that ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful
in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all
might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with
joyfulness; giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of
the inheritance of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of
darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love; in whom we
have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." (Col. 1: 9-14.)

Making allowance for the difference between the earthly and the heavenly—between
Israel and the church, there is a striking similarity between the words of the law-giver
and the words of the apostle. Both together are eminently fitted to set forth the beauty
and preciousness of a willing-hearted loving obedience. It is precious to the Father,
precious to Christ, precious to the Holy Ghost; and this surely ought to be enough to
create and strengthen in our hearts the desire to be filled with the knowledge of His
will, that so we might walk worthy of Him to all pleasing, being fruitful in every good
work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. It should lead us to a more diligent
study of the word of God, so that we might be ever finding out more and more of our
Lord's mind and will, learning what is well-pleasing to Him, and looking to Him for
grace to do it. Thus should our hearts be kept near to Him, and we should find an
ever-deepening interest in searching the scriptures not merely to grow in the
knowledge of truth, but in the knowledge of God, the knowledge of Christ—the deep,
personal, experimental knowledge of all that it treasured up in that blessed One who
is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Oh! may the Spirit Of God, by His most precious
and powerful ministry, awaken in us a more intense desire to know and to do the will
of our blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that thus we may refresh His loving
heart and be well-pleasing to Him in all things!

We must now turn, for a moment, to the lovely picture of the promised land which
Moses holds up before the eyes of the people. "For the land whither thou goest in to
possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst
thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land, whither ye
go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven;
a land which the Lord thy God careth for; the eyes of the Lord thy God are always
upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year." (Vers. 10-12.)

What a vivid contrast between Egypt and Canaan! Egypt had no rain from heaven. It
was all human effort there. Not so in the Lord's land; the human foot could do nothing
there, nor was there any need, for the blessed rain from heaven dropped upon it;
Jehovah Himself cared for it and watered it with the early and latter rain. The land of
Egypt was dependent upon its own resources; the land of Canaan was wholly
dependent upon God—upon what came down from heaven "My river is mine own,"
was the language of Egypt. "The river of God" was the hope of Canaan. The habit in
Egypt was to water with the foot; the habit in Canaan was to look up to heaven.

We have in the sixty-fifth Psalm a lovely statement of the condition of things in the
Lord's land, as viewed by the eye of faith "Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it;
thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God which is full of water; thou preparest
them corn, when thou hast so provided for it. Thou waterest the ridges thereof
abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou makest it soft with showers; thou
blessest the springing thereof. Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy
paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness; and the little hills
rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are
covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." (Vers. 9-13.)

How perfectly beautiful! Only think of God watering the ridges, and settling the
furrows! Think of His stooping down to do the work of a husbandman for His people!
Yes, and delighting to do it! It was the joy of His heart to pour His sunbeams and His
refreshing showers upon the "hills and valleys" of His beloved people. It was
refreshing to His spirit, as it was to the praise of His Name to see the vine, the fig-tree
and the olive flourishing, the valleys covered with the golden grain, and the rich
pastures covered with flocks of sheep.

Thus it should ever have been, and thus it would have been, had Israel only walked in
simple obedience to the holy law of God. "It shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken
diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord
your God, and to serve him with all your heart, and with all your soul, that I will give
you the rain of your land in his due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou
mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. And I will send grass in thy
fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full." (Vers. 13-15)

Thus the matter stood between the God of Israel, and the Israel of God. Nothing could
be simpler, nothing more blessed. It was Israel's high and holy privilege to love and
serve Jehovah; it was Jehovah's prerogative to bless and prosper Israel. Happiness and
fruitfulness were to be the sure accompaniments of obedience. The people and their
land were wholly dependent upon God; all their supplies were to come down from
heaven, and hence so long as they walked in loving obedience the copious showers
dropped upon their fields and vineyards; the heavens dropped down the dew, and the
earth responded in fruitfulness and blessing.

But, on the other hand, when Israel forgot the Lord, and forsook His precious
commandments, the heaven became brass and the earth iron; barrenness, desolation,
famine and misery were the melancholy accompaniments of disobedience. How could
it be otherwise? "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land; but if
ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth Of the Lord
bath spoken it."

Now, in all this there is deep practical instruction for the church of God. Although we
are not under law, we are called to obedience, and as we are enabled through grace to
yield a loving hearty obedience, we are blessed in our own spiritual state, our souls
are watered, refreshed and strengthened, and we bring forth the fruits of righteousness
which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

The reader may refer with much profit, in connection with this great practical subject,
to the opening of John 15—a most precious scripture, and one demanding the earnest
attention of every true-hearted child of God. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the
husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away; and every
branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are
clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As
the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye,
except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches; he that abideth in me, and I
in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without [or apart from] me ye can do
nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and
men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me,
and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As
the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love. If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's
commandments, and abide in his love." (Vers. 1-10.)

This weighty passage of scripture has suffered: immensely through theological
controversy and religious strife. It is as plain as it is practical, and only needs to be
taken as it stands, in its own divine simplicity. If we seek to import into it what does
not belong to it, we mar its integrity and miss its true application. In it we have Christ,
the true vine, taking the place of Israel who had become to Jehovah the degenerate
plant of a strange vine. The scene of the parable is obviously earth and not heaven; we
do not think of a vine and a husbandman (gewrgo") in heaven. Besides, our Lord
says, "I am the true vine." The figure is very distinct. It is not the Head and the
members, but a tree and its branches. Moreover, the subject of the parable is as
distinct as the parable itself; it is not eternal life, but fruit-bearing. If this were borne
in mind, it would greatly help to an understanding of this much misunderstood
passage of scripture.

In a word then, we learn from the figure of the vine and its branches that the true
secret of fruit-bearing is to abide in Christ, and the way to abide in Christ is to keep
His precious commandments. "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my
love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love." This
makes it all so simple. The way to bear fruit in season is to abide in the love of Christ,
and this abiding is proved by our treasuring up His commandments in our hearts and a
loving obedience to every one of them. It is not running hither and thither in the mere
energy of nature; it is not the excitement of mere fleshly zeal displaying itself in
spasmodic efforts after devotedness. No; it is something quite different from all this;
it is the calm and holy obedience of the heart—a loving obedience to our own beloved
Lord which refreshes His heart and glorifies His Name.

"How blest are they who still abide
Close sheltered by Thy watchful side;
Who life and strength from Thee receive
And with Thee move and in Thee live."

Reader, may we apply our hearts diligently to this great subject of fruit-bearing. May
we better understand what it is. We are apt to make great mistakes about it. It is to be
feared that much—very much of what passes for fruit would not be accredited in the
divine presence. God cannot own anything as fruit which is not the direct result of
abiding in Christ. We may earn a great name among our fellows for zeal, energy and
devotedness; we may be abundant in labours, in every department of the work; we
may acquit ourselves as great travellers, great preachers, earnest workers in the
vineyard, great philanthropists and moral reformers; we may spend a princely fortune
in promoting all the great objects of Christian benevolence, and all the while not
produce a single cluster of fruit acceptable to the Father's heart.

And, on the other hand, it may be our lot to pass the time of our sojourn here in
obscurity and retirement from human gaze; we may be little accounted of by the
world and the professing church; we may seem to leave but little mark on the sands of
time; but if only we abide in Christ, abide in His love, treasure up His precious words
in our hearts, and yield ourselves up to a holy and loving obedience to His
commandments, then shall our fruit be in season, and our Father will be glorified, and
we shall grow in the experimental knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

We shall now look for a moment at the remainder of our chapter in which Moses, in
words of intense earnestness, presses upon the congregation the urgent need of
watchfulness and diligence in reference to all the statutes and judgments of the Lord
their God. The beloved and faithful servant of God, and true lover of the people was
unwearied in his efforts to brace them up to that whole-hearted obedience which he
knew to be, at once, the spring of their happiness and their fruitfulness; and just as our
blessed Lord warns His disciples by setting before them the solemn judgement of the
unfruitful branch, so does Moses warn the people as to the sure and terrible
consequences of disobedience.

"Take heed to yourselves, that your heart be not deceived, and ye turn aside, and
serve other gods, and worship them." Sad progress downward! The heart deceived.
This is the beginning of all declension. "And ye turn aside." The feet are sure to
follow the heart. Hence the deep need of keeping the heart with all diligence; it is the
citadel of the whole moral being, and so long as it is kept for the Lord, the enemy can
gain no advantage; but when once it is surrendered, all is really gone; there is the
turning aside; the secret departure of the heart is proved by the practical ways; "other
gods" are served and worshipped. The descent down along the inclined plane is
terribly rapid.

"And then"—mark the sure and solemn consequences—"the Lord's wrath be kindled
against you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain, and that the land yield
not her fruit; and ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you"
What barrenness and desolation there must be when heaven is shut up! No refreshing
showers coming down, no dewdrops falling, no communication between the heaven
and the earth. Alas! how often had Israel tasted the awful reality of this! "He turneth
rivers into a wilderness, and the water-springs into dry ground; a fruitful land into
barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein."

And may we not see in the barren land and the desolate wilderness an apt and striking
illustration of a soul out of communion through disobedience to the precious
commandments of Christ? Such an one has no refreshing communications with
heaven—no showers coming down—no unfoldings of the preciousness of Christ to
the heart no sweet ministrations of an ungrieved Spirit to the soul; the Bible seems a
sealed book; all is dark, dreary and desolate. Oh! there cannot be anything more
miserable in all this world than a soul in this condition. May the writer and the reader
never experience it! May we bend our ears to the fervent exhortations addressed by
Moses to the congregation of Israel! They are most seasonable, most healthful, most
needful in this day of cold indifferentism and positive wilfulness. They set before us
the divine antidote against the special evils to which the church of God is exposed at
this very hour—an hour critical and solemn beyond all human conception.

"Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind
them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes. And
ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house,
and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up;
and thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon thy gates, that
your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the
Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth."

Blessed days! And oh! how ardently the large, loving heart of Moses longed that the
people might enjoy many such days! And how simple the condition! Truly nothing
could be simpler, nothing more precious. It was not a heavy yoke laid upon them, but
the sweet privilege of treasuring up the precious commandments of the Lord their
God, in their hearts, and breathing the very atmosphere of His holy word. All was to
hinge upon this. All the blessings of the land of Canaan—that goodly, highly favoured
land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land on which Jehovah's eyes ever rested
in loving interest and tender care—all its precious fruits, all its rare privileges were to
be theirs in perpetuity, on the one simple condition of loving obedience to the word of
their covenant God.

"For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do
them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; then
will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater
nations and mightier than yourselves." In a word, sure and certain victory was before
them, a most complete overthrow of all enemies and obstacles, a triumphal march
into the promised inheritance—all secured to them on the blessed ground of
affectionate and reverential obedience to the most precious statutes and judgments
that had ever been addressed to the human heart—statutes and judgements every one
of which was but the very voice of their most gracious Deliverer.

"Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours; from the
wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost
sea, shall your coast be. There shall no man be able to stand before you; for the Lord
your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall
tread upon, as he hath said unto you."

Here was the divine side of the question. The whole land, in its length, breadth and
fulness, lay before them; they had but to take possession of it, as the free gift of God;
it was for them simply to plant the foot, in artless appropriating faith, upon that fair
inheritance which sovereign grace had bestowed upon them. All this we see made
good in the Book of Joshua, as we read in Joshua 11. "So Joshua took the whole land,
according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance
unto Israel, according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war."
(Ver. 23.)*
{*No doubt it was in faith that Joshua took—and could take nothing less than—the
whole land. But as to actual possession, Joshua 13: 1 shows there was "yet much land
to be possessed."}

But alas! there was the human side of the question as well as the divine. Canaan as
promised by Jehovah and made good by the faith of Joshua, was one thing; and
Canaan as possessed by Israel, was quite another. Hence the vast difference between
Joshua and Judges. In Joshua we see the infallible faithfulness of God to His promise;
in Judges, we see Israel's miserable failure from the very outset. God pledged His
immutable word that not a man should be able to stand before them; and the sword of
Joshua—type of the great Captain of our salvation—made good this pledge in its
every jot and tittle. But the Book of Judges records the melancholy fact that Israel
failed to drive out the enemy—failed to take possession of the divine grant in all its
royal magnificence.

What then? Is the promise of God made of none effect? Nay, verily, but the utter
failure of man is made apparent. At "Gilgal" the banner of victory floated over the
twelve tribes, with their invincible captain at their head. At "Bochim" the weepers had
to mourn over Israel's lamentable defeat.

Have we any difficulty in understanding the difference? None whatever; we see the
two things running all through the divine Volume. Man fails to rise to the height of
the divine revelation—fails to take possession of what grace bestows. This is as true
in the history of the church as it was in the history of Israel. In the New Testament, as
well as in the Old, we have Judges as well as Joshua.

Yes, reader, and in the history of each individual member of the church we see the
same thing. Where is the Christian, beneath the canopy of heaven, that lives up to the
height of his spiritual privileges? Where is the child of God who has not to mourn
over his humiliating failure in grasping and making good practically the high and holy
privileges of his calling of God? But does this make the truth of God of none effect?
No; blessed for ever be His Holy Name! His word holds good in all its divine integrity
and eternal stability. Just as in Israel's case, the land of promise lay before them in all
its fair proportions and divinely given attractions; and not only so, but they could
count on the faithfulness and almighty power of God to bring them in and put them in
full possession; so with us, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies
in Christ; there is absolutely no limit to the privileges connected with our standing,
and as to our actual enjoyment it is only a question of faith taking possession of all
that God's sovereign grace has made ours in Christ.

We must never forget that it is the privilege of the Christian to live at the very height
of the divine revelation. There is no excuse for a shallow experience or a low walk.
We have no right whatever to say that we cannot realise the fulness of our portion in
Christ, that the standard is too high, the privileges are too vast, that we cannot expect
to enjoy such marvellous blessings and dignities in our present imperfect state.

All this is downright unbelief, and should be so treated by every true Christian. The
question is, Has the grace of God bestowed the privileges upon us? Has the death of
Christ made Good our title to them? And has the Holy Ghost declared them to be the
proper portion of the very feeblest member of the body of Christ? If so—and scripture
declares it is so—why should we not enjoy them? There is no hindrance on the divine
side. It is the desire of the heart of God that we should enter into the fulness of our
portion in Christ. Hear the earnest breathing of the inspired apostle, on behalf of the
saints at Ephesus, and of all saints. "Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making
mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of
glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him;
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope
of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and
what the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the
working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from
the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenlies, far above all
principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not
only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his
feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the
fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph. 1: 15-23.)

From this marvellous prayer we may learn how earnestly the Spirit of God desires that
we should apprehend and enjoy the glorious privileges of the true Christian position.
He would ever, by His precious and powerful ministry, keep our hearts up to the
mark; b