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THE Biblical Illustrator***********************ORAnecdotes, Similes, Emblems, Illustrations; Expository, Scientific, Geographical, Historical, and Homiletic, Gathered from a Wide Range of Home and ForeignLiterature, on the Verses of the Bible***********************BYRev. JOSEPH S. EXELL, M.A.******************Numbers*******Based on work done by Josh Bond for E-sword and TheWordNUMBERS INTRODUCTIONThe name of the bookBunsen entitles it “The Munster-roll.” But the thought which gives unity to this book is very concrete and definite. Both to the book of prophetic legislation, or Exodus, and to Leviticus, the book of sacerdotal or cultus legislation, there is annexed the book of the kingly calling of Israel under its King Jehovah--the book which treats of the host of God, of the discipline of the army, of its typical march from Sinai to Canaan, from the Mount of God to the elementary conquest of the world under the standard of the Ark of the Covenant, and under the guidance of Jehovah; and because this march is typical, it is darkened and checked in many ways by the power of sin. Another designation, “The wandering towards Canaan,” is partly too indefinite, partly too narrow, because the wandering as a whole had already begun with the Exodus from Egypt. (J. P. Lange, D. D.)The authorship of the bookMuch which has been said upon the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch generally, applies with special force to the authorship of this book. One portion, viz., the catalogue of the stations or encampments (33) is expressly ascribed to Moses (verse 2). Some of the legislative enactments which are found only in this book, or which are recapitulated in Deuteronomy are expressly assigned to Moses in Joshua--(1) the law that the Levites were to have no separate inheritance of land (Jos 13:14; Jos 13:33; Jos 14:3-4, cf. Num 18:20-24; Deu 10:9; Deu 14:27; Deu 18:1-2), but only cities to dwell in, with their suburbs taken out of the inheritance of the other tribes (Jos 21:2, cf. Num 35:1-4);(2) the assignment by lot of the inheritance of the nine tribes and a half on the west of the Jordan, and of the two tribes and a half on the east of Jordan (Jos 14:2-3; Jos 18:7, cf. Num 26:55; Num 32:33; Num 33:54; Num 34:13). The presumption thus afforded that this book was written by Moses, is confirmed by the numerous indications which it contains that it is the work of a contemporary writer, who lived in the desert, and who was familiar with the history, customs, and institutions of Egypt. The minuteness of the details respecting the order of the march through the wilderness, and the various incidents which occurred in the course of it, the remarkable manner in which the history and the legislation are interwoven, and more particularly the insertion of additional legislation arising out of the protracted wanderings in the desert (e.g., Num 19:14), point to the conclusion that the writer of the book was either an eye-witness of the scenes which he records, or a forger whoso skill has been unequalled in after ages. The topographical notices, again, testify to an acquaintance with the history of Egypt (e.g., Num 13:22) and also with that of the surrounding nations, previously to the entrance into Canaan (e.g., Num 21:13) whilst the allusions to Egyptian customs, products, and institutions, and also to particular incidents of Egyptian history, are such as cannot, with any great amount of probability, be ascribed to any writer between the days of Moses and those of Solomon (e.g., Num 11:5-7; Num 21:5-9; Num 33:4; Num 33:6-8).Again, the contrast between the general allusions to the topography of Canaan, such as might well have been obtained from traditional sources, or from the reports of the spies, as compared with the more minute descriptions given in Joshua, precisely corresponds with the recorded history of Moses. Thus, while in Joshua the boundaries of Canaan are expressed with great minuteness, in Numbers they are laid down in general terms (cf. Jos 15:1-63 with Num 34:1-29.).It may be observed further, that the fact that the boundaries assigned to the promised land were never actually realised, even in the clays of David and Solomon, affords a strong argument in support of the belief that the books in which they arc described were not written at the late period to which they are assigned by some modern critics, in which case the original assignment would naturally have been made to accord with the actual extent of the kingdom. It must be observed, further, that the statistics of this book stop short of the death of Moses, and that the records of families are restricted to the Mosaic era Thus, e.g., we read of the promise given to Phinehas and to his seed after him of an everlasting priesthood (Num 25:13), and we find mention of the part which Phinehas took in one of the latest expeditions in which Moses was engaged (Num 31:6); but we must have recourse to the books of Chronicles and of Ezr 2:1-70 we desire to obtain information concerning his descendants. (C. J. Elliot, M. A.)The chronology of the book.--1. The narrative commences with “the first day of the second month of the second year after they were come out of Egypt” (Num 1:1); and the death of Aaron at the first encampment during the final march on Canaan (Num 20:2) took place in the first day of the fifth month of the fortieth year (Num 33:38).2. Between these two dates, therefore, intervene no less than 38 1/4 years (cf. Deu 2:14), the long and dreary period of tarrying in the wilderness till the disobedient generation had wasted away.3. The solemn rehearsal of the law contained in Deuteronomy was commenced by Moses after the overthrow of Sihon and Og, in the beginning of the eleventh month of the fortieth year (Deu 1:3-4).4. We have, consequently, from the death of Aaron to the opening of Deuteronomy a space of exactly six months, in which all the events narrated in the fourth part of this book (Num 20:1 to end) would seem to have occurred, with the probable exception of the defeat of the king of Arad.5. Those events are many and remarkable. After the tedious years of suspense were once passed, the history of the chosen people hurries on, not without a sort of dramatic propriety, to a crisis. Crowded as this space is, it yet has room enough for the incidents here assigned to it.6. The first month of the six was passed at the foot of Mount Her in mourning for Aaron (Num 20:29). But it is likely that during this month a part of the host was engaged in revenging upon the king of Arad the molestation inflicted by him on the Israelites during their journey from Kadesh to Mount Her.7. Next ensued the journey “from Mount Her by the way of the Red Sea to compass the land of Edom” (Num 21:4); and this, being about two hundred and twenty miles to the brook Zered, would be accomplished within four weeks.8. The appearance of the host in the plains of Moab brought them into the neighbourhood of Sihon, king of the Amorites. The policy pursued by him of resisting the progress of Israel with all his forces (Num 21:23) caused his overthrow to be speedy and total; as was also for like reasons that of Og, king of Bashan. The two battles at Jahaz and Edrei probably took place both within a fortnight; i.e., towards the middle of the third of the six months in question.9. The issue of the conflict with the Amorite kings determined Balak to send for Balaam (Num 22:2). The distance from Moab to the nearest point of the Euphrates is about three hundred and fifty miles, and Pethor may have been yet more distant. But as Balak was urgent, and could of course command all facilities for travelling, two months would amply suffice for his ambassadors to go and return twice over; and for the delivery by Balaam of his prophecies (22-24). No doubt during these weeks the Israelites were engaged in completing and consolidating their conquest of Gilead and Bashan.10. We have thus a margin of at least six weeks left, during which occurred the seduction of Israel by the wiles of the Midianites, and the consequent plague (25); the second numbering of the people in the plains of Moab (26); and the war upon the Midianites (27).11. It is accordingly in full consistency that the death of Moses is spoken of (Num 31:2) in connection with the Midianitish war, and as following close upon it; and that Balaam after quitting Balak had not yet returned home when that war occurred, and was taken captive amongst the Midianites. (T. E. Espin D. D. , in Speak. Com.).Numbers 1Numbers 1:1In the wilderness of Sinai. In the desert: an illustration of the life of the good in this worldI. The natural trials of the desert.1. Barrenness. Temporal and material things cannot satisfy spiritual beings.2. Homelessness. The soul cannot find rest in this wilderness world.3. Pathlessness. Man, if left to himself, is bound to stray and lose himself.4. Perilousness. The wiles of the devil, the seductions of the world, and the lusts of the flesh.5. Aimlessness. The years pass, opportunities come and go, and so little seems accomplished, so little progress made in our character, so little true work done.II. The divine presence in the desert.1. Divine communication in the desert. God’s voice is never silent. He is ever speaking in the sounds and silences of nature; through Scripture; and by His Holy Spirit.2. Divine provision in the desert. “The Lord will give grace and glory; no good will He withhold from them that walk uprightly.” “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”3. Divine shelter and rest in the desert (Psa 90:1).4. Divine direction in the desert.(1) By the leadings of His providence.(2) By the teachings of the sacred Scriptures.(3) By the influences of the Holy Spirit.5. Divine protection in the desert. “No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper.” “If God be for us, who can be against us?” “Who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?”III. THE DIVINE USES OF THE DESERT.1. That the generation of slaves might pass away. There is much in us that must die and be buried before we can enter upon the inheritance of spiritual perfection. Our craven-hearted fears, our carnal lusts, our miserable unbelief, must be buried in the desert.2. That a generation of free men might be educated. In the desert we are being trained by God into spiritual perfection and power for service and blessedness.Conclusion:1. Ponder well the Divine design of our life in this world.2. By the help of God seek its realisation in ourselves. (W. Jones.)Numbers 1:2-3Take ye the sum of all the congregation. Reasons for numbering the peopleNot because God would understand whether they were sufficient for number, or able for strength, to encounter their enemies, forasmuch as nothing is unknown to Him or impossible for Him to bring to pass, who is able to save as well with a few as with many.1. For order’s sake: that there should be no occasion of contention for primacy, but that every tribe and family should know his place and time, when to remove and when to stand still, when to fight with their enemies, and in every point what to do.2. That such things as were to be paid for the use of the tabernacle might the more easily be collected when they were separated according to their tribes, and the tribes according to their families, and the families according to the household, man by man.3. To testify His exceeding great love toward them and special care over them. A faithful shepherd will many times count the sheep committed to him, lest any should be missing.4. Lastly, they are severally and distinctly numbered every tribe by itself, that in time to come it might be certainly known of what tribe and family Christ Jesus, the promised Messiah, should be born. (W. Attersoll.)Reasons for the census taking:1. To prove the accomplishment of the promise made to Abraham, that God would multiply his seed exceedingly; and renewed in Jacob (Gen 28:14). Now it appears that there did not fail one tittle of that good promise, which was an encouragement to, them to hope that the other promise of the land of Canaan for an inheritance should always be fulfilled in its season. Therefore God would have Israel numbered, that it might be upon record how vastly they were increased in a little time, that the power of God’s providence and the truth of His promise may be acknowledged by all. It could not have been expected, in any ordinary course of nature, that seventy-five souls (which was the number of Jacob’s family when he went down into Egypt): should in two hundred and fifteen years multiply to so many hundred thousands. It is therefore to be attributed to an extraordinary virtue in the Divine promise and blessing.2. It was to put a difference between the true-born Israelites and the mixed multitude that were among them. None were numbered but Israelites. All the world is but a lumber in comparison with those jewels. Little account is made of others; but the saints God has a particular property in and concern for (2Ti 2:19; Php 4:3). The hairs of their head are numbered; but He will say to others, “I never knew you, never made any account of you.”3. It was in order to their being marshalled into several districts, for the more easy administration of justice, and their more regular march through the wilderness. It is a rout and a rabble, not an army, that is not mustered and put in order. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Israel’s host mustered:1. The order for this enumeration is Divine. God gave the order, and He appointed the men who should fulfil it. It may be asked, Why does the Lord now sanction the doing of this work, and in the subsequent ages curs David for doing, substantially, the same thing? The answer is twofold: First, it was not the Lord, but Satan, who tempted David to number Israel; and, secondly, it was done for the gratification of David’s personal pride and ambition. Further, it may be said, this was done against the protest of the general-in-chief of his armies (see 1Ch 21:3-4). When God commands it is always safe to obey; but when Satan incites us we are to beware. There are several reasons why God commanded this muster-roll to be made now.(1) The promise had been made to Abraham of an exceeding great multiplication of his seed. It was now designed that they should see how this promise had been fulfilled, even amid the heartless bondage of Egypt.(2) This He demanded should be done carefully and certainly. There is nothing easier than to miscalculate numbers, especially where the basis of reckoning is careless. Here He orders this to be done by an individual count.(3) It was only those who were able to go forth to war who were numbered. The blind, the lame, the diseased, and the aged were not enrolled. It is the Lord’s plan in all the ages, never to ask a man to do what he is incompetent to perform. On the other hand, He expects every one to do all he is able to do. The men selected for this enrolment were “renowned men.” Heads of their families and their tribes--princes in Israel. Sometimes the great, the wealthy, and the wise attempt to excuse themselves from the service of God. They are too much busied with their own concerns. But there are those who wear crowns and coronets who do pray and labour in Christ’s cause. They are worthy standard-bearers in the army of the Lord. Like Queen Victoria and Lord Shaftesbury, like Coligny and Conde, like the electors of Germany in the time of the Reformation, they stand forth doing the Lord’s will, and accomplishing His purposes. We see here, further, with what quickness and promptness this work was done. It would seem as if only a few days were consumed in doing a work so vast. Thus when God calls us to do His work there is to be no delay. “The King’s business requires haste.” No one has a right to be an indifferent or idle worker. Another thought here: only Israelites were to be mustered. No one of the mixed multitude is to be put upon the rolls, They could not be intrusted on the army-rolls. They were more ready for a ferment than for a fight. No wonder that the immortal Washington, on an occasion of great importance and peril, said, “Put no one but Americans on guard to-night.” So God would not allow any one but His own people to fight His, battles, or to do His work. In the numeric record Judah is found to have the largest number of men. “This deserves notice in connection with the blessing pronounced on that tribe in Gen 49:8-12, ‘Thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise.’” Judah was the grand leader of all the princes and tribes of Israel. God designed that He should be so, as his was the tribe from which Immanuel was to come. The whole number was six hundred and three thousand five hundred and fifty. With three exceptions, Russia, Germany, and France, this is larger than the regular army of any nation now on the face of the globe. Of court, the war-footing of many other nations is greater than this; but this is an amazing regular army for that day and age. But, vast as it was, it was all swallowed up in thirty-eight years from this time, because of unbelief and sin. Only two of this great number escaped the general destruction; namely, Caleb and Joshua. So multitudes who profess to be soldiers in the Lord’s army are wasted by death or become inefficient and useless. One of the great defects in all our Churches is want of organisation. Herein were the beauty and the strength of this mustering. The Levites, however, were exempted from this enrolment. In all ages the priestly caste of men has been generally free from war-service; so the Levites, by the appointment of God, were free. To them were committed the spiritual interests of the tribes, the worship and service of God, the offering of sacrifices, and the expounding of the law. “They warred the warfare of the tabernacle.” So we think no minister should be a soldier, a lawyer, a physician, a business man, or a farmer. He cannot do these things without lowering the standard of his calling and materially injuring his efficiency. (Lewis R. Dunn, D. D.)The numbering of the people (a homily for the census day)I. A few words about the census, which is being taken to-day in every town, every hamlet, every remote habitation of the United Kingdom. The Israelites dealt largely in statistics. At all the great turning-points in their history a census was taken. This Book of Numbers owes its name to the fact that it records two census-takings; one at the beginning, the other at the close of the forty years’ sojourn in the wilderness. An admonition to fill up the census-papers with exactness and for conscience’ sake.II. Meditations proper to the census day.1. The filling up of a census-paper is, in itself, a piece of secular business. Yet I do not envy the man who can perform it without being visited with holy feeling. The setting down of the names of one’s household brings up many tragic memories. The setting down one’s own age, after a lapse of ten years, summons us to count our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.2. The Lord keeps an exact register of His people. There is a Book of Life in which are inscribed the names of all whom He has chosen. How true this is the whole Scripture bears witness (Ex 32:30; Isa 4:3; Eze 13:9; Luk 10:20; Php 4:3; Heb 12:23; Rev 13:8). We commonly think of this as a book which is shut and sealed. The Lord only knoweth them that are His. A man may ascertain his own acceptance with God. (W. Binnie, D. D.)The numbering of the people:I. The authority for this numbering. Leaders of men should be well assured of two things in the movements which they inaugurate--1. That they have the Divine approval of their undertakings. The movement which is approved by God, and well prosecuted, shall advance to splendid triumph.2. That they are actuated by worthy motives in their undertakings. A sinful, selfish motive will vitiate our enterprises and mar our works. “The Lord looketh at the heart.” Let us scrutinise our motives.II. The place of this numbering. “In the wilderness of Sinai.”1. In a desert.(1) Privation.(2) Peril.(3) Perplexity.2. In a desert where the tabernacle of God was.III. The time of this numbering. Exactly one month after the setting up of the tabernacle (Ex 40:2; Ex 40:17) and about eleven months from the time of their arrival in the desert of Sinai. The people abode in this desert nearly a whole year (comp. Ex 19:1 with Num 1:1; Num 10:11). What was the reason of this protracted halt? That they might be instructed in their relations to God and to each other; that they might learn lessons of duty and worship; that they might be taught to reverence and obey God. There are times and circumstances in which standing still is the speediest advance.IV. THE MANNER OF THIS NUMBERING. They were to take account of--1. Only the males.2. Only the males above twenty years old.3. Only the males above twenty years old who were in vigorous health--“able to go forth to war.”4. They were to be numbered “after their families,” that it might be known of what tribe and of what particular house every able man was.5. The numbering was to be individual, and by name.The census was minute.(1) The Lord chooses fit instruments for the accomplishment of His purposes.(2) The Lord is perfectly acquainted with every one who is fitted for His work.V. The design of this numbering.1. The organisation of the army.2. To manifest the Divine faithfulness.3. To show the Divine power.4. To the promotion of order.5. To exhibit, on the coming of the Messiah, the correspondence of the event with the predictions concerning it.6. To illustrate the care of God for His people generally and particularly. The Lord’s care over His people is most minute and constant and tender. (W. Jones.)The numbered people:1. In common matters men count possessions, which are choice and dear and prized. They whose mean joys are fixed on this world’s pelf thus calculate their gold. Their coffers are oft opened. Do we, then indulge unfounded fancy when in God’s numbering we read God’s love? Do not clear characters here write that His people are thus numbered because loved--counted, because prized?2. Who are numbered? The young, the weak, the female, stand apart. None are enrolled but they whose age and strength enable them for war. Christ’s service is a mighty work, a determined fight. About a year has passed since the last numbering of this family. The Levites then formed part of the collected mass. They are not now included. They stand apart, a separate portion. But mark a wondrous fact. The number then and now amounts exactly to the same. Israel has surrendered Levi’s tribe, but Israel’s forces are not thereby less. We never lose by giving to the Lord.3. Once more survey the numbered people. You are inclined to say this band will safely reach the promised land. Surely their willing steps will ever run in the appointed way. Alas! two, and two only, steadfastly adhere. Ah, unbelief! It is the sin of sins, the misery of miseries, the hopeless malady, the death of souls, the bar which shuts out Christ. (Dean Law.)Counting mercies and days:We may again learn of these gracious numberings of His people to number often with ourselves His mercies vouchsafed unto us, that we may send up thankful thoughts to His majesty for them. Such an holy numbering used Jacob when he said, “O Lord, with my staff came I over this river, and now I return with much wealth.” How many great men, of all callings, may thus number God’s favour towards them since their first beginning, in cities and towns, where little stocks have grown to great sums. What a fit meditation is this? and how shall the Lord like this kind of numbering? We may also remember what the Psalm says, and learn to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. But you may say this numbering was restrained to the Jews, and even so was God’s love, in some sort, for a time. But when Christ came, then there went out a decree from Augustus Caesar that all the world should be taxed, which could not be without numbering of them. And therefore by Christ the partition-wall is broken down, and the comforts of God’s numbering of them imparted to us, and to be approved by us to our joy, praying with him that so prayed, “Grant, good Lord, that in Thy numberings of Thy people I may be ever one.” (Bp. Babington.)The census paper:The census paper may be, by God’s blessing, the means of bringing home some very telling facts. You, who are going to sign it, are ten years older than when last a similar paper lay before you. Ten years gone! gone for ever! Is not this something to make you thoughtful? The census papers will show what increase and progress has been made throughout the country. Mark this. There is no idea of failure or decrease. Can you show marks of Christian progress as clear? Whether you have prospered in your everyday work or not, enjoyed health and happiness, or had to bear sickness, disappointment, and even bereavement--in any case have you, as if forgetful of the past, still kept “pressing forward” for the prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus? Is there no decrease, no failure? You will write down your Christian name, condition, and profession. Your Christian name! Many a man’s name is his character. There are names which in every rank, profession, business, and trade, are coupled with skill, courage, honesty, and truth: their names are, as it were, registered in the book of greatness. There is a book in which the names of Christians are registered (Php 4:3). Is your Christian name entered there? Does your Christian name suggest before God and His angels, to your neighbour, and yourself, a Christian character. Perhaps your condition has not altered. You are still what you were ten years ago: Have all who are under your roof learnt to see in you a kind friend, a good father or mother, a forbearing master or mistress, a steward conscious that you must give account to God of the duties and responsibilities of your trust? Perhaps it has altered. You have married, and children have been granted to you. Have you been, and are you, a true Christian parent, caring for the souls of your children as well as their bodies, training them by your words and example for Heaven? Or, perhaps, the last ten years have been full of sadness to you. You are now a widow or widower, an orphan, or childless, a lone being. Have you learnt, though the heart was torn, to look up to the Father in heaven who chastens with suffering all whom He loves? And does the question the census paper asks you about your profession suggest no similar question about your Christian profession? Are you careful never to say or do anything which will bring discredit upon that profession? Do you watch the thoughts of your heart, that nothing base, or impure, or careless, shall enter in to dwell there? In the Book of the Revelation, Christians are taught that “all, small and great, shall stand before God and be judged out of those things written in the books, according to their works.” Then will be the great census; the names, ages, conditions, and professions of all will be known.Able to go forth to war.The lawfulness of warI. This teacheth us that A godly man may lawfully be a warrior. If war were not in itself lawful, God would never have a muster taken of such as are able to bear arms. True, every good profession may be abused. Abraham is said to be the father of the faithful, yet he made war, and overthrew the enemies that had spoiled Sodom, and carried away the riches of it as a prey, and was not reproved of Melchizedeck, the priest of the living God, but refreshed together with his army. The like we might say of Moses, Joshua, the Judges, and other godly kings, who fought many battles by the commandment of the Lord. When the soldiers heard the preaching of John, the forerunner of Christ, they asked him what they must do; he did not dissuade them from war, but gave them directions how to behave themselves in that honourable profession. Neither did Peter, being sent for to come to Cornelius, command him to follow a new trade of life. Neither did Paul persuade Sergius Paulus, the deputy, a prudent man, to renounce that calling, which no doubt they would have done if the profession of chivalry had not stood with the profession of Christianity.II. The reasons to confirm this truth.1. God doth command it, and therefore doth allow it as just and lawful.2. As God gave direct commandment, so the people of God going forth to battle were to call upon Him for a blessing, and to sanctify the work by prayer, and in doing so have been heard. Things in their own nature unlawful are so filthy that no invocation of God’s name can cleanse them; nay, they make such prayer foul and abominable. Seeing, therefore, God blesseth and delivereth such as go to war, it must needs follow that war and true religion may well stand together, so that one and the same man may be both a warrior and yet religious. (W. Attersoll.)Able to fight:Then there were some who were not able. There were some who were not designed for military pursuits. The Lord would say here: Examine the people; go carefully over them as to force, capacity, and providential destiny, and arrange that those who are able to go forth to war in Israel may be ready. There is always that wonderful other side. The Lord does not pour contempt upon men who cannot fight. He knows what they can do, and He will bless them if they keep within their capacity and their Divine call. Each man’s business should be to inquire, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? am I a soldier, a leader, a sailor? am I a home-keeper? am I intended for obscurity? am I to be written down amongst Thy feeble ones? Thy will be done. Nor let us limit this word “soldier” to what we understand commonly by war. Let us get away from these narrow limitations and look at life largely. The fact is that life itself is war. You cannot get away from strife. You cannot get away from it in business; you found it in the nursery before you found it in the market-place. The Church is a battlefield. What, then, is to be done? Everything depends upon the spirit in which the strife is urged. We may go forth to good wars with an evil intent. Or we may take it good-heartedly, with a great rising of gladness within the soul, saying, “This is Thy way, Lord, that we are to be made strong by fight; we begin by conflict, we are not to have our own way in the world; but give us the good spirit, loving, magnanimous.” The great fight is within. If you are a living man, you are at war with yourself. Even supposing all your friends and enemies were at one with you, there would be a great war in the soul. You must do the evil deed. Yet you do not want to do it; you dare not speak about it; the war is secret, silent, profound, vital. God give you strength! You may overcome yet. Life is not only a war, but the war may be conducted under the very presence and with the very blessing of Christ. Whoso goes forth to war in that power comes back at eventide more than the conqueror. The text reads as if it were a direction in statistics. We cannot exclude the element of statistics from spiritual aggression and spiritual defence. How strong is God’s army in numbers? “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing,” saith the wise book; and God conceals from us the exact numerical strength of His army. The statistics of the army are kept in heaven. What if it should turn out that a little child’s little finger-has won more victories than all the embattled hosts that went forth in mail? What we have to do is for each man to do his own share of the war, fight as if everything depended upon him. Christianity is the military religion. It will fight; it was born to fight. Christianity is dead against all evil. Not against great vulgar crimes only; there is not a magistrate on the bench who does not delight to punish crime. Crime is overt, external, rough, vulgar, and men are paid to sentence it to hard labour. Christianity deals with the spring, with the deceitful heart. Christianity is at war with motive, purpose, thought, intention of the heart. Therefore much of its war is done silently. It is not therefore the less vital and the less tremendous. Christianity insists that we shall fight evil spirits. It is soul against soul, spirit against spirit, thought against thought. There is no tragedy so sublime, so overwhelming, as the fight between the soul and the devil. Do not expect to win all at once. You are winning a little every day. Whatever fight you are waging you believe to be good, the mere fighting of the battle makes you stronger; you may he driven back for a little time, but you will come up again. Only, in God’s name, for Christ’s sake, do not lose your heart, or you will lose yourself. Let there be no doubt as to which side you are upon. People who are going between this side and that vide will be of no use in the fight and no use in the council. Let us have detiniteness of position. Let us have a clear, simple, honest profession of religion. Nor let any soul be discouraged because it cannot do much in the way of public battle. Some conquer by patience. Patience!--who can write the history of that great conqueror? Patience, that hardly sighs; patience, that scarcely ever turns its eyes to the clock to see how the weary time is going; patience, that puts the best view upon every case; patience, that sits up for the wanderer, though midnight be passed, saying all the while, that it really did not want to sleep; it is the inner interpretation of things; it is God’s view of life; it is love at its best. You are not doing much public fighting mayhap, but let me tell you what you are doing--you are succouring the soldiers that are out in the field; you spake so kindly to the good man when he left home in the morning that he went out as strong as ten men. And you are but some poor obscure servitor; your place is in the kitchen; you do what are called the humbler duties of life, but you make the whole house glad. You make the man of business go forth a happier and stronger man in the morning because of your simplicity and faithfulness and daily care. Understand that whoever gives one of Christ’s soldiers a cup of cold water with a loving hand and a loving glance wins part of the victory. (J. Parker, D. D.)Our duty to the stateHe is not worthy to be a member of a state, by whom the state is no whir bettered. The Romans well understood this, when they instituted their censors, to inquire into every man’s course of life, and to note them, carbone nigro, with a character of infamy, that could not give some good account of their life. It is a thing pitiful to consider how many there are in this land of ours whose glory is their shame, the very drones and cumber-grounds of their country, the chronicle of whose life was long since summed up by the poet, Nos numerus sumus et fruges consumere nati; no better than ciphers if you respect the good they do. But let them know that God will have no mutes in His grammar, no blanks in His almanack, no dumb shows on His stage, no false lights in His house, no loiterers in His vineyard. (J. Spencer.)Numbers 1:4-16A man of every tribe: every one head of the house of his fathers. Bank and serviceI. Co-operation in divine service.1. The toil of Moses and Aaron would be lessened.2. The accomplishment of the task would be facilitated.3. The envy of the princes would be prevented. Grumblers are seldom found among the workers of the Church.II. Society’s need of leaders.1. Because they are at present indispensable to social order and progress. Certain objects of utmost importance to society cannot possibly be attained without cohesion of purpose and effort on the part of a large number of men, and such cohesion is impossible without leaders. “Amongst the masses,” says Guizot, “even in revolutions, aristocracy must ever exist; destroy it in nobility, and it becomes centred in the rich and powerful Houses of the Commons. Pull them down, and it still survives in the master and foreman of the workshop.”2. Because of the differences in the faculties of men. These men were “princes” from, the nobility of their birth: and they were probably men distinguished also for their abilities. “We must have kings,” says Emerson, “we must have nobles; nature is always providing such in every society; only let us have the real instead of the titular. In every society, some are born to rule, and some to advise. The chief is the chief all the world over, only not his cap and plume. It is only this dislike of the pretender which makes men sometimes unjust to the true and finished man.”III. The grand characteristic of true leaders. They are pre-eminent in service. (W Jones.)These are the names of the men.--The Lord knows the number and the names of all who belong to HimAs this book of Moses beareth the title of Numbers, so a great part of it is spent in numbering of the people, to assure us that God hath numbered those that are His, and none escape His knowledge or sight. The Lord knoweth perfectly who they are that are His, both what their numbers and what their names are (1Ki 19:10; 1Ki 19:18; Rom 11:3-4; Psa 147:5; Isa 40:26). The reasons are not hard to be gathered.1. The knowledge of God is so exact and perfect that most secret things are known and the smallest are regarded of Him.2. Christ Jesus setteth forth Himself as the true Shepherd of His sheep. A shepherd knoweth his own sheep.3. All His people are evermore present with Him, wheresoever they be; yea, albeit they be absent from Him.Uses:1. This giveth singular comfort to all God’s children, if anything else be able to minister them comfort. If an earthly prince should vouchsafe to look upon us, and single us out from the rest, and call us by our names, how would we rejoice, and how much would we esteem that the king would stoop so low as to know us? Do we live as contemptible persons to the men of this world? and will they not once vouchsafe to know us? Let not this trouble us, we cannot sink down in destruction; but rather let us lift up our heads, assuring ourselves that albeit they turn themselves from us, yet God looketh upon us: and though they seek to root out our names from the earth, yet He will know us and call us by our names.2. We may gather from hence the wretched state of all the ungodly. For as it is a great part of the comfort of all God’s children that He will know them; who, as they have a regard to know God in this life, to know Him in His word and other means appointed for their salvation, so shall they be known of God in His kingdom, and acknowledged before the angels in heaven: so this is not the least of the misery belonging unto all that work iniquity, that God will not know them. Though He know them by the general knowledge of His power and providence, yet He will not see them with the eye of His pity, nor touch them with the hand of His favour, nor hear them with the ear of His bounty, nor speak unto them with the mouth of His goodness, nor compass them with the arm of His protection, nor come unto them with the feet of His presence, nor behold them with the face and countenance of His lovingkindness. Can there be a more miserable condition described and felt than this is?3. Seeing all that are God’s are numbered of Him, and have their names written in His book, this serveth to seal up the assurance of our salvation and election to eternal life (2Ti 2:19).4. Seeing the Lord knoweth us, it is our duty also to seek to know Him in all love and obedience. We must all of us begin to know Him here in this life, that we may know Him perfectly in the life to come. Here we must see Him as it were through a glass darkly, that hereafter we may see Him face to face fully. If we do not know Him in His word and sacraments, we shall never know Him in His kingdom. This knowledge of God necessarily required of us consisteth in these points following--(1) We must confess Him to be the Sovereign and Highest Good, in comparison of whom all things are reputed as nothing, being as dross and nothing to be desired with Him.(2) It behoveth us to depend upon Him, and to put our whole trust in Him alone, not in any man or angel: for then we make flesh our strength, and so lean upon a broken staff that cannot stay us, but will deceive us.(3) We must draw near unto Him in time of need, as to the fountain of all goodness, with all reverence and humility craving all things of Him by hearty and fervent prayer. If we call upon Him, He hath promised to reveal Himself unto us.(4) We must give Him thanks for all blessings received from Him, not only in prosperity, but in adversity.(5) We must seek the knowledge of His ways and word, and increase in the knowledge thereof, which bringeth us to eternal life. As we grow forward in knowledge, so we grow forward unto life: and when our knowledge shall be perfected, then our life shall be perfected in the next world. Lastly, we must yield obedience unto Him and His word. (W. Attersoll.)God’s knowledge of His peopleI. The great truth here implied. God knows His people individually and altogether.1. This is philosophical. If God is infinite, He must know all things. Nothing can be so great as to surpass His comprehension; nothing so small as to escape His notice.2. This is Scriptural. (1Ki 19:14-18; Psa 1:6; Psa 56:8; Psa 147:3-4; Isa 40:26-31; Mal 3:16-17; Mat 6:25-34; Mat 10:29-30; Joh 10:3; Joh 10:14; Joh 10:27; Php 4:3; 2Ti 2:19; Rev 3:5; Rev 21:27).II. The practical bearings of this great truth.1. To restrain from sin.2. To promote sincerity of life.3. To promote humility.4. To quicken reverence towards God.5. To comfort the godly under reverses. (W. Jones.)They declared their pedigrees.--The pedigree declared“Can I declare my pedigree?” It is greatly to be feared there are hundreds, if not thousands, of professing Christians who are wholly incompetent to do so. They cannot say with clearness and decision, “Now are we the sons of God” (1Jn 3:2). “Ye are all the children of God,” &c. “And if ye are Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed,” &c. (Gal 3:26; Gal 3:29). “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” &c. (Rom 8:14; Rom 8:16). This is the Christian’s “pedigree,” and it is his privilege to be able to “declare” it (cf. Joh 3:5; Jam 1:18; 1Pe 1:23; Eph 5:26). The believer traces his pedigree directly up to a risen Christ in glory. His genealogical tree strikes its roots into the soil of the new creation. Death can never break the line, inasmuch as it is formed in resurrection. We can easily see, from this chapter, how essential it was that every member of the congregation of Israel should be able to declare his pedigree. Uncertainty on this point would have proved disastrous; it would have produced hopeless confusion. We can hardly imagine an Israelite, when called to declare his pedigree, expressing himself in the doubtful manner adopted by many Christians nowadays. We cannot conceive his saying, “Well, I am not quite sure. Sometimes I cherish the hope that I am of the stock of Israel; but at other times I am full of fear that I do not belong to the congregation of the Lord at all. I am all in uncertainty and darkness.” Much less could we imagine any one maintaining the monstrous notion that no one could possibly be sure as to whether he was a true Israelite or not until the day of judgment. Now, may we not legitimately ask, “If a Jew could be certain as to his pedigree, why may not a Christian be certain as to his?” We would urge this point at the outset. It is impossible for any one to recognise and rally round the proper “standard” unless he can declare his “pedigree.” Progress in wilderness life--success in spiritual warfare, is out of the question if there be any uncertainty as to the spiritual pedigree. We must be able to say, “We know that we have passed from death unto life,” “We believe and are sure,” ere there can be any real advance in the life and walk of a Christian. We do not mean to say you cannot be saved without this. God forbid we should say any such thing. But we ask, Are such able to go forth to war? They cannot even know what true conflict is; on the contrary, persons of this class mistake their doubts and fears, their dark and cloudy seasons, for true Christian conflict. It is when we stand in the clear daylight of God’s full salvation--salvation in a risen Christ--that we really enter upon the warfare proper to us as Christians. (C. H. Mackintosh.)An honest pedigree:Dr. Livingstone, the famous explorer, was descended from the Highlanders, and he said that one of his ancestors, one of the Highlanders, one day called his family around him. The Highlander was dying; he had his children around his death-bed. He said, “Now, my lads, I have looked all through our history as far back as I can find it, and I have never found a dishonest man in all the line, and I want you to understand you inherit good blood. You have no excuse for doing wrong. My lads, be honest.”Numbers 1:20-46Those that were numbered.The first army of Israel, an illustration of the Church militantI. The necessity of this army. The Church must be militant.1. Internal foes have to be conquered. Carnal appetites, evil passions, &c.2. External foes have to be conquered. Ignorance and superstition, immorality and irreligion, dirt and disease, vice and crime.II. The authority for organising this army. God’s command.III. The composition of this army.1. Israelites only. Thoroughly decided Christians are needed now.2. Able men only. Christ gives strength even to the weak and timid.3. All the able men. None exempt. We must either vanquish our spiritual enemies, or they will vanquish us. Neutrality is out of the question here. Neither can we do our fighting by proxy.IV. The conquering spirit of this army. When our faith in God is strong, we are invincible. When it fails, we are overthrown by the first assault of the enemy. True faith gives glorious visions to the spirit, inspires us with heroic courage, girds us with all-sufficient strength. Conclusion--1. A call to decision. “Who is on the Lord’s side?”2. A call to courage. Our arms are tried and true; our great Leader is invincible; let us then “be strong and of a good courage.”3. A call to confidence. Our courage, to be true, must spring from faith, By trust we triumph. (W. Jones.)The necessity of war:I believe in war. I believe there are times when it must be taken. I believe in it as a medicine. Medicine is not good to eat, but when you are sick it is good to take. War is not a part of the gospel; but while men and the world are travelling on a plain where they are not capable of comprehending the gospel, a rude form of justice is indispensable, though it is very low down. If you go to a plain still higher, war seems to be a very poor instrumentality. And if you go yet higher and higher till you reach that sphere where the crowned Sufferer stands, how hideous war seems! ]n the earlier periods of society it is recognised as having a certain value; but its value is the very lowest, and at every step upward, till you come to this central Divine exhibition, it loses in value. Always it is a rude and uncertain police of nations. It is never good. It is simply better than something worse. Physical force is the alternative of moral influence; if you have not one, you must have the other. (H. W. Beecher.)Numbers 1:47-54The Levites . . . were not numbered. The Levites and their service an illustration of the Christian ministryThe Levites were exempted from military service, and set apart for the service of the tabernacle. In any wise arrangement of the affairs of human society provision will be made for the requirements of the spiritual nature of man.I. The true christian minister should manifest some fitness for the work before he is designated thereto. In determining the trade which their sons shall learn, wise parents will consider their respective inclinations and aptitudes. An artist would perhaps make a poor minister; a successful merchant might utterly fail as a barrister. Is there less aptitude required in the work of the gospel ministry than in the other pursuits of life? Adaptation of voice, of mind, of character, &c.II. The true christian minister is called of God to his work.III. The work of the christian minister demands his entire devotion thereto.IV. A faithful discharge of the duties of the christian minister is essential to the well-being of society.V. Personal holiness of heart and life are essential to the faithful discharge of the duties of the christian ministry. Levites separated from other tribes for sacred work. Their outward separation intended to show separation from worldliness and sin. They who have to do with holy things should themselves be holy. (W. Jones.)The Levites not numbered:We shall see them afterward numbered by themselves, but they were not put in the common reckoning, because God had chosen them to be His possession, and separated them from the rest of the people. And lest any man should think that Moses did ambitiously prefer the tribe of Levi, whereof himself descended, he showeth he did it not of his own head, but by the special commandment of God. Their office is declared--to take the charge of the Tabernacle and worship of God, that when they were to take their journey they should carry it, and when they were to stay and pitch their tents they should set it down and look to it with all diligence. And as God would not have them encumbered in affairs unproper to them and impertinent to their calling, so He would not have others that were not of their tribe and family to break into their function, as it were to invade another man’s possession; nay, He denounceth death to such as were strangers from that tribe that should presume to meddle with those holy things, or set their hands unto them. An example hereof we have in Uzzah (2Sa 6:1-23.).. We learn from hence that it is the duty of the ministers of God’s Word to exercise themselves only in things of their calling; they must wait upon the office to which they are appointed. They are not to be distracted from their calling by worldly matters that no way belong unto them (Num 3:6-7). And doubtless it is great reason that they should content themselves with their own callings, that so they may please Him that hath called them, and forego all that may disturb them in the course whereunto they ought to tend. We must be like soldiers that are called to bear arms. The reason and comparison is pressed by the apostle to this purpose (2Ti 2:3-4). Secondly, the multitude is great, and the difficulty much of those things which are required of the minister, belonging rightly and duly to his calling, in regard whereof we may say (2Co 2:16). Were that a wise servant, who having both his hands fall, and more than he can well do, should, besides his master’s work, undertake a new and another burden of some other man’s business, which of right doth not belong unto him? (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 2Numbers 2:1-2Pitch by his own standard.The marshalling of Israel, and its lessonsI. They all dwelt in tents; and when they marched carried all their tents along with them (Psa 107:4). This represents to us our state in this world.1. It is a movable state; here to-day and gone to-morrow.2. It is a military state; is not our life a warfare?II. Those of a tribe were to pitch together, every man by his own standard. It is the will of God that mutual love and affection, conerse and communion, should be kept up among relations. Those that are of kin to each other should, as much as they can, be acquainted with each other, and the bonds of nature should be improved for the strengthening of the bends of Christian communion.III. Every one must know his place, and keep in it. They were not allowed to fix where they pleased, nor to remove when they pleased; but God quarters them, with a charge to abide in their quarters. It is God that appoints us the bounds of our habitation, and to Him we must refer ourselves (Psa 47:4); and in His choice we must acquiesce, and not love to flit, nor be as the bird that wanders from her nest.IV. Every tribe had its standard, flag, or ensign, and it should seem every family had some particular ensign of their father’s house, which were carried, as with us the colours of each company in a regiment are. These were of use for the distinction of tribes and families, and the gathering and keeping of them together; in allusion to which the preaching of the gospel is said to lift up an ensign, to which the Gentiles shall seek, and by which they shall pitch (Isa 11:10; Isa 11:12). God is the God of order, and not of confusion. These standards made this mighty army seem more beautiful to its friends, and more formidable to its enemies. The Church of Christ is said to be as terrible as an army with banners (Son 6:10).V. They were to pitch about the tabernacle, which was to be in the midst of them, as the tent or pavilion of a general in the centre of an army. They must encamp round the tabernacle--1. That it might be equally a comfort and joy to them all, as it was a token of God’s gracious presence with them (Psa 46:5). The tabernacle was in the midst of the camp, that it might be near to them; for it is a very desirable thing to have the solemn administration of holy ordinances near us, and within our reach. The kingdom of God is among you.2. That they might be a guard and defence upon the tabernacle and the Levites on every side. No invader could come near God’s tabernacle, but he must first penetrate the thickest of their squadrons. If God undertake the protection of our comforts, we ought in our places to undertake the protection of His institutions, and stand up in defence of His honour, and interest, and ministers.VI. Yet they were to pitch afar off, in reverence to the sanctuary, that it might not seem crowded and thrust up among them; and that the common business of the camp might be no annoyance to it. They were also taught to keep their distance, lest too much familiarity should breed contempt. But we are not ordered, as they were, to pitch afar off; no, we are invited to draw near, and come boldly. The saints of the Most High are said to be round about Him (Psa 76:12). God by His grace keeps us close to Him. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Israel typical of the Christian Church: -I. The one israel.1. Their real oneness of descent. The children of Abraham.2. Their original condition. All bondsmen.3. Their Divine deliverance. Brought out of Egypt, &c.4. In one Divine covenant. Promises, &c.5. Journeying to the one inheritance.6. Under one command.See how this all applies to the Church of the Saviour. All the children of God by faith, all heirs, all pilgrims, all of one covenant, one Saviour, &c.essentially one; one in Christ Jesus.II. The various tribes.1. Their different names. Necessary for distinction--recognition.2. Their different positions in the camp. See next chapter. East side, Num 2:3; south side, Num 2:10; west, Num 2:18; north, Num 2:25.3. The various tribes were in one general accord and union. All one religious confederacy, absolutely one, worship one, &c.; in perils one, in warfare one, in prospects one.III. The special directions to the different tribes.1. Each tribe had their own standard or banner to distinguish it from the rest. No order without.2. Each man was to be by his own standard. Not a wanderer; not a visitor to all; but his own fixed, legitimate position.3. Thus the duties of every tribe would be regarded and fulfilled.4. Thus the interests of all would be sustained.IV. Spiritual lessons.1. We see now the denominational tribes in the kingdom of Christ. Christians of different conditions, education, training, leaders, &c.2. Christians have a special interest in their own camp.3. To devote themselves to these is the first duty and privilege. Just as families are constituted, so churches.4. All the various denominational camps constitute the one Church of the Saviour. Only one Israel, one body, one army, &c. For particular purposes, every man by his own camp; for general purposes, all acting in conjunction and harmony. (J. Burns, D. D.)The marshalling of the people: -I. Order.1. God Himself delights in order.2. The importance of order is recognised in human affairs.3. This order was probably divinely institated as a means to peace and unity.II. Variety. Each camp had its own characteristic standard. And each tribe and each father’s house had its own distinctive ensign. Monotony is not a mark of divinity. Variety characterises the works of God, Countries differ in their climates, conformations, productions, &c. The features of landscapes differ. Trees, flowers, faces, minds differ. With one spirit there may be many forms.III. Unity. All the tribes were gathered “about the tabernacle of the congregation,” as around a common centre. They had different standards, but constituted one nation.1. The dependence of all on God. All the tribes looked to Him for support, provision, protection, direction, &c.2. The access of all to God. The tabernacle was the sign of the presence of God with them.3. The reverence of all towards God. They were to pitch “over against the tabernacle.” Probably the tribes were two thousand cubits from it. Cf. Jos 3:4. They were thus to encamp around the sacred place, that no stranger might draw near to it; and the Levites were to encamp near the tabernacle on every side, that the people themselves might not draw too near to it, but might be taught to regard it with respect and reverence.IV. Security. The tabernacle of God in the midst of the camp was a guarantee of their safety. His presence in their midst would tend to--1. Quell their fears. He had wrought marvellous things on their behalf in the past: He was ever doing great things for them. Then why should they quail before any danger or enemy?2. Inspire their confidence and courage. It should have given to them the assurance of victory in conflict, &c. (Num 10:35-36). Distance from God is weakness and peril to His Church.Nearness to Him is safety and power. Living in vital union with Him all-conquering might is ours. Conclusion--1. Learn sincerely and heartily to recognise as members of the Christian Israel all who have the Christian spirit, however widely they may differ from us in forms and opinions.2. Think less of our isms and more of Christ’s Church; less of theological and ecclesiastical systems, and more of Christ’s gospel; less of human authority and patronage, and more of the Lord Jesus Christ. (W. Jones.)Why God assigns to every tribe his place and order:The causes of this dealing of God toward His people are three: one in respect of Himself, another in respect of Israel, the third in regard of the enemies of them both, of God and His people.1. The cause respecting God is, that they and all other might see what a wise God they serve. If they, professing the knowledge and service of the true God, had wandered up and down in the wild and waste wilderness, in such troops of men, in a confused manner, not knowing who should go before, nor regarding who should follow after, the name of God would have been dishonoured, His wisdom impaired, and His glory diminished. He leaveth them not to themselves, but assigneth to each tribe his proper mansion, to take away from them all confusion, and to cut off all matter of contention. For except He had established as by a law the order that should be observed among them, and thereby decided all questions that might arise touching priority, many hurly-burlies and heart-burnings would be entertained, and part-takings would be nourished; which being kindled at the first as a little spark of fire, would afterwards break out into such a flame as would spread further, and in the end hardly be quenched.2. They are mustered and marshalled into an exact and exquisite order, to dismay and terrify their enemies, as also to confirm and encourage their own hearts. Great is the force of unity, peace, and concord. One man serveth to strengthen and establish another, like many staves bound together in one. Many sticks or staves joined in one bundle are not easily broken; but sever them and pull them asunder, they are soon broken with little strength. Thus the case standeth in all societies, whether it be in the Church or Commonwealth, or in the private family. If our hearts be thoroughly united one to another, we need not fear what man can do unto us; but if we be at war between ourselves, we lie open to our enemies to work us indignity whatsoever. (W. Attersoll.)God’s delight in order: -1. God is the God of order, not of confusion. As He hath order in Himself, so He commandeth and commendeth an order to be used of us.2. All wise men will order their affairs with wisdom and discretion, and will dispose of them with seemliness and comeliness. An expert captain that goeth against his enemies will keep his soldiers in good array, whether he march or retire. If he fly out of the field out of order one is ready to overthrow another, and all are left to the mercy of his adversary.3. The Church is not a confused multitude shuffled together, where no man knoweth his place or his office, and one encroacheth upon another; but it is the house of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. Now in a house well ordered is to be seen the master as the ruler, and the family subject to his government, every one employing his proper gifts, and no man usurping the place and calling of another. If this be to be seen in our private houses, how much more must we conceive this of the Church of God, which is the house that He hath builded, the mountain of the Lord which He hath prepared, and the peculiar people which He hath chosen?Uses:1. Learn from hence to acknowledge an exquisite order in all God’s words and works above and beneath, in heaven and on earth.2. This reproveth such as know no order, but bring in all confusion and disorder in Church or commonwealth; these have nothing to do with God, but are the children of the devil, that hath transformed them into his image and likeness. For from whence are seditions and confusions but from our own lusts, enflamed and kindled from his furnace?3. Seeing God requireth orderly observation of His ordinances, we learn this duty, that we must be careful to observe it and practise it with a due regard of His commandment. This is the general rule that the apostle commendeth unto us (1Co 14:1-40). (W. Attersoll.)Divine appointments: The camp of Judah was to set forth first, the camp of Reuben was to set forth in the second rank, the camp of Ephraim was to go forward in the third rank, the camp of Dan was to go hindmost with their standards. Judah first, Reuben second, Ephraim third; these terms are arithmetical and may be accepted without murmuring; but the next term is more than arithmetical--the camp of Dan “hindmost.” That seems to be a word of inferiority and of rebuke. Had the numbers been--first, second, third, fourth, the arithmetic would have been complete; but to be hindmost is to be further behind than to be merely fourth; it is to have the position marked so broadly as almost to amount to a brand of tribal degradation. Faith in the Divine appointment could alone secure religious contentment under such circumstances. This is as necessary to-day, in view of the distribution of men, with their various gifts and their endlessly varied vocations. What is the astronomical force that so whirls society around an invisible centre as to sink the mountains into plains and lift up the valleys to a common level? Order is but another word for purpose, or another word for mind. This mechanism was not self-invented or self-regulated; behind this military table of position and movement is the God of the whole universe. It requires the whole Trinity to sustain the tiny insect that trembles out its little life in the dying sunbeam; even that frail heart does not throb by having some small portion of the Divine energy detached to attend to its affairs. Dan was to go hindmost. The hindmost position has its advantages. It is a rule in the higher criticism that a critic on looking at a picture shall first look for its beauties. We ought, surely, to look so upon the picture of Providence, the map of human life, the marvellous academy of society. The greater the statesman, the greater the responsibility he has to sustain; the greater the genius, the more poignant its occasional agonies; the more sensitive the nature, the more is every wound felt, the more is every concussion regarded with fear. The foremost soldiers will be in battle first; we who are hindmost may have only to shout the hosanna of victory. This age is the hindmost in procession of time; is it therefore the inferior age? The nineteenth century comes after all the eighteen; but it therefore comes on the firmer ground, with the larger civilisation, with the ampler library, with the more extended resources; it comes with a thousand-handed ability because it is the hindmost of the days. Take this view of all circumstances, and life will become a joy where it has long been a pain; our very disqualifications in one direction may become qualifications in another. In the Old Testament and in the New Testament there was some regard to specialty of gift, to definiteness of position; having lost that regard we have lost power. You do not say the clock is an excellent timekeeper, but no use at all as a musical instrument. You do not take up a trumpet and say, a finer instrument was never made to call men to feast or to battle, but it is utterly useless if you want it to tell you the time of day. Every man in his own place, in his sphere. The great question is not in what regiment we are, but rather, are we in the army of Christ--whether with Judah first, with Reuben second, with Ephraim third, or with Dan the hindmost tribe? To be in the army is the great consideration. (J. Parker, D. D.)Satisfied with one’s own position:Many would do well to learn the lesson taught in an old parable. “I don’t know,” said the turnstile one day, in a reflective mood, “I don’t know that I ought to have thought so ill of my lot, and to have fretted over it as I have done. ‘Tis true a turnstile has plenty of worry, as I have truly proved; worry and whirl all the day long I Nobody will ever pass without giving a turnstile a swing round; and whoever returns, ten to one but he gives the turnstile a whirling twist the other way! Indeed, I have said that I wouldn’t wish to any one, whether friend or foe, the life of a poor turnstile. No. But then, as that old wheel of the waggon said yesterday, mine’s a pleasant life and a favoured lot compared with his. If I have to turn round, he has the same; and whilst he has the burden of the cart, there is beside the weight of the load it carries pressing on him, and I have no encumbrances. So, on the whole, perhaps I’d better try and be satisfied; that is, as satisfied as I can afford to be, with so many turns about as must in my situation naturally come to my lot.” (Biblical Museum.)The camp: -1. The tents. They stand to-day; to-morrow sees the cords relaxed, the fastenings removed, and a vacant place. My soul, from Israel’s tents you learn how fleeting is life’s day! Press then the question, When I go hence, is an abiding mansion mine?2. The order. Let Israel’s camp be now more closely scanned. What perfect regularity appears! Rule draws each line. Our God delights in order. Is it not so in every Christian heart? When Jesus takes the throne, wise rule prevails. Disturbing lusts lie down. Is it not so in Christian life? There is no tangled labyrinth of plans--no misspent diligence--no toll without a purpose.3. The position. All these tents share one grand privilege. They all have common focus. As the planets circle the sun, so these surround the sanctuary. God is the centre. They form the wide circumference. And from each door one sight--the holy tent--is visible. God in Christ Jesus is the centre, the heart, the life, the strength, the shield, the joy of His believing flock.4. The standard. A standard floats above each tribe. Beneath the well-known sign they rest, and by its side they march. Believers have an ensign too. The banner over them is Jesu’s love (Solomon Son 2:4). The standard is a pledge of safety. Beneath it there is sweet repose. Beside it there is misery. (Dean Law.)The most prominent banner:It is narrated that when, in the time of the Crusades, the lion-hearted Richard I. of England, the Emperor of Austria, and the King of France were jointly waging war against the valiant heathen, Saladin, a jealousy sprang up in the camp between England and Austria, and one morning the British banner was found lying in the dust on St. George’s Mount--a distinguished point on which it had long waved--and the banner of Austria was planted in its stead; impetuous Richard, who was confined to his tent through severe illness, no sooner heard of it than he strode forth alone, and before the assembled hosts hurled Austria’s ensign to the ground, and caused the lion once more to take the prominence, remarking, “Your banners may be arranged around mine, but must never take its place.” So may it be in our preaching. Let the Lion of the tribe of Judah alone have the prominence. (C. H. Spurgeon.)God the centre:For more than fifty centuries men watched the starlit sky, noted the changes of the planets, and endeavoured to discover the laws which governed their movements; they took careful observations, made elaborate calculations, and yet the law of the harmony of the heavens remained a mystery. The stars were still supposed to follow fantastic circles which no rule of science could explain: their orbits formed a labyrinth of which the most learned failed to find the clue. One day a man of genius said, “The sun, and not the earth, is the centre from which the worlds must be regarded.” At once the harmony appeared; planets and their satellites moved in regular orbits; the system of the universe was revealed. God is the sun and the true centre of the spiritual world; only in the light in which He dwells can the destinies of man be truly read. (Eugene Bersier.)Effectiveness of unity:Pliny writes of a stone in the island of Scyros, that if it be whole, though a large and heavy one, it swims above water, but being broken it sinks. So long as the Church keeps together nothing can sink it. “A thousand grains of powder, or a thousand barrels scattered, a grain in a place, and fired at intervals, would burn, it is true, but would produce no concussion. Placed together in effective position they would lift up a mountain and cast it into the sea. Even so the whole Church, filled with faith and the Holy Ghost, will remove every mountain and usher in the jubilee of the redemption.”Lessons from our national bannerWhen the Union Jack flies to the breeze the meaning is that what is under it is British property, and is a sort of challenge to touch that property. Every country had a flag. In old times very little did for a flag. One great nation had simply a wisp of straw on a pole, and another power in the East had but a blacksmith’s apron. The Union Jack was their flag, and its composition was very simple. It was not made at all; like all the best things in this world, it grew. At first, in the thirteenth century, there was nothing but a single cross-one straight horizontal line and another perpendicular line. That was the cross of St. George, and it was introduced by Richard of the Lion-heart on his return from the Crusades. When away fighting in Palestine he came to know about St. George, whom he installed as his patron saint, took for his battle cry, and emblazoned on his flag. When England and Scotland were united under James I. of England, that monarch added the Scottish cross, and called the flag the Union Jack. That was his own name, as he usually signed it in the French way, Jacques. Two centuries later the Irish flag was placed on the top of the other two. The Union Jack was thus made up of three crosses, each being laid on the top of the other as each country came into the Union. These were the emblems of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick--the patron saints of the three countries. First, there was St. George. “George” originally meant a cultivated piece of ground, and parents in thus christening their children meant to say, “Would that God would make this little boy a garden of God!” They could desire nothing better than to be gardens of God. They must be gardens--they must allow themselves to be sown in--and they had to in their choice either to produce good or evil. Every good thought was a good seed. Now let us think a little about St. Andrew. There never was a live apostle in Scotland, but some one thought the bones of St. Andrew would do the Scots some good. So they were brought to St. Andrews, and that was the beginning of what was at one time the greatest city in Scotland. Andrew meant manly. Why was the object of the Brigade said to be the promotion of true manliness? Was it not as opposed to false manliness? Every one despised those who tried to be men before their time. Little was known about St. Patrick. He was carried away captive from Scotland to Ireland when a boy, and after obtaining his liberty he so pitied the people of Ireland that he went back to try and do them good. It was well for them to remember St. Patrick. Now, what did the flag teach them? It was a union--a Union Jack. It had been the strength of the British army all through, and it was owing to it that the English, Scotch, and Irish had fought side by side and helped one another. What they had to learn was the strength of union. The Cross led to victory. The Cross meant death to Christ, and the death of Christ meant that One came from heaven to die for them that they might be God’s children. Under which flag would they determine to serve? Under that of Christ, which led to happiness, or under that which assuredly would lead to misery and ruin? The greatest disgrace that could befall a man was the forsaking of his own flag to serve under another. To act thus was to be a traitor to his king. It was the worst thing possible not to yield themselves to Christ. Let them not try to serve Christ and some one else. Let them make up their minds and resolve that they would henceforth fight for what was good and do what was good. (Prof. Marcus Dods, D. D. , Sermon to Boys’ Brigade.)Numbers 2:3-4The camp of Judah.The encampment of JudahI. The tribe. “Judah” signifies praise. “Now will I praise the Lord,” said his mother Leah at his birth (Gen 29:35). Thus is the spiritual Judah established and made a praise in the earth (Isa 62:7), to the glory of God of whom it is born and made. This whole family in heaven and earth is named and appointed to be a continual praise to the glory of the omnipotent grace of Jehovah. Kings and priests as they all are, is not each “a brand plucked out of the fire”? (Zec 3:2).II. Their encampment. “Judah shall encamp.” But in what form and order? Upon this we have only to say, with respect to the spiritual Judah, that the mystical Cross of their great High Priest embodies itself in all their stations and movements, gives shape to all their hopes and expectations, directs and regulates their prayers, praises, and exertions. Whatever they attempt or whatever they enjoy is conformed to the Cross.III. The direction in which the camp is situated. Judah shall encamp toward the sun-rising. Such too is the cheerful situation of the beloved people; they have the evening behind them, and the morning in their eye. All are looking towards the rising day, towards the Day-star from on high.IV. Judah’s encampment toward the sun-rising was to be with his banner. Banners gave the signal for the people to march; they were painted upon hills and eminences, that they might be seen at a distance, and straightway the hosts marched towards and gathered round them. So it is with our banner of the Cross. It is a magnet of irresistible attraction. Wherever it is lifted up, there is a movement, an excitement, a stir, and the elect of God gather around it with exultation or with weeping.V. Judah’s host. How astonished should we be, what mingled terror and great joy would surprise us, if suddenly those covering angel-hosts, which encompass the spiritual Israel, were to burst the veil which renders them invisible to mortal eyes, and come forth at once into full view! Some in this world have been favoured to behold a portion of those invisible squadrons which always attend the children of God. Judah’s host is the heavenly band of “watchers,” who are sent forth to minister to the safety and welfare of those who shall be heirs of salvation.VI. The name of Judah’s captain is Nahshon, son of Amminadab. This name truly belongs to the Prince of the host, the Captain of our salvation. Nahshon signifies experience; and who is so experienced in conflict as He who was made perfect in sufferings, and having spoiled principalities and powers, overcame death, and opened to us the gate of everlasting life! Who is so experienced a captain as He, whose unslumbering pastoral care has been exercised for ages in behalf of His people! Who is so experienced in the tumult and alarm of war as He, against whom the infatuated and cold-hearted world have been bearing arms day and night for so many centuries I And who is so accustomed to triumph as He, who is making all such enemies His footstool and everywhere abides last upon the field! Appropriate therefore to Him is the name of Nahshon. He is also as truly in character “the son of Amminadab.” For this name, which signifies “My people are a willing gift,” directs our thoughts first to God the Father, as freely giving to Christ all who will ever come unto Him, and as making them also willing in the day of His power. (F. W. Krummacher, D. D.)Aspects of honourI. Honour wisely conferred.II. Honour in relation with duty and responsibility.III. Honour as connected with parental influence,IV. Honour as related to future greatness.Jacob had predicted that Judah should be the ruling tribe; he promised to Judah a kingdom and sovereignty. Ages more were to pass away before the prediction was fulfilled; but the honour now conferred on the tribe would encourage faith in its predicted destiny. Its natural tendency would be to stimulate them to--1. Believe in their destiny.2. Work for their destiny.3. Wait for their destiny.Let every privilege conferred upon us increase our assurance of the splendid honours which await us hereafter. (W. Jones)Numbers 2:17The camp of the Levites in the midst.The Tabernacle in the midst of the hostI. The reasons for placing the tabernacle after this manner.1. God doth hereby admonish them, that they should always have Him before their eyes, lest they should forget His worship or offend Him with their sins (comp. Lev 26:11-12).2. He had respect indifferently unto all the tribes. If any others had pitched their tents farther than from the Tabernacle, they would have quarrelled and complained that they had been contemned and despised.3. The Levites were hereby put in mind of their duty, and therefore are lodged about it.II. The uses of placing the tabernacle after this manner.1. It assureth us that God will ever be in the midst of us, and settle His rest and residence among us (comp. Lev 26:11-12; Eze 27:27).(1) God is joined unto us in the person of His own only Son Emmanuel--i.e., God with us. We are made members of His body (see Mat 28:20).(2) We have with Him the preaching of the gospel, whereby God is, as it were, brought down to reside and remain among us.(3) We have the promise of His presence and the seals thereof in His sacraments, whereby we are at one with Him, and He with us (see Gal 3:27; Joh 6:54-56; 1Co 10:16-17).(4) When we come together in the Church to call upon His name He is near unto us, and most familiar with us (see Mat 18:20).(5) He dwelleth among us whensoever He preserveth us from evil and delivereth us from our enemies.2. It serveth to teach us to what end God hath instituted civil states and commonwealths in this world--to wit, to be stays and props to the Church, that the people of God may assemble together in peace and quietness.3. It serveth to conclude the full and final happiness of the faithful, which is begun in this life, but shall be consummated in the end of this world. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 2:32-34They pitched by their standards.Contentment and obedienceI. Contentment with the divine appointment.1. We are incompetent to determine our own place and duty.(1) Our ignorance.(a) Of ourselves;(b) of the future.(2) Our proneness to self-indulgence.2. We have ample grounds for confidence in the determinations of God for us.(1) His knowledge.(2) His wisdom.(3) His kindness.II. Obedience to the divine commands.1. All God’s commands are binding, because they are all right.2. All God’s commands are benevolent. Obedience is blessed as well as binding. (W. Jones.)The two banners:We can easily guess how in days of ancient warfare the standard was of much practical use. When it moved forward, then the warriors took up sword and shield and also advanced. When it halted, then they prepared to encamp around the station of their own particular standard. The devices of these old flags suggested a kind of primitive heraldry, and they knew where at once to find their loaders, or to rally for the last desperate defence! As in thought we float along the stream of history, we recall the brazen eagles of Rome, clasping which the legionaries took that solemn oath of fidelity which taught to the soldiers of Jesus that word “Sacrament,” which to us means so much! Then we may remember how the cloak of St. Martin became the standard of the Frankish host, or how the sacred banner of mediaeval France was the renowned “Oriflamme.” In England’s history, too, we have the story of the great car which, surmounted by three flags, was the central point of the bloody “Battle of the Standard”; or we may sorrowfully think of that sad day when our country was torn asunder by internal strife, and the unfortunate Charles, king and martyr, raised his royal standard on a stormy day on the Castle Hill at Nottingham, and which was that very day blown down by the furious blasts--a sad and ominous beginning, which proved too truly prophetic. Lastly, there flashes across our memory that familiar story of Nelson ordering the flag of old England to be nailed to the mast, which has become a proverbial expression for pluck and resolution! But these legends of old times have for the Christian a lesson. There is a great conflict going on around us, a spiritual warfare of most real and eternal significance. Between the Church, which is the army of Christ, and the dark hosts of hell, the struggle seems daily to wax hotter and become more intense. The leaders on either side display their banners. “That of Satan,” says an old writer, “is set up in the market-place of Babylon. It is inscribed with the alluring words, ‘riches,’ ‘pleasures,’ ‘honours’; but these inscriptions are not to be trusted. Were they rightly inscribed they would assuredly bear instead, ‘impiety,’ ‘idolatory,’ ‘impurity,’ ‘injustice,’ and ‘hatred against God.’ But these true names he conceals with a dazzling magic, so that men are caught unawares by his false promises!” Under the standard of the Evil One are gathered together and assembled by him both evil spirits and bad men. These he sends forth throughout the whole world, that they should deceive and ruin the souls of men. To each of his adherents he gives a banner, a net, arid chains. The flag that they may allure, the net that they may capture, the fetters that they may bind fast their captives. But see on yonder side. From that dark valley, up those steep slopes, there comes a mighty host. Many drop off, many fall back, but still they pour on upwards. The sunlight of heaven rests on their helms, and before them comes borne aloft a mighty banner. It is the Standard of Jesus. Eighteen hundred years ago it was set up in the valley of humiliation at Jerusalem. Now He, the King of Humility, the Prince of Peace, is in the midst of His people, whose ranks He gazes on with loving eye. On His banner there is written, in letters of light and truth, the words, “repentance,” “a Christian life,” “paradise,” “heaven!” Our Lord Jesus also sends His ministering servants throughout the world--angels, apostles, priests, and all who seek the saving of men’s souls and the welfare of their bodies; bidding them teach the emptiness of earthly treasures, the true riches of penitence and faith; and that they should instruct all to persevere with patience till the golden gates are in view. The soldiers of Jesus advance, holding on high His banner, knocking at the door of all hearts, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is nigh”; “Take My yoke upon you, and ye shall find rest.” These invitations are given in various ways, and by different methods; sometimes by good thoughts infused by the Divine Spirit into the soul, sometimes by useful words and pious writings, sometimes by good examples. Through all these ways and channels the Saviour speaks to us. They who listen, they who obey, follow His standard. Thus, with many alternations, the great battle goes forward, with its separate host on either side and its two standards. Under which will you fight? (J. W. Hardman, LL. D.)Numbers 3Numbers 3:1-13The priests which were anointed. Aaron and his sons: parents and childrenIn Num 3:1-4 we have--I. An incidental illustration of the exalted personal character and the divine mission of Moses.II. An intimation that the duties of the ministers of religion demand for their faithful discharge their entire consecration thereto.III. An example of wicked sons descending from a godly parent.IV. An example of the widest difference of character and destiny in children of the same parents. Our subject utters earnest counsels--1. To the children of godly parents. Trust not in the character and prayers of your parents for salvation. These are of priceless value, yet they will not avail to your salvation apart from your own faith and obedience. (See Eze 18:1-32.)2. To parents. Be diligent and faithful in the discharge of your duty to your children.(1) Let your own life be right, and so set them a good example.(2) Give them wise religious instruction and training.(3) Commend them often and earnestly to God in prayer.(4) Afford them encouragement in every manifestation of pious feeling and conduct. (W. Jones.)The dedication of the Levites--Church work and workersverses 5-10.I. The offices of the church are divinely instituted.II. There are different ranks in the offices of the church as instituted by God.III. The lowliest labour in the service of God is sacred and blessed.IV. God also appoints the persons to fill the various offices in his church.V. Intrusion into sacred places and duties awakened the stern displeasure of the Lord.Conclusion:1. Encouragement to those who are called of God to Christian work. He who has called you to your work will sustain you in it, make it efficient by His blessing, and confer upon you rich rewards.2. Admonition as to our estimate of the ministers of the Lord. They “are ambassadors for Christ.” God Himself speaks through them to men. (W. Jones.)God’s claim upon man’s service:From Num 3:11-13, we learn--I. God’s claims upon man’s service are incontestable. Upon what are they grounded?1. Upon what He is in Himself.2. Upon what He does for man.II. There is a correspondence between the gifts and the claims of God. His demands are proportioned to His bestowments.1. This is righteous.2. This is beneficent.III. The divine arrangements are ever marked by infinite wisdom and kindness. (W. Jones.)The measure of the Divine demands upon man:I. God gave the best he had to effect our salvation.II. The son gave himself. Let us sacrifice ourselves to God as He sacrificed His Son for us.1. Thus only can we attain to a high ideal in religion. Be the best possible Christian: be not content with mediocrity: aim high.2. This is the best way to be useful. The power of Christianity is in the fact of Christ giving Himself. Our influence for good is in proportion to our selfsacrifice.3. This is the way to enjoy religion. The more we give of self to God, the more will He give of Himself to us. Let all think of what God has done for them, and consider what returns they have made to Him. (David Lloyd.)The necessity of a standing ministry We see in this place, how Moses immediately after the numbering of the people, that meddled not with the ministry of the word, or killing of the sacrifices, or serving in the tabernacle, or carrying of the ark, or teaching of the people, handleth in the next place the fashion of the ministry. For let there be never so great order or good policy in the commonwealth, yet if the care of the ministry be neglected, all is to little purpose. We see from hence the goodly order that God observeth in this great army. He establisheth among them most carefully the holy ministry to the end they might be instructed in the Word. Hereby we learn that among all nations and people under the heavens, the ministry of the Word ought to be planted and established, to guide them in the ways of godliness.1. A certain and settled ministry is an evident token that God hath a church and a people to be begotten by the immortal seed of the Word.2. Without the light of the Word the people remain in darkness and cannot see: they grope at noonday, and know not what they do--as it was in Egypt when the plague of palpable darkness was sent among them (Ex 10:23).3. The necessity of a ministry is so evident that all the Gentiles had their priests and prophets that attended on their profane and superstitious altars, and it was their first care to establish a religion, such as it was, among them. If it were thus among them who saw darkly, and were without the true light of the Scripture, much more ought we to learn it, that have been taught better things, and have the sure word of the prophets to guide us.4. Such is our frailty, that notwithstanding we live under a settled ministry, and have given our names to the faith, yet we are ready to start back again. For as the body is prone to pine away without supply of daily food, so are our souls ready to perish, being destitute of the heavenly manna of the Word of God.Uses:1. There is offered unto us this truth arising from the doctrine itself, that the preaching of the Word by the minister, and the hearing of it by the people, is no ceremony nor a matter of indifferency, such as may either be done or left undone at our own discretion, but it is such a part of the public service of God as ought not to be neglected without great sin.2. It serveth to reprove divers abuses.(1) Such as think and spare not to say that the ministry is a vain and superfluous thing, and that the ministers are men that may very well be spared, as if they were a sixth finger upon the hand, or a sixth toe upon the foot; that is bringing a burden rather than a benefit. For as they account the Sabbath the loss of one day in a week, so they account the maintenance of the ministry the loss of their goods. These have learned another language than the tongue of Canaan. They do not the works that beseem Christians, and they cannot speak as beseemeth those that profess the fear of God, if so be they do profess so much. Is it a needless thing to have the light of the sun in the firmament, without which all things are covered with darkness, and nothing can have life and quickening? But the sun is not more necessary to be in the world than the light of the Word in the Church to give life and light unto them that sit in darkness (Mat 4:16). Is it needless to have labourers to reap down our corn in time of harvest? To have meat brought unto us and provided for us when we are hungry, or drink when we are thirsty?(2) The vain conceit of their hearts, who having learned the principles of religion and some grounds of knowledge, proceed no further, as if they had no more use of the Word, whereas there is matter of instruction always to be learned out of the Word for all persons. When we have eaten one kind of meat one day, we eat the next day as hungrily of it as we did before.(3) They that extol to the skies the kingdoms and commonwealths of the heathen as the only prosperous, flourishing, and happy nations, which indeed excelled in outward glory and thereby dazzled the eyes of many, yet indeed were no better than assemblies of men destitute of religion, and consequently of salvation. Their peace and prosperity, their wealth and dignity, were all carnal and momentary, rising out of the earth, and sinking down into the earth again; their praise also is of men. It is the maintenance of true religion that maketh a people truly happy, and the means of spreading abroad true religion is the ministry of the Word. There is no way to know it and to practise it but by this.3. Must the ministry be established among all people under heaven? Then let every one of us be careful for our parts to plant it among us, and to bring it home to the places of our abode.4. Let the ministers be careful to discharge their calling, and to teach the people in season and out of season. They must be lights of the world, and as savoury salt to season them with wholesome doctrine.5. Let the people carefully attend to the ministry of the Word, where it is settled and planted, with a good conscience, as to God’s holy ordinance vouchsafed unto them. Let them bring attention in hearing, diligence in marking, and obedience in practising. Let them not use any delays to shift off the performance of this duty. (W. Attersoll.)Consecrated lives:In the artist’s studio a fleck of paint lies upon the palette. It is so much colour and nothing more; till, taken up by the brush of the master and laid upon the canvas, it becomes a rosy flush on beauty’s cheek, or a lustrous cloud in a golden sunset. So has many a mean and common life been touched by the Master’s hand to higher uses; so has many an humble believer been caught up from the poverty of his earthly lot to be a glorious spirit before the throne of the “Eternal Light.”Vocation is in a line with fitnessIf we agree that the Christian ministry is a vocation for the teaching, in various forms, of Christian righteousness, the question next comes, What is meant by a “call” to it? Is this anything different from that inward impulse to a specific form of work which arises in a man from a consciousness of special gifts in that direction? In that sense a man may be said to be called to the work of a musician or artist. The parents of Mozart, when they found their son, at the age of seven, playing before the crowned heads of Europe, need have been in no doubt as to his life work. It was revealed in his gifts more plainly than it could have been by a voice from heaven. And when, on the other hand, Mozart’s own son, once asked whether he loved music, replied by flinging down some coins on the table and exclaiming, “That’s the only music I care for,” it was equally evident that whatever he came into the world to do, it was not to follow in the steps of his father. Vocation here undoubtedly is in a line with fitness. The tools are for him who can use them. (Christian World.)God improves the life given to Him in service:It is said of vapours, that rising out of the earth, the heavens return them again in pure water, much clearer, and more refined than they received them; or as it is said of the earth, that receiving the sea-water and puddle-water, it gives it better than it received it in the springs and fountains, for it strains the water and purifies it, that whereas when it came into the bowels of the earth it was muddy, salt, and brinish, it returns pure, clear, and fresh, as out of the well-head waters are well known to come. Thus, if men would but give up their heart’s desire, and the strength of their affections unto God, He would not only give them back again, but withal much better than when He received them, their affections should be more pure, their thoughts and all the faculties of soul and body should be renewed, cleansed, beautified, and put into a far better condition than formerly they were. (J. Spencer.)Numbers 3:15-22From a month old.Dedication of infants to GodThat He taketh them from a month old is a thing of good use, and we may note it, for it notably showeth that we may destinate our children to God before they be fit for any other course of life. In the Gospel, those parents that brought little children to Christ are chronicled up for an eternal praise of them, and for an example to all parents to the end of the world. Matthew calleth them “little children.” Luke calleth them “babes,” even such as yet hanged upon the breast, effectually noting how soon we should bring them to Christ. Satan’s envy even against these babes to be brought to Christ appeareth there, and our Saviour’s unspeakable good against that malice, commanding them to be brought unto Him, and not to be hindered, taking them in His arms, putting His hands upon them, blessing them, and graciously affirming, that “of such is the kingdom of God.” A natural parent wishes all good to his child, and as he is able, procureth it, even as the root spreadeth his sap to the branches without grudge or exception; and a religious parent, above all worldly good, careth for God’s holy fear to be planted in his child. For the effecting whereof soon he bringeth him unto Christ, knowing that the first liquor put into a vessel is of great force ever in the same. Alas, what will the whole world profit them, were we able to give it them, ii eternally they be damned--yea, they and we both, they for not knowing Christ, and we for not bringing them to Christ. Wherefore earnest is that commandment of the Holy Ghost, “Fathers, bring up your children in instruction and information of the Lord.” Abraham is registered up for this care; and whilst this Book of God remaineth it will be found written to their praise that Timothy’s grandmother and mother brought him up in the knowledge of the Scripture from a child. Honour may shine and glory may glitter, but how soon covered with a cloud. Beauty much wished, but permanent with neither wishes nor wisdom whatsoever. Only the good gotten by bringing children to Christ remaineth for ever in his reward. And therefore let religious parents have a care of it, even soon, soon, remembering this place, that the Levites, appointed for His service, He would have numbered from a month old. (Bp. Babington.)Church membership of children:What, then, is this infant membership? What conception can we take of it which will justify its Christian dignity? A great many persons who are very sharp at this kind of criticism appear to have never observed that creatures existing under conditions of growth allow no such terms of classification as those do which are dead and have no growth; such, for example, as stones, metals, and earths. They are certain that gold is not iron, and iron is not silver, and they suppose that they can class the growing and transitional creatures, that are separated by no absolute lines, in the same manner. They talk of colts and horses, lambs and sheep, and it possibly not once occurs to them that they can never tell when the colt becomes a horse, or the lamb a sheep; and that about the most definite thing they can say, when pressed with that question, is that the colt is potentially a horse, the lamb a sheep, even from the first, having in itself this definite futurition; and, therefore, that while horses and sheep are not all to be classed as colts and lambs, all colts and lambs may be classed as horses and sheep. And just so children are all men and women; and if there is the law of futurition in them to justify it, may be fitly classed as believing men and women. And all the sharp arguments that go to cover their membership as such in the Church with absurdity, or to turn it into derision, are just such arguments as the inventors could raise with equal point to ridicule the horsehood and sheephood of the young animals just referred to. The propriety of this membership does not lie in what those infants can or cannot believe, or do or do not believe, at some given time, as, for example, on the day of their baptism; but it lies in tile covenant of promise, which makes their parents parents in the Lord; their nurture a nurture of the Lord, and so constitutes a force of futurition by which they are to grow up imperceptibly into “faithfuls among faithfuls,” in Christ Jesus . . . The conception, then, of this membership is, that it is potentially a real one; that it stands, for the present, in the faith of the parents and the promise which is to them and to their children, and that on this ground they may well enough be accounted believers, just as they are accounted potentially men and women. Then, as they come forward into maturity, it is to be assumed that they will come forward into faith, being grown in the nurture of faith, and will claim for themselves the membership into which they were before inserted. Nor is this a case which has no analogies that it should be held up as a mark of derision. It is generally supposed that our common law has some basis of common sense. And yet this body of law makes every infant child a citizen; requiring, as a point of public order, the whole constabulary and even military force of the state to come to the rescue or the redress of his wrongs, when his person is seized or property invaded by conspiracy. This infant child can sue and be sued; for the Court of Chancery will appoint him a guardian, whose acts shall be the child’s acts; and it shall be as if he were answerable for his own education, dress, board, entertainments, and the damages done by his servants, precisely as if he were a man acting in his own cause. Doubtless it may sound very absurdly to call him a citizen. What can he do as a citizen? He cannot vote or bear arms; he does not even know what these things mean, and yet he is a citizen. In one view he votes, bears arms, legislates, even in his cradle; for the potentiality is in him, and the state takes him up in her arms, as it were, to own him as her citizen. (H. Bushnell, D. D.)Numbers 3:33-39These shall pitch on the side of the tabernacle.The placing of the Levites throughout the hostIn this division we see more particularly that which was in part noted before, namely, the several situations that these Levites had about the tabernacle, which they compassed round about that they might not be far from any of the people of God, but always resident among them. This teacheth us that God will have every part of His people taught. None are too high in regard of their great places; none are too low in regard of their obscure callings; none are too good to be taught, whatsoever their degrees be. This will be made plain by divers reasons.1. Consider the titles that are given unto God in the Scriptures. He is worthily called the King of His Church, and the Lord and Master of His house. Is not He “the Shepherd of Israel that leadeth Josephlike sheep”? (Psa 80:1). Will a shepherd that hath any care of his sheep, or any love unto them, look unto some of them and not to all? Will a king regard only the chief cities and most populous places of his kingdom, and suffer the rest to live as they list, without laws and good orders? Or will the master of a house look to some in his family, and not to all?2. Such is the grace and goodness of God, that He would have all His people come to knowledge. Such as know not His will are none of His servants. If then He require the understanding of His ways, not only of rich men, of great men, of learned men, and of the ministers, but of all the people, we must hereof conclude that He hath ordained that all of them should have the means of knowledge and salvation offered unto them, and published among them.3. The Word of God was penned for all estates, degrees, and conditions of men.4. All persons, whatsoever they be, have souls to save: simple persons, small congregations, little assemblies, as well as others that ale many in number.Uses:1. It is God’s ordinance that every congregation should have a learned minister to teach them the true religion and fear of God.2. It is required of the ministers of the Gospel, whom the Holy Ghost hath made overseers of their several flocks, to look to their whole charge from one corner of it to another. They are to give an account for every soul that dies through their ignorance or through their negligence.3. We have warrant from hence to desire most earnestly that the kingdom of God may flourish everywhere. Christ our Saviour teaches us to pray that His kingdom may come (Mat 6:10), and so to be erected in the hearts of men.4. This doctrine serveth as an instruction to all magistrates (as their places serve them) to further the preaching of the Word, and to furnish such places as belong unto them with able teachers. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 4Numbers 4:16The office of Eleazar.The Eleazar priesthood:There are few chapters which will so amply repay patient study as this. It might be styled the directory for the pilgrim priest, and therefore it is of great importance to us who wish to retain our priestly purity in the midst of the wilderness of this earthly life. The first verse tells us that it is addressed to Moses the lawgiver, and to Aaron the priest. We therefore at once expect to find here a linking of duties and privileges. If you want to know what was the great duty of the pilgrim priest, it was to carry the tabernacle throughout the wilderness, so that wherever the children of Israel pitched they might have a meeting-place where they might commune with God. And so this great work in which we are engaged may be summed up in these words, To carry Christ with us throughout this wilderness; and as the Levite’s motto might be, To me to live is the tabernacle: so to me to live is Christ, to carry Christ where’er I go. Some of us may be entrusted with what the world considers the more important service--with the holy vessels; others may have the heavier burden, or the little vexatious duties, but they are all for this great purpose, that the children of Israel may constantly hold communion with their God. Nay, mark you, more: not only does the great High Priest appoint each of us to service and burdens--both passive burdens and active service--but in the case of Merari there was to be a special inventory of everything entrusted to their care, so that they might not consider for one single moment that their part of the work was of less importance. The 16th verse brings before us not so much the responsibility as the privilege. To the office of Eleazar the priest pertain these four things--the oil for the light, the sweet incense, the daily meat-offering, and the anointing oil. As Christian men and women, are they not, spiritually speaking, just the four things you need now in your daily life?1. The first is this: “To the office of Eleazar the priest pertaineth oil for light.” We recognise that God has made us the lights of the world. He bids us shine forth to the glory of God. He has given to us that high dignity. But, alas! too often our lights are going out; they do not shine as brightly as they ought. It seems as though we were hiding our light under the bushel of business or the bed of sloth, instead of putting it on a candlestick that it might give light to others. Call to your Eleazar Priest; ask Him to give of His oil; ask Him to take away sin, and to give you the oil of His Holy Spirit, for it is to the office of Eleazar the priest that pertaineth the oil for the light.2. The second thing pertaining to his office was the sweet incense. You remember the use of the sweet incense. Whilst the children of Israel were praying in the outer court, the priest went into the holy place, and took with him the incense, laid it upon the altar, and, as the prayers ascended from the people outside, the incense ascended from the priest inside. Now, have you not ofttimes felt the necessity of that sweet incense? O Thou Eleazar Priest, do Thou purify my prayers with Thine own sweet incense, so that God may listen to my cry, and forgive the evil of my prayer: purge out the unclean selfishness of my prayer, that it may ascend up to my Father in heaven. Thank God, to His office it pertains to provide that sweet incense. You have not to provide the incense.3. Thirdly, to his office pertaineth the daily meat-offering. You remember what that was. Every morning the children of Israel were obliged to bring a lamb for the burnt-offering, and the same every evening; but as soon as the lamb was offered upon the altar, the daily meat-offering had to be added representing the pure and spotless character of Christ. Now, in the same way, you and I have to bring the daily burnt-offering to God. Every morning you ought to say: Here I present myself to Thee, O God, to be a holy, living sacrifice unto Thee, which is but my reasonable service. Every day you ought to bring your daily burnt-offering, and put it upon the altar, and then, when you have thus dedicated yourself to God, and consecrated yourself to His service, have you not often felt--I come and offer myself to God, but what a poor offering it is! And when I consecrate myself upon the altar, how I need that which shall make my burnt-offering acceptable to God! And morning by morning God accepts you in the Beloved--not for what you are in yourself, but for what He is. What can I do for God, I am so weak and feeble? If I put myself upon God’s altar, can He use me for His service? Yes, He can; because to the office of Eleazar the priest pertaineth the meat-offering, and He will make acceptable your burnt-offering.4. One thing more: I have prayed Him co give me oil for the light. I have come to Him, and I have acknowledged that even in my prayers there is a good deal of self that cannot be acceptable to God except perfumed by the merits of my Saviour; and although I have put myself upon the altar to be used as He will, I recognise that in myself dwelleth no good thing, that I want the daily meat-offering to atone for my burnt-offering. Now, what do I want? I want power--power to serve God: I want that my life may be an influence for good. I want to be a man full of power, by the Spirit of God. To the office of Eleazar the priest pertaineth the anointing with oil, and that oil goes down to the very skirts of his garments, even to the very humblest believer. I heard only yesterday of a young girl in a house of business, only sixteen years of age, whose confirmation time was a time of grand decision for God. She went back to that house of business, where the principals were practically atheists; but I was told yesterday that that young girl, whose life had been anointed with the holy anointing oil, had such power in that business that the principal and his wife have both been converted. The principal is now a lay preacher in the Church of England, and the lady of the business holds a large Bible-class for those in houses of business; one of them traces back the blessing to the quiet, holy influence of that little girl, the power of the Holy One resting upon her. Oh, that I might thus be filled with power, have the anointing oil upon me. Is not that what you want in the midst of this wilderness journey, in the midst of all the trials and temptations of daily life? (E. A. Stuart, M. A.)Numbers 4:34-49They were numbered . . . every one according to his service.Proportion between number and serviceLooking at the relation of the numbers to the service required of them we discover illustrations of--I. The wisdom of God. “By this diversity of numbers among the Levite families,” saith Trapp, “God showeth His wisdom in fitting men for the work whereunto He hath appointed them, whether it requireth multitude or gifts” (1Co 12:8-12). Every one hath his own share; all are not alike gifted.”II. The reasonableness of the divine requirements. “Though the sum total of effective Levites,” says Greenfield, “was very small compared with that of the other tribes: yet they would be far more than could be employed at once in this service. But they might carry by turns and ease one another, and thus do the whole expeditiously and cheerfully. They would also have their own tents to remove, and their own families to take care of.” There was an ample number for the performance of the work; and its distribution amongst so many would render it comparatively easy to every one. God’s claims upon us and our service are in the highest degree reasonable. He is a kind and gracious Master.III. The exemplary obedience of the servants of the Lord. (W. Jones.)Many in the Church who do not add to its service:Observe--1. That the Kohathites were in all eight thousand and six hundred, from a month old and upward: but of those there were but two thousand seven hundred and fifty serviceable men, not a third part. The Gershonites in all seven thousand and five hundred: and of them but two thousand six hundred and thirty serviceable men, little more than a third part. Note--Of the many that add to the numbers of the Church, there are comparatively but few that contribute to the service of it. So it has been, and so it is; many have a place in the tabernacle, that do but little of the work of the tabernacle (Php 2:20-21).2. That the Merarites were but six thousand and two hundred in all; and yet of these there were three thousand and two hundred serviceable men, which were a good deal above half. The greatest burden lay upon that family, the boards, and pillars, and sockets. And God so ordered it, that though they were the fewest in number, yet they should have the most able men among them; for whatever service God calls men to, He will furnish them for it, and give strength in proportion to the work, grace sufficient.3. The whole number of the able men of the tribe of Levi, which entered into God’s host to war His warfare, was but eight thousand five hundred and eighty; whereas the able men of the other tribes that entered into the host of Israel to war their warfare were many more. The least of the tribes had almost four times as many able men as the Levites, and some of them more than eight times as many. For those that are engaged in the service of this world, and war after the flesh, are many more than those that are devoted to the service of God, and fight the good fight of faith. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The numbered people:I. Here is authority for the muster-roll--“According to the commandment of the Lord they were numbered.” It was not left to Moses to number the people without Divine sanction, else the deed might have been as evil in the sight of the Lord as that of David when he made a census of the nation: neither may any man at this day summon the saints of the Lord at his own discretion to enterprises for which they were never set apart. The armies of Israel are none of ours to lead whither we will, nor even to reckon up that the number may be told to our own honour.1. Believers in Christ Jesus, you are now called forth to do suit and service, because like the tribe of Levi you are the Lord’s. He views you as the church of the firstborn, as the redeemed from among men, and as His peculiar inheritance, and therefore above all other men you are under His special rule and governance.2. You are further called because this is a charge laid upon you of the Lord, to whom you specially belong. The Levites were not numbered with the rest of the nation, for their vocation was altogether different, and their whole business was “about holy things.” Ye see in this your calling, for hereunto are ye also ordained that ye may live unto the Lord alone.3. The Lord may well call you to this service, seeing He has given you to His Son, even as He gave the Levites to Aaron, as it is written (Num 3:9), “They are wholly given unto him out of the children of Israel.” Because ye belong to Christ, therefore hide not yourselves from His service, but come forward with alacrity.4. The Lord has constituted you the servants of all His people, even as He said of the Levites that they were to “do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation.” We are debtors to all our brethren, and we are their servants to the full extent of our power.II. Notice the appointment of the individuals--“Every one according to his service, and according to his burden.” By our varied gifts, positions, offices, and opportunities, we are as much set apart to special services as were the sons of Kohath, &c. Great evils arise out of persons mistaking their calling, and undertaking things of which they are not capable; and, on the other hand, the success of Christian work in a large measure arises out of places of usefulness being filled by the right men.III. Our text is the summary of the chapter in which we have an account of the actual fulfilment of the Lord’s command by Moses. He numbered each family, and cast up the total of the tribe, at the same time mentioning in detail the peculiar service of each. We would imitate him at this important moment, and take the census of those who are consecrated to the Lord’s own service.1. Where are you, then, who can bear the heavier service of the sanctuary, carrying its pillars, and the boards, and the sockets thereof? You are now needed to speak in the meetings, to lead the people in prayer, to order the assemblies, and to take the heavier work of this holy business. The Lord Jesus should have able men to speak for Him; He deserves the best of the best. Now is the hour, where is the man? Let no diffidence or love of ease keep one back who might make known the gospel and win a soul for Jesus.2. But where are you who can only carry the pins and the cords? Your burden is lighter, but probably your strength is also less, and lighter though your load may be, the matters which you carry are quite as essential as the pillars and the boards. Where are you? You who can say a few words to lonely inquiring ones; you who can do no more than pray, where are you? At your posts, or idling? Answer quickly, for time and need are pressing. If the load which you can carry be so very small, be all the more ready to bear it.3. Are you a lover of the Lord Jesus and do you wish to be omitted from the roll-call? If so, let it be known to yourself, and stated plainly to your conscience. Do not pretend to be a labourer and remain a loiterer, but openly avow to your own soul that you stand all the day idle, and feel fully justified in so doing. (C. H. Spurgeon.)All have a work to do for God:There is a work for all of us. And there is special work for each, work which I cannot do in a crowd, or as one of a mass, but as one man, acting singly, according to my own gifts, and under a sense of my personal responsibility. There is, no doubt, associated work for me to do; I must do my work as part of the world’s great whole, or as a member of some body. But I have a special work to do, as one individual who, by God’s plan and appointment, has a separate position, separate responsibilities, and a separate work; if I do not do it, it must be left undone. No one of my fellows can do that special work for me which I have come into the world to do; he may do a higher work, a greater work, but he cannot do my work. I cannot hand my work over to him, any more than I can hand over my responsibilities or my gifts. Nor can I delegate my work to an association of men, however well-ordered and powerful. They have their own work to do, and it may be a very noble one. But they cannot do my work for me. I must do it with these hands or with these lips which God has given me. I may do little or I may do much. That matters not. It must be my own work, and by doing my own work, poor as it may seem to some, I shall better fulfil God’s end in making me what I am, and more truly glorify His name, than if I were either going out of my own sphere to do the work of another, or calling in another into my sphere to do my proper work for me. (John Ruskin.)Happiness of working for God:The Rev. Andrew Fuller, the eminent Baptist minister, was depressed at one time by his people living in a low state of mind; they did nothing but sigh and groan. All his endeavours were fruitless to raise them to a higher spiritual life. Much perplexed, he made inquiry into their actions, and found that they were doing nothing for Christ. He at once set them to work, and a marked change took place; instead of sighs, groans, and gloomy faces, there were cheerfulness and faces glowing with happiness. If your state of heart and mind is low and depressed, carry the story of the life, death, and resurrection of the Saviour to some perishing soul; do something for the Master, and soon your heart will leap with joy and gratitude.Unfaithful helpers are a burdenAn overworked minister, whilst lamenting the lack of workers in his church, dozed, and, as the story goes, dreamed. He thought he was between the shafts of a four-wheeled coach, and four of his helpers were each pushing a wheel, and up the hill they all toiled together. Soon he felt the coach drag heavily, and at last he could pull no further so came to a standstill. On looking behind he discovered that his four helpers had quietly got inside to ride. How much happier and easier Christian work would be if all would do their best. (Young Men’s Review.)Power running to waste:We are told sometimes of the vast power unutilised as the waters leap over the Falls of Niagara; in fact, statisticians have given us calculations of the marvellous saving of steam, which means coal, which means money, that might thus be saved. We are not sure but that it has been proved that there is power enough, if it could be communicated, to give electric light to the whole continent, and no one who has walked along the banks of the Niagara River for two or three miles above the Falls, and studied the tremendous force of the current, will hesitate to doubt such statements. Is there not in this a parable? There is a whole Niagara of Christian power running to waste in our land--power that if utilised would flash the light of salvation over the world, and bring in the perfect day of Christ’s kingdom on earth. Take any of our churches, what are a large portion of the members doing? Absolutely nothing--they are in their places on the Sabbath, and just possibly at the weekly prayer-meeting; beyond that what? But, “I can do so little.” Oh, my friend, pug your little and a thousand littles of your brethren together, and it would make a power that by the grace of God would be irresistible. Niagara is but the united power of a thousand streams far, far away. (Canadian Independent.)Numbers 5Numbers 5:2-3Put out of the camp every leper, and every one that hath an issue, and whosoever is defiled by the dead. Where God dwells there must be purity:I. God himself is pure, and cannot associate with the impure. If discipline is lax, God departs. It is not the large church, or the intelligent or the wealthy one, that attracts Him, but the pure one. As the lightning passes by the polished marble and the carved wood to touch the iron or steel, because there it finds something akin to itself, so God passes by those to dwell with the pure, because in them He finds a character akin to His own.II. God will not, because he cannot, do any good to the impure. Any one tolerating sin would not appreciate the design of God and accept His blessing; and where He cannot bless, He will not come to dwell. Let us then “put out of the camp every leper,” everything that defileth; for the presence of God in our midst is of the utmost importance to us as His Church and people. His presence is essential.1. To our comfort as Churches and Christians. What the shining sun is in nature His presence is with us--our brightness, our joy, &c.2. To our prosperity. God with His Church has been in all ages the secret of its power and success. His presence is the life of the ministry and of all Christian work (D. Lloyd.)The exclusion of the unclean:I. As a sanitary measure.1. The universal application of the rule.2. The sacred reason by which it was enforced. Impurity separates from God.II. As a spiritual parable.1. Sin is a defiling thing.2. Sin is a deadly thing.3. Sin is a separating thing.Where sin is cherished God will not dwell.(1) The openly and persistently wicked should be expelled from the Church on earth.(a) Because of their corrupt influence (1Co 5:6-13).(b) Because of the dishonour to God which their presence in the Church involves.(2) The wicked will be excluded from the city of God above.Conclusion:1. He who demands this purity has provided the means whereby we may attain unto it. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.”2. Let us diligently use the means which He has provided. “Wash you, make you clean,” &c. (W. Jones.)In the midst whereof I dwell--God ever present with His peopleThis teaches us that God is evermore present with His people. This appeareth in the example of Joseph (Gen 39:21; Gen 39:23). I will propound a few reasons.1. He will save those that are His. His presence is not a vain presence, neither is He an idle beholder of things that are done; but His presence is to prosper and to save (Jer 30:11). We must not therefore dream of a presence that effecteth nothing, but rather willeth His people oftentimes to stand still, while He worketh all in all.2. They have good success in their lawful labours, so that He maketh the works of their hands prosperous.Uses:1. For the increase of a sound faith in God. He leaveth them not to themselves; He with-draweth not His strength from them; He delivereth them not to the lust and pleasure of their enemies. This is it which He telleth Joshua after the death of Moses (Jdg 1:5).2. This teacheth us this good duty, that we take heed we do not defile ourselves with the pollutions of sin. For how shall we dare to commit sin that is so highly displeasing in His sight, forasmuch as He is with us to behold us and all our actions? (W. Attersoll.)God dwelling with His people:I. God is present with his people.1. Influentially (Psa 139:1; Psa 139:10).2. Sympathetically (Gen 28:16-17; Joh 14:16-26; 1Jn 1:3).II. God is present in the midst of his people.1. As to the centre of union.2. As the source of blessing. Life, light, power, beauty, &c.III. God’s presence in the midst of his people should exert a great and blessed influence upon them.1. A restraint from sin.2. An incentive to holiness.3. An encouragement to duty.4. An assurance of support in the toils and trials of life.5. An assurance of victory in the conflicts of life.6. An assurance of perfect salvation. (W. Jones.)The presence of God among His people demands holiness on their partRedemption was the basis of God’s dwelling in the midst of His people. But we must remember that discipline was essential to His continuance amongst them. He could not dwell where evil was deliberately sanctioned. It may, however, be said, in reply, “Does not God the Holy Ghost dwell in the individual believer, and yet there is much evil in him?” True, the Holy Ghost dwells in the believer, on the ground of accomplished redemption. He is there, not as the sanction of what is of nature, but as the seal of what is of Christ; and His presence and fellowship are enjoyed just in proportion as the evil in us is habitually judged. So also in reference to the assembly. No doubt, there is evil there--evil in each individual member, and therefore evil in the body corporate. But it must be judged; and, if judged, it is not allowed to act, it is rendered null. We are not to judge motives, but we are to judge ways. The very moment a man enters the assembly, he takes his place in that sphere where discipline is exercised upon ever, thing contrary to the holiness of the One who dwells there. And let not the reader suppose, for a moment, that the unity of the body is touched when the discipline of the house is maintained. We frequently hear it said of those who rightly seek to maintain the discipline of the house of God, that they are rending the body of Christ. There could hardly be a greater mistake. The fact is, the former is our bounden duty; the latter, an utter impossibility. The discipline of God’s house must be carried out; but the unity of Christ’s body can never be dissolved. And why, we may ask, was this separation demanded? Was it to uphold the reputation or respectability of the people? Nothing of the sort. What then? “That they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell.” And so is it now. We do not judge and put away bad doctrine, in order to maintain our orthodoxy; neither do we judge and put away moral evil, in order to maintain our reputation and respectability. The only ground of judgment and putting away is this, “Holiness becometh Thine house, O Lord, forever.” God dwells in the midst of His people. (C. H. Mackintosh.)No Church ought to tolerate open offenders:No Church ought to tolerate any filthy livers, or unclean persons, or notorious offenders among them (Deu 23:17; 1Co 5:1-2; Eph 5:3-5). This truth may be further strengthened by many reasons.1. For it is a comely thing for the saints of God to do so: that as they differ from heathen men, so they may differ from heathen meetings. Moses teacheth that they ought to put out evil from them, because they are an holy people (Deu 23:14).2. For the neglect of this duty, the wrath of God falleth upon the sons of men. He is the God of order, and requireth that all things in the Church be done in order. Hence it is that the apostle saith (Col 3:6). And we have sundry examples of this in the people of Israel, who were diversely destroyed because of their sins (1Co 10:5).3. We showed before that they were as unclean beasts, and should not be admitted to the fellowship of Christ’s sheep which are clean, lest they defile them through their contagion, and tread down with their feet the residue of their pastures. The apostle saith (1Co 5:6). Sin therefore being infectious, the sinner is not to be tolerated in the assembly of the righteous.Uses:1. It should minister great matter of much sorrow to every society of Christian men and women, when any of the congregation grow to be thus profane and defiled with the contagion of sin. Is it not a great grief to have any one member of the body cut off? This the apostle teacheth (1Co 5:2.)2. It is a cause of great mercy and of a wonderful blessing from God, when such as transgress are resisted and punished. So long as sin is suffered, God is offended, and His wrath is extended over those places and persons. He hath a controversy against those that sin against Him.3. Every congregation is bound to purge their own body from such excrements and filthiness as annoy it. We must have herein true zeal and godly courage in the cause of God and His truth. We must not stand in fear of the faces of men, though they be never so great and mighty. The censures of the Church must not be like the spider’s web, which catcheth flies and gnats, whereas the bigger creatures break from it. This reproveth such as dare not deal with great men, rich men, and mighty men: they are afraid to touch them lest they purchase their displeasure.4. Is no Church to tolerate any open offenders among them? Then they must use the censure of excommunication as an ordinance of God, not an invention of men; and not only know the nature and use of it, but practise it to the glory of God, and to the good of others. This is it which our Saviour Christ hath left and commanded to be executed among us (Mat 18:17). (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 5:6-10Recompense his trespass.The law as to fraud1. He must confess his sin, and crave pardon from the bottom of his heart; he must submit himself unto God, knowing that he can by no means hide his sin, nor by any colour keep it from the sight of God.2. We must make satisfaction to Him whom we have wronged. It is not enough to make open confession unto God, unless also we make actual restitution unto men. This is done to discourage injurious persons. For if they should only restore the principal, they know, if their offences were found out, they should be no losers.3. He must seek reconciliation and atonement with God, by offering up of a ram in sacrifice, which figured out the suffering of Christ, and offering up of Himself once upon the Cross, for the discharge of our sin, and appeasing of the wrath of His Father. It shall profit us nothing to be at peace with men, except we be at peace with our God. This the enacting of the Law: an exception is annexed by way of prevention. For the offender that hath trespassed against his neighbour might object and say, How can I restore that I have taken? It may be the party is dead; it may be he hath neither son nor daughter nor kinsman: may I not then lawfully conceal it, and justly retain it unto myself? I answer, nay; the Lord answereth, Thou shalt by no means detain the goods that are not thine own, if thou look for any good at My hand. If the owner be dead or unknown, and he have none of his kindred and alliance living to be his heir, it shall not be thine, it is the Lord’s, and He giveth it unto the priest for a recompense of his labours in the tabernacle. God is the Lord of the soil; He challengeth it at His own, and He disposeth it at His own pleasure. (W. Attersoll.)Fraud and forgiveness:I. The sin of fraud.1. As assuming many forms.(1) Fraud in the matter of goods entrusted to the keeping of another.(2) In business transactions.(3) In seizing by force that which belongs to another.(4) In wronging another by means of deceit.(5) In the finder of lost property injuring the loser by falsehood.And in our own age fraud assumes many forms, and is widely prevalent. The employer who does not pay just wages to those in his service is guilty of it (Pro 22:16; Isa 3:14-15; Col 4:1; Isa 5:4). So also is the servant or workman who squanders the time for which his employer pays him; in so doing he defrauds his employer. The trader who takes an unfair advantage of his customer, which he calls by some special name, e.g., “practice of the trade,” &c.; the broker or speculator or manager who induces persons to invest their money in unreliable enterprises; the person who contracts a debt without the sincere intention and reasonable prospect of paying it--all these, and others, are guilty of fraud.2. As a wrong done to God.II. The conditions of its forgiveness.1. Consciousness of guilt. “The expression, ‘that person be guilty,’ does not merely refer to his actual criminality; but to his consciousness of guilt respecting it: for this case must be distinguished from that of a person detected in dishonesty which he attempted to conceal.” Without the consciousness of guilt the other conditions of forgiveness could not be truly complied with.2. Confession. “Then they shall confess their sin which they have done.” This is an essential condition of forgiveness (Psa 32:5; Pro 28:13; 1Jn 1:9). In itself it relieves the burdened soul, and leads to the joy and peace of forgiveness.3. Restitution is essential to remission of sin; for where restitution is not made it is evident that sincere repentance is absent (Eze 18:7; Eze 18:9; Eze 18:12-13; Eze 33:15).4. Sacrifice. In addition to making restitution the offender was commanded to offer “the ram of the atonement, whereby an atonement shall be made for him.”Conclusion:1. Let those who have injured others make speedy and full confession and restitution.2. Let us all cultivate the most thorough integrity and uprightness in our whole life and conduct. (W. Jones.)Restitution:When Mr. Moody was once speaking upon prayer, an incident occurred illustrating his subject, which made a profound impression, and came home to every one. He said true prayer consisted of ten elements--Adoration, Confession, Restitution, Thanksgiving, Unity, or Brotherly Love, the Spirit of Forgiveness, Faith, Ask (with a beggar’s importunity, a servant’s docility, and a friend’s confidence), Perseverance, and last, Submission. When he came to the third element, Restitution, a man rose in the audience and cried out: “Mr. Moody, let me cut in here. I went to Texas five years ago, having cheated my creditors of 15,000 dollars. My wife and I thought we were real smart. We settled in one of the cities, bought a nice house and furnished it tip top; grand piano, Brussels carpets, and my wife thought no end of the lace curtains. But we had hardly got settled down when Mr. Moody came along, and, like others, we followed the crowd of ‘professors’ and church members. He preached the same sermon we have so far heard to-night. The Spirit of God convicted me and my wife both of sin, on this head of Restitution, and we went home perfectly miserable. I said, ‘Loo, what are we to do?’ ‘Do!’ says she; ‘you know what to do without asking me; repay everybody to the last cent.’ No sooner said than done; the house was sold and an auction called right away; and, oh, the joy I had in handing up the silverware and the china. The piano and all went, but my wife was so happy at parting with the lace curtains it was really curious. Then we took two little rooms, a bedroom and a kitchen, and the only table we had was the one we had used in the kitchen for chopping meat on; but the Lord filled us with Himself, and we had peace and joy, because we had pardon and a clean conscience. The dear Lord has blessed me far above my desert and beyond what the devil led me to steal, and we have come to Northfield to praise the Lord, and carry back with us to Texas a fresh baptism of the blessed power which set us free five years ago.”Numbers 5:11-31If any man’s wife go aside.The trial of the suspected wifeI. Confidence in conjugal relations is of great importance. “Suspicion,” says Bp. Babington, “is the cut-throat and poison of all love and friendship.” And in proportion to the intensity of the love will be the anguish of suspicion in respect to the object of the love.II. Adultery is a sin of the greatest enormity. This dreadful ordeal, which was intended to prevent it, shows how great was its heinousness in the Divine estimation. This is expressed--1. In the abasement of the suspected woman. The “barley meal,” of which the offering was composed, the “earthern vessel” which contained the water, and “the dust” that was put into the water, indicate a state of deep humiliation and disgrace. The absence from the offering of oil, the symbol of the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, and of frankincense, the symbol of prayer, also proclaimed her questionable repute and the suspicion with which she was regarded. In like manner the “uncovering of the woman’s head” was indicative of the loss of woman’s best ornament, chastity and fidelity in the marriage relation.2. In the terrible punishment which came upon the guilty. This ordeal was made so terrible that the dread of it might effectually prevent the wives in Israel from the least violation of their fidelity to their husbands. It remains as an impressive proclamation of the utter abhorrence with which God regards the sin of adultery. It is a sin against God; it inflicts the most intolerable injury upon the husband; it is an unmitigated blight upon the family; and it is a wrong to society generally. The most terrible condemnations are pronounced upon it in the Sacred Word (Lev 20:10; Mal 3:5; 1Co 6:9-10; Heb 13:4).III. The punishment of sin is closely related to the sin itself. The punishment came in those portions of her body which she had abused.IV. God will bring to light the secret sins of men. If the suspected woman were guilty, after this ordeal her guilt would be made manifest. All sins are known unto Him.V. God will assuredly vindicate the innocent who have suffered from suspicion and slander. In this case the vindication was most complete. “If the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed.” “If not guilty after such a trial,” says Adam Clarke, “she had great honour; and, according to the rabbins, became strong, healthy, and fruitful; for if she was before barren, she now began to bear children; if before she had only daughters, she now began to have sons; if before she had hard travail, she now had easy; in a word, she was blessed in her body, her soul, and her substance.” Thus to the innocent there was no terror in this stern ordeal. It was rather a blessing to them, if by any means they had come to be regarded with suspicion by their husbands; for by means of it such suspicions would be removed, and their fidelity and honour vindicated and exalted. And God will, sooner or later, splendidly vindicate all who suffer from misrepresentation, slander, or false accusation. (W. Jones.)Innocence mysteriously declaredAunt C. Fox told us of an American friend who once felt a concern to go somewhere, he knew not where. He ordered his gig, his servant asking where he was to drive. “Up and down the road,” said his master. At last they met a funeral. “Follow this funeral.” said the master. They followed in the procession till they came to the churchyard. Whilst the service was being performed the friend sat in his gig; at its conclusion he walked to the grave, and said solemnly, “The person now buried is innocent of the crime laid to her charge.” An elderly gentleman in deep mourning came up to him in great agitation, and said, “Sir, what you have said has surprised me very much.” “I can’t help it, I can’t help it,” replied the other; “I only said what I was obliged to say.” “Well,” said the mourner, “the person just buried is my wife, who for some years has lain under the suspicion of infidelity to me. No one else knew of it, and on her death-bed she again protested her innocence, and said that if I would not believe her then, a witness to it would be raised up even at her grave-side.” (Caroline’s Fox’s Journal.)Innocence strangely declared:It is recorded in history that a beautiful maiden, named Blanche, the serf of an ancient nobleman, was wooed by her master’s son. Not admiring his character, she scorned his suit. Upon this, his course of love turned to bitter hatred. Just then a precious string of pearls confided to the maiden’s care was lost. Her pseudolover charged her with the theft, and, in accordance with the customs of that rude age, she was doomed to die. On the day of the execution, as the innocent girl knelt to offer her dying prayer, a flash of lightning struck a statue of Justice, which adorned the market-place, to the dust. From a scattered bird’s nest, built in a crevice of the image, dropped the lost pearls--thus declaring her innocence. In a moment the exultant crowd rushed to the scaffold, demanding her release. There she knelt beside the block, pale and beautiful, and with a smile of peace upon her lips. They spoke--she answered not. They touched her--she was dead! To preserve her memory, they raised a statue there; and to this day, when men gaze upon her image, they condemn her oppressor; they praise her for the purity of her character; they recognise the justice of Him whose lightnings testified to her innocence. (W. Smith.)A fallacious test of innocence:Man frequently satisfies himself that he has come to an accurate conclusion merely because, on the application of what he considers an infallible test, he discovers a particular anticipated result. Often enough the test is utterly fallacious. Take an example. The tanghin, or tanguen, is the only plant of its genus, and is confined to Madagascar. Its poisonous seed is esteemed by the natives an infallible criterion of guilt or innocence. After being pounded, a small piece is swallowed by the supposed criminal. If he be cursed with a strong stomach, which retains the poison, he speedily dies, and is held guilty; if his feeble digestion rejects it, he necessarily escapes, and his innocence is considered proven. Now it is obvious to any educated mind that innocence and guilt are in no way disclosed by this process. Yet inasmuch as it has been accepted as a test, its results are unquestioned. And there are numberless instances in which English society consents to be governed by the results of tests, simply because those tests are generally accepted. Again and again it becomes important to inquire whether, supposing your test does disclose a given result, that test is really as infallible as you deem it to be? Many will be found to be only “tanghin” tests, and as such utterly fallacious. (Scientific Illustrations.)Numbers 6Numbers 6:1-21A vow of a Nazarite.The law of vows (with special reference to the Nazarite)1. The principle of the vow is that God has placed earth’s good things at man’s disposal; and it is a becoming thing in him to give so much of it back to God (1Ch 29:14; 1Ch 29:16; Jon 1:16). But once made, there was no option in the performance of the vow. No vow was better than a vow unpaid (Deu 23:21-22 : Ecc 5:4-6).2. The subjects of vows were endless as a man’s possessions. They extended even to the person of himself or others over whom he might have control (Lev 27:1-34).3. But the vow at once most prominent in the Old Testament, and coming nearest to the personal consecration asked for in the New, is that of the Nazarite. The Nazaritish vow is explainable neither on the one hand as stoicism, nor on the other as a mystic representation of the Divine power working in man. It represents the ideal of sacrifice, in the devotement of a man’s own person to God.I. The marks of dedication laid upon the Nazarite.1. He is to abstain from all alcoholic liquor; and, to avoid danger or suspicion, must abstain from all that comes from the vine (Num 6:3-4). As a similar regulation was made regarding the priests when in God’s service (Lev 10:9), the inference is that indulgence in strong drink specially unfits a man for God’s presence or indwelling.2. He is to leave his hair unshorn (Num 6:5), obviously as a badge of his position. The meaning of the Nazarite’s long hair, i.e. his subjection to God, gives meaning to the woman’s long hair (1Co 11:10), viz. her subjection to man.3. He must not come into contact with the dead (Num 6:7). The lesson lay in the close connection between death and sin, and carried the promise of victory over death to him who sought the victory over sin.II. The examples presented in scripture of the nazarite vow. The vow was generally taken for a short period--from thirty to sixty days--and probably its very commonness prevents its being much noticed in Scripture. But there are some notable examples of Nazarites for life. Samson was, in the full sense of the word, a life-Nazarite (Jdg 13:1-25.). In the case of Samuel (1Sa 1:11), no mention is made of abstinence, and in the case of John Baptist (Luk 1:15) no mention is made of the hair; but it is probable that they were both full Nazarites.III. Its application to ourselves.1. In Bible times it was a permissible and honourable thing to abstain from intoxicating drinks. When God had any specially great or holy work for a man to do, He would have him a Nazarite or an abstainer (Lev 10:9, &c.). He classes the Nazarite with the prophet (Amo 2:11). Have we any less reason to-day to be abstainers than these men had?2. The Nazaritish vow raises the question of our entire consecration to God. Christ was not an abstainer because He is the one perfect example of consecration, and representative of the body which shall yet stand in its completed freedom before God. There will be no vows in heaven, because at every moment the heart’s choice will be all that it should be. But if we put vows from us now, we have to ask, Is it because we are above them, or because we are below them? (W. Roberts, M. A.)The ordinance of Nazariteship:1. The fruit of the vine, in every shape and form, was to him a forbidden thing. Now, wine, as we know, is the apt symbol of earthly joy--the expression of that social enjoyment which the human heart is so fully capable of entering into. From this the Nazarite in the wilderness was sedulously to keep himself. It is a very grave question indeed how far we, as Christians, are really entering into the meaning and power of this intense separation from all the excitement of nature and from all merely earthly joy. It may perhaps be said, “What harm is there in having a little amusement or recreation? Has not God given us richly all things to enjoy? And while we are in the world, is it not right that we should enjoy it?” We reply, it is not a question of the harm of this, that, or the other. There was no harm, as a general rule, in wine, nothing abstractedly wrong in the vine tree. The question for us is this, Do we aim at being Nazarites? Do we sigh after thorough separation and devotement of ourselves, in body, soul, and spirit, unto God? If so, we must be apart from all these things in which mere nature finds its enjoyment.2. But there was another thing which marked the Nazarite. He was not to shave his head. In 1Co 11:14, we learn that it argues a lack of dignity for a man to have long hair. From this we learn that if we really desire to live a life of separation to God, we must be prepared to surrender our dignity in nature. Now here is just the very thing which we so little like to do. We naturally stand up for our dignity and seek to maintain our rights. It is deemed manly so to do. But the perfect Man never did so; and if we aim at being Nazarites we shall not do so either. We must surrender the dignities of nature, and forego the joys of earth, if we would tread a path of thorough separation to God in this world. By and by both will be in place; but not now. This simplifies the matter amazingly. It answers a thousand questions and solves a thousand difficulties. It is of little use to split; hairs about the harm of this or that particular thing. The question is, What is our real purpose and object? Do we merely want to get on as men, or do we long to live as true Nazarites?3. The Nazarite was not to touch a dead body (verses 6, 7). When once the consecration of God rested upon the head of any one, that important fact became the touchstone of all morality. It placed the individual on entirely new ground, and rendered it imperative upon him to look at everything from a peculiar point of view. He was no longer to ask what became him as a man; but what became him as a Nazarite.4. We behold, in the person of the Nazarite, a type of one who sets out in some special path of devotedness or consecration to Christ. The power of continuance in this path consists in secret communion with God; so that if the communion be interrupted, the power is gone. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Nazarite rules1. No juice of grape, no produce of the vine, may touch the consecrated lips. This principle is broad and deep. Flee whatever may tend co weaken the firm energy, or to stir up the sleeping brood of sensual and ungodly lusts. More than gross vice is branded here. Evils may enter in a pigmy form. At first they may seem harmless. Avoid them. They are the cancer’s touch. They are the weed’s first seed.2. No razor approaches the Nazarite’s hair. His flowing locks openly announce his separate state. The dedication must not be a secret act, known only to the conscience and the Lord. Religion is not for the closet or the knees alone. It is not a lily, growing only in the shade. It is to be the one attire in which you move abroad--the holy crown which sparkles on your brow.3. He must avoid all contact with the dead. Among the living he must live. Wherefore is death to be thus shunned? It is the penalty of sin--the sign of God’s most righteous wrath. It is a proof of innocence destroyed-of evil touched--of vengeance merited. It is abomination’s colleague. Therefore it is emblem of what holy men should holily abhor. (Dean Law.)The NazariteIt is to be noticed here that this separation was voluntary and in full accordance with the self-determination of the will power. The Nazarite, of his own choice, vowed a vow that for a certain time at least he would be all the Lord’s. This indicated his conscious choice. He could make the vow, or he could decline to do so. In all his dealings with men, God recognises and honours their will power. No cue is coerced into His service. No one is over-constrained to set himself apart for God. And so it is with Christian holiness--the New Testament idea of Nazaritism. Men must first of all, by the Spirit of God, will to be all the Lord’s. They must will to give up themselves, the world, and sin, and every wrong thing, and to be separated to God for ever. Those Nazarites to God were among the brightest shining lights of the Jewish dispensation. And is it not so now? The more complete the consecration and separation the more blessed and wide-spread and Divine is the light which shines out from this holy character. But there were certain conditions of Nazariteship then, as there are now. First of all, the Nazarite was to be a total abstainer. No man who gives himself up to the wine-cup can be wholly separated to God. There must be a separation from these things. As men draw consciously near to God there will be an abandonment of intoxicants.2. Their hair was to remain uncut (Num 6:5). In the olden time the growth of the hair was thought to be indicative of strength. The idea may have originated in many minds from the strength in Samson’s unshorn locks. But, whatever the cause, this has very generally been thought to be the case. This was done, we think, that it might be clearly indicated that nothing was to emasculate or effeminate the persons thus set apart. The person who would be all the Lord’s must give up everything which would mar or enfeeble his religious character or life. It has been thought by some that long hair is a token of subjection. So Paul is regarded as teaching in 1Co 11:5. Well, let it be so. And then what does this indicate to the spiritually-minded person? Why, surely, that the Christian Nazarite is entirely under subjection to God.3. All who saw these persons knew that they were Nazarites. Their unshorn locks told at once their real character. In like manner the holy Christian will readily impress the mind of those by whom he is surrounded that he belongs to Christ.4. Furthermore, he was not to touch any dead body, not even of those who were dearest to him. No one who aims to be a holy Christian should fail to keep his “garments unspotted from the world.”5. The Christian Nazarite’s vow is for life. With him, this consecration is not merely for eight days, or for a month, or a year; but it is for life. (Lewis R. Dunn, D. D.)The vow of the Nazarite; or, acceptable consecration to GodAcceptable personal consecration to God is characterised by--1. Voluntariness. The service of the slave, or of the hireling, Be rejects.2. Completeness. Divided allegiance is no allegiance.3. Subordination of sensual enjoyments. Our animal passions must be controlled by moral principles. Everything which tends to weaken our soul’s vision, to blunt our susceptibility to spiritual impressions, to interrupt our communion with God, or to deprive us of spiritual purity and power, we are bound to abstain from.4. Separation from all moral evil. (W. Jones.)Of the vows of the Nazarites, and the use thereof to us:The Nazarites were such persons as vowed a special kind of holiness. The parts of their special holiness are two: first, while they were in this vow; secondly, when the days of it were accomplished. This is the vow and these are the rites belonging unto it: now let us observe the uses remaining for us. For albeit these ceremonies be all abrogated, yet we shall find great benefit to arise from hence to the whole Church.1. And first concerning the sanctification of these Nazarites professing holiness above others, it was a lively figure of Christ, signifying to the whole Church the wonderful purity of Christ, who was fully and perfectly separate from sinners. But was Christ such a Nazarite as these here spoken of? I answer, no: He observed no part of this vow. The Nazarites abstained from wine, the fruit of the vine, the blood of the grape: but Christ Himself in His own person did not so. Howbeit He is indeed a true Nazarite, or rather the truth of the Nazarites, separate from all the corruptions that attend upon the rest of the sons of men, free from the common defilements of the world; and that holy One which is called the Son of God. This is a great comfort for us to consider the excellency of His sacrifice, being without blemish, for it was most requisite that the unspeakable work of the Spirit should come in, that so He might not be tainted with the common infection of original sin, but might be endued with most perfect purity and innocency, and so be fully able to cover our impurity and impiety (Eph 5:26-27), and withal as by a certain pledge assure us, that in the end all our sins and imperfections shall be done away. In Him is that fulfilled therefore which is spoken in the Lamentations, that He was whiter than the milk, and purer than the snow, and it agreeth more fitly and truly unto Him than unto these Nazarites.2. Secondly this teacheth that such as were special ornaments of the Church, and have received a more eminent office than others, should also labour to shine before others in holiness of life, according to the measure of grace which they have received (Rom 16:7). These thus advanced of God are, in the eyes of the world, as a city set upon a hill; a little blemish is soon seen in their face, a small stain appeareth in their coat; and therefore Satan laboureth especially to tempt and seduce them. And Christ telleth His disciples that Satan desired to winnow them--them I say above others as their calling was above others; for they ,sere the master-builders, and laid the foundation of the Church, upon which others builded. Let all those therefore whose place and calling and gifts make them evident above others, take heed to themselves: let them labour to cleave more closely to God, and so to let their light shine before men that they, seeing their good works, may glorify their Father which is in heaven. These are as chief captains of the host, and the ensign-bearers of the Church, to show the way to others and to go in and out before them in an unblamable course; and though they draw not all unto them by their example, yet their fervency, their earnestness, shall serve to instruct many others.3. Thirdly, seeing these Nazarites must keep themselves from wine and strong drink, as also from eating fresh or dried grapes, so long as the days of their separation endured, we learn hereby that it is our duty to fly from all evil, even all the occasions and allurements of sin whatsoever, though they be never so pleasant to the eye or sweet to the taste; inasmuch as we shall find them in the end to be more sharp than vinegar, more bitter than wormwood, more deadly than poison. (W. Attersoll.)Dangerous things to be avoided:As much as we can, let us keep ourselves from slippery places, for even on dry ground it is not very strongly that we stand. (J. Spencer.)Degrading effects of drinkA minister of the gospel told me in 1847 one of the most thrilling incidents I ever heard in my life. A member of his congregation came home for the first time in his life intoxicated, and his boy met him on the doorstep, clapping his hands and exclaiming, “Papa has come home!” He seized that boy by the shoulder, swung him around, staggered, and fell with him in the hall. The minister said to me, “I spent that night in that house. I went to the door, and bared my brow that the night air might fall upon it and cool it; I walked up and down the hail. There was his child dead; there was his wife in strong convulsions, and he asleep. A man but thirty-five years of age asleep with a dead child in the house, having a blue mark upon the temple where the corner of the marble steps had come in contact with the head as he swung him round, and a wife upon the very brink of the grave! I felt I must remain until he awoke, and I did. When he awoke he passed his hand over his face, and exclaimed, ‘What is the matter? Where am I? Where is my boy?’ ‘You cannot see him.’--’Where is my boy?’ he inquired. ‘You cannot see him.’--’Stand out of my way. I will see my boy!’ To prevent confusion, I took him to that child’s bedside, and, as I turned down the sheet and showed him the corpse, he uttered the shriek, ‘Ah, my child!’ One year afterwards that man was brought from a lunatic asylum to lie side by side with his wife in one grave, and I attended his funeral.” The minister of the gospel who told me that fact is to-day a drunken ostler in a stable in Boston l Now tell me what drink will do. It will debase, degrade, imbrute, and damn everything that is noble, bright, glorious, and godlike in a human being. (J. B. Gough.)A faithful abstainer:The Rev. Canon Wilberforce was once in the neighbourhood of the London Docks, in a little room as black as a chimney, but, through the preaching of the gospel, many souls have been born there. He asked if any one would get up and say what God had done for their souls. An old sailor rose and said how bad he had been; felt that he was even a devil’s castaway; but six years ago, in that little room, he was led to see that he was a great sinner, but that Christ was a great Saviour, and that on the cross was nailed every one of his sins. “I signed the pledge and threw away my pipe, and have been upheld by God, because every morning I pray that I may be protected.” Returning recently from Hong Kong, this old sailor had an accident and was badly scalded, and was very ill. When he began to recover the doctor said, “You must take some port-wine.” “No,” said the old sailor, “I am a teetotaller.” “But,” said the doctor, “you need it to strengthen you.” “Doctor,” said the old man, “do you think I shall die ii I don’t take the wine?” “Yes,” said the doctor. “Then,” said the sailor, “when you get into the St. Katherine’s Docks, go round to the little room and tell them that the old man died sober.” But he did not die, and is alive to this hour to testify of the sufficiency of God’s grace to keep him.Numbers 6:23-26On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel. The threefold blessing1. Open the hand wide. The Father comes to fill it. “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.”(1) When? Now and ever, when you go out, come in, sit down, rise up, through all your living space, and when the last breath flutters on your lips.(2) Where? In every place in which you tarry, or to which you move; in the closet, at the domestic board, at home, abroad, in still retreat, and in the busiest haunts, in the publicity of open work, and in the sanctity of holiest spots.(3) How? By causing all things to minister to your true good, by crowning yore lot with all real happiness.2. Jesus comes next. “The Lord make His face shine upon thee,” &c. The greatest change on nature’s brow is when light dawns. Gloom dwells beneath the pall of night. It is so with the soul. Sad are the hours which are not bright with Jesus. Then sins affright, and wrath dismays, and all the future is despair. This blessing promises the shining of His face, not a brief ray, but the full blaze of concentrated love. “The Lord make His face shine upon thee.” Here, too, a precious pearl is added. It is grace. The words proceed, “and be gracious unto thee.” What wonders are wrapt up in grace I Its birth is in the heavens, its fruit upon the earth. It looks on those in whom no merit dwells.3. The blessing voice still speaks. “The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee,” &c. Can they who have received so much need more? But more is wondrously given. The truly blest have all the blessings of a Triune Jehovah. Hence the Spirit’s favour is moreover pledged. Seek Christ, abide in Him, make Him your all, then will this threefold blessing be your crown. (Dean Law.)The priestly blessingI. The divine direction. The command to pronounce the blessing may be regarded as an assurance that, when it was pronounced, the blessing itself would be given.II. The divine benediction.1. The significant form of the benediction.(1) The triple use of the sacred Name is significant.(2) The use of the singular number in reference to the subject of the blessing is significant.2. The Divine fulness of the benediction. “As the threefold repetition of a word or sentence serves to express the thought as strongly as possible (cf: Jer 7:4; Jer 22:29), the triple blessing expressed in the most unconditional manner the thought that God would bestow upon His congregation the whole fulness of the blessing enfolded in His Divine Being which was manifested as Jehovah.” The blessing includes--(1) The preservation of God. “The Lord bless thee, and keep thee.” Danger is implied. We are weak, inexperienced, prone to sin, exposed to temptation. What subtlety can surprise God who is infinite in intelligence? What strength can stand against Omnipotence?(2) The favour of God. “The Lord make His face shine,” &c. When the Divine face is dark with frowns, distress and death ensue; when it is bright with favours, life and joy flow to man. “They perish at the rebuke of Thy countenance.”4. Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved.” There seems to be an allusion to the shining of the sun. It gives life, light, heat, beauty, power, joy.(3) The peace of God. “The Lord lift up His countenance,” &c. “Shalom”--peace, “the sum of all the good which God sets, prepares, or establishes for His people.” “Peace, including all that good which goes to make up a complete happiness.” This great blessing is viewed as flowing from the gracious regard of God for man. Pardon, preservation, peace, an unspeakable wealth of blessing flows to man from the sovereign favour of our gracious God.III. The divine ratification. “And they shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” The benediction was not to be the mere utterance of a pious wish; but God would give effect to it. “A Divine blessing goes along with Divine institutions, and puts virtue and efficacy into them.” God will certainly bless His own ordinances unto all those who believe. (W. Jones.)The priestly blessing:I. The priests, among other good offices they were to do, are appointed solemnly to bless the people in the name of the lord. Hereby God put an honour upon the priest, for the less is blessed of the better; and hereby He gave great comfort and satisfaction to the people, who looked upon the priest as God’s mouth to them. Though the priest of himself could do no more but beg a blessing, yet being an intercessor by office, and doing that in His name who commands the blessing, the prayer carried with it a promise, and he pronounced it as one having authority, with his hands lifted up and his face towards the people.1. This was a type of Christ’s errand into the world, which was to bless us (Act 3:26) as the High Priest of our profession. The last thing He did on earth was with uplifted hands to bless His disciples (Luk 24:50-51). Bishop Pearson observes it as a tradition of the Jews, that the priests blessed the people only at the close of the morning sacrifice, not of the evening sacrifice, to show that in the days of the Messiah, which are (as it were) the evening of the world, the benediction of the law should cease, and the blessing of Christ should take place.2. It was a pattern to gospel-ministers, the masters of assemblies, who are in like manner to dismiss their solemn assemblies with a blessing. The same that are God’s mouth to His people to teach and command them, are His mouth likewise to bless them; and they that receive the law shall receive the blessing.II. A form of blessing is here prescribed them. In other of their devotions no form is prescribed; but this being God’s command of the blessing, that it might not look like anything of their own He puts the very words into their mouths (Num 6:24-26). Where observe--1. That the blessing is commanded upon each particular person: “The Lord bless thee.” They must each of them prepare themselves to receive the blessing, and then they should find enough in it to make them every man happy (Deu 28:3). If we take the law to ourselves, we may take the blessing to ourselves, as if our names were inserted.2. That the name Jehovah is three times repeated in it, and (as the critics observe) each with a different accent in the original. The Jews themselves think there is some mystery. And we know what it is, the New Testament having explained it (2Co 13:14).3. That the favour of God is all in all in this blessing, for that it is the fountain of all good.(1) “The Lord bless thee.” Our blessing God is only our speaking well of Him, His blessing us is doing well for us; those whom He blesseth they are blessed indeed.(2) “The Lord make His face shine upon thee.” Alluding to the shining of the sun upon the earth, to enlighten and comfort it, and to renew the face of it. “The Lord love thee, and make thee know that He loves thee.” We cannot but be happy if we have God’s love, and we cannot but be easy if we know that we have it.(3) “The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee.” This is to the same purpose with the former, and it seems to allude to the smiles of a father upon his child, or of a man upon his friend whom he takes pleasure in. If God gives us the assurances of His special favour, and His acceptance of us, that will put gladness into the heart (Psa 4:7-8).4. That the fruits of this favour conveyed by this blessing are protection, pardon, and peace.(1) Protection from evil (Num 6:24). “The Lord keep thee,” for it is He that keepeth Israel, and neither “slumbers nor sleeps” (Psa 121:4), and all believers are kept by the power of God.(2) Pardon of sin (Num 6:25). The Lord be gracious or merciful unto thee.(3) Peace (Num 6:26), including all that good which goes to make up a complete happiness.(4) God here promiseth to ratify and confirm the blessing (Num 6:27). “They shall put My name upon the children of Israel.” God gives them leave to make use of His name in blessing the people, and to bless them as His people called by His name. This included all the blessings they could pronounce upon them, to, mark them for God’s peculiar, the people of His choice and love. God’s name upon them was their honour, their comfort, their safety, their plea: “we are called by Thy name, leave us not.” It is added, “and I will bless them.” A Divine blessing goes along with Divine institutions, and puts virtue and efficacy into them. What Christ saith of the peace is true of the blessing. When God’s ministers pronounce the blessing, “Peace be to this congregation,” if the sons of peace and heirs of blessing be there, the peace, the blessing shall rest upon them (Luk 10:5-6). For in every place where God doth record His name, He will meet His people and bless them. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The blessing of the high priest:I. The general character of this blessing.1. It was a blessing given through a priest. Christ, as the great High Priest who offered Himself without spot unto God, is the Divine channel of blessing. Do we know the Lord’s Anointed?2. This benediction is of the nature of intercession. Never forget that Christ “made intercession for the transgressors.” He has, moreover, a special pleading for believers (Joh 17:9).3. This benediction is yet of a higher order than intercession. Here is not only faith pleating, but faith receiving and bestowing. The priest speaks the blessing: for which he asks.4. This blessing is sure. Christ is commissioned of the Father, and anointed of the Spirit, as the ambassador of peace.5. It is continuous. God blesses ever; curses never.II. The blessing itself.1. It passes from the priest to God. “The Lord bless thee.” What a blessing the Lord gives! Have we not heard a mother say to her little child, “Bless you “? What a wealth of meaning she threw into it. But when God says, “Bless you! “ there are infinity and immutability in it. There can be no limit to the goodwill of the infinite God.2. Notice that the name of the Lord, or Jehovah, is three times mentioned. Here we hear the voice of One, yet Three.3. Notice that this benediction is all along in the singular. Why? Because the people of God are one, and He views them as one, and so the blessing comes upon the entire Church as a whole. But, next, I think it is that every individual believer may take the whole of this benediction home to himself.III. The divine amen. Here is the authority repeated by way of confirmation of what has been said. “They shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” The priest does his part, and then the Lord makes the blessing effectual. Herein is condescension on God’s part, and honour and security for us. When the Lord’s name is named upon anything He will guard His own dedicated things. The name of the Lord is a strong tower, and within it we are safe. I think I see here a confirmation of those blessings which are pronounced by good men. “They shall put My name upon the children of Israel, and I will bless them.” I loved to have my grandfather’s blessing when I was preaching the Word in early days. He has now gone into the glory; but he blessed me, and none can take away the name of God from me. Most of you will remember the blessings of good men who are now gone to glory; and God confirms those blessings. He allows His people, whom He has made priests and kings unto God, to put His name upon others, and to pronounce blessings upon them. Their word shall stand, and what they bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And then comes, best of all, the blessing of our God most surely promised. “I will bless them”; they shall have their troubles, but I will bless them through their troubles. When they have earthly goods I will bless them and make them real comforts. I will bless their basket and their store. If those earthly comforts arc taken away I will give them compensation a thousandfold in myself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Israel blest and kept:1. The blessing was put into the mouth of Aaron the high priest, in this as in other points a type and figure of the Lord Jesus Christ. But Aaron could only pronounce the blessing; Jesus gives it.2. Observe how, by implication, the doctrine of the Trinity is here set forth.I. “The Lord bless thee.” The blessings meant would seem to be chiefly spiritual. Not that we are to think lightly of temporal favours. They are left-hand blessings, if not right-hand mercies; they are gifts to be thankful for on earth, if not graces that take to heaven; provision for the perishing body, if not food for the immortal soul. Health, strength, such a measure of worldly goods as shall keep the wolf from the door and enable us to owe no man anything but love, children growing up to be a comfort to their parents, a kind and affectionate partner, warm and faithful friends, an untarnished name, who shall say that these are not blessings for which God is to be praised? And yet how infinitely short do these temporal blessings, which perish in the using, fall of spiritual blessings which endure for evermore.1. Godly fear in the heart--that fountain of life by which an awakened sinner departs from the snares of death--is not that of all blessings first and foremost because the “beginning of wisdom?” It is “a fountain of life,” and, like a river, is only increased and deepened by successive additions of grace. If we have not the beginning we can have neither the middle nor end.2. But is not faith a blessing too? And who know faith to be a blessing? Those who are deeply exercised and tried by an unbelieving heart.3. And is not hope a blessing too?4. Love.5. Patience.6. Testimonies of God’s mercy and grace to the soul.7. Is not the rod often a blessing?II. “and keep thee.” Blessing first and keeping afterwards. The blessing given, and then, when given, the blessing kept. The letter written, and then sealed; the jewel put into the casket, and then the casket locked. “The Lord keep thee.” We cannot keep ourselves.1. I need hardly observe that the first and foremost is to be kept from positive evil. The Lord asked of the Father for His disciples, “I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world”--no; let them suffer there as I have suffered before--“but keep them from the evil.” And this will be first and foremost in the petitions of every child of God who knows his own evil heart and has suffered from its weakness and treachery, that the Lord will keep him from open evil, that he may bring no distress and guilt upon his own conscience, or reproach upon the cause of God.2. Error.3. A spirit of delusion.III. “the lord make his face shine upon thee.”1. The allusion here seems to be to the sun. Sometimes the natural sun has not risen, and the world must needs be dark if the sun be still beneath the horizon. So with many gracious souls, it is darkness with them because at present neither the Day-star has appeared nor the Sun of Righteousness risen upon them with healing in His wings. But sometimes after the sun has risen we see not his face; dark clouds may obscure the face of that bright luminary throughout the whole day, and we may not get a single ray. So, many of the Lord’s family, after the Sun has risen upon them in the morning of their spiritual life may pass perhaps much of their subsequent time in the dark shadow, till perhaps at evening tide there is light, and a departing ray gilds the dying pillow. But, again, there are sometimes days when mists drive rapidly across the face of the bright orb of day, and yet occasionally he peeps through the breaking clouds. And is not this, in some measure, an emblem of tile way in which the Sun of Righteousness is continually obscured by the mists and fogs which spring up out of our unbelieving heart, hidden from view by the doubts and fears that, like the vapours of the valley, spread themselves to our view over His beauteous face? Yet there are time, when He gleams through the clouds and disperses the mists. When the Lord is pleased to bless the soul and shine upon it with any sweet manifestation, then He breaks in through the dark clouds; but they gather again. It is not in Christian experience one bright summer day. Our spiritual climate is humid, our inward latitude northern.2. “The Lord make His face shine upon thee.” Is the Lord, then, sovereign in these matters? Can we not lift up our hand and remove the cloud? We have as much power to stretch forth our hand and sweep away the mists that obscure the Sun of Righteousness, as we have power with the same hand to sweep away a London fog. How this puts the creature into his right place I and the creature is only in his right place when he is nothing, and God is all in all.3. “The Lord make His face shine upon thee.” And if He make His face shine upon thee, He will make thy face shine too.IV. “and be gracious unto thee.” How sweet the gospel is! But what makes the gospel sweet? That one word which sheds a perfume through the whole--grace. Take grace out of the gospel and you destroy the gospel. Grace pervades every part and every branch of the blessed gospel; it is the life of the gospel; in a word, it is the gospel itself.V. “the lord lift up his countenance upon thee.” The meaning of this expression may, I think, be illustrated by a simple figure. A child has been disobedient to, or otherwise displeased its parent. When we offend a person, his face is not toward us as at other times. It was so with Laban towards Jacob; and if we have in any way incurred a friend’s or superior’s displeasure we watch instinctively his countenance. Is it down or up? Does it wear a frown or a smile? Is it looking upon us with the eye of affection, or are the eyes averted? We can tell in a moment if we know the countenance. Thus is the blessing asked, “The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee,” as a kind and affectionate parent upon an obedient child.VI. “and give thee peace.” Oh what a blessing! It is this that makes the pillow easy in life, and will alone make that pillow easy in death--peace with God through Jesus Christ, “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” The blessing that the gracious soul most earnestly covets is peace; for this is the sweetest honey-drop in God’s cup. It is true that it does not make the heart overflow like joy, nor to dance with exultation like the first beaming in of the rays of hope, nor melt it down like visits of love; but it is in some respects sweeter than all, because it so settles down the soul into sweet assurance; it is the realisation of the Saviour Himself, for “He is our peace,” and may thus be called the crowning blessing. But see how the links of this Divine chain meet. “The Lord bless thee”--link the first; “and keep thee”--link the second; “the Lord make His face shine upon thee”--the third; “and be gracious unto thee”--the fourth; “the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee”--the fifth; “and give thee peace”--the sixth. Six blessed links, and all united into one continuous chain; for when the Lord begins to bless, He ends with peace. We need wish no greater nor pray for a higher blessing than peace, for God has none greater to give. When a father dies he leaves his children all his goods. Jesus, before He died, said, “Peace I leave with you; My peace give I unto you; not as the world giveth give I unto you.” It was His last legacy; His dying gift; in His own eyes of the greatest value, and it should be such in ours. (J. C. Philpot.)The pastor’s wish and prayer:I. Let us reflect on the nature and extent of the blessings here involved.1. Divine benediction. In a world in which everything is rather semblance than reality, how delightful the thought that there is One--the Uncreated and Unconditional, the Ever-present and Ever-true, who is not more able than He is willing to overtake all the conditions of our being, and to do for us exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think! Our weakness can never fall to a depth lower than His power can reach. Our necessities can never exceed His resources. Our difficulties can never be so involved but that His wisdom can direct us. Our sorrows can never be so acute, or so accumulated, but His Spirit can assuage and relieve us.2. Divine preservation. Not only “the Lord bless thee,” but “keep thee.” The consciousness that with a finite and dependent nature we are in a world of temptation, must ever render acceptable and blessed the help of another mightier and more able.3. Divine illumination. “The Lord make His face to shine upon thee.” The reference here is doubtless to that mysterious symbol of His presence which God vouchsafed to His ancient Church, as the outward and visible expression of His favour and love. We rise from the material into the spiritual, and repose in the promise of that inward light which is ever streaming from the Spirit through the truth to guide and cheer arid render certain the steps of the wanderer across the desert of life.4. Divine communication. “The Lord be gracious unto thee.” The grace of God is but another expression for His infinite and exhaustless bounty. The highest conception which we can form of the Divine benevolence is derived from the work of human redemption. Herein is love. In no other act of His administration is it so conspicuous or so glorious. Salvation is grace running out into infinite and everlasting kindness. And what are all the communications of spiritual blessing to the soul but the love of God ever repeating itself, and assuring us that the treasures of eternity are unlocked to supply our need?5. Divine manifestation. “The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon thee.” What will heaven be but this perfected and perpetuated in the immediate presence of God?6. Divine satisfaction. “The Lord give thee peace.” It is a question in mechanics whether there be such a thing as a body in a state of perfect rest. We confess ourselves to be in a position not to solve the problem. Of this however we are certain, that in the spiritual world there is a centre of eternal repose on which the whole universe may rest for ever. The soul of man is torn and distracted with unfulfilled desires; and possess what he may, while one single longing is left unsatisfied the perfection of inward quiet and peace is impossible. This can only come with that completeness of life which is enjoyed in God.II. Let us inquire into the ever-living and unchangeable source of such inestimable blessing. The incommunicable name Jehovah, here translated Lord, includes within itself every possible perfection and excellence. It not only points to the sum of being, but to the fountain of blessedness. His eternity we place in opposition to all that is temporary; His immutability in opposition to all that is changing; His immortality in opposition to whatever has in it the seeds of decay and death; His all-sufficiency and infinite felicity in opposition to all that is inadequate and unsatisfying. (R. Ferguson, LL. D.)A comprehensive benediction:What does this prayer not include? What a richness and plenitude of Divine mercy does it bring into view? It expresses as perfectly as any human words can express, the immense and infinite good which can he found in God, as the Root of all being and the Fountain of all happiness. What more could we ask on your behalf than that you may individually be the chosen objects of the unchangeable love and fatherly care of Him, who, while He has the weight of all worlds upon His arm, yet stoops to feed the ravens when they cry; who, amid the government of worlds, is not unmindful of individuals, and who, while He is guiding the stars in their course, is at the same moment numbering the very hairs of your heads? What more can we ask for you, than that He who never sleeps, and whose eyelids never slumber, whose power fainteth not, and who is ever travelling forth in the greatness of His strength mighty to save, may watch over you and preserve you, give you more than the warrior’s shield of triple brass, and bruise every enemy under your feet? What more can we now ask for you than that He, who ever lives and moves in the light of His own eternity, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the deeper and ever growing knowledge of Himself, fill your soul with the everlasting beamings of truth, cause the sunshine of His presence to break through every cloud, and falling softly on your steps, make your path like that of the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day? What more can we ask for you, than that He whose eternal love prompted Him to provide for the redemption of our race, may unlock the treasures of His mercy, and bless you with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, may grant you according to the riches of His grace, and, adding to the plenitude of His grace the riches of His glory, thus fill you unto His own fulness? What more can we ask for you, than that He whose name is the Lord--the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, slow to anger, abundant in goodness and in truth--while He conceals the intenser glory of His nature, would ever manifest Himself unto you, take you into deeper communion with His Spirit, open up heaven to your view, and fill your vision with the glories of immortality? What more can we ask for you, than that He who is the only centre of rest for His dependent universe, may take from your nature every unholy and disturbing element, and give you that peace which passeth all understanding, sanctify you in soul, body, and spirit, and lift you above the din and distraction of this noisy and conflicting world, introduce you into the deep quiet of His own Infinite Being, and fill you with the joy which is unspeakable? What more can we ask for you, than that this goodness and mercy may follow you all the days of your life, and that when you enter the dark valley which separates the silence of eternity from the murmurs of time, you may be conscious of the immediate presence of the glorified Redeemer, and dropping the worn-out garment of the flesh, take your place reclothed and immortal, before the throne of God? (R. Ferguson, LL. D.)The golden blessingI. The golden blessing was given through a mediator. The Lord spake to Aaron through Moses. Jesus Christ is our Mediator, through whom all spiritual blessings are given.II. The blessing was given by priestly lips. It was Aaron, and his sons, who were to bless the children of Israel. God spake to Moses, Moses to Aaron, Aaron to the people. Jesus Christ is both Mediator and Priest. He is a mediatorial Priest, and a priestly Mediator. There is no blessing apart from the true priesthood and sacrifice.III. This threefold blessing tells of a trinity in unity, and a unity in trinity. Faith believes it, but reason cannot understand it.IV. IN this benediction we have the earnest of all spiritual blessings. What a fulness there is!V. The blessing was for all Israel. “On this wise ye shall bless the children of Israel.” It was a common blessing for all the tribes. It is a blessing for those who are rejoicing, and for those who are sorrowing; for those who are praying, and for those who are praising. It is a blessing for the young, and for the old; for those who labour, and for those who suffer. It is a blessing for the living, if for them to live is Christ; for the dying, if they die in the Lord.VI. It is a blessing secured by purpose, purchase, and power. “I will bless them.” Satan, and all our enemies, will be constrained to confess, “He hath blessed and I cannot reverse it.” (R. E. Sears.)The Divine blessing and keeping:What a joy to abide under the Divine blessing! This puts a gracious flavour into all things. If we are blessed, then all our possessions and enjoyments are blessed; yea, our losses and crosses, and even our disappointments. God’s blessing is deep, emphatic, effectual. A man’s blessing may begin and end in words, but the blessing of the Lord makes rich and sanctifies. The best wish we can have for our dearest friend is not, “May prosperity attend thee,” but, “The Lord bless thee.” It is equally a delightful thing to be kept of God; kept by Him, kept near Him, kept in Him. They are kept, indeed, whom God keeps; they are preserved from evil, they are reserved unto boundless happiness. God’s keeping goes with His blessing, to establish it and cause it to endure. (C. H. Spurgeon.)God’s favour the comfort of the soulIt is God’s presence which constitutes the saint’s morning. As the stars may impart some light and yet the brightness of all combined cannot form the light of day, but when the sun appears there is day forthwith, so God may make some comfort arise to a soul from secondary and inferior means; but it is He Himself alone who, by the shining of His face and the smiles of His countenance, causes morning. (T. Burroughs.)Brightness to be renewed:A friend of mine has some diamonds. He tells me that if he sets these diamonds out in the strong sunlight for a time, and then removes them into a dark room, they will shine brilliantly even amidst the darkness. But after a little while this brilliance becomes dim, and finally goes out altogether. The precious stones must be taken into the sunshine again if they are to be seen in the gloom. And is not this a parable of the life of Christians? God calls them His “jewels”; and if their Divine lustre is to be seen amidst the darkness of the world, they must often seek to look upon the face of the Sun of Righteousness. If they are careless about this their brightness will soon grow dim; but if they are faithful that brightness shall be constantly renewed. (Christian Commonwealth.)Buoyant in the favour of GodAs--in some summer’s morning, which wakes with a ring of birds, when it is clear, leagues up into the blue, and everything is as distinctly cut as if it stood in heaven, and not on earth, when the distant mountains lie bold upon the horizon, and the air is full of the fragrance of flowers which the night cradled--the traveller goes forth with buoyant and elastic step upon his journey, and halts not till in the twilight shadows he reaches his goal, so may we, who are but pilgrims, go forth beneath the smile of God, upon our homeward journey. (H. W. Beecher.)Peace with God:I reverence hundreds and hundreds of men who don’t hold my opinion; but when I lie dying I don’t want their speculations to rest upon. I want that Book for a pillow, for that Book rests on the nature of things. That is the only honest Book in the world. That tells me what I am; that tells me how to get into the mood of peace with God; that is what I wanted on a cold winter’s night as I rolled forty feet down a precipice, expecting instant death; and if that is what I wanted then, it’s what I want any time, isn’t it? What is true in our highest moments is true in all moments. And what we see only by flashes is true the whole day long, the whole year long, life through, eternity through. If there is any certainty, it is certainty for all time and places. Now it is certain that when I lie dying I want that Book for a pillow, and, among other things in a pillow, I want a certainty that I have attained similarity of feeling with God, and love what He loves, and hate what He hates. That will be enough to give me peace. What! What! I am depending on my own righteousness when I make this my pillow! I beg your pardon, that is not what I say. If my life is to be my pillow, I must put my whole life into the pillow. There would be more than one thorn in the pillow if I were to put my whole life in it. Is there anybody here who can put his whole life in his pillow and rest in peace? You are going to depend on your own righteousness? Put your whole life into the pillow, and then put your head on it, and it will not be the softest kind of a support for a dying hour. You may do as you please, but I, for one, feel very sure I am going hence, that I want to go hence in peace, that I cannot go in peace unless I love what God loves, and hate what God hates. (Joseph Cook.)Numbers 6:27Put My name upon the children of Israel.The Christian’s Divine nameI. The name of God put upon his people indicates God’s love towards them.II. The name of God put upon his people indicates the relationship in which they stand to God. Not only His friends, but His children.III. The name of God put upon his people indicates God’s property in themIV. The name of God put upon his people indicates their conformity to God’s will.V. The name of God put upon his people indicates the resemblance they bear to god.VI. The name of God put upon his people indicates the assurance they have of final union with God. (The Evangelical Preacher.)God’s name upon His people:Your old name is an ugly one. I suppose you know what your name is? If you have forgotten, let me remind you that your name is entered in God’s Book as “sinner.” I do not think you will be sorry to exchange that bad name for a better. I knew a lady once who had a very ugly name, and she could not bear to be called by it. She got all her friends to promise never to use it, and she always signed herself by a pretty name which she selected for herself out of many others. But of course, that never altered the fact that her real name was the old and ugly one. Just so, you may not like the name “sinner,” and you may call yourself by anything else, and persuade everybody that it does not belong to you, but that never alters the fact that you are a “sinner.” God gave you the name, and God alone can change it. But oh! if you long for a “new name,” tell Him so. He has one ready for you, and such a splendid, beautiful, adorable name! “I will write on him My new name.” (Eva Poole.)Valued because of the Giver:When our soldiers returned from that great succession of blunders, the Crimean War, those who had specially distinguished themselves were marshalled in a line to receive the crosses or medals which rewarded their valorous merit from the Queen. As she passed along the line she took the decorations one by one from a salver carried by her side and pinned it to the breast of the happy recipient. As she was pinning one on it slipped from her hand and fell to the ground. A little girl, who was near, picked it up and was proceeding to pin it to the soldier’s breast, when he stepped a pace back and said, “No; I do not value that piece of metal. It is the hand which bestows it I value.” So with the gifts which God gives us here, though they are of themselves of priceless value, yet even more precious is the knowledge that they are bestowed by our heavenly Father..Numbers 7Numbers 7:1-4The princes of Israel . . . brought their offering.The offering of the princesThe offering of the princes is set out by certain circumstances, of the time when they offered, when Moses had fully set up the tabernacle and had sanctified it, &c., of the persons which offered, the princes of the tribes, the heads of the house of their fathers, and of the place where they are offered, it was before the Lord. Then their offering is described by the particulars that were offered, which is performed jointly or severally. The doctrine from hence is this, that a good work begun, especially furthering God’s worship, is not to be intermitted until it be brought to perfection. We see this in Ezr 5:1-2; Ezr 6:14. The like zeal and forwardness we see in Neh 4:3-4, &c. The apostle persuading the Corinthians to liberality toward the saints, willeth them readily to perform that which they had willingly begun. The reasons are plain.1. The God of heaven will prosper weak beginnings if there be a readiness and cheerfulness in us. This should be a great encouragement unto us, as it was to Nehemiah (Neh 2:20).2. If we look back we are not apt to God’s kingdom (Luk 9:62). If we give over we lose our labour, we miss our reward.3. It is better not to begin than, having begun, not to proceed; better never to lay the first stone in the building than, having laid a good foundation, not to make an end, because it will be said to our reproach (Luk 14:30).1. This serves, first, to reprove such as give over their profession, resting in a good work begun and in weak and small beginnings.2. Secondly, it reproveth such as stand at a stay, such as neither go forward nor backward, but are always the same men, and look where you left them, there you shall be sure to find them. These are earthly minded and savour only of the earth.3. Thirdly, such deserve to be reproved who hate those that go before and beyond them in the duties of piety, in gifts of knowledge and understanding.4. Fourthly, it is our duty to proceed in sanctification, and labour to bring forth fruit evermore in old age (Psa 92:15). (W. Attersoll.)Suitable offerings for God’s houseWhy do they offer chariots, and oxen to draw them? Because these things were fit and good for the use of the tabernacle, to carry at removes such things as were to be carried, and to carry them dry. Learn by it that good hearts to Godward do not only give, but they give fit things, such as are most requisite for the service of God, the comeliness of His Church, the use of the minister, and the benefit of the whole congregation; yea, they to this end cast their heads, and observe what is wanting; what would do wall if it were had, what is now unseemly, and what would be more seemly for the reverence of God’s house, giving themselves no rest till either by themselves, at their own private charge, or by the parish at their public charge, such things be prepared. They are affected to God’s houses, as others are to their own, who are ever decking them with all necessaries till they are to their liking. Such a virtue as I may boldly say, God would sooner cease to be God, which we know is impossible, than forget to reward it. Do we remember in our own houses who gave us this and who gave us that, of plate, of household, of ornaments, or whatsoever, and will God forget in His house who gave anything for the necessary use, or greater beautifying it? We cannot think it, and our consciences tell us it cannot be. But even a thousand times more will God respect such love than any man can do. Make use of it then, I beg of you, and so show your heart to God in adorning His house and advancing His service, as living and dying He may fill your heart with His sweet comforts for it, bless you, and bless your friends after you, which He will do, even as He is God. (Bp. Babington.)Princely liberality:A wealthy European monarch has been fired with enthusiasm for Africa. When I visited King Leopold I asked him, “What makes you so earnest about Africa?” I was touched with his reply. He said, “You know God took away from me my son, my only son, and then He laid Africa upon my heart. I am not spending the revenue of Belgium on it, but my own private resources, and I have made arrangements that when I die this civilising and evangelising work in Africa shall still go on.” At the present time the king is expending ?80,000 a year in Africa out of his private purse. (Grattan Guinness.)Princely solicitude in regard to duty:During the illness of King Edward the Sixth, who died in the sixteenth year of his age, Ridley, in a sermon which he preached before him, much commended works of charity, and showed that they were enjoined on all men, especially on those in higher stations. The same day, after dinner, the king sent for the doctor into the gallery, made him sit in a chair by him, and would not suffer him to be uncovered. After thanking him for his sermon, he repeated the chief points of it, and added, “I took myself to be chiefly touched by your discourse; for as in the kingdom I am next under God, so must I most nearly approach to Him in goodness and mercy. As our miseries stand most in the need of help from Him, so are we the greatest debtors. And therefore, as you have given me this general exhortation, direct me, I entreat you, by what particular act I may best discharge my duty.”Prayer as a gauge of liberalityA gentleman canvassing for an important benevolent enterprise was about to call on a certain wealthy professor of religion who was more devout than generous. Ignorant of this fact, he asked his last contributor how much he thought the man would give. “I don’t know,” was the reply; “if you could hear him pray you’d think he would give all he is worth.” The collector called on the rich man, and to his surprise received a flat refusal. As he was taking his leave, it occurred to him to repeat what he had been told. “I asked a man,” said he, “how much you would probably give, and he replied, ‘If you could hear that man pray, you’d think he would give all he is worth.’“ The rich man’s head dropped, and his eyes filled with tears. He took out his pocket-book, and handed his visitor a liberal contribution.Numbers 7:5-9Give them unto the Levites, to every man according to his service.Divine bestowment varied and proportionateI. That God’s gifts are varied.1. Men differ widely in many things--parentage, birthplace, physical vigour, mental capacity, education, spiritual gifts, &c.2. For many of these differences they are themselves largely accountable. Some are crippled by their own indolence, extravagance, neglect, intemperance; others advance by their thrift, sobriety, perseverance, economy, and indomitable industry, to large influence and wealth.3. But though the way in which men bear themselves may account for many of the differences between them, there are a thousand discrepancies which cannot be thus explained. No child is born in Alyssinia, or on the banks of the Ganges, or in crowded London because it wills it. Men are sick without being to blame for it, and women poor through no fault of their own. We must refer these problems to the Divine sovereignty. There is no other solution for many of life’s mysteries. “Even so Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight.” If Gershon and Kohath complain that Merari has more than they, Moses’ sufficient answer will be, “God ordained it so.”4. This truth, apprehended and believed, would destroy a thousand seeds of discontent, envy, and socialistic heresy. It is God who bestows wealth (Deu 8:18), honours (Psa 75:6-7), power (Rom 13:1). We receive gracefully the assignment of an earthly superior; why not as gracefully what God appoints?II. God’s gifts are proportionate. In each case He proportions the means of transportation to the burden assigned.1. That which is well proportioned is not excessive. This is true of a book, speech, building; eminently true of God’s work. God is bountiful, but never wasteful. We possess no talents or opportunities to be counted superfluous. Christ’s sufferings are proportioned to the sinner’s guilt.2. Not defective.(1) Let those who are called to trust in Christ remember that His sacrifice, if indispensable, is also fully sufficient.(2) Let Christian workers remember that with the call will come the qualifications. (W. T. Sabine.)Endowments and requirements:I. As Moses appointed to the sons of Levi certain facilities, so the creator has endowed man with certain capabilities for work in his service.1. Understanding.2. Invention.3. Will-power.4. Judgment.5. Affections.6. Physical organs.II. As Moses required the sons of levi to use their facilities, so God demands the exercise of our capabilities.1. Yet how much indifference on the part of man in exercising and developing his faculties in useful and honourable employment! Many, instead of gaining their livelihood in the intended way, by the sweat of their face, study all manner of trickery and sin to satisfy their wants.2. And how many professing Christians become so absorbed in worldly affairs as to neglect the business of the soul. God has claims superior to all claims of the world.III. God’s requirements are no greater than our endowments. If we cannot give thousands, we can at least devote our “two mites.” A beautifully tinted leaf in the wood cannot be seen at a distance, yet it contributes its part to the glorious autumnal picture.IV. Man must use his capabilities according to divine appointment. It is a solemn thing to trifle with the plans of God. Every man has a special power or gift, and “he who lives by other laws than those that wrapt his genius at his birth,” defeats, in a measure, the object of his creation. (W. G. Thrall.)An ancient offering, and its modern lessonsI. They who hold the most honourable positions should be most liberal in contributions to worthy objects.II. They who are not entirely engaged in religious ministries should seek to help those who are so engaged.III. God is graciously pleased to accept of man’s offerings.IV. Gifts for religious purposes should be used in accordance with the will of God.V. In the divine arrangements help is granted unto men according to their respective needs. (W. Jones.)Numbers 7:10-89The princes offered for dedicating of the altar.Such as have greatest blessings and gifts, must be most forward in God’s serviceWe heard before of the offering performed jointly by the princes, now let us see the offerings which they brought severally. For besides the chariots and the oxen, each of these great commanders of the people offered unto God for His service in the tabernacle a charger of fine silver weighing 130 shekels, a silver bowl of 70 shekels, and one spoon of ten shekels of gold full of incense, all which they performed at the same time when the altar was dedicated to God by Aaron, and before they marched from Sinai toward their conquest of the promised land. The weight of all the 12 silver chargers and the 12 silver bowls amounted unto 2,400 shekels of silver, and the weight of gold in the incense spoons did amount to 120 shekels of gold, which maketh of shekels of silver 1,200, every shekel of gold valuing ten of silver, so that the whole sum which they offered at this time was about 420 pounds sterling. These princes offered before with men and women, yet now they come again and think they can never do enough toward the furtherance of the tabernacle and the worship of God.1. The doctrine from hence is that they which have most outward blessings and greatest ability must be most forward in God’s worship and service. In Ezra it appeareth, they “all gave according to their ability” (Ezr 2:69). The chief of the fathers, when they came to the house of the Lord, offered freely for the house of God to set it up in his place. So in Nehemiah it appeareth how bountiful he and the princes and the people were. “They gave much silver and gold to finish the work of the Lord.” The examples of David and Solomon in this kind are very evident and apparent, for the which one of them prepared to the work, and the other employed and bestowed upon the work is exceeding great, as appeareth in the holy history (1Ch 18:11, &c.). And so much the rather we should employ our blessings and gifts to the service of God, and so give them after a sort to Him that gave them first unto us, because it is a sign that our affection is set upon the worship of God, and an assurance to our own hearts that we love Him and His house (1Ch 29:3-4).2. Every one is bound to glorify God with his riches, knowing that they are but stewards and dispensers of them, of which they must give an account unto God (Luk 16:2). To this end hath God bestowed them, and to this end we have received them, and therefore to this end they should be employed.3. This is a certain rule that “To whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required” (Luk 12:48). He that hath little committed unto him hath the less account and shorter reckoning to make, but to whom men have committed much, of him they will require more; so is it with God, if He have left us five talents He will ask five of us again. First, this serveth to reprove the forgetfulness and thankfulness of such as never consider the end wherefore God hath blessed them, giving themselves wholly to carnal liberty and security, and so are more backward in good things than if they had never received so many and so great blessings from God. Secondly, it reproveth all idle and negligent teachers who have received many good gifts and graces profitable for the Church of God, and yet never use them, like the covetous person who hoardeth up great treasures, but suffereth no man to be the better for them: like the sluggish servant in the parable, or like unto those that cover the candle under a bushel that it can give no light unto them that are in the house. Wherefore hath God given greater gifts but that such should take greater pains? How many are there that desire great livings, but they do not desire to bestow great labour among them? Our reward shall not be according to our gifts, but according to our labours. Lastly, seeing such as have received outward blessings ought to be most forward to do good with them, we must know that thus also it ought to be in spiritual blessings. (W. Attersoll.)The princes’ offerings for the dedication of the altarI. The significance of the offerings for the dedication of the altar.1. Their offerings express the sense of equality of obligation. Every tribe, by its prince, presents the same kind of offering, and in the same quantity as an expression of their equal indebtedness to God. There are certain mercies which all men have in common; certain Divine gifts bestowed upon all men; Christ “died for all” men; and there are certain obligations to God in which all men share.2. Their offerings express symbolically the Divine calling of the nation to be holy unto the Lord. All the vessels presented were for sacrificial uses, all the animals were ceremonially clean and such as were proper for sacrifices; all the other gifts were of the best quality and were to be used in the worship of God. By these things it was indicated that the people were to be a separate people, entirely dedicated to God, and that God was to dwell in their midst. The lesson for us is that God is to be worshipped with our highest and best.3. Their offerings express symbolically the great truths taught by the different sacrifices.II. The significance of the record of the offerings for the dedication of the altar.1. The pleasure of God in the gifts of His people. “That everything is so particularly noted,” says Babington, “and the weight so precisely mentioned, may teach us to our comfort, what an observation there is in God of the gifts we bestow on Him in promoting His glory, advancing His service, maintaining His ministers in a liberal manner, relieving the poor and doing such good things as with God and man are praiseworthy. Surely the number, the measure, with all circumstances, are observed; and the Lord is a plenteous Rewarder of all love to Him.”2. The permanence of good works. The grateful heart will for ever cherish the memory of the kind service or generous gift. “The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance.” The noble deed shall live and bring forth fruit. And the doer himself by his deed has gained somewhat of nobility and strength.Conclusion: Our subject is most fruitful of encouragement to--1. Liberality of giving to promote worthy objects.2. Diligence in working to promote worthy objects. (W. Jones.)Rich givers and rich gifts:I. The princes and great men were first and foremost in the service of God. Those who are entitled to precedence should go before in good works.II. The offerings they brought were very rich and valuable. In works of piety and charity we ought to be generous according to our ability. He that is the best should be served with the best we have.III. They brought their offerings each on a several day, in the order that they had lately been put into, so that the solemnity lasted twelve days. God appointed that it should thus he done on several days.1. That the solemnity might be prolonged, and so might be universally taken notice of by all Israel, and the remembrance of it more effectually preserved.2. That an equal honour might thereby be put upon each several tribe. In Aaron’s breastplate each had his precious stone, so in this offering each had his day.3. Thus it would be done more decently and in order. God’s work should not be done confusedly and in a hurry. Take time and we shall have done the sooner, or at least we shall have done the better.4. God hereby signified how well pleased He is, and how well pleased we should be, with the exercises of piety and devotion. The repetition of them should be a continued pleasure to us, and we must not be weary of well-doing. If extraordinary services come to be done for twelve days together, we must not snuff at it, nor call it a task and a burden.5. The priest and Levites having this occasion to offer the same sacrifices, and those some of every sort every day for so many days together, would have their hands well set in, and would be well versed in the laws concerning them.6. The peace-offerings were all to be eaten the same day they were offered; and two oxen, five rams, five he-goats, and five lambs were enough for one day’s festival. Had there been more, especially if all had been brought of a day, there might have been danger of excess. The virtue of temperance must not be left under the pretence of the religion of feasting.IV. All their offerings were exactly the same, without any variation, though it is probable the princes were not all alike rich, nor the tribes neither; but thus it was intimated that all the tribes of Israel had an equal share in the altar, and an equal interest in the sacrifices that were offered upon it.V. Nashon the prince of the tribe of judah offered first because God had given that tribe the first post of honour in the camp, and the rest of the tribes acquiesced, and offered in the same order that God had appointed them to encamp. Judah, of which tribe Christ came, first; and then the rest. Thus, in the dedication of souls to God every man is presented in his own order, “Christ the first-fruits” (1Co 15:23).VI. Though the offerings were all the same, yet the account of them is repeated at large for each tribe in the same words. We are sure there are no vain repetitions in Scripture, what then shall we make of these repetitions? Might it not have served to say of this noble jury, That the same offering which their foreman brought, each on his day brought likewise? No; God would have it specified for each tribe. And why so?1. It was for the encouragement of all acts of piety and charity, by letting us know that what is so given is lent to the Lord, and He carefully books it with every one’s name prefixed to his gift because what is so given He will pay it again, and even a cup of cold water shall have its reward. He is not unrighteous to forget either the cost or labour of love (Heb 6:10). We find Christ taking particular notice what was cast into the treasury (Mar 12:41). Though what is offered be but little, while it is according to our ability, though it be a contribution to the charity of others, yet it shall be recorded that it may be recompensed in the resurrection of the just.VII. The sum total is added at the foot of the account (Num 7:84; Num 7:88) to show how well pleased God was with the mention of His free-will offerings, and what a great deal it amounted to in the whole, when every prince brought in his quota. How greatly would the sanctuary of God be enriched and beautified if all would in their places do their part towards it by exemplary purity and devotion, extensive charity, and universal usefulness? (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The support of religious institutionsThis dedication of the altar--I. Suggests to us some of the responsibilities of the wealthy. Wealth is a talent. He holds the wealthy responsible--1. To give of their wealth to carry on His work. God claims a share of all we get; how much that shall be He leaves to our conscience. He looks not so much at the amount as at the motive.2. To take the lead in doing good--to be examples in giving. The wealthy are looked up to; if they fail to do their duty, not only do they fail to do good, but they also check others from doing so.II. Is a striking illustration of the voluntary principle.1. God has left His work to be carried on by His people.2. The voluntary principle is the most effective for doing this.(1) Because conscience is brought into action by it: giving becomes an act of worship.(2) Because man is then on his honour.(3) As a matter of fact it has never failed.3. God is greatly pleased with it. Read Num 7:89 with the text. He approves--(1) Because voluntary giving evinces real interest in His work-shows that it is done from love. The free-will offering is a good gauge of the people’s hearts and interest.(2) He will accept nothing that is done from constraint.(3) He testifies to His pleasure, in His Word and by blessing those who so help His work. (D. Lloyd.)He heard the voice of One speaking unto him.The condescension of God, and the privileges of manI. The great condescension of God.1. The sacred place in which He speaks. It was in the Holy of holies in “the tabernacle of meeting.” It was in this place that He had promised to meet with His servant. He specially manifests Himself to man in His house.2. The grand medium through which He speaks. The mercy-seat: an illustration, perhaps a type, of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the true Mercy-seat (Rom 3:25). By the shedding of His blood the great atonement for the sins of the world was made. In Him God draws near to man and communes with him. He is the true Divine Oracle; through Him the most precious revelations of God have been made; in Him we hear the voice of God most clearly and graciously (Heb 1:1-3).3. The gracious purpose for which He speaks. In this instance, the voice from between the cherubim doubtless announced to Moses the gracious acceptance by Jehovah of the cheerful offerings of the princes of the tribes; and intimated that He had taken up His abode in their midst. All the utterances of God are for the benefit of man.II. The great privileges of man.1. We may speak unto God. In time of grief or gladness, of perplexity or penitence, of doubt or dread, of triumph or tribulation, we may speak unto God in praise or prayer, or in the silent language of the heart, which He perfectly comprehends, assured that He will hear us graciously, and bless us generously.2. We may receive communications from God. We receive messages from Him through the sacred Scriptures, through the operations of His providence, and through the mysterious and gracious ministry of His Spirit. And how precious and helpful are His communications! Pardon to the guilty, peace to the penitent, joy to the sorrowful, direction to the perplexed, hope to the despondent, &c.III. The consequent duty of man.1. To wait upon God in His house.2. To address God in His house.3. To listen for the voice of God in His house. (W. Jones.)Indications of the IncarnationBy this we may know that God hears and accepts our prayers, if He gives us grace to hear and receive His Word, for thus our communion with Him is maintained. I know not why we may not suppose that upon each of the days on which these offerings were brought, probably while the priests and offerers were feasting upon the peace-offerings, Moses was in the tabernacle receiving some of these laws and orders which we have already met with in this and the foregoing book. Bishop Patrick observes that God’s speaking to Moses thus by an audible articulate voice, as if He had been clothed with a body, might be looked upon as an earnest of the Incarnation of the Son of God in the fulness of time, when the Word should be made flesh and speak in the language of the sons of men. For however God at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake unto the fathers, He has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son. And that He that now spake to Moses, as the Shechinah or Divine majesty from between the cherubims, was the eternal Word, the second person in the Trinity, was the pious conjecture of many of the ancients. For all God’s communion with man is by His Son, by whom He made the world and rules the Church; and who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The speech of the Divine Spirit:It is told of Claus Harms, the preacher who was most blessed in the first half of our century, that he related to a Quaker how much daily he had to speak. The Quaker listened, and when Brother Harms had finished his narration, he asked, “Brother Harms, if thou speakest so much, when art thou quiet? and when doth the Spirit of God speak to thee?” Harms was so impressed, that from that day forward he passed a certain portion of each day in retirement. (Professor Gess.)Communion with GodStanding by the telegraph wires one may often hear the mystic wailing and sighing of the winds among them, like the strains of an AEolian harp, but one knows nothing of the message which is flashing along them. Joyous may be the inner language of those wires, swift as the lightning, far reaching and full of meaning, but a stranger intermeddles not therewith. Fit emblem of the believer’s inner life; men hear our notes of outward sorrow wrung from us by external circumstances, but the message of celestial peace, the Divine communings with a better land, the swift heart-throbs of heaven-born desire, they cannot perceive; man sees but the outer manhood, but the life hidden with Christ in God flesh and blood cannot munion with GodA converted heathen said, “I open my Bible and God talks with me; I close my Bible and then I talk with God.”The ear of the heart“I talk to Him until I fall asleep,” she (Madame Louise) said. I asked whether He answered her. “Oh, yes,” she replied; “the ear of my heart hears His answer.”Numbers 8Numbers 8:1-4When thou lightest the lamps. The golden candlestick an emblem of the Church of GodI. The preciousness and sacredness of the church of God.II. The light of the church of God.III. The ministers of the church of God, and their function.IV. The function of the church of God. “I would not give much for your religion,” says Spurgeon, “unless it can be seen. Lamps do not talk; but they do shine. A lighthouse sounds no drum, it beats no gong; and yet far over the waters its friendly spark is seen by the mariner. So let your actions shine out your religion. Let the main sermon of your life be illustrated by all your conduct, and it shall not fail to be illustrious.” Application:1. To individuals. Are our lives luminous in the light of the Lord Jesus Christ?2. To Churches. Are we making good our claim to a place in “the Church of the living God” by taking our part in performing the Divine function of that Church? Are we diffusing the light of God in Christ in this dark world? (W. Jones.)Moulded and beaten work (with Ex 32:4):--I have chosen these two texts to point out an instructive lesson regardng the easiness of sin and the difficulty of holiness. The material of the golden calf which Aaron constructed was poured into a mould and shaped without trouble; the material of the seven-branched candlestick had to be beaten out carefully and slowly with much toil and pains.I. The pattern of the calf was easily constructed; it required no originality, no effort of thought, only an exercise of memory; and Aaron cast their golden jewels into the familiar mould, and out of it came the familiar image. So easy, so natural, so inevitable was the process, that Aaron used language regarding it which seemed to imply that, when he lighted the furnace and poured into the mould the molten gold, the image of the calf came out of its own accord. It may be further remarked that, in order to get the image sharp and clear out of the mould, Aaron must have put into the gold an alloy of some inferior metal, or it was already in the ornaments of the Israelites. And is this not true of all sin? It has a mould prepared for it in a world lying in wickedness, and in the deceitful heart of man. The pattern of sin is as old as Adam. The first transgression was not only the root, but also the type of every transgression, just as the whole plant is a development and modification of the primitive leaf, and constructed after its pattern. Why is it that we think so little of articles cast in a mould, in comparison with those wrought by hand? Is it not because these moulded articles are easily made, involving the smallest expenditure of toil or time or thought? They can be manufactured and multiplied by the thousand with the greatest ease once the mould is formed. The maker puts as little as possible of himself into them. He is not an artist, but a mere mechanic. The essence of all sin is a desire to get things in the easiest way--to run things into moulds, rather than to hew or carve or build them with slow, patient toil and care. And hence when persons do not take thought or trouble to do what is right, they always blame circumstances and not themselves for the wrong. When they do not resist temptation they say that they could not help themselves. Sin is regarded as a misfortune demanding pity, and not a wilful act drawing down condemnation.II. The material of the seven-branched golden candlestick was not run into a mould already prepared for it. It was all hand-made work. It was the most elaborate of all the vessels of the sanctuary, because it represented the result of what all the other vessels typified and led up to--the light of the world, and yet it was beaten out of one solid piece of gold. The workman who fashioned it must have pondered minutely over every part, and bestowed immense labour and skill upon all its details; the pattern and symmetry of the whole must have been clearly in his mind, while from one mass of metal he beat out each shaft and floral ornament. The whole idea of it implied personal thought and toil and care. While it is easy for man to sin, it is difficult for man to be holy. He finds moulds for his sin lying ready to his hand, without any trouble. But he has to fashion, as it were, by the toil of his hands and the sweat of his soul, with the Divine help, the means by which he may be rescued from his sin and folly. We can mould a false diamond in glass or paste in a few minutes; but nature requires ages of slow, patient workmanship to crystallise the real diamond from the dark charcoal. We can cover common deal wood with an exquisitely grained veneer of walnut or mahogany at a small expense and with little effort; but the grain of the walnut or mahogany represents many years of strain and struggle, during which the tree grew its beautiful markings. Thus in the human world we can make easy imitations of moral and spiritual qualities, which when genuine can only be produced by slow, patient self-discipline, by many prayers and tears and toils. The paste diamond of religion, that glitters so brightly and deceives so many, can be manufactured in the mould of easy compliance with outward church duties and rites; the veneer of godliness can be assumed by a profession which costs nothing, and makes no demand of self-sacrifice upon the inner nature. But the deliverance from sin and the formation of holiness, which the salvation of Christ implies and involves, can only be through toil and suffering. (H. Macmillan, D. D.)The littered lampWho must light the lamps? Aaron himself (Num 8:3). As the people’s representative to God, he thus did the office of a servant in God’s house, lighting his Master’s candle. As the representative of God to the people, he thus gave them the significations of God’s will and favour, which is thus expressed (Psa 18:28). And thus Aaron himself was now lately directed to bless the people, “The Lord make His face to shine upon thee” (Num 6:25). The commandment is a lamp (Pro 6:23). The Scripture is a light shining in a dark place (2Pe 1:19). And a dark place indeed even the Church would be without it, as the tabernacle without the lamps, for it had no window in it. Now the work of ministers is to light these lamps, by expounding and applying the Word of God. The priest lighted the middle lamp from the fire of the altar; and the rest of the lamps he lighted one from another : which signifieth that the fountain of all light and knowledge cometh from Christ, who has the seven spirits of God, figured by the seven lamps of fire (Rev 4:5); but that in expounding of Scripture, one passage must borrow light from another. He also supposeth, that seven being a number of perfection, by the seven branches of the candlestick is showed the full perfection of the Scriptures, which are able to make us wise to salvation.2. To what end the lamps were lighted; that they might give light over against the candlestick, i.e., to the part of the tabernacle where the table stood, with the shewbread upon it, over against the candlestick. They were not lighted like tapers in an urn, to burn to themselves, but to give light to the other side of the tabernacle, for therefore candles are lighted (Mat 5:15). The lights of the world, the lights of the Church, must shine as lights. Therefore we have light, that we may give light. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Men who would quench the light of truthNo light shone from the Ship Shoal Lighthouse, near Morgan City, U.S., on two consecutive nights in February. The unusual darkness at that point caused some surprise, but surprise was turned into indignation when the facts became known. One of the keepers had seen a man in a boat who needed assistance, his vessel being becalmed. The keeper kindly towed the boat to the lighthouse and treated the man hospitably. In the night the guest made a murderous attack on the two lighthouse-keepers, shooting both of them and inflicting dangerous wounds. He held possession of the lighthouse for forty-eight hours, during which he never lighted the lamps. Then, as he could not find food, he surrendered. A man more utterly depraved it is difficult to imagine. But there are many infidels who are trying to murder men’s souls and to quench the warning light of the Bible.Luminous centres:--The globe of the earth is surrounded by a mass of atmosphere extending forty or fifty miles above the surface. Each particle of air is a luminous centre, receiving its light from the sun, and it radiates light in every direction. Were it not for this, the sun’s light could only penetrate those spaces which are directly accessible to his rays. Thus, the sun shining upon the window of an apartment would illuminate just so much of that apartment as would be exposed to his direct rays, the remainder being in darkness. But we find, on the contrary, that although that part of the room upon which the sun directly shines is more brilliantly illuminated than the surrounding parts, these latter are nevertheless strongly illuminated. In the social world, too, there are luminous centres. These are noble souls, who, being especially blessed themselves, diffuse in every direction some of the blessings which they have received. Were it not for them, and their power of spreading brightness, goodness, and joy, the world would be indeed rayless and cold. (Scientific Illustrations.)Secondary graces to be kept burning On a dark stormy night, when the waves rolled like mountains, and not a star was to be seen, a boat was rocking and plunging near the Cleveland harbour. “Are you sure this is Cleveland?” asked the captain, seeing only one light from the lighthouse. “Quite sure, sir,” replied the pilot. “Where are the lower lights?” “Gone out, sir.” “Can you make the harbour?” “We must, or perish, sir!” And with a strong hand and a brave heart the old pilot turned the wheel. But, alas I in the darkness he missed the channel, and with a crash upon the rocks the boat was shivered, and many a life lost in a watery grave. Brethren, the Master will take care of the great lighthouse; let us keep the lower lights burning!Obligation to keep the light burningIt is one of the chief temptations of Christians, and not least of those whose candlestick is the lofty one of the pulpit, to think unduly of themselves. Our anxiety should be, not, What do you think of us? but, What do you think of our message? Not, Do you esteem the light-holder? but, Do you walk in the light? This truth has likewise its application, on the other hand, for the pew. You go away, and ask, How did you like the sermon? but go home to-day, and ask yourselves, How did you like the truth? You may be ever so well pleased with sermons, and be none the better; but, if you receive the truth, it will save your soul; if you light your candle at the fire of God’s altar, it will burn for ever. And while it shines for your own soul, it will shine through your life, as through lantern, for the good of others also. Only “let your light shine before men,” and they, “seeing your good works, will glorify your Father in heaven.” Let it! It is its property to shine, if it gets fair treatment. It is not a question of the numbers, or rank, or influence of those who shall see it. Eyes or no eyes, you have to shine. The gentian fringes the mountain glacier with its drapery of blue, though seldom a human eye may look upon it. The desert melon smells with a refreshing draught for the wayfarer, though not a human foot in half a century should pass that way. There God has placed it in readiness. If you help to light to heaven and happiness the humblest of God’s creatures, you have done a glorious work. The Admiralty order carries with it a lesson to the believer. “Light the lamps every evening at sunsetting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and clear, till sunrising.” There are no qualifications and no exceptions. If, in the world’s night, no lamp were dim, and no light kindled by God’s hand were shaded, it were happier for sinning and suffering humanity. It is only here we have the opportunity to shine in darkness. When the morning of the eternal day dawns upon us, our light shall be swallowed up in the surpassing glory, that needs no light from sun or moon. No bed or sofa is permitted in the watch-room of the lighthouse. None must be tempted to slumber at a post of so much responsibility. And, if such needful guarantees are taken for the safety of those who navigate our seas, is there less need for earnestness and watchfulness to remove peril from the way of those whose voyage must conduct either to glory or to ruin? No slumberous hours, no unguarded moments for those to whom the heavenly light has been entrusted. Nor must danger keep you back from duty. I have read of the keeper of an island lighthouse whose provisions were exhausted, whose frame was emaciated, and to whom the stormy sea for weeks suffered no access or relief, nightly lighting his lamp with an almost dying hand. Anything better than that no warning ray should stream across that perilous channel (R. H. Lundie, M. A,)Importance of a small lightOnce I was down a coalmine. The man who received me was black and grimy, but he had an honest heart, and his smile was like sunlight crossing the grime. Down in the bowels of the mountain, dark and cheerless, I noticed his little oil-lamp. I knew that there was a sun blazing away up in the solar universe, but what was that? What concerned me down in the pit was the miner’s little lamp, the wick so tiny, the oil so very scanty, the flicker of flame so little noticed, yet it was more precious to me at that time than the blazing sun. Oh believe me for effective work in the mass of a lost humanity, in the blackness and darkness of this fallen world, I believe Christ prizes more the little flicker of a humble Christian who will go and visit a sick one this Sabbath afternoon, than the blazing sun of this public assembly. Oh, you can cheer the heart of God by letting your light shine unnoticed by the world, but be assured that He notices it. (John Robertson.)The glory of an unobtrusive lightThe light of a true spiritual life must shine more or less conspicuously. From a gifted speaker or writer, it may stream out widely and afar, like the gleam of a beacon flaming from a mountain top. From an unendowed, retiring, obscure disciple, it may be only as the light of a lamp in a narrow room, noticed by few, yet not entirely lost to the view of men. A charming writer, speaking of such a modest soul, says: A tiny flitting bird of slight song may with careful scrutiny be seen twisting in and out of the drooping fir tassels. Many would pass it unnoticed, but the observant eye will detect the gleam of a gold circlet upon the tiny gold-crested wren. Thus men will pass unregarding many a noiseless, retired worker for God in some sphere of seclusion and shade. But they who watch and know will be aware at times of the light of a saint’s glory encircling the modest head.”Liberality and service viewed in the light of the sanctuaryHaving read, in chapter 7., the lengthened statement of the princes’ liberality, we, in our wisdom, might suppose that the next thing in order would be the consecration of the Levites, thus presenting, in unbroken connection, “our persons and offerings.” But no. The Spirit of God causes the light of the sanctuary to intervene, in order that we may learn in it the true object of all liberality and service in the wilderness. Is there not lovely and moral appropriateness in this? Why have we not the golden altar, with its cloud of incense, here? Why not the pure table, with its twelve loaves? Because neither of these would have the least moral connection with what goes before or what follows after; but the golden candlestick stands connected with both, inasmuch as it shows us that all liberality and all work must be viewed in the light of the sanctuary, in order to ascertain its real worth. Those “seven lamps” express the light of the Spirit in testimony. They were connected with the beaten shaft of the candlestick which typifies Christ, who, in His Person and work, is the foundation of the Spirit’s work in the Church. All depends upon Christ. Every ray of light in the Church, in the individual believer, or in Israel by and by, all flows from Christ. Nor is this all we learn from our type. “The seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick.” Were we to clothe this figure in New Testament language, we should quote our Lord’s words when He says to us, “Let your light so shine before men,” &c. (Mat 5:16). Wherever the true light of the Spirit shines it will always yield a clear testimony to Christ. It will call attention not to itself, but to Him; and this is the way to glorify God. This is a great practical truth for all Christians. The very finest evidence which can be afforded of true spiritual work is that it tends directly to exalt Christ. If attention be sought for the work or the workman, the light has become dim, and the Minister of the sanctuary must use the snuffers. It was Aaron’s province to light tile lamps; and he it was who trimmed them likewise. In other words, the light which, as Christians, we are responsible to yield, is not only founded upon Christ, but maintained by Him, from moment to moment, throughout the entire night. Apart from Him we can do nothing. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Numbers 8:5-7Take the Levites and cleanse them.The Divine principle of cleansingHere we have, in type, the only Divine principle of cleansing. It is the application of death to nature and all its habits. It is the word of God brought to bear upon the heart and conscience in a living way. Moses, as representing the claims of God, cleanses the Levites according to those claims; and they, being cleansed, are able to bring the sharp razor to bear upon all that was the mere growth of nature, and to wash their garments, which expresses, in typical form, the cleansing their habits according to the word of God. This was God’s way of meeting all that appertained to Levi’s natural state--the self-will, the fierceness, and the cruelty. The pure water and the sharp razor were called into action--the washing and shaving had to go on, ere Levi was fit to approach the vessels of the sanctuary. Thus it is in every case. There is, there can be, no allowance of nature among God’s workers. There never was a more fatal mistake than to attempt to enlist nature in the service of God. It matters not how you may endeavour to improve or regulate it. It is not improvement, but death that will avail. What is the meaning of the initiatory act of Christianity--the act of baptism? Does it not set forth the blessed fact that “our old man”--our fallen nature--is completely set aside, and that we are introduced into an entirely new position? Truly so. And how do we use the razor? By rigid self-judgment, day by day; by the stern disallowance of all that is of nature’s growth. This is the true path for all God’s workers in the wilderness. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Numbers 8:23-26The Levites; from twenty and five years.ServiceI. The service God demands of all levites.1. Burden-bearing.2. Singing.3. Study of the law, “Search the Scriptures.”4. Attendance on the ordinances of the sanctuary.II. God demands the service in our prime. “From twenty and five.”III. God demands this service when it can be most easily rendered. He suits the burden to the back. All He asks is, that we shall do what we can. (R. A. Griffin.)The Divine Master and His human servantsI. The necessity of fitness for the divine service. In learning any handicraft or trade, years are spent under instructors; for the practice of law or medicine men must have special training; and is it not important that they who engage in religious services should be qualified for such services?II. The variety of employment in the divine service.1. An encouragement to persons of feeble powers and narrow opportunities to try to do good.2. A rebuke to those who plead inability as an excuse for their indolence in religious service.III. The care of the great master for his servants. Conclusion. This subject supplies--1. Encouragement to enter into this service. “Come thou with us,” &c.2. Encouragement to persevere in this service. A glorious reward awaits those who patiently continue in well-doing. (W. Jones.)Age and youth in relation to service1. They were to enter upon the service at twenty-five years old (Num 8:24). They were not charged with the carrying of the tabernacle and the utensils of it till they were thirty years old (Num 4:3). But they were entered to be otherwise serviceable at twenty-five years old--a very good age for ministers to begin their public work. The work then required that strength of body, and the work now requires that maturity of judgment and staidness of behaviour which men rarely arrive at till about that age : and novices are in danger of being lifted up with pride.2. They were to have a writ of ease at fifty years old; then they were to return from the warfare, as the phrase is (Num 8:25), not cashiered with disgrace--but preferred rather to the rest, which their age required, to be loaded with the honours of their office, as hitherto they had been with the burdens of it. They shall minister with their brethren in the tabernacle, to direct the junior Levites, and set them in; and they shall keep the charge, as guards upon the avenues of the tabernacle, to see that no stranger intruded, nor any person in his uncleanness; but they shall not be put upon any service which may be a fatigue to them. If God’s grace provide that men shall have ability according to their work, man’s prudence should take care that men have work but according to their ability. The aged are most fit for truths, and to keep the charge; the younger are most fit for work, and to do the service. “Those that have used the office of a servant well, purchase to themselves a good degree” (1Ti 3:13). Yet indeed gifts are not tied to ages (Job 32:9), but “all these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit.” (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 9Numbers 9:1-5Keep the Passover.Ordinance of the PassoverThe design of God in instituting this remarkable ordinance, the Passover, was to explain to us, as well as to prefigure to the Jews, the method of salvation through the blood of Christ. He is the one great Sacrifice for sin; and here the application to Him in His mediatorial work is most comprehensive. Behold the analogy. It holds--I. With regard to the victim which was chosen. Was it a lamb? Christ is often so called on account of His innocence, meekness, and resignation (Isa 53:7; Joh 1:29; 1Pe 1:19; Rev 5:6). Was it chosen from the flock? Christ was taken from among His brethren (Act 3:22). Was it a male of the first year? Christ suffered in the prime of His days. Was it without blemish? Christ was altogether perfect (Heb 7:26; 1Pe 1:19).II. With regard to the oblation which was made. As the lamb was slain, so was Jesus (Rev 5:9). As the lamb was slain before the whole assembly (Ex 12:6), so Jesus was publicly put to death. As the lamb was slain between the two evenings, so Jesus was offered between three o’clock and six (Mat 27:45). As the lamb was set apart four days before it was slain (Ex 12:3; Ex 12:6), so Christ entered the city four days before His crucifixion (Mat 21:1, &c.).III. With regard to the blood which was sprinkled. The blood was sprinkled with a bunch of hyssop (Ex 12:22), dipped into the bason; so the blood of Christ is the blood of the everlasting covenant, the deposit of privileges, which all become ours by the exercise of faith. The blood was sprinkled upon the door-posts of their dwellings. So the blood of Christ is to be applied to the hearts and consciences of believers (Heb 9:13-14; Heb 10:22). The blood was sprinkled upon the lintel and the side-posts; but not behind nor below the door. So the blood of Christ is not to be trodden under foot (Heb 10:29). The blood secured every family where it was sprinkled, it being within the limits of the Divine protection, so that the destroying angel was forbidden to hurt them. So the blood of Jesus is the only refuge for the guilty.IV. With regard to the flesh which was eaten. The flesh of the lamb was eaten roasted with fire, strikingly exhibiting the severity of our Saviour’s sufferings (Isa 50:6; Isa 52:14-15; Psa 22:14-15). It was eaten whole, and not a bone broken, which was amazing]y fulfilled in reference to Christ (Joh 19:31-36). It was eaten in haste, with the staff in their hands, to intimate that Christ is to be received immediately without delay. It was eaten with bitter herbs, importing our looking to Christ with sorrow of heart, in remembrance of sin, as expressed in Zec 12:10. It was eaten with the loins girded, implying that we must be prepared for His coming (Eph 6:14). It was eaten with the feet shod, to remind us of the freedom and happiness which Christ imparts to the believing Israelites (compare Isa 20:2-4 with Rom 5:11). It was eaten with unleavened bread, because we are to receive and profess Christ with unfeigned sincerity (1Co 5:7-8; Joh 1:47). Upon the whole, we learn from the subject the happy state of believers, who, though once afar off, are now made nigh by the blood of Christ; and likewise the unhappy state of unbelievers, who, rejecting the atonement, must inevitably perish. (William Sleigh.)The Passover and the Lord’s SupperThere is this connection between the passover and the Lord’s Supper, that the former was the type, the latter the memorial, of the death of Christ. Thus we read in 1Co 5:1-13., “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” This sentence establishes the connection. The passover was the memorial of Israel’s redemption from the bondage of Egypt; and the Lord’s Supper is the memorial of the Church’s redemption from the heavier bondage of sin and Satan. Hence, as every faithful Israelite would surely be found keeping the passover, in the appointed season, according to all the rites and ceremonies thereof, so will every true and faithful Christian be found celebrating the Lord’s Supper in its appointed season, and according to all the principles laid down in the New Testament respecting it. If an Israelite had neglected the passover, even on one single occasion, he would have been cut off from the congregation. And may we not ask in the face of this solemn fact, Is it a matter of no moment for Christians to neglect, from week to week, and month to month, the supper of their Lord? Are we to suppose that the One who, in Num 9:1-23., declared that the neglecter of the passover should be cut off, takes no account of the neglecter of the Lord’s table? We cannot believe it for a moment. To a pious Israelite there was nothing like the passover, because it was the memorial of his redemption. And to a pious Christian there is nothing like the Lord’s Supper, because it is the memorial of his redemption and of the death of his Lord. How is it, then, that any of God’s people should be found neglecting the Lord’s table? If the Lord Christ instituted the supper; if God the Holy Ghost led the early Church to celebrate it, and if He has also expounded it unto us, who are we that we should set up our ideas in opposition to God? No doubt, the Lord’s Supper should be an inward spiritual mystery to all who partake of it; but it is also an outward, literal, tangible thing. There is literal bread, and literal wine--literal eating, and literal drinking. If any deny this, they may, with equal force, deny that there are literal people gathered together. We have no right to explain away scripture after such a fashion. Nor is it merely a question of subjection to the authority of scripture. There is such a thing as the response of love in the heart of the Christian, answering to the love of the heart of Christ. If our blessed and adorable Lord has in very deed appointed the bread and the wine in the supper as memorials of His broken body and shed blood; if He has ordained that we should eat of that bread and drink of that cup in remembrance of Him, ought we not, in the power of responsive affection, to meet the desire of His loving heart? (C. H. Mackintosh.)Numbers 9:15-23The Cloud.The history of the cloudWe have here the history of the cloud. Not a natural history--“who knows the balancings of the clouds?” but a Divine history, of a cloud that was appointed to be the visible symbol of God’s presence with Israel.I. When the tabernacle was finished this cloud, which before had hung on high over their camp, settled upon the tabernacle and covered it; to show that god manifests his presence with his people in and by his ordinances.II. That which appeared as a cloud by day appeared as a fire all night; to teach Israel the constancy of his presence with them and care of them (Isa 27:5; Psa 121:6).III. This pillar of cloud and fire directed and determined all the motions, marches, and encampments of Israel in the wilderness.1. As long as the cloud rested upon the tabernacle, so long they continued in the same place and never stirred. Though no doubt they were very desirous to be pressing forward in their journey towards Canaan, where they hoped to be quickly, yet as long as the cloud rested, if it were a month or a year, so long they rested (Num 9:22). Note, he that believeth doth not make haste. There is no time lost whilst we are waiting God’s time. It is as acceptable a piece of submission to the will of God to sit still contentedly when our lot requires it, as to work for Him when we are called to it.2. When the cloud was taken up they removed, how comfortably soever they were encamped (Num 9:17). Whether it moved by day or night they delayed not to attend its motions (Num 9:21). And probably there were some appointed to stand sentinel day and night within ken of it, to give timely notice to the camp of its beginning to stir; and this is called keeping the charge of the Lord. The people being thus kept at a constant uncertainty, and having no time fixed for their stays and removes, were obliged to hold themselves in a constant readiness to march upon very short warning. And for the same reason we are kept at uncertainty concerning the time of our putting off the earthly house of this tabernacle, that we may be always ready to remove at the commandment of the Lord.3. As long and as far as the cloud moved, so long and so far they marched; and just there where it abode they pitched their tents about it, and God’s tent under it (Num 9:17). Note, it is uncomfortable staying when God is departed, but very safe and pleasant going when we see God go before us, and resting where He appoints us to rest.Lessons:1. The particular care God takes of His people. Nothing could be more significant of God’s tenderness of Israel than the conduct of this cloud was. It led them by the right way (Psa 107:7); went on their pace; God did by it, as it were, cover them with His feathers. We are not now to expect such sensible tokens of the Divine presence and guidance as this was. But the promise is sure to all God’s spiritual Israel, that He will guide them by His counsel (Psa 73:24) even unto death (Psa 48:14); that all the children of God shall be led by the Spirit of God (Rom 8:14); that He will direct their paths who in all their ways acknowledge Him (Pro 3:6). There is a particular providence conversant about all their affairs to direct and overrule them for the best. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord (Psa 37:22).2. The particular regard we ought to have to God in all our ways. In our affections and actions we must follow the direction of His Word and Spirit; all the motions of our soul must be guided by the Divine will; at the commandment of the Lord our heart should always move and rest. In all our affairs we must follow providence, reconciling ourselves to all its disposals, and bringing our mind to our condition, whatever it is. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The pillar of cloud and fireI. As an emblem of divine truth.1. Supernatural as to origin.2. Stable: only a cloud, yet not dispersed.3. Adapted to both night and day.4. Reliable.5. Intolerant: “This is the way,” and no other.II. As a symbol of divine providence.1. Different appearance to different characters.2. Presented alternations of aspect to the same people.3. Mysterious in its movements.4. Aims at the good of all who follow its guidance.III. As a type of the divine saviour.1. Mysterious nature.2. Challenges attention.3. His purpose beneficent.4. The source of great comfort.5. Constant in His attachment.Lessons:1. Seek to be on the right side of the cloud.2. Seek it in the right place--over the tabernacle.3. Follow its guidance. (J. C. Gray.)The pillar of cloud and of fireI. The pillar of cloud and of fire is a perpetual fact in the life of God’s people.1. We see the pillar in God’s Word. The Bible has not a precept for every emergency which can arise in daily life, so that at such a point you can see a guide-board, like the signs pointing to the old cities of refuge; but it is full of general principles which, if obeyed, will direct without mistake to the promised land.2. We see the pillar in God’s providences. Sometimes it appears in prosperity, beckoning us onward; sometimes in adversity, turning us back.3. We see the pillar in God’s special revelations. They come, perhaps, at the threshold of some great undertaking. Shall we move out from Egypt toward the Red Sea? And there, if we are watching, will be the sign in the sky I When Pastor Harms, in Germany, was deliberating whether, without one dollar in his possession, he should build a ship to carry missionaries to Africa, he says, describing his conflict: “I prayed fervently to the Lord, laid the matter in His hands, and as I rose up at midnight from my knees I said, with a voice that almost startled me in my quiet room, ‘Forward now, in God’s name.’ From that moment there never came a thought of doubt into my mind.” Such an experience must, indeed, be interpreted with great care, there is so much danger of delusion. Yet it is true that with a prayerful mind, with diligent study of the Word, especially with the intuitions of a filial spirit, such revelations may be as distinct as any that ever came to Moses.II. The pillar is a blessing only to those who trust and follow it. On some sides the Israelites are a poor example for us, but we may learn something from them in this particular: that they followed the pillar.1. They followed it promptly. Whenever and wherever it moved, then and thither they moved without delay. If it aroused them from their sleep they obeyed with alacrity. It is when the cloud speaks to us “suddenly,” unexpectedly, that our obedience is most severely tested. But that is our standard; a mind to run in the way of God’s commandments.2. They followed the pillar constantly (Num 9:21-22).3. They followed the pillar by faith. They obeyed even when they could not understand. If troubles were only explained they would be so much easier to bear. But the best faith endures without understanding. A generation ago some of us used to hear of an afflicted woman in Connecticut named Chloe Lankton, who, many will be surprised to know, is living still. For fifty-five years she has lain upon her bed and suffered, but without losing her Christian faith. Acknowledging, not long ago, a remittance sent for her support, she wrote: “Jesus only knows how much I endure. He knows it all and supports me I have a strong arm to lean upon and will trust Him to the end Oh, how thankful I feel . . . for the many comforts and blessings God gives me!” Poor soul! How long, for her, the cloud has tarried! And she is only one of the great “shut-in-society” who have learned to trust and follow “two days or a month or a year,” or a lifetime, if God wills, It would be a mistake, however, to think of this truth as applying only to the darker side of human experience. It is great joy in the brightest prosperity to see the pillar; and no one has so good a right to live in the sunshine as a Christian. Friendship is joy, home is joy, music is joy, learning is joy. The world is full of such pleasures. But does it not intensify these to realise that they are all signs of the Father’s love? Is not the water at Elim more sweet if, as we quench our thirst, we can look up and see the pillar? Then, too, is there not comfort in knowing that if farther on we have cause to apprehend another experience of thirst and suffering, we shall be under the same heavenly presence and can hear the voice out of the cloud? So for all, in every condition and need, the pillar has heavenly blessing. Still we must remember the blessing is only for those who trust and follow. (T. J. Holmes.)The guiding pillar:I. The double form of the guiding pillar. The fire was the centre, the cloud was wrapped around it. The former was the symbol, making visible to a generation who had to be taught through their senses the inaccessible holiness and flashing brightness and purity of the Divine nature; the latter tempered and veiled the too great brightness for feeble eyes. The same double element is found in all God’s manifestations of Himself to men. In every form of revelation are present both the core of light, that no eye can look upon, and the merciful veil which, because it veils, unveils; because it hides, reveals; makes visible because it conceals; and shows God because it is the hiding of His power. So, through all the history of His dealings with men, there has ever been what is called in Scripture language the “face,” or the “name of God”; the aspect of the Divine nature on which eye can look; and manifested through it there has always been the depth and inaccessible abyss of that infinite Being. We have to be thankful that in the cloud is the fire, and that round the fire is the cloud. God hides to make better known the glories of His character. So a light, set in some fair alabaster vase, shines through its translucent walls, bringing out every delicate tint and meandering vein of color, while itself diffused and softened by the enwrapping medium which it beautifies by passing through its pure walls. Both are made visible and attractive to dull eyes by the conjunction. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father, and he that hath seen the Father in Christ hath seen the man Christ as none see Him who are blind to the incarnate Deity which illuminates the manhood in which it dwells. But we have to note also the varying appearance of the pillar according to need. There was a double change in the pillar according to the hour, and according as the congregation was on the march or encamped. Both these changes of aspect symbolise for us the reality of the Protean capacity of change according to our ever-varying needs, which for our blessing we may find in that ever-changing, unchanging Divine presence which will be our companion if we will. When the deceitful brightness of earth glistens and dazzles around me, my vision of Him may be “a cloudy screen to temper the deceitful ray”; and when “ there stoops on our path in storm and shade the frequent night,” as earth grows darker, and life becomes grayer and more sombre, and verges to its even, the pillar blazes brighter before the weeping eye, and draws near to the lonely heart. We have a God that manifests Himself in the pillar of cloud by day and in the flaming fire by night.II. The guidance of the pillar. When it lifts the camp marches; when it glides down and lies motionless the march is stopped and the tents are pitched. The main thing which is dwelt upon in this description of the God-guided pilgrimage of the wandering people is the absolute uncertainty in which they were kept as to the duration of their encampment, and as to the time and circumstances of their march. Is not that all true about us P We have no guiding cloud like this. So much the better. Have we not a more real guide than that? God guides us by circumstances, God guides us by His Word, God guides us by His Spirit, speaking through our common sense and in our understandings, and, most of all, God guides us by that dear Son of His, in whom is the fire and round whom is the cloud. The pillar that we follow, which will glow with the ruddy flame of love in the darkest hours of life, will glide in front of us through the valley of the shadow of death, brightest then when the murky midnight is blackest, nor will that pillar which guides us cease to blaze as did the guide of the desert march when Jordan has been crossed, but it will still move before us on paths of continuous and ever increasing approach to infinite perfection. They who follow Christ afar off and with faltering steps here, shall there “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” In like manner, the same absolute uncertainty which kept on was intended to keep the Israelites (though it failed often) in the attitude of constant dependence, is the condition in which we all have to live, though we mask it from ourselves. That we do not know what lies before us is a commonplace. The same long tracts of monotonous continuance in the same place, and doing the same duties, befall us that befell these men. Years pass, and the pillar spreads itself out, a defence above the unmoving sanctuary. And then, all of a flash, when we are least thinking of change, it gathers itself together, is a pillar again, shoots upwards and moves forwards; and it is for us to go after it. And so our lives are shuttlecocked between uniform sameness, which may become mechanical monotony, and agitation by change which may make us lose our hold of fixed principles and calm faith, unless we recognise that the continuance and the change are alike the will of the guiding God whose will is signified by the stationary or moving pillar.III. The docile following of the guide. That is what we have to set before us as the type of our lives--that we should be as ready for every indication of God’s will as they were. The peace and blessedness of our lives largely depend on our being eager to obey, and therefore quick to perceive the slightest sign of motion in the resting or of rest in the moving pillar which regulates our march and our encamping. What do we want in order to cultivate and keep such a disposition? We need perpetual watchfulness lest the pillar should lift unnoticed. When Nelson was second in command at Copenhagen, the admiral in command of the fleet hoisted the signal for recall, and Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and said, “I do not see it.” That is very like what we are tempted to do; the signal for unpleasant duties that we want to get out of is hoisted, we are very apt to put the telescope to the blind eye, and pretend to ourselves that we do not see the fluttering flags. We need still more to keep our wills in absolute suspense if His will has not declared itself. Do not let us be in a hurry to run before God. We need to hold the present with a slack hand, so as to be ready to fold our tents and take to the road if God will. We must not reckon on continuance, nor strike our roots so deep that it needs a hurricane to remove us. To those who set their gaze on Christ no present from which He wishes them to remove can be so good for them as the new conditions into which He would have them pass. We need, too, to cultivate the habit of prompt obedience. “I made haste and delayed not to keep Thy commandments” is the only safe motto. It is reluctance which usually puts the drag on, and slow obedience is often the germ of incipient disobedience. In matters of prudence and of intellect second thoughts are better than first, and third thoughts, which often come back to first ones, better than second; but, in matters of duty, first thoughts are generally best. They are the instinctive response of conscience to the voice of God, while second thoughts are too often the objections of disinclination or sloth or cowardice. It is easiest to do our duty when we are first sure of it. It then comes with an impelling power which carries us over obstacles on the crest of a wave, while hesitation and delay leave us stranded in shoal water. If we would follow the pillar we must follow it at once. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)The pillar of cloud and fireI. The advantages of its possession.1. The distinction it maintains. Only Israel so privileged. Christians, you are a peculiar people, your origin is peculiar, your character is peculiar, your spirit, your desires and affections, the objects of your pursuit. You have peculiar privileges and honours conferred on you. There must be a marked difference between you and the world.2. The guidance it ensures. Jesus is now the guide of His people. He leads in the way of truth and wisdom. How?(1) By His example. He has gone before us in the path of duty, temptation, and sorrow. By His Word. This is our rule.(2) By His ordinances. He sends His ministers as your guides.(3) By His Spirit effectually.(4) By the leadings of His providence.3. The protection it affords. God is the Christian’s hiding-place.4. The joy it inspires. God is the source of happiness, the fountain of life.5. The glory it confers. The presence of God is our highest, best, only real glory. This is the glory of our nation--this is the glory of our churches--this is the glory of our religious assemblies--this is the glory of our families--and this is our individual glory. But what is all that God confers here to what is in reserve? Everything shall be glorious there.II. The perpetuity of its enjoyment.1. Its necessity. We always need the Divine presence. We are dependent on Him for everything. We need His providential presence and agency to continue us in being and supply our numerous wants; and we require His gracious presence for the maintenance of spiritual life and for the reception of spiritual blessings.2. The manner in which it is ensured. This may be seen three ways. From what He has done, is doing, and has promised to do. (E. Temple.)Dependence on Divine guidanceA more lovely picture Of absolute dependence upon, and subjection to, Divine guidance it were impossible to conceive than that presented here. There was not a footprint or a landmark throughout the “great and terrible wilderness.” It was therefore useless to look for any guidance from those who had gone before. They were wholly cast upon God for every step of the way. They were in a position of constant waiting upon Him. This to an unsubdued mind, an unbroken will, would be intolerable; but to a soul knowing, loving, confiding, and delighting in God, nothing could be more deeply blessed. Here lies the real gist of the whole matter. Is God known, loved, and trusted? If He be, the heart will delight in the most absolute dependence upon Him. If not, such dependence would be perfectly insufferable. The unrenewed man loves to think himself independent, loves to fancy himself free, loves to believe that he may do what he likes, go where he likes, say what he likes. Alas; it is the merest delusion. Man is not free. Satan holds the natural man--the unconverted, unrepentant man in terrible bondage. Satan rules man by means of his lusts, his passions, and his pleasures. There is no freedom save that with which Christ makes His people free. He it is who says, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” And again, “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” Here is true liberty. It is the liberty which the new nature finds in walking in the Spirit and doing those things that are pleasing in the sight of God. (C. H. Mackintosh.)The day and the night journeyWe must look to have our portion of the cloud so long as we remain below the skies. It will be the lot of the believer, in the somewhat analogous image of St. Paul, to “see through a glass darkly” so long as he remains in this tabernacle. Possibly a clearer light to our imperfect organs of spiritual vision would only tend to dazzle and obscure. Enough for us to know there is light enough, and that what there is is light from Heaven that cannot lead astray. In following the cloud Israel followed God. In our obedience to the will of God, as expressed in His providence or revealed in His Word, we obey Him too; and the true believer’s attachment to and connection with God, is like that which is expressed in the touching and holy plighted troth of marriage--“for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.”I. If the cloud be taken up by day--that is, if God blesses a man with prosperity--it is, in the first place, to make him an eleemosynary ordinance, or means of usefulness to others. It is entrusting him with the “five talents,” as compared with the two or the one talent.II. We have to learn, in the second place, that difficulty is no ground for dispensing with duty: “whether it was by day or by night the cloud was taken up, they journeyed.” To obey under embarrassment is the more characteristic obedience of a Christian. There are many forms of the night-journey of the pilgrim of Christ. We have considered the day-journey under the illustration of wealth and easy circumstances, or in any other shape of general prosperity; let us meditate upon the night-journey in the shape of poverty, sickness, bereavement, or domestic opposition to the Christian life. (J. B. Owen, M. A.)The journey of lifeThere is no strain upon the imagination in thinking of life as a journey. That is one of the simplest and most beautiful figures by which the action of life can be represented. We are travellers; we are here but for a little time; on our feet are sandals and in our hands are staves; here We have no continuing city, and we are called upon to testify to the age that we seek a country out of sight. So, then, we are familiar with the figure; it commends itself to us, as life enlarges, as quite expressive of the reality of the case--every day a milestone, every year so much nearer the end. Regarding life, then, as a journey, according to the pattern of this text, is there not a mysterious presence or influence in life which really affects our action? In the text that influence is spoken of as a cloud by day and a fire by night--two striking natural images. Our controversy is not about the image or the metaphor; behind it is there not this ever-abiding solemnity, that in life there is a mysterious action--a ministry we cannot comprehend, an influence we cannot overrule? We speak of “impression.” When we think of changing our position in life, we say we have an impression. What is an impression? Who created it? Who determined its meaning? How do you account for the impression? Upon what is the impression made?--upon the mind, upon something subtler than itself, upon the consciousness, the soul, the spirit--the innermost man. That is a mystery! Or we speak of “circumstances.” We say that circumstances seem to point in this direction or that. What are circumstances? Where do they begin? How do they sum themselves up into influence or into definiteness? Having spoken about “impression” and “circumstances,” we speak about another mysterious thing which has come to be known by the name of “tendency.” We say the tendency of things is--; or the tendency of life seems to indicate--. We have created a species of rhythm, or harmonic movement, falling into which we say, This is the sweep of tendency, and to resist tendency is impossible. How anxious we are to get rid of religious names! Men who will speak of impression, circumstances, and tendency, will hesitate before saying Providence, God, Father in heaven. Let the Church beware how it gives up the grand old names--God, Providence, heavenly direction, spiritual influence! Why shrink from the definite religious testimony of the eighteenth verse, “At the commandment of the Lord,” &c. When a man rises in the morning in God’s strength, lies down at night in God’s blessing, walks all day in God’s energy, he lives and moves and has his being in God; God is in his inmost thought, and every word upon his tongue is an implied or actual confession of childlike trust in God. We need not be ashamed of this definite testimony. It exalts human life. What is the meaning of it? Evidently that our life is recognised by God, our movements are of some consequence to Him; He knows our downsitting and our uprising, our going out and our coming in; and there is not a word upon our tongue, there is not a thought in our heart, but lo, it is known wholly in heaven. This consciousness of Divine guidance in life, Divine care of life, Divine redemption of life, necessitates prayer. The man who seizes this view of things must pray. This religious view of life brings the spirit into the restfulness and blessed joy of obedience. The children of Israel simply obeyed. Theirs was not a life of controversy, ours, unhappily, is. We have made it a life of controversy when we need not. We are always arguing with our orders; we are trying to construe them into different and inferior meanings; we are wasting life by discussing in idle words, which can settle nothing, the gravity and authority of our marching orders. If we accept God’s Book, do let us accept it with full trust, not as a field for criticism, but as a code of life--the Word, or the testimony, by which every thought, feeling, and action is to be determined. Live that life and risk your destiny. To obey is to live. (J. Parker. D. D.)The cloud tarryingI. A word of description. The time “the cloud tarried” was--1. One of rest.2. One of spiritual activity.3. Peculiarly a time of temptation.II. A word of exhortation.1. Be more anxious to keep the cloud in sight than to see it tarry. We are responsible for the one, but not for the other.2. Be more anxious to improve than to enjoy these refreshing times.3. Be more anxious to improve than prolong these periods.III. A WORD OF CAUTION.1. If the cloud tarry long, think not that it will never move. Rest should be the preparation time for exertion.2. Be not impatient if it tarry when you wish to journey. It does rest sometimes over a desert land.3. Be ready, that whenever the cloud moves you may be ready to journey. (R. A. Griffin.)The cloud and the tabernacle:I. Why is the church in our day so much of the time under the cloud, and seemingly put back in the progress of long-continued revivals of religion? Sin is the trouble. It took but a few moments to bring it into the world, but it takes ages to get it out. It makes us ignorant, weak, self-reliant, and self-seeking, so that we cannot march long at a time without getting so elated that God must let down the cloud a little while; a day, a month, or a year, as our case may be, to get us ready to march again. It requires great grace and a large measure of previous discipline, and frequent humiliations to keep us feeling and saying, as we go to our work of conquest for Christ, “Not by might, nor by power, but by Thy Spirit, O Lord.” And so, God must often bring us into pecuniary straits, and cut off our men and our means, and cause painful delays, and sad embarrassments, and short triumphs, and unforeseen obstacles, and cloud-falling times, that we may feel our weakness and renew our strength; and, with all our facilities for saving ourselves and the world, that we may just lay ourselves over, with the simplicity of children, upon the supernatural power of God, and the sole guidance of Christ, saying, “Help, Lord, for without Thee we can do nothing.”II. What are some of the prominent duties which god requires from us while under the cloud, that we may be ready the sooner to arise and go forward in the more active duties, and in the more joyful experiences of the revival days?1. In general, to be ready for the lifting up of the cloud, that we may go forth in efficient service in revival scenes, we must be diligent in all the ordinary duties of the tabernacle when it is resting.2. Among the duties which are specially incumbent when the Church is under the cloud we will enumerate those which God has signalised in the history of the tabernacle as those which are at all times essential to the Christian character and life.(1) Christian benevolence, which answers quickly to the voice of God, as stewards of His manifold grace, in liberal and conscientious giving to the various objects of religious charity which are designed to promote the good of men and the glory of Christ.(2) The ordinary means of grace should be specially improved by the entire membership of the Church as a preparation for seasons of extraordinary effort. It is not by artificial stimulants, occasionally taken, that we gain the compactness of muscle and the strength of frame which fit us for those emergencies which call forth great physical strength. This strength is the slow growth of nutriment habitually taken to satisfy the cravings of hunger and to supply the daily waste of the system. (E. S. Wright.)God’s guidance:--A preacher of the gospel was travelling by steamboat from Chicago to the north of Lake Michigan, and found that at a certain point the course lay through a narrow and difficult channel between several small islands and the shore. The difficulty of advancing here is greatly increased by the fact that a dense fog almost always rests upon the surface of the water. When, therefore, this part of the voyage is reached, a man is sent up to the mast-head where he can see the landmarks on either side rising above the fog, and, though himself out of sight, is able to give directions for steering to those below. Thus the vessel is guided safely through. So our gracious God sits above the clouds of temptation and trial which surround us on earth, and make our voyage through life so perilous, and, seeing all the dangers of the way, He counsels us as to the track of safety. Let us fully trust the guidance of His eye, and boldly proceed as He directs.A trustworthy guideI trust myself implicitly to the pilots on the ferry-boats. I do not know the tides and currents that change with every trip across the river, but I have no doubt that they know them, and I have never stopped to question them as to how they came by their knowledge. I am satisfied that they are good pilots, for I see them carrying millions of people back and forth between the two cities without accident; and I think that our Brooklyn and New York ferries as they are served are a miracle of safety; and if I put my life, my happiness, all that is dear to me, in the hands of those men because I believe that they know what they can do, and know what they are about, how much more can I put my trust in Jesus Christ, who has, by His deeds, by His death and by His resurrection, manifested Himself as worthy of all trust. (H. W. Beecher.)Following the Divine leading:I said to an aged minister of much experience, “All the events of my life seem to have been Divinely connected. Do you suppose it is so in all lives?” He answered, “Yes, but most people do not notice the Divine leadings.” I stand here this morning to say from my own experience that the safest thing in all the world to do is to trust the Lord. I never had a misfortune or a trial or a disappointment, however excruciating at the time, that God did not make turn out for my good. My one wish is to follow the Divine leading. (T. De Witt Talmage.)Numbers 10Numbers 10:1-10Make thee two trumpets of silver.The law of the silver trumpetsRevelation is to man as a trumpet-call from heaven; hence the prophets are often told to lift up their voices like a trumpet. The human race is a grand army of immortals. The journey of life is a series of marches intended by the Captain of our salvation to terminate in heaven. But whether this journey will be successfully accomplished or not depends upon our faithfulness to the directions of our Divine Head, the Lord Jesus Christ.I. The law of the silver trumpets is the law of the nature, uses, and objects of Divine revelation, when it is seen and felt as the utterance of divine love, and the authorised guide and director of our journey to heaven.1. And here we may remark how appropriate silver is as a correspondence to spiritual wisdom. It is white, brilliant, and precious. So is the spiritual meaning of the Word. Oh, may its sweet and silvery lessons be to us as dearest treasure! To teach us, then, that it is the spiritual sense of Divine revelation which is intended to guide us, guard us, and call us to heaven, the trumpets were made of silver.2. They were two in number, but formed of one piece. The whole spirit of the Word is expressive of love to the Lord, and charity to man (Mat 22:37-40). To represent this twofold character of the spirit of the Word, then, there were two silver trumpets, not one only. Yet they were both formed out of one piece. For, indeed, the truth that we should love our neighbour comes out from the grander truth, that we should supremely love the Lord. The Apostle John states this very clearly (1Jn 4:21; 2Jn 1:1). Another idea is intimated by this command to make them of one piece; that, namely, of the entire harmony of the spiritual sense of the Word with itself. It is bright and coherent everywhere. It is silver, all of one piece.II. But let us turn now from the composition of the trumpets to their use.1. They were to be used to call the people to the assemblies (verse 3).2. They were to excite to, and direct the journey of the people (verses 5, 6).3. They were to be sounded when an enemy appeared in their land to oppress them (verse 9).4. They were to be blown on the days of rejoicing (verse 10). The first use of the trumpets, then, was to call the assemblies to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, there to hear the will and decisions of the Most High. In like manner we are called by the silver trumpets of the Word to assemble together in the name and in the presence of that glorified Divine Man who said (Joh 10:9). The whole spirit of the Word calls us to worship Him, and to learn of Him (Rev 19:10). When we have been to the Lord Jesus Christ in worship, and to learn His will, we shall find the second use of the silver trumpets will be unfolded to us. We must march on. Regeneration is a journey in which we advance from state to state, as from stage to stage in outward travel. We begin in Egypt, we must reach Canaan. The silvery music will call us forward. The import of its sound is this, Arise, for this is not your rest, for the whole land is polluted (Isa 60:1). Arise, child of heaven, from the selfishness and darkness in which thou hast been enshrouded. Arise from the slavery and pollution of sin to the glorious liberty of the children of light. Move on. Next we are carried forward to the contemplation of the third use of the trumpets; to sound an alarm when the enemies within the land seek to oppress. We begin our regeneration by forsaking the grosser sins to which we have been accustomed, and we think we have left all that is offensive in the sight of heaven. We think we are wholly given up to God and goodness, and so we shall continue. Alas! we have in this but little conception of the wonderful nature with which we are endowed, or of the extent of the ramifications of evil. Each mind is a world in ruins. The soul is organised more astonishingly even than the body, and each organ or principle is more or less perverted. Were we left to ourselves, we might well turn back in despair, and die. But happily, what is impossible to man is possible with God. He can give us a new nature: He can give us the victory again and again: He can and will protect us. When, then, our internal enemies, the plagues of our own hearts, appear to us, and dispositions which we supposed were for ever done with are met again and again, let us not quail nor be dispirited. With Divine help we shall overcome them, and triumph until the last enemy is overthrown. But the Lord saves us by His Word. This is the lesson intended by the use of the silver trumpets which we are now considering. When, then, selfishness rises up in your lands to oppress you, go to the Divine Word, and hear its holy sound. Let its voice of love and mercy be heard in your spirit like the silvery tones of heavenly trumpets, and by its truth and power you will be saved. The last use of the trumpets was, that they should be blown on the days of solemn rejoicing. On our days of gladness we should see that all our feelings are such as are under the influence of the Holy Word. Were it not for sin, all our days, like those of heaven, would be days of gladness. The purification of our joys, then, is one of the great works of our regeneration. Let us blow with the silver trumpets on our days of gladness, and on our solemn days. There are states, which recur from time to time, of peculiar solemnity, when conscience is more than usually earnest with us: states of self-examination, states of solemn thought, states of recollection of mercies and blessings formerly received, states of self-dedication to high and holy objects; these are our solemn days. The period when we resolved to quit a period of evil, and entered upon our passover, or feast of unleavened bread; when we commenced the reception of the bread of heaven, though as yet to us tasteless, like unleavened bread; then comes the period when faith enables us, under its influence, to bring forth the first-fruits of a harvest of virtues and graces to be repeated for ever; and lastly, the feast of spiritual ingathering comes on, that matured state of the soul when charity rules in the heart, and perfect love casteth out fear. Blow with the silver trumpets over the solemn days. There are minor solemnities connected with the varied events of life which induce in thoughtful minds solemn states: the births, the marriages, and the deaths of those we love, the serious circumstances of our families and our country, all these make solemn days; let the spirit which rules over them be the spirit of love to the Lord, and charity to man. Blow the silver trumpets over the solemn days. There is mention made also of the beginning of the months, and as there is a perfect correspondence between outward nature and man’s spiritual and interior existence, there is a correspondence in this respect also. The months are the times which depend upon the moon; and the moon is the symbol of faith in the soul. As faith has its variations in the soul, sometimes being bright and luminous, at others dim and obscure, its changes are represented by those of the moon. The beginning of a month is therefore the commencement of a new state of faith in the soul, when, after being in obscurity, we enter into clear and holy light on things Divine. The tree of life is said to bear twelve manner of fruits--one for every month; implying that in every state of mind, and in every change of circumstances in our Christian life, we may receive from the Lord within the power of bringing forth the appropriate works of piety and justice. At the beginning of our mental changes, in the attainment of new views on subjects of faith, we should observe that they are in harmony with the essential principles of the spirit of the Word, of love to the Lord, and charity to man. Blow the silver trumpets in the beginning of the months. And, lastly, over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. Our offerings at this day are all spiritual. Yet are we as truly called upon to make them as were the Jews. Life consists of fixed duties, and free will efforts. Let both be performed in the spirit of devoted self-dedication, under the Divine spirit of the Holy Word. The silver trumpet must sound over our burnt offerings and our sacrifices of peace offerings, that they may be to us a memorial before the Lord our God. In conclusion, let us be grateful for the provision by our adorable Lord of the interior truths of His Word, the silver trumpets of heaven. Let us seek to find them by reading, by thought and meditation, until we have individually realised the promise of our heavenly Father and Saviour, “For iron I will bring silver.” When we have acquired the clear perception that all truth hangs upon the two grand laws of love to God and love to man, then let their silvery voice be heard over all the circumstances of our lives. Let them be heard calling us from Sabbath to Sabbath to the public worship of the Lord Jesus Christ--the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Let them be heard directing our attention to Him in our morning and evening devotions. When we have attained light and strength in prayer, they ever call us to march on to progress. Let us go forward with a glowing, firm, and fervent will, and then strengthen and confirm our progress by the light of a full and active intellect. (J. Bayley, Ph. D.)The trumpets of ProvidenceThe sacred trumpets are still sounded; they still call men to worship, to festival, to battle. If we have lost the literal instrument, we are still, if right-minded, within sound of the trumpets of Providence. We do not now go out at our own bidding; we are, if wise, responding to a Voice, wherever we may be found. Look at the men who are pouring forth in all directions every morning; stand, in imagination, at a point from which you can see all the stations at which men alight; so present the scene to the fancy that you can see every little procession hastening to its given point of departure; then bring on all the processions to the various points of arrival; read the faces of the men; take in the whole scene. What action; what colour; what expression of countenance! And if we had ears acute enough to hear, what various voices are being sounded by every life; what tumult; what desire; what intersection of paths; what imminent collisions!--and yet the whole scene moves on with a kind of rough order all its own. What has called these men together--and yet not together?--the trumpet! Some have heard the trumpet calling to controversy. Many of these men carry bloodless swords; they are well equipped with argument; they are about to state the ease, to defend the position, to repel, to assert, to vindicate righteousness, and to claim compensation for virtue outraged; they are soldiers; they have mapped out the battlefield in private; all their forces have been disposed within the sanctuary of the night, and presently the voice of genius and of eloquence will be heard in high wrangling, in noble contention, that so the wicked may claim nothing that is not his own, and the righteous have the full reward of his purity. They are going to the political arena to adjust the competing claims of nations, or causes; war is in their eyes; should they speak, they would speak stridently, with clear, cutting tone, with military precision and emphasis; they would hold no long parley with men, for they mean the issue to end in victory. Others have heard no such trumpet: they have heard another call--to peaceful business, to daily routine, to duty, made heavy alien by monotony, but duty still, which must be done according to the paces and beatings of the daily clock. They cannot resist that voice without resisting themselves. And other men, in smaller bands--more aged men--men who have seen service in the market field, in the political field, in the field of literature--how go they? Away towards sunny scenes, quiet meadows, lakes of silver, gardens trimmed with the patience and skill of love. They are men of leisure, men in life’s afternoon. The sunbeam has been a trumpet to them; hearing it, they said, Who would remain at home to-day? All heaven calls us out, the great blue arch invites us to hospitality in the fields and woods, and by the riverside. All men are obeying a trumpet; the call is addressed from heaven to earth every morning. We may have outlived the little, straight, silver trumpet, turned up at the ends; but the trumpet invisible, the trumpet of Providence, the call of Heaven, the awakening strain of the skies--this we cannot outlive: for the Lord is a Man of war, and must have the battle continued: the Lord is a Father, and must have the family constituted in order; the Lord is a Shepherd, and must have the flocks led forth that they may lie down in the shadow of noonday. The trumpets were to be sounded by the priests. The pulpit should be a tower of strength to every weak cause. Were every Sabbath day devoted to the tearing down of some monster evil--were the sanctuary dedicated to the denunciation, not of the vulgar crimes which everybody condemns, but the subtle and unnamed crimes which everybody practises, the blast of the trumpet would tear the temple walls in twain! There are trumpets which call us in spiritual directions. They are heard by the heart. They are full of the tone of persuasion--that highest of all the commandments. The heart hears the trumpet on the Sabbath day. The trumpet that could sound an alarm is softened in its tone into a tender entreaty, or a cheerful persuasion, or a promise of enlarged liberty. Everything depends upon the tone. The trumpet may be the same, but the tone is different. We cannot take up the trumpet of the great player and make it sound as he made it. What is it, then, that plays the trumpet? It is the soul. If we knew things as we ought to know them, we should know that it is the soul that plays every instrument, that sings every hymn, that preaches every discourse that has in it the meaning of God and the behest of Heaven. The same trumpet called to festival and to war; so the gospel has two tones: it calls lovingly, sweetly, tenderly; and it sounds an alarm, making the night tremble through all its temple of darkness, and sending into men’s hearts pangs of apprehension and unutterable fear. There is another trumpet yet to sound (1Co 15:52). The trumpet is not lost, then; it is in heaven, where the Ark of the Testimony is, where the Shekinah is, where the Tabernacle of God is. (J. Parker, D. D.)The institution of the silver trumpetsIt sets forth, in the most distinct manner possible, that God’s people are to be absolutely dependent upon, and wholly subject to, Divine testimony, in all their movements. A child may read this in the type before us. The congregation in the wilderness dared not assemble for any festive or religious object until they heard the sound of the trumpet; nor could the men of war buckle on their armour, till summoned forth by the signal of alarm to meet the uncircumcised foe. They worshipped and they fought, they journeyed and they halted, in simple obedience to the trumpet call. It was not, by any means, a question of their likings or dislikings, their thoughts, their opinions, or their judgment. It was simply and entirely a question of implicit obedience. Their every movement was dependent upon the testimony of God, as given by the priests from the sanetuary. The song of the worshipper and the shout of the warrior were each the simple fruit of the testimony of God. The silver trumpet settled and ordered every movement for Israel of old. The testimony of God ought to settle and order everything for the Church now. That silver trumpet was blown by the priests of old. That testimony of God is known in priestly communion now. A Christian has no right to move or act apart from Divine testimony. He must wait upon the word of his Lord. Till he gets that, he must stand still. When he has gotten it he must go forward, but is not by aught that strikes the senses that our Father guides us; but by that which acts on the heart, the conscience, and the understanding. It is not by that which is natural, but by that which is spiritual, that He communicates His mind. If the ear is circumcised, you will assuredly hear the silver trumpet. Till that sounds, never stir: when it sounds, never tarry. This will make all so clear, so simple, so safe, so certain. It is the grand cure for doubt, hesitancy, and vacillation. It will save us from the necessity of running for advice to this one and that one, as to how we should act, or where we should go. And, furthermore, it will teach us that it is none of our business to attempt to control the actions or movements of others. Let each one have his ear’ open, and his heart subject, and then, assuredly, he will possess all the certainty that God can give him, as to his every act and movement, from day to day. Our ever gracious God can give clearness and decision as to everything. If He does not give it, no one can. If He does, no one need. (C. H. Mackintosh.)The silver trumpetsThe silver trumpets sent a piercing note. So should the gospel herald utter aloud the gospel news. Away with timid whisper, and a stammering tongue. Note, the trumpets were of one piece. So is the gospel message. It knows no mixture. Christ is all. No diverse metal soiled these trumpets. No intermingling error should soil pulpits. The type, moreover, fixes attention on the Christian as a worshipper--a pilgrim--a warrior--a son of joy. For let the occasions on which these trumpets sounded be now mere closely marked.1. They call the people to God’s sanctuary, it is a gospel ordinance that worshippers should throng the holy courts--that public prayer and praise should reverence the glorious name.2. They give command to march. The Bible warns that earth is not our rest. We live a stranger-life. We occupy a moving tent. We hold a pilgrim-staff.3. They sound for war. The life of faith is one incessant fight. Beneath the cross a sword is drawn, of which the scabbard is cast far away. Until the victor’s crown is won, unflinching combat must go on.4. In the grand feasts they cheer the worshippers around the bleeding victims. While the altar streams, and happy crowds look on, the heavens resound with these exulting clangs. The precept is obeyed (Psa 81:1). Believer, thus, too, the gospel teaches you to joy--to joy with heart abounding with melodious praise, when you in faith contemplate, and in worship plead, the meritorious death of Christ. (Dean Law.)The silver trumpets, or the relation of the gospel ministry to the seasons and services of the Christian life1. The trumpets and their use were commanded by God. He blesses men, saves men by the use of the means which He has appointed.2. The trumpets were to be blown by the priests. Every Christian is now a priest, but the ministers of the gospel are especially the heralds of the Divine messages.3. The trumpets were to be blown in accordance with clear and well-understood instructions. When they were to blow one trumpet only, and when they were to blow both; when the short, sharp, broken notes, and when the long and continuous peal--these things were clearly explained and enjoined. There was to be no uncertainty as to the meaning of the signals. The meaning of the sounds of the gospel trumpet should be equally and unmistakably clear (1Co 14:7-8.)4. The trumpets were to be blown at different seasons and for different purposes--for conventions, for journeyings, for battles, for festivals, &c. In this we have an illustration of the relation of the gospel ministry to the seasons and services of the Christian life.We proceed to offer some hints on the analogy. The silver trumpets were usedI. For the calling of assemblies. The ministry of the gospel should draw men together, even as the silver trumpets convened the assemblies of Israel.II. For summoning the people to advance. The Christian minister is required to summon the people to arise and “go forward” in their upward pilgrimage. He summons them to advance--1. In personal holiness. He exhorts them to “follow on to know the Lord,” to “grow in grace,” to “forget those things which are behind,” &c. (Php 3:13-14).2. In personal and collective usefulness. He should incite both individuals and Churches to more diligent and devoted services in the cause of Christ.III. For encouraging the people in battle. Like the priests with the silver trumpets the minister of the gospel should--1. Encourage Christians to battle against evil.2. By inciting them to trust in God. He gives the victory.IV. For suitably observing seasons of special interest.1. Seasons of joy. “In the days of your gladness ye shall blow with the trumpets,” &c. The gospel aims at the consecration and promotion of human gladness. “That My joy might remain in you, and your joy might be full.” “Rejoice in the Lord alway” “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” “Believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” The gospel forbids no pure delight, but hallows and increases it.2. Seasons of solemnity. “In your solemn days ye shall blow with the trumpets,” &c. There are many solemn days in life--days of mental conflict, of spiritual darkness, of social bereavement, &c. In such days the hopeful and helpful sounds of the gospel trumpet are peculiarly precious.3. Closing and commencing seasons. “And in the beginnings of your months ye shall blow,” &c. (W. Jones.)The silver trumpetsWe have here directions concerning the public notices that were to be given to the people upon several occasions--by sound of trumpet. In a thing of this nature one would think Moses needed not to have been taught of God, his own reason might teach him the convenience of trumpets; but their constitution was to be in everything Divine, and therefore even in this matter, as small as it seems. Moses is here directed--I. About the making of them They must be made of silver; not cast, but of beaten work (as some read it); the matter and shape no doubt very fit for the purpose. He was now ordered to make but two, because there were but two priests to use them; but in Solomon’s time we read of an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets (2Ch 5:12). The form of these trumpets is supposed to be much like ours of this day.II. Who were to make use of them. Not any inferior person; but the priests themselves, the sons of Aaron (Num 10:8). As great as they were, they must not think it a disparagement to them to be trumpeters in the house of God; the meanest office there was honourable. This signified that the Lord’s ministers should lift up their voice like a trumpet, to show people their sins (Isa 58:1), and to call them to Christ (Isa 27:13).III. Upon what occasions the trumpets were to be sounded.1. For the calling of assemblies (Num 10:2). Thus they are bid to blow the trumpet in Zion, for the calling of a solemn assembly together, to sanctify a fast (Joe 2:13). Public notice ought to be given of the time and place of religious assemblies, for the invitation to the benefit of ordinances in general. “Whoever will, let him come.” Wisdom cries in the chief places of concourse. But that the trumpet might not; give an uncertain sound, they are directed, if only the princes and elders were to meet, to blow only one of the trumpets; less should serve to call them together who ought to be examples of forwardness in anything that is good. But if the body of the people were to be called together, both the trumpets must be sounded, that they might be the farther heard. In allusion to this, they are said to be blessed that hear the joyful sound (Psa 89:15), i.e., that are invited and called upon to wait upon God in public ordinances (Psa 122:1). And the general assembly at the great day will be summoned by the sound of the archangel’s trumpet (Mat 24:34).2. For the journeying of the camps; to give notice when each squadron must move, for no man’s voice could reach to give the word of command. Soldiers with us, that are well disciplined, may be exercised by beat of drum. When the trumpets were blown for this purpose they must sound an alarm (Num 10:5), a broken, quavering, interrupted sound, which was proper to excite and encourage the minds of people in the marches against their enemies; whereas a continued equal sound was more proper for the calling of the assembly together (Num 10:7). Yet when the people were called together to deprecate God’s judgments we find an alarm sounded (Joe 2:3). At the first sounding, Judah’s squadron marched; at the second, Reuben’s; at the third, Ephraim’s; at the fourth, Dan’s (Num 10:5-6). And some think this was intended to sanctify their marches; for this was proclaimed by the priests, who were God’s mouth to the people, not only the Divine orders given them to move, but the Divine blessing upon them in all their motions. He that hath ears let him hear that God is with them of a truth.3. For the animating and encouraging of their armies when they went out to battle (Num 10:9). “If ye go to war blow with the trumpets”; signifying thereby your appeal to Heaven, for the decision of the controversy, and your prayer to God to give you victory; and God will own this His own institution, and you shall be remembered before the Lord your God. God will take notice of this sound of the trumpet, and be engaged to fight their battles; and let all the people take notice of it, and be encouraged to fight His; as David, when he heard a sound of a going upon the tops of the mulberry-trees. Not that God needed to be awaked by sound of trumpet, no more than Christ needed to be awaked by His disciples in the storm (Mat 8:25), but where He intends mercy it is His will that we should solicit for it. Ministers must stir up the good soldiers of Jesus Christ to fight manfully against sin, the world, and the devil, by assuring them that Christ is the Captain of their salvation, and will tread Satan under their feet.4. For the solemnising of their sacred feasts (Num 10:10). One of their feasts was called the feast of trumpets (Lev 23:23-24). And it should seem they were thus to grace the solemnity of all their feasts (Psa 81:3), and their sacrifices (2Ch 29:27), to intimate with what joy and delight they performed their duty to God, and to raise the minds of those that attend the services to a holy triumph in the God they worshipped. And then their performances were for a memorial before God; for then He takes pleasure in our religious exercises when we take pleasure in them. Holy work should be done with holy joy. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Significance of the silver trumpetIt is the voice of Him who came preaching peace, the proclamation of those of whom the prophet speaks (Isa 52:7). For just as the two silver trumpets entered into every part of Israel’s life, and their varied notes were always adapted to Israel’s wants and position, so it is with the gospel. Its awakening power, its soothing promises, its sanctifying influence, is meant to consecrate every act of our lives, and move every thought of our hearts. Did the sound of the silver trumpets call the slothful or backsliding Israel to the tabernacle of the congregation, either to hear the will of God announced by Moses, or to worship? So does the voice of Jesus in the gospel invite us into the presence of God. It says to the slumbering heart, “Awake, thou that sleepest,” &c. It says to the fearful and desponding, “Come boldly unto the throne of grace,” &c. It says to the backsliding and to the guilty conscience, “Return unto the Lord thy God; for thou hast fallen by thy iniquity.” It says, again, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” &c. Did the sound of the silver trumpets bid Israel arise and follow the pillar of fire and cloud which went before them? So does the voice of Jesus bid us arise and journey onward. When our hearts are entangled by the secret influences of the world--when we begin to take up our rest in the love of the creature--then there is a still small voice full of warning, “Arise ye, and depart, for this is not your rest; it is polluted.” Whensoever we rest contented with low attainments, losing sight of Him to whose image we ought to be conformed, the silver trumpets sound, bidding us press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling in Christ Jesus. As, too, Israel of old was called to engage in warfare with their enemies and God’s, and one use of the silver trumpets was to summon them to preparation and to the field of battle, so has the Israel of God now a great conflict to engage in--a conflict with enemies seen and unseen, and the unseen more powerful than the seen. Yet, how seldom do we realise as we ought the greatness of the conflict, and the power of our spiritual enemies! and, consequently, we are too often off our guard. Hence it is that the silver trumpets are needed to summon us to the conflict. We require to be summoned to “endure hardness,” as good soldiers of Christ Jesus (2Ti 2:3), that we may not, like Israel of old, turn back in the day of battle, but may feel and exclaim with David (Psa 18:32; Psa 18:34-35). And, once more, were the silver trumpets needed to consecrate all Israel’s offerings, that they might be a memorial before the Lord? Oh, still more is it the gospel of Christ that does and can consecrate all acts of life and of worship! It is the word, too, of the gospel which explains to us the means of approach to God, and, still more, prepares our hearts for that communion. We should listen to the sound or the silver trumpet in every act of life, in every prayer, and over every offering. With this everything will become a memorial before the Lord. (G. Wagner.)The trumpet gospel:One of the good doctors whom I often heard in my boyhood had a voice like the distant rolling of thunder. He exchanged pulpits with a neighbour, whose voice was peculiarly effeminate. It was a little voice, and withal quite musical. The doctor returned to his own congregation for the evening service. Arising in his place, he commenced with this preface, “My friends, you have to-day heard the gospel through a silver trumpet; but to-night you must hear it through a ram’s horn.” Alas! how many are charmed with the silver trumpet! Sweet morsels, drops of honey-dew, like globules of sugar-coated opiates, form the only compound suited to their taste. “Peel it, pare it, smooth it, trim it!” is their cry, “take away from it those distorted and hideous features! Fashion it, form it, compound with it some thrilling narrative, some pleasant story, and we will receive it.” In other words, make it anything but the plain simple gospel, and it may become palatable. We have advanced to a strange pass in our tastes touching the gospel of the Son of God. (Buffalo Christian Advertiser.)Numbers 10:11-13Took their Journeys out of the wilderness.Israel’s journey through the wilderness an emblem of the Christian’s state on earthWhile we are in this world we are passing through a wilderness, and our removes in it are only from one wilderness to another. The men of this world will dislike the comparison because the world is their portion, their all. But those whose chief business and governing desire is to get to heaven, and who have their conversation there, will acknowledge the emblem to be just, will dwell on it with pleasure, and derive instruction from it. This world is like a wilderness, as--1. It is an uncomfortable state.2. It is a dangerous state: dangerous to the Christian’s virtue and peace, to the life and health of his soul, which are the main things that he regards and pursues.3. It is an unsettled state, subject to continual changes and alterations. We enter on new relations in life, and promise ourselves much from them, but still it is a wilderness: if we have new pleasures we have new cares and sorrows, and if we double our joys we double our griefs too. In every stage of the wilderness we leave some of our friends behind us, the prey of the universal destroyer death, and we find the rest of the journey more tiresome and dangerous for want of their assistance and company. Some are confined long in the wilderness, beyond the usual period of human life. Sometimes they think themselves near the country for which they are bound, and then, like Israel, they are turned back again, and have many more years to wander. Their burdens grow heavier and their pleasures less, and nothing in the wilderness can support them; nothing but religion and the hope of getting to Canaan at last.Application:1. Let us be thankful that we have so many comforts in the wilderness.2. Let us be patient and contented under the evils of it. And for this plain reason, because it is sin that hath turned the world into a wilderness.3. Lot us earnestly seek and hope for the presence of God with us in this wilderness, and that will be everything to us.4. Let us rejoice in the views of the heavenly Canaan, and diligently prepare for it. (J. Orton.)The cloud rested.--The resting and the rising of the goodI. The people of God are sometimes called to remain, as it were, stationary for a time in this life.II. Though the people of God may appear to remain stationary for a time, yet there is no permanent settlement in this world.III. Both the restings and the risings of the people of God are ordered by him.IV. The people of God, whether resting or marching, are protected by him. Learn, in conclusion, to--1. Gratefully appreciate and diligently use the seasons of quiet rest in life.2. Remember that, however long and grateful a rest may be granted unto us, we are only pilgrims here. Be ready to arise and depart when the cloud arises.3. Follow the guidance of God.4. Trust the protection of God. (W. Jones.)Rest a while“Rest a while!” Why, it is a mother’s word; she says to her little weary child who has toddled itself out of breath, “Rest a while.” It is the word of a great, generous, noble-hearted leader of men. He says, “My company must have rest. I know I am sent to gain victories and to work great programmes; but in the meantime my over-worked men must have rest.” It is a gentle word. Where do you find such gentleness as you find in Jesus Christ? (J. Parker, D. D.)Rest time not waste time:It is economy to gather fresh strength. Look at the mower on the summer’s day, with so much to cut down ere the sun sets. He pauses in his labour--is he a sluggard? He looks for his stone, and begins to draw it up and down his scythe with rink-a-tink, rink-a-tink, rink-a-tink--is that idle music? Is he wasting precious moments? How much he might have mown while he has been ringing out those notes on his scythe! But he is sharpening his tool, and he will do far more when once again he gives his strength to those long sweeps which lay the grass prostrate in rows before him. Even thus a little pause prepares the mind for greater service in the good cause. Fishermen must mend their nets, and we must every now and then repair our mental waste and set our machinery in order for future service. To tug the oar from day to day, like a galley-slave who knows no holidays, suits not mortal men. Mill-streams go on and on for ever, but we must have our pauses and our intervals. Who can help being out of breath when the race is continued without intermission? Even beasts of burden must be turned out to grass occasionally; the very sea pauses at ebb and flow; earth keeps the Sabbath of the wintry months; and man, even when exalted to be God’s ambassador, must rest or faint; must trim his lamp or let it burn low; must recruit his vigour or grow prematurely old. It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run we shall do more by sometimes doing less. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 10:14-28The standard of the camp. The Divine standard to be maintainedThere are few things in which we are more prone to fail than in the maintenance of the Divine standard when human failure has set in. Like David, when the Lord made a breach upon Uzza, because of his failure in putting his hand to the ark, “He was afraid of God that day, saying, How shall I bring the ark of God home to me?” (1Ch 13:12). It is exceedingly difficult to bow to the Divine judgment, and, at the same time, to hold fast the Divine ground. The temptation is to lower the standard, to come down from the lofty elevation, to take human ground. We must ever carefully guard against this evil, which is all the more dangerous as wearing the garb of modesty, self-distrust, and humility. Aaron and his sons, notwithstanding all that had occurred, were to eat the meat offering in the holy place. They were to do so, not because all had gone on in perfect order, but “because it is thy due,” and “so I am commanded.” Though there had been failure, yet their place was in the tabernacle; and those who were there had certain “dues” founded upon the Divine commandment. Though man had failed ten thousand times over, the word of the Lord cannot fail: and that word had secured certain privileges for all true priests, which it was their place to enjoy. Were God’s priests to have nothing to eat, no priestly food, because failure had set in? Were those that were left to be allowed to starve, because Nadab and Abihu had offered “strange fire”? This would never do. God is faithful, and He can never allow any one to be empty in His blessed presence. The prodigal may wander, and squander, and come to poverty; but it must ever hold good that “in my Father’s house is bread enough and to spare.” (C. H. Mackintosh.)God would have order observed among His people at all timesWhen Christ our Saviour intended to feed the multitude that had continued with Him to hear His word, He commanded His disciples to make all sit down in ranks by hundreds and fifties (Mar 6:40), so that He would have all things, even the most common, done in order. For all disorder came into the world by Satan, and his chief employment is to make a breach into that order which God hath established. He shuffleth and mingleth all together, and seeketh to disturb and destroy what he can, and how he can. Again, order is a means to preserve every society; the want of it threateneth ruin to every society. This serveth, first, to reprove such as keep not their places, but break out of order, and will not be held within the compass that God hath set them. Every man hath his bounds set him, and is enclosed in them as in a circle, which he may not pass. No man hath any promise of blessing when he keepeth not the order God hath set him. Secondly, acknowledge from hence that the Church is a blessed company, it is the very school of good order, wherein all things are done in number, weight, and measure. When Balaam had seen the goodly order of this host of God, as the valleys that were spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side, as the trees which the Lord had planted, and as cedar trees beside the waters, he cried out in admiration of this comely, decent, and seemly order, “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel! “For who is it that ruleth in the Church? and who is it by whom it is guided? Is it not God, who is the God of order? No confusion cleaveth or can cleave to Him, He is not the God of confusion, He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1Jn 1:5). He hath set an order among all His works. Thirdly, when we see this order interrupted in the works of God, know that it cometh not of God. Acknowledge therein the corruption of man and the work of Satan. Fourthly, whensoever we cannot sound the depth of God’s works nor judge of them as we ought, when we see to our appearance much out of square, as soldiers out of their squadrons, we must not condemn the works of God, but accuse our own blindness and ignorance, “Forasmuch as God hath made all beautiful in his season” (Ecc 3:11). When we behold how the wicked prosper for the most part, and are of great power (Psa 37:35), and on the other side the godly all the day long plagued and chastened every morning (Psa 73:14), we are ready to misjudge and misdeem of these works of God. Howbeit, the ways of God are not as our ways. This is therefore our weakness in judgment. Thus also was Jeremy troubled (Jer 12:1-2), and no less the prophet Habbakuk (Hab 1:13). This which we esteem to be a confusion is indeed no confusion; and that is in order which we suppose to be out of order. For God is a God of long suffering, who “Will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies” (Nah 1:2), and therefore is the prophet (much perplexed in spirit) willed to wait by faith the issue that God will make,” For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry” (Hab 2:3). Lastly, from hence every man must learn to do the duties of his own calling. God hath set every man in a certain calling. We are apt, indeed, to break out into the callings of other men, as if we were pinned up in too narrow a room. This made Solomon to say, “I have seen servants on horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.” And as God hath set every man in a calling, so must every man wait and attend upon that calling, whether it be in the Church, or in the family, or in the commonwealth. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 10:29-32Moses said unto Hobab . . . Come thou with us.A generous proposalI. First, then, what are the characteristics of a true church as it is pictured by Israel in the wilderness? We might prolong the answer to this question with many minute features, but it will be unnecessary to do more than give you a simple broad outline.1. The people in the wilderness were a redeemed people. They had been redeemed by blood and redeemed by power. So, all the true members of God’s Church understand what the blood of sprinkling means. They have enjoyed a passover through it. And the Holy Spirit has entered into their hearts, and made them hate their former sins, has delivered them from the dominant power of their inward corruptions, has set them free and brought them out of the bondage of sin. Thus they have also been redeemed by power, and no one has any right to think himself a member of Christ’s Church unless by faith he has seen himself redeemed by blood, and in his experience has also been redeemed by the power of the Holy Spirit.2. The Israelites were a people who were passing through a land wherein they found no rest, neither did they desire any, for they were journeying to another country, the promised land, the Canaan. Now, here is another description of the true Church of God. They are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world. This is not their rest. Here they have no continuing city.3. Israel in the wilderness was a people walking by faith as to the future, for if you remember, the words are, “They were going to the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you.” And such are God’s people now. As for joys to come, they have not tasted them, but they are looking for them, because God has promised them.4. These people, also, as to their present circumstances were walking by faith. It was not merely faith which sang to them of Canaan, but it was faith that told them of the manna which fell day by day, and the water which flowed from the rock, which stream followed them in their journeyings. So also in this world the Christian man has to live by faith upon God as to present things. As to temporal necessities he must cast all his care on Him who careth for us, but especially as to all spiritual supplies the Christian has no stock of grace.5. These people found, wherever they went, that they were surrounded by foes. So will you find it if you are a child of God. All places are full of snares. Events, prosperous or adverse, expose you to temptation. All things that happen to you, though God makes them work for good, in themselves would work for evil. While here on this earth the world is no friend to grace to help you on to God.II. It is the duty of the christian church to invite suitable persons to join with it.1. As you read--“Come thou with us, and we will do thee good”--say if these are not the terms in which any Church should invite a suitable pastor to unite with it?2. Take the words as significant of the manner in which Churches should invite suitable persons to come among them as private members. Are there not those who go in and out merely as visitors worshipping with you, who have never joined hands with you in covenant? They meet with you as mere hearers, under the same ministry, but they have not identified themselves with the brotherhood to sit down and feast with you at the table of the Lord. To such as these the proposal may be made, and the welcome proffered.3. Let me call your attention to a certain sense in which Christian men may address this invitation to all that they meet with, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.” Not “come and join our Church,” not “come and be members,” not “come and put on a profession of faith.” You cannot say that to any but to those in whom you see the fruits of the Spirit, but you may say, and you ought to say, to all persons of all classes on all sides,” Come away from the seed of evil doers, cast in your lot with the people of God; leave the world, come on pilgrimage to the better country; forsake the pursuit of vanities, lay hold on eternal life; waste not all your thoughts upon the bootless cares of time, think about the momentous matters of eternity. Why will you be companions of those who are upon the wrong side, and whose cause is the cause of evil? Why will you remain an enemy to God? We, by God’s grace, have cast in our lot with Christ and with His cause; we desire to live to His glory. Come and cast in your lot with us--that is, believe; that is, trust a Saviour slain; that is, put your soul into the custody of Christ the Intercessor; that is, press forward through a life of holiness on earth to a home of happiness in heaven. “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.”III. The main argument--the most powerful incentive we can ever use is--that association with the church of christ will do those who enter it good. I am sure it will, for I speak from experience; and if I were to call upon many hundreds in this house they would all bear the same testimony, that union with the people of God has done them good.1. The Church of God may say this, first, because she can offer to those who join with her good company.2. “Come with us,” the Church of God may say, “and you shall have good instruction,” for it is in the true Church of God that the doctrines of grace are preached, the Person of Christ is extolled, the work of the Spirit is magnified, &c.3. “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good,” in the best sense, for thou shalt feel in our midst the good presence of God.4. “Come with us” again, for you shall participate in all the good offices of the Church. That is to say, if thou wilt cast in thy lot with us, if there be prayer thou shalt have thy share in it. We will pray for thee in thy trouble, and trial, and anguish.5. But the good that Hobab was to get was not only on the road. The main good he got was this--he went into the promised land with God’s people. So, the main blessing that you get from being united with the invisible Church of Christ, through being part and parcel of the body of Christ, is reserved for the hereafter.IV. Lest we should be found mere pretenders, let all of us who belong to Christ’s church take care to make this argument true. I speak to many who have long been joined to the visible Church of God, and I put this interrogatory to them--How have you carried out this silent compact which has been made with the friends of Christ? You have promised to do them good; have you fulfilled your pledges? I am afraid few of us have done good to our fellow Christians up to the measure that we might have done, or that we ought to have done. Some professors, I fear, have forgotten the compact altogether. (C. H. Spurgeon.)True pilgrim life1. The life of all is a pilgrimage.(1) Life as a journey is constant. There is no pausing a moment; whether asleep or awake we are moving on.(2) It is irretraceable. We cannot go back a step.(3) It is resistless.2. But whilst the life of all is a pilgrimage, all are not taking the same course, and moving to the same destination. Morally there is a true and a false pilgrimage. We take the text to illustrate the life of a true pilgrim.I. It is a life to a glorious destiny. The true Canaan of humanity is moral perfection. The true soul marches on through life not in quest of some outward good, as did the Israelites of old, but in quest of holiness.1. It is the gift of God.2. It is a motive for exertion.II. It is a life of social benevolence.1. The language of a true life is that of invitation. “Come with us.”2. The spirit of a true life is that of kindness. “We will do thee good.”III. It is a life under the benediction of heaven. God has spoken good concerning all the holy and the true; all who are the genuine disciples of His Blessed Son. What has He said to them?1. That they are His friends.2. That He is always with them.3. That He has mansions prepared for them in the future. (Homilist.)The journey to heavenI. The Christian’s destination. He is not at home on earth, but is a stranger and a pilgrim. He desires something better, and this desire is not to be disappointed. Heaven is something promised. The prospect is delightful.II. The Christian’s journey. Heaven is not only a place we desire, but one to which we are rapidly advancing. Travelling does not mean a quiescent state of ease and rest; it means active exertion. The different stages of Christian life do not represent simply advancing age, but the attainment of higher degrees of Christian character and perfection.III. The Christian’s desire--that others should accompany him. More especially is this the case as regards relations and friends. It is his duty to invite them. It is part of his Christian work. Well may he be eloquent when a matter of so grave importance is in the balance. Let us seek company as we journey to heaven. It will be better for us here and hereafter. (Preacher’s Analyst.)The believer’s journeyI. The place of every true believer’s destination.II. The means he is adopting to arrive at it.III. The call which he would fain address to all his unconverted neighbours. (A. Roberts, M. A.)Moses and HobabThe historian does not think it worth while to tell whether Moses’ attempt to secure the help of a pair of sharp Bedouin eyes succeeded or failed, but passes on to describe at once how “the ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them to search out a resting-place for them,” and how “the cloud was upon them when they went out of the camp.” He would teach us that it mattered little whether Israel had Hobab or not, if they had the ark and the cloud.I. There are times and moods in which our forward look brings with it a painful sense of the unknown wilderness before us. It is a libel on God’s goodness to speak of the world as a wilderness. He has not made it so; and if anybody finds that “all is vanity and vexation of spirit,” it is his own fault. But still one aspect of life is truly represented by that figure. There are dangers and barren places, and a great solitude in spite of love and companionship, and many marchings and lurking foes, and grim rocks, and fierce suns, and parched wells, and shadeless sand wastes enough in every life to make us quail often and look grave always when we think of what may be before us. Who knows what we shall see when we top the next hill, or round the shoulder of the cliff that bars our way? What shout of an enemy may crash in upon the sleeping camp; or what stifling gorge of barren granite--blazing in the sun and trackless to our feet--shall we have to march through to-day?II. We have here an illustration of the weakness that clings to human guides. There are a thousand ways in which our poor weak hearts cry out in their sense-bound unbelief for visible stays to lean upon, and guides to direct us. In so far as that is a legitimate longing, God, who never “sends mouths, but He sends meat to feed them,” will not leave us to cry unheard. But let us guard against that ever-present weakness which clings tremblingly to creatures and men for help and guidance, and, in proportion as it is rich when it possesses them, trembles at the prospect of losing them, and is crushed and desolate when they go. Do not put them as barriers between you and God, nor yield your own clearness of vision to them, nor say to any, “Be to us instead of eyes,” nor be over anxious to secure any Hobab to show you where to camp or how to march.III. The contrast which is brought into prominence by the juxtaposition of this section and that which follows it, makes emphatic the thought of the true leader of our march. God always goes before His people. No doubt in all our lives there come times when we seem to have been brought into a blind alley, and cannot see where we are to get out; but it is very rare indeed that we do not see one step in advance, the duty which lies next us. And be sure of this, that if we are content to see but one step at a time, and take it, we shall find our way made plain. The river winds, and often we seem on a lake without an exit. Then is the time to go half-speed, and, doubtless, when we get a little farther, the overlapping hills on either bank will part, and the gorge will open out. We do not need to see it a mile off; enough if we see it when we are close upon it. It may be as narrow and grim, with slippery black cliffs towering on either side of the narrow ribbon of the stream, as the canons of American rivers, but it will float our boat into broader reaches and onward to the great sea. Do not seek to outrun God’s guidance, to see what you are to do a year hence, or to act before you are sure of what is His will; do not let your wishes get in advance of the pillar and the ark, and you will be kept from many a mistake, and led into a region of deep peace.IV. Our craving for a human guide has been lovingly met in the gift of Christ. His life is our pattern. Our marching orders ,re brief and simple: follow your Leader, and plant your feet in His footprints. That is the sum of all ethics, and the vade mecum for practical life. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)An earnest entreatyI. Christianity is an elevating force, filling the soul with purity and love. In this text it is exhibited in all the charms of its simplicity and power. “Come with us, and we will do thee good.” On a cold day one autumn I happened to be speaking to a farmer where three roads met, and we saw sitting in the hedge side a half-starved melancholy man, to whom we said, “You look pale and ill, my friend.” He replied, “ My wife and children are in the workhouse. I have sought work up and down in Manchester and have failed to find it. One has told me to go there, another to go yonder; and I came out here to see if any farmer might perhaps find me work in his fields.” The good man at my side clapped his hand on the poor fellow’s shoulder and said, “Come with me; I will give you some breakfast and then I will find you work to do.” That kindly invitation and promise is an inspiration of Christianity. It is not “Go here,” or “go there”; but “come with us, and we will do you good.” We need a human sympathy that shall prompt us to do to others as we would have them do to us. We should imagine the feelings of others, and treat them as we should like to be treated ourselves were we in their position.II. The christian life is an invitation. IS not the Christian like the sun that shines away the darkness? The petals of the flowers are closed up during the night, but when the sun shines upon them they open themselves to receive from his rays beauty and fragrance. So the Christian is a clear shining light in the night of the fog of sin. Even as Christ was the light of the world, so is every Christian a brilliancy.1. Come first with us to the bar of conviction.2. Come with us to the door of repentance.3. Come with us to the seat of mercy.4. Come with us, and we will lead you to the fountain for uncleanness.5. Come with us to the Cross.6. Come with us to the marriage of the Lamb with your soul.III. The christian life is a trackway of beneficence, “We will do thee good.” The Christian shall be doing good all the days of his life. Let Christians join themselves in a huge co-operative society for beneficence. And, sinners, come with us, and we will do you good. Come and help us to help each other. (W. Birch.)The heavenly CanaanI. The great object which is sought by the church of God. “We are seeking heaven, and its perfect felicity we hope ultimately to realise.II. The invitation presented by the church of God to them that are without. “Come with us and we will do thee good.”III. Let me show what will be the issue of the acceptance of this invitation, Most cheering is the assurance that is given unto those who go with God’s people of a positive blessing. “We will do thee good,” said Moses to Hobab, “for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” Now I am very anxious just to set before you this truth, that no person can be found who loves God, and who has accepted the invitation to associate with His people, without being a gainer thereby. (T. W. Aveling.)The Christian journeying to the promised landI. Thy place spoken of in the text is Canaan, a type of heaven, that far-distant but better country which all the Israel of God have ever regarded as the scene of their blessedness and their home.1. A much-wished-forplace.2. A promised place.3. The free gift of God.II. The conduct of the Christian with regard to this place. It is evident that this heavenly country has little or no influence on mankind in general. We profess to believe that there is such a land somewhere in the universe, but we think and act just as though it could nowhere be found. If heaven were to be blotted out from the creation, or if an impassable gulf were to be fixed between it and the earth, our dispositions, our affections, and our conduct, would, in too many instances, remain the same as they are now. But this promised land has a real and abiding influence on the people of God. They seek it; they travel towards it.1. To be journeying to heaven implies an actual entrance into the path which leads to it.2. To be journeying to heaven implies also perseverance in seeking it.3. We are warranted to infer that if we are journeying to heaven, we have not only kept in the road which leads to heaven, but have actually made a progress in it; that, instead of declining we are growing in grace; that we are gradually becoming more and more meet to be partakers of heaven, the nearer we draw to it.4. There is implied also in journeying to the heavenly Canaan, a fixed determination to arrive there. The expression intimates decision of character; a willingness to sacrifice everything, so that the soul may be saved and heaven won.III. In thus prosecuting his journey to heaven, it is evident that the christian must necessarily separate himself from many of his brethren, with whom he would otherwise have contentedly associated. But although he is constrained by the command of his God and the very nature of the work in which he is engaged, to come out from among the ungodly, he does not consider himself as unconnected with them, nor does he cease to regard them as brethren.1. If we regard this invitation as the advice of the Christian traveller to his fellow-sinners around him, it implies that be has a sincere and earnest desire to bring them into the path of heaven, which he has himself entered.2. The invitation of Moses intimates also that the Christian is tenderly concerned for the spiritual welfare of his fellow-travellers, as well as for the repentance and salvation of the wandering sinner.3. We may infer, lastly, from this invitation, that if we would ever reach the kingdom of God, we must join ourselves now to the people of God. (C. Bradley, M. A.)The Christian invitationI. God’s people are travelling to the celestial Canaan.1. The journey--(1) Commences in the day of conversion.(2) Is continued by the soul advancing in the knowledge and love of God.(3) Terminates at death.2. The place to which they are journeying. This is the celestial Canaan; which is--(1) A land of rest.(2) A land of riches and prosperity.(3) A land prepared for and promised to God’s spiritual Israel.II. God’s people feel it their duty to invite others to journey with them to the promised land. Hence they say, “Come thou with us,” &c.1. That there are many who are not in the way to this goodly land.2. That there is room and freedom for more in the way to heaven.3. That God’s people are anxious that others should join them in their way to heaven.4. God’s people use their influence to prevail with those around them to accompany them to heaven. They practically invite them, by amiableness of disposition, sweetness of temper, righteousness of life; and thus allure them by the excellencies they manifest, and constrain them to glorify our Father who is in heaven.III. God’s people have good reasons to assign why those around should go with them to the goodly land. The reasons in the text are two: “We will do you good”; and, “The Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” The first is a human reason, and therefore limited. The second is a Divine reason, and unlimited.1. There is the promise of benevolent help.2. There is the good declaration of God concerning Israel. “The Lord hath spoken good.” What has He not said? Has He not given the most precious promises and the most gracious assurances?Learn:1. The present state of God’s people. It is a journeying state. This is the time of their toil and suffering.2. The happiness of God’s people. Children of God, heirs of eternal life, expectants of the glory that shall be revealed.3. The true wisdom of those who are without. To accompany God’s people on their heavenly pilgrimage. (J. Burns, D. D.)The invitation of Moses to HobabI. God’s Israel have a direct object in view, thus described, “The place of which the Lord said, I will give it you.” By God’s Israel I mean literally the posterity of Jacob, and spiritually all genuine Christians, who are “Israelites indeed in whom there is no guile.” The object which God’s ancient Israel had in view was Canaan; this is described as a place, and on several accounts it was highly desirable. Heaven is the glorious object on which God’s spiritual Israel have fixed their attention. Canaan was highly prized by the Jews--1. As it was the end of their journey. Heaven is the termination of the Christian’s journey. The dangers of: that terrible wilderness, through which Israel passed, were but faintly typical of the spiritual dangers to which believers are exposed; and if Israel rejoiced at the possession of Canaan, with what exultation will Christians enter their heavenly inheritance, when their toils will be finished and their conflicts closed!2. It was a country amply stored with provisions. But with all the enconiums bestowed upon Canaan, how low it sinks in comparison with that “better country,” to which we are journeying! This is indeed a land without scarceness. Here will be no lack of anything. Here every wish shall be gratified, and every desire be crowned with enjoyment.3. It was long and repeatedly promised.4. It was to be gratuitously bestowed. All God’s blessings are gifts.II. God’s Israel are tending towards that object.1. Commenced by the command of God.2. Continued under His immediate guidance.3. Marked by His miraculous and gracious care.III. That God’s Israel are solicitous to secure companions for their journey. “Come thou with us,” &c.1. Piety prompts them to say this. They long to bring back to God His immortal offspring, and to recover to “the great Shepherd of the sheep,” the souls for whom He died; and they say, “Come thou with us,” &c.2. Benevolence excites them to say this. Religion inspires the most ardent attachment to God, and breathes the purest benevolence to men.3. Self-interest induces them to say this. God’s Israel are not only capable of doing good to, but of receiving good from their fellow-travellers.IV. God’s Israel enjoy the divine commendation. “The Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.”1. Concerning the country to which Israel are tending (Psa 87:3; Rev 21:23-26).2. Concerning the way in which Israel are journeying. It is called a right way (1Sa 12:23); a good way (Jer 6:16); a perfect way (Psa 101:2); a way of holiness (Isa 35:8); a way of peace (Luk 1:79); a new and living way (Heb 10:20); and a way in which there is no death (Pro 12:28).3. Concerning the succours afforded them in the way. Many things are necessary for travellers. Light to see the way (Pro 4:18); a consciousness of being in the right way (Isa 30:21); a guide to instruct us in the way (Psa 32:8); provision for the way (Psa 132:15); strength to walk in the way (Isa 40:29-31); and a never-failing Friend to lead us forward in the way (Isa 42:16).4. “The Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel”--In the titles by which they are designated, such as children of God, sons of God, heirs of God, kings and priests unto God.In the figures by which they are compared: God’s husbandry, God’s building, God’s heritage, sheep of God’s pasture, a royal priesthood, a spiritual house, a crown of glory, and a royal diadem, &c.--In the promises to which they are entitled; these include all things (1Co 3:21-23).Infer:1. The happiness of God’s people.2. The work of God’s people.3. The honour of God’s people.4. The security of God’s people. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)Hobab’s opportunity:I. What God said to Israel (see Ex 6:6-8).II. What Moses said to Hobab.1. An invitation.2. A promise. “Good.”3. An argument. Lord has spoken, not man.4. An entreaty. Leave us not.5. An appeal. “Thou knowest,” &c.6. An inducement. Equal share promised.III. What Hobab said to Moses. “I will not go.” Six deterring things.1. His own land.2. Kindred.3. Possessions.4. With strangers. Alien race; other habits.5. Poor prospects.6. Uncertainty.What would become of him should Moses die, or if invasion should fail? All find emphatic expression--“I will not go.” But Moses pleads long, earnestly, willingly. Hobab yields. House of Raguel. A lot in Canaan--Jael. Rechab. Saved from doom of Midian.IV. What I have to say to you. Same message from God. Six things--1. “Israel.” Politically disbanded; exists spiritually; the seed of Abraham; the children of the promise; the Church of Christ.2. “Good.” Freedom from moral Egypt. Divine layout. Life; guidance; aid from God. Inheritance in the Canaan of holiness and heaven.3. “Come.” Cast in your lot with us. Turn back on Midian. It is doomed. Follow our Moses, Jesus, Captain of our salvation.4. “Leave us not.” I too would entreat, beseech, persuade. We want you; your company; your help. The love of Christ constraineth us.5. “We will do,” &c. We can. By prayer, brotherhood, mutual aid, and cheer. Going home.6. “I pray thee.” This with my heart upon my lips, and longing for your soul. Come! Come! Come!V. WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY TO ME. You may say--1. “I will not go.” If Midian is your home Midian’s doom is yours.2. “I will follow by and by.” By and by leads to house of Never.3. “I will think about it”--which means, “I will forget it.”4. “Are you Israel?” Go tell John the things, &c.5. “I will go with somebody else.” Be quick, and God go with you.6. “I will go with you for,” &c. Preacher’s prize; your peace; Jesus’ glory.VI. What God will say to us both. I cannot answer. The day will declare it! (J. Jackson Wray.)Moses and HobabThe spirit displayed by Moses is displayed by every Christian man. His words also may be adopted. These words suggest--I. Settled convictions. “We are journeying,” &c. How pleasant this assurance. Do you possess it?1. Remember the time when you had not this assurance. It was a time of uncertainty--fearfulness.2. Remember the way in which you obtained this assurance. It was after strong convictions, earnest cries, transporting joys, then came this sweet assurance.3. Notice the great advantages of this assurance. In a rough road, dark night, &c.II. Probable inconveniences. Persons on a journey do not expect the comforts of home. They may have--1. Unpleasant weather. The hail and sleet of persecution. The cold snow of poverty. The fog of doubt.2. Unpleasant conveyance. The means of grace are like vehicles to help us on. Some have to trudge on nearly all the way, others get a lift now and then. Some in comfortable carriages-good doctrine; others in tumble-down--broken springs, So.3. Unpleasant companions. The world an inn. In the house. Shop. Church.4. Unpleasant accommodation. The body is the tabernacle or house in which the soul dwells. Many have sickly, weak bodies, and dwell in much poverty. Never mind. We are journeying.III. Constant progress. We cannot settle down either--1. In the joys of home and kindred.2. In the joys of Christian society.3. In the joys of gospel ordinances. This should teach us--(1) To look upon everything with the eye of travellers.(2) To make everything subservient to our journey. The place of our abode. Our business. Our friendships.(3) To rejoice over those who have finished their journey. They have simply got home before us.IV. Pleasant prospects. We have in view--1. A land of freedom.2. A land of friendship.3. A land of holiness.4. A land of happiness. (The Study.)The profitable journeyI. God hath spoken great and good things concerning the future state of his people.II. Believers are now on their journey to take possession of this heavenly country; “We are journeying,” said Moses to Hobab, “to the promised place.”III. Travellers to Zion should invite and encourage others to accompany them; as Moses said to Hobab, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.” Moses was related to Hobab; and certainly our relations have the first claim to our pious regards (Rom 9:1-3; Rom 10:1). And there are several methods in which we may try to do this.1. By inviting them to hear the gospel faithfully preached.2. We may promote the salvation of others by serious and affectionate conversation. We readily converse with our neighbours on the news of the day, whether it be good or evil. Why should we be backward to tell them the best news that ever reached our ears--the good tidings of the gospel, “ that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners”?3. The heads of families must endeavour to do good to their households by maintaining family-worship.4. We may promote the salvation of the rising generation by giving encouragement to Sunday-schools, and other plans for the religious education of children. Some may assist them by subscribing towards their support; and others by their personal help.5. The distribution of religious tracts is another method in which we may easily invite many around us to come and unite with us, that we may do them good.6. But all these means must be accompanied with prayer.7. Above all, and together with all, let our holy, blameless, and useful lives recommend the ways of religion to men. Improvement: What influence have all the good things which God has promised in His gospel had upon us? He has set before us His well-beloved Son; and in Him, pardon and peace, holiness and heaven: all we can want to make us happy in time, happy in death, happy to all eternity. Are we drawn by these cords of love? Are we induced to forsake the sins and vanities of the world? Have we set out on our journey towards heaven, determined to be fellow-travellers with the people of God? or do we hesitate? (G. Burder.)The Christian journeyI. Direct your meditations to the representation given in the text of all the true Israel of God; they are journeying to the place of which God has spoken.1. Consider their setting out in the journey, and how this is begun.2. Journeying to the goodly land of promise implies perseverance and progress in the Divine life.3. That our journeying to Zion implies difficulties encountered, resisted and overcome. These may be expected, and will be experienced.II. We proceed now to some illustration of the animating motive which encourages heavenly travellers to hold on their way, which motive is contained in the last part of the text, “For the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” The Father of mercies has made with us an everlasting covenant, well-ordered in all things, and sure. The Saviour of mankind has purchased for us a kingdom which fadeth not away. The Holy Spirit is our Sanctifier and our Comforter, and graciously undertakes to prepare us for the business and the bliss of heaven. Neither the legions, nor all the powers of hell, can prevent us from inheriting with the saints in light. The time, manner, and all the circumstances of our death, are arranged by unerring wisdom, and by infinite love. Again, all the promises recorded in the sacred volume, pertaining to the life which now is, and to immortal happiness beyond the grave, are yea and amen in Christ, and are ours through Him. All the threatenings recorded in the same Scriptures are transferred to our glorious Surety, and cancelled as to us. The God of glory is our perpetual defence; the Lamb in the midst of the throne our perpetual Friend; angels our kindred, and heaven our home.III. The affectionate and salutary counsel which travellers to Zion address to others: “Come with us, and we will do thee good.”1. This implies a sincere concern for the salvation of our kindred and companions.2. This affectionate address implies also a full conviction, that it never can be well with those who have not their portion with God’s children, who worship Him not in spirit, and who rejoice not in Christ Jesus.3. Again, this language intimates the full persuasion that there is room for the most ignorant, estranged, and hopeless of their kindred, companions, and relatives. (A. Bonar.)The invitation1. His invitation shows faith’s happy state. It is a mirror reflecting the features of calm trust. Full faith has eagle-eye. It penetrates all earthly mists. It gazes steadily on Zion’s highest light. Its true affections centre round a purer scene. So daily it moves forward. And nightly realises that an upward step is made. We are journeying unto the promised place. What is this place? Faith gazes--it ever gazes with increasing rapture: but it fails fully to describe. It is rest; perfect purity; joy; sure; the gift of God.2. This invitation shows that faith is aggressive. “Come thou with us.” Each heaven-set plant strives for expanse. True grace has one sure sign: it longs and labours to communicate its wealth. A saving view of Christ slays self--relaxes every icy band--widely extends embracing arms, and yearns to multiply delights. When the heart burns the life must labour. (Dean Law.)The invitation of Moses to Hobab:I. The people of God are travelling to the heavenly Canaan.1. The place itself.(1) The place of rest.(2) The place of purity.(3) The place of unbounded wealth.(4) The place of unceasing enjoyment.2. The journey.II. It is the duty of christians to invite others to journey with them. So Moses acted.III. The reasons assigned for a compliance with this request.1. The promise of mutual good.2. The Divine regard for the Church.IV. The manner in which this invitation may be received.1. Some give a direct negative, as Hobab did at first; “I will not go.” The wicked through the pride of his countenance will not seek after God. Some, like Ephraim, are joined to idols, and cannot give them up. Is this your answer? “I will not go.” Then you must perish in the wilderness.2. Some are deterred by pride and shame. They think the people of God beneath them; or what will the world, their present companions, say, if they profess Christ?3. Some are deterred by the trials of the way. God will be your guide, and He will support you in the severest trials.4. Some are convinced of the necessity and importance of this journey to heaven, but they procrastinate, like Felix; “Go thy way,” &c.5. Some are willing to go, but have not counted the cost. This was the case with many of Christ’s followers, who set out, but turned back, and walked no more with Him (Joh 6:66).6. A few have resolved to go. Like Ruth, nothing shall hinder them. The good work has commenced in their souls. The people are willing in the day of Christ’s power. They will go, and like Paul, they count all things but loss, &e. (Rth 1:16; Heb 11:25-26). (Helps for the Pulpit.) Promise of goodI. Some of those good things God has spoken. He says to every Christian as to Jacob, “I will surely do thee good.”1. He has called them to sustain gracious relations towards Him.2. He secures to them special privileges.3. He unfolds before them glorious prospects.4. He enables them in the faith of all this to achieve noble exploits.II. Some of the good things which god has actually done for them. Not words but deeds, might without presumption be said to be the Divine motto.1. He has emancipated them from a most bitter dominion of sin and death.2. He has enlightened them with saving wisdom.3. He has watched over them. The pillar of cloud, only an emblem. “The hairs of thy head.” “Fear not, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”4. He accounted their enemies His own. Egyptians, Philistines, Syrians, Babylonians.Lessons:1. Let this subject endear the Saviour.2. Let it stamp vanity upon all the world deems great.3. Let it encourage prayer and high expectation.4. Let it prompt to holiness of heart and life. (Homiletic Magazine.)Christian invitation:I. A position is assumed. It was assumed by Moses, that the people of whom he had the care occupied a position, in regard to God and in regard to their own welfare, which was essentially favourable, and in which it was eminently desirable to participate. The same truth must be assumed by and in regard to Christians-those who live under the economy of new covenant mercy. And this will be vindicated by observing that Christians live in the actual enjoyment of Divine favour, and that they possess the prospect of invaluable blessing in the future.II. An invitation is presented. Moses offered the invitation to his relative that he would go with them, and thus be the companion of their course; as in the preceding verse he says, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good”; “Leave us not, I pray thee.” The invitation, we repeat, is presented, in a sense answering to the spirit of their vocation, by Christians to men who hitherto have been living apart, as votaries of sin and of the world.1. In the name of Christians we say, we invite you to believe their principles. Those principles relate not merely to the elementary truths concerning the being, the government and the attributes of God--they relate to the Divine character and mission of Him whose name we bear, Christ Jesus, the Son of God; they relate to the expiatory sacrifice He has offered for human sin, by expiring upon the Cross; they relate to the imputation of the merit and righteousness embodied in that sacrifice, through faith, as the only efficacious cause of justification and acceptance before the Father; they relate to the agency of the Holy Spirit, in His renewing grace, as requisite to apply the work of mediation to the human soul; and they relate to the duty of obedience and holiness, as the only satisfactory proof of an interest in the work of redemption and of the hope which that redemption is intended to inspire and to secure. Now these various principles are to be sincerely and cordially believed; their presence or absence decides the character and the prospects of men for ever.2. While we invite you, on behalf of Christians, that you will embrace their principles, we invite you also that you will associate with their communities.3. We also invite you in the name of Christians, that you will engage in their employments.III. An assurance is pledged. The emphasis of the expressions before us will be found singularly powerful and interesting. “It shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.” And this assurance may be taken in two departments. There is an assurance from Christians, and there is an assurance by Christians, for their God.1. Christians pledge the assurance for themselves, that to those who go with them they will render all the assistance in their power. “What goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee.” “We will endeavour to render you participators of all our supports and enjoyments; so that you shall be found entirely as we are, both in the possessions of the present and in the prospects of the future.”2. Christians pledge the assurance for God. We believe that the moment when your decision occurs will be the moment of your ample and unreserved introduction to all the immunities of the Christian life. There is no process of discipline or preparatory trial, there is no hesitation and there is no delay; the moment when your faith is placed on the great Messiah, and when the resolution of your heart under Divine grace is taken, to devote yourselves to His honour, at that moment all that Christianity can vouchsafe to you is, from the Source of Christianity, your own. (J. Parsons.)Come with usWhither? Israel was going quite through the wilderness into Canaan, the land of promise. Israel of the spirit is going through earth and time to heaven. When the Church says “Come thou with us” to any who are hesitating and undecided, her face is heavenwards, her movement is in that way; she holds in her hand the roll of promise, the map of “ the better country, even the heavenly,” and sees her own title to possession written there as with the finger of God. To that country her steps are all directed; into that country she is moving her ranks, as regularly as the morning dawns, as quietly as the night darkens. With the rolling of the years, with the numbering of the weeks, and even with the striking of the hours, she throws her wearied travellers into eternal rest and safety. We see the part of the company that is bright, and strong, and active, but there is always a more illustrious part of it, which we do not see, away somewhat in the distance before us, and passing in silence, through sickness, and by the dim ways of death, into the good land of immortal life and glory. And there is no time for divided purposes, for lingering delays, “Come with us,” quickly come, lest you should be down to the dark river long before you think; lest your eternal home, the place you are going to, should flash out upon you, and lest it should be, to your surprise and grief, a very different home from that which you are idly hoping to reach. (A. Raleigh, D. D.)Good to be with the good“Come with us and we will do you good.” It is good to be with the good. A thousand nameless gifts and precious influences are reciprocated, given and regiven, and enhanced, as they circulate among the faithful. “We will do thee good” is no vain boast; it is the everyday experience of the saints of God in fellowship, of the soldiers of God in conflict, of the sons of God on the way through the wilderness to their home. To be with a person in spirit-friendship is to get, in a measure, what he has in him to give away, be it good or evil, glory or disgrace. You must be changed in a degree into the same image, whatever that image may be. The effluence of his life will flow into yours, and of yours into his. The sublimest action of this principle is when the disciple is with the Master, giving nothing, but receiving all, and then men take knowledge of him that he has been with Jesus. But it is really the action substantially, of the same principle when the company of His followers, standing well together in their fellowship, and going step by step in their march, are able thus to promise to all whom they invite, “We will do you good.” It is good to be with the good. It is good to be aiming after goodness. The Christian recompense begins as soon as the Christian endeavour begins. (A. Raileigh, D. D.)Keeping good companyI think it is fair to notice that there was a little in the circumstances of the time to help Hobab to say “No” For Moses had to say, “We are journeying.” They did not look at their best; all was in confusion; God’s people here below never do look at their best. You know how vexed you are if some particular friend comes and calls when you are in all the uproar and confusion of a removal. You would say, “Oh, dear me! I hope this won’t have a damaging effect; I hope there won’t be any inferences drawn from this higgledy-piggledy condition of things.” And I think Moses felt it. I feel it as the spokesman for Israel to-day, pleading with any who have not yet come to join themselves to Israel, who have not come into the camp, into the household of faith. I anticipate your objection. You may well say as Hobab perhaps further thought. “Well,” he might think, “I do know a little about these Israelites, and I know more than what is good about them. So far as I have been able to see during the past year, they are a mixed lot.” And so they were. And I have to make much the same admission as regards Christians. I do not want to spoil my case with any “halter-between-two-opinions,” by doing what recruiting-sergeants in the old days were given to, viz., telling lies--for that is the plain English of it. I shall not speak the language of exaggeration. You find fault with us from the outside, and I admit it. You say, “Why should I come?” There are, it may be, points of character on which worldlings, so far as you have met them, are superior to Christians whom you have met. More’s the pity; but I admit it. We are ofttimes a sorry lot, a miserable crowd with our bickerings, and fightings, and jealousies. We please not God, and are contrary to all men; but--but--but take us at our worst, there is a side of us that never can be exaggerated. There is a side of us, and a thing in us, for the sake of which I would advise our keenest critic to rub his eyes and look again ere he gives us up. And remember, besides, that if I choose, I can turn your argument. It is easy for you to turn round to us; it is easy for Hobab to turn to me and say, “What Christians we are,” and that he has found us a stupid lot, and so on. But may I not say, Are you a great deal better? Come along, and show us an example. It is not really fair to stand outside and criticise--take a turn along the road with us for a mile or two. Many a man has had great objections to being a Christian, and has discovered many faults in the Israelites so long as he was a Midianite. But when he crossed over from Midian into Israel, and tried to keep his own eyes on the pillar of cloud, and tried to rule his own conduct according to the law and the sacrifices, his head hung a bit lower, and he had less to say about his neighbours. He had glimpses within that he would never have had otherwise; of great ravines, and chasms of imperfection; tremendous face-blanching possibilities of evil revealed in himself that have made him sing to a more gracious tune, if they have not made him sing dumb altogether. So I come back: “Come thou with us.” I feel as though I were like a dear mother I saw down, I think, at King’s Cross, not long ago. She was standing with one foot on the carriage-board, and the other foot on the platform, and she was arguing evidently with her wayward boy. “Come back, come; you will be better at home; every one is waiting for you.” But he hummed and hawed, turned this way and that way, looked every way but into his mother’s face, and was most uncomfortable and uneasy. And sorry am I to add that the last I saw was the conductor coming hurrying along; there was a kiss and an embrace between mother and son, and then they parted, she to step into the train, and he to go away back, as he answered, “I will not go.” Very like just where Moses was with Hobab, and where I am with some of you. I want you to come, I long for you to come. I know you can raise many difficulties and objections. Like that lad, you like the freedom; like Hobab, you like a desert life. But even although you should say, “No,” still I shall look to see you changing your mind, like Hobab. For, later on in Scripture, we have evidences that he afterwards repented and went. Let me go on with my text. “We will do thee good: for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” Will that do? We are only journeying, we have not arrived; but we have the promises of God. Yes; and we have something to show, we have our own tale to tell. We are redeemed, at any rate; we are a ransomed lot; and when you are piling together all the disparaging adjectives you can gather to describe us, don’t forget the others. There is a ransomed look about us, unless we utterly belle the deepest and truest things in us. We are no longer slaves. True, we are not what we ought to be, but we are saved sinners. We have got that to begin with, and “we are journeying” for all the rest. We are taking God at His word, and hitherto the dullest of us, if you push him hard, is compelled to say the Lord has been, at least, as good as His word. Now, will you come? “And he said, I will not go; but I will depart to my own land, and to my own kindred.” Poor Hobab I Many have been kept back in that way: “ mine own land, mine own kindred.” Now, how would you like it if to-night I brought the argument to a point by saying I dispute the word “mine” you have no land, you have no kindred? Hobab, you are using words that you have no right to use in any absolute sense of possession--“Mine own land, mine own kindred.” That is a word that this world won’t allow, not to speak of God’s Word. But, Hobab, if you want true possessions, if you want true wealth, a real portion, that even death will not destroy (death will only usher you into a more abundant sense of the possession of it), then come with us. Don’t look back to Midian; don’t look back to Sodom; don’t cast longing, lingering looks behind. Look forward. See what Christ offers you, and come. You lose nothing that would be for your good: “No good thing will God withhold from them that walk uprightly.” And if you have to lose; if, from a worldly point of view, from the point of view of selfishness, and self-will, and your own unhallowed ambitions--if you have to lay things on the altar, then you are a blessed man--that is the path of life, and not of death. “He that loveth his life shall lose it; he that hateth his life (he that seems to fling it away) shall find it unto life eternal.” And Moses pleaded with him further, and said, “Leave us not, I pray thee,” &c. Pardon me if I am urgent with you; let me plead with you. You can be of use to us. Will that draw some of you? We want you, frankly and freely. Are you imaginative, musical, poetical, literary? Are you a good financier? Have you certain qualities that mark you off specially as a father, or as a mother, or as a wife, or as a friend? Come with us; we need you, you will be of use to us. It is one of the sweet things about Israel that God wants every kind of person. Then come. We are journeying, we are a going concern, we are moving on, onward and upward; no stop, no stay. Nothing can resist our progress; from night to morning, from morning till night, the one thing in God’s universe that moves is His Israel; and every step is a step upward, and every fall is a fall forward. We are on the winning side, all that is enduring is with us. Come, oh, come! (John McNeill.)The state of mind in Moses which prompted this invitationThese words afford us more than one glimpse into Moses’s state of mind. More than forty years had now elapsed since he had “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.” What enabled him to make this difficult choice? The apostle tells us, “faith.” But faith is a grace that does not stand alone. It soon becomes the parent of other graces. God has told us what He is; and it is the characteristic of faith to rest in Him as a present God--to enjoy Him as an all-sufficient and present portion. But God has spoken about His people s future--told them not only what He is, but what He will be to them. He hath spoken “good concerning Israel.” These promises kindle and sustain “hope.” The heart is enlarged with the joyful anticipation of things to come. Moses’s invitation to Hobab shows that “hope” was one, it may be the prevailing, characteristic of his state of mind at this time. There was something, too, in his outward circumstances which might give an impulse to this expansive feeling. Hitherto they had been marching almost away from the land of promise; now their steps were turned, and they were about to move in a direct line for it. This had no effect whatever on the minds of the carnal and discontented Israel; present inconveniences and trials completely thrust all the promises out of their minds. But Moses pondered the promise; he anticipated the “good which God had spoken concerning Israel.” Hope rose high in his expecting heart, rendering more bearable the heavy burden which he had to carry--a disobedient and gainsaying people. Why is it that our hearts do not abound more in hope? Is it not that they are not occupied enough with God’s promises? That they do not realise, as Moses did, the good which God hath spoken concerning Israel? We live too much in the present or the past, and not enough in the future. Hope, then, was a feature of Moses’s spirit. But another is very apparent in this invitation to Hobab--his holy benevolence. He was anxious that one related to him, though not of Israel, should share in the “good” promised to Israel. And this is the more beautiful, when we bear in mind that Israel of old was not called to impart to others the truths which they had been taught. The Church of the Old Testament was not in any sense, to use a common expression, a “missionary Church.” Its duty was to keep the oracles of God, and to live in complete separation from all the other nations of the earth: so that Moses went beyond the spirit and requirements of the law when he gave utterance to the benevolent desire of his heart, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for God bath spoken good concerning Israel.” But we who live in the latter times, when the fulness of Divine love has burst through the barriers which for a time confined it, when the gracious command has been given, “Preach the gospel to every creature,” we ought to say, by the holiness of our lives, by the sympathy of our hearts, by the words of our lips, to those around us, “Come with us, and we will do thee good.” We see this compassionate love in Paul (Rom 10:1; 1Th 2:8). We see it in the beloved John (3Jn 1:4). But, most of all, we see it in Jesus, the fountain of all grace--“For when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes.” And how full of love are His repeated invitations-” Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden.” “Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out.” Oh, we ought to be more like-minded with Jesus; and if we realised more the good which God has spoken concerning Israel, we should surely desire that relations and friends might “come with us”; that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same He might do to them. (G. Wagner.)The religion of the promiseIf we are honest and genuine in our Christian believing, these words are as true for you and me as they were for Moses and his Israel. We, too, are on a journey. For us to-day, just as really as for them in days of old, the stimulus continues to be simply this--a promise. Heaven cannot be demonstrated. We simply take God’s word for it. The Christian religion is emphatically the religion of the promise. In heathen religion, the threat predominates over the promise. But in the glad faith that boasts the name of gospel, the promise predominates over the threat. Christians are men with a hope, men who have been called to inherit a blessing. The complaint that the progress of human knowledge has made it difficult to think and speak of heaven as believing men used to think and speak of it, is a complaint to which we must briefly refer. Let me observe, then, that while there is a certain grain of reasonableness in this argument for silence with respect to heaven and the things of heaven, there is by no means so much weight to be attached to it as many people seem to suppose. For after all, when we come to think of it, this changed conception of what heaven may be like is not traceable so much to any marvellous revolution that has come over the whole character of human thought since you and I were children, as it is to the changes which have taken place in our own several minds, and which necessarily take place in every mind in its progress from infancy to maturity. But let me try to strike closer home, and meet the difficulty in a more direct and helpful way. I do it by asking whether we ought not to feel ashamed of ourselves, thus to talk shout having been robbed of the promise simply because the Father of heaven has been showing us, just as fast as our poor minds could bear the strain, to how immeasurable an area the Fatherhood extends. The reality and trustworthiness of the promise are not one whir affected by this revelation of the vastness of the resources which lie at His command who makes the promise. Instead of repining because we cannot dwarf God’s universe so as to make it fit perfectly the smallness of our notions, let us turn all our energies to seeking to enlarge the capacity of our faith, so that it shall be able to hold more. It may turn out, who can tell? that heaven lies nearer to us than even in our childhood we ever ventured to suppose; that it is not only nearer than the sky, but nearer than the clouds. Be this as it may, the reasonableness of our believing in Christ’s promise, that in the world whither He went He would prepare a place for us, is in nowise impugned by anything that the busy wit of man has yet found out or is likely to find out. That belief rests on grounds of its own, and, far from forbidding, it encourages us to let our ideas of the fulness, the extent of the blessing promised, expand more and more. We need have no fear that, so long as we are in the flesh and on tile earth, our acquaintance with the realities of heaven will ever outrun the capacity of the Bible language about heaven to express what we may have discovered. On the contrary, let us make more and more of these great and precious promises of God. Let us resolve to think oftener of the place of which the Lord has said that He would give it us. There is no period of life from which we can afford to spare the presence of this heavenly hope. We need it in youth, to give point and purpose and direction to the newly-launched life. It would be a strange answer to give from a ship just out of the harbour’s mouth, in reply to the question, “Whither bound?”--“Nowhere.” But not in youth only is belief in this ancient promise of God a blessing to us. We need it in middle life. We need it to help us cover patiently that long stretch which parts youth from old age--the time of the fading out of illusions in the dry light of experience; the time when we discover the extent of our personal range, and the narrow limit of our possible achievement. We need it then, that we may be enabled to replace failing hopes with fresher ones, and neither falter nor sink under the burden and heat of the day. Above all, shall we find such a hope the staff of old age, should the pilgrimage last so long. (W. R. Huntington, D. D.)The Christian life a journeyI. We are to view the Christian leaving the world behind him. We do not mean by this that he is to go out of the world. He may remain in it, and perform with diligence all the duties of his station, but he must give up the spirit, the tastes, the habits of the world; he must use the world without abusing it, and “count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.”II. We are to view the Christian with the cross on his back. It may appear unwise to lay a cross upon a man that is journeying, because it is apparently burthensome; but there is this difference between a temporal journey and the spiritual one: the cross does not enfeeble, it only makes us sensible of the weakness that exists. Indeed, in this journey it is generally found that he whose cross is the heaviest makes the greatest progress. With the cross on his back the Christian is less liable to wander. It keeps him steady in the right way. It is true that “no chastening for the present is joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby.” The cross which the Christian carries is not selected by himself, but it is appointed by God. Sometimes it is outward affliction; sometimes inward temptations, as is best suited to the character and circumstances of the individual.III. The Christian journeys with the bible in his hand. When a man sets out on a journey, he procures a book or map of the road, and directs his course accordingly. It is not enough that he intends or desires to go right, he must be regulated by his guide. If you were travelling through a strange country, and you knew not the various turnings and windings of the road, how anxiously would you look to your map, to see if you were right; particularly if there were certain marks by which you might know whether you were in the appointed track. The maxims of the world may deceive you; the reasonings of your own mind may perplex you; even the experience of professed Christians, being unscriptural or unsuitable, may mislead you; but “the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.”IV. In the spiritual journey the Christian has Christ at his side. Throughout the way, all the strength that is received is from His fulness. “For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell.” Christ continually sustains the believer’s soul. There are times with the most eminent Christian when the brightness is dimmed and dangers are multiplied; “when the soul is much discouraged because of the way.” In such seasons nothing but a view of Christ can cheer the soul. None ever travelled this road without feeling a humbling sense of his own weakness in the spiritual conflict. He has at times fallen, but a look at Christ, even if fallen, while it humbles, encourages.V. The christian pilgrim keeps heaven in his view. Both the pains and the pleasures of the way stir up his heart to think of it, He hastens on, regardless of the accommodations by the way, so that he may but reach his home at last. With him the idea is not that of mere release from suffering, but of being brought to the permanent enjoyment of that Saviour with whom he has walked by faith. On this his mind is bent, nor will he be fully satisfied till that blessed time arrive. Application:1. To you who are going quite another road. What do you expect at the end of it? You hope to be saved at last. On what are your expectations founded?2. I would invite the young to commence this journey. It is true that the world has its pleasures, and they are placed before you in an alluring point of view; but they are deceitful. Religion has its pleasures, and they are solid and durable.3. A word of encouragement to those who are on the road. Be grateful that while so many are travelling on in the broad road, you have, through grace, been brought to walk in this heavenly path. Gird up the loins of your mind--take up your cross cheerfully and follow Christ. (J. G. Breay, B. A.)Persuasives and promises to pilgrimsI. A picture of the Christian’s pilgrimage. That wilderness wandering, so deeply indented with marks of Divine intervention, so resplendent with proofs of a present God, who went before them, cleaving the sea and the flood for them, subduing their enemies round about, is a varied type of the Church in the world.1. The first lesson lying on the surface is that which relates to bearing testimony for Christ. There should be no hesitation about a Christian, as if he were afraid to say he was on the way to heaven. His speech or silence; his activity or quiet submission to the Divine will; his work and his worship, should boldly declare “whose he is, and whom he serves.”2. A second lesson taught us here is one of mutual forbearance. Though all Christians are journeying to the one place, there is a wide diversity of experience, of capacity, of attainment. No two human faces are alike; and it may be safely affirmed that no two conversions are in all respects the same, and no two Christians, however close their affections and sympathies, “grow in grace” at the same rate, or in dependence on the same supplies.II. A powerful pleading with others to join the pilgrim in his progress. There is a true ring in these words. Moses knew whom he had believed, and trusted his heavenly Father implicitly.1. His invitation is founded on the Divine precept: “The Lord hath said I will give it you.” It was a poor nomadic life after all--the tribes were living in the desert--if there had been no goal to which their aspirations and their movements tended. But the word of the Lord was a sure word on which to hope. With Divine leadership, pioneering and providing, defending and protecting, and a glorious inheritance at the end of the pilgrimage, there was everything to quicken, stimulate, and strengthen. Our condition is very like theirs, for we have not yet come “to the rest and the inheritance which God is to give to us,” but we are on the way.2. It is founded on a rich promise: “The Lord said I will give it you,” and “the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” As God promised Canaan to the tribes, so has “He opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers” by Jesus Christ. What though a wearisome pilgrimage lie between us and the heavenly rest, though dangers, enemies, fears manifold, are in the way, in nothing shall we be ashamed. All good is promised and not evil, what is good for body and soul, solid, enduring good, “the good part that shall not be taken away,” even when life departs. Canaan was the ultimate embodiment of that good to ancient Israel, as heaven and eternal felicity with Christ are to us. But those of them that were true saints and pilgrims would have a foretaste of Canaan beforehand, as we too have of heaven upon earth. What was good for Hobab in the wilderness cannot be bad for us here, with heaven in reversion.3. The invitation contains an earnest persuasive--“Come with us.” True religion seeks to propagate itself by communicating its goodness to others. Persuasion and compulsion are the natural opposites of each other. The one entices, allures, woes, with sweet attention and magnetic influence: the other drives with mechanical force. Persuasion is that spirit of the gospel such as came from the living lips of Jesus when He said, “Come unto Me and I will give you rest”--that love which many waters could not quench, nor many floods drown. Who has not heard the fable of the sun and wind striving which of the two would compel a traveller to put off his cloak, the sun being the victor? Men will be led when they refuse to be driven. It is the love that plies persuasions, strengthened by incentives, and beautified by promises of the summum bonum, the supreme good to be got by coming over the line and coming out from the world, that conquers. (J. Blair.)The start from SinaiI. Moses’ proposal During their stay at Sinai, it is probable that deputations from neighbouring tribes visited the people, and amongst them was this chieftain of a tribe closely related to Moses by marriage. Hobab, we are told, was the son of Reuel, the Midianite, Moses’ father-in-law. Of course, he knew the country well, every foot of it, where the springs lay, and the pastures, and the safest, shortest routes, and so Moses approached him with the request that he would go with them, to give them the benefit of his practical knowledge. “Leave us not, I pray thee, forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou shalt be to us instead of eyes.” This request was, of course, most natural. Moses was a very lonely man, and it was pleasant to have one, bound to him by a blood affinity, to unburden himself to, in any special crisis. At the same time, it was at variance with the general custom, which even then must have commenced strongly to assert itself, of Israelite exclusiveness. There must have been a strong reason that prompted this invitation. And shall we not find it in that instinctive shrinking of the human heart from the strange and unknown way? How well to have a Hobab who knows the ground! We seek our Hobabs in the advice of sage, grey-haired counselors; in the formation of strong, intelligent, and wealthy committees; in a careful observance of precedent. Anything seems better than a simple reliance on a unseen guide. Now, in one sense, there is no harm in this. We have neither right nor need to cut ourselves adrift from others, who have had special experience in some new ground on which we are venturing. God often speaks to us through our fellows; they are His ministers to us for good. But there is also a great danger that we should put man before God; and that we should so cling to Hobab, as to become unmindful of the true Guide and Leader of souls. How often God is compelled to isolate us from human voices.II. The failure of Hobab and the divine substitute. The desert chieftain was by no means enamoured of the proposal of his great relative. Several considerations may have weighed with him. It was only a month before that Aaron and his sons had been set apart for their sacred work, and the fire of God had fallen on their dedicatory sacrifices. For some violation of the sacred ritual, for personal misconduct whilst engaged in their ministry, the two young priests had been stricken dead, and Aaron forbiddin to weep. This must have struck an awful fear through the camp. Shortly after this another incident occurred. The son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, had blasphemed the holy name of God, and cursed in the midst of conflict with a man of Israel. The blasphemer had been stoned. The result of it all was that in reply to Moses’ request, he said bluntly, “I will not go, but I will depart unto mine own land and to my kindred.” Moses still further entreated him, but whether he succeeded or not is doubtful, though there are some reasons for thinking that the second request prevailed, because the descendants of the Kenite are numbered amidst the chosen people. But it would seem as if his aid was rendered needless by the provision of guidance immediately promised. Up to this moment the position of the Ark had been in the midst of the host in front of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, but hence-forth it went three days’ journey in front of the people, “to seek out a resting-place for them.” The Lord Himself had become Director and Guide, and all that Israel had to do was to keep at a distance sufficiently wide to enable them to reap the fullest benefit of its advance guard. Thus God Himself superseded the proposal of Moses by an expedient which more than met their needs. What consolation there is to each of us, in realising the spiritual truth underlying this historical fact! We have to pass into the untried and unknow, and know not the way we should take. Some have to go alone. Some with the memory of companions that once went at their side, but whom they will see no more in this life. But amid all Jesus is with them, and goes before them, whether for war or rest. He never will forsake nor leave them. The Lord Jesus is the true Ark of the Covenant, who has gone before us through the world and death, through the grave and the last rally of the hosts of darkness to the glory. We have but to follow Him. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)Where are you going? - When friends and neighbours meet in the streets or roads, the commonest question is, Where are you going? All kinds of answers are returned; one is going on an errand of business, another of pleasure; one is going to wealth and success, another, with broken fortunes and blighted hopes, is going to the grave, which holds all that was most dear to him on earth. “Where are you going?” What wonderful answers we should get if we asked that question of the first fifty people only whom we met! But however different those replies would be, Gods people ought to be able to give one and the same answer - “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you.” We know not through what dangers, difficulties, and trials; we know not for how long our journey shall be; we know not what will befall us on the way, but we have set our faces steadfastly to go to the promised land, to Jerusalem, which is above, to the Paradise of God, “the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you.” (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)Gospel invitationsA beautiful picture this! full of modern questioning--a very pattern of inquiry and invitation in a gospel sense. Can we honestly invite men to join us on our life-march? Consider the question well. Do not involve others in grievous and mournful responsibilities. Do not entreat men to leave what is to them at least a partial blessing, unless you are sure you can replace that enjoyment by purer and larger gladness. Can we honestly, with the full consent of judgment, conscientiousness, and experience, invite men to join us in the way which we have determined to take? If not, do not let us add the murder of souls to our other crimes. Do not let us, merely for the sake of companionship, involve in ruin innocent men. What is our life-march? To what place are we journeying? Who laid its foundation? Who lighted its lamps? Who spread its feast? What is its name? Be careful how you ask people to go along with you. First lay down a basis of sound wisdom. “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you.” If that be the first sentence, or part of it, the sentence may end in the boldest invitation ever issued by love to the banquet of grace and wisdom. But let us have no adventuring, no foolish or frivolous speculation in life; let us speak from the citadel of conviction and from the sanctuary of assured religious confidence. Have we such a view of the end as may make us independent of immediate trials? When we invite men to join us on the Christian pilgrimage, it must be on the distinct understanding that we are ruling the present by the future. This is precisely the logic of Moses: “We are journeying unto the place.” The end was indicated--the goal, the destiny of the march; and that was so bright, so alluring, so glowing with all hospitable colour, that Moses did not see that to-morrow there was to be a battle, or seeing it, already passed the warfield like a victor. We must draw ourselves forward by taking firm hold of the end--in other words, we must have such a conception of life’s destiny as will invigorate every noble motive, stir every sacred passion, and make us more than conquerors in all war and conflict. This was the reasoning of Moses, this was the reasoning of Paul, this was the practice of Christ; and we are not yet advanced enough in true wisdom to modify the terms or readjust and redistribute the conditions. Moses did not invite Hobab to join merely for the sake of being in the company; he expected service from Hobab, the son of Raguel the Midianite. He said, Thou knowest the ground so well that thy presence will be of service to us; experience will assist devotion; we are willing to march; we know nothing of the processes of the way; thou understandest the whole country; come with us and be as eyes unto us. Moses showed leadership even there; it was the invitation of a soldier and a legislator and a wise man. Eyes are of inexpressible value in the whole conduct of life; to be able to see, to take note of, to recognise--the man who can do this is rendering service to the whole Church. So we invite men to come with us that they may render service according to their opportunity and capacity. (J. Parker, D. D.)An invitation to Christian fellowshipI. As A certain scriptural duty. Every reasonable person, conscious of accountability to God, will seriously inquire, What is the duty enjoined upon me by my Creator, my Redeemer, and my Judge? To the Bible we therefore appeal, while considering the subject of fellowship with Christ’s followers.1. That it is our duty fully to unite with Christians is evident from the Scriptural representations of the followers of Christ. Among the instructive representations which clearly imply their union is that of a house or building (1Co 3:9; 1Co 3:11). In a building, the foundation and the other various necessary parts are united, in order to form a useful edifice: and Christians are built upon Christ, and united to each other, “as lively stones, built up a spiritual house” (1Pe 2:5). Christ’s followers are next set forth as a household, a united family. They are designated “the household of faith” (Gal 6:10), “the household of God” (Eph 2:19), and “the house of God,” in which Paul taught Timothy “how to behave” (1Ti 3:15). Christians are also represented as “one body in Christ, and every one members one of another” (Rom 12:5). They “’are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1Co 12:27).2. The certain duty of full union with Christians is clearly taught by the Scriptural history of Christ’s followers. It is evident from this record that when persons received Christ as their Saviour they embraced His people as their people. They gave themselves first to Him, and then to His followers according to His will (2Co 8:5). When Saul of Tarsus was converted, he appears to have thought joining the united Christians as certainly his duty, as trusting in Christ their Saviour. “He not only preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus,” but on coming to Jerusalem, where there was a Christian Society, he at once “essayed to join himself to the disciples,” who were afraid to receive him, until Barnabas testified that he had become a Christian. This narrated conduct of inspired men clearly teaches that Christian fellowship ought to be sought and manifested by all professing Christians.3. The Scriptural obligations of Christ’s followers certainly imply the public union of those who bear His name.(1) Our solemn obligation to confess Christ before men cannot be fully discharged unless we are publicly identified with His disciples, and thus share His reproach and His honour, His pain and His pleasure.(2) The obligations which we owe to ourselves cannot be fulfilled without union with Christ’s followers. The blessings of salvation are freely offered in the gospel; but experience and observation assure us that they can neither be fully obtained, nor long retained, without fellowship with those who would assist us to secure their enjoyment. And even where a most promising state of grace has been manifested, if persons have “forsaken the assembling of themselves together” in Christian communion, the blooming work has been blasted, the heavenly offspring has been destroyed, and the hopes of the Church have been painfully disappointed. Numerous facts, doubtless, caused Mr. Whitefield to remark:--“ My brother Wesley acted wisely. The souls that were awakened under his ministry he joined in class, and thus preserved the fruits of his labour. This I neglected, and my people are a rope of sand.”(3) The obligations which Christians owe to each other cannot be observed without” the fellowship of which we speak. Christ’s disciples are required to have the same care one for another (1Co 12:25); to rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep (Rom 12:15-16); to bear each other’s burdens (Gal 6:2); to walk in love as Christ has loved them (Eph 5:2); to be like-minded (Php 2:2); to teach and admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Col 3:16). How is it possible, without public, intimate, and frequent fellowship, to discharge these enjoined, mutual duties?(4) The obligations which Christians owe to the world cannot be performed without our public union. How can true Christian ministers be raised, and called, and sent forth by means of Christian Churches, unless such Churches are formed? If Christians really stand forth as Christ’s chosen witnesses, and go forth as His servants to claim and save the world, they must unite for the accomplishment of these objects.II. Highly advantageous.1. This union raises us to fellowship with the best of society.2. Public union with Christ’s followers would prove a powerful preservative from sin.3. The union of which we speak would furnish you with a most desirable sphere of usefulness. This powerful motive was presented to Hobab when Moses showed the individual assistance which he might afford for the general good (Num 10:31). Every rightly-disposed person will not live to please or serve himself merely; but, seeking God’s honour, and using his influence for the benefit of his generation, will hail with gladness the facilities for increased usefulness which may be presented in connection with Christ’s active followers.4. Christian union would entitle you to an interest in the special prayers of Christ and His followers.5. Communion with Christians will be attended with a share in Christ’s most gracious regard. We do not say that this Christian union will ensure heaven; but we do affirm that if you truly trust in Christ, and are united in His name, you will have such an interest in His regard as no individual who neglects thus to profess Him can Scripturally claim. Christ is not only round about His united Churches, but the glory in the midst of them (Zec 2:6; Psa 46:5; Isa 12:6). They are, and ever will be, favoured with His most gracious presence.III. Earnestly invite you to full fellowship with Christ’s followers. “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.”1. Abandon forbidden fellowship with sinners. These will soon perish in their sins. Separate yourself, therefore, from them, that you perish not in their company (Num 16:26).2. Let all sin, as well as the company of sinners, be forsaken. Be not an Achan in the camp, nor a Simon in a Christian society; but let your hands be clean, and your heart right in the sight of God. Thus guard against substituting a religious profession for inward and outward holiness.3. As God’s unworthy servants, and relying upon His promised grace, we engage to do you good. How many in that glorious multitude have received good in our connection?4. This invitation is given, and this promise is made, personally. “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.” We invite yea who are more learned than most persons, having enjoyed superior advantages. Be to others what Hobab was to Israel, “instead of eyes.” You who are not so learned as others, but whose attainments are painfully limited, we do not despise, Be not proudly ashamed because you are not so well informed, and so able to speak, as many with whom you are invited to unite. To you who are rich, and increased in earthly goods, we say, Come with us, and we will do you good. Perhaps you are tempted to look upon the poor in our societies, and then around you in the circle of respectable worldly persons who are your equals, and your natural heart may suggest, “I cannot associate and be one with those poor persons, and thus sink in public estimation, and sacrifice opportunities of still rising in society.” Before you yield to such suggestions, remember Him who was surrounded by heaven’s highest inhabitants, and receiving their loudest praises; yet He stooped, and for your sake became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich (2Co 8:9). From the poor in this world we turn not away, but offer you the right hand of fellowship. You have no place among the children of rich men, but you may have a place among God’s children. To the aged, pained by the past, and dreading the future, we respectfully say, “Come thou with us, and we will do thee good.” Oh, that you had come sooner, that you might have done good as well as received good! But come now. End your days in the Christian fold. Finish life with Christians and as a Christian. With one accord our language is, “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord hath said, I will give it you.” The inheritance is sufficient for all. It is offered to all. Part of our company have entered that better country, and are now before the throne. With this fixed purpose to “travel to the mount of God” ourselves, and with the prospect of there joining the general assembly and Church of the first-born, whom shall we pass and leave behind to perish? (Wright Shovelton.)God’s goodness to His peopleA German, converted at one of the military stations in America, seemed overwhelmed with surprise and gladness as he contemplated God’s gracious goodness to him. He was overheard one day praying, “O Lord Jesus, I didn’t know you were so good.”The solicitude of the godlyI have seen birds sitting on the boughs and watching while other birds were feeding below. They would hop from twig to twig, and look wistfully down upon them; then, gathering courage, they would spring from their perch and back again, and finding that it did not hurt them, they would at last join the outmost circle, and feed with the others. How many faces I have seen in these galleries, wearing a wistful look as they gazed down upon us while we were celebrating this ordinance of communion. May God give all such wings, that they may fly down and be among His people, and partake with them of heavenly food! (H. W. Beecher.)The beginning of the heavenly journeySome who see men hurrying along at noon towards the various prayer-meetings, say, “It’s a fever which must have its way, and then it will subside.” They see a young man going to the meeting, and think it nothing to excite interest. They do not know that that young man had come up to a point where, if nothing had occurred to save him, he would have been bound over to destruction at the very next step. They do not see, in some far-distant village, the mother or the sister praying and weeping for him--no sound of a father’s groan is heard--none of these things; the petitions that for years have assailed the heavens, both day and night, do not cling about the youth as he walks the street; but that prayer-meeting God made to answer the desire of the parents, and to bring salvation to the son. And eternity will show that the young man’s walking towards that place of prayer was the beginning of his march to heaven. (H. W. Beecher.)Preparing for the journeyA poor blacksmith, bending with age and weakness, was passing through a country village: he stopped at a good woman’s cottage, and rested himself on the railing before the door. The pious dame came out, and the weary traveller remarked that his time here would be short; he was always ailing: he added, “Ah, Nanny! I shan’t be long for this world, I reckon!” She thought of his words, and replied, “Well, John, then I hope you’ll prepare for your journey!” The blacksmith passed on, and his call was soon forgotten by Nanny; but that simple sentence was impressed on his memory by the Spirit of God, never to be erased. He pondered it while walking home, and soon consumption laid him on a bed of pain. Again and again did he think about “the journey,” and about being “prepared” for it. He began to pray, and all around him were continually hearing the old woman’s advice. No pious friends were near to converse with him, but it is confidently believed that the aged sinner was led to look to the Saviour through the simple incident related above. Almost his last breath was spent in thanking God that the good old woman ever warned him. (Christian Miscellany.)Rejoicing in the promisesI went to see a dear aged Christian woman who is a member of the Church of which I am the pastor. She was lying physically helpless, but no one had called to light the fire that day; the black grate with the whitish-grey ash of yesterday’s fire still in it made the room look desolate and cold. Turning towards the bed, I saw that the dear child of God was weeping, and thought it was from hunger and loneliness; but I was mistaken, for she had spent the morning reading the precious promises of God, thus forgetting all earthly considerations in looking forward to the bright hereafter. “Oil,” she said in her Scotch way, “I can soop (sweep) them (the promises) up like diamonds.” (J. Munro.)Numbers 10:35-36When the ark set forward . . . and when it rested.The march:--I. This has been the watchword of the church of God in all ages. The people of God in the wilderness were the picture of God’s Church upon earth. We are strangers and foreigners upon the earth. Albeit that they had no habitation except their tents, yet it is true of Israel in the wilderness that they always had an habitation. Do you not remember the song of Moses:--“Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.” Wherever they were, God was their dwelling-place. This, too, is true of the entire Church; always wandering, yet never far from home; unhoused, yet always in palaces; sometimes destitute, afflicted, tormented, and yet always clothed, always rich, always feasting to the full; deserted, yet not alone; forsaken, yet multiplied; left, yet still abiding with Him that filleth all in all We might carry the parallel out still further, but it is enough to remark that, in another point, the people of God in the wilderness were the picture of the Church of Christ. Wherever they marched, when God went before them, they marched to victory. Even so hath it been with the Church of God in all ages; her march has been that of one who is fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. Let but her silvery trumpet sound, and the echo shakes the vaults of hell. Let but her warriors unsheath their sword, and their enemies fly before them like the thin clouds before a Biscay gale. Her path is the pathway of a conqueror: her march has been a procession of triumph. Wherever she hath put her foot, the Lord hath given her that land to be her heritage for ever. Now, let me show how this war-cry has really been heard of God and has been fulfilled to all His people. Turn ye to this book, this book of the wars of the Lord. Wherever His Church has gone and He has risen up, have not His enemies been scattered? Methinks, in a spiritual sense, when Luther first bowed his knee, the Church began to chant, “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.” When Knox in Scotland upheld the glory of Jesus’ name, was it not once again, “O God arise, let them that hate Thee flee before Thee”? When Whitefield and Wesley, seraphic evangelists of Jesus Christ, went through this land, was not this the very song of Israel, “O God, arise, and let Thine enemies be scattered”? And shall it not be ours to-day? Let but God go forth with our arms; let Him but speak through our ministers; let Him but dwell in our elders; let Him but make the bodies of our Church-members His temples, and His enemies must be scattered, and they must consume away. I can well conceive that such a prayer as this well befits the tongue of a minister who lands as the first herald of the Cross in some barbarian land. Those brave men who risk all for Christ, not counting their lives dear unto them that they might finish their course with joy--methinks when they as pioneers for Christ bear the ark in the midst of the wilderness, they could not breathe a better prayer for themselves, and you and I cannot do better than put it up for them now, “Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered; let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.”II. Now take the text in its reference to Christ. Ah! methinks the sorrowing Church, when they beheld their Lord dragged by cruel men to judgment, when they heard Him accused and slandered, when they saw Him mocked and spit upon, must have considered the battle to be a defeat. The tears must have stood in their eyes when they saw that He who was to be the Deliverer of Israel could not deliver Himself. Was it not the day of bell’s triumph, the hour of earth’s despair, the moment of heaven’s defeat? No; it was the reverse of all this. That moment when Christ died, He gave the death-blow to all His enemies. Even when the Master was laid in the tomb, and had to sleep there His three days as Jonah in the whale’s belly, if the Church had had faith, they might have come early on the dawn of the first day in the week, and standing outside the tomb, they might have begun to sing, “Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.”III. What message has this text for us, and how may we use it? “Rise up, Lord! O God the Father, rise up! Let Thy purposes be accomplished! O God the Son, rise up; show Thy wounds, and plead before Thy Father’s face, and let Thy blood-bought ones be saved! Rise up, O God the Holy Ghost, with solemn awe, we do invoke Thee! Let those that have resisted Thee give way I Come, Thou, melt Thou the ice; dissolve the granite; let the adamantine heart give way; cut Thou the iron sinew and bow Thou the stiff neck! Rise up, Lord, Father, Son, and Spirit, we can do nothing without Thee; but if Thou wilt arise, Thine enemies shall be scattered, and they that hate Thee shall flee before Thee.” Will you and I go home and pray this prayer by ourselves, fervently laying hold upon the horns of God’s altar? I charge you do not neglect this private duty. Pray for your children, your neighbours, your families, and your friends, and let your prayer be--”Rise up, Lord; rise up, Lord.” Pray for this neighbourhood; pray for the dense darkness of Southwark, and Walworth, and Lambeth. And oh! if you cannot pray for others because your own needs come so strongly before your mind, remember, sinner, all thou needest is by faith to look to Christ, and then thou mayest say, “Rise up, Lord; scatter my doubts; kill my unbelief; drown my sins in Thy blood; let these Thine enemies be scattered; let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)The Church in motion and at restI. The church in motion, the Church militant.1. This camp composed of Israel, is distinguished from the enemies around it. Though we are in the world, we are not to be of the world; though we are surrounded with Anakims and Canaanites, we are still to maintain the purity of the visible Israel of God, our being upon the march is a circumstance calculated to hinder the ungodly from joining us to a great degree.2. It is marching through a wilderness of woe to a land of promise. Is their way long? Is their journey weary? Are their trials great? Are their enemies numerous? Do they often halt, and think they are upon the verge of Canaan, and that the next mandate of their Sovereign will be to enter in; and are they disappointed by finding that there are many other halting places, and many a weary journey lying between them and the Canaan of their rest? Yet are they moving toward it--at last the command will be heard by this individual, and the other tribe, to cease their wanderings, and to enter into glorious and eternal rest.3. It is under the guidance of the Mediator. It is certainly not worse off now than it was then. Christ is our Guide.4. When His Church moves forward, God rises up on its behalf. Every progressive movement of the Church of Christ, as well as of the individuals who compose it, is, in fact, directed and dictated by the Spirit of God.5. The movement of the Church ought to be always, and upon the whole, progressive.6. This progress will and must be attended with the defeat of the Church’s enemies. We can win no ground except we win it from the foe; we cannot advance a single footstep in our onward journey except as we beat our enemies back.7. The Church’s triumphant march shall end in the complete destruction of all the enemies of God.II. The church at rest. We have seen it moving forward to that rest, and we have noticed that it sometimes enjoys temporary seasons of refreshment by the way, in different halting-places as it passes through the wilderness; and experiences the Divine protection and direction. But this rest is only tasted here below, and the foretaste of it is but designed to quicken the appetite of the people of God for their rest in glory.1. As one feature of that rest, we observe, that there the true Israel shall be recognised, and the words shall be heard circulating through the happy host, “Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel.” There, notwithstanding their multitudes, not one intruder shall be found to have entered in; there nothing shall enter that will destroy or that will even disturb in all God’s holy mountain. However the mixed multitude may accompany us by the way, there must be a separation at the Jordan of death.2. At that glorious period the Israel of God shall consist of thousands and thousands.3. They shall then have triumphed gloriously. Enemies no more shall trouble them; the sound of war shall be a sound unheard; there shall be no more conflict with temptation, no more struggles with indwelling sin. Oh, to think of Canaan’s rest only in this point of view! Believer, what a happy, what a heavenly rest it will be! (W. H. Cooper.)Moses’ prayerMoses, the mouth of the congregation, lifts up a prayer, both at the removing and at the resting of the ark. Thus their going out and coming in were sanctified by prayer; and it is an example to us to begin and end every day’s journey, and every day’s work with prayer.1. Here is his prayer when the ark set forward: “Rise up, Lord, and let Thine enemies be scattered” (Num 10:35). They were now in a desolate country, but they were marching towards an enemy’s country; and their dependence was upon God for success and victory in their wars, as well as for directions and supply in the wilderness. David used this prayer long after (Psa 68:1); for he also fought the Lord’s battles. Note--(1) There are those in the world that are enemies to God, and haters of Him. Secret and open enemies; enemies to His truths, His laws, His ordinances, His people.(2) The scattering and defeating of God’s enemies is a thing to be earnestly desired and believingly expected by all the Lord’s people. This prayer is a prophecy. Those that persist in rebellion against God are hastening towards their own ruin.(3) For the scattering and defeating of God’s enemies, there needs no more but God’s arising. When God arose to judgment, the work was soon done (Psa 76:8-9). “Rise, Lord, as the sun riseth to scatter the shadows of the night.” Christ rising from the dead scattereth His enemies (Psa 68:18).2. His prayer when the ark rested (Num 10:36).(1) That God would cause His people to rest. So some read it, “Return, O Lord, the many thousands of Israel; return them to their rest again after this fatigue.” Thus it is said, “The Spirit of the Lord caused him to rest “ (Isa 63:14). Thus he prays that God would give Israel success and victory abroad, and peace and tranquility at home.(2) That God Himself would take up His rest among them. So we read it, “Return to the thousands of Israel”; the ten thousand thousand, so the word is. Note--1. The Church of God is a great body; there are many thousands belonging to God’s Israel.2. We ought in our prayers to concern ourselves for this body.3. The welfare and happiness of the Israel of God consists in the remaining presence of God among them. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Protection and peaceThere are here two prayers for different occasions: one for active life, the other for quiet rest. In both cases they are suitable and blessed.I. We have God fighting our battles. His enemies are ours, and He will identify our struggles with His:1. So far as we are going in the way of His commands.2. So far as our actions are identified with His will. If we are fighting for our own will, our own ambition, our own ideas, we cannot say, “Scatter Thy enemies.”II. We have God protecting our periods of rest.1. “He slumbereth not nor sleepeth,” and “to Him the darkness is as the day.”2. He never wearies nor is tired; hence there is nothing to hinder or prevent His constant care. (Homilist.)The Church and its enemiesI. The church of God has had enemies in every age. This is accounted for by--1. The favours they received. God has set His heart upon His people. This creates envy, which soon grows into opposition and mischief.2. The principles they professed.3. The expectations they cherished.II. The enemies of the church are considered the enemies of God.III. When God rises up to judgment, the destruction of his enemies is easy, terrible, and complete.IV. The constant abode of God with his church is an object of their supreme desire,1. Let us learn from this passage the condescension and grace of God, in that He will dwell with us.2. Let each of us inquire whether we are amongst the many thousands of Israel.3. What comfort should this give to the Church amidst her many trials.4. This subject affords to the enemies of the Church a motive for seeking reconciliation with God. (G. Clayton, M. A.)The true soldier’s convoyI. God himself hath many enemies.II. As God hath enemies, so sometimes he sleepeth to all their enmity.III. Though God sleepeth and they work, yet there is a time when they shall be scattered; and when God ariseth they are scattered.IV. Our prayers awaken God.V. When the people of the land go forth to war, God’s people should go forth to prayer. (W. Budge, M. A.)The rising and the resting prayerI. The rising prayer. Here is confession, that Israel’s onward path was thronged with foes. It is so still, and so will always be. There is no hour when sword and shield may hang unused. Next Moses feels that his own might is nought; vain are his counsels, powerless is his arm. Therefore to God he flees. “Rise up, Lord.” So now, if God’s right hand be not our help the tide of foes must bear us down. But God is moved by importunities of faith. “Rise up, Lord,” is a cry which brings all heaven to aid. It puts sure victory on the wing. Observe here how the prayer of faith yearns for God’s glory. “Let Thine enemies be scattered.” These enemies hate God. They would impede the progress of His truth. They would extinguish His Word’s light. They would cast down His righteous rule. Can faith sit still and see Him thus dethroned? Oh, no! It agonises with desire that He would vindicate His holy cause uphold His honour, and add trophies to His name. “Rise up, Lord, and let them that hate Thee flee before Thee.”II. The resting prayer. The going forts would have been ruin except the Lord moved in the front. The rest will be no rest unless the Lord return Prayer called Him to precede their steps. Prayer calls Him to abide around their resting teats. Vast was the multitude. But what are numbers without God? His presence is their power, their peace, their joy, their glory, their strength, their fortress, their shield, and their repose. They know it, and they cry, “Return, O Lord.” (Dean Law.)Israel’s hymn of restI. As we meditate upon these words we are reminded generally of the exercises of evening devotion. We connect this sentence with every individual who formed a part of that mighty host: we fancy that we hear these words whispering from the lips of every one as he enters his tent, and as he folds himself for rest. And then we connect it with the families, the tribes of the people, the groups of kindred, remote and intimate, in that singularly constituted nation, which, you know, consisted of one race--all were brothers by blood. And we connect it, further, with the congregation at large--the sum total of that great multitude that was numbered in the registration, Israel’s Book of Life, as it was called. And so the sentence leads us to think of evening worship in three ways--in the closet, in the family, in the church.II. We are led to penetrate into that which forms the meaning, and essence, and spirit of the exercises of praise and prayer, at eventide, and at all times. We are brought immediately by prayer into the presence of God; we come into immediate contact and communion with His gracious Spirit! “Rise up, O Lord; let Thine enemies be scattered.” There is significancy in that expression, “Rise up, O Lord!” And so there is in this other expression, equally figurative--“Return, O Lord.” “Rise up, O Lord!” “Return, O Lord.” Now, such expressions are properly explained as indicating, not an absolute fact in God’s dealings, but in the perception and apprehension of God by man: not a Divine dispensation, but a human consciousness. God did not leave Israel in the day’s march, no, not for an instant. We speak sometimes of the returning sunrise, and we speak sometimes of the returning sunset: but the fact is, that we return to them, and not they to us. The fact is, that it is the earth that is turning, and it is the sun that remains the same. And as it is with the sun, so it is with regard to God. Absolute change in us produces relative change in Him. As we cease to think of Him, apparently He leaves us; as we return to Him in thought, desire, and purpose, He seems to return to us in actual presence. The process is ever taking place in the history of spiritual consciousness. God and man meet when man prays to God as the day is over. God and His people hold communion as the shades of evening close in upon us at our evening devotions.III. The text suggests to us the thought of the peacefulness, and the security, and the joy of those to whom god thus returns.IV. We turn to this evening hymn again, and we observe that it is very large-hearted--it is thoroughly Catholic. Here Moses takes up into that great heart of his the interests of all Israel--“the many thousands of Israel.” Earnestly should we pray for ourselves, and with equal earnestness should we identify ourselves with the interests of others, and pray for them. An individual consciousness of moral individuality will be as a growing tree; it will be rooted in the heart, but up will it grow, and out will the branches shoot in this direction, and in that. The heart will be as a fountain, and there will come ever forth the bubbling waters, but they will flow, flow, flow, on and on, in irrigating streams, that will reach a thousand hearts. So let us throw thorough catholicity into our devotion.V. Last of all, we think of this hymn as what may be called the evening hymn of life. The last night will come, and we shall lie down to sleep in the grave! and oh! how beautiful then to be able, by faith, to lift up our hearts to heaven and say, “Return, O Lord, return unto me! I will return unto Thee! At the end of my life-long journey, my weary spirit would find rest in Thee! Receive me to Thyself.” And while this prayer is offered by us on our own behalf, we are to take heed of the whole Israel of God, and pray, as we are passing out of time into eternity, that the love and care which we have so richly enjoyed, may be vouchsafed to those who follow us. (J. Stoughton.)“Return, O Lord,” &c.I. The subjects of this prayer. “Israel.” What the thousands of Israel are not doing for themselves let us do for them. Let us make increasing prayers at the throne of Divine grace, that the veil may be taken away from their hearts, that, under the covenant of the blessed gospel, they may realise the promise of the Spirit unto the Churches(Rev 2:17). The thousands of Israel, tracing back their history, who were they? Looking at their present condition, what are they? And making castings into the future, what shall they be?1. Who were they? They were the nation chosen from all the families of the earth, set apart (like the one day in seven) for the peculiar manifestation of the Divine attributes and glories.2. Looking at their present condition, what are they? After struggling through persecutions, the fiercest and most appalling, after being the one common curse and hissing of nations, divided amongst themselves by deadly antipathies, after their long and many trackings of tears and of blood, through all countries and lands, what are they now? Still shorn of their glories; still a by-word and a mockery; still the dispersed, the wandering, and the outcast.3. But in our castings into the future, what shall they be?II. The nature of this prayer. Moses beheld the awful state of the people, as described in the first verse of the next chapter; and therefore he prayed to the Lord. And now the cloud of the Lord is before the Israelites; and now in the midst of them is the ark of the new covenant: and yet, as described in that verse, they are filled with sinful complaining, and the fire of the Lord is burning amongst them and consuming them; the just judgments of God are upon their heads because of their unbelief, and pride, and obduracy; and they are sinking beneath the fierceness of His anger. In this their condition it is the great business of Christ’s Church to pray over them, that the Lord “return to the many thousands of Israel”--that by the manifestation of His Holy Spirit He show them the darkness of their natural minds--that by the strength of His Spirit He bring down their arrogancy to the dust--that by the penetrating influence of His Spirit He open a way into their hearts, that they may receive Christ as the power of God and the wisdom of God unto salvation. (T. J. Judkin.)Numbers 11Numbers 11:1-3The people complained.Against murmuringI. A dissatisfied spirit causes displeasure to the Lord.1. This we might infer from our own feelings, when dependents, children, servants, or receivers of alms are always grumbling. We grow weary of them, and angry with them.2. In the case of men towards God it is much worse for them to murmur, since they deserve no good at His hands, but the reverse (Lam 3:29; Psa 103:10).3. In that case also it is a reflection upon the Lord’s goodness, wisdom, truth, and power.4. The evil lusting which attends the complaining proves its injurious character. We are ready for anything when we quarrel with God (1Co 10:5-12).5. God thinks so ill of it that His wrath burns, and chastisement is not long withheld. To set an imaginary value upon that which we have not--(1) Is foolish, childish, pettish.(2) Is injurious to ourselves, for it prevents our enjoying what we already have.(3) Is slanderous towards God, and ungrateful to Him.(4) Leads to rebellion, falsehood, envy, and all manner of sins.II. A dissatisfied spirit finds no pleasure for itself even when its wish is fulfilled. The Israelites had flesh in superabundance in answer to their foolish prayers, but--1. It was attended with leanness of soul (Psa 106:15).2. It brought satiety (Num 11:20).3. It caused death (Psa 78:31).4. It thus led to mourning on all sides.III. A dissatisfied spirit snows that the mind needs regulating. Grace would put our desires in order, and keep our thoughts and affections in their proper places, thus--1. Content with such things as we have (Heb 13:5).2. Towards other things moderate in desire (Pro 30:8).3. Concerning earthly things which may be lacking, fully resigned (Mat 26:39).4. First, and most eagerly, desiring God (Psa 42:2).5. Next coveting earnestly the best gifts (1Co 12:31)6. Following ever in love the more excellent way (1Co 12:31). (C. H. Spurgeon.)Murmurings1. Those who are merely hangers-on to a Church are usually the beginners of mischief among its members. So in the community, the men who have no stake in its welfare are always the most dangerous element of the population. They have nothing to lose in any event, and it is just possible that, in the confusion, they may gain a little. Thus they are always ready for either riot or emeute. The “mixed multitude” in our cities represents what others call the dangerous classes; and in proportion as their existence is ignored by the respectable portion of the people, and nothing is done for their education or elevation, the danger is aggravated.2. Murmuring is invariably one-sided. These discontented Egyptians and Israelites did nothing but look back on Egypt; and even when they did that, they saw only the lights, and not the shadows. Again, in their depreciation of their present lot, they were equally one-sided. They could see in it nothing but the one fact that they had no flesh to eat. They took no notice of the manna, save to despise it; they said nothing of the water which God had provided for them; they never spoke of the daily miracle that their clothes waxed not old; they made no reference to the constance guidance and presence of Jehovah with them. Now this was flagrantly unjust; and yet in condemning that it is to be feared that we are passing judgment upon ourselves, for if we were fully to reckon up both sides of the account would there ever be any murmuring among us at all?3. God is always considerate of His faithful servants. See how tender He was to Moses here. He saw that he needed human sympathy and support, as well as Divine, and therefore He hastened to provide him with a cordon of kindred spirits, who might act as a breakwater, and keep the waves of trouble and discontent that rose in the camp from dashing upon him. One cannot read of this without being impressed by the tenderness of God; and it is a suggestive fact that on almost every occasion on which we are told of His judgment falling upon sinners, we have in the near vicinity some manifestation of gentleness to His friends.4. The truly great man is never envious of others. Here is a lesson for all, and especially for ministers of the gospel. How hard it is to rejoice in the excellence of another, especially if he be in the same line with ourselves l And yet the disparagement of the gifts of another is really an indication of our consciousness of the weakness of our own. The highest and the hardest cliff to climb on the mountain of holiness is humility.5. We can set no limits to the resources of God (Num 11:23).6. It is not good for us to get everything we desire (Psa 105:15). Prayers horn out of murmuring are always dangerous. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)Sin and prayerI. A sadly common sin. Murmuring. Discontent is the spirit of this wicked world.II. A terribly solemn fact. God recognises and retributes sin.III. A general social tendency. The wicked ever seek the good in their terror and distress.IV. A striking result of prayer. The breath of Moses’ prayer extinguished the flame. (Homilist.)Complaining of providence punishedThe people complained--and the Lord set fire to them! That seems rough judgment, for what is man’s speech as set against the Divine fire? Who can defend the procedure? Who can so subordinate his reason and his sense of right as to commend the justice of this tremendous punishment? So they might say who begin their Bible reading at the eleventh chapter of Numbers. Read the Book of Exodus, notably the fourteenth and following chapters up to the time of the giving of the law, and you will find complaint following complaint; and what was the Divine answer in that succession of reproaches? Was there fire? Did the Lord shake down the clouds upon the people and utterly overwhelm them with tokens of indignation? No. The Lord is full of tenderness and compassion--yea, infinite in piteousness and love is He; but there is a point when His Spirit can no longer strive with us, and when He must displace the persuasions of love by the anger and the judgment of fire. But this is not the whole case. The people were not complaining only. The word complaint may he so construed as to have everything taken out of it except the feeblest protest and the feeblest utterance of some personal desire. But this is not the historical meaning of the word complaint as it is found here. What happened between the instances we have quoted and the instance which is immediately before us? Until that question is answered the whole case is not before the mind for opinion or criticism. What, then, had taken place? The most momentous of all incidents. God had said through Moses to the people of Israel--Will you obey the law? And they stood to their feet, as it were, and answered in one unanimous voice--We will. So the people were wedded to their Lord at that great mountain altar: words of fealty and kinship and Godhood had been exchanged, and now these people that had oft complained and had then promised obedience, and had then sworn that they would have none other gods beside Jehovah, complained--went back to their evil ways; and the Lord, who takes out His sword last and only calls upon His fire in extremity, smote them--burned them. And this will He do to us if we trifle with our oaths, if we practise bad faith towards the altar, if we are guilty of malfeasance in the very sanctuary of God. Were the people content with complaining? They passed from complaining to lusting, saying, “Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt,” &c. There is a philosophy here. You cannot stop short with complaining. Wickedness never plays a negative game. The man who first complains will next erect his appetite as a hostile force against the will of God. A marvellous thing is this, to recollect our lives through the medium of our appetites, to have old relishes return to the mouth, to have the palate stimulated by remembered sensations. The devil has many ways into the soul. The recollection of evil may prompt a desire for its repetition. (J. Parker, D. D.)Israel’s sin1. Israel had many impediments in their march to the Land of Promise, not only from without (Pharaoh pursuing, Amalek intercepting, &c.), but also from within, among themselves by their manifold murmurings (1Pe 4:18).2. God writes our sin upon our punishment. These murmurers here sinned against the “fiery law” (Deu 33:2); therefore were they punished by fire out of the pillar of fire from whence the fiery law was given and published. Their perdition is our caution (1Co 10:5; 1Co 10:11).3. Evil company is infectious and catching as the plague (1Co 15:33).4. Wherever there is sinning again on man’s part, there will be punishing again on God’s part (Joh 5:14). Here Israel sinned again with a double sin--(1) In desiring flesh which they wanted;(2) In disdaining manna which they enjoyed. The vehemence of their concupiscence was the more inflamed by remembering their former Egyptian diet, yet forgetting withal their Egyptian drudgery.5. The people’s profane deploring their penury (when they had little cause to do so, while fed with the food of angels) doth not only make God angry with them (Num 11:10), but also putteth meek Moses into a pang of passion and impatience (Num 11:11-15).6. The Divine remedy to all this human malady; both as to Moses’ impatience, and as to Israel’s intemperance.(1) Moses must not bear the burden alone, but shall be assisted with the Sanhedrin, or great council of the Jews, consisting of seventy seniors (answerable to the seventy souls that descended with Jacob into Egypt) whereof Moses sat president, all endowed with the gifts of the spirit of Moses, who was as a candle that lighteth others, yet hath not less either heat or light than it had before (Num 11:16-17; Num 11:24-25; Num 11:30).(2) As to the people’s intemperance, as God promised and performed plenty of flesh to those fleshly-minded multitude, so He punished their impiety with a horrible plague at the close thereof (Num 11:18-20; Num 11:31-34). (C. Ness.)The sin of complainingObserve that it does not say that the people “murmured,” but “complained,” or, as it is in the margin, “were as it were complainers”; by which it is evidently meant that there was a feeling in their minds of scarcely expressed dissatisfaction. There was no sudden outbreak of murmuring, but the whispers and looks of discontent. There is no special mention of any particular reason for it. It does not say that their manna failed, or that any hostile army was arrayed against them. Doubtless the journeying was always wearisome, and on its fatigues they suffered their minds to dwell, forgetful of all the mercies vouchsafed them, and “complained.” Now, we must all feel that right-down murmuring is very sinful, and in its worst forms most Christians overcome it; but not so complaining, for this seems to many to be scarcely wrong, and it often grows on them so gradually that they are seldom conscious of it. The causes of complaint are manifold. Little difficulties in our circumstances--little acts of selfishness in our neighbours; but complaining is most of all a danger with persons who have weak health--for weakness of body often produces depression of spirits--and this is the soil in which a complaining spirit takes deepest root. Then, too, it often grows into a habit; a tinge of discontent settles on the countenance, and the voice assumes a tone of complaint. And though this, like most habits soon becomes unconscious, yet it is not the less mischievous on that account. It is mischievous to our own souls, for it damps the work of the Spirit of God in our hearts, and enfeebles the spiritual life. It is mischievous in its effects upon others; for when Christians complain it gives the world altogether wrong impressions of the strength and consolation which the love of Christ affords, and it frequently generates the same spirit; one complains, and another, having the same or other causes of complaint, sees no reason why he should not complain too. And this was probably its history in Israel. It is scarcely likely that all began to complain at the same moment. Doubtless there were some who set the sad example, and then the hearts of all being predisposed, it spread like an epidemic. We should settle it well in our hearts that complaining, no less than murmuring, is a fruit of the flesh. David complained in Psa 77:3, “I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed”; but he soon felt that the root of the evil was in himself. “This,” he adds (verse 10), “is my infirmity.” But no part of Scripture proves more strikingly than the events at Taberah, how displeasing to God, and how dangerous in its results, a complaining spirit is. The punishment which followed, and which gave the name to the place, proves the first point. Patient and long-suffering as God ever was with Israel, we are told (Num 11:1) that “His anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.” The severity of the punishment shows that this was no little sin, encompassed as they were with mercy, and guided by Jehovah Himself through the wilderness. It was no less dangerous in its result, for the subsequent history shows how “complaining” ripened into “murmuring,” and murmuring was at last the cause of Israel’s final fall. Let us endeavour, then, to watch against a “complaining spirit.” In heavy and stunning afflictions we glorify God, when, like Aaron, we are enabled to “hold our peace.” Like David, we can say, “I was dumb, and opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it”; or, as in Psa 131:2. Still more if we can, through grace, rise to the elevation of the afflicted Job, and say, “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord”; or, if anything, to the still higher elevation of the Apostle Paul (Php 4:11-13). In the lesser and more ordinary trials of daily life, its difficulties and its duties, we glorify Him by Christian Cheerfulness; and how can we maintain this spirit but by tracing the hand of a Father in them all, carrying them all to God in prayer, and, most of all, by looking above present things to the “everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure”? For the things which are seen, our difficulties and our trials, are temporal; but the things which are not seen, our strength and our crown, are eternal. (G. Wagner.)Ungrateful discontentWe would think that beggar intolerably impudent, that coming to our doors to ask an alms, and when we have bestowed on him some bracken bread and meat, yet (like those impudent persons the Psalmist speaks of, that grudge and grumble if they be not satisfied, if they have not their own will, and their own fill) he should not hold himself contented, unless he might have one of our best dishes from the table. But this is the case of very many amongst us. We come all as so many beggars to God’s mercy-seat, and God gives us abundance of many good things, as life, liberty, health of body, &c., yet we cannot be quiet, nor think ourselves well, unless we be clothed in purple, and fare deliciously every day as such and such do, not considering in the meantime many that are below us, and above us too, wanting those things which we comfortably enjoy. (J. Spencer.)Criticising favoursThere are many persons who receive favours and criticise them. They make it a ground and reason of fault-finding; as in the case of the man who found a Spanish coin worth eighteen and three-quarter cents, and turned it over in his hand and said, “Well, that is just my luck. If it had been anybody else that found it, it would have been a twenty-five cent piece.” He had no thanks for what it was, but grumbled because it was not more. So it is with many men in the world. They are perpetually analysing and criticising the kindnesses that are done to them. They are not right in measure, or kind, or method; they are not right somehow; and they shut off the sense of obligation and refuse to be grateful. (H. W. Beecher.)Murmuring against GodMurmuring is a quarrelling with God, and inveighing against Him (Num 21:5). The murmurer saith interpretatively that God hath not dealt well with him, and that he hath deserved better from Him. The murmurer chargeth God with folly. This is the language, or rather blasphemy, of a murmuring spirit: God might have been a wiser and a better God. The murmurer is a mutineer. The Israelites are called in the same text “murmurers” and “rebels” (Num 17:10); and is not rebellion as the sin of witchcraft? (1Sa 15:23). Thou that art a murmurer art in the account of God as a witch, a sorcerer, as one that deals with the devil. This is a sin of the first magnitude. Murmuring often ends in cursing: Micah’s mother fell to cursing when the talents of silver were taken away (Jdg 17:2). So doth the murmurer when a part of his estate is taken away. Our murmuring is the devil’s music; this is that sin which God cannot bear (chap. 14:27). It is a sin which whets the sword against a people; it is a land-destroying sin (1Co 10:10). (T. Watson.)Finding fault with GodGod hath much ado with us. Either we lack health, or quietness, or children, or wealth, or company, or ourselves in all these. It is a wonder the Israelites found not fault with the want of sauce to their quails, or with their old clothes, or their solitary way. Nature is moderate in her desires; but conceit is insatiable. (Bp. Hall.)Losing temper with GodLosing our temper with God is a more common thing in the spiritual life than many suppose. (F. W. Faber.)Murmuring hurts not God, but wounds usI have read of Caesar, that, having prepared a great feast for his nobles and friends, it fell out that the day appointed was so extremely foul that nothing could be done to the honour of their meeting; whereupon he was so displeased and enraged that he commanded all them that had bows to shoot up their arrows at Jupiter, their chief god, as in defiance of him for that rainy weather; which, when they did, their arrows fell short of heaven, and fell upon their own heads, so that many of them were very sorely wounded. So all our mutterings and murmurings, which are so many arrows shot at God Himself, will return upon our own pates, or hearts; they reach not Him, but they will hit us; they hurt not Him, but they will wound us; therefore it is better to be mute than to murmur; it is dangerous to contend with one who is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29). (Thomas Brooks.)The fire of the Lord burnt among them.The worst fireNothing but mercies had come upon the back of their complainings before. They had had water, and they had had bread; but now the Lord would send them fire. It should be the fire of the Lord, holy fire; yet not as that, which, descending from heaven upon the altar, burnt continually before the Lord in His temple, acceptable in sacrifice; but a consuming fire; the burning of His wrath. It is bad to “be saved so as by fire,” to have all consumed, but ourselves, to be burnt out of house and home; yet far worse is it to be burnt out of the world. Still this might be the way to heaven for some, carried thither as in a chariot of fire. We know it was the way, the common way that martyrs went. The fire was kindled by their enemies; but it was not as the burning of Taberah; there was no ingredient of the wrath of the Almighty in the flame: but “one like unto the Son of Man” was there, to make it as the purest vestment of the soul, the involving element of love. Oh, there is a fire worse than all others, the burning of the Lord, a fire that descends to the bottomless pit, and the smoke of which has been seen. Behold it kindling in the camp of Israel. It had indignation in it; it was a consuming fire, lighted up in the righteous displeasure of heaven, its fuel the bodies of transgressors themselves. “Tile people complained.” What then? “It displeased the Lord; and His anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burnt among them, and consumed them in the uttermost parts of the camp.” There was no flying from it, it was a city in flames from its utmost extremities. Who can run from the presence of the Lord? How affecting this? It may be conceived, kindled by lightning from the cloud that had guided them, darting in angry form, and with the voice of the Almighty, in thunders impatient to be gone. Who can stand before the indignation of the Lord? who can abide His anger when the gathering storm of His displeasure breaks forth? His favour, what man that regards his life would not entreat? His wrath, what man that fears His power would not deprecate? He is to us, as what we are to Him--sinners or saints. This judgment had in it everything awful--cut off from all share in the promises, slain by the power that had kept them alive, and left heaps of wrath in the very way to life. (W. Seaton.)Numbers 11:4The mixt multitude.The mixed multitudeIf Israel, according to its calling, be regarded as a type of the new man, then this “mixed multitude,” a remnant of Egypt, and influenced still by its spirit, will be a type of the old man in the believer But we may take another view of Israel, and say that it is typical of those who walk, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit--the true members of Christ’s body, the living branches of the true vine; and then, corresponding with this, the “ mixed multitude” will be a type of those who accompany the true Israel now, without being partakers of the Divine nature, and walking in the Spirit--the dead branches in the vine. History shows that the Church on earth has ever been made up of these two elements; and prophetic parables show that such will be its constitution until Jesus comes. The Word of God everywhere encourages the living members of Christ’s body, by patience, and gentleness, and unwearied zeal, to win those who have only a name to live. But it forbids them to take into their own hands the awful work of separation between the wheat and the tares, a work which the Searcher of hearts reserves to Himself alone. So that it need cause us no surprise, as it did the Donatists of old, and still does to some, that there is, and always will be, a “mixed multitude” associated with the true Israel. But though we are absolutely forbidden to cast out the element from the Church, this passage of Scripture may well impress us with the danger arising from it, and show how watchful we ought to be. Even if the Church were made up of true Christians only, there would be much evil in it, for the simple reason that there is so much sin in every heart. Many temptations may come to you even from those who are really Christ’s, and who are engaged, through grace, in crucifying the affections and lusts of the flesh; but others will come to you, as they did to Israel of old, from the “mixed multitude”; and what dangers in particular? Party spirit, we cannot fail to see, is one; but, oh, there is a greater and more subtle danger still--worldliness, conformity to the course of this world; and with it, forgetfulness of the high and holy calling wherewith we are called, and the adoption of a low standard of holiness. Our only safety is to set the perfect example of our Lord Jesus Christ before us; to ask ourselves again and again throughout the day, “How would Christ act if He were in my place?” to crucify through the Spirit the root of worldliness within, and to watch all the avenues by which it can enter the heart from without. Only in this way can our own standard be elevated; only in this way avoid Israel’s sin, that of being carried away by the worldly spirit which originated in the “mixed multitude” which sojourned with them. (G. Wagner.)Who shall give us flesh to eat?--Wanton longingsSee the wantonness and delicacy of sinful flesh, it must have this, it must have that to pamper and feed it in pleasure. What may be had is loathed, and what cannot be had, that is longed for, and nothing more than that. But very wisely doth the heathen Aristotle advise all men to look upon pleasures when they go, not when they come; for when they come with their faces towards us, they deceive us with a fair flattering show, but when they go and turn their backs, then cometh repentance, woe, and grief, not a little, many times. Just as the Spirit of God saith by the mouth of Solomon, “Even in laughing the heart is sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heaviness”; that is, the allurement unto sin seemeth sweet, but the end thereof is destruction. Wanton pleasure is like the fire or flame of the candle, which shining bright delighteth a child, but when he hath put his finger into it, then it burneth, and the child crieth. By little and little groweth grief, but in the end it killeth, so stealingly pleasure creepeth upon us, but in the end overthroweth all love of virtue. Wilt thou live in a right fashion? Who would not? Then if virtue only can grant this to thee, stout and strong, tend this and omit pleasures. For they that will well defend a city, do not only watch what foes be without, but as warily they observe that there be no traitors within. So men and women that love virtue, they look to the gates, which are the outward senses, and they look within, to the inward affections, lest by the one, as by wickets, evil enter, lest by the other, as by torches lighted, fires and flames do follow. The epicure said to himself, “Eat, drink, play, for there is no pleasure after death.” But well doth the poet before mentioned in an epistle tax him, saying, “Thou hast played enough, thou hast eaten enough and drank, it is time for thee now to go hence.” As if he had said, “Part thou must in time with all thy pleasures and be gone, therefore think of it ere it be too late.” Sardanapalus is said to have caused to be written on his grave to this effect: “What I did eat that I had, and what I left, that I lost.” Which Cicero justly reprehendeth, saying, “What else should a man hath written upon an ex his grave? Pleasure infecteth and poisoneth all our senses, being a trim but a deceiving harlot; deceiving us by her voice, by her look, and by her attire, that is, every way.” How many hath gluttony and the belly, how many hath filthy lust destroyed! (Bp. Babington.)Numbers 11:5-6There is nothing at all, beside this manna.The manna despisedI. The complaining of the Israelites in this case was very reprehensible, as it manifested a state of aggravated neglect of the peculiar circumstances in which the despised manna was provided for them. Their soul had been dying away for want of it, were we to believe their complaint, and now their soul was dying away when it was possessed. The manna seemed everything when they first beheld it strewn all around the camp, and now it was as nothing at all in their eyes. Nevertheless, it was of such value in the eyes of God, that a pot of it was kept in the ark of the covenant as a memorial of His kindness in providing it for the rebels. The children He feeds may forget the token of His goodness, but He does not forget the emanations of His bounty, or reckon anything small in the blessings He confers.II. The complaining of the Israelites in this care was all the more sinful, inasmuch as the manna so despised was both sufficient and agreeable food--was all that they stood in need of in their journey, and more than they deserved.III. The complaining of the Israelites was all the more sinful, inasmuch as the manna they so despised was provided for them without cost or labour. And it is for a like reason that all despising of the bread of life will be accounted the greater transgression, for it is freely offered--without money and without price. No one is required to pay anything for it in silver or in gold--in bodily labour or mental suffering, or in any gift of worldly substance. No equivalent is looked for it in any sacrifice whatever that man can make.IV. The complaining of the Israelites was the more aggravated, as it involved a very sinful disregard of the miraculous manner in which the manna was daily supplied for their use. Alas! multitudes are as blind to the wonderful character of the spiritual or “hidden manna,” as were the Jeers in the instance here recorded, as to the manna provided for them. All the more that the miraculous character of the wonderful provision God has made for the salvation of the soul is overlooked or despised, all the more of blind infatuation and sin are involved. It cannot be safe to speak slightingly of an interposition, in providing for the life of immortal souls, into which, it is said, “the angels desire to look.” (J. Allan.)Speaking against GodThese verses represent things sadly unhinged and out of order in Israel. Both the people and the prince uneasy.I. Here is the people fretting and speaking against God himself (as it is interpreted, Psa 78:19), notwithstanding His glorious appearances both to them and for them.1. Observe who were the criminals.(1) The mixed multitude began, “They felt a lusting” (Num 11:4). These were the scabbed sheep that infected the flock, the leaven that leavened the whole lump. Note, a few factious, discontented, ill-natured people, may do a great deal of mischief in the best societies if great care be not taken to discountenance them. Such as these are an untoward generation, from which it is our wisdom to save ourselves (Act 2:40).(2) Even the children of Israel took the infection, so it follows (Num 11:4). The holy seed joined themselves to the people of these abominations. This mixed multitude was not numbered with the children of Israel, but were set aside as people God made no account of. And yet the children of Israel, forgetting their own character and distinction, herded themselves with them, and learned their way; as if the scum and outcast of the camp were to be the privy councillors of it. The children of Israel, a people near to God, and highly privileged, yet drawn into a rebellion against Him! Oh, how little honour hath God in the world, when even that people which He formed for Himself to show forth His praise were so much a dishonour to Him! Therefore let none think that their external professions and privileges will be their security either against Satan’s temptations to sin, or against God’s judgments for sin (1Co 10:1-2; 1Co 10:12).2. What was the crime? They lusted and murmured. Though they were newly corrected for this sin, and many of them overthrown for it, as God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and the smell of the fire was still in their nostrils, yet they returned to it (Pro 27:22). We should not indulge ourselves in any desire which we cannot in faith turn into prayer, as we cannot, when we ask meat for our lust (Psa 78:18). For this sin the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly against them; which is written for our admonition, that we should not lust after evil things, as they lusted (1Co 10:10). Flesh is good food, and may lawfully be eaten; yet they are said to lust after evil things. What is lawful in itself becomes evil to us when it is what God doth not allot to us, and yet we eagerly desire it.II. Moses himself, though so meek and good a man, is uneasy upon this occasion. Moses also was displeased. Now--1. It must be confessed that the provocation was very great.2. Yet Moses expressed himself otherwise than became him upon this provocation, and came short of his duty both to God and Israel in these expostulations.(1) He undervalues the honour God had put upon him in making him the illustrious minister of His power and grace in the deliverance and conduct of that peculiar people, which might have been sufficient to balance the burden.(2) He complains too much of a sensible grievance, and lays too near his heart a little noise and fatigue. If he could not bear the toil of government, which was but running with the footmen, how would he bear the terrors of war, which was contending with horses? He might easily have furnished himself with considerations enough to enable him to slight their clamours and make nothing of them.(3) He magnifies his own performances, that all the burdens of the people lay upon him, whereas God Himself did, in effect, ease him of all the burden.(4) He is not so sensible as he ought to be of the obligation he lay under from the Divine commission and command, to do the utmost he could for this people, when he suggests, that because they were not the children of his body begotten, therefore he was not concerned to take a fatherly care of them, though God Himself, who might employ him as He pleased, had appointed him to be a father to them.(5) He takes too much to himself when he asks, “Whence should I have flesh to give them?” (Num 11:13), as if he were the housekeeper, and not God. Moses gave them not the bread (Joh 6:34). Nor was it expected that he should give them the flesh, but as an instrument in God’s hand; and having assistants appointed him, who should be, as the apostle speaks (1Co 12:28), helps, governments, i.e., helps in government, not at all to lessen or eclipse his honour, but to make the work more easy to him, and to bear the burden of the people with him. And that this provision might be both agreeable and really serviceable--(a) Moses is directed to nominate the persons (Num 11:16). The people were too hot, and heady, and tumultuous, to be entrusted with the election. Moses must please himself in the choice, that he may not afterwards complain.(b) God promiseth to qualify them. If they were not found fit for the employ, they should be made fit, else they might prove more a hindrance than a help to Moses (Num 11:17). Though Moses had talked too boldly with God, yet God doth not therefore break off communion with him; He bears a great deal with us, and we must with one another. “I will come down (saith God) and talk with thee, when thou art more calm and composed; and I will take of the same spirit of wisdom, and piety, and courage that is upon thee, and put it upon them.” Not that Moses had the less of the spirit for their sharing, nor that they were hereby made equal with him. Moses was still a nonsuch (Deu 34:10). But they were clothed with a spirit of government proportionable to their place, and with a spirit of prophecy to evidence their Divine call to it, the government being a theocracy.Note--1. Those whom God employs in any service He qualifies for it; and those that are not in some measure qualified cannot think themselves duly called.2. All good qualifications are from God; every perfect gift is from the Father of lights. Even the humour of the discontented people shall be gratified too, that every mouth may be stopped. They are bid to sanctify themselves (Num 11:18), i.e., to put themselves into a posture to receive such a proof of God’s power as should be a token both of mercy and judgment. “Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel” (Amo 4:12).(1) God promiseth (shall I say?) He threatens rather, that they should have their belly-full of flesh. See here--(a) The vanity of all the delights of sense; they will cloy, but not satisfy. Spiritual pleasures are the contrary. As the world passes away, so do the lusts of it (1Jn 2:17). What was greedily coveted, in a little time comes to be nauseated.(b) What brutish sins (and worse than brutish) gluttony and drunkenness are. They put a force upon nature, and make that the sickness of the body which should be its health; they are sins that are their own punishments, and yet not the worst that attend them.(c) What a righteous thing it is with God to make that loathsome to men which they have inordinately lusted after. God could make them despise flesh as much as they had despised manna.(2) Moses objects the improbability of making good this word (Num 11:21-22). It is an objection like that which the disciples made (Mar 8:4). He objects the number of the people, as if He that provided bread for them all could not by the same unlimited power provide flesh too. He reckons it must be the flesh either of beasts or fishes, because of them are the most bulky animals, little thinking that the flesh of birds, little birds, should serve the purpose. God sees not as men sees, but His thoughts are above ours. He objects the greediness of the people’s desires in that word to suffice them. Note, even true and great believers sometimes find it hard to trust God under the discouragement of second causes, and against hope to believe in hope. Moses himself can scarce forbear saying, “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” when this was become the common cry. No doubt this was his infirmity.(3) God gives a short but sufficient answer to the objection in that question, “Is the Lord’s band waxed short?” (Num 11:23). If Moses had remembered the years of the right hand of the Most High, he had not started all these difficulties. Therefore God minds him of them, intimating that this objection reflected upon the Divine power which he had been so often not only the witness, but the instrument of. Whatever our unbelieving hearts may suggest to the contrary, it is certain--(a) That God’s hand is not short. His power cannot be restrained in the exerting of itself by anything but His own will; with Him nothing is impossible. That hand is not short which measures the waters, metes out the heavens (Isa 40:12), and grasps the winds (Pro 30:4).(b) That it is not waxed short. He is as strong as ever He was; fainteth not, neither is weary. And this is sufficient to silence all our distrusts, when means fail us. Is anything too bard for the Lord? God here brings Moses to this first principle; sets him back in his lesson to learn the ancient name of God, the Lord God Almighty; and put the proof upon the issue, “Thou shalt see whether My word shall come to pass or not.” This magnifies God’s word above all His name, that His works never came short of it. If He speaks, it is done. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Grumbling over spiritual foodThe ancient Jews were, by no means, the only people who grumbled at the provision set before them. The Bread of Life, provided in the various ordinances of the gospel, for the strengthening of our souls, is not always received with thankfulness. Whatever rank we may choose to assign to preaching, among the other agencies for good, none can deny that it has its place, and an important one; and, yet, how many who listen to it, actuated by the complaining spirit of God’s ancient people, presumptuously exclaim, “Our soul loatheth this light bread!” The manner of God’s servant, and the message which he delivers, are both brought to the test of the most unsparing criticism. Imagine a prisoner, condemned to die, awaiting the day of his execution, when the door of the cell opens, and the governor’s deputy appears, bringing a pardon for him. The prisoner is overjoyed at this, but, instead of availing himself of the permission to depart, he stops to criticise the manner in which the deputy has discharged his duty. “Why did not the governor send a man of more ability?” he impatiently asks. “How can he expect me to listen to a message delivered in tones so harsh and discordant?” Has this pardoned criminal any just appreciation of the favour shown him? Very humble men, so far as worldly wisdom is concerned, often accomplish more, in teaching people “the good and the right way,” than those who are learned in the schools. One who had been listening to the preaching of such a servant of God, asked, in surprise, “How is it that he always has something new to tell us?” The answer was, “Why, he lives so near the gates of heaven, that he hears a great many things which we who remain afar off know nothing about!” It is not the musical sound of the bell which assembles the large flocks of pigeons at noonday in the square of Old St. Mark’s in Venice, but the liberal scattering of food. The complaint of the text is most often made with reference to what is called “doctrine preaching,” and even those who enjoy sermons of another sort are ready to say, when matters of this kind are dwelt upon, “Our soul loatheth this light bread.” God’s truth, in the hands of the Holy Spirit (Eph 1:17), is the great instrument for the world’s sanctification. It is obvious, however, that this truth must take the shape of definite doctrine, and be expressed in becoming language, before it can accomplish this purpose. The Church and her ministers deal fairly with you; but are you dealing fairly with yourselves? You listen to preaching; but is it with the sincere desire that you may grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour? (J. N. Norton, D. D.)Vehement longings wrongly indulgedBut may not a good child of God, either in sickness or in health, lust for some meat more than another without offending God? Yes, indeed, for it is not the thing but the manner here that so much offended God; not the lusting, say again, but the fashion and circumstances of it. To wit, their presumptous crossing the Lord’s will when He appointed them manna from heaven to be their meat, for what He would they would not, and this was not fit. Again, this was not coldly done of them, but with heat and vehemency, giving as it were the reins to their lust, let God think what He would. Here was ingratitude for the Lord’s gracious care of them, and most ungrateful speeches. Here was preferring onions and leeks and garlic, and such mean meats before the Lord’s bounty and mercy from heaven, feeding them as never people were fed, with such other circumstances of very sinful and ill-behaviour. This is that offended God, which if we make use of we shall do well; for surely, though not altogether in like sort, yet much after this fashion, it is to be feared we provoke the Lord. Such meat as God sendeth us, being far better than we deserve, we cannot eat, but prefer that which is far worse before it, not without some proud and unthankful check to God’s gracious providence and mercy for us and to us, giving us that which thousands as dearly bought with His Son’s blood as we, and serving more than we, do want. And this not in any weakness of nature acknowledging gratefully the goodness of God set before us, but in very wantonness and delicacy, not once seeing or thinking of the bounty of God in giving us that we have. This if we do, it cannot be excused, but must needs be to God very displeasing, and to us very dangerous. Besides meat, how do many in other things tempt the Lord; as if God in mercy and most gracious care of them that they may be saved, and kept from the infections of this world, have given them a learned and painful pastor, that spendeth the Sabbath in holy exercises of his ministry, forenoon and afternoon, with the elders, with the children and servants. How doth this dislike many, and how lust they for worse things, breaking out in wicked speech: Oh, that we might have piping and dancing, quaffings and drinkings, church-ales and wakes, and such like as other parishes have! “We are cloyed with this manna, give us mirth and let them have manna that like it,” &c. Do you not shrink to think what will be the end of this murmuring, and the punishment of this lusting? Certainly it is fearful, and I pray God Christian people may have the feeling of it before it be too late. (Bp. Babington.)Grievances regarded more than merciesWhen we enjoy good things, we look at the grievances which are mingled with the good, and forget the good; which when it is gone then we remember. The Israelites could remember their onions and garlic and forget their slavery. So because manna was present, they despised manna, and that upon one inconvenience it had; it was ordinary with them. (R. Sibbes.)Murmuring a waste of timeOh, the precious time that is buried in the grave of murmuring! When the murmurer should be praying, he is murmuring against the Lord; when he should be hearing, he is murmuring against Divine providences; when he should be reading, he is murmuring against instruments; and in these and a thousand other ways do murmurers expend their precious time which some would redeem with a world. (T. Brooks.)Numbers 11:10-15Wherefore hast Thou afflicted Thy servant?The sufferings of the good in the path of dutyI. Look at the afflictions of godly men in the path of duty as a fact.1. Good men suffer afflictions.2. Good men suffer affliction in the path of duty.II. Look at the afflictions of godly men in the path of duty as a problem.1. A difficulty. Moses felt it.2. Faith in the power of God to remove the difficulty.III. Offer some hints towards the solution of the problem. The afflictions of the good in the path of duty, under the blessing of God, tend.1. To test their faith. “Character,” says Dr. Huntington, “ depends on inward strength. But this strength has two conditions; it is increased only by being put forth, and it is tested only by some resistance. So, if the spiritual force or character in you is to be strong, it must be measured against some competition. It must enter into conflict with an antagonist. It must stand in comparison with something formidable enough to be a standard of its power Suffering, then, in some of its forms, must be introduced--the appointed minister, the great essayist--to put the genuineness of faith to the proof and purify it of its dross.”2. To promote their perfection. “As the Perfect One reached His perfectness through suffering,” says Dr. Ferguson, “so it was with His servant. It was through the fire and the flame that the law of separation and refinement acted on the whole nature, and gave to it higher worth and glory. Trial ripened his manly spirit and made it patient to endure.”3. To enhance their joy hereafter (cf. Mat 5:10-12; Rom 8:17-18; 2Co 4:17-18; Rev 7:14-17).4. To promote the good of the race. The Christian is called to “know the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings”--to suffer vicariously with Him that others may be saved and blessed. In the privilege of this high fellowship the sharpest sufferings become sacred and exalting services.Conclusion:1. Severe afflictions in the path of duty are in full accord with the character of God.2. Such sufferings are quite compatible with the favour of God towards us (cf. Heb 12:5-11)3. When severe suffering leads to sore perplexity let us seek help of God (cf. Psa 73:16-17) (W. Jones.)The burdens of leadershipI. That the position of leader or governor of men is a very trying one.1. Because of the responsible nature of the duties of leadership.2. Because of the interest which the true leader takes in his charge.3. Because of the intractableness of men.II. The true leader of men must often be painfully conscious of his insufficiency.III. The ablest and holiest leaders of men sometimes fail under the burdens of their position. Conclusion:1. Great honours involve great obligations.2. A man may fail even in the strongest point of his character. Moses was pre-eminently meek, yet here he is petulant, &c. Therefore, “Watch thou in all things,” &c.3. It is the duty of men not to increase, but if possible to lessen the difficulties and trials of leadership. (W. Jones.)Seeing afflictions from God’s standpoin:Christian friend, did you ever take your stand beside your God, and see what there is to be seen? Do so; and it may be that, in your deprivations and disappointments, you will behold a wonderful and beautiful arrangement by which you can glorify God far better than by the gratification of your own selfish and earth-bound desires. Never were the Israelites better off than when they had just enough manna for the day, and not a morsel over; and it may be you are richer and happier in your present condition than you could have been in any other. See if it be not so! “I thank God!” said one, “that I lost my all; for it has led me up into many blessed experiences with my God which I never knew while I was held down by the golden chain of worldly possessions. Then my affections were set on things on the earth, but now they rise to heaven.” If you see things from God’s standpoint your black trouble will appear fringed with brightness, relieving the monotonous darkness upon which you have fixed your steady gaze far too long already. Look at your prolonged affliction from this point of view, and you will discern secret fingers carving the delicate “lily work” which shall adorn you in the upper sanctuary, when you become a pillar in the temple of your God. It may be by the very method so distasteful to you, the cherubim of adoring reverence are being woven into the texture of your being. Yes, do see what there is to be seen, for in every dispensation there is the hand of a Divine purpose, full of love, and wisdom, and grace. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Afflictions may be full of merciesIn one of the German picture galleries is a painting called “Cloudland.” It hangs at the end of a long gallery, and, at first sight, It looks like a huge, repulsive daub of confused colour, without form or comeliness. As you walk toward it the picture begins to take shape. It proves to be a mass of exquisite little cherub faces, like those at the head of the canvas in Raphael’s “Madonna San Sisto.” If you come close to the picture you see only an innumerable company of little angels and cherubims. How often the soul that is frightened by trials sees nothing but a confused and repulsive mass of broken expectations and crushed hopes I But if that soul, instead of fleeing away into unbelief and despair, would only draw up near to God, it would soon discover that the cloud was full of angels Of mercy. In one cherub face it would see, “Whom I love, I chasten.” Another angel would say, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” (T. L. Cuyler.)Affliction preferable to sinHere are two guests come to my door; both of them ask to have a lodging with me. The one is called Affliction; he has a very grave voice, and a very heavy hand, and he looks at me with fierce eyes. The other is called Sin, and he is very soft-spoken, and very fair, and his words are softer than butter. Let me scan their faces, let me examine them as to their character, I must not be deceived by appearances. I will ask my two friends who would lodge with me, to open their hands. When my friend Affliction, with some little difficulty opens his hand, I find that, rough as it is, he carries a jewel inside it, and that he meant to leave that jewel at my house. But as for my soft-spoken friend Sin, when I force him to show me what that is which he hides in his sleeve, I find that it is a dagger with which he would have stabbed me. What shall I do, then, if I am wise? Why, I should be very glad if they would both be good enough to go and stop somewhere else, but if I must entertain one of the two, I would shut my door in the face of smooth-spoken Sin, and say to the rougher and uglier visitor, Affliction, “Come and stop with me, for may be God sent you as a messenger of mercy to my soul.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 11:16-20Gather unto Me seventy men of the elders.The answer of God to the appeals of menI. The Lord’s answer to the appeal of his much-tried servant.1. The number of the assistants.2. Their selection.3. The qualification imparted to them.II. The Lord’s answer to the appeal of his perverse people.1. Recognises the sinful character of their appeal.2. Demands preparation for the granting of their appeal.3. Promises the most abundant bestowment of that which they had so passionately and sinfully desired.Conclusion: Mark well--1. The disgusting nature of the sins of gluttony and drunkenness.2. The necessity of firmly controlling carnal desires. Even those animal appetites which are lawful must be kept subordinate to higher things.3. The necessity of submissiveness in prayer. (W. Jones.)The seventy eldersI. The calling of the seventy elders is an instance of the organising action of the spirit of God.1. A new want needed a remedy.2. The remedy supplied.3. The remedy for the want extraordinary.4. The remedy had its counterpart in--(1) The mission of the seventy disciples.(2) The ordination of the seven deacons.II. The holy spirit still carries on the same work.1. The Church has new needs. She must pray as Moses prayed, and realising the presence of the Holy Ghost, set herself to meet these new demands on her energies, in scattered hamlet and crowded alley, where Christ Himself would come.2. “Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” Each Christian is a Spirit-bearer. Is he conscious of this dignity and responsibility? Each has his special gifts. (W. Walters, M. A.)Helpers for MosesA gracious God and most sweet Father is moved with the complaint and grief of His servant, pitying him and yielding presently helpers to bear this burden with him that he may have more comfort. Who would not joy in so sweet a judge, no sooner hearing but helping His servant oppressed with a froward charge. Be we faithful then in our places ever, and if we be too weak for them some way or other the Lord will help. These seventy men He will have furnished with His Spirit, never placing any to do a duty to whom He giveth not some measure of ability to do the same. But when it is said He will take off the Spirit which is upon Moses and put upon them, we may not think that He lessened His grace to Moses; but the meaning is, I will give to them of the same Spirit a portion, whereof I have distributed to him so great a measure; thine I will not diminish, and yet they shall have what shall be fit. (Bp. Babington.)Dainties for the peopleO sweet God! Moses He will comfort by adding helpers unto him, and the people also He will satisfy in giving them flesh which they so lusted for, and that not ordinary flesh, nor gross meat, but quails, which to this day are accounted dainties. And not for a meal or two, or a day or two, but a whole month together, &c. How showeth this the truth of that Psalm which after in his time was made (Psa 1:1-6.). Nay, how showeth this that whatsoever He will, that can He do both in heaven and earth; and therefore blessed is the man that putteth his trust in Him. Remember what you read in the holy gospel (Mat 6:25). What dearth so great, what penury so pinching, wherein the Lord cannot help us either ordinarily or extraordinarily? Can He thus glut His great host with dainty quails, and cannot He send you and yours bread? Fear not, but cleave unto Him fast, and even past hope if the case should be such, yet under hope believe all the Scriptures, and that He will never leave you succourless that openeth His hand and filleth all things with plenteousness. Only consider that many ways He ever exerciseth the faith of His children and their patience, whose duty is to bear with contentment what He sendeth, praying to Him to remember mercy, and to lay no more upon us than we are able to bear, as He hath promised, use such means as you can by just and honest labour or otherwise; and be assured, in goodness He will step in when He seeth time. (Bp. Babington.)Numbers 11:23Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? God’s challenge to the faith and co-operation of His peopleI. These words have special reference to a divinely-revealed purpose which staggers human reason.1. Let us look at this purpose. “God hath sent His Son into the world,. . . that the world through Him might be saved.”2. The difficulties in the way of this gracious purpose, which excite men’s fears. There is the inveterate carnality of the human heart, the stubborn resistance of the human will to the Divine; there is the stolid indifference ,of great masses in Christian lands to the practical duties and claims of religion; and the growing scepticism of the day regarding the verities of the gospel. Consider also the prevalence of idolatrous systems and heathen superstitions among great masses of mankind. Take also the subtle rationalism and keen-witted infidelity which prevail in civilised and semi-Christianised countries. It requires strong faith in a man to calmly survey this formidable host of evil in the world and then take his stand by the side of Christ, confident that His cause will triumph.II. We have in these words an assertion of divine power which warrants human confidence. God’s purpose is a promise. He stakes His character on the fulfilment of His Word.1. He cannot forget.2. He cannot fail through insincerity.3. He cannot fail through inadequate power to perform.III. In these words we have God’s challenge to the earnest faith, prayer, and co-operation of his people.1. The true attitude of the Christian labourer or the Church is to stand, with one hand of believing prayer taking hold of God, and the other hand of loving labour taking hold of fallen man, that the fallen may be raised, and the lost saved.2. When we are ready for a blessing, God will not fail to bestow it. (John Innocent.)The glorious right hand of GodI. With regard to the church as a whole, how often is it true that she so behaveth herself as if she had a question in her mind as to whether the Lord’s hand had waxed short? The mass of us would be afraid to go out trusting in God to supply our needs. We should need first that everything should be prepared for us, and that the way should be paved; but we are not ready to leap as champions upon the wall of the citadel, leading the forlorn hope and planting the standard where it never stood before. No, we can follow in the track of others. We have few Careys and few Knibbs, few men who can go first and foremost saying, “This is God’s cause; Jehovah is the only God, and in the name of the Eternal let the idols be abolished.” Oh, for more anointed ones to preach the gospel believing in its intrinsic might, assured that where it is preached faithfully, the Spirit of God is never absent! O Zion! get thee up, get thee up! Count no more thy hosts, for their strength is thy weakness; measure no longer thy wealth, for thy wealth has often been thy poverty, and thy poverty thy wealth; think not of the learning or the eloquence of thy ministers and missionaries, for full often these things do but stand in the way of the Eternal God. But come thou forth in simple confidence in His promise, and thou shalt see whether He will not do according to His Word.II. When believers doubt their God with regard to providence, the question might well be asked of them, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” I do not doubt that I am speaking to some who have had many losses and crosses in their business. Instead of getting forward they are going back, and perhaps even bankruptcy stares them in the face. Or possibly, being hard-working men, they may have been long out of employment, and nothing seems now to be before their eyes but the starvation of themselves and their little ones. It is hard to bear this. But dost thou doubt, O believer, dost thou doubt as to whether God will fulfil His promise wherein He said, “His place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks; bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure”? Thy God heareth the young ravens when they cry, and giveth liberally to all the creatures that His hands hath made, and will He forget His sons and His daughters--His people bought with blood, His own peculiar heritage? No; dare to believe Him now. His hand has not waxed short. Please not Satan, and vex not thyself by indulging any more those hard thoughts of Him. Say, “My Father, Thou wilt hear my cry; Thou wilt supply all my needs”; and according to thy faith, so shall it be done unto thee.III. There is a third way by which this question might be very naturally suggested, and that is when a man who has faith in christ is exercised with doubts and fears with regard to his own final perseverance or his own present acceptance in Christ.IV. This is a question which I may well ask of any here present who are convinced of sin, but are afraid to trust their souls now, at this very hour, in the hand of a loving Saviour. “Oh, He cannot save me, I am so guilty, so callous! Could I repent as I ought, could I but feel as I ought, then He could save me; but I am naked and poor and miserable. How can He clothe, enrich, and bless me? I am cast out from His presence. I have grieved away His Spirit; I have sinned against light and knowledge--against mercy--against constant grace received. He cannot save me.” “And the Lord said unto Moses, Is the Lord’s hand waxed short? thou shalt see now whether My word shall come to pass unto thee or not.” Did He not save the chief of sinners, Saul of Tarsus? Why, then, can He not save you? Is it not written, “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son, cleanseth us from all sin”? Has that blood lost its efficacy?V. And you say, do you, that God will not avenge your sins upon you, that ye may go on in your iniquities and yet meet with no punishment; that ye may reject Christ and do it safely. Well, soul,” thou shalt see whether His word shall come to pass or not.” But let me tell thee His hand is not waxed short; He is as strong to punish as when He bade the floods cover the earth; as powerful to avenge as when He rained hail out of heaven upon the cities of the plain. He is to-day as mighty to overtake and punish His enemies as when He sent the angel through the midst of Egypt, or afterwards smote the hosts of Sennacherib. Thou shalt see whether He will keep His word or not. Go on in the neglect of His great salvation; go to thy dying bed, and buoy thyself up with the false hope that there is no hereafter; but, sinner, thou shalt see; thou shalt see. This point in dispute shall not long be a matter of question to be cavilled at on the one side, and to be taught with tears on the other. (C. H. Spurgeon.)A strange questionIt is a singular thing that such a question as this should ever be asked at all: “Has the Lord’s hand waxed short?” If we look anywhere and everywhere, apart from the conduct of man, there is nothing to suggest the suspicion.1. Look to God’s creation! Is there anything there which would make you say, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” What pillar of the heavens hath begun to reel? What curtain of the sky hath been rent or moth-eaten? Have the foundations of the earth begun to start? Hath the sun grown dim with age? or have the starry lamps flickered or gone out in darkness? Are there signs of decay to-day upon the face of God’s creation? Have not howling tempests, the yawning ocean, and death-bearing hurricanes, asserted but yesterday their undiminished might? Say, is not the green earth as full of vitality, as ready to yield us harvests now, as it ever hath been? Do the showers fall less frequently? No; journey where you will, you will see God as potent upon the face of the earth, and in the very bowels of the globe, as He was when He first said, “Let there be light and there was light.” There is nothing which would tempt us to the surmise or the suspicion that the Lord’s hand hath waxed short.2. And look ye too in providence; is there aught there that would suggest the question? Are not His prophecies still fulfilled? Does He not cause all things to work together for good? Do the cattle on a thousand hills low out to Him for hunger? Do you meet with the skeletons of birds that have fallen to the ground from famine? Doth He neglect to give to the fish their food, or do the sea-monsters die? Doth not God still open His hand and supply the want of every living thing? Is He less bounteous to-day than He was in the time of Adam? Is not the cornucopia still as full? Doth He not still scatter mercies with both His hands right lavishly? Are there any tokens in providence any more than in nature, that God’s arm hath waxed short?3. And look ye too in the matter of grace; is there any token in She work of grace that God’s power is failing? Are not sinners still saved? Are not profligates still reclaimed? Are not drunkards still uplifted from their sties to sit upon the throne with princes? Is not the Word of God still quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword? Where have ye seen the sword of the Lord snapped in twain? When hath God assayed to melt a h-art and failed in the attempt? Which of His people has found the riches of His grace drained dry? Which of His children has had to mourn that the unsearchable riches of Christ had failed to supply his need? How is it, then, that such a question as this ever came from the lips of God Himself? What could there have been that should lead Him or any of His creatures to say, “Is the Lord’s hand waxed short?” We answer, there is but one creature that God has made that ever doubts Him. The little sparrows doubt not: though they have no barn nor field, yet they sweetly sing at night as they go to their roosts, though they know not where to-morrow’s meal shall be found. The very cattle trust Him; and even in days of drought, ye have seen them when they pant for thirst, how they expect the water; how the very first token of it makes them show in their very animal frame, by some dumb language, that they felt that God would not leave them to perish. The angels never doubt Him, nor the devils either: devils believe and tremble. But it was left for man, the most favoured of all creatures, to mistrust his God. This high, this black, this infamous sin of doubting the power and faithfulness of Jehovah, was reserved for the fallen race of rebellious Adam; and we alone, out of all the beings that God has ever fashioned, dishonour Him by unbelief and tarnish His honour by mistrust. (C. H. Spurgeon.)No failure of Tower with GodAmongst all the gods of the heathen Jupiter was in the greatest esteem, as the father and king of gods and was called Jupiter, quasi juvans pater, a helping father, yet (as the poets feign) be wept when he could not set Sarpedon at liberty; such was the imbecility and impotency of this master-god of the heathen. But the hand of our God is never shortened that it cannot help, He is ever able to relieve us, always ready to deliver us. Amongst all the gods there is none like unto Him, none can do like unto His works, He is God Omnipotent. (J. Spencer.)Numbers 11:27-30Eldad and Medad do prophesy. Eldad and MedadEldad and Medad seem instances of unlicensed preaching and prophesying; and this, at a time of scanty knowledge and rare spiritual illumination, was not without its dangers. So thought Joshua, and, jealous for Moses’ supremacy, besought him to rebuke them. But the great prophet, wholly wanting in the thought of self, rebuked Joshua instead. “Enviest thou,” he said, “for my sake?” and then added, in words of noble hyperbole, “Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets!”I. The first thought that occurs to us in reading this scene is the good, felt by the greatest, of zeal and enthusiasm. And the second is, how to discover it, how to encourage it in God’s service. But then comes the further question, Have these men the prophet’s capacity? Have they that primary want, the prophet’s faith? Have they fire, perseverance, and courage?1. The prophet’s faith. Take away from the prophet this faith in the living God, speaking to him, teaching him, encouraging him, in the midst of life’s sorrows and temptations, and he is nothing. Give him that belief, and his confidence, his courage is unshaken.2. There is the prophet’s belief in the moral order underlying the established order of things, as the only safe and sure foundation on which peace and prosperity in a nation can be built.II. The prophetic message, however varied its tone, however startling its communication, is always in substance, as of old, the same: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”III. Would that the people of the Lord were all prophets! Would that we had all more of the fire of enthusiasm, leading us to go forth and act, and learn in acting, not waiting till we have solved all doubts or perfected some scheme of action!IV. Zeal may often make mistakes, but it is better than no zeal. Truth is not merely correctness, accuracy, the absence of error, nor even the knowledge of the laws of nature. It is also the recognition of the moral and spiritual bases of life, and the desire to promote and teach these among men. (A. G. Butler, D. D.)Noble to the coreI do not agree with those who think that there was any diminution of the spirit that rested upon Moses. It is very difficult to speak of the subdivision of spirit. You cannot draw it off from one man to others, as you draw off water. The whole Spirit of God is in each man, waiting to fill him to the uttermost of his capacity. It seems to me, therefore, that nothing more is intended than to affirm that the seventy were “clothed upon” with the same kind of spiritual force as that which rested upon Moses. For sixty-eight of them the power of utterance was only spasmodic and temporary. “They prophesied, but they did so no more.” Emblems are they of those who, beneath some special influence like that which cast Saul down among the prophets, suddenly break out into speech and act, and give promises not destined to be fulfilled. Two, however, of the selected number, who, for some reason, had remained in the camp, suddenly became conscious of their reception of that same spirit, and they, too, broke out into prophecy and appeared to have continued to do so. Instantly a young man, jealous for the honour of Moses, carried to him the startling tidings, “Eldad and Medad do prophesy in the camp”; and as he heard the announcement Joshua, equally chivalrous, exclaimed, “My lord Moses, forbid them!” eliciting the magnificent answer, “Art thou jealous for my sake? Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets--that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” It was as if he said, “Do you think that I alone am the channel through which the Divine influences can pour? Do you suppose that the supplies in the being of God are so meagre, that He must stint what He gives through me, when He gives through others? If it should please Him to create new stars, must He rob the sun of its light to give them brilliance? Is the gratification of a mean motive of vanity a matter of any moment to me, who have gazed on the face of God? Besides, what am I, or what is my position, amongst this people, compared with the benefit which would accrue to them, and the glory which would redound to God, if He did for each of them all that He has done for me?” This is the spirit of true magnanimity. A spirit of self aggrandisement is set on retaining its exclusive position as the sole depository of the Divine blessing, and this has the certain effect of forfeiting it, so that fresh supplies cease to pass through. There is no test more searching than this. Am I as eager for God’s kingdom to come through others as through myself? And yet, in so far as we fall short of that position, do we not betray the earthly ingredients which have mingled, and mingle still, in our holy service? (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)Young men are ordinarily rash in judging othersThe doctrine from hence is that young men are ordinarily rash in judging others, yea, more rash than elder men, and consequently more apt to judge amiss, and to give evil counsel and sentence of such things as are well done. Such were Rehoboam’s green heads; they gave green counsel, and such as cost him the loss of the greatest part of his kingdom (1Ki 12:8; 1Ki 12:13-14). The reasons are plain. First, age and years bring experience and ripeness of judgment and so wisdom. Youth is as green timber; age as that which is seasoned (Job 32:7). Again, their affections being hotter and stronger are more inconstant and unbridled, realty to run into extremities, as untamed heifers not used to the yoke. Lastly, they put far from them the evil day; they think themselves privileged by their age, and make account they have time enough hereafter to enter into better courses. The uses:1. This teacheth us not to rest in the judgment, nor to follow the counsel of young men, except they have old men’s gifts and graces in them. For touching gifts, it is true which Elihu testifieth (Job 32:9).2. Let young men suffer their elders to speak before them, especially in censuring things that are strange.3. Seeing rashness and unadvisedness are specially incident to youth, let them learn to season their years with the Word of God, let them make it their meditation, whereby they may repress such hot and hasty and headstrong passions. (W. Attersoll.)Enviest thou for my sake?--The increase of the Redeemer’s kingdomMoses had no share in the narrow feelings which Joshua had displayed, feelings of envy and jealous. He had no wish to engross the distinctions of Israel, but, on the contrary, he would have greatly rejoiced had all the congregation been richly endowed from above, though he himself might have ceased to have been conspicuous in Israel. We consider that the lawgiver Moses, when so finely reproving Joshua for envying for his sake, is worthy of being admired and earnestly imitated; for that, in thus showing himself above all littleness of mind and contempt of this world, so that God might be magnified and His cause advanced, he reached a point of moral heroism--aye, far loftier than that at which he stood when, in the exercise of superhuman power, he bade darkness cover the land of Egypt, or the waters of the Red Sea divide before Israel. We are not bound to expatiate at any length on the magnanimity thus displayed by Moses. We have adopted the instance in order to show you how direct a parallel may be found in the history of the forerunner of our Lord, John the Baptist. So soon as the Saviour entered on the ministry, the great office of John was at an end. John still continued to baptize, and thus prepare men for the disclosures of that fuller revelation with which Christ was charged. In this way the ministry of our Lord and that of His forerunner were for a while discharged together; though, inasmuch as Christ wrought miracles, and John did not, there was quickly, as might be expected, more attendance on the preaching of the Redeemer than on that of the Baptist. Now, this appears exactly the point when in truth John’s disciples, who, like Joshua, were jealous of the honour of their Master, thought Jesus intrenching upon his province. But, however galling it might be to his followers thus to see their master neglected, to John himself it was matter of great gladness that He whom he had heralded was thus drawing all men towards Him. And the Baptist takes occasion to assure his disciples that what had moved their jealousy and displeasure was but the beginning--the first display of a growing spirit to which no bounds could be set. They were not to imagine that there could be any alteration in the relative positions of Jesus and John; nor that John would ever take that part of which, in strange forgetfulness of his own sayings, they seemed to wish to come to pass. On the contrary, he wished them distinctly to understand that, being only of earth--a mere man like one of themselves--he must decline in importance, and at length shrink altogether into insignificance. Whereas Christ, as coming from above, and therefore being above all--possessing a Divine nature as well as a human, and consequently liable to no decay--would go on discharging His high office, enlarging His sway according to the prediction of Isaiah, “To the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom.” And all this gradual fading away of himself, and this continued exaltation of Christ, the Baptist gathers into one powerful and comprehensive sentence, saying of our blessed Lord, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” And now consider more distinctly how character was here put to the proof; or in what respects either Moses or John deserve imitation. The truth is, that it is natural to all of us to envy the growing reputation of others; and to be jealous where it seems likely to trench upon our own. The courtier, for example, who has long sought to stand high in the favour of his sovereign; and who perceives that a younger candidate, who has just entered the field, is fast outstripping him, so that the probability is that he will soon be widely distanced; we cannot marvel if he regard the youthful competitor with irritated feelings in place of generously rejoicing in his rapid success. It would be a very fine instance of magnanimity if this courtier were to cede gracefully the place to his rival, and offer him, with marks of sincerity which could not be mistaken, his congratulations on having passed him in the race. But we could not look for such magnanimity. The case, however, is widely different when it is in the service of God, and not of an earthly king, that the two men engage. Here by the very nature of the service, the grand thing aimed at is the glory of God and not personal aggrandisement; and there is therefore ground for expecting that if God’s glory be promoted, there will be gladness of heart in all Christians, whoever the agent who has been specially honoured. But, alas! for the infirmity of human nature; there is no room for questioning that even Christians can be jealous of each other, and feel it a sore trial when they are distanced and eclipsed in being instrumental in promoting Christianity. We are far enough from regarding it as a matter of course, that a veteran in the missionary work would feel contented and pleased at seeing that work which had gone on so slowly with himself, progress with amazing rapidity when undertaken by a younger labourer; on the contrary, arguing from the known tendencies of our nature, we assume that he must have had a hard battle with himself before he could really rejoice in the sudden advance of Christianity; and we should regard him as having won, through the assistance of Divine grace, a noble victory over some of the strongest cravings of the heart when he frankly bade the stripling, God speed! and rejoiced as he saw the idols fall prostrate before him. (H. Melvill, B. D.)All God’s people must beware of envyEnvy is an affection compounded of sorrow and malice. For such persons are malicious, always repining and grudging at the gifts of God bestowed upon others, and, as it were, look asquint at them (as Gen 26:12-14; Gen 26:27; Gen 30:1; Gen 31:1; Mar 9:38; Joh 3:26-27).1. Because it is a fruit of the flesh (Gal 5:21), as carnal grief and hatred are, of which it is compounded: for it maketh men repine at the prosperity of others, and that which is worst of all, to hate the persons that have those gifts. This appeareth in the Pharisees (Mat 27:18).2. God bestoweth His gifts where He will, and to whom He will, and in what measure He will (Mat 20:15).3. It procureth the wrath of God, and is never left without punishment, as appeareth in the next chapter, where Miriam, the sister of Moses, is stricken with the leprosy, because she envied the gifts of Moses; God showing thereby how greatly He detested this sin.4. Whatsoever is bestowed upon any member, is bestowed upon the whole body (1Co 12:1-31.). Whatsoever is given to any part, is giving for the benefit of the whole Church: why, then, should we envy any, seeing we have our portion in it?5. It is a devilish vice; it is worse than fleshly, and yet if it were no more, it were sufficient to make us to detest it: and it transformeth us into the image of Satan, who envied the happiness of our first parents in the garden (Gen 3:5). So Cain was of that evil one (1Jn 3:12), and envied his brother, because God accepted him and his sacrifice (Gen 4:5).6. It crosseth and controlleth the wisdom of God in the distribution of His gifts and graces, as if God had done them wrong and been too good to others: we can challenge nothing as due to ourselves, but whatsoever we have we have it freely: howbeit, the envious like not His administration, but dislike that others should enjoy that which they want.7. It is against the rule of charity which rejoiceth at the good of others (1Co 13:1-13.), and is ready to bestow and communicate good things where is want of them. So, then, where envy is, there charity is not; and where charity is, there envy is not.Uses:1. This teacheth us that all are subject to this evil, even they that are godly, and in a great measure sanctified, are apt to envy at others excelling in the graces of God. The best things are subject to be abused through our corruption.2. It serveth to reprove many malicious persons: some envy others temporal blessings: others envy them the grace of God. If they have more knowledge than themselves they cannot abide them, but speak all manner of evil against them. Hence it is that Solomon opposeth envy and the fear of God as things that cannot possibly stand together (Pro 23:17), and in another place a sound heart and envy (Pro 14:30).3. Let us use all holy and sanctified means to prevent it, or to purge it away if it has seized upon us. Store of charity and humility tempered together will make a notable defence and preservative against this malady. (W. Attersoll.)Needless envyMoses wondered that Joshua should be so excited about this matter. He correctly estimated the young man’s temper; he said, This is envy: why this envy, Joshua? is it for my sake that thou art making a grievous miscalculation of my spirit? do not be envious on my account. Contrast the spirit of Moses with the spirit of Joshua. From the greater expect more. Thus is the quality of men revealed. Our judgments are ourselves put into words. Not that this was necessarily what might be termed the most wicked jealousy or envy. There is a kind of envy that may be regarded as almost chivalrous. That may be the most dangerous envy of all. Let us get at the root of this matter. Moses certainly delivered himself from all imputations of the kind, for instead of wanting the prophecy to be confined to himself he would have it multiplied over the whole host of the people of God. Great men do not want to be great at the expense of others. The text, though an inquiry, is as much a revelation of the quality of Moses as it is of the quality of Joshua. The most dangerous envy is often envy by proxy. Two men are at deadly feud; circumstances arise which lead to explanation; explanation leads to adjustment; adjustment soon becomes hearty reconciliation; the two principals are satisfied. But what is all this tumult in the air? what all this petty criticism? The two principals are satisfied, but there are others that are fighting the battle over again, and professedly in the name of one of the reconciled men or the other. This is folly. We should rather anticipate reconciliation and make the most of it than say, through wickedness of heart, Though you may be satisfied, we are not, and we mean to continue the battle. That may be high temper, but it is the temper of the devil. Along the same line of illustration we come upon over-zeal. The Jehua rose up a million thick on the road. What are they doing? Converting men by force. They are going to stand this no longer; if men will not go to church, then they shall go to gaol; if men will not obey spontaneously, they shall obey coercively; they shall have no longer any parleying with the enemy. The only compulsion that is as everlasting as it is beneficent is the compulsion of persuasion. “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” Herein is the dignity and herein is the assured duration of the kingdom of Christ; it is a kingdom of light and love and truth and reason. Love is the everlasting--and I will add, is the invincible--law. What was Joshua’s motive? Was he afraid that other men would rise and be as lofty as Moses? That was not the view which Moses himself took of the occasion. Moses was not afraid of competition. Moses proved his right to the leadership by the nobleness of his spirit. Would God that this proof of Divine election attended all our policy! No man can pull you down but yourself. Moses knew that what was lacking in appreciation of himself would be made up in proportion as the people themselves became prophets. The more the people prophesied the more they would appreciate Moses. They would know what he had to bear; what occasional torment of soul. Have pity upon one another; believe, and be kind, and hope; let the devil do all the bad work, you get to your knees and to the work of brotherly sympathy and help. Moses saw what Joshua did not discern. Moses saw that it is part of the prophet’s function to make other people prophets. Great men are not sent to create little men. Wherever there is a great prophet there will be a prophetic church; the whole level of life and thought will be elevated. Not that the leader can always command this kind of evidence and credential. It may come after his death. Some men have to die that they may be known. Great men are inspirations, not discouragements. That is the difference between real greatness and factitious greatness. Where there is real greatness it acts as an inspiration, as a welcome; there is a benign and generous hospitality about it. Real greatness can condescend without appearing to stoop; real greatness can be humble without being oppressive to those to whom it bows itself; real greatness encourages rising power just as the sun encourages every flower in the garden. The Church of Christ is not afraid of rival institutions. The Church says, “Enviest thou for my sake?”--nothing can put me down; I am founded by Christ, saith the Church, I am built upon a rock; the gates of hell cannot prevail against me--“Enviest thou for my sake?”--cease thine envying, it is wasted energy. We are building up all kinds of rival institutions, and yet the Church rises above them all. Let the Church have time and opportunity to utter her gospel and declare herself; and let her be faithful to her own charter, and all will be well. Truth always wins, and wins often at once; not in the palpable and vulgar way called winning, but by a subtle, profound, mysterious, eternal way that asks ages by which to justify its certainty and its completeness. (J. Parker, D. D.)Would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets.The prophet’s workThe prophets were not mainly foretellers of future events, but interpreters and forthtellers of God’s will; not minute historical soothsayers, but essentially patriots, statesmen, moral teacher,, chosen vessels of spiritual revelation. In each of their duties they were great. As statesmen they were intensely practical, gloriously fearless; seeing that there was no distinction between national and individual morality; recognising that what is morally wrong can never be politically right. As patriots they were men of the people; pleading against oppression, robbery, and wrong; braving the anger of corrupted multitudes; reproving the crimes of guilty kings. As spiritual teachers they fostered in Israel the conviction of their lofty destiny by upholding the majesty of God’s law, by preserving the authority of His worship, by pointing to the revelation of His Son. In each of these functions they have an eternal value for the human race. Every reformation has been effected by following in the path which they trod as pioneers. The Hebrew prophets were marked by three great characteristics--Heroic Faith, Unswerving Hope, and Absolute Belief in Righteousness.1. I shall name their heroic faith. “All men have not faith.” They either openly deny and disbelieve, or more often saying they believe act as though they did not. They are cowed by the power of wickedness, or tempted by its seductions. If they begin to make an effort for good, they fling up the contest as soon as they find that it will compromise their interests. Most often they will brave no danger, expose no falsehood, stand up against no wrong; they will spread their sails to every veering breeze; they will swim with the stream; they will look on success and popularity as the ends of living and the tests of truth. Not so the prophets. They will not be deceived by the vain shows of the world, nor seduced by its bribes, nor blunt the edge of their moral sense with its manifold conventions. Terror will not daunt, nor flattery lure them. Through lives of loss and persecution they will go on with an intense and quiet perseverance, which no success will cause them to relax, and no reverse subdue. They will devote every energy and possession to the cause of God, and the service of the most helpless of mankind.2. They saw beyond. Over and around them towered the colossal kingdoms of the heathen. The giant forms of empires around them were but on their way to ruin, because they were not founded on righteousness. Kings, priests and mobs might be against them; they were but vain and idle men (Jer 1:17-19). And if they had the faith which looked beyond the little grandeurs of men, they also had the hope which looked beyond their sorrows, and this hope spread outwards in ever-widening circles. Amid the apostacy of Israel they always prophesied that Israel should not be utterly destroyed. And this hope was concentrated in their greatest and most unfaltering prophecy of an Anointed Deliverer, a coming Saviour for all mankind: a Man who should be “a hiding-place from the wind; and a covert from the tempest; the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”3. The third great characteristic of the Hebrew prophets is their sense that the very end and aim of all religion is simply righteousness: that there is an abysmal difference between a mere correct worship and a living faith. Such was the spirit of the prophets. Let us conclude by considering the way in which we too, in our measure, are called to share in their spirit, and to continue their work.(1) We must try to do so, first, by escaping the average. He who has an unswerving faith in a few great moral principles to which, through evil report and good report, he clings; he who will only look on opinions and practices as he believes they must appear in the sight and before the tribunal of God; he who in politics knows no principle but truth and right; he who in the path of duty is indifferent to human praise or human blame; he who will stand firm when others fail; he who because the house of his life is built on a rock will do what God has given him to do, and say what God has given him to say, holding his own against chances and accident, against popular clamour and popular favour, against the anger and prejudices of the circle among whom he moves, that is the true prophet, that is the strong Christian man.(2) And as ours should be the aim of the prophet, ours should be the qualities of his mind and heart. Something at least we must have of their enthusiasm, something of their devotion, something of their indignation against wrong; something, too, of their courage. (Archdeacon Farrar.)God calls all His people to be prophetsAs of old, He calls His Gideon from the threshing-floor, and His Amos from the sycamore fruit; His Moses from the flocks; His Matthew from the receipt of custom; His John from the priestly family; His Peter from the fishing-net, and His Paul from the rabbi’s school; so now He calls us from the farm and from the merchandise, from the shop and from the office, from the profession and from the trade, from the priest’s pulpit and from the servants’ hall. He calls us in boyhood, He calls us in manhood, He calls us in old age. In His sight there is not an inch-high difference between the stage on which the prince and the stage on which the pauper plays his part. Both alike are called, and called only to be good men and true, brave and faithful. Both have a like mission, and both alike shall, if they do Christ’s work, receive His hundred-fold reward. The boy at school who will not join in the bad language of his companions; the soldier in the barracks who will kneel down and pray, though all his comrades jeer; the tradesman who will hold out against a dishonest custom of his guild the tenant who in the teeth of his interests will give his vote at the dictates of conscience; the Churchman who for truth’s sake will try to break the tyrannous fetters of false opinion; the philanthropist who will bear the unscrupulous taunts of the base, because he denounces a nation’s guilt--these, too, have in them something of the prophet. They help to save the world from corruption and society from spiritual death. This was the example that Christ set us all. That man is most a prophet of Christ who loves Him best. And he loves Him best who keeps His commandments. His commandments were but two: Love God; Love one another. (Archdeacon Farrar.)Monopoly and freedom in religious teachingI. A protest against monopoly in religious teaching.1. The prevalence of this monopoly.2. The causes of this monopoly.(1) Love of power.(2) The love of money.3. The iniquity of this monopoly. What arrogancy! Is not one mind as near the fountain of knowledge, the source of inspiration, as another?II. An authority for freedom in religious teaching.1. All the Lord’s people ought to be teachers. The possession of superior knowledge implies the obligation to disseminate it.2. All the Lord’s people might be teachers. All that is wanted is “that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them”; and this Spirit is free alike to all. (Homilist.)The Spirit given to all“Would God,” was the longing of Moses, “that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” His desire was fulfilled at Pentecost, and is realised now. Every believer possesses the Holy Spirit, not for his own spiritual life only, but to be a witness for Christ, as were the hundred and twenty at Pentecost. Equally does the charge to publish the glad tidings, and the promise of adequate power come to every one, according to that closing command of inspiration, “Let him that heareth say, Come!” Nay, more, the tongue of fire, the gift of utterance in its fitting measure, is always bestowed upon the kindled heart. Every one who seeks humbly and prayerfully to be a witness for Christ, in the home, in the ways of toil, in the spheres of infer-course, in the house of prayer, by the printed page, with the lips, and by the life, every such faithful disciple of the living Master shall receive His promised gift, the Pentecostal power of the Holy Ghost! (J. G. Butler, D. D.)Divine inspirationIn different forms and in different degrees that noble wish was fulfilled. The acts of the hero, the songs of the poet, the skill of the artificer, Samson’s strength, the music of David, the architecture of Bezaleel and Solomon, are all ascribed to the inspiration of the Divine Spirit. It was not a holy tribe, but holy men of every tribe, that spake as they were moved, carried to and fro out of themselves, by the Spirit of God. The prophets, of whom this might be said, in the strictest sense, were confined to no family or caste, station, or sex. They rose, indeed, above their countrymen; their words were to their countrymen, in a peculiar sense, the words of God. But they were to be found everywhere. Like the springs of their own land, there was no hill or valley where the prophetic gift might not be expected to break forth. Miriam and Deborah, no less than Moses and Barak; in Judah and in Ephraim, no less than in Levi; in Tekoah and Gilead, and, as the climax of all, in Nazareth, no less than in Shiloh and Jerusalem, God’s present counsel might be looked for. By this constant attitude of expectation, if one may so call it, the ears of the whole nation were kept open for the intimations of the Divine Ruler, under whom they lived. None knew beforehand who would be called . . . In the dead of night, as to Samuel; in the ploughing of the field, as Elisha: in the gathering of the sycamore figs, as to Amos; the call might come . . . Moses was but the beginning; he was not, he could not be the end. (Dean Stanley.)Numbers 11:31-35They gathered the quails. The quailsI. Israel’s complaint.1. Its object was food.2. Its nature was intense. “Fell a lusting.”3. It was general.4. It was accompanied with tears. A faint, weary, disappointed people. Tears, chiefly, of discontent.5. It was associated with the retrospections of memory. “We remember,” &c. (Num 11:5). They should also have remembered some other things of that past. Their bondage, &c.6. It made present things distasteful. “There is nothing at all.” There was a time when they did not call the manna nothing. Longing for what we have not tends to cause disparagement of things possessed.II. Moses’ perplexity. Great popular leaders have often been perplexed by the unreasonable clamours of their followers. Have often been urged farther than their greater prudence and wisdom would have chosen. People have often damaged their own cause by exorbitant demands.1. Moses displeased at the position in which he found himself. “My wretchedness “ (Num 11:15). His faith faltered (Num 11:11-12). Especially displeased with the people (Num 11:10).2. In his perplexity cried to the Lord. A good example. God “ a present help in trouble.”3. He acknowledges his own weakness (Num 11:21-22). He could not feed the people. It would be suicidal to kill the flocks and herds, even if they were enough. Needed for sacrifice; and the religious well-being of the people of most importance.4. He receives comfort, and direction (Num 11:23).III. God’s providence. Nature is His storehouse, in which He has garnered food for man and beast. He made all living things. Endowed them with habits and instincts. Made the quails. Ordained their migratory habits. Made and ruled the winds. When the quails came, the wind was ready. It fulfilled the word of God. The wonderful flight of birds. The scene in the camp. What was sent so abundantly seems to have been thanklessly received. Divine anger went with the gift. Many of the people died. Learn--1. To pray for the blessing of contentment.2. To seek the moderation of our desires.3. To pray for grateful hearts.4. To acknowledge the hand of God in the supply of our wants.5. To be chiefly anxious for the supply of spiritual need. (J. C. Gray.)The graves of lustI. There are perpetual resurrections of easily besetting sins.1. The side from which the temptation came to them (Num 11:4-6). This mixed multitude corresponds precisely to the troop of disorderly passions and appetites, with which we suffer ourselves to march through the desert of life. Passions, desires, ever mad for indulgence, and reckless, scornful of Divine law.2. The special season when the easily besetting sin rose up and again made them its slave. It is a fact which all close students of human character must have observed, that there is a back-water of temptation, if I may so speak, which is more deadly than its direct assaults. You may fight hard against a temptation, and fight victoriously. You may beat it off, and then, when, weary with the conflict, you suffer the strain of vigilance to relax, it shall steal in and easily master the citadel, which lately it spent all its force in vain to win. Beware of your best moments, as well as of your worst; or rather the moments which succeed the best. They are the most perilous of all.II. There comes a point in the history of the indulgence of besetting sins, when god ceases to strive with us and for us against them, and lets them. Have their way.1. God has great patience with the weaknesses and sins of the flesh. But it is a dreadful mistake to suppose that therefore He thinks lightly of them. He regards them as sins that must be conquered, and, no matter by what sharp discipline, extirpated and killed. He knows that, if tolerated, they become the most deadly of spiritual evils, and rot body and spirit together in hell.2. Hence all the severer discipline by which the Lord seeks to purge them, the various agencies by which He fights with us and for us against their tyrannous power. What is life but one long discipline of God for the cleansing of the flesh? Are not the after-pains of departed sensual joys among its chief stings and thorns?3. Left alone by God. God does not curse us; He leaves us to ourselves; that is curse enough, and from that curse what arm can save us! We will have it, and we shall have it. We leap through all the barriers which He has raised around us to limit us, yea, though they be rings of blazing fire, we will through them and indulge our lust; and in a moment He sweeps them all out of our path--perhaps roses spring to beguile, where flames so lately blazed to warn.III. The end of that way is, inevitably and speedily, a grave. The grave of lust is one of the most awful of the inscriptions on the headstones of the great cemetery, the world. In how many do we now search in vain for fruits whose flowers once bloomed there; for generous emotions, swift responses to the appeals of sorrow, unselfish ministries, and stern integrity? How many have learnt now to laugh at emotions which once had a holy beauty in their sight; to fence skilfully with appeals which once would have thrilled to the very core of their hearts; to grasp at advantages which once they would have passed with a scornful anathema, and to clutch at the gold which was once the glad instrument of diffusing benefits around! Yes! there are graves enough around us--graves of passion, graves of self-will, graves of lust. Beware, young men; young women, beware! Beware! for the dead things buried in these graves will not lie quiet; they stir and start, and ever and anon come forth in their ghastly shrouds and scare you at your feasts. No ghosts so sure to haunt their graves as the ghosts of immolated faculties and violated vows. The memories which haunt the worn-out worldling’s bed of impotence or lust are the true avengers of Heaven. The brain loses power to repel them, but retains power to fashion them. Once it could drive away thoughts and memories; now it can only retain them, and fix them in a horrid permanent session on their thrones. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)The Israelites’ sin and punishmentI. Their sin many consider a trifle. Certainly it was not of that character which the judgment inflicted on them would lead us to anticipate. We read here of no enormous transgression, or daring violation of God’s law. All they were guilty of, was a strong desire for something which God had not given them. “Something evil,” you will say perhaps, but not so; it was one of the most harmless things they could have desired. The Lord had provided them with manna for their support; they were weary of manna and wanted flesh. “The children of Israel,” we read, “wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat?”1. You see, then, the nature of the sin we have before us. It is a sin of the heart--coveting, desiring; and that not slightly, but very eagerly, with the full bent of the mind. It is not spiritual idolatry, though it is like it. That is making too much of what we have; this is making too much of what we want.2. Look at the cause or spring of Israel’s sin. Their desire for flesh was a desire springing up amidst abundance. It had its origin, not in their necessities, but m their vile affections, their own unsubdued, carnal minds.3. Observe next the occasion of Israel’s sin. Oh, dread the mixed multitude. Stand in fear of worldly-minded professors of Christ’s gospel. They will teach you to lust for the things you now despise. They will drive, if not the fear, yet the peace of God from your hearts, and all they will give you in exchange for it will be a craving, aching soul, a share in their own restlessness and discontent.4. Mark the effect of their sin, its immediate effect, I mean, on their own minds. It made them completely wretched. The truth is, the mind of man cannot long bear a strong and unchecked desire. It must be gratified or have a prospect of being gratified, or it consumes the soul. Perhaps we may say, this is one main ingredient in the misery of hell--a longing, and a longing, and a longing still, for something that can be never had.5. Notice one thing more in this craving of the Israelites--its sinfulness or guilt. Wherein, then, did its sinfulness lie? In the twentieth verse, God tells us. He pronounces it a contempt of Himself. Moses is commanded to go to the weeping people, and say to them, “Ye have despised the Lord which is among you.” And how had they despised Him?In three respects.1. They had low thoughts of His power. “Who,” they asked, “shall give us flesh to eat?” Who can give it?2. And their conduct involved in it a making light of His goodness. They had evidently lost sight at this time of all He had done for them, or if not so, they lightly esteemed what He had done.3. And then there was also here a despising of God’s authority.II. Look at the conduct of them insulted God towards them in consequence of their sin.1. He granted their desire. We are told again and again that it displeased Him, that His anger was kindled greatly against the people on account of it; but how does He show His displeasure? He begins with giving them the very thing they wish for; He works a miracle to give it them; He gives it them to the utmost extent of their desires, and beyond them. But what was God really doing all this while? He was only vindicating His aspersed honour.2. The Lord took vengeance on these Israelites, and this in a fearful manner and at a very remarkable time. It is often the will of God to make our sin our punishment. We eagerly crave something; He gives us what we crave, and when we have it, He either takes away from us all our delight in it, and so bitterly disappoints us, or else He causes it to prove to us a source of misery. (C. Bradley, M. A.)The judgments of God sometimes come very suddenlyIn the midst of their lusts and pleasures, behold how God’s judgments come upon them. They had feasted a long time, and had glutted themselves with their flesh; now their sweet meat had sour sauce. The doctrine arising from hence is this, that the judgments of God do oftentimes fail upon men and women very suddenly before they be aware, when they least of all think or imagine of the day of wrath (Job 20:5-7; Job 21:17; Psa 73:19; Isa 30:13; Ex 12:29; Dan 5:30; Luk 12:20). The destruction of the wicked shall come as a whirlwind (Amo 1:14).1. This is plain, because they have through God’s long-suffering increased the number, weight, and measure of their sins, and thereby compel the Lord to bring His judgments suddenly upon them.2. God respecteth herein the benefit of others toward whom He hath not used as yet so long patience, to the end that they, seeing others fall into sudden destruction, may learn thereby not to abuse His patience, lest they also be suddenly destroyed (Dan 5:22).The uses follow.1. See from hence the happy estate of all such as think of the day of their reckoning betimes, and prepare their garments that they be not taken naked. Such are out of danger, and have no cause to fear wrath and judgment.2. It serveth to teach us that we should not envy at the peace and prosperity of the wicked, neither fret at the flourishing estate of the ungodly that live in their sins, for howsoever they be for a time forborne, yet thereby they are the more hardened in their sins, till a far greater judgment come upon them. Therefore envy not at them though they grow great, for suddenly shall the judgments of God tulle hold upon them, and arrest them as guilty of death, and then they shall perish speedily; so that there is no reason to grieve or grudge at their prosperity.3. From hence ariseth comfort to the faithful.4. It is our duty to watch and attend with all care for the time of judgment. (W. Attersoll.)The graves of lustI. It is the tendency of lust to shorten life and to bring men to an untimely grave. Our animal desires are good servants; but, when they gain the mastery, they are fearful tyrants, loading the conscience with guilt and the body with disease, ruining life, and making eternity a hell. The Romans, it is said, held their funerals at the Gate of Venus, to teach that lust shortens life. The pleasures of sin are dearly bought.II. Let us record some of our feelings as we contemplate “the graves of lust.”1. The one is of intense pity, that man should be so foolish as to live in sin when he knew how it would end; that life should be so wasted, and opportunities lost, &c.2. The other is of awful solemnity. He is gone; but whither? He has given up the ghost; but where is he?Let us all--1. Ascertain whether or no we are on the way to this grave.2. Resolve through the help of God that we will not be there. Seek Jesus Christ. He, and He only, can rescue us from the power, the curse, and the consequences of sin. (David Lloyd.)Inordinate desiresWhat we inordinately desire, if we obtain it, we have reason to fear that it will be some way or other a grief and cross to us. God sufficed them first, and then plagued them.1. To save the reputation of His own power, that it might not be said, He had cut them off because He was not able to suffice them. And--2. To show us the meaning of the prosperity of sinners; it is their preparation for ruin. They are fed as an ox for the slaughter. (Matthew Hearty, D. D.)Graves of desireThe last thing that most people would desire is a grave, and yet how often does desire conduct to death! We will notice several manifestations of irregular and destructive desire, and, in conclusion, show how desire may be directed and chastened.I. There is unseasonable desire. The desire of the people for flesh was not unnatural, not illegal in itself, but it was unseasonable. This is a common fault of ours, to desire legitimate things in times and places which are not convenient.1. There is the impatience of youth. The course of life with many in these times reminds us of the days when we were lads, and when in the early morning we went a distance to school, taking our dinner with us; then appetite was keen, and it was no unusual thing to devour our dinner on the way to school, starving for the rest of the day. It is thus with thousands of infatuated ones a little later on; in the greediness of their heart they devour and waste their portion in the morning of life, and then starve through the long tedious day, or else go down to a premature grave. I say to my young brethren, wait, rein in your desires, move slowly, and every joy of life shall be yours in turn. “Haste is of the devil,” is a saying in the East popularly ascribed to Mahomet himself. We may accept the saying in the matter before us; let youth be moderate, deliberate, avoiding all feverishness, drawing slowly on the resources of life.2. There is the eagerness, of manhood. We should do little in life without intensity, but there are times when we may with advantage take in sail, and give ourselves time for rest and reflection. It is certainly unseasonable to bring our business life in any shape into the Lord’s Day. It is also unseasonable to allow worldly cares and ambitions to invade those spaces which are so necessary for our domestic and intellectual life. God grants us spaces for rest and thought in the home, in the chamber; and it is exhaustive, indeed, when our overweening worldliness excludes the possibilities of solitary and social life. Some men fill their annual holidays with anxieties until they are no holidays at all. And there are days of personal affliction, of domestic sorrows, of national calamity, when it is our solemn duty to pause in the race for riches and think of life’s larger meaning.3. There is the greed of age. Old men often come to the grave sooner than they need because they will not let the world go. They cling to ambition, although it wastes their strength and peace; they cling to business, they are pushing, grasping, hoarding as ever, although such application fast saps a life already tottering; they cling to pleasure, they will still wear the wreath of roses on their white hair, although to them it is the most fatal wreath of all.II. There is immoderate desire. We may pursue a right object with inordinate appetite. The Israelites were not content with the simple, pearly, wholesome food God gave them--they wanted something more piquant. They got what they wanted--and a grave. In all generations how many fall the same way.1. There is the immoderateness of our literature. We must feast on the romantic, the sensational, the morbid, the exaggerated. Out of this excess of imaginative literature come great evils. The reading public live in a world of fancy, sentiment, passion; and this feverish unreality in the hours of retirement gives birth to much of that practical immoderation which is the curse of our age. I do not say abandon this literature of romance; but I do say restrain and chasten your imagination, for be sure this habit of wild dreaming is at the root of much of that general intemperance of life which hurries many to the grave.2. There is the immoderation of our style of living. A writer was finding fault the other day with the present style of gardening. He complained that we have rooted up the old fragrant flowers--lavender, pinks, marigolds, mignonette, and gone in for crude patches of red and blue and yellow; that we have swept away sweet shrubs and bits of lawn for the sake of violet ribbon-borders and vulgar carpet-bedding. But does not our Italian gardening largely reflect our social life? Are we not often found renouncing sweet, simple methods of living for a showy, ostentatious style which brings with it little joy?3. There is the immoderateness of our appetite. Thousands are digging their grave with their teeth, and scooping it out with their glass.4. There is the immoderateness of business. Immoderation in other directions often drives men to unnatural eagerness in business. In haste to be rich they pierce themselves through with many sorrows.(1) How fatal all this immoderation is to health! We fret for money, drinking blood out of a golden basin; we are anxious to be great, and the path of glory leads to the grave; we are mad to seize the flowers of pleasure, and find the flowers of the churchyard.(2) How fatal is all this immoderation to happiness I There are thousands of successful merchants who after immense toil and sacrifice have secured wealth and position, and now they are distressed to find they have no power to eat what cost so much to get together. They have whatsoever their soul desireth, but they cannot taste any sweetness in it. Moderation is the secret of all life. Our health, our happiness, our character, our destiny, are bound up with self-restraint. Live with circumspection, live slowly, live by line and square, and you shall realise life at its best here, and then the life everlasting.III. There is illegal desire. Fixing our eye on forbidden things and lusting after them. How beautiful they seem, how desirable! and yet they eat as doth a canker. They lead to a premature grave. “The wicked do not live out half their days.” They lead to a dishonoured grave (Ecc 8:10). They lead to a hopeless grave. Such awake to shame and everlasting contempt. Do not hide it from yourselves for an hour that death is the price of touching forbidden things. Are you tempted by unlawful pleasure? see the skeleton behind the flowers. By unlawful gain? see the field of blood behind the pieces of silver. By unlawful greatness? see the shroud wrapped up in the purple. By unlawful indulgence? see that at the devil’s banquet the sexton is head waiter. Lust when it hath conceived bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished will have finished you. This is the dismal eternal order; and no secrecy, no strength, no skill on your part can disturb the programme or avert the penalty. Wherein, then, lies our safety? In reducing all desire to a minimum? Some of our sceptical writers counsel this but it is not the philosophy of Christianity. The infinity of desire is a grand characteristic of our nature which it is no part of our duty to destroy. Christianity leaves intact our boundless desire, whilst it teaches us moderation in all worldly things. It does this by fixing our attention on our inner life. It assures us that the deep, final satisfaction is not in our senses, but in our spirit; that we find the full and ultimate delight of life as our inner self grows in truth anal goodness and love. It does this by fixing our hope on the heavenly life. The pilgrim is not likely to be too deeply engrossed about the tent curtains, tent pegs, tent cords. Think much of that greater life, and you shall not think overmuch about things which perish in the using. (W. L. Watkinson.)The true nursing-fatherIt was but three days’ march from Sinai, and the people encamped on a site which was ever memorable in their history, as recalling one of the gravest, saddest scenes in the experiences of the wilderness journey. We are only, however, now concerned in the incident so far as it affects the character of Moses.I. The test beneath which Moses broke down, But in the case of Moses there was surely an outbreak of impatience which was hardly justifiable. He loved the people, but his love was not strong enough to sustain the terrific test to which it was exposed. He pitied them, but beneath the scorching sun of their repeated provocations that pity dried up like waters which are absorbed in the desert heat.II. The parallel in Christian experience.1. We also have need to beware of the influence of “the mixed multitude.” Had it not been for these, Israel had walked with God, and been satisfied with His provision on their behalf. It was from them that the discontent proceeded. There are many professing Christians who have the form of godliness, but deny its power, and who pass freely in and out among the children of God. It is among these that we may expect to hear complaints that religion is dry and irksome, or rapturous descriptions of the food of Egypt, or special pleadings that there should be a mingling of the delights of the Egyptian world, which should have been left behind for ever, with the manna which God lays on the dew of the desert floor. Their influence is all the stronger in that they appeal to tendencies within us, which are so susceptible to their call.2. We must distinguish between appetite and lust. The appetites have been implanted within us to maintain the machinery of life. If it were not for their action, we should neglect food and rest and exercise, and many other things necessary to our well-being. But in us all appetite is apt to run up into lust. In other words, we seek satisfaction, not for the necessary supply of our physical needs, but for the momentary pleasure which accompanies the gratification of appetite itself. Our motive is not the obtaining of some lawful and necessary end, but the titillation of taste and sense. Appetite has, therefore, to be curbed with a strong hand, lest it become inordinate passion, for the moment we take pleasure in the indulgence of appetite for its own sake, and apart from the legitimate end for which it was intended by the Almighty, we begin to tread a path that leads swiftly down to the bottomless pit.3. Let us guard against the resurrection of easily besetting sins. We say to ourselves that certain forms of sin have died down within us, anal will never trouble us more. We have grown out of them. But at that very moment the ghastly shape of that temptation is at hand, to assert perhaps even more than its olden force. You can never be sure of yourself. The suggestion that a certain form of temptation can have no further power over you is of the devil, and should excite you to greater watchfulness. Inordinate desire, murmuring and mistrust, are linked in the closest association. When one of these enters the window of the heart, it goes round to open the door to the other two. Oh, how often have we grieved our heavenly Father! Have we not had days of provocation and temptation in the wilderness?III. The contrast between the servant and the father. Moses repudiated the office of the nursing-father. He could not sustain its responsibilities. But his failure only serves to bring out into distincter relief a touching conception of the Fatherhood of God. Forty years afterwards, as the aged lawgiver, at the foot of Pisgah, was summing up the results of his experience, he said, “Thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee, as a man doth bare his son, in all the way that ye went, until ye came unto this place” (Deu 1:31; Isa 63:9; Act 13:18, R.V. marg.). Moses’ patience gave out in a twelvemonth, God’s lasted till His work was done, and the people were safely deposited in the land of promise. If only the true story of our lives were written, it would be the most astounding record of God’s forbearing and pitying love. Truly, “He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.” But let us beware: there comes a time in the history of besetting sin when God ceases to strive against it. He gave them the quails they asked, flesh to the full. You may be mad for gold, and gold may pour in; mad for pleasure, and the golden barges wait to waft you on the swelling current; mad for applause, and it is yours till you are surfeited. God does not curse you, He leaves you to yourself, and that is curse enough. It is best to let our Father choose. His choice as to route and manna and length of daily journey must be the best. And when our yearnings are in opposition to His wise provision, let us quench them and yield our will about them. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)Uncontrolled desiresIn what a solemn manner does this teach us the danger of uncontrolled desires! We have often thought what a beautiful prayer that is, “Grant thee according to thine own heart, and fulfil all thy counsel” (Psa 20:4), when offered for one whose heart is subdued, and whose desires are concentrated on the fulfilment of God’s promises. But would it not be an awful prayer for one whose heart is full of unhallowed desires, who longs, like Israel of old, only for earthly things? Oh, we should take heed what we desire, and for what we pray. You may ask for some earthly gift--it may be worldly prosperity, it may be wealth, or it may be for some other gift--some far higher, but still earthly gift--and because you are very intent upon it, God may give it you: and then the fulfilment of that desire may become a most terrible snare to you. The gift, whatsoever it be, may become your idol, may let down your affections to earth; and thus, whilst your prayers have been granted, God has sent leanness withal into your soul. Oh, it is exalted mercy, that God does not grant all our desires--that He so often sets aside some desires, and greatly disappoints others. We are prone to fret at this, but it is a part of a merciful plan, whereby He would bring us to rest in Himself. Oh, then, through grace, I will turn away from earth, with all its treasures, and from the creature, whatever its attractions be. I will turn to Jesus. In Him I cannot be disappointed. His love is altogether pure, altogether satisfying. (G. Wagner.)The punishment of a gratified desireAmong the passengers on the St. Louis express was a woman very much overdressed, accompanied by a bright looking nurse-girl and a self-willed, tyrannical boy of about three years. The boy aroused the indignation of the passengers by his continued shrieks and kicks and, screams, and his viciousness towards the patient nurse. He tore her bonnet, scratched her hands, and finally spat in her face, without a word of remonstrance from the mother. Whenever the nurse manifested any firmness, the mother chided her sharply. Presently, the mother composed herself for a nap; and about the time the boy had slapped the nurse for the fiftieth time, a wasp came sailing in, and flew on the window of the nurse’s seat. The boy at once tried to catch it. The nurse caught his hand, and said coaxingly, “Harry mustn’t touch. Wasp will bite Harry.” Harry screamed savagely, and began to kick and pound the nurse. The mother, without opening her eyes or lifting her head, cried out sharply, “Why will you tease that child so, Mary? Let him have what he wants at once.” “But, ma’am, its a--” “Let him have it, I say.” Thus encouraged, Harry clutched at the wasp and caught it. The scream that followed brought tears of joy to the passengers’ eyes. The mother woke again. “Mary,” she cried, “let him have it!” Mary turned in her seat, and said confusedly, “He’s got it, ma’am!” (S. S. Times.)Numbers 12Numbers 12:1-2Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses.Miriam and Aaron’s sedition1. The noblest disinterestedness will not preserve us from the shafts of envy. The poet has said, in regard to another virtue, “Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny”; and no matter how unselfish we are, we may lay our account with some envenomed attacks which shall plausibly accuse us of seeking our own things and not the things that are Jesus Christ’s. Nay, the more conspicuous we are for devotion to the public good, we may be only thereby more distinctly marked as a target for the world’s scorn. “I am weary of hearing always of Aristides as the Just,” was the expression of one who plotted for that patriot’s banishment; and if a man’s character be in itself a protest against abounding corruption, he will soon be assailed by some one in the very things in which he is most eminent.2. This envy of disinterested greatness may show itself in the most unexpected quarters. If Aaron and Miriam were capable of such envy, we may not think that we are immaculate. It asks the minister to examine himself and see whether he has not been guilty of depreciating a brother’s gifts, because he looked upon him as a rival rather than as a fellow-labourer; it bids the merchant search through the recesses of his heart, if haply the terms in which he refers to a neighbour, or the tales he tells of him, be not due to the fact that, either in business or in society, he has been somehow preferred before him; it beseeches the lady, who is engaged in whispering the most ill-natured gossip against another in her circle, to inquire and see whether the animus of her deed be not the avenging of some fancied slight, or the desire to protest against an honour which has been done to the object of what Thackeray has called “her due Christian animosity.” Ah! are we not all in danger here? How well it would be if we repelled all temptations to envy as John silenced those who tried to set him against Jesus; for, as Bishop Hall has said, “That man hath true light who can be content to be a candle before the sun of others.”3. The utter meanness of the weapons which envy is content to employ. A man’s house is his castle. No personal malice should enter into it with its attack; and no mean report should be received from the eavesdroppers who have first misunderstood and then misrepresented. If a man’s public life has been blamable, then let him be arraigned; but let no Paul Pry interviewer cross his threshold to get hold of family secrets, or descend into the area to hear some hirelings’ moralisings. Even the bees, when put into a glass hive, go to work at the very first to make the glass opaque, for they will not have their secrets made common property; and surely we busy human beings may sometimes be allowed to be by ourselves.4. The assaults of envy are always best met by a silent appeal to Heaven. Let the victims of unjust assault take comfort, for God will be their defence. But let the envious ones take heed, for God hears their words, and He will one day confront them with His judgment. He may do that long before the day of final assize. He may meet them in His providence, and give them to understand that they who touch His faithful servants are touching the apple of His eye; nay, He may bring such trouble upon them that they will be glad to accept of the intercession of those whom they have maligned. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)The sin of Miriam and Aaron: evil speaking, Divine hearing, and saintly silenceI. The sin of Miriam and Aaron.1. Its root: jealousy and vaulting ambition.2. Its occasion.3. Its expression.II. The divine cognisance of their sin. “And the Lord heard.” No one utterance of all the myriads of voices in His universe ever escapes His ear. There is a Divine hearer of every human speech. This is clear from--1. His omnipresence (Psa 139:7-12).2. His infinite intelligence.3. His interest in His servants.III. The commendable conduct of Moses under the provocation of their sin.1. He was sorely tried (cf. Psa 55:12-15)2. He bore his sore trial most nobly.Conclusion:1. In the conduct of Miriam and Aaron we have a beacon. Let us shun their sin, &c.2. In the conduct of Moses we have a pattern. Let us imitate his meekness. (W. Jones.)The modern application of an ancient incidentI. The possession of the greatest gifts does not exempt men from the liability to meanness and sin.II. The most excellent and eminent servants of god are not exempt from the reproaches of men.III. Our greatest trials sometimes arise from the most unlikely quarters.IV. The lord takes cognisance of the reproaches which are cast upon his servants.V. The servants of the Lord do well in bearing patiently the reproaches which are cast upon them. (W. Jones.)Miriam’s sin;--I. Miriam’s sin.1. Jealousy.2. Envy.3. Evil-speaking. Privately sought to undermine the power of Moses among the people.4. Folly. Could she have succeeded in destroying the power of Moses, she would have failed in getting them to recognise her as their leader. She did not see that she shone in the borrowed light of her great brother.5. Rebellion against God. Moses was the servant of God: to resist him was to resist the Master.6. Vain excuses. “Because,” and because . . . Sinners are often prolific in excuses; called by them reasons.II. Miriam’s detection. “And the Lord heard it.” Moses may have heard of it. This seems to be implied By the allusion to his meekness (Num 12:3). If the Lord hear, then no sin passes undetected. Moses gave himself no concern about it. Could Miriam meet her brother without shame? The Lord spake suddenly. God pronounced Moses “faithful.” What must Miriam have thought of her faithfulness?III. Miriam’s punishment. She was smitten with leprosy, and under circumstances that much heightened the effect of the punishment.1. It was in the presence of the person she had injured.2. In the presence of her fellow-conspirators.3. By the great God, against whose authority she had rebelled.4. Was excluded from the camp publicly.5. Humbled, by being cleansed in answer to the prayer of him she had wronged.Learn--1. The great sin of evil-speaking. Especially against ministers of religion, whose influence for good ought to be preserved not only by themselves but by all about them. The character of public men is their strength. Destroy their character, their power is gone. By this loss the public itself is impoverished and injured. Hence such slander is suicidal.2. God the defender of His servants. The severe punishment--and upon no other than Miriam--shows the Divine abhorrence of the sin.3. Moses, leaving the exposure and punishment with God, and interceding for Miriam, teaches us how to regard attacks upon our character, and act under them, and towards such unhappy offenders. (J. C. Gray.)Envy and pride meekly metI. “what sinful principles will prompt a man to do. Here we see the ties of nature disregarded; the bonds of professed fellowship burst asunder; God’s interest disregarded. Pride and envy had entered the heart, and all consequences were unheeded, even though Moses should be brought into contempt before the whole congregation. Let us fear lest such principles should ever get possession of our minds; the first feeling must be mourned over and prayed against.II. What divine grace will enable us to bear. If we imbibe the spirit of our Lord and Master we shall offer prayer for those who use us ill. If the approbation of God be ours, though all the world be against us it will do us no harm. It was said of one of the martyrs that he was so like Christ that he could not be roused by injuries to say one word that was revengeful. Oh, if this spirit were universal, what a happy world would this be! See how the grace of God can enable us to return good for evil, and thus feel an indescribable peace and happiness in our own spirit, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. The power of man can never impart this meek and quiet spirit; it can alone come from the blessed influence of the Holy Spirit. (George Breay, B. A.)The great evil of ambitionThe true cause of this their murmuring was pride and ambition, self-love, ostentation, and vainglory. Hereby we learn that there cometh no greater plague to the Church of God than by ambition and desire of pre-eminence. The ambition and pride of Amaziah, the priest of Beth-el, would not suffer the prophet Amos in the land of Israel, but he commanded him to fly away into the land of Judah and prophesy there (Amo 7:10; Amo 7:12). We see this apparently afterward (Num 16:1-50.) in Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Neither is this evil dead with these; for this is a great plague of the Church to this day, and very pernicious. Nothing hath more ruined the Church of God, overthrown piety, corrupted religion, hindered the gospel, discouraged the pastors and professors of it, nothing hath more erected the kingdom of anti-Christ than these petty popes, the true successors of Diotrephes, such as desire to be universal bishops and to reign alone. The mischief hereof appeareth by sundry reasons.1. It causeth a great rent and division in the Church, and disturbeth the peace of it (Num 16:1).2. It setteth up men and putteth down the Lord and His ordinances, urging, compelling, and commanding against the truth (Act 4:18-19).3. It proceedeth from very evil roots, and bringeth forth very evil effects, as an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruits. The causes from whence it floweth are Satan, pride, disdain of others, self-love, no love of the truth, no zeal of God’s glory, no desire of the good of the Church.The effects thereof are trouble, disquietness, fear, flattery, envy, and subtilty. Let us come to the uses.1. It reproveth those who bear themselves as lords over the flock of Christ.2. Acknowledge this ambition to be a general corruption, the remainders whereof are in all the servants of God, yea, in all the children of Adam; we have drawn it from him, and thereby it hath leavened and corrupted all mankind. If any man ask what it is, I answer, It is an immoderate desire after dignity, and of dignity upon dignity; it is a thirst that never can be quenched; for as the covetous person hath never enough money, so the ambitious hath never enough honour. It is a secret poison, a hidden plague, the mother of hypocrisy, the father of envy, the fountain of vices, the moth of piety, a blind guide and leader of the hearts of men. The farther we think ourselves from it the nearer commonly it cometh unto us; and therefore let nothing be done through strife and vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves (Php 2:3).3. Lastly, let all learn to beware of this evil. (W. Attersoll.)Claiming equalityIf the Lord did speak by Miriam and Aaron, what then? The Lord Himself acknowledges that He speaks in different ways to different men. To some--perhaps to most--He comes in vision and in dream; things are heard as if they were spoken beyond the great mountain; they are echoes, wanting in shape and directness, yet capable of interpretations that touch the very centres and springs of life, that make men wonder, that draw men up from flippancy, and write upon vacant faces tokens of reverence and proofs that the inner vision is at the moment entranced by some immeasurable revelation. To other men God speaks “apparently”--that is, in broad and visible figure. He is quite near; it is as if friend were accosting friend, as if two interlocutors were mutually visible and speaking within hand-range of one another. There is nothing superstitious about this; it is the fact of to-day. Take a book of science--what do you find in that rational and philosophical bible? You find certain names put uppermost. Why should not every boy that has caught his first fly, or cut in two his first worm, say, “Hath not the Lord spoken unto me as well as unto Darwin, or Cuvier, or Buffon?--who are they?” But it does so happen that outside the Bible we have the Moses of science--the chief man of letters, the prince of song. Take the history of music, and we find names set by themselves like insulated stars-great planetary names. What would be thought of a person who has just learned the notes of music, saying, “Hath not the Lord spoken unto me as well as unto Beethoven?” He has; but He has not told you so much. There is a difference in kind; there is a difference in quality. We find this same law operating in all directions. There are books that say, “Are not we inspired as well as the Bible?” The answer is, “Certainly you are.” The Lord had spoken to Miriam and to Aaron as certainly as He had spoken to Moses, but with a difference; and it is never for Moses to argue with Miriam. Moses takes no part in this petty controversy. He would have disproved his superior inspiration if he had stooped to this fray of words. So some books seem to say, “Are not we also inspired?” The frank and true answer is, “Yes.” Is not many a sentence in the greatest of dramatists an inspired sentence? The frank, Christian, just answer is, “Yes.” Is not many a discovery in the natural world quite an instance of inspiration? Why hesitate to say, “Yes; but always with a difference”? The Bible takes no part in the controversy about its own inspiration. The Bible lives--comes into the house when it is wanted, goes upstairs to the sick-chamber, follows the lonely sufferer into solitude, and communes with him about the mystery of disappointment, discipline, pain of heart; goes to the grave-side, and speaks about the old soldier just laid to rest, the little child just exhaled like a dewdrop by the morning sun. It lives because no hand can slay it; it stands back, or comes forward, according to the necessity of the case, because of a dignity that can wait, because of an energy that is ready to advance. Some books claim to be as inspired as the Bible. Then they become leprous, and all history has shown that they are put out of the camp. Many books have arisen to put down the Bible; they have had their day: they have ceased to be. We must judge by facts and realities. When a man who has no claim to the dignity asserts that he is upon an equality with the great musician, the great musician takes no part in the fray; when the competitor has played his little trick, one touch of the fingers regulated by the hand Divine will settle the controversy. By this token we stand or fall with our Christianity, with our great gospel. (J. Parker, D. D.)Hatred between brothers and sistersWhat were Aaron and Miriam to Moses? Even his own brother and sister. And cannot such agree? Will there be jars and grudgings in such? Would God it were not too true. Nay, such is our corruption, if the Lord lead us not with His loving Spirit, that not only we disagree being brothers and sisters, but with a far more bitter and implacable wrath than others that are farther off. What a venom was in Cain to his brother Abel when nothing but blood would appease it? What was in Esau’s heart towards his brother Jacob? Oh, what venom is this that lurketh in our nature if God leaves us to ourselves! May we not justly marvel at some men, otherwise of great wisdom and judgment, that dare break out unto the praise of these perturbations as virtues and badges of noble minds? For what is this but as if a man would praise the diseases of the body and the nettles and weeds and hurtful plants of the earth. Should not he be accounted mad that would set his own house on fire? And I pray you what be that will cast fire into his own heart to set it on a flame? Saint Augustine was wont to say, “Look how vinegar put into a vessel thereby is made sour and corrupted”; so is the malicious person by his own anger made filthy and most distasteful to all good men. And if thus among strangers, oh, what among brothers and sisters! Wherefore what council is given to refrain all anger, venom, and hatred, let it in particular be applied to bridle all rage or dislike among such near ones as now we speak of. (Bp. Babington.)Numbers 12:3The man Moses was very meek.The grace of meeknessHow beautiful a grace is meekness! It may be somewhat difficult to define; but whenever we see we cannot fail to know and to feel its gentle and winning power. It is a grace that implies so very much in the heart. It is the beautiful result of many other graces; whilst its place in the beatitudes shows that it is the root on which others grow. Meekness is quite consistent with power and authority; for Moses had great power and authority in Israel, and yet, altogether unspoilt by it, he was the meekest of men. But we may look to another example, far greater than Moses, who said, “All power is given to Me in heaven arid on earth”; and yet added, “I am meek and lowly in heart.” It is in such lofty places that meekness is the most beautiful, because it then can, and does, stoop very low. But though this grace is evidently consistent with any power and authority, however exalted, it is altogether inconsistent with the love of power and with the love of authority. Meekness can only grow upon the ruins of selfishness in all its forms, whether it be selfishness towards God--that is, unbelief--or whether it be selfishness towards man, either in its form of pride, love of our own way, love of ease, love of money. But we may trace another feature in meekness from the example of Moses, and learn that this grace is not the attribute of a weak character, but the ornament of a firm and comprehensive spirit. Indeed, we seldom find real meekness in vacillating characters; for such yield when they ought not to yield, and then, rebuked by conscience for yielding, they become angry. Meekness will more often be found in the resolute character when it is sanctified by the Spirit of God, and obstinacy is purged out. Moses was a beautiful example of extraordinary strength of character. His one will was stronger than the united wills of all Israel. And yet amongst them all there was not one to be found so meek as he; and the reason was, because his will rested on the will of God. It was an unselfish will, and therefore it was that its uncommon power did not exclude meekness. We all need this grace in every relationship of life. As parents, for meekness should be the border and fringe of every act of authority; as mistresses, for in the carlessness and want of conscientiousness of servants your spirit may be tried nearly every day; as Christians, for St. Peter exhorts us (1Pe 3:15) to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear”; as teachers, for St. Paul says (2Ti 2:24-25). In these days of collision between system and system, and of sad confusion of views of Divine truth, we specially seem to need the spirit of meekness. For it is not rude attacks upon error, but truth spoken in meekness and love that avails and has most power. Meekness should be the handmaid of zeal. All of us must feel, if we have only made the experiment, how difficult of attainment is this grace; and yet there is great encouragement to seek it. It appears in the cluster of graces described as the “fruit of the Spirit.” It is the last but one, perhaps to show us the height at which it grows. There is a beautiful promise of guidance to the meek “The meek will He guide in judgment: and the meek will He teach His way” (Psa 25:9); and in Psa 149:4 is a larger promise still--“He will beautify the meek with salvation.” And then we cannot forget the beatitude uttered by the lips of Him whose meekness never failed--“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth!” (G. Wagner.)Moses the meekWho records this? The popular answer is, Moses. He is the reputed author of the Pentateuch. Moses tells us, therefore, that Moses was the meekest of men. But if so, what becomes of his humility? Some meet the difficulty by reminding us that the verse is a parenthesis. It is enclosed in brackets. Perhaps it was added afterwards by another hand. This, of course, is possible. At the same time it is a desperate mode of dealing with the case. Supposing that Moses did indite it, what then? It is not necessarily a display of vanity. There are two kinds of egotism--the false and the true. If a man refers to himself simply as a historian, and merely because the circumstances of the case call for it, that is quite a lawful, righteous egotism. If, on the contrary, he does it out of conceit, he thereby manifests “vain glory,” and merits our scorn. A consciousness of integrity will sometimes impel its possessor to assert it, especially when it is misunderstood and persecuted. The uprightness of Job led him to exclaim, “When I am tried I shall come forth as gold.” “The man Moses was very meek.” But was he always such? Are we to regard his meekness as constitutional? There appear to be solid reasons for thinking that Israel’s distinguished lawgiver was originally impulsive and even passionate! At first, he was anything but slow to anger. And, as we read the narrative of his life, we mark the old disposition ever and anon asserting itself. Just as you sometimes see, in the midst of green pastures and yellow corn, patches of rock, fern, and heather, reminding you of the pristine state of the ground, so now and then the hasty spirit of Moses got the better of him. These were lingering and occasional outbreaks on the part of what the apostle would call “the old man.” They were exceptional. So faithfully had he watched against his besetting sin, so prayerfully had he exercised vigorous self-control, that the naturally irritable man became “very meek above all the men who were on the face of the earth.” As a certain author admirably writes: “A traveller, giving an account of an ancient volcano, tells of a verdurous cup-like hollow on the mountain summit, and, where the fierce heat once had burned, a clear, still pool of water, looking up like an eye to heaven above. It is an apt parable of Moses. Naturally and originally volcanic, capable of profound passion and daring, he is new-made by grace till he stands out in calm grandeur of character with all the gentleness of Christ adorning him. The case of Moses is representative. It does not stand alone in grand isolation. That our weakest point may become our strongest is one of the most obvious and inspiring teachings of the Bible. Peter Thomas, a physiognomist, closely scanning the face of Socrates, pronounced him to be a bad man. He even went so far as to specify his vices and faults. “Proud, crabbed, lustful,” were the charges brought against him. The Athenians laughed this to scorn. Everybody knew its falsity. The distinguished sage was the exact opposite of the description. To their amazement, however, Socrates hushed them, and declared that no calumny had been uttered. “What he has said,” be remarked, “accurately describes my nature, but by philosophy I have controlled anti conquered it.” Let us be of good cheer. Philosophy is good, but we have something better--“the grace of God which bringeth salvation.” Let us but make it our own, and we shall joyfully experience its victories. (T. R. Stevenson.)MeeknessWhat is meekness? It is not the repudiation of self-defence. Everything that is made has a right to exist, or God would not have matte it; and, if any other creature trespasses on this its birth-charter, it is justified in defending itself. Neither is meekness a mental incapacity to discern insults and injuries. A man who cannot do that is not meek but stupid. Nor is meekness a natural mildness which is incapable of being provoked. There are people of such a temper--or, rather, non-temper. It is no credit to them. We may call such people soft; but it would be a misnomer to call them meek. In fact, unless they can be stirred up, they are incapable of meekness; for the more natural fierceness a man has the more capable he is of meekness, and he upon whom anybody that comes along may make his scratch is anything but a meek person. Neither are they meek who are restrained from exhibiting resentment by fear or self-interest. They are cowards. All these are negative qualities. And it is impossible that meekness should belong to this tribe; for it must be immensely positive and tremendously energetic since it is to subjugate the earth and inherit it. The first element in meekness is docility--a willingness to learn, a readiness to go through the drudgery and labour connected with learning, a disposition to suppress the impatience which prevents us from learning. The second element is self-restraint, both toward God and toward man. The tendency of trouble is to irritate, to render the soul peevish, angry, morose, rebellious. But the meek soul has learned in the school of Christ. It accepts the truth that “all things work together for good to them that love God”; and, therefore, disciplines itself to patience under trial. Meekness educates man up to a Godlike standard. It stores up strength in the soul--a strength that shall prove available in the emergencies of life. The meek men are the men of might. They have broad shoulders and strong backs, or they could not carry this load of other men’s ignorance, infirmity, and sin; and it is meekness that squares their shoulders, toughens their tendons, and develops their muscles. The meek men are, if the exigency arises, the most terrible of the earth. There are bounds to the exercise of meekness. Paul indicates this when he says: “What will ye? Shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love?” When the meek man does take the rod, he lays it on until the work is thoroughly done. (H. M. Scudder, D. D.)Numbers 12:5-10The Lord came down. God’s vindication of MosesThere are several circumstances of the Lord’s proceedings laid down in the text.1. As, first, His speed. By and by the Lord called them; so showing us how fitting a thing, yea, how pleasing to Him, convenient expedition is in justice, and how displeasing, needless, and sinister delays. It showeth also what a tender feeling God hath of the wrongs of His children, not only of some, but by name of magistrates’ and governors’ wrongs, when they are spoken against without cause. Surely He so feeleth it, that even by and by He will undertake the righting of them, and cannot hold from punishing such offenders as so lightly regard His holy ordinance. We think that unless we keep ado in our own causes it is not well (and I condemn not all care this way), but certainly none have been sooner and better righted than such as patiently have endured a time and committed things to the justice of God.2. He calleth the two offenders by themselves, leaving Moses to hear and see for his comfort the Lord’s care for him. And this also is a great point of justice, to call persons that have done amiss, not carrying matters in secret and condemning without hearing.3. He speaketh to them and biddeth them hear His words as He had heard theirs. Which likewise showeth that true justice chargeth men, and doth not hoard up in heart what cutteth off love and liking; giving good words outwardly, and yet inwardly thinking most evil things. Oh, let us hear your words if you have conceived any offence, and then will either confession or true purgation give satisfaction? The contrary course may have policy in it, but who shall justify it for piety, charity, or any virtue?4. In His words He setteth down the difference of prophets, showing that all have not alike measure vouchsafed of Him, and therefore may not argue, I am a prophet as well as he; ergo, as good as he. Such kind of reasonings have in all times disquieted the Church and peace of the godly. The differences which God layeth down you see in the text. To some by vision; to some by dream; to some in darker words, to some in plainer; but to Moses mouth to mouth; that is in a more excellent measure of grace, and familiar favour than ever to any. Therefore, although the Lord had also spoken by them; yet forasmuch as it was not in that degree as to Moses, they should not have compared themselves with him, but yielded him a reverence above themselves. Yea, how were ye not afraid, saith the Lord, to speak against My servant Moses, even against Moses? So showing that imparity of grace and gifts from the Lord should work ever an imparity of honour and regard by all that will walk rightly, though in some other respect there may be a parity. (Bp. Babington.)Numbers 12:10-16Miriam became leprous.The punishment of Miriam and AaronI. The divine judgment because of the sin of Miriam and Aaron.1. The punishment was inflicted by the Lord.2. The punishment was appropriate to the sin.3. The punishment fell most severely upon Miriam.(1) She was the instigator of the sin.(2) Aaron’s office of high priest also probably helped to shield him.Had he been smitten with leprosy he would have been disgraced in the eyes of the people, and his holy office would probably have been brought into disesteem amongst them.(3) Yet Aaron was not altogether exempted from punishment.As priest he had to examine Miriam and pronounce her leprous. Again he had to examine her and pronounce her clean before she was readmitted to the camp. That he deeply realised his painful position is evident from the narrative (Num 12:10-12). Let us remember that there is judgment with God.II. The divine judgment leading to personal humiliation.1. Humble acknowledgment to Moses.2. Confession of sin.3. Entreaty for the removal of the judgment from Miriam.III. The remarkable acknowledgment of the eminence of Moses the servant of the lord.1. In the manner in which he was addressed by Aaron.2. In the appeal which was made to him by Aaron. This appeal implies on the part of Aaron--(1) Faith in the magnanimity of Moses--that he would not retaliate upon them for their attack upon him; that he was forgiving and generous.(2) Faith in the influence which Moses had with God.IV. The distinguished magnanimity and grace of Moses. “And Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee.” There was no resentment in his heart, but fullest forgiveness and sincerest pity. His prayer for Miriam is an anticipation of the precept of our Lord, “Pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Mat 5:44).V. The great power of the intercession of good men.VI. The justice and mercy of god as manifested in his treatment of Miriam.VII. The sin of one person checking the progress of an entire nation. (W. Jones.)Miriam smitten with leprosy: transfiguration through transgressionI. This transfiguration was brought to pass on account of the jealousy of Miriam of Moses, and the jealousy of god for Moses.II. The transformation was in keeping with the expressed jealousy of God and of Miriam (W. Jones.)The punishment of wrong doersI. That both God and man express their displeasure towards wrong doers on this earth.1. God, in many ways.(1) Providential afflictions.(2) Moral remorses.2. Man, also, in many ways.(1) Sometimes in his personal, capacity, by denunciatory language and physical chastisement.(2) Sometimes in his corporate capacity, as a member of the State, by pains and penalties.II. That the wrong-doers are generally far more affected by the expression of man’s displeasure than with that of God’s.1. Most irrational.2. Most impious.3. Most perilous. (Homilist.)The leprosy of Miriam1. We should humbly submit to the will of Heaven.2. We should remember that in the distribution of gifts, what is best for one may be destruction for another.3. To covet the gift of a neighbour is a wrong to him and an offence to God.4. Each man’s duty is to develop the gift that is in him. (Homiletic Monthly.)Miriam and MosesWas this weakness, as some would say? Nay, verily, it was the exhibition of colossal spiritual strength. It is the weak man who gives blow for blow, who blurts out his wrath, who cannot control the passion of his spirit. It may be well to give some closing rules as to the attainment of this meek and quiet spirit, which in sight of God is of great price.1. Let us claim the meekness of Christ. This, of course, was not possible for Moses in the direct way in which it is for us. And yet there was no doubt in his case also a constant appeal for heavenly grace. And in moments of provocation there is nothing better than to turn to Him and claim His calm, His sweet silence, His patience and meekness, saying, “I claim all these, my Lord, for the bitter need of my spirit.”2. It is acquired, next, by cultivating the habit of silence. Express a thought, and you give it strength; repress it, and it will wither and die. You will often hear it said that the best way of getting rid of an importunate passion is to let it out and have done with it. It is, however, a very mistaken policy. Silence will kill it as ice kills fish when there are no ventholes by which they can come up to breathe. Learn to be still, to keep the door of the lips closed.3. Next, by considering the harm done by the aggressors to themselves. The cloud removed from over the tent, as if it must leave the very spot where the culprits stood; and behold, Miriam was leprous, white as snow. There is a profound piece of instruction here; you cannot say unkind or bitter things about another without hurting yourself more than you hurt him. Like the boomerang of the savage, curses come back to the spot from which they start.4. In allowing God to vindicate our cause. Moses let God vindicate him, and the Almighty God rode upon a cherub and did fly, and flew on the wings of the wind. This is the secret of rest, to cultivate the habit of handing all over to God, as Hezekiah did, when he spread out Sennacherib’s letter in the house of the Lord. Commit yourself to Him that judgeth righteously.5. Also in intercessory prayer. Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, “Heal her, O God, I beseech Thee.” When we pray for those who have despitefully used and persecuted us, it is marvellous how soon the soul gets calm and tender. And the Lord heard His servant’s prayer, and healed Miriam; but the whole host was delayed a week through her sin. We may be forgiven, but these outbreaks of sin always entail disaster and delay. Neither we nor others can be where we might have been had they not occurred. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)Miriam’s punishment humiliatingThe punishment was as humiliating as it was public. Her tongue, so free upon her brother’s conduct, is mute enough now, except to cry if any approached her, “Unclean! Unclean!” She who aspired to be Queen of Israel is cast forth as an unclean thing from the camp. When the dreadful punishment was finished, she came back to the camp humbled, and no doubt strengthened in her soul by the correction she had received. (S. Robinson, D. D.)Shame for the enviousThe lesson here has a very close application to all who engage as the Lord’s instruments and agents in the work of building up Christ’s kingdom. When those so engaged forget the nature of their calling, and fall into contentions and bickerings about their relative position as agents for Jehovah, the result must in the end be shame and humiliation for the envious and jealous, and damage to the cause of Christ, about which He will surely make inquisition. How much of the strifes and bickering between Christians of the same Church, and between different sects comes not from earnestly contending for the faith, but from the narrow jealousies and envyings wholly personal with those who indulge them! How often is it simply the Miriams and Aarons giving way to their petty jealousy under cover of scruples of conscience! (S. Robinson, D. D.)Such as have the chief hand in sin, are principally subject to punishmentAaron was accessory to this mutiny against Moses, but Miriam was chief in the sin, and therefore is also chief in the punishment. Simeon and Levi were not the only murderers of the Sichemites and invaders of the city, but they were the chief ringleaders, and therefore are only named (Gen 34:25), and punished (Gen 49:5). Whosoever practiseth any evil, whether he be principal or accessory, is guilty in the sight of God, and therefore such as are ministers of other men’s evils are oftentimes punished, whether they be reasonable or unreasonable creatures (Gen 3:14; Lev 20:15; Ex 21:28-29; Ex 21:32; Jos 6:17; Isa 30:22). As God is just, so He punisheth the instruments of injustice. Notwithstanding, though the instruments do offend and not escape, the chief punishment is ever reserved for the chief offender.1. For such as are chief in government ought to stay their inferiors from evil, as the head governeth the members. Eli is charged with the wickedness of his sons (1Sa 3:13). Such governors make themselves the tail and not the head, whereas they should order those of their house as the soul ruleth the body.2. God will require the blood of those that perish at the hands of the governors; the magistrate is the watchman of the commonwealth; the minister is the watchman of the Church; the householder is the watchman of the family; all set as it were in their watch-tower, and all must give an account for such as are under them.3. The sin of those that have the chiefest hand in it is greater than of others, so it deserveth the greater punishment; forasmuch as the sin and punishment shall be suitable one to the other.Uses:1. It belongeth to all, especially to such as are superiors, to consider this; they think themselves absolute, and that they ought of right to command what they list to their inferiors. But as they are superior in place, so they shall also be superior in punishment, if they command anything against God and His Word.2. It is the duty of all householders to be careful to order their families aright, and to compel them to serve the Lord.3. Lastly, there cometh a great blessing upon their heads that are the chief in any good work, that encourage others in the ways of godliness, for they shall have a principal reward. Happy and blessed therefore are they that govern their charges as becometh them (Gen 18:18). This is a notable commendation of Abraham, he was chief, and one that went before the rest in good things, and therefore he should chiefly be rewarded. This should stir us up, not only to do good, but to be chief in doing good, to go before others, to lead them the way, that so we may have the greater and better reward in that great day, (W. Attersoll.)Miriam’s degradationA striking spectacle was once Witnessed in the Four Courts of St. Louis. A young man was under arrest for some crime. Before being committed to prison, he was taken to the photographer’s rooms, and his picture taken to be sent to the various cities keeping “rogues’ galleries,” to be hung up on the walls with the faces of other criminals kept there. The description of the feeling manifested by the young man on this occasion is both touching and suggestive. “Big tears formed in his eyes and fell down on his cheeks. He dropped his head on his breast and cried. He was so overcome with emotion that he could not speak until he was again placed in his cell in the gaol. After swallowing great lumps in his throat, he said he now felt he had dropped from the role of a gentleman to that of the lowest criminal; and the thought of his picture being placed in the rogues’ gallery was more than he could bear.” How dreadful to be classed with the workers of iniquity, and to become the spectacle before man and angels of one who rejected light and truth, and basely sinned against a great and gracious God. (S. S. Chronicle.)Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee.The prayer of Moses for MiriamI. The prayer.1. Explicit. Nothing vague.2. Earnest.3. Generous.4. Well-timed.II. The answer.1. Most gracious.2. Most wise.3. Most speedy. (R. A. Griffin.)Moses’ generosityMiriam would have wounded Moses with her tongue; Moses would heal her with his: “O Lord, heal her now.” The wrong is the greater, because his sister did it. He doth not say, I sought not her shame, she sought mine; if God have revenged it, I have no reason to look on her as a sister, who looked on me as an adversary; but, as if her leprosy were his, he cries out for her cure. Oh, admirable meekness of Moses! His people, the Jews rebelled against him; God proffers revenge; he would rather die than they should perish. His sister rebelled against him; God worlds his revenge; he will not give God peace till she be re-cured. Behold a worthy and noble pattern for us to follow! (Bp. Hall.)Numbers 13Numbers 13:1-20Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan.Glimpses of the better landI. The search.II. The retreat,III. An emblem of God’s dealings with His people.1. The children of Israel were sent back to the wilderness on account of their sin.2. While they are sent in judgment, they go back of their own accord.3. Though the fruit of sin, and the token of God’s righteous displeasure, all was overruled for their good.4. Though chastened they are not cast off.(1) They are Divinely delivered.(2) They are Divinely sustained.(3) They are Divinely guided.(4) They are Divinely chastened.IV. Improvement.1. Let young believers be not high-minded, but fear.2. Let backsliders remember and weep.3. Let tried and troubled saints take fresh courage. (Islay Burns, D. D.)The sending forth of the spiesI. The origin of this expedition (cf. Deu 1:20-25).1. God had Himself declared to them the excellence of the land (Ex 3:8; Ex 33:3).2. He had promised to guide them to the land (Ex 32:34; Ex 33:2; Ex 33:14). Moreover, He was visibly present with them in the majestic pillar of cloud and fire.3. He had promised to drive out the heathen nations and give them possession of the land (Ex 23:20-33; Deu 1:8).4. He commanded them to “go up and possess” the land (Deu 1:8; Deu 1:21).5. Yet their answer was, “We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the laud,” &c. (Deu 1:22). Clearly their duty was not to send men to search out the land, but trusting in God, to obey His voice and go and take possession of the land. God may allow us to carry out our unbelieving plans to our own confusion. If we will “lean unto our own understanding,” He will let us take our way until we find what utter folly our fancied wisdom is.II. The agents in this expedition. “Of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them,” &c. (Num 13:2-16). Three points here require notice.1. The wisdom of this arrangement.(1) in sending one man from each tribe. By this arrangement every tribe would have a witness of its own.(2) In sending a leading man from each tribe. They were approved men of influence, and therefore their testimony would be the more likely to be credited.2. The scarcity of worthy leaders. We see here that a large proportion of even these leading men, these “rulers” and “heads of the children of Israel,” were unworthy of the position which they occupied.3. The diversity of human fame. The names of these twelve men have been handed down to the present time; but how different are the positions which they occupy! History perpetuates the memory of Nero as well as of St. Paul, of Judas Iscariot as well as of Jesus Christ. We are making our posthumous reputation now; let us take heed that it be of a worthy character.III. The aims of this expedition. They were to report as to the condition of--1. The land, whether it was fertile or barren, whether it was wooded or bare, &c.2. The towns, whether they were walled and fortified or open and unprotected, &c.3. The people, whether they were strong or weak, whether they were few or many, &c.IV. The spirit appropriate to this expedition. “And be ye of good courage.” (W. Jones.)The twelve spiesI. Their selection.1. One from each tribe. That each tribe, without preference or distinction, might be represented.2. Each was a man of mark. “Every one a ruler.” “Heads of the children of Israel.” Men of judgment and discretion. This the more needful--(1) Because the journey was perilous.(2) Because the object was important. Men able to judge of the soil, and inhabitants.3. They were chosen and sent by Moses. Their various characters prove the impartiality of Moses. He could doubtless have found in each tribe a man after his own heart. Probably he allowed the people of each tribe to have a voice in the matter.II. Their commission.1. They were to spy out the whole land. Not to give a report upon some few favourable or unfavourable aspects of it.2. They were to observe the people, and note especially their numbers, character, habits, and strength.3. They were to bring particulars of the dwellings of the people; whether cities, tents, or otherwise. From this, their habits and power of resistance might be inferred.4. They were carefully to examine the soil, whether fit for pasturage or tillage, whether it was fat or lean.5. To confirm and illustrate what they might say of the soil, they were to bring of the fruit of the land.6. They were to be fearless. God would have them in His keeping.III. Their journey.1. In the glorious summer-time, thus commissioned, they set out on their enterprise. Time when the country looked most beautiful.2. They passed up through the whole country, from the south to the extreme north; even to Hamath.3. Returning, they visited Hebron. Should not the remembrance of him who dwelt there (Abraham) have encouraged them to believe in their conquest of the country?4. At a place afterwards called Eshcol (the place of grapes, or the cluster), they cut down a large bunch of grapes; and collecting also some figs and pomegranates, they returned with much information after forty days.IV. Their report.1. Things in which they agreed. Concerning the country, soil, fruit, people. They showed the fruit they had brought.2. Things about which they differed. Their ability to conquer this wonderful country.3. Effect of their representations.(1) Immediate. People discouraged and tumultuous (Num 13:30; Num 14:1-5). They began to rebel. Were for returning to Egypt.(2) Ultimate. Delayed the stay in the desert, and the conquest of Canaan for many years.4. Only Joshua and Caleb faithful; these were silenced and out-voted. Minorities have often been in the right. Reason: goodness and wisdom generally with the few. (J. C. Gray.)Wise travellersTo us at this day the use may be twofold. First, to such as travel to see foreign countries, that they observe fit things in them, so make good use of their travel, not neglecting things profitable, and sucking up all venom, that the corruption of those places may yield, as too many do, to their own, not only temporal, but eternal woe, and to the poisoning of many others when they return. Secondly, to magistrates, ministers, and all of good disposition, it may be a pattern of care and endeavour, according to the places and power they have, to work liking in men of the true Canaan that shall endure for ever, and a daily disliking of the pleasures of Egypt, this transitory and sinful world, that bewitcheth so many to their endless woe and confusion. (Bp. Babington.)The promised landWe have a heavenly Canaan, towards which we are journeying; and we are told by an oracle, even more sure than the Urim and Thummim, “There remaineth therefore a rest for the people of God.” This, then, being the case, can we do better than apply to ourselves the injunction in the text, and “search out the land” which is our promised abode? True it is, we cannot send men as the Jews did, for “who shall ascend into heaven, save the Son of God which came down from heaven?” The city which we seek is no fancy of the imagination. But shall we open the book of their record, and note what inspired lips have spoken concerning the New Jerusalem? Shall we tell you of the gates, each made of a single pearl, and the foundations of twelve manner of precious stones? When the gates of that city shall close upon the ransomed spirit, will it be on these things that the undying eye will be fixed, or rather upon the face of “Him who sitteth upon the throne,” the triune Jehovah, the glorified Jesus? He who hath “washed us in His own blood, and made us kings and priests to God and to the Lamb,” will be the supreme object of our admiration and worship. Such is the land towards which we are hastening--an inheritance not doubtful, but secured to us by two “immutable things, by which it is impossible for God to lie.” And now, having heard this good report, shall we gird on our swords and prepare, as disciples of the Lord, to “fight the good fight of faith,” and declare in the heart-stirring words of Caleb, “Let us go up and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Press forward, then; the voice of our Captain is cheering us onward--“Fear not, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Angels are rejoicing at our progress; and not only so, but fighting on our side; Satan and his apostate legions are fleeing before the triumphant cross. Shall we plead our terrors at the Anakim, while the sword of the Eternal is drawn on our behalf? Away with the thought; “though they hedge us in on every side, in the name of the Lord we will destroy them.” Yet let us not go on this warfare “without counting the cost”; the enemies against whom we have to contend are giants indeed. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” These our foes are watchful as well as powerful; they are most malignant; they know our weak parts, and can tempt us most craftily; they are in league with the corruption of our own nature, and are often most dangerous when least suspected. Are we prepared, against such antagonists as these, not only to draw the sword, but to cast away the scabbard? (H. Christmas, M. A.)Moses called Oshea . . . Jehoshua.--The change of Joshua’s nameOriginally called Hoshea, or Salvation, this name was changed, when he led the spies, to Jehoshua, or The Lord is Salvation. And it has never ceased to seem significant to the Christian that this name of Joshua should have been that by which our Lord was called. In its Greek form, “Jesus,” it was given to Him because He was to save His people from their sins. By His distinctive name among men He was linked to Joshua, and in the salvation He accomplishes for His people we are therefore led to expect the same leading characteristics as distinguished the salvation of Israel by Joshua.1. We are, in the first place, reminded by this parallel that the help afforded to us in Christ is God’s help, and this in a fuller sense than was true in Israel’s case.2. Again, we are reminded by this parallel, that as in the conquest of the land by Joshua, so in our salvation, is there a somewhat perplexing mixture of miracle and hard fighting. Sometimes the rivers that flow deep before us open at our approach, and we pass over dryshod. At other times we are allowed to fall into ambuscades. And just as the Israelites, when they found the Jordan open before them and the walls of Jericho fall down, supposed that the conquest of the land was to be completed without their drawing their swords, and were in consequence defeated before Ai, so are the great mass of those who enter the Christian life presuming that God will give them the land of uprightness, purity of heart, and holiness of life, with scarcely an effort on their part. And therefore, though there was miracle on the side of Israel, yet this rule was distinctly laid down as the rule by which the territory was allotted to the tribes, that each was to have what each could take, and hold against the enemy. This is the law of our acquisitions also. What becomes really ours is what we fight for inch by inch, killing as we go, slaughtering the obstinate foe on his own soil, so that the property be left to us uncontested. God’s grant is useless to us if we will not draw the sword and conquer it, if we will not wield the axe and clear it. These two united form the strongest of titles, God’s grant and our own conquest. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)Numbers 13:23-24The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes. Grapes of EshcolI. The true inquirers into the divine will ever have their reward. There are grapes for every student of God’s Book.II. The region promised to the good is rich in blessing. Their highest enjoyments on earth are only the taste of a few grapes of the heavenly world.III. The vast majority of the human family have ever been marked by meanness of soul. Not only did these specimens fail to inspire the millions of Israel to go and take possession of the land, but even ten out of the twelve discoverers lost heart. Talk not of majorities! (Homilist.)Glimpses of the promised landI. Consider the narrative itself.1. The evil report. Not one word of encouragement do they offer--no reference do they make to that Divine protection which they had experienced during their perilous search--no exhortation do they utter, urging the people to obey the Divine command. Their report was essentially an “evil” one, calculated to dishearten the people--to raise prejudices in their minds. Now the conduct of these spies has always, and I think rightly, been regarded as illustrative of the conduct of those who are dismayed by the difficulties which attend a religious life. For it cannot be denied that these are numerous and formidable. This does not admit of a doubt and it ought not to be concealed.2. Very different was the testimony which Caleb and Joshua bore. These faithful men thought and acted for themselves. Singularity for its own sake is always to be avoided, since it may arise from a desire to attract notice and thus be the mere offspring of vanity. But when truth is concerned, then, though we should stand alone, it becomes us to avow it. There never was a more false or dangerous maxim than that the voice of the people is the voice of God: it is much more frequently the voice of the devil--the voice of impulses which he has excited and of passions which he has stirred.II. Consider the spiritual lessons which this narrative suggests. Glimpses of the promised land! No Christian is without them, for there are foretastes of heaven even on earth.1. There are glimpses of the promised land which we obtain by faith. God has discovered to us in His Word a better country, and though a wise reserve is maintained, yet much information is afforded us with regard to it.2. There are glimpses of the promised land which we obtain when we possess the first-fruits of the Spirit. In the grace that you now receive you have a type of the glory which is yet to be revealed. In the peace which you now enjoy, you have a type of the perfect happiness you will soon experience. In the purity which you now possess you have a type of the spotless holiness in which you will be hereafter arrayed. In the communion which you now hold with God you have a type of that more intimate fellowship which is the privilege of heaven.3. Glimpses of the promised land are often vouchsafed to the Christian at an early stage of his experience. But there was much for us to learn, and God sent us into the wilderness to learn it. After all, our experience was superficial--our feelings were stronger than our principles--our faith needed trial, and so, like the Israelites we have been “led about and instructed.” Do not complain, therefore, because your experience is not what it once was. God gave you, at the outset of your Christian career, a glimpse of the promised land, and the memory of this may cheer you now when you mourn because of the travel and toil of the wilderness.4. Glimpses of the promised land are often enjoyed by the believer at the close of life. This is not invariably the case, but it frequently is so, as a reward for eminent piety. (H. J. Gamble.)A cloister of gospel grapesStrabo states that in Bible times and in Bible lands there were grape-vines so large that it took two men with outstretched arms to reach round them, and he says there were clusters two cubits in length, or twice the length from the elbow to the tip of the long finger. And Achaieus, dwelling in those lands, tells us that during the time he was smitten with fever one grape would slake his thirst for the whole day. No wonder, then, that in these Bible times two men thought it worth their while to put their strength together to carry down one cluster of grapes from the promised land. But I bring you a larger cluster from the heavenly Eshcol--a cluster of hopes, a cluster of prospects, a cluster of Christian consolations; and I am expecting that one taste of it will rouse up your appetite for the heavenly Canaan.1. First, I console you with the Divinely sanctioned idea that your departed friends are as much yours now as they ever were. That child, O stricken mother! is as much yours this morning as in the solemn hour when God put it against your heart and said as of old, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy wages.” It is no mere whim. It is a Divinely-planted principle in the soul, and God certainly would not plant a lie, and He would not culture a lie!2. But I console you again with the fact of your present acquaintanceship and communication with your departed friends.3. I console you still further with the idea of a resurrection. On that day you will get back your Christian dead. There is where the comfort comes in. And oh, the reunion; oh, the embrace after so long an absence! Comfort one another with these words. (T. de Witt Talmage.)EshcolContemplate that cluster which they bear--that earnest of rich fields. These grapes are proof of Canaan’s exuberant fertility. So, too, there is a heavenly Eshcol before faith’s eye. It shows delicious clusters. The joy before Christ cheered His heart. The joy before us should gird up our loins. This cluster was the vine’s perfection. So, too, perfection is the essence of our heaven. Nothing can enter there to stain, &c. Oh, what a contrast to our present state I In the true Eshcol’s cluster there is this richer fruit; Jesus is seen. This is the crown of heaven. The rising of the sun makes day. The presence of the king constitutes the court. The revelation of the Lord, without one intervening cloud, is the grand glory of the endless kingdom. Believer, what will it be to gaze on the manifested beauty of Him who is altogether lovely! What, to comprehend all that Jesus is! What, never to lose sight of Him! Are you a traveller towards this heaven? (Dean Law.)Foretastes of heavenLand-birds of beautiful plumage greeted Columbus days before his eye caught a glimpse of the New World. A more southern voyager found himself in the fresh water of the Amazon before discovering the continent whence they came. So at the close of life’s voyage do birds of paradise come hitherward, careering on bright wings, and the river of life sends its refreshing current far out into the briny sea of this world.The pomegranatePeople in the East have always been fond of using fruits and flowers as symbols. Thus lots of pomegranates were carved as sacred emblems upon Jachin and Boaz, the two chief pillars in the temple (1Ki 7:18), embroidered on the priest’s garments (Ex 28:33).I. Our religion should be delightful. The pomegranate is delightful to every sense; for it gladdens the eye, and is a favourite ornament. Its leaf is bright green and lustrous; its wood is yellow and graceful; its blossom is well shaped and scarlet. The good is the beautiful, beautiful with God’s beauty. The pomegranate is also very fragrant. It sweetens the air and breathes benediction all around. You should behold flowers and plants not with the eyes of the gardener who plants them, nor of the child who plucks them, nor of the merchant who buys them, but of the Christian who finds in them sweet suggestions of the love of God. The pomegranate is also delightful to the taste, for its juice is very delicious. It was also in Bible times very delightful to the mind: for, like the olive it was an emblem of peace. Invading armies cut down the fruit trees, and one of the first to fall before the sword and fire was the pomegranate, as it was a shrub rather than a tree. This was one reason why it was so popular, as it was a sign of long-continued peace. It was thus a token of the religion of peace.II. Our religion, like the pomegranate, should be very useful. It was good for medicine. Every part of it had healing virtue, and it heals several of the diseases that are most common in the East--sore throat, dysentery, &c. You know that all green things are literally for the healing of the nations. The religion of Jesus, when real in the heart, always sweetens the breath of society and heals many sores. Our plant is also good for drink. It is very juicy, and has a remarkable quality of quenching thirst in these hot climes. Its delicate juice is often manufactured into wine, and is a great favourite with the sick, and indeed with all classes. It is also good for food. Do not suppose that the religion of Jesus is good for the world to come but not good for this. It is the sincere Christian alone who gets out of this present life all the good it can yield him. Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.III. Our religion, like the pomegranate, should be very fruitful--fruitful both in ourselves and in the world. When our Saviour speaks of the fruit bearing of His disciples, He means such rich fruit as you find on the Syrian soil, and under the wonder-working Syrian sun. We never see anything like it in our cloudy clime. Why, the seeds in one pomegranate might soon fill a grove, if none of them were spoiled. I was allured the other day to a splendid horse-chestnut. I pulled one of its blossoms, but I was disgusted with it, and at once flung it away. It was ruffled and bedashed with rain, bored through by flies, discoloured with dust--I flung away the ragged, blighted, deflowered thing. Many a beautiful and promising young life soon becomes like that outcast blossom. One of the darkest things to me in the world is the ease with which a fine young life is sometimes injured. But if you yield your heart early to Christ, and gladly take Him as your Teacher, Saviour, and Guide, how delightful, useful, and fruitful your life may become--it may grow as the pomegranate. You can set no bounds to the possibilities of good that belong to the very humblest Christian. A portrait of Dante was discovered lately; he was ,holding a pomegranate in his hand. Perhaps it had charmed the poet as an emblem of what he desired to be. (James Wells, D. D.)Numbers 13:27It floweth with milk and honey.A land flowing with milk and honeyThe idea suggested is, that the true disciples of the Lord Jesus are expected to show to the world some illustration of the nature of the heavenly country to which they are journeying. In a sense they have been there, and have come back. But in what sense?1. The idea with many persons is, that the future condition of man is so completely different from this, that it is out of the question to attempt to form a conception of it. Now, it is true, St. Paul tells us, “that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” But it is also true, as the apostle goes on to say, that “ God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” Some people, then, are in a position to understand what the heavenly kingdom is like. They have true ideas about it--foretastes. In fact, “heaven” is really the expansion of a life begun here below. “He that hath the Son hath life.”2. What, then, has the true disciple to show as specimens of the produce of this unseen and unknown country? Briefly, the character of Christ reproduced in him, by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is faintly, imperfectly reproduced; still it is reproduced (see 2Co 1:21, “Hath Christed us”). There is the strength which overcometh the world, the peace which passeth understanding, the blessedness of communion with God, the soul-thirst for God ever renewed and ever satisfied.3. It is by the presentation of these fruits of the land that souls are won. No doubt there are some persons in the world to whom Christ and everything belonging to Christ, are only repulsive; and these will scrutinise the disciple with an unfriendly eye, and rejoice if ever they find, or fancy they find, any inconsistency in his conduct. But there are also many others of a different temper. They are halting between two opinions. They say, not of course in words, but by their feelings and manner, “Be Christ to us; let us see in you and through you what the Divine Master is, and how He will treat us if we venture to apply to Him”--or, to express it differently, “Show us the fruits of the heavenly land, of which you think so much and speak so much. You are amongst us as a citizen of the heavenly city (Php 3:20). Enable us to gather from your conduct what are the characteristics of that noble land, of that bright and glorious companionship.”4. And lastly, what is the practical conclusion to be drawn from the whole subject thus discussed? Surely it is this--that we, who profess to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, should be careful to recognise the responsibility laid upon us to give a good report, like Caleb and Joshua, and not a bad report, like the ten other spies, of the unseen land. We shall give a bad report if our lives are not attractive, and are not consistent. We shall give a good report if our characters glow, even feebly, with the inner light of the life of Christ; and if, by deed as well as by word, we cry, “ The conflict may be a formidable one, but it is not too formidable”; and if we trust as we should do, and may do, that we shall be more than conquerors through Him that loved us. (G. Calthrop, M. A.)Numbers 13:30Let us go up at once, and possess it.The ancient Canaan a type of heavenI. In what respects the ancient canaan was a type of heaven.1. It was a promised land, and the right of possession was founded on the promise.2. It was a land in which God was peculiarly present.3. It was a land of fruition.4. It was a free gift.II. The Israelites had dangers, difficulties, and discouragements in the wilderness, in their way to Canaan; so have Christians in their progress to heaven.1. There are formidable foes to be encountered. The corrupt heart, the evil world, and that apostate spirit, the devil.2. There are adversaries in timid and faint-hearted associates.3. The Israelites in their progress were made dependent on the Lord for all things.III. The resolution--“let us go up at once, and possess it.”1. The title to it is sure. It is pledged in Christ; as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. He is our Joshua and is gone to take possession for us.2. We have means and ordinances by which needed strength is supplied, and we are invited and enjoined to feed in the spiritual manner, and to drink of the spiritual rock.3. Here we have many foretastes of the good land. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)Difficulties in the way1. The kingdom of heaven challenges the inquiry of all men. It addresses an appeal to human reason, and to human trust. Though itself a revelation, and therefore not to be handled as a common thing, nor to be tested by common instruments, yet Christianity invites the most careful inquest. It does not seek to rest upon the human intellect as a burden, but to shine upon it as a light. ]f Christianity may be represented under the image of a land, such as ancient Canaan, then it is fair to say of it, that it offers right of way over its hills and through its valleys, that its fruits and flowers are placed at the disposal of all travellers, and that he who complains that the land is shut against him speaks not only ungratefully but most falsely.2. Different reports will, of course, be brought by the inquirers. The result of the survey will be according to the peculiarities of the surveyors. As streams are impregnated by the soils over which they flow, so subjects are affected by the individualism of the minds through which they pass. Thus Christianity may be said to be different things to different minds. To the speculative man it is a great attempt to solve deep problems in theology; to the controversialist it is a challenge to debate profound subjects on new ground; to the poet it is a dream, a wondrous vision many-coloured as the rainbow, a revelation many-voiced as the tunes of the wind or the harmonies of the sea.(1) Some inquirers will see all the hindrances.(2) All will confess that there is something good in the laud.(3) Those who hold back by reason of the difficulties will come to a miserable end.(a) We don’t escape by false reasoning.(b) We don’t escape by fear.Application:1. Some have shown the spirit of Caleb--what is voter testimony?2. Will you resolve, in Divine strength, to follow the Lord fully? (J. Parker, D. D.)The decision and exertion incumbent upon Christians in all thingsI. The passage serves to illustrate the believer’s duty in general. “Go forward.” This is the command of God to His people, with reference to every obligation that devolves upon them, and at every critical moment, amidst all our difficulties we encounter from the world. Nothing but this heroism will suit the dignity and the decision of Christian character.II. The passage serves to illustrate the more special duty of the people of God with reference to missionary exertion. And that I conceive to be one of the pressing duties of the Church of Christ in the present day. (W. H. Cooper.)The magnanimous character and wisdom of Caleb1. He “stilled the people.” Stillness engenders thoughtfulness.2. He seeks to secure unity of faith. “Let us go up.”3. Promptness. “At once.”4. He directs their minds to their ability.Conclusion: The world belongs to Christ by creation and by preservation. In God’s name the Church may claim Christ’s prerogative for the conquest of the world. (W. Mudge.)Good witnesses for GodI. God hath ever had some witnesses of his truth Nicodemus. Joseph of Arimathea. And how can it be otherwise, for the truth shall never decay from the earth, but be spread abroad from place to place, and from generation to generation for ever (Psa 119:89). We perish, for all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field, but the word of the Lord abideth for ever (1Pe 1:24). God will have this never to die, never to wither. He hath the hearts of all men in His own hand, to turn them at His pleasure (Act 9:15). So saith Christ, “I tell you if these should hold their peace, the stones would cry” (Luk 19:40), and therefore He can never be without some witness to maintain His truth.1. This teacheth us that God is most glorious and powerful, and will be known in the earth (Psa 8:1-2; Mat 21:15; Act 14:17).2. Great is His truth and prevaileth; He hath always had a Church upon the face of the earth, and He never forsaketh it, though multitudes conspire against it, it shall have the upper hand at last.3. Be not discouraged when the truth is oppressed, because God is able to maintain it, and raiseth up His enemies oftentimes to defend it.4. This should persuade every one of us how to carry ourselves, namely, that we should not take any approbation or liking of the evil of other, neither ought we to imitate any in sin, how holy soever they seem to be, neither give consent to them by our practice, forasmuch as God’s hand hath overtaken them at one time or other.II. The evil of others, yea, although they be many, may not re followed of us. The reasons.1. Whatsoever is in itself evil cannot be made good and lawful by any example, nor by many examples. It cannot be warranted by the law of man, much less by the pure law of God Himself.2. No greatness, no multitude can save a man from judgments due to the least sin; for though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not go unpunished (Pro 5:1-23; Pro 11:21). This serveth to reprove many carnal and formal Christians that oftentimes encourage themselves in evil, and strengthen themselves by the example of others.3. We may gather from hence a reproof of ignorant recusants grounding only upon their forefathers; such as can give no other reason of their religion but that they were born and bred in it (Psa 78:8).III. It is the duty: of God’s children to exhort and stir up one another to good things. And that for divers reasons.1. We are quickly hardened in sin. We are quickly dull to all good; exhortation made by others setteth an edge upon us, and putteth life into us (Pro 27:17).2. Such as continue to the end are made partakers of Christ, and with Him of all other graces; this ought to provoke us to practise this duty, the rather seeing so great fruit cometh by it, the blessing of all blessings, Christ Jesus is made ours (Heb 3:13-14).3. We have other reasons used by the same apostle (Heb 10:25-26). Fearful judgments remain for all backsliders.4. The day of the Lord draweth near, and we must take heed that it take us not unprepared; we must therefore stir up ourselves and others to look for it and to long after it. Lastly, we see evil men do it in evil and to evil. They labour by all means to make others as bad as themselves. This also we see in this place, much more therefore ought we to teach and instruct one another, and be helpers to the most holy faith one of another. (W. Attersoll.)A campaign for GodThe Israelites sent twelve spies into Paran and Kadesh to reconnoitre. I suppose they wanted to see if God’s word was true. That’s always the way with unbelievers. God had said to them, “Go over. I’ll help you. It will be yours. It’s a land flowing with milk and honey. All you’ve got to do is to go and take it.” But they thought they would first find out for themselves what it was worth, and whether they would be able to take it. They brought back what we would call in these days a majority and minority report. Ten said that it would be impossible to take the country. All admitted that what God had told them was true about the milk and honey. Only Caleb and Joshua confirmed the Lord in regard to taking the land. All admitted that the land was good, but ten said they saw giants, and walls, and castles, and that the Israelites would not be able to overcome these. I can imagine these fellows in camp, telling their comrades that they had stood alongside these giants, and had been obliged to look up to see their faces, and that they were to them but as grasshoppers. When we believe, we are able to overcome giants, and walls and everything. A lie generally travels faster than the truth. It is an old saying that a lie will go round the world before the truth can get his boots on to follow him. The world always seems to rejoice whenever anything goes wrong with religion. So thus he went round the camp and found favour with the Jews. “I would rather go back to Egypt and make bricks without straw again. I would rather hear the crack of the slaveholder’s whip again, than encounter these terrors.” That’s the way the Israelites talked, and that is the talk of the unbeliever. I am one of the spies sent out to look at the promised land. I have found it flowing with milk and honey. Let us say whether we fear anything now. Let us go up at once and take the land. I tell you that it is good. If Caleb’s voice had prevailed, the Israelites might have saved forty years in the wilderness. To-day I say that four-fifths of the professed children are not able to reach the land, simply on account of their unbelief. Many persons have told me that I mustn’t expect so great a success as I had in the old country. If I don’t expect it, I won’t have it. We must go at once and take the land. We are able to do it. “Their defence has gone from them.” How easy it is for God to pour out His blessings in such profusion that we will not be able to receive them. That was the difference between Caleb and Joshua and the ten. The ten got their eyes on the walls and the giants, but Caleb and Joshua lifted theirs above and saw Him on His throne. They said that it was easy for God to give them that country as He promised. They remembered how easily He had taken them across the Red Sea; how He had fed them with manna in the wilderness, and how He had made the water gush forth from the barren rock. If God wishes to aid you, then you are well able to go up and take the land. That is the difference between a man who has God with him, and the one who has not. The greatest difficulty we have to encounter is, therefore, the unbelief so current among Christians. Oh, would that God would sweep it away! Our God is able to do it. Let us not limit the power of the Holy One of Israel. Look upward and see Him who sitteth on the right hand of God, and press forward. (D. L. Moody.)Caleb’s spiritWas Caleb, then, a giant--larger than any of the sons of Anak? Was he a Hercules and a Samson in one? Was his arm so terrific that every stroke of it was a conquest? We are not told so; the one thing we are told about Caleb is that he was a man of “another spirit.” That determines the quality of the man. Character is a question of spirit. It is an affair of inward and spiritual glow. Caleb had been upon the preliminary search; Caleb had seen the walls, and the Anakim, and the fortresses, and he came back saying, We can do this, not because we have so many arms only, or so many resources of a material kind, but because he was a man of “another spirit.” In the long run, spirit wins; in the outcome of all history, spirit will be uppermost. The great battles of life are not controversies of body against body, but, as far as God is in them, they are a question of spirit against body, thought against iron, prayer against storming and blustering of boastful men. While the cloud hangs over the field, and the dust of the strife is very thick, and the tumult roars until it deafens those who listen, we cannot see the exact proportions, colours, and bearings of things; but if we read history instead of studying the events of the day which have not yet settled themselves into order and final meaning, we shall discover that spirit is mightier than body, that “knowledge is power,” that “righteousness exalteth a nation,” and that they who bear the white banner of a pure cause ultimately triumph because God is with them. (J. Parker, D. D.)Difficulties may be overcome“It is impossible!” said some, when Peter the Great determined on a voyage of discovery; and the cold and uninhabited region over which he reigned furnished nothing but some larch-trees to construct his vessels. But, though the iron, the cordage, the sails, and all that was necessary, except the provisions for victualling them, were to be carried through the immense deserts of Siberia, down rivers of difficult navigation, and along roads almost impassable, the thing was done; for the command of the sovereign and the perseverance of the people surmounted every obstacle.Numbers 13:32-33They brought up an evil report.The report of the spiesI. God’s promises will always bear investigation. It is true that none of us has entered heaven; but Jesus, who has gone on in advance to take possession of it in His people’s name, has sent back an Eshcol cluster of its vintage, that we may know something of what we should expect. He has given us “the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” The believer already has everlasting life; for the regeneration which he has here experienced needs but to be expanded and elevated and sublimated, to become the life of heaven. It is a confirmation of Jehovah’s word to him; it is the seal of God Himself to the truthfulness of His promise that he shall yet enter into heaven’s own rest.II. There are Anakim to be encountered in the conquest of every promised land. Christ has said, “If any man will come after Me,” &c., and has urged us to count the cost before we commence to raise our tower. So He would prepare us for self-denial, hardship, and long-continued struggle; but we must not suppose that in all this the gospel is an exception to the general law. No Canaan of success, in any pursuit, can be gained save by the conquest of the Anakim. He who would rise to a position of eminence in the department of literature, for example, must learn to “scorn delights, and live laborious days.” He must deny himself many pleasures in which others allow themselves to indulge, and must keep himself, in a sense, secluded from the world, living in his library and at his desk. The man of business who would climb the steep that leads to wealth, must pursue a similar course. He cannot leave his place; he keeps himself chained to the oar; he knows that nothing will avail but work--hard and continuous work; for so only can he conquer those influences that stand in the way of his attainment of his object. It is the same with the artist; and, on a lower platform, with the athlete. All of them have to go into training; and, in every pursuit, a campaign, with its perils and fatigues, comes before a victory. We cannot complain, there-tore, if the same law holds in the spiritual life. The giants with whom we have to contend are mainly in ourselves, in the shape of evil principles and sins that most easily beset us; and it is only through self-conquest that we can pass to any external victory. We cannot vault by one spasmodic leap up to the height of holiness, any more than the Israelites could all at once obtain possession of the Land of Promise. “By little and little” it has to be done. It needs prayer, and watchfulness, and constancy; and if we decline to enter upon the conflict, we shall fall short of the inheritance.III. The true believer is always able to conquer his spiritual adversaries with the help of God. It is not a question of feebleness, but of faith. Whether the work we set before us be our own sanctification, or the evangelisation of the city, or the conversion of the world, the principle is still the same. We can do all things through Christ strengthening us; and if we attempt great things, trusting in Him, we may expect to do great things, not otherwise.IV. There is a point beyond which it is no longer possible to repair the follies of the past. They who will not when they may, shall not when they will. You see this in every department and pursuit of life. Up to a certain limit it seems to be in a man’s power, if he choose, to make up for the past; but beyond that limit it is no longer possible, whether he choose or not. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)The spiesI. In the first place, the ungodly world are not to be excused for that which must, nevertheless, be admitted to be a very natural matter, namely, that instead of investigating religion for themselves, they usually trust to the representation of others.1. The worldly man looks at a Christian to see whether his religion be joyful. “By this,” says he, “shall I know whether there is that in religion which will make a man glad. If I see the professor of it with a joyous countenance, then I will believe it to be a good thing.” But hark, sir! hast thou any right to put it to that test? Is not God to be counted true, even before we have proved Him?2. Again, you say you will test the holiness of Christ’s religion by the holiness of Christ’s people. You have no right, I reply, to put the question to any such test as that. The proper test that you ought to use is to try it yourselves--to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” By tasting and seeing you will prove His goodness, and by the same process you must prove the holiness of His gospel. It will be in vain for you to say at the day of judgment, “Such and such a man was inconsistent, therefore I despised religion.” Your excuse will then be discovered to be idle, for you shall have to confess that in other respects you did not take another man’s opinion. In business, in the cares of this life, you were independent enough; in your political opinions you did not pin your faith to any man’s coat; and, therefore, it shall be said of you at last, you had enough independence of mind to steer your own course, even against the example of others, in business, in politics, and such like things; you certainly had enough of mental vigour, if you had chosen to have done so, to have stood out against the inconsistency of professors, and to have searched for yourselves.II. With that, by way of guard, I shall now bring forth the bad spies. I wish that the men mentioned in the text had been the only spies who have brought an evil report; it would have been a great mercy if the plague that killed them had killed all the rest of the same sort. Remember, these spies are to be judged, not by what they say, but by what they do; for to a worldling words are nothing--acts are everything. The reports that we bring of our religion are not the reports of the pulpit, not the reports that we utter with our lips, but the report of our daffy life, speaking in our own houses, and the every-day business of life.1. Welt, first, I produce a man who brings up an evil report of the land, and you will see at once that he does so, for he is a dull and heavy spirit. If he preaches he takes this text Through much tribulation we must inherit the kingdom.” Somehow or other he never mentions God’s people without calling them God’s tried children. As for joy in the Lord, he looks upon it with suspicion. “Lord, what a wretched land is this!” is the very height of poetry to him. He is always in the valley where the mists are hovering; he never climbs the mountain brow, to stand above the tempests of this life. He was gloomy before he made a profession of religion--since then he has become more gloomy still.2. But there is another class of professors who bring up a bad report of the land. And this I am afraid will affect us all; in some measure we must all plead guilty to it. The Christian man, although he endeavours uniformly to walk according to the law of Christ, finds still another law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and consequently there are times when his witness is not consistent. Sometimes this witness is, “The gospel is holy,” for he is holy himself. But, alas! with the very best of men there are times when our witness contradicts our faith. When you see an angry Christian, and when you meet with a Christian who is proud, when you catch a Christian overtaken in a fault, as you may sometimes do, then his testimony is not consistent. He contradicts then what he has at other times declared by his acts.III. Thus I have brought forth the evil spies who bring up a bad report; and now we have some good spies too. But we will let them speak. Come, Joshua and Caleb, we want your testimony; though you are dead and gone you have left: children behind you; and they, still grieved as you were at the evil report, rend their clothes, but they boldly stand to it that the land they have passed through is an exceeding good land. One of the best spies I have ever met with is an aged Christian. I remember to have heard him stand up and tell what he thought of religion. He was a blind old man, who for twenty years had not seen the light of the sun. His grey locks hung from his brow and floated over his shoulders. He stood up at the table of the Lord, and thus addressed us:--“Brethren and sisters, I shall soon be taken from you; in a few more months I shall gather up my feet upon my bed, and sleep with my fathers. I have not the tongue of the learned, nor the mind of the eloquent, but I desire, before I go, to bear one public testimony to God. Fifty and six years have I served Him, and I have never found Him once unfaithful. I can say, ‘Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and not one good thing hath failed of all the Lord God has promised.’“IV. And now I want to press with all my might upon every professing Christian here the great necessity of bringing out a uniformly good testimony concerning religion. One of Napoleon’s officers loved him so well that when a cannonball was likely to smite the emperor he threw himself in the way, in order that he might die as a sacrifice for his master. Oh, Christian, you would do the same, I think. If Christ were here you would run between Him and insult--yea, between Him and death. Well, then, I am sure you would not wantonly expose Christ; bug remember, every unguarded word you use, every inconsistent act, puts a slur on Christ. The world, you know, does not find fault with you--they lay it all to your Master. If you make a slip to-morrow, they will not say, “That is John Smith’s human nature”; they will say, “That is John Smith’s religion.” They know better, but they will be sure to say it. Do not allow Christ to bear the blame--do not suffer His escutcheon to be tarnished--do not permit His banner to be trampled in the dust. Then there is another consideration. You must remember, if you do wrong, the world will be quite sure to notice you. They never think of looking at the virtues of holy men; all the courage of martyrs, and all the fidelity of confessors, and all the holiness of saints, but our iniquities are ever before them. Please to recollect that wherever you are, as a Christian, the eyes of the world are upon you; the Argus eyes of an evil generation follow you everywhere. If a Church is blind the world is not. And remember, too, that the world always wears magnifying glasses to look at Christians’ faults. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The evil reporters1. In these wicked reporters see how Moses, that worthy governor, was deceived, for thinking there had been a good choice made of faithful men, the greater part was naught, even ten of the twelve that were sent. So may good men be abused when they mean well, and must not be censured for that which falleth out against their wills. Again, so is the proverb verified “All is not gold that glittereth.” The Lord is to be prayed unto to direct our choices; for weak is the wisdom of man, unless the wisdom of our all-seeing God go before and direct.2. In that they confess it was land that flowed with milk and honey, observe the rich blessings God bestoweth upon men, and make such use in your own particular as he did that said, “O Lord, thou givest to me all things fat and fair, I give to Thee all things lean and foul.” Again, since the country was so good, and the inhabitants so wicked, let it make you remember the religious houses, planted most usually in places that flowed with milk and honey, and yet the possessors so idolatrous, and every way evil, as the world now taketh notice they were. Happy men are they that consider the Lord’s superabounding goodness to them, and make it an argument to press them daily to thankfulness, love, and all obedience to Him both in soul and body.3. Note the manner of their praising of the land. It is with a “but”; surely say they, it floweth with milk and honey; “but,” but what? “But the people be too strong, and we are not able to go up to possess it.” Thus do slanderers ever set out their praises. Such an one is a good man, “but.” Such a woman is a good woman and a good neighbour, “but.” The preacher to-day made a good sermon, “but.” No man hath a better servant, “but.” So ever with one “but” or other they abate their praise, and sting the party or matter praised in the minds of them they speak unto. The Lord of lords and Judge of judges well seeth this their dealing, yea, the world noteth it, and even they, to whom they, howsoever they hold their peace, secretly in their hearts abhor such smoothing calumniation. The end of it with God may appear by this example as fearful a one as may be read in any history. Which you may see was this, that six hundred thousand of them died in the wilderness, and never entered into the Land of Promise, and the infamy of these “butting” reporters abide chronicled to this day in the Book of God, the chronicle to be feared above all chronicles. In county and country, with great and small, these “buts” towards our brethren and good matters are used. God in mercy work the remove of them. (Bp. Babington.)DifficultiesI. There is the Anak speculative. He is bred by much of the scientific tendency of the time. Men make everything of law, and forget a personal God.1. While science has revealed law, it has also revealed marvellous manipulation of law to special uses, viz., telegraph, telephone, phonograph. Now, if man can so use law to special ends without breaking law, cannot God use His own laws, so that they shall come to focus in blessing on my head, and without breaking them?2. The most capacious mind is most attentive to details. The infinite mind does not find details burdensome. Therefore God can care for me, and help me.3. The revelation of the Divine Fatherhood; and fatherhood always means care, love, help, particular attention.II. There is the Anak experimental. He takes such shapes as these--I cannot believe, it is hard to serve God; I cannot make myself love; I have no assurance, &c., &c. If we will only confront this son of Anak by a determined doing of precisely what Christ tells us, we shall soon discover that he cannot stand before us and prevent entrance into the Canaan of forgiveness and of peace.III. There is the Anak volitional. And he is the main Anak that really prevents us. Two sailors going to their boat past midnight, and getting into it that they might row themselves to their ship yonder, with brains fuddled by a spree on shore, laid hold of the oars and tugged and tugged; and when the morning broke found they had not moved an inch. And with clearer brains and in the advancing light they discovered the reason--they had not lifted the anchor. Ah, how often an unlifted anchor of some known sin is the real Anak keeping back and holding back! (W. Hoyt, D. D.)Difficulties determine characterCharacter, like Achilles in disguise at the court of Lycomedes, does not disclose itself till the trumpet blast is sounded, and there is a rush for armour as besuits it.I. Intellectual. Schoolboy finds pathway beset with difficulties. They grow, rather than diminish. Nothing will tell its own mystery: how far we shall proceed will depend upon an unconquerable will and intensest application. As answers, we have illiteracy, scholarship, genius.II. Social Problems of life and government complex and infinite. A few lead; the multitude follow.III. Industrial. We seek and find our own work. Just what is in us will come out.IV. Religious. Here, too, difficulties will not remove themselves. Just how we approach them will reveal the infidel, athiest, or Christian. Conclusion: Life, in all its departments, is of one piece and like texture; and its difficulties are for trial, discipline, and mastery. (L. O. Thompson.)The report of the spies; or, The difference between truth and factsThis was a mean report, it was hardly a report at all--so nearly may a man come to speak the truth, and yet not to be truthful, so wide is the difference between fact and truth. Many a book is true that is written under the name of fiction; many a book is untrue that lays claim only to the dry arguments of statistics and schedules. Truth is subtle; it is a thing of atmosphere, perspective, unnameable environment, spiritual influence. Not a word of what the truth says may have occurred in what is known as literal fact, because it is too large a thing ever to be encompassed within the boundaries of any individual experience. The fact relates to an individuality; the truth relates to a race. A fact is an incident which occurred; a truth is a gospel which is occurring throughout all the ages of time. The men, therefore, who reported about walled cities, and tall inhabitants, and mountain refuges, and fortresses by the sea, confined themselves to simply material considerations; they overlooked the fact that the fortress might be stronger than the soldier, that the people had nothing but figure, and weight, and bulk, and were destitute of the true spirit which alone is a guarantee of sovereignty of character and conquest of arms. But this is occurring every day. Again and again we come upon terms which might have been written this very year. We are all men of the same class, with an exceptional instance here and there; we look at walls, we receive despatches about the stature of the people and the number of their fortresses, and draw very terrible conclusions concerning material resources, forgetting in our eloquent despatches the only thing worth telling, namely, that if we were sent by Providence and are inspired by the Living God and have a true cause and are intent to fight with nobler weapons than gun and sword, the mountains themselves shall melt whilst we look upon them, and they who inhabit the fortresses shall sleep to rise no more. This is what we must do in life--in all life--educational, commercial, religious. We have nothing to do with outsides and appearances, and with resources that can be totalled in so many arithmetical figures; we have to ascertain, first, Did God send us? and secondly, if He sent us, to feel that no man can drive us back. (J. Parker, D. D.)The testimony of a Christian life“Now lads,” said the late Duncan Mathieson, the Scottish Evangelist, to a lot of boys who had been converted at his meetings, “the people here are not in the habit of reading their Bible to learn what God says to them, but I’ll tell you what they’ll read. They’ll read your lives and ways very carefully to see if you are really what you profess to be. And mind you this, if they find your lives to be inconsistent with your profession, the devil will give them this for an excuse in rejecting Christ.” Very true indeed are these words. Would that we could lay them more constantly to heart t The life of the professing Christian is the only book of evidences that many people ever read in reference to Christianity. The Christian professor’s life is thus the world’s Bible. When there are inconsistencies and flaws in it, then the world makes these a plea against religion. Let us remember that the world’s eyes are upon us. Let us keep our book of evidences clear and pure.Reason better than imaginationI think it was Henry Ward Beecher who used to relate how when he was a boy there was no stove in the church which he then attended. Some of the worshippers began to think that they might be better with a fire, but they were opposed by others, who thought that a stove should have no place in the house of the Lord, indeed that they could not get to heaven from a church with a stove in it but, despite their fierce opposition, the elders by a narrow majority ultimately decided to have it, and accordingly it was procured and placed in the church. On the following Sunday the doubters mustered strong. Some complained of being very warm, and others declared they were nearly stifled, while a few boldly pronounced that the stove had no right to be there at all, and together they made a rush for the offending piece of furniture, to turn it out of the building, when lo, to their surprise, they found it was empty. These people were very bad reasoners, but had a great imaginative faculty.Folly of exaggerating the enemy’s strengthIt is a bad plan to exaggerate the enemy’s strength; to do so is to increase it. Our English warriors have owed many a victory on land and sea to the confidence with which they entered the fight. Francis Drake was playing bowls on the Hoe at Plymouth when information was brought him of the appearance of the terrible Armada. Some were for hurrying away at once; but the great sailor insisted on finishing the game, gaily assuring his comrades: “ There will be plenty of time to beat the Spaniards.” It is with something of the same dauntless spirit that we should enter upon our holy war. There was real wisdom in the lad’s answer when asked what he thought of the first two chapters of Job. He had but just learned to read, and had set himself with firm resolve to read the Bible through from Genesis to Revelation. He had now come to Job, and his friend asked, “Well, what do you think of it?” “Well,” replied the child, “I don’t like that Satan a bit; and when I get to learn to write and when I have to write Satan, I will always write Satan with a small ‘s.’” Alas! too many of us would have to write the word in large capitals if our writing expressed our feelings. Fear and timidity magnify the foe. Let us learn a holier and braver lesson. (G. Howard James.)Numbers 14Numbers 14:1-3The people wept.Truths in tearsI. That to entrust the important affairs of society to the conduct of men of an inferior type is a great evil. Feeble-minded, and mean-hearted men, at the head of society, have always impeded its onward march, and endangered its interests.II. That whilst it is common, it is not always well to follow the majority.1. Because truth does not depend upon numbers. The crowds that skirt the base of a mountain cannot see as much as the man who climbs the heights and takes his view from the lofty summit. The solitary eagle sees more than can “the cattle upon a thousand hills.”2. Because numbers in the present state of the world are likely to be wrong.III. That it is not a wise thing to follow the opinions of men rather than the word of God.1. Because God’s word is infallible; men’s opinions are not so.2. Because God’s word ensures strength to the obedient; men’s opinions do not.IV. That it is a sad evil to forget, under present trial, the past merciful interpositions of God. Had the Israelites remembered God’s wonderful interpositions in their behalf, the recollection would have given their spirits a moral force, which would have enabled them to bear with magnanimity the greatest trials, and to brave with undaunted hearts the greatest perils, and the greatest opposition (Psa 77:10-11; Psa 27:9; 1Sa 17:37).V. That a life of servility eats out the independency of human nature. These Israelites, after their long servitude in Egypt, had scarcely anything of the heart of a man left within them. The only thing that could resuscitate their expiring life, and wake up their manhood, was a system of trial to throw them upon their own resources. (Homilist.)A warning against murmuring and discontentThere are three good reasons why we should learn to mind this warning.1. For our own comfort. Suppose you have a long walk to take every day, but you have a thorn in your foot or a stone in your shoe. Could you have any comfort? No; the first thing to do would be to rid yourself of thorn or stone. Till this was done you could not have the least comfort. But a feeling of discontent in our minds is just like that thorn or stone. It will take away all the comfort we might have, as we go on in the walk of our daily duties. A bishop was once asked the secret of the quiet contented spirit which he always had. He said, “My secret consists in the right use of my eyes. When I meet with any trial, I first of all look up to heaven; I remember that my chief business in life is to get there. Then I look down upon the earth, I think how small a space I shall need in it when I die; and then I look round and think how many people there are in the world who have more cause to be unhappy than I have. And so I learn the Bible lesson, ‘Be content with such things as ye have.’”2. For the comfort of others. A contented spirit is to a home what sunshine is to the trees and the flowers. John Wesley used to say, “I dare no more fret than curse or swear. To have persons around me, murmuring and fretting at everything that happens, is like tearing the flesh from my bones.”3. The third reason why we should mind this warning against discontent, is to please God. No trials can ever come upon us in this world without God’s knowledge and consent. He is so wise that He never makes a mistake about our trials, and so we try to be patient and contented, because we know that this will be pleasing to God. (British Weekly Pulpit.)Causeless sorrowGiving credit to the report of the spies, rather than to the word of God, and imagining their condition desperate, they laid the reins on the neck of their passions, and could keep no manner of temper; like foolish, froward children, they fall a-crying, yet know not what they cried for. It had been time enough to cry out if the enemies had beaten up their quarters and they had seen the sons of Anak at the gate of their camp; but they that cried when nothing hurt them deserved to have something given them to cry for. And as if all had been already gone they sat them down and wept out that night. Note, unbelief and distrust of God is a sin that is its own punishment. Those that do not trust God are continually vexing themselves. The world’s mourners are more than God’s, and the sorrow of the world worketh death. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 14:4Let us return into Egypt. The rewards of the future not to be slighted because of a present inconvenienceThe proposition of the people illustrates anew the principle that all sin is a species of insanity. They proposed to go back to Egypt. How did they suppose they were going to get back? Could they expect to live in the wilderness without the manna which God gave them? Could they overcome Amalek without Moses to intercede in their behalf? Would God be more likely to deliver them in a cowardly retreat than in a loyal advance? Could they hope again for water to flow from the rock to quench their thirst? or for favouring winds to open a new path through the Red Sea? When some departed from the Saviour, He said to His disciples, “Will ye also go away?” and they returned the pathetic answer, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” But, alas! the children of Israel were ready to go back from the promised land to the dangers of the wilderness and to the hopeless bondage of Egypt. In the words of Matthew Henry, “They wish rather to die criminals under God’s justice than live conquerors in His favour. How base were the spirits in those degenerate Israelites, who, rather than die (if it came to the worst) like soldiers in the field of honour, with their swords in their hands, desire to die like rotten sheep in the wilderness!” Similar paradoxes in the conduct of sinners abound in the world. A slight present danger or inconvenience is suffered to blind the eyes to great rewards in the future. A small hazard before us is likely to seem far greater than much more serious dangers behind us. Under the smart of present ills, we are ever ready to shut our eyes to the innumerable ills we know not of. The miners of England cursed the inventor of the safety-lamp because, in reducing the hazard to their lives, it diminished also their wages. Multitudes of young people attempt to evade the trials and self-denials of the ministerial calling or of missionary work, by choosing some profession or business that is more lucrative or gratifying to their ambitions. In this they fail to remember that there is a poverty in other callings than the ministry; that the high-road of selfishness is through a wilderness strewn with the carcasses of those who have fallen hopeless by the way. What is Wall Street but a maelstrom around which are circling innumerable vessels fated to augment the debris of countless wrecks already in the vortex? What is the path to worldly glory and fame but a crowded throroughfare of hungry and thirsty men, the majority of whom are moving on to inevitable disappointment? On the other hand, the path of the righteous, whatever its present shadows, shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. (G. Frederick Wright.)The folly of impatience 1. It was the greatest folly in the world to wish themselves in Egypt, or to think if they were there it would be better with them than it was. If they durst not go forward to Canaan, yet better be as they were than go back to Egypt. What did they want? What had they to complain of? They had plenty, and peace, and rest; were under a good government, had good company, had the tokens of God’s presence with them, and enough to make them easy even in the wilderness, if they had but hearts to be content. But whither were they thus fond to go to mend themselves? To Egypt! Had they so soon forgot the sore bondage they were in there? Like brute beasts, they mind only that which is present, and their memories, with the other powers of reason, are sacrificed to their passions.(Psa 106:7). We find it threatened (Deu 28:68) as the completing of their misery, that they should be brought into Egypt again, and yet that is it they here wish for. Sinners are enemies to themselves, and those that walk not in God’s counsels consult their own mischief and ruin.2. It was a most senseless, ridiculous thing to talk of returning thither through the wilderness. Could they expect that God’s cloud would lead them or His manna attend them?(1) The folly of discontent and impatience under the crosses of our outward condition. But is there any place or condition in this world that has not something in it to make us uneasy if we are disposed to be so? The way to better our condition is to get our spirits into a better frame.(2) The folly of apostacy from the ways of God. Heaven is the Canaan set before us, a land flowing with milk and honey: those that bring up ever so ill report of it cannot but say that it is indeed a good land, only it is hard to get to it. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)To retreat is to perishTo retreat is to perish. You have most of you read the story of the boy in an American village who climbed the wall of the famous Natural Bridge, and cut his name in the rock above the initials of his fellows, and then became suddenly aware of the impossibility of descending. Voices shouted, “Do not look down, try arid reach the top.” His only hope was to go right up, up, up, till he landed on the top. Upward was terrible, but downward was destruction. Now, we are all of us in a like condition. By the help of God we have cut our way to positions of usefulness, and to descend is death. To us forward means upward; and therefore forward and upward let us go. While we prayed this morning we committed ourselves beyond all recall. We did that most heartily when we first preached the gospel, and publicly declared, “I am my Lord’s, and He is mine.” We put our hand to the plough: thank God, we have not looked back yet. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 14:6-9The Lord is with us: fear them not.A noble effort to arrest a nation’s rebellionI. Joshua and Caleb were deeply grieved by reason of the rebellion of the nation.II. Joshua and Caleb nobly endeavoured to arrest the rebellion of the nation.1. They reassert the excellence of the land.2. They declare the attainableness of the land.3. They exhort the people not to violate the conditions of its attainment.(1) By rebelling against the Lord.(2) By dreading the people of the land.III. Joshua and Caleb were in danger by reason of their effort to arrest the rebellion of the nation. “All the congregation bade stone them with stones.” See here--1. The tactics of an excited mob when defeated in argument.2. The folly of an excited mob. This proposal to stone Joshua and Caleb was insane.(1) Stoning would not disprove the testimony, or take away the wisdom from the counsel of the two brave explorers.(2) Stoning would involve the nation in deeper guilt and disgrace.3. The perils of faithfulness.IV. Joshua and Caleb rescued from danger by the interposition of God. (W. Jones.)An encouraging declarationI. A supposition. “If the Lord delight in us” (Pro 8:30). God delights in His Son, &c. He delights in His holy angels, &c. But have we reason to suppose that He delights in His saints?1. We might conclude, indeed, that He could not delight in them, when we reflect--(1) On their nothingness and vanity. “Man at His best estate,” &c.(2) On their guilt and rebellion. Not one but is a sinner.(3) On their pollution and want of conformity to His likeness.(4) And more especially when we reflect on His greatness, independence and purity.2. But there are the most satisfactory evidences that He does delight in His people.(1) Observe the names by which He distinguishes them. His “jewels”--“inheritance”--“treasure”--“diadem”--“crown” and “portion.” See the very term in the text. And Pro 11:20.(2) Observe the declarations He has made respecting them. “He that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of Mine eye.”(3) Observe what He has done for them. Favoured--sustained--redeemed them--given His Son--Spirit--promises.(4) What He has provided for them. “The Lord God is a sun,” &c. “My God shall supply,” &c. “Eye hath not seen,” &c.(5) Eternal life and unceasing glory.II. An inference. “Then He will bring us into this land,” &c. Observe here--1. The land specified. It is “the land afar off.” The good land. The heavenly Canaan. Tile region of immortality.2. This land is God’s gift. Not the result of merit. It is given in promise--given in Christ.3. To this land God must bring His saints. Difficulties, enemies, and dangers intervene. He will guide to it. Keep--safely conduct, and at length put people into it, as He did Israel. “Fear not, little flock,” &c. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” &c. (Rev 2:10; Rev 2:26; Rev 3:5; Rev 3:12). (J. Burns, D. D.)The boldness and fidelity of Joshua and CalebI. How sound was their reasoning!1. They drew a strong argument from the assurance that the Lord was with them, bat that the defence of the Canaanites had departed from them. They spoke of the country itself as worthy of the contest.2. They reminded the people of the danger of disobedience, as appeared from their past history; and from the character of God. Sin was the only giant that they had reason to fear. Happy would it have been for the people, had they listened to these arguments.II. How resolute was their spirit! Personally, no doubt, it would have been much more pleasant to remain in the tent; but viewing this as an opportunity of doing good, and glorifying God, they encountered the shame of uttering sentiments which were reprobated; and the danger of advising measures which were disliked. Thus numbers in the present day say, “Religion is all very well in its place”; but they have no idea of glorifying God, and endeavouring to save souls, by acting with the decision that Caleb and Joshua did. We, too, may mourn over sin, but we must do something more; we must use all our influence to put it down, and to lead forward the Israel of God.III. How undivided was their aim! Their one desire was to get the land; and therefore if popular opinion coincided with them, well; but if not, they would not be guided by it. They could do without riches, or honour, or life itself; but they could not do without Canaan. (George Breay, B. A.)Numbers 14:11How long will this people provoke Me? Mistrust of God deplored and denouncedI. The sin of israel is here defined: “How long will it be ere they believe Me?” Observe that God’s account of all the murmuring and fear which these people felt was simply that they did not believe Him. They doubtless’ said that they were naturally afraid of their enemies: the Anakim, the sons of the giants, these would overcome them. “No,” says God “that is an idle excuse. No fear of giants would enter their minds if they believed Me.” If these sons of Anak had been ten times as high as they were, yet the almighty Lord could vanquish them, and if their cities had been literally as well as figuratively walled up to the skies, yet Jehovah could smite them out of heaven, and cast their ramparts into the dust. Gigantic men and battlemented cities are nothing to Him who divided the Red Sea. When the Omnipotent is present opposition vanishes. “Ah,” but these people might have replied, “we fear because of our weakness. We are not a drilled host, like the armies of Egypt. We know not how to fight against chariots of iron: we are only feeble men, with all these women and children to encumber our march. We cannot hope to drive out the hordes of Amalekites and Canaanites. A sense of weakness is the cause of our terror and complaint.” But the Lord puts the matter very differently. What had their weakness to do with His promise? How could their weakness affect His power to give them the land? He could conquer Amalek if they could not. Our trembling is not humility, but unbelief. We may mask it how we please, but that is the state of the case as God sees it, and He sees it in truth. Mistrust towards God is not a mere weakness, it is a wickedness of the gravest order.II. Describe this sin of not believing.1. At the first blush it would seem incredible that there should be such a thing in the universe as unbelief of God. Jehovah’s word is but Himself in action, His will making itself manifest; and is it to be supposed that this can be a lie under any conceivable circumstances whatsoever? Oh, the incredible infamy which lies even in the bare thought of calling in question the veracity of God. It is so vile, so unjust, so profane a thing that it ought to be regarded with horror, as a monstrous wrong.2. Consider, next, that, though unbelief certainly exists, it is a most unreasonable thing. If God hath made a promise, on what grounds do we doubt its fulfilment? Which of all the attributes of God is that which comes under suspicion? Truth enters into the very conception of God: a false god is no God. Any other doubt in the world may plead some warrant, but a doubt of God’s truthfulness is utterly unreasonable, and if sin had not filled man with madness, unbelief would never find harbour in a single bosom.3. Again, because this sin is so unreasonable, it is also most inexcusable. As it is to the glory of every man to be upright, so it is to the honour of God to be faithful to His solemn declarations. Even on the lowest conceivable ground, the Lord’s own interests are bound up with His truth. There is no supposable reason why the Lord should not be true: how dare we then, without the slightest cause, cast suspicion upon the truthfulness of the Most High?4. I venture to say that unbelief of God’s word ought, therefore, to be impossible. It ought to be impossible to every reverent-hearted man. Doth he know God and tremble in His presence, and shall he think of distrusting Him? No one that hath ever seen Him in contemplation, and bowed before Him in sincere adoration, but must be amazed at the impertinence that would dare to think that God can lie.III. The sin bitterly deplored. We have all been guilty of it. But what I want to call to your remembrance is this, that in any one case of doubting the truthfulness of God there is the full venom of the entire sin of unbelief. That is to say, if you distrust the Lord in one, you doubt Him altogether. The Scripture calls Him, “God who cannot lie.” Do you think He can lie once, then He can lie and the Scripture is broken? “Ah, but I mean He may not keep His promise to me; I am such an unworthy person.” Yes, but when a man forfeits his word it is no defence for him to say, “I told an untruth, but it was only to an unworthy person.” No, the truth must be spoken irrespective of persons. I have no right to deceive even a criminal. “Do you dare say that to one person the Lord can be untrue? If it can be so, He is not a true God any more. You may as well doubt Him about everything if you distrust Him upon any one matter. Do you reply that you doubted Him upon a very trivial matter, and it was only a little mistrust? Alas! there is a world of iniquity in the faintest discredit of the thrice-holy Lord. Reflect, then, with sorrow that we have been guilty of this sin, not once, but a great many times. Timorousness and suspicion spring up in some bosoms like weeds in the furrows. They sing the Lord’s praises for a great deliverance just experienced, but the next cloud which darkens the sky fills them with fear, and they again mistrust Divine love.IV. Lastly, as we have now deplored this sin, we shall conclude by heartily denouncing it.1. This sin of unbelief, if there were no other reason for denouncing it, let it be reprobated because it insults God.2. This is sufficient reason for denouncing it, and yet since weaker reasons may perhaps help the stronger, let me mention that we are bound to hate unbelief because it is the ruin of the great mass of our race. Why are men lost? All their sins which they have done cannot destroy them if they believe in Jesus, but the damning point is that they will not believe in Him Thus saith the Scriptures, “He that believeth not is condemned already.” Why? “Because he hath not believed on the Son of God.”3. We may hate it, again, because it brings so much misery and weakness upon the children of God. If we believed God’s promises we should no longer be bowed down with sorrow, for our sorrow would be turned into joy. We should glory in our infirmities--sea, we should glory in tribulation also, seeing the good result which the Lord bringeth forth from them. The man who steadily believes his God is calm, quiet, and strong.4. One very shocking point about this unbelief is that it has hampered the work of Christ in the world. The Christ that can save is a Christ believed in, but of a Christ who is not believed in it is written, “He did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)The sin of unbelief1. The heinousness of unbelief; shun it.2. The large number and convincing character of the evidences of Christianity; remember that our faith should bear a proportion to them. “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required,” &c.3. God takes our conduct as evidence of our belief or unbelief; let us show our faith by our works. “Faith without works is dead.” “Faith worketh by love,” &c.4. Take heed lest we be disinherited because of unbelief (Rom 11:20-21; Heb 3:12-19; Heb 4:1-11). (W. Jones.)God’s complaintTwo things God justly complains of to Moses.1. Their sin: They provoke me; or, as the word signifies, they reject, reproach, despise Me; for they will not believe Me. That was the bitter root which bore the gall and wormwood. It was their unbelief that made this a day of provocation in the wilderness (Heb 3:8). Note, distrust of God, and His power and promise, is itself a very great provocation, and at the bottom of many other provocations. Unbelief is a great sin (1Jn 5:10); and a root sin (Heb 3:12).2. Their continuance in it: How long will they do so? Note, the God of heaven keeps an account how long sinners persist in their provocations, and the longer it is, the more He is displeased.The aggravations of their sin were--1. Their relation to God. This people; a peculiar people; a professing people. The nearer any are to God in name and profession, the more is He provoked by their sins, especially their unbelief.2. The experience they had had of God’s power and goodness, in all the signs which He had showed among them, by which one would think He had effectually obliged them to trust Him and follow Him. The more God has done for us, the greater is the provocation if we distrust Him. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Faith induced by inward discipline as well as by external evidenceIt seems almost incredible; and yet when we think of it, it is only too natural. It is important to remember that faith is a plant of slow growth. It cannot be suddenly summoned into existence on a special emergency; and in order to its development there must be not only “evidences” presented from without, but a discipline going on within. We are apt to think that because so many deliverances have been wrought for Israel, therefore their faith must have become very strong. We forget that though God had done His part all the way through, they never had done theirs. Their faith was really utterly unexercised. It is not faith, to trust in God after He has wrought deliverance. That was all they did. If they had ever learned to trust Him before the deliverance came, it would have been a different thing. They had had abundant opportunities for the exercise of faith; but they had let them all pass by. They had contracted a habit of distrust. And instead of becoming stronger in faith, they were actually getting weaker; and accordingly when the crisis came, it was only what was to be expected that their courage should utterly fail, simply because it had no faith to rest upon. How shall we stand the test when our day of crisis comes? The answer will depend on the antecedent question, how we have improved those opportunities which have been previously given for the development of our faith. “He that is faithful in that which is least, is faithful also in much.” “Weighed in the balances and found wanting.” After all their advantages they missed the prize. The appeal of Joshua and Caleb was the last opportunity; they never had another. “The glory of the Lord appeared” (verse 10), no longer to open up a way for them, but to frustrate their rebellious attack on His two faithful servants, and to pass sentence of condemnation on the entire congregation. Through the mediation of Moses, the lives of the people are spared; but they are degraded from their position as the hosts of the Lord. (J. M. Gibson, D. D.)All the signs which I have shewed.--Miracles no remedy for unbeliefNothing is more surprising to us at first reading than the history of God’s chosen people; it seems strange that they should have acted as they did age after age, in spite of the miracles which were vouchsafed them.I. Hard as it is to believe, miracles certainly do not make men better; the history of Israel proves it. The only mode of escaping this conclusion is to fancy that the Israelites were much worse than other nations, which accordingly has been maintained. But as we see that in every other point they were exactly like other nations, we are obliged to conclude, not that the Israelites were more hard-hearted than other people, but that a miraculous religion is not much more influential than other religions.II. Why should the sight of a miracle make us better than we are?1. It may be said that a miracle would startle us, but would not the startling pass away? Could we be startled for ever?2. It may be urged that perhaps that startling might issue in amendment of life; it might be the beginning of a new life though it passed away itself. This is very true; sudden emotions--fear, hope, gratitude, and the like--all do produce such results sometimes; blot why is a miracle necessary to produce such effects? Other things startle us besides miracles; we have a number of accidents sent by God to startle us. If the events of life which happen to us now produce no lasting effect upon us then it is only too certain that a miracle would produce no lasting effect upon us either.III. What is the real reason why we do not seek God with all our hearts if the absence of miracles be not the reason, as assuredly it is not? There is one reason common both to us and the Jews: heartlessness in religious matters, an evil heart of unbelief; both they and we disobey and disbelieve, because we do not love.IV. In another respect we are really far more favoured than the Israelites. They had outward miracles; we have miracles that are not outward, but inward. Our miracles consist in the sacraments, and they do just the very thing which the Jewish miracles did not: they really touch the heart, though we, so often resist their influence.V. Let us then put aside vain excuses, and instead of looking for outward events to change our course of life, be sure of this, that if our course of life is to be changed, it must be from within. Let us rouse ourselves and act as reasonable men before it is too late; let us understand, as a first truth in religion, that love of heaven is the only way to heaven. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)Numbers 14:12I will smite them . . . and will make of thee a greater nation.Proffer of Jehovah, and answer of MosesThis is the second time that Jehovah, in His holy anger, had proposed to deal thus with Moses and make him the head of a righteous seed to receive the inheritance which Israel has so justly forfeited. How would any one else have acted in his place? As the offer comes from Jehovah, can the Judge of all the earth do wrong? And if the forbearance of Jehovah is exhausted, may not the patience of Moses well be? Here is an offer that will release him from the thankless burden of a cowardly, degraded people, which has again and again almost crushed him. Shall he not accept it, and not only free himself from trouble, but rise to the greatness in history of being the outflowing stock of the visible kingdom of God? No, Moses has in himself an intrinsic greatness of soul beyond all that, though it may make his name less celebrated. He will not dissociate himself from his people. He will rather be the type of the great Intercessor who is to come. The singleness of heart with which, as a saint, he loves God shall not impair the passionate love that bound him to his people. Yea, and above the love of his people rises his passionate earnestness for the honour of Jehovah. Lying there prostrate on the ground before the brightness at the tabernacle, hear--as you may almost hear in the Hebrew--his sobs in broken sentences, as he argues the case with Jehovah and pleads for his people. “And Egypt will hear that Thou hast brought Thy people in Thy might out of the midst of her; and they will say to the inhabitants of this land, they have heard how Thou, Jehovah, went in the midst of Thy people, seen of them face to face, and Thy cloud standing over them; even Thou, Jehovah, going in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night. And Thou wilt make Thy people die as one man. And they will say, the nations that have heard tell of Thee: Through being not able to lead His people into the land that He had sworn to them, He hath slain them in the wilderness. And now, I beseech Thee, the might of Jehovah shall be magnified, even as Thou hast spoken, saying, Jehovah, long-suffering and of great mercy, bearing iniquity and transgression, and not cleansing, but visiting the iniquity of fathers upon children to the third and fourth generation: forgive, I pray Thee, the iniquity of this people according to Thy great mercy, and as Thou hast been gracious to them from Egypt up to this present time.” Do not these passionate pleadings raise Moses nearer than any born of woman to the type of the great Intercessor? And yet, now, with the great Intercessor on his side, the least in the kingdom of heaven, who is truly in Christ--one with Christ, is greater in power than Moses at the throne. (S. Robinson, D. D.)The gentleness of MosesOf Moses it was to be said in miniature what of his Antitype can be said in full--that his gentleness made him great. Not when he parted the waters of the Red Sea, not when he sang his hymn of triumph on the shores of liberty, is he half so great as when he bore the sorrows and endured the murmurings of that rude, undisciplined multitude. If ever a man has inherited the earth by meekness, that man was Moses. His was a grand, unselfish life, made to wait upon the lives of others. (G. Matheson, D. D.)Numbers 14:13-19Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people.Moses’ expostulationWhat book but the Bible has the courage to represent a man standing in this attitude before his God and addressing his Sovereign in such persuasive terms? This incident brings before us the vast subject of the collateral considerations which are always operating in human life. Things are not straight and simple, lying in rows of direct lines to be numbered off, checked off and done with. Lines bisect and intersect and thicken into great knots and tangle, and who can unravel or disentangle the great heap? Things bear relations which can only be detected by the imagination, which cannot be compassed by arithmetical numbers, but which force upon men a new science of calculation, and create a species of moral algebra, by which, through the medium and help of symbols, that is done which was impossible to common arithmetic. Moses was a great leader; he thought of Egypt: what will the enemy say? The enemy will put a false construction upon this. As if he had said, This will be turned against Heaven; the Egyptians do not care what becomes of the people, if they can laugh at the Providence which they superstitiously trusted; the verdict passed by the heathen will be:--God was not able to do what He promised, so He had recourse to the vulgar artifice of murder. The Lord in this way developed Moses. In reality, Moses was not anticipating the Divine purpose, but God was training the man by saying what He, the Lord, would do, and by the very exaggeration of His strength called up Moses to his noblest consciousness. We do this amongst ourselves. By using a species of language adapted to touch the innermost nerve and feeling of our hearers, we call those hearers to their best selves. If the Lord had spoken a hesitant language, or had fallen into what we may call a tone of despair, Moses himself might have been seduced into a kindred dejection; but the Lord said, I will smite, I will disinherit, I will make an end; and Moses became priest, intercessor, mighty pleader--the very purpose which God had in view--to keep the head right, the leading man in tune with His purposes. So Moses said, “Pardon”; the Lord said, “Smite”; and Moses said, “Pardon”--that is the true smiting. The Lord meant it; the Lord taught Moses that prayer which Moses seemed to invent himself. The Lord trains us, sometimes, by shocking our sensibilities; and by the very denunciation of His judgments He drives us to tenderer prayer. (J. Parker, D. D.)The intercession of Moses for the doomed nationI. The petition which he presented.II. The pleas by which he urged his petition.1. The honour of the Divine name amongst the heathen.(1) The relations of God with Israel and His doings for Israel were well known amongst neighbouring nations.(2) If God should destroy Israel at a stroke, that also would be known amongst these nations.(3) The interpretation of such destruction by the nations would be such as would reflect on the honour of God. They would conclude that His resources were exhausted; that His power had failed to sustain and lead Israel onward: and thus His glory would be tarnished.(4) That this might not be the case Moses entreats the Lord not to disinherit the rebellious people.2. The Divine character as revealed to Moses.3. The truth of the Divine word.4. The forgiveness which God had already bestowed.Conclusion: From this intercession of Moses let us learn--1. How to plead with God for ourselves.2. How to plead with God for others, and especially for His people. (W. Jones.)God’s pardoning grace in the past an encouragement to seek for the same in the presentI. God is as able and as willing to forgive now as ever he has been.II. Man is now, as much as ever he has been, the object of God’s compassion.III. God’s purpose with regard to the human race is now what it ever has been. (David Lloyd.)The power of intercessionThe intercession of Christians, who are already formed, is the leaven which is to leaven the whole earth with Christianity. It is one of the destined instruments, in the hand of God, for hastening the glory of the latter days. Take the world at large, and the doctrine of intercession, as an engine of mighty power, is derided as one of the reveries of fanaticism. This is a subject on which the men of the world are in a deep slumber; but there are watchmen who never hold their peace day nor night, and to them God addresses these remarkable words: “Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give Him no rest till He establish and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” (T. Chalmers.)The mercy of God (Num 14:18):--I. What we are to understand by the mercy of god. It is His goodness to them that are in misery, or liable to it. Thus the mercy of God is usually, in Scripture, set forth to us by the affection of pity and compassion; which is an affection that causeth a sensible commotion in us, upon the apprehension of some great evil that lies upon another, or hangs over him. Hence it is that God is said, in Scripture, to be grieved and afflicted for the miseries of men. But though God is pleased in this manner to set forth His mercy and tenderness towards us, yet we must take heed how we clothe the Divine nature with the infirmities of human passions. When God is said to pity us, we must take away the imperfection of His passion, the commotion and disturbance of it, and not imagine any such thing in God; but we are to conceive that the mercy and compassion of God, without producing the disquiet, do produce the effects of the most sensible pity.II. That this perfection belongs to God. I will only produce some of those many texts of Scripture which attribute this perfection to God. “The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious” (Ex 34:6). “The Lord thy God is a merciful God” (Deu 4:31). “The Lord your God is gracious and merciful” (2Ch 34:9). “Ready to pardon, gracious and merciful” (Neh 9:17). “All the paths of the Lord are mercy” (Psa 25:10). “Unto Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy” (Psa 62:12). “Merciful and gracious” (Psa 103:8). “With the Lord there is mercy” (Psa 130:7). And so (Jer 3:12; Joe 2:13; Jon 4:2; Luk 6:36), “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” The Scripture speaks of this as most natural to Him. In 2Co 1:3, He is called “the Father of mercies.”III. The degree of it. A God of great mercy. Scripture speaks of it as if God was wholly taken up with it, as if it was His constant employment, so that, in comparison of it, He doth hardly display any other excellency; “All the paths of the Lord are mercy” (Psa 25:10); as if, in this world, God had a design to advance His mercy above His other attributes. The mercy of God is now in the throne; this is the day of mercy; and God doth display it, many times, with a seeming dishonour to His other attributes, His justice, and holiness, and truth.1. Preventing mercy. Does not that man owe more to his physician who prevents his sickness, than he who, after the languishing, the pains of several months, is at length cured by him?2. Forbearing mercy. And this is the patience of God, which consists in the deferring or moderating of our deserved punishment. Hence it is that “slow to anger,” and “of great mercy,” do so often go together.3. Comforting mercy (2Co 1:3).4. His relieving mercy, in supplying those that are in want, and delivering those that are in trouble.5. Pardoning mercy. And here the greatness and fulness of God’s mercy appears, because our sins are great (Psa 78:38). And the multitude of God’s mercies because our sins are many (Psa 51:1).Uses--1. We ought with thankfulness to acknowledge and admire the great mercy of God to us.2. The great mercy of God to us should stir up in us shame and sorrow for sin. The judgments of God may break us; but the consideration of God’s mercy should rather melt us into tears (Luk 7:47).3. Let us imitate the merciful nature of God.4. If the mercy of God be so great, this may comfort us against despair.5. By way of caution against the presumptuous sinner. If there be any that encourage themselves in sin, upon the hopes of His mercy; let such know that God is just, as well as merciful. (Abp. Tillotson.)Long-suffering of GodWe may safely assert that Jeremy Taylor is none the less vigorous for illustrating the long-suffering of God by the Rabbinical story that the archangel Michael, being God’s messenger of vengeance, had but one wing, that he might labour in his flight, while Gabriel had two wings, that he might “fly swiftly” when bringing the message of peace. (J. Pilkington.)Great mercyGod’s mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time, and then gives great favours and great privileges, and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God. As John Bunyan well says, “It must be great mercy or no mercy, for little mercy will never serve my turn.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 14:20-23I have pardoned according to thy word.God’s answer to Moses’ prayerI. The extremity of the sentence is receded from (Num 14:20). “I have pardoned,” so as not to cut them all off at once and disinherit them. See the power of prayer, and the delight God takes in putting an honour upon it. He designed a pardon, but Moses shall have the praise of obtaining it by prayer; it shall be done “according to thy word.” Thus, as a prince, he hath power with God and prevails. See what encouragement God gives to our intercessions for others, that we may be public-spirited in prayer. See how ready God is to forgive sin, and how easy to be intreated. “Pardon,” saith Moses (Num 14:19); “I have pardoned,” saith God (Num 14:20). David found Him thus swift to show mercy (Psa 32:5). He deals not with us after our sins.II. The glorifying of God’s name is in general resolved upon” (Num 14:21). It is said, it is sworn, “All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.” Moses in his prayer had showed a great concern for the glory of God. “Let Me alone,” saith God, “to secure that effectually, and to advance it by this dispensation. All the world shall see how God hates sin even in His own people, and will reckon for it; and yet how gracious and merciful He is, and how slow to anger.” Thus when our Saviour prayed, “Father, glorify Thy name,” He was immediately answered, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again” (Joh 12:28). Note, those that sincerely seek God’s glory may be sure of what they seek.III. The sin of this people which provoked god to proceed against them is here aggravated (Num 14:22; Num 14:27); it is not made worse than really it was, but is shown to be exceedingly sinful. It was an evil congregation, each bad, but altogether in congregation very bad.1. They tempted God--tempted His power, whether He could help them in their straits; His goodness, whether He would; and His faithfulness, whether His promise would be performed. They tempted His justice, whether He would resent their provocations and punish them or no. They dared Him, and in effect challenged Him, as God doth the idols (Isa 41:23) to do good or do evil.2. They murmured against Him. This is much insisted on (Num 14:27). As they questioned what He would do, so they quarrelled with Him for everything He did or had done, continually fretting and finding fault. It doth not appear that they murmured at any of the laws or ordinances that God gave them, through they proved a heavy yoke; but they murmured at the conduct they were under and the provision made for them. Note, it is much easier to bring ourselves to the external services of religion and observe all the formalities of devotion than to live a life of dependence upon and submission to the Divine Providence in the course of our conversation.3. They did this after they had seen God’s miracles in Egypt and in the wilderness (Num 14:2). They would not believe their own eyes, which were witnesses for God that He was in the midst of them of a truth.4. They had repeated the provocations ten times, i.e., very often. God keeps an account how oft we repeat our provocations, and will sooner or later set them in order before us.5. They had not hearkened to His voice, though He had again and again admonished them of their sin.IV. The sentence passed upon them for this sin.1. That they should not see the promised land (Num 14:2), nor come into it (Num 14:30; Psa 95:11). Note, unbelief of the promise is a forfeiture of the benefit of it. The promise of God should be fulfilled to their posterity, but not to them.2. That they should immediately turn back into the wilderness (Num 14:25). Their next remove should be a retreat; they must face about, and instead of going forward to Canaan, on the very borders of which they now were, they must withdraw towards the Red Sea again. “To-morrow turn ye”; that is, “Very shortly you shall be brought back to that vast howling wilderness which you are so weary of; and it is time to shift for your own safety, for the Amalakites lie in wait in the valley ready to attack you if you march forward.” Of them they had been distrustfully afraid (Num 13:29), and now with them God justly frightened them.3. That all those who were now grown up to men’s estate should die in the wilderness; not all at once, but by degrees. They wished they might die in the wilderness, and God said “Amen” to their passionate wish, and made their sin their ruin.4. That in pursuance of this sentence they should wander to and fro in the wilderness, like travellers that have lost themselves, for forty years, i.e., so long as to make it full forty years from their coming out of Egypt to their entrance into Canaan (Num 14:33-34). Thus long they were kept wandering--(1) To answer the number of the days in which the spies were searching the land. They were content to wait forty days for the testimony of men because they could not take God’s word; and therefore justly are they kept forty years waiting for the performance of God’s promise.(2) That hereby they might be brought to repentance, and find mercy with God in the other world, whatever became of them in this.(3) That they might sensibly feel what a dangerous thing it is for God’s covenant people to break with Him. “Ye shall know My breach of promise, both the causes of it--that it is procured by your sin, for God never leaves any till they first leave Him; and the consequences of it--that it will produce your ruin. You are quite undone when you are thrown out of the covenant.”(4) That a new generation might in this time be raised up, which could not be done all of a sudden.V. The mercy that was mixed with this severe sentence.1. Mercy to Caleb and Joshua; that though they should wander with the rest in the wilderness, yet they, and they only of all that were now above twenty years old, should survive the years of banishment and live to enter Canaan.2. Mercy to the children even of these rebels. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)All the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.The earth filled with the glory of the LordI. The import of the promise before us. Glory is the manifestation of excellence. The glory of God is that display of His most blessed character and will which opens the way for His intelligent creatures to know, to love, and to obey Him. This glory is exhibited in various ways. It shines in all the works of creation. All the works of God, we are told, praise Him. Again, the glory of God is manifested by the works of His providence. But above all is the glory of God displayed in the work of redemption. Now, when the gospel, which proclaims this plan of mercy, shall be preached and received throughout the world, when every kindred and people and nation and tongue shall not only be instructed in its sublime doctrines, but also brought under its benign and sanctifying power, then, with emphatic propriety, may it be said that “the earth is filled,” &c.II. What reason have we for believing that these scenes of glory will one day be realised?1. Our hope is founded on Jehovah’s faithful and unerring promise. “Hath He said, and shall He not do it?”2. Our confidence that the religion of Christ will one day fill the whole earth with its glory is confirmed by the consideration that this religion is, in its nature, adapted above all others to be a universal religion. Its doctrines, its worship, and its system of moral duty are all equally adapted to universality.3. The present aspect of the world furnishes much reason to hope that the accomplishment of this promise is drawing nigh.III. What is our present duty in relation to the promise before us.1. Undoubtedly our first duty is to believe the promise. Unbelief poisons the very fountain of Christian confidence, cuts the nerves of all spiritual exertion, and tends to despondency.2. Another duty incumbent upon us in relation to this promise is to labour and pray without ceasing for its accomplishment.3. A third duty in relation to the promise in the text is that in labouring for the spread of the gospel no adverse occurrence, however painful, ought to discourage us or at all to weaken either our confidence or our efforts.4. A further duty in reference to the promise before us is that we pray without ceasing for the power of the Holy Spirit, to render all the means which are employed for its accomplishment effectual. (S. Miller.)God’s gloryWhen you understand that the glory of God is not self-laudation, nor enriching His own power, nor multiplying His own treasures, but that it is supremely to make others happy; when you understand that the glory of God means loving other people and not Himself, mercy and not selfishness, the distribution of His bounty and not the hoarding it up; when you understand that God sits with all the infinite stores of redemptive love only to shed them abroad upon men for ever and for ever, then you form a conception of what it is for God to reign for His own glory. If love is His glory; if generosity is His glory; if giving is His glory; if thinking of the poor is His glory; if strengthening the weak is His glory; if standing as the defender of the wronged is His glory; if loving and watching over every being that He has created for ever and for ever is His glory, then blessed be that teaching which represents that God does reign for His own glory. That is a glory which is worthy of the Divine regality. It will bring out blossoms of joy and gladness in heaven and on earth. (H. W. Beecher.)The majestic consummationProgress must be gradual toward that majestic consummation which shed its lustre from afar on the eyes of those in what we call the semi-civilised tribes of Judaea long ago. Progress must be gradual. Men of the world sometimes say derisively that it is very slow. “You say you have thirty thousand converts. What are they among so many?” Well, my friend, will you tell me what great effect has ever been realised in a short space of time? What city was ever builded to its ultimate completeness in one year or in ten years? Your growth here in Chicago has been phenomenally rapid and fast, and yet you go back over half a century and more to see the beginning of your city life. Will you tell me what national literature was ever developed to its completeness in one generation or in five? Will you tell me what government was ever established in equity and wisdom, even with the heroic efforts of men who gave their lives to its service, in one century or in two? Will you tell me what physical continent was ever transformed from barbarism to the beauty of civilisation in one century or in two? Great works imply always gradual progress; and nothing is more preposterous than to suppose that this immense, surpassing work, which man says is too great ever to be accomplished, is to be accomplished within a few generations. Why, there is an interval of ages between the cave or the skin tent, or the hemlock hut and any one of our modernly equipped houses. There is an interval of ages between the first attempt at a song or a narrative and the completed literature which dates from that attempt. There is an interval of ages between the hollow log floating on the water and the majestic steamship that unites the hemispheres. Gradual progress towards the mighty effect is the law everywhere; and we are simply foolish, we simply entertain the most preposterous notion that can ever come into the human mind, if we are offended because the expectation is not realised that in one year or ten years, in one generation or five generations, the work of redeeming the world unto Christ and purifying it unto His beauty is not accomplished. But let us also never forget that supreme fact that God is behind this progress, and that it never will cease until God is dead--never while Omnipotence has power, never while the Divine wisdom foresees the end from the beginning, never until the heart of God is turned to indifference or hostility towards His children on the earth. There is one banner that never goes down in any battle, and that is the banner of God’s truth. There is one army that always marches to success, and that is the army of the Cross. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)They shall not see the land.--A bitter disappointmentIt was a weary journey from Kibroth-hataavah to Hazeroth, and thence to Kadesh, probably the weariest of the entire route. Moses spoke of it afterwards as “that great and terrible wilderness.” And so at last the hosts came to Kadesh-barnea, on the very borders of the Land of Promise, within sight of the low hills, the flying buttresses, so to speak, of the verdant table-land which first arrests the eye of the traveller coming up from the vast limestone plain of the desert. How welcome that spectacle, after the four hundred miles of journey which had occupied the people for the past fifteen months! Welcome as the land-haze to Columbus, or as his native village nestling in the embrace of the hills to the returning traveller. It must have been specially grateful to the eye of Moses.I. His hopes. As yet God had graciously veiled from him the weary journeys of the forty years that were to succeed. From the words he addressed to the people he evidently counted on a comparatively brief struggle, sharp but short, through which they would pass to their possession (Deu 1:19-21). As he said these words must there not have been, deep in his heart, a sigh of relief now his task was almost done and he might lay down his weighty responsibilities? Who can doubt that some such hopes and thoughts as these filled his soul, and whispered the one deep sweet word, “Rest! rest!” No more the daily gathering of manna, because it was a land of wheat and barley, in which they should eat bread without scarceness. Is it not thus that we all picture to ourselves some blessed landscape, lying warm and sunny under the smile of Heaven? Life is pretty hard just now--a march over a great and terrible wilderness, a stern fight. But never mind, it cannot last; there must be respite; the long lane must have a turning, the wilderness-march must have a Canaan. But suppose it be not so! What if He who loves us better than we love ourselves has marked out stations in a desert-march that lead right up to the mount from which we are to ascend to our Father’s home! What if we are to fight with Moab, and meet Balaam, and see every one of those with whom we commenced life droop around us!II. The quarter from which his disappointment came. It came entirely from the people.1. Their first mistake was in desiring to spy out the land (chap. 13:1). But the proposal did not emanate from the Lord; it had another origin. As in the case of Saul, the King of Israel, God gave them what they would have. It was a profound mistake. Had not God promised to give them the land, and could they not trust His choice? They had but, as Moses said, to go up and possess that which He had given.2. Their second mistake was in receiving the discouraging report of the majority of the spies. The difference between the two lay in this, that the ten looked at God through the difficulties, as when you look at the sun through a reversed telescope and it seems indefinitely distant and shorn of its glory, while the two looked at difficulties through God. And the people sided with the ten. Here was a fatal mistake. Unbelief never gets beyond the difficulties, the cities, the walls, the giants. Faith, on the other hand, never minimises them, but looks them steadily in the face, turns from them, and looks up into the face of God and counts on Him. Note, that they lost Canaan not because of the graves of lust, but because of their unbelief. My brother, do not sit down beside that grave of lust and suppose that that is going to settle your future. Never 1 Know thou this, that the only thing which can exclude thee thence is that thou wilt not believe in a forgiveness and grace which are like the blue arch of heaven above thee or like the immensity of eternity itself.3. Their next mistake was in their murmuring, which proposed to substitute a captain for their tried friend and God-given leader. “All the congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron,” &c. This was perhaps the bitterest hour in Moses’ life. They had proposed to elect a captain before, but it was when he was away; but this was proposed before his face. What unutterable agony rent his breast, not only that he should be thus set aside, but that the anger of God should be thus provoked by the people He loved! And as he lay there did he not also, in those dark, sad moments, see the crumbling of his fairy vision, the falling of a shadow over the fair prospect of his hopes, as when a pelting shower of rain hides all a landscape which a moment before had lain radiant in the summer light? So it has befallen in our own experience not once nor twice. We had been on the point of realising some long-cherished hope. We were within a day’s march of it. And suddenly there is some one or more to whom we are tied, and their education is not complete. They cannot yet go over into the good land. Because they cannot we may not. And as we stand there the voice says, “To-morrow turn and get you back into the wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.”III. His refusal to escape the disappointment. The dream of Moses for a speedy entrance into the land might even yet have been realised. If all the people were cut off, and he spared to be a second Abraham, the founder of the nation, it might be possible even yet for him to pass into the good land, and, like Abraham, settle there. And so the trial was put into his life. Satan tempts us to reveal the evil in us, God to reveal the good. So God, knowing the hidden nobleness of His faithful servant, and eager that it should be revealed to all the world, suggested to him a proposal that He should smite the people with pestilence and disinherit them, and make of him a nation greater and mightier than they. “Accept it,” said the spirit of the self-life; “thou hast had trouble enough with them.” “No,” said his nobler, truer self; “it may not be. What would become of Jehovah’s fame? and how can I endure to see my people cut off?” There are few grander passages in the whole Bible than that in which Moses puts away the testing suggestion as impossible. And so he turned away from the open gate into paradise, and again chose rather to suffer with the people in their afflictions than enjoy the pleasures of Canaan alone.IV. A contrast to his endurance of disappointment. When the people heard that they were to wander in the wilderness for forty years, till their carcases fell in its wastes, they rose up early in the morning and gut them up to the top of the mountain, saying, “Lo, we are here, and will go up unto the place which the Lord hath promised. But Moses and the ark of the Lord departed not out of the camp.” By force of will and energy they sought to reverse the sentence just passed on them. Moses meekly bowed his head to it, and accepted the discipline of those long years. Do not times come into our lives like this? We have come to the brink of some great opportunity, and the prize has seemed within our reach; but by some outburst we have shown ourselves unable or unfit to possess it. God puts us back. He says in effect, “You are not fit to enjoy the blessing yet. You must go back to the common round, sit at the daily task, plod around the dull millwheel.” But we will not submit to it. “Nay, but we will go up.” We will storm the position; we will not be thwarted. It is a hapless and useless resolve. You cannot force the gate. Better a hundred times wait meekly outside, learning the lesson of patience and faith. The obscure journeyings of the forty years will then yield their harvest of blessing.V. Moses’ solace in disappointment. Yet there were springs at which that weary spirit slaked its thirst. The sense that he did the will of God; the blessedness which unselfishness always brings to the elect spirit; the joy of seeing the result of the Divine discipline in the growing earnestness and strength of His people; the reception of daily grace for daily need--all these were his. But even better than these, there was the growing realisation that the true rest of which he dreamed was not to be found in any earthly Canaan, however enticing, but in that rest of heart, that repose of the nature in God which is alone permanent and satisfying, amid the change and transience of all human and earthly conditions. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)The result of one false stepA single false step may bring with it irretrievable forfeiture of good when the good is conspicuous and attainable. This is true in temporal things. In all lives there are crises, more or less observable, on which the complexion of all their future depends. Some great advantage is set before us that if improved will be the making of us; but we doubt its value or reality or the sincerity of the offer, or it is not quite to our taste, or we lack courage to encounter the difficulties, to incur the dangers that lie in the way of its attainment. There are walled cities to be stormed, sons of Anak to be fought, and the difficulty and peril are magnified by a timorous imagination. We refuse, and the golden opportunity is let slip and will not come again. There is nothing for us but a life of poverty, obscurity, meanness, of hard, unfruitful toil and meagre results. And in spiritual things such crises also occur, and are as much more solemn as the interests they involve are more momentous. There are instances when the soul is awakened to attend to its spiritual concerns, and the proposal of heavenly good is made to us with such distinctness that we are compelled to determine whether we will labour in the good “that endureth unto eternal life” or take up with what this world offers and can afford. The choice is inevitable. We cannot cheat ourselves into the belief that we are merely weighing the question and postponing the decision to a more “convenient season.” We may doubt whether the good that is proposed to us is so essential to our welfare as it is represented to be, or whether our enjoyment of its benefits is really so dependent upon the resolution we then come to. Or we may timidly shrink from the requisite self-denial and labour, and cover up our cowardice under a pretty show of modesty and self distrust, a doubting of our competency to fulfil the obligations and meet the temptations of a consistent course, and may even plead our fear of dishonouring God’s cause by our weaknesses and failings. But, nevertheless, the choice is made, and there is too much reason to fear that it may be made finally and for ever. The Canaan that seemed so near that we could see it with our eyes recedes, and the garish world again asserts the full influence of its tawdry beauties. The blessed vision may never come back to us again. Henceforward we can only look upon “the things that are seen and are temporal.” And what is left to us if we make this mad and fatal choice? What is this world but a wilderness, where there is nothing to meet the wants of the immortal soul, where in our aimless pilgrimage we turn back upon our steps, and never reach a goal that can afford us solid satisfaction. Poor, poor portion of those whose aims rise no higher than the beggarly profits which a worldly life can give! And then when at last his “feet stumble on the dark mountains,” naked he must return to go as he came,” “and nought remains to him but the dark noisome grave and an awful accounting with God. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.)Numbers 14:24My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully. Caleb’s characterI. The dignity of Caleb’s character “My servant.”1. The Lord justly demands our services.2. The Lord distinctly recognises His servants.II. The commendation of Caleb’s piety. “Another spirit.”1. The commendation of Caleb’s excellent spirit.(1) Believing;(2) Courageous.2. The commendation of Caleb’s faithful conduct. He was decidedly, universally, and eminently pious and faithful.III. The recompense of Caleb’s fidelity. “Him will I bring into the land,” &c. This gracious promise may be Considered as partially applicable to the people of God in all ages, and suggests two important truths by way of direction and encouragement.1. God highly approves of fidelity and decision. Nothing is so important as the Divine approbation. His favour is life. The characters He approves are greatly honoured and blessed.2. He will fully reward His approved followers. There is a present reward, both of temporal benefits and spiritual enjoyments (Psa 34:9-10; Mat 6:33; Eph 1:3; Psa 84:11). There is also a future reward of eternal bliss. (Sketches of Four Hundred Sermons.)Caleb--the man for the timesIt is a rough name that--“Caleb.” It signifies “a dog.” But what matters a man’s name? Possibly the man himself was somewhat rough; many of the heartiest of men are so. As the unpolished oyster yet beareth within itself the priceless pearl, so ofttimes a rugged exterior covereth worth. A dog, moreover, is not all badness. It hath this virtue, that it followeth its master; and therein this Caleb was well named, for never dog so followed his master as Caleb followed his God. The name, however, has another signification, and we like it rather better: it means “All heart.” Here was a fitting surname for the man whose whole heart followed his God.I. Caleb’s faithful following of his God. He never went before his God. That is presumption. The highest point to which the true believer ever comes is to walk with God, but never to walk before Him.1. He followed the Lord wholly; that is, universally, without dividing. Whatever his Master told him to do he did. I wish we could say the same of all professed Christians. You see Caleb was quite as ready to fight the giants as he was to carry the clusters. We have a host who are ready for sweet duties and spiritual engagements which bring joy and peace; but as for the fighting of giants--how many say, “I pray thee have me excused”!2. Caleb followed the Lord fully; that is, sincerely, without dissembling. He was no hypocrite; he followed the Lord with his whole heart. One of the safest tests of sincerity is found in a willingness to suffer for the cause.3. Caleb followed the Lord wholly; that is, cheerfully, without disputing. Those who serve God with a sad countenance, because they do what is unpleasant to them, are not His servants at all. Our God requires no slaves to grace His throne; He is the Lord of the empire of love.4. He followed the Lord constantly--without declining. Having begun when he first started upon the search to exercise a truthful judgment, he persevered during the forty days of his spyship and brought back a true report. Forty-five years he lived in the camp of Israel, but all that time he followed the Lord, and never once consorted with murmuring rebels; and when his time came to claim his heritage, at the age of eighty-five, the good old man is following the Lord fully. Still his speech bewrayeth him; he shows a constant heart. God set His seal upon that man’s soul in his youthful days, and he remained his God when grey hairs adorned his brow. How many professors fail in this respect!II. Caleb’s favoured portion.1. In reward for his faithful following of his Master his life was preserved in the hour of judgment. The ten fell, smitten with plague, but Caleb lived. “Blessed is the man who hath the God of Jacob for his confidence.” If any man shall experience special deliverances, Caleb is he. It he follows God fully, God will fully take care of him. When you look to nothing but your Master’s honour, your Master will look to your honour. When Queen Elizabeth sent a certain merchant over to Holland he complained to her, “If I do your Majesty’s business, my own business will be ruined.” “You do my business,” said the Queen, “and I will see to your business.” It is so with our God. “My servant, serve thou Me, and I will serve thee.” Caleb is willing to give his life for his Master, and therefore his Master gives him his life.2. Caleb was also comforted with a long life of vigour. At eighty-five he was as strong as at forty, and still able to face the giants. If there be a Christian man who shall have in his old age a vigour of faith and courage, it is the man who follows the Lord fully. We gain our old saints from among those faithful young ones.3. Caleb received as his reward great honour among his brethren. He was at least twenty years older than any other man in the camp except Joshua. “All died, and their carcases were buried in the wilderness, except that man and Joshua the son of Nun.” At their council he would be regarded with as much reverence as Nestor in the assemblies of the Greeks; in their camps he would stand like another Achilles in the midst of the armies of Lacedaemon.4. Caleb had the distinguished reward of being put upon the hardest service. That is always the lot of the most faithful servant of God. There were three huge warriors in Mount Hebron; no one will undertake to kill them except it be our good old friend Caleb. These Anakims, with their six toes on each foot and their six fingers on each hand, are to be upset and driven out. Who is to do it? If nobody else will offer himself, here is Caleb. Nay, he does not merely allow himself to be sent upon the service, but he craves permission to be allowed to take the place, the reason being because it was the worst task of the war, and he panted to have the honour of it. Grand old man! Would God thou hadst left many of thy like behind thee! If there is some pleasant thing to do for Christ, how we scramble after the service; but if there be a front place in the battle, “Oh, let Brother So-and-so do it.” Do not you notice the way the most of men decline the honour of special danger? “Our friend So-and-so is much better qualified for that; let him take it.” If we were true heroes, we should each of us contend which should undertake the most hopeless, the most difficult, and the most dangerous task.5. Caleb left a blessing to his children. If I might envy any man, it would be the believer who from his youth up has walked through Divine grace according to his Lord’s commandments, and who is able, when his day comes, to scatter benedictions upon his rising sons and daughters, and leave them with godliness which hath the blessing of this life and that which is to come. The blessing of the upper and the nether springs, then, was the reward of good old Caleb.III. Caleb’s secret character. The Lord saith of him, “Because he had another spirit with him.” He had another spirit--not only a bold, generous, courageous, noble, and heroic spirit, but the Spirit and influence of God which thus raised him above human inquietudes and earthly fears. Therefore he followed God fully--literally he filled after Him. God showed him the way to take, and the line of conduct he must pursue, and he filled up this line, and in all things followed the will of his Master. Everything acts according to the spirit that is in it. Yonder lamp gives no light. Why? It has no oil. Here is another; it cheers the darkness of the cell. Why? It is full of oil, and oil is the mother of light. There are two huge bags of silk. One of them lies heavily upon the ground, the other mounts up towards the stars. The one is filled with carbonic acid gas; it cannot mount--it acts according to the spirit that is in it; it has a heavy gas, and there it lies. There is another full of hydrogen, and it acts according to the spirit that is in it, and up it goes; the light air seeks the lighter regions, and up it mounts. Everything according to its own order. The real way to make a new life is to receive a new spirit. There must be given us, if we would follow the Lord fully, a new heart, and that new heart must be found at the foot of the Cross, where the Holy Spirit works through the bleeding wounds of Jesus. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Caleb’s spirit1. There was in Caleb a very reverend conception of magistracy and government which made him still use some word of honour when he spake of the government. As Jos 14:6-7, “Thou knowest what the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning me in Kadesh-barnes. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to espy the land,” &c. Moses was now dead and gone, yet mark it how Caleb speaketh not of a dead magistrate, but with addition of honour--“the man of God,” “the servant of the Lord”--which words being true, as in Moses they were, they equal--nay, they excel--all the swelling words of our age. Most mighty, high, renowned, illustrious, &c. Words given to great personages, to express their honour and our good affection to them. Now this was another spirit from the murmurers and mutineers, and therefore this is rewarded by God, to whom such reverence of governors is most pleasing. And let it ever teach us that as we see the Lord to observe the differing spirits of men, and accordingly to love them and hate them, to reward them and punish them as their quality is, so we ourselves should be ever careful to observe our own spirits, that so we may see whither we tend, and what either in mercy or justice is like to fall unto us.2. Caleb, when he saw sedition and uproar against the magistrate, rent his clothes for grief, detesting and abhorring in his soul such carriage in men that should obey. This was again another spirit in Caleb most pleasing to God and graceful to Him. Aulus Fulnius, a heathen Roman, meeting his son going to join with Cateline, that traitor, laid hands upon him and slew him, saying with indignation at his villainy, “I begat thee not for Cateline, but for thy country.” And surely except we find that even against our own flesh we could in such a case do what lawfully we might with the like speech that for God, for religion, for their king and country we had begotten them, and not for treason and villainy, we have not that edge of spirit that we should have.3. Caleb had a quiet disposition, not turbulent, not factious, not seditious, but loving order and obedience to superiors--a thing most pleasing again to God, as appeareth by the blessing of him. Adoniah, we know, could not be quiet, but plotting and working till his brother was forced by justice to take away his life, and so make him quiet. Korah and his company will be envious against authority till the earth open and swallow them up. Absalom against his own father cannot harbour a dutiful heart, but must ambitiously be hammering most hateful designs, till the vengeance of God, pursuing such pride, cut him off and hanged him betwixt heaven and earth by the hair of the head, for an example to the world’s end to all busy brains and disloyal hearts. Blessed Caleb was quiet of nature--no stirrer of coals; and the remembrance of him is registered up in God’s book. He was obedient to authority himself, and an earnest persuader of others to the same, whom had they hearkened unto they had escaped God’s wrath and their own ignominy for ever. Oh, sweet quality in a subject, obedience!4. Caleb had a most thankful feeling of their deliverance out of Egypt in general and of his own in particular, detesting to hear of any return thither again with these mutineers; and this again was another spirit pleasing to God and good for himself.5. Caleb used to speak as was in his heart (Jos 14:1-15.); and this again was another spirit than others had, and greatly pleased the Lord. He counterfeited nothing to please men. And what a happiness were it if all men would do so! “Blessed are the pure in heart”; that is, such men as are free from glossing and dissembling.6. The Lord saith of Caleb that he followed Him still; and this was another spirit than others had, pleasing to the Lord and honourable to Him even to this day. So liveth virtue after death. A blessed spirit this was, and happy had these mutineers been if they had had the like. “Commit thy thoughts to Him,” saith Solomon, “and thou shalt be directed”--so safe is it ever to follow Him.7. Lastly, to his following join his constancy. He followed God, and he followed Him still, saith the text. Some have hearts to good things, but not constant, wherefore the exhortations in Scripture are many, to move us all unto this. (Bp. Babington.)A man of real integrityBut to the young--to those who are beginning life--I would fain speak. I would fain inspire them with a higher conception of the safety and of the indispensableness of high moral qualities. Let not those that seem to be succeeding in life tempt you from the simple moralities of your father’s house, which you learned at your mother’s knee. I tell you there is no honour in this world like the honour of honest men. There is no honour like that of men whom you cannot tempt to swerve or bend. The dearest and the scarcest thing in the market to-day is a man who is thoroughgoing and clear-headed, who has right intentions, who chooses clean measures for clean ends, and who is unbribable. Why, such a man as that does not want a statue in Central Park: he is his own monument. We have enough men who are honest as the world goes; that is, who are honest as long as they see it to be their interest to be so, and who will never be dishonest except where dishonesty is profitable. We have men who will bend like a Damascus blade, clear round, hoop-like, and spring back on communion day, straight as a sword; but men who can go out into life and stand alone; men who can say, “The kingdom of my thoughts is greater than any other kingdom”; men who say, “I cannot sleep, nor eat, nor live with a dishonest man, and if I were that man I could not live”; men who believe in the kingdom of God--men of that kind are above all price in every vocation and everywhere; and I wish I could inspire the young with the sense that I have of the value of moral elements and with my faith therein; and higher than all others, and the very breastplate of the preparation for life, is a keen and abiding sense of real integrity. (H. W. Beecher.)Caleb: the distinctions of a great man1. That all men are not animated by the same moral spirit.2. That God recognises the particular spirit that animates men, and deals with men accordingly.I. here is a distinction of spirit. Caleb’s spirit was marked by--1. Independent inquiry. Let us, like Caleb, enter the promised land of truth, and search it for ourselves.2. Heroic faith.3. Reliance on God.II. Here is a distinction of conduct. Caleb followed the Lord “fully”--with all the powers and sympathies of his soul. This includes--1. A knowledge of God’s will.2. A thorough concurrence of the moral heart with His directions.3. An unbounded confidence in His character.III. Here is a distinction of destiny.1. Here is a destiny which stands in contrast with the sad fate of his companions.2. Here is a destiny which he ultimately realised (see Jos 14:6-15). (Homilist.)CalebI. A servant of God, such as Caleb was, possesses a good character. Character is not everything that is required to make one a good servant to an earthly master. But it is the first requisite. He has a good character, and a good character well attested. It was “the majesty in the heavens” who bore testimony concerning Caleb. This leads us from the fact to the source of the good character which the true servant of God possesses. This is revealed in these words of our text concerning Caleb, “He had another spirit with him.”1. The good servant of God has another spirit with his own spirit. He has the Spirit of God with him.2. The good servant of God has another spirit with his old spirit. He who says, “I will put My Spirit within you,” says, “A new heart also will I give you.”II. A servant of God, such as Caleb was, renders good service. A good servant is one who can do good work. The special form of service to which Israel was called, and in which Caleb proved faithful, was that of war. This reminds us that the service of every follower of God is largely a cow, filet. But when he is of the type of Caleb, and acts in character, then--1. Having full faith in his Leader, he is ready to follow him, and--2. Having no fear of the enemy, he is ready to encounter him.III. A servant of God, such as Caleb was, receives a good reward. The return made to a servant for his services may be of two kinds. He may receive a stipulated wage; but, in addition, his services may be acknowledged by special gifts. To this class of returns for service the rewards of God’s servants belong. These may be according to the measure, but they do not rest on the ground of the servant’s faith and obedience. They, are grounded on the gracious free-will of God.1. The servant of God is blessed in himself. He receives blessings now, but greater blessings are in store for him.2. The servant of God is blessed in his children. Not only Caleb, but his seed was to reap the fruits of faith and obedience. So in the spiritual sphere. “The promise is to you and to your children.” These shall inherit the land which faithful parents possess. (A. Paterson, M. A.)On following the Lord fullyI. As the foundation of all, we must look to the inward mind and disposition of him who aims at this character (1Sa 16:7). There is much meaning in that common expression which we are every day using, of making up our minds. When a man says, “I have made up my mind to do this or that thing,” we have no security that he will afterwards act rightly, but we have every reason to expect that he will take a firm and consistent course. So also in religion, the great point is to make up our minds; to come to a clear understanding with ourselves on every point which may affect the consistency of our future course. Wayward and divided affections invariably lead to capricious and hesitating conduct. A firm persuasion of God’s providence, an intimate conviction of His truth, and an unwavering reliance on His goodness, are the groundwork of a character which is equally “acceptable to God and approved of men,” the character of those who “wholly follow the Lord their God.”II. A person who is thus “rooted and grounded in love,” will be prepared to fulfil the next requirement, viz., that of uniform and unreserved obedience.III. But, as Christians, we must not forget that our religion is one of faith as well as of duty. In fact, the doctrines and precepts of the gospel are so mixed up together, and so dependent the one upon the other, that they must be accepted as a whole, as a system, or not at all. To “believe all the articles of the Christian faith” is as incumbent upon those who would follow the Lord fully, as to “keep God’s holy will and commandments, and to walk in the same all the days of their life.” If the preacher is bound to “keep back nothing” from his hearers, so, on the other hand, the hearers must “receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save their souls.” To “follow the Lord fully” is to accept the covenant of grace in its simplicity; to know, and to desire to know, no other terms of salvation than those of “repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”IV. To “follow the Lord fully” is to follow him to the end. When we speak of final perseverance, we are not alluding to any supposed privilege of the saints, commonly called by that name; as if those who have once been truly converted to God, could never finally fall away from it. On the contrary, we believe that so long as we are in the flesh we must “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.” But we speak of persevering in religion as we do of persevering in any other good work, which is begun with ardour, but which, in its progress, meets with difficulties and discouragements such as mere warmth of temper will never enable us to surmount. We speak of that perseverance of the saints which is pointed at in such texts as Mat 10:22; Heb 3:14; Gal 6:9. To “follow the Lord fully” we must pass through all the stages of the spiritual life; we must be subject to all the trials of the Christian course. (F. Field, LL. D.)The upright man:1. The first thing to be carefully attended to is your spirit--the motives, inclinations, and dispositions of your heart.2. A submissive, cheerful obedience to the will of God is essential to the character of an upright man.3. Consider, as a motive and encouragement to Christian fidelity, the certainty of a large reward. (Essex Remembrancer.)On following the Lord fullyI. Let us begin with inquiring what we are to understand by following the Lord fully. And here I must observe that no man can follow the Lord at all till once he be acquainted with Him. Before we can follow God we must not only know that He is supreme, and hath a right to command; but we must likewise believe that He is worthy to command, and infinitely possessed of all those perfections which qualify Him to govern the creatures He hath made. Two things we must be thoroughly persuaded of: first, that the laws of our Sovereign are righteous and good; and next, that He is both able and willing to protect us in His service.II. The duty may be considered as including the following particulars.1. That we acknowledge no other Lord besides Him. It is to make His will the sole and absolute rule of our conduct, in opposition to our own humour, the temptations of Satan, and the corrupt maxims of a world that lieth in wickedness.2. It is to obey Him without any reserve or limitation; it is to serve Him with an affectionate and liberal heart, and to do this at all times.3. It is to follow Him openly, and in the face of the world. It is a profession that is neither ostentatious nor shamefaced; it neither courts observation nor avoids it. The true follower of the Lord, keeping the laws of his Master continually in his eye, performs every duty in its place and season.4. It is to cleave to Him steadfastly when others forsake Him; and to persevere in His service, even when it exposeth us to the world’s hatred, and the persecution of wicked and unreasonable men. I am asking nothing that is unreasonable, nothing that you yourselves can find any pretence to refuse.All I ask is--1. That you should be honest men. You call yourselves Christians; and what is my request but that you be Christians indeed?2. The duty I am recommending is equally necessary to secure the inward tranquillity of your minds; it contributes to your interest, no less than to your honour. How miserable is the man who hath discord within his own breast!3. Our Lord hath in some measure entrusted us with His glory, and called the world to take notice of us, as the persons by whom He expects to be honoured. Oh, how should this fire us with a generous ambition to excel in holiness, that we may exhibit a just representation of the Master we serve, and show that He is in truth what the Scriptures report Him to be--“altogether lovely,” and “fairer than the children of men.”4. I am now going to plead with you from love to your neighbours. This is a principle you profess to honour; nay, if I mistake not, the desire of obliging others, and of rendering yourselves agreeable to them, is your common apology for conforming to their manners, and avoiding the offensive singularity of following the Lord fully. This is a false expression of love. Surely it is no office of love to deceive another to his hurt, or to suffer him to continue in a pleasing mistake, which unavoidably must end in his ruin; such “tender mercies” would indeed be “cruelty.”5. The reward that awaits those who follow the Lord fully. They shall possess that good land of promise, whereof the earthly Canaan was only an emblem or type. (R. Walker.)Caleb1. From what I see of him here, I take Caleb to have been, first of all, a thoughtful person, a considering man, capable of being taught, which cannot be said of many. He had seen no more of God than had all the others, but what he saw, he saw, and after he had come through the Red Sea, and looked at the hand of the Invisible One in the wilderness, he felt that that was enough for a wise man; and so he did not go about afterward, as the others did, to frame doubts or to call every new case different, and say, “True, He saved us there, but can He save us here? He gave us water, but can He give us bread also?” He had no brutal capacity for forgetting, either. When the illustrious moments of God were past, their shining kept with him. He was not so swallowed up in to-day as to forget yesterday, and to say, “Where?” He forgot not how God “had wrought His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan.” On the paths behind us, all along them, are scattered the tokens of a God as wonderful as the God of the Red Sea or the God of the desert; but, like these Hebrews, we must hear the sharp crack of His thunder again to-day, or we will not so much as know that there is a God.2. See next the independence of Caleb. The act altogether nearest the godlike is that of a man who, in the face of opinion and of public shame, and against a fiery current of everybody’s feelings, even of those who are near to being a part of himself, stands fixed in his judgment of what is right, uncorrupted, and unshaken--a liegeman of duty! So stood Caleb; and his attitude is to me the noblest I can imagine. I know it is false and blasphemous, the maxim that “the voice of the people is the voice of God,” yet the mere power of universal opinion, universal feeling, is such that no one can exaggerate it, and few withstand it. He who resists it must be something above or below man. And no fine soul can resist it, unless he is under a higher sympathy--a sympathy with a better public opinion and with the nobler society of God and the just. A sympathy with God and with duty, with the welfare of the people--that, and that only, lifted Caleb up clean out of sympathy with the whole degraded nation.3. See again, not only his independence toward his own people, but his courage. Never was there greater occasion for apprehension. “We are nothing”; all the people, all the leaders, say, “We be not able,” &c. “We are of a gigantic brood, higher and mightier than they all,” say Caleb and Joshua. All courage, if it is not merely animal, rests on something higher--rests often on duty and devotion to others. I think an example of this is seen in Arthur, Duke of Wellington. He was unawed, at the great crisis of Waterloo especially, because of duty. When all Europe, and military men particularly, were under a fascination as of magic from the genius and success of Napoleon, who towered over them like a phantom, the Duke had little or no imaginative fear on the subject. He looked coolly and soberly at the object as it was, and calmly confided in his forces and plans, resting on duty and right. And so this was the man whom God appointed to win: hence Waterloo. He first kept his soul unsubjugated, and the unprecedented and irresistible genius against him did not master or overawe his imagination. But the courage of Caleb was far higher than this; it was against far greater odds, and it was founded not merely on devotion to duty, but on perfect assurance in God. We call this courage, and is was; but it rested on something deeper and far more rare--on trust. The heroic virtues of those old Hebrews were net the heroic virtues of Plutarch; they were all that, but much more. Though the obstacles were bristling before him as high as heaven, the Lord on high was mightier. To go forward was to move in the invincible line of right. See, then, in Caleb just the virtues demanded of us to-day. To us--to each man of us--who have always a crowd of discouragements holding us back, creeping on with but half a heart, to us this exhilarating voice comes like a trumpet sounding from that distant time: “Let us go up, for we are able.” We need the joy, the hope, of courage; and that we may have courage, we need an unbounded trust in God. In this story of the old time--this historical picture, seen far back and illumined with miraculous lights--there is nothing old or strange to me; ourselves are there, in bare fact, as we are every day. We see that the land is good--but ah, the giants! We are appointed to reach a wide and rich and peaceable land through enemies. For this, I have said, we need a will which grasps success, and fastens upon it, and will never let it go; and there is no such courage without a fulness of trust in the heart. But this is not all our need. Listen: “But My servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land.” That is God’s description of the man who wins. “Another spirit”--a spirit the precise opposite of that of the Hebrew mob--and “because he hath followed Me fully.” Wholeness--the heart whole. God does not praise Caleb’s courage and faith, though He might well have done so. One thing fixed the Divine attention and applause: “He hath followed Me fully.” “And him will I bring into the land.” The land--the better land on high--it is for him, and for all such. I sometimes ask myself: Must all this weak race perish except the handful who have a Divine energy in their souls? Ah! Lord God, some of us would follow Thee fully--but our weakness! Breathe Thou light and strength within us, touch us with a better trust, let us see and live in Thy presence, and feel Thy power, and remember Thy gracious promise. And oh, when we have finished our course here “as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,” may we rest in hope, and our record be: “This My servant, because he hath followed Me fully, him will I bring into the land.” (A. G. Mercer, D. D.)The excellency of a gracious spiritI. What that other spirit is which a godly man hath differing from the world.1. A spirit that hath other principles, a better principled spirit than the spirit of the world. Where the spirit is well principled, it is carried on strongly in God’s ways; though the natural parts be weak, though objections against them many, pretences for evil ways fair, it cannot but hold the conclusion, Surely God’s ways are good.2. It works by another rule. When God erected the frame of the world, which was to last but for a few years, He made all by measure. The frame of man’s actions here must be for eternity, and therefore a godly man dares venture upon no other rule but that which is Divine; he looks at the Word as a light to his feet, a lantern to his steps; knowing that every step he goes is either to hell or to heaven. God (1Sa 2:9) keeps the feet of His saints. His way is like the way of the mariner, guided by the heavens.3. Another spirit--that is employed about other things; it is not for mean services, but set on work about high and honourable employments.4. This spirit is carried to other ends; the spirit of the world looks at ease, pleasure, honour, gain, and self in all; it is a low spirit. The most excellent of the heathen, who had the most brave spirits the world had in their time, aimed no higher than to work according to reason, and a natural conscience; knew not what it was to aim at God in all they did: but the spirit of the godly is a raised spirit, looks at God and eternity in all it doth, carries things up to the highest good, and in this comes as near the working of God Himself as may be. Now where the spirit is carried to God as the last end, there the beauty, excellency, glory of whatever it hath or doth is judged according to the reference it hath to God.5. This spirit hath other qualifications; the spirits of the godly are glorious within. As--(1) It is an enlightened spirit; the light of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ, hath shined into it, and transformed it.(2) It is a free spirit (Psa 51:12).(a) A free, disengaged spirit, not entangled with earthly engagements like the spirits of the world, but a spirit that is at liberty (2Co 3:17).(b) Free from the bondage of sin. Not brought under the power of lust or Satan. Not in servile subjection to men.(c) Free in regard of slavish fear. Able to look upon the face of God with joy (Job 22:26).(3) A sublime spirit, raised high by spiritual, heavenly influences, not swelling by pride; a spirit that hath all earthly things under feet, as the Holy Ghost sets out the Church (Rev 12:1).(4) A firm, strong spirit (Isa 11:2). The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of might.(a) First, strong to resist strong temptations.(b) Secondly, strong to overcome strong corruptions.(c) Thirdly, strong to bear strong afflictions.(5) They are generous spirits, as--(a) They are not mercenary, they will not indent with God for what they do; so much as they may get by their service, so much service, and no more. No, they go on in their work, and leave themselves to God.(b) A true generous spirit cannot endure basely to subject itself to any; it knows how to lie under the feet of any to do them good, where God may have honour; but to be serviceable to any man’s lusts whatsoever it cannot endure.(c) A true generous spit it is not ready to take advantages against those that are under it.(d) A generous spirit is diligent to return good, as well as desirous to receive good (as David, Psa 116:12).(e) A generous spirit loves to be abundant in service; it is not satisfied in doing ordinary things; they prize their service as well as their wages (as Joh 17:4).(6) Though sublime and raised as before, yet withal it is an humble, broken, and contrite spirit, one who is poor in spirit; this a blessed conjunction indeed, though it thinks itself too good for any lost, yet not too good to be subject to the least commandment; though not satisfied with mean things, yet accounts itself less than the least of all God’s mercies.(7) It is a public spirit, enlarged for public good; not a narrow, straitened spirit. Godliness doth mightily enlarge the heart of a man.(8) It is a sanctified spirit (1Th 4:8; 1Th 5:23).(a) Net such a mixed spirit as the common spirit of the world: hath not that mixture of filth and dross in it, but is pure.(b) God hath set them apart for Himself (Psa 4:3).(c) All the abilities, common gifts of this spirit are sanctified, a higher excellency is put upon them than they have in the spirits of other men; weak, natural parts in these are more excellent than the strongest not sanctified.(d) It is able to make a sanctified use of what it hath to deal in; of all the works and ways of God, it makes all to he holy to the Lord.(9) It is a true heroical spirit; it is not discouraged by difficulties, it will set upon things a sluggish spirit thinks impossible; it will go through that which such a one thinks can never be.(10) It is a solid, serious spirit; it examines the ground of actions, compares one thing with another, looks much at the issue of things; and this must needs be, because the fear of the great God and of eternity is fallen upon it (Isa 11:2).(11) It is an active, lively spirit, serious, but not sullen, not dull; solid, but not stupid (1Pe 2:5).(12) The spirits of the godly are faithful spirits, faithful to God and men, such as will certainly be true to their principles.6. Another spirit, it feeds upon other comforts, differing from those that common spirits feed upon. They are spiritual comforts, for they are administered to the soul by a special work of the Holy Ghost.II. Wherein the excellency of this gracious spirit appears.1. These spiritual excellencies have this propriety in them--they make a man a better man, wheresoever they are, which bodily excellencies do not, nor all the riches nor honours in the world.2. These spiritual excellencies are the beginnings of eternal life, the same life we shall have in heaven.3. This is not only the life of angels, the life of heaven, but the life of God Himself; for so it is called by God Himself (Eph 4:11).4. This makes him, wheresoever it is, fit to glorify God in the world, and so the soul thus endued is not only a glass to represent, but as a glass to reflect upon the face of God Himself the glory of His own image, and that by a principle within itself.5. These are such as are fit to stand before the Lord, to have converse and enjoy communion with Him.6. This spirit is fit for any service, any employment God calls it to; it is a vessel of mercy, fitted for the Master’s use.7. This spirit puts a lustre of majesty and beauty upon a man.8. This spirit makes men fit for any condition that God shall put them into; they know how to yield to God, to find out God’s meaning, to carry themselves in every condition, so as to work out that which God would have by it; which men of ordinary spirits cannot do.III. A discovery to the men of the world, whereby they may see that their spirits are not like the spirits of Godly men. When grace is gone from the soul the excellency is departed from it; as it was said of Reuben, in respect of that sin of his. How many a man or woman, who have comely bodies, good complexion, beautifully dressed up, but within, spirits most ugly and horrid; spirits full of filth, full of venom and loathsome distempers; men of corrupt minds, as the apostle speaks. How unsavoury to any who have the least of God in them! It is a rule in nature that the corruption of the best thing is always the worst, as a stain in fine cambric worse than in a coarse cloth. So by how much the spirit of a man is more excellent naturally than the body, which is the brutish part, by so much the corruption of the spirit is a greater evil than any the body is capable of. Spirit defilement is such a defilement as defiles everything you meddle with (as Tit 1:15).IV. The reason why the men of the world and the Godly can never agree. Water and oil cannot mingle; no agreement between light and darkness: they look at them as men whose lives are after another fashion.V. Learn to have. A right esteem of such precious-spirited men. There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration is from the Almighty; a spirit inspired by the Almighty, and beautified with His heavenly graces; this ennobles a man indeed; it is the ornament of the hidden man of the heart, the glorious clothing of that which makes truly beautiful and glorious.1. This difference of their spirits from other men is a certain sign of the eternal love of God unto them.2. The spirit receiving these spiritual excellencies from God’s choice everlasting love, receives likewise all other mercies from the same fountain.3. The Lord hath an especial eye upon and delight to dwell with these who are of choice and excellent spirits.4. The excellencies of this spirit are eternal excellencies.5. But principally, these other spirits are most honourable creatures indeed, because they are reserved for other mercies; God gives common mercies to common spirits, but He reserves His choice mercies for choice spirits (2Sa 22:27). Other mercies (in some respect higher) than the very blessed angels themselves have.VI. A rebuke to this vile world, who have vile conceits of this spirit, and abuse men of such excellent spirits. Certainly the Lord will not always suffer choice-spirited men to betrampled under feet; He looks upon them in their lowest estate as His jewels; but the time will come when He will make up His jewels (as Mal 3:17); and then there shall be seen a difference between the righteous and the wicked (Num 14:18). God will own the excellency of the spirits of His servants to be the image of Himself; and what confusion will this be to the ungodly of the world!VII. No dishonour to be singular. Seven notes to discover that Godly men differing from other men proceeds not from proud humorous singularity, but from the choiceness and excellency of their spirits.1. Where humour and conceited singularity prevails with men, there is no evenness, no constancy in their ways, no proportion of one thing with another in their course; they are singular and humorous in some odd foolish things, but in other things where they have as much reason to be singular, they do as others do. But in God’s people you shall see an evenness, constancy, and proportion in the course of their lives; that which makes them singular in one thing, makes them so in all other of the same nature.2. Those who do things out of singularity, they care less for such things they do out of that principle, when they come to be common, than they did before. But it is not so here in the ways of godliness; the more common they grow the better they are; the more doth God’s people rejoice and bless themselves in them, they are the more lovely and amiable in their eyes.3. Humorous, singular men differ exceedingly one from another, one will be singular in one thing and another in another; but God’s people go all the same way, they have the same course with such as they never saw.4. Proud, conceited singularity acts itself especially in things that are taken notice of by others; if others look not after them, and will not vouchsafe to take notice of them, they quickly grow weary of that they do, and this is the best way to deal with such people, to neglect them. But now the special work of godliness, wherein God’s people differ from other men, in which their souls most delight, is in secret things not subject to the view of the world. “The King’s daughter is all glorious within.”5. If it were humorous singularity, it would not bring them so much sweet peace and heavenly joy when they are upon their sick-beds and death-beds; and when they have to deal with God in a special manner, to receive the sentence of their eternal doom, how many then bless God that ever He put it into their hearts to go another way, not according to the common course of the world.6. Surely it is not humorous conceited singularity, because most men who have enlightened consciences, when they are most serious in their best moods, are of this mind.7. It is not singularity, for we have the prophets, apostles, martyrs, saints of God before us, clouds of witnesses, and every one of them worth ten thousands of others. It is safe to follow the way of good men, according to that in Pro 2:20.VIII. Bless God for making this difference between your spirit and the vile spirits of the men of the world. Spiritual blessings have this excellency in them, they cause a man to feel no need of many outward things which others know not how to want; and it is good to be in such an estate, to have no need of a thing, as to enjoy it when we want it. And, further, it is the excellency of spiritual blessings to keep down the body, and to carry the spirit above the body.IX. Communion and converse with men of such excellent spirits is a most blessed thing. Seneca saw so much excellency that morality put upon man, that he says that “the very lock of a good man delights one.” The very sight of such servants of God, who walk close with God, who are careful to keep their spirits clear and shining; truly, it is very delightful, it hath much quickening in it; the uprightness, holiness, spiritual enlightenings, that their souls have, will guide them to advise for God in safe and good ways.X. That all those whose spirits God hath thus differenced should improve this mercy by walking not as other men.1. Your birth is from Him, and therefore it must not be with you as it is with others. Men of high birth will not live as other men do. Hence we read of a custom amongst the heathen, they were wont to derive the pedigree of their valiant men from their gods; to this end, though the thing were not true, yet they believing themselves to be a Divine offspring, they might upon confidence thereof undertake higher attempts than others with the more boldness. Much higher things should those endeavour after who are indeed born of God.2. God hath put forth another manner of power upon your spirits than upon other men; other men have but a general common influence of God’s power let into their spirits; but He hath manifested the exceeding greatness of His power in you; as Eph 1:19.3. God doth put other abilities into you that others have not: that grace with which He hath endued your spirits is a spark of His own Divine nature.4. Your spirits have been made acquainted with more truths; God hath revealed to you the secrets of His councils, of His kingdom; He hath shown you Himself, His glory, His majesty, sovereignty, holiness; He hath shown you the reality, beauty, excellency, equity of His blessed ways. He hath made known to you the certainty, the infinite consequence of the things of eternity.5. He hath separated you for Himself, He hath taken you into a near communion unto Himself.6. More depends upon you than upon others; the weight of many services depends all upon you which are no ways expected to be performed by others. What shall become of God’s name, His glory, &c.?7. Your sins go nearer to the heart of God than others. Other men may provoke God to anger, but you grieve His Holy Spirit.8. The eyes of many are upon you; the name of God, the cause of God is engaged in you.9. You are appointed by God to be the judges of other men (1Co 6:2). God will bring your lives and ways before all the world to judge the world by, and therefore they had need to be very exact, and to have something in them more than ordinary.(1) In self-denial show that you can deny your opinions, your desires, your wills; though you have a strong mind to a thing, though you have fit opportunities to enjoy your desires, yet if you see God may have more honour any other way, you can freely and readily, without disturbance, without vexing, yield.(2) Show the excellency of your spirit’s enabling you to do that which others cannot do, by loving your enemies, praying for them, doing them all the good you can.(3) Fear the least sin more than the greatest suffering.(4) Prize opportunities of service more than all outward contentments.(5) Make conscience of time.(6) Make conscience of thoughts and secret workings of heart, of secret sins to avoid them, and secret duties to perform them.(7) Make conscience of the manner of performing holy duties, as well as the doing of them, and look after them, what becomes of them when they are done.(8) Rejoice in the good of others, though it eclipses thy light, though it makes thy abilities, thy excellences dimmer in the eyes of others.(9) If thou wilt show the excellency of this spirit in some choice thing, then labour to keep the heart low in prosperity, and an heavenly cheerfulness in adversity; not only contented, but joyful, in a quiet, sweet, delightful frame.(10) Be more careful to know the fountain from whence all your mercies come, and to have a sanctified use of them when you enjoy them, than to have the possession of them or delight in them.XI. An exhortation to labour to get this excellent spirit.1. You had need of other spirits, more need than others for the improvement of those great mercies that you have above others. As some fowl that have great wings, yet can fly but little; so many men have great estates, but not having spirits to improve them, they are of little use. Know that your estates are either mercies or miseries, blessings or cursings to you, according as you have hearts to improve them.2. You had need of other spirits for the improving of the large opportunities of service for God and His church that you have more than others; these are as great blessing as your estates or any other dignities you have above others.3. You who are in high and eminent dignities, you have the earnest prayers of God’s servants in all places, that God would raise you up with truly noble, excellent, and gracious spirits, that you may be instruments of His glory. How blessed you if God fulfils the prayers of His servants upon you!4. Again, you have need of other spirits, for your example is looked at more than others, either in good or evil.5. Their sin is worse than others, for it doth more hurt, and therefore their punishment will be greater than others.6. And yet, further, you have need of other spirits because you have temptations greater and stronger than others; you are in greater danger than others. The high estate of great outward dignity is a very dangerous estate if God gives not an extraordinary spirit.7. Above all, you who are honourable and great in the world, you had need labour to be gracious, because sin is more unsuitable to your condition than to others.8. And would it not be a grievous thing to you to see poor, inferior men and women to be lifted up to glory, and yourselves cast out an eternal curse? Have not many of them most excellent precious spirits? Do they not do God far more service than you? Do they not bring more honour to His name than ever you did? Think then with yourselves, why should God put those who are of such choice precious spirits into such a low condition, and raise me to such an high? Is it not because He intends to give me my portion in this life, but reserves better mercies for them afterwards?9. The hopes we have of the continuance of our peace in the happy enjoyment of those precious liberties of the gospel, that in so great mercy have been continued unto us, depends much upon the work of God’s grace upon your souls. You, therefore, whom God hath honoured with excellent parts, that you may not be confounded another day before the Lord and His blessed angels and saints, be you restless in your spirits till you find God hath added a further beauty to them, even the beauty of holiness, the sanctifying graces of His Holy Spirit, that may make you lovely in His eyes, truly honourable before Him, and for ever blessed of Him. Take heed you rest not either in gifts of learning or in gifts of morality; the gifts of morality are yet a further ornament to men’s spirits, but yet they come short of those Divine excellences of spirit that will make it blessed for ever.(1) This other spirit is a renewed spirit (Eze 11:19).(2) This other spirit works from God, and for God.(3) Where true spiritual excellency is, there is a connection of all spiritual excellences, of all graces (Eph 5:9).(4) Where there are true spiritual excellences there is an impulse of heart, a strong bent of spirit in following after the Lord; there is such a powerful impression of Divine truths upon the soul as presses it on with strength in God’s ways, for that it cannot easily be hindered, as the prophet saith (Isa 8:11).(5) Where there are only moral principles, there the soul sees not into, turns not from the evil of sin; it sees not such evil in it as to make it subscribe to the righteousness of God in all those dreadful things that are threatened against it, but thinks they are too hard. Surely God is not so severe a God. God forbid things should be so as those we read of in the gospel.(6) Where there are only natural and moral excellences, they do not raise the soul to a love of the strictest ways of God.(7) Where there is only nature or morality, there is no sense of the breathings of God’s spirit in His ordinances. (J. Burroughes.)A gracious spirit follows God fullyI. What is it for a man to follow God fully.1. A fulness of all graces; though not the degree of all graces, yet the truth of every grace. There is no grace wanting where this evangelical fulness is.2. There is no want, no not of any degree, wherein the soul rests; there is such a perfection as the soul takes no liberty to itself to fail in anything.3. There are sincere aims, as in the sight of God, to attain to the highest perfection, the full measure of holiness; and--4. There is that uprightness of the soul, as it doth not only desire and endeavour to attain, but doth indeed attain to the truth of that I shall deliver.5. The heart is fully set and resolved for God; there is fulness of resolution; so the Septuagint translates that place in Jos 15:8.6. There is a fulness of all the faculties of the soul working after God; full apprehensions, full affections; the soul is filled with the will of God, “That ye may stand perfect, and full in all the will of God” (Col 4:12), as the sails filled with the wind. “My soul and all that is within me praise the Lord,” saith David. As it is in giving men full possession of a house, they give up the keys of every room, so here the soul gives up every faculty to God; the whole soul opens itself to receive the Word and His truth.7. The soul follows God fully in regard of the true endeavours of it to put forth what strength it hath in following the Lord.8. The soul that fully follows the Lord, follows Him without delay in the use of all means and in all the ways of His commandments.9. Again, a soul that follows God fully follows Him in all the ways of His commandments, as the Lord saith of David (Act 13:22).(1) It is willing to follow the Lord in difficult duties, when it must put the flesh to it, in duties that require pains, that cannot be done without some hard things attending on them.(2) One that follows God fully will follow Him in discountenanced duties.(3) One that is willing to follow God fully in all duties, he will follow Him in those where he sees no reason but the bare command of God.(4) The soul that is willing to follow God in all duties, will follow Him in commandments that are accounted little. God expects faithfulness in little things; God prizes every tittle of His law more worth than heaven and earth, howsoever we may slight many things in it, and think them too small to put any great bond upon us.(5) The soul that follows God fully in all duties, is willing to follow Him in duties wherein it must go alone; it is willing to follow God in solitary paths.10. To follow God fully is to follow Him so as to be willing to venture the loss of all for Him, willing to cast off whatsoever comes in the way, though never so dear to us; to follow Him close whatsoever comes in competition with Him when our following Him will cost us the loss of our formerly most dear comforts and contentments.11. To follow God fully is to follow Him only, so as to be willing to dedicate whatsoever God lets us still enjoy to God alone.12. The soul then follows God fully when it carries through the work it undertakes against all discouragements and hindrances, as a ship coming with full sail bears all down before it. It doth not only work, but works thoroughly, works out that it doth.13. One that follows God fully is willing to bind himself to God by the most full and strong bonds and engagements; his spirit is at the greatest liberty when he is most strongly bound to the Lord.14. To follow God fully is to abide in all these constant to the end of our days. That is, we must be constant in God’s ways, not think it enough to enter into them by fits and starts, but the ways of God must be our ordinary track (Pro 16:17).(1) Wherever the Lord brings any to follow Him fully, He causeth such a perfect breach between sin and that soul as there is no possibility that the breach should be made up again.(2) A second reason why that man that follows the Lord fully must needs follow Him for ever, is because at the first giving up himself to God he was content to let go all other holds and all other hopes in all creature-comforts whatsoever, and so to venture himself upon God; he hath no other prop that he doth expect support by. There is a blessed necessity upon him to follow the Lord for ever, and this necessity the soul is glad of.(3) The soul that follows God fully will follow Him for ever, because in the full following of the Lord it finds so much ease, peace, joy, satisfaction, as it is for ever settled and confirmed in this way.II. The excellency of this frame of spirit.1. This is truly to honour God as a God; except God be honoured as infinite He is not honoured as God; where God is followed and not thus, He is followed no otherwise than a creature may be followed. This is not therefore to honour Him as a God, but rather it is a dishonour to that infinite excellency and blessedness of His, whereby He is infinitely above all that creatures are, or that they are any way capable of.2. This full following of God doth much honour the work of grace and the profession of godliness; it shows a reality, power, excellency, and beauty in it3. This has such excellency in it, as that God Himself boasts of such as these are; as they glory in the Lord and bless themselves in the Lord, so the Lord seems to glory in them, and to account His name blessed by them, as you may see how God rejoices in and makes His boast of Job (Job 1:8).4. This following of the Lord fully doth ever attain its end.III. Rebuke to divers sorts whose spirits are not full in following after the Lord.1. As some are convinced, their judgments and consciences arc for God but their lusts carry them violently another way.2. Others rest in their good inclinations, their good desires; they say they would fain do better, and they hope God will accept the will for the deed; they like God’s ways, and speak well of good men, and therefore they think their hearts are for God.3. Others have good resolutions now and then in some good moods; the truths of God come darting in with some power, as they cannot but yield to them, and then they are resolved that they will do better and their lives shall be changed; but yet these vanish too, they follow not God fully.4. Others have strong sudden affections, they feel sometimes some meltings, in sorrow for sin, in hearing the blessed truths of God revealed to them; they feel some sweetness in the working of truths upon their hearts, they have a taste of the powers of the world to come. Yet these are a great way off from following the Lord fully. For--(1) These affections are sudden and flashing; the truths of God pass by them, leaving a little glimmering behind them, or as water passeth through a conduit and leaves a dew; but they soak not into the heart, as the water soaks into the earth to make it fruitful.(2) These are stirred with the pardoning, comforting, saving mercies of God, but not with the humbling, renewing, sanctifying mercies.5. Others follow the Lord, but they follow Him in a dull, heavy manner; there is no spirit, no heat, no life in their following of Him, and therefore they do not follow Him fully. They rest themselves in a lukewarm course; they like well of religion and profession, but what need men go so far, what need they do so much? As Pharaoh said to the Israelites (Ex 8:28).6. Some go beyond this dull lukewarm temper; they are very forward in some things, but in other things their hearts stick; they come not off fully in them.7. There are others who cannot be so easily convinced in what particulars they forsake God in any of His ways; they seem to have a general forwardness in that which is good, but the truth is, they follow themselves, and not God in all; they rise no higher than self in all they do, which their own consciences, upon search made, will tell them: the commandment of God may be made the pretence, but self is the great mover in all.8. Others follow the Lord earnestly a while, but afterwards forsake Him. Many are very hopeful at the first, yet they prove exceeding vile afterwards; yea, the more forward in good at first, the more vile after-as water that hath once been heated, and grows cold again, is colder than ever it was. Let none, then, rest themselves in their good beginnings. The evil of forsaking the Lord were great, if this were all--(1) That all your labour in religion, that all that you have done is lost. It is an evil thing to lose all that we have wrought for; but this is not all.(2) If you leave off from following the Lord, all the good that ever you have done and made profession of shall serve only to aggravate your sin and increase your torment.(3) This leaving off from following the Lord is a great dishonour to God and His ways; an upbraiding of them, as if they were not good enough to draw the heart constantly after them.(4) Such men as these do much mischief in the world; they are grievous scandals.(5) These men shall have their spirits filled with horror; they did not fill up their work in following the Lord; but God and conscience shall follow them with anguish, and fill up their spirits with them.(6) Lastly, these men are hateful both to God and men; they are hateful to men because they go no further, as Heb 10:38.IV. Comfort and encouragement to those who follow the Lord fully. Blessed are you of the Lord, you are honourable in the eyes of God and man, you make up in part that hurt that is done to religion by others. If you be content to give up all to God, to betrust God with all, know that there are many blessed promises full of mercy and encouragement for you; they shall come to you fuller of goodness and blessing than you can imagine. God certainly will remember the kindness of those who are willing to follow Him through the wilderness of difficulties and discouragement (Jer 2:2). You who do thus shall die without stain, which few do; your memories shall be sweet and blessed when you are dead and gone. You shall have “an entrance ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2Pe 1:11). This is promised, not only to those that are godly, but abound in it, as verse 8. They shall be as a ship coming gloriously into the haven with full sail.V. An exhortation to follow the Lord fully.1. There is infinite reason that our hearts should be fully after the Lord. For--(1) There is a fulness of all good in God; He is worthy (Rev 4:11). As that blessed martyr John Ardley once said: “What, have I but one life to lay down for Christ? If I had as many lives as there are hairs upon my head, they should all go for Jesus Christ.” He saw Christ worthy of all he had, yea, of more than he had. This was God’s own argument to Abraham, “Walk before Me and be upright”; be perfect, for I am God all-sufficient; I have all perfection in Me, and therefore be thou perfect before Me.(2) Consider God might have had full glory in your destruction; let Him not be a loser in His showing mercy to you.(3) Christ hath fully gone through the great work of redemption; He would never leave it till He had accomplished all, and said, “It is finished.”(4) Yea, God’s mercier for the present are very full towards you; His pardoning mercies, and His supplying mercies, with all things needful. This was David’s argument (Psa 103:1-3).(5) Wicked men do fully follow after that which is evil; an infinite shame and confusion then would it be to us, likewise unto God, if we should not as fully follow the Lord in that which is good. I have read a passage in St. Cyprian how he brings in the devil triumphing over Christ in this manner: “As for my followers, I never died for them, as Christ did for His; I never promised them so great reward as Christ hath done to His; and yet I have more followers than He, and they do more for me than His doth for Him. Oh, let the thought of our giving the devil occasion thus to triumph over Christ in our slackness and negligence in following after Him cause shame and confusion to cover our faces.”(6) The more fully we follow God, the more full shall our present peace, and joy, and soul-satisfying contentment be (Psa 119:130).(7) There is great reason why we should walk fully after the Lord, because the way that God calls us to walk in is a most blessed and holy way.(8) The consideration of the end of our way should be a strong motive to draw our hearts fully after the Lord in it; the entrance into it is sweet, the midst of it more, but the end of it most sweet of all; there is that coming that will fully recompense all.2. And thus I pass to the second thing propounded in this use, namely, to show what are the causes that hinder men from following the Lord fully. And they are five especially, which I shall but name.(1) Low apprehensions that men have of God; they see not God in His glory, in His greatness; surely they know not God, and therefore it is that their hearts work so poorly after Him (Jer 9:3).(2) Unsound beginnings in the profession of religion are the cause why men do not fully follow after the Lord. Their hearts are not thoroughly broken, not deeply humbled. If cloth be not wrought well at the first, though it shows fair in the loom, yet it will shrink when it comes to wetting. The cause why many do so shrink in the wetting, when they come to suffer anything in the ways of religion, it is because their hearts were not well wrought at first.(3) A third cause is the strength of engagements; their hearts are so wrapped in them, so glued to them, as it is exceeding painful to get them loosened from them, they are so near and dear to a corrupt heart.(4) A fourth thing that hinders men from following God fully, it is going out in the strength of their own resolutions, not in any strength that they receive out of the fulness of Jesus Christ.(5) A fifth cause is the meeting with more difficulties in God’s ways than we made account of, when Christians think only of the good and sweet that they shall meet with in God’s ways; but they do not cast in their thoughts what the troubles are like to be that they shall find in them.VI. That it is the choiceness of a man’s spirit that causes him to follow God fully.1. We shall show what there is in this spirit that doth carry on a man fully.(1) By this a man comes to have a more full presence of God with him.(2) The choiceness of a man’s spirit raiseth it to converse with high things, and so carries it above the snares and hindrances that are below; and being above these, it goes on freely and fully in its course, and is not in that danger of miscarrying as other poor spirits are who converse so much with the things upon the earth; as birds that fly high are not caught by the fowler, they are not taken by his lime-twigs, by his net or pitfall, so as others are who are much below upon the ground (Pro 25:24).(3) The choiceness of a man’s spirit changeth his end and so carries him on fully after the Lord; for when the end is changed all is changed.(4) This choiceness of spirit causeth a suitableness, a sympathy between the frame of the heart and the ways of holiness.(5) This choiceness of spirit causeth a man to look to his duty and not to regard what may follow.(6) The choiceness of a man’s spirit causes a man that if he doth look at any consequences that may follow upon his way, he looks only at the last issue of all. Will it then be peace? shall I then be glad of these ways I now walk in?(7) The choiceness of a man’s spirit strengthens it against the impressions that sensitive objects use to leave upon soft and weak spirits.2. Thus you see what there is in this choice spirit that carries it on fully after the Lord. Now there must of necessity be this, or else this full following of the Lord will never be; nothing else will do it. And that--(1) Because the ways of God are supernatural, and therefore there must be something in the spirit of a man which is supernatural that must reach to them; this which is supernatural in the spirits of godly men we see it in the effects, and we know it is above reason and all natural principles whatsoever.(2) The ways of God are not only above nature but contrary to nature, and therefore there must needs be some special choiceness of spirit to carry a man on in them. In following after the Lord, all natural abilities and common grace will do no more but stop the stream of corrupt nature; they cannot so overpower it as to carry the soul another way; but the work of grace in this choiceness of spirit will do it.(3) The stream of times and examples of men are exceeding strong, and it is not a little matter that will carry on the soul against them.(4) There are so many strong alluring temptations, wherein the wiles of Satan are very powerful to draw the heart away from God, that except there be some special work of God’s grace to give wisdom to discern the deceits of sin and to discern the danger of them, the soul most certainly could never hold on in the way of its following after the Lord.(5) There are so many troubles, oppositions, that it meets withal in this way, that most certainly would drive it out were it not for some choice work of God’s grace in it; but this choiceness of spirit will carry a man through all them.(6) There are so many scandals and reproaches that rise against the ways of God, that if a man hath not more than an ordinary spirit he most certainly will be offended.(7) Yea, God many times hides Himself from His servants, while they are following after Him, and this oftentimes proves the sorest temptation of all, and a greater discouragement than all the rest. It must needs be something extraordinary that preserves a spark in the midst of waves, that preserves a candlelight in the midst of storms and tempests.Use 1: Never wonder then, or be offended, to see so many to fall off from God; few men have choice spirits.Use 2: Hence the world is mistaken, who judge it stubbornness of spirit in God’s servants that will go on in the ways of godliness; they are a kind of inflexible people. No, it is no stubbornness, it is the choiceness of their spirits; you judge it stubbornness because you do not know the principles upon which they go.Use 3: Let those who have this choice spirit encourage themselves in this, that surely it will enable them to follow God fully; let them know--(1) That though they be weak, if their spirits be right, if of the right kind, they shall certainly hold out.(2) Therefore is Christ filled with all fulness of all grace, that out of His fulness thou mayst receive grace for grace.Use 4: If it be this choiceness of spirit that is the only thing that will fully carry after the Lord, then let us learn to look to our spirits: “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it come the issues of life.” But wherein should we look to our spirits?(1) Take heed to your judgments; keep your judgments clear for God and His truth, as it is said (Isa 33:6).(2) Labour to keep conscience clear, take heed of pollution there, take heed of a breach in thy spirit there, for that will weaken it much.(3) Labour to keep thy heart low and humble; when the flesh swells it cannot bear any hard thing upon it; though a member grows bigger when it swells yet it grows weaker; so it is with the soul.(4) Labour to keep the spirit heavenly; mixture of dross will weaken it.(5) Labour to keep thy spirit in a continual trembling frame, abiding in the fear of the Lord all the day long. (J. Burroughes.)Following fullyTo follow God fully demands--1. Sincerity.2. Cheerfulness.3. Heroism. Many temptations and obstacles to be overcome.4. Entireness. No compromise.5. Study. We cannot follow without imitating. Use cannot imitate without knowing the character. (Homilist.)Christian heroismI. True christian heroism aims at great things.II. True spiritual heroism endures great trials in the performance and achievement of its great ends.III. To all such heroism faith is essential.IV. True heroism is under the inspiration and power of great motives. (T. Archer, D. D.)Faithfulness towards God exemplified and rewardedI. That the honest servants of Jesus Christ must distinguish themselves from others by following the Lord fully.1. What it is to follow the Lord fully.(1) It is to follow the Lord only as our great Guide and Leader (Heb 12:2).(2) To follow the Lord fully is to follow Him universally (Psa 119:6).(3) To follow the Lord fully is to follow Him uprightly. A hypocrite does but walk in a vain show. His feet only, not his heart, do follow the Lord.(4) Finally, it is to follow the Lord resolutely, as Ruth did Naomi, in opposition to all discouragements and impediments in the way. There is the river of evil example of the world, but they must strive against the stream; there are corrupt strong lusts of the heart, but they must cut off right hands and pluck out right eyes; and there is the cross that will be laid on their backs, which they must go through with. They must not be as those who go to sea for pleasure, but like hardy mariners who ride out the storm.2. We now proceed to give the reasons of the point.(1) Because the change made in regeneration is a real change though not perfect. Believers are God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” The new creature, from the time of its birth, is perfect in its parts though not in degrees.(2) In closing with Christ there is an universal resignation. They give themselves up wholly to the Lord.(3) The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, and righteousness, and truth (Eph 5:9). When there is not something of all goodness, there the Spirit dwelleth not.II. That they who would follow the Lord fully must have another spirit, another than the spirit of the world, another than their own spirit naturally is.1. A noble elevated spirit, aiming at high things, and is not satisfied with these with which the common herd of mankind are satisfied. Thus Caleb aimed at Canaan (Num 13:30), while the rest were for Egypt again (Num 14:4). Such another spirit have the saints (Php 3:14).2. A spirit of faith (2Co 4:13).3. A spirit of holy courage and resolution (Num 14:9).III. That those who, by following the Lord fully in the time of general declining, distinguish themselves, God will distinguish them from others by special marks of favour in the time of general calamity. We are then--1. To show how those must distinguish themselves from others in the time of general declining, who would have the Lord to distinguish them from others in time of general calamity. Here we observe--(1) That they must be best when others are worst (Gen 6:9).(2) That they must cleave to God, especially in that article in which others are leaving Him, as in Caleb’s case: they must be careful that they be not led away with the sins of the time, that they do not enter into the general conspiracy of the generation against the Lord and His way, whether it be against truth or holiness.(3) That they must witness against every declining, according to their stations, and as they have access, for the exoneration of their own consciences and the honour of God.(4) That they must be mourners over the sins of others, lamenting them before the Lord; sighing for all the abominations which are done in the midst of the land (Eze 9:4). Let us now--2. Point out the marks of favour by which, in times of general calamity, God useth to distinguish such. There is--(1) Liberal furniture for duty, in a large communication of the Spirit, when the Spirit is withdrawn from others (Mat 10:19).(2) Intimation of His special love to their souls. Thus had Caleb in the text, the saints of God have often golden days in the dregs of time upon this account. (T. Boston, D. D.)Of following the Lord fullyI. What we are to understand by “following the Lord fully.”1. That we acknowledge no other Lord besides Him.2. That we obey Him without reserve.3. That we follow Him openly.4. That we cleave to Him steadfastly when others forsake Him, and when exposed by His service to the world’s hatred.II. Press the duty by some motives and arguments.1. If we would be honest men and Christians indeed, we must “follow the Lord fully.” So that it is for our own honour.2. It is necessary to secure inward peace.3. Our Lord has in some respects entrusted us with His glory.4. The love of our neighbour is another motive.5. Those who “follow the Lord fully” shall possess the good land of promise, of which Canaan was only a type. (T. Hannam.)The thorough ChristianTo follow Christ “fully” means resolute, unflinching obedience to all of Christ’s commandments. It is the carrying out of religion to the utmost detail of Christian duty. Such a Christian never asks to commute with his Divine Master as to hard work; he never strikes for an eight hours’ system of labour or higher wages. He is not all the time coming up before that bleeding, self-sacrificing Saviour and whimpering, “Master, I pray thee, have me excused.” He never interprets the Bible in a latitudinarian sense, never reads it in a lax, ultra-liberal light; and if there is a right side to be found to the ethical questions of the hour, his first question is, “What is right? What will please Jesus?” He aims to be thorough in small things, and he loves the wholesome severities of duty. Now, there is a religion nowadays that runs very rapidly on the down grades, and goes fast on the descending grades, but it never climbs. Commend me to the loyal, uncompromising, sturdy Christian that bears a pain, a pinch, or a penalty; a scowl or a scoff; a religion that can afford to get rich, and yet can be humble; that can afford to go into high society, and yet carry Christ there; to a religion that “follows the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” In our day the test is not to go to Smithfield. Our trial is to follow Christ in the warm, relaxing atmosphere of quiet and external prosperity, and not to be enervated thereby. It is very easy to be a Christian sometimes; or rather, for a Christian to be very warm and glowing sometimes. For instance, when a prayer-meeting is crowded with fervent hearts, and the atmosphere is alive with enthusiasm, how easy is it then to catch fire, and to glow, and to sing and pray. It was very easy for Caleb to exercise faith when he was in the valley of Eshcol picking grapes; but to keep up his faith in face of the contagious cowardice and treason of the camp, that was another thing. To hold out with his faith during forty long and wearisome years of marching, that demanded and developed the most resolute principle of his God-loving heart. To serve God faithfully in an irreligious family, or in a counting-house or shop where two-thirds of them are scoffers, and in polite fashionable life, to serve Christ there proves the mettle of your religion. It is one thing to follow Christ when everything helps you; it is quite another thing to follow Christ when everything hinders you. And to follow Christ fully means to keep following Him in every place, and under every circumstance, against the current. I remember when treason first broke out in my own beloved country, it went through our army and navy, and sifted it. We soon found out who would follow the old flag of freedom to the death, and who would desert it. I could point to a Christian merchant who gives so largely and liberally that the amounts seem almost incredible, and I happen to know that that man begins his every day with an hour with Jesus, on his knees, and reading his Bible; he breaks away from his business at noon for the noon-day prayer-meeting. Such a man as that follows Christ fully, and yet he might excuse himself by the very vastness of his traffic and the pressing nature of his immense business. Now when I find such a man here and there in our churches, I feel that each one of these is a Caleb to stir and stimulate others to imitation. Sometime ago, when in a mine, looking through its dark corridors, I every now and then saw the glimmer of a moving lamp, and I could track it all through the mine. The reason was that the miner carried it on his hat--it was a part of himself, and it showed where he went. I said, would that in this dark world every miner of the Master carried his lamp to show where he walks. Such people are Christians everywhere--before their own children, at their own fireside, and in their own homes. In their commercial transactions they buy and sell by the golden rule, and measure their goods with a Christian yardstick. Wherever they can honour God, or set a pure example, and save a sinner by living out Christ, they are ready to do it. In short, they follow Christ fully, and heartily, and faithfully, looking to the inheritance of the reward. And the reason of this is the same reason that Caleb had: for we are told that Caleb had “another spirit.” Theirs is another spirit from the worldling, and another spirit from the gold hunter, the devotee of fashion, the carnally-minded. Their spirit is from above, the fruit of conversion; it is the indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Loving Christ, they love to follow Him; fearing God rather than man, they so live as to please God, who trieth the heart. (T. L. Cuyler, D. D.)Christian thoroughnessWhat we want is not to look Christians, or to pretend Christians, or to profess Christians, but to be Christians. You need not then so carefully guard yourself; you need not be on the ceaseless watch what you do. Take an anagram, read it from the right or from the left, or from the top or from the bottom, it reads the same thing. Take a Christian, look at him at one angle, or look at another angle; look at him in any light or in any direction, and he is a Christian still. The great secret of getting rid of a vast amount of trouble and inconvenience is being a Christian; and when you are a Christian your eye will be single, your body will be full of light, and all influences sanctified and blessed by the Holy Spirit of God, will be sanctifying and will bless all that are connected with you.Difficult ministry the reward of thorough serviceWhen the Spartan king advanced against the enemy he had always some one with him that had been crowned in the public games of Greece. And they tell us that a Lacedaemonian, when large sums were offered him on condition that he would not enter the Olympic lists, refused. Having with much difficulty thrown his antagonist in wrestling, one put this question to him, “Spartan, what will you get by this victory?” He answered with a smile, “I shall have the honour to fight foremost in the ranks of my prince.” The honour which appertains to office in the Church of God lies mainly in this--that the man who is set apart for such service has the privilege of being first in holiness of example, abundance of liberality, patience of long-suffering, zeal in effort and self-sacrifice in service. Thou gracious King of kings, if Thou hast made me a minister in Thy Church, enable me to be foremost in every good word and work, shunning no sacrifice and shrinking from no suffering. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 14:25The wilderness by the way of the Red Sea.The rule of the roadEvery traveller has heard of the “rule of the road,” which must be obeyed in order to avoid accidents. There are certain rules of the road also to be observed by the pilgrim band on our journey to the Eternal City.1. First of all, there is only one road for Christ’s people to walk in. Walk in the old path, the King’s highway, the way of God’s commandments. And this road of ours is by the way of the Red Sea--the Red Sea of Christ’s most precious blood! We must always keep in sight of that.2. Here is another rule of the road; do the duty which is nearest to you. There is an old English parsonage somewhere by the sea which has this sentence carved over its porch, “Do the next thing.” Let it be our motto. Some of us do nothing, because we do not know where to begin; we are thinking of next week, when to-day’s duty stands before us. Each day brings its own work; let us try to do it faithfully, prayerfully, cheerfully, trustingly, and then we may be sure we are going forward in the right way.3. Another rule of the road is: be brave, “ only be strong and very courageous.” Be brave enough to do what is right, no matter at what cost. The world will laugh at you, sneer at you, misjudge you. “Trust in God and do the right.”4. Here is another rule of the road: be neighbourly. Never forget that you belong to one family, one army on the march--the Holy Catholic Church. Naturalists tell us that the pine tree is one of the most inhospitable, just as the oak is the most kindly, of trees. Beneath the shadow of the pine tree all is bare and desolate. No primrose opens its bright eyes there, no wild rose clings, no woodbine blossoms. There are some people like the inhospitable pine tree, they live only for themselves, and never offer help, or comfort, or shelter to another. Let us try by God’s grace to make our path of life bright for others, not sad and desolate, like the pine wood.5. Yet another rule of the road: keep in the sunshine. On the journey through life there is always a sunny side for the Christian. A certain king once asked a famous general if he had seen the eclipse of the sun, and the Duke of Alva answered that he had too much to do on earth to have time to look up to heaven. Ah! if any of us are melancholy, discontented, it is because we are looking too much at the earth, and not lifting up our eyes to heaven. I say to you, come out of the gloom of your own thoughts into the sunshine, and thank God--“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.”6. One last rule of the road now: remember the road leads home. In all earthly journeys, however long and tiring, this thought always strengthens the traveller--I shall soon be home. Home, even an earthly home, is the central spot of every man’s life. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)Numbers 14:26-29I have heard the murmurings.Base murmuringMurmuring is not a simple sin, but involves--1. Presumption.2. Ingratitude.3. Rebellion.I. Murmuring without any cause.II. Murmuring against the best being.1. Think who and what He is--the Supremely Wise and Good, &c.2. Think of what He had done for the Israelites, and what He has done for us--redeemed, guarded, sustained, &c.3. Think of what He had promised to them, and what He has promised to us. How base to murmur against our great Benefactor!III. Murmuring of long continuance. There are many to-day who are habitual grumblers; murmuring is not occasional. How great is their sin l how great, also, is the patience of God with them!IV. Murmurings known to god. God hears every bitter complaint; He perceives every unthankful and rebellious mood.V. Murmuring punished by god. These Israelite murmurers were excluded from the Promised Land. The murmurer excludes himself from the Canaan of joy, and peace, and contentment. Murmuring is a self-punishing sin. God has made it so. (W. Jones.)Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness.--The sentence of God upon the sinful peopleI. The sentence. Was conspicuously just. Its justice is manifest.1. In the correspondence between the nature of the sin and the nature of the punishment.2. In the correspondence between the duration of the unbelieving exploration and the duration of the punishment.3. In the correspondence between the different degrees of guilt and the different severities of punishment.II. The sentence was utterly irreversible.III. The sentence caused great sorrow.1. Their sorrow had a real and sufficient cause.2. Their sorrow was not that of repentance, but of selfishness. (W. Jones.)Verses 31. Your little ones . . . will I bring in.The duty of parents to their childrenI. I propose to extract from our text some permanent and root principles with respect to the relations between parents and children, that God would have us pay special heed to; and then from these root principles I shall endeavour to draw a few practical instructions for our conduct with our children at home.1. Our first thought is--how completely Almighty God recognises the sense of preciousness which all parents with a spark of heart in them attach to their children, their little children especially; and how God turns the instinct of affection in parents to their children to the parents’ condemnation, if they will not use their affection in the direction of securing eternal life for those whom they love.2. That children in the providence of God, and according to the rules of God’s government, do, in a certain degree, share their parents’ privileges, suffer their parents’ penalties, nay, even sin with their parents’ sin.3. That although, in a certain degree, the children share the privileges, the penalty, and the sin of their parents, yet there is mercy, ay, and there is justice also.4. That the great cause why the children of Israel refused to go up to the land of Canaan was a want of faith. So the great reason why so-called Christian parents do not take the trouble to prepare their children for eternity is that their own personal belief about the things of eternity is not as strong as it ought to be.II. Now let me put these principles into a practical shape for our instruction. What is the way in which our great God and Father, who has put us into the responsible and blessed position of parents towards children whom we love, would have us fulfil that responsibility? First of all, He would have us fulfil it in careful, and exact, and regular instruction concerning the things of God. Do not be content to leave this duty to others, but ascertain for yourselves what your children are actually learning about their Lord and Saviour, how far they feel it and know it. And then about example. It is a very good thing to teach your children out of the Word of God; but it is as good to teach them in your own daily life and conversation. There is one thing more--prayer. (Bp. Thorold.)Numbers 14:33-34Each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities.God often punishes sin proportionablyGod oftentimes punisheth in proportion, so that the judgment is answerable to the sin. Of what kind the sin is, of the same kind is the punishment (Gen 42:21). God sent upon Sodom a punishment like to the nature of their sin; they burned in unclean and unnatural lust one toward another, and the Lord sent fire from heaven to burn them up.1. God hath many ways to punish sin, yet it pleaseth Him to send His punishments according to our sins, thereby to strike us with inward remorse and to work a deeper impression in the conscience. For when He punisheth after this manner rather than after any other, the judgment itself doth more effectually force the sufferer to acknowledge God’s justice in plaguing of Him in that sort.2. This maketh men not only to justify God, whose, judgments are always just, but maketh them also to judge themselves, and thereby they oftentimes prevent the more heavy judgments of God.3. God hath given a law, and by the law He requireth a proportionable punishment for sin (Lev 24:19). This course will the Lord take (who is the supreme Magistrate) so often as it pleaseth Him, albeit He do not tie Himself to that law.Uses:1. This serveth to warrant us that we may lawfully expect judgment from God in proportion upon men for their sins. For the which hath been, may be; and that which the Lord hath done, He will certainly do it again, so that we may promise and persuade ourselves that they shall in the end be paid home to the full, with due proportion of punishment according to their sins.2. Whensoever we remain under any judgment of God’s hand, let us labour for spiritual wisdom, that we may discern what the sin is which is the cause thereof. For by the manner of the judgment we may oftentimes find out the manner of our sin. This way we shall make the punishment profitable unto us, if we take it and lay it unto the sin, as it were a salve upon the sore. It will work in us a care to “judge ourselves, that we be not judged of the Lord” (1Co 11:31-32).3. As God dealeth with men in regard to their sins, so He dealeth oftentimes with His children in good things and for good things. He will reward according to our deeds, blessing with the same blessing, and mercy with the same mercy (2Ti 1:18). (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 14:40-45But they presumed to go up.A presumptuous enterprise and its disastrous terminationIn these verses we have an illustration of--1. The sad perversity of sinful human nature.2. The confession of sin, and persistence in sin.3. The great difficulty of walking humbly and patiently in the path which our sin has rendered necessary for us.I. The presumptuous enterprise.1. In opposition to the command of the Lord.2. Despite the remonstrance of Moses.3. Without the symbol of the Divine Presence and the presence of the Divinely-appointed leader.II. The disastrous termination of this presumptuous enterprise.1. Disgraceful defeat.2. Sore slaughter.3. Bitter sorrow.Conclusion--From the whole let us learn the sin and the folly of entering upon any enterprises, and especially difficult ones, in our own strength. “Apart from Me,” said Christ, “ye can do nothing.” This is applicable to--1. Spiritual life in its origin and progress. The attempt in our own strength to lead a religious, godly life, is sure to end in sad disappointment and utter failure.2. Spiritual conflict. Unless we take to ourselves “the whole armour of God,” our spiritual foes will be too many and too mighty for us. We can conquer only through Christ.3. Spiritual service. Our efforts to benefit our fellow-men will succeed only as they are made in reliance upon the blessing of God. We can bless others only as He blesses us (comp. 1Co 3:5-7). (W. Jones.)Unauthorised enterprisesThe man who forsakes God’s commandments forsakes his own happiness.1. The importance of improving present opportunities. You have a throne of grace to go to; go there to-day, lest by delay your anxiety, though earnest, should be as unavailing as was that of Israel to go to Canaan, and you are compelled to say with the prophet (Jer 8:20).2. The necessity of God’s blessing on all our undertakings. We do not say that man, without God’s blessing, never gets what he wants; he often does, but not what is good for him; all things work together for good only to those who have this blessing. And further, those undertakings which, with the Divine blessing, are easy, without it are impossible.3. The connection which subsists between transgression and sorrow. Sorrow is of two kinds; first, godly sorrow, which worketh repentance unto salvation, not to be repented of--such was that of Peter; and, secondly, the sorrow of unavailing regret, when the day of recovery has passed away. It was this unavailing sorrow that Israel felt when the Lord said, “Thou shalt not enter into My rest.” In a spirit of rebellion they resolve, “We will go up”; but they went without the Lord, and they were driven back.4. The danger that results from an unbelieving heart!5. We see from this passage the holiness of that God with whom we have to do. While every provision is made for the returning penitent, the impenitent transgressor will certainly be destroyed. God never tolerates sin; no, not even in His own people.6. Finally, we should learn from this subject our need of special sanctifying grace; for no outward advantages can secure personal holiness. (George Breay, B. A.)Religious explanation of failure“Because ye are turned away from the Lord, therefore the Lord will not be with you.” Even that is a word of comfort. The comfort is not far to fetch, even from the desert of this stern fact. The comfort is found in the fact that the Lord will be with those who have not turned away from Him. The law operates in two opposite ways. Law is love, when rightly seized and applied; and love is law, having all the pillars of its security and all the dignity of its righteousness to support it in all the transitions of its experience. The reason why we fail is that God has gone from us. Putting the case so, we put it wrongly. God has not gone from us; we have gone from God. The Church is nothing without its godliness; it is less than nothing: it is not only the negation of strength, it is the utter and most helpless weakness. Israel was the Church in the wilderness, and Israel was nothing without its God. The number might be six hundred thousand fighting men, and they would go down like a dry wooden fence before a raging fire, if the Lord was not in the midst. They were not men without Him. The Church lives, moves, and has its being in God--not in some high or deep metaphysical sense only, but in the plain and obvious sense of the terms: that it has no being or existence outside God. When it forgets to pray, it loses the art of war; when the Church forgets to put on the beautiful garments of holiness, though it be made up of a thousand Samsons, it cannot strike one fatal blow at the enemy. Count the Church by the volume of its prayer; register the strength of the Church by the purity and completeness of its consecration. If you number the Church in millions, and tell not what it is at the altar and at the cross, you have returned the census of a cemetery, not the statistics of a living, mighty, invincible host. Genius is nothing, learning is nothing, organisation is a sarcasm and an irony--apart from that which gives every one of them value and force--the praying heart, the trustful spirit. The Church conquers by holiness. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 15Numbers 15:25Sin-offering . . . for their ignorance. Pardon of unknown sins through Christ1. Because of our ignorance we are not fully aware of our sins of ignorance. Yet they are many, in the form both of commission and omission. We may be doing in all sincerity, as a service to God, that which He has not commanded and can never accept.2. The Lord knows these sins of ignorance every one. This may well alarm us, since in justice He will require these trespasses at our hand; but, again, faith spies comfort in this fact, for the Lord will see to it that stains unseen by us shall yet be washed away. He sees the sin that He may cease to see it by casting it behind His back.3. Our great comfort is that Jesus, the true Priest, has made atonement for all the congregation of Israel. That atonement secures the pardon of unknown sins. His precious blood cleanses us from all sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 15:30-31The soul that doeth aught presumptuously. The definition and danger of presumptuous sinsI. The definition. We take, first, the case of an individual who sins against the positive remonstrances of his conscience; and we say that he sins presumptuously. We have all, at one time or another, withstood the clearest and most decisive suggestions of conscience. We have all proved the power of inclination, when it has come up in a pleasing shape, to bear down a consciousness of what is right, whether by an invention of some ingenious subterfuge, or by some weapons of unblushing hardihood. We could give no better definition of conscience than that it is evidently the vicegerent of Deity. And what then is presumption? Where shall it be found, if we describe not as presumptuous the conduct of the man who walks one way whilst the voice of the internal monitor summons him to walk another? Let us advance to other instances. The guilt of a sin is in a great degree to be estimated by the strength of the temptation which solicits its performance. But if you take the generality of men, you will find they scarcely need any temptation at all to induce them to sin. They may be said to give the devil no trouble, but to strike their colours without firing a shot: a breath of air will make them swerve from allegiance. There must be presumption, and that too of an enormity not easily measured, in conduct which is marked on one side with such contempt of God that men will obey His despisers even without strong inducement; and on the other, such neglect of the soul, that they surrender it without requiring anything in exchange. Now let us glance at the third sort of presumptuous sins. If I wantonly expose myself to temptation, then, though I may afterwards struggle hard before I yield, I shall sin presumptuously. It were better to see Christians--especially young ones--so distrustful of themselves that they might pass for timid, than so overweening of their own strength as to thrust themselves into danger. Take a still more general case--where a man goes on sinning, calculating either that it will be time enough by and by to repent, or that God will prove at last too merciful to execute His threatenings--most assuredly that man sins presumptuously. If he reckon on uncovenanted mercies, what is this but presumption?II. But wherein, you will now ask, lies the peculiar guilt and danger of presumptuous sins? Why should David pray so earnestly to be kept from them? Why should our text be so emphatic in its condemnation? We will just take in succession several cases of presumptuous sins, and endeavour to answer the question in each. If, in the first place, it be sinning presumptuously to sin against conscience and conviction, there must be special guilt when a man does a thing in spite of the warnings of the delegate of God; he strips himself of every excuse of ignorance or inadvertence; and hence a special guilt. But conscience also will grow less sensitive, in proportion as it be less heeded. If, again, it be sinning presumptuously to sin on slight temptation, surely there must be peculiar guilt, inasmuch as there must be a readiness, nay, even an eagerness, to fail in spiritual matters. He is indeed guilty who is flung in wrestling with a giant, forasmuch as God is ready to give strength in proportion to the opponent; but what shall we say of him who is flung in wrestling with a dwarf? Then is there not peculiar danger and peculiar guilt in sinning on slight temptation, inasmuch as a man grows confirmed in habits of sin? For the moment sin becomes habitual, the breaking loose from it becomes miraculous. If you take our third class of presumptuous sins--sins, the result of temptation that we have ourselves sought, or at least not avoided, who sees not the guilt, who perceives not the danger? Christ would not throw Himself from the pinnacle of the temple, because it was unlawful to tempt the Lord. Yet we do that from which the Mediator indignantly recoiled, when we enter into scenes, or mingle with companies which we know likely to minister incentives to passions, or oppose hindrances to piety. Such is the guilt: and the danger is that of growing familiar with vice after having been vanquished by it. Mixed with the world, let the world once seduce you, and the world will appear to you not half so formidable as before, and not half so pernicious. Thus sinning presumptuously, through presumptuously exposing yourselves, you will be more and more inclined to continue the exposure, and the presumption, as it were, will propagate itself; and your danger will be that of growing apathy: issuing, at last, in total apostacy. Again, there is one other class. If I continue sinning in the vain hope that there will be time hereafter for repentance, or because I calculate that God will be too merciful to punish, I incur a special guilt, inasmuch as I trifle with the Almighty, or mock the Almighty; and I run a special risk as I deal with possibilities as though they were certainties, or stake on a minute chance the results of a long hereafter. So that, surveying successively the several descriptions of presumptuous sins, we bring out in each case the same result; and we are forced to pronounce that he who sins presumptuously--whether the presumption consist in withstanding conscience, or in yielding to slight temptation, or in seeking peril, or in reckoning on future repentance or future mercy--he who sins presumptuously, deserves, and may expect to have it said of him, “The soul that reproacheth the Lord, shall be out off from among His people.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)PresumptionI. What presumption includes. It signifies--1. Boldness in evil. Sinning without fear. Hardihood, recklessness.2. Arrogance in evil. Setting ourselves up against God. Pride of heart and spirit and tongue (Psa 73:6; Psa 9:2; Act 2:18).3. Irreverence towards God. All profanity. As in the case of Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord?” &c.4. Confidence of escape from the threatenings of God. Not dreading nor caring for consequences, &c.II. The chief causes of presumption.1. Spiritual ignorance. Ignorance of self and God. It is the offspring of darkness.2. Recklessness and inconsideration.3. Confirmed unbelief, giving no credit to the Word.4. Hardness of heart. This is both a cause and a result.III. The terrible results of presumptuousness.1. God, defied, will vindicate His authority. He cannot let it pass. His majesty and law concerned, &c.2. Threatening despised, He will terribly execute. Not one jot fail. There may be delay, longsuffering, but the execution of vengeance is certain.3. Mercy despised will involve in fearful retribution. Hear God (Pro 1:24; Psa 2:4, &c.). The instances of this, how numerous. The old world, Pharaoh, Sodom, &c., nations of Canaan, Jerusalem (see Luk 19:41-44).Application--1. How needful is consideration.2. Repentance, how imperative.3. To seek mercy. The gospel publishes it in Christ, and offers it to every sinner. (J. Burns, D. D.)Sins dangerous and deadlyI. that there are degrees in sin. People sometimes say, as an excuse for their sin, that as they have gone wrong they might as wall suffer for much as for little. No! it is false. With every sin the man gets worse; sinfulness increases. Sins of ignorance through trifling may grow to be those of presumption.II. That while all sins are dangerous, some are deadly. The text shows that all sin is dangerous by the fact that an atonement had to be made for sins of ignorance; none could be forgiven without. While ignorance may excuse, nothing can justify any sin.1. That God is merciful. He sent His Son to die that He might put away sin, and restore us unto Himself.2. That there is a limit to His mercy. What cost Him so much He will let no one despise. (D. Lloyd.)Progress of presumptionPresumption never stops in its first attempt. If Caesar comes once to pass the Rubicon, he will be sure to march farther on, even till he enters the very bowels of Rome, and break open the Capitol itself. He that wades so far as to wet and foul himself, cares not how much he trashes farther. (R. South, D. D.)Presumption punishedA young man who had inherited an estate from an uncle was exhorted to seek Christ, and said that he would do so as soon as he had paid off the debts which encumbered the estate. “Young man,” said the pastor, “beware: you may never see that day: whilst you are gaining the world you may lose your soul.” The young heir said, “I’ll run the risk.” He went into the woods and was engaged in felling a tree, when a falling limb caused his instant death within a few hours of his bold presumption.Numbers 15:32-36A man that gathered sticks upon the Sabbath.Gathering sticks on the SabbathAn Oriental legend tells us that, while Solomon was once on his way to visit the Queen of Sheba, he came to a valley in which dwelt a peculiar tribe of monkeys. Upon asking about their history, be was informed that they were the descendants of a colony of Jews, who settling in that region years before, had, by habitual neglect of the Sabbath, gradually degenerated to the condition of brutes. The story is, of course, a mere fable, but the moral is worth remembering. The ceremonial part of the Sabbath is done away, so that greater liberty is allowed to us than was given to the Jews. Works of necessity and mercy take precedence even of the regularly appointed duties of the day (Hos 6:6). The moral part is, however, as strongly in force as ever. To have the mind exercised on spiritual subjects, and occupied in advancing the interests of our souls, is an imperative duty. To be guilty of a wilful profanation of the Lord’s day is--I. An unreasonable sin. A young man, well off in the world, and an elderly man of business, were riding in a railway carriage together, between London and a country town, when the question of Sunday amusements came up. “I maintain that Sunday ought to be a general holiday,” said the younger, in a tone which betokened assurance and presumption, “and the people ought not to be kept out of such places as the Zoological Gardens and the Crystal Palace grounds. I would have Sunday used for recreation.” “Recreation!” answered the elder, gravely, “yes, that is the very word. The Sabbath is meant for recreation, and if people were recreated, they would want very little of the so-called recreation which they now make so much of.” The conversation on that subject dropped.II. A presumptuous sin. The man who was so signally punished, for merely gathering a few sticks on the Sabbath, might have argued that he could only be charged with a very small breach of the Divine law, and that the bundle of faggots was really necessary for his comfort. Such flimsy excuses would be of no avail. His conduct was a decided act of rebellion against God, and he was, in fact, accusing Him with being a hard master, who did not deserve to be obeyed. Those who believe in taking God at His word, cannot doubt that any wilful neglect of His commandments is always followed, sooner or later, by loss! A thrifty merchant remarked to his physician, “Had it not been for the rest which I have enjoyed on the Lord’s Day, I should long ago have been a maniac!” Many are the instances of those who have dug their own graves, because they had no Sundays. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)Obedience tested in the littleThis incident has often been quoted as an instance of extreme and intolerable severity, and has been cited against those whose reading of the Scriptures leads them to propose to keep the Sabbath day. The mocker has found quite a little treasure here. The poor man was gathering sticks on the Sabbath day, and he had to forfeit his life for the violation of the law. Had the text read--And a certain man was found in the wilderness openly blaspheming God, and he was stoned to death--we should have had some sense of rest and harmony in the mind : the balance would seem to be complete. But that is the very sophism that is ruining us. We do not see the reality of the case. We think of huge sins; there are none. We think of little sins; there are none. It is the spot that is ruin; it is the one little thing that spoils the universe. Obedience can only be tested by so-called little things. Where one man is called to be a hero on some great scale, ten thousand men are called to be courteous, gentle, patient; where one has the opportunity of being great on the battle-field of a death-bed, all have opportunity of being good in hopefulness, charity, forgiveness, and every grace that belongs to the Cross of Christ; where one has the opportunity of joining a great procession, ten thousand have the opportunity of assisting the aged, helping the blind, speaking a word for the speechless, and putting a donation into the hand of honest poverty. Let us realise the truth of the doctrine that we are not called upon to display our obedience upon a gigantic scale within the theatre of the universe and under the observation of angels--but to go out into the field and work with bent back and willing hands and glad hearts, doing life’s simple duty under Heaven’s inspiration and encouragement. The man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath day might have been quite a great man on festival occasions when all Israel had to be dressed in its best; he might have been one of the foremost of the show. You discover what men are by their secret deeds, by what they do when they suppose nobody is looking, by what they are about when they are suddenly pounced upon. (J. Parker, D. D.)The Sabbath-breaker and his doomI. The sin.1. The transgression of a moral law, which was enforced by the most solemn commands and by the severest penalty.2. The transgression of this law wilfully.II. The arrest. The offender was seized in the act of transgression, and taken before the judicial authorities.III. The consultation. The direction of the Lord is sought as to the mode by which the sentence of death is to be executed upon him.IV. The sentence. This was determined by the Lord. The transgressor must be put to death (Ex 31:14-15); he must be put to death by stoning (Num 15:35).V. The execution. “And all the congregation brought him without,” &c. (Num 15:36). The people were the executioners. This would increase the force of the warning which the event gave to the nation.Conclusion:1. The moral element in the law of the Sabbath is of perpetual obligation. We still rest for body and mind; we still need worship for the spirit.2. The neglecters of religious duties and privileges will do well to take warning. If any man fails to observe religiously the Lord’s day, he does so at his own loss and peril. (W. Jones.)Punishment of Sabbath-breaking1. The perpetration of one particular presumptuous sin, together with its circumstances, as what, where, when, and how. The fact was seemingly but a small matter, namely, gathering a few sticks, &c., and possibly he might pretend some necessity or conveniency to himself thereby, &c., but because really it was done with an high hand, in contempt of God and His law, and a profaning of His holy Sabbath.2. The punishment for this perpetrated fact of profaning the Sabbath, wherein--(1) The sinner is apprehended.(2) Accused.(3) Imprisoned, because it was not yet known what sentence to pass upon him.For though the matter of the fact was twice doomed with death (Ex 31:14; Ex 35:2), yet was it not declared what manner of death such a sinner should die. Therefore God is consulted about this, who expressly declareth it (Num 15:35). Besides, though the law be in the rigour of it a killing letter, yet might it admit of some favourable construction from necessity, &c., which might make the offender capable of pardon. So Moses did not rashly doom him; nor ought magistrates be hasty in matters of life and death, as in other cases of an inferior nature. They ought to be wary: God and His Word ought to be consulted.(4) He was condemned, God Himself passing the sentence that he should be stoned (Num 15:35). This was the heaviest of all the four kinds of death that malefactors suffered in Israel for capital crimes--some were sentenced to be strangled, others to be slain with the sword, some to be burned, and others to be stoned; the two last were undoubtedly the most painful (because longer in dying), and therefore inflicted upon the grossest offenders. Though in man’s judgment this might seem too severe a sentence for such a seeming small offence, yet in God’s judgment it is not a light offence to profane the Sabbath by doing needless works upon that holy day. We may well suppose that this sinner (by the connection of Num 15:30 with this relation) sinned presumptuously and with public scandal.(5) He was executed accordingly, being carried without the camp, which was a circumstance aggravating the punishment, being a kind of reproach, as the apostle noteth (Heb 13:11-13). This was done to the blasphemer before (Lev 24:14). This severity doth likewise farther signify the eternal death of such as do not keep the Sabbath of Christ, entering into the rest of God by faith, and ceasing from their own works as God did from His (Heb 4:1-11), finding rest for the soul in Christ (Mat 11:28). (C. Ness.)Numbers 15:38-40Put upon the fringe . . . a ribband of blue.The law of the fringe and ribbandProvision had been just now made by the law for the pardon of sins of ignorance and infirmity, now here is an expedient provided for the preventing of such sins. They are ordered to make fringes upon the borders of their garments, which were to be memorandums to them of their duty, that they might not sin through forgetfulness.1. The sign appointed is a fringe of silk, or thread, or worsted, or the garment itself ravelled at the bottom, and a blue ribband bound on the top of it to keep it tight (Num 15:38). The Jews being a peculiar people, they were thus distinguished from their neighbours in their dress, as well as in their diet; and taught by such little instances of singularity, not to be conformed to the way of the heathen in greater things. Thus likewise they proclaimed themselves Jews wherever they were, as those that were not ashamed of God and His law.2. The intention of it was to remind them that they were a peculiar people. They were not appointed for the trimming and adorning of their clothes, but to “stir up their pure minds by way of remembrance” (2Pe 3:1). That they might look upon the fringe, and remember the commandments. Many look upon their ornaments to feed their pride, but they must look upon these ornaments to awaken their consciences to a sense of their duty, that their religion might constantly beset them, and they might carry it about with them, as they did their clothes, wherever they went. It was intended particularly to be a preservation from idolatry, That ye “seek not after your own heart,” and your own eyes, in your religious worship. Yet it may extend also to the whole conversation; for nothing is more contrary to God’s honour and our own true interest than to walk in the way of our heart, and in the sight of our eyes; for the imagination of the heart is evil, and so is the lust of the eyes. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The ribband of blueThe chief use of clothing is defence against the chills and variations of the weather; two subordinate uses are for the promotion of beauty, and for distinction of office. We can be at no loss to perceive that there are mental uses corresponding to the above which require for the soul spiritual clothing. The soul has its summer and its winter, and all the varieties of a mental year. There are seasons of hopefulness and brilliancy in which we have all the elasticity and promise of spring; there are states of peaceful warmth, of continued serene happiness; “the soul’s calm sunshine and the heartfelt joy” which bespeak the spirit’s summer; but there are likewise periods of decreasing warmth, of incipient depressions, and coolnesses to what has formerly yielded the highest pleasure; until at length we arrive at states of painful cold, the joylessness, the hopelessness, and the sadness, which ate the characteristics of the winter of the soul. In this wintry state storms of distressing fears and darkening doubts will rush upon the soul. Strong delusions that we may believe a lie, will, like fierce tempests, howl about us. Thrice happy are they who remember that the Divine Word will be a blessing in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, in summer and in winter; but they should also bear in mind, that to be a protection in all seasons the Divine mercy has provided us with spiritual clothing. The doctrines of religion, when intelligently adopted and adapted to our particular states, serve this important purpose. And when those doctrines are, as they ought to be, full, comprehensive, and complete, applying themselves to all the departments of human affection, thought, and life, they make a complete dress. We are, then, to speak to the Israelites who are typified by those of our text, the spiritual Israelites; and say first that they clothe themselves with genuine doctrines of Divine truth, with the garments of salvation, and next, that they especially make them fringes in the borders of their garments. After we have meditated upon the doctrines of religion, and seen their fitness to our own states of mind and heart, thus clothed ourselves in them, the next part of our duty is to bring them into life. Many there are who put on religion as a dress for the head, and even also for the breast, but do not bring it down to the feet. But we are to make a border for our garments, and the border must be a fringe. The distinctive feature of a fringe is, that the material of which it is composed is divided into small portions firmly united at the upper part, but hanging with separate forms of beauty at the lower. The idea suggested by this is, that religion must be employed in all the small affairs of daily life as well as on great occasions; the lowest part of our spiritual dress must be a fringe. We are, however, not only commanded to have a fringe to our garments, but to have upon the fringe a ribband of blue. And this leads us to consider the correspondence of colours. Natural colours, we know, originate in natural light. They are the separation of the beauties which are bound up in the sunbeam, and their reflection to the human eye. There is a trinity of fundamental colours, red, blue, and yellow. From the blending of these in varied proportions all others are made. Red, the colour of fire, is the symbol of the truths of love, the fire of the soul. Blue, the colour of the azure depths of the sky, is symbolic of the deep things of the Spirit of God, on which faith delights to gaze. Yellow is the hue of truth which applies to outward life, and in combination with blue it makes green, which corresponds to truth in the letter of the Word, made simple to the common eye of mankind. Blue gives a sense of clearness and depth, in which it surpasses all other hues. Blue, then, is the colour which represents the spirit of the Holy Word, the depths of heavenly wisdom. There is, however, cold blue, as it has more of white in it, and warm blue, as it derives a certain hue from red. There has also been some difficulty in determining the exact shade meant by Techeleth, the Hebrew name for this colour. But from a full consideration of this subject we are satisfied it was the name for blue tinged with red, from violet to purple. And this very strikingly brings out the Divine lesson by correspondence. While the blue indicates that in our demeanour in life we should be correct, in harmony with the spirit of truth, the red hue indicates that all our truth ought to be softened and warmed by love. “Speak the truth in love,” said the apostle, and to remind them of this duty God commanded the ribband of warm blue to be worn upon the fringe of their garments by the sons of Israel. It is religion in life that is observed by and is attractive to good men. When it not only enlightens the head and rules the heart, but comes down to the skirt of the garment, infusing justice, kindness, and courtesy in every act and word, then it has an eloquence which will inspire many a well-disposed heart to say, “We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. Let your good works and your good words so shine before men, that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (J. Bayley, Ph. D.)The ordinance of the fringes: gracious reminders of Divine commandsI. The proneness of man to forget the commandments of the Lord. This tendency arises from--1. The sinfulness of human nature.2. The worldly spirit which so largely prevails in human society.II. The arrangements which God has made to remind man of his commandments.1. The means which God employs to remind us of His commandments.(1) The Bible. In this He not only reveals His will concerning us, but illustrates and enforces it in various ways so that we might not forget it.(2) The Holy Spirit. He influences our spirits; speaks in us by means of conscience, &c.(3) Holy examples. In these the will of God is “drawn out in living characters.”(4) Warning examples of the evil consequences of overlooking His commands. These witness to us that it is perilous to forget the Divine will, and admonish us against doing so.2. The design of God in reminding us of His commandments. “That ye wander not after your own heart and your own eyes, after which ye use to go a whoring; that ye may remember and do all My commandments, and be holy unto your God.” Recollection of the will of God must be followed by obedience to that will, or it will be worse than useless.III. The grounds upon which God requires from us this recollection of and obedience to His commands.1. His personal relation to us.2. His gracious doings for us. (W. Jones.)RemembrancersHow wonderful is what we call association! I hang some thought upon an object, and say, “Whenever I come hither, ring for me as a bell of joy”; and upon another I fasten an experience, saying to it, “Toll to me of sadness”; and to another, “Give forth some bold, inspiring strain”; and to another, “Speak to me always of hope.” And, thereafter, each thing, true to its nature, whether it be tree, or place, or rock, or house, or that which is therein, never forgets its lesson. Yea, and when we forget, they make us to remember, singing to us the notes which we had taught them. Thus the heart, though it may not dismember itself, to give a soul to the material world, has yet a power half to create in physical things a soul in each for itself. So its life is written out, and it keeps a journal upon trees, upon hills, upon the face of heaven. Is it not for this, then, that in turn God has used every object in nature, every event in life, every function of society, every affection and endearment of human love, yea, and things that are not, the very silences of the world, and memories that are but disembodied events, to represent to us by association His nature and affections? Thus the heaven and the earth do speak of God, and the great natural world is but another Bible, which clasps and binds the written one; for nature and grace are one. Grace is the heart of the flower, and nature but its surrounding petals. (H. W. Beecher.)AssociationThus a house becomes sacred. Every room has a thousand memories. Every door and window is clustered with associations. And when, after long years, we go back to the house of our infancy, faces look out upon us, and an invisible multitude stand in gate and portal to welcome us, and we hear airy voices speaking again the old words of our childhood. (H. W. Beecher.)Numbers 15:41I am the Lord your God. Everlasting relationshipCan anything be more blessed to God’s people than the assurance of the everlasting relationship existing between Himself and them? This everlasting relationship is a hiding-place, refuge, and defence in this desert land; a safe retreat, where the soul may obtain repose, satisfaction, in trying moments.I. To say that eternal relationship leads to licentiousness, and induces a disregard to all moral and social duties, is the same as to say, that to bring any individual into the clear, bright light of the sun will cause a pebble to become a stumbling-block unto him. Here is a threefold assertion of relationship in my text, which relationship now is but rarely understood, still less enjoyed, and often reviled. But, now, notice the nature of this relationship. It is a relationship of a father, a Brother, a Comforter, a Guide, a Preceptor. It is a relationship of King and subject, Parent and child, Husband and wife, Friend and friend.II. The deliverance effected as a proof of this relationship. The proof is that He brought His people out of Egypt. “Oh!” says one timid soul, “but I do not belong to Him. I do not think the Lord speaks to me.” Well, I do not desire you to make the assertion, unless God has brought you from Egypt. But mock not His love, deny not His grace, insult not His Spirit by questioning the relationship if He has rescued you from the bondage of sin, Satan, and self, the world, and the devil. He has delivered you on purpose to be your God, openly and avowedly.III. The claim of God is upon us, for devotedness to His glory and activity in His cause. He has brought you out for His own use; and He has a right to all the ardour of your spirit, all the activity of your life, all the affections of your soul. Remember, you are not your own, but bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your body and spirit, which are His. Oh! what ties bind us to devotedness to His name--ties of blood, ties of love, ties of grace. As a King, He created me His subject; as a Deliverer, He brought me to liberty; as my God, He allied me to Himself in everlasting relationship. And if all these ties fail to produce the effect of consecration of heart, and soul, and life to Him, I have one more tie left--namely, the constraint of love. (J. Irons.)Numbers 16Numbers 16:1-35Korah . . . Dathan, and Abiram . . . gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron.Korah, Dathan, and AbiramI. The rebels.1. Influential.2. Numerous,3. Deluded--(1) Concerning Moses, who they asserted, wrongly, was a self-elected leader and an arbitrary prince.(2) Concerning the people, who they assumed (Num 16:14) would have willingly followed Moses to the promised land, had he tried to lead them hither. Self-deceived, and deceiving others.II. Their sin. Rebellion against the authority of God which was invested in Moses.1. Cause in Korah (see Num 3:30); whence it appears that for some unexplained cause a younger relative was appointed to the headship of the Kohathites. Korah was descended from the second son of Kohath (Num 6:18), whilst the present head was descended from the fourth son.2. Cause in Dathan and Abiram. The priesthood transferred from the first-born of every family to one particular tribe, and that a branch of the house of Moses. But this was done by command of God, not of Moses alone.3. Cause in the two hundred and fifty. Their own assumed rights might be interfered with, so they thought.4. Cause in their followers. General dissatisfaction. They charged upon Moses the effects of their own selfishness. Pride in all of them.III. Their punishment.1. Of Divine selection. Left on both sides to Divine arbitration. On the part of the rebels, a defiance; on the side of Moses, humble agreement.2. Manifest. All should see it, and know thereby the Divine will.3. Of Divine infliction. God took the matter into His own hands. It was a rebellion against Him, more than Moses.4. Terrible.5. Complete.All pertaining to them perished. God could do without men who had thought so much of themselves. Learn:1. “Our God is a consuming fire.” “A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”2. Beware of resisting Divine authority. “How shall ye escape,” &c.3. Have we not all rebelled?4. God was in Christ, making reconciliation, &c. (J. C. Gray.)Korah, Dathan, and AbiramThe particular characters of these three men, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, are not given in Scripture; but they seem to represent generally all those who rise up against the powers ordained of God: Korah the Levite against Aaron; Dathan and Abiram of the tribe of Reuben against Moses; but both conspiracies being combined together, indicates that it is the same temper of mind which rejects the ordinances of God whether it be in Church or State. Their sin was like that of the fallen angels who from envy, it is supposed, arose against the Son of God. But let us consider how far the case is applicable to ourselves now; as it is in some degree peculiar; for Moses and Aaron had their authority all along confirmed of God by outward signs and miracles. Add to which that their characters were such as less than any other to justify opposition or envy. For Moses was the meekest of men; and Aaron was inoffensive in all his conduct toward them. Their pre-eminence, too, was in hardship rather than in wealth or worldly power: in journeyings in the wilderness, not in the riches of Canaan. But these circumstances do not in fact prevent the application to ourselves; for the Pharisees afterwards had no miracles to prove their authority from God; and moreover they were great oppressors, covetous and cruel: yet our Lord says of them, “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: all therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do”; and this He says at the very time when He is cautioning His disciples against their wickedness. They had to obey the ordinance of God, though it had neither outward sign nor holiness to support it. Nor indeed is the presence of God denied by the company of Korah as being vouchsafed to them under the guidance of Moses and Aaron; they say that “the Lord is among them,” as He was seen in the pillar of fire and the cloud, in the holy tabernacle, in the manna from heaven: but what they complained of was the want of visible fruits and enjoyments, “Thou hast not brought us into a land that floweth with milk and honey”; “Wilt thou put out the eyes of these men?” as men may say now, “We see not our tokens”; where are our spiritual privileges? where is the fulfilment of all the glorious things which the prophets have spoken of the Christian Church? But if this case is of universal application and for general warning, then the question will arise, are there no allowances, no limitations, to be made; and is there no relief in the case of oppressive governors and bad pastors? must all resistance be like that of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, displeasing to God? and is it never without sin? Let us consider this a little more particularly. If such powers are of God, then He gives such as are suitable to the people over whom they are placed; not necessarily such as they like, but such as are good for them to have, and such as they deserve. For instance, the Roman emperors during the early days of Christianity, were many of them monsters of cruelty and wickedness; but when we come to inquire into the character of the people over whom they were placed, we find the corruption of morals so deep and extensive that they were as bad as the tyrants that governed them. And it was to these Romans and living under some of the worst of these governors that St. Paul says, “Let every one be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” And St. Peter unto Christians under the same rule, “Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king as supreme; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by Him.” Moreover, in consequence of this, we find in Scripture that kings and people are often together condemned and visited alike. Pharaoh and Egypt both together oppressed Israel; both hardened their hearts; both were cut off together. The same order of Divine providence applies also to spiritual governors; it is so with the Church of God in all times and places; the angels of the Churches and the Churches themselves are tended on, and in each case addressed together as one by their Lord, who has the seven stars in His hand, while He walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. We may therefore consider it as a general law of God’s providence, that their rulers both spiritual and temporal will be such as the people are worthy of; that if they need better rulers, the only way in which this can be produced efficiently and effectively, is by becoming better themselves. But a case of difficulty which may arise is this, if a signal repentance should take place among the people, the spirit of grace and supplication should be poured out upon them, and there should be a general awakening; then the deficiency of their pastors and rulers will come before them in a striking light; and then will be their great temptation to take the amendment of such things into their own hands. But yet not well nor wisely. Surely no reformation can be equal to that which took place suddenly and simultaneously, when the disciples of Christ were yet under the Scribes and Pharisees, yet He said, as they sat in Moses’ seat they must be obeyed. Or again, when the apostles wrote to Christians, that they must submit themselves to the powers that be, while those powers were the most corrupt of heathen governments. It is true that the change had not then become extensive, or leavened the general state of society, but the law of God’s providence was the same, for it was the gradual progress of that change which would bring over them in God’s own good time their own true governors, such as were meet for them. And in the meanwhile those evil rulers formed a part of that discipline of faith by which they were perfected and established, being purified thereby as gold in the fire. Moreover, it is observed that the Church of God has flourished more under heathen than under its own Christian rulers. This consideration may allay our impatience; we are at best so weak and frail that we need the iron rod more than the golden sceptre; in our present state the Cross is more suited for us than the crown. In prosperity we lean on an arm of flesh, and are weakened; in adversity we lean on God, and are strengthened. But then it may be said that there is a case far more grievous than this, that of evil ministers in the Church itself, whether it be of chief pastors, or of those in their own nearer and subordinate sphere. These are trials peculiarly heavy to a good man; and there are some cases which can only be considered as severe visitations of God, and the scourge of sin. But if God does not afford the power of remedying this great evil, then the same law of patience must be applied. In one ruler or pastor you may read God’s wrath, in another His love. You cannot reject either; take His wrath in meekness, and He may show you His love. And in the meanwhile, with regard to any particular case of great trial, we must practise forbearance, and God will remember us in His own good time. This duty of meekness and patience applies to a case so far as it is one we cannot remedy, like any evil or scourge that comes to us from God’s hand, we must take it as our punishment from Him. But then it may be said, when the case is one that implies grievous sin, an example which dishonours God, corrupts Christ’s little ones, and poisons the fount of life, are we to acquiesce in this? Does not the love of God constrain us not to resign ourselves to such evil--to lift up our voice and cry--to move heaven and earth? This is most true: for surely there is a remedy with God. When He has forbidden one way of redress, He has pointed out another and a better. Our Lord has pointed out the one and only way, and that is the way of prayer. He did not even Himself send forth apostles without it. Many are cast down because the Church is in bonds. It can neither appoint for itself suitable pastors, nor set aside evil ministers, nor manage its own affairs, and the government of it is falling into the hands of its enemies. But these are not the g, eat evils to be feared; the one great cause for apprehension is this, whether in the body of the Church at large the spirit of prayer is sufficiently strong to cast off all these impediments; for where prayer is, all such evils from without are thrown off, even as in the spring of the year nature throws off all the chains of winter. The imprisoned eagle may even yet soar aloft, and unfold her wing in the free expanse of heaven. (Isaac Williams, B. D.)Korah, Dathan, and AbiramI. The sin.1. A jealousy of the privileges and positions of God’s appointed priesthood.2. A lack of reverence for sacred things.3. An unauthorised and presumptuous intrusion into Divine mysteries.II. The conviction.1. Moses acted wisely.2. Modestly.3. Prudently.III. The punishment.1. It destroyed the guilty.2. It involved the innocent.3. It was deterrent in its tendency.Lessons:1. The fatal consequences of extreme irreverence.2. Before we find fault with others we should take heed to ourselves.3. All who attempt to get to heaven through their own efforts, instead of by the merits of the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, shall share the fate of these wicked men. (Preacher’s Analyst.)Korah, Dathan, and AbiramI. The sin of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram was this: they were discontented with the arrangement made for public worship by the choosing out of Aaron and his family to be priests. The argument they used was a very plausible one, because it depended upon the great truth of the Lord’s being with all His people, consecrating and sanctifying them all, making them all in a certain sense holy to the Lord, in a certain sense priests. It also flattered the vanity of the people, and strengthened them in the notion that they were oppressed by their rulers.II. The answer to this argument was that Moses and Aaron had not lifted themselves up at all; the Lord had lifted then up. This was the answer which was ultimately given, with very terrible emphasis, by the swallowing up of Korah and his company. Korah and his company had laid great stress on the fact that all the congregation of the Lord were holy. Moses and Aaron might very well have replied, that they for their part by no means questioned the fact. Moses had never represented the choice of Aaron and his family as a declaration that they only of the people were holy. Nothing could be a greater mistake on the part of the people than to take this view of the priestly consecration.III. Between our own priesthood and that of the Israelites there is still the great common ground of ministry before God in behalf of others which must be at the basis of every religion. Hence both priest and people may learn a lesson. The priest may learn that his office does not imply that he is holier or better than his brethren, but that it does imply greater responsibility, greater opportunities of good, greater sin if he does evil. And the people may learn to be gentle and considerate to those who are over them in the Lord, not to be ready to find fault and condemn, but rather to be charitable, and forbearing, and gentle. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)Korah, Dathan, and AbiramGod has brought the Israelites out of Egypt. One of the first lessons which they have to learn is, that freedom does mean license and discord--does not mean every one doing that which is right in his own eyes. From that springs self-will, division, quarrels, revolt, civil war, weakness, profligacy, and ruin to the whole people. Without order, discipline, obedience to law, there can be no true and lasting freedom; and therefore order must be kept at all risks, the law obeyed, and rebellion punished. Now rebellion ought to be punished far more severely in some cases than in others. If men rebel here, in Great Britain or Ireland, we smile at them, and let them off with a slight imprisonment, because we are not afraid of them. They can do no harm. Bat there are cases.in which rebellion must be punished with a swift and sharp hand. On board a ship at sea, for instance, where the safety of the whole ship, the lives of the whole crew, depend on instant obedience, mutiny may be punished by death on the spot. And so it was with the Israelites in the desert. All depended on their obedience. The word must be, Obey or die. As for any cruelty in putting Korah, Dathan, and Abiram to death, it was worth the death of a hundred such--or a thousand--to preserve the great and glorious nation of the Jews to be the teachers of the world. Moses was not their king. God brought them out of Egypt, God was their king. That was the lesson which they had to learn, and to teach other nations also. And so not Moses, but God must punish, and show that He is not a dead, but a living God, who can defend Himself, and enforce His own laws, and execute judgment, without needing any man to fight His battles for Him. And God does so. The powers of nature--the earthquake and the nether fire--shall punish these rebels; and so they do. Men have thought differently of the story; but I call it a righteous story, and one which agrees with my conscience, and my reason, and my experience also of the way in which God’s world is governed until this day. What, then, are we to think of the earth opening and swallowing them up? This first. That discipline and order are so absolutely necessary for the well-being of a nation that they must be kept at all risks, and enforced by the most terrible punishments. But how hard, some may think, that the wives and the children should suffer for their parents’ sins. We do not know that a single woman or child died then for whom it was not better that he or she should die. And next--what is it, after all, but what we see going on round us all the day long? God does visit the sins of the fathers on the children. But there was another lesson, and a deep lesson, in the earthquake and in the fire. “Who sends the earthquake and the fire? Do they come from the devil--the destroyer? Do they come by chance, from some brute and blind powers of nature?” This chapter answers, “No; they come from the Lord, from whom all good things do come; from the Lord who delivered the Israelites out of Egypt; who so loved the world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us.” Now I say that is a gospel which we want now as much as ever men did; which the children of Israel wanted then, though not one whit more than we. You cannot read your Bibles without seeing how that great lesson was stamped into the very hearts of the Hebrew prophets; how they are continually speaking of the fire and the earthquake, and yet continually declaring that they too obey God and do God’s will, and that the man who fears God need not fear them--that God was their hope and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore would they not fear, though the earth was moved, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea. And we, too, need the same lesson in these scientific days. We too need to fix it in our hearts, that the powers of nature are the powers of God; that He orders them by His providence to do what He will, and when and where He will; that, as the Psalmist says, the winds are His messengers and the flames of fire His ministers. And this we shall learn from the Bible, and from no other book whatsoever. God taught the Jews this by a strange and miraculous education, that they might teach it in their turn to all mankind. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)KorahGod was pleased under the old, as He has done under the present dispensation, to constitute the priesthood of His Church, in accordance with that principle of orderly arrangement which runs through all His ways, in a threefold order, with a regular distribution and gradation of powers from the lowest to the highest. But the wisdom of men does not quietly acquiesce in God’s wisdom when it goes counter to the interests, impulses, and aspirations of self-love. Men are easily brought to doubt the divinity of a system that sets others over them, and assigns them only an inferior station, even though that be honourable and good. The spirit of discontent and rebellion broke out even in the life of Aaron, and during the sojourn in the wilderness. Even thus early did the presumption of man dare to criticise and amend the institutions of God, and under the guise of a zeal for liberty and for right, the favourite pretext of ambition and selfishness, to break the order which God had established, and substitute devices of its own creation. Korah was a Levite, but he aspired also to be a priest, and could not acquiesce in those limitations, which, what he may have called the accident of birth and the arbitrary restraints of the Law, imposed upon him. And he easily drew to him associates in his nefarious enterprise. The sedition was wide-spread, and threatened the most fatal consequences. Jealousy of power and place is contagious, and always finds an answering sentiment in many hearts. Broach it once among any body of men, and it will run “like sparks among the stubble.” Equality and the lowering of eminence and distinction, and disregard of law, are popular doctrines, and easily clothe themselves in specious forms. It is alleged that all society is sacred; there is, there ought to be, no special sacredness in any in eminent place, which inferiors in office or men in private condition are bound to recognise and respect. Thus the bonds of social order in the Church, in the State, are loosened and destroyed. We stand on the dignity of human nature, and the spiritual equality of all Christians: we can have no rulers, we will brook no superiors, we will obey no restrictions--the spurious pleas of presumptuous self-will and ambition, in the State and in the Church, in all ages. God, however, quickly interfered in this instance, to vindicate and protect His own appointments, and keep that sacred polity which His wisdom had provided for His Church from being trampled on and destroyed. What, then, is this “gainsaying of Core” to us? and what may we learn from it that is profitable for admonition and instruction in righteousness?1. We learn the sacredness of the ministry, and of its divinely appointed order Every man was to know his place and to keep it, and to do the duty of his place and none other, and not, on some specious plea of a higher fitness or a larger usefulness, intrude on work which God had given to others. Now, here are great principles, and these are applicable to the Church in all her periods and in all her forms. There is a ministry now in the Church, and it is there not because man made it, but God. “Let a man,” says St. Paul, “so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.” They hold their place, if they are really anything at all, by a Divine commission. Without a ministry recognised as truly Divine, there will never be religious stability, nor long, religious life and true Christian morals. And when these are gone, civil liberty and political order will not last long. And the first, the fatal step towards these dreadful losses is taken when that constitution of the ministry which Christ appointed is changed, and the sacred office begins to be looked upon as a thing which men may mould and alter to their convenience and their fancy.2. But we must spare a little space for the broader lesson which this “gainsaying of Core” teaches us, namely, that in the social system, we all, ministers and laymen, especially ministers, have our place, which is appointed us of God, and our true wisdom and happiness lie in knowing what it is, and keeping in it. Korah had a place, and a very good place, but he did not like it. He sought a better by unlawful means, and he lost all, and “left his name for a curse unto God’s chosen.” He forgot that God had assigned him his place, and that contentment in it was a part of his religious obedience, the service that God required at his hands. How full this world is of restless and uncomfortable aspirings! Men see around them higher places, happier ones as they think; places that are certainly grander, that shine more, that seem to contain a greater plenitude of good, and to open larger sources of pleasure and enjoyment. They are discontented. They are envious. They get very little comfort from what they have by reason of their uneasy hankerings after what they have not. The true antidote of this great evil is faith; faith in God and in His overruling Providence; faith in the Divine order into which we find ourselves wrought, faith in the social economy under which we live as a Divine structure and appointment; faith in our own assignment to that place and those relations in it, which, whatever we may think of them, are the mind of God concerning us, the work of that great fashioning Hand which “ordereth all things in heaven and earth,” and which appoints to all inferior agents their place and their work, not in caprice, not in cruelty, not in partiality, not in a reckless disregard of their rights and their welfare, but in wisdom, in equity, in benevolence, for His glory and the greatest good of the greatest number of His creatures. (R. A. Hallam, D. D.)Whatsoever evil men do, they are ready to justify itWhen evil men have committed evil, they are ready to justify their evils that they may seem good. We see this in Saul, 1Sa 13:11; 1Sa 31:12; 1Sa 15:15; Joh 12:5-6. Judas pretended the poor and his great care of them; albeit he cared not for them, but for himself.1. For men are affected to their actions as they are to themselves. Though they be corrupt, yet they would not be thought to be so; and therefore they seek excuses for themselves, as Adam did fig leaves to cover his shame and his sin.2. If they should pretend nothing, all would be ready to condemn them; therefore, to blind the eyes of others, they cast a mist before them as jugglers used to do that they may not be espied.Uses:1. This serveth to reprove divers sorts that go about to varnish their actions with false colours, thereby to blind the world and to put out their eyes. These show themselves to be rank hypocrites.2. We are to judge no otherwise of all such as transgress the law of God, whatsoever their allegations be. How many men are there that think even palpable sins to be no sins at all, because they can blanch and colour them over! (W. Attersoll.)Elevated character exposed to violenceSome years ago I went to see the lighthouse which, standing on Dunnet Head--the Cape Orcas of the Romans--guards the mouth of the Pentland Firth. On ascending the tower, I observed the thick plate-glass windows of the lanthorn cracked--starred in a number of places. I turned to the keeper for an explanation. It appears that is done by stones flung up by the sea. The wave, on being thrown forward against the cliff, strikes it with such tremendous force as to hurl the loose stones at its base right up to the height of 300 feet. So are the great light-bearers, by the exposure of their position, and in spite of the elevation of their character, liable to be cracked and starred by the violence of the world. (T. Guthrie.)Seek ye the priesthood also?--Wicked ambition faith fully rebukedI. The greatness of the privileges conferred upon the Levites.II. The unrighteousness of the ambition cherished by them. Their ambition involved--1. The disparagement of their present privileges. Their privileges “seemed but a small thing unto them.” Great as they were, they did not satisfy them. “Ambition,” says Trapp, “is restless and unsatisfiable; for, like the crocodile, it grows as long as it lives.”2. Interference in the Divine arrangements. “Seek ye the priesthood also?”III. The heinousness of the rebellion in which they engaged. Moses points out to them concerning their rebellion that--1. It was unreasonable. “What is Aaron that ye murmur against him?” The high priest was merely an instrument in the hand of the Lord.2. It was exceedingly sinful. “Thou and all thy company are gathered together against the Lord.” “Those resist the prince who resist those that are commissioned by him” (comp. Mat 10:40; Joh 13:20; Act 9:4).Conclusion:1. Let us crush every rising of ambition which is not in harmony with wisdom and righteousness.2. Let us seek to give to our ambition a righteous and noble direction. (W. Jones.)The privileges of the Levites1. They were separated from the congregation of Israel, distinguished from them, dignified above them; instead of complaining that Aaron’s family was advanced above theirs, they ought to be thankful that their tribe was advanced above, the rest of the tribes, though they had been in all respects upon the level with them. Note, it will help to keep us from envying those that are above us, duly to consider how many there are above whom we are placed. Many perhaps who deserve better are not preferred so well.2. They were separated to very great and valuable honours.(1) To draw near to God, nearer than common Israelites, though they also were a people near unto Him : the nearer any are to God, the greater is their honour.(2) To do the service of the tabernacle. It is honour enough to bear the vessels of the sanctuary, and to be employed in any part of the service of the tabernacle; God’s service is not only perfect freedom, but high preferment. Note, those are truly great that serve the public, and it is the honour of God’s ministers to be the Church’s ministers: nay (which adds to the dignity put upon them),(3) It was the God of Israel Himself that separated them. It was His act and deed to put them in their place, and therefore they ought not to be discontented with that; and He it was likewise that put Aaron into his place, and therefore they ought not to envy that.3. He convicts them of the sin of under valuing these privileges, “Seemeth it a small thing unto you?” It ill becomes you, of all men, to grudge Aaron the priesthood, when at the same time that he was advanced to that honour, you were designed to another honour dependent upon it, and shine with rays borrowed from him. Note:(1) The privilege of drawing near to the God of Israel is not a small thing in itself, and therefore must not seem small to us. To those who neglect opportunities of drawing near to God, who are careless and formal in it, to whom it is a task, and not a pleasure, we may properly put this question, Seemeth it a small thing to you that God has made you a people near unto Him?(2) Those who aspire and usurp the honours forbidden them, put a great contempt upon the honours allowed them. We have each of us as good a share of reputation as God sees fit for us, and sees us fit for, and much better than we deserve; and we ought to rest satisfied With it, and not as these here, exercise ourselves in things too high for us: “Seek ye the priesthood also?” They would not own that they sought it, but Moses saw that in their eye: the law had provided very well for those that served at the altar, and therefore they would put in for the office.4. He interprets their mutiny to be a rebellion against God (Num 16:1). While they pretended to assert the holiness and liberty of the Israel of God, they really took up arms against the God of Israel: “Ye are gathered together against the Lord.” Note, those that strive against God’s ordinances and providences, whatever they pretend, and whether they are aware of it or no, do indeed strive with their Maker. Those resist the prince who resist those that are commissioned by him. For alas! saith Moses, “What is Aaron that ye murmur against him?” If murmurers and complainers would consider that the instruments they quarrel with are but instruments whom God employs, and that they are but what He makes them, and neither more nor less, better nor worse, they would not be so bold and free in their censures and reproaches as they are. They that found the priesthood, as it was settled, a blessing, must give all the praise to God; but if any thought it a burden, they must not therefore quarrel with Aaron, who is but what he is made, and doth as he is bidden. Thus he interested God in the cause, and so might be sure of speeding well in his appeal. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Separation for nearness to GodI. God’s separation of His servants.1. The demand for this may come with the first Divine call of which the soul is conscious. To one living a worldly life there comes a conviction of the folly of this, which is really a Divine call to rise and pass from it, through surrender to Christ, to the number of the redeemed. But that call is not easy to obey at first. The influences under which we have grown hold us where we are; aims to which we have been devoted, and in which we have much at stake, refuse to be lightly abandoned; old associations and pleasures throw their arms about us, like the family of Bunyan’s pilgrim, detaining us when we would flee; the world’s beauty blinds us to the greater beauty of the spiritual, and we fear to cast ourselves into the unknown.2. This demand is repeated by God’s constant requirement of His people. For it is the law of spiritual life to “die daily,” to “crucify the flesh with the affections and lusts”; and what is that but to sever ourselves for Christ’s sake from objects to which the natural man would cleave!3. And this demand of God is supplemented by His frequent providence. He calls us to voluntary separation, He also separates us whether we will or no. Evidently spiritual life needs much loneliness.II. This separation is for nearness to Himself.1. For apprehending God, we need separation from what is wrong. Every turning, however little, towards the world from the demand of conscience is a turning a little more away from God, till He is behind us and we lose sight of Him, and live as though He were not. Yea, sin not only turns the back on Him, it dims the eye to the spiritual so that though He stand before us we are blind to His presence.2. Besides this, for communion with God we need separation from engrossing scenes and tasks. “How rare it is,” said Fenelon, “to find a soul still enough to hear God speak!”3. Moreover, for God’s tenderest ministry we need separation from other joys.III. This is the answer to the spirit of murmuring. Then is the time to think how we are separated for nearness to God, and to hear the question in the text, “Seemeth it but a small thing unto you?”1. Let it comfort us in enforced severance from what we love. When we reflect on what we are severed from, let us reflect on the rare compensation--what we are severed to. God is the sum of joy, it is heaven to serve Him and to see His face, all else is nothing compared with conscious nearness to Him, and that is our desire and prayer.2. Let this impel us to seek Divine nearness in the time of our separation. For nearness has not always followed separation in our experience: on the contrary, the seasons of isolation we have referred to have sometimes left us farther from God than we were. May not that be due to the fact that fellowship with Him requires that we go to Him for reception?3. And let this give us victory over the temptation to cleave to evil. For when we first hear the call to relinquish sin the demand seems too great, as though we were to leave all for nothing. And after our Christian course has begun, it seems impossible to give up many an object we suddenly find forbidden. From what, then, we are called to leave, let us turn to think of what we are called to have. “Fear not, Abram,” God said to the patriarch, who had refused the spoil at the slaughter of the kings, “Fear not, Abram, I am thy exceeding great reward!” And so He says to us, adding, as we waver, Lovest thou these more than Me; are they more to you than My favour, My fellowship, Myself? (C. New.)The greater our means are to prevent sin, the more we offend if we reject those meansWe learn hereby that the more helps we have to prevent sin, the greater our sin is if we break these bands and east these cords from us. The sins of the Israelites are often aggravated, because the Lord had sent His prophets among them (Jer 7:13-14; Jer 11:7-8; Jer 35:14; Psa 78:17; Psa 78:31; Psa 78:35; Psa 78:56; Mat 11:21-24; Dan 9:5-6). The reasons:1. First, because those men sin against knowledge, having the Word to inform them and their own consciences to convince them.2. Secondly, it argueth obstinacy of heart; they have many strokes given them, but they feel none of them. For such as transgress in the midst of those helps that serve to restrain sin do not sin of infirmity, but of wilfulness. Now, the more wilful a man is, the more sinful he is.Uses:1. This convinceth our times of much sinfulness, and in these times some places, and in those places sundry persons to be greater sinners than others. And why greater? Because our times have had more means to keep from sin than other times have had. What hath not God done for us and to us to reclaim us? Thus do we turn our blessings to be our bane, and God’s mercies to be curses upon us.2. Secondly, it admonisheth all that enjoy the means of preventing sin as benefits and blessings, the Scriptures and Word of God, His corrections, His promises and threatenings, His patience and longsufferance, that they labour to make profit by them and to fulfil all righteousness, lest God account their sin greater than others.3. Lastly, learn from hence that the Word is never preached in vain, whether we be converted by it or not (see Isa 55:10-11). (W. Attersoll.)Every man in his placeIn all the departments of life there are men who are as Moses and Aaron. Take any department of life that may first occur to the imagination. Shall we say the department of commerce? Even in the market-place we have Moses and Aaron, and they cannot be deposed. Where is the man who thinks he could not conduct the largest business in the city? Yet the poor cripple could not conduct it, and the greatest punishment that could befall the creature would be to allow him to attempt to rule a large and intricate commercial concern. But it seems to be hard for a man to see some other man at the very head of commercial affairs whose word is law, whose signature amounts to a species of sovereignty, and to know that all the while he, the observer, is, in his own estimation, quite as good a man--a person of remarkable capacity, and he is only waiting for an opportunity to wear a nimbus of glory--a halo of radiance--that would astound the exchanges of the world. But it cannot be done. There are great business men and small business men: there are wholesale men and retail men, and neither the wholesale nor the retail affects the quality of the man’s soul, or the destiny of the man’s spirit; but, as a matter of fact, these distinctions are made, and they are not arbitrary: in the spirit of them there is a Divine presence. If men could believe this, they would be comforted accordingly. Every preacher knows in his inmost soul that he is fit to be the Dean of St. Paul’s, or the Dean of Westminster--every preacher knows that; but to be something less--something officially lower--and yet to accept the inferior position with a contentment which is inspired by faith in God, is the very conquest of the Spirit of heaven in the heart of man, is a very miracle of grace. (J. Parker, D. D.)Leaders of disaffectionIt is always a most critical moment in the history of an assembly when a spirit of disaffection displays itself; for, if it be not met in the right way, the most disastrous consequences are sure to follow. There are materials in every assembly capable of being acted upon, and it only needs some restless master spirit to arise, in order to work on such materials, and fan into a devouring flame the fire that has been smouldering in secret. There are hundreds and thousands ready to flock around the standard of revolt, when once it has been raised, who have neither the vigour nor the courage to raise it themselves. It is not every one that Satan will take up as an instrument in such work. It needs a shrewd, clever, energetic man--a man of moral power--one possessing influence over the minds of his fellows, and an iron will to carry forward his schemes. No doubt Satan infuses much of all these into the men whom he uses in his diabolical undertakings. At all events, we know, as a fact, that the great leaders in all rebellious movements are generally men of master minds, capable of swaying, according to their own will, the fickle multitude, which, like the ocean, is acted upon by every stormy wind that blows. Such men know how, in the first place, to stir the passions of the people; and, in the second place, how to wield them when stirred. Their most potent agency--the lever with which they can most effectually raise the masses--is some question as to their liberty and their rights. If they can only succeed in persuading people that their liberty is curtailed, and their rights infringed, they are sure to gather a number of restless spirits around them, and do a vast deal of serious mischief. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Discontent a rebellion against GodGod counts it rebellion (cf. Num 17:10). Murmuring is but as the smoke of a fire; there is first a smoke and a smother before the flame breaks forth: and so before open rebellion in a kingdom there is first a smoke of murmuring, and then it breaks forth into open rebellion. Because it has rebellion in the seeds of it, it is counted before the Lord to be rebellion. When thou feelest thy heart discontented and murmuring against the dispensation of God toward thee, thou shouldest check thy heart thus: “Oh! thou wretched heart! What I wilt thou be a rebel against God?” (J. Burroughs.)Fatal discontentA fern told me that it was too bad to be always shut up in a shady place, and float; it wanted to grow beside the red rose in the garden. The fern said, “I have as much right to be out in the sunshine as the rose has, and I will be out.” I transplanted the little malcontent, and in one hot day the sun struck it dead with his dart of fire. Now, if we be where Christ means us to be, in shade or in light, and will grow according to His will, it shall be well with us, but if we touch that which is forbidden, we shall be made to remember that it is written, “In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” (J. Parker, D. D.)Every man should walk as he is called of GodAs in an orchard there is variety of fruit, apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, &c., and every tree endeavours to suck juice answerable to his kind, that it may bear such a fruit; and an apple tree doth not turn a plum tree, nor a plum tree a cherry tree, &c.; but every tree contents itself to be of its own kind: so in the Church and commonwealth there are varieties of callings, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects; some higher, some lower. And here now every man is to walk as he is called of God, and learn what belongs thereunto, not to encroach or intermeddle with that which belongs to others: for the saying of that Roman general to the soldier that kept the tents, when he should have been fighting in the field, “Non amo nimium diligentem,” will be one day used of God, if He calls us to one possession, and we busy ourselves about another; if He set us on foot, and we will be on horseback; if He make us subjects, and we must needs be superiors. God will not be pleased with such busybodies. (J. Spencer.)Respect not Thou their offering.The resentment of Moses against sinnersMoses, though the meekest man, yet finding God reproached in him, was very wroth; he could not bear to see a people ruining themselves for whose salvation he had done so much. In this discomposure--1. He appeals to God concerning his own integrity; whereas they basely reflected upon him as ambitious, covetous, and oppressive in making himself a prince over them. God was his witness--(1) That he never got anything by them: “I have not taken one ass from them,” not only not by way of bribery and extortion, but not by way of recompense and gratuity for all the good offices he had done them; he never took the pay of a general, or salary of a judge, much less the tribute of a prince. He got more in his estate when he kept Jethro’s flock than since he came to be king in Jeshurun.(2) That they never lost anything by him: “Neither have I hurt any one of them,” no, not the least, no, not the worst, no, not those that had been most peevish and provoking to him. He never abused his power to the support of wrong. Note, those that have never blemished themselves need not fear being blemished. When men condemn us we may be easy, if our hearts condemn us not.2. He begs of God to plead his cause and clear him by showing His displeasure at the incense which Korah and his company were to offer, with whom Dathan and Abiram were in confederacy. “Lord,” said he, “respect not Thou their offering.” Wherein he seems to refer to the history of Cain, lately written by his own hand, of whom it is said that to him and his offering God had not respect (Gen 4:4). These that followed the gainsaying of Korah walked in the way of Cain (they are put together, Jude verse 11), and therefore he prays they might be frowned upon as Cain was, and put to the same confusion. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)A fire from the Lord.--Presumptuous serviceNo man is indispensable to God. These men had no business to offer incense. God will not have the order of the Church or the order of the universe disturbed without penalty. Things are all fixed, whether you like it or not; the bounds of our habitation are fixed. He who would upset any axiom of God always goes down into the pit, the earth opens and swallows him up. That will be so until the end of time. It is so in literature, it is so in housekeeping, it is so in statesmanship, it is so in preaching. The whole order of creation is God’s; why can we not simply, lovingly accept it, and say, Good is the will of the Lord? Why this chafing against the bars of the cage? Why this discontent with the foundations of things? The Lord placed me here, it is the only place I am fit for, or I have been qualified by Divine compassion and love for this position: good is the will of the Lord! Better that incense be not offered than that it be offered by unworthy hands. There is really nothing in the incense; it is in the motive, in the purpose, it is in the honest handling of the censer, that good is done by any service or by any ceremony. No bad man can preach. He can talk, he can say beautiful words, but he does not preach so as to get at the heart and at the conscience, and so as to bless all the deeper and inner springs of human life and human hope. Officialism is not piety. A man may have a censer, and yet have no right to it. A man may be robed in the clothes of the Church, but be naked before heaven, and be regarded by high heaven as a violator and an intruder. Whoever uses a censer gives himself more or less of publicity: by so much does he become a leader; and by so much as a man is a leader does God’s anger burn hotly against him when he prostitutes his leadership. How many men were there? Two hundred and fifty. That was a great numerical loss. Yes, it was: but numerical losses may be moral gains. The congregation must be weighed as well as numbered. Some churches would be fuller if they were emptier. The Church of Christ would be stronger to-day if all nominal professors were shed off, if the earth would open and swallow them up every one. These were two hundred and fifty trespassers. Whatever they were outside the Church, they had no right to be within it in the sense which they now represent by this action. No true man was ever cut off, let me say again and again. The whole emphasis is upon the word “true.” He may not be a great man or a brilliant man, he may be nothing of a genius, but if he be true, that is the only genius God desiderates as fundamental and permanent. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 16:37-40Take up the censers. Divine economyWhat God has kissed must not be lost; what God has consecrated must be preserved. The two hundred and fifty men may be burned up, the censers may be scorched, but they shall be turned to some use in the sanctuary. O thou great Economist, the very stones of Thy house are sacred to Thee; they are not sacred as magically consecrated, but they are sacred because Thou hast told men to seek in the quarries of the earth and in the forests of the land for stone and wood to put together to make a sanctuary for Thee; and once Thine, Thine for ever. The stones are dear to Thee, yea, the dust of Zion is more than the constellations of the sky. If we have given anything to the Cross, it is God’s; it will never be unholy. At the beginning of every year some men say, “So much for Christ.” They say, “There it is; every penny is His, it will all go to His treasury.” Such men can never be vexed and fretted by appeals, because they have given the money, and when they have spent all the money they say so, and God is as pleased with their not giving as with their giving, because they have given it all. They first set it apart, they consecrated it, they took it to the Cross and said, Jesus, this little handful is all Thine; help me to spend it aright. It is all gone, so when the next applicant comes and gets nothing, God is not displeased. So let us give ourselves to Christ; then every hair on our head is His, and will be numbered; all our outgoings and incomings, our downsittings and uprisings, will be of consequence to Heaven. Why? Not because of the detailed action, but because the life out of which all of that action came was itself baptized, made holy with the chrism of fire. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 16:41-50On the morrow all the congregation . . . murmured.Transgression and intercessionI. A new rebellion raised the very next day against Moses and Aaron. Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and wonder, O earth! Was there ever such an instance of the incurable corruption of sinners! (Num 16:41). On the morrow the body of the people mutinied--1. Though they were but newly terrified by the sight of the punishment of the rebels. Warnings slighted.2. Though they were but newly saved from sharing in the same punishment, and the survivors were as brands plucked out of the burning, yet they fly in the face of Moses and Aaron, to whose intercession they owed their preservation.II. God’s speedy appearing against the rebels. When they were gathered against Moses and Aaron, perhaps with design to depose or murder them, they looked towards the tabernacle, as if their misgiving consciences expected some frowns from thence; and behold the glory of the Lord appeared (Num 16:42) for the protection of His servants, and confusion of His and their accusers. Moses and Aaron thereupon came before the tabernacle, partly for their own safety; there they took sanctuary from the strife of tongues (Psa 37:5; Psa 31:20), and partly for advice, to know what was the mind of God upon this occasion (Num 16:43). Justice hereupon declares, They deserve to be consumed in a moment (Num 16:45). Why should they live another day who hate to be reformed, and whose rebellions are their daily practices? Let just vengeance take place and do its work, and the trouble with them will soon be over; only Moses and Aaron must first be secured.III. The intercession which Moses and Aaron made for them. Though they had as much reason, one would think, as Elias had, to make intercession against Israel (Rom 11:7), yet they forgive and forget the indignities offered them, and are the best friends their enemies have.1. They both fell on their faces, humbly to intercede with God for mercy, knowing how great their provocation was. This they had done several times before upon the like occasion; and though the people had basely requited them for it, yet God having graciously accepted them, they still have recourse to the same method. This is praying always.2. Moses perceiving that the plague was begun in the congregation of the rebels, i.e., that body of them which was gathered together against Moses, sends Aaron by an act of his priestly office to make atonement for them (Num 16:46). And Aaron readily went, burnt incense between the living and the dead, not to purify the infected air, but to pacify an offended God, and so stayed the progress of the judgment (Num 16:47).IV. The result and issue of the whole matter.1. God’s justice was glorified in the death of some. Great execution the sword of the Lord did in a very little time. Though Aaron made all the haste he could, yet before he could reach his post of service there were fourteen thousand seven hundred men laid dead upon the spot (Num 16:49). Note, those that quarrel with lesser judgments prepare greater for themselves; for when God judgeth He will overcome.2. His mercy was glorified in the preservation of the rest. God showed them what He could do by His power, and what He might do in justice, but then showed them what He could do in His love and pity. He would preserve them a people to Himself for all this, in and by a Mediator. The cloud of Aaron’s incense coming from his hand stayed the plague. Note, it is much for the glory of God’s goodness that many a time, even in wrath, He remembers mercy; and even when judgments have been begun, prayer has put a stop to them, so ready is He to forgive, and so little pleasure doth He take in the death of sinners. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The aggravated rebellion of the people, the effectual intercession of the good, and the justice and mercy of GodI. The aggravated rebellion of the people.1. Terrible disregard of Divine warnings.2. Base ingratitude to Moses and Aaron.3. Profane characterisation of the wicked as the people of God.II. The speedy interposition of Jehovah.1. The manifestation of His glory.2. The declaration of the desert of the rebels.III. The effectual intercession of Moses and Aaron.1. The kindness of Moses and Aaron. Their conduct reminds us of Him who prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”2. The courage of Aaron. He feared neither the excited people who were embittered against him, nor the pestilence which was smiting down the people by thousands, but “ran into the midst of the congregation,” &c.3. The zeal of Aaron. He was now an old man, yet he “ran into the midst,” &c. An example for Christian ministers.4. The success of Aaron. “The plague was stayed.” How great is the power of prayer!IV. The exercise of the justice and mercy of God.1. Here is an impressive display of Divine justice. Many slain.2. Here is an encouraging manifestation of Divine mercy. Some spared.Conclusion: Learn--1. The heinousness of sin.2. The great value of a faithful ministry.3. The readiness of God to forgive sin. (W. Jones.)Make an atonement for them.The sin of man and the salvation of GodI. There is an awful controversy between a holy God and a rebellious world. Our sin resembles theirs in many aspects, and has the same aggravations.1. As it directly strikes against the authority and the grace of God, whatever be the form it assumes.2. As it is often committed in the face of frequent and awful warnings.3. As it is heightened by the experience of God’s preserving and upholding mercy.II. There is at hand a prescribed and Divinely approved remedy.1. That our only escape from threatened wrath is through the mediation and advocacy of our High Priest.2. That the plan of salvation by faith is as efficacious in reality as it is simple in its mode of application.3. That an immediate application to it is our only protection against certain ruin. “Go quickly.” (S. Thodey.)An awful spectacle, and a surprising remedyI. An awful spectacle exhibited. When private prayer is a task, and the minor moralities of life begin to be disregarded, there are fearful symptoms of decay and declension. “The plague is begun.”II. The surprising remedy found. “Take a censer,” &c. Where is the physician who would have recommended this as a cure for the plague? Who would have thought that the appearance of a single priest amidst the dying and the dead should have stopped the progress of the pestilence? Yet the incense and the fire and the oblation accomplish that for Israel which all the wisdom of the Egyptians could never have achieved. Who does not, in like manner, rebel against God’s appointed method of pardon? or question the mysterious virtue of Christ’s atoning blood, and doubt the efficacy of faith, repentance, and prayer?III. A practical application demanded.1. What infinite solemnity attaches to all the offices of religion! Death and life are involved. The two hundred and fifty men that offered incense perished: their spirit was bad. What if we bring strange fire! Aaron’s offering saves life. If awful to preach, so also to hear.2. How dreadful if the plague be in the heart, and we, unconscious of danger, neglect the remedy! “Examine yourselves.”3. What need ministers have for the prayers and sympathies of their people!4. Rejoice in the absolute sufficiency of salvation applied by the Spirit. (S. Thodey.)Aaron staying the plagueI. The willingness of Aaron to intercede.1. Regardless of the plague.2. Regardless of the people’s enmity.II. The nature of Aaron’s intercession.III. The success of Aaron’s intercession. Conclusion:1. Let us tremble at the wrath of an offended God.2. Let us rejoice in the intercession of our Great High Priest. (J. D. Lane, M. A.)The plague stayedI. The evil.II. The punishment.1. Divine.2. By the plague.(1) Fatal.(2) Speedily so.(3) Invariably so.III. The remedy.1. In itself, not apparently adapted.2. Connected with pious intercession.3. Intercession grounded on sacrifice.4. Efficient.(1) Completely.(2) At once.Learn:1. The extreme evil of sin.2. The riches of the grace of God.3. The immediate duty of the sinner--to call earnestly on the Lord. (J. Burns, D. D.)Mercy rejoiceth against judgmentI. Sin and its consequence.1. The sin of the Israelites was rebellion against God.2. The terrible visitation.II. The atonement, and its success.1. A significant act.(1) Aaron a type of the Lord Jesus.(2) He stood between the dead and the living.(3) Jesus has done more than Aaron.2. The completeness of His atonement.II. The special lessons to be derived from hence.1. The faithful minister of God’s Word dares not withhold the instruction to be derived from it concerning the terrible judgments which ungodly men bring on themselves by continuing in sin against a just and holy God.2. If the judgment against sin is so terrible to contemplate, how much need have we to accept God’s own way of deliverance! (E. Auriol, M. A.)He stood between the dead and the living.The high priest standing between the dead and the livingThe whole scene is typical of Christ; and Aaron, as he appears before us in each character, is a most magnificent picture of the Lord Jesus.I. First, look at Aaron as the lover of the people. See in Aaron the lover of Israel; in Jesus the lover of His people. Aaron deserves to be very highly praised for his patriotic affection for a people who were the most rebellious that ever grieved the heart of a good man. You must remember that in this case he was the aggrieved party. Is not this the very picture of our Lord Jesus? Had not sin dishonoured Him? Was He not the Eternal God, and did not sin therefore conspire against Him as well as against the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit? Was He not, I say, the one against whom the nations of the earth stood up and said, “Let us break His bands asunder, and cast His cords from us”? Yet He, our Jesus, laying aside all thought of avenging Himself, becomes the Saviour of His people. Well, you note again, that Aaron in thus coming forward as the deliverer and lover of his people, must have remembered that he was abhorred by this very people. They were seeking his blood; they were desiring to put him and Moses to death, and yet, all thoughtless of danger, he snatches up his censer and runs into their midst with a Divine enthusiasm in his heart. He might have stood back, and said, “No, they will slay me if I go into their ranks; furious as they are, they will charge this new death upon me and lay me low.” But he never considers it. Into the midst of the crowd he boldly springs. Most blessed Jesus, Thou mightest not only think thus, but indeed Thou didst feel it to be true. Thou wast willing to die a martyr, that Thou mightest be made a sacrifice for those by whom Thy blood was spilt. You will see the love and kindness of Aaron if you look again; Aaron might have said, “But the Lord will surely destroy me also with the people; if I go where the shafts of death are flying they will reach me.” He never thinks of it; he exposes his own person in the very forefront of the destroying one. Oh, Thou glorious High Priest of our profession, Thou mightest not only have feared this which Aaron might have dreaded, but Thou didst actually endure the plague of God; for when Thou didst come among the people to save them from Jehovah’s wrath, Jehovah’s wrath fell upon Thee. The sheep escaped, but by “His life and blood the Shepherd pays, a ransom for the flock.” Oh, Thou lover of thy Church, immortal honours be unto Thee! Aaron deserves to be beloved by the tribes of Israel, because he stood in the gap and exposed himself for their sins; but Thou, most mighty Saviour, Thou shalt have eternal songs, because, forgetful of Thyself, Thou didst bleed and die, that man might be saved! I would again draw your attention to that other thought that Aaron as a lover of the people of Israel deserves much commendation, from the fact that it is expressly said, he ran into the host. That little fact of his running is highly significant, for it shows the greatness and swiftness of the Divine impulse of love that was within. Ah! and was it not so with Christ? Did He not baste to be our Saviour? Were not His delights with the sons of men? Did He not often say, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished”? His dying for us was not a thing which He dreaded. “With desire have I desired to eat this passover.”II. Now view Aaron as the great propitiator. Wrath had gone out from God against the people on account of their sin, and it is God’s law that His wrath shall never stay unless a propitiation be offered. The incense which Aaron carried in his hand was the propitiation before God, from the fact that God saw in that perfume the type of that richer offering which our Great High Priest is this very day offering before the throne. Aaron as the propitiator is to be looked at first as bearing in his censer that which was necessary for the propitiation. He did not come empty-handed. Even though God’s high priest, he must take the censer; he must fill it with the ordained incense, made with the ordained materials; and then he must light it with the sacred fire from off the altar, and with that alone. Behold, then, Christ Jesus as the propitiator for His people. He stands this day before God with His censer smoking up towards heaven. Behold the Great High Priest! See Him this day with His pierced hands, and head that once was crowned with thorns. Mark how the marvellous smoke of His merits goeth up for ever and ever before the eternal throne. ‘Tis He, ‘tis He alone, who puts away the sins of His people. His incense, as we know, consists first of all of His positive obedience to the Divine law. He kept His Father’s commands; He did everything that man should have done; He kept to the full the whole law of God, and made it honourable. Then mixed with this is His blood--an equally rich and precious ingredient. The blood of His very heart--mixed together with His merits--these make up the incense--an incense incomparable--an incense surpassing all others. Besides that, it was not enough for Aaron to have the proper incense. Korah might have that too, and he might have the censer also. That would not suffice--he must be the ordained priest; for mark, two hundred and fifty men fell in doing the act which Aaron did. Aaron’s act saved others; their act destroyed themselves. So Jesus, the propitiator, is to be looked upon as the ordained one--called of God as was Aaron. But let us note once more in considering Aaron as the great propitiator, that we must look upon him as being ready for his work. He was ready with his incense, and ran to the work at the moment the plague broke out. The people were ready to perish and he was ready to save. Jesus Christ stands ready to save thee now; there is no need of preparation; He hath slain the victim; He hath offered the sacrifice; He hath filled the censer; He hath put to it the glowing coals. His breastplate is on His breast; His mitre is on His head; He is ready to save thee now. Trust Him, and thou shalt not find need for delay,III. Now view Aaron as the interposer. Let me explain what I mean. As the old Westminster Annotations say upon this passage, “The plague was moving among the people as the fire moveth along a field of corn.” There it came; it began in the extremity; the faces of men grew pale, and swiftly on, on it came, and in vast heaps they fell, till some fourteen thousand had been destroyed, Aaron wisely puts himself just in the pathway of the plague. It came on, cutting down all before it, and there stood Aaron the interposer with arms outstretched and censer swinging towards heaven, interposing himself between the darts of death and the people. Just so was it with Christ. Wrath had gone out against us. The law was about to smite us; the whole human race must be destroyed. Christ stands in the forefront of the battle. “The stripes must fall on Me!” He cries; “the arrows shall find a target in My breast. On me, Jehovah, let Thy vengeance fall.” And He receives that vengeance, and afterwards upspringing from the grave He waves the censer full of the merit of His blood, and bids this wrath and fury stand back.IV. Now view Aaron as the saviour. It was Aaron, Aaron’s censer, that saved the lives of that great multitude. If he had not prayed the plague had not stayed, and the Lord would have consumed the whole company in a moment. As it was, you perceive there were some fourteen thousand and seven hundred that died before the Lord. The plague had begun its dreadful work, and only Aaron could stay it. And now I want you to notice with regard to Aaron, that Aaron, and especially the Lord Jesus, must be looked upon as a gracious Saviour. It was nothing but love that moved Aaron to wave his censer. The people could not demand it of him. Had they not brought a false accusation against him? And yet he saves them. It must have been love and nothing but love. Say, was there anything in the voices of that infuriated multitude which could have moved Aaron to stay the plague from before them? Nothing! nothing in their character! nothing in their looks! nothing in their treatment of God’s High Priest! and yet he graciously stands in the breach, and saves them from the devouring judgment of God! If Christ hath saved us He is a gracious Saviour indeed. And then, again, Aaron was an unaided saviour. He stands alone, alone, alone! and herein was he a great type of Christ who could say, “I have trodden the winepress alone, and of the people there was none with Me.” Do not think, then, that when Christ prevails with God, it is because of any of your prayers, or tears, or good works. He never puts your tears and prayers into His censer. They would mar the incense. There is nothing but His own prayers, and His own tears, and His own merits there. “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” Nor doth He need a helper; “He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” “He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him.” He was, then, you will perceive, a gracious Saviour, and an unaided one; and, once more, Aaron as a saviour was all-sufficient. Trust thou thy soul with Christ, and thy sins are at once forgiven, at once blotted out.V. Aaron as the divider--the picture of Christ. Aaron the anointed one stands here; on that side is death, on this side life; the boundary between life and death is that one man. Where his incense smokes the air is purified, where it smokes not the plague reigns with unmitigated fury. There are two sorts of people here this morning, and these are the living and the dead, the pardoned, the unpardoned, the saved, and the lost. A man in Christ is a Christian; a man out of Christ is dead in trespasses and sins. “He that believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ is saved, he that believeth not is lost.” Christ is the only divider between His people and the world. On which side, then, art thou to-day? (C. H. Spurgeon.)The plague in the wildernessI. To say that this evil had its origin in sin, would be to say nothing. All evil proceeds from sin : there is not a pang or sorrow in the universe which has not this as its source. But then suffering owes its existence to sin in various ways. Sometimes it is sent in mercy to prevent sin; thus Paul had a thorn in the flesh “lest he should be exalted.” At other times it comes to discover sin and subdue it in the Christian’s heart. “Before I was afflicted,” says David, “I went astray, but now have I kept Thy word.” More frequently, however, its design is to answer the purposes of God’s moral government; to punish sin: to manifest the abhorrence in which the great Ruler of the universe holds it, and thus to deter His creatures from the commission of it. And such was its object here. The Israelites had sinned against the Lord; this plague was the punishment of their sin.1. This offence involved in it an overlooking of God’s providence; at all events, a refusing to acknowledge it. God will not allow us to say for ever, “Accident brought this evil on me, chance this disease, a casualty this bereavement, the injustice or treachery of my fellow-man this loss and poverty.” Either by His Spirit, or by His providence, or by both, God will drive this atheism out of us. He will force us to say, “It is the Lord. He is in this place, and I knew it not. Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.”2. The murmuring of these sinners included in it also a daring censure of God’s ways. Whatever God does bears the impress of God. In some way or other it manifests His perfections, and consequently is calculated to bring honour to His name. Now a mind in a right state praises Him for every work of His hands; and it does so on account of the traces of His glory it either discovers in that work, or, though hidden, believes to be there. Indeed, this is God’s great design in all His doings, to draw forth praise from His creatures by revealing to them His excellencies, and thus to surround Himself with a delighted and adoring universe. It follows, then, that to censure any of God’s ways is, as far as in us lies, to frustrate the object at which God aims in these ways; to rob Him of His honour, and worse than this--to asperse His character and vindicate His enemies. And of this offence these Israelites were guilty.3. There was yet a third evil comprehended in the murmuring of these Israelites; and this was a contempt of God’s warnings. Millions of our race have already perished; the destroying angel is hastening to cut down millions more. The world some of us deem so fair and happy is nothing better than the camp of Israel--a scene of mercy, it is true, but yet a scene of misery, terror, and death. How anxious, then, should we be to look around for a deliverer! Blessed be God, there is One near. This history speaks of Him.II. Consider now the cessation of the pestilence.1. It was effected by one who might have been supposed least likely to interfere for such a purpose. Can we fail to discover here the great High Priest of God’s guilty church, the despised and rejected Jesus? Aaron was a type of Him.2. The cessation of this plague was attended with a display of the most self-denying and ardent love.3. The cessation of this plague was brought about by means that seemed altogether inadequate, that appeared, in fact, to have no connection at all with the end proposed. (C. Bradley, M. A.)Staying the plague1. The origin of the judgment here spoken of. Men quickly forget the Almighty.2. The means adopted to arrest its devastating progress. Mediation.3. The feelings of gratitude which the removal of the plague must have inspired. (W. C. Le Breton, M. A.)Standing between the dead and the livingIn this, as in all other similar occasions, we perceive the presence of the Eternal Son, preparing the way for that perfect scheme of redemption which was to be unfolded in the fulness of time. Jesus in truth stood between the dead and the living; for Aaron was His delegate and servant: and I would apply the particulars of the present transaction to our own case and circumstances. The plague, then, to which we may now advert is the plague of sin, and the threatened death is the death of the soul. Truly the plague has begun. It began in paradise, and has been raging ever since; and as soon as it broke out, the Lord appeared to intercede and to atone. We can entertain no doubt of the existence of the evil; we cannot look far into the world, not far into the Christian world, without beholding lamentable proof of its ravages: intemperance, profligacy, and even blasphemy, meet us in every quarter; the moral pestilence is positively raging around and within the Christian camp. Nor need we look abroad for proof of this awful fact; we have each of us an evidence in our own bosom. But it was not merely the existence of the plague itself which must have wrought upon the Israelites, and have made them to accept the proffered remedy; it was also that so many lay dead before them; such multitudes of their neighbours and friends had been swept away before their eyes. And have not we, on this ground, many powerful inducements also? Have there not been presented before us in the page of history, yea, in daily report, awful numbers of the human race, to all appearance dying of the plague, dying in their trespasses and sins? Again, as the Israelites saw many destroyed, so did they likewise see many recovered and saved; and that would encourage them to lay hold of the means ordained. We also have similar encouragements under the gospel. It is not altogether a scene of desolation, of heedlessness and ruin; there have been many splendid trophies of Divine grace, many careless sinners awakened and rescued from the grave of destruction. (J. Slade, M. A.)The living and the deadEvery minister of Jesus Christ, when he stands in the pulpit, stands in the same responsible relation as Aaron did. I stand and look at the living on one side, and on the other I see the dead. The Bible, up and down, declares that an unforgiven soul is dead in trespasses and in sins. What killed the soul? The plague. What kind of a plague--the Asiatic plague? No; the plague of sin. The Asiatic plague was epidemic. It struck one, it struck a great many; and this plague of sin is epidemic. It has touched all nations. It goes from heart to heart, and from house to house; and we are more apt to copy the defects than we are the virtues of character. The whole race is struck through with an awful sickness. Explorers have gone forth, by ship, and reindeer sledge, and on foot, and they have discovered new tribes and villages; but they have never yet discovered a sinless population. On every brow the mark of the plague--in every vein the fever. On both sides of the equator, in all zones, from arctic to antarctic, the plague. Yes, it is contagious. We catch it from our parents. Our children catch it from us. Instead of fourteen thousand seven hundred, there are more than one thousand millions of the dead. As I look off upon the spiritually dead, I see that the scene is loathsome. Now, sometimes you have seen a body after decease more beautiful than in life. The old man looked young again. But when a man perished with the Asiatic plague he became repulsive. There was something about the brow, about the neck, about the lip, about the eye, that was repulsive. And when a man is dead in sin he is repulsive to God. We are eaten of that abominable thing which God hates, and unless we are resuscitated from that condition, we must go out of His sight. But I remark again, that I look off upon the slain of this plague, and I see the scene is one of awful destruction. Gout attacks the foot, ophthalmia the eye, neuralgia the nerves; and there are diseases which take only, as it were, the outposts of the physical castle; but the Asiatic plague demolishes the whole fortress. And so with this plague of sin. It enwraps the whole soul, It is complete destruction--altogether undone, altogether gone astray, altogether dead. When I look upon those who are slain with this plague, I see that they are beyond any human resurrection. Medical colleges have prescribed for this Asiatic plague, but have never yet cured a case. And so I have to tell you that no earthly resurrection can bring up a soul after it is dead in sin. You may galvanise it, and make it move around very strangely; but galvanism and life are infinitely apart. None but the omnipotent God can resurrect it. I go further and say, that every minister of the gospel, when he stands up to preach, stands between the living and the dead of the great future. Two worlds, one on either side of us: the one luminous, the other dark; the one a princely and luxuriant residence, the other an incarceration. Standing between the living who have entered upon their eternal state, and the dead who shall tarry in their eternal decease, I am this moment. Oh, the living, the living, I think of them to-night. Your Christian dead have not turned into thin clouds and floated off into the immensities. Living, bounding, acting, they are waiting for you. Living! Never to die. (T. De Witt Talmage.)The prevailing IntercessorSuch was our High Priest who perceived that, on account of man’s transgression, wrath was gone forth from the presence of the Lord, and that the plague was begun among the people. And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore He arrayed Himself in the holy garments of glory and beauty; He put on a breastplate of righteousness, and a robe of inviolable sanctity, and He was clad, over all, with zeal as a cloak. He was anointed with the oil of gladness, with the Holy Ghost, and with power; and on His head was a crown of salvation and glory. Thus adorned and fitted for the work, He put on, for incense, the merits of His sufferings. He ran into the midst of God’s people as a Mediator, interposing Himself between the parties at variance, in order to reconcile them. He met the burning wrath, and turned it aside from all believers. And so the plague is stayed. A stop is put to the progress of everlasting destruction. “There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.” And can anything, then, prevent our accepting this atonement, and thankfully receiving the benefits of this intercession? Nothing can, but an utter ignorance of our sin, and of our danger. Could a dying Israelite have been prevailed upon, think you, to reject the atonement and intercession of Aaron? No, surely. Only see how hope revives in their countenances, and joy sparkles in their eyes, all turned and fixed upon him in the execution of his priestly office. And why? Because they were sensible of their wretched and perilous estate. They needed not to be told that they were expiring by the pestilence. Oh, why are not we so? Why do we hear of the atonement and intercession of the Holy Jesus with so much cold indifference? Why, but because we see not, we know not, we feel not the want of them. And yet, what is there, within us, or without us, that doth not teach and show it us? To tell you that the world is full of sorrow, is no news; to tell you that the world is full of sin, is, I presume, no news. And from what would you desire to be delivered, if not from sin and sorrow? What, in point of wretchedness, was the camp of Israel with the pestilence in the midst of it, if compared to such a world as this? Go, thou who art tempted to reject, or to neglect the satisfaction of Christ, go to the bed of sickness, ask him who lies racked with pain, and trembling at the thoughts of the wrath to come, what his opinion is concerning the doctrine of atonement; and observe how the name of a Saviour and Intercessor puts comfort and gladness into his affrighted soul, at a time when the treasures and the crowns of eastern kings would be utterly contemned, as equally vain, worthless, and unprofitable, with the dust of the earth. (Bp. Horne.)Numbers 17Numbers 17:1-13Write Aaron’s name upon the rod of Levi.Aaron’s rodI. Instructive to the Israelites.1. An end hereby put to murmuring. By an incontrovertible sign they knew who was the true priest.2. A preventative furnished against future rebellion. Miracles apt to be forgotten; of this the evidence was to be preserved. Kept for a token.II. Suggestive to Christians. Every man has some rod on which he leans. The Christian’s is faith. Like Aaron’s rod, faith flourishes--1. Most in the sanctuary. There are strengthening influences, and a Divine power. It will become a barren stock elsewhere.2. Under circumstances in which other rods cannot live. The almond flourishes even before the winter is fully past. Faith budding in adversity.3. Produces fruit and flowers on the bare stock of adversity.4. Bears fruit speedily when God causes His blessing to rest upon it. “Believe and be saved.”5. Stirs the Christian up to vigilance. Almond-tree a symbol of watchfulness.III. Typical of Christ.1. For it is perpetual. Aaron’s rod laid up as a lasting remembrance.2. It bore fruit on a barren stock. Jesus, a root out of a dry ground.3. It was distinguished among the sceptres of the princes. Christ’s kingdom and sceptre rule over all. He is a plant of renown.4. It was the object of special favour. So in Jesus, He “was well pleased.” He was “elect and precious.”IV. Symbolical of a true teacher.1. His home the house of God.2. Presents himself constantly before the testimony.3. In himself dry and barren.4. Relies upon God for fruitfulness.5. Produces by Divine help not flowers only, but fruit also.6. As a dry and lifeless stock he receives quickening power from God; so with his flowers and fruit he presents himself before God, and offers all his works to Him.Learn--1. The wisdom of God in choice of methods.2. To seek a strong and living and practical faith.3. To rejoice in and rely upon the perpetual high priesthood of Christ.4. To endeavour, like the almond-tree, to bring forth fruit early. (J. C. Gray.)Aaron’s rod that buddedThis is our subject: the miraculous conversion of Aaron’s rod into a living, blossoming, and fruit-bearing plant. It must have been a most convincing prodigy for the purpose it was designed to answer, for the people no sooner saw it than they cried out in remorse for their wavering allegiance, “Behold, we die! we perish! we all perish!” But beyond the age wherein the marvel occurred, this putting vegetable life into that dry staff has frequently been borrowed and used for other objects. Thus Achilles, in classic poetry, when enraged against Agamemnon, is made by Homer to refer to this miracle:--“But hearken! I shall swear a solemn oathBy this same sceptre, which shall never bud,Nor boughs bring forth, as once ; which, having leftIts stock on the high mountains at what timeThe woodman’s axe lopt off its foliage greenAnd stript its bark, shall never grow again :-By this I swear!”And amongst Latin literature you will, some of you, remember that a certain king confirms a covenant with AEneas by a similar oath.I. We begin by reminding you that among the greatest of our blessings in this world is our strict obligation to do the Divine will and to keep the Divine law. It is far more worth our while to sing of God’s statutes than it is to sing of God’s promises. Where should we be in a country without human authority, and a human authority founded on a reverence for the Divine? Very truly does Bushnell say that, “without law, man does not live, he only grazes.” If he had no government he would never discern any reason for existence, and would soon not care to exist. How different is the world of Voltaire from the world of Milton I The one finds nothing but this clay world and its material beauties, flashes into a shallow brilliancy of speech, and, weaving a song of surfaces, empties himself into a book of all that he has felt or seen. But the other, at the back of all and through all visible things, beholds a spirit and a Divinity. Now is there not a very beautiful picture of the comeliness and the beneficence of law in the old miracle that was wrought upon the rod of Aaron? That staff, as we have put it to you, was selected as the sign of authority. This was a declaration, first, that no law was perfect that did not display life and beauty and fertility; and a declaration, secondly, that by God’s choice that perfect law dwelt in the high priest. But apart from the imagery as a message to the children of Israel, I cling to that blooming staff as the very best type I can find anywhere of what God’s rule is amongst us and in His Church. I find myself taught by this early prodigy on Aaron’s staff that God’s dominion is the dominion of the almond-branch. It is a rod; alas! for us, if there were no rod. But it is a rod displaying all the three several pledges and gradations of life; and thus--oh! beautiful coincidence, if it be nothing more--God turns His law towards the children of men into what the forbidden tree so falsely appeared to the first transgressor--“pleasant to the eye, and good for food.” Of course I know that the staff or the sceptre is the symbol of authority, because a staff is that with which one person smites another. The ultimate significance of a rod is a blow. But is it nothing to be taught by God’s picture-alphabet of the Old Testament that He smites only with buds, and with flowers, and with fruit? This seems to change, even to any child’s apprehension, the whole character of the sovereignty under which we bow in the modern camp of the Church. You tremble as you read the chapter of hard duties. Turn the leaf, and you will come upon the chapter of precious promises. There is not a verse in the Bible that is not in flower with some comfort; aye, though it be a verse that smites you with a difficult commandment. You are never to tell a man to do a single thing in religion without telling him that God will help him to do it. You are never to command a sacrifice from me for Christ’s sake without comforting me with the assurance that “God is able to give me much more than this.” If you have a strong, rough, hard stick of responsibility, you must show it to me bursting out all over with the rich petals and the hanging clusters of the sovereignty of Divine grace. Aye, for I want you to mark well that here was a miracle within a miracle. The natural almond-branch never has upon it at one time buds, blossoms, and fruit. But I seem to be taught by this accumulation of successive life all at once on one stem that there is no element of mercy wanting in the code by which I am to be managed. But remember that if we deserve nothing but the rod, and yet if God never uses the rod save with the buds, the blossoms, and the fruit, “He may well record it against us if either we despise the chastening of the Lord, or faint when we are rebuked of Him.”II. But now the real and only proper commentary on the facts of the Pentateuch will be found in the doctrines of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Do you believe that all those lives would have been lost, and all that commotion would have been made about the prerogative of Aaron’s priesthood, but for that other Priest on whom the whole world was to rely--the Priest for ever--“made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life”? It is not by one Scripture, it is by scores, that I find myself pointed, through that staff, to the real government of this world in the rod out of the stem of Jesse. “He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, without form or comeliness.” And yet, all the while, He was the “rod out of the stem of Jesse.” And when I read, in the Book of Numbers, how the Hebrews rose up against Aaron and put him to shame, I can only take it for a foreshadowing of another rebellion, when they insulted another Sceptre, who was “despised and rejected of men.” We preach to you Christ, a stumbling-block to the Jews. And scarcely can you wonder that so long as the rod was only the root out of a dry ground, the Son of the carpenter and the Friend of sinners, there was “ no beauty in Him that they should desire Him.” But that is not the staff with which, this day, God governs His Church. No, no! He hath declared that lowly peasant preacher to be “the Son of God with power, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Ah, that night in which they concealed Aaron’s rod in the tabernacle of witness, it was never less living, never less blossoming, than then. But it was not left in darkness, neither did it see corruption. And on the appointed morning men found it, marked by the choice of the Omnipotent with the buds, the blossoms, and the fruit. In like manner the coldest, darkest, least living period in Immanuel’s career was when they hid Him, among all the other millions of the dead, in the tomb cut out of the rock in the garden of Joseph. “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.” He was raised up “a plant of renown.” And from that glorious Easter morning the “rod out of the stem of Jesse” has been “the tree whose leaves are for the healing of the nations,” and “filling the face of the world with fruit.” Men can be governed by a Mediator and yet not perish. “The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” That is a rod, but “if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father,” that is, “Aaron’s rod that budded”--the rod of the Priest. Reuben, Gad, and all the rest have rods. Christianity is not alone in the sternness of its government or the severity of its sanctions. But it is alone in telling me how I can receive remission of sins that are past, and how I can obtain the strongest of motives for a life of obedience in the time to come. (H. Christopherson.)Aaron’s rod blossoming and bearing fruitI. As the priesthood of Aaron was a type of the priesthood of Christ, there is here a suggestion of facts which must have their counterpart in Christ’s life and history.1. The atonement and death of our Lord Jesus were matters of Divine appointment. The whole work of our salvation originated with God.2. But more than this--which is the essential truth here enshrined--we see here that God often manifests Himself in unexpected forms of beauty and of grace. The dry rod blossomed and bare fruit. The powers of Divine salvation were enshrined in the person of the Carpenter of Nazareth. There was life for a dead world in the Cross and in the grave of the dead Christ.II. There are suggestions here concerning Christian life.1. Christian life begins with God.2. The Christian life manifests itself in unfavourable conditions. It is in human souls a power of active benevolence, or it is nothing at all. It takes hold of human misery with a healing hand, and it changes it into blessing. Where sin abounded there grace does much more abound.3. There is beauty associated with the developments of Christian life and character. There is nothing half so winning as Christian grace.III. Suggestions in relation to the gospel ministry.1. There is a Divine designation of men to the highest service of the Church.2. But what is the qualification of men thus sent? Evidently the possession of Divine life, the gift which is to be imparted to those needing it. To be a Christian teacher a man must be a Christian and must know the things of Christ.3. How, then, are we to judge a man’s Divine call and authority? Only and solely by the blossoms and fruit--by the spiritual results of his ministry.IV. Last of all, there are here suggestions concerning Christian humiliation.1. The world has not known its best benefactors. It has always had a scornful word for the saintly and the true-hearted. It has always risen up in rebellion against the anointed of the Lord.2. Here is a word of encouragement to all weak and mistrustful and diffident and self-emptied souls. “I am but a dry rod,” says the old labourer in the Master’s vineyard, and the holy matron whose life has been careful and troubled about many things, but who has ever been anxious to honour and serve her dear Lord in lowliest ways and household duties. “I am but a dry rod,” says the saint, waiting dismission to rest, who has not done what he would or been as useful as he desired and hoped and prayed to be. “I am but a dry rod,” says one whose strength has been weakened by the way, and whose unfinished purposes lie sadly enough at his feet, fallen out of hands which could not longer hold them or fashion them into completeness. “We are but dry rods,” say many earnest, anxious, longing souls who hardly dare to trust for the future, because so often when they would do good evil is present with them. We are not saved by trust in our own righteousness or by satisfaction with our own goodness and deeds. But God’s grace is all-sufficient, and He can work miracles of beauty and fruitfulness where human might is feeblest, and self mistrust is greatest, and humility of spirit is deepest. (W. H. Davison, D. D.)The Divine plan for vindicating the high priesthood of Aaron, and its moral teachingI. That true ministers of religion are elected by God.II. It is of great importance that men should know that their ministers of religion are called by God.1. In order that they may regard them with becoming respect.2. In order that they may take heed to their message.III. The vitality of sin is of dreadful tenacity. “Many men’s lips,” says Trapp, “like rusty hinges, for want of the oil of grace and gladness, move not without murmuring and complaining.” It is a thing of extreme difficulty to eradicate any evil disposition from the human heart. “For such is the habitual hardness of men’s hearts, as neither ministry, nor misery, nor miracle, nor mercy can possibly mollify. Nothing can do it but an extraordinary touch from the hand of Heaven.”IV. God is engaged in eradicating sin from human hearts. (W. Jones.)Aaron’s rod an illustration of the true Christian ministryI. The characteristics of the true Christian ministry.1. Life,2. Beauty.3. Fruitfulness.II. The origin of the true Christian ministry. God’s creation, and gift to the Church.III. The influence of the true Christian ministry. Abiding. (W. Jones.)The budded rod, a type of ChristThe rod in many graphic tints shows Jesus. The very name is caught by raptured prophets (Isa 11:1; Zec 6:12-13). Thus faith gleans lessons from the very title--Rod. But the grand purport of the type is to reject all rivals. It sets Aaron alone upon the priestly seat. The parallel proclaims, that similarly Jesus is our only Priest. God calls, anoints, appoints, accepts, and ever hears Him; but Him alone. In His hands only do these functions live. Next, the constant luxuriance has a clear voice. In nature’s field, buds, blossoms, fruit, soon wither. Not so this rod. Its verdure was for ever green; its fruit was ever ripe. Beside the ark it was reserved in never-fading beauty. Here is the ever-blooming Priesthood of our Lord (Psa 110:4; Heb 7:24). Mark, moreover, that types of Jesus often comprehend the Church. It is so with these rods. The twelve at first seem all alike. They are all sapless twigs. But suddenly one puts forth loveliness; while the others still remain worthless and withered. Here is a picture of God’s dealings with a sin-slain race. Since Adam’s fall, all are born lifeless branches of a withered stock. When any child of man arises from the death of sin, and blooms in grace, God has arisen with Divine almightiness. Believer, the budded rod gives another warning. It is a picture of luxuriance. Turn from it and look inward. Is your soul thus richly fertile? Instead of fruit, you often yield the thorn (Joh 15:8). Whence is the fault? (Joh 15:4) Perhaps your neglectful soul departs from Christ. Meditate in God’s law day and night; (Psa 1:3). But if the budded rod rebukes the scanty fruit in the new-born soul, what is its voice to unregenerate worldlings? (Heb 6:8.) (Dean Law.)The rod of AaronBuds are evidence of life. A nominal Christian is like a dead trunk, and he cannot bud unless the sap of Divine grace courses through him. Spiritual life is an attribute of the converted Christian. The spiritual life of a being is his presiding sentiment or disposition--the chief inspiration of his soul--that which gives motion and character to his mental and moral being.I. Life is a resistless force. The smallest blade of grass that raises its tiny head into light, or the feeblest insect that sports in the sunbeam, displays a force superior to that which governs the ocean or controls the stars. Man stands erect, the tree rises, and the bird soars, because of life.II. Life is an appropriating force. Vegetable and animal existences have a power of appropriating to themselves all surrounding elements conducive to their well-being, just as the life of the plant converts the various gases around it into nutriment to promote its strength and development. Wherever there is true religion, there is a power to render all external circumstances subservient to its own strength and growth; all things work together for its good.III. Life is a propagating force. It has “the seed in itself.” Forests start from acorns, and boundless harvests from the solitary grain. It is said that the grateful Israelites, anxious to carry away a bud, a blossom, or almond as a memento of the occasion, the flowers and fruit on the rod were repeatedly and miraculously renewed for that purpose. Be that as it may, wherever there is religious life it will spread; it scatters broadcast the incorruptible seed which liveth and abideth for ever.IV. Life is a beautifying force. There are two kinds of beauty--the sensational and the moral. Nature in her ten thousand forms of loveliness, and art in her exquisite expressions of taste, are ministries to the former, whilst spiritual truth, moral goodness, and the holiness of God address the latter. The one is the poetry of the eye and ear ; the other, of the soul. The beauty that appeals to the religious nature of man is the beauty of holiness--the beauty of the Lord--the glory of God in His goodness.V. Life is a fructifying force. The true Christian not only lives and unfolds a noble disposition, but is really useful. St. Paul speaks of “the fruit of the Spirit”--righteousness, goodness, truth. The first, as opposed to all injustice and dishonesty; the second, as opposed to the ten thousand forms of selfishness; the third, as opposed to all that is erroneous and false in the doctrines and theories of men. (G. L. Saywell.)Aaron’s rodHere are three miracles in one:--1. That a dry rod--made of the almond tree--should bring forth buds in a moment.2. That those buds should presently become blossoms anal flowers.3. That these should immediately become ripe fruit, and that all at once, or at least in a little space.Nature makes no such leaps. All this was supernatural to these ends.1. For a testimony of God’s calling Aaron to the priesthood.2. For a type of Christ, the Branch (Isa 11:1).3. For a figure of the fruitfulness of a gospel ministry.4. For a lively representation of a glorious resurrection. (C. Ness.)Lessons from the budding rodA wonderful work of God, which sundry ways may profit us.1. As first to consider that if the power of God can do this in a dry stick, cannot He make the barren woman to bare, and be a joyful mother of children? Can He not do whatsoever He will do? By this power the sea is dried, the rock gives water, the earth cleaveth under the feet of men, fire descends whose nature is to ascend, raiseth the dead, and calleth things that are not as if they were. In a word, He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, &c.2. This rod is a notable type of Christ, His person and office. Of His person, in that He was born of the Virgin Mary, who, though He descended of the royal blood, yet was now poor and mean, as that royal race was brought exceeding low, nothing remaining but as it were a root only. Now the said Virgin flourisheth again as Aaron’s rod did, and beareth such fruit as never woman bear. Of this speaks Isaiah the prophet, when he saith, “There shall come a rod forth of the stock of Jesse, and a graft shall grow out of his roots.” Of His office both priestly and kingly. His priestly office is figured in that being offered upon the cross He was as Aaron’s dried rod, or as the Psalm saith, “dried up like a potsherd.” But when He rose again He became like Aaron’s budding and fruit-bearing rod, bringing forth to man, believing on Him, remission of sins, righteousness, and eternal life. His kingly office, in that He governeth His Church with a rod or sceptre of righteousness, as it is in the Psalm: “The sceptre of Thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” Which rod and sceptre is the preaching of the gospel, &c.3. Again, it was a resemblance of true ministers, and of all faithful men and women, for none of all these ought to be dry and withered sticks, but bear and bring forth buds and fruit according to their places.4. It is a shadow also of our resurrection by which we should grow green again, and flourish with a new and an eternal glory, having like dead seed lain in the ground, and we shall bring forth ripe almonds, that is, the praise of God’s incomprehensible goodness to us for ever and ever.5. It resembleth our reformation and amendment of life, for when our heart feeleth what is amiss, this is as the bud; when it resolveth of a change and a future amendment, this is the blossom; and when it performeth the same by a new reformed life indeed, this is as the ripe almonds of Aaron’s rod.(Bp. Babington.)The priesthood divinely selectedWhat matchless wisdom shines in this arrangement! How completely is the matter taken out of man’s hands and placed where alone it ought to be, namely, in the hands of the living God! It was not to be a man appointing himself, or a man appointing his fellow, but God appointing the man of His own selection. In a word, the question was to be definitively settled by God Himself, so that all murmurings might be silenced for ever, and no one be able again to charge God’s high priest with taking too much upon him. The human will had nothing whatever to do with this solemn matter. The twelve rods, all in a like condition, were laid up before the Lord ; man retired and left God to act. There was no room, no opportunity, because there was no occasion for human management. In the profound retirement of the sanctuary, far away from all man’s thinkings, was the grand question of priesthood settled by Divine decision; and, being thus settled, it could never again be raised. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Aaron’s fruitful rodStriking and beautiful figure of Him who was “declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection from the dead!” The twelve rods were all alike lifeless; but God, the living God, entered the scene, and, by that power peculiar to Himself, infused life into Aaron’s rod, and brought it forth to view, bearing upon it the fragrant fruits of resurrection. Who could gainsay this? The rationalist may sneer at it, and raise a thousand questions. Faith gazes on that fruit-bearing rod, and sees in it a lovely figure of the new creation in the which all things are of God. Infidelity may argue on the ground of the apparent impossibility of a dry stick budding, blossoming, and bearing fruit in the course of one night. But to whelm does it appear impossible? To the infidel, the rationalist, the sceptic. And why? Because he always shuts out God. Let us remember this. Infidelity invariably shuts out God. God can do as He pleases. The One who called worlds into existence could make a rod to bud, blossom, and bear fruit in a moment. Bring God in, and all is simple and plain as possible. Leave God out, and all is plunged in hopeless confusion. (C. H. Mackintosh.)The rods contrastedPonder the difference between the rod of Moses and the rod of Aaron. We have seen the former doing its characteristic work in other days and amid other scenes. We have seen the land of Egypt trembling beneath the heavy strokes of that rod. Plague after plague fell upon that devoted scene in answer to that outstretched rod. We have seen the waters of the sea divided in answer to that rod. In short, the rod of Moses was a rod of power, a rod of authority. But it could not avail to hush the murmurings of the children of Israel, nor yet to bring the people through the desert. Grace alone could do that; and we have the expression of pure grace--free, sovereign grace--in the budding of Aaron’s rod. Nothing can be more forcible, nothing more lovely. That dry, dead stick was the apt figure of Israel’s condition, and indeed of the condition of every one of us by nature. There was no sap, no life, no power. One might well say, “What good can ever come of it?” None whatever, had not grace come in and displayed its quickening power. So was it with Israel, in the wilderness; and so is it with us now. How were they to be led along from day to day? How were they to be sustained in all their weakness and need? How were they to be borne with in all their sin and folly? The answer is found in Aaron’s budding rod. If the dry, dead stick was the expression of nature’s barren and worthless condition, the buds, blossoms, and fruit set forth that living and life-giving grace and power of God on which was based the priestly ministry that alone could bear the congregation through the wilderness. Grace alone could answer the ten thousand necessities of the militant host. Power could not suffice. Authority could not avail. Priesthood alone could supply what was needed; and this priesthood was instituted on the foundation of that efficacious grace which could bring fruit out of a dry rod. Thus it was as to priesthood of old; and thus it is as to ministry now. All ministry in the Church of God is the fruit of Divine grace--the gift of Christ, the Church’s Head. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Numbers 18Numbers 18:20Thou Shalt have no inheritance in their land.Are ministers debarred from owning propertyNo, this was a legal ceremony, and bindeth not now more than that prohibition to drink wine (Lev 10:9), with such like. The yoke of the law is taken from us, and not to be reduced again. In the twenty-first chapter of Joshua, see what provision for cities and grounds for them and their cattle. The like in this Book of Numbers (chap. 35.; Jer 32:8). A purchase and land and title, descent and right, by kindred and blood. Origen mentioneth rents and revenues of the Church. Sabellicus writeth that Lucina, a noble and rich gentlewoman of Rome, made the Church her heir. Sozomen, how Constantine out of the tribute of every city gave a portion to the Churches for maintenance of their ministers. Ambrose saith that the Church’s lands paid tribute, therefore the Church had lands. Basil saith that bishops were rich and able to give to Churches. Nicephorus telleth how the worthy Empress Theodosius’s wife adorned the bishop’s house with all goodly furniture, and gave a yearly revenue. Thus have not all ages and persons dealt sparingly or grudgingly with their clergy; but both thought them worthy respect, and most worthily respected them in their maintenance and otherwise. (Bp. Babington.)Numbers 19Numbers 19:1-22A red heifer without spot.The red heiferI. It is undoubtedly true that even the true Israelite, the true believer in Christ, is the subject of daily defilement.1. Some of our defilement arises from the fact that we do actually come into contact with sin, here imaged in the corruption of death. The best of men are men at the best, and while they are only men they will still sin. We are in close connection with sin, because sin is in ourselves. It has dyed us through and through, staining the very warp and woof of our nature, and until we lay aside these bodies and are admitted to the Church of the first-born above, we shall never cease very intimate connection with sin.2. Moreover, we get defilement from companionship with sinners. This dusty world must leave some mark upon our white garments let us travel as carefully as we may. “I am black because the sun hath looked upon me,” must ever be the confession of the bride of Christ. This world is full of the spiritually dead, and since we live we must be often rendered unclean among the sinful, and hence we need a daily cleansing to fit us for daily fellowship with a holy God.3. One reason why we are so constantly defiled is our want of watchfulness. You will observe that everything in the tent of a dead man was defiled except vessels that were covered over. Any vessel which was left open was at once unclean. You and I ought to cover up our hearts from the contamination of sin. It were well for us if we kept our heart with all diligence, since out of it are the issues of life.4. Sin is so desperately evil that the very slightest sin defiles it. He who touched a bone was unclean. It was not necessary to put your hand upon the clay-cold corpse to be defiled; the accidently touching with the foot a bone carelessly thrown up by the grave-digger; even the touching it by the ploughman as he turned up his furrow, even this was sufficient to make him unclean. Sin is such an immeasurably vile thing that the slightest iniquity makes the Christian foul--a thought, an imagination, the glancing of an eye.5. Sin, even when it is not seen, defiles, for a man was defiled who touched a grave. Oh, how many graves there are of sin--things that are fair to look upon, externally admirable and internally abominable!6. The Jew was not only in danger of defilement in his tent and when he walked the roads, but he was in danger m the open fields; for you will observe, it says, that if he touched a body that had been slain in the open fields, or a bone, he should be unclean. Wherever you go you find sin!II. A purification has been provided. The ransomed Church of God need daily to be washed in the fountain, and the mercy is that the precious blood shall never lose its power, but its constant efficacy shall abide till they are, every one of them, “Saved to sin no more.”1. There is a propitiation provided for daily defilement, for first of all, if it were not so, how melancholy were your case and mine!2. The Lord must have provided a daily cleansing for our daily defilement, for if not, where were His wisdom, where His love? He has provided for everything else.3. The work of our Lord Jesus Christ assures us of this. What is there opened for the house of David, for sin, and for uncleanness? A cistern? A cistern that might be emptied, a waterpot, such as that which stood at Cana’s marriage feast, and might be drained? No; there is a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. We wash, the fountain flows; we wash again, the fountain flows still. From the great depths of the deity of Christ, the eternal merit of His passion comes everlastingly welling up. Wash! wash! It is inexhaustible, for it is fountain-fulness.4. The work of the Holy Spirit also meets the case, for what is His business but constantly to take of the things of Christ and reveal them unto us; constantly to quicken, to enlighten, and to comfort? Why all this but because we are constantly in need, perpetually being defiled, and therefore wanting perpetually to have the purification applied?5. Facts show that there is a purification for present guilt. The saints of old fell into sin, but they did not remain there.III. The red heifer sets forth in a most admirable manner the daily purification for daily sin.1. It was a heifer--an unusual thing for a sacrifice to be a female; and we scarcely know why it should be in this case, unless indeed, to make the substitution more evident. This red heifer stood for all the house of Israel--for the whole Church of God; and the Church is always looked upon and considered in Scripture as being the spouse--the bride--always feminine. Perhaps, to make the substitution obvious and complete, to show that this heifer stood in the stead and place of the whole seed of Israel, it was chosen rather than the customary bullock.2. It was a red heifer--bringing to the mind of the Israelites the idea of blood, which was always associated with atonement and putting away of sin. Surely when we think of Christ, we always associate Him with the streaming gore when we are under a sense of sin.3. It was a heifer without spot--denoting the perfection of Christ’s character.4. Observe that the red heifer was one whereon never came yoke. Perhaps this sets forth how willingly Christ came to die for us; not forced from heaven, but freely delivering Himself for us all. An interesting circumstance about this red heifer is that it was not provided by the priests; it was not provided out of the usual funds of the sanctuary, nor yet by the princes, nor by any one person.5. The children of Israel provided it. What for? Why, that as they came out of their tents in the desert, or their houses in Jerusalem, and saw the priests leading the red heifer, every man, and every woman, and every child might say, “I have a share in that heifer, I have a share in that victim which is being led out of the city to be consumed.” I wish--oh! I would to God I dare hope, that every man and every woman here could say, “I have a share in Jesus Christ,” for that is the meaning of this national provision, to let us see how Christ shed His blood for all His people, and they have all a part and all an interest in Him.6. As we noted what this victim was, there is yet to be observed what was done with it. Again, let me beg you to refer to your Bibles to see what became of this red heifer.(1) It was taken out of the camp. Herein it was a picture of Christ. That He might sanctify His people with His own blood, He suffered without the camp. Without the camp was the place of uncleanness. There the lepers dwelt; there every defiled person was put in quarantine. Jesus Christ must be numbered with the transgressors, and must suffer upon Mount Calvary, outside the city gates, upon that general Tyburn of criminals, “the place of a skull.” The people of God are to be a separate people from all the rest of the world; they are not to be numbered with the dwellers in this world’s city; they are to be strangers, and pilgrims, and sojourners, as all their fathers were. Therefore, Christ, to set them an example of separation, suffers Himself without the camp.(2) When taken without the camp, the red cow was slain. A dying Saviour that takes away our sin. We love Christ the risen one, we bless Christ the living, pleading intercessor, but after all the purification to your conscience and to mine comes from the bleeding sacrifice. See Him slain before our eyes.(3) When the heifer was slain, Eleazer dipped his finger in the blood as it flowed gurgling forth. He dipped his finger in the warm blood, and sprinkled it seven times before the door of the tabernacle. Seven is the number of perfection--to show that there was a perfect offering made by the sprinkling of the blood; even so, Jesus has perfectly presented His bloody sacrifice, Now mark, all this does not purify. I am not yet come to that point. Atonement precedes purification: Christ must die and offer Himself a victim, or else He cannot be the purifier.(4) When the whole was fully burnt, or while burning, we find the priest threw in cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet. What was this? According to Maimonides the cedar wood was taken in logs and bound round with hyssop, and then afterwards the whole enveloped in scarlet; so what was seen by the people was the scarlet which was at once the emblem of sin and its punishment--“Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” Everything you see still continues of the red colour, to set forth atonement for sin. Inside this scarlet there is the hyssop of faith, which gives efficacy to the offering in each individual, and still within this is the cedar wood that sent forth a sweet and fragrant smell, a perfect righteousness, giving acceptance to the whole. One delights to think of this in connection with Christ, that, as there is a daily witness of our defilement, so there is a daily imputation of His perfect righteousness to us, so that we stand every day accepted in the beloved by a daily imputation, by which not only is daily sin covered, but daily righteousness given to us.(5) The pith of the matter lies in the last act, with the remains of the red cow. The cinders of the wood, the ashes of the bones, and dung, and flesh of the heifer, were all gathered together, and carried away and laid by in a clean place. According to the Jews there was not another heifer killed for this purpose for a thousand years. They say, but then we have no reason to believe them, that there have never been but nine red heifers offered at all; One in the days of Moses, the next in Ezra’s time, and the other seven afterwards, and that when Messiah comes He is to offer the tenth, by which they let out the secret that they do look upon the Messiah as coming in His own time to complete the type. Our own belief is that a red heifer was always found when ashes were wanted, and as there were hundreds and thousands of persons defiling themselves, the place where the ashes were kept was much frequented, and much of the purifying matter required. The ashes were to be put into a vessel with running water, and the water was sprinkled over the unclean person who touched a body or a bone. By this process the ashes would require to be renewed much oftener than once in a thousand years, in order that every one might have his portion. Does not thin storing up suggest that there is a store of merit in Christ Jesus? There was not only enough to make us free from sin by justification, but there is a store of merit laid up that daily defilement may be removed as often as it comes. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The law of the red heifer appliedThe record of the law of the red heifer unfolds some traces of the manner, times, and substance of God’s teaching in those days when the children of Israel “could not steadfastly look to the end.”1. His method was largely to use symbols, but not to the withholding of words. As objects lying in darkness cannot be presented but must be represented, so the truths suited to the manhood of our race were taught in that method to earlier generations.2. The symbols of the Jewish worship were instituted at special times. God did not put it forth as a system. He did not place it as a full-grown tree in a wood. It is like a house to which have been added rooms and offices and hall as the growth of the family has demanded more scope in which to maintain new and higher thoughts. Wider views of what they need towards God cause Him to send out the beams of a light which is to dispel every doubt and fear.I. Liability for social evil. What was there in the fact that a virulent disease had deprived so many of life, to produce a conviction that God cannot be approached for worship? Why should contact with a corpse, or entrance into a tent in which human life had ebbed away, or even a bone, or a grave trod upon, be as a barrier blocking up the way of the people to the sanctuary? Might the survivors not reason thus: “If those who have died did wrong we have been equally wrong; if we are not erased from the roll of the living there is, notwithstanding, an evil chargeable to us; partakers in a like offence we are worthy of a like condemnation; the evil has not exhausted itself on them, and we are liable in some form for their calamities; we cannot in this state of pollution go into the presence of God--is there not needed a purification from those social ills whose last and most affecting sign is death?”II. The ignominy of death. The law recited in this chapter distinctly informs us that the presence of, or contact with, the signs of the death of mankind, separated from communion with God in His sanctuary. Would not thought be excited of some such form as this--“It is clear that there is no moral defilement in mere closeness to the signs of death, not to come into contact with them might be a sinful act--and yet we are treated, as to our standing before God, just as if we had been guilty of gross crimes. If God-appointed duties and circumstances render it unbecoming, and even impossible, that we should keep free from those relations to the dead mentioned by this law, why should we incur such a fearful result? Surely there must be some virulent spreading poison rankling in men’s death. If by its presence or touch an impassable gulf at once sinks between God and us, what an offensive attitude against Him must death assume I Much more than mere sensational shrinking should creep over us before it. How can we avoid engraving deeply on our hearts the thought that it is dishonourable to die!” What is in death to make it so? This: that death is the seal of a Divine curse on man.III. Freedom from the consequences of sin is by application of a prepared remedy. The several parts in the process of preparing the water of cleansing bear emblems to show what God requires for freeing from sin. The slaying of the heifer and the sprinkling of its blood laid bare the foundation principles, that “it is the blood which maketh atonement for the soul”--that “without shedding of blood is no remission of sins.” Everything that blocked up the way to the favour of the Lord is removed by the appointed sacrifices. He is reconcileable, and ready to count the evils of the congregation satisfied for. Were the Israelites, then, entitled to say, “The offerings of atonement are made; sins are taken away; we are free from all further hindrances to acceptance ; we need to care nothing more about what happens to us”? No. If acceptable offerings have been made for the people, yet events come to pass from which defilement will be caused to individuals, and, if this personal unfitness be not removed, perilous consequences must follow. Uncleanness incurred from the dead--the great sign of moral pollution--prevents approach to the holy Lord God. Separated from His presence on earth is a forecasting of an eternal separation--“that soul shall be cut off from Israel.” But He has a remedy for this too. He provides means of purification, and thus of renewed access to Himself. Not only is the blood of bulls and of goats shed, but the ashes of a heifer is also to “ sprinkle the unclean, in order to sanctify to the purifying of the flesh,” and render fit for all the privileges of acceptable worship.IV. To be without fitness for standing before God acceptably is inexcusable and irretrievable. Once purified did not do away with the necessity of being purified again, when another defilement had been incurred. The new impurity must be removed by a new application, and the cleansing remedy was constantly available (Num 19:9-10). God keeps in store that odour which can counteract the poisoning air of death; that which will restore to health at all times and never lose its efficacy; that which can be applied for with the fullest confidence that it is provided against the renewed impediments to serving God acceptably, and warrants “boldness to enter into the holiest.” What could justify neglect of this remedy? What evasion was possible when the uncleanness was so manifestly chargeable, and the provision for removing it so easily procurable? Must not every trifler, delayer, or neglecter be held guilty, without any palliation, of despising his Lord’s grace and might? (D. G. Watt, M. A.)The ordinance of the red heifer; a parable of the pollution of sin and the Divine method of cleansing therefromI. The defiling nature of sin.1. Sin is defiling in its nature.2. The defiling power of sin is of great virulence.3. The defiling power of sin is widespread.II. The necessity of cleansing from sin.III. The provision of cleansing from sin.1. It is Divine in its origin.2. It involves the sacrifice of the most perfect life.3. It is invariable in its efficacy.IV. The application of the provision for cleansing from sin. (W. Jones.)The red heifer an analogue of the ChristI. In its characteristics.1. Fulness of life.2. Perfection of life.II. In the treatment to which it was subjected.1. The heifer was sacrificed.2. The heifer was sacrificed “without the camp.”III. In the purpose for which it was designed.1. The red heifer was intended to cleanse from ceremonial defilement.2. The ashes of the heifer were efficacious for this purpose: “How much more shall the blood of Christ,” &c. (W. Jones.)The ordinance of the red heiferThe special feature of the new ordinance is in the means taken to make one sacrifice available for an indefinite number of cases. This was done by the concentration, so to speak, of all the elements of the sacrifice in the ashes which were to be preserved. Here we have the explanation of the casting “into the midst of the burning of the heifer” of “cedar wood and hyssop and scarlet” (Num 19:6). These represent the appliances for sprinkling: the hyssop stalk with scarlet wool wrapped round it, fastened on a piece of cedar wood, which was held in the hand. By the casting of these into the burning the idea of sprinkling was, as it were, perpetuated in the ashes which were the residuum of the whole. These ashes could of course be preserved and used for an indefinite time; and each time they were used, the ideas which had, so to speak, been burnt into them, would be impressed upon the minds and hearts of the devout. The ashes then represented the power of a past sacrifice; “even in its ashes live its former fires.” The use of the running water with the ashes (Num 19:17) has the same significance as in the ritual for the cleansing of the leper in Lev 14:1-57. In making application of the ordinance of the red heifer to ourselves, we find it specially instructive in regard to the restoration of that communion with God which ought to be the chief joy of the Christian, and which is too often broken by the contracting of stains, so difficult to avoid, with sin “reigning unto death” all around us. There are those who, under these circumstances, feel peculiarly discouraged. They have the impression that it must be exceedingly difficult to get back to their former position. They remember how long it took them at first to be reconciled to God; and they think how much more difficult it must be now that the evil has been allowed after the experience of God’s saving grace. It seems a long and hard way back; and they have not courage to begin again. It is a mistake The way back again is not long and hand. There are the ashes of the heifer and the running water close at hand. There need be no delay, as if a new animal must be obtained, and brought to the priest, and killed at the altar, and so forth. There is a shorter way. Look back to the Sacrifice offered long ago once for all. There is the running water of the Word, which has in it, as it were in solution, the strong ashes of the Sacrifice. There for evermore is stored the virtue of that blood which “cleanseth from all sin.” There need be no delay. For the ashes and the water, we have the Cross and the Word; and all that is wanted is the immediate use of God’s “perpetual statute for purifying the unclean” (Heb 9:13-14). (J. M. Gibson, D. D.)The red heifer a wilderness typeA thoughtful student of Scripture would naturally feel disposed to inquire why it is that we get this type in Numbers and not in Leviticus. In the first seven chapters of the latter book we have a very elaborate statement of the doctrine of sacrifice; and yet we have no allusion whatever to the red heifer. Why is this? We believe it furnishes another striking illustration of the distinctive character of our book. The red heifer is, pre-eminently, a wilderness type. It was God’s provision for defilements by the way, and it prefigures the death of Christ as a purification for sin, to meet our need in passing through a defiling world, home to our eternal rest above. When, with the eye of faith, we gaze upon the Lord Jesus, we not only see Him to be the spotless One, in His own holy Person, but also One who never bore the yoke of sin. He speaks of “My yoke” (Mat 11:29); it was the yoke of implicit subjection to the Father’s will in all things. This was the only yoke He ever wore; and this yoke was never off, for one moment, during the entire of His spotless and perfect career--from the manger, where He lay a helpless babe, to the Cross, where He expired as a victim. But He wore no yoke of sin. Let this be distinctly understood. He went to the Cross to expiate our sins, to lay the groundwork of our perfect purification from all sin; but He did this as One who had never, at any time during His blessed life, worn the yoke of sin. He was “without sin”; and, as such, was perfectly fitted to the great and glorious work of expiation. “Wherein is no blemish, and whereon never came yoke.” It is quite as needful to remember and weigh the force of the word “whereon,” as of the word “wherein.” Both expressions are designed by the Holy Ghost to set forth the perfection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who was not only internally spotless, but also externally free from every trace of sin. Neither in His Person, nor yet in His relationships, was He in any wise obnoxious to the claims of sin or death. He--adored for ever be His name!--entered into all the reality of our circumstances and condition, but in Him was no sin, and on Him no yoke of sin. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Numbers 20Numbers 20:1The people abode in Kadesh.The new departureThe fortieth year is now running its course. The time of the curse has nearly expired. And now preparations may be begun for entering a second time on the march to Canaan, where a new generation must vindicate the claim of Israel to be indeed “the hosts of the Lord,” by taking possession of the land of promise. It was at Kadesh that the sentence had been pronounced which doomed their fathers to these dreary years of wandering. It is at Kadesh again that the camp is reorganised. It seems likely that during the interval there was no definite aim or object before the people, so that they moved about as suited their convenience or necessities, very much as the wandering tribes of the desert do still. This would lead to a relaxation of discipline and order in the camp, and more or less scattering of the people. Their unity was indeed to a certain extent kept up, and their marching orders given as of old, probably at long intervals. So at least we would infer from the itinerary in chap. 33.; but there must have been no little disorganisation and dispersion, rendering it necessary that there should be a reassembling of the forces. For this purpose no place could be better or more appropriate than Kadesh, not only because it must have been so familiar to all, but also because, by making it their point of departure, they resumed the thread that had been broken by the unbelief of their fathers. The total loss of the long interval of time, moreover, is more distinctly marked by the gathering of the people together at the old halting-place. There is a striking contrast between the new departure and the old. The first began with the numbering and mustering of the armed men, and all the bustle, activity, and energy of a youthful host setting out to victory. The second seems to have a much less hopeful beginning. The twentieth of Numbers is one of the saddest chapters in the book. It begins with the death of her who had been the leader in the song of victory on the shores of the Red Sea. It ends with the death of him who had so long been the honoured representative of Israel in the Holy and the Most Holy Place. And, between the two, we have the old story of murmuring on the part of the people, and mercy on the part of God, but with this sad addition, that Moses himself has a fall--a fall so serious that it leads to his own, as well as Aaron’s, exclusion from the land of promise. It seems a hopeless beginning indeed. But was there not something hopeful in its very hopelessness? Recall that scene of wrestling at Peniel, when the patriarch Jacob gained the new name of Israel. How did he gain it? By his own strength? Nay. It was through weakness that he was made strong. It was when his power was utterly broken that his hope of victory began. This will illustrate what we mean when we say that there is something hopeful in the very hopelessness of this chapter. And this prepares the way for the great lesson of the next chapter, which may be expressed in the very words which follow the passage just quoted from the 146th Psalm, “Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.” (J. M. Gibson, D. D.)Miriam died there.The death of MiriamI. Death terminates the most protracted life. Miriam must have been about 130 years old when she died.II. Death terminates the most eventful life.1. The girl watching over the life of her infant brother (Ex 3:4-8).2. The experienced woman sharing in the interest and action of the stirring events which led to the great emancipation from Egypt.3. The prophetess leading the exultant songs and dances of a triumphant people (Ex 15:20-21).4. The envious woman aspiring after equality with, and speaking against her greater brother (Num 12:1-2).5. The guilty woman smitten with leprosy because of the sin (Num 12:9-10).6. The leprous woman healed in answer to the prayer of the brother whom she had spoken against (Num 12:13-15). The most stirring and eventful life is closed by death, as well as the quiet and monotonous one.III. Death terminates the most distinguished life.1. Miriam was distinguished by her gifts. Prophetic gifts arc ascribed to her. “Miriam, the prophetess,” is her acknowledged title (Ex 15:20).2. Miriam was distinguished by her position.IV. Death, by reason of sin, sometimes terminates life earlier than it otherwise would have done.V. death sometimes terminates life with suggestions of a life beyond. It was so in the case of Miriam. Can we think that the gifts with which she was so richly endowed, and the treasures of experience which in her long and eventful life she had gathered, were all lost at death? This would be in utter opposition to the analogy of the Divine arrangements in the universe. (W. Jones.)Numbers 20:2-13Neither is there any water to drink.The privations of man and the resources of GodI. There are privations in the pilgrimage of human life. One man thinks that without health his life would be worthless; yet he has to submit to its loss for a time. To another man prosperity seems essential; to another, friendship, or some one friend or relative; yet of these they are sometimes deprived. Life, in our view, has many privations. This characteristic of our pilgrimage is for wise and gracious ends. Privation should remind us that we are pilgrims--incite us to confide in God--and discipline our spirits into patience and power.II. The privations in the pilgrimage of life sometimes develop the evil tendencies of human nature. This murmuring of the Israelites was--1. Unreasonable.2. Cruel.3. Ungrateful.4. Degraded.5. Audaciously wicked.III. The privations in the pilgrimage of life, and the evils which are sometimes occasioned by them, impel the good to seek help of God.1. Consciousness of need.2. Faith in the sufficiency of the Divine help.3. Faith in the efficacy of prayer to obtain the Divine help.4. Faith in the efficacy of unspoken prayer.IV. The privations in the pilgrimage of life are sometimes removed in answer to the prayer of the good. (W. Jones.)No waterI. The place here spoken of. The wilderness. The people were led thither--1. For discipline.2. For solitude.3. For proving. How sadly they failed.II. The want. Water--1. A necessity for sustenance.2. A necessity for purity.3. A want which they were unable to provide for themselves.III. The people’s action. “They murmured.” An act natural to the human heart; but very sinful and foolish--1. Because it distrusted God.2. Because it did no good.3. Because it made themselves more wretched and miserable still.IV. The provision made.1. Unexpected in its source.2. Unexpected in the manner of its attainment.3. Unexpected in quantity.V. The instruction afforded. That rock was a type of Christ. He was appointed of God, stricken of man, means of salvation to those appointed to die, &c. (Preacher’s Analyst.)The muddy bottomThe heart of man is like a peeler standing water. Look at it on a summer’s day, when not a breeze ruffles the surface, not a bird flies over to cast its light shadow on its face. It is so clear, so bright, you may see your own image reflected there. Now cast a stone to the bottom, and watch the effect. The dark mud is rising all around, rank weeds are floating up which you never saw before; the whole pool is in a state of motion, and hardly a drop of water has escaped the foul pollution. Look at your heart when all outward things go well. No vexing, crossing care mars its tranquil calm, and you think you see the image of Jesus reflected there. It is so long since sin has molested you that you think it has left you quite, and that all is sure within. Now let a sudden offence come, an unkind, undeserved rebuke; let pride be touched, or self-will roused, and presently all is lost. Like the waves of an angry sea, the poor mind is tossed from thought to thought, and finds no rest. The mud is raised from the bottom, and not one comer of that wretched heart is free from its polluting influence. All gentle, soothing thoughts are gone, and one by one the dark weeds are floating on the surface. (Quiet Thoughts for Quiet Hours.)Speak ye unto the rock.--God’s use of insufficient meansHe told Moses to speak to the rock, and it should give forth water. On a former occasion he was to smite the rock; now he was only to speak to it. If there were any unbelievers in the camp they might mock at this command, and say, How is it possible to get water out of a rock? let us rather dig wells, if haply we may find water. And truly to the eye and ear of sense these observations might appear plausible. Now God’s way of bringing sinners to glory is just the same. The life of the Christian is a life of faith throughout. The appointed means have no inherent efficacy. God tries the faith of His people; disappoint it He never will. He has provided strength equal to their day, yet will He send it in such a way as to make them feel their utter helplessness. They see most of God’s love and gracious designs, and have most peace and comfort in their afflictions, who live most by faith. (George Breay, B. A.)With his rod he smote the rock twice.--The smitten rockI. The sinful attitude of the people. They were discontented, enraged, and faithless. And so men grow discontented and cry out against God, as if trouble were the only experience they knew anything about--the most unhappy and morbid state of mind into which any Christian believer can come. It is strange also how, when one thing goes wrong with us, everything seems to be awry. The children of Israel were thirsty, and therefore they complained that the desert of Zin was not the garden of the Lord, full of all manner of fruits. Put a red lamp into a mass of shrubbery, and leaf and blossom are forthwith dyed an angry crimson. Thwart some cherished purpose of a man, and immediately everything takes on the colour of his disappointment. Society is disintegrating, the Church is going to destruction, life is a vale of tears. Nothing but immovable faith in God can save us from this wretched partialism.II. The merciful attitude of God. What might He be expected to do under the circumstances? What wonder if He should say, “It is of no use to be patient any longer. This people will not have Me for their Ruler. Let them perish.” But that is not God’s way. He recognises the weakness of men, pities their sufferings, relieves their wants, and so gives the people another chance to understand Him. And how often that ancient wonder is wrought anew in human experience! Some critical event occurs in our history, which for a time at least shatters our faith in the Divine goodness and justice, well established as that faith ought to be when we remember the general tenor of our life, and God, instead of flaming out against our inconstancy and leaving us to our own devices, makes that very event the occasion of a new and gracious revelation of His love. With time and pains we arrange some well-compacted plan, on whose success it seems to us all our good fortune depends, and it thrives for a while; but suddenly all things are against us, and our hopes are wrecked, and we grow bitter and rebellious, and then God uses that very disaster to teach us juster views of life and to create in us a nobler frame of mind, and develop a broader manhood, and we have a nobler ambition and are better equipped than ever before. And then from the barren rock of bereavement God brings streams of refreshing. The remaining members of the household are more closely welded together, a more tender sympathy with each other springs up, the unseen life becomes a grander reality, and, as in the flush of the sunset that follows the storm, we forget the fury of the blast in the glory of the transfigured heavens, so men and women, in the chastened spirit that results from trials, and in the light of new and larger hopes which have been kindled, bear glad testimony: “It is good for us that we have been afflicted.”III. The unwarrantable attitude of Moses and Aaron. They were angry with the people and called them hard names, addressing them as “rebels.” They spoke as if they were the chief agents of the miracle which God wrought. “Hear now, ye rebels,” they said to the people, “must we fetch you water out of this rock?” So far as their words went, they were taking upon themselves the glory which belonged to God alone. Then, too, they were not satisfied with the Divine directions. For these assumptions Moses and Aaron were rebuked on the spot, and a sentence of punishment pronounced upon them. There is important practical instruction here for those who teach or preach God’s Word to sinful men. It is not to be done in a self-satisfied way, with the assumption of superior sanctity. Neither are we to take credit to ourselves for good results which may follow our administration of Divine truth. It is not our wisdom or eloquence, but the Word of God which is “quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword.” Humility and self-distrust are eminently becoming in those who undertake to do God’s work of influencing men for good. (E. S. Atwood.)Moses at the rock1. Did you ever hear people cry out, “I wish I were dead”? That is what the Israelites said--“Would God we had died!” These wishes were hasty, and as insincere as hasty. No doubt those people would flee from death with terror at the first sign of his approach. It has been well said that “a discontented heart makes a reckless tongue.”2. Now we come to Moses’ sin. He did not attend carefully to God’s Word, nor obey it, because he was angry. Notice his bitter words. Let us beware of the sin of anger. Look at the fifth of Galatians, and it tells you that “wrath” is one of the “lusts of the flesh.” In Proverbs we are told that “he that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” Why is a person who conquers himself better than a great general who takes a city? There are three reasons.(1) He is a greater hero; he does a more difficult thing.(2) Because it leaves a happier feeling behind.(3) It pleases God, The more you conquer your sins, the more you will be growing like Christ.Do you know heaven is full of conquerors? And Rev 12:11 tells us how they conquered: “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb.” (British Weekly Pulpit.)The scene at MeribahThis is a memorable incident in the Jews’ history, rich in warning to us at this day. Moses had failed in his duty towards God in three particulars.1. He had failed in strict obedience.2. He had shown temper, used hard language.3. He had taken to himself the credit of supplying the Israelites with water.I. The danger of departing, in the least jot or tittle, from any law of God.II. The immense importance attached to temperate speech, the necessity of keeping a check on temper and not letting ourselves be moved to hot and angry words.III. This scene is further useful as carrying our thoughts upwards to Him who is the source of all our hopes, the nourishment of our soul, the very life of our religion, the Lord Jesus Christ. (R. D. B. Rawnsley, M. A.)Moses striking the rockThe Biblical writers are charmingly candid. Do they speak of other men’s faults? They take care also to record their own. Reputation is sacrificed on the altar of truth; the unselfish lawgiver informs us of his own transgression and its terrible penalty. What may we learn from his sin?I. We must not seek right ends by wrong means. Here Moses erred. How often has his sin been repeated! Look at Caiaphas. He says in reference to the Saviour, “It is expedient that one man die, and not that the whole nation should perish.” The latter part of the sentence is admirable, the former is atrocious . . . Error should be opposed; we ought to stop its progress as quickly as possible--but by persuasion, not persecution.II. We must beware of doing more than God commands. There are two opposite ways of sinning--by defect, and by excess. A child who, in adding up a sum, makes it “come to too much,” blunders as completely as if he made it “come to too little.” And such a form of wrong-doing is possible spiritually. We as much violate our duty as “followers of God,” if we get ahead of our Guide, as though we lagged so far behind that we could no longer see Him or tread in His steps. Are we not all, for instance, harder in our judgments, more exacting, more stringent and rigorous in our demands, than He is whom we profess to follow; and is not this to go before God, and to go before Him not to prepare His way, but to scare men from His presence?III. Precedent is a perilous guide. Moses had struck the rock before by God’s command, and probably he argued that what was right then could not be wrong now. But let us remember, that “circumstances alter cases.” A thing which is wise for one time may be folly for another. (T. R. Stevenson.)The sin of MosesI. What there was sinful in Moses.1. Disobedience to the Divine command.2. Immoderate heat and passion.3. Unbelief.4. It was all publicly done, and so the more dishonouring to God.II. What we may learn from this tragical story.1. What a holy and jealous God He is with whom we have to do.2. The Lord’s children need not think it strange if they get abundance to exercise that grace in which they most excel.3. Let us not be surprised to see or hear the saints failing even in the exercise of that grace wherein they most excel.4. Never think yourselves secure from failing till ye be at the end of your race.5. What need we have to guard constantly our unruly passions, and put a bridle on our lips.6. Though God pardons the iniquity of His servants, yet He will take vengeance on their inventions (Psa 99:8).7. If God punishes His children thus for falling into the snare, how shall they escape who lay the snare for them?8. Observe the ingenuousness of the penmen of the Holy Scripture--Moses records his own fault. (T. Boston, D. D.)Sin in the child of GodI. Very painful to God.II. Most inexcusable.III. Most disastrous in its results,IV. Very certain of punishment.Let this incident--1. Make God’s people more watchful.2. Lead others to ponder their ways ; for if God visits His own children for sin, a fortiori, He will not let the wicked escape.3. Let none forget that God can forgive sin--all sin--through Jesus Christ. (David Lloyd.)The sins of holy men, and their punishmentThe sin of Moses and Aaron seems to have included--1. Want of faith.2. Irritation of spirit.3. Departure from Divine directions.4. Assumption of power.5. The publicity of the whole.I. The liability of the good to sin.II. The danger of good men failing in those excellences which most distinguish them.III. The impartiality of the administration of the Divine government.IV. The great guilt of those who by their wickedness occasion sin in the good.V. The means which God uses to deter men from sin. Divine judgments, expostulations with the sinner, encouragements and aids to obedience, are all so employed. By the voice of history, by the law from Sinai, by the gospel of His Son, by the Cross of Jesus Christ, by the influences of His Spirit, God is ever crying to the sinner, “Oh! do not this abominable thing that I hate.” Let Christians guard against temptation; let them cultivate a watchful and prayerful spirit. (W. Jones.)How it went ill with MosesIt was but one act, one little act, but it blighted the fair flower of a noble life, and shut the one soul, whose faith had sustained the responsibilities of the Exodus with unflinching fortitude, from the reward which seemed so nearly within its grasp.I. How it befell. The demand of the people on the water supply at Kadesh was so great that the streams were drained, whereupon there broke out again that spirit of murmuring and complaint which had cursed the former generation, and was now reproduced in their children. They professed to wish that they had died in the plague that Aaron’s censer had stayed. They accused the brothers of malicious designs to effect the destruction of the whole assembly by thirst. It could hardly have been otherwise than that he should feel strongly provoked. However, he resumed his old position, prostrating himself at the door of the tent of meeting until the growing light that welled forth from the Secret Place indicated that the Divine answer was near. Moses was bidden, though betook the rod, not to use it, but to speak to the rock with a certainty that the accents of his voice, smiting on its flinty face, would have as much effect as ever the rod had had previously, and would be followed by s rush of crystal water. Yes, when God is with you, words are equivalent to rods. Rods are well enough to use at the commencement of faith’s nurture, and when its strength is small, but they may be laid aside without hesitance in the later stages of the education of the soul. For as faith grows, the mere machinery and apparatus it employs becomes ever less, and its miracles are wrought with the slightest possible introduction of the material. Moses might have entered into these thoughts of God in quieter moments, but just now he was irritated, indignant, and hot with disappointment and anger. The people did not suffer through their leader’s sin. The waters gushed from out the rock as plentifully as they would have done if the Divine injunctions had been precisely complied with. Man’s unbelief does not make the faith of God of none effect; though we believe not, yet He remaineth faithful, He cannot deny Himself, or desert the people of His choice.II. The principle that underlay the divine decision.1. There was distinct disobedience. No doubt was possible about the Divine command, and it had been distinctly infringed. This could not be tolerated in one who was set to lead and teach the people. God is sanctified whenever we put an inviolable fence around Himself and His words; treating them as unquestionable and decisive; obeying them with instant and utter loyalty. It is a solemn question for us all whether we are sufficiently accurate in our obedience.2. There was unbelief. It was as if he had felt that a word was not enough. As if there must be something more of human might and instrumentality. He did not realise how small an act on his part was sufficient to open the sluice-gates of Omnipotence. It reminds us of the shattering of the Hell-Gate Rock at the entrance of New York Harbour. The touching of a tiny button by a little child set in action the train of gunpowder by which that vast obstruction was blasted to atoms, and heaved for all time out of the path of the ships. A touch is enough to set Omnipotence in action. It is very wonderful to hear God say to Moses, “Ye believed not in Me.” Was not this the man by whose faith the plagues of Egypt had fallen on that unhappy land, and the Red Sea had cleft its waters? Had the wanderings impaired that mighty soul, and robbed it of its olden strength, and left it like any other? Surely something of this sort must have happened. One act could only have wrought such havoc by being the symptom of some unsuspected wrong beneath. Oaks do not fall beneath a single storm, unless they have become rotten at their heart. Let us watch and pray, lest there be in any of us an evil heart of unbelief, lest we depart in our most secret thought from simple faith in the living God. Let us especially set a watch at our strongest point. But how much there is of this reliance on the rod in all Christian endeavour! Some special method has been owned of God in times past, in the conversion of the unsaved or in the edification of God’s people, and we instantly regard it as a kind of fetish. We try to meet new conditions by bringing out the rod and using it as of yore. It is a profound mistake. God never repeats Himself. He suits novel instrumentalities to new emergencies. Where a rod was needful once He sees that a word is better now. What does it matter if the means He ordains appear to our judgment inferior to those which He commanded once? This is no business of ours.3. There was the spoiling of the type. That Rock was Christ, from whose heart, smitten in death on Calvary, the river of water of life has flowed to make glad the city of God, and to transform deserts into Edens. But death came to Him and can come to Him but once. “Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” It is clear that for the completeness of the likeness between substance and shadow, the rock should have been stricken but once. Instead of that it was smitten at the beginning and at the close of the desert march. But this was a misrepresentation of an eternal fact, and the perpetrator of the heedless act of iconoclasm must suffer the extreme penalty, even as Uzzah died for trying to steady the swaying ark.III. The irrevocableness of the Divine decisions. Moses drank very deeply of the bitter cup of disappointment. And no patriot ever yearned for fatherland as Moses to tread that blessed soil. With all the earnestness that he had used to plead for the people, he now pleaded for himself. But it was not to be. The Lord said unto him, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter. The sin was forgiven, but its consequences were allowed to work out to their sorrowful issue. There are experiences with us all in which God forgives our sin, but takes vengeance on our inventions. We reap as we have sown. We suffer where we have sinned. At such times our prayer is not literally answered. By the voice of His Spirit, by a spiritual instinct, we become conscious that it is useless to pray further. But, oh! that God would undertake the keeping of our souls, else, when we least expect it, we may be overtaken by some sudden temptation, which befalling us in the middle, or towards the close of our career, may blight our hopes, tarnish our fair name, bring dishonour to Him, and rob our life of the worthy capstone of its edifice. (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)Numbers 20:14-21Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border.A reasonable request, and an ungenerous refusal:--I. A reasonable request.1. Reasonable in itself.2. Urged by forcible reasons.(1) The relationship existing between them, “Thy brother Israel.”(2) The sufferings which the Israelites had endured.(3) The mercies which God had shown to Israel. The blessings which God had bestowed upon them should have been viewed--(a) As an indication that it was His will that others should aid them.(b) As an example to encourage others to aid them.(c) As an indication of His favour towards them, which suggested that it was to the interest of others to aid them. It is perilous to resist those whom God defends; it is prudent to further their designs, &c.(4) Because Israel would guarantee Edom against any loss.II. An ungenerous refusal. This refusal of the Edomites probably arose from--1. Fear that if they complied with the request of the Israelites the result might be injurious to them.2. Envy at the growing power of Israel.3. Remembrance of the ancient injury inflicted by Jacob upon Esau.(1) Learn that no alienation is so wide and bitter as that between brethren or other near relations.(2) Where such alienation exists, let us seek to bring about reconciliation--a complete healing of the breach.(3) Cultivate brotherly kindness.(4) Respect the rights of others even when the assertion of those rights is carried to an extreme. “Thus Edom refused to give Israel passage through his border; wherefore Israel turned away from him.” (W. Jones.)Retribution consummatedWho pleads? Israel. To whom is the plea addressed? To a brother. How did the word “brother “ come into the narrative? It came historically. We have here Jacob and Esau. Edom is the name by which Esau was known. Wherever we find the term Edom, our minds may instantly associate with it the history of Esau, and an action of Divine sovereignty in relation to that history. Jacob supplanted Esau, ran away in the night-time, met his brother at some distance of time afterwards, the brothers fell upon one another’s necks, kissed each other, and seemed to sink the infinite outrage in grateful and perpetual oblivion. Nothing of the kind. Life cannot be managed thus; things do not lie between man and man only. Herein is the difference between crime and sin. So Jacob and Esau come face to face throughout the ages. The supplanter cannot sponge out his miserable cunning and selfish deceit and unpardonable fraud. Jacob the individual dies, Esau the individual dies: but Jacob and Esau, as representing a great controversy, can never die: to the end of the chapter Edom will encounter Israel with deep and lasting animosity. So Esau had his turn. We pitied the hairy man as he was driven away portionless, without a blessing, his great heart full of sin no doubt, quivering with agony, for which there was no adequate expression in words; but in so far as he has been wronged he will see satisfaction and himself be satisfied. The supplanted family had a land when the supplanter’s descendants had only a wilderness. This is the law of Providence. Events are not measured within the compasses of the little day. The cunning man or the strong man, the oppressor or the wrong-doer, may have his victory to-day, and may smile upon it, and regard it with complacency, and receive the incense of adulation from persons who only see between sunrise and sundown. But the heavens are against him; he has to encounter the eternities, long time after his victory shall wither, and in his descendants his humiliation shall be consummated. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 20:17We will go by the king’s highway.The king’s highwayThey meant that, however tempting was the fruit of the fields, however fascinating the byways, however inviting the sparkling water in the wells might seem, they would keep to the bard-beaten thoroughfares that ran north and south of the country, by which travellers had passed in ages now gone by. Now, without doubt, such words have a spiritual and typical meaning.I. Of the nation at large. Israel pronounced them unanimously as a nation, and we, as the English nation, may well re-echo them after all these hundreds of years. And it is well for us to bear in mind that “whole nations” must stand up for God as well as individuals. Numbers can never make a sin less grievous.II. They are words, too, that may be hoped for from the mouth of the church. God is essentially a God of :law and order. The Church must go by the King’s highway.III. But as with the nation and with the Church, so with the individual, they are words that are appropriate in the mouth--1. Of the young Christian, starting off on life’s journey, just going into the world. Happy, aye thrice happy, he who, with dogged determination, says, “We will go by the King’s highway.”2. So, too, they are suited especially to the penitent. He, too, must look into the future and resolve “to go by the King’s highway.” And here we must pause to notice that the individual highway consists--(1) Of morals. We must take the code of God’s commandments, showing our duty to God and man, and walk in the way of God’s commandments.(2) Of faith. Ethics alone are not sufficient; there must be a firm basis of Church doctrine, something on which the soul of man may lean for comfort in distress.IV. Lastly, we are not alone in our efforts to go by the King’s highway; we are cheered by the examples of all the saints whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. In conclusion, I would add that the King’s highway leads to the city of the Great King. (W. O. Parish.)Numbers 20:25-29Aaron died there in the top of the mount.The death of AaronThe first and most superficial aspect of death is that it is the close of an earthly career. What kind of career was it that was brought to a close when Aaron died? First of all, there could be no question as to its prominence. Aaron shares with Moses, though as a subordinate, the glory of having ruled and shaped the course and conduct of his countrymen at a time of unexampled difficulty, at a time pregnant with the highest consequences to the religious future of the world. But Aaron’s place in religious history is more distinctly measured if we consider the great office to which he was called. He was the first of a long line of men who were at the head of what was for ages the only true religion in the world. He was the first high priest of the chosen people. Office, however, and position is one thing; character is another; and, if it is here that we find a great difference between the brothers, we must first of all remind ourselves that Aaron is called in Scripture “the saint of the Lord.” He must have had a great background of those high qualities which go to make up the saintly character, if he also had defects which are recorded for our instruction. Aaron was morally a weak man. He had no such grasp of principle as would enable him to hold out against strong pressure. Nor is it inconsistent with this that Aaron could display obstinate self-assertion on inopportune occasions, as when he joined his sister Miriam in murmuring against Moses. This is exactly what weak people do; they give way when true loyalty to duty would teach them to resist, and then, haunted by the notion that they are weak, or at least that the world will think them so, they indulge in some form of spasmodic self-assertion which may remind us of the ungainly efforts that invalids will sometimes make to show that they are not quite so ill as their friends may think them. And now the end had come. Moses and Aaron both knew that Aaron would die. It may have been that some hitherto unsuspected disease had shown itself in the constitution of the old man; it may have been, as has been suggested, that a sand-storm in the Arabah had withered up his decaying vitality. That Aaron would die might have been known from observation, as God often speaks to us through the wonted changes of the world of nature. But Aaron and Moses also knew why Aaron was to die, and why on Mount Hor. If we knew enough, we should all of us know that there is a reason in the Divine mind for the hour at which, as for the means by which, every man and woman departs this life. We all are interested in ascertaining as exactly as we can the physical reason of the death of those relations whom God in His providence removes from our sight; but behind the physical reason there is a moral reason, if we could only know it; and we may say, with confidence, that, in the eyes of God, who is the perfect moral Being, the moral reason accounts for much more than the physical. Sometimes a life is prolonged to do one single piece of work which no other would do as well, and as soon as that work is done, that life is withdrawn. Sometimes a life is cut short because it has forfeited the particular privilege which an extension of some months or even weeks would bring to it, and this was the case of Aaron--“And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in Mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying Aaron shall be gathered to his people, for he shall not enter into the land which I have given to the children of Israel because he rebelled against My word at the waters of Meribah.” Aaron’s share in the sin of Meribah was due to the same want of firmness which, as we have seen, was a feature in his character. The sin of Meribah was, in the first instance, the sin of Moses, when the people murmured at the want of water, and Moses, worried no doubt by their perverseness, in the very act of relieving them betrayed, both by what he said and by what he did, a temper unworthy of his high office, so that he did not sanctify the Lord God in the eyes of the people. As a later Psalmist reflects--“The people angered God at the waters of strife, so that He punished Moses for their sakes, because that they provoked his spirit so that he spake unadvisedly with his lips.” As for Aaron, he not only did not check Moses, he acquiesced in what he must have known to be dishonourable to God; and this in a man with his spiritual responsibilities was a grave failure of duty. Much more, Moses bad forfeited that high privilege, but then the work which Moses had to do in the world was not yet done. But Aaron’s appointed work was done, and there was no reason for delaying his summons. And here we are led to reflect on a subject which too often escapes notice. Many men, probably the majority of those who do not incur eternal loss, yet do from some flaw in the character, from some warp or weakness in the will, fall, more or less, greatly short of what they might have been, of what natural powers and spiritual endowments and religious and other opportunities might have made them even in this world; and if here, then also hereafter, even if by God’s mercy in Christ we reach it, it may be to fill a lower rather than what might have been a higher place, but for some compliance with what conscience condemned, but for some act or some omission which has left upon the soul and the character that lasting impress which survives death. There is much to be noticed in the account of the close of Aaron’s life, but nothing is more worthy of our notice than his deliberate preparation for it. He did not let death come on him, he went to meet it. The last scene was as much a matter of duty, a matter of business, as his consecration to the high priesthood Ah I death, surely, is like a mountain-top for the survey which it gives to life, and the deserts through which we have wandered, and the barriers which have checked our progress, and the hopes, bright or dim, which have cheered us on, and the feebleness and the fear of man, and the self-seeking, and the petty vanity (if nothing worse) which have spoiled so much that God meant for Himself, standout in clear outlines above the haze of the distant past. Doubtless it was with Aaron as with any man who retains, along with a conscience that has not been seared, the free exercise of the mind’s powers in those last solemn moments which precede the greatest of all changes--doubtless, it was with him as with others upon whom their position and work in life have entailed great responsibility for the real and lasting happiness or misery of their fellow men. At such times the simply conventional no longer satisfies. At such times standards of conduct that are natural to human sanction are seen to be no longer applicable, the mental eye sees through and beyond the phrases which inclination or passion have hitherto interposed between it and the past. It sees the past more nearly, not as self-love has wished it to be, but as it was. At such times the higher a man’s place in the government, or the social fabric of the state, or in the hierarchy of the Church, the more sincerely must he breathe the prayer, “If Thou, Lord, shouldest be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?” But time was passing. The last moments were now at hand; so Moses, acting, as we know, under Divine instructions, stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son. There was, no doubt, a two-fold motive in this act of Moses. It showed, first of all, that the office of the high priesthood did not depend on the life of any single man, that God was watching over the religious interests of His people, that His gifts and calling were, as the apostle says, “without repentance, without recall,” and that He provides for the due transmission of those spiritual faculties which have been given that they may sustain the higher life of man from age to age. But it also reminded Aaron personally of the solemn truth of the utter solitariness of the soul in death. Not more than any other man can a high priest retain the outward position, the valued symbols, of his great office. He, too, shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth, neither shall his pomp follow him. Death strips us of everything save that which, so far as we know, is by God’s appointment strictly indestructible. Our undying personality and that type of character which acts and habits and the use or misuse of the supernatural grace of God have, for good or for evil, wrought into its very texture--this is indeed for ever ours. All else is, like the sacerdotal robes of Aaron, to be abandoned, at the place where, at the moment when, we lie down to die. It was all over. Aaron had closed his eyes, and Moses buried him where at this day a Moslem shrine, constructed out of the ruins of some earlier and finer edifice, still bears his name. It was all over, and like a procession returning from a funeral without the one object which had formed its chiefest interest, Moses and Eleazar, so we are told, came down from the mount. What were their thoughts about Aaron? Where was he now? “Aaron,” so runs the phrase of Moses, “was gathered to his people.” What does the phrase mean? It is used alike of Moses and Aaron. Does it describe only the interment of their bodies? But in either case their bodies rested at a distance from their people, in a foreign soil. Surely, it points to a world in which the bygone generations of men still live, a world of the existence of which God’s ancient people were well assured, though they knew much less of it than we. That world beyond the grave is no doubt presented with different degrees of clearness in the successive ages of Old Testament history. The age of the patriarchs is marked by strong and distinct faith in it. In the days and teaching of Moses it is more kept in the background, probably because the imagination of Israel was still haunted by the imagery of the underworld of the dead, as the Egyptians had conceived of it. In Job and some of the Psalms it is the subject sometimes of anxious discussion, sometimes of strong and undoubting faith. In the prophets it comes prominently forward as the promised Messiah, heralded not merely as an earthly ruler, but as a deliverer from the consequences of sin. In Ezekiel and Daniel we already meet with the resurrection of the body; in the writers after the captivity this doctrine goes hand in hand with a distinct faith in the immortality of the soul. We cannot doubt that, as Moses and Eleazar made their way down the western side of the mount on which Aaron was left, their thoughts were not only or chiefly centred on the tomb which enclosed his body; they followed him into the assembly of the spirits of the dead, they followed him with their sympathies, with their hopes, their prayers, even though around that world on which he had entered there still hung a veil for them which has been, through Christ’s mercy, removed for us. The Old Testament is sometimes a foreshadowing of the new, sometimes its foil. If Aaron was stripped of his sacerdotal robes on the eve of his death, Jesus our Lord was never more a priest than when He hung upon His Cross, and offered Himself as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. If Aaron’s dust still lies somewhere among the rocks of Hor, awaiting the summons to judgment, Jesus is indeed risen from the dead, “and become the first fruits of them that slept,” nay, He has already, He has here, “brought life and immortality to light” through His gospel, He has taught us that there is a life which through His grace we may live, and the beauty of which our hearts cannot but own, while yet that life does but mock us if it ends at death, if it does not last, if it does not expand, hereafter. Be has shown us how this life may be, if at present it is not ours, and in possessing it we are already and most assuredly “more than conquerors” of death “through Him that loved us.” (Canon Liddon.)The death of AaronI. The death of Aaron.1. As a consequence of sin.2. By the appointment of God.3. The death of Aaron was his introduction to life and to congenial society.II. The appointment of Aaron’s successor.1. Kindness to Aaron. It assured him--(1) That his office would be filled, his work carried on, &c.(2) That his office would be filled by his own son ; that the high priesthood would continue in his own family.2. A guarantee of the continuance of the Church of God.III. The mourning because of Aaron’s death.1. The worth of faithful ministers.2. The appreciation of blessings when they are withdrawn from us, which were not valued when they were ours.Lessons:1. The universality of death.2. The imperfection of the Aaronic priesthood.3. The perfection of the priesthood of Christ (Heb 7:22-28; Heb 8:6; Heb 9:23-28; Heb 10:10-14). (W. Jones.)Death of AaronI. The time. In the fortieth year of the wanderings.1. A very important year in the history of Israel. Year of death also of Miriam and of Moses. Dates that mark formation of new or severance of old friendships, always important.2. In about the 123-4 year of Aaron’s life. A long and eventful life. And yet, though his life was long--(1) His death was hastened by sin. How often should we discover this to be the case if we knew all! Religion the best life-preserver.(2) His death overtook him in the midst of work.II. The warning. Many pass away without any warning. Duty of being always ready. In this case, a solemn intimation that the time appointed had come. It was kindly framed. “Gathered unto his people.” An old man’s best friends--his people--are mostly in the better world. Aaron invited to join his people; the great ones amongst whom he ranked.III. The place. A mountain. Reminds us that the good man in death is in death lifted up above the world ; and that, as Aaron at that time, he dies in view of the Church below and the Church above. Israel around, and the promised land before him.IV. The circumstances. Toilsomely and calmly ascends the hill to be gathered to his fathers. The old man climbing the last of life’s hills. The last stage a rugged one.V. The characteristics. A death--1. Hastened by sin.2. Closing all earthly offices and distinctions.3. Heralded by solemn intimations.4. Sweetened by presence of friends.Learn--1. A good man in dying is gathered to his people.2. Seek to live on the borders of heaven that we may die in view of the promised land.3. Endeavour to do what we have to do while it is called to-day. (J. C. Gray.)The death of AaronI. We may learn a salutary lesson from the death of Aaron in its merely literal bearing. Aaron, the high priest, had to ascend Mount Hor clad in his priestly robes of office; but he must be stripped of them there, because he must die there. He could not carry his dignity or the emblems of it into the next world. He must lay them down at the grave’s brink. There is nothing which the world gives that men can carry with them when death lays hold of them. Even all which outwardly pertains to spiritual dignity, and which brings men into relation with things that are imperishable and eternal, must be left behind, and the individual man, as God’s accountable creature, must appear before his Maker in judgment. There is one thing imperishable and one dignity which even death cannot tarnish. The imperishable thing is the life which the Spirit of God imparts to the soul, and which connects the soul with God. The deathless dignity is that of being children of God.II. Aaron must be stripped of his robes, and his son clad with them in his stead. This reminds us that while the priests under the law were not suffered to continue by reason of death, yet the office of the priesthood did not lapse. Aaron’s robes were not buried with him. His successor was provided. Yet the very thought that he needed a successor, that the office must be transmitted from one to another, leads us to think of the contrast which the apostle draws between the priests under the law and Him who abideth always. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. (A. B. Davidson.)The good and faithful servantI. The common destiny of man. “Aaron,” says God, “shall be gathered to his people.” Death is spoken of here, not as a strange event, not as something peculiar to Aaron, but as something that had happened to Aaron’s people, and would happen to all generations. Oh, the teeming myriads that preceded us, that carried on the works, the commerce, and the reforms of our world; all these, so far as the body is concerned--all dust!II. The rigorousness of moral law. Here is a man who had struggled hard for many years in the wilderness, a man filled with high hopes, with glowing enthusiasm, a man who was approaching the goal, approaching the Canaan; and yet mark how, because of one sin, he dies, and never reaches that blessed spot. However distinguished a man may be for his excellences, however high he may be in the Church of God, his sin shall not go unpunished.III. The termination of life in the midst of labour. We nearly all die with our work unfinished. The farmer dies when he has only half ploughed his field ; the merchant dies in the midst of some commercial enterprise to which he has committed himself; the statesman dies with some great political measure, perhaps, heavy on his hands; the minister dies with some schemes of thought in his brain unwrought out, some plans of usefulness undeveloped. That to me is a profound mystery. I should have thought that a man who had in his brain a great purpose to serve his race, to promote the truth, and to extend the kingdom of Christ, would have his life preserved, that he might realise his purpose. But it is not so. O God! we are not surprised when an old tree, though prolific in its day, dies, for it dies by the law of decay; nor are we astonished that an unfruitful tree should be cut down, for it is a cumberer of the ground; but we are astonished that a tree, with its branches full of sap, with its boughs laden with fruit, with thousands reposing under its shadow, should be struck with a thunderbolt from heaven. Thy path, O God, is “in the great waters, and Thy footsteps are not known.”IV. God’s agency in man’s dissolution. Why did Aaron die? He was not worn out with age. He was as vigorous, perhaps, at that moment, as anybody here. Not because there was disease rankling in his system, not because there was any external violence applied to him. Why, then, did he die? The Great One determines that he shall die, and he dies. And this, I take it, is always the philosophy of a man’s death. We may ascribe it to that disease, to this accident, to this chance, to this occurrence ; but philosophy, the Bible, and reason all say, “man dies because the Great One has determined that he should die.” If you will ascertain the term of a creature s existence, you can only do it accurately by ascertaining the will of the great God concerning his existence. The constitution has nothing whatever to do with the question. If God determines it, the most robust dies in a moment,V. The promptitude with which providence supplies the places of the dead. Aaron must die, but there is Eleazar standing by his side ready to step into his place. This is the order of Providence. A merchant dies, and another man stands by his side ready to carry on his business. A lawyer dies, and there is a man standing by his side ready in a moment to step into the place he occupied. A statesman dies, and Providence has a man exactly fitted for his position. Oh, how this encourages my faith in the progress of Divine truth in this world! I see missionaries die in the field, and ministers die in the Church; I see authors die who are moving the minds of men, and influencing them for their highest good; and sometimes I feel, now, surely there must be a pause. But no, there is another minister ready to take the departed minister’s place. You labour, and other men enter into your labours; and when the mystery of godliness shall be finished, I believe the great series of workers will meet and mingle and rejoice together in the presence of the great common Father of us all. But whilst this encourages our faith, it is certainly humbling to our pride. The world can do without thee. Thou art but a blade in the field ; the landscape will bloom without thee. Thou art but a drop in the ocean; the mighty billows will not miss thee. Thou art not at all important.VI. The trial of human friendships. Moses and Eleazar were very closely related to Aaron. Moses was more than a brother to Aaron. There was a spiritual kindredship between them. There were mental affinities and spiritual affections. Their hearts were welded together by tender feelings and associations, and yet part they must. Oh! I ask the question, leaving you to answer it. Can it be that the great God of love, who has made us to love, and who has disposed us to give our affections to certain men and persons, can it be that He intended that our love should lash within us such storms, and produce so many tears that we have to shed almost daily? The philosophy is here--these friendships are to be renewed. These losses and tears are only a passing storm, clearing the heavens. There is to be a renewal of real spiritual friendship. Eleazar, Moses, thou shalt meet that man whom thou art burying on Mount Hor again! The time is hastening on when a re-union shall take place, and separation never. After all, the separation which takes place in the death of true Christian friends is more in form than in reality--more an appearance than a fact. I have the idea that in truth we become more really friends by the death separation. Death cannot destroy our loving memories of them. Death does not kill--nay, it seems but to intensify our affections. Death seems to bring those who are gone more closely and more vitally into contact with our hearts. Death, I say, does not effect a real separation. Love photographs them in the soul.VII. The painful recognition by society of its greatest losses. The people mourned for Aaron thirty days. Well might they mourn. If we cannot weep over great and true hearts, over what can we weep? Good men are as fountains welling up in the desert through which you are passing; they are lights in abounding darkness; they are salt that counteracts our tendency to corruption. Thank God for good men! But the Christian minister is the best of all men, and his loss is the greatest of all losses. I know of no man who is rendering such a service to society and to humanity as he! Such was Aaron. He was a minister of God. He had to go in between the corrupt Jews and the Infinite, and to entreat upon their behalf; and more than once did his prayers avert the threatened judgment. Aaron was more than that; he was a speaker, an orator. His words sometimes fell as a thunder-peal upon the proud heart of Egypt’s monarch; but they came down with rays of light, and as the gentle dew, upon the people of Israel. I can fancy Aaron talking to the people about God, about the coming Christianity, about the new dispensation, about the world to come. But he dies; and they mourn. I do not wonder at that. I should have been surprised if they had not wept when they know and felt, We shall see Aaron no more; he has ministered to us for many years, he has given consolation to our old men, a word of advice to the young men, and has talked to the children--and we shall see Aaron no more. (D. Thomas.)The comforts of Aaron’s deathThe comforts of Aaron’s death here are these: The Lord appoints it so, and His will, as it is ever good, so should it ever be our content. Secondly, his son succeedeth him in his place, a great comfort. Thirdly, he shall be freed from all his toil, from all his grief, from an unkind people. Now shall he rest and have peace, and all grief from his heart, all tears from his eyes wiped quite away. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours, and their works follow them.” Let it be a comfort to all, and by name to God’s ministers, that faithfully and zealously have watched over their flock, and have reaped but wrong and oppression. God hath His sweet time to release us, and to gather us to our people as He here did Aaron. He will care for our children as here for Aaron’s, and put them in some place or other after us for their good in His great mercy, if we commend them to Him. Our labours shall not be lost with Him that rewardeth a cup of cold water. If we have “sowed in tears we shall reap in joy.” Earth’s woe shall be changed to heaven’s bliss, and happy shall we be. Go on in comfort, be faithful unto the end, the Lord shall give us a crown of life. (Bp. Babington.)Divestiture and investiture--ministerial succession1. In these calm, almost cold, words, is told all that man is to know of an event full of interest, mystery, and awe. In that year 1452 (as chronologers say) before the Christian era, a life is brought to its close, which, but for one other life beside it, would have been unique in wonder. That old man who has gone up into Mount Hor, under Divine direction, to die, is God’s high priest; the first of a long line, the only line that God ever consecrated to stand between Himself and His chosen people, in the things of religion and the soul, until He should at last come, who is the End of all Revelation and the Antitype of all Priesthood.2. Aaron is shut out from Canaan for a fault, for a sin. Judged as man judges, it was a little sin. It was not the greatest of the sins even of this one life. But with God “great” and “little” have no place in the estimate of transgression.3. The lesson of severity lies on the surface of the record.4. There is here also the lesson of love. See how God chastens without disowning.5. There is also the lesson of death. It is the fashion to say that the language of the Old Testament is cheerless about death. I cannot see it. These deaths for small sins seem to be eloquent as to the insignificance of death. They seem to say, “The life that is seen is but a fragment of the whole life.”6. Nothing is more pathetic in Holy Scripture than that selflessness which God requires in His servants; that absorption of natural feeling in the One higher, which is the perfection of self-control and the self-forgetfulness. Aaron himself had been enabled to rise to it, when he saw his two sons cut off before him, forbidden to mourn, forbidden to bury them. And now it is his brother’s turn to take his part in bearing the burden which God’s ministry lays upon them that are privileged to exercise it. Now he must strip his dying brother of the beautiful and costly vestments of his priesthood. He must array in them a new priest, who is to carry on God’s work before a younger generation. And when the sad and solemn office is ended, he must turn back, with that other, to the thoughts and acts of the living, till he also shall have finished his course, and be ready to rejoin his brother in the Paradise of the just made perfect.7. There are some forms of ministration which suggest succession. Those garments which are emblematical of office--the judge’s ermine, worn only on the judgment-seat; the bishop’s lawn, put on with prayer and benediction, in the midst of the ceremony of his consecration--speak for themselves as to the disrobing. The wearer had a predecessor, shall have a successor in that ministry. He is but the life-holder: less than the life-holder, for decay of strength may further abridge the tenure of that charge, towards God and man, which the vestment of office typifies. There must be that stripping of which the text speaks; that putting off that another may put on. Let him live in the foreview of that day.8. Behold in one view the littleness and the greatness of man. The littleness in space and time. One generation goeth, and another cometh. Earth is a speck, and time a moment. But, view life as a trust--view office, view work, view character, view being, as a priesthood--and all is ennobled, all consecrated. Say to yourself, I am God’s priest--I wear His ephod and His crown, and the inscription on that crown is, “Holiness unto the Lord”--then you are great; great above kings, who know not a hereafter; great above hierarchies which would shine in God’s stead; your light is God’s light, and the world shall be the brighter for it. (Dean Vaughan.)The sin of Moses, and the death of AaronI. Faith in God is the regulating grace of the Christian character. So long as that is preserved, it will keep all other principles of our nature in restraint; but when that is lost, the brake is removed from the wheel, and everything goes wrong. The loss of faith leads to panic, and panic is utterly inconsistent with self-control. If we wish to overcome ourselves, then the victory is to be won through faith in God. Mere watchfulness will not suffice; but we must cultivate that confidence in God which believes that all things work together for good to them who love Him; which realises the universality of His providential administration as including the minutest as well as the vastest concerns of life ; and which has the unwavering assurance that we shall enter at last upon our heavenly inheritance.II. How important it is to be always ready for death. The death of Aaron was not altogether without warning, but in some sense it may be regarded as sudden. There were no premonitions of it in his bodily frame, else he could not have ascended Mount Hor; and when God’s command came, it might take him, and probably did take him, by surprise. Yet he was not appalled, for he believed God, and that kept him in perfect peace. “What, sir,” said a domestic servant, who was sweeping her doorstep, to young Spencer, of Liverpool, as he was hastening by, “is your opinion of sudden death?” He paused a moment; then saying, “Sudden death to the Christian is sudden glory,” he hurried on; and in less than an hour afterward he was drowned while bathing in the Mersey.III. The place and power of the individual in the onward progress of human society.1. Ministers and people die, but the Church abides, and carries still forward its beneficent work.2. We are the heirs of all the preceding generations; and if we act well our part, we shall leave something additional of our own behind us, which shall enrich those who shall come after us. The tabernacle service went on without Aaron, it is true; but if Aaron had not gone before him, Eleazar would not have entered upon such a sphere of usefulness as that which now opened before him. If there bad been no Bacon, there might have been no Newton; and if there had been no Newton, our modern philosophers would not have been what they are.3. What, then, is the lesson of all this? It is that each of us shall strive to do his utmost in the work to which God has called him, so that we may leave a higher platform for those who shall come after us. (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)Aaron’s deathAaron went up to die. Some die in seclusion and unknown; yet it matters not where the saints depart, whether on a mount or in a vale, though, as a typical character, this circumstance seemed to indicate the way of the “spirit, which riseth upwards,” and the destiny of our whole humanity. To him dying was but ascending; and it will be so to all the Lord’s people. The great Representative and Forerunner of the Church died on one mount, and ascended from another. Had not some great truth thereby been to be expressed, Aaron had not attired himself for death as though to enter the holy of holies. It can signify but little what he puts on who is about to lie down in the shroud of dissolution. Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return, said Job. Oh! how do some long for evening, to undress! “ not that they would be unclothed, but clothed upon with their house which is from above.” Yet the priest did not die, but the man. The transfer was made in life: the robes were taken from him while living, and not when dead. The Church was no moment without a priest and an offering. (W. Seaton.)Numbers 21Numbers 21:4-9Much discouraged because of the way.On the discouragements of pious menI. I shall point out the discouragements in the way; and, in doing this, I shall keep my eye on the pilgrimage of the people who were originally referred to is the text, and thence draw my chief illustrations.1. The way is circuitous, and therefore discouraging. Souls that are brought to Jesus, and delivered from the slavery of sin and the curse of the law, in their first ardour overlook trials, and think of nothing but enjoyments; they do not anticipate the fightings and fears that are the portion of God’s Israel. After a time, through want of watchfulness and care, the love of the espousals begins to decline, the world regains a degree of influence, the Spirit is grieved, and they fear God has become their enemy; they seem to themselves to go backward, and, indeed, are in danger of doing so, if they neglect to watch and pray; and much time is spent in mourning, retracing the ground that has been lost.2. The way is through a wilderness, and is, on that account, discouraging. In a spiritual sense, this world is a wilderness.(1) It has no natural tendency to nourish the spiritual life; nothing is derived from it of that kind: though spiritual blessings are enjoyed in it.(2) Again, there is much intricacy in the Christian’s pilgrimage. There were no paths in the wilderness; the Israelites could not have explored their way but by the direction of the pillar of fire and of the cloud: so the Christian often knows not how to explore his path.3. The way lies through a hostile country, and is, therefore, discouraging. The Christian soon learns that he has to fight against “principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness.” The flesh is also an enemy. The Christian experiences the workings of carnality, a hankering after that which is evil, and to which he may have been addicted; as the Israelites after “the onions and garlic of Egypt.”4. The false steps that are taken in the pilgrimage, and the consequent displeasure of God, are discouraging: there are so many errors and iniquities for which the Lord chastens His people, though He pardons sin as to its eternal consequences.5. The total defection of men from the path is a great discouragement to those who still continue in the way.6. The length of the way is discouraging. Though human life is short in itself, yet to our limited conception it appears long; especially when passed in suffering and pain. In protracted afflictions is seen the patience of the saints. Those saints, who endure in private, though unnoticed by their neighbours, and perhaps unknown, are the bravest heroes of the Christian camp.II. I shall now direct you to some considerations to remove your discouragements.1. Remember, the way you are in, believer, is “a right way,” notwithstanding all that has been said. Infinite Wisdom has ordained it: and if you reach the end, you will be well repaid for all your toil, and will admire the whole of the pilgrimage: no sorrow will appear to have been too heavy; no path too gloomy.2. Another encouragement is, that God is with His people in the way. If He leads into the wilderness, He “speaks comfortably”; He spreads a table there, “and His banner over us is love.”3. Remember there is no other way that leads to heaven. You cannot reconcile the service of sin and the world with the hope of heaven and the enjoyment of everlasting life in that holy state, and in the presence of the holy God. Will you, then, forego the hope of Canaan; as you must when you yield to sin, when you give yourselves to the world? (R. Hall, M. A.)Discouraged because of the wayI. These words are applicable to God’s people now.II. These words are applicable to those who have been God’s people. Do not many go back spiritually? Some tire of God’s service and abandon it.III. These words are applicable to those who neither have been nor are God’s people. “Not far from the kingdom of God”--yet not happy. (T. R. Stevenson.)DiscouragedPerhaps the way was rough and uneven, or foul and dirty; or it fretted them to go so far about, and that they were not permitted to force their passage through the Edomites’ country. Those that are of a fretful discontented spirit will always find something or other to make them uneasy. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)DiscouragementsDiscouragement is a kind of middle feeling: it is, therefore, all the more difficult to treat. It does not go so far down as cowardice, and has hardly any relation to a sense of triumph or over-sufficiency of strength; but the point of feeling lies between, deepening rather towards the lower than turning itself sunnily towards the higher. When that feeling takes possession of a man, the man may easily become the prey of well-nigh incurable dejection. There are necessary discouragements. How awful it would be if some men were never discouraged!--they could not bear themselves, and they could not act a beneficent part towards other people. It is well, there fore, for the strongest man occasionally to be set back half-a-day’s travelling and have to begin to-morrow morning at the point where he was yesterday morning. It is of God that the strongest man should sometimes have to sit down and take his breath. Seeing such a man tired, even but for one hour, poor weak pilgrims may say, If he, the man of herculean strength, must pause awhile, it is hardly to be wondered at that we poor weaklings should now and then want to sit down and look round and recover our wasted energy. We must not forget that a good many discouragements are of a merely physical kind. We do not consider the relation between temperament and religion as we ought to consider it. Be rational in your inquiry into the origin of your discouragement, and be a wise man in the treatment of the disease. There are exaggerated discouragements. Some men have a gift of seeing darkness. They do not know that there are two twilights--the twilight of morning, and the twilight of evening; they have only one twilight, and that is the shady precursor of darkness. We have read of a man who always said there was a lion in the way. He had a wonderful eye for seeing lions. Nobody could persuade him that he did not see a ravenous beast within fifty yards of the field he intended to plough. This is an awful condition under which to live the day of human life. But that lion is real to him. Why should we say roughly, There is no lion--and treat the man as if he were insane? To him, in his diseased condition of mind, there is a lion. We mast ply him with reason softly expressed, with sayings without bitterness; we must perform before him the miracle of going through the very lion he thought was in the way; and thus, by stooping to him and accommodating ourselves to him, without roughness or brusqueness, or tyranny of manner and feeling, must bring him round to the persuasion that he must have been mistaken. Discouragement does not end in itself. The discouraged man is in a condition to receive any enemy, any temptation, any suggestion that will even for a moment rid him of his intolerable pressure. Through the gate of discouragement the enemy wanders at will. Therefore be tender with the discouraged. Some men cannot stop up all the night of discouragement by themselves; but if you would sit up with them, if you would trim the light and feed the fire, and say they might rely upon your presence through one whole night at least, they might get an hour’s rest, and in the morning bless you with revived energy for your solicitude and attendance. Discouragements try the quality of men. You cannot tell what some men are when their places of business are thronged from morning until night, and when they are spending the whole of their time in receiving money. You might regard them as really very interesting characters; you might be tempted to think you would like to live with them: they are so radiant, so agreeable. If you could come when business is slack, when there are no clients, ,customers, patrons, or supporters to be seen, you would not know the lovely angels, you would not recognise the persons whom you thought so delightful. What is the cure of this awful disease of discouragement? The very first condition of being able to treat discouragement with real efficiency is to show that we know its nature, that we ourselves have wandered through its darkness, and that we have for the sufferer a most manly and tender sympathy. Then are there no encouragements to be recollected in the time of our dejection? Do the clouds really obliterate the stars, or only conceal them? The discouragements can be numbered,--can the encouragements be reckoned--encouragements of a commercial, educational, social, relative kind--encouragements in the matter of health or spirits or family delights? (J. Parker, D. D.)Fleshpots or mannaTo all of us constantly a choice is offered; a choice of many names but of one significance, a choice which may be described variously, but which is fundamentally the same. It is the choice between law and licence; between pleasure and duty; between the flesh and the spirit; between God and Satan; between worldly life and heavenly hope; between intemperate sensualism and sober chastity. In some form or ether--great or small--this choice comes daily and almost hourly to all of us. But sometimes the choice comes to us in life in a concentrated, in almost a final form. The supreme hour, the distinct crisis, comes to us, at which we must definitely and consciously turn either to the right hand or to the left; must decide for ourselves between the God of our fathers and the strange gods of those among whom we dwell. It comes to all; it comes at any period of life; but perhaps in this deliberate form it comes mostly in youth. The boy at school has to make up his mind whether he will attach himself to bad companions and to forbidden pleasures, or fling them off with all the strength of his soul, and all the aid which he can win from prayer. The young woman has to decide between dress, self-assertion, the acceptance of flattery, the assertion of a spurious independence, the listening to the serpent tempter, the long gaze on the forbidden fruit; or, on the other hand, modesty, readiness to be guided, respect for the warnings of experience, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price. The youth of the poorer classes has to make up his mind whether he shall be a lounger at the tavern or a worshipper in the Church. But though the choice is in any case infinitely momentous, it is not necessarily final. There is, indeed, in human lives a law of habit, a law of continuity, which ever tends to make it final. Even the choice itself depends on all that has gone before it. The present decision is swayed by all the past. The shadow must have been creeping on the dial-plate before its black line marks the hour; and the clock must have accomplished its thousands upon thousands of tiny tickings before the great hammer-stroke can clash out that it is noon. And when the choice has been made, when we are definitely on the side of Satan or of God, the powers that make it the Armageddon field of their mighty battle do not at once or for ever leave it utterly alone. Now, the Israelites, of whom we read in this chapter, had long ago made their choice, and, by God’s grace, chosen right. They had been in the land of Egypt--the house of bondage. Coarse plenty, ignoble servitude, the starving of every noble impulse, the death of the soul amidst the comforts of the body--this had been their too common let. Fish and melons and leeks and cucumbers and garlic and the rich water of the Nile--these they had enjoyed in plenty, and to marry and bring up a low race of ignoble slaves. Myriads in this great city are at this moment in the land of Egypt, in the house of bondage; having plenty to eat and drink and live on--able to gratify every sense and sate every passion; but yet slaves--slaves of society, slaves of self, slaves of Satan, slaves of their own worst passions. And from this base, low life of serfdom and gluttony, one man awoke the Israelites. At first they misunderstood, rejected, vilified him. But at last God’s breath breathed upon these slain, and they began to live. The voice of Moses roused them. He thrilled them with the electric shock of liberty. So, making their brave choice, the children of Israel left the land of Egypt, the house of bondage, and went forth into the barren wilderness. It was a harder life, but a life oh, how far more noble! There was no garlic or leeks, but they were free. They were not fattening in fleshly comfort, but the great winds of God could now blow on the uplifted foreheads of men who were no longer slaves. The type of it all was this: there were no fleshpots, but there was manna; so men did eat angels’ food for He sent them meat enough. And what a difference between the two kinds of food! Not the coarse, steaming messes, reeking and rich, meet for the sensual and full-fed slave; but a honeydew which lay on the ground--small, white, glistering, exquisite, delicate as the food of heaven, but evanescent as morning tears. And in the first flush of freedom, in the purple dawn of enthusiasm, it was delightful, it was ennobling, to gather and to feed upon these pearls of the morning, which renewed the body, but did not encarnalise the soul. And they had made their choice, and they were glad like men. But then, as they plodded along the barren wastes, like the dead levels of middle life, came to them the temptations and the reactions of which I have spoken, and the necessity of renewing their choice, and not being discontented with it-of abiding by it, and not repenting it. The gross spell and baleful sorcery of Egypt returned like a wave of mud over the souls which God had freed. The spirit of the slave remained in them; the reek of Egypt’s fleshpots seemed to float back to their nostrils; they loathed the light “bread”; they sighed for the onions and the garlic and the rich water and fat, sluggish fields. Has not this sketch taught its own lessons? The one special lesson which I want to bring home is the training of the spiritual sense--the danger to the table of the Lord from the table of devils; the guilt of dallying with old temptations, the peril of furtive glances towards the doomed forsaken city. When God’s children hunger for righteousness, He impearls for them the ground with the manna-dews of heaven; but when they lust for quails, their food breeds plague and is loathsome unto them; and fiery serpents sting the diseased appetite, and at last the gorged prodigal craves, and craves vainly, for the husks of swine. For instance, God fills the world with water. The great sea rolls its pure, fresh waves of violet, and the tropic sun evaporates them, and they are distilled in the sweet laboratory of the air, and the wings of the winds winnow them free from the impurity amid the soft clouds of heaven, and they steal down in dew and silver rain, and hang like diamonds on the grass, and gladden the green leaves, and slide softly into the bosom of the rose, and bubbling through the mountain turf become the rivulets and the rivers, and are the sweet, wholesome, natural drink of man and beast, and we thank God for these springs of health, and disease drinks and sleeps. Now to the simple, natural, noble taste this is enough; it delights us. But man has distilled, in his laboratories, a fiery flaming spirit; and what sweetness is there in water to the coarsened palate, the inflamed thirst, the parched tongue, the vitiated taste, the depraved craving of the drunkard? How can that which is sweet and simple and natural contend with the brutifying attraction of oily, maddening, scorching drams, which poison and degrade? The taste for spiritual things--for the things of God--is like the pure, cool, delicious wholesome, but unmaddening, unseducing water; the drink of Egypt, the drink of the house of bondage, and the drink of the drunkard, and the madman, and the sensualist, is like that dissolved spirit of evil which is ruin, and sickness, and disease, and death. Again, the honest life--the life which scorns unjust gain, which hates the false balance and the deceitful weight; the life of the tradesman or the professional man who will not make haste to be rich, who will suffer no shoddy, no cheating, no adulteration, no double prices--its gains are steady, perhaps, and slow, and moderate. But when a man sees his unscrupulous neighbour, apparently prospering by fraud, getting rich by rapid dishonesty, gaining by gambling speculations, is it not woe to him if the manna of honesty begins to pall, and to grow insipid to his taste; if he begin to sigh for the fleshpots of Egypt rather than the manna of God; for the dross and refuse of base earthly success, rather than the pure, wholesome righteousness of just and honourable toil? Once more--the law of duty; of simple allegiance to the law of God; of self-restraint for His sake; this is manna. But if the youth tire at this, suffer it to pall upon him, murmur at it; revert in memory to conquered temptations; how can the taste of the manna survive the reek of these Egyptian fulnesses? How can the violets of purity and humility bloom and shed their fragrance under the coarse, foul upas tree of sensual passions? And in all these cases God--God in His mercy--sends fiery serpents to avenge in His children His forgotten, His violated laws. Oh! let God’s manna be dear to you; beware lest it pall upon you; beware how you grow weary of well-doing, and discontented with the gifts and ordinances of God. Oh, may God help us to cultivate all sweet and wholesome and spiritual tastes! If you do get to loathe the holy life--the manna of God--be sure that God has many a fiery serpent left in the wilderness for you; and oh! if you have already been bitten by that fiery serpent wherewith He punishes for sin, remember that “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so the Son of Man was lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (F. W. Farrar, D. D.)The Lord sent fiery serpents.In the valley of SeirI. Sin. Its first characteristic was complaining against God and God’s guidance.1. The hardships that lie in the path of obedience are the daily stumbling-rocks and rocks of offence.2. The next element in their sin was that they despised the gifts God gave them. There are many joys within our reach, many sources of strength and peace and gladness, all innocent and God-given--faculties to develop, friendships to cultivate, treasuries of wisdom and knowledge to ransack; yet how often are they stale and unprofitable to us--“miserable bread”!3. Earthly and sensual desires. They ever carried Egypt with them. They rose to nothing noble or heroic.4. And was not this sin of Israel just the sin of which they were always guilty? Their murmurings are always to the same tune, their rebellions on the same lines and from the same motives. Sin is persistent. It becomes habitual. Day by day our souls take on a bias either for good or evil.II. Suffering.1. Sorrow ever trails in the wake of sin.2. Sent by God.3. For their good.III. Salvation. (R. D. Shaw, B. D.)Unreasonable complaintI. What it was that they despised. Bread--(1) Given by God;(2) Miraculously.II. The unreasonableness of the complaint. Had nothing else on which to depend during journey.III. The causes of disgust. Forgetfulness, weariness, ingratitude. (Daniel Katterns.)Complaining punishedTo complain is to be atheistic, to murmur is to throw down the altar, to adopt a reproachful tone regarding the necessary education of life is to challenge Divine wisdom. The complaint was punished as complaining must always be. Fretfulness always brings its own biting serpent along with it. Charge what improbability you may upon the particular account of serpents in the text--get rid of them if you can from the historical record--there remains the fact, that the fretful spirit burns itself, the discontented soul creates its own agony, the mind wanting the sweet spirit of contentment stings itself night and day and writhes continually in great suffering. Discontent never brought joy, peevishness never tranquillised the home-life, fretfulness in the head of the house, or in any member of the house, creates a disagreeable feeling throughout the whole place. Complaint punishes itself. Every complaint has a corresponding serpent, and the serpent bites still. The people complained of the light food--then God sent them fiery serpents. There is always something worse than we have yet experienced. The children of Israel might have thought the bread was the worst fate theft could befall them. To be without water, and to be continually living upon manna--surely there was nothing worse? We cannot exhaust the Divine resources of a penal kind. There is always some lower depth, always some keener bite, always some more painful sting, always some hotter hell. Take care how you treat life. Do not imagine that you can complain without being heard, and that you can be heard without punishment immediately following. This is the mystery of life; this is the fact of life. (J. Parker, D. D.)We have sinned.--The happiness of repentanceThe proverb is old: “He runneth far that never returns.” Seven times a day falleth the just man, but he returneth; he riseth again and is sorry. When David had sinned so fearfully he looked back and repented. When another time he had caused the people to be numbered and so sinned, his heart smote him and he was sorry for it. A wild race did the prodigal son run, but he returned. Peter sinned most grievously, but he went out and wept bitterly. Happy were all these for their returning. And blessed be our good God for evermore that pardoneth upon repentance. Observe in their repentance their confession to God, because they had spoken against Him, and to Moses because they had also transgressed against him. “God knoweth all,” saith Ambrose, “but yet He looketh for thy confession.” God is never more ready to cover than when we lay open. The fox, say our books, taketh his prey by the throat so to stop all noise. And the devil, that fox, by all means hindereth holy confession, and bringeth men to deal with their souls as men used to deal with old rusty armour, either never, or once in a year or two, formally and superficially to scour it over. But as a thorn in your finger will grieve you still till it be had out, so will sin in your conscience still vex till it be acknowledged and confessed. If we have offended man, reconciliation to him is necessary. But “to thy God speak all,” saith Chrysostom, “even whatsoever thou art ashamed to speak unto man, for He expecteth thy voice although He knew it before, and He will never upbraid thee as man will.” Note, they trust in God’s mercy that upon prayer He would pardon, and therefore they despair not. This ever must be joined to our repentance, or else it is a gulf that will swallow us up. What will tears and confession profit if there be no hope of pardon? “My sin is greater than can be forgiven.” “But thou liest, Cain,” saith St. Augustine, “for the mercy of God is greater than all sinner’s misery.” (Bp. Babington.)Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole.--The first setting up of the brazen serpentI. Discouragement. “Because of the way.”1. Assuredly there are times when God’s servants become discouraged. To our shame let us confess it. It is by faith that we live, but discouragement is generally the fruit of unbelief; and so by discouragement we cease to live a healthy and vigorous life, we begin to faint. The reason may be found in various things.(1) Occasionally it springs out of disappointment. How tantalising to see the land, as through a wall of crystal, and yet to be unable to put foot upon it! There may be like trials in store for us. Possibly some of my Master’s servants have entertained the notion that they have made amazing progress in the Divine life, and just then an event has occurred which showed them their own weakness, and they have been forced to weep in secret places and upbraid themselves, saying, “After all this, am I no better than to be cast down about a trifle? Have I suffered so much, and yet is my progress so small?”(2) It was not, however, merely disappointment; it was much else. It was the unfriendliness of those who ought to have been most brotherly. Surely Edom ought to have granted his brother Israel the small privilege of passing through the country, seeing it was the near way to Canaan. I have known people of God much discouraged by the unfriendliness of those whom they thought to be their brethren and sisters in Christ. They went to them for sympathy, and they received rebuffs. Alas, that it should be often true that the souls of the people of God may be much discouraged because of the absence of Christian love! Resolve that it shall not be your fault.(3) Undoubtedly, however, the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the length of the way. The nation had been forty years on the march. To certain of God’s people old age has brought much of heaviness by reason of its infirmities and afflictions. They often sigh, “Why are His chariots so long in coming?” They are willing in the spirit to abide the Master’s will, but the flesh is weak, and they wonder whether the Lord has quite forgotten them.(4) Then there was the fatigue of the way, for journeying through that wilderness was by no means an easy business, especially along the shore of the gulf. Very rugged to this day is the pathway there. The road is full of hills and valleys, and rugged ravines and sharp stones, and weary sands. Travelling there is as bad as travelling well can be. To some of God’s own children life is no parade upon a level lawn, but rough marching and deep wading. They have to take the bleak side of the hill; the wind blows upon them, and the sleet is driven in their eyes, and their home is but a cold harbour to them.2. Now, you are discouraged, you say, because of the way; but whose way is it? Have you chosen your own way and wilfully run against your duty and against the providence of God? Well, then, I say nothing about the consequences of such conduct, for they must be terrible. But if you have endeavoured to follow the Lord fully, and if you have tried to keep the path of His statutes, then it must be well with you. Why are you discouraged? Judge not by the sight of the eyes, nor by the hearing of the ears: let faith sit on the judgment-seat, and I am sure she will give forth this verdict--“If the Lord wills it, it is well. If Jehovah leads the way the road must be right.” Besides that, not only did God lead them but God carried them. He says Himself that He bare them on eagle’s wings: for though the ways were often rough, yet it is wonderful to remember that their feet did not swell, neither did their garments wax old upon them all those forty years. How could they be better off than to have heaven for their granary, the rocks for their wine-cellars, and God Himself for their Provider.II. Complaint. “Spake against God and against Moses.” Some of us have need to be cautioned against letting the spirit of discouragement hurry us on to quarrelling with God and questioning His love. It is ill for a saint to strive with his Saviour. When these people made their first complaint it was a singular one. It was a complaint about having been brought out of Egypt. “Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness?”1. Well, but first of all, they ought not to complain of being brought up out of Egypt, for that was a land of bondage where their male children had to perish in the river, and where they themselves longed to die, for life had become intolerable; and yet you see they are complaining that they were brought up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness as they said. Is it not possible that our rebellious hearts may even complain of God’s mercy? For want of something to murmur at, discouraged ones will pick holes in the goodness of God. What a pity that it should be so!2. Next, look at their complaint of having no food: “There is no bread, neither is there any water.” It was a great falsehood. There was bread, they had to admit that fact in the next breath: but then they did not call the manna “bread.” They called it by an ugly name in the Hebrew. The water, too, was not muddy and thick like the water of the Nile; it was bright, clear, pure water from the rock; and therefore they would not call it water. They wanted water with substance in it which would leave grit between their teeth, and as the stream which leaped from the flinty rock was pure crystal they would not call it water. Have you not known people to whom God has given great mercy, and yet they have talked as if they were quite deserted? Unbelief is blind, just as surely as faith is far-seeing. Unbelief enjoys nothing, just as faith rejoices in everything.III. Punishment. “Fiery serpents.”1. Sometimes they may be new trials.2. In some Christians they may be the uprisings of their own corruptions.3. Or, it may be, that God wilt let Satan loose upon us if we disbelieve.IV. Remedy.1. Confession. “We have sinned.”2. The second help was that Moses prayed for the people.So our great cure against fiery serpents, horrible thoughts, and temptations, is intercession. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” If we have grown downhearted and discouraged, and have sinned by unbelieving utterances, let us go with our poor, little, trembling faith, and ask the Divine Interposer to stand before God on our behalf, and pray for us that our transgressions may be blotted out.3. But now comes the great remedy. After their confession and the prayer of their mediator, the Lord bade Moses make a brazen serpent and lift it up, that they might look upon it and live. When I first came to Christ as a poor sinner and looked to Him, I thought Him the most precious object my eyes had ever lit upon; but this night I have been looking to Him while I have been preaching to you, in remembrance of my own discouragements, and my own complainings, and I find my Lord Jesus dearer than ever. I have been seriously ill, and sadly depressed, and I fear I have rebelled, and therefore I look anew to Him, and I tell you that lie is fairer in my eyes to-night than He was at first. The brazen serpent healed me when first I saw the Lord; and the brazen serpent heals me to-night and shall do so till I die. Look and live is for saints as well as for sinners. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Man’s ruin and God’s remedyI. Man, thou art ruined! The children of Israel in the wilderness were bitten with fiery serpents, whose venom soon tainted their blood, and after intolerable pain brought on death. Thou art much in the same condition. Oh, sinner, there are four things that stare thee in the face, and should alarm thee!1. The first thing is thy sin. I hear thee say, “Yes, I know I am a sinner as well as the rest of mankind”; but I am not content with that confession, nor is God content with it either. Ah! ye are without Christ, remember, not only is the world lost, but you are lost; not only has sin defiled the race, but you yourself are stained by sin. Come, now, take the universal charge home to yourself. How many have your sins been? Count them, if you can. There is nothing to be gotten by hiding your sins. They’ll spring up, if you dig deep as hell to hide them. Why not now be honest, and look at them to-day, for they’ll look at you by and by, when Christ shall come in the clouds of judgment?2. Sinner, thou hast not only thy sin to trouble thee, but there is the sentence of condemnation gone out against thee. Ye are condemned already. What though no officer has arrested you, though death has not laid his cold hand upon you, yet Scripture saith, “He that believeth not is condemned already, because he believeth not on the Son of God.” I ask you this, whether you do not deserve it? If I never committed another sin, my past sins would fully justify the Lord in permitting me to go down alive into the pit. Now, these two things are enough to make any man tremble, if he did but feel them--his sin and his condemnation. But I have a third to mention.3. Sinner, there is this to aggravate thy case and increase thine alarm--thy helplessness, thy utter inability to do anything to save thyself, even if God should offer thee the chance. Thou art dead in trespasses and sins. Talk of performing good works--thou canst not. But thou sayest, “I will repent.” Repentance is not possible to thee as thou art, unless God gives it to thee. There is no door of mercy left for you by the law, and even by the gospel there is no door of mercy which you have power to enter, apart from the help which Christ affords you. If you think you can do anything, you have yet to unlearn that foolish conceit. Now have I not indeed described a horrible position for a sinner to be in--but there is something more remaining, a fourth thing.4. Sinner, thou art not only guilty of past sin, and condemned for it, thou art not only unable, but if thou wert able, thou art so bad that thou wouldst never be willing to do anything that could save thyself. For this know--thy nature is totally depraved. Thou lovest that which is evil, and not that which is good.II. Having thus set before you the hard part of the subject--the sinner’s ruin--I now come to preach of his remedy. A certain school of physicians tells us that “like cures like.” Whether it be true or not in medicine, I know it is true enough in theology. When the Israelites were bitten with the fiery serpents, it was a serpent that made them whole. And so you lost and ruined creatures are bidden now to look to Christ suffering and dying, and you will see in Him the counterpart of what you see in yourselves.1. I charge you with sin. Now in Christ Jesus behold the sinner’s substitute--the sin-offering. When I look at myself I think it would need much to redeem me, but when I see Christ dying I think He could redeem me if I were a million times as bad as I am. Now remember Christ not only paid barely enough for us, He paid more than enough. The Apostle Paul says, “His grace abounded”--“superabounded,” says the Greek. Christ’s redemption was so plenteous, that had God willed it, if all the stars of heaven had been peopled with sinners, Christ need not have suffered another pang to redeem them all--there was a boundless value in His precious blood. And, sinner, if there were so much as this, surely there is enough for thee.2. And then again, if thou art not satisfied with Christ’s sin-offering, just think a moment; God is satisfied, God the Father is content, and must not thou be? The Judge says, “I am satisfied; let the sinner go free, for I have punished the Surety in his stead” and if the Judge is satisfied, surely the criminal may be.3. In regard to the third particular. Our utter helplessness is such, that as I told you, we are unable to do anything. Yes, and I want you to look at Christ; was not He unable, too? You, in your father Adam, were once strong, but you lost your strength. Christ, too, was strong, but He laid aside all His omnipotence. See Him. The hand that poises the world hangs on a nail. See Him. The shoulders that supported the skies are drooping over the Cross. Look at Him. The eyes whose glances light up the sun are sealed in darkness. Look away from your own weakness to His weakness, and remember that in His weakness He is strong, and in His weakness you are strong too. Go see His hands; they are weak, but in their weakness they are stretched out to save you. Look at His eyes; they are closing in death, but from them comes the ray of light that shall kindle your dark spirit. Unable though thou art, go to Him who Himself was crucified through weakness, and remember that now “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him.” I told you you could not repent, but if you go to Christ He can melt your heart into contrition, though it be as hard as iron. I said you could not believe; but if you sit down and look at Christ, a sight of Christ will make you believe, for He is exalted on high to give repentance and remission of sins.4. And then the fourth thing. “Oh,” cries one, “you said we were too estranged to be even willing to come to Christ.” I know you were; and therefore it is He came down to you. You would not come to Him, but He comes to you, and though you are very evil, He comes with sacred magic in His arm, to change your heart. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The brazen serpent; an emblem of heaven’s antidote in the gospel of ChristI. The antidote provided in the gospel is for a most lamentable evil.1. The affliction under which the Jews were now suffering, resembles sin in that it was--(1) Imparted;(2) Painful;(3) Mortal.2. Dissimilar, in that(1) One was material, the other is spiritual.(2) One was a calamity, the other is a crime.(3) The one would necessarily end in death, the other might continue for ever.II. The antidote provided in the gospel originated in the sovereignty of God. Points of difference between the remedies.1. One was apparently arbitrary, the other is manifestly adapted.2. The one was insensible to the sufferer, the other is filled with sympathy.3. The one was local in its aspect, the other is worldwide in its bearing.4. The one was temporary in its efficacy, the other is perpetual.III. The antidote provided in the gospel requires the personal application of the sufferers.1. The personal application is most simple.(1) As looking is the easiest act of the body, so faith is the easiest act of the mind.(2) Man has a propensity for believing; he is a credulous animal; his ruin is, that he believes too much.2. The personal application is most unmeritorious.3. The personal application is most indispensable.4. The personal application is ever efficacious. (Homilist.)The brazen serpentI. The cause which produced it.1. On man’s side it was sin. In Num 21:4-5, what ingratitude and rebellion. The people were safe, and enjoying manna, yet discontented. Can you wonder at judgment? (Num 21:6). Was it not so in Eden? First parents were safe, happy; manna of Paradise, yet discontented. Can you wonder that they fell under the curse? The serpent had bitten them.2. On God’s side it was grace. In Num 21:7, you see terror; yet what plea? Only pity! Nevertheless vouchsafed (Num 21:8). Precisely so with our deliverance. When God beheld a race defiled and poisoned with the fiery serpent bite of sin, why did He interfere? (Job 33:24). It was all of grace (Joh 3:16).II. The character which marked it. Somewhat singular that the Lord should have chosen to heal His people by bidding them look at a brazen serpent. He might have healed by a word; yet He chose the most hideous object. Why? for several reasons.1. It was an appointment without any natural attraction. A piece of brass. The image of a serpent. Cold reason cried out, “Of what use is that? It is repulsive, not attractive. We will not believe. Let us reject it.” Was it not so with the Cross? (Isa 53:2-3; 1Co 1:23).2. It was an emblem of the curse, without its hatefulness. Notice, it was a serpent, yet not taken from the wilderness. It was like the fiery serpents, but without their poison. So with the Lord Jesus. A Man in the “likeness of sinful flesh,” but not from the sons of Adam. Without sin. Hence the curse was represented, but not embodied. Enough to give validity to atonement, but not enough to invalidate atonement.3. It was an object of faith, without limit to its efficacy. Elevated on high for all, even for most distant spectators. So with the Cross of Christ elevated for all (Joh 12:32). What limit? Age? (Young Timothy and St. Paul the aged.) Class? (Rich Joseph and wretched Lazarus.) Guilt? (Mary Magdalene and dying thief.) Listen, then, ye who say, “Gospel not for me.” True, you can do nothing; but you can look (Isa 45:22).III. The consequences which result from it. With Israelites the poison was extracted, pain abated, health restored. It is so still. Come by faith to Jesus. Sin pardoned, conscience pacified, soul renewed. In one word, salvation. See this a little more fully.1. Perfect salvation. We read of no return of the serpents. The people healed were relieved from the curse altogether. No half-salvation. It is so with all believers. If you have found Christ, you are fully pardoned. No reservations (1Jn 1:7).2. Instant salvation. When life was fainting, as the sufferers looked, their strength returned in a moment. Just as one penitent look to the crucified Christ brings a present salvation. Not a thing put off. “He that believeth hath everlasting life.”3. Free salvation. These Israelites had not to walk to the pole, had not to use their own remedies. Only to look in their misery, and to live. Why should it be otherwise now? Perhaps some of you feel the bites of conscience; yet you have no peace. It may be that you rest too much on your own remedies. You do not see that all has been done, and that now the gift is free. In conclusion, let me speak to you who have looked, and who live. Do not think yourselves beyond danger. Like Israel, you may murmur or backslide. If so--(1) Expect chastening.(2) Come again and again to the Cross. Never beyond the need of that till death. (J. H. Titcomb, M. A.)The brazen serpentI. The danger of giving way to despondency. Immoderate grief over bereavement, undue depression over temporal misfortunes, extreme sensitiveness to the assaults which men may make upon us while we are seeking to follow Christ, morbid regret at the disappointment of our hopes of serving God in some peculiar way on which our hearts are set, and exaggerated ideas of the evil which will ensue from the refusal of some Edomite to do that which would have been of great benefit to us, that which would have cost him nothing, and which we had courteously requested at his hands--all these are at the next station on the line toward rebellion against God, and ought to be checked at once, before they lead to more serious consequences. A friend of mine, some years ago, received a letter from a missionary on the West Coast of Africa, in which, as a curiosity, some serpent eggs were contained. He laid them carefully aside, thinking to preserve them as they were; but one day, when he went to show them to a visitor, he discovered, to his dismay, that the heat of the drawer had hatched them into serpents, and there was a heap of crawling things before his eyes. So despondency is a serpent’s egg, which, if we are not careful, will hatch in our hearts into a serpent itself, and poison us with its venomous bite. It has the germ of serious and aggravated sin within it, and we must seek very speedily to overmaster it; nor need we have much difficulty in rising above it, for we have only to remember and believe that God is on our side, and all discouragement will disappear.II. The typical significance of the method which, in obedience to God’s command, Moses adopted for the healing of the people. Here was, first of all, a disease. Alike in its origin and nature, the malady of sin is well illustrated by a serpent’s bite. Unless a cure be effected, the death of the soul must result. If we were but as sensible of our malady as these Israelites were of the disease that was burning up their bodies, we would cry out in an agony of earnestness for deliverance. But let us not forget to look at the cure which was here effected. “The brazen serpent,” says Alford, “made in the likeness of the serpents which had bitten them, represented to them the poison which had gone through their frames; and it was hung up there on the banner-staff as a trophy, to show that for the poison there was healing, that the plague had been overcome. In it there was no poison--only the likeness of it. Now, was not our Lord Jesus made in the likeness of sinful flesh?” The bitten Israelites were healed by looking to the serpent of brass; so the sinner is saved by believing in Jesus (Isa 45:22; Psa 34:5). Two things are specially taught us by this emblem of faith. The first is, that the object of faith is not anything in ourselves. So long as we look in, we can see nothing to give us hope or happiness; but when we look to Jesus, we behold in Him a deliverer, and see in His righteousness a foundation on which we may securely rest. The eye is that which “takes in” the realities of the external world, and faith is that which” takes in” the truth about Christ. It is the receptive faculty of the soul; and when by it we receive and rest upon Christ for our salvation, our act corresponds in spirit to the look of the outward eye turned by the suffering Israelite on the uplifted serpent. Observe, I said, when we receive and rest on Christ; and this resting is the sacred thing taught us by this emblem of faith. “I will look to you, then, to arrange all that,” said one friend to another, at the close of a business conference; and that trustfulness which he expressed in the honour of his friend is of the same kind as the restful confidence which the believer has in his Lord.III. But who may look? “Every one that is bitten.” There you might see the man all but dead, raising himself upon his arm, and straining his glazed eyes if haply he might behold the glittering symbol; yonder another, wiping away his tears of anguish to look upon the glorious object; and yonder still, a mother with her child, eagerly pointing to the flagstaff, if perchance she may fix her loved one’s gaze upon the mystic healer. But no one would be tempted to ask, will it heal me? for he would reason thus: it will cure any bitten one that looks, and therefore me. So “there is life for a look at the crucified One,” for “whosoever believeth.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)Lifting up the brazen serpentI. The person in mortal peril for whom the brazen serpent was made and lifted up. Our text saith, “It came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”1. The fiery serpents first of all came among the people because they had despised God’s way and God’s bread. “The soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way.” As an old divine says, “It was lonesome and longsome,” but still it was God’s way, and therefore it ought not to have been loathsome: His pillar of fire and cloud went before them, and His servants Moses and Aaron led them like a flock, and they ought to have followed cheerfully. This is one of the great standing follies of men; they cannot be content to wait on the Lord and keep His way, but they prefer a will and way of their own.2. The people, also, quarrelled with God’s food. He gave them the best of the best, for “men did eat angels’ food”; but they called the manna by an opprobrious title, as if they thought it unsubstantial, and only fitted to puff them out, because it was easy of digestion, and did not breed in them that heat of blood and tendency to disease which a heavier diet would have brought with it. Being discontented with their God they quarrelled with the bread which He set upon their table, though it surpassed any that mortal man has ever eaten before or since. This is another of man’s follies; his heart refuses to feed upon God’s Word or believe God’s truth. He craves for the flesh-meat of carnal reason, the leeks and the garlic of superstitious tradition, and the cucumbers of speculation; he cannot bring his mind down to believe the Word of God, or to accept truth so simple, so fitted to the capacity of a child.3. Observe concerning those persons for whom the brazen serpent was specially lifted up that they had been actually bitten by the serpents. The Lord sent fiery serpents among them, but it was not the serpents being among them that involved the lifting up of a brazen serpent, it was the serpents having actually poisoned them which led to the provision of a remedy. “It shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.” God’s medicine is for the sick, and His healing is for the diseased. The grace of God through the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ is for men who are actually and really guilty. What an awful thing it is to be bitten by a serpent! I dare say some of you recollect the case of Gurling one of the keepers of the reptiles in the Zoological Gardens. It happened in October, 1852. This unhappy man was about to part with a friend who was going to Australia, and according to the wont of many he must needs drink with him. He drank considerable quantities of gin, and though he would probably have been in a great passion if any one had called him drunk, yet reason and common-sense had evidently become overpowered. He went back to his post at the gardens in an excited state. He had some months before seen an exhibition of snake-charming, and this was on his poor muddled brain. He must emulate the Egyptians, and play with serpents. First ha took out of its cage a Morocco venom-snake, put it round his neck, twisted it about, and whirled it round about him. Happily for him it did not arouse itself so as to bite. The assistant-keeper cried out, “For God’s sake put back the snake!” but the foolish man replied, “I am inspired.” Putting back the venom-snake, he exclaimed, “Now for the cobra.” This deadly serpent was somewhat torpid with the cold of the previous night, and therefore the rash man placed it in his bosom till it revived, and glided downward till its head appeared below the back of his waistcoat. He took it by the body, about a foot from the head, and then seized it lower down by the other hand, intending to hold it by the tail and swing it round his head. He held it for an instant opposite to his face, and like a flash of lightning the serpent struck him between the eyes. The blood streamed down his face, and he calls! for help, but his companion fled in horror; and, as he told the jury, he did not know how long he was gone, for he was “in a maze.” When assistance arrived Gurling was sitting on a chair, having restored the cobra to its place. He said, “I am a dead man.” They put him in a cab, and took him to the hospital. First his speech went, he could only point to his poor throat and moan: then his vision failed him, and lastly his hearing. His pulse gradually sank, and in one hour from the time at which he had been struck he was a corpse. There was only a little mark upon the bridge of his nose, but the poison spread over the body, and he was a dead man. I tell you that story that you may use it as a parable and learn never to play with sin, and also in order to bring vividly before you what it is to be bitten by a serpent. Suppose that Gurling could have been cured by looking at a piece of brass, would it not have been good news for him? There was no remedy for that poor infatuated creature, but there is a remedy for you. For men who have been bitten by the fiery serpents of sin Jesus Christ is lifted up: not for you only who are as yet playing with the serpent, not for you only who have warmed it in your bosom, and felt it creeping over your flesh, but for you who are actually bitten, and are mortally wounded.4. The bite of the serpent was painful. We are told in the text that these serpents were “fiery” serpents, which may perhaps refer to their colour, but more probably has reference to the burning effects of their venom. It inflamed the blood so that every vein became a boiling river, swollen with anguish. In some men that poison of asps which we call sin has inflamed their minds. They are restless, discontented, and full of fear and anguish. Jesus died for such as are at their wits’ end: for such as cannot think straight, for those who are tumbled up and down in their minds, for those who are condemned already. What a comfortable thing that we are able to tell you this!5. The bite of these serpents was, as I have told you, mortal. The Israelites could have no question about that, because in their own presence “much people of Israel died.” Now, we know that many have perished as the result of sin. We are not in doubt as to what sin will do, for we are told by the infallible Word, that “the wages of sin is death,” and, yet again, “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” We know, also, that this death is endless misery, “where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched.” We believe in what the Lord has said in all its solemnity of dread, and, knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men to escape therefrom.6. There is no limit set to the stage of poisoning: however far gone, the remedy still had power.II. The remedy provided for him. This was as singular as it was effectual.1. It was purely of Divine origin, and it is clear that the invention of it, and the putting of power into it, was entirely of God. Shall the bite of a serpent be cured by looking at a serpent? Shall that which brings death also bring life? But herein lay the excellency of the remedy, that it was of Divine origin; for when God ordains a cure He is by that very fact bound to put potency into it. He will not devise a failure, nor prescribe a mockery.2. This particular remedy of a serpent lifted on a pole was exceedingly instructive, though I do not suppose that Israel understood it. We have been taught by our Lord and know the meaning. It was a serpent impaled upon a pole. Wonder of wonders that our Lord Jesus should condescend to be symbolised by a dead serpent. The brazen serpent had no venom of itself, but it took the form of a fiery serpent. Christ is no sinner, and in Him is no sin. But the brazen serpent was in the form of a serpent; and so was Jesus sent forth by God “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” He came under the law, and sin was imputed to Him, and therefore He came under the wrath and curse of God for our sakes.3. Please to recollect that in all the camp of Israel there was but one remedy for serpent-bite, and that was the brazen serpent; and there was but one brazen serpent, not two. Israel might not make another. If they had made a second, it would have had no effect. There is one Saviour, and only one. There is none other name given underheaven among men whereby we must be saved. Oh, sinner, look to Jesus on the Cross, for He is the one remedy for all forms of sin’s poisoned wounds.4. There was but one healing serpent, and that one was bright and lustrous. It was a serpent of brass, and brass is a shining metal. This was newly-made brass, and therefore not dimmed, and whenever the sun shone, there flashed forth a brightness from this brazen serpent. It might have been a serpent of wood or of any other metal if God had so ordained; but He commanded that it must be of brass, that it might have a brightness about it. What a brightness there is about our Lord Jesus Christ! If we do but exhibit Him in His own true metal He is lustrous in the eyes of men.5. Once more, this remedy was an enduring one. It was a serpent of brass, and I suppose it remained in the midst of the camp from that day forward. Had it been made of other materials it might have been broken, or have decayed, but a serpent of brass would last as long as fiery serpents pestered the desert camp. As long as there was a man bitten there was the serpent of brass to heal him. What a comfort is this, that Jesus is still able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them!III. The application of the remedy, or the link between the serpent-bitten man and the brass serpent which was to heal him. What was the link?1. It was of the most simple kind imaginable. The brazen serpent might have been, if God had so ordered it, carried into the house where the sick man was, but it was not so. It might have been applied to him by rubbing: he might have been expected to repeat a certain form of prayer, or to have a priest present to perform a ceremony, but there was nothing of the kind; he had only to look. It was well that the cure was so simple, for the danger was so frequent. There is life in a look at Jesus; is not this simple enough?2. But please to notice how very personal it was. A man could not be cured by anything anybody else could do for him. If he had been bitten by the serpent and had refused to look to the serpent of brass, and had gone to his bed, no physician could help him. A pious mother might kneel down and pray for him, but it would be of no use. Sisters might come in and plead, ministers might be called in to pray that the man might live; but he must die despite their prayers if he did not look. It is just so with you. Some of you have written to me begging me to pray for you: so I have, but it avails nothing unless you yourselves believe in Jesus Christ. There is nothing in His death to save you, there is nothing in His life to save you, unless you will trust Him. It has come to this, you must look, and look for yourself.3. And then, again, it is very instructive. This looking, what did it mean? It meant this--self-help must be abandoned, and God must be trusted.IV. The cure effected. “When he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.”1. He was healed at once. He had not to wait five minutes, nor five seconds. It is done like a flash of lightning; pardon is not a work of time. Sanctification needs a lifetime, but justification needs no more than a moment. Thou believest, thou livest.2. This remedy healed again and again. Very possibly after a man had been healed he might go back to his work, and be attacked by a second serpent, for there were broods of them about. What had he to do? Why, to look again, and if he was wounded a thousand times he must look a thousand times. If you have sin on your conscience, look to Jesus. The healthiest way of living where serpents swarm is never to take your eye off the brazen serpent at all.3. This cure was of universal efficacy to all who used it.V. A lesson for those who love their Lord. What ought we to do? We should imitate Moses, whose business it was to set the brazen serpent upon a pole. It is your business and mine to lift up the gospel of Christ Jesus, so that all may see it. Publish Christ and His salvation. He was never meant to be treated as a curiosity in a museum; He is intended to be exhibited in the highways, that those who are sin-bitten may look at Him. “But I have no proper pole,” says one. The best sort of pole to exhibit Christ upon is a high one, so that He may be seen the further. Exalt Jesus. Speak well of His name. I do not know any other virtue that there can be in the pole but its height. The more you can speak in your Lord’s praise, the higher you can lift Him up, the better; but for all other styles of speech there is nothing to be said. Do lift Christ up. “Oh,” says one, “but I have not a long standard.” Then lift Him up on such as you have, for there are short people about who will be able to see by your means. I think I told you once of a picture which I saw of the brazen serpent. I want the Sunday-school teachers to listen to this. The artist represented all sorts of people clustering round the pole, and as they looked the horrible snakes dropped off their arms, and they lived. There was such a crowd around the pole that a mother could not get near it. She carried a little babe, which a serpent had bitten. You could see the blue marks of the venom. As she could get no nearer, the mother held her child aloft, and turned its little head that it might gaze with its infant eye upon the brazen serpent and live. Do this with your little children, you Sunday-school teachers. Even while they are yet little, pray that they may look to Jesus Christ and live; for there is no bound set to their age. Old men snake-bitten came hobbling on their crutches. “Eighty years old am I,” saith one, “but I have looked to the brazen serpent, and I am healed.” Little boys were brought out by their mothers, though as yet they could hardly speak plainly, and they cried in child language, “I look at the great snake and it bless me.” All ranks, and sexes, and characters, and dispositions looked and lived. Who will look to Jesus at this good hour? (C. H. Spurgeon.)The cure for the malady of sinObserve analogy between cure for serpent’s bite narrated here, and cure for malady of sin.I. occasion for cure. Bitten. Sinned.II. Origin of remedy. God’s grace.III. Application of remedy. Serpent lifted up. Christ. (W. Ormiston, D. D.)The brazen serpent1. As it seemed to human wisdom a most foolish tiling to be healed by the bare and only sight of a brazen serpent, so to all natural wise men of the world it seemeth as unlikely and unreasonable that any should be saved by faith in Christ crucified.2. Seeing the serpent was a sign of Christ, we learn that Christ was preached and published in the time of the law, albeit darkly and obscurely. For as there is but one salvation, so there is bat one way to attain unto it; to wit, faith in Christ.3. In this type we see the nature of the sacraments. The brazen serpent in itself had no operation to work anything; it had no virtue to cure or recover any man of any disease. The sacraments of themselves cannot confer grace, only they are instruments of God’s mercies, which He useth of His goodness toward us to convey-to us good things.4. This present type teacheth us that we are justified by faith alone, without the works of the law. For as the Israelites stung of these serpents were cured, so are we saved; as health was offered by the serpent, so is salvation by Christ. But the Israelites did nothing at all, but only look up to the brazen serpent; they were not called to make satisfaction for their rebellion, or to go on pilgrimage, nor so much as to dress and bind up their wounds, but only to behold the serpent set upon the pole. There is required nothing of us touching our justification and salvation but to fix the eyes of our faith upon Christ. True it is, many other virtues and graces are required to make up the full perfection of a Christian man, that he may be complete, wanting nothing; yet he is justified, and doth stand as righteous in the sight of God by faith only.5. Great consolation ariseth from this similitude to all such as are weak in faith and feel the corruptions of their hearts pressing them, and the temptations of Satan often overcoming them. For we have great comfort given us to fight the enemies of our souls by consideration of these fierce and fiery serpents. True it is they did continually bite and sting the children of Israel; yet they could not destroy them, for they had a remedy at hand to help themselves. So hath God restrained the rage of all the enemies of our peace and salvation. For howsoever the devil and his angels are always tempting, their strength is diminished, their will to hurt is greater than their power of hurting, so that they cannot execute the cruelty they desire.6. Again, note that God requireth not of the Israelites stung in the wilderness the use of both eyes, nor exacteth a perfect sight to behold the serpent. Such as looked upon it with a weak and dim sight, even with half an eye only, there being among them young and old, strong and weak, sharp-sighted and blear-eyed; yet all that saw the serpent set up were cured, not for the goodness of their sight, but for the promise and ordinance of God. So such as have a true faith, though it be as a grain of mustard-seed, which is the least of all seeds, can lay hold on Christ and apply Him to themselves. A small drop of water is as well and truly water as the whole ocean sea; a little spark is true fire as well as a mighty flame; a little quantity of earth is as truly earth as the whole globe thereof. So a small measure of faith is as well true faith as a full persuasion and assurance, and the gates of hell shall never prevail against it.7. Lastly, this teacheth us what is the nature and property of a true justifying faith, and wherein it consisteth, namely, in a special and particular application of Christ’s righteousness to our own selves. It was not enough for these Israelites which were stung that others should look upon the serpent set up, but it was required of every one (to work the cure) to behold it himself. So must we have a particular faith in Christ, apprehending His merits. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 21:16-20Spring up, O well.A song of the pilgrimageI. The needs of human pilgrimage.1. How indispensable are the things which we need.2. How many are the things which we need.3. How constant are our needs. We may change our place and our circumstances, but we never change our dependent condition.II. The divine provision for the needs of human pilgrimage.1. Promised by God.2. Bestowed in connection with human effort.3. Enkindled human joy, which was expressed in this song.4. Suitably commemorated. Let us be eager to perpetuate the memory of our mercies.III. The continuousness of human pilgrimage. The well was not the goal: a place to halt, but not to settle. (W. Jones.)A song at the well-headI. These people required water as we greatly need grace, and there was a promise given concerning the supply. “The Lord spake unto Moses, Gather the people together, and I will give them water.” Beloved, we have a promise. A promise? nay, a thousand promises! God’s people were never in any plight whatever but what there was a promise to meet that condition.1. The supply promised here was a Divine supply: “I will give them water.” Who else could satisfy those flocks and herds? By what mechanism or by what human toil could all those multitudes of people have received enough to drink? God can do it, and He will. The supply of grace that you are to receive in your time of need is a Divine supply. You are not to look to man for grace.2. As it was a Divine supply, so also it was a suitable one. The people were thirsty, and the promise was, “I will give them water.” What dost thou want? Go and lay open thy needs before the Lord. Tell Him what it is thou requirest, if thou knowest, and then add to thy prayer, “And what I know not that I need, yet give me, for Thou art able to do exceeding abundantly above all that I can ask or even think: not according to my apprehension of my necessities, but according to Thy perception of my needs, deal with Thy servant, O Lord, and grant me that which is most suitable to my case.” “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.”3. Observe, too, that the supply promised was an abundant supply. No child of God shall be left to perish for want of the necessary supplies. “I will give them water.”4. As it was a Divine supply, a suitable supply, and an abundant supply, so also it was a sure supply. “I will give them water.” It is not, “I may, perhaps, do it; possibly there shall be refreshment for them”; but, “I will give them water.” “Oh! the splendour of the Lord’s “shalls” and “wills”! They never fail.II. Observe the song. These people had not been singing for years; ever since the day when they had sung at the Red Sea, “Sing unto the Lord, for He hath triumphed gloriously,” the minstrelsy of Israel had been hushed, except when they danced before the calf of gold; but for their God they had had little or no music. But now they come together to the digging of the well, and the children of Israel sing this song, “Spring up, O well; sing ye unto it.”1. This song may be looked upon as the voice of cheerfulness. There was no water, but they were still in good spirits. Supplies were short, but their courage was still great. Cheerfulness in want, cheerfulness upon the bed of pain, cheerfulness under slander, singing, like the nightingale, in the night, praising God when the thorn is at the breast, this is a high Christian attainment, which we should seek after, and not be content without.2. I like, too, the look of these children of Israel, singing to the Lord before the water came, praising Him while they were yet thirsty, living for a little while upon the recollections of the past, believing that He who smote the rock, and the waters gushed out, and who gave them bread from heaven, would surely supply their needs. Let us pitch a tune and join with them, however low our estate may be.3. Note, again, that this song was the voice not so much of natural cheerfulness as of cheerfulness sustained by faith. They believed the promise, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.” They sang the song of expectation. I think this is one of the peculiar enjoyments of faith, to be the substance of things hoped for. The joy of hope, who shall measure it?4. This song, also, was no doubt greatly increased in its volume, and more elevated in its tone, when the water did begin to spring. After the elders of the people had digged for awhile, the flowing crystal began to leap into the air; they saw it run over the margin of the well, the multitude pressed around to quench their thirst, and then they sang, “Spring up, O well! Flow on, flow on, perennial fount! Flow on, thou wondrous stream Divinely given! Flow on, and let the praises of those who drink, flow also! Sing ye unto it, and ye that drink lift up your songs, and ye that mark your neighbours as their eyes flash with delight as they receive the needed refreshment, let your song increase as you see the joy of others.” All ye who have received anything of Divine grace, sing ye unto it! Bless God by singing and praising His name while you are receiving His favours.III. The song was a prayer. “Spring up, O well,” was virtually a prayer to God that He would make the well spring up, only it was faith’s way of singing her prayer.1. We would remark of this prayer, that it went at once to the work, and sought for that which was required. What was needed? Not a well, bat water; not mere digging in the sand, but the obtaining and the drinking of the water. Let me remind you that it is very easy for us to forget what it is that we want, and to be satisfied with something short of it. Now, what we need is not the means of grace, but the grace of the means. Strive after vital godliness, real soul-work, the life-giving operation of the Spirit of God in your hearts, or else you may have the well, but you will not have any springings therefrom. Remember, then, it went direct to the point.2. Notice, also, that this prayer was the prayer of faith, like the song. Now, “without faith it is impossible to please God”: this is emphatically true with regard to prayer. He who pleads with God in unbelief really insults Hind, and will get no blessing.3. Notice, further, that it was united prayer. All the people prayed, “Spring up, O well!” I daresay that was a prayer-meeting at which everybody prayed, for they were all thirsty, and therefore they all said, “Spring up, O well!” What blessed meetings those are when the souls of all present are in it!IV. They began with a promise; they turned the promise into a song and into a prayer, and they did not stop there, but then they went to work. “God helps them that help themselves,” is an old proverb, and it is true with God’s people as well as true of Providence. If we want to have God’s blessing, we must not expect to receive it by lying passive.1. When God intends to bless a people, effort is always esteemed to be honourable. “The princes digged the well, the nobles of the people digged it.” They were not ashamed of the work: And when God shall bless a Church and people, they must all feel that it is a very great honour to do anything in the service of God.2. But it was also effort which was accomplished by very feeble means. They digged the well, and they digged it with their staves--not very first-class tools. Would not the mattock and the spade have been better? Ay, but they did as they were told. They digged with their staves. These, I suppose, were simply their rods, which, like the sheiks in the East, they carried in their hands as an emblem of government, somewhat similar to the crook of the shepherd. These they used, according as they were commanded. Well, we must dig with our staves. We must dig as we can. We must use what abilities we have.3. It was effort in God’s order. They digged the well “by the direction of the lawgiver.” We must not serve God according to our fancies. Let us keep close to the good old paths which are laid down in Holy Writ, and, digging the well, we shall get the water.4. It was effort made in faith. They digged the well, but as they digged it they felt so certain that the water would come that they sang at the work, “Spring up, O well!” This is the true way to work if we would get a blessing. We must preach in faith, believing that the Word cannot return unto our Master void. We must teach in the Sabbath-school in faith, believing that the children will be led to seek Christ early, and to find Him. We must distribute the tract in faith, believing that if we cast our bread upon the waters, we shall find it after many days. You must take care that you have this faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The song at the wellI. The well of salvation choked up with rubbish of superstition and ignorance, technical theologies, dry dissertations, dogmatic controversies, &c.II. The well of salvation cleared out. A princely and noble work.III. The work of opening up the well of salvation to men should be done with joyfulness. (Hom. Monthly.)The song of the wellWhat is celebrated with such sparkling joy in this little burst of melody is the happy union among all ranks, and the spirit of universal goodwill and co-operation in the work--giving cheerful angury for the future of the tribes in entering on the promised land, and a lively demonstration of popular confidence in their leaders.1. There is a personal lesson respecting the spirit in which we ought to do our work. When the people were called to bore for water in a novel fashion, how inspiriting it is to read, “Then Israel sang this song!” This lightened their toil, and helped to prosper the issue. Thank God, “He gives us songs in the very night.” Let us remember how our Lord Himself, on the eve of His betrayal, and in full view of the bitter Cross, alleviated His sorrows and braced His spirit for the task--“He sang a hymn.” What a lesson for this work-a-day world, when nothing worth doing can be undertaken without something being endured! But “a cheerful heart doeth good like a medicine.” And singing is infectious. They sang the song, and they digged the well. So work, and so sing.2. A social lesson--the blessings of united effort. We are to mark how zealously all ranks joined in the work, and how “the leaders led in Israel.” When Israel thus laboured, we hear of no disorder. Murmurings were stilled. High and low were full of heart and full of hope, because full of love.3. A philanthropic lesson--dig a well. This well became a lasting blessing, celebrated in immortal song. A disciple of Mohammed, it is said, came to the prophet one day and asked, “What shall I best do as a memorial to my mother who is dead?” to which he replied, “Dig a well, and call it by her name, and put upon it, ‘This well is for my mother.’” Beautiful idea! a monument truly serviceable, and therefore sure to last. Some memories are “writ in water,” but here a mother’s name is blissfully perpetuated in supplying the pure refreshing draught to weary wayfarers. This form of good endures like “a joy for ever,” trickling down from age to age. “Dig a well.” Whoso giveth a cup of cold water shall in no wise lose his reward.4. A spiritual lesson. “Gather the people to Me; I will give them water.” The point here emphasised is the connection between promise, preparation, and prayer, if we would win the privilege of drawing water with joy from the wells of salvation. (A. H. Drysdale, M. A.)The springing wellThis rising fountain may be viewed as a beautiful emblem of the springing up of grace in the heart, when it becomes the subject of the life-giving influences of the Holy Spirit, and which Christ Himself takes occasion to illustrate by the same kind of allusion, when conversing with the Samaritan woman. The water that He will give to them that ask Him is admirably descriptive of the vitality, purity, and perpetuity of grace. The ministers of Christ, as these princes of the people, at the command of God, and under the superintendence of His providence, move the ground, where the water of life springs up and yields the purest satisfaction, and the heart becomes as if itself an inward source of good. How many hearts, through the gift of Christ, have become as wells of living water, rising fountains of spiritual thoughts, and of heavenly affections, sweet and refreshing! It was under the direction of His providence, and the influences of His Spirit, that they have become so. And now, it is only for time to bring forth His eternal purposes, and at the word of His grace the result will be, where least looked for or thought of, as when the fountain of Beer, not before known of, rose at the command, “Spring up, O well!” This it is that, seen amidst the barren wastes of nature, delights the eye and cheers the heart of every Christian, who not less longs and prays for the life of souls, and the communications of living streams from Christ, than those at this station longed for the cooling spring. (W. Seaton.)Numbers 21:21-35Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass. The wicked hate and persecute the godly without any just causeThis is the practice of wicked men to pursue the children of God with all despiteful dealing, albeit they offer no occasion of hurt unto them. Cain; Joseph’s brethren, &c. The reasons are very plain.1. For it seemeth unto them more than strange that the faithful are not brethren with them in evil, but separate themselves from them, and will touch no unclean thing. This is that which the Apostle Peter witnesseth (1Pe 4:4-5). But it is better for us to have the haired of men than fail in any part of our duty unto God.2. No marvel if the wicked hate the godly, for the world hateth Christ.Uses:1. We may assure ourselves that it is a lamentable condition to dwell among such malicious and mischievous enemies.2. Seeing this is the entertainment that we must look for in the world, it behoves us to live in unity and to love one another as the children of the Father and the disciples of Christ.3. Seeing hatred lodgeth in the heart of a wicked man toward the faithful, it is our duty to pray to God to be delivered from unreasonable and evil men (2Th 3:2-3). This David declareth (Psa 35:12-13; Psa 35:15-17). Thus doth God wean us from the love of this world, that we should long after His kingdom, where is fulness of joy for evermore. (W. Attersoll.)The king’s highwayI. The king’s highway should be a public road. Royalty ought to be democracy personified. What the king holds is for the people’s use; what he does, for their good.II. The king’s highway should, therefore, be, free, But, alas! what king’s highway is free? There are taxes and hindrances, and some are not allowed to pass it at all. National jealousies and pride bar the national highway.III. The king’s highway being closed, injures those who close it.1. It makes enemies. Those who demand access are sore at the refusal.2. It does not accomplish the object in view. Those who wish to get through, find other ways round.3. It causes loss. The Israelites would have paid for all they required, and so have benefited the Edomites.IV. There is one king’s highway which is free to all, from which none are turned back, which is free from toll and safe from foes. This is that which Christ has opened, and which leads straight to the throne of God. (Homilist.)Numbers 21:32-35Og the king of Bashan went out against them.War with the king of BashanWhen God had removed one great rub out of Israel’s way to Canaan, namely, Sihon, king of Heshbon, now starts up another remora, greater (at least in person) than the former, namely, Og king of Bashan, who came forth to war against them (Num 21:33-35), but more largely described (Deu 3:1-22), wherein God’s kindness to Israel in that war with the king of Bashan is amply characterised.1. The occasion of the war. Og came forth and gave the first assault against Israel, before they assaulted him or his people (Num 21:2), together with which we are told what a formidable adversary this king was, being a man of prodigious stature, whereof a conjecture may easily be collected from the vast length of his bed (Num 21:11).2. The management of this war.(1) God doth encourage Israel with comfortable words, and enabled them to do the deed in conquering the enemy (Num 21:2-3).(2) Then Israel (thus encouraged and enabled by the Lord of Hosts) went forth in the strength of the Lord (Psa 71:16), and smote them taking all their cities and villages, walled and unwalled, and their whole country, destroying all ages and sexes, and taking the spoil of all their cattle (Num 21:4-10).3. The event of this conquest, which was the consequence of the victory, namely, the distribution of this new conquered country to the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and to the half tribe of Manasseh (verses 12-17), and the terms upon which this country was thus distributed to those tribes (verses 18-20), which happy event was a pledge for encouraging Joshua to be confident of all his future conquests (verses 21, 22). From this whole history arises this following, namely, when one evil or impediment in our way to heaven is removed, God often permits another and worse to spring up for our new exercise; as it was here with Israel, no sooner had they vanquished Sihon (who stood in their way to Canaan), but immediately Og starts up to make them a new opposition. His formidable stature might have made Israel to fly, as niter Goliath made them, for want of faith (1Sa 17:24). He was likely one of the remnant of those Rephaims, or giants, whom Chedorlaomer and his company of kings smote in Ashtoreth (Gen 14:5, with Jos 13:12), for Og reigned there. (C. Ness.)Numbers 22Numbers 22:2-14Balak . . . sent messengers unto Balaam. Balak’s first application to Balaam; or, man and supernaturalI. Men in difficulty seeking supernatural help. “It was supposed that prophets and sorcerers had a power to curse persons and places so as to frustrate their counsels, enervate their strength, and fill them with dismay.”1. There is a measure of truth in this. Men have had power granted them to curse others (Gen 9:25; Jos 6:26; 2Ki 2:24). It is probable that Balaam had this power.2. There is much error in the views under consideration. No man can curse those whom God hath blessed.II. Man conscious of supernatural powers and of his subjection to divine authority in the use of them. Balaam was certainly not altogether an impostor. “In his career,” says Dean Stanley, “is seen that recognition of Divine inspiration outside the chosen people which the narrowness of modern times has be n so eager to deny, but which the Scriptures are always ready to acknowledge, and, by acknowledging, admit within the pale of the teachers of the Universal Church the higher spirits of every age and of every nation.” But notice--1. His consciousness of great powers.2. His consciousness of subjection to God in the use of his powers.3. His sin against God.III. Man receiving a supernatural visitation.1. God’s access to man’s mind.2. God’s interest in man’s life.3. God’s authority over man’s life.IV. Man dealing unfaithfully with a Divine communication. Balaam belonged to that still numerous class who theoretically know God, and who actually do fear Him, but whose love and fear of God are not the governing principles of their minds. They are convinced, but not converted. They would serve God, but they must serve mammon also; and in the strife between the two contending influences their lives are made bitter, and their death is perilous.V. Men dealing unfaithfully as messengers. Learn--1. The Divine communications have never been limited to any one people, or country, or age.2. Great goodness is not always associated with great gifts. “The illumination of the mind is by no means necessarily associated with the conversion of the heart.”3. Great gifts involve great responsibility and grave peril.4. The temptation to covetousness is of great subtlety and strength, and assails even the most gifted natures (Luk 12:15-21). (W. Jones.)Balak’s motives in sending for BalaamThe first motive is fear, yet in Deuteronomy2. God forbade them to meddle with Moab, and thereupon they, were driven to compass about to their great trouble. But this is the just judgment of God upon them that have not their peace made with Him, to be vexed in their minds with unnecessary fears (Lev 26:36; Deu 28:65, &c.). You see how small a noise will startle thieves and other malefactors. Whereupon it is said, Oh, wickedness, ever fearful. These are they that tremble at every crack of thunder. Their conscience is a continual scourge to them. The fear of the Lord is strength to the upright man, but fear shall be for the workers of iniquity, saith Solomon.2. The second motive is envy. They were their kindred, and they should have rejoiced, turned to them, and by common prayer sought the appeasing of God. But bitter envy seeing God’s favour to them, and mighty power among them, desireth rather their overthrow and confusion. They are motes in their eyes, rather than comforts to their hearts.3. A third motive was suspicion. Balak, king of the Moabites, suspecteth this and that, according to his own fancy, and these imaginations and suspicions are as grand truths to him, making him cast this way and that to meet, with imagined danger, and among other ways to resolve of sending for the soothsayer, or sorcerer, Balaam. Oh, suspicion, what a mischief is it amongst men! Every man thinks his suspicion to be knowledge or little less. How many can you name that have given place to suspicion, and have not given place to error? Yet it hurteth no man more than him that hath it, whose inwards it tormenteth, whose sleep it driveth away, whose body it alters, and consumeth the heart to very powder in the end.4. A fourth motive to this sending for Balaam was Satan’s subtlety working in Balak to take that course: for it may be observed often, that when Satan seeth open fury will not serve, then he directeth to wiles and guiles, piecing out the lion’s skin that is too short with the fox’s tail. (Bp. Babington.)Balak and BalaamThe Israelites, toughened physically and morally by their long sojourn in the desert, and now well consolidated into a nation, are beginning to emerge from their southern retreat, and to betray their designs upon the regions bordering on the Jordan. They have met and defeated the desert tribes, and are now threatening Moab, which lies in their way. Balak, king of Moab, undertakes the defence of his territory, and, like a wise general, studies and adopts the tactics of his successful enemy. He has learned that the Israelites are led by Moses, a prophet of Jehovah, and that his prayers in the battle against Amalek secured the victory. He will see what of the same sort he can do on his side. Hundreds of miles away, near the head waters of the Euphrates, there lived another prophet of Jehovah, whose reputation filled the whole region. It does not concern us whether his gifts were on one side or the other of the line called supernatural; whether his sagacity was merely extraordinary or was clarified by special, Divine light. It is enough for us that he was great, keen and lofty in his vision, comprehensive in his judgment, that he had a high sense of his prophetic function, and was at first a man of integrity. Balak sends for him. The Israelites have a prophet; he will have a prophet. He sees in the battles hitherto fought a weight not belonging to the battalions, a spiritual force that won the victory; he will employ that force on his side. Moses is a prophet of Jehovah; his prophet also shall be Jehovah’s. A. very shrewd man is this Balak. Holding to the Oriental custom of devoting an enemy to destruction before battle, he will match his enemy even in this respect as nearly as possible. That a prophet should be found outside the Hebrew nation is simply an indication that God has witnesses in all nations; it denies the theory that would confine all light and inspiration to one chosen people. That Balaam comes from the ancient home of Abraham hints the possibility of a still lingering monotheism in that region. Though so remote, he probably knew all about the Israelites: their history from the patriarchs down, their exodus from Egypt, their religion, their development under the guiding hand of Moses, their power in battle, and the resistless energy with which they were slowly moving up from the desert with their eyes on the rich slopes of Palestine, He doubtless knew that this was not only a migration of a detached people, such as was now often occurring in Asia, but a migration inspired by a religion somewhat in keeping with his own. These Israelites were not his enemies, and he could not readily be made to treat them as such. When the messengers of Balak come to him with their hands full of rewards, asking him to go and curse Israel, he weighs the matter well, devotes a whole night to it, carries it to God in the simplicity of a good conscience, and refuses to go. So far he seems a true man, acting from considerations of mingled wisdom and inspiration. The messengers retrace their long journey, but Balak sends again by more honourable men and doubtless with larger gifts. He is a shrewd man, and knows what sort of a thing is the human heart. He sends not only gifts, but promises of promotion to great honour, and all by the hands of princes--a triple temptation: flattery, riches, place. How often does any man resist their united voice? Often enough he resists one of them; flattery cannot seduce him, nor money buy him, nor ambition deflect him, but when all unite-flattery dropping its sweet words into the ear, gold glittering before the eye, and ambition weaving its crown before the imagination--who stands out against these when they unite to a definite end? They had their common way with Balaam, hut not at once. Such men do not go headlong and wholly over to the bad side in a moment. The undoing of a strong character is something like its upbuilding, a process of time and degree. (T. T. Munger.)The seductive spirit of the worldThe relative position of the world to the kingdom of God is substantially the same as that of Moab and Midian to Israel, now drawing near. The same enmity still remains in the world, in manifold forms; and it is the instinct of self-preservation which incites the world and its followers to do their utmost against the coming of God’s kingdom among them. When force would do no good, then they resort to cunning, or to caution, that they may oppose the progress of God’s cause among them in so far as it is possible; and natural enemies, such as Midian and Moab, frequently become sworn friends for a time, whenever it appears expedient to combine against the one whom both oppose. On every hand, the world looks out for allies, servants, friends; as Balak did to Balaam, she promises to bestow on you her favours and her wealth, if you but follow her behests, and make her will your own. If you refuse, as he did at the first, the world will not believe that you act but from principle--rather, she thinks that you regard self-interest; but she will give you large rewards when you but sell yourself to her. “All things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me”: so spake the prince of this world to Jesus; and at every turn he modifies his voice, but still to say the same thing, in the softest tone, to all Christ’s followers--nay, even to every one of His redeemed. What is it that you seek, insatiable heart--honour, or luxury, or gold? All these, if need be, may be had for almost nothing by the man whose conscience is not over scrupulous. This Balak also, like a true destroyer, rests not for an instant till he brings you where he will; and if the first attempt does not succeed, he makes a second, and a third. The world knows very well, like Balak, how to suit herself to circumstances when they change, and to attract some friends from every side. Nay, she can even, in her own time and way, be quite religious--that is, from mere policy, and ill-concealed self-interest; and if you like, she shows all possible respect for--forms. But, for your very life, ye who are striving for her praise and her reward, venture not to show that you really will obey God rather than any man! The world, if need be, will forgive you everything; but this it cannot possibly forgive--that you most earnestly believe God’s Word, and give obedience to what He requires. Scarce can you show, like Balaam, that you hesitate, because the truth is much too strong for you, ere favour from the world is quite withdrawn; your name appears no longer on the list of friends, but is consigned to deep oblivion; and all the more dishonour falls on you, the greater was the honour meant for you at first. You are a most unpleasant, useless man, and quite intractable; like Balaam, you are roughly pushed aside, and told, “The Lord hath kept thee back from honour”; and then the world, instead of her intended laurel-wreath, presents you with a crown of thorns. Her love, it now appears, was nothing but fine show--her flattery, deceit. To such a world--so selfish, false, malicious, just like Balak--should you make your heart a slave? (J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D.)Possible origin of the chronicle of BalaamEvery reader of this book must have observed that in Num 22:2-41; Num 23:1-30; Num 24:1-25 we have an episode complete in itself; and all the modern critics who have studied this Scripture concur, I believe, in the conclusion that, in this place, the author or compiler of the book has inserted one of those ancient, detached or detachable, documents of which we find so many in the Pentateuch. Where and how he got it is a question not easy to answer, if, indeed, answer be possible. But, from the comparatively favourable light in which the chronicle presents the facts of Balaam’s story, most of our best scholars conclude that in some way he derived it from Balaam himself. We are told (Num 31:8) that, together with five Midianite chiefs, Balaam was taken prisoner by the Israelites, and put to “a judicial death” after the battle had been fought and won. A judicial death implies some sort of trial. And what more natural than that Balaam should plead in his defence the inspirations he had received from Jehovah, and the long series of blessings he had pronounced on Israel when all his interests, and perhaps also all his inclinations, prompted him to curse them: Such defences, in the East, were commonly autobiographical. Even St. Paul, when called upon to plead before kings and governors, invariably told the story of his life as his best vindication. And if Balaam called upon to plead before Moses and the elders, told the story we now read in his chronicle--what a scene was there! What a revelation his words would convey to the leaders of Israel of the kindness of God their Saviour, of the scale on which His providence works, and of the mystery in which it is wrapped to mortal eyes! So, then, God had been working for them in the mountains of Moab, and in the heart of this great diviner from the East, and they knew it not! Knew it not? nay, perhaps were full of fear and distrust, doubting whether He Himself were able to deliver them from the perils by which they were encompassed! As Balaam unfolded his tale, how their hearts must have burned within them--burned with shame as well as with thanks fulness--as they heard of interposition on their behalf of which up till now they had been ignorant, and for which at the time perchance they had not ventured to hope! Balaam may well have thought that such a story as this would plead for him more effectually than any other defence he could make. And, no doubt, it did plead for him; for we all know that it is when our hearts have been touched by some unexpected mercy that they are most easily moved to pity and forgiveness: it might even have won him absolution but for that damning sin of which nothing is said here--the infamous counsel he gave to the daughters of Midian which had deprived Israel of four-and-twenty thousand of its most serviceable and precious lives. Even with that crime full in their memories, it must have cost Moses and the elders much, one thinks, to condemn to death the man who had told them such a story as this. (S. Cox, D. D.)God came unto Balaam.--BalaamIn Balaam we have one of the most mysterious, in some respects one of the most puzzling, contradictory, and tragical of the characters of Holy Writ; withal one of the most instructive and interesting. He is complex; multiform in his mental and spiritual conformation, many-sided in his mental and spiritual manifestations. One man appears at one time; another and vastly different at another. You despair of catching and fixing the permanent man.I. Let me first ask attention to some preliminary points which may be noted.1. The materials on which our knowledge of him is based are chiefly contained in four passages of Scripture (Num 22:1-41; Num 23:1-30; Num 24:1-25.; Mic 6:5-8; 2Pe 2:12-16; Num 31:1-54.).2. I would next note the generosity, the magnanimity, of all these Scripture notices. The whole story is told with a fineness of touch, a magnanimous silence, or the merest hint concerning his grosser sin, a generous concealment of all aggravating circumstances. It is in the Bible, and, so far as Church histories are concerned, probably in the Bible alone, that we find not only justice, but generosity, towards defeated rivals, generous tributes to what is good, generous veilings of what is bad.3. I would also call attention to the fact that there is free and full acknowledgment made of the reality and the sublimity of his inspiration. It is never denied: it is unequivocally owned. And this though Balaam was a heathen, one outside the visible Church; nay, not only outside of it, but arrayed against it.4. Mark, too, the various opinions concerning this strange man held in different ages and by different authorities in the Church. The historian of the Jews, Josephus, styles him, in strongest language, “the first (best) of the prophets of the time”--ungrudgingly regarding him as a true prophet of the true God, but with a disposition ill adapted to meet temptation. Coming down to Christian writers, we find Ambrose and Augustine speaking of him as a magician and soothsayer, a prophet, indeed, but inspired of the devil; but we find Tertullian and Jerome, with greater and more Scriptural liberality, more favourably interpreting his position and the source of his endowments.II. Let us now proceed to the analysis of the life and its story. Balaam would have protested against being called an enemy of God; would have insisted on being regarded as a friend. To every accuser he could have replied that he was obedient all through to God’s voice, that he did not go till God gave permission, and that he was careful to yield to the prophetic power that spoke through him; yet all through he was a force against God, an opponent of the purposes of grace, and on the side that could not be either for the glory of heaven or the gain of earth. And so there are men who would feel outraged if called thieves who will, all the same, sell an article for what it is not; who would deem you mad were you to accuse them of murder, yet will help a brother on to the death of his soul; who name the name of Christ, yet are forces for the meatiness and avarice, the uncharity and unchastity, which the law cannot reach, but which are as far from the mind of Christ as is the theft or the murder which the law can. (G. M. Grant, B. D.)The character of BalaamIt is common to speak of Balaam as a wicked man, to censure him as utterly devoid of principle, as completely abandoned to the dominion of evil, especially of avarice. And we have the highest authority for regarding him as a wicked man: he loved the wages of unrighteousness. But when we conceive of Balaam as a wicked man simply, we have by no means a just conception of his real character. He was not under the entire dominion of any evil principle or habit whatever. There is in him a wonderful admixture of good and evil; a combination of elements the most opposite.I. We see in Balaam a man of great mental endowments, of varied spiritual gifts, and of extraordinary illumination.II. We see in Balaam great apparent deference to the Divine will, an anxious solicitude to know it, and to act according to it.III. We have in Balaam a melancholy instance of an attempt to reconcile a sense of duty to a vicious inclination--to conform the unyielding rule of right to the designs of avarice. This is the instructive peculiarity of his character. He knew what was right, and for many reasons he was anxious to do it. His conscience would not allow him to act in direct opposition to the will of God; but, at the same time, his heart was not wholly in God’s service. Covetousness lay deep within him. How obvious the reflection that no man knows what he is until he is tried! During the hard frosts of winter it is impossible to tell what venomous insects, what noxious weeds or beautiful flowers are concealed in the earth; but let the genial showers and sunshine of spring come, and the weeds and the flowers will show themselves, and the venomous insects will come forth out of their hiding-places. So is it with men.IV. Another remark, suggested by the character and history of Balaam, relates to the rapid and fearful progress of sin. So it was with Judas: he had not the slightest wish to injure his Lord; he wished only to obtain the thirty pieces of silver. So it has been with many ambitious monarchs: they have had no pleasure in the misery of their fellow-creatures; they have thought only of their own fame and power. So it has been with many zealous persecutors: they have no natural thirst for human blood; they have thought only of the establishment of their creed--the extension and honour of their Church. So it is with many in common life: they have no wish to injure others; but they wish to secure their own ends, and they do not hesitate to trample on those who stand in their way.V. In the character and history of Balaam we have a striking illustration of the deceitfulness of the human heart. Men will neglect the moral, and yet will attend to the ceremonial, and on this ground will think themselves clear; they will commit the greater, and yet will hesitate to commit the less, and on this ground will pronounce themselves pure; they will violate the entire spirit of the Christian law, and yet will scrupulously observe the letter of some precept or precedent, and on this ground will pronounce themselves consistent Christians.VI. The history of Balaam illustrates some very important principles of the Divine government. The present is a state of probation, but there is in it not a little that is retributive; and though God deals with us as a kited parent, there is often much that is judicial in His proceedings. We have a striking illustration of this in the history of Balaam. In his heart Balaam desired permission to go with the princes of Moab, because he coveted the wages of unrighteousness; and God gave him that permission. This was not an act of mercy, but of judgment. The history of Balaam illustrates another principle of the Divine government--that which is involved in the statement, “The way of transgressors is hard.” This is as much in mercy as in judgment. The history of Balaam also illustrates the solemn truth, that the “wages of sin is death.” “Balaam also, the son of Beer, they slew with the sword.” Whatever may be the result here, the ultimate end of such a course as that which we have endeavoured to describe must be destruction. (J. J. Davies.)BalaamBalaam is one of those instances which meet us in Scripture of persons dwelling, to a certain extent, in the gloom of heathenish practices, while preserving at the same time a certain knowledge of the one true God. He was endowed with a greater than ordinary knowledge of God; he had the intuition of truth, and could see into the life of things; he was, in fact, a poet and a prophet. Moreover, he confessed that all these superior advantages were not his own, but derived from God, and were His gift. Thus, doubtless, he had won for himself among his contemporaries a high reputation not only for wisdom and knowledge, but also for sanctity. And although his sanctity comes to very little in the end, when his besetting sin overmastered him, yet it may be readily understood that, judged by the standards which prevailed among the heathen nomad tribe which sent for him to curse the nation of Israel, he would appear to be an eminently holy man, so much so that, as Balak said to him at their first interview, “I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and that he whom thou cursest is cursed.” But then, it may be asked, if Balaam was looked upon as a holy man and as a worshipper of Jehovah, how came Balak to send for him and to offer him vast rewards to curse the people of Jehovah? The answer is, that it was not uncommon among those heathen nations--nor is the practice even now unknown among pagan tribes--to offer sacrifices to the gods of the enemy to propitiate them to themselves. The ancient Romans repeatedly did this. Doubtless there were many professed enchanters and soothsayers in the land of Moab; but king Balak--perhaps having previously tried these without success--may have preferred sending five hundred miles for a renowned prophet who had the reputation of more than mortal wisdom and power, who was also a worshipper of Jehovah, and who might for that reason be all the more likely to propitiate His anger, or to turn Him against that strange people which had “come out of Egypt,” and now, marching with unearthly tokens along the desert, had pitched their tents within sight of the strongholds where Balak had his habitation. Consider now the first message which the renowned soothsayer received from the terrified king. Clearly he wished to go, and was disappointed and chagrined at being prevented. But why should he feel any disappointment? We might have been at a loss to know, had it not been for the ray of inspired light shed upon the whole narrative by a single line from the pen of the Apostle Peter. That apostle tells us that “he loved the wages of unrighteousness.” He did not particularly like the work, but he loved the wages. Like many another covetous soul, if he could have grasped the wages without doing the devil’s work, he would have preferred it; and he loved the wages so well that, although he at first refused to go, yet presently we find him venturing on the work for the sake of getting the pay.1. Mark here, then, the first, the earliest effect of cherishing any besetting sin. It is that God is served reluctantly. Sin is looked at with a longing eye. The prohibition seems hard and unreasonable.2. Mark now the second application made by Balak, in which the unhappy prophet, who has begun by grumbling at God’s will, is placed in further and severer temptation. I cannot but pity him here, as we pity many another poor slave who makes just one momentary effort to break off his chains. Or perhaps the speech with which he met the second deputation from Moab was artfully intended to enhance the value of subsequent compliance--we cannot certainly tell. But at all events he protests manfully: “If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord my God, to do less or more.” So also Peter valiantly protested when his Master was about to be betrayed: “Though all men should deny Thee, though I should die with Thee, I will not deny Thee.” Yet within a few short hours Peter had denied his Master thrice; and within a few short hours Balaam was on his way to the borders of Moab. The difference between the two cases is that Peter at once went out, wept bitterly, and received forgiveness; whereas Balaam, having started on a career of covetousness, never retraced his steps, and is set forth to us in the lurid light portrayed by St. Jude, “suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” We have seen that the first effect of besetting sin is that the Lord is served reluctantly. The next effect is that pretences are sought for its indulgence, or at least for putting ourselves in the way of it. The second time that God appears to Balaam there seems to be a permission to go, though coupled with a warning that he would say nothing but what the Lord should command. It by no means follows that because Balaam received a kind of permission to go, that his journey had the Divine approval. The Lord answers our prayers sometimes as He answered the prayers of Israel for a king, in His anger; nor is it easy for a greater curse to come upon a man than to be left to the gratification of his own selfish and sinful desires. Let us pray that God Almighty would cross our most cherished purposes, and defeat our darling projects, rather than suffer us in our own self-willed perverseness to enter upon a path in defiance of His holy will. St. Peter speaks of Balaam’s going with the princes of Moab as madness and iniquity: he “was rebuked for his iniquity; the dumb ass, speaking with man’s voice, forbade the madness of the prophet.” And is this the man who so boldly declared that he would not turn aside from the will of God one hair’s-breadth if Balak would give him his house full of silver and gold? Poor human nature! How little do even great men know themselves! How small the importance to be attached to mere profession! How are people likely to deceive themselves and to deceive others when speaking what is called their experience, but which is sometimes only a strong emotion of the moment, to be displaced or destroyed by the first attack of temptation! How often has it happened that those who make the loudest profession of their virtue, and of their love to the cause of God, are the first to succumb to covetousness or other besetting sin I And now the narrative, in opening before us a fresh scene, suggests at the same time a further view of the progress of a besetting sin. How striking is the circumstance that, although the ass, on three several occasions, saw the Angel with drawn sword standing in the way, Balaam saw Him not! God, says St. Augustine, had punished his cupidity, by according to him a permission conformable to his wicked inclination; and we see in him all the corruption of the human heart, and all the depravation of a will enslaved to a dominant lust. Other interpreters maintain that his permission to go was on the understood condition that he was not to curse Israel; and that it was because his heart, craving after the gold, was already wavering from this purpose, that the Angel of the Covenant accused him of perverseness, and having given him a striking and solemn warning, suffered him again to go forward. I confess that this view of the case commends itself to my own judgment.3. But whichever view you adopt, the blindness of this perverse prophet is equally monitory. He appears before us a type of those well-instructed sinners whom every one except themselves sees to be running to their own ruin, blinded by the fascination of covetousness or some other master sin. After this Balaam is given up to his own heart’s lust--the last and most terrific result, in this life, of the indulgence of besetting sin. “Go with the men,” the Lord says to him, giving him up to his own heart’s lusts, which he followed to his destruction. “Go with the men”--when neither the first words of God who forbade him, nor the signs and dangers which met him by the way, could turn his heart or deliver him from his error, the Lord bids him to go on--as Jarchi, the Jew, well paraphrases the words--“Go with the men, for thy portion is with them, and thine end to perish out of the world.” (L. H. Wiseman.)BalaamBalaam was certainly a heathen soothsayer and diviner (Jos 13:22). But he was more than a mere soothsayer. He had certainly, for one thing, a very full knowledge of the character of God. Thus, he again and again employs, in speaking of God, that covenant name “Jehovah” (Num 22:8; Num 22:13; Num 22:18-19; Num 23:3; Num 23:8; Num 23:12; Num 23:21; Num 23:26; chap. 24:1, 6, 13), by which He was specially made known to Israel (Ex 6:2-3). And such terms as, “the Lord my God” (Num 22:18); the “Almighty” (Num 24:4); “the most High” (Num 24:16), also occur in the course of his utterances, implying, by the variety of expression so easily adopted, a very much wider acquaintance with the Divine character than is commonly supposed to belong ,to ordinary heathens. Nor was the knowledge which Balaam possessed of the character of God a merely verbal or speculative knowledge. It is manifest that he stood in certain intimate personal relations with Jehovah. He speaks of the Lord as “the Lord his God” (Num 22:18); and the whole tenor of his intercourse with Jehovah, on this occasion, implies a previous acquaintance with God--such an acquaintance with God, indeed, as almost presupposes previous immediate communications between God and himself. And it may have been, that his extraordinary reputation as a prophet had arisen from the fact that God had, from time to time, “put words into his mouth,” which he had spoken, and which had also come to pass. Nor is there wanting in the character of Balaam a certain tone of high religious feeling also. He has the profoundest reverence for the authority and word of God. The word that God putteth into his mouth, that will he speak! Nay, nor would he, though Balak should give him his house full of silver and gold, go beyond the word of the Lord, &c. Nor must we deny to Balaam a certain personal and spiritual sympathy with the truths he uttered in God’s name. (See Num 23:10; Num 24:23.) “He, too, is borne away, at least for a time, by the grandeur of the announcements he is making. There is that in him which reaches out with a true, although too transient, yearning after the coming triumphs of the people and kingdom of God.” We must not paint this portrait wholly black. An honest and a truthful man; an independent and (in a certain sense) high-minded man; a Godfearing and religious man: such is Balaam, the son of Beer, of Pethor, on one side of his character. And yet he is a bad man, despite his many virtues, and a man who finally perished miserably with the enemies of God’s people. A strange phenomenon, indeed, this Balaam! a heathen soothsayer and an inspired servant of the Lord; a man full of richest endowments, animated by many very noble impulses, uttering the most exalted sentiments; and yet a man whose heart was rotten at the core, whose life is only written as a warning against sin, whose death was an unmitigated tragedy.I. We see here, in the fact of Balaam’s inspiration, although he was a heathen soothsayer, an evidence and witness to the wider relations that God holds with man than is sometimes supposed. The fact is, it hath pleased God, for His own most wise and gracious purposes, gradually and slowly to mature His final plan of mercy for the world in Jesus Christ; and, with a view to its completeness and maturity, to confine it, at the first, within restricted lines of influence. But it is a monstrous, heathen notion to suppose that all the while this final plan of mercy was in course of development, the great, wide world, without the parallels in which it moved, was utterly neglected and forsaken of its God. No! the world was also being educated, in its way, as well as the Church: educated on a humbler method, and with more “rudimentary” instruction, but educated; and educated of God. Two lines of culture, then, have been going on in the world, side by side, under the providential direction of the Most High God, and with a view to the ultimate salvation of the world. A primary and rudimentary culture, under what Paul calls the “elements of the world,” consisting of the ordinary course of Providence, with occasional interpositions of sovereign grace and special instances of inspiration; and a systematic and formal culture for a selected portion of the human family, under the written law of God, with constant interpositions of sovereign grace, and almost constant inspiration.II. That, in dealing with men by His spirit, the Lord has regard to the moral and spiritual standpoint at which each man may be found. Balaam is a soothsayer, and yet he is inspired of God! Balaam seeks the Lord by means of enchantments, and yet the Lord does not refuse to come to him, but responds to his appeal again and again I But, then, it is to be considered that Balaam was a heathen, and that he had been brought up in the midst of the practice of divination, if he had not, indeed, inherited his position as a diviner from his father. It was plainly one thing for such a man as Balaam to employ enchantment, and quite another for an Israelite to do so. For to Israel, if I may so speak, was given a diviner augury--in God’s law, and in God’s presence in their midst; and so to them the use of all these heathen arts was absolutely interdicted (Deu 18:9-14). But, as the art of divination was the highest point to which the heathen world had been able to attain in their pursuit of the unseen, so God condescended to meet Balaam, at that special point of spiritual culture, that He might lead him thenceforth to higher forms of truth and nobler modes of worship.III. How broad is the distinction between spiritual endowments and spiritual character. Balaam was both an inspired man, and also, at the same time, a very wicked man. He gave expression to the noblest sentiments, and yet performed the basest deeds. See, then, how little mere endowments, even of the highest kind, can do for us; how widely separated from each other are gifts and graces. The gifts which we receive from God are, in reality, no proper part of us, until we make them ours by a light use of them. And our character is measured, not so much by the number of talents we have received, as by the fidelity we have exhibited in the employment of the talents we have. It by no means follows because we have spiritual faculties that we are spiritual men. These faculties are given to us beforehand to aid our usefulness, if we become spiritual men, and in the hope, as one may say, that we shall become spiritual men. But, for all our gifts, we may still be “in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.” It is quite possible for divinely-bestowed gifts to miss their object and intention! (W. Roberts.)Balaam temptedI. In the first place observe that there is no time of man’s life wherein he may not be tempted, or may not be in danger of falling off from God and goodness; which should be an argument to us for constant care and watchfulness over ourselves. Even those whom God hath favoured in a very particular manner, and with heavenly gifts and graces, are no more secure than others, if they take not proportionable care.II. Observe how dangerous a thing it is so much as to attend or listen to the charms of wealth and honour. For a gift will sometimes blind the wise, and a bribe will beguile their hearts. Balaam looked too much upon the golden presents, and was too sensibly struck with the sound of honour and preferments; which made him the less consider upon how slippery ground he stood, and how dangerous an affair that was to concern himself in.III. Observe, that when God sees men leaning too far to ambitious or covetous desires, and not wise enough to take such gentle hints as might be sufficient to call them back, he then leaves them to pursue their own hearts’ lusts, and lets them follow their own imagination.IV. Observe next, how foolish a part a man acts, and how he exposes himself to contempt and scorn, as well as danger, when he takes upon him to follow his own way and humour, and will not have God for his guide.V. Observe, further, that when once willful men have run such lengths in opposition to the will of Heaven, God then gives them up to a reprobate mind, and lets them fall from one degree of wickedness to another. So it was in Balaam.VI. One thing more we may observe from his history, which is this: that the Spirit of God may sometimes vouchsafe to come upon a very wicked man (so far as concerns the extraordinary gifts) without reforming or influencing the same man as to his life and morals, in the way of ordinary operation. These two things are very distinct, and may often be separate, as in Balaam at that time, and in Judas afterwards. (D. Waterland, D. D.)ApostasyI. The piety of Balaam.1. The spiritual enlightenment of Balaam evinces his piety.2. Balaam’s piety is seen in his distinctly recognising the supreme authority of the will of God.3. The piety of Balaam was manifested in his obedience to the will of God.II. The apostasy of Balaam.1. The means through which Balaam was induced to apostatise must not be overlooked. He was enticed by worldly wealth and distinction. Principle is surrendered, honour lost, the soul itself bartered for the wages of unrighteousness. Such was “the error of Balaam.” And who knows not that by this very means multitudes have been seduced from their integrity, and lost for ever? Like the fabled Atalanta, while they were running well, the golden apple was thrown at their feet, tempting them; and stooping from their high principles to take it up, they have lost the race.2. Mark the progress of Balaam’s apostasy. First, we notice the indulgence of evil desire--desire for gain and honour, which could only be obtained by wrongdoing; his heart goes after covetousness. Next he tampers with temptation. The reiterated overtures of Balak should have been indignantly rejected. Why are these ambassadors received even a second time? Why another and another audience granted to them? Alas! he is fascinated by the very means of his ruin: like a silly fish, he is playing about the bait. Then, how he struggles with conscience! Guard against the beginnings of evil. If the downward career of apostasy be once commenced, whither thou mayest be hurried, to what depths of degradation thou mayest fall, God only knows. Like the swine of the Gadarenes, thou mayest be driven onward, literally possessed by the devil, until plunged into the abyss below. Oh bow deeply have some fallen I from small beginnings degenerating to the darkest crimes--crimes which are a loathing and an abhorrence. “Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?”--but, as a quaint writer saith, “the dog did it.” We may start from the line of rectitude at a very small angle, the divergence becoming gradually wider and wider, till we are as far from righteousness as hell is from heaven.3. Consider the checks which presented themselves in the way of Balaam’s apostasy, but which he obstinately resisted and overtrod. What pains the gracious Lord taketh to prevent our self-destruction I To the truth of this every backslider is witness. How powerful an obstacle is conscience, which ever and anon raiseth its voice, and will be heard, like the voice of the Lord which thundereth! Death, too, like a spectre from the invisible world, again and again obtrudes it elf on the apostate’s guilty soul. Dumb things have a voice to him that hath ears to hear, rebuking our madness.4. Contemplate the issue of Balaam’s apostasy. It entailed immense mischief upon others. Through him thousands of the Lord’s people perished. At the same time his fall issued in woeful disappointment to himself. (J. Heaton.)What men are these with thee?--God’s interest in man’s companionshipsThis question was designed to awaken “the slumbering conscience of Balaam, to lead him to reflect upon the proposal which the men had made, and to break the force of his sinful inclination.” God addresses the same question to the young who are forming dangerous associations, to Christians who take pleasure in worldly society, &c. He urges this solemn inquiry(1) by the voice of conscience;(2) by the preaching of His truth;(3) by the exhortations and admonitions of His Word; and(4) by the remonstrances of His Spirit.This inquiry indicates the Divine concern as to human companionships. We may regard this concern as--I. An indication of the Divine solicitude for the well-being of man.II. An indication of the importance of our companionships.1. Our associates indicate our character. “A man is known by the company which he keeps.”2. Our associates influence our character. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise: but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.”III. An indication of our responsibility to God for our companionships.IV. An indication of the danger of dallying with temptation. (W. Jones.)Evil company to be avoidedFlee unholy company as baneful to the power of godliness. Be but as careful for thy soul as thou wouldst be for thy body. Durst thou drink in the same cup, or sit in the same chair, with one that hath an infectious disease? And is not sin as catching a disease as the plague itself? Of all trades, it would not do well to have the collier and the fuller live together; what one cleanseth, the other will blacken and defile. Thou canst not be long among unholy ones but thou wilt hazard the defiling of thy soul, which the Holy Spirit hath made pure. (W. Gurnall.)The Lord refuseth to give me leave.Hesitating to do rightWhence this mingled petulance and feebleness? Plainly Balaam wants to go with the princes of Balak, and he is irritated that he cannot go; and so, first of all, he vents his spleen upon the men who were the innocent occasion of his disappointment. And yet, in the midst of all his anger, he cannot bring himself to utter such decisive words as shall foreclose for ever the prospects of advancement opened up to him by Balak. There can be no mistaking the spirit of this language. It is at once both insolent and hesitating; it is abrupt, and yet circuitous. There are deeply agitating influences at work upon the mind of him who, yesterday, a master of wise speech and full of graceful hospitality, can say to inoffensive guests, “Get you into your own land; for the Lord refuseth to give me leave to go with you.” Here, then, we first catch sight of Balaam’s weakness and infirmity. The prospect of emolument in the discharge of his prophetic office had excited his cupidity. When he first saw the rewards of divination he was, perhaps, scarcely conscious of their influence upon his mind. So long as the question of his going with the men was undecided, he betrayed no agitation on the subject; but now that these rewards were passing out of his reach--now that he was absolutely forbidden to do anything that would secure them, a passionate desire to be possessed of them was stirred within his breast, and unmistakably betrayed itself in his behaviour towards the men to whom he had promised to communicate the answer of the Lord. (W. Roberts.)Numbers 22:15-35If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them.No contradiction between God’s two answers to BalaamThe first time God tells him not to go; the second time He bids him go, but is angry with him because he goes. What dues this contradiction mean? There is no meaning in it till we drop the external shell of the story, and look at the moral working of Balaam’s mind, when all becomes orderly and natural. There is here no contradiction. Between the first and second asking there is a change in his moral attitude. In the first he is docile and obedient, and the voice of conscience, which is the voice of God, prevails and decides his conduct. He enters into the second already half won by Balak, dislodged from his old sympathies, restless under the comparison between his old life and that laid open to him. When men revolve moral questions in such a temper, they commonly reach a decision that accords with their wish rather than with their conscience. Balaam has abandoned the field of simple duty--duty so plain that there is no need of second thoughts. It is clear enough that in no way could it be right to curse those whom God had blessed; this he well knows, and the spontaneous verdict of his conscience is God’s first answer But, brooding over the matter and sore pressed by temptation, he begins to contrive ways in which he may win the gifts and honours of Balak, and also remain an honest prophet. Here is his mistake. Duty is no longer a simple, imperative thing, but something that may be conjured with, a subordinate, unstable tool instead of an absolute law. Having thus blinded himself as to the nature of duty, there will no longer be any certainty in his moral operations; confusion of thought leads to confusion of action; in his own transformation he transforms God; he now hears God bidding him do what he desires to do. Still, at times, conscience revives, his judgment returns, and then he knows that God is angry with him for doing what he had brought himself to think he might rightly do. This is every-day experience put into this ancient story in a dramatic yet real way. When a man has thus trifled with himself and with his duty, God does indeed seem to say to him, “Go on in your chosen course.” He serves God in the externals of religion, but in business cheats and lies in what he calls business ways, and grinds the faces of the poor under some theory of competition, yet God prospers him; no hindering word comes to him from Providence or from the insulted Spirit of truth. It may be better, it may be, in a certain sense, the command of God, that one who starts on such a path shall follow it to the end, and find out by experience what he has rejected as an intuition. With the froward God shows Himself froward. To those who have pleasure in unrighteousness God sends a strong delusion that they should believe a lie. This is the concrete way of stating how the moral nature acts when it is led by double motives. It comes into bewilderment; it gets no true answers when it appeals to God; its own sophistries seem to it the voice of God. It can no longer tell the voice of God from its own voice. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” (T. T. Manger.)God answers men as they wishIt is not unusual with God to grant, not only the desires of an holy and upright mind, but also our desires for inferior things, when the heart is set upon them in preference to Himself. For instance, a man is on his guard against the dangers of wealth and station; but by degrees he thinks whether he cannot obtain them lawfully, and by and by he is engaged in the pursuit, and in such a ease God gives the man usually that for which he craves. He seeks, he obtains; God seems to say, “Go on.” There is no greater danger than for God to answer a man according to the desires of his own heart; and therefore Job says, “If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands towards Him; if iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away” (Job 11:14). And in Ezekiel God says, if a man comes to inquire of Him with idols in his heart, and setting the stumbling-block of his iniquity before his face, He will answer him according to his idols, he will be taken in his own heart. “If that prophet be deceived,” it is added in very remarkable words, “I the Lord have deceived him, and I will punish him” (Eze 14:4-5; Eze 14:9). But yet in this case God does not give us up altogether. As when Israel asked for a king, He gave indeed what they desired--but He expostulated, He warned, He sent them a token of His displeasure. So will He show us by His Providence that He is displeased with us; in the way that we go, His angel with the sword in his hand will meet us, i.e., some calamity, some accident, some grief, is sure to cross our way to remind us from God that the way that we are going is not the way of holiness or of peace. And these are all calls from God, not at all the less so because when a man’s eyes are blinded with worldly business and covetousness he does not see them to be such. (Isaac Williams, B. D.)Balaam; or, spiritual influence, human and DivineI. The influence of a bad man upon society.1. A man’s influence in this world is no proof of his moral worth. The millions of all ages readily accede to the claims of the pretender, however lofty; and the more lofty the better, if the claimant can manage to keep his countenance while the admiring dupes look on.2. Society, in relation to true intelligence and right sympathy, is in a very lamentable state. A true education, involving the harmonious unfolding of the feeling as well as knowing faculties of the soul, will make a man a “discerner of spirits.”3. The high probability of a future retributive economy. Does not the mutual relation between empty pretenders and the ignorant victims of all ages predict a reckoning day, and cry out for a judgment?II. The influence of the great God upon a bad man (Num 22:18).1. God does exert a spiritual influence over the minds of bad men.2. The spiritual influence He exerts over the minds of bad men is of a restraining character.(1) External difficulties.(2) Inward pressure upon the spirit.3. God’s restraining influence upon a bad man is for the good of society. (Homilist.)Balak’s second application to Balaam; or, the decrease of resistance to evilI. The repetition with increased force of the request of Balak to Balaam.1. The embassage was more influential.2. The message was more urgent.3. The inducements were stronger.Learn: that temptations which have been declined half-heartedly are presented again, and with greater force. The manner of Balaam’s dismissal of the former messengers prepared the way for a repetition of their mission.II. The repetition under aggravating circumstances of guilty delay by Balaam.1. He had been challenged by God as to the presence of the former messengers.2. He had already been prohibited from complying with the request of Balak.3. He himself felt arid plainly declared that he was bound by the word of the Lord in the matter.III. The repetition of the Divine visit to Balaam.1. The permission granted.2. The condition enforced.IV. The setting out of Balaam on the journey. (W. Jones.)The character of BalaamWe take this to be the great crisis in Balaam’s life. We take this act, which to many appears so excellent, to be the first step in his downward course. It was not only the day of God’s power towards Israel, but a day of grace to Balaam; but, alas! he knew it not. The precious moment on which so much depended was lost; henceforth his downward course was rapid. He perished in the rejection of grace and mercy. There is a crisis in our histories as in Balaam’s, a time, perhaps a moment, on which our eternity depends. There may be nothing to mark it out as a great crisis at the time. The Spirit of God may strive with you, gently strive. There may be some conviction in your mind, and all may depend on your yielding up your heart to Christ, and acting upon that conviction at once. If you waver when you ought to act; wait for more light, when you have light enough; if you allow any second thought to come in to determine what you shall do, anything selfish or worldly, when you ought to act simply for God, then the Spirit may leave you; your day of grace, like Balaam’s, may pass by, or it may be some temptation which is presented to you. We do not mean any awful temptation, one which the world itself would counsel you to resist. It may be some offer which you would be deemed foolish in rejecting, something that the world thinks an advantage; and yet if you do give way to the temptation, oh, what unforeseen consequences may follow, step by step, with unerring certainty! Let it now be impressed upon your hearts what great and eternal consequences may depend upon one little act. Oh, be faithful to God, faithful in apparently little things, as well as in great. But we must go a step further and ask, “What was it that gave this bias to Balaam’s will, and led him still to inquire, when he ought to have felt, ‘God has revealed His will; it is enough. I will not move from my place’?” Scripture gives a complete answer to that question. It was a besetting sin, and we are told what it was. It was the sin of covetousness (2Pe 3:15). There are two most solemn lessons which this ought to rivet on our hearts. First, we see the amazing power and awful effects of one besetting sin. We see how it perverts the will, how it keeps the heart from resting on the plain word of God--how it leads to neglect, yea, not even to know, the day of visitation--and how it hurries the soul onward, blinded and debased, to a point at which at first it would have shuddered. The other lesson is the deceitfulness of the human heart. Its wishes may be quite opposite to its most solemn professions; and at the very moment when it seems to be guided by the will of God it may be following some device or desire of its own. To what earnest self-inspection should this character lead us, lest our hearts, too, should be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin--lest, satisfied with a decided profession, we forget that God is the searcher of the heart, and that He deals and will deal with us, not according to what we profess to be, but according to what we are, according to the real state of our hearts. (G. Wagner.)Perversion as shown in the character of BalaamI. Perversion of great gifts.1. By turning them to purposes of self-aggrandisement. Balak struck the keynote of his character when he said, “Am I not able to promote thee unto honour?” Herein, then, lies the first perversion of glorious gifts: that Balaam sought not God’s honour, but his own.2. By making those gifts subservient to his own greed.II. Perversion of conscience.1. The first intimation we have of the fact that Balaam was tampering with his conscience, is in his second appeal to God. There is nothing like the first glance we get at duty, before there has been any special pleading of our affections or inclinations. Duty is never uncertain at first. It is only after we have got involved in the sophistries of wishing that things were otherwise than they are that it seems indistinct. Considering a duty is often only explaining it away. Deliberation is often only dishonesty. God’s guidance is plain, when we are true.2. The second stage is a state of hideous contradictions: God permits Balaam to go, and then is angry with him for going. There is nothing here which cannot be interpreted by bitter experience. We must not explain it away by saying that these were only the alternations of Balaam’s own mind. They were; but they were the alternations of a mind with which God was expostulating, and to which God appeared differently at different times; the horrible mazes and inconsistencies of a spirit which contradicts itself, and strives to disobey the God whom yet it feels and acknowledges. To such a state of mind God becomes a contradiction. “With the forward”--oh, how true! - “Thou wilt show Thyself froward.”3. We notice next the evidences in him of a disordered mind and heart. It is a strange, sad picture. The first man in the land, gifted beyond most others, conscious of great mental power, going on to splendid prospects, yet with hopelessness and misery working at his heart. Who would have envied Balaam if he could have seen all the hell that was working at his heart?4. Lastly, let us consider the impossibility under such circumstances of going back. Balaam offers to go back. The angel says, “Go on.” There was yet one hope for him, to be true, to utter God’s wolds careless of the consequences; but he who had been false so long, how should he be true? It was too late. In the ardour of youth you have made perhaps a wrong choice, or chosen an unfit profession, or suffered yourself weakly and passively to be drifted into a false course of action, and now, in spite of yourself, you feel there is no going back. To many minds, such a lot comes as with the mysterious force of a destiny. They see themselves driven, and forget that they put themselves in the way of the stream that drives them. They excuse their own acts as if they were coerced. They struggle now and then faintly, as Balaam did--try to go back--cannot--and at last sink passively in the mighty current that floats them on to wrong. And thenceforth to them all God’s intimations will come unnaturally. His voice will sound as that of an angel against them in the way. Spectral lights will gleam, only to show a quagmire from which there is no path of extrication. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Obedience without love, as instanced in the character of BalaamI. Balaam was blessed with God’s especial favour.1. He had the grant of inspiration.2. The knowledge of God’s will.3. An insight into the truths of morality, clear and enlarged, such as we Christians even cannot surpass.4. He was admitted to conscious intercourse with God, such as even Christians have not.II. Balaam was a very conscientious man.1. When sought by Balak he prayed to God for direction.2. When forbidden to go, he refused to go.3. Only when God gave him leave did he go.4. And when he was come to Balak he strictly adhered to God’s orders. Balaam was certainly high-principled, honourable, conscientious. He said, and he did; he professed, and he acted according to his professions.III. Yet, while in one sense in God’s favour, he was in another and higher sense under God’s displeasure. He was displeasing to God amid his many excellences. So that, in Balaam’s history, we seem to have the following remarkable case--i.e., remarkable according to our customary judgment of things--a man Divinely favoured, visited, influenced, guided, protected, eminently honoured, illuminated--a man possessed of an enlightened sense of duty, and of moral and religious acquirements, educated, high-minded, conscientious, honourable, firm; and yet on the side of God’s enemies, personally under God’s displeasure, and in the end (if we go on to that) the direct instrument of Satan, and having his portion with the unbelievers. This surely is most fearful to every one of us--the more fearful the more we are conscious to ourselves in the main of purity of intention in what we do, and conscientious adherence to our sense of duty.IV. What is the meaning of this startling exhibition of God’s ways?1. It is possible to be generally conscientious, or what the world calls honourable and high-principled, yet to be destitute of that religious fear and strictness which God calls conscientiousness, but which the world calls superstition or narrowness of mind.2. God gave Balaam leave to go to Balak, and then was angry with him for going, because his asking twice was tempting God. God is a jealous God. We may not safely intrude upon Him, and make free with Him.Concluding lessons:1. We see how little we can depend, in judging of right and wrong, on the apparent excellence and high character of individuals.2. Observe the wonderful secret providence of God, while all things seem to go on according to the course of this world.3. When we have begun an evil course we cannot retrace our steps.4. God gives us warnings now and then, but does not repeat them. Balaam’s sin consisted in not acting upon what was told him once for all. Beware of trifling with conscience. May He give you grace so to hear as you will wish to have heard when life is over--to hear in a practical way, with a desire to profit--to learn God’s will and to do it! (J. H. Newman, D. D.)BalaamWe, in these days, are accustomed to draw a sharp line between the good and the bad, the converted and the unconverted, the children of God and the children of his world, those who have God’s Spirit and those who have not, which we find nowhere in Scripture; and therefore when we read of such a man as Balaam we cannot understand him. He knows the true God. More, be has the Spirit of God in him, and thereby utters wonderful prophecies; and yet he is a bad man. How can that be? Now bear in mind, first, theft Balaam is no impostor or magician. He is a wise man, and a prophet of God. God really speaks to him, and really inspires him. And bear in mind, too, that Balaam’s inspiration did not merely open his mouth to say wonderful words which he did not understand, but opened his heart to say righteous and wise things which he did understand. What, then, was wrong in Balaam? This, that he was double-minded. He wished to serve God. True. But he wished to serve himself by serving God, as too many do in all times. That was what was wrong with him--self-seeking; and the Bible story brings out that self seeking with a delicacy, and a perfect knowledge of human nature, which ought to teach us some of the secrets of our own hearts. But what may we learn from this ugly story? Recollect what I said at first, that we should find Balaam too like many people nowadays; perhaps too like ourselves. Too like indeed. For never were men more tempted to sin as Balaam did than in these days, when religion is all the fashion, and pays a man, and helps him on in life; when, indeed, a man cannot expect to succeed without professing some sort of religion or other. Thereby comes a terrible temptation to many men. I do not mean to hypocrites, but to really well-meaning men. They like religion. They wish to be good; they have the feeling of devotion. They pray, they read their Bibles, they are attentive to services and to sermons, and are more or less pious people. But soon--too soon--they find that their piety is profitable. Their business increases. Their credit increases. They gain power over their fellow men. What a fine thing it is, they think, to be pious! Then creeps in the love of the world; the love of money, or power, or admiration; and they begin to value religion because it helps them to get on in the world. Aye, they are often more attentive than ever to religion, because their consciences pinch them at times, and have to be drugged by continual church-goings and chapel-goings, and readings and prayings, in order that they may be able to say to themselves with Balaam, “Thus saith Balaam, he who heard the word of God, and had the knowledge of the Most High.” So they say to themselves, “I must be right. How religious I am; how fond of sermons, and of church services, and missionary meetings, and charitable institutions, and everything that is good and pious. I must be right with God.” Deceiving their own selves, and saying to themselves, “I am rich and increased with goods, I have need of nothing,” and not knowing that they are wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. Would God that such people, of whom there are too many, would take St. John’s warning and buy of the Lord gold tiled in the fire--the true gold of honesty--that they may be truly rich, and anoint their eyes with eye-salve that they may see themselves for once as they are. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)Trifling with conscienceWhat was Balaam’s prime mistake? I think it was this, that he trifled with his conscience. God speaks once to the human soul, and speaks loudly; but if you disobey His voice, it soon sinks to a whisper. “When I was a little boy,” said Theodore Parker, “in my fourth year, one fine day in spring my father led me by the hand to a distant part of the farm, but soon sent me home alone. On the way I had to pass a little pond, then spreading its waters wide; a rhodora in full bloom, a rare flower which grew only in that locality, attracted my attention, and drew me to the spot. I saw a little spotted tortoise sunning itself in the shallow water at the root of the flowering shrub. I lifted the stick I had in my hand to strike the harmless reptile; for though I had never killed any creature, yet I had seen other boys out of sport destroy birds and squirrels and the like, and I felt a disposition to follow their wicked example. But all at once something checked my little arm, and a voice within me said, clear and loud, ‘It is wrong.’ I held my uplifted stick in wonder at the new emotion, the consciousness of an involuntary but inward check upon my actions, till the tortoise and the rhodora both vanished from my sight. I hastened home, and told the tale to nay mother, and asked what it was that told me ‘it was wrong.’ She wiped a tear from her eye, and taking me in her arms said: ‘Some men call it conscience, but I prefer to call it the voice of God in the soul of man. If you listen and obey it, it will speak clearer and clearer, and always guide you right; but if you turn a deaf ear and disobey, then it will fade out little by little, and leave you in the dark and without a guide. Your life depends on heeding that little voice.’ “ This is the truth, let me say again, of Balaam’s history; and having so shown it to you, or tried to make you see it, I might almost leave it to your reflection without a word. But as I want you to realise what the human conscience is, and how responsible you all are for your mode of treating it, there are just two or three remarks which I will make.1. Firstly, there are some people who make a boast, as it were, of having what I may call a loose or easy conscience. They think it a sign of intellectual light to be free from conscientious scruples. They say, “Oh, yes, no doubt there was a time when it was thought wrong to touch or to read newspapers and secular books on Sundays, or to go to a theatre, or to participate in dancing or card-playing or any such thing; but these were Puritan days, and we have outlived them, we have learned to laugh at them, we do nowadays pretty much as we like.” This is the sort of language which is often heard in the world. Now what I say to you about it shall be simple common sense. I agree to some extent with the people who so speak. It is a mistake, I think, to multiply the number of sins. There are so many things which are wrong in the world, and it is so hard for most of us to keep from doing them, that I should say we make a mistake if we involuntarily add to the number of things which we may not do. Only forgive my saying that, if one must make a mistake, then it is better to err on the side of abstaining from good than on the side of running heedlessly into wrong. It is better to have a weak conscience than a wicked one. Do not you think that for one person who violates the Sunday from a religious motive, there are twenty who violate it because they do not care for religion at all? And is it not likely--ah! how likely--that, if we are not careful to cherish the means of grace and of religious practice, if we do not go to church and to the Holy Communion, we shall gradually sink into a worldly way of looking at things, and our religion will die away altogether?2. Again, let me impress upon you that your conscience is plastic; you are always forming it, always making it better or worse. If you listen to it when it speaks, it speaks more plainly; if you neglect it, it will simply cease to speak. Ought it not to be your prayer, your daily effort, to see good and evil as God sees them? For, believe me, I am telling you what I know, when you grow up and go out into the world, you will hear people saying of even the vilest sins, “What does it matter? I do not see the wrong of it.” There is a blindness of the soul as well as of the body; and although the blinded soul cannot behold the Sun of Righteousness, the Sun is shining in the heaven all the same.3. Lastly, follow your conscience, and it shall lead you to God. Believe me, the only way to get more spiritual light is to live according to the light you have. It may be only a ray that breaks athwart the darkness; make the most of it, and some day you shall have more. There may be hereafter only one duty which is clear to you, only one friend or kinsman whom you can help, only one boy whom you can keep from evil, only one piece of work which you alone can do. Well, do that. Try to accomplish that one object. Try to save just that one human soul. Gradually, it may be after many a day, the clouds will break. You will know more of God’s will. He will seem nearer to you. His voice will sound more clearly in your soul. You shall enter into that Divine peace which the world may neither give nor take away. (J. E. C. Welldon, M. A.)Balaam, an instance of moral perversionHow came it that Balaam acted so inconsistently with his knowledge and convictions, and succeeded for the time, as we may say, in juggling with his conscience? The answer is not hard to find. He loved money. His heart was set on gold. He had allowed the passion of covetousness to become the ruling principle of his nature. I have somewhere read of one who, having found a young leopard, petted it, and trained it to be his daily companion in his chamber. It grew up to maturity, but still it was kept beside him, and men wondered at his foolhardiness in permitting it to go unchained. But he would not be advised. One day, however, as it licked his hand with its rough tongue, it ruffled the skin, and tasted his blood; and then all the savage nature of the brute came out, and there was a fearful struggle between them, from which he escaped only by destroying it. So it was, in some respects, in this case. Balaam had nurtured his covetousness into strength; and now, at the offer of Balak’s rewards, its full force came out; but, instead of fighting with it and slaying it, he yielded to it and was destroyed. What a terrible passion is this of covetousness! and how dangerous it is, especially to those who wish to preserve a fair appearance! For in men’s estimation it is, at least in its beginnings, a respectable thing. Nor is its respectability its only danger, for in the minds of many it is associated only with large sums of money; whereas in reality it may be as strong in the heart of him whose dealings are carried on in cents as in that of one whose transactions are concerned with hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one of us, whether rich or poor, whether minister or layman, has a right to say that there is no fear of him in this matter; for if the love of money takes possession of the heart, it will blind the eyes, and harden the conscience, and become a root of evil, so that we shall “fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts that war against the soul.” But what is true of covetoushess is true also of every evil principle, so that we may generalise the lesson here, and say that if the heart be fixed on any object as its God, other than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we may expect in the end, whatever may be our knowledge, and whatever our scruples in other respects, that we shall act against our convictions, and make shipwreck not only of the faith, but also of ourselves, “ without possibility of salvage.” (W. M. Taylor, D. D.)Balaam the man of double mindHe was one of those unstable men whom the apostle calls doubleminded--an ambidexter in religion, like Redwald, king of the East Saxons, the first who was baptized, who, as Camden relates, had, in the same church, one chapel for the Christian religion, and another for sacrificing to devils. A loaf of the same leaven was our resolute Rufus, who painted God on one side of his shield and the devil on the other, with the desperate inscription in Latin--“I am ready for either.” (C. Ness.)Balaam’s protestA brave speech, certainly! Yes, no doubt it was true that Balaam felt that even for a house full of silver and gold he could not go beyond the word of the Lord. But, in the first place, why protest so much concerning silver and gold? Balak’s message had not mentioned silver and gold--it spoke specially of honour. Surely it must have been because the mind of Balaam was so much preoccupied with thoughts of silver and gold that he thus spake; answering himself rather than others. And then, why does Balaam say, “I cannot” go beyond the word of the Lord? Why does he not roundly say, “I will not go beyond the word of the Lord”? As it is he only speaks of inability; he does not mention such a thing as personal disinclination. These flaws we notice in his words. But still, upon the whole, his speech was brave, just, perhaps, as one may say, one whit too bold. For if there be one thing that we have need to stand in doubt of, in moments of temptation, it is high sounding phrases of determination. For, as a rule, we may be sure the courage of the heart is in an inverse proportion to the valour of the lip. Balaam was conscious of an inward faltering in reference to that which lay before him, and he sought to veil the weakness of his purpose by the vigour of his protestations. (W. Roberts.)Dallying with temptationBalaam is very sure that he shall confine himself to the word of the Lord, but he, himself, out of his own heart, has begun to entertain the purpose of getting upon the scene of these glittering temptations. He proposes to remain a true man, but he enjoys the company of these honourable princes. He will remain a true man, but he would like to be near a king who can send such presents. He will remain a true man, but, once in Moab, his wit will stand him in hand better than in these dull regions where he dwells. It is the old, old story of humanity--dallying with temptation in the field of the imagination, bribing conscience with fair promises, yet all the while moving up to the forbidden thing. It is a history not seldom repeated. Oh, no! I shall never become a miser, but I propose to be exceedingly prudent. I shall never throw away my reputation, my character, but I will feed eye and ear and imagination with pictures of forbidden pleasure. I shall never become a drunkard, but I will drink in moderation. I shall never permit myself to be called a selfish man, but I will take good care of myself in this rough world. I shall never become dishonest, but I will keep a keen eye for good chances. Thus it is that men are passing to ruin over a path paved with double purposes. Balaam now gets a different answer. The first time he is honest and open, and is told to remain; the next time he takes into the interview his own desires, which are against his convictions, and a half-formed purpose, and he comes out of it with the answer he wants; desire has taken the lead of conscience. He starts on his ill-fated journey, meets with strange, confounding experiences--reflections of the moral confusion into which he has fallen--experiences, however, that serve to steady and buttress him on his professional side, but are not able to prevent his fall as a man. (T. T. Munger.)On tampering with conscienceIs this conduct of Balaam’s strange or unusual? Have we none of us done exactly as Balaam did? I protest that men are doing precisely as Balaam did every day. Yes, and every day are meeting with the selfsame punishment, and braving the selfsame anger. Temptation to self-aggrandisement of various kinds comes before us, there is a prospect of a brilliant success, there is the hope of some tempting reward; the only condition is a course of action about the lawfulness of which we are in doubt. Then comes the trial--we ponder: on one side is the bait glittering--we long for so great a prize. But God comes to us--speaks to us in our consciences--speaks to us by His Word--speaks to us by His Spirit, saying, Forbear! there is sin in the doing of that which must be done ere the end you long for can be attained. And at first we acquiesce. Clearly it has been shown to us, that though ease and pleasure be sweet, duty is stern and may not be gainsaid; that though success be exquisite delight, unfairness is always vile and bad; that though fame and position be longed for never so eagerly, yet to depart from truth or honesty is to depart from God. But by and by the temptation is looked at again and again--the thing we long for is always before us, the thing we fear is far; and we begin to ask whether our first impression was really quite so unmistakably right as we believed it. We look to see if for some little swerving from the rigorous path of virtue some excuse may not be found. And we question whether the end may not be attained without quite using all the means. We seek to know if our consciences cannot allow us to grasp the thing we wish, and for its sake bear us blameless for once in doing the thing we shrink from; and, in short, little by little, we give ourselves to be deceived as Balaam did. We ask for guidance, perchance with a divided heart; we pray God to teach us how to act, when we have already more than half decided. We pretend to leave ourselves in His hands, and yet we are only pretending; and then if He speaks to us at all, it is a voice which speaks to a conscience that has become confused, and a judgment that has suffered itself only too willingly to be disjointed; and though the voice seems to be, and in some sense is the voice of God, yet it is, indeed, only a lie. (A. Jessopp, M. A.)Withstanding temptationThat was a bright suggestion of a little boy who made the following answer to the question of a passer-by. Seeing the little fellow patting his father’s horse, that was standing in front of his house, the man asked, “Can your horse go fast, my boy?” “No, not very,” he replied, “but he can stand fast.” That is a virtue not to be despised in a horse; a faithful animal that can be trusted to remain in his tracks without pulling down the hitching post or breaking his halter is to be coveted. Can it be said of you, boys, that you “can stand fast”? Are you firm when tempted to do wrong? Are you easily led astray? Put yourself on the right side, and when urged to step aside from it remember always to stand fast. (Juvenile Templar.)Gold an ignoble motive for serviceThe noblest deeds which have been done on earth have not been done for gold. It was not for the sake of gold that our Lord came down and died, and the apostles went out to preach the good news in all lands. The Spartans looked for no reward in money when they fought and died at Thermopyhae; and Socrates the wise asked no pay from his countrymen, but lived poor and barefoot all his days, only caring to make men good. And there are heroes in our days also, who do noble deeds, but not for gold. Our discoverers did not go to make themselves rich when they sailed out one after another into the dreary frozen seas; nor did the ladies who went out to drudge in the hospitals of the East, making themselves poor, that they might be rich in noble works; and young men, too, did they say to themselves, “How much money shall I earn” when they went to the war, leaving wealth and comfort, and a pleasant home, to face hunger and thirst, and wounds and death, that they might fight for their country and their Queen? No, children, there is a better thing on earth than wealth, a better thing than life itself, and that is, to have done something before you die, for which good men may honour you, and God your Father smile upon your work. (C. Kingsley.)“No” without any “Yes” in itMany a promising youth has been ruined because he did not know how to say “No.” There are many people who say “No,” but so faintly that there seems a “Yes “ in it, so that it only invites further persuasion. Many a man, tempted by appetite within, and by companions without, says “No” feebly and faintly. His “No” has a “Yes” in it. A lad was coming along the street one day with a young man who lived near him who was somewhat excited by strong drink, and after walking along awhile with his companion he drew a bottle from his pocket, and said, “Have some? Well, hand it over,” replied the lad. The bottle was passed to him, and raising it aloft he hurled it with a crash against the stone wall, and turning to his astonished companion, he said, “Don’t you ever put a bottle to my lips again.” The young man was inclined to be irritated, but he had sense enough to retain his anger. The lad’s “No” had not any “Yes” in it There are scores of young men who need the decision which this lad had. (S. S. Chronicle.)A rotting conscienceI think no man could have his arm rot and drop away, from wrist to shoulder, and not know it; but you shall find numberless men whose consciences have rotted, from circumference to core, and they know nothing about it, They are less concerned about themselves than when the corruption first began. This silence of the hollowing out of a man--this noiseless process of preparing him for destruction, is an element of very great fearfulness. It fills me with grief and sadness, as I look on men, to know that as the snow falls, flake by flake, and no sound tells of its accumulation--that as the dust sifts in, and no noise warns of its choking rise, so silently, so surely, man is heaping to himself wrath against the day of wrath, and does not know it. (H. W. Beecher.)Something wrong with conscienceA steamboat going at full speed approached a bridge. The pilot saw that the draw was not open, and rang his bell to have the engines reversed. There was ample time to bring the vessel to a stand, if the signal had been obeyed. But, in spite of it, the boat went crashing through the bridge, causing great, damage and much peril, though, as it happened, no actual loss of life. It was found afterwards that the bell-wire was broken, so that the bell did not ring in the engineer’s room. Something like this often happens to that safeguard of our soul which we call conscience. It gets disordered in one way or another and doesn’t work. A danger is perceived. We see plainly the course we ought to take. Conscience warns us that we are on the wrong road. Why don’t we stop, and turn into the way we know is safe? Because conscience has lost its power. In the engine-room of our ship of life, where Will presides, the voice of conscience is unheard, or, if heard at all, is unheeded. Instead of being a recognised and regarded imperative, as it ought to be, it has become impotent. The instinct that tells us to do what is right and to shun what is wrong is one of the highest faculties of the human soul. Like all our powers, both of mind and body, it may be blunted and withered and deadened until it is practically lost. Youth is the time to watch against and avert this awful disaster. We cannot too carefully cherish the first and quick sensitiveness which gives to conscience its proper mastery, and causes it to be obeyed as God’s own voice speaking in the heart of man. (Christian Age.)Parallels to the case of BalaamParallels to the case of Balaam are not difficult to find. Cardinal Wolsey, dispensing ecclesiastical ban and blessing, at the mandate of Henry the Eighth; Richelieu and Mazarin, each betraying his churchly trust for the sake of political power--are well-known instances. Contrast with these Ambrose’s stern arraignment of Theodosius, an account of which will be found in any good ecclesiastical history. The schoolboy who sneers at religion, hoping to gain thereby the favour of his companions, is unconsciously following in the footsteps of Balaam. The demons gave good testimony to Christ (Luk 8:28-29) and to His apostles (Act 19:15), but that did not render them any the less demons. So Balaam, himself a wicked man, prophesied of the coming Messiah. Compare the case of Caiaphas the high priest (Joh 11:50-51). Recall Christ’s description of the judgment, where many who have prophesied the truth in His name will be told that they are none of His (Mat 7:22-23). Balaam fell, though his eyes were open. (American S. S. Times.)God’s anger was kindled because he went.God permits Balaam to go, and yet is angry“Go,” said the Voice; “but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak.” Was this merely the echo of the Divine word in a hollow, bewildered conscience? That is not a full explanation of the fact, though it is one which we must not disregard. Balaam did go, and was intended to go. He would not have learned the lesson which he was to learn if he had not gone. And yet his going was a wilful act. It was the struggle of one determined to have his own way, claiming the privilege of a man, while he was reducing himself into the condition of an animal, one that mast be held in with bit and bridle, because he will not be guided and governed as a spiritual creature. You are puzzled at the language of Scripture about God’s permitting Balaam to go, and then being displeased at him for going. You may well be puzzled. For what are so utterly bewildering as the mazes and contradictions of a human will, confessing a Master, struggling to disobey Him? But would you rather that the Bible left this fact unnoticed? Would you rather that it described human actions and events without reference to it? Is that the proof which you demand that it was written by God and for men? You will not have that sign if you ask for it ever so much. Not here alone, but everywhere, you will be met with these contradictions; man striving with God, God dealing with him as a voluntary creature, such as He had made him to be, not crushing his will by an act of omnipotence, but teaching it to feel its own impotency and madness. (F. D. Maurice, M. A.)The Divine permission of self-willI do not see how any thoughtful man can consider this story without discovering why God allows men to enter on ways which are not good, and which are therefore full of peril, and why He nevertheless “withstands” them when they walk in them. He allows them to enter on such ways that they may come to know themselves as they are, in their weakness as well as in their strength, that they may see clearly what is evil in their nature as well as what is good; and He withstands them in order that they may become aware of the perils to which they are unconsciously exposing themselves, may feel their need of His guidance and help, and may suffer Him to save them from their sins, and out of weakness make them strong. (S. Cox, D. D.)The cause of God’s anger with BalaamGod is not angry without cause; and the one cause which makes Him angry with men is some unrighteousness in them, or some inward leaning toward unrighteousness. And what could the unrighteous leaning of Balaam be but that, in the conflict between his own interests and desires and the will of God, he was permitting his interests and desires to prevail over his sense of duty, suffering the baser elements of his nature to override the promptings of that in him which was highest and best, giving way, in short, to the temptation which Balak had held out before him, and scheming how he might please man without altogether breaking with God. So absorbed is he in his schemes, so preoccupied, that this man, ordinarily so alert, so quick to discern omens, so sensitive to spiritual intimations, so proud of his open eye, actually does not see the angel who stands full in his path, with his sword drawn in his hand. This inward preoccupation and deterioration was “the madness” which the dumb ass forbad and rebuked. And how severe and humiliating, yet how merciful, the rebuke! How humiliating that he who prided himself on being “the man whose eyes are open, who heareth the words of God and seeth the vision of the Almighty,” should find himself outdone by the very beast he rode, blind to what even his ass could see; so insensate, so “transported from himself” as that he had sought to slay the very creature who had saved him! And yet what a wonder of mercy and grace was it that even while, as the angel told him, his way was rash, foolhardy, full of hidden perils which he ought never to have affronted, God had not forgotten or forsaken him, but had miraculously interposed to warn him that the course he was meditating could only lead him to destruction, to arrest him in his downward path, to quicken his attention, to open his eyes to the spiritual facts and omens of which he had lost ken, and to call him back to the allegiance he so loudly professed! (S. Cox, D. D.)The opposition of God’s angelIs not this opposition of the angel to Balaam a picture and a symbol of the way in which God is evermore withstanding evil courses? When Jacob was at Peniel, we read, “there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day” (Gen 32:24). That man, also, was the angel of the Lord (Hos 12:4), come forth to withstand Jacob in his crooked ways, until Jacob should surrender them, and win a blessing from his adversary. And so God was, by His angel, opposing Balaam’s evil way, until he should abandon it, and thus be blessed of God (Num 22:32). And see, in this symbolic action of the angel of the Lord, how the resistances of God to evil thicken on us in our sinful paths. At first the ass swerves only from the beaten track; then she injures Balaam’s foot; then she falls down under him. And is not this a picture, to the very life, of things that happen every day to evil-doers? They find instruments and agencies, on which they have implicitly relied, betraying them or failing them. They find themselves injured or maimed in their endeavours to press forward in their mad career. And suddenly life perfectly breaks down with them, and leaves them prostrate on the earth. And is not Balaam’s blindness to the angel of the Lord a picture of the blindness to the course of Providence which evil-doers not unfrequently display? Things which one would think must cause reflection, come and go without exciting even notice. Bent on their own self-willed career, they are completely blind to all besides, till presently disaster overtakes them, and they narrowly escape destruction. And does not the insensate rage of Balaam fitly typify the wrath and anger that we feel at all the opposition we encounter in an evil way? What savage thoughts breed in our hearts, and cruel words breathe from our lips, in moments such as these! We are ready to destroy the very things that serve us; aye, the very things that save us! Balaam would have slain his ass, though she had served him many years, and though she now preserved his life by her sagacity. Brethren, let us rather be thankful for the oppositions of the angel of the Lord, when we are in an evil way; for these opposing providences are designed for our salvation and deliverance. (W. Roberts.)God’s opposition to BalaamWe have here an account of the opposition God gave to Balaam in his journey towards Moab; probably the princes were gone before, or gone some other way, and Balaam had appointed where he would meet them, or where they would stay for him, for we read nothing of them in this encounter; only that Balaam, like a person of some quality, was attended with his two men;--honour enough, one would think, for such a man, he needed not be beholden to Balak for promotion.1. Here is God’s displeasure against Balaam for undertaking this journey, God’s “anger was kindled because he went” (Num 22:22). Note--(1) The sin of sinners is not to be thought the less provoking to God for His permitting it. We must not think that because God doth not by His providence restrain men from sin, therefore He approves of it; or that it is therefore net hateful to Him; He suffers sin, and yet is angry at it.(2) Nothing is more displeasing to God than malicious designs against His people; he that touches them touches the apple of His eye.2. The way God took to let Balaam know His displeasure against him. An angel stood in the way for an adversary. Now God fulfilled His promise to Israel, “I will be an enemy to thine enemies” (Ex 23:22). The holy angels are adversaries to sin, and perhaps are employed more than we are aware of in preventing it, particularly in opposing those that have any ill designs against God’s Church and people, for whom Michael, our prince, stands up (Dan 12:1; Dan 10:21). What a comfort is this to all that wish well to the Israel of God, that He never suffers wicked men to form any attempt against them, but He sends His holy angels forth to break the attempts, and secure His little ones! This angel was an adversary to Balaam, because Balaam counted him his adversary; otherwise those are really our best friends, and we are so to reckon them that stop our progress in a sinful way. The angel stood with his sword drawn (Num 22:23), a flaming sword, like that in the hands of the cherub (Gen 3:24), turning every way. Note, the holy angels are at war with those with whom God is angry, for they are the ministers of His justice. Balaam has notice given him of God’s displeasure--3. By the ass, and that did not startle him. “The ass saw the angel” (Num 22:23). How vainly did Balaam boast that he was a man whose eyes were open, and that he saw “the vision of the Almighty” (Num 24:3-4), when the ass he rode on saw more than he did, his eyes being blinded with covetousness and ambition, and dazzled with the rewards of divination! Note, many have God against them, and His holy angels, but are not aware of it.4. Balaam at length had notice of God’s displeasure by the angel, and that did startle him. When God opened his eyes he “saw the angel” (Num 22:31), and then he himself “fell flat upon his face,” in reverence of that glorious messenger, and in fear of the sword he saw in his hand. God has many ways of breaking and bringing down the hard and unhumbled heart.(1) The angel reproved him for his outrageousness: “Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass?” (Num 22:32-33). Whether we consider it or no, it is certain God will call us to account for the abuses done to His creatures. Note, when our eyes are opened we shall see what danger we are in, in a sinful way; and how much it was for our advantage to be crossed in it, and what fools we were to quarrel with our crosses which helped to save our lives.(2) Balaam then seemed to relent, “I have sinned” (Num 22:34); sinned in undertaking this journey, sinned in pushing on so violently; but he excuses it with this, that he saw not the angel, but now he did see him he was willing to go back again. That which was displeasing to God was not so much his going, as his going with a malicious design against Israel, and a secret hope, that notwithstanding the proviso with which his permission was clogged, he might prevail to curse them, and so gratify Balak, and get preferment under him. Now this wickedness of his heart it doth not appear that he is sensible of, or willing to own; but if he finds he cannot go forward, he will be content (since there is no remedy) to go back. Here is no sign that his heart is turned, but if his hands be tied he cannot help it. Thus many leave their sins, only because their sins have left them. There seems to be a reformation of the life, but what will that avail if there be no renovation of the heart?5. The angel, however, continued his permission, “Go with the men” (Num 22:35). Go, if thou hast a mind to be made a fool of, and to be made ashamed before Balak, and all the princes of Moab. “Go, but the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak,” whether thou wilt or no. For this seems not to be a precept, but a prediction of the event, that he should not only not be able to curse Israel, but he should be forced to bless them; which would be more for the glory of God, and his own confusion, than if he had turned back. Thus God gave him fair warning, but he would not take it; he went with the princes of Balak. For the iniquity of Balaam’s covetousness God was “wroth and smote him,” but he “went on frowardly” (Isa 57:17). (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Restraints from sinI. The forms of restraint from sin.1. They appear in external appliances. The revealed Word of God stands in the way as a hindrance to what is wrong, and a guide to good-will to man and obedience to the Lord, if only fairly consulted.2. In addresses to the understanding. The remembrance of some words of God, or the words of some man, overheard or directly spoken to you, may be the means of placing in light some dark feature of thought, or some evil action.3. In stirrings of conscience. These are graduated from an almost insuperable prohibition to the scarcely perceptible whisper of doubt.4. In excite-merits of the emotions. Each pang of remorse, and each thrill of fear, utter, in different forms, “Keep back from sin.”II. The characteristics of restraints from sin.1. They are frequent.2. They are progressive. If being turned aside will not induce a retreat, there will be a crushing of the foot.3. They are near, though oft unnoticed. (D. G. Watt, M. A.)God withstanding sinnersNo longer are there miracles performed to intimate to the ungodly man that it shall not fare well with him, and that he shall but eat the fruit of what he sowed. But heaven and earth, the dead and those who live, nature and grace, appear as if they now and then combined in earnest supplication to exclaim, “Stop, sinner, stop!” Who has not some time, like Balaam, come face to face with God, upon the path of sin, when He made known His terrors and His threatening? And what man dares affirm that there has been too little effort made to lead him from the broad way to the narrow path of life? Nay, more; Balaam’s brief experience is, in a certain sense, as nothing when compared with that long labour of love which God in Christ has most unweariedly bestowed upon us, that we might be saved. Nay, God has no delight in any sinner’s death, but spares when He could smite; nor does He ever suffer us to hold on in the way to death, without affording us a last, loud warning, that not seldom comes on us as if it were an angel’s sword piercing our very bones. Blessed, thrice blessed he who, with a more unfeigned humility than that of Balaam, can acknowledge, “I have sinned,” and who does not grow hard in sin, but lets himself be led. Soon shall he learn, with deep astonishment, that God’s good angels round encircle him in all his ways; and that far more is to be gained in serving Him than the disgraceful pittance offered by the Balak-hand of a vain world. But if, like Balaam, you still kick against the pricks, the time is drawing nigh when you, like him, shall be cast from the presence of the God of everlasting righteousness, and given over to that death which you so obstinately choose before the life now offered you. (J. J. Van Oosterzee, D. D.)Balaam’s vision1. In looking at this passage we must make every allowance for the difference between those times and ours. I do not know any valid reason why God in the accomplishment of His infinitely wise designs might not employ the means here described, and miraculously impart to the ass the organs of articulation, and a knowledge of their use.2. After the most close and candid attention, however, which I have been able to give to the subject, I am led to the conclusion that the occurrence here related was a dream, or vision, which took place on the night previous to his journey. He knew that he was doing wrong; for, although he had permission to go, yet it was not permitted him to do so with the wicked design which he cherished in his heart--that of cursing the people. On this account his guilty conscience tormented him, and, in his sleep, vividly presented to his mind the scene here recorded. At the end of Num 22:35 (after the scene is finished) the words, “So Balaam went with the princes of Balak,” seem to refer to his setting out on his journey.3. There is one objection which may be urged to this view. St. Peter says, “The dumb ass,” &c. To this it may be replied, that the occurrence, though happening only in a dream, appeared as real to the mind of the prophet as though it had actually taken place, and was designed to have all the force and effect of a real transaction.4. In favour of the hypothesis the reasons are, I think, numerous and satisfactory.(1) In the prophecies many accounts of visions are given which are not formally introduced as such (Isa 6:1-13.).(2) Balaam expressed no surprise at being addressed by the animal. In dreaming we feel no surprise at the most astonishing occurrences.(3) The narrative of this transaction appears to intimate that the prophet was nearly alone: “two servants were with him.” In his real journey, however, he was accompanied by the princes of Moab, who had, no doubt, a great number of attendants.(4) He had received permission to go, whereas, in this account, the angel appears angry with him for going in compliance with that permission. Strong presumptive proof that the workings of a guilty conscience wrought on his mind during sleep, and produced a vivid dream or vision.(5) In chap. 23 it is repeatedly said, “He hath said which heard the words of God, which saw the visions of the Almighty; falling into a trance, but having his eyes open.” May not this refer to the “vision,” or “trance,” or dream, of which we have been speaking? (J. P. Smith, LL. D.)Obstructive providencesI. The lessons it taught Balaam.1. It convinced him of spiritual blindness.2. It taught absolute submission to God.II. Lessons to us.1. We often go on wrong errands, or on right errands in a wrong spirit.2. God cheeks us in His providence and in love to our souls. Illness; raising up of insuperable difficulties; falling off of friends; superior success to rivals, &c.3. We are apt to fret and be angry at the instruments of our disappointment. We cast our spite and blame on second causes.4. We should seek spiritual enlightenment to see that it is God’s doing. Be not angry and resentful, but give yourselves to prayer; else, like Balaam, you will not see it is God who opposes you (Num 22:34).5. We can only be permitted to go forward when we are brought to a state of perfect subjection to God. Two things are here included--a perfect purity of motive and freedom from worldly self-seeking, and an entire acquiescence in whatever God appoints, desires, or does. (T. G. Horton.)Balaam stopped by an angel1. It lies quite within our experience that we do get our own way, and yet have a sense of burning and judgment, of opposition and anger all the time. Men forget that there is a time when they need not ask the Lord any questions. Never trouble the Lord to knew whether you cannot do just a little wrong; He is not to be called upon in relation to business of that kind. He does not pray who palters with moral distinctions, who wants to make compromises, who is anxious to find some little crevice or opening through which he can pass into the land of his own desire.2. Men are stopped in certain courses without being able to tell the reason why. That also is matter of experience. The wind seems to be a wall before us; the road looks quite open, and yet we can make no progress in it. The business stands still; we have risen at the same hour in the morning, carried out the usual arrangements, been apparently on the alert all the time, and yet not one inch farther are we permitted to go. Suppose we have no God, no altar, no Church limitations, no ghostly ministry exerting itself upon our life and frightening us with superstition and spectre--we are healthy reasoners, downright robust rationalists--men who can take things up and set them down, square-headed men--yet there is the fact, that even we, such able-bodied rationalists, such healthy souls that any society would insure us on the slightest inquiry--there we are, puzzled, mystified, perplexed, distracted.3. It also lies within the region of experience that men are rebuked by dumb animals. That is odd, but it is true. The whole Scripture is charged with that statement, and so charged with it as to amount to a practical philosophy in daily life: “But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee.” “The stork in heaven knoweth her appointed times.” “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” Dumb creatures are continually teaching us. They keep law with wondrous obedience. The poorest brutes are really very faithful to the rude legislation under which they live. In temperance, in acceptance of discipline, in docility, I know not any beast that is ever used by man that may not teach some men, very distinctly, helpful and useful lessons.4. Then, again, it does lie within our cognition that men do blame second causes for want of success. Balaam blamed the ass. That is what we are always doing. There is nothing exceptional in this conduct of the soothsayer. We want to get on--it is the beast that will not go. Who ever thought that an angel was confronting him--that a distinct ghostly purpose was against him?5. Does it not also lie within the range of our experience that men do want to get back sometimes but are driven forward? Did not Balaam want to return when he said, “If it displease Thee, I will get me back again”? We cannot. Life is not a little trick, measurable by such terms, h man cannot make a fool of himself, and instantly turn round as if nothing had happened; we cannot drive a nail into a tree and take it out without leaving a wound behind. Conduct is of greater consequence than we imagine. Humanity is a sublime mystery, as well as God; and there is no way backward, unless it be in consent with the Mind that constructed and that rules creation.6. But there is a difficulty about the dumb ass rebuking the perverse prophet. So there is. I would be dismayed by it if I were not overwhelmed by greater miracles still. This has come to be but a small thing--a very momentary wonder--as compared with more astounding circumstances. A. more wonderful thing than that an ass should speak is that a man should forget God. The miracles of a physical and historical kind may admit of postponement as to their consideration; but that men should have forgotten God, and insulted law, and done unrighteously--these are mysteries which must not be delayed in their explanation and settlement.7. So we come again and again to the great practical inquiry--Being on the wrong road, how shall we get back? There is no answer in man. If Balaam could have retraced his steps, put up his ass in the stable and gone about his business as if nothing had occurred, it would have been but a paper universe. That he could not do so, that he was under the pressure of mightier forces, indicates that the universe is itself a tragedy, and that the explanation of every character, every incident, and every flush of colour, must be left for another time, when the light is stronger and the duration is assured. Meanwhile, we can pray, we can look up, we can say, each for himself, “I have sinned.” (J. Parker, D. D.)Balaam’s assI. The historic character of the miracle here recorded.II. The miracle itself.III. The object of the miracle.1. It was calculated to humble him in relation to a gift of God upon which he probably prided himself. It is likely he was an eloquent man. He would now see that God could endow a brute with the gift of speech.2. He would also see that an ass could discern a messenger from heaven, where he, blinded by his desire for gain, could see nothing but empty space.3. He might also have learned that all speech was under Divine control, and that he would be able to utter only such words as God would permit. (W. Jones.)Obstacles to visionA revelation of the truth is not enough. There must be an inner sympathy with the truth. Light avails not where there are no eyes to see. Take a blind man into a tunnel, and you have a symbol of the natural man without a Divine revelation. There are two obstacles to vision; first, the darkness around him, and then his own blindness. Lead him forth under the open firmament of revealed truth. Still he does not see. You have done something towards his enlightenment, you have given him knowledge, doctrine, the form of truth. But that is not enough. He lacks spiritual understanding. The scales must fall from his eyes. The Divine Spirit alone can accomplish this. (J. Halsey.)The way of the perverseFor the man who neglects salvation there is no rescue. Everything will plead against him. The waters will say, “We told him of the living stream where he might wash all his sins away, but he would not come.” The rocks will say, “We told him of a shelter and defence to which he might run.” The sun will say, “We told him of the Dayspring from on high, but he shut his eyes.” The Bible will say, “I called him by a thousand invitations, and warned him with a thousand alarms.” The throne of judgment will say, “I have but two sentences--that to the friends of God, and that to His rejecters.” “Escape he must not,” Jesus will say. “I called on him for many years, but he turned his back on My tears and blued.” Then God will speak; and with a voice that shall ring through the heights and depths and lengths of His universe, say, “Escape he shall not.” May the Lord God avert such a catastrophe! (T. De Witt Talmage.)Balaam rebuked, but not checkedBalaam is doing what he knows he ought not to do; there is a great wrong in his heart sending up its protests to the brain. The man is at cross purposes, and vents his unrest and ill-feeling upon outward objects. How often it happens! One in ill-humour often curses the tools he is using--the dulness of a saw, the waywardness of a shuttle, the knife that wounds his hand; he beats his horse or dog; he scolds his children. Here we come nigh the very heart of the story. When, in some fit of ill-temper brought on by our own wrongdoing, we have beaten an animal, or spoken roughly to a child, and then have noticed the humble patience of the brute under our anger, or the meek undesert of the child reflected from its upturned eyes, there comes over us a sense of shame and an inward confession that the wrong is not in the brute or in the child, but in us. The beast or the child speaks back to us; its very bearing and looks become audible voices of rebuke. When a great man like Balaam gets involved in wrong-doing, all nature is changed to him, and from all things come rebuking voices. When Macbeth returns from the murder of the king, a simple knocking at the gate appals him and deepens the colour of his blood-stained hands; one sense runs into and does the office of another. To a harassed and guilty conscience the light comes with a condemnation; every true and orderly thing meets it with reproof--angels of God that confront it, but do not turn it from its fatal course. Balaam would have turned back, but he is told to go on. This is only another stage of the moral confusion into which he has fallen, lie would go back, but the spirit of sophistry again begins to work, and he goes forward, but he will speak only the true word-evil drawing him on, while he excuses it with the plea of right intentions--a daily history on every side! Why did Balaam not go back? He could not. When a man does wrong in a simple and impulsive way under the direct force of temptation, he can retrace his steps; but when he has found what seems to him a safe path to a coveted end, he seldom gives over. Many men with scrupulous consciences do not regret being yoked with partners who are less particular; and many men do, as a corporation, what not one of them would do as an individual. Balaam could not avail himself of these modern methods, and so made a partnership and corporation of his own divided nature; reaping speedily in himself the bitter consequences of such action that overtake the modern man slowly but no less surely. (T. T. Munger.)The talking ass, and what it taught BalaamThe real difficulty of the incident to those who feel a special difficulty in it consists, I suppose, in the alleged fact that the ass spoke, spoke in apparently human words and with a human voice. And this difficulty has, to say the least of it, been very neatly turned by many of our ablest critics and commentators, some of whom have as little love for miracles as the veriest sceptic. They say, Balaam, the soothsayer and diviner, was trained to observe and interpret the motions and cries of beasts and birds, and especially anything that was exceptional in them; to draw auguries and portents from them, to see in them the workings of a Divine power, to infer from them indications of the Divine will. Here was a portent indeed, and he must interpret it. And to him it seemed that the ass was striving and remonstrating with him; that, conscious of a presence of which he himself was unaware, it was seeking to save him from a doom which he was heedlessly provoking. And so, with the dramatic instinct of an Oriental poet, either Balaam himself or the original writer of the chronicle translated these subjective impressions into external facts, and made the ass “speak” the meaning which he read in its motions and groans. For myself, indeed, I care very little what interpretation may be placed on this singular passage in Balaam’s story, and would as soon believe that the mouth of the dumb ass was really opened to utter articulate human words as that Balaam’s sensitive and practised ear heard these words into his groans and cries. Put what construction on the talking ass you will; call it fact, call it fable, or say that Balaam read an ominous rebuke into the natural cries of the beast on which he rode--whatever the construction you put upon it, you will be little the wiser for it, little the better, unless you listen to the appeal, to the rebuke, which Balaam heard from the mouth of the ass or put into it. That lesson may be, and is, a very simple one; but its very simplicity at once makes it the more valuable, and renders it the more probable that, much as we need to learn it, we may have overlooked it. What, then, was this lesson or rebuke? The ass said, or Balaam took her to say, “Wherefore smite me? Have I not served you faithfully ever since I was thine? Am I wont to rebel against you?” How could Balaam fail to look for an ethical meaning in this appeal, or fail either to find it, or to find how heavy a rebuke it carried for himself? He too had a Master, a Master in heaven, and was loud and frequent in his protestations of loyalty to Him. Yet could he look up to heaven and say to his Master, “Why hast Thou checked and rebuked me? Have not I served Thee faithfully ever since I was Thine unto this day? Am I wont to disobey Thy word?” Why, at that very moment he was untrue, disloyal, to his Master; he was plotting how he might speak other words than those which God had put into his mouth, and serve his own will rather than the Divine will! Might he not, then, well hear in the rebuke of the ass some such appeal as this: “Have you been as true to your Master as I to mine? Have you been as mindful of the heavenly vision as I of the heavenly apparition which I have seen? Has your service been as faithful, as patient, as disinterested as mine?” The lesson is simple enough, I admit; but is it not also most necessary and valuable? He is convicted--1. Of having cruelly wronged the innocent creature who had saved him from the sword.2. Of having failed at his strongest point and lost the “open eye “ of which he was wont to boast; and--3. Of not being as true to his Master in heaven, despite his loud professions of loyalty and obedience, as she had been to her master on earth. If no rebuke could be more severe and humbling, none surely could have been more kind and merciful. For if men are not to be held back from evil by an angel, is it not well that they should be held back even by an ass? If the gentler strokes of correction fail, is it not well that they should be followed by severer and more effectual strokes? If appeals to our higher nature do not suffice to arrest us, is it not well that we should be arrested by appeals to our lower nature? (S. Cox, D. D.)Balaam’s ass, or cruelty rebukedHow many just and good men have been remarkable for their tenderness to animals! Tradition tells us of the partridge of St. John, the tame lion of St. Jerome; we find in St. Francis an enthusiastic love of birds; and to come to modern days, in the letters of Bishop Thirlwall, thought to be a man of giant intellect, we read that often he could not sleep at night, because he was haunted by some story of cruelty to animals which he had heard, whilst the writings of Sir Arthur Helps, the most charming essayist of our age, tells us that he would not live his life over again, if the chance was offered, for he had suffered so much from indignation and sympathy with the sufferings of animals. Often cruelty arises from thoughtlessness. Children do not reflect on what they are doing, and it is the duty of all persons to teach, in every way, humanity and kind feeling to the animals around us. A disposition which practises cruelty towards animals will not stop there, for it is only a training for the bad treatment of human beings. It was remarked of Domitian, the cruel Emperor of Rome, that he spent his leisure moments in killing flies. Who can doubt but that it was the horrible taste for wild beast fights that led to the still more horrible conflicts of gladiators in the Roman amphitheatres? And so, too, in Spain, the savage excitement of the populace in the bull fights led even religious men to witness unmoved the auto-da-es of the Inquisition. Ever should we recollect that these creatures belong to God, constructed by His wondrous skill, watched over by His gracious care, and not to be ill-treated or tormented without incurring His vengeance. A boy was once teasing a poor kitten. “Don’t!” said his little sister, “it is God’s kitten.” Her remark fell upon the ear of her father, a careless drunkard, as he was turning out of the door, and like an arrow from a bow there struck into his conscience the thought, “If this little creature belongs to God, how much more a soul like mine!” And the arrow of conviction lodged in his heart, and gave him no rest till he entered on a better life, as belonging to God. Let us, then, strive to make all God’s creatures around us as happy as we can, find in them loving friends and companions, and thank God for giving us the animals as our humble friends and loyal servants; ever remembering, as a forcible preacher has said, “There is no sin that will sink a soul so low in hell as cruelty to helpless creatures.” (J. W. Hardman, LL. D.)Sin perverseThat Balaam answered the ass when he heard her speak, and rather stood not amazed at the strange work of God, note earnestly with yourself what a strong possession covetousness had taken of his heart, so holding of him captive that he was not able to observe this strange thing, but blind and besotted with hope of worldly honour and gain, feedeth still upon that, and admitteth no stop nor stay of this journey by his good will. Such is the power of any sin if it once rule in a man or woman, it bereaveth them of all judgment to see their estate, or the love of them that persuade them otherwise. How blockish was Pharaoh till he was overthrown! How senseless the Jews till Jerusalem and they tasted of extremity! Swearers and swaggerers, drunkards and whoremongers, liars and libellers, railers and slanderers, with all the rest, are as blind and blockish as Balaam here, doting upon their own course tilt they smart for it, or the Lord open their eyes to see Him against them as at last here He did Balaam’s eyes to see the angel with drawn sword against him. When the ass saith, “Did I ever serve thee thus before?” it may admonish us not to be too rash with our neighbours and brethren, who have never been noted to be such offenders, but ever of good and virtuous behaviour. (Bp. Babington.)I have sinned.--Balaam’s “I have sinned”Balaam was a man who had frequent and extraordinary communications with God. Balaam was undoubtedly a man of great light; and his gifts were rare and transcendent. If you ask, “Were they from God or from the Evil One?” I do not know. I should say both. If God endowed him, certainly Satan occupied him: if Satan taught him, as certainly God used him. The light and the darkness were in tremendous nearness and antagonism in that one breast. The restraining power was very large; the determination of will was stronger still. He had very soft seasons: but they passed like April gleams! His convictions were real and deep; but they proved quite barren. His aspirations were beautiful and holy: “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” but his faith never grasped, and his life never followed, those high desires. He acknowledged fully the blessedness of the people of God: “God hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob”: “Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee”; but he never tried to be one of those happy ones. Israel’s future was clear and bright to him--in all its safety and its joy--but it was never more than a confession, which played before his fancy! He saw the Lord Jesus Himself--as in a vista--but ii was a Jesus seen, but not known; admired, but never felt. See, then, the exact position of Balaam. On his lips, “I have sinned”; probably in his heart a condemning sense that he was wrong; a conviction that he had made a great mistake; but his passions high wrought; a resolute will and purpose in direct antagonism to the known will of God; one sin, all the while, tightly grasped; and a worldly, covetous affection in the ascendant! This was Balaam, as he went out at Pethor that early morning, through the vineyards of the city. I need not follow him further. You remember how his gifts grew greater, and his prescience grew clearer, and his language grew lovelier, and his pretensions grew loftier--just in the same proportion as his determination grew sterner, and his desires more grovelling--till the sure end came at last, and he became carnal, his counsel was gross, his wisdom diabolical, and he laid, with his own hand, the scheme to his own destruction; and his unsanctified and debased talent was his own scourge, and his own ruin! Reduce the picture to the scale of ordinary life, and it is the life of many. A man of religious knowledge--very impulsive and feeling--a clever man, with strong inward conflict--conversant with God--with the language of piety on his lips--speaking, not without some reality, the words of true penitence, and yet, at the very same time, with a direct hostility to God--harbouring a secret, evil appetite in his heart--and bent only upon selfishness! Draw near, and say whether you see yourself anywhere in the portrait? There is an acknowledgment of sin, under sorrow, which often clothes itself in very strong expressions, even to tears, and which is little else than a passion. It is not altogether an hypocrisy. At the moment it is sincere, very earnest. But it is an emotion--only an emotion. There is no real love to God in it, no true sense of sin, no relation to Christ. It does not go on to action. I have known a person--whose wonder and regret was that his penitence never seemed to deepen or increase; yet he said, and said often, and said truly, “I have sinned.” The reason was, he never put the “I have sinned” upon the right thing. He said it about his sins generally, or he said it about some particular sin; but, all the while, there was another sin behind, about which he did not say it. The sin he willingly forgot--he connived at it--he allowed it I All the rest he was willing to give up, but not that. And that was his sin. And that sin reserved and in the background, poisoned and deadened the repentance of all other sins! The “I have sinned” fell to the ground impotent--like a withered blossom. That was Balaam--and that may be you! Or is it thus? You have an object in life very dear. You know that the object is not after God’s will, but still you pursue it. You recur to it again and again--after voices-after providences--which have all told you that it is wrong. But you will have your darling object at any cost--even though it forfeit peace of mind, and though you lose God’s favour. This, again, is Balaam. Can you wonder if the “I have sinned” goes for nothing at all, and if you are left to your own rash, reckless way? There is many a man who says, in his own room, very often, and at church, “I have sinned”; but throughout the week, every day, and all the day, he is grasping in his business, he is anxious in his home, he is occupied in his thoughts about money. It is money, money everywhere. Money gives its tone and colour to his whole life. That is Balaam to the very letter. (James Vaughan, M. A.)Numbers 22:36-41Balaam went with Balak.The meeting between Balak and BalaamWe have here the meeting between Balak and Balaam, confederate enemies to God’s Israel; but here they seem to differ in their expectations of the success.1. Balak speaks of it with confidence, not doubting but to gain his point now Balaam was come. In expectation of this he went out to meet him, even to the utmost border of his country (Num 22:36); partly to gratify his own impatient desire to see one he had such great expectations from, and partly to do honour to Balaam, and so to engage him with his utmost power to serve him. See what respect heathen princes paid to those that had but the name of prophets, and how welcome one was that came with his mouth full of curses. What a shame is it, then, that the ambassadors of Christ are so little respected by most, and that they are so coldly entertained who bring tidings of peace and blessing! Note, promotion to honour is a very tempting bait to many people; and it were well if we would be drawn into the service of God by the honour He sets before us. Why do we delay to come unto, Him? Is not He able to promote us to honour?2. Balaam speaks doubtfully of the issue, and bids Balak not depend too much upon him. “Have I now any power at all to say anything?” (Num 22:38). I am come, but what the nearer am I? Gladly would I curse Israel; but I must not, I cannot, God will not suffer me. He seems to speak with vexation at the hook in his nose, and the bridle in his jaws; such as Sennacherib was tied up with (Isa 37:29).3. They address themselves with all speed to the business; Balaam is nobly entertained overnight, a sacrifice of thanksgiving is offered to the gods of Moab for the safe arrival of this welcome guest, and he is treated with a feast upon the sacrifice (Num 22:40); and the next morning, that no time might be lost, Balak takes Balaam in his chariot to the high places of his kingdom, not only because their holiness (such as it was), he thought, might give some advantage to his divinations, but their height might give him a convenient prospect of the camp of Israel, which was to be the mark at which he must shoot his envenomed arrows. And now Balaam is really as solicitous to please Balak as ever he pretended to be to please God. See what need we have to pray every day, “Our Father in heaven, lead us not into temptation.” (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 23Numbers 23:1-4Balak and Balaam offered on every altar.The sacrifice of Balak and BalaamI. Objectively this sacrifice was as perfect as the offerers could make it. Clearly they aimed at presenting a perfect offering. This is exhibited--1. In the number of offerings. Seven was regarded as a sacred and perfect number.2. In the victims offered. The most valuable that were used for sacrifices.3. In the kind of offerings. They were burnt-offerings, which were presented without any reserve, being entirely consumed in honour of the Divine Being.II. Subjectively this sacrifice was very imperfect, and even sinful. In the sentiments and motives of the offerers there was much that was erroneous and evil.1. The sacrifice was offered with an admixture of faith and superstition.2. The sacrifice was offered under the impression that the offering was meritorious on the part of the offerers, and placed God under an obligation to them.3. The sacrifice was offered as a means to induce God to change His mind.4. The sacrifice was offered with a view of obtaining permission and power to curse the people of God.Learn:1. That the true value of sacrifice is to be looked for not in the quantity or quality of the offering, but in the spirit of the offerer.2. Trusting in Christ Jesus for acceptance, let us present ourselves to God. “God must be worshipped with our best. A man’s best is himself; and to sacrifice this is the true sacrifice.”3. He who has truly given himself to God will keep back nothing from Him. (W. Jones.)Numbers 23:5-12How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed?Balaam’s first parable; or, the blessedness of the people of GodBalaam’s declaration of the happiness of Israel sets forth the blessedness of the people of God.I. It is placed beyond the power of their enemies.II. It consists in their separation from the ungodly. In three respects were the Israelites separated from other nations.1. Politically they were independent of them.2. Morally they were separated from them.3. By the possession of peculiar privileges they were separated from them.III. It consists also is their vast numbers.1. Unlimited as regards time.2. Unlimited as regards place.3. Unlimited as regards race or class.IV. It consists also in righteousness of character.V. It is in some respects desired even by the ungodly. (W. Jones.)Balaam’s eulogy on Israel1. He pronounceth them safe, and out of the reach of his envenomed darts.(1) He owns the design was to curse them (verse7).(2) He owns the design defeated, and his own inability to accomplish it. He could not so much as give them an ill word or an ill wish (Num 23:8).(a) The weakness and impotency of his magic skill, for which others valued him so much, and doubtless he valued himself no less. He was the most celebrated man of that profession, and yet owns himself baffled. God had warned the Israelites not to use divination (Lev 19:31), and this providence gave them a reason for that law by showing them the weakness and folly of it. As they had seen the magicians of Egypt befooled, so here the great conjuror of the East (Isa 47:12-14).(b) It is a confession of the sovereignty and dominion of the Divine power. He owns that he could do no more than God would suffer him to do; for God could overrule all his purposes and turn his counsels headlong.(c) It is a confession of the inviolable security of the people of God.Note--1. God’s Israel are owned and blessed of Him. He has not cursed them, for they are delivered from the curse of the law; He has not abandoned them, though mean and vile.2. Those that have the good-will of heaven have the ill-will of hell; the serpent and his seed have an enmity to them.3. Though the enemies of God’s people may prevail far against them, yet they cannot curse them: that is, they cannot do them any real mischief, much less a ruining mischief, for they cannot separate them from the love of God (Rom 8:39).2. He pronounceth them happy--in three things.(1) Happy in their peculiarity, and distinction from the rest of the nations (Num 23:9). It is the duty and honour of those that are dedicated to God to be separated from the world, and not to walk according to the course of it. Those who make conscience of peculiar duties may take the comfort of peculiar privileges, which it is likely Balaam has an eye to here; God’s Israel shall not stand upon a level with other nations, but be dignified above them all, as a people near to God and set apart for Him.(2) Happy in their numbers; not so few and despicable as they were represented to Him, but an innumerable company which made them both honourable and formidable (Num 23:10). Balak would have him see the utmost part of the people (Num 22:41), hoping the more he saw of them the more would he be exasperated against them, and throw out his curses with the more keenness and rage; but it proved quite contrary; instead of being angry at their numbers he admired them. The better we are acquainted with God’s people the better opinion we have of them. He takes notice of the number--(a) Of the dust of Jacob, i.e., the people of Jacob, concerning whom it was foretold that they should be as the dust for number (Gen 28:14). Thus he owns the fulfilling of the promise made to the fathers, and expects that it should be yet further accomplished.(b) Of the fourth part of Israel; alluding to the form of their camp which was cast into four squadrons under four standards. Note, God’s Israel is a very great body; His spiritual Israel is so, and they will appear to be so, when they shall all be gathered together unto Him in the great day (Rev 7:9).(3) Happy in their last end. Let me die the death of the righteous Israelites, that are in covenant with God, and let my last end, or future state, be like theirs, or my recompense, viz., in the other world. Here--(a) It is taken for granted that death is the end of all men; the righteous themselves must die; and it is good for each of us to think of this with application, as Balaam himself doth here, speaking of his own death.(b) He goes upon the supposition of the soul’s immortality, and a different state on the other side death, to which this is a noble testimony, and an evidence of its being anciently known and believed. For how could the death of the righteous be more desirable than the death of the wicked upon any other account, but that of a happiness in another world, since in the manner and circumstances of dying we see all things come alike to all?(c) He pronounceth the righteous truly blessed, not only while they live, but when they die; which makes their death not only more desirable than the death of others, but even more desirable than life itself; for in that sense his wish may be taken. Not only when I do die, let me die the death of the righteous; but I could even now be willing to die, on that condition that I might die the death of the righteous and take my end this moment provided it might be like his. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The distinctive character of God’s peopleI. The twofold question proposed.1. “How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed?” This supposes that God had blessed Israel. To be blessed of the Lord is all that a man can desire. But who are they that are blessed of God?(1) They on whom God has set His love; not for anything in them to merit that love.(2) When that solemn engagement was entered into, the Book of Eternal Life was written, and the names of those ordained to it written therein.2. “How shall I defy, whom the Lord hath not defied?” The idea refers to warfare (1Sa 17:45). God’s spiritual Israel, whose names are in the Book of Life, are they whom God hath not defied, that is, He hath made them more than conquerors through Him that loved them. And, in order to see this, we must look upon them as being in Christ, their Covenant Head, from all eternity. So that, just as He came off more than conqueror over all His spiritual foes, so shall they.II. Notice how conspicuous Israel is in the eyes of God.1. “For from the top of the rocks I see him.” We may regard God as saying this of His people, chosen in Christ.(1) There is the rock of the everlasting covenant. He sees them not as sinful. He sees not perverseness in them, but He sees them accepted in the Beloved, and made complete in Him.(2) There is the rock of sovereign grace.(3) There is the rock of God’s faithfulness.2. From the hills I behold him.(1) God’s eternity.(2) God’s uuchangeableness.III. The distinctiveness of Israel from the world. “Lo, the people shall dwell alone,” &c. God’s regenerated blood-bought people, as a spiritual fact, live alone. True, they are in the world, perform its duties, and are reckoned among the nations, but they are not of the world (Joh 15:19). As soon as God calls them in His grace, puts His Spirit in them, and makes them new creatures in Christ Jesus, from that time they may be said to live alone. For, let a regenerated person live in the same house in which are a number of unregenerate persons, his own relatives, he lives alone, for he has desires and feelings and spiritual sympathies different from theirs. His dwelling-place is on high; he walks with God in the light of the living; the Spirit of God draws his affections upwards, so that he may be said to live alone, so far as outward society goes. Yet he is not alone, for he has the presence of God with him. (J. J. Eastmead.)The people shall dwell alone.--Israel dwelling aloneI. The exact fulfilment of this ancient prediction, in every different age constitutes one of the most astonishing features of Jewish history.1. Travellers have related that the deep red waters of the Rhone, flowing into the Lake of Geneva, may afterwards be traced for miles and miles; the dark, turbid stream of the river still refusing to mingle with the clear waters of the lake. And thus it is, and ever has been, with the Jews. Like that river they have in every age continued a distinct people, and this too amidst circumstances which, it might have been thought, must have inevitably broken down every middle wall of partition between them and others.2. And there is yet another consideration. It is without a parallel in the history of the world. In every case where even the most discordant elements have been thrown together, they have imperceptibly blended in the course of ages.II. Some of the improving reflections which it may be intended that we should derive from the prophecy.1. There is a national use to be made of this prediction of Balaam. What is literally true of Israel is spiritually true of England. We, as a people, may be said to be “dwelling alone.” In regard to our mercies, our privileges, and our blessings, how much have we received above all other people under heaven! No slavery tolerated amongst us--law for the poorest--protection for the weakest, and the homes of England bright and happy--such as are found nowhere else. And above all the rest, the greatness of our religious privileges.2. But, from the national, let us turn to the individual application of the prophecy. Let us admonish you that there is an important sense in which every Christian must “dwell alone.” You cannot follow Christ and yet be like other men. (H. Hutton, M. A.)The true Israel dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nationsThis text is a prophecy, and hath more steps towards its accomplishment than one. The prosperity and distinction of a far more illustrious family than the house of Israel are intended here: While, therefore, the literal Israel are the type, the prophecy is to be applied to the saints of God in every age as the antitype.I. Specify some circumstances in the history of Israel, strongly typical of the people of God in all ages. In this view, the history of Israel becomes an instructive emblem of the original state, deliverance, pilgrimage, and happy rest of the ransomed of the Lord.II. Specify some of the peculiarities which distinguish them from the rest of the world. My text represents them as a distinct incorporated society. They are a people--a people dwelling--a people dwelling alone--and a people who shall not be reckoned among the nations. They are a distinct people, as to their extraction, as to their language, as to their privileges, as to their objects of pursuit, as to their manners, as to their allies, as to their sorrows, and as to their joys.III. Point out whence it is that the redeemed of the Lord are such a singular people. “They shall not be reckoned among the nations.” Literally has this prediction been accomplished in the history of the posterity of Jacob. Understanding the prediction in relation to God’s redeemed people, I have these four particulars to adduce, in accounting for this singularity. They are not reckoned among the nations.1. Because they were ordained to this distinction in the electing purpose.2. Because they were consecrated to this singularity by the blood of the Surety.3. Because they are disposed by the grace of God to choose this distinction for themselves.4. Because natural men possess no inclination to submit to their restrictions. Upon a review of all that has been said do not you perceive--(1) That regeneration, or the new birth, produces an immense change at once upon the nature, the state, the temper, and manners of men? They keep themselves “unspotted from the world,” by “walking in the fear of the Lord.”(2) See the reality, as well as importance, of the distinction between the Church and the world. (W. Taylor.)An appeal in behalf of the Society for Promoting Christianity among the JewsHow awful is the contrast in this history between the mind of God and the designs and wishes of man! And I am disposed to think that such a reference will lead us to the conclusion that the conduct of men in all ages has borne a resemblance to that of the king of Moab in this particular instance; and that the people whom God has especially distinguished and blessed has been singularly the object of the contempt or cruelty of man.I. In the first place, we are to examine the contrast in different ages between the designs of God and the conduct of man towards the people of Israel.1. And here it is scarcely necessary to observe that the persecution of the Jews on their journey to the promised land was not confined to the instance recorded in the text. The Egyptian persecution, for instance, has scarcely any parallel in history.2. But let us pass on to another period. It pleased God, in a most singular manner, to stir up the mind of Cyrus to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem. But no sooner was the merciful design developed, than the hostility of man discovered itself. The books in which the history of the rebuilding of the temple is recorded, describe a succession of the most criminal plots to resist its progress.3. Thus, also, at a third period. No epoch is more distinguished by the merciful designs of God in favour of the Jews than the time of our Lord’s appearance upon earth. One of the highest evidences of the favour of God, is the gift or increase of the means of religious instruction. Consider, then, the peculiar privileges of the Jews at the coming of Christ. But how were they regarded by the inhabitants of the world? They were neglected, and they were oppressed. They were enslaved by the Romans, and every species of indignity was inflicted upon them.4. But let us now come to a fourth period, viz., to our own days. And here it is necessary to observe that, notwithstanding the continued unbelief of the Jews, the merciful intentions of God towards His prostrate people are as obvious now as at any other period of their history. They are indeed fallen, but is the patience of God therefore towards them exhausted--has He no mercies in store for them--does He mean to leave them in the dust? Such is the design of God with regard to the people of Israel, which is revealed to ourselves. And now let us contrast it with the conduct of mankind. Consider, then, the contempt in which the Jews are almost universally held. Is not the word Jew a name almost of execration among many? But can such a feeling be made to harmonise with the designs of God? Can the voice of insult have any concord with the lofty and triumphant songs and triumphs of prophecy?II. I proceed to examine some of the reasons by which this opposition to the will of God is justified.1. Some persons attempt to vindicate their neglect of the Jews by a reference to the crimes of this people in the earlier stage of their history. But then, are we to be the administrators of Divine vengeance? Are we, by a sort of posthumous retribution, to visit the crimes of other ages upon the people of this?2. A second reason for this neglect of the Jews is founded upon the defects of their present character. Can a people such as these merit any public regard? Are they not stamped with all the features most offensive to God and to good men? These also are facts not to be disputed. Their rejection of Christ has brought with it a train of the most tremendous curses: His “blood” has been and is “upon them and upon their children.” Their moral defects spring from their religious defects. They want honesty, because they are ignorant of Christ. They want purity, because they have never been led to the fountain which “cleanseth from all sin.” Give them, under God, a knowledge of their Saviour, and you shall see the graces of Christianity bursting upon the barren soil, the water rushing from the rock, and the wilderness blossoming like the rose.3. Again, a third class of objectors say, “Why not leave the Jews as you find them? It is inhuman to disturb their repose, and introduce faction among them.” To this I answer, If the conduct of the friends of this society is intolerant, it is the intolerance of Heaven: it is the intolerance of the “good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep.”4. A fourth class of objectors have said, “You take upon yourselves to be, not only the interpreters, but the agents and executors of prophecy. Because God has predicted that the Jews are to be restored, you assume that He means you to be the administrators of His plans.”--We answer, no; we are not following the voice of prophecy, which may apply to others as well as to ourselves: we are obeying the command of God, which must apply to ourselves in common with all Christians.5. Again, it has been said by some, “We discover no particular encouragement to undertake the conversion of the Jews at the present moment, either in the circumstances of our own country, or in those of the world in general.” To this I reply, that I do discover such encouragement. I discover it in the dislocation of the Mahometan power, which has always been the grand political barrier to Jewish restoration. I discover it in the fact that many of the Jews themselves entertain the same opinion. I discover it in the remarkable circumstance, which appears to be well authenticated, of many Jews having manifested of late a singular disposition to migrate to their own land. I hear again the voice of Him, who condescended to spring from a Jewish mother, and to dwell upon its favoured soil, calling upon us to teach all nations, “beginning at Jerusalem.” “The age of chivalry is gone.” And God be praised that it is, if by that term is designated the unnatural combinations of pious zeal and fiery ambition, by which the Crusaders were characterised. But, thank God, the age of Christian zeal is not gone. And to that zeal I would now present an adequate, a sublime, a most interesting object. It is before men inflamed by this holy ambition I would lift up the banner of the Cross. Oh, remember that even now “the gates of the daughter of Zion lament and mourn, and that she, being desolate, sits on the ground.” (J. W. Cunningham, M. A.)Balaam’s vision and prayerI. His splendid vision.1. He saw the pleasant tent-life of the people. Reposing peacefully on the strong arm of the Lord. Every truly good man’s life is an illustration.2. He saw the shadow of Israel’s impending victory.3. He saw Israel’s most savage foe, Balak, chained to his lair.II. His beautiful prayer.1. He believed in death, aye, in two sorts of death; he puts the death of the righteous over against the death of the wicked, though he makes no mention of the latter.2. He believed that the death of the righteous was always desirable. (W. V. Young.)The vision from the rocksSo from these desert lands, and these desert hills, we gaze upon the Church on her way to Canaan, about to be settled in the blessed land and holy city. And when we gaze, what do we see?I. The ruggedness of the land of our present sojourn. It is the region of hostility as well as barrenness. This is not our rest. These dark mountains are not our home.II. The glorious land. Afar off just now, but still visible, still beautiful. It is the paradise of God; it is the new Jerusalem; the city which hath foundations; the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.III. A people delivered from a present evil world. Once in bondage, now free; once groaning under oppression, now in the service of a heavenly Master, and heirs of the world to come; the Red Sea crossed, and now between them and their persecutors an iron wall. Forgiven and redeemed; with their backs on Egypt, and their faces to Jerusalem.IV. A people sustained by Jehovah Himself. Theirs is the hidden manna, the water from the smitten rock. Jehovah feeds them; Jehovah gives them the living water. It is not man but God who cares for them.V. A pilgrim band. They are strangers on the earth; this is not their home; here is not their city. Their loins are girt, and their staff is in their hand, and they are hastening onward. No sitting down; no taking ease; no folding of their hands. Forward, still forward, is their watchword!VI. A people bought with a price. Their ransom has been blood; and they are not their own. Another life has gone for theirs.VII. A people loved with an infinite love. The banner that is over them is love. The song they sing is love, “Unto Him that loved us.” It is a love which passeth knowledge; a love without bound or end; a love eternal and Divine.VIII. A people preparing to pass over to the goodly land. (H. Bonar, D. D.)Numbers 23:10Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his! The end of the righteous desiredCarlyle, in his “History of the French Revolution,” tells us of a Duke of Orleans who did not believe in death; so that when his secretary stumbled on the words, “The late King of Spain,” he angrily demanded what he meant by it.The obsequious attendant replied, “My Lord, it is a title which some of the kings of Spain have taken.” We know that all our paths, wind as they may, will lead to the grave. A certain king of France believed in death, but forbade that it should ever be mentioned in his presence. “And if,” said he, “I at any time look pale, no courtier must dare, on pain of my displeasure, to mention it in my presence”; thus imitating the foolish ostrich, which, when pursued by the hunter, and utterly unable to escape, is said to hide its head in the sand, fancying that it is secure from the enemy which it cannot see. I trust that, being sane men, you desire to look in the face the whole of your future history, both in the present world and in worlds beyond the region of sight; and, foreseeing that soul and body must part in the article of death, you are desirous to consider that event, that you may he prepared for it.I. Balaam’s wish concerning death. He anxiously desired that he might die such a death as the righteous die.1. Truly we commend his choice, for, in the first place, it must, at the least, be as well with the righteous man when he comes to die, as with any other man. By the righteous man we mean the man who has believed in Jesus,-and so has been covered with Christ’s righteousness, and moreover, has by the power of the Holy Spirit received a new heart, so that his actions are righteous both towards God and man. A certain carping infidel, after having argued with a poor countryman who knew the faith, but who knew little else, said to him, “Well, Hodge, you really are so stupid that there is no use arguing with you. I cannot get you out of this absurd religion of yours.” “Ah! well,” said Hodge, “I dare say I am stupid, master, but do you know we poor people like to have two strings to our bow?” “Well,” said the critic, “what do you mean by that?” “Master, I’ll show you. Suppose it should all turn out as you say; suppose there is no God, and there is no hereafter, don’t you see I am as well off as you are? Certainly, it will not be any worse for me than it will be for you, if we both of us get annihilated. But don’t you see if it should happen to be true as I believe, what will become of you?”2. There is this to be said for the righteous man: he goes to the death chamber with a quiet; conscience. It has been clearly ascertained that in the event of death, the mind is frequently quickened to a high degree of activity, so that it thinks more perhaps in the course of five minutes than it could have done in the course of years at other times. Persons who have been rescued from drowning, have said that they imagined themselves to have been weeks in the water, for the thoughts, the many views and visions, the long and detailed retrospect seemed to them to have required weeks, and yet the whole transpired in a few seconds. Frequently towards the last the soul travels at express speed, traversing its past life as though it rode upon the lightning. Ah! then how blessed is that man who, looking back upon the past, can see many things of which conscience can approve!3. Again, the righteous man, when he dies, does not lose his all. With every other man the sound of “earth to earth, dust to dust, and ashes to ashes,” is the end of present seeming wealth and the beginning of eternal and real want. But the Christian is not made a bankrupt by the grave; death to him is gain. “Go,” said the dying Saracen hero, Saladin, “take this winding sheet, and as soon as I expire, bear it on a lance through all the streets, and let the herald cry as he holds aloft the ensign of death, ‘This is all that is left of Saladin, the conqueror of the East.’“ He need not have so said if he had been a Christian, for the believer’s heritage is not rent from him, but opened up to him by the rough hand of death. The world to come and all its infinite riches and blessedness are ours in the moment of departure.4. “Let me die the death of the righteous” may well be our wish, because he dies with a good hope. Peering into eternity, with eyes marvellously strengthened, the believer frequently beholds, even while he is yet below, something of the glory which is to be revealed in him.5. Moreover, the believer dies in the arms of a friend. I do not say in the arms of a mortal friend, for it has fallen to the lot of some Christians to be burnt at the stake; and some of them have rotted to death in dungeons; but yet every believer dies in the arms of the best of friends. Precious is communion with the Son of God, and never more so than when it is enjoyed upon the verge of heaven.6. Lastly, when the good man dies, he dies with honour. Who cares for the death of the wicked? A few mourning friends lament for a little time, but they almost feel it a relief within a day or two that such a one is gone. As for the righteous, when he dieth there is weeping and mourning for him. Like Stephen, devout men carry him to the sepulchre, and make great lamentation over him.II. Balaam spoke concerning the godly man, of his last end. I do not know that this wicked prophet, whose eyes were once opened, knew anything about this latter end, as I shall interpret it; but you and I do know, and so let us use his words, if not his thoughts. God has endowed us with a spiritual nature which shall Outlive the sun, and run on coeval with eternity. Like the years of God’s right hand, like the days of the Most High, has God ordained the life of souls to be. Now, I can well believe that the most of us wish that our position after death may be like that of the righteous.1. The first consideration in death is that the spirit is disembodied. I should desire to be like a Christian in the disembodied state, because he will not be altogether in a new and strange world. Some of you have never exercised your spirits at all about the spirit-world. You have talked with thousands of people in bodies, but you have never spoken with spiritual beings; to you the realm of spirit is all unknown; but let me tell you, Christians are in the daily habit of communing with the spirit-world, by which I mean that their souls converse with God; their spirits are affected by the Holy Spirit; they have fellowship with angels, who are ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that are the heirs of salvation.2. After the judgment is pronounced, the disembodied spirit dwells in heaven. Some of you could not be happy if you were allowed to enter that heaven. Shall I tell you why? It is a land of spirit, and you have neglected your spirit. There is a story told of a young woman who dreamed that she was in heaven unconverted, and thought she saw upon the pavement of transparent gold, multitudes of spirits dancing to the sweetest music. She stood still, unhappy, silent, and when the King said to her, “Why do you not partake in the joy?” she answered, “I cannot join in the dance, for I do not know the measure; I cannot join in the song, for I do not know the tune”; then said He in a voice of thunder, “What dost thou here?” And she thought herself cast out for ever. If you do not learn heaven’s language on earth you cannot learn it in the world to come. If you are not holy you cannot be with holy saints.3. After awhile our bodies will be raised again; the soul will re-enter the body; for Christ has not only bought the souls of His people, but their bodies too. “Awake, ye dead! awake! and come to judgment! come away!” Then up will start the bodies of the wicked. I know not in what shapes of dread they will arise, nor how they will appear. But this I know, that when the righteous shall rise they will be glorious like the Lord Jesus; they shall have all the loveliness which heaven itself can give them.III. We have to make a practical use of the whole. Behold the vanity of mere desires. Balaam desired to die the death of the righteous, and yet was slain in battle fighting against those righteous men whom he envied. There is an old proverb which says, “Wishers and woulders make bad housekeepers”; and another which declares, “Wishing never filled a sack.” Mere desiring to die the death of the righteous, though it may be natural, will be exceedingly unprofitable. Stop not there. Have you never heard the old classic story of those ancient Gauls who, having once drunk the sweet wines of Italy, constantly, as they smacked their lips, said one to another, “Where is Italy?” And when their leaders pointed to the gigantic Alps crowned with snow, they said, “Cannot we cross them?” Every time they tasted the wine the question was put, “Where is Italy? and cannot we reach it? This was good plain sense. So they put on their war-harness, and marched to old Rome to fight for the wines of Italy. So every time you hear of heaven, I should like you, with Gothic ardour, to say, “Where? is it? for I fain would go.” And happy should I be if men here would put on the harness of the Christian, and say, “Through floods and flames for such a conquest, to drink of such wines well refined, we would fain go to the battle that we may win the victory.” Oh, the folly of those who, knowing and desiring this, yet spend their strength for nought! The Roman Emperor fitted out a great expedition and sent it to conquer Britain. The valiant legionaries leaped ashore, and each man gathered a handful of shells, and went back to his barque again--that was all. Some of you are equally foolish. You are fitted by God for great endeavours and lofty enterprises, and you are gathering shells: your gold and your silver, your houses and your lands, and heaven and everlasting life you let go. Like Nero, you send to Alexandria for sand for your amusements, and send not for wheat for your starving souls. “Well,” cries one, “how is heaven to be had?” It is to be had only by a personal seeking after it. I have read of one who, when drowning, saw the rainbow in the heavens. Picture him as he sinks; he looks up, and there, if he sees the many-coloured bow, he may think to himself, “There is God’s covenant sign that the world shall never be drowned, and yet here I am drowning in this river.” So it is with you. There is the arch of God’s promise over you, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” and yet, because you believe not in Him, you will be drowned in your sins. (C. H. Spurgeon.)BalaamI. The man.II. The circumstances.III. The wish.1. Natural.2. Insincere.3. Inconsistent.Lessons:1. A good wish alone will never save the soul.2. Even knowledge of the consequences of sin will not restrain a wicked man.3. As wishes, knowledge, and human strength are insufficient, seek for Divine grace. (Preacher’s Analyst.)The death of the righteousI. Righteous men die.II. Bad men would die like them1. The death of the righteous is a desirable death. No moral remorse, no terrible forebodings. Peaceful conscience. Glorious hope.2. This desirable death is only gained by a righteous life. (Homilist.)The end attained by effortNo results are attained without the diligent application of means, and no end is reached without persistent effort.1. With respect to earthly things this proposition needs no argument. There is nothing valuable attained without labour and patience. Is knowledge? Is wealth? Is fame? Is influence? Is dignity?2. It is well to know, then, that the spiritual kingdom is not under one law and the material under another. God’s laws traverse the whole of His creation.3. Learn here--(1) That supine waiting for righteousness to be conveyed to us from without is supreme foolishness. Ask, knock, seek!(2) That the spirit of work must be infused into our Christianity.(3) That we shall reap what we sow; and in proportion to our diligence in sowing. (Preacher’s Monthly.)The prayer of BalaamI. That no man ought to expect, or hope, to die the death of the righteous, who will not lead the life of the righteous. If a thorn-bush could bring forth grapes, or a thistle figs, we should not know what was coming next: certainty, as to causes and effects, would be at an end, and our ideas would be but chaos. So likewise if a bad life could lead to a good death, or if he who would none of the holy beginnings of the righteous could come at last to an end like his, all our moral ideas would be upset, and confusion worse confounded would ensue as to our duties, the consequences of human acts, and the relation of cause to effect in the spiritual sphere. The sight of the unity and harmony of God’s laws in nature leads to faith in the truth and equity of His dealings with men as moral and responsible beings; and no clear mind can help seeing the force of the analogy. Nor can this argument be shaken by any theory about the efficacy of what are commonly known as death-bed repentances. Who knows anything about the worth of such changes? Are they really changes?II. Wishes, however earnest, do not of necessity bring with them the thing wished for. Why should the wish for eternal good have a power which no wish for temporal good possesses? If the mere wishing for what you want in this life does not give the thing wished for, how can you have, for a mere wish, the glories and rewards of the life to come? (Morgan Dix, D. D.)The happiest end of life1. The righteous life insures the happiest end--a happy future for the soul.2. To end well our life is a noble ambition.3. Let us cultivate this desire, for it will fashion our lives, if it be a strong and constant motive. (Hom. Monthly.)Upon the character of BalaamThese words, taken alone, and without respect to him who spoke them, lead our thoughts immediately to the different ends of good and bad men. It is necessary particularly to observe what Balaam understood by righteous. And he himself is introduced in the Book of Micah explaining it; if by righteous is meant good, as to be sure it is. “O my people, remember now what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him from Shittim unto Gilgal.” From the mention of Shittim it is manifest that it is this very story which is here referred to, though another part of it, the account of which is not now extant, as there are many quotations in Scripture out of books which are not come down to us. “Remember what Balaam answered, that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord,” i.e., the righteousness which God will accept. Balak demands, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression; the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Balaam answers them, “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good: and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” Here is a good man expressly characterised, as distinct from a dishonest and superstitious man. No words can more strongly exclude dishonesty and falseness of heart than “doing justice” and “loving mercy”; and both these, as well as “walking humbly with God,” are put in opposition to those ceremonial methods of recommendation which Balak hoped might have served the turn. From hence appears what he meant by the righteous whose death he desires to die. The object we have now before us is the most astonishing in the world: a very wicked man, under a deep sense of God and religion, persisting still in his wickedness, and preferring the wages of unrighteousness, even when he had before him a lively view of death, and that approaching period of his days which should deprive him of all those advantages for which he was prostituting himself; and likewise a prospect, whether certain or uncertain, of a future state of retribution: all this joined with an explicit ardent wish that, when he was to leave this world, he might be in the condition of a righteous man. What inconsistency, what perplexity is here! With what different views of things, with what contradictory principles of action, must such a mind be torn and distracted! And yet, strange as it may appear, it is not altogether an uncommon one: nay, with some small alterations, and put a little lower, it is applicable to a very considerable part of the world. For if the reasonable choice be seen and acknowledged, and yet men make the unreasonable one, is not this the same contradiction, that very inconsistency which appeared so unaccountable? To give some little opening to such characters and behaviour, it is to be observed in general that there is no account to be given in the way of reason of men’s so strong attachments to the present world: our hopes and fears and pursuits are in degrees beyond all proportion to the known value of the things they respect. This may be said without taking into consideration religion and a future state; and when these are considered, the disproportion is infinitely heightened. Now, when men go against their reason, and contradict a more important interest at a distance for one nearer, though of less consideration, if this be the whole of the case, all that can be said is that strong passions, some kind of brute force within, prevails over the principle of rationality. However, if this be with a clear, full, and distinct view of the truth of things, then it is doing the utmost violence to themselves, acting in the most palpable contradiction to their very nature. But if there be any such thing in mankind as putting halfdeceits upon themselves, which there plainly is, either by avoiding reflection, or (if they do reflect) by religious eqivocation, subterfuges, and palliating matters to themselves, by these means conscience may be laid asleep, and they may go on in a course of wickedness with less disturbance. All the various turns, doubles, and intricacies in a dishonest heart cannot be unfolded or laid open; but that there is somewhat of that kind is manifest, be it to be called self-deceit or by any other name. To bring these observations home to ourselves: it is too evident that many persons allow themselves in very unjustifiable courses, who yet make great pretences to religion, not to deceive the world--none can be so weak as to think this will pass in our age--but from principles, hopes, and fears respecting God and a future state, and go on thus with a sort of tranquillity and quiet of mind. This cannot be upon a thorough consideration and full resolution that the pleasures and advantages they propose are to be pursued at all hazards, against reason, against the law of God, and though everlasting destruction is to be the consequence. This would be doing too great violence upon themselves. No, they are for making a composition with the Almighty. These of His commands they will obey; but as to others, why, they will make all the atonements in their power--the ambitious, the covetous, the dissolute man, each in a way which shall not contradict his respective pursuit. Besides these, there are also persons who, from a more just way of considering things, see the infinite absurdity of this, of substituting sacrifice instead of obedience; there are persons far enough from superstition, and not without some real sense of God and religion upon their minds, who yet are guilty of most unjustifiable practices, and go on with great coolness and command over themselves. The same dishonesty and unsoundness of heart discovers itself in these another way. In all common ordinary cases we see intuitively at first view what is our duty, what is the honest part. This is the ground of the observation that the first thought is often the best. In these cases doubt and deliberation is itself dishonesty, as it was in Balaam upon the second message. That which is called considering what is our duty in a particular case is very often nothing but endeavouring to explain it away. Thus those courses which, if men would fairly attend to the dictates of their own consciences, they would see to be corruption, excess, oppression, uncharitableness; these are refined upon--things were so and so circumstantiated--great difficulties are raised about fixing bounds and degrees, and thus every moral obligation whatever may be evaded. That great numbers are in this way of deceiving themselves is certain. There is scarce a man in the world who has entirely got over all regards, hopes, and fears concerning God and a future state; and these apprehensions in the generality, bad as we are, prevail in considerable degrees: yet men will and can be wicked, with calmness and thought; we see they are. There must therefore be some method of making it sit a little easy upon their minds, which in the superstitious is those indulgences and atonements before mentioned, and this self-deceit of another kind in persons of another character. And both these proceed from a certain unfairness of mind, a peculiar inward dishonesty, the direct contrary to that simplicity which our Saviour recommends, under the notion of becoming little children, as a necessary qualification for our entering into the kingdom of heaven. But to conclude: How much soever men differ in the course of life they prefer, and in their ways of palliating and excusing their vices to themselves, yet all agree in the one thing, desiring to die the death of the righteous. This is surely remarkable. The observation may be extended further, and put thus: Even without determining what that is which we call guilt or innocence, there is no man but would choose, after having had the pleasure or advantage of a vicious action, to be free of the guilt of it, to be in the state of an innocent man. This shows at least the disturbance and implicit dissatisfaction in vice. If we inquire into the grounds of it, we shall find it proceeds partly from an immediate sense of having done evil, and partly from an apprehension that this inward sense shall one time or another be seconded by a higher judgment, upon which our whole being depends. As we are reasonable creatures, and have any regard to ourselves, we ought to lay these things plainly and honestly before our mind, and upon this act as you please, as you think most fit; make that choice and prefer that course of life which you can justify to yourselves, and which sits most easy upon your own mind. And the result of the whole can be nothing else but that with simplicity and fairness we keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right, for this alone shall bring a man peace at the last. (By. Butler.)Balaam’s vain wishI. What does it mean? He knew that he must die, and that after death he must live for ever. He had seen men die; he had seen the men of Aram, and Midian, and Moab die; and he bad seen the mourners sorrow for them as those who had no hope. He would not die their death. He had at least heard of other deaths, for he evidently knew much of Israel’s history. He had heard of the deaths of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in other days; and, it may be, he had heard of Aaron’s death on Mount Her just a short time before; and he knew how the righteous die. But the words mean more than this, for he speaks not merely of death, but of something beyond death--the last cad of the righteous. There is no repetition of the other. There is a parallelism indeed, but it is an ascending one; this second part containing more than the first; and by “last end” the seer meant resurrection--a truth far more widely known, at least among the nations in any way linked with patriarchal traditions, than is generally admitted. Balaam’s prayer was, “Let me share the death of the righteous; and let me share his resurrection too.” How comprehensive!II. What state of feeling does it indicate? Sick at heart, and weary of the hollowness of his own heathenism, and all that it could give him, he cries aloud from the depths of a dissatisfied heart, “Let me die the death of the righteous.” Disappointed and sorrowful, he sees the eternal brightness in the distance, with all its attraction, and in the bitterness of his spirit cries out, “Would God that I were there!” The feeling soon passes off, but while it lasts it is real. But, with all its reality, it leads to nothing. Balaam’s wish is a very common one, both in its nature and in its fruitlessness. Sometimes it is a mere passing wish, called up by vexation and weariness; at other times it is a deep-breathed prayer; but in both cases it is too often ineffective, leading to nothing. Men, young as well as old, get tired of life, sick of the world and its vanities. They see that none of its pleasures can last. When it has done all it can, it still leaves them with a troubled conscience, an aching head, and an empty heart. In too many cases this desire is transient and sentimental. It leads to no action, no result. It vanishes like a bright rainbow from a dark cloud, and there is no change. Is it to be so with you? If hungry, a wish won’t give you bread; or, if thirsty, a wish won’t quench your thirst; or, if suffering, a wish won’t soothe your pain; or, if dying, a wish won’t bring back health into your pale cheek and faded eye. Yet a wish may be a good beginning. All fruit begins with buds and blossoms; and though these often come to nought, yet sometimes they end in much. That wish may be the beginning of your eternal life. It may lead to much; oh, let it lead you on! (H. Bonar, D. D.)Balaam’s lights and shadowsBalaam’s character is a deep one--one of amazing power, of mixed good and evil, with a strife of elemental forces in his soul. The desire to die the death of the righteous is founded upon great intelligence, deep penetration into the ruling forces of the moral world, even if unaccompanied by the moral force to be righteous.1. The highest knowledge of Divine things does not ensure salvation; one who knows what it is may fail of its light, peace, and final reward.2. In all men this law of righteousness is found, as well as the consciousness that, if followed, it will lead to good.3. All opposition to the Church or kingdom of God must fail, because the Church is founded on that law of righteousness or right which is the law of being and the very essence of God.4. Death and its connection with righteousness, or what it opens to the righteous. (J. M. Hoppin, D. D.)The death of the righteousThe thought which I wish to inculcate is that a Christian life is the only sure ground of hope in death. I would represent the work of life and the preparation for death as one and the same thing; and would attach to every portion of healthful, active, busy life the associations of deep solemnity, which are commonly grouped around the closing moments of one’s earthly pilgrimage. Let me first ask your attention to an invariable law of our being of which we are too prone to lose sight, namely, that our success and happiness in every new condition of life depend upon our preparation for that condition. Our earthly life is made up of a series of states and relations, each of which derives its character from the next preceding. Thus, “the child’s the father of the man.” Now, how is it that men will not apply this same law to that future state of being on which they hope to enter? How fail they to perceive that the heavenly society, like every other state of being, demands preparation, and that preparation for it cannot be a mere formula of holy words mumbled by dying lips but must run through the habits, the feelings, the affections, the entire character? You must have entered here upon the duties and the joys of the spiritual life in order to make them even tolerable to you hereafter. And spirituality of thought, temper, and feeling must, in some measure, have detached you from earthly objects, and made them seem inferior and unessential goods, in order for you to resign them without intense suffering. This view demands, as a preparation for death, not only a decent formalism, but a strictly spiritual religion--a religion which has its seat in the affections, Now, why are we not all diligently fitting ourselves for the home where we hope to go? Were it some distant city or foreign country upon our own planet where we expected to fix our residence, how earnestly should we seek an interest in its scenes, its resources, its life I How eagerly should we avail ourselves of every opportunity of training in whatever might be peculiar in its condition and modes of living! How fast, in the interval before embarking, should we become, in desire and feeling, citizens of our future home! And shall the city of God form the only exception to this rule? Shall we turn our backs upon it till driven to the shore where we must embark, and then go we know not whither? Shall not prayer, and faith, and hope lay up treasures against our arrival thither? Thus do the law of human life and the Word of God, while they make us solicitous to die the death of the righteous, unitedly urge upon us the essential importance of living his life. The same lesson must have impressed itself upon all who have been in any degree familiar with the closing scenes of life. It is not the opportunity of a death-scene, not the hurried and unnatural utterances of a last hour, but the whole previous character, the direction which the face and steps had borne before death seemed near, that cherishes or crushes our hope for the departed. (A. P. Peabody.)Selfishness, as shown in Balaam’s characterFrom first to last one thing appears uppermost in this history--Balaam’s self; the honour of Balaam as a true prophet--therefore he will not lie; the wealth of Balaam--therefore the Israelites must be sacrificed. Nay, more, even in his sublimest vision his egotism breaks out. In the sight of God’s Israel he cries, “Let me die the death of the righteous”; in anticipation of the glories of the eternal advent, “I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” He sees the vision of a kingdom, a Church, a chosen people, a triumph of righteousness. In such anticipations, the nobler prophets broke out into strains in which their own personality was forgotten. Moses, when he thought that God would destroy His people, prays in agony, “Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book.” Paul speaks in impassioned words, “I have continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites.” But Balaam’s chief feeling seems to be, “How will all this advance me?” And the magnificence of the prophecy is thus marred by a chord of melancholy and diseased egotism. Not for one moment--even in those moments when uninspired men gladly forget themselves; men who have devoted themselves to a monarchy or dreamed of a republic in sublime self-abnegation--can Balaam forget himself in God’s cause. Observe, then, desire for personal salvation is not religion. It may go with it, but it is not religion. Anxiety for the state of one’s own soul is not the healthiest or best symptom. Of course every one wishes, “Let me die the death of the righteous.” But it is one thing to wish to be saved, another to wish God’s right to triumph; one thing to wish to die safe, another to wish to live holily. Nay, not only is this desire for personal salvation not religion, but if soured, it passes into hatred of the good. Balaam’s feeling became spite against the people who are to be blessed when he is not blessed. He indulges a wish that good may not prosper, because personal interests are mixed up with the failure of good. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)Desiring the death of the righteousWhen the indifferent and wicked reflect upon the change produced at death, and see that what appears dark to them is to the believer bright; when they see one of themselves racked with fear, and goaded by the stings of a too late awakened conscience, while the righteous is calm and resigned, they will readily adopt the language of the worldly prophet and say, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.”I. Which arises this desire? I believe it arises from the conviction that those things on which we place our affections in this life are not such as will afford peace in the hour of death. They who are most blindly attached to the god of this world are among the readiest to confess the transitory nature of present things, and their utter inability to afford comfort at the last. You desire to “die the death of the righteous”; are you, then, resting your confidence on Jesus Christ as chief, and deriving happiness from other things, only as He shall be pleased to give them you? Do you look upon the world as something which must soon be left behind, and which will not, as your friends, exist in another state?II. What that death is, and wherefore desirable. The death-chamber of the confirmed saint of God is a scene eloquent to all who have ever beheld it. It reveals the assured faithfulness of God’s promises, and shows the firm foundation of their hopes, who have made those promises the rock of their salvation. The righteous is not without bodily anguish at his last end. He knows by experience the sorrows and sufferings that are the lot of man; but he knows that his Saviour has endured them too, and it is but fitting the disciple should walk in the steps of his heavenly Master. But how tranquil is his mind amid them all, as he draws near to the last moment of his earthly career! At that hour, when the false hopes of the wicked are shaken and proved worthless, then the hopes of the righteous are increasing in brightness. The dying Christian has his times of temptation when “the swellings of Jordan” rise up around his soul. Satan sometimes is allowed to buffet him sorely. Yet “as thy day is, so thy strength shall be.” And hence, amid all his depression, amid all his conflicts, as the shinings of God’s love fall upon his sinking soul, his courage revives, and he can rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. The stronger his faith, the brighter are his hopes, and therefore the higher and more heavenly his joys. What says He on this subject? “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” “If a man keep My saying, he shall never taste of death.” “Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.” “O death! I will be thy plague! O grave! I will be thy destruction!” “Right precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” These are the promises which lie thickly scattered in the pages of God’s own blessed Word. Thus you have a faint idea of what the death of the righteous is--full of faith, deep confidence, and heavenly peace. Are you anxious to realise it for yourselves? well ye rosy be. How, then, is it to be gained? Not by putting off the work of salvation to the last. Though you desire the peaceful end of the righteous, are not some of you deluding yourselves in this way? Oh! what folly! How know you that your death will come preceded by a long sickness or affliction as your warning? (R. Allen, B. A.)The Christian’s final blessedness1. From the clearness of his views. Wise unto salvation.2. From the strength of his faith.3. From the firmness of his trust. Assurance that a mansion is prepared for him, and that a merciful Saviour will welcome him to glory and immortality.4. From the slightness of the hold which this world has on him.5. From the familiarity with which the consistent follower of the Lord regards a state of future existence. (W. H. Marriott.)Balaam’s wishI. The righteous die, and in the same manner outwardly as the wicked do. For Christ, in His first coming, came not to redeem our bodies from death, but our souls from damnation. His second coming shall be to redeem our bodies from corruption into a “glorious liberty.” Therefore wise men die as well as fools.Use 1. It should enforce this excellent duty, that considering we have no long continuance here, therefore, while we are here, to do that wherefore we come into the world.Use 2. And let it enforce moderation to all earthly things.II. The estate of the soul continues after death. For here he wisheth to die the death of the righteous, not for any excellency in death, but in regard of the continuance of the soul after death.Reason 1. And it discovers, indeed, that it hath a distinct life and excellency in itself, by reason that it thwarts the desires of the beady when it is in the body.Reason 2. And we see ofttimes, when the outward man is weak, as in sickness, &c., then the understanding, will, and affections, the inward man, is most sublime, and rapt unto heaven, and is most wise.III. There is a wide, broad difference between the death of the godly and of the wicked. In their death they are--1. Happy in their disposition. What is the disposition of a holy man at his end? His disposition is by faith to give himself to God, by which faith he dies in obedience; he carries himself fruitfully and comfortably in his end. And ofttimes the nearer he is to happiness, the more he lays about him to be fruitful.2. Besides his disposition, he is happy in condition; for death is a sweet close. God and he meet; grace and glory meet; he is in heaven, as it were, before his time. What is death to him? The end of all misery, of all sin of body and soul. It is the beginning of all true happiness in both.3. And blessed after death especially; for then we know they are in heaven, waiting for the resurrection of the body. There is a blessed change of all; for after death we have a better place, better company, better employment; all is for the better.IV. Even a wicked man, a wretched worldling, may see this; he may know this happiness of God’s people in death, and for ever, and yet notwithstanding may continue a cursed wretch. Use1. Seeing this is so, it should teach us that we refuse not all that ill men say; they may have good apprehensions, and give good counsel. Use2. It should stir us up to go beyond wicked men. Shall we not go so far as those go that shall never come to heaven? Let us therefore consider a little wherein the difference of these desires is, the desires that a Balaam may have, and the desires of a sound Christian, wherein the desires of a wicked man are failing.(1) These desires, first of all, they were but flashes: for we never read that he had them long. These enlightenings are not constant.(2) Again, this desire of this wretched man, it was not from an inward principle, an inward taste that he had of the good estate of God’s children, but from an objective admiration of somewhat that was offered to his conceit by the Holy Ghost at this time.(3) Again, in the third place, this desire of the happiness of the estate of God’s children, it was not working and operative, but an uneffectual desire.(4) Where desires are in truth, the party that cherisheth those desires will be willing to have all help from others to have his desire accomplished.(5) Again, true desires of grace, they are growing desires. Though they be little in the beginning, as springs are, yet as the springs grow, so do the waters that come from them. So these desires, they grow more and more still. The desires of a blessed soul, they are never satisfied till it come to heaven.(6) And then they are desires that will not be stilled. Desires, I confess, are the best character to know a Christian; for works may be hypocritical, desires are natural. Therefore we ought to consider our desires, what they are, whether true or no; for the first thing that issues: from the soul are desires and thoughts. Thoughts stir up desires. This inward immediate stirring of the soul discovers the truth of the soul better than outward things.(7) Whether we desire holiness, and the restoration of the image of God, the new creature, and to have victory against our corruptions. Balaam desired happiness, but he desired not the image of God upon his soul; for then he would not have been carried with a covetous devil against all means. No; his desire was after a glimpse of God’s children’s glory only. A wicked man can never desire to be in heaven as he should be; for how should he desire to be in heaven? to be freed from sin, that he may praise God and love God; that there may be no combat between the flesh and the spirit. Can he wish this? No. His happiness is as a swine to wallow in the mire, and he desires to enjoy sensible delights. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)The death of the righteous desiredI. That death is the appointed lot of all men.II. That the righteous possess advantages in death unknown to all others.1. Generally peaceful.2. Sometimes triumphant.3. Always safe.III. The persuasion that the righteous possess advantages in death unknown to all others, leans many to adopt the exclamation in the text.1. It is adopted by the trembling inquirer who has just perceived the necessity and value of true religion.2. It is adopted by the decided Christian, whose eye is directed to the end of his course.3. It is the language of those who partially feel the value of religion, but whose hearts are undecided before God.4. It is the language of the openly wicked and profane. They live as sinners, but they would die as saints. (Essex Remembrancer.)Mere desire useless1. Balaam teaches us the uselessness, I may say the danger, of conviction without repentance, of a knowledge of what is right without an earnest pursuit of holiness.2. And this comes nearly to the same thing as saying, that Balaam’s history shows us the need of practical piety, sacrificing ourselves to God, body and soul, while we have something worthy of being sacrificed; curbing our desires and passions before they die out of themselves; living a life of obedience and submission while yet the temptation of the world is strong to follow a quite different course. What is the use of a man sighing for the death of the righteous? The death is in general like the life. A far wiser prayer than Balaam’s would be this: “Give me grace to lead the life of the righteous, and let all the prime of my health and faculties be consecrated to Thee, O Lord.”3. Lastly, the death of Balaam shows us in a very striking manner the uselessness of such religious aspirations as that in which he indulged. Balaam’s worst sins were committed after he had uttered the pious prayer of the text, and his end was miserable. Beware lest any of you be in like manner tempted to evil; you may see the excellence of religion; you may be even led to utter high aspirations for the rest, which remains for the people of God; but it is only a diligent walking in God s ways, a constant battle against self and sin and impurity and worldly lusts and the like, a constant serving of God in all things which He Himself has commanded, which can ensure you against making shipwreck of your faith. (Bp. Harvey Goodwin.)The convictions of BalaamI. It is very evident that the ruling passion of Balaam was covetousness.II. But I wish you, further, to consider Balaam as the possessor of extraordinary gifts.III. But, lastly, we must consider Balaam as influenced by strong religious convictions. We mark them in his anxiety to ask counsel of God--in his confession of sin when withstood by the angel--in his steady determination to obey the letter of the command--and in the impassioned wish of my text, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” Now we must not suppose that in all this Balaam was altogether insincere. His whole aim was to try to reconcile his wickedness with his duty; nevertheless, there were times when the better nature struggled hard within him. And is not this just the case of thousands in every age? Are there not many who, when under the influence of an awakened conscience, can melt into tears at the remembrance of past sins and negligences--who feel a momentary desire of attaining heaven? They are borne away by the fervour of the moment, and fancy themselves in earnest. The natural man has been wrought upon, and, for the time, you might fancy him spiritual; but the trance is over, and he is natural still. Beware, then, how you trust to occasional thoughts and feelings. All men, whatever their present life may be, agree in the desire of attaining heaven at the last. And here is the deceptive thing--that the wish for conversion may be mistaken for the act of conversion; the appearance of devotion for the reality of devotion; the elevated thought, the momentary aspiration, for the real abiding work of the Spirit of the Lord. Oh! then, for the grace to make these impressions permanent, so that they may lead onwards to greater watchfulness, more earnest prayer, and more honest strivings against the besetting sin. (E. Bickersteth, M. A.)How good a thing it is to die the death of the righteousThere be many ways in which men go out of the world; some withdrawing in carelessness and indifference, some in heaviness and fear, some without hope or expectation, some with a mere wish to make an end of physical discomfort, some hardened in frigid stoicism, and some in a maze of dreams, saying to themselves, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. After no such fashion would we die. There is another manner of departure which leads all the rest in dignity and beauty. It is substantially the same in every age. Joy with peace; a trust in God that rests on strong foundations; a heart confiding in a covenant promise which it knows to be certain and sure; perfect submission to the will which is evermore a will of love; resignation of self and all into those hands which come forth through the gathering darkness; sacrificial surrender gladly paying the debt due to sin;--these signs mark the death of the righteous; whereunto, since Christ came, are to be added the presence of the Saviour, the thought that He has gone that way before us and knows every step of the path, the conviction that to die is gain, the assurance that the Lord shall raise us up at the last day, and that whosoever liveth and believeth in Him shall never die. (Morgan Dix, D. D.)Death of Christian and infidelThe French nurse who was present at the deathbed of Voltaire, being urged to attend an Englishman whose case was critical, said, “Is he a Christian?” “Yes,” was the reply, “he is, a Christian in the highest and best sense of the term--a man who lives in the fear of God; but why do you ask?” “Sir,” she answered, “I was the nurse that attended Voltaire in his last illness, and for all the wealth of Europe I would never see another infidel die.”Piety makes a soft death-pillowA Roman Catholic seeing a Protestant die in peace and triumph, is reported to have said, “If this be heresy, it makes a soft pillow to die on.”Confidence at deathDr. Simpson on his deathbed told a friend that he awaited his great change with the contented confidence of a little child. As another friend said to him that he might, as St. John at the Last Supper, lean his head on the breast of Christ; the doctor made answer, “I fear I cannot do that, but I think I have grasped hold of the hem of His garment.” (Keenig’s Life of Dr. Simpson.)Courage in view of deathWe are all marching thither. We are going home. Men shiver at the idea that they are going to die; but this world is only a nest. We are scarcely hatched out of it here. We do not know ourselves. We have strange feelings that do not interpret themselves. The mortal in us is crying out for the immortal. As in the night the child, waking with some vague and nameless terror, cries out to express its fears and dreads, and its cry is interpreted in the mother’s heart, who runs to the child and lays her hand upon it and quiets it to sleep again, so do you not suppose that the ear of God hears our disturbances and trials and tribulations in life? Do you not suppose that He who is goodness itself cares for you? Do you suppose that He whose royal name is Love has less sympathy for you than a mother has for her babe? Let the world rock. If the foot of God is on the cradle, fear not. Look up, take courage, hope and hope to the end. (Last words of Ward Beeeher’s last sermon.)A Christian’s last endIn the life-of the good man there is an Indian summer more beautiful than that of the seasons; richer, sunnier, and more sublime than the most glorious Indian summer the world ever knew--it is the Indian summer of the soul. When the glow of youth has departed, when the warmth of middle age is gone, and the buds and blossoms of spring are changing to the sere and yellow leaf; when the mind of the good man, still and vigorous, relaxes its labours, and the memories of a well-spent life gush forth from their secret fountains, enriching, rejoicing, and fertilising, then the trustful resignation of the Christian sheds around a sweet and holy warmth, and the soul, assuming a heavenly lustre, is no longer restricted to the narrow confines of business, but soars far beyond the winter of hoary age, and dwells peacefully and happily upon the bright spring and summer which await within the gates of Paradise evermore. Let us strive for and look trustingly forward to an Indian summer like this.Habitual preparation to be made for deathThere are few men, even among the most worldly, who do not expect to be converted before they die; but it is a selfish, mean, sordid conversion they want--just to escape hell and to secure heaven. Such a man says, “I have had my pleasures, and the flames have gone out in the fire-places of my heart. I have taken all the good on one side; now I must turn about if I would take all the good on the other.” They desire just experience enough to make a key to turn the lock of the gate of the celestial city. They wish “a hope,” just as men get a title to an estate. No matter whether they improve the property or not, if they have the title safe. A “hope” is to them like a passport which one keeps quietly in his pocket till the time for the journey, and then produces it; or, like life-preservers which hang useless around the vessel until the hour of danger comes, when the captain calls on every passenger to save himself, and then they are taken down and blown up, and each man with his hope under his arm strikes out for the land; and so, such men would keep their religious hope hanging idle until death comes, and then take it down and inflate it, that it may buoy them up, and float them over the dark river to the heavenly shore; or, as the inhabitants of Rock Island keep their boats, hauled high upon the beach, and only use them now and then, when they would cross to the mainland, so such men keep their hopes high and dry upon the shore of life, only to be used when they have to cross the flood that divides this island of Time from the mainland of Eternity. (H. W. Beecher.)Frances Ridley Havergal’s deathShe got her feet wet standing on the ground preaching temperance and the gospel to a group of boys and men, went home with a chill, and congestion set in, and they told her she was very dangerously sick. “I thought so,” she said, “but it is really too good to be true that I am going. Doctor, do you really think I am going?” “Yes.” “Today?” “Probably.” She said, “Beautiful, splendid, to be so near the gate of heaven.” Then after a spasm of pain she nestled down in the pillows and said, “There, now, it is all over--blessed rest.” Then she tried to sing, and she struck one glad, high note of praise to Christ, but could sing only one word, “He,” and then all was still. She finished it in heaven. (T. De Witt Talmage.)A glorious deathThe biographer of Dr. Norman Macleod says that, the night before his death, “he described with great delight the dreams he had been enjoying, or rather the visions which seemed to be passing vividly before his eyes, even while he was speaking. He said, ‘You cannot imagine what exquisite pictures I see! I never beheld more glorious Highlands, majestic mountains and glens, brown heather tinted with purple, and burns--clear, clear burns; and above, a sky of intense blue--so blue, without a cloud.’” On the day of his death he said: “I have had constant joy, and the happy thought continually whispered, ‘Thou art with me!’ Not many would understand me, they would put down much I have felt to the delirium of weakness, but I have had deep spiritual insight.” Very shortly before he died he said to one of his daughters, “Now all is perfect peace and perfect calm. I have glimpses of heaven that no tongue, or pen, or words can describe.”Numbers 23:19God is not a man, that He should lie. The unchangeable GodI. God is unchangeable. God cannot change; to suppose that He could change would be to suppose Him not Divine. A finite being may refuse to change, adhering rigidly to some purpose; but all the while that being is capable of change, there is n thing in his nature which makes it absolutely impossible that he should change. But it is so with God. We here speak of unchangeableness in regard of God’s dealings with His creatures, though of course it is also in Himself, in His essence, in His own property, that God is unchangeable; and it is an amazing and overwhelming contemplation, that of our Creator as in no respect capable of change, immutable because infinitely perfect.II. The contrast between God and man. This unchangeableness is indispensable to the Creator, but incommunicable to the creature. It is indispensable to the Creator, forasmuch as the Creator must he in every respect infinite. But all change ends in addition or diminution: if anything be added, He was not infinite before; if anything be diminished, He is not infinite after. But if indispensable in the Creator, it is incommunicable to the creature. We say nothing against the powers of God, when we say that God could not have made an unchangeable creature. Must not that which is unchangeable be self-existent, and therefore eternal? That which has already had beginning, has already undergone change--the change from nothing to something, so that a creature, because not eternal, cannot be unchangeable. God alone is unchangeable, because God alone is eternal. It is self-evident that He cannot make an eternal creature, and therefore certain that He cannot make an unchangeable creature. The creature, then, is changing, the sun as well as the atom, the archangel no less than the worm (Psa 102:25-27). Was it only of the material fabric of the earth, with its many productions-of the firmament, with its majestic troop of stars, that the Psalmist asserted this? Nay, it is true of the intelligent creation as well as of the material. And spirits are immortal: sparks from the eternal fire, they shall never be quenched; but though immortal, they shall not be the same; indestructible, they shall be always on the march. Angel and man, they shall not, as we have already said, be ever at a stand. Stand! when there are new heights to be scaled, new depths to be fathomed? Nay, it were imperfection, it were wretchedness. It is the glory of the Creator that He never changes; it is the glory of the creature to be always changing. Eternity shall be one mighty progress to all except the Eternal. “I am Jehovah, I change not, the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (H. Melvill, B. D.)The word of God unchangeable1. “God is not a man, that He should lie.” Balaam knew how capable he himself was of deceit and falsehood, how liable to be changed by bribery from one course to another; and it is possible that he might have entertained such unworthy notions of the Almighty as to imagine Him also movable and uncertain. But God has no admixture of evil, no imperfection; nor can He “be tempted with evil.” Men have their own corrupt interests to serve; their own gain to study, their own gratification to seek: and when these things cannot be so readily compassed by integrity, recourse is often had to deceitful dealing. It may not always be that a man’s word is actually broken; but there is very commonly, in the children of this world, some kind of double dealing to suit a carnal purpose. From all this, and from all approach to this, the Lord is purely free: He can neither deceive nor be deceived.2. “Neither the son of man, that He should repent,” or change His purpose. Man is ignorant and short-sighted; often knows not what will be for the best: and the plan, which he bad contrived with his utmost skill, is not seldom injurious; and thus he is compelled to alter and relinquish. But God is all-wise: “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”3. We may infer--(1) That all the Divine judgments against sin and sinners will be infallibly executed. And--(2) That every promise of God to His people will, in due season, be abundantly accomplished.1. The imminent danger of sin, and the certain ruin from it, if persisted in, are by no means believed and perceived, as they ought to be. The Almighty has declared, throughout His word of truth, that He is a God of holiness; and that in unholiness, in disobedience, in unrepented guilt, no man can be accepted, no man can approach Him.2. And, blessed be the holy name of God, the gracious promises of mercy to His faithful and obedient servants are not less frequent than the threatenings of wrath upon the impenitent and forgetful. (J. Slade, M. A.)The unchangeableness of JehovahI. Some men think that God will lie. God has told us, with strong and repeated asseverations, that “we must be born again” (Joh 3:7); but this is totally disbelieved by--1. The profane. They persuade themselves that such strictness in religion, as is implied in the new birth, is not necessary; and that they shall go to heaven in their own way.2. The self-righteous. These consider regeneration as a dream of weak enthusiasts, and are satisfied with the “form of godliness, without” ever experiencing “the power” of it.3. The hypocritical professors of religion. These, having changed their creed, together with their outward conduct, fancy themselves Christians, notwithstanding their faith n either “overcomes the world,” nor “works by love,” nor “ purifies their hearts.” That all these persons think God will lie, is evident beyond a doubt; for if they really believed that old things must pass away and all things become new (2Co 5:17), before they can enter into the kingdom of heaven, they would feel concerned to know whether any such change had taken place in them; nor would they be satisfied till they had a Scriptural evidence that they were indeed “new creatures in Christ Jesus.”II. Others fear he may lie. This is common with persons--1. Under conviction of sin. When men are deeply convinced of sin, they find it exceedingly difficult to rest simply on the promises of the Gospel; such as Joh 6:37; Isa 1:18; Isa 55:1.2. Under temptation or desertion. God has declared that He will not suffer His people to be tempted above what they are able to bear (1Co 10:13). But when they come into temptation, they are apt to say, as David, “I shall one day perish,” &c. (1Sa 27:1).III. But God neither will nor can lie.1. He will not lie.(1) Let us hear the testimonies of those who have tried Him. Moses (Deu 32:4); Joshua (Jos 23:14); Samuel (1Sa 15:29).(2) Let us attend to God’s own assertions and appeals (Isa 5:4; Isa 49:19). Would He ever venture to speak thus strongly on His own behalf if His creatures could make good their accusations against Him?(3) Let us look to matter of fact. Are not His past actions so many types and pledges of what He will hereafter perform? (2Pe 2:4-9; Jud 1:7).2. He cannot lie. Truth is as essential to the Divine nature as goodness, wisdom, power, or any other attribute; so that He can as easily cease to be good, or wise, or powerful, as He can suffer one jot or tittle of His word to fail. (C. Simeon, M. A.)The Lord is unchangeably true in all His ways, words, and worksHis decrees are immutable and irrevocable, and without shadow of turning (Psa 105:7-8; Psa 105:10). To this purpose the apostle saith, “The gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Rom 11:29). By all these places we see that God is unchangeable in His mercy and goodness toward His Church and children. The reasons follow to be considered.1. First, He is not like unto man, His ways are not like man’s ways, nor His thoughts like unto man’s thoughts; but as far as heaven is distant from the earth, so far are the works of God from ours. We know by experience the changeable nature of man. He is constant to-day, he changeth to-morrow. He loveth one day, and hateth another.2. Secondly, His love and mercy to His people is not changeable as the moon, unconstant as the wind, floating as the sea, uncertain as the weather, but stable as the earth that cannot be moved out of his place, and steadfast as Mount Sion that remaineth for ever. This will plainly appear unto us if we consider the similitudes whereby it is expressed. His love is like to the covenant of waters, and as sure as the promise that He made to Noah, that the waters should no more overflow the whole earth, as the prophet Isaiah teacheth, Isa 54:7-9.3. Again, His goodness is as the ordinance of God, that hath set an order for summer and winter, for day and night, for seed-time and harvest, for cold and heat, which shall not be changed, therefore the Lord saith (Jer 31:35; Jer 33:20). Nay, His mercy is said to be more stable than the mountains (Isa 54:10).Now let us come to the uses of this doctrine.1. First, hereby we learn that God is to be preferred before all creatures.2. Secondly, we may from hence assure ourselves that God will make us unchangeable like Himself, and we may rejoice in the comfort of thin His favour. For seeing His nature is unchangeable, He will make us in our men, sure partakers of immortality. This is a great comfort unto us in these days of sorrow, to consider that the time will come, when our state shall be changed, and we continue for ever without change. Here we are subject to many turnings and returnings, but after this life shall be no more place for changing; our happiness shall be unchangeable, and firmly established with God. This the prophet sets down (Psa 16:12).3. Thirdly, it teacheth that it is time for us to repent and turn unto God. An unchangeable God, an unchangeable word. Let us be transformed into the obedience of it. It is not a leaden rule to bend every way to us. All our ways must be framed unto it. And when once we are turned to God, let us not return back again to our old ways, but persevere constant unto the end. The unchangeable God requireth an unchangeable servant.4. Lastly, herein is great comfort offered to the servants of God, as on the other side horror to the wicked and disobedient. For seeing God is immutable, we may from hence take strong consolation by former examples of God’s dealing toward His children, and in all temptations build ourselves upon that blessed experience, as upon a sure foundation that can never fail us. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 23:20He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it. Immutable benedictionsI. Blessings are decreed for the people of God. The difficulty of believing in the glorious truth of the supreme blessedness of the children of God is so common that there must be some reasons for it.1. One reason is that the largest blessings belong to the future. For the present, Christians have to endure the trials of a wilderness pilgrimage. We need faith to expect the good things of the unseen future.2. A deeper reason is that the best blessings are spiritual. To the carnal mind they appear wearisome in the extreme, just as the exquisite tones of the finest melody do to a man who has no ear for music. Here also men need faith to believe that the highest blessings are necessarily at present above their appreciation.II. The attempt to reverse these blessings results in the increase of them. The evil intention results unwittingly in a beneficent action. Consider some of the applications of this principle of Providence.1. The captivity. Nebuchadnezzar, who aimed at destroying the Jewish nation, was indirectly its great benefactor in fulfilling the Divine prophecies of necessary chastisement and forcing the people to a painful discipline, which effectually and for ever purged them of their old besetting sin of idolatry.2. The temptation of Christ. The tempter sought to overthrow the Son of God and Saviour of the world. But the result of the forty days’ trial in the wilderness was that Christ came forth fitted to be our great high priest by means of the very endurance of that temptation.3. The death of Christ. His enemies hoped to overthrow His cause by means of this. But it was overruled to secure His triumph and to accomplish the great end of His mission.4. The persecution of the Church. The Christians, scattered by the persecution that followed the death of Stephen, fled from Jerusalem only to spread the gospel in all directions, and so to increase their own numbers and to magnify the name of their God.5. The troubles of life generally. The sufferer is described as being “delivered unto Satan.” The motive of Satan must be purely malignant. Yet the suffering he inflicts is expressly designed for the good of the sufferer--“that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus” (1Co 5:5).III. The blessings of which the people of god cannot be robbed by their most violent foes may be lost by their own sin, (W. F. Adeney, M. A.)The curses of man turned into blessings by GodThe principle embodied here is this: that when God hath determined to bless His people, His purposes will be executed even by those whose intent it is only to reverse them. Tills is the solution of all the apparent mysteries and incongruities in the present state of things: and it will apply--I. To the Church of Christ at large--and, next, to every individual among the people of God. To this Church--that is, this army of the living God, though separated in different divisions, we look, in the interpretation of God’s promises, as Balaam looked upon Jacob in his goodly tents, and Israel in his outstretched tabernacle. To these we refer the benediction of the royal psalmist, “They shall prosper that love Thee”; and to these we apply what may be termed the reversed invocation of the text -a curse becoming a blessing--“Behold, I have received commandment to bless; and He hath blessed; and I cannot reverse it.” But it is not less needful, though it be less pleasing, to observe how, as in the case of Israel, the most severe and searching probation came upon them--not amidst the perils and privations of the wilderness, but amid the abundance and prosperity of the promised land. So the Church, when the fires of persecution had been extinguished, was, and still continues to be, in danger far more imminent. We must beware, lest those prevail who would openly assault her bulwarks, and attempt her battlements in vain. As to the end, indeed, all is safe, and all is sure; God has determined to bless, and earth and hell cannot reverse it (Isa 2:2; Hab 2:14; Php 2:10-11). But it is not the less needful to beware lest, in the meantime, corruption be introduced amongst us from an unsuspected quarter, by intermixture with the enemies of God, while, amidst the rising mists of error, our candlestick burns dimly, if even, through apostasy, it be not removed out of its place. Intercourse with the irreligious and unbelieving, whatever be the pretext, is plainly to be suspected and to be shunned. The blessing of God upon a good cause may be forfeited, and will be nullified, by alliance with wicked men. What else can the crew expect, if they allow themselves to be piloted by traitors, but that they shall strike on a rock suddenly, and go down into the depths of destruction?II. I proceed, however, to the second, and more practical part of the subject--the application of the principle embodied in the text to each individual believer. Rightly understood, and closely applied, it is to him a covert from all the storms of life, a shield against the fiery arrows of the wicked one, a very present help in time of trouble. God hath blessed, man cannot reverse it: and, however the world may plot, and however it may appear to the servant of the Most High, there is One who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. The devices of man may appear to be successful, but it is His counsel only that shall abide. It is very important, however, to keep in mind that, while Scripture develops the purposes of God’s will, it does not profess to reveal the processes of God’s work. It states a definite and determined end, but it makes no specific mention of the means. “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me,” declares the Psalmist, but how, and by whom, God only knows. “He that hath begun a good work in you,” says the apostle, “will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ”; but who can say whether the work will proceed in sunshine or in clouds? Perhaps the latter; not improbably the latter. It is enough for us to know that God is working out a blessing: we must not be cast down, though it come through the channel of a calamity, and with the aspect of a curse. The richest stream of benefit and glory that ever flowed forth to a lost and polluted world was thus opened. How did Christ redeem us from the curse of the law but by being made a curse for us? Many sought to quench God’s light by lifting up the Redeemer on the Cross, and they thus imparted to it instrumentally a power which in the end shall draw all men unto Him. (T. Dale, M. A.)Numbers 23:21-24He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel.The prophecies of BalaamProphecy is not Fatalism, but in many cases, at least, a forecasting of the certain consequences of such and such moral antecedents. And this view of prophecy leads me to that which is, after all, the most important aspect of the prophecies of Balaam. Here, in the blessings he pronounced on Israel, we have an authoritative declaration of the natural and inevitable outcome of the then condition of the chosen people; blessings which, indeed, they sometimes reaped, and sometimes failed to reap--varying in their relations to the God who spake to them by the lips of Balaam--but blessings which it is open for us to reap, if we will only follow the Lord perfectly and with all our hearts.I. We have here a declaration of the principles that lie at the foundation of all true national and church life.1. And the first of these principles that I shall refer to, is that mentioned in the language of the text: “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perversity in Israel.” But if we are to accept these words as in any sense descriptive of the actual condition of the Jewish people at this moment, we must understand them in relation to the words that follow: “The Lord his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among them.” That is, there was none of that iniquity and perverseness in Israel which is the root and substance of all iniquity and perverseness, viz., the denial of God’s presence in the midst of them, and a refusal to submit to Him as their King. Whatever else they were (and they had their faults), the Israelites were not a godless people; and being at heart a godly and God-fearing people, Jehovah saw fit to interpret all the other features of their character according to this ruling disposition of their lives, and to look over and excuse many other imperfections for the sake of this predominating excellence.2. Another element that characterised the moral condition of the Jewish people, was that of the separation from the other nations of the earth. Their separation was their security.3. But there is, even still farther, a third element belonging to the moral condition of the Jewish people that must not be overlooked; and that is the principle of order that obtained amongst them. “Behold,” said the Psalmist, “how good and how pleasant a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Psa 130:1). And unity and order are intimately related to each other. For order both expresses and promotes unity. And unity makes order possible.II. There is here also declared to us the blessedness of those in whom these principles are realised and embodied. And the prophet lavisheth his praises on the Israelitish people, as the representatives of those who realise and embody these principles. Thus, e.g., he compares the tents of Israel to outspread valleys full of verdure and fertility; and again, to gardens by the riverside, always fruitful and beautiful; and again he speaks of them as trees of lign aloes, which the Lord had planted, laden with the most delicious fragrance; and as cedar trees beside the waters, full of stately, sober beauty (Num 24:6). And the blessedness of such he describes as not only personal, but diffusive. The godly are as water-bearers, pouring water out of their buckets on the “dry and thirsty land where no water is,” and causing peace and plenty to abound (Num 24:7). They themselves increase on every hand; and as they increase, the welfare of the world advances. “Who can count the dust of Jacob, and the number of the fourth part of Israel?” (Num 23:10). It was not that Israel was at that moment an innumerable people, for this book is a record of the numbering of the people of Israel; but Israel had, in the moral principles that governed its action and life, the germs of indefinite extension and enlargement. And wherever it went it carried blessings for the nations in its hand.III. The dignity and majesty of those who are thus blessed. Every symbol of strength and vigour, of safety and security, does the prophet press into the service of his eulogy of Israel’s greatness.IV. The advantages that may be enjoyed by those who are only somewhat remotely related to the people of God. “Come with us,” said Moses to Hobab, “and we will do you good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel” (Num 10:29). There is such a thing as blessedness, by being related to the blessed. And so Balaam says of Israel: “Blessed is he that blesseth thee; and cursed is he that curseth thee” (Num 24:9; see Mat 10:40; Mat 10:42). (W. Roberts.)The justification of God’s peopleWhat? Was Israel perfect? Was not their entire history one of rebellion and ingratitude and sin? How then could God say He saw no iniquity or perverseness in them? Mark, it is not said that Israel had no iniquity or perverseness. It is said God “beheld” none. Is God, then, the minister of sin? God forbid! He only magnifies the riches of His grace by putting it out of His sight. But is not this a license to the soul to continue in sin, or be indifferent to it? Nay. The love that has pardoned is the love that constrains ever after to “newness of life.” But notice again--God was never indifferent to sin in Israel. “He is of too pure eyes to behold iniquity.” Yes, the least sin in them was marked and judged with an unsparing hand. But when it came to this, should Satan make use of their sin to cast them out for ever from God--to curse them--then God would see no sin in them. Then His language is, “I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob, nor seen perverseness in Israel.” Thus we have seen Israel’s complete justification before God. Now let us examine the foundation on which it rests. “God is not a man that He should lie; neither the son of man that He should repent: hath He said and shall He not do it? or hath tie spoken and shall He not make it good?” Thus their justification, and everything that follows, rest upon God’s unchangeable character. What a rock is that on which the weakest believer rests! What untold blessings are his l and all secured by the faithfulness of that unchanging God. But let us proceed and mark the streams of blessing which flow down to the believer from this Rock. “The Lord his God is with him.” What can he lack, having Him? He is with him to supply every need, to lead into every holy path, to unfold to his soul from hour to hour all the riches of His grace, to quicken, to warn, to comfort, to build up, and to carry on that work in the soul which His grace has begun, till it be perfected in glory. Mark the next blessing--“the shout of a king is among them.” It is the shout of joy. It is the joy of Christ in His people, and His people in Him: “these things have I spoken unto you that My joy might remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” It is the “shout of a king,” even of King Jesus, for He has gotten the victory! “Jehovah has triumphed, and His people are free.” Mark the next blessing--“God brought them out of Egypt.” The song of redemption is now their song, and will be for ever. “He hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn” (or buffalo); “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” As the sapling grows into the mighty tree, so that no storms can uproot it, so the Christian grows by living upon Christ, and abiding in Him. All the trials of the way arc converted into elements of strength. What can harm the child of God, then? What foe can curse him whom God has so blessed? None. “What hath God wrought!” It is all God here; man is nothing. Surely every crown must be laid for ever on the riches of His grace! “Behold the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down till he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.” In the symbol of the lion, under which the Lord’s people are here brought before us, we have the victorious onward course of the Church of Christ. The Lord’s people are represented as “rising up” in the majesty of Divine strength and power and victory over their spiritual foes. And what is the last feature in the character of the Lord’s people presented in this parable? It is victory over every foe at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: “he shall not lie down till he eat of the prey and drink the blood of the slain.” To “lie down” is the expression for rest. In the morning of resurrection they will Pest, for then every enemy will be given into their hands. (F. Whitfield, M. A.)And the shout of a king is among them.--The best war-cryI. God’s presence among his people.1. It is an extraordinary presence, for God’s ordinary and usual presence is everywhere. Whither shall we flee from His presence? He is in the highest heaven and in the lowest hell; the hand of the Lord is upon the high hills, and His power is in all deep places. Still there is a peculiar presence; for God was among His people in the wilderness as He was not among the Moabites and the Edomites their foes, and God is in His Church as He is not in the world. He saith of His Church, “Here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” This is much more than God’s being about us; it includes the favour of God towards us. His consideration of us, His working with us.2. God is with His people in the entireness of His nature. This is the glory of the Church of God--to have the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Ghost to be her never-failing benediction. What a glory to have Father, Son, and Holy Spirit manifesting the Godhead in the midst of our assemblies, and blessing each one of us!3. For God to dwell with us: what a condescending presence this is! And will God in very truth dwell among men? If the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, will He abide among His people? He will! “Know ye not that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost?”4. What an awe this imparts to every true Church of God! You may go in and out of certain assemblies, and you may say, “Here we have beauty I here we have adornment, musical, ecclesiastical, architectural, oratorical, and the like!” but to my mind there is no worship like that which proceeds from a man when he feels--the Lord is here. What a hush comes over the soul! Here is the place for the unsandalled foot and the prostrate spirit. Now are we on holy ground.5. This is the one necessary of the Church: the Lord God must be in the midst of her, or she is nothing. If God be there, peace will be within her walls, and prosperity within her palaces.6. This presence of God is clearly discerned by the gracious, though others may not know it.II. The results of this Divine presence.1. Leading (Num 23:22). We must have the Lord with us to guide us into our promised rest.2. The next blessing is strength. “He hath as it were the strength of an unicorn” (Num 23:22). It is generally agreed that the creature here meant is an extinct species of urns or ox, most nearly represented by the buffalo of the present period. This gives us the sentence--“He hath as it were the strength of a buffalo.” When God is in a Church, what rugged strength, what massive force, what irresistible energy is sure to be there! And how untamable is the living force!3. The next result is safety. “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.” The presence of God quietly baffles all the attempts of the evil one. Divination cannot touch a child of God: the evil one is chained. Wherefore be of good courage; if God be for us, who can be against us?4. Further than that, God gives to His people the next blessing, that is, of His so working among them as to make them a wonder, and cause outsiders to raise inquiries about them. “According to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought?”5. When God is with His people He will give them power of a destructive kind. Do not be frightened. Here is the text for it: “Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion”--that is, as a lion in the fulness of his vigour--“he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.” God has put into His Church, when He is in it, a most wonderful, destructive power as against spiritual wickedness. A healthy Church kills error, and tears in pieces evil.III. What can be done for the securing and preserving of the presence of God with the church?1. There is something even in the conformation of a Church to secure this. God is very tolerant, and He bears with many mistakes in His servants, and yet blesses them; but depend upon it, unless a Church is formed at the very outset upon scriptural principles and in God’s own way, sooner or later all the mistakes of her constitution will turn out to be sources of weakness. Christ loves to dwell in a house which is built according to His own plans, and not according to the whims and fancies of men.2. But next, God will only dwell with a Church which is full of life. The living God will not inhabit a dead Church. Hence the necessity of having really regenerated people as members of the Church. Remember that text: “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” and it bears this sense among others, that He is not the God of a Church made up of unconverted people. Oh that we may all live unto God, and may that life be past all question.3. That being supposed, we next notice that to have God among us we must be full of faith. Do you believe your God? Alas, too many only believe a little! But do you believe His every word? Do you believe His grandest promises? Is He a real God to you, making His words into facts every day of your lives? If so, then the Lord is among us as in the holy place. Faith builds a pavilion in which her King delights to sit enthroned.4. With that must come prayer. Prayer is the breath of faith. Where prayer is fervent God is present.5. Supposing there is this faith and prayer, we shall also need holiness of life. You know what Balaam did when he found he could not curse the people. Satanic was his advice. He bade the king of Moab seduce the men of Israel by the women of Moab that were fair to look upon; and he sadly succeeded. So in a Church. The devil will work hard to lead one into licentiousness, another into drunkenness, a third into dishonesty, and others into worldliness. If he can only get the goodly Babylonish garment and the wedge of gold buried in an Achan’s tent, then Israel will be chased before her adversaries. God cannot dwell in an unclean Church.6. Lastly, when we have reached to that, let us have practical consecration. God will not dwell in a house which does not belong to Him. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The Divine presence needed in the ChurchThere are three special thoughts which come to us in connection with this text.I. The first is, the absolute need, if the army of the Lord is to conquer, of the presence of the Lord and of the realisation of His presence by those who are called by His name, and wear His armour, and wield His weapons. It pleases the Lord to let us fight His battles, to give us His armour and His weapons, and to inspire us with His courage, and to fill our enemies with His terror. We have no power except it be given us by Him; we can drive out no darkness of heathenism except the Lord be with us. We want more of our own battle-cry, the “shout of our King,” telling of His actual presence with His host.II. It is also necessary to realise the essential unity of the Church of Christ, of the army of the living God. We should pray and work, and earnestly desire that all the people of the Lord may be one. If we want a reason for the little progress made in the conquest of the world of heathenism for the Lord of life and glory, if we want to account for the dark and darkening fringe of sin and misery and unbelief within the borders of our own land, we can find cause enough for these things in our failure to realise and to work and pray for the ideal of the essential unity of the Church of Christ.III. Our text inspires us with hope. There is no greater need for us, as individuals or as a united body, than hope. And how can we be otherwise than full of hope when we call to mind that the promise is for us, “The shout of a king is among them”? There is hope for ourselves, and hope for others. Life passes on: friends pass away; strength for effort grows less; unavailing efforts stretch out behind us in a long, increasing line, like wounded men falling down to die in the terrible retreat: but still there is hope--hope that will grow and increase, and come daily nearer to its accomplishment. “The shout of a King is among us,” and we cannot be moving on to ultimate defeat. There is a battle, terrible enough, to fight; but victory is the end, not defeat. (E. T. Leeke, M. A.)Surely there Is no enchantment against Jacob.--Impregnable security of Israel; God’s wondrous doings on their behalfI. The truth affirmed: “Surely there is no enchantment,” &c. The certainty of this may be inferred--1. Because the counsels of God are more than sufficient to baffle the designs and plots of hell.2. Because the power of Jehovah is ever effectual in thwarting the attacks of the enemies of his people.3. Because Divine goodness is more than enough to counteract the malevolence of our foes.4. The resources of God are more than adequate to render all the means of the Church’s enemies abortive.II. The exclamation uttered: “According to this time,” &c.1. What is to be said? “What hath God wrought!” Agents are to be observed, but only God praised. This is to keep up our dependence on God. This is to inspire with adoration and praise. This is to keep human nature in its right place.2. Who are to say it?(1) Ministers of the gospel(2) The pious.3. When should it be said?(1) In times of depression, as the means of consolation.(2) In times of great exertion, as an incitement to perseverance.(3) In times of great success, to give tone to our exultations.(4) It will be reiterated in the world of the beatified for ever. There they will see, in one beautiful series, the doings of God--behold the golden chain entire.Application:1. Our text may apply to many as to their Christian experience before God. “Remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee,” &c. (Deu 8:2).2. The text is appropriate to Christian missions. What enemies, difficulties, and discouragements have been overcome and surmounted! Well may we exclaim, “What hath God wrought!”3. Let God ever be exalted for the blessings we enjoy, and for all the good done in us and by us. (J. Burns, D. D.)The blessings of God and the acknowledgment which it demandsI. The source of effectual blessing. It directs us to the Deity, in His essential character, in His active character, and in His relative character. And what is the interference we wish? Various. Sometimes--1. Deliverance--from danger internal and external--“enchantment.”2. Blessing. “I have received commandment to bless,” &c3. Forbearance. “He hath not beheld iniquity,” &c.4. Stability. “The Lord his God is with him.”5. Complete success.II. The time from which his interposition is remarked. “According to this time it shall be said.” The time of--1. Conversion.2. Renewed devotion.3. Peculiar providential arrangement.4. Earnest and decisive spirit of prayer.III. The acknowledgement it demands. “It shall be said, What hath God wrought!”1. Acknowledgment is implied and expected. “God wrought.”2. It is spontaneously offered. “It shall be said.”3. It is a personal and explicit token. “Jacob and Israel.”4. It is to be recorded and gratefully renewed. “According to this time it shall be said,” &c. (Samuel Thodey.)A little trust is better than much foresightThat must have been a wonderful glimpse into the ways of God with men which led a diviner to deny his own art, and to confess that to wait with childlike confidence on God till in due time He reveals His will is a far greater and more precious gift than to force or surprise the secrets of the future and to pass in spirit through the times to be. God “met” Balaam to purpose when He taught him a truth which men, and even Christian men, have not yet learned--that a little trust is better than much foresight, and that to walk with God in patient and loving dependence is better than to know the things to come. And this insight into the real value of his special gift was part of that training, that discipline, by which, as we have seen, God was seeking to save His servant from his besetting sin; for Balaam was proud of the gift which set him apart from and above his fellows, of the eagle eye and unyielding spirit which made the supernatural as easy and familiar to him as the natural, while they were trembling before every breath of change and finding omens of disaster in the simplest occurrences of daily experience. He was apt to boast that he was the man of an open eye, hearing the voice of God and seeing visions from the Almighty, falling into trances in which the shadows of coming events were cast upon his mind, and that he could read all secrets and understand all mysteries. Unlike the great Hebrew prophets, who humbly confessed that the secret of the Lord is with all who fear Him, and so made themselves one with their fellows, he was perverting his high gifts to purposes of self-exaltation and self-aggrandisement. Was it not, then, most salutary that he should be checked and rebuked in this selfish and perilous course? And how could he be more effectually rebuked than by being shown a whole race possessed of even higher gifts than his own, possessed above all of the gift of waiting for God to reveal His will to them in due time, and so raised out of all dependence on divinations or enchantments? At this spectacle even his own high and sacred endowment seemed but a vulgar toy, and the aspiration was kindled in his breast for that greater good, that greatest of all gifts, the power to walk in ways of righteousness, and to leave the future, with simple trust, in the hands of God. It is a lesson which we still need to learn; for which of us would not rejoice had he prophetic raptures and trances of which to boast, if men looked up to him as possessed of a solitary and mysterious power, and resorted to him that he might forecast their fate and interpret to them the mysteries by which they were perplexed? Which of us does not at times long to pierce the veil and learn how it fares with those whom we have loved and lost awhile, or even what will be the conditions of our own life in years to come or when death shall wear us away, instead of waiting until in due time God shall reveal even this unto us? Let us, then, learn from Balaam, if we have not yet learned it from David or St. Paul, that to rest in the Lord and to wait patiently for Him is a higher achievement than to apprehend all mysteries; and that to do His will in humble trust is a nobler function and power than to foresee what that Will will do. (S. Cox, D. D.)Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all--You cannot neutralise God“Neither curse them at all, nor bless them at all.” But Balaam said, “No; you cannot treat God’s messengers in that way. As a matter of fact they are here; you have to account for them being here, and to reckon with them while they are here.” We cannot quiet things by ignoring them. By simply writing “Unknowable” across the heavens we really do not exclude supernatural or immeasurable forces. The ribbon is too narrow to shut out the whole heaven; it is but a little strip; it looks contemptible against the infinite arch. We do not exclude God by denying Him, nor by saying that we do not know Him or that He cannot be known. We cannot neutralise God, so as to make Him neither the one thing nor the other. So Balaam was the greatest mystery Balak had to deal with. It is the same with the Bible-God’s supernatural Book. It will not lie where we want it to lie: it has a way of getting up through the dust that gathers upon it and shaking itself, and making its pages felt. It will open at the wrong place; would it open at some catalogue of names, it might be tolerated, bat it opens at hot places, where white thrones are and severe judgments, and where scales are tried and measuring wands are tested. It will speak to the soul about the wrong-doing that never came to anything, and the wicked thought that would have burned the heavens and scattered dishonour upon the throne of God. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 23:28-30Balak brought Balaam unto the top of Peor.The wicked are wise in their kind to bring their wicked purposes to passWe may observe by continual experience the nature of ungodly men. They are cunning in their kind; they watch their ways and times to fit them to work out their wicked devices. Balak knew well enough he was not able to meet the Israelites in the open field, and therefore dealeth otherwise. This is it which Stephen in his apology noteth (Act 7:19). Thus did Laban deal toward Jacob (Gen 31:1-2; Gen 31:41), changing his mind, revoking his bargains, altering his wages, murmuring at his prosperity, and changing his countenance toward him. This is noted also in the parable recorded (Luk 16:8). This we see by many examples. Ahithophel’s counsel was esteemed like as one who had asked counsel at the oracle of God, so were all his counsels both with David and with Absalom. The like we see in Herod when he heard of the birth of Christ, as of a new-born King, by the wise men. He pretendeth piety, but useth policy to destroy the babe our Saviour. The same we might observe in the scribes and Pharisees after the ascension of Christ. They spared no means to hinder the course of the gospel (Act 3:1-26; Act 4:1-37; Act 5:1-42.), but used sometimes fair means, sometimes threatenings, sometimes commandments to stop the mouths of the apostles. All which testimonies teach us that which the prophet Jeremiah saith (Jer 4:22) of the people in his time agreeable to the truth of this doctrine: “They are wise to do evil, bat to do well they have no knowledge.” The reasons follow.1. They serve a cunning master, the author of all confusion, the contriver of all mischief, the worker of all wickedness, that old subtle serpent who worketh in all the children of disobedience (Eph 2:2).2. God giveth even to wicked men wisdom and understanding, to magnify His mercy, who is good to all, and to aggravate their sin, who are made thereby without excuse (Rom 1:20-21). Now, the greater His goodness is toward them, the heavier shall His judgment and their punishment be (Luk 12:48). What is it that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why dost thou not glorify Him of whom thou hast received it?3. The enemies of God have knowledge, experience, foresight; they are as wise as serpents, as subtle as foxes, to the end God may use them as His rods in correcting His Church and in trying the faith of His people. So He proved the patience of the Israelites by Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and by the cunning and crafty fetches which they practised for their overthrow and destruction. So He tried Joseph and Mary by the dissimulation of Herod, by whom they were constrained to depart out of Judaea and to fly into the land of Egypt. The uses to be made of this doctrine are many.(1) This should, on the other side, teach us to deal wisely and warily with them, lest we be snared and circumvented by them. We are set as upon a hill, we are placed as upon a stage. If we profess Christ Jesus, a small spot will be seen in our garment. It behoveth us, therefore, to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, according to the counsel of our Saviour, to the end we may Stop the mouths of gainsayers. Their wisdom is joined with wickedness; our wisdom must be seasoned with godliness. Their policy is iniquity; with us policy and innocency must accompany together, and kiss one another. Their wisdom is a circumventing by laying of snares; our wisdom must be circumspect in avoiding snares. If we have this wariness mingled with true sincerity, and all our actions without dissimulation, it is both lawful and expedient to set wisdom against wisdom, and policy against policy, and care against care, and understanding against understanding, that so through their subtlety and our simplicity we be not taken in their traps which they have laid for us.(2) It is our duty to pray to God to be delivered from them, and trust in Him for His help: He scattereth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot accomplish that which their hearts have enterprised--an excellent comfort to all the servants of God not to fear the high reaches and deep devices of their enemies.(3) This serveth to reprove two sorts of men that esteem not aright of this worldly wisdom of wicked men; for some are offended at their wisdom because it is so great, others rest contented in it because it is so excellent. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 24Numbers 24:1-9He set his face toward the wilderness.The face set toward the wildernessEvidently there is a change at this point in Balaam’s method. Hitherto he has played the soothsayer. At last he confesses himself vanquished, and instead of renewing the practices of his magic science, awaits, with eye fixed upon the waste distant desert, a revelation different in kind from any that have gone before it. It was a turning-point in his strange history. Not the first, nor the greatest, yet real, and, would he have had it so, saving. He has learned the helplessness of man striving with his Maker. He has learned the futility of approaching the God of truth with a lie in the right hand. He has learned that to “set the face toward the wilderness” is the one hope and wisdom of inquiring man; to look away from enchantments; to look away from courts and crowds, from pleasures and businesses; to look away from types and forms, and to fix the earnest gaze upon that solitude of earth and heaven which is the presence of the soul in the presence of God. The crisis was lost, we know, upon Balaam. The dreams of avarice and of worldliness prevailed in him, even over the open vision. We cannot alter his destiny; let us learn something from this incident.1. There is in all of us a strange reluctance to the thing here described--this setting of the face toward the wilderness where God is alone. I might say many things to you of the ministerial man--the man, I mean, whose office it is to communicate with God for the edification of His people. How often, when this ministry, the Church’s prophesying, is to be, exercised, does the indolent, the half-hearted, the perfunctory minister run to his “enchantments”; to his books and to his manuscripts, to his commentaries; to the old “bakemeats,” his own or another’s, which have done duty before, and can be made “coldly to furnish forth” another “table”! How often--to change the illustration--does the abler, the more ingenious, the more eloquent minister betake himself to his task of preparation for preaching by a mustering of his own gifts of argument, of rhetoric, of pathos and persuasiveness, as the enchantments by which he is to bring God into these hearts I How often does a man--to use the prophet’s strange but expressive metaphor--“sacrifice to his net, and burn incense to his drag”; pay the homage of a gratified vanity to his own performance, count instead of weighing his hearers, and set down all to his own credit in prophesying, of which he should rather say to himself in deepest self-humiliation, “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?”2. Yet think not that the Balaams of this age are all prophets, or that the warning is only for the professional teacher. I seem to see a place for it in these lives which minister and people live in common. How often, in the anxious questionings which life brings to all of us--at those dubious turnings which compel decision, and cannot be decided upon twice over--is the temptation powerfully present to seek for some “enchantment” of discrimination between the wrong for us and the right! Who has not made advice such an “enchantment”? “In the multitude of counsellors there is safety”; but then the counsellors must be well chosen, must be honestly sought, must be diligently informed, must be faithfully followed.3. I would add a word upon the application of the text not to the life, but to the soul. Side by side with a bold scepticism which simply passes by the gospel on the other side there is also an anxiety, a curiosity, to hear, which secures an audience wheresoever there is a preacher, which stimulates all manner of agencies for bringing home the gospel. In the same degree the warning is more urgent, that we confound not, in these highest matters, the “enchantments” and the “wilderness.” Who feels not in himself the easiness of listening and the difficulty of praying? Who is not conscious of the temptation to compound for inward torpor by outward bustle, and to make a multiplication of services and communions an apology for neglect and shameful sloth in the nearer and more intimate converse between the soul and its God? (Dean Vaughan.)Balaam . . . the man whose eyes are open.Balaam--the open eyeAn open eye is a rare thing even in the matters of common experience. They are the few who can see clearly the things which God has set round them in their daily paths. Men of science tell us that it is difficult to meet with a competent observer of even the simplest and most familiar phenomena. Lawyers complain that a good witness, who can tell what he knows, and only what he knows, is as rare. It is supposed by experienced persons that a fact is just the most difficult thing in the world to get at, so few walk with their eyes open and care to make themselves simply conductors of truth. We see things through mists which take the colours of prejudice or passion, and it is but a vague outline of them which meets our sight. “Lord, that our eyes may be opened,” is a prayer full of meaning for all of us as we move amidst the realities of our daily lives. In the higher sphere of the being the open eye is rarer still. The realities in that region are solemn things to look upon. There is something awful in their grandeur, and even in their beauty. A man needs courage and faith to face them as they are.I. Balaam was a man whose eye was open in his day. He was a man of splendid natural genius. We puzzle over the definition of genius; but perhaps it is only the open eye, the power to see things simply as they are. In every sphere of man’s intellectual activity the man of genius is the seer.II. Balaam’s is at the same time a character of singular perplexity. He had both the open eye and the itching palm. And this condition is far from rare. Splendid endowments are often mated with moral narrowness or feebleness. With many of these men of insight, men with the seer’s power, there is a flaw in the thoroughness somewhere. But then these men, when their genius possesses them, rise above the sphere of their humiliation; the temptations which ensnare them snap like the withes of Samson; they see clearly, and declare with the freedom and the force of prophets the things which have been shown to them by the Lord. Lord Bacon may have been capable of very poor ambitions, very grovelling thoughts and actions; but when his genius possessed him, when he loosed his splendid faculty in the quest of truth, the simplest fact became sacred to him; he would not have dared to misrepresent or to tamper with what he saw for worlds. It was thus with Balaam. On the lower level of his life he was grovelling; but when God took possession of his genius he yielded it readily, and then he was true as steel to the vision.III. The man whose eyes were open saw some things with startling clearness. Some words of his ring out like trumpet notes through the field of life’s battle; they are conceived with a vividness and expressed with a force which makes them prophetic for all ages; we hear from his lips the words of God.1. The only word which a man can say with power is truth. The word that God also saith, that shall stand (Num 22:38). The counsellor who knows the Divine plan is the man who has power. The position of the Jews among the nations, and the influence which they wielded, which is popularly much under-estimated, rested wholly on the fact that they knew as no other nation knew the Divine counsels, they held the key to the mystery of all these worlds. Balaam saw that the trickster and liar is impotent. Laocoon, locked in the serpent wreaths, wrestling madly, but with the death agony in his face, is not more powerless than the monger of falsehood to escape his doom. The gain is there, it is always there; you can have it if you like by cheating and lying. Balaam saw it, and there was that within him which longed for it. But his eye was open; he dared not touch it. He saw the pure folly as well as the shame of dreaming of it, of thinking that anything but truth, right, and the blessing of God can stand a man in any stead in life, in death, and in the great court of Heaven.2. He saw with that open eye that the man who stands with God stands absolutely beyond the reach of harm (Num 23:23).3. There was a third thing that Balaam saw. The man whom God blesses is blessed; the man whom God curses is cursed, absolutely and for ever. (J. B. Brown, B. A.)How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob.--The prosperity of the ChurchWith great admiration he beginneth to declare the future prosperity of that people, and doth it by six similitudes.1. As the valleys are they stretched forth, or as the rivers say some, which coming from one head spread themselves into great broad waters, so this people having sprung from Jacob, one patriarch, hath spread into this multitude, and yet further shall spread into many more.2. “As gardens by the river’s side.” Such gardens are watered so by the rivers as if the heat be never so great, yet they are not burned up. So shall this people in all adversities and dangers be preserved by the power and blessing of God till the coming of the Messiah, and overcome by no assaults of Satan and his instruments.3. “As the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted.”4. “As the cedar trees beside the waters,” which, growing to a great height, notably show how this people with their offspring should wonderfully grow with their virtue and famous acts, getting a great name in the world.5. “The water droppeth out of his bucket”; that is, as such water floweth abroad, so shall this people abound with the water of heavenly doctrine and wisdom, and from them be spread to other nations plentifully, according to that “Out of Sion shall a law go, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”6. “His seed shall be in many waters.” As seed that is cast into a field well watered soon springeth and beareth fruit, so this people. These are the prophetical resemblances of this people Israel, which do still declare unto us the flourishing and happy state of God’s Church, whatsoever worldly men conceive and think. The Church is the tabernacle of God, wherein He dwelleth, and familiarly with His chosen as with His domestics and household servants converseth, providing things necessary both for this life and that to come. The Church is that little river which spreadeth itself far and wide throughout the world. The Church is that well-watered garden, set with sweet trees casting forth the fragrant smell of life, of the knowledge of God and of virtue, whereof Solomon in his Canticles: “My sister, my spouse, is a garden enclosed, as a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed up.” The Church is that shadow that yieldeth comfortable cooling, in the sense and feeling of God’s wrath to sin. It is that cedar planted by the water-side, and growing so high, whereof the prophet in the Psalm: “The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Such as be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in their age; they shall be fat and flourishing,” &c. The Church is that bucket, containing doctrine of life, and dropping it out to the comfort of souls. Finally, that seed shall live again in the life to come, and for ever spring and flourish. (Bp. Babington.)Balaam’s third parable: the glory of the people of GodI. The preparation of the prophet to declare the Divine will.1. Balaam renounces the search for auguries.2. He beholds the encampment of Israel.3. He is inspired by the Holy Spirit.4. He hears Divine words and sees Divine visions.II. The declaration by the prophet of Israel’s glory.1. Their beautiful appearance.(1) Beauty--(a) Of order.(b) Of culture and fertility.(2) Fragrance.(3) Majesty.2. Their prosperous condition.3. Their exalted position.4. Their conquering power.(1) Great strength.(2) Great conquests.(3) Great security.(4) Great influence. (W. Jones.)Balaam’s third parableSeen from the top of the rocks, everything about Israel is perfection. Had we been down in the valley, and looked into them from an earthly standpoint, we should have seen deformity enough. But from God’s presence everything is changed. But mark the figures under which this beauty is described. “As valleys are they spread forth.” These are the valleys watered by the river; these are the people of God, made beautiful by the refreshing streams of living water which flow down from the throne of God. Not yet are they as watered “valleys,” but as “gardens by the river’s side.” This is a richer description still. They are the garden of the Lord. They are the plants planted by the Father. They have been taken out of the world--transplanted--and are now to “bring forth much fruit.” The streams from “the river of God” find their way to the roots of their spiritual life; and thus they become fruitful. Jesus is the source of their life and their fruitfulness. And in all this we see growth--“as the valleys are they spread forth; as gardens by the river’s side.” The entire figure implies sanctification--growth in grace. There will always be three kinds of growth where the soul is really abiding in Jesus. There will be the outward growth as the “lily”--the life before men; the hidden growth as the “roots” of Lebanon--the life before God; and the relation toward men as the “branches spreading,” the influence which they cast around. But the figure grows in richness: “as trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted.” The aloe tree was highly valued on account of its fragrance, and it was the tree from which the incense was prepared. Thus the believer abiding in Jesus is a “ sweet savour” of Christ. The fragrance of that blessed One is diffused far and wide through him. He is beautiful with the beauty which the Lord puts upon him. His “scent is as the wine of Lebanon.” And to what cause is all this fragrance due? To the “Lord’s planting.” There is one more step in advance in the spiritual life in this verse: “as cedar trees beside the waters.” As the “lily” and “trees of Lebanon” in the passage, in Hosea, so here. The growth of the believer is brought before us under the loftiness of the cedar tree, its luxuriance, and the durability of its wood. Now, having noticed what the people of God are as seen in Jesus, let us mark their testimony. “He shall pour the water out of his buckets.” The people of God are personified, as a man carrying two pails overflowing with water. A bucket or vessel is empty. It can give nothing. It can only receive. The “buckets” are the “empty vessels” to be filled with “living water” by the Holy Ghost. Like the two pails on a man’s shoulder which are filled to the brim, he cannot move a step without the water overflowing. So with the believer abiding in Jesus. He is the empty vessel filled by the Holy Ghost. He cannot move a step without making that influence felt. There will be a trail of living water in his path--a track of light in every step of the way. And oh, what empty places there are within us and around us! Within us--desires, affections, longings, hopes, aims, plans; without us--home, duties, efforts, a weeping Church, and a dying world. Oh, that these “buckets” were filled with the “living water”! Then would gladness be written as with a sunbeam on every brow, and sunshine light up every heart. “His seed shall be in many waters.” This is the effect of the outpoured water from the buckets of the believer’s soul. He is made a blessing on every side. “His king shall be higher than Agag, and his kingdom shall be exalted.” Christ the King of the Jews is to be “higher” than all the kings of this world; and Christ’s kingdom “exalted” above all other kingdoms. All this glory is then traced to the first great act of redemption “God brought him forth out of Egypt.” Thus deliverance from Egypt and future glory are linked together. “He hath as it were the strength of the buffalo.” Here is the power of God abiding with, and resting upon, those whom He has redeemed. Then follows, in connection with their redemption from Egypt, that final triumph and glory. “He shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.” This is the foretold destruction mentioned in the New Testament, which awaits all the enemies of the Lord at His coming. But in the meantime the attitude of the Church of Christ is one of expectation. Her attitude is not one of judgment yet, but one of grace. This is strikingly brought before us in the next clause; “he couched, he lay down as a lion.” The “couching” of the lion is always the attitude of expectation--looking forward to the moment when he shall spring upon his prey. “Lying down” indicates rest. The believer now rests in Jesus, and awaits His return. In the meantime blessing is his portion--“blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.” And we notice how the blessing culminates here. The first was, “How shall I curse, or how shall I defy?” After it was, “He hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it.” Lastly, it is “Blessed is he that blesseth thee.” This last form in which Balaam expresses himself shows us God’s estimate of His people Israel. “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.” (F. Whitfield, M. A.)Sermon at reopening of a churchI. Let us attempt to justify and elucidate this sacred exclamation. The language is proper.1. On account of the author of their construction.2. The beneficial effect of their institution.3. The pleasantness of their unity.4. The joys of their fellowships.5. Their perpetuity, and the certainty of their increase.II. What ought to be the effects produced upon us by such a survey of the assemblies of the people of God. We should--1. Cherish a spirit of gratitude for the establishment and increase of these tents of God.2. Shun all that would impair, and diligently maintain all that would secure the blessing.(1) Guard against lukewarmness, as that which would deface the beauty of ordinances, and rob us of the advantages we might receive from their celebration.(2) Take care of holding the truth in unrighteousness.(3) Be cautious not to violate the true spirit of love.(4) Preserve the vigour of wholesome, salutary discipline; so that the testimony may be borne you from on high, “I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience,” &c.(5) Follow up all with importunate prayer. “Peace be within thy walls, &c. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem,” &c.3. Endeavour to increase the number of those who frequent the tabernacles, and dwell in the tents of Jacob. Imitate the tribes when ambulating in the wilderness. Remember that you are surrounded by those who have no hope. Tell them plainly that you are pilgrims and strangers. Inform them of the privileges you enjoy by the way; of the manna which drops by your door; of the streams which flow from the rock Christ; of the light which guides your feet; of the cloud which screens you from temptation; of the victories you obtain over your foes; of the prospect you have of passing through Jordan safely; and of the rich land of promise which you are shortly about to enter. Press on them not to linger.4. Anticipate the time when your tents will be struck, and all the ransomed tribes assemble in the tabernacle above. These tents of the Israelites were valuable as they traversed the sands of Arabia; but they left them when they entered on the rest which their prophets had predicted, and their poets sung. And what are our temples? They are only preparatory for the enjoyments of the Canaan above. May it be your privilege to join the tribes of the redeemed as they go up to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads! (J. Clayton, M. A.)Numbers 24:9Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee.God will be merciful to such as be merciful to the ChurchGod will bless those that do good to His people, they shall not lose their labour that favour the Church, but such as are enemies unto them shall find God an enemy unto them. We see how God blessed the house of Laban for Jacob’s sake (Gen 30:27); and the house of Potiphar for Joseph’s sake (Gen 39:3). Rahab, the harlot, receiving the spies and preferring their life before her own life, was herself saved from the common destruction. The widow of Sarepta giving hospitality to Elijah, and offering him part of that poor pittance which was left her and her son in those days of drought, was with all her family miraculously sustained in the famine, continuing three years and six months (1Ki 17:10). The Shunamite receiving the prophet Elisha, making him a chamber, providing all necessaries for him. She showed some mercy, but received more mercy; she ministered comfort to the prophet, but herself received more comfort.1. First, God will honour all those that honour Him, He will despise all those that despise Him. This is the gracious promise that is gone out of His own mouth, which He cannot but verify, for He is not as man that He should lie; He is not as the son of man that He should deceive. This is it which the Lord spake by the mouth and ministry of Samuel concerning Eli and his house (1Sa 2:30). And, therefore, they shall prosper that love the Church (Psa 122:1-9).2. Secondly, God hath appointed it to be the end of our obedience; our mercy to others shall procure mercy upon ourselves. This the apostle setteth down (Rom 2:10).3. Thirdly, mercy, a notable fruit of love received, kindleth the hearts, and inflameth the affections of God’s people, both to praise God for them, and to pray unto God for them that have been helpful and serviceable to the Church.The uses follow--1. First, from hence we have the confirmation of another holy truth in our Christian religion, that merciful, liberal, and kind men, shall be surely blessed.2. Secondly, it is our duty to love God’s people, seeing such as favour them do fare the better for them.3. Thirdly, hereby we are warned to exhort one another to this duty, and by all means to provoke one another to mercy, in regard of the great recompense of reward that is laid up for merciful men.4. Lastly, this doctrine is both a great encouragement unto us in well doing and a great comfort in all adversities. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 24:10-19Balak’s anger was kindled against Balaam. Balaam and BalakI. The cause of Balak’s anger. That Balaam had not fulfilled the terms of his contract (Num 24:10-11).1. Consider the reason and nature of the contract. Urgency of case. Great reputation of Balaam.2. Consider the position and reputation of Balaam.(1) He is called a prophet (2Pe 2:16).(2) God held communication with him (Num 22:9; Num 22:12; Num 22:20; Num 22:31; Num 23:4-5).(3) He was also a warrior-chief (Num 31:8).(4) He was a man of high gifts of intellect and genius, besides having a knowledge of the true God.3. Consider how Balaam had failed in his contract (Num 23:1-30; Num 24:1-9).II. Balaam’s self-justifying answer (Num 24:12-13).1. Was it true? Yes (Num 22:13-18).2. If true, why did he leave home? He loved money (2Pe 2:15).3. If God Commanded him to go (Num 22:20), why was he blamed for going (Num 22:22)?(1) God’s permission was based upon Barnum’s strong desire to go. God gave him up to his own lust.(2) God’s displeasure arose from the fact that Balaam was so determined to go and do that which he was told he must not do. Sinners must not think that their sin is any the less odious because God permits it.III. Balaam’s parable (Num 24:14-19).1. The situation.(1) Behind him lay the vast expanse of desert extending to his native Assyria.(2) On his left the red mountains of Edom and Seir.(3) Immediately below him lay the vast encampment of Israel.(4) Beyond them, on the west of Jordan, rose the hills of Palestine--the promised land.2. The parable.(1) The condition of the prophet when he had the vision (Num 24:16).(2) The leading subject of the parable--the mighty and glorious King of Israel.(a) The prophet sees Him in person.(b) He is able to distinguish His nationality.(c) He sees Him as a mighty conqueror.(3) That this refers to Christ is clear to any one who accepts the testimony of God’s Word.Lessons:1. God intrusts superior talents to men who may abuse them.2. One besetting sin may be enough to dim the most splendid abilities and destroy the most brilliant reputation.3. Balaam’s failure to curse Israel is a significant type of the fact that he whom God hath blessed can no man curse. (D. C. Hughes, M. A.)Spake I not also to thy messengers.--Worldly profit should not withdraw us from Christian dutiesMatters of profit must not carry us beyond our calling, we must not pursue them when we have no warrant to desire them. A notable example hereof we have in Gideon, he had a kingdom offered unto him; for the men of Israel said unto him, “Reign thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy son’s son.” He saw no calling from God and therefore refused it, and betook himself to a private life, saying (Jdg 8:22-23). The like we see in our Saviour Christ, He refused to be made a temporal king (Joh 6:15). We see the disciples of Christ left all, and neglected the service of themselves, and the seeking of their own benefit for the service of God (Mat 19:27). Whereby we see that albeit profits be in time and place to be looked after, yet we must all look to have our warrant in seeking for them. The reasons remain to be considered, to enforce this truth, and to gain our affections to the embracing of it.1. For, first, by too much following the profits of this life, we may lose a greater profit. If we should win the world, and lose our souls; if we should catch the riches of this life, and crack ,the peace of a good conscience, it would prove in the end a small gain unto us.2. Secondly, the things of this life serve only for a season. The hope that we have is this--we look for a kingdom. We cannot have a heaven in this life, and another in the life to come.The uses come now to be stood upon.1. First, we see it is a dangerous bait to be in love with the world.2. Secondly, we see that our own private respects are not the chief things that we must respect, but seek a sanctified use of the blessings of this life, and a warrant to our consciences for the right using of them. These blessings of God become curses unto us unless we use them lawfully.3. Lastly, this doctrine serveth to reprove those that esteem earthly things above heavenly, and mind their profits more than their salvation. These invert the course of nature and turn all things upside down, they set the earth above the heavens, and thrust down the heavens beneath the earth. This is like that confusion and disorder which the wise man speaketh of (Ecc 10:6-7). (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 24:17-19I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh.Balaam’s visionAs I read these words I seem to look on the scene described. What do I see? I see the top of a wild mountain range, and I see altars smoking with sacrifices. Hard by stands Balak, with many slaves bearing costly gifts, gold, and precious stones, and spices, and garments. A little apart is Balaam, that “strange mixture of a man.” And now, as he gazes from the high places of Baal, and the altars of idolatry, he sees far below Israel abiding in their tents. There are the banners of the different tribes waving in the wind; the eyes of Balaam are opened, and he recalls the past of Israel’s history, and he foresees the future. And now, as we turn aside from this unwilling prophet who utters a blessing, in every word of which there was breathed a curse, what lessons are there for us of to-day.1. First, we learn the awful danger of trifling with conscience, the whisper of the Holy Spirit within us. Balaam knew what was right, yet desired to do wrong.2. We learn, too, the sin of trying to make a bargain, or compromise, with God. Hundreds of people are trying to do this, endeavouring to serve God a little, and the world a good deal. They profess to obey God, but only in the matters which they choose.3. We learn, also, from the story of Balaam’s sin, never to neglect a plain duty for the sake of earthly gain. (H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, M. A.)Two ways of seeing ChristCommentators have differed as to the way of explaining the pronoun “him,” some referring it to Israel. We need scarcely say that we agree with those who refer to Him who is Jacob’s star and sceptre. False as his heart was, the seer saw Him in the spirit of prophecy, and felt that a time would come when he would actually see Him. But the time when Jacob’s Star would arise was not come, it was distant, and so he adds, “but not now; I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” This seems to be the obvious meaning of the words. But if you look at them in connection with Balaam’s state of mind, do they not contain a deeper and more awful meaning? Are they not prophetic of himself, as well as of Christ?--of his own awful end, as well as of Israel’s great destiny? “I shall see Him!” Yes, when He comes again; but does he express hope that he will share in the Redeemer’s glory and Israel’s blessedness? No, there is no word of hope, no expression of desire, as in the words of Job, “For I know that my Redeemer liveth,” &c. “My Redeemer!” says the afflicted saint, with an appropriating faith; “whom I shall see for myself,” he adds, in hallowed longing; but all that the “unrighteous” prophet could say was, “I shall behold Him, but not nigh.” In what spirit do we think of that day of which these men speak? All of us, without any exception, will see Christ. “Every eye shall see Him.” But how shall we see Him--nigh, or afar off? Like Job, or like Balaam? Has it been given us to say with the first, “My Redeemer--mine, for He died for me”? Or do we feel--must we feel, that we have no part in His salvation; and that when we see Him, it may be “afar off.” (G. Wagner.)A Star out of Jacob.Balaam’s prophecy of Christ as Star and SceptreBalaam, moved by the Spirit, sets forth Jesus in this prophecy in a twofold character--as the Giver of light, and as exercising kingly power.I. First, as the giver of light: “There shall come a Star out of Jacob.” We all know that the Redeemer is more than once compared in Scripture to the sun (Mal 4:2; Luk 1:78). It is not, perhaps, quite so easy to see why Christ is compared to a “star”; for as the stars shine with a borrowed light, they seem more suited to be illustrations of the followers of Jesus than of the Saviour Himself. And so they are used in Rev 1:20 of ministers: “The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches”; and by St. Paul of all Christians (Php 2:14). Applied to Christ, it may be to teach us how Jesus shines through all the long night of the Church’s sorrows. The sun dissipates darkness; where it shines, darkness ceases. It is so with the rule of sin. Into whatever heart Christ shines, there the power of sin is broken. The star gives light without dissipating darkness. It guides the wanderer’s feet. So Jesus gives light in the night of affliction. He does not altogether remove it, nor exempt His people from suffering. But they are not left in utter darkness. There is a star in the heavens above, so bright that it can penetrate the darkest cloud, and gladden with its light the loneliness of sorrow. But St. John teaches us something more about this star when he records the words of the glorified Redeemer, “I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning Star” (Rev 22:16). And why the morning star? The morning star is the last to disappear. It still continues to shine when the rays of the sun have overwhelmed every other light; and thus it is a beautiful emblem of Christ. Is Christ Jesus your Star, your morning Star? Is it to His light that you look? And if any earthborn cloud interrupts His light from your soul, do you look through the cloud, and wait, not impatiently, but earnestly, for its removal? Those false lights with which we encompass ourselves, the sparks of our own kindling, will certainly all go out, and great will be the consternation of those who will then be left in darkness. But if you are looking to Jesus, guided by His light, then your path will get brighter and brighter, until it ends in the perfect light of His presence, a height to which no cloud can rise. But there is one thing more that we must notice with regard to this Star. Balaam tells us the point from whence he saw it arise. “There shall come,” he says, “a Star out of Jacob.” This points us to the humanity of Jesus. All the brightness of the Godhead came to us through the humanity of Jesus.II. But let us pass on to the second part, the kingly office of our Redeemer: “And a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel.” It may be thought, perhaps, in consequence of the words that follow, “and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth,” that this prophecy was fulfilled in the time of David, when the boundaries of Israel were so much enlarged, and their enemies overcome. But we ought to remember that just as the prophets and priests of Israel were types of Jesus as Prophet and Priest, so were its kings types of Him who was and is a King of kings. Jesus was a King in the days of His suffering on earth. It was under the direction of God’s providence that Pilate, though he meant it not so, wrote the title, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” The sceptre was in His hand; but He did not then put forth His great power and reign. His kingly office was held for a time in abeyance. True it is that Christ does reign. He reigns in the hearts of His willing people, and over a reluctant world. But this is the time of His patience and long-suffering. The hour is not yet come for the full manifestation of His kingly office and power. Does He reign in our hearts, destroying and keeping under our spiritual enemies?III. But there is one point more in our text which we must not leave unnoticed, and that is, the consequence of the coming of the Star, and rising of the Sceptre--a power given to Israel to overcome his enemies. Those enemies are described, not generally, but very minutely. Moab is mentioned first, because, headed by Balak, the Moabites were then endeavouring to destroy Israel. The expression, “Smite the corners (or sides) of Moab,” signifies an entire destruction, perpetrated along the whole compass of its dominions. The next expression, “The children of Sheth,” has puzzled commentators. Some have taken it as a proper name, to designate one of Adam’s sons; but it is impossible to extract any good meaning from it if so understood. The Hebrew word has, however, lately been shown to be the contracted form of another word which signifies “tumult”; and this is strongly confirmed by a reference to a remarkable prophecy of Jeremiah concerning Moab, in which we can scarcely fail to observe an allusion to this prophecy of Balaam (Jer 48:42). The enemies of Israel were called the children of tumult, because they were ever restless; restless in themselves, because they knew not Israel’s God, and restless as neighbours, because they would give Israel no peace. Next to Moab, Edom is mentioned. Then follow predictions of judgments on Amalek, Israel’s first enemy, on the Kenites, strong as they seemed to be in their mountain-passes, on Asshur and Eber; and so terrible did these judgments appear to the seer, that he could not help exclaiming, “Alas I who shall live when God doeth this?” But all these are but typical of the greater enemies with which we have to contend. The “sons of tumult” encompass us about. Satan, knowing that his time is short, is ever busy. The world, so restless because it knows not Christ, pours in its influences upon us. The old man within us, though crucified, is ever struggling for victory. And Under these influences our very relatives and friends may hinder us on our way, just as Edom did Israel. What must we do to overcome? We must fix our eye upon Jacob’s Star, the bright morning Star. We must cling to the sceptre of Jesus. Remember that the enemies of God’s people are already doomed to destruction. Yet a little while, and if you are Christ’s, Satan will be bruised under your feet. The world will not attract or frighten you. The old man will not struggle and weary you. (G. Wagner.)The Star of JacobOur Lord, then, is compared to a star, and we shall have seven reasons to assign for this.I. He is called a star as the symbol of government. You will observe how evidently it is connected with a sceptre and with a conqueror. Jacob was to be blessed with a valiant leader who should become a triumphant sovereign. Very frequently in oriental literature their great men, and especially their great deliverers, are called stars. Behold, then, our Lord Jesus Christ as the Star of Jacob. He is the Captain of His people, the Leader of the Lord’s hosts, the King in Jeshurun, God over all, glorious and blessed for ever!1. We may say of Jesus in this respect that He has an authority which He has inherited by right. He made all things, and by Him all things consist. It is but just that He should rule over all things.2. Our Lord as a star has an authority which He has valiantly won. Wherever Christ is King He has had a great and a stern fight for it.3. This kingdom of Christ, wherever it is, is most beneficent. Wherever this star of government shines, its rays scatter blessing. Jesus is no tyrant. He rules not by oppression. The force He uses is the force of love.II. The star is the image of brightness. Our Lord Jesus Christ is brightness itself. The star is but a poor setting forth of Ills ineffable splendour. As Mediator, exalted on high, enjoying the reward of His pains, He is bright indeed.1. Observe, that our Lord as a star is a bright particular star in the matter of holiness. In Him was no sin.2. As a star, He shines also with the light of knowledge. Moses was, as it were, but a mist, but Christ is the Prophet of light. “The law was given by Moses”--a thing of types, and shadows--“but grace and truth come by Jesus Christ.” If any man be taught in the things of God, he must derive his light from the Star of Bethlehem.III. Thirdly, our Lord is compared to a star to bring out the fact that He is the pattern of constancy. Ten thousand changes have been wrought since the world began, but the stars have not changed. There they remain. So with our Lord Jesus. He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. What the prophets and apostles saw in Him, we can see in Him, and what He was to them, that He is to us, and shall be to generations yet unborn. Hundreds of us may be looking at the same star at the same time without knowing it. There is a meeting-place for many eyes. We may be drifted, some of us, to Australia, or to Canada, or to the United States, or we may be sailing across the great deep, but we shall see the stars there. It is true that on the other side of the world we shall see another set of stars, but the stars themselves are always still the same. As far as we in this atmosphere are concerned, we shall look upon some star. So, wherever we may be, we look to the same Christ. Jesus Christ is still the same, the same to all His people, the same in all places, the same for ever and ever. Well, therefore, may He be compared to those bright stars that shine now as they did of old and change not.IV. In the fourth place, we may trace this comparison of our Lord to a star as the fountain of influence. The old astrologers used to believe very strongly in the influence of the stars upon men’s minds. But whether there be an influence in the stars or not, as touching this world, I know there is great influence in Christ Jesus. He is the fountain of all holy influences among the sons of men. Where this star shines upon the graves of men who are dead in sin they begin to live. Where the beam of this star shines upon poor imprisoned spirits, their chains drop off, the captive leaps to lose his chains. When this star shines upon the backslider, he begins to mend his ways, and to follow, like the eastern sages, its light till he finds his Saviour once more.V. In the fifth place, the Lord Jesus Christ may be compared to a star as a source of guidance. There are some of the stars that are extremely useful to sailors. I scarcely know how else the great wide sea would be navigated, especially if it were not for the Polar Star. Jesus is the Polar Star to us.VI. Our Lord is compared to a star, safely, as the object of wonder. We used to think when we were little ones that the stars were holes pricked in the skies, through which the light of heaven shone, or that they were little pieces of gold-dust that God had strewn about. We do not think so now; we understand that they are much greater than they look to be. So, when we were carnal, and did not know King Jesus, we esteemed Him to be very much like anybody else, but now we begin to know Him, we find out that He is much greater, infinitely greater than we thought He was. And as we grow in grace, we find Him to be more glorious still.VII. Our Lord is compared to a star, as lie is the herald of glory. The bright and morning star foretells that the sun is on its way to gladden the earth with its light. Wherever Jesus comes lie is a great prophet of good. Let Him come into a heart, and, as soon as He appears, you may rest assured that there is a life of eternity and joy to come. Let Jesus Christ come into a family, and what changes He makes there. Let Him be preached with power in any town or city, and what a herald of good things He is there. To the whole world Christ has proclaimed glad tidings. His coming has been fraught with benedictions to the sons of men. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Balaam’s prophecyI. Christ’s predicted human ancestry. “Out of Jacob,” &c. He was the “Lord from heaven”; but He came through the lowly door of human birth.1. His ancestry was chosen by God. That there was a fitness we cannot doubt; what it consisted in we do not know.2. Its destinies were guided by God with a view to this great consummation. This explains many a dark passage in Israel’s history. So when we can view God’s leading of us from the result, all will be clear.3. It was a lowly ancestry. Contrast with the great ancient powers.4. It was by no means a pure and worthy ancestry. The clean came out of an unclean. Endless hope for man in that.II. The twofold representation of Christ’s reign.1. A Star. In its guidance.(1) Universal and impartial. For all under the heavens.(2) Abiding. No earthly power or malice can quench its light.(3) Leads in the darkness. Burns the brighter the greater the darkness.(4) Unobtrusive. You must watch and follow.2. A Sceptre.(1) Strong to protect His friends.(2) Powerful to crush His foes. (Clerical World.)The Star of Jacob and the Sceptre of IsraelI. The Star of Jacob or Israel.1. Christ is a Star to give Divine light and guidance to the soul.2. Christ is a Star of glory for His Church, and of conquest over all His foes.II. Christ is the Sceptre of Israel, or of the Church of God. The sceptre is the emblem in all realms and ages of royal authority. Now Christ holds the sceptre of royal power in two ways.1. As the Divine Lawgiver and Ruler of His Church for government.2. For victory and eternal glory. (J. G. Angley, M. A.)Balaam and the Star of JacobI. The deliverer of this prophecy.II. The person foretold in this prophecy.1. A star may be conceived an apt emblem of Jesus, from the loftiness and dignity of its position. Lofty as is the sphere of the common star, infinitely loftier is the mediatorial range of the circuit of Christ, the Star of Bethlehem. In His course as a Saviour, He completely overtops with His excellency all length, and breadth, and depth, and height--all time--all eternity.2. A star, also, is an apt emblem of Jesus, inasmuch as it helps to relieve the monotonous aspect of the gloom of night with its brilliant presence. How undefined would be the face of night without the stars! It is the constant twinklings that are emitted from the various groups of stars above our heads which convert the dulness of night into positive cheerfulness. And is not Jesus the Star that gilds the dark night of affliction with the blessings of His spiritual presence?3. How wonderful is it that He generally reserves the disclosure of His unsearchable ways to His chosen until the darkest hour of the night of tribulation! But Jesus, also, is aptly represented under the figure of a star, as being set forth to the world at large as a sign from heaven. To some He shines far off, as the star of better days to come; to more as the star of ill omen and wrath from on high to them that are disobedient and care not for the truth.III. The purport of this prophecy. (R. Jones, B. A.)Balaam’s visionIt is evident that the star and the sceptre are to be taken as emblems or types of some prince or warrior; for it is a living form which Balaam first represents himself as beholding, though he immediately proceeds to describe the being under images drawn from the inanimate creation. And that the star and sceptre did but figure some illustrious person is yet more clear from what instantly follows, seeing that the deeds of a conqueror are ascribed to him by the prophet--“and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.” The successes of this potentate are then more fully stated - “And Edom shall be a possession, Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies.” And the prophecy, so far as we are now to consider it, is shut up in the declaration, that the warrior figured by the star and the sceptre should not be alone in his conflict, but should be associated with the people from whom he was to arise, “Israel shall do valiantly.” And who, think ye, is this leader or prince to represent? The first opinion is, that it was David whom Balaam foresaw and foretold; the second, that it was Christ. And these opinions may both be correct. It is very common for prophecies to have a double fulfilment. The first when they are taken in a somewhat restricted sense; the second when they are taken in their largest sense. And this is peculiarly the case when an individual is himself the type of a more illustrious; and when therefore it may naturally be expected that his actions serve also as predictions of those of his antitype. Now it is not necessary that we Should show you that a king such as David might be fitly represented under the emblem of a star and a sceptre. This at least will be immediately admitted in regard of the sceptre; for the sceptre being that which a king holds and sways, suggests necessarily the idea of a royal ruler or potentate. And if we cannot affirm quite the same of the star, we know that, in the imagery of Scripture, stars are put for the leading men of a country--those most conspicuous in the political firmament: so that when great convulsions are to be delineated--those agitations of society which confound all orders and ranks--it is by such emblems as that of the stars falling from the heavens that the overthrow of princes and grandees was commonly represented. We turn then to the things said to be done by the being thus figuratively described; and in these we may certainly recognise the actions of David. It is affirmed of the predicted king that he shall “smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth”; Sheth (according to the best interpreters) having been the name of a great Moabitish prince. This affirmation (if Moab be literally understood) requires that the ruler of Israel should lay waste the country in which Balaam then stood; and so far the prediction was undoubtedly accomplished by David. For you read in the Second Book of Samuel--“David smote Moab, and he measured them with a line, casting them down to the ground; even with two lines measured he to put to death, and with one full line to keep alive: and so the Moabites became David’s servants, and brought gifts.” It is next said “Edom shall be a possession”; and you find it stated of David in the very chapter from which we have just quoted, “David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus; and the Syrians became servants.” As to what follows--“Seir also shall be a possession for his enemies”--it seems to be only a repetition of the former clause; for Seir was the name given to some parts of the country of the Edomites. So that the prophecy--a prophecy verified by the historical facts already adduced, is that David’s occupation of the land would be so complete that he should have possession of its fastnesses and heights. We need scarcely add that the remaining words of the text, “Israel shall do valiantly,” apply thoroughly to the people over whom David ruled; for the nation became eminently warlike under so illustrious a leader, and distinguished itself by courage in the field. And thus we may fairly say that if David were represented by the star and the sceptre, his registered actions and achievements correspond with sufficient accuracy to the prophetic delineation. But we doubt whether this accomplishment of the prophecy can seem to any of you commensurate with the grandeur of the diction with which it is conveyed. We thus bring you to the most important part of our subject. We are to apply the prophecy to Christ, and examine whether there be not a special fitness in the emblems of the star and the sceptre, when considered as designating the Redeemer; and whether the smiting of Moab and Edom do not aptly represent His victories and His triumphs. Indeed, so usual was it to associate the promised Christ with a star, or to take the star as His emblem, that we read of an impostor in the days of the emperor Adrian, wishing to pass himself off for the Messiah, assumed a title which signifies The Son of the Star; meaning thereby to announce himself as the star which Balaam had seen afar off. But admitting that the emblem of the star is employed in designating Christ, is there any special appropriateness in such an emblem? We reply at once that everything which has to do with light may fitly be taken as an image of Christ. There is nothing which so fitly represents the moral condition of the world when Christ appeared on earth as darkness. His office cannot be better represented than when He is exhibited under figures derived from the nature and the agency of light. But yet, why describe Him as a star, which does little towards irradiating a benighted creation? Why not rather take the sun as His emblem? He will be a sun to His Church throughout the heavenly states: but He is only as a star during the existing dispensation. And may not this, indeed, be most truly affirmed of a state in which at best “we see through a glass darkly,” and can “know but in part”? The night is yet upon us, though that night may be far spent; but it is no longer the starless night which it was ere the Redeemer brought life and immortality to light by His gospel. A star--a morning star has occupied our horizon, and the tempest-tossed barque, in danger of everlasting shipwreck, may steer itself by the light of that star to the haven where it would be, and where there is to be no more night, though no more sun. Christianity, as set up in the world, is but in its twilight. The night is still unbroken over a vast portion of our globe; and even where revelation has been received, we must rather speak of streaks like those on the eastern sky, whose gold and purple prophesy of morning, than those rich full lustres which flood creation when the sun has reached the zenith. On every account, therefore, is our Redeemer fitly emblemed by the figure which He applied to Himself--the emblem of the bright and morning star. And surely we need not say much to prove to you that the emblem of the sceptre is equally appropriate. You know that in Christ are combined the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. But admitting the appropriateness of the emblems thus given to Christ, we have yet to examine whether the predicted actions were such as to be ascribed to the Redeemer. We have already shown you that if Moab and Edom are to be literally taken--that if they designate countries anciently so called--there are recorded events in the annals of the Jews which may be fairly considered as having accomplished the prediction. Now this is, of course, upon the supposition that the star and the sceptre represent David or some other Jewish prince, and will not hold when Christ is regarded as the subject of the prophecy. We need not say that Christ never ]aid waste the literal Moab and Edom; and we may add that there is nothing in Scripture to lead us to suppose that the countries formerly so called are hereafter to be specially visited by His vengeance. But you cannot be ignorant that it is common in the Bible to take a name which has belonged to some great foe of God, and to use it of others whose wickedness is their only connection with the parties originally so called. Edom and Moab are the names which prophecy gives to the enemies of the Church, who are to perish beneath the judgments with which that sun shall be saturated, when every baser light is to be lost in the star, and every other empire in that of the sceptre. And, therefore: in predicting the desolation of Moab and Edom, Balaam may be regarded as predicting the final overthrow of all the power of anti-christ, that a clear scene may be swept for the erection of the kingdom of Christ and His saints. The sign of the Son of Man is yet to be seen in the heavens, where it was beheld by Balaam, from the summit of Peor. I know not what that sign shall be; perhaps again the star--fearful meteor!--like that which hung over the fated Jerusalem, boding its destruction; perhaps again the sceptre--brilliant constellation!--burning with majesty and betokening the extinction of all meaner royalty; perhaps the Cross, as it appeared to the Roman--aye, when he was taught to know the God of battles, and to place Christianity upon the throne of the Caesars. But whatever the sign, the Being whose emblazonry it exhibits, shall come to deal out a long-delayed vengeance on tribes that have refused to walk in His light and submit to His rule. Now it is to be observed that though we have thus referred the close of the prediction to the close of the existing dispensation, there has been from the first and there still is a partial accomplishment of all that Balaam announced. There is evidently a great mixture in the prophecy. It is a prophecy of illumination, of dominion, of destruction, and all these are to be traced ever since Christ revealed Himself to man. There have been always those in whose hearts the day star has risen--always those who have yielded themselves as willing subjects to the Mediator--always the Moabite and the Edomite who have defied His authority, or sunk beneath His vengeance. So that however the grand fulfilment is yet to be expected in the complete triumph of Christianity and the overthrow of all the foes of the Church, enough is continually occurring to prove that the prediction sketched the whole period of the present dispensation. Throughout this whole period the words have been fulfilled, “Israel shall do valiantly.” Israel has borne up bravely against incessant assault, and supported from on high has been successful in withstanding the armies of the aliens. (H. Melvill, B. D.)A new starProfessor Henry, of Washington, discovered a new star, and the tidings sped by submarine telegraph, and all the observatories of Europe are watching for that new star. Oh, hearer, looking out through the darkness of thy soul to-night, canst thou see a bright light beaming on thee? “Where?” you say, “where? how can I find it?” Look along by the line of the Cross of the Son of God. Do you not see it trembling with all tenderness and beaming with all hope? It is the Star of Bethlehem. (T. de Witt Talmage.)Variety of representation of GodThe Bible sets us an example of fashioning for ourselves a personal God to suit our need. When I find Paul using figures to represent to himself God, as his wants required Him, I know that I may do the same thing. When I want love, I may make God my tender and loving father or sister, or mother. When I want pity, I may make Him a Being of unfailing and boundless pity. When I want courage, He is my lion; when I want light and cheer, He is my bright and morning star--my God alert, my sun, my bread, my wine. We may imagine Him everything that is to us good and beautiful, tender and true, and know that we are not cheating ourselves by vain fancies, but have only touched the extreme outer edge of the ever-blessed reality. There may be dangers in this freedom and variety of our representation of our God; but there are dangers in all forms of our thought of Him, and in none half so much as in having no realisation of Him at all, in considering Him an abstraction of all the omnis. Thinking of Him thus, none can ever love Him, or walk with Him. (H. W. Beecher.)Seeing the starThis one thing I have noticed in everybody--the moment they come to a clear apprehension of the love of Christ, they turn right about upon the minister, or upon the Christians who have been labouring, perhaps for years, to bring them to that very point, and say, “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” Why, it’s what we’ve been always telling them. I think that trying to point a man to the love of Jesus is like trying to show one a star that has just come out, the only star in the whole cloudy sky. “I can see no star, says the man.” “Where is it?” “Why, there; don’t you see?” But the man shakes his head; he can see nothing. But by and by, after long looking, he catches sight of the star; and now he can see nothing else for gazing at it. He wonders that he had not seen it before. Just so it is with the soul that is gazing after the Star of Bethlehem. Nothing in the world seems so hidden, so complex, so perplexing, as this thing, until it is once seen by the heart, and then, oh, there never was anything that ever was thought of that is so clear, so simple, so transcendently glorious! And men marvel that the whole world does not see and feel as they do. (H. W. Beecher.)Death the crown of lifeOur text may be considered either as a plaint, a sigh, or a song--a dirge winding to a march. There are, in reality, three questions interlinked in this passage. It is a question of studious curiosity. What kind of a race will then inhabit the earth? Men are naturally inquisitive to know who are to be their successors. Why not? They are to be the heirs in turn of our heritage; the tenants who are to move in as we move out; to enjoy our repairs, and to do, in turn, their own repairing for those who shall follow them. Who are they? The question deepens into a sigh. Here we go! just as we begin to take on the meaning of things about us ; scarce sooner found than lost. But what of that which is to transpire long after all these are past? Some one will tread the path that I am treading! Some one will saunter in the grove where I now linger! Some one will loiter to enjoy the landscape which now feeds me with its soft beauty! Some one will scent the fragrance of these laughing flowers! Some one will be soothed and hushed by the melody of the rippling stream! Some one will look beseechingly up into the face of the twinkling stars! Some one will cry out with unutterable longing, as we now cry, “Alas! who shall live when God doeth this?” We are baffled at the grave. We put our eyes close to the bars, but we cannot see. Death is the crown of life; and yet it is not the triumph of man over time, but of time over man. We leave the world behind us. Do lasting slumbers hold us? Is there no more of us when we are gone? When the reduplicated forces of the earth shall be put under command; when man shall sit in plumed victory over the opposing energies of nature; when the sword shall be beaten into a ploughshare, and the spear into a pruning-hook; when old hoary tyrannies and rusty wrongs shall be entombed for ever; when health shall mantle the cheek, and happiness shall festoon the fireside; when man shall keep faith with his fellow-man, and worship and adore his Maker--shall I live then? The thought gladdens, but it maddens as well. The scepticism that would console me with the thought that death is but a momentary pang; that I shall sleep in death’s dateless night; that all these struggles shall have come to their rest; ah! this scepticism is but a miserable comforter after all. Shall I be shut out from my share in history? shut out from my right to know? It is voiced in another shape: “If a man die, shall he live again?” God has provided a way by which His people may be released, and yet view this earth in all its perfected beauty and glory. Only the wisdom of God could compass this. The resurrection solves this mighty problem. All who labour shall see the reward of their labour. The sower shall be partaker of the fruit. Every journeyman who worked wearily upon the temple, shall be present when the topstone is lifted to its place. Fall in, and catch up the anthem to the King of kings! Fall in, and live for ever. Follow Christ, and shout victory. Presently time shall have halted from its confused scramble, and God’s finished workmanship shall have been taken from the loom, and the tapestry shall be revealed in all its beauty and perfection--the pattern will be complete. Then shall we learn that when we die we do not die out; that death is not death ; that to die is not to die, but to blossom into life. (H. S. Carpenter, D. D.)Numbers 24:25Balaam rose up, and went, and returned to his place: and Balak also went his way. The parting of Balaam and Balak: the separations of lifeI. Balaam and Balak parted, having utterly failed in their designs.II. They parted with characters considerably modified by their association with each other.III. They parted, but not for ever. Those who have been associated in this present life will meet again in the great hereafter. Tempter and tempted, oppressor and oppressed, companions in evil designs and companions in noble enterprises--all will meet again. (W. Jones.)The desires of evil men against the Church come to nothingGod disappointeth the policies of the ungodly against the Church; so that how cunningly soever they are contrived, He bloweth them away as with the wind, and He melteth them as wax with the fire. Many rest in vain hope, and put confidence in deceitful things. The Egyptians had a purpose to kill all the males of the Israelites, but see how wide they shot, and how far they missed (Ex 1:12). The enemies of Christ say in the pride of their hearts, “Let us break their bands, and cast their cords from us; yet He that sitteth in the heaven laugheth them to scorn, and giveth to His Son the heathen for a possession” (Psa 2:3). Hereunto cometh the saying of the prophet (Psa 7:14). When Christ had preached the gospel at Nazareth, they were filled with such wrath against Him that they rose up and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him even unto the top of the hill, whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong; but He passed through the midst of them and went His way (Luk 4:30). So we read in the Acts of the Apostles that certain Jews made an assembly, and bound themselves with a curse, saying, “That they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul” (Act 23:22). But they were disappointed, and their purpose, though closely contrived, was utterly disannulled. The reasons will make this truth more apparent.1. If we consider this essential property of God that He is full of justice, He will reward as our works are. If we rest in vain and wicked practices He will not hold His peace, but throw down that which we build up, and He will disappoint that which we hope for.2. The expectation of the wicked is vanity, because they can give no comfort or assurance.The uses are next to be considered, as they arise from this doctrine.1. We may conclude from hence the unhappy estate of them that have only eyes of flesh, to rest on things which they see with their fleshly eyes. If we regard and receive only present blessings, they are of small moment. If, then, we wait on lying vanities and forsake God, our strength and salvation, we are unhappy and most miserable.2. We learn that no wisdom, be it never so deep; no understanding, be it never so politic; no counsel, be it never so prudent; no subtilty, be it never so hidden, shall overthrow the purpose of God, or prevail against His truth, or hinder the execution of His will. For His infinite wisdom is able to overmatch all the wisdom that is in the creatures, and to prevent whatsoever devices they have set abroach.3. Let us not rely on vain things, for then all our expectations shall be in vain. Who is so simple, that to stay him up from danger would rest on the web of a spider, or the staff of a reed, or the strength of a rush? All the devices of men, the power of princes, the courage of horses, the help of creatures, are as a broken weapon to defend us, and unserviceable to deliver us. This the prophet teacheth us (Psa 146:3-5).4. When we see the enemies conspire against the Church, let us, from this consideration of the vain confidence of the wicked, take occasion to comfort ourselves and to cheer up our hearts; all their expectation shall turn into smoke. Let them gather themselves together, and take crafty counsel one with another; He that ruleth in heaven shall scorn at their inventions, and frustrate them of their mischievous purposes.5. Seeing all evil inventions and devices of the devil are disappointed, let us not stand in fear of any attempts made against us by his instruments. The enemies of the Church had hired a sorcerer and conjurer to waste and weaken them, yet we see his enchantments are defeated and come to nothing. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 25Numbers 25:1-9The people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.The sin of Israel at Shittim, and the judgment of GodI. The sin of the Israelites at Shittim.1. The sin itself.(1) Spiritual fornication, or idolatry (Hos 2:1-23.).(2) Physical fornication.2. The origin of their sin (Num 31:16; Rev 2:14).3. The instruments of their sin: Moab and Midian.4. The occasion of their sin.(1) Their abode at Shittim. They were in the neighbourhood of sinful associations and corrupting influences. “Near a fire, a serpent, and a wicked woman, no man can long be in safety.”(2) Their lack of occupation. Idleness leads to vice and mischief.II. The judgment of God upon the Israelites on account of their sin.1. The judgment inflicted immediately by God. In some form or other punishment ever follows closely upon the heels of sin.2. The judgment inflicted by Moses and the judges by the command of God.(1) Its nature : Death.(2) Its publicity.(3) Its executioners.Lessons:1. The secret of the security of the people of God: faithfulness.2. The danger of those temptations which appeal to our self-indulgence or love of pleasure.3. The terribleness of the Divine anger.4. The solicitude with which we should guard against arousing this anger towards us. Sin calls it forth, therefore shun sin.5. Tile earnestness with which we should seek the mercy and the protection of God. (W. Jones.)Evil men proceed by degrees from worse to worseIn these words is offered unto us an example, expressing the nature of sin where once it is entertained. For behold here how they grow in sin. At the first, they departed out of the host of Israel and went to the people of Moab and Midian, with whom they coupled themselves; so that albeit they sinned, yet they had some shame of sin, and made some conscience of committing it openly amongst their brethren. But they proceed by little and little, from step to step, till they are ashamed of nothing. Therefore in the example of one man, here set before our eyes, Moses declares to what shamelessness they were come. For this man (who is afterward named), as if he had been absolute in power, as he was indeed resolute in will and dissolute in his whole life, brought his whorish woman in the sight of God, in the sight of Moses, in the sight of the congregation, and in the sight of the tabernacle, to show that he had filled up the measure of his sin.1. The nature of sin is to draw all such as delight in it from one evil to another, until in the end they become most corrupt and abominable.2. The wrath of Goal falleth upon such as make no conscience to fall into lesser sins, He giveth them over to a reprobate sense, and to hardness of heart.3. Sin is fitly resembled to the fretting of a canker, and to the uncleanness of a leprosy, both which go forward until the whole body be infected and every member endangered.Now let us handle the uses.1. Consider from hence how dangerous it is to give entertainment unto sin at the beginning, which groweth to more perfection every day; we cannot stop this stream when we will, it goeth beyond the strength of our nature.2. Seeing evil men wax worse and worse, we may conclude that their judgment sleepeth not, but is increased as their sin; yea, so it is not far off, but lieth at the doors.3. Seeing men giving themselves over to sin, it is our duty to resist the beginnings, to prevent the breach, and stop the first course of it. It is as a serpent that must be trod on in the egg. Let us take heed that sin grow not into a custom and get an habit. (W. Attersoll.)Sin deprives us of God’s protectionWe have beard before that albeit that Balak and Balaam intended by their sorceries to curse the people of God, yet they could by no means do them hurt; they were guarded by the protection of God as with a sure watch. Rut so soon as they forsook the living God, and fell a whoring with the daughters of Moab and Midian, by and by God departeth from them, and His heavy judgments break in upon them. The force of sorcery could not hurt them, but the strength of sin doth weaken them. Hereby we learn that sin depriveth us of God’s protection, and layeth us open to the fierceness of His wrath, and to the fury of our enemies. The reasons being considered will make the doctrine more evident.1. Sin maketh us execrable to the Lord and abominable in His sight. If, then, sin makes us to be had in execration it is no marvel if we be left destitute of God’s protection.2. God departeth from them that fall from Him; they forsake Him, and therefore He forsaketh them. So, then, our lying in sin doth drive the Lord from us, that He will have no more fellowship with us to do us any good.We are now to set down the uses of this doctrine.1. This teacheth us to acknowledge that all judgments which fall upon us are righteous. God chastiseth us often, but always justly, never unjustly.2. Seeing sin layeth us open to reproaches of enemies and to the judgments of God, as appeareth in this great plague upon the people, this showeth that we must not go about to hide our sin from God through hypocrisy. For all things are naked and open to His eyes, with whom we have to do; so that we must learn to confess them before His presence.3. This serveth as a notable advantage for the servants of God when they have any dealings against wicked men; we have encouragement from hence that we shall assuredly prevail against them, because we have to do with weak men that are out of God’s protection. (W. Attersoll.)God’s abhorrence of impurityThe Lord must have regard to two things in His own people--personal purity; and uncorrupted worship. In the very nature Of things it would be quite impossible to preserve purity of principle, clearness of understanding, and spirituality of affection, with corruption of life. It is a delusion of the worst kind, a master-device of Satan, the perfection of sin’s deceitfulness, and a perversion of all truth, justice, and grace, when men, in the retired indulgence of lusts within, or in open commission of crime, sit down tranquil under the defence of mercy, and fancy themselves with such interest in the robe of Christ’s perfection and beauty, that no spot or fault is in them. A sinner may come to Christ under every sense of imperfection, pollution, and vileness, and through faith in His mediation, may participate with appropriating joy and a well-founded confidence in all the interests of His atoning blood and justifying righteousness; nevertheless, he can never find anything in the nature and influence of evangelical truth but what has the most direct tendency and design to deliver from the power as well as to save from the desert of sin. To a gracious heart sin proves a plague and constant grief, and the cause, while it exists, of a never-ending strife. (W. Seaton.)The valley of sensualityIn Java is a valley which is called the Valley of Poison. It is an object of veritable terror to the natives. In this renowned valley the soil is said to be covered with skeletons and carcases of tigers, of goats, and of stags, of birds, and even with human bones; for asphyxia or suffocation, it seems, strikes all living things which venture into this desolate place. It illustrates the valley of sensuality, the most horrible creation of social life. Few men who enter into its depths survive long; for it is strewn with dead reputations and the mangled remains of creatures who were once happy. (W. Seaton.)Numbers 25:10-13Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned My wrath away . . . because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel Godly zealWe can lay no claim to saintship without zeal.When wickedness increases, then zeal must be bold and daring.I. The source of godly zeal The indwelling of the Holy Ghost. Grace in the heart must break forth.II. Godly zeal has its seat in the heart.III. Mark the object of holy zeal. Good works. It is the fervour of heavenly benevolence.IV. True zeal is blended with knowledge. To enlighten ourselves, we must have light ourselves.V. Zeal is forgetful of self. (The Study.)The zeal of PhinehasPhinehas appears as a rainbow on the bosom of a storm. He is as a flower on a wild heath, a fertile spot in a parched desert, pure ore in a rude quarry, a fragrant rose upon a thorny hedge, faithful among faithless.1. “He was zealous for his God.” He could not fold his arms and see God’s law insulted, His rule defied, His will despised, His majesty and empire scorned. The servant’s heart blazed in one blaze of godly indignation. He must be up to vindicate his Lord. His fervent love, his bold resolve, fear nothing in a righteous cause.2. Mark, next, the zeal of Phinehas is sound-minded. It is not as a courser without rein, a torrent unembanked, a hurricane let loose. Its steps are set in order’s path. It executes God’s own will in God’s own way. The mandate says, let the offenders die. He aims a death-blow, then, with obedient hand. The zeal, which heaven kindles, is always a submissive grace.3. This zeal wrought wonders. It seemed to open heaven’s gates for blessing to rush forth. God testifies, “He hath turned My wrath away from the children of Israel.” He hath made atonement for them. My name is rescued from dishonour. The haughty sinner is laid low. Therefore I can restrain My vengeance. Men see that sin is not unpunished; mercy may now fly righteously to heal. Zeal is indeed a wonder-working grace. Who can conceive what countries, districts, cities, families, and men, have sprung to life, because zeal prayed?4. Next mark how heavenly smiles beam on the zeal of Phinehas. Honour decks those who honour God. The priesthood shall be his. This lessen ends not here. Phinehas for ever stands a noble type. Yes, Christ is here. In Phinehas we see Christ’s heart, and zeal, and work, and mightily constraining impulse. In Phinehas we see Christ crowned, too, with the priesthood’s glory. (Dean Law.)The circumstances which moved the zeal of PhinehasI. There was the enormity of their sin. It included false doctrine and sinful practices, between which there is a closer connection than is always recognised.II. There was the character of the instigator to the sin. Balaam, “a strange mixture of a man.”III. There was the extent to which the sin prevailed. Among all classes.IV. There was the misery occasioned by the sin. To the guilty, to their connections, to the community.V. There was the dishonour done to God.1. We should be zealous in religion.2. Our zeal in contending against the sins of others should begin in zeal in contending against our own. (George Brooks.)The zealous spiritIn fact, a zealous spirit is essential to eminent success in anything. Perhaps there is the more need to insist upon this because enthusiasm is out of fashion. It is bad form nowadays to admire anything very warmly. To be strenuously in earnest is almost vulgar. Especially is this so in regard to religion. “Our Joe is a very good young man,” said an old nurse the other day; “but he do go so mad on religion.” That was the fly in the ointment--which spoilt all. Did not Pope say long ago, “The worst of madness is a saint run mad”? And he only put in terse and pithy speech what other people say more clumsily.1. And yet how can one be a Christian without being an enthusiast? Indifferent, half-hearted Christians are not true Christians at all. “I would thou weft either cold or hot,” says our Lord. Lukewarmness is his utter abhorrence. And the author of “ Ecce Homo “ cannot be said to exaggerate in his declaration that “Christianity is an enthusiasm, or it is nothing.”2. And what good work has ever been wrought without enthusiasm? Said a great preacher, “If you want to drive a pointed piece of iron through a thick board, the surest way is to heat your skewer. It is always easier to burn our way than to bore it.” Only “a soul all flame” is likely to accomplish much in the teeth of the difficulties which beset every lofty enterprise. The great movements which have most widely blessed the world have been led by men of passionate earnestness and fervid zeal. It is not the cool, calculating votaries of prudence who have done the work. Was it not written of our Lord Himself, “The zeal of Thy house hath eaten me up”? (G. Howard James.)The faithful bring a blessing upon their familiesWe have seen the zeal of Phinehas in executing judgment upon the evil-doers, which brought a grievous plague upon the people. His spirit was stirred within him, being first stirred by the Spirit of God, which moved him to take a spear, and to thrust through the adulterer and adulteress. Now we shall see the reward that was given unto him for that work which was acceptable unto God, and profitable unto His people. He hath a covenant of peace made with him, and the priesthood confirmed unto him and his posterity. God is so pleased with the obedience of His people that He will show mercy to such as belong to them. This is plentifully proved unto us in the Word of God. When God saw Noah righteous before Him in that corrupt age, He made all that belonged unto him partakers of a great deliverance, saying unto him, “Enter thou and all thine house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before Me in this age” (Gen 7:1). This appeareth in the person of Abraham, when God had called him out of his country, and from his kindred, and made a covenant with him to bless him (Gen 12:2-3). This is oftentimes remembered unto us in the Acts of the Apostles. When God had opened the heart of Lydia that she attended unto the things which Paul delivered, “She was baptized and all her household” (Act 16:15; Act 16:33). The reasons to enforce this doctrine are evident, if we consider either the person of God or the condition of the faithful.1. God hath in great mercy and goodness promised to show favour not only to the faithful themselves, but to the seed of the faithful that fear Him (Ex 20:6; Ex 34:6-7).2. As the mercy of God is great, so the faith of the godly is effectual for themselves and their children. This is the tenor of the covenant that God hath made with all the faithful. God will be our God, and the God of our seed after us (Gen 17:7). For as a father that purchaseth house or land, giveth thereby an interest unto his son therein; so he that layeth hold on the promise which God hath made to all godly parents, doth convey it unto his children; so that albeit they want faith by reason of their years, yet they are made partakers of Christ, and ingrafted into His body. The uses remain to be handled.(1) We learn that the children of faithful parents have right to baptism, and are to receive the seal of the covenant. This the apostle teacheth (1Co 7:14).(2) We are taught on the other side that evil parents bring the curse of God into their houses, and upon their posterity.(3) It is required of us to repent and believe the gospel, that so we may procure a blessing upon ourselves and our children. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 26Numbers 26:2Take the sum of all the congregation.Divine enumerationGod is a God of numbers. He is always numbering. He may number to find out who are present, but in numbering to find out who are present He soon comes to know who are absent. He knows the total number, but it is not enough for Him to know the totality; He must know whether David’s place is empty, whether the younger son has gone from the father’s house, whether one piece of silver out of ten has been lost, whether one sheep out of a hundred has gone astray. We are all of consequence to the Father, because He does not look upon us through the glory of His majesty, but through the solicitude of His fatherhood and His love. We need this kind of thought in human life: living would be weary work without it. This chapter reads very much like the other chapter in which the census was first taken . . . The historic names are the same, but what a going-down in the detail! We must enter into this thought and follow its applications if we would be wise in history; generic names are permanent, but the detail of life is a panorama continually changing. It is so always and everywhere. The world has its great generic and permanent names, and it is not enough to know these and to recite them with thoughtless fluency. Who could not take the statistics of the world in general names? Then we should have the wise and the foolish, the rich and the poor, the faithful and the faithless, the good and the bad. That has been the record of life from the beginning ; and yet that is too broadly-lined to be of any real service to us in the estimate of human prayers and human moral quality. What about the detailed numbers, the individual men, the particular households, the children in the crowd? It was in these under-lines that the great changes took place. The bold, leading names remained the same, but they stood up like monumental stones over graves in which thousands of men had been buried. So with regard to our own actions; we speak of them too frequently with generic vagueness; we are wanting in the persistent criticism that will never allow two threads of life to be intertangled, that must have them separated and specifically examined. God will have no roughness of judgment, no bold vagueness, no mere striking of averages; but heart-searching, weighing--not the action: any manufactured scales might weigh a deed. He will have the motive weighed, the invisible force, the subtle, ghostly movement that stirs the soul; not to be found out by human wisdom, but to be seized, detected, examined, estimated, and determined by the living Spirit of the living God. The sin of the individual does not destroy the election of the race. Israel is still here, but almost countless thousands of Israelites have sinned and gone to their doom. With all this individual criticism and specific numbering, do not imagine that it lies within the power of any man to stop the purpose or arrest the kingdom of God. There is a consolatory view of all human tumult and change, as well as a view that tries the faith and exhausts the patience of the saint. It is pitiful for any Christian man to talk about individual instances of lapse or faithlessness, as though they touched the infinite calm of the mind of God, and the infinite integrity of the covenant of Heaven. It is so in all other departments of life--why not so on the largest and noblest scale? The nation may be an honest nation, though a thousand felons may be under lock and key at the very moment when the declaration of the national honesty is made; the nation may be declared to be a healthy country, though ten thousand men be burning with fever at the very moment the declaration of health is made. So the Church of the living Christ, redeemed at an infinite cost, sealed by an infinite love, is still the Lamb’s bride, destined for the heavenly city, though in many instances there may be defalcation, apostasy--yea, very treason against truth and good. Live in the larger thought; do not allow the mind to be distressed by individual instances. The kingdom is one, and, like the seamless robe, must be taken in its unity. Individuals must not trust to ancestral piety. Individual Israelites might have quoted the piety of many who had gone before; but that piety goes for nothing when the individual will is in rebellion against God. No man has any overplus of piety. No man may bequeath his piety to his posterity. A man cannot bequeath his learning-how can he bequeath his holiness? (J. Parker, D. D.)The apparent insignificance and the real importance of human lifeThese uninteresting verses suggest--I. The apparent insignificance of human life. How dull are the details, and how wearisome the repetitions of this chapter! What a number of obscure names of unknown persons it contains!II. The real importance of human life. This will appear if we consider that--1. Every man has his own individuality of being and circumstances.2. Every man has his own possibilities.3. Every man has his own influence.4. Every man has his own accountability.5. Every man is an object of deep interest to God.To Him nothing is mean, nothing unimportant. (W. Jones.)The interesting hidden in the commonplaceI. Here is the commonplace.II. Here is the interesting in the commonplace. If we look into this chapter carefully we shall discover certain words which are suggestive of deep and tender interests. “Sons” is a word of frequent occurrence so also is the word “children”; we also read of “daughters” (Num 26:33), and of a “daughter” (Num 26:46). A profound human interest attaches to words like these. They imply other words of an interest equally deep and sacred; e.g., “father,” “mother.” The humblest, dullest, most commonplace life has its relations. The least regarded person in all the thousands of Israel was “Homebody’s bairn.” We also read of “death” (Num 26:19); most of the names which are here recorded belonged to men who, were gathered to their fathers; from the time of the twelve sons of Jacob here mentioned to the time of this census in the plains of Moab, many thousands of Israelites had died, of all ranks and of all ages. Reflection upon these facts awakens a mournful interest in the mind.III. The importance of the commonplace. Impatience of the ordinary and the prosaic is an evidence of an unsound judgment and an unhealthy moral life.1. Most of life’s duties are commonplace. Yet how important it is that these duties he faithfully fulfilled!2. The greater number of persons are commonplace.3. The greater part of life is commonplace. Be it ours to give the charm of poetry to prosaic duties, by doing them heartily; and to ennoble our commonplace lives by living them faithfully and holily. (W. Jones.)Numbers 26:9-11The earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up.Solemn monitors against sinSin and infamy cling to families long after the actors have passed away. Parents ought to strive above all to leave to their children the heritage of a good name. Sin and infamy are long lived; as in the verse of our text, many years after the descendants are reminded of their ancestor’s crime. Their sin was to oppose Moses and God--using their influence as men of note to create a rebellion. God visited them for their sin--“And they became a sign” (see chap. 16.). They became “symbols,” “beacons.” God made use of them to teach great lessons. Visitations like that have tongues; they speak to us from God.I. The insidious character of sin. Sin grows upon us; never trifle with it; safety in the opposing it. As the moth, dazzled with the light, &c., ends in being scorched or burnt, so it ever is with those who trifle with sin and parley with temptation.II. They warn us of the terrible evil and danger of sin. Sin becomes our greatest curse; we have, indeed, nothing else to fear.III. They show us what a curse bad men are to their families and others. If there is any manhood left in one, this thought must arrest his attention.IV. They show us God’s desire to benefit man. (David Lloyd.)The victims of sin a warning to othersI. A warning against the commission of sin.II. A warning against association with sinners.III. A warning against tempting others. (Lay Preacher.)Notwithstanding the children of Korah died not.--Children that live“Notwithstanding, the children of Korah died not.” May we not read it--that though the sire dies the progeny lives? There is a continuity of evil in the world. We only cut off the tops of iniquities, their deep roots we do not get at; we pass the machine over the sward, and cut off the green tops of things that are offensive to us; but the juicy root is struck many inches down into the earth, and our backs will hardly be turned, and the click of the iron have ceased, before those roots are asserting themselves in new and obvious growths. Iniquity is not to be shaved off the earth--ironed and mowed away like an obnoxious weed--it must be uprooted, torn right up by every thinnest, frailest fibre of its bad self, and then, having been torn out, left for the fire of the sun to deal with--the fire of mid-day is against it and will consume it. And thus only can growths of evil be eradicated and destroyed. It is an awful thing to live! You cannot tell where influence begins, how it operates, or how it ends. The boy sitting next you is partly yourself, and he cannot help it, You cannot turn round and say, “You must look after yourself as I had to do.” That is a fool’s speech. You can never shake off the responsibility of having helped in known and unknown ways and degrees to make that boy what he is. Life is not a surface matter, a loose pebble lying on the road that men can take up and lay down again without any particular harm being done. When the boy drinks himself into madness, he may be but expressing the influences wrought within him by three generations. When the young man tells a lie, he may be surprised at his own audacity, and feel as if he were rather a tool and a victim than a person and a responsible agent--as if generations of liars were blackening his young lips with their falsehoods. When this youth is restive and will not go to the usual church, do not blame the modern spirit of scepticism and restlessness, but go sharply into the innermost places of your own heart, and see how far you have bolted the church doors against your son, or made a place which he would be ashamed to be seen in. Then there is a bright side to all this view. I can, now that I have got my rough reading done, turn this “notwithstanding “into a symbol of hope, a light of history; I can make high and inspiring uses of it. I will blot out the word, “Korah,” and fill in other names, and then the moral lesson of the text will expand itself into gracious meanings, rise above us like a firmament crowded with innumerable and brilliant lights. In days long ago they killed the martyrs--notwithstanding, the children of the martyrs died not. There the light begins to come; there I hear music lifting up sweetest voice of testimony and hope. So, in all the ages, one generation passeth away and another generation cometh, and still Christ’s following enlarges; on the whole, he sums up into higher figures year by year. Not that I care for census-religion, not that I would number people for the purpose of ascertaining Christ’s position in the world. The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation; is not a matter of census-reckoning or statistic-returns; it is a matter of spiritual quality, inner manhood, meaning and attitude of the soul; and amid all sin, struggle, doubt, difficulty, darkness, the kingdom moves. (J. Parker, D. D.)The children of KorahThese sons of Korah were afterwards in their prosperity eminently serviceable to the Church, being employed by David as singers in the house of the Lord; hence many psalms are said to be for the sons of Korah; and perhaps they were made to bear his name so long after, rather than the name of any other of their ancestors, for warning to themselves, and as an instance of the power of God, which brought those choice fruits even out of that bitter root. The children of families that have been stigmatised, should endeavour by their eminent virtues to bear away the reproach of their fathers. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 26:63-65There was not left a man of them, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun The certainty of the fulfilment of God’s threatened judgments and promised merciesI.We are here furnished with a confirmation of the fact that God will fulfil his threatenings against sinners.1. We may conceive them to have counted upon their numerical strength. This has often been appealed to as a security against the punishment of crime. Nor can it be denied that, according as iniquity abounds in a community, it is the more rarely visited with its merited penalty. It is found, in such circumstances, not to be convenient to institute inquiry; and vice, with the colouring which the spirit of the age may have given to it, assumes not unfrequently the name of virtue. But it is far otherwise with Him whose power, holiness, and justice are infinite.2. It is not improbable that, as a ground of security against threatened judgment, the Israelites in the wilderness counted on their privileges. On this principle many a sinner reasons to his own destruction; forgetting that the higher his privileges, the greater the punishment they involve, if unimproved. The execution of the sentence of death upon the Israelites was the more solemn, because executed amidst the enjoyment of the means of grace. They died, the monuments of Divine wrath--while on every side they were surrounded with privileges. They died, in that camp, which was the camp of the living God. They died, within sight of the Lord’s tabernacle, and of the ark of the Lord’s covenant. They died, while the manna from heaven was falling around them, and the stream from the smitten rock flowing before their eyes. They died, while the glory of the Lord was in their view--while the pillar in which the Lord Himself dwelt was over their head--while, as a cloud to refresh them, it was over them by day; and as a fire to give them light, was over them by night. These their privileges did not preserve them; and neither will yours preserve you.3. The Israelites in the wilderness may have been tempted to infer that the Lord would not execute His threatened vengeance against them, because all were not at one and the same time visited with punishment. To some of them a respite of nearly forty years was granted. But, when apparently within reach of the Land of Promise--when its hills and mountains were in view before their eyes--when they had only to march forward one other stage and to cross the Jordan, in order to obtain possession of it--the last of the doomed generation died, and their burial there made it manifest that God’s threatenings are sure.II. But in our text we are furnished with an impressive illustration of the fact, that as God will fulfil His threatenings against sinners, so also His promises in favour of His own people.1. This, in the case of Caleb and Joshua, was made manifest, notwithstanding the crowd of the ungodly with which they were mingled. But, “the Lord knoweth them that are His.” He loves them, as His chosen, with an everlasting love. They are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of their inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.” Wherever thy lot may be cast, it is His sun that shines upon thy head; it is His stars that give thee light; it is His air that thou breathest; it is His food with which thou art supplied. “Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without Him; and the hairs of thy head are all numbered.”2. in the case of Caleb and Joshua, we are furnished with a confirmation of the truth of God’s gracious promises to His people notwithstanding the dangers to which they are exposed.3. In the instance referred to in our text we behold the fulfilment of God’s gracious promises to His people, in opposition to every sentiment of distrust arising from the length and intricacy of their path. (T. Doig, M. A.)The faithfulness of GodI. The faithfulness of God to His threatenings. The judgment which God pronounced thirty-eight years previous He has now completely fulfilled (cf. Num 14:11-39)1. The immense number of the condemned does not avail for the escape of any one of them. Sentence was passed upon upwards of six hundred thousand men; “and there was not left a man of them.” “Though hand join in hand,” &c (Pro 11:21).2. The lapse of time before the complete execution of the sentence does not avail for the escape of any one. Thirty-eight years passed away before the judgment pronounced was fully carried out; but ultimately not one upon whom it was passed escaped.II. The faithfulness of God to His purposes.III. The faithfulness of God to His promises. He promised to spare Caleb and Joshua, and to bring them unto the promised land (Num 14:23-30); and He spared them, and in due season brought them into that land. (W. Jones.)The census of IsraelThirty-eight years had passed since the first numbering at Sinai, and the people had come to the borders of the promised land. The time had come for another census. The wisdom which commanded the counting of Israel at the beginning of the wilderness journey, also determined to count them at the end of it. This would show that God did not value them less than in former years; it would afford proof that His word of judgment had been fulfilled to them; and, moreover, it would marshal them for the grand enterprise of conquering the land of Canaan. The numbering on this occasion was not of the women and children or the infirm; for the order ran thus (Num 26:2). If the numbers of our Churches were taken in this fashion, would they not sadly shrink? We have many sick among us that need to be carried about, and nursed, and doctored. Half the strength of the Church goes in ambulance service towards the weak and wounded. Another diminution of power is occasioned by the vast numbers of undeveloped believers, to whom the apostle would have said (Heb 5:12). To revise the Church rolls so as to leave none but vigorous soldiers on the muster-roll would make us break our hearts over our statistics. May the Lord send us, for this evil, health and cure! When the second census was taken, it was found that the people were nearly of the same number as at the first. Had it not been for the punishment so justly inflicted upon them, they must have largely increased; but now they had somewhat diminished. It is of God to multiply a nation, or a Church. We may not expect any advance in our numbers if we grieve the Spirit of God, and if by our unbelief we drive Him to declare that we shall not prosper.I. First, observe the notable change wrought among the people by death (Num 26:64). The entire mass of the nation had been changed.1. Such changes strike us as most memorable. In the course of forty years, what changes take place in every community, in every Church, in every family! The march of the generations is not a procession passing before our eyes, while we sit, like spectators, at the window; but we are in the procession ourselves, and we, too, are passing down the streets of time, and shall disappear in our turn.2. This change was universal throughout the whole camp. “There was not left a man of them.” Thus is it among ourselves: no offices can be permanently held by the same men: “they are not suffered to continue by reason of death.” No position, however lofty or lowly, can retain its old possessor. It is not only the cedars that fall, but the fir-trees feel the axe. “There is no discharge in that war.” That same scythe which cuts down the towering flower among the grass, also sweeps down whole regiments of green blades.3. The change is inevitable. We must soon quit our tents for the last battle. When the conscript number shall be drawn we may escape this year, and next; but the lot will fall upon us in due time. There is no leaping from the net of mortality wherein, like a shoal of fish, we are all enclosed.4. All this change was still under the Divine control. Stern though the work may be, God’s great and tender heart rules the ravages of death.5. The change was beneficial. It was desirable that there should be a people trained in a better school, with a nobler spirit, fit to take possession of the promised land. The change was working rightly: the Divine purpose was being fulfilled. The incoming of new blood into the social frame is good in a thousand ways; it is well that we should make room for others who may serve our Master better.6. These changes are most instructive. If we are now serving God, let us do so with intense earnestness, since only for a little while shall we have the opportunity to do so among men.II. The perpetuity of the people of God. The nation is living, though a nation has died. It is the same chosen seed of Abraham with whom Jehovah is in covenant. God has a Church in the world, and He will have a Church in the world till time shall be no more. The gates of hell and the jaws of death shall not prevail against the Church, though each one of its members must depart out of this world in his turn.1. Mark well, that “the Church in the wilderness” lives on. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has altered. Although the men who bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord wear other names, yet they fulfil the same office. The music of the sanctuary rises and falls, but the strain goes on. The hallelujah never ceases, nor is there a pause in the perpetual chorus, “His mercy endureth for ever.”2. The gaps were filled up by appointed successors. As one warrior died another man stepped into his place, even as one wave dying on the shore is pursued by another. God buries His workmen, but His work lives.3. At this second numbering the people stood ready for greater work than they had ever done before.4. It was Israel’s joy that God’s love was not withdrawn from the nation.III. The unchangeableness of the word of God.IV. The abiding necessity of faith.1. No man is, was, or ever shall be saved without faith.2. No privilege can supply the lack of faith. (C. H. Spurgeon.)Numbers 27Numbers 27:1-11The daughters of Zelophehad. Women’s rights--a parableI want to use this incident for a twofold purpose.I. In respect to its general teaching.1. I would exhibit for your imitation the faith which these five young women, the daughters of Zelophehad, possessed with regard to the promised inheritance.2. There was this feature, too, about the faith of these five women--they knew that the inheritance was only to be won by encountering great difficulties.3. I commend the faith of these women to you because, believing in the land, and believing that it would be won, they were not to be put about by the ill report of some who said that it was not a good land.4. Being thus sure of the land, and feeling certain about that, we must next commend them for their anxiety to possess a portion in it. Why did they think so much about it? I heard some one say the other day, speaking of certain young people, “I do not like to see young women religious; they ought to be full of fun and mirth, and not have their minds filled with such profound thoughts.” Now, I will be bound to say that this kind of philosophy was accredited in the camp of Israel, and that there were a great many young women there who said, “Oh, there is time enough to think about the good land when we get there; let us be polishing up the mirrors; let us be seeing to our dresses; let us understand how to put our fingers upon the timbrel when the time comes for it; but as for prosing about a portion among those Hivites and Hittites, what is the good of it? We will not bother ourselves about it.” But such was the strength of the faith of these five women that it led them to feel a deep anxiety for a share in the inheritance. They were not such simpletons as to live only for the present. These women were taken up with prudent anxious thoughts about their own part in the land. And let me say that they were right in desiring to have a portion there, when they recollected that the land had been covenanted to their fathers. They might well wish to have a part in a thing good enough to be a covenant-blessing.5. But I must commend them yet again for the way in which they set about the business. I do not find that they went complaining from tent to tent that they were afraid that they had no portion. Many doubters do that; they tell their doubts and fears to others, and they get no further. But these five women went straight away to Moses. He was at their head; he was their mediator ; and then it is said that “Moses brought their cause before the Lord.” You see, these women did not try to get what they wanted by force. They did not say, “Oh, we will take care and get our share when we get there.” They did not suppose that they had any merit which they might plead, and so get it; but they went straight away to Moses, and Moses took their cause, and laid it before the Lord. Dost thou want a portion in heaven, sinner? Go straight away to Jesus, and Jesus will take thy cause, and lay it before the Lord.II. With a view of giving the whole incident a particular direction--1. Does it not strike you that there is here a special lesson for our unconverted sisters? Here are five daughters, I suppose young women, certainly unmarried, and these five were unanimous in seeking to have a portion where God had promised it to His people. Have! any young women here who would dissent from that? I am afraid I have! Do you not desire a portion in the skies? Have you no wish for glory? Can you sell Christ for a few hours of mirth? Will you give Him up for a giddy song or an idle companion? Those are not your friends who would lead you from the paths of righteousness.2. Has it not a loud voice, too, to the children of godly parents? I like these young women saying that their father did not die with Korah, but that he only died the ordinary death which fell upon others because of the sin of the wilderness; and also, their saying, “Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family because he had no son?” It is a good thing to see this respect to parents, this desire to keep up the honour of the family. (C. H. Spurgeon.)The request of the daughters of Zelophehad; the rights of womenI. The request of the daughters of Zelophehad.1. Was presented in an orderly and becoming manner. “They stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest,” &c. (Num 27:2). The made their request a regular manner, and to the proper authorities!2. Was eminently fair and reasonable While their father, by reason of sin, was, in common with the generation to which he belonged, excluded from the promised land, yet he had not done anything for which his children should be deprived of an inheritance therein.3. Indicated becoming respect for their father. They vindicate him from the guilt of sharing in any of the rebellions except the general one; and they evince an earnest desire for the perpetuation of his name and family.4. Implied faith in the promise of God to give Canaan to the Israelites.5. Implied an earnest desire for a portion in the promised land.II. The Divine answer to their request.1. Was given by Jehovah to Moses in response to his inquiries. Notice here--(1) The humility of Moses. He does not presume to decide the case himself, &c.(2) The direction which God grants to the humble. “The meek will He guide in judgment,” &c.2. Commended the cause of the daughters of Zelophehad. “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right.”3. Granted the request of the daughters of Zelophehad. “Thou shalt surely give them a possession,” &c. (Num 27:7).4. Included a general law of inheritance. “And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel,” &c. (Num 27:8-11). Thus a great benefit accrued to the nation from the request of the daughters of Zelophehad. (W. Jones.)The daughters of Zelophehad1. The rectification of things that are wrong sometimes seems to come from man and not from God. Look at this case. It was the women themselves who began the reform. Providence did not stir first. The five women gave this reform to the economy of Israel. So it would seem on the face of the story, and many people look at the face and go no farther, and so they blunder. Suggestions are from God. The very idea,, which we think our own is not our own, but God’s. “He is Lord of all,” of all good ideas, noble impulses, holy inspirations, sudden movements of the soul upward into higher life and broader liberty. This is His plan of training men. He seems to stand aside, and to take no part in some obviously good movements, and men say, “This is a human movement, a political movement, a non-religious movement,” not knowing what they are talking about, forgetting that the very idea out of which it all sprang came down from the Father of lights, that the very eloquence by which it is supported is Divinely taught, that the very gold which is its sinew is His: they do not go far enough back in their investigation into the origin of things, or they would find God in movements which are often credited to human genres alone.2. Everywhere the Bible is full of the very spirit of justice. It is the Magna Charta of the civilised world. This is the spirit that gives the Bible such a wonderful hold upon the confidence of mankind. Look at this case as an example. The applicants were women. All the precedents of Israel might have been pointed to as the answer to their appeal. Why create a special law for women? Why universalise a very exceptional case? Why not put these people down as sensational reformers? Yet, the case was heard with patience, and answered with dignity. Oh, women, you should love the Bible! It is your friend. It has done more for you than all other books put together. Wherever it goes it claims liberty for you, justice for you, honour for you.3. Every question should become the subject of social sympathy and matter of religious reference. These women were heard patiently. It is something to get a hearing for our grievances. Sometimes those grievances perish in the very telling; sometimes the statement of them brings unexpected help to our assistance. This case is what may be called a secular one; it is about land and name and inheritance; and even that question was made in Israel simply a religious one. In ancient Israel, with its priestly system, men had to go to the leader and the priest first; in Christianity we can go straight to God; we have no priesthood but Christ; the way to the throne is open night and day. Oh, wronged and suffering woman, tell thy case to the Father! Oh, man, carrying a burden too heavy for thy declining strength, speak to God about the weight, and He will help thee with His great power. (J. Parker, D. D.)A rightful claimIt does the heart good to read such words as these at a time like the present, when so little is made of the proper standing and portion of God’s people, and when so many are content to go on from day to day, and year to year, without caring even to inquire into the things which are freely given to them of God. Nothing is more sad than to see the carelessness with which many professing Christians treat such allimportant questions of the standing, walk, and hope of the believer and the Church of God. If God, in the aboundings of His grace, has been pleased to bestow upon us precious privileges, as Christians, ought we not to seek earnestly to know what these privileges are? Ought we not to seek to make them our own, in the artless simplicity of faith? Is it treating our God and His revelation worthily, to be indifferent as to whether we are servants or sons--as to whether we have the Holy Ghost dwelling in us or not--as to whether we are under law or under grace--whether ours is a heavenly or an earthly calling? Surely not. If there be one thing plainer than another in Scripture, it is this, that God delights in those who appreciate and enjoy the provision of His love--those who find their joy in Himself. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them” (Num 27:5-7). Here was a glorious triumph, in the presence of the whole assembly. A bold and simple faith is always sure to be rewarded. It glorifies God, and God honours it. Need we travel from section to section, and from page to page of the holy volume to prove this? Need we turn to the Abrahams, the Hannahs, the Deborahs, the Rahabs, the Ruths of Old Testament times? or to the Marys, the Elizabeths, the centurions, and the Syro-phoenicians of the New Testament times? Wherever we turn, we learn the same great practical truth that God delights in a bold and simple faith--a faith that artlessly seizes and tenaciously holds all that He has given--that positively refuses, even in the very face of nature’s weakness and death, to surrender a single hair’s breadth of the Divinelygiven inheritance. Hence, then, we are deeply indebted to the daughters of Zelophebad. They teach us a lesson of inestimable value. And more than this, their acting gave occasion to the unfolding of a fresh truth which was to form the basis of a Divine rule for all future generations. The Lord commanded Moses, saying, “If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.” Here we have a great principle laid down, in reference to the question of inheritance, of which, humanly speaking, we should have heard nothing had it not been for the faith and faithful conduct of these remarkable women. If they had listened to the voice of timidity and unbelief--if they had refused to come forward, before the whole congregation, in the assertion of the claims of faith; then, not only would they bare lost their own inheritance and blessing, but all future daughters of Israel, in a like position, would have been deprived of their portion likewise. Whereas, on the contrary, by acting in the precious energy of faith, they preserved their inheritance; they got the blessing; they received testimony from God; their names shine on the page of inspiration; and their conduct furnished, by Divine authority, a precedent for all future generations. Thus much as to the marvellous results of faith. But then we must remember that there is moral danger arising out of the very dignity and elevation which faith confers on those who, through grace, are enabled to exercise it; and this danger must be carefully guarded against. This is strikingly illustrated in the further history of the daughters of Zelophehad, as recorded in the last chapter of our book. “And the chief fathers,” &c. (Num 36:1-5). The “fathers” of the house of Joseph must be heard as well as the “daughters.” The faith of the latter was most lovely; but there was just a danger lest, in the elevation to which that faith had raised them, they might forget the claims of others, and remove the landmarks which guarded the inheritance of their fathers. This had to be thought of and provided for. It was natural to suppose that the daughters of Zelophehad would marry; and moreover it was possible they might form an alliance outside the boundaries of their tribe; and thus in the year of jubilee--that grand adjusting institution--instead of adjustment, there would be confusion, and a permanent breach in the inheritance of Manasseh. This would never do; and therefore the wisdom of those ancient fathers is very apparent. We need to be guarded on every side, in order that the integrity of faith and the testimony may be duly maintained. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Woman is the conscience of the worldNow, to live as one wishes, is said to be the rule of children. To live as one ought is the rule of men. And it is the office of woman in the world to assist men to live as they ought; to lift them to those higher levels of moral attainment, moral beauty, and power, which of themselves they will not gain. Woman has been said to be the conscience of the world, and there is a profound truth in that. Her moral intuition is clearer, her moral affection is apt to be sweeter and more powerful. It was the startled conscience of a Roman woman that almost held Pilate back from his transcendent crime. It was the conscience of Blanche of Castile which melted the noblest king France ever had, Louis IX. It was the sense of righteousness in the Scotch, in the Dutch, in the French, in the German women which upheld the Reformation and would not let it sink and die. It was the conscience of the American women which was the one invulnerable, irresistible, unsilenced enemy of American slavery. Whatever statesmen might plan about it, whatever political economists might think about it, whatever merchants might dream about it, every woman’s heart knew, that was not blighted and overshadowed by the influence of the present system, that it rested on a lie, and it was that conscience in the American women sending half a million of men out, its instruments and ministers, on the bloody field, which finally overcame and swept from existence that detestable system. That conscience of woman is the tower which society will always need to have developed and regnant within it, and there is no other office so great. I do not care what philosopher is expanding his vast system of philosophic thought; I do not care what statesman is planning for his country’s future; I do not care what architect is lifting the edifice into the air or is strewing the canvas with the splendour of his own spirit, there is no other office so grand on earth as that committed to woman--Christianly culture, in fellowship with God, of bringing up her acute and dominant moral sense into contact with the minds of men, that ultimate and supremest law of the universe, the law of righteousness, for which the planets and the stars were builded; she glorifies herself and she glorifies God in that sublime ministry. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.)Numbers 27:12-14Thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered.Why Moses must not enter CanaanEminent as he was in grace and holiness, he was not allowed to enter with his people into the Land of Promise. This in itself must have been a sore trial. But it was tenfold more so on account of the cause; it was a judgment. He who was the meekest of men once spoke unadvisedly with his lips. The reason, then, why Moses could not enter into the Land of Promise is evident. Moses represents the law. Now we have seen that, as a believer, Moses could not enter the Land of Promise, because on one occasion he “spake unadvisedly with his lips.” But look at him as the representative of the Law, and what lesson does his inability to enter the Land of Promise rivet on our hearts? This truth, that the law cannot bring us into the Land of Promise. There was a point to which Moses could bring Israel, and then he must lie down and die, and his work must be given into other hands, into the hands of Joshua, whose very name shows that he was an eminent type of Christ. There is a point, too, up to which the law may bring us. Where is it? It is to a knowledge of sin. “By the law,” says St. Paul, “is the knowledge of sin.” “I had not known sin,” he says “but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet” (Rom 7:7). One great purpose for which the law is given is just to teach us what we are- utterly sinful, utterly lost in ourselves. It requires perfect obedience; and, behold, in many things we offend. It makes no provision for transgression, proclaims no forgiveness. It can give no peace. The voice is terrible to the guilty. Whenever it fulfils its true purpose in the soul it empties it of self-righteousness, lays it prostrate in the dust, and makes it take the lowest place. Thus St. Paul says, “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God” (Gal 2:19). And, again, “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (chap. 3:24). Are you? Under Moses or Christ? What is your hope of glory? Is it that you have not sinned so much as others? that your life is very exemplary? that you leave no duty willingly unperformed, or service unattended? Do you think that somehow or other Christ must be yours, if your life is so excellent? Are these your thoughts? Then we must faithfully tell you that you are still under Moses, still clinging to a broken law; and we must remind you that the law can never bring you to heaven. It is Christ only who can save you, and bring you into the Land of Promise--Christ only who can reconcile you to God, and we can never come to Christ without utterly renouncing our own righteousness, and our own works, as entitling us to God’s favour. (G. Wagner.)The death of MosesMoses must die, but only as Aaron died before him (Num 27:13); and Moses had seen how easily and cheerfully Aaron had put off the priesthood first, and then the body. Let not Moses, therefore, be afraid of dying; it was but to be “gathered to his people,” as Aaron was gathered. Thus the death of our near and dear relations should be improved by us.1. As an engagement to us to think often of dying. We are not better than our fathers or brethren; if they are gone, we are going; if they are gathered already, we must be gathered very shortly.2. As an encouragement to us to think of death without terror, and even to please ourselves with the thoughts of it, it is but to die as such and such died, if we lived as they lived, and their end was peace; they “finished their course with joy”; why, then, should we fear any evil in that melancholy valley? (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 27:16-23Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation.The spiritual leaders of menI. The world’s need of spiritual leaders.1. The great majority of every generation are uninventive, unaspiring, cringing, servile, thoughtless, ignorant. They not only walk in moral darkness, but lack the desire, if not the capacity, to struggle into the light of moral principles.2. Clearly, then, they require spiritual leaders, men who shall point out to them the way of honesty, truth, purity, and holiness, marching before them in all the stateliness of the Christly morality.II. The genuine type of spiritual leaders.1. The true spiritual leader must be a man. Not an idiot, not a charlatan, not a functionary. A “man” is a person who has right convictions of moral duty, and honestly embodies them in his daily life.2. The true spiritual leader must be a man inspired by God. No man can be a true moral leader of the people who has not within him, as the all-animating and directing force, an unutterable abhorrence of wrong and an invincible attachment to the right, whose whole nature does not beat and beam with the soul of Divine morality.III. The Divine succession of spiritual leaders. They are all in the hands of God.1. He takes the greatest spiritual leaders away by death.2. He raises others to supply their place. One enters into another’s labours. (Homilist.)A model ordination serviceI. That the person ordained should be chosen of God for his work. Moses asked the Lord to “set a man over the congregation,” &c. (Num 27:16-17). “And the Lord said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua,” &c. So now the Christian minister should be--1. Called by God to His work.2. Appointed by God to his sphere of work.II. That the ordination is to the most important work.III. That the ordination should be conducted by tried men.IV. The ordination should be accompanied with the imposition of hands.V. That the ordination should include a charge to the ordained, “Give him a charge.” The duties and responsibilities of the office should be laid before those who are being set apart to it; and the experience of godly and approved men should be made available for the direction of the inexperienced. What wise and inspiring things Moses would say to Joshua in this charge! What sage counsels drawn from his ripe experience! &c.VI. That the ordination should be conducted in the presence of the people. Moreover, such an arrangement--1. Is more impressive to the person being ordained. There present with him are the immortal souls for whom he has to live and labour.2. Tends to influence the people beneficially. As they hear of the important duties and solemn responsibilities of their minister, they should be awakened to deeper solicitude and more earnest prayer on his behalf, and to heartier co-operation with him.VII. The ordination should confer honour upon the person ordained.VIII. That a person so chosen of God, should seek special direction from Him, and seeking, shall obtain it.1. A warning against self-sufficiency.2. A source of encouragement and strength. (W. Jones.)“The God of the spirits of all flesh”I. The affecting view here furnished of the agency and dominion of God in connection with the human mind.1. God imparts the powers of the spirit. We have nothing self-derived.2. He claims the affections of the spirit.3. He heals the disorders and sympathises with the sorrows of the spirit.4. He alone can constitute the happiness of the spirit.5. He will decide upon the future destiny of the spirit.II. The moral uses of these contemplations.1. Let them teach you reverence for the human mind.2. Let them impress you with thoughts of the vast importance of personal religion.3. Let them inspire you with practical efforts to benefit and bless society. By education-by missions, &c.4. Let them kindle hope for the prospects of the human race. (S. Thodey.)Numbers 28Numbers 28:1-31After this manner ye shall offer daily.Of the daily sacrificesAll these laws were in a manner before handled while the people abode at Mount Sinai. If any ask the question, why then they are here repeated? I answer, first, because they were now come to enter into the land, being in a manner upon the borders thereof (Num 27:12). God would therefore put them in mind of this that, when they should possess the land, they must be mindful of His worship and their own duty. Secondly, because few at this time remained alive which had heard, or if they had heard, could remember these laws that then were published. Thirdly, the ceremonial worship had been intermitted in the wilderness for many years, as circumcision (Jos 5:1-15.) and many other like ordinances by reason of their continual journeys, or at least continual expectation of them. Lastly, God doth hereby comfort and confirm His people after their manifold provocations and murmurings, testifying thereby that as a merciful Father He is reconciled unto them, and the remembrance of their sins buried, and that He hath determined to do them good all the days of their life. Now, the first thing to be considered is the daily sacrifice, in which was to be offered, morning and evening, a lamb, fine flour, wine, and oil; these were to be offered continually as a burnt offering upon the altar, which law was not to take place until they came into the land, as we heard before in the like case (Num 15:2), because in the desert they wanted many things necessary (Deu 12:8) which was a sufficient dispensation for the omitting of them; for when God doth require anything He giveth means to perform it, and did never impute it as a sin unto them when an inevitable necessity did hinder them, and the desire to obey is no less accepted than obedience itself. Of this daily sacrifice with the rites thereof to be performed every morning and evening we read at large (Ex 29:38), they must do it day by day continually. So 1Ki 18:1-46., when Elijah convinced Baal’s priests, there is mention made of their choosing, dressing, and offering a bullock in the morning (verse 26), and of his doing the like “at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice” (verse 36). Likewise “Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour” (Act 3:1). This was the time, being three of the clock in the afternoon, when the evening sacrifice was wont to be offered, unto which prayer also was wont to be joined. We see their practice what it was daily ; now let us come to the uses toward ourselves.1. First, see from hence by consideration of this daily offering--“a lamb every morning and a lamb every evening”--a great difference between the Old and New Testament.2. Secondly, we must understand from hence, that as all sacrifices under the law did as it were lead us to Christ, “who is the end of the law of righteousness to every one that believeth” (Rom 10:4); so did this daily sacrifice of “the two lambs offered morning and evening” most plainly. He is both the Altar and the Sacrifice (Heb 13:10).3. Lastly, this daily sacrifice importeth the daily sacrifice of prayer which we ought to offer to God as our daily service due unto Him (1Ki 18:36). And thus do the Hebrew doctors speak, “The continual sacrifice of the morning made atonement for the iniquities that were done in the night, and the evening sacrifice made atonement for the iniquities that were by day.” It is therefore required of us to pray unto God, not once in a month, or once a week, nor only upon the Sabbath day, or publicly in the assemblies of the faithful, but we must remember Him daily that remembereth us every hour. (W. Attersoll.)In the beginnings of your months.--The new moon festivalThe moon is no unapt emblem of the Church, shining in borrowed splendour, and deriving all her light, even when clearest and full-orbed, from the sun, whose glory she reflects as she travels through the night. And very fitly she represents the economy of the law, at its highest attainments only a faint resemblance of the glory to come, and from which in reality all its own splendour was derived, sometimes only but partly shining on the Church, and often obscured and dim. The beginning of every month bespoke renewal and increase. Filling her horn night after night, and becoming larger and larger, she increases in brightness to full-orbed beauty. As the moon increased, so increased the sacrifices of the economy she was an emblem of. The natural divisions of time, days multiplying into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years, became regulating signs to obligation and hope. But progress, as light increasing more and more, bespoke imperfection, and the repetition of every new moon, denoting inefficiency, waited for something to come. “It was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.” Had the offerings of holy times increased to ever such a number, and the cattle upon a thousand hills been sacrificed, all they could have affected would have been infinitely short of the results attributable alone to the death of Christ. Rivers of wine and oil could not be a libation ; neither was “Lebanon sufficient to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt-offering.” To redeem a soul, to cleanse from guilt and save from death, more than all the world is required, infinite excellence, Almighty love. (W. Seaton.)Numbers 29Numbers 29:1-6A day of blowing the trumpets. The Feast of TrumpetsSome of the Rabbins fantastically suppose that it was instituted in remembrance of the offering up of Isaac, or of deliverance from being offered, which conceit is idle and nothing at all to the purpose. Others imagine that it was appointed upon occasion of the wars that the Israelites had with the Amalekites and other nations under the conduct of God, to put them in remembrance that the whole life of man is nothing else but a continual warfare (Job 7:1; 2Ti 2:1). Of this feast we read (Lev 23:24). This was accounted as a Sabbath, an holy convocation, wherein they must do no servile work. Therein the trumpets sounded aloud, and the sound thereof was heard far and near.1. Let us come to the uses hereof in regard of ourselves, which served of purpose to stir up the people to return unto God praise and thanksgiving with joyfulness of heart for all His benefits, according to that in the Psalms (Psa 81:1-3). So David, having experience of God’s good hand toward him in many preservations, composed Psa 18:1-50, as a testimony of his thankfulness “for his deliverance from the hands of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul.” So I should think that the cause of this feast was to be a feast of remembrance for His manifold mercies received in the wilderness, that thereby they might stir up themselves to be united in God. And the cause of the institution of this feast seemeth to be contrary to that which followeth, which is the feast of fasting. For as the Jews had a day to humble themselves by fasting, so they were also to have a day of rejoicing when they heard of those trumpets. And albeit we neither hear nor have these trumpets sounded in our ears to call us to the temple and place of His worship, yet ought we to praise His name cheerfully and readily with spiritual joy and gladness continually (Isa 35:2-3; Isa 35:10), with singing and thanksgiving (Isa 49:20-21); for it is certain the faithful only have true cause to rejoice (Psa 32:11; Psa 33:1); the ungodly have no cause at all (Isa 48:20-22); but rather to weep and lament (Luk 6:25).2. This warneth us of the preaching of the gospel concerning Christ the Saviour of the world, the Conqueror of all our enemies and of them that hate us (Isa 57:1; Zec 9:1-17.). For this was a warlike instrument ( Jos 6:1-27.). God hath caused the doctrine of salvation to be sounded out into the world so that all have heard the sound of it (Psa 19:4; Rom 10:18). Such a trumpet was John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, who was sent “to prepare the way of the Lord” (Mar 1:1-2), and to call upon them to repent because the kingdom of God was at hand. And this commendeth to the ministers in the execution of their office, diligence, carefulness, continuance, cheerfulness, and zeal (1Co 9:17; 1Pe 5:2).3. As the ministers must be the Lord’s trumpets, so indeed ought every faithful soul to be a trumpet. For when this feast was yearly observed, such as heard the trumpets were warned by it all the year after to stir up and awaken themselves, remembering that God doth call them as with a loud voice daily, that they should yield up themselves souls and bodies unto Him to worship and serve Him as He requireth. When this feast was celebrated, all the males were not commanded to repair to Jerusalem, as they were at the three more solemn feasts (Ex 23:17), to wit, if they were free men and in health, able to go to the place of His worship (Deu 12:6; Deu 16:2). And hence it is that the Jewish doctors, out of that law of all males appearing before the Lord three times in the year, do exempt eleven sorts; and therefore they say that women and servants are not bound, but all men are bound, except the deaf and the dumb, and the fool, and the little child, and the blind, and the lame, and the uncircumcised, and the old man, and the sick, and the tender or weak which are not able to go and travel upon their feet; nevertheless, though the people were far from Jerusalem when this feast was holden, and that they could not resort thither daily to do sacrifice in the temple, yet they were to consider in their absence that sacrifices were offered there even in their behalf, and God was worshipped there in the behalf and name of all the tribes. True it is this figure is utterly abolished by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, howbeit this remaineth that we ourselves should serve for trumpets. For as the temple being destroyed we must be spiritual temples unto God; so the trumpets being taken away, every one of us must be spiritual trumpets, that is, we should rouse up ourselves, because we are naturally so wedded to the world and unto the vanities here below that it seldom cometh into our minds to think of God, of the gospel, of the kingdom of heaven. Our ears are so possessed with the sound of earthly things, and our eyes so dazzled with the pleasures of the flesh, that we are as deaf and blind men, that can neither hear nor see what God saith unto us. He calleth unto us daily, and maketh the gospel sound aloud in the midst of us that we might have the inward remorse of a good conscience, to repent us of all our evil ways, yet we, notwithstanding this summoning of us, do remain dull and deaf, and dumb and blind. Wherefore we must not look till there be a solemn holy day to call us unto the Church, there to keep a feast of trumpets, but it must serve us all the days of our life as a spur to cause us to return to God. (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 29:12-40The fifteenth day of the seventh month. The Feast of TabernaclesIt is called the Feast of Tabernacles because during the days of this feast they were to live in tents or tabernacles, it being a memorial of God’s preserving of them in the wilderness where was no house for them in which to rest. This was a most holy feast to remember them when they had no dwellings, and therefore Moses doth so largely dwell upon the solemnities of it ; then they were especially enjoined to read the Law at this feast, when all Israel was to appear before the Lord (Deu 31:10; 2Ch 8:13; Ezr 3:4; Neh 8:14-15; Joh 7:2). This feast is now abrogated, and belonged not to the Gentiles that were converted to the faith, after the passion and ascension of Christ (Col 2:17; Act 15:10; Heb 10:1-39). Notwithstanding we must consider the inward signification of this ceremony, and see what uses remain thereof to ourselves. And therefore the prophet Zechariah (Zec 14:16), describing the calling of the Gentiles to the true God, and their gathering into the true Church, setteth it forth according to the manner of God’s service used in the law, that they should go up from year to year to worship the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles: alluding to the ceremony of the law, as our Saviour doth (Mat 5:23-24), meaning that they should worship God according to His commandments, and not after their own fancies.1. First, we learn hereby that it is a duty belonging to all to remember the days of their troubles and afflictions, from which God in great mercy hath delivered us. We ought also to consider what we have been in regard of temporal deliverances, and in regard of spiritual deliverances from the bondage of sin (Eph 2:1-4; Eph 2:11-13), for their deliverance from the slavery of Egypt did figure out our deliverance by Christ from the bondage of sin, Satan, and hell itself.2. Secondly, observe from this feast that God evermore preserveth His Church, even when it is oppressed with greatest dangers and troubles, nay, then His power and mercy is made most manifest; His power shineth brightest in our weakness, and His mercy appeareth most of all in our misery.3. Thirdly, though the Feast of Tabernacles be not any longer in use, that we should be bound to the keeping of it, yet the doctrine arising from it concerneth us as much as ever it did the Jews. Our keeping of this feast must not be for a week or twain, but all our life, so long as we live upon the earth. We must acknowledge that we are pilgrims in this world (Heb 11:16), and if we be not strangers in this present world we have no part in the kingdom of heaven. If, then, we will have God to accept us for His children, we must assure ourselves that this life is nothing to us but a way, or rather, indeed, a race, toward our heavenly country. It is not enough for us to go fair and softly, but we must always run apace, pressing forward with all our strength and force, holding on our way, and straining ourselves to attain to the end of our course.4. Lastly, we are hereby put in mind of the shortness of this life; we are here for a season, and by and by gone. And albeit we make our houses never so strong, and build them up with brick and stone to continue, yet our bodies are all as tabernacles, always decaying. Let us therefore learn the doctrine of the apostle (2Co 5:1), If our outward man decay we have a building prepared for us in heaven. And we must say with Peter, “I must shortly put off this my tabernacle, as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me” (2Pe 1:14). When this lodging of ours shall decay we shall dwell in an house incorruptible. Our bodies are but as arbours made of green leaves, which are of no continuance, one blast of wind is strong enough to blow them away (Isa 40:6). Every man hath some disease or other about him that will not suffer him to endure long. And if he had no disease or distemper, yet wait but a while, and age itself will be a disease, and as the messenger of death unto him, that even without sickness he slideth away, as the fruit of a tree, when it is ripe, falleth down of itself, though there be no hand to pluck it, or wind to shake it, or thief to steal it, or tempest to drive it. When we diligently consider this, then we have indeed learned to keep this Feast of the Tabernacles spiritually. To conclude, therefore, let every man beware that he seek not his own ease over much. This is one rule, that we do not pamper our own flesh in the lusts thereof (Rom 13:14). Secondly, such as are planted commodiously in this world must beware that they do not forget the world to come; and they that enjoy the earth at will must remember the kingdom of heaven, wherein they must only place the top of their happiness. If we seek heaven upon earth we shall never find it in the next life. Thirdly, let us use this world as though we used it not; rejoice as though we rejoice not, and weep as though we weep not, considering that the fashion of this world vanisheth away (1Co 7:30-31). (W. Attersoll.)Numbers 30Numbers 30:2If a man vow a vow unto the Lord.The sacred bondThe practice of binding the soul with vows and oaths is of very ancient date, and common to all systems of religion. Now precisely of this nature is the baptismal obligation, a sacrament in which we are most solemnly pledged to the service of God, a covenant which we are bound all the days of our life faithfully to keep and perform. In confirmation we publicly recognise our personal responsibility in that act, and profess our serious purpose to fulfil the solemn engagement; while the bishop officiating, with all the faithful present, implores for us the aid of the Holy Spirit, that we may be enabled effectually to carry out our purpose. In entering into any important transaction, obviously, nothing is more necessary than a correct idea of its nature and its significance. In order to this, in the present case, we should consider with whom it is that we make the solemn engagement. Engagements of great weight are sometimes made with men, but none are so important as those which are made with God. In joining the Freemasons, the Knights Templar, or any other voluntary association, you must assume certain obligations, and give certain pledges for their performance, before you can have any right to the peculiar privileges of the order. But in becoming a member of Christ’s flock you not only make an engagement with your Christian brethren, binding yourselves to observe and do certain things which are essential to the welfare of the sacred fraternity, but you make in your baptism and renew in your confirmation a covenant with God Himself--with God, the Father of the spirits of all flesh, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid--with God, who understands your motives better than you understand them yourselves, who cannot look upon iniquity, but hates all dissimulation with perfect hatred, and will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or bad. But let no man undertake thoughtlessly what ought to be done with the greatest deliberation and the utmost seriousness. Remember that the act you contemplate is irrevocable; the obligation you are about to assume is perpetual; the covenant you are going to ratify is an everlasting covenant, never to be forgotten. Its neglect is peril; its rupture is perdition. What you promise to renounce, you must renounce for ever; what you engage to perform, you must do all the days of your life; what you pledge yourselves to believe, is the unchangeable and everlasting faith once for all delivered to the saints. No man putting his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of heaven. Oh, how will his broken promises haunt the delinquent on the bed of death, and stand like threatening spectres before him in the twilight of eternity! Forget not, then, that the vows of God are upon you, and you cannot escape the obligation. But let not the fear of failure frighten any of you from the duty. You owe it to Christ, you owe it to the Church, you owe it to your sponsors, you owe it to your own souls, to redeem the pledge you have given. Lay hold upon the proffered strength of God, and renew your consecration to His service. He will not be wanting on His part. His word is for ever settled in heaven. Your assurance stands in “two immutable things by which it is impossible for God to lie.” For He also hath vowed a vow, and sworn an oath to bind His soul with a bond; and He will not break His word, but will do according to all that hath proceeded out of His mouth. (J. Cross, D. D.)The solemn obligation of religious vowsI. The case supposed. “If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond.”1. The vow is made unto God. He is the only true and proper object of religious vows.2. The vow binds the soul. “Swear an oath to bind his soul with a bond.” “A promise to man is a bond upon the estate, but a promise to God is a bond upon the soul.”3. The vow is voluntarily made.4. The thing vowed must be lawful.II. The danger implied. “He shall not break his word,” &c. There is in human nature a deep-rooted tendency to forget in health the vows which were made in sickness, and to ignore in our security and peace the vows we made in our danger and alarm.III. The command given.1. That he shall perform his vow. “He shall not break his word.”2. That he shall fully perform his vow. “He shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth.”Conclusion: Appeal to those who have unfulfilled vows resting upon them.1. Baptismal vows, in the case of some of you, are unfulfilled.2. Vows made in affliction or danger by some of you have not been paid. (W. Jones.)Vows not to be discouragedIt is not an idle or dangerous thing to form good resolutions, and make promises, and enter into pledges and covenants anew. A promise is often a bud; the attempt to keep it a flower, and success therein the fruit. Some would discourage all promises and pledges lest they be broken. We might as well bid all the trees in the spring-time keep back their buds for fear of late frost, or warn them against opening their hearts to the sun lest they be betrayed and blighted. (Christian Age.)Numbers 31Numbers 31:1-12They warred against the Midianites.The vengeance of Jehovah on MidianI. That in the administration of the Divine government the punishment of sin is certain.1. The sin which the Midianites had committed.2. The Author of the punishment of the Midianites.3. The executioners of the punishment.4. The severity of the punishment.(1) It fell upon an immense number.(2) It tell upon persons of every rank.(3) It involved the destruction of their towns and villages, and the loss of their property.II. That God can work by many, or by few, in the execution of His purposes. The accomplishments of the purpose of God by this small force was fitted to answer three ends.1. To teach them that this expedition was, in a special manner, the Lord’s.2. To teach them that He can effect His purposes “by many or by few” (1Sa 14:6; Jdg 7:1-25.).3. To check any temptation or tendency to self-glorification on the part of the soldiers.III. That God honours the holy zeal of His servants by employing them as leaders in the execution of His purposes.IV. That God enriches His people with the spoils of their enemies. (W. Jones.)The Midianites reckoned with1. God would have the Midianites chastised, an inroad made upon that part of their country which lay next to the camp of Israel, and which was concerned in that mischief, probably more than the Moabites, who, therefore, were let alone. God will have us to reckon those our worst enemies that draw us to sin, and since every man is tempted when he is drawn aside of his own lusts, and those are the Midianites which ensnare us with their wiles, on them we should avenge ourselves; not only make no league with them, but make war upon them by living a life of mortification. God hath taken vengeance on His own people for yielding to the Midianite’s temptations; now the Midianites must be reckoned with that gave temptation ; for the deceived and the deceiver are His (Job 12:16), both accountable to His tribunal; and though judgment begin at the house of God, it shall not end there (1Pe 4:17). There is a day coming when vengeance will be taken on those that have introduced errors and corruptions into the Church, and the devil that deceived men will be cast into the lake of fire. Israels quarrel with Amalek that fought against them was not avenged till long after, but their quarrel with Midian that debauched them was speedily avenged, for they were looked upon as much the more dangerous and malicious enemies.2. God would have it done by Moses in his life-time, that he who had so deeply resented that injury might have the satisfaction of seeing it avenged. See this execution done upon the enemies of God and Israel, and afterwards thou shall be gathered to thy people. This was the only piece of service of this kind that Moses must farther do, and then he has accomplished, as a hireling, his day, and shall have his quietus. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Vengeance executed on MidianThis is a very remarkable passage. The Lord says to Moses, “Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites.” And Moses says to Israel, “Avenge the Lord of Midian.” The people had been ensnared by the wiles of the daughters of Midian, through the evil influence of Balaam the son of Peer; and they are now called upon to clear themselves thoroughly from all the defilement which, through want of watchfulness, they had contracted. The sword is to be brought upon the Midianites; and all the spoil is to be made to pass either through the fire of judgment or through the water of purification. Not one jot or tittle of the evil thing is to be suffered to pass unjudged. Now, this war was what we may call abnormal. By right the people ought not to have had any occasion to encounter it at all. It was not one of the wars of Canaan. It was simply the result of their own unfaithfulness--the fruit of their own unhallowed commerce with the uncircumcised. Hence, although Joshua, the son of Nun, had been duly appointed to succeed Moses as leader of the congregation, we find no mention whatever of him in connection with this war. On the contrary, it is to Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, that the conduct of this expedition is committed; and he enters upon it “with the holy instruments and the trumpets.” All this is strongly marked. The priest is the prominent person; and the holy instruments, the prominent instrumentality. It is a question of wiping away the stain caused by their unholy association with the enemy; and, therefore, instead of a general officer with sword and spear, it is a priest with holy instruments that appears in the foreground. True, the sword is here; but it is not the prominent thing. It is the priest with the vessels of the sanctuary; and that priest the selfsame man who first executed judgment upon that very evil which has here to be avenged. The moral of all this is, at once, plain and practical. The Midianites furnish a type of that peculiar kind of influence which the world exerts over the hearts of the people of God--the fascinating and ensnaring power of the world used by Satan to hinder our entrance upon our proper heavenly portion. Israel should have had nothing to do with these Midianites; but having, in an evil hour, been betrayed into association with them, nothing remains but war and utter extermination. So with us, as Christians. Our proper business is to pass through the world as pilgrims and strangers; having nothing to do with it save to be the patient witnesses of the grace of Christ, and thus shine as lights in the midst of the surrounding moral gloom. But, alas! we fail to maintain this rigid separation; we suffer ourselves to be betrayed into alliance with the world, and, in consequence, we get involved in trouble and conflict which does not properly belong to us at all. War with Midian formed no part of Israel’s proper work. They had to thank themselves for it. But God is gracious; and hence, through a special application of priestly ministry, they were enabled, not only to conquer the Midianites, but to carry away much spoil. God, in His infinite goodness, brings good out of evil. (C. H. Mackintosh.)Israel’s progressIt is instructive to compare this warfare of the children of Israel with their earlier battles. There are many points of difference between them. In Egypt, when surrounded by their enemies, they were not called to fight. They were quite unprepared for war; but God fought for them, and they were still, and held their peace. Then again, subsequently they were attacked by the Amalekites. They did not begin the encounter, but only repelled the attacks; whereas on this occasion Moses said unto the people (Num 31:3). Their earlier encounters were all in self-defence--their later ones were aggressive. Here, then, we cannot but discern a mark of progress in Israel’s history. At first, when they were weak, and without experience of God’s power and unchanging love, they were more passive. Now that they had been formed into a more compact body, and trained to arms, and still more, had experienced the power and faithfulness of God, they were called to be aggressive, to attack and destroy the enemies of God. Now, we think, that this progress in Israel’s history is typical in the Christian life. In the first beginnings of the spiritual life the young Christian’s mind is chiefly passive. God’s work is to show him his own needs and what are his enemies. The very spirit of the gospel is aggressive, not in a worldly sense, nor indeed in the sense in which it was true of Israel, but in a higher and holier sense; for it is a spirit of faith in God-a spirit of holy jealousy for God’s glory--a spirit of deep compassion for perishing souls. Do you ever ask yourselves, What progress is my soul making? There are many signs; and it is safer not to try ourselves by one only. If you are living near to God you will be growing more and more dead to the world. But note another mark. When Moses sent them into the battle, a thousand of every tribe, he sent Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest, with them, and the holy instruments, and the trumpets to blow in his hand. What these holy instruments were we are not informed, but doubtless they were meant to be symbols of God’s presence with His people. The priest, and holy instruments, and silver trumpets, were as needful as their weapons of war. These were a practical warning against a spirit of revenge, and an encouragement to depend wholly on God. They must have served to impress most powerfully on the minds of the Israelites that this war was a great moral act, and that in engaging in it they should depend wholly on God. And these accompaniments of war showed also progress in Israel’s history. Their earlier battles were always acts of faith; but then no priest went forth with their army, no holy instruments were carried forth, or trumpets blown; for it was subsequently that they were brought into covenant with God at Sinai, and had still brighter tokens of His presence--subsequently, that the two silver trumpets were appointed to carry terror into the hearts of their enemies, and to make them realise that they were remembered before Jehovah. And this may suggest to us one point of difference between the earlier and later conflicts of a Christian. When he is young and inexperienced in conflict, there is generally too much confidence in self. But when God has taught him deeper lessons in the work of war, he has lees confidence in self and more in God. Then it is not his own courage or skill, not his own strength or perseverance, but Christ his eternal and ever-present Priest, the holy instruments of the sanctuary, and the silver trumpet of the gospel, which are his great and only hope of victory. But there is still another point of progress discernible in this part of Israel’s history, and that is in the use that was made of the spoils of the Midianites. Jehovah gave them this victory. They all felt it. It was in His name that they went forth, and in His name that they triumphed. Here we find that they “brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil, to Moses and Eleazar, the priest, and unto the congregation of the children of Israel” (Num 31:12). And then a division of the booty took place. It was divided into two equal parts, one of which was given to those who went into the battle, and the other belonged to those who remained in the camp. Those who encountered the Midianites being but a small part of Israel, only twelve thousand men, had in reality the largest share; and this was but right, as they had been exposed to the dangers of war. But this was not the whole of the arrangement. The most important part remains to be mentioned. After this division had taken place, a part was to be consecrated to God. Of that which belonged to the warriors themselves one five-hundredth part was offered unto the Lord as a heave-offering, as we are expressly told, “And Moses gave the tribute which was the Lord’s heave-offering unto Eleazar the priest” (Num 31:4). This portion, then, came to the priests. Of the other part, which belonged to those who did not go into battle, one-fiftieth part was consecrated to God, “And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty of the persons, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, and of all manner of beasts” (Num 31:30). This portion belonged to the Levites. And so, if we compare together the portion of the priests with that of the Levites, we find that was as one to ten. But even this is not all. When those who went into battle were numbered, it was found that there “lacked not one man,” not one was lost. This was a wonderful proof of God’s care and protection. No less than twenty-four thousand fell by the plague, and not even one in the war with a powerful people. This produced a strong impression on the minds of the officers. They were thankful, as well they might be, for God’s goodness; and they showed their gratitude by making an additional freewill-offering to God. “We have, therefore,” they say, “brought an oblation for the Lord, what every man hath gotten, of jewels, of gold, chains and bracelets, rings, ear-rings, and tablets, to make an atonement for our souls before the Lord” (Num 31:50); and this offering was brought by Moses and Eleazar the priest into the tabernacle of the congregation, for a “ memorial for the children of Israel before the Lord.” Now in all this we can discern progress in Israel’s history. In the earlier part of it we do not meet with any such arrangement, but when brought into immediate covenant union with God, He taught them practically that they themselves, and all that they had, belonged to Himself. He trained them to a spirit of self-denial. This is an important lesson which this history impresses upon us. If we were asked, “What are the two graces in which Christians are most wanting?” we should answer, “charity” and “self-denial”; that charity which bears long, which covers a multitude of sins, and that spirit of self-denial which leads us habitually to crucify the old man, and to place God’s glory before our own comfort, ease, and pleasure. There are many Christians who are sound in doctrine, and who seem to glory that they are free from this and that error, but there is much self-indulgence in their lives. (G. Wagner.)Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.--The fate of BalaamWho shall describe the terrors of this recreant prophet, during that brief moment that ensued between the lifting up and the letting down of that fatal weapon? We know how Balaam regarded death. We know that he regarded it with dread. “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” And now he was about to die the death of the wicked! As in a moment, we may be sure, the whole panorama of his life, and its true significance, flashed before him.I. Death the testing time of life. We may exaggerate the importance of death. We may treat it as more important than life; whereas its chief importance is in relation to life. But in its relation to life its importance is scarcely to be exaggerated. And its chief significance, in this respect, undoubtedly consists in its bearing on the future.II. The awfulness of death to one who has lived a sinful and unholy life. There can be no doubt that God did His utmost to save this man. Nothing that was likely to be helpful to his salvation was withheld from him; and all this Balaam must have felt and realised, when at last his course of crime had brought him to that life-revealing spot, the shadow of death. And if such was his retrospect in the hour of death, what must have been the prospect that opened up to his imagination and his fears? And what makes the fate of Balaam so terrible to think of, is the apparently minute point of departure from the course of rectitude in which his wrong-doing commenced. Balaam only, at first, desired to have the pecuniary recompense which the service of Balak promised him. He had no desire to do wrong. He did not love unrighteousness; he only loved the “wages” of unrighteousness. And yet that little germ of evil in his breast at last overcame all right feeling and all right principle; and reduced the famous prophet of Pethor to the level of the lowest schemer and the basest plotter. The smallest angle at the juncture of two lines will, if these lines be continually produced, lead them wider and wider at every stage. And so if there be the least departure from the path of Fight at the beginning there will be infinitely divergeness in the end. (W. Roberts.)The doom of the double-heartedI. He wanted to serve two masters. These were the same as the Lord in after days designated God and mammon. He wanted not to offend either; to please both. He was like Issachar crouching between two burdens. Such is the certain failure of all who make the like attempt.II. He wanted to earn two kinds of wages. The wages of righteousness and the wages of unrighteousness (2Pe 2:15), were both in his eyes; he would fain have the pay both of God and of the devil. He was unwilling to do or say anything which would deprive him of either. He was as cautious and cunning as he was covetous.III. He wanted to do two opposite things at the same time. He wished both to bless and to curse. He was willing to do either according as it might serve his interests. The only question with him was, “Would it pay?”IV. He wanted two kinds of friendship.V. He wanted to have two religions. He saw religion to be a paying concern, a profitable trade, and he was willing to accept it from anybody or everybody, to adopt it from any quarter if it would but raise him in the world, and make his fortune. But this double service, and double friendship, and double religion, would not do. He would make nothing by them. They profited him nothing either in this life or that to come. His end was with the ungodly, his portion with the enemies of Israel. And his soul, where could it be? Not with Israel’s God, or Israel’s Christ, or in Israel’s heaven. He reaped what he sowed. He was a good specimen of multitudes in these last days. They want as much religion as will save them from hell ; not an atom more. The world is their real god; gold is their idol; it is in mammon’s temple that they worship. Look to thy latter end. What it is to be? Where is it to be? With whom is it to be? Anticipate thy eternity. Is it to be darkness or light, shame or glory? (H. Bonar, D. D.)Balaam’s deathWhat a death was this to die for one who had been a prophet of the Lord--one who had been privileged to hold converse with Deity, and to foretell the purposes of the supreme mind! How little could he ever have imagined that he should come to this! What I he, with his great gifts and high official position--he stoop down from the eminence on which he stood to take up the sword of a rebel against Jehovah--to identify himself with a nation of debased idolators, and then end his life amid the wild tumult of battle in a vain effort to defend their cause! He degrade himself to such an extent as that? Impossible; yet so it happened. How this death contrasts with that which be had so ardently desired! Death in sanguinary conflict, surrounded by dying thousands of the enemies of God, with the din of arms and the fierce war-cry of opposing forces sounding in his ears; how different from “the death of the righteous,” calmly commending his soul into the hands of a faithful Creator, antedating heavenly joys, catching a smile from the Divine countenance, and then peacefully “dropping into eternity”! A death in a state of apostasy from God, in open rebellion against His will, in impious defiance of His power, the death of Balaam was a death without hope. Not a ray of light is there to irradiate or relieve the gloom that gathers in thick and portentous blackness over the spot where he fell. (C. Merry.)Numbers 31:16The counsel of Balaam. The counsel of BalaamIt would seem, then, that this people that was to “dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations” had not dwelt alone; and that one man, at least, of the people in whom God had not beheld iniquity nor seen perverseness, had been guilty of the most flagrant iniquity and perverseness. For not only had he, an Israelitish prince, brought the daughter of a Midianitish prince unto his brethren--which was in itself an unlawful act--but he had done this openly and shamelessly, in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of Israel (Num 25:6). But how came it to pass that these Moabites and Midianites, who, only yesterday as it were, displayed such relentless hostility to Israel, should, to-day, be upon such friendly terms with them? How was it that, whereas but yesterday--so to speak--the king of Moab sent princes of Moab and Midian to Balaam, the son of Beor to Pethor in Mesopotamia, entreating him to come and curse the Israelites--sparing nothing to secure this end--these hostile princes are now giving their daughters to the Israelites in the most intimate companionship? Surely there must be some treachery in this proceeding! And so it seemed there was. Balaam, after his repulse by Balak, had fled, not to his own land, but to Midian, the confederate of Moab; and, not daring to curse the people himself, had suggested to the Midianites a method of leading them into iniquity, as a means of bringing a curse on them from God. And this new scheme had propitiated Balak, who had been so fiercely enraged against Balaam, and who now” consulted” (Mic 6:5) with Balaam; who “counselled” (Num 31:16) this expedient of mischief. So the matter came out upon the death of Balaam, and so is it explained in my text.1. Balaam plainly committed this crime with his eyes open to the wrong be was doing. Out of his own mouth we may judge him. In a moment of prophetic inspiration he protested to Balak that his eyes were open; that he had heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High. Balaam’s sin, then, was committed knowingly, consciously, wilfully. He was not “overtaken in a fault.” He set himself to do wickedly.2. And he was influenced to take this course by the meanest of motives. He “loved the wages of unrighteousness.”3. And if anything could have aggravated the meanness of the motive that influenced Balaam in betraying Israel, it was the baseness of the method he adopted to accomplish that design. God had revealed to him, in prophetic insight, the secret of Israel’s greatness and strength. And Balaam used the very inspiration which God gave him to injure, fatally, God’s own chosen people. And the cowardice of his procedure was in keeping with its baseness. He would not touch Israel himself. He dare not utter a word against them; but be could whisper suggestions of evil into the ears of others, that they might execute the diabolical design. (W. Roberts.)Balaam’s devilish policyThis policy was fetched from the bottom of hell. “It is not for lack of desire that I curse not Israel; thou dost not more wish their destruction, than I do thy wealth and honour; but so long as they hold firm with God, there is no sorcery against Jacob: withdraw God from them, and they shall fall alone, and curse themselves; draw them into sin, and thou shalt withdraw God from them. There is no sin more plausible than wantonness. One fornication shall draw in another, and both shall fetch the anger of God after them; their sight shall draw them to lust, their lust to folly, their folly to idolatry; and now God shall curse them for thee unasked.” Where Balaam did speak well, there was never any prophet spake more divinely; where he spake ill, there was never any devil spake more desperately. Ill counsel seldom succeedeth not; good seed often falls out of the way, and roots not; but the tares never light amiss. This project of the wicked magician was too prosperous. (Bp. Hall.)Numbers 32Numbers 32:1-6The children of Gad, and the children of Reuben, came and spake unto Moses.The selfish request of the Reubenites and GaditesI. Mean selfishness. In the competitions of business and of professional and social life there is often very much of mean selfishness, and that even amongst persons who are avowedly Christians. But selfishness is utterly opposed to the spirit of Jesus Christ.II. Predominant worldliness. In this day there are many, who regard themselves as Christians, who resemble the Reubenites and Gadites--many who are chiefly influenced by temporal and worldly considerations in--1. The selection and conduct of their business.2. The formation of matrimonial alliances; and3. The determination of their residence.Temporal gain, social surroundings, salubrity of atmosphere, and similar things are often deeply considered, while sacred and spiritual things are well-nigh overlooked.III. Disregard of the interests and bights of their brethren.IV. Disparagement of their Divine calling and destiny. What vast numbers practically despise their exalted spiritual calling in the Gospel for the passing and perishing things of this world!V. Want of faith in the Divine promise. It is not improbable that they had their doubts as to their taking the good land beyond Jordan, and therefore sought to secure for themselves what the nation had already conquered. Such unbelief is a grievous dishonour to God. Conclusion: Mark the folly of this request of the Reubenites and Gadites. The country which they desired had very grave disadvantages. A selfish policy is generally a self-defeating policy. (W. Jones.)Reuben and GadThis is too often the prayer of prosperous men. They find upon the earth what they regard as heaven enough. If they could but double their income, they would sigh for no bluer heaven; if they could but have health without increasing the income--simply increase of physical energy--they would desire no better paradise than they can find on earth. Who likes to cross the Jordan that lies before every man? There is a point at which it becomes very difficult to say to God, “We are still ready to go on; whatever next may come--great wilderness or cold river, or high stony mountain--we are still ready to go on; Thy will be done, and Thy way be carried out to its last inch.” Yet, until we reach the resignation which becomes triumph and the triumph which expresses itself, not in loud sentiment but in quiet and deep obedience, we have not begun to realise the meaning of the kingdom of heaven. What was the answer of Moses? “Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?” (Num 32:6). What suggestion there is in the colour of every tone! What sublime mockery! What a hint of cowardice! What an infliction of judgment upon meanness! Sometimes the only way in which we can put a rational rebuke is in the form of an inquiry. But there was more to be considered. “And wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord hath given them?” (Num 32:7). Take the word “discourage” in any sense, and it is full of meaning. Perhaps a stronger word might have been inserted here--a word amounting to aversion and utter dislike to the idea of going forward. Our actions have social effects. There are no literal individualities now; we are not separate and independent pillars; we are parts of a sum-total; we are members one of another. Then Moses utilised history (Num 32:8-13). The past speaks in the present. Our fathers come up in a kind of resurrection in our own thinking and our own propositions. Meanness of soul is handed down; disobedience is not buried in the grave with the man who disobeyed. This is a broad law; were it rightly understood and applied, many a man’s conduct would be explained which to-day appears to be quite inexplicable. Appetites descend from generation to generation; diseases may sleep through one generation, and arise in the next with aggravated violence. Men should take care what they do. Then Reuben and Gad said they would fight; they would build sheepfolds for their cattle, and cities for their little ones: but they themselves would go ready armed before the children of Israel, until they had brought them unto their place, and then their little ones should dwell in the fenced cities because of the inhabitants of the land. Moses said, in effect, “So be it: if you complete the battle you shall locate yourselves here; but you must complete the battle, and when the conquest is won, you may return and enjoy what you can here of green things and flowing water; but, let me tell you, ‘if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord’; this is not a covenant between you and me--between man and man; but your sin will be against the Lord, ‘and be sure your sin will find you out.’” The matter was not easily arranged; Heaven was invoked, tones of judgment were employed, a covenant was entered into which bore the seal eternal. That law still continues. Supposing there to be no Bible, no altar, no invisible judgment-seat, no white throne--as has been conceived by sacred poetry--there is still, somehow, at work, in this mysterious scheme of things, a law of a constabulary kind which arrests the evil-doer, which makes the glutton sick, which makes the voluptuary weak, which stings the plotter in the very time which he had planned for his special joy. There is, account for it as we may, a ghostliness that looks upon us through the cloud, so that we feel the blood receding from the face, or feel it returning in violent torrents, making the face red with shame. But there is the law, give it what name we may, shuffle out of religious definitions as we like: the wrong-doer lays his head on a hard pillow; the bad man stores his property in unsafe places. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 32:6-15Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?And wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel? The expostulation of Moses1. He shows them what he apprehended to be evil in this motion; that it would discourage the heart of their brethren (Num 32:6-7). What, saith he, with a holy indignation at their selfishness, “shall your brethren go to war, and expose themselves to all the hardships of the field, and shall ye sit here at your ease? No, do not mistake yourselves; you shall never be indulged by me in this sloth and cowardice.” It ill becomes any of God’s Israel to sit down unconcerned in the difficult concernments of their brethren, whether public or personal.2. He minds them of the fatal consequences of the unbelief and faint-heartedness of their fathers when they were, as these here, just ready to enter Canaan. He recites the story very particularly (Num 32:8-13). “Thus did your fathers,” whose punishment should be a warning to you to take heed of sinning after the similitude of their transgression.3. He gives them fair warning of the mischief that would be likely to follow upon this separation they were about to make from the camp of Israel; they would be in danger of bringing wrath upon the whole congregation, and hurrying them all back again into the wilderness (Num 32:14-15). “Ye are risen up in your father’s stead” to despise the pleasant land, and reject it as they did, when we hoped you were risen up in their stead to possess it. It was an encouragement to Moses to see what an increase of men they were, but a discouragement to see that they were withal an increase of sinful men, treading in the steps of their fathers’ impiety. It is sad to see the rising generations in families and countries seldom better, and often worse, than that which went before it. And what comes of it? why, it augments the fierce anger of the Lord; not only continues that fire, but increaseth it, and fills the measure often, till it overflow in a deluge of desolation. Note, if men did consider as they ought what would be in the end of sin, they would be afraid of the beginnings of it. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The faithful rebuke of MosesI. The injustice of their proposal. Why should they have as their inheritance that country which all had assisted to conquer, and leave their brethren to conquer other possessions for themselves without their aid?II. The tendency of their proposal to dishearten their brethren. Because the granting of this request would be likely to--1. Reduce their numbers.2. Engender dissatisfaction.III. The wickedness of their proposal.1. Unbelief of God’s word.2. Depreciation of God’s goodness.IV. The tendency of their proposal to call down the wrath of God.1. The cause of His anger (Num 32:14).2. The expression of His anger (Num 32:15).3. The subjects of His anger. “All this people.”V. The solemn example by which Moses enforced his rebuke (Num 32:8-13). (W. Jones.)The sin of discouraging our brethrenThe children of God are very prone to be discouraged. The truth is, that their path through the wilderness is not an easy one. The danger of discouragement being so very great, it is the duty of Christians to encourage each other, to exhort one another in words of kindness, cheerfulness, and love, to hold on their way. How beautiful is the example of Jesus, in the tenderness of the sympathy wherewith lie encouraged the weak. But Christians are too often unlike their Master, wanting in that gentle and encouraging sympathy. It may be well to note more carefully some of the ways in which Christians most frequently discourage each other’s hearts.1. First, then, we may mention an inconsistent life. There is nothing so beautiful on earth as a consistent life, a life entirely consecrated to God--devoted to one great object, and guided by one great principle. Such a life makes people feel that there is something from God in true religion; and it greatly encourages those who are seeking Christ. On the contrary, the inconsistent lives of Christians are the greatest possible hindrance to the world, and to those who are weak in faith. There was great apparent inconsistency in the request of the Reubenites. They ought to have valued God’s promise, and have wished to settle within the limits of the Promised Land; but the rich pastures of the territories already won, and situated without its boundaries, were a temptation to them. And Moses saw at once the effect that this example would have upon the hearts of their brethren. It would discourage them. It is just so with those who ought to live for heaven, who profess to be looking for it, and yet set their affections on things below--on the creature, or the world, or on money. This contrariety between the profession and the life cannot be otherwise than a stumbling block to the world, and a great discouragement to those who are weak in faith. Some it hardens in their unbelief; others are led by it into painful doubt and perplexity. It is no small sin to discourage our brethren.2. But again, the natural heart is very prone to think that religion is a gloomy thing, a system of sacrifices; and this we cannot wonder at, as it only sees what must be given up, but cannot perceive what is gained. It cannot understand that excellency of the knowledge of Christ which makes sacrifices easy and delightful, and renders things impossible to flesh and blood altogether possible. Now, when Christians are gloomy and desponding, when their look is melancholy and their language dissatisfied, it tends to confirm the notion that true religion does not make the heart happy, does not give it rest; and so the wanderer, discouraged at the outset, seeks cheerfulness and pleasure elsewhere, and not in Christ. Now, why should Christians ever give such an impression of religion? Surely it must be of all things the most blessed to be reconciled to God, to have the forgiveness of all sins. It is true that the Christian has many trials which are unknown to the world, fightings within, as well as fears without. But his fightings are not hopeless struggles. They are the precursors of victory; for, says St. Paul, we are made more than conquerors through Him that loved us.3. Another way of discouraging our brethren is by showing want of sympathy in their difficulties. Hardness and want of sympathy have much to do with making the world as full of misery as it is.4. Another case of discouragement to others is our shrinking, or appearing to shrink, from difficulties. Moses evidently thought that this was the motive of the request of the Reubenites. They wished to settle down in a land already won, instead of sharing the danger of war with their brethren. “Shall your brethren go to war, and ye sit here?” The event proved that happily this was not the case. Moses was mistaken in his suspicions. But it is quite clear, that had this been the case scarcely anything could have discouraged the rest of the Israelites more completely. Now this, we fear, is not a very uncommon cause of discouragements. There are too many Christians who shrink from difficulties. They prefer some smooth and easy course, the pastures of Jazer and Gilead to the warfare and conflicts of Canaan. If some easy work is proposed to them, which is accompanied by no great difficulties, and which involves no real self-denial, they may be ready for it. But they do not like to take up the cross, and especially a daily cross--one that lasts long. We ought not to shrink from difficulties in doing the will of God. It is usually God’s way to surround His own work with difficulties, and often with such difficulties as His own hand alone can remove. And this He does to try His people’s faith, not to discourage them. Viewed at a distance, like the wall of some great fortress, they appear very formidable, but when grappled with in faith, one after another they fall away. There are beautiful promises to encourage us under difficulties (Isa 41:14; Isa 41:16; Zec 4:7). Let us then settle it well in our hearts that we must have difficulties in doing the work of God; but let not these dismay our hearts or lead us to discourage our brethren. (G. Wagner.)Numbers 32:16-27We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones.But we ourselves will go ready armed. The amended proposal of the Reubenites and GaditesI. The amended proposal made.1. That they should province at once for the safe settlement of their families and their flocks and herds.2. That they would assist their brethren in the conquest of Canaan.3. That they would not leave their brethren until that conquest was completely effected.4. That they would not seek for any inheritance with their brethren on the other side of the Jordan.II. The amended proposal accepted.1. Moses re-affirms the chief terms of their proposal.2. He accepts their proposal as righteous.3. He warns them that if they fail to faithfully fulfil its terms punishment will overtake them.III. The amended proposal confirmed. Lessons:1. The duty of manifesting a practical regard for the rights and interests of others.2. The importance of faithfully fulfilling the engagements into which we enter.3. The delusiveness of the notion that any one can sin and escape the punishment of sin. (W. Jones.)Conflict the condition of attainment, and suffering the consequence of sinI. A truth to be confirmed--that those who would share in the inheritance must engage in the conflict.II. A warning to be applied--that sin brings punishment; and that those who think to sin with impunity, under a dispensation of mercy, will find themselves fearfully disappointed.III. A personal application to be made. (Samuel Thodey.)Necessity for conflict in the open fieldA skilful botanist, an exile in a foreign land, was thankful to accept the position of an under-gardener in the service of a man of wealth. While filling this humble office, his attention was attracted by a rare plant which had been sent to the owner of the garden, and which had been placed in the hot-house under the impression that it was a native of the tropics. So far from thriving, it had begun so evidently to wither and decay that the unskilful gardener was about to remove it to a still warmer place, when the observant eye of the botanist discovered it to be a production of the Arctic regions, and insisted that it should be exposed to the icy breath of winter. Forthwith it revived, and began to flourish. In like manner, if Christians will shut themselves up in the confined and heated atmosphere of worldliness and sin, they can neither hope for growth nor fruitfulness. Heroic conflict in the open field with the enemies of our salvation, the overcoming of temptation in the way of daily duty, constant communication with the Holy Spirit of God in the use of the appointed means of grace--these are the only safeguards for the soul. (Christian Age.)Numbers 32:23Be sure your sin will find you out.The great sin of doing nothingI. What was this sin? A learned divine has delivered a sermon upon the sin of murder from this text, another upon theft, another upon falsehood. If you take the text as it stands, there is nothing in it about murder, or theft, or anything of the kind. In fact, it is not about what men do, but it is about what men do not do. The iniquity of doing nothing is a sin which is not so often spoken of as it should be. A sin of omission is clearly aimed at in this warning--“If ye will not do so, be sure your sin will find you out.”1. It was the sin of idleness and of self-indulgence. “We have cattle: here is a land that yields much pasture: let us have this for our cattle, and we will build folds for our sheep with the abundant stones that lie about, and we will repair these cities of the Amorites, and we will dwell in them. They are nearly ready for us, and there shall our little ones dwell in comfort. We do not care about fighting: we have seen enough of it already in the wars with Sihon and Og. Reuben would rather abide by the sheepfolds. Gad has more delight in the bleating of the sheep and in the folding of the lambs in his bosom than in going forth to battle.” Alas, the tribe of Reuben is not dead, and the tribe of Gad has not passed away! Many who are of the household of faith are equally indisposed to exertion, equally fond of ease.2. This sin may be viewed under another aspect, as selfishness and unbrotherliness. Gad and Reuben ask to have their inheritance at once, and to make themselves comfortable in Bashan, on this side Jordan. What about Judah, Levi, Simeon, Benjamin, and all the rest of the tribes? How are they to get their inheritance? They do not care, but it is evident that Bashan is suitable for themselves with their multitude of cattle. Some of them reply, “You see, they must look to themselves, as the proverb hath it, ‘Every man for himself, and God for us all.’” Did I not hear some one in the company say, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Soul-murder can be wrought without an act or even a will; it is constantly accomplished by neglect. Yonder perishing heathen--does not the Lord inquire, “Who slew all these?” The millions of this city unevangelised--who is guilty of their blood? Are not idle Christians starving the multitude by refusing to hand out the bread of life? Is not this a grievous sin? “But oh,” says another, “they can conquer the land themselves. God is with them, and He can do His own work, and therefore I do not see that I need trouble myself about other people.” That is selfishness; and selfishness is never worse than when it puts on the garb of religion.3. But with this there was mingled ingratitude of a very dark order. These children of Gad and Reuben would appropriate to themselves lands for which all the Israelites had laboured. God had led them forth to battle, and they had conquered Sihon and Og, and now these men would take possession of what others have struggled for, but they are not to fight themselves. This is vile ingratitude; and I fear it is common among us at this very day. How come we to be Christians at all? Instrumentally, it is through those holy missionaries who won our fathers from the cruel worship of the Druids, and afterwards from the fierce dominion of Woden and Thor. Are we to receive all, and then give out nothing at all? Are we to be like candles burning under bushels? Are we to waste our life by much receiving and little distributing? This will never do. This will not be life, but death. Remember the Dead Sea, and tremble lest thou be like it, a pool accursed and cursing all around thee l The text, when spiritually interpreted, says concerning our personal service in the conquest of the world for Christ--“if ye do not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.”4. Again, we may view this from another point of view. It is the sin of untruthfulness. These people pledged themselves that they would go forth with the other tribes, and that they would not return to their own homes until the whole of the campaign was ended. Now, if after that they did not go to the war, and did not fight to the close of it, then they would be guilty of a barefaced lie. It is a wretched thing for a man to be a covenant-breaker. It is sacrilege for any man to lie, not only unto man, but unto God. I would speak very tenderly, but if any man has been converted from the error of his ways, by that very conversion he is bound to serve the Lord. Now, if he lives only to make money and hoard it, and he does nothing for God’s Church and for poor sinners, is not his baptism a lie? Once more, and I will have done with this painful subject. What would their sin be?5. According to Moses it would be a grave injury to others. Do you not notice how he put it to them? “Moses said unto the children of Gad and to the children of Reuben, Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?” What an example to set! If one Christian man is right in never joining a Christian Church, then all other Christian men would be right in not doing so, and there would be no visible Christian Church. Do you not see, you non-professing believers, that your example is destructive to all Church life?6. Moses goes on to remark that if these people did not go forth to war, they would discourage all the rest. “Wherefore discourage ye the heart of the children of Israel from going over into the land which the Lord hath given them? “It is no slight sin to discourage holy zeal and perseverance in others. May we never be guilty of killing holy desires even in children! How often has a burning desire in a boy’s heart been quenched by his own father, who has thought him too impulsive, or too ardent! How frequently the conversation of a friend, so called, has dried up the springs of holy desire in the person with whom he has conversed! Let it not be so. Yet without cold words our chill neglects may freeze. We cannot neglect our own gardens without injuring our neighbours. One mechanic coming late among a set of workmen may throw the whole company out of order for the day. One railway truck off the rails may block the entire system. Depend upon it, if we are not serving the Lord our God, we are committing the sin of discouraging our fellow-men. They are more likely to imitate our lethargy than our energy. Why should we wish to hinder others from being earnest? How dare we rob God of the services of others by our own neglect?II. Notice what was the chief sin in this sin? Of course, if the Reubenites did not keep their solemn agreement to go over Jordan, and help their brethren, they would sin against their brethren; but this is not the offence which rises first to the mind of Moses. Moses overlooks the lesser, because he knows it to be comprehended in the greater; and he says, “Behold, ye have sinned against the Lord.”1. It is disobedience against the Lord not to be preaching His truth if we are able to do so. The hearer of the gospel is bound to be a repeater of the gospel.2. We are certainly guilty of ingratitude, if, as I have already said, we owe so much to other men, and yet do not seek to bless mankind; but chiefly we owe everything to the grace of God, and, if God has given us grace in our own hearts, and saved us with the precious blood of the Only-Begotten, how can we sit still, and allow others to perish?3. There would be sin against God in the conduct of these people, if they did not aid in the conquest of Canaan, for they would be dividing God’s Israel. Shall the Lord’s heritage be rent in twain? God meant them all to keep together. Can it be that any of us are dividing the Church of God; that is, dividing it into drones and workers? This would be a terrible division: and I fear that it exists already. It is apparent to those who are able to observe; and it is mourned over by those who are jealous for the God of Israel. Half the schisms in Churches arise out of the real division which exists between idlers and workers. Mind this. Be not sowers of division by being busy-bodies, working not at all.III. We have now reached the last point, and the point that is most serious: what will come of this sin of doing nothing? What will come of it? “Be sure your sin will find you out.”1. It would find them out thus: they would be ill at ease. One of these days their sin would leap upon their consciences as a lion on its prey.2. When conscience was thus aroused, they would also feel themselves to be mean and despicable. Their manhood would be held cheap by the other tribes.3. They would be enfeebled by their own inaction. How much of sacred education we miss when we turn away from the service of God!4. Their sin would also have found them out, had they fallen into it, because they would have been divided from the rest of God’s Israel. Those who are nonworkers lose much by not keeping pace with those who are running the heavenly race. The active are happy: the haled of the diligent maketh rich in a spiritual sense. There is that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to poverty: I am sure it is so in a spiritual sense.5. To come more practically home, if you and I are not serving the Lord, our sin will find us out.(1) It will find us out perhaps in this way. There will be many added to the Church, and God will prosper it, and we shall hear of it: but we shall feel no joy therein. We had no finger in the work, and we shall find no comfort in the result.(2) It may be that you will begin to lose all the sweetness of public services. By doing nothing you lose your appetite.(3) I have known this sin find people out in their families. There is a Christian man: we honour and love him, but he has a son that is a drunkard. Did his good father ever bear any protest against strong drink in all his life? Every man should labour by precept and example to put down intemperance, and he who does not do so may be sure that his sin will find him out. Here is another. His children have all grown up thoughtless, careless, giddy. He took them to his place of worship, and he now inquires, “Why are they not converted?” Did he ever take them one by one and pray with them? If we do not look after God’s children, it may be that He will not look after ours. “No,” says God, “there were other people’s children in the streets, and you had no concern about them, why should your children fare better?” “Be sure your sin will find you out.” (C. H. Spurgeon.)Sin will come to lightI. God certainly shows His purpose to punish sin by the way He causes woe to come on some sinners here. The drunkard, the glutton, and the cheat, the liar and the lewd, are nut the only examples. Most frauds are exposed. Nearly all murders are brought to light. Men may plot very secretly, and think their crimes are hid. But Providence calls on stones and beams of timber, on tracks and pieces of paper, to be witnesses of the crime. Then all that class of sins which are not punishable by human laws, God often punishes with a loss of respect, esteem, or confidence.II. Men might be sure that their sin will find them out by the sore judgments which God sometimes sends on men for their sins. On this matter we should exercise candour, caution, and charity, and not call that an angry judgment which is but a dark doing of love. Still there are on earth sore and marked judgments. Look at the history of Achan, of Korah, &c. Of thirty Roman emperors, proconsuls, and high officials, who distinguished themselves by their zeal and rage against the early Christians, it is recorded that one became speedily deranged after an act of great cruelty; one was slain by his own son; one became blind; the eyes of one started out of his head; one was drowned; one was strangled; one died in a miserable captivity; one fell dead in a manner that will not bear to be told; one died of so loathsome a disease that several of his physicians were put to death, because they could not abide the stench that filled his room; two committed suicide; a third attempted it, but had to call for help to finish the bloody work; five were assassinated by their own servants or people; five others died the most horrible deaths, having many and strange diseases; and eight were killed in battle, or after being taken prisoners. Men have more to do with sin than to commit it.III. One may escape detection and strange judgments, and still his sins may find him out in the fears, and clamours, and remorse of conscience. Remorse is remorseless. Like fire, it burns all around it. No man can protect himself against his sins flashing him in the face at any moment. The Bible, preaching, singing, praying, a marriage, a trial in court, the sight of the man he has injured, or one that looks like him, or anything may arouse his conscience into fury at the most inconvenient time.IV. But even if one escape all these things, yet if he dies unpardoned his sins will find him out in the next world (Luk 12:2; 1Ti 5:24; Ecc 10:20). Why do not men admit the force of these truths, and act accordingly? The reasons are very clear.1. Some think their sins will not find them out because God has not yet called them to account (Ecc 8:11). Such men forget that with the Lord one day is “as a thousand years,” &c. (2Pe 3:8-10).2. In this world sinners often forget their sins, and think God has also forgotten them (Psa 10:11). But God forgets nothing.3. Some think their sin will not find them out because they doubt whether God is holy and just, and whether He takes notice of human actions (Psa 94:5-7). But that is practical atheism (Pro 15:3; Ecc 12:14).4. Some think their sin will not find them out because God is merciful. But mercy rejected can save no man. All the cooling fountains can do no good to him who does not drink of them. Oh, sinner, “be sure your sin will find you out.” You may now live in ease and in error. You may now harden your heart in pride. But you must meet your sins at God’s tribunal. Remember that. Oh! be wise--be wise unto salvation. (W. S. Plumer, D. D.)Avoiding the mischief of wrongdoingI. Our sin will certainly find us out. Some men indeed are so hardened in wickedness, so totally lost to conscience and reflection, that they are long able to hide themselves, as it were, from sin. Such persons may live long before their sin finds them out. It must wait for opportunities-a time of sickness or a time of distress, when a man’s wickedness has drawn some heavy calamity upon him. Then his sin will be sure to find him out. It will hold up a frightful mirror before him, and show him that himself has been the cause of all he suffers.II. Sin being thus represented as a merciless creditor, of an unforgiving temper, demanding debts with the utmost rigour, let us see how we may best avoid the mischief it threatens.1. As we are assured in the text that our sin will certainly find us out it is the part of wisdom to be beforehand with it and find it out first. Sin can never find us out but at some great disadvantage--when it is strong and we are weak ; when habits of wickedness have been formed, and we have suffered some mischief from them; or when our spirits are low, and we feel the world sinking under us. But on the other hand, if we take the active part, and endeavour to find out sin first, we prevent this bad effect. It is in this case as in others of the same kind. If we are in debt, our debts, that is, our creditors, will find us out. But when we are beforehand, and find out our debts ourselves, and take methods to pay them, we avoid all the bad consequences we should otherwise incur. He who can number a few figures may count his debts. They are, or may be, plain before him. But the deceit and treachery of the heart lie deep; and it is often a difficult matter to come at our sins. The case is this: we not only suffer our passions and appetites to lead us into sin, but we use our reason, which God has given us for better purposes, to excuse our wickedness. Repentance is the grand condition of the gospel; and the first act of repentance is to find out our sins. When we think of Zaccheus, let us remember the happy fruits of finding out our sin. When we think of Judas Iscariot, let us tremble at the dreadful consequences of suffering it to find us out.2. Being thus convinced of the necessity of finding out our sin, the next great step to be taken is to endeavour to obtain pardon for it. Whatever difficulty there may be amidst the many corruptions and doublings of our hearts in finding out our sins, the method of obtaining pardon lies plain before us.3. Since, then, God Almighty hath thus put the means of our salvation, in a manner, in our own power, by leaving us at option whether we will accept or not the terms He hath offered; let us not be so lost to ourselves as to go on in any sinful course till at length our sin find us out, but let us manfully endeavour to find it out first. Infidelity, where proper means of obtaining evidence has been neglected, is certainly a high offence. (W. Gilpin, M. A.)The sinner detectedI. That you have sinned against the Lord.1. This is abundantly evident from innumerable passages of Scripture.2. From observation of the conduct of mankind, it is evident that they have sinned against the Lord.3. From the many dreadful threatenings which are written in the Word of God.4. This is evident from all the judgments which God hath brought upon the children of men from the beginning of the world until now.5. From the consent of all nations, it is evident that we have sinned against the Lord.II. How your sin will find you out. It will find you out for your conviction and conversion, or for your condemnation and destruction.1. Your sin will find you out at the bar of conscience, under the dispensation of the gospel of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.2. Under afflictive dispensations of Divine Providence.3. At the approach of the king of terrors.4. Your sins, if you die impenitent, will find you out at the tribunal of Christ, in the judgment of the great day.5. The sins of the impenitent will find them out in hell, to all the ages of eternity.III. The absolute certainty that sooner or later your sins will find you out.1. That men’s sins shall find them out is absolutely certain, because the nature and perfections of God require it.2. The Word of God asserts it.3. Conscience forebodes it.4. God’s moral government attests it.5. Those who have gone before, in every past age of the world and period of the Church, in their experience have found it.Conclusion.1. Be sure to find out sin.2. Find out your sin, so as to get a soul-humbling and a heart-breaking view of it.3. Endeavour to find out your sins in such a manner as shall influence you to make a free confession of them unto the Lord.4. Be so stirred up by finding out y our sins as to implore forgiveness from God through the merit and intercession of His Son Jesus Christ.5. Be excited to wash in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.6. Endeavour to find out your sin, and to be so affected with the sight of it as to forsake it and flee from it in time to come. (John Jardine.)UnhelpfulnessWhat the text teaches is not merely that harm done to others will recoil on the head of the wrong-doer, but that help withheld will do the same. It assumes that our brethren have a right to positive assistance at our hands. And it solemnly warns us that if we deny them that assistance, our sin will find us out.I. Take the case of a parent who neglects the Christian nurture of his children. He allows them, suppose, to grow up uneducated, sending them to work when they should be at school, and preferring the petty earnings they bring him to their mental and moral well-being. Or he allows them to take up with dangerous companions, without making any effort to restrain them. Or, though not unheedful of their physical comfort and intellectual culture, he neglects to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. What is the almost certain issue? Does this negligent parent receive from his children honour, love, obedience, cheerful help? Or if he does obtain some measure of deference while they are of tender years, and dwell under his roof, what happens when they become grown men and women, and he an old man in need of sympathy and aid? Alas! the cold indifference with which they then regard him, the grudging parsimony with which, if he is poor, they contribute to his scanty maintenance, the shame and sorrow which they bring on his grey hairs by their ingratitude and wickedness--these things but too surely prove that his sin has entailed an answerable punishment.II. Take the case of those rich members of a community who neglect to provide instruction for the untaught children of the poor. In the cost of the crimes which those unheeded ones begin in youth, and perpetrate with aggravations in riper years, their sin is finding them out. In the cost of police and prisons and heavy poor-rates, it is finding them out. In the organised and protracted strikes, which reveal the crass ignorance and pitiable credulity of their dupes, and threaten to palsy the industrial enterprise of the country, it is finding them out. And should a season of wild political excitement or of widespread commercial stagnation arrive, with its provocations to turbulence and lawlessness, it may find them out in a way yet more terribly retributive.III. Take the case of a corporation or a community which declines or delays to adopt measures cf sanitary improvement. It is sad to think that the majority of men are without a conscience as regards the violation of physical laws, though that is as truly a sin against God as their violation of moral laws. But whether men arc alive to their guilt in this respect or not, certain it is that their sin is in hot pursuit of them, and will ere long seize and rend them with its deadly fangs. The prosperous inhabitants of a town cannot suffer their poorer neighbours to dwell in overcrowded and unwholesome tenements, without having themselves to smart for such selfish neglect. If the poor are tempted, amid their physical discomforts, to resort to the deceitful solace of intemperance, it must fall to the rest of the community to pay for the pauperism and crime which intemperance begets. If the poor are ruined in health and made reckless in habits by the scenes of filth and vice which environ them, it must fall to those in better circumstances to sustain the burdens and hazards which an idle and turbulent populace never fail to create. And when fever or pestilence breaks out in the squalid hovel, who shall guarantee the health of the sumptuous mansion?IV. Take the case of a Christian Church which neglects to adopt aggressive measures for the reclamation of the irreligious multitudes around it. Every successive year adds to the numbers who never enter a house of prayer. And now, instead of the grand moral spectacle which our working-men once presented--men humble in station, but high in moral excellence; scant of secular lore, but mighty in the Scriptures--we behold throngs of workmen who are not only indifferent about religion, but positively profane and sceptical. Bespeaks not this a lack of aggressive effort on the part of our churches and congregations? Could there be now such a vast outlying mass of irreligion, had each of our churches, in place of abiding within its own pasturage, gone over the river to help those neglected ones in their combat with evil? And shall not this sin find the churches out? It is finding them out. Already are there thousands upon thousands in our land who hate every Christian Church with a perfect hatred, and who would shout with diabolic triumph over their destruction. (J. M. McCulloch, D. D.)Our sins finding us out1. First, our sins find us out when there is a direct connection of cause and effect between the sin and the punishment, and in the most literal sense of the word, we eat the fruit of our own doings. The delirium tremens which overtakes the drunkard, the premature decrepitude or forlorn old age of him who has laid waste his youth by sensual excesses, the rags with which the sluggard is clothed, the shameful fall which so often the proud prepares for himself, what are all these but men’s sins finding them out, the sin having all along been big with the punishment, and in due season bringing it forth--according to our own proverb, “Old sin, new shame,” old and new being linked with one another by indissoluble bonds, and sooner or later making this relation between them to appear?2. But not in this way only do men’s sins find them out. Oftentimes there is no such connection of cause and effect; but there is that conformity between the sin and the punishment, that unmistakable resemblance between them, which it is impossible to ascribe to blind chance. Scripture, and not Scripture only, is full of examples in this kited. It is measured to men exactly as they have measured to others; the very cup they have held to the lips of others being by and by held to their own. The deceiver is deceived; the violator of the sanctities of another man’s home beholds his own trampled on and violated in turn. The wicked king, that slew the prophets and left their very bodies unburied, is himself slain and east forth with the burial of an ass. So marvellous is the conformity between the sin and the suffering, that there is wrung from the sufferer, sometimes in the hearing of all the world, but oh t how much oftener in the secret of his soul, a confession of the same: “As I have done, so God hath requited me” (Jdg 1:7; Rev 16:6). Others may miss the connection, may not so much as guess that there is one; but he knows only too well whose hand it was that smote him; from what wing the arrow which pierced him has been drawn.3. Then, too, men’s sins often find them out, though no visible sign or token may betray this fact to the world. All may outwardly stand fair; there may be no breach in the worldly prosperity, nay, this may be ampler, more strongly established than ever; while yet there may be that within which forbids to rejoice, which takes all the joy and the gladness out of life--the memory of that old sin which was as nothing when committed, but which now darkens all, the deadly arrow poisoning the springs of life, which will not drop from the side, which no force, no art of man’s device, can withdraw. Is there not here one whose sin has found him out? Neither let us assume that it is only the wicked whose sins thus come round to them again. God is faithful, and will not allow His own children to escape altogether, any more than the children of this present world. The cup of suffering may be filled more fully for some than for others; but it shall come round in due time to all.4. What shall we say to all this? If earlier or later, first or last, our sins do thus so often overtake us even here, shall we not put far from us so evil a thing and one which has such a fatal power of thus coming back on him that wrought it? It may be that it is too late for this ; but there is still something which we can do. We can, so to speak, take the initiative; turn the table on our sins, and instead of waiting for them to find us out, we, earnestly seeking, by aid of that candle which the Lord has lighted in us, may find out them; and then we have the sure word of promise that, if we will judge ourselves, we shall not be judged of the Lord. (Archbp. Trench.)Sin its own punishmentThe consequences of a man’s sin are often, and for a length of time, felt by others rather than himself. The anxious husband has to bear the burden laid on him by the thriftless wife; the widowed mother that which is imposed by the extravagance of the thoughtless son. The sin, so to speak, born into life, leaves its proper parent, travels sometimes far away, finds out the innocent, and afflicts them; but nevertheless, in due time, it will come home to the sinner himself.I. Here was the sin of selfishness. “Bring us not over Jordan.” A deliberate proposal, involving schism in the body, separation, isolation, to carry out mean and selfish ends. Suppose this request had been granted; though things might have gone well with them for a time, yet in the end, cut off by their own act from sympathy and aid, exposed to the attack of numerous foes, they would have reaped the bitter fruit of what they had sown: and so throughout life, no one more fails of his end, no one more certainly brings on himself what he seeks to avoid, than the selfish man.II. The sin of cowardice, too, was probably here. Timorousness provoked insult, and invites attack.III. Here was the sin of indolence. Nothing more certainly than indolence cuts itself off from the ease and enjoyment it seeks. Its grows, too, so strong by yielding to it, that at length freedom from toil ends in bitterest bondage.IV. Here was that in which all other sins may be summed up: disobedience to God. (J. W. Lance.)The unfailing detectiveThe sinner and his sin change places after he has committed it. Before its commission he pursues sin; after its perpetration sin pursues him, and is sure to find him.I. Why?1. Because of the absolute perfectness of God’s law, which covers every detail of a human being’s life, and threatens a penalty for every dereliction.2. Because of the perfect administration of that law, which notes every offence and secures the punishment of every offender.II. When?1. Sometimes in this life, by civil law, by general censure, and by reproaches of conscience.2. Sometimes at death, when the hallucination of the world is removed, and conscience asserts its authority.3. Always at the judgment, when Satan no longer can deceive, when the standard of duty is applied, and the sinner’s record is unfolded. In the Hades of the lost, where the sinner shall reap in kind, in degree, and in quantity what he has sown. (Hom. Monthly.)The certainty of sin finding us outI. What is meant by our sin finding us out?1. By the expression “Our sin,” we may in the first place understand any particular sin of which we may have been guilty; any gross and single act of injustice, profaneness, licentiousness, falsehood, or the like, which at any time may have been committed by us. But we must not confine the expression to this meaning; for it more properly signifies all the collective sin of which we have been guilty; the sin, as it were, of our whole lives.2. Now, in what sense is it said that this our sin will find us out? To understand the force of this expression, we must remember that sin necessarily brings certain evil consequences. It entails them on the sinner. Now these consequences are three: fear, shame, and death. Sin necessarily brings these evils with it in its train. “Evil pursues sinners”; and whatever they may think or feel, their sin will one day find them out.II. The certainty that our sin will find us out.1. In the first place, the perfections of God absolutely forbid that sin should go unpunished. Omnipresent: Omniscient: Holy: Just. True and faithful to His word.2. In the second place, the many remarkable instances of sin being detected and punished in this world, strongly confirm the truth under consideration. Achan: Gehazi: Ananias and Sapphira. Has it not sometimes happened, that a man has even become his own accuser? Unable to bear the clamours and stings of conscience, he has confessed his own guilt, and has given himself up to punishment. Now what do these things prove, but that God will certainly bring to light the hidden things of darkness? We see how easily He can do it. He thus directs sin to find out some sinners here, to convince us that it will find out every sinner hereafter.3. But, in the third place, should a doubt yet remain on our minds, the appointment of a day of final retribution may and must entirely remove it. (E. Cooper, M. A.)Retribution1. Does not common sense tell us, that if God made this world, and governs it by righteous and God-like laws, this must be a world in which evil doing cannot thrive? God made the world better than that, surely! He would be a bad law-giver who made such laws, that it was as well to break them as to keep them. The world works by God’s laws, and it inclines towards good and not towards evil; and he who sins, even in the least, acts contrary to the rule and constitution of the world, and will surely find that God’s laws will go on in spite of him, and grind him to powder. God has no need to go out of His way to punish our evil deeds. Let them alone, and they will punish themselves. Is it not so in everything? If a tradesman trades badly, or a farmer farms badly, there is no need of lawyers to punish him; he will punish himself.2. Next, to speak of Scripture. I might quote texts innumerable to prove that what I say Scripture says also.3. You know that your sins will find you out. Look boldly and honestly into your own hearts. Look through the history of your past lives, and confess to God, at least, that the far greater number of your sorrows have been your own fault; that there is hardly a day’s misery which you ever endured in your life of which you might not say, “If I had listened to the voice of God in my conscience--if I had earnestly considered what my duty was--if I had prayed to God to determine my judgment right, I should have been spared this sorrow now!” Am I not right? Think again of your past lives, and answer in God’s sight, how many wrong things have you ever done which have succeeded--that is, how many sins which you would not be right glad were undone if you could but put back the wheels of Time? They may have succeeded outwardly; meanness will succeed so--lies--oppression--theft--godlessness--they are all pleasant enough while they last, I suppose: and a man may reap what he calls substantial benefits from them in money, and such-like, and keep that safe enough; but has his sin succeeded? Has it not found him out? found him out never to lose him again? Is he the happier for it?4. And lastly, you who, without running into any especial sins, as those which the world calls sins, still live careless about religion, without loyalty to Christ the Lord, without any honest attempt, or even wish, to serve the God above you, or to rejoice in remembering that you are His children, working for Him, and under Him--be sure your sin will find you out. When affliction, or sickness, or disappointment come, as come they will if God has not cast you off; when the dark day dawns, and your fool’s paradise of worldly prosperity is cut away from under your feet, then you will find out your folly; you will find that you have insulted the only friend who can bring you out of affliction. Then, I say, the sin of your godlessness will find you out; if you do not intend to fall, soured and sickened merely by God’s chastisements, either into stupid despair or peevish discontent, you will have to go back to God and cry, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son.” Go back at once, before it be too late. Find out your sins and mend them--before they find you out, and break your hearts. (C. Kingsley, M. A.)The warning against sinOne thing which has much to do with leading people to commit sin, is the thought that they can do it in secret, and not be found out. Many a boy is tempted to play truant, instead of going to school, because he thinks that his father and mother will never know anything about it. Many a robber breaks into a house at night, and steals what he wants, because he thinks that no one sees him, and so his sin will never be found out. But here in our text, we have a warning against sin because it is sure to be found out.I. And the first thing which must make it sure that sin will be found out, is--the presence. Of God.II. The second thing which makes it sure that sin will be found out, is--the power of God.III. And the third thing, which makes it sure that sin will be found out is--the purpose of God (Ecc 12:14). (R. Newton, D. D.)Murder will outI. The common fault. In every human being there are two sides, one seen by the world, and the other known only to himself and God. We perform before our fellow men; but to ourselves and God, one’s true character is revealed. Few men and women commit great crimes. But people who commit great crimes first begin with the little faults, such as “white lies,” or “white dishonesty,” or “white speculation,” with other people’s money. You know how hard it is sometimes to heat anything in your oven or on your fire; but when you obtain the first degree of heat, it is much more easy to get the second, the third, and the fourth. So it is hard at first to prevail upon yourself to do wrong, but after the first step has been taken it is very easy to go on with the second and the third. Dalliance with sin is a common fault.II. The sure result--“Be sure your sin will find you out.” When sin has found you out, you often resolve to give it up, yet you go to it again. Many people forsake sin as a man who goes to his work forsakes his house, but comes to it again after a season. And your sin finds you out in that you keep on doing the wrong, each year consenting to neglect something good, and more pleased to do something evil. Your sin finds you oat because as rust destroys your iron tools and vessels, so sin rusts your inward character. A splendid oak tree is blown down in a great gale of wind. But was it the wind that ruined the monarch of the forest? No; the wind merely completed the ruin. The cause of the destruction began years ago, when a drop of water settled itself in a crevice of the oak tree and gradually worked its way within until ultimately the rain and the outside air got into the heart of the wood, and it became diseased, corrupt, anal hollow. So when we see a man fall, we know it is a cankering and corrupting sin which has been surely finding him out. Sin will surely find you out because it is opposed to God’s eternal law of right.III. Thank God, there is a cure for sin; but no outward salve can heal its wounds. No external restraint, no prison, no muzzle of human device will keep you from it; the only cure is a new creation in your heart; and this God promises to every human heart that asks it. God cures us of our sin-disease, not only effectually but with tenderness. (W. Birch.)The entail of evilI. Notice the fact that this appeal, in regard to a great spiritual truth, is not made in the first instance to individuals, but to two tribes in their national capacity. The life of a tribe, or of a people, is a reality. A tribe, a nation, a Church, a people, cannot commit a wrong act or follow a wrong course, without, as a tribe, or nation, or Church, or people, suffering the consequences of its act. The sin which a nation commits is found out in the long-run. It brings forth its own natural fruits. One generation is to the next generation as spring is to autumn, and as boyhood is to manhood. And just as a man suffers for his carelessness, his folly, his dissipation, in youth, so does a generation suffer for its predecessors.II. We may make the subject one of wider and more general application, and find that this saying is universally true.1. By the very constitution of man’s being, the sin of the individual who commits a wrong reappears in his own mind and character. Not only every act, but every thought or purpose or desire which passes through the mind, gives a tinge to the mind itself. In the attitude and character of the mind itself, every man’s individual sins, even the most secret, will find him out.2. There may be some who will be more influenced by another consideration, and that is, that his secret sins wilt grow and gather, until in some way or other they will discover themselves in act, and find him out. (A. Watson, D. D.)The sinner found out by his sinBoth the unconverted who resist not evil, and the converted who resist it but imperfectly, not aiming at the total renewal of their nature, offer a parallel case of guilt to that of the unbelieving Israelites. And we are now to examine how the warning of the text appears to each class--“Be sure your sin will find you out.”! Now we suppose that the delusion which chiefly hardens the sinner in the commission of the crimes he so daringly perpetrates, is the hope that he may commit them in secrecy and with impunity. There can be no doubt that it detection followed immediately on the commission of crime--night throwing no mantle of darkness round the culprit, and accomplices unable to screen him from public scorn--those monstrous forms of wickedness would not so often appear which disfigure the annals of our race. But such a speedy retribution would go counter to the whole tone and texture of the revealed plan of salvation. Sins punished as soon as committed cannot be repented of, and therefore cannot be pardoned. If then, long-suffering is to be shown, if remission of human guilt is to be proclaimed through the interposition of a Mediator,. judgment must not follow so speedily upon crime. And it is this delay, rendered necessary for the display of mercy, that men interpret as if it meant indifference. We must, therefore, fling open the mysterious portals that enclose the future world, and reveal to the gaze of the sinner the destinies of the lost, ere we can hope successfully to urge him to commence the great business of religion. Who among you is deluding himself by the hope either of secrecy or impunity? “Be sure your sin will find you out!” You are pursued by the sin which yourselves have committed! That which before had no being, has received an individual, a personal existence by your own act, and is afterwards mysteriously connected with you, following your footsteps and tracking you in all your journeyings. Nay more, each sin which ye commit may be said to swell the numbers of the throng of pursuers that are behind, making it less possible for you to escape. Noiselessly they follow you. And ye yourselves have witnessed some of the results that follow on the sinner being overtaken by his sins. For what is it but sin finding the sensualist out, when he sinks beneath the ravages of premature decay, a virtual suicide? What is it but sin finding the gambler out, when with tottering reason and broken fortunes he finds a dishonourable grave, bequeathing nothing but an unhonoured name to those who once called him husband and father? And what is it but sin finding the dishonest trader out when, though he once stood high in public estimation, his reputation and his gains are proved to have been alike unfairly won, and he is sent an exile from scenes where he once moved a king? Happy for him if these temporal calamities, which are but heralds of others more fearful, would drive him to take refuge beneath the Saviour’s Cross, while yet the avenger has not fastened on his soul. If the sinner passes through life with his future tormentors always on his track, how can he, if found among the impenitent, hope to escape? But the text contains indirect notices of the future life which need a fuller examination. I gather that there will be an exact adaptation between the crime and its punishment--the punishment being nothing else than the crime itself re-appearing in another state of being to take vengeance on him who committed it.II. But we must now proceed to the second point we proposed to examine, how the text may be applied to the case of one who is truly a child of God. The believer who stands at God’s bar, having squared his conduct when on earth, according to God’s commandment, for Christ’s sake, shall not come under any measure of condemnation. If pronounced righteous then, his justification will be complete. But is he never impeded in his Christian course by the habits he had formed while living “without God in the world”? Those habits are gradually being overcome by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The roots of that sin, not yet eradicated, send up their bitter fruit, even when the sin itself has long disappeared. And thus his former sin, though pardoned, finds the believer out. Nor is this all. Sin will mark the believer’s course all through, and greater infirmities will appear in one than in another. There may be spiritual indolence--a desire to pass lightly over some infirmity, as if it did no great violence to God’s law--a fixing of the heart on something which forthwith becomes an idol, excluding Jehovah from His proper place. And then this sin finds the believer out. The child, or the husband, or the friend, who was too much loved, is taken away, that nothing may interfere with the total surrender of the soul to God. Or the uninterrupted prosperity which caused a forgetfulness that “all things come of God,” is brought suddenly to an end, and the storm sweeps over the stream of life which before flowed calmly along, that God’s voice may be heard bidding the tempest subside. Oh! the believer should never feel the rod, without searching for the sin that brings the chastening. I am sure that God keeps a stricter reckoning, in this world, with the righteous, than with the ungodly. (J. P. Waldo, M. A.)Our sin finding us outAudley was an old English usurer, who used to lend money to the thoughtless young men of his day, at ruinous rates of interest. He counted out the pounds for them, with many well-affected remonstrances on their extravagance, but his pity never led him away so far as to make him forget his securities. As long as he knew a debt to be safe, he was quite indifferent as to delay of payment, and many an unsuspecting victim was lulled into false security by the old usurer’s apparent unconcern; and they were only awakened, on some dark and unfortunate day, by the terrible discovery that interest and principa1 had swallowed up all their estates. Such is the ruinous percentage which thousands will be called on to pay to the great Enemy of Souls, for what are commonly described as “the pleasures of sin.” There is a presumption on the part of such as wilfully disobey God, which, sooner or later, will receive its due recompense. The most dangerous and deadly quality of sin is its deceitfulness: so deceitful, indeed, that it can conceal itself even from conscience. But nothing can be hidden from God. Hundreds of well-authenticated facts have occurred in all ages, enforcing the declaration that sin will be sure to find out the guilty. Even if sin be undiscovered in this life, the appointment of the great day of retribution, at the last, puts the matter of final exposure beyond the possibility of doubt. (J. N. Norton, D. D.)Sin’s detection and punishmentI. Let us notice the emphatic expression, “Your sin.” There are shades of moral character, and some sins are of deeper dye than others. There are sins peculiarly characteristic of some people. It is important that we should inquire what is our sin--the sin that is more especially peculiar to any of us. Your sin is that which is most agreeable in its commission to your circumstances and constitutional temperament--that sin which you can commit with the greatest facility, and against which you have the least power of offering resistance--that sin for which you study to find out the most plausible excuses. What is the cause of your carelessness as regards your spiritual and eternal condition? That cause, whatever it may be, is your sin.II. Let us now consider the certain detection and punishment of sin. It has often been remarked that “murder will out.” Blood has a voice which will make itself heard sooner or later. The blood of the first victim of violence cried from the ground on which it was shed, and it appealed to the God of justice in heaven for vengeance. Let us watch and pray, lest we eater into temptation. The young are especially exposed to danger from pride and vanity: let them guard against the beginnings of sin. (S. Walker.)Concealment of sin no security to the sinnerI. That men generally, if not always, proceed to the commission of sin, upon a secret confidence of concealment or impunity.1. That no man is induced to sin, considered in itself, as a thing absolutely or merely evil, but as it bears some resemblance or appearance of good in the apprehensions of him who commits it.2. The other assertion to be laid down is, that God has annexed two great evils to every sin, in opposition to the pleasure and profit of it; to wit, shame and pain. He has, by an eternal and most righteous decree, made these two the inseparable effects and consequents of sin. They are the wages assigned it by the laws of Heaven; so that whosoever commits it, ought to account shame and punishment to belong to him as his rightful inheritance.II. The grounds and reasons upon which men take up such a confidence. And, no doubt, weak and shallow enough we shall find them all; and such as could never persuade any man to sin, did not his own love to sin persuade him much more forcibly than all such considerations; some of which are these that follow. As--1. Men consider the success which they have actually had in the commission of many sins; and this proves an encouraging argument to them to commit the same for the future; as naturally suggesting this to their thoughts, that what they have done so often, without either discovery or punishment, may be so done by them again.2. A second ground, upon which men are apt to persuade themselves that they shall escape the stroke of Divine justice for their sins, is their observation of the great and flourishing condition of some of the topping sinners of the world.3. As we have shown holy mightily men are heartened on to their sins, by the successful examples of others as had as themselves or perhaps worse; so the next ground upon which such are wont to promise themselves security, both from the discovery and punishment of their sins, is the opinion which they have of their own singular art and cunning to conceal them from the knowledge, or, at least, of their power to rescue them from the jurisdiction of any earthly judge.4. The fourth and last ground which I shall mention of men’s promising themselves security from the punishment of their sins, is a strong presumption that they shall be able to repent, and make their peace with God when they please; and this, they fully reckon, will keep them safe, and effectually shut the door against their utmost fears, as being a reach beyond them all.III. To show the vanity of this confidence, by declaring those several ways by which, in the issue, it comes certainly to he defeated; and that both with reference to this world and the next.1. For this world; there are various ways by which it comes to be disappointed here: as(1) The very confidence itself of secrecy is a direct and natural cause of the sinner’s discovery. For confidence in such cases causes a frequent repetition of the same action; and if a man does a thing frequently, it is odds but some time or other he is discovered; for by this he subjects himself to so many more accidents; every one of which may possibly betray him. He who has escaped in many battles, has yet been killed in the issue; and by playing too often in the mouth of death has been snapped by it at last. Add to this, that confidence makes a man venturous, and venturousness casts him into the high road of danger and the very arms of destruction. For while a man ventures, he properly Shuts the eyes of his reason. And he who shuts his own eyes lies so much the more open to those of other men.(2) There is sometimes a strange, providential concurrence of unusual, unlikely accidents, for the discovery of great sins; a villainy committed perhaps but once in an age, comes sometimes to be found out also by such an accident as scarce happens above once in an age.(3) God sometimes makes one sin the means of discovering another; it often falling out with two vices, as with two thieves or rogues; of whom it is hard to say which is worse, and yet one of them may serve well enough to betray and find out the other. How many have by their drunkenness disclosed their thefts, their lusts, and murders, which might have been buried in perpetual silence, had not the sottish committers of them buried their reason in their cups? For the tongue is then got loose from its obedience to reason, and commanded at all adventures by the fumes of a distempered brain and ,a roving imagination; and so presently pours forth whatsoever they shall suggest to it, sometimes casting away life, fortune, reputation, and all in a breath.(4) God sometimes infatuates and strikes the sinner with frenzy, and such a distraction, as causes him to reveal all his hidden baseness, and to blab out such truths as will be sure to be revenged upon him who speaks them. In a word, God blasts and takes away his understanding, for having used it so much to the dishonour of Him who gave it; and delivers him over to a sort of madness, too black and criminal to be allowed any refuge in Bedlam.(5) God sometimes lets loose the sinner’s conscience upon him, filling it with such horror for sin, as renders it utterly unable to bear the burden it labours under, without publishing, or rather proclaiming it to the world.(6) And lastly, God sometimes takes the work of vengeance upon Himself, and immediately, with His own arm, repays the sinner by some notable judgment from heaven; sometimes, perhaps, He strikes him dead suddenly; and sometimes He ,smites him with some loathsome disease (which will hardly be thought the gout, whatsoever it may be called); and sometimes, again, He strangely blasts him in his name, family, or estate, so that all about him stand amazed at the blow: but God and the sinner himself know well enough the reason and the meaning of it too. Justice, we know, used to be pictured blind, and therefore it finds out the sinner, not with its eyes, but with its hands; not by seeing, but by striking; and it is the honour of the great attribute of God’s justice, which He thinks so much concerned, to give some pledge or specimen of itself upon bold sinners in this world; and so to assure them of a full payment hereafter, by paying them something in the way of earnest here. (R. South, D. D.)The consequences of sinThe text leads us to consider the consequences of a single sin, such as a breach of their engagement would have been to the Reubenites and Gadites.I. It is natural to reflect on the probable influence upon us of sins committed in our childhood and even infancy, which we never realised or have altogether forgotten. Children’s minds are impressible in a very singular way, such as is not common afterwards. The passing occurrences which meet them rest upon their imagination as if they had duration, and days or hours, having to them the semblance, may do the work, of years.II. What is true in infancy and childhood is in its degree true in after-life. At particular moments in our later life, when the mind is excited, thrown out of its ordinary state, as if into the original unformed state when it was more free to choose good or evil, then, in like manner, it takes impressions, and those indelible ones, after the manner of childhood. This is one reason why a time of trial is often such a crisis in a man’s spiritual history.III. To these single or forgotten sins are not improbably to be traced the strange inconsistencies of character which we often witness in our experience of life.IV. Single sins indulged or neglected are often the cause of other defects of character, which seem to have no connection with them, but which, after all, are rather symptomatic of the former than themselves at the bottom of the mischief.V. A man may be very religious in all but one infirmity, and this one indulged infirmity may produce most disastrous effects on his spiritual state, without his ever being aware of it. His religious excellences are of no avail against wilful sin. The word of Scripture assures us that such sin shuts us out from God’s presence and obstructs the channels by which He gives us grace. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)The sins of sinners finding them outI. Sinners are in their hearts utterly averse to be found out by their sins, and they have many shifts for that vain purpose.1. They will excuse and justify their sins as if there were no evil in them.2. They will carry the matter so quietly as that it shall be hid from the eyes of the world, while in the meantime God’s watchful eye is still upon them, though they do not regard it.3. They will deny it when charged upon them, and so cover one sin with another. “They wipe their mouth and say we have done no wickedness.” Oh what pains do many take to ruin their own souls. Credit before the world is bought at prodigious rates of soul, and consciences, lies, and perjury.4. They will keep out of the way, where their sin is most likely to find them out. They live strangers to themselves, dare not examine themselves impartially.II. To show in what respects sin shall find out the sinner.1. By discovering and bringing to light their works of darkness.2. By presenting sin in its native colours to their awakened consciences.3. By giving them the due reward of their works.III. Snow whence it is that sin certainly will find out the sinner. How can it be otherwise, if we consider--1. That none can sin without witnesses, who will surely at length discover the sin. Let sinners choose the most secret place for their works of darkness, they have always two witnesses present with them.(1) Conscience within their own breast is as a thousand witnesses, whose testimony one cannot get denied.(2) The omniscient God, whose eye is always upon the sinner.2. God has said it.3. There is a watchful eye of Providence over the world that never closes, but takes notice of all men’s actions at all times and in every place. Use1. Of information. This lets us see--(1) That an evil conscience is a sad companion, and guilt lying within the breast unrepented of will break out sadly at length, to the sinner’s confusion. Many a secret blow it gives the sinner, that the world knows not of.(2) God is a just God, and will not be mocked, nor can He be blinded. Use2. Of warning,(1) To take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall. The way of sin is down the hill, it is easy to go downward, but there may be broken bones before you get up again.(2) Please not yourselves in that you get your sins covered and hid from the eyes of men. For though you may prosper a while in that course, yet your feet may slip at last.(3) Let us all labour to find out our sins, lest they find us out. To inquire more particularly than we have yet done into the Lord’s making sin find out the sinner. This is one of these things in which the providence of God does shine most illustriously; upon which unbiassed spectators must say, “This is the finger of God, and verily there is a God to judge upon the earth.” Consider here,I. The general kinds of sin, which the Lord makes to find out the sinner. As for open sins confessed by the sinner, I need not speak of these, the sinner meets with them every day. But--1. Sins which men will not own to be sins, the Lord makes to find out the sinner. Crucifixion of Christ.2. Secret sins to which no man is witness, the Lord makes them find out the sinner.II. The time in which the Lord makes sin to find out the sinner. Times and seasons are in the Lord’s hand, and the time fixed by His providence is always the best time, and whoso considereth circumstances will be obliged to own it. The best time for his own honour, and for the conviction of the sinner in mercy or in wrath.III. The place, where sin finds out the sinner. Many times there is much of God seen in this, and God reserves the discovery always to the fittest place. And He can make the sinner’s own feet carry him to the place of this heavy meeting, while he has no mind of any such thing.1. God can make sin find out the sinner sometimes, where he can have least support under the awful meeting with his sin. Joseph’s brethren.2. Where they may have least help to shift, their sins finding them out. Companions in sin are ofttimes farthest to seek when their help is most needed, and some time or other they will all prove physicians of no value.3. Where it will confound the sinner most and pierce his heart most keenly. God makes secret sins, which no eye has seen committed, find out the sinner publicly before many witnesses, and in the face of the sun.IV. The means by which the Lord makes sin find out the sinner. There is much of God seen in this also. He never wants means to discover the most secret sins, which He wishes to bring to light. Sometimes this is done--1. By the natural product of the sin, by which the sin is made to discover itself.2. By some act of indiscretion and folly in the sinner himself.3. By some unforeseen accident which the sinner by his own utmost diligence could not prevent. Man’s capacity is but narrow, there are many things which he cannot foresee. When he goes out of the way of God, he may, ere he be aware, be caught fast in such a snare as will hold him till his sin finds him out.V. The way and manner of sin’s finding out the sinner. This many a time is such as must needs make men to say, “This is the finger of God.” Providence appoints the meeting, and wonderfully brings matters about for the keeping of it.1. Ofttimes sin finds the sinner unexpectedly and surprisingly when they are not looking for it.2. Often does the way which sinners take to hide their sin prove the way of its finding them out.3. Sin always finds out the sinner securely, that there is none escaping, no getting beyond it, but the sinner is hedged in on every side.4. God’s writing the sin upon the punishment, so that the sinner shall be forced to say, “As I have done, so God hath requited me.” Thus God makes men’s sins so to find them out, that they cannot fail to see that He remembers such a sin against them. Sometimes the punishment is the same in kind with the sin: as in the case of Adoni-bezek. Sometimes there is a visible likeness between the sin and the punishment. The Sodomites burned with lust, and God sends fire and brimstone on them to burn them to ashes. Sometimes there is a certain relationship betwixt the sin and the punishment. Jeroboam’s hand withering, the belly of the adulteress swelling, and her thigh rotting. Finally, sometimes there is a direct contrariety betwixt the sin and the punishment. Thus God threatened the Israelites: “Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies, which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things; and tie shall put a yoke of iron on thy neck, until He have destroyed thee.” Adam would be like God, and he became like the beast that perisheth. I shall now confirm the doctrine.Here consider--1. That no man can sin without witnesses. This has been already illustrated under the third head.2. Consider that God both can and will make sin find out the sinner. How then can the sinner escape? Many a time atrocious crimes escape among men, because such as would cannot find them out, and such as can will not do it. But there is neither cannot nor will not with God in this case.(1) God can do it. For He hath everything necessary to qualify Him to find out the guilty. He is privy to the most secret wickedness.(2) God will do it. For He hath said it, His truth is engaged for it.(3) It lies upon God’s honour to make sin find out the sinner.(4) History and observation afford abundant testimony to this grand truth, in the events that have appeared and do appear in the world in all ages. Many a practical commentary has Providence written on our text in the shame and ruin of many a man and woman ; although the brightest piece of it is reserved to be written out at the last day, when thousands of blanks that are in it shall be filled up. (T. Boston, D. D.)Sin finding the sinner outI. Inquire what it is to be found out by sin. The expression is singular as well as striking, and means to be overtaken by convictions; to be alarmed, and brought under a sense of condemnation and danger, on account of sin. A man may be said to be thus found out when he feels the awful consequences of sin in his conscience, when his peace is disturbed by the recollection of his iniquities, when he feels the fatal sting of them in his soul. When a man’s sins find him out, convictions fasten as a worm upon his mind; and conscience, though before unheeded, or perhaps silenced and kept down by numberless worldly cares and pleasures, rises up, as it were, with renewed vigour and tormenting energy, and at length forces the sinner, with wretched Ahab, to exclaim, “Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?” The sinner is made alive to the evil of sin. The effects of sin, as they frequently overtake the sinner in this world, are generally serious and painful; but, considered in a more extended view, as reaching through eternity, and as having to do with our everlasting doom in the world of spirits, they must be unutterably awful. They are not only ruinous to a man’s present peace, and injurious to the body, but pernicious, fearfully pernicious, to the soul. Oh, let us think of our sins while we are privileged to hear the sound of a Redeemer’s name! Let us implore forgiveness while mercy exhibits to our view the atoning blood of the Cross!II. The certainty of this finding out.III. To illustrate the text, by adverting to the times and occasions when men are usually found out by sin.1. Sin is sometimes made suddenly to overtake and find out the sinner by an unexpected stroke of Providence. One circumstance often calls up another to remembrance, or discovers events with which it is connected, involving crimes and guilt which have been long buried in concealment, and long time escaped detection. How singular and striking the case of the brethren of Joseph!2. Sin finds men out at the time of conversion.3. That sin fails not to find out the sinner, if not sooner, at least in the day of adversity, sickness, and death. (J. Jacques, B. A.)The punishments of the wickedExperience proves that the punishments visited upon an iniquity are often greater than the advantages or pleasures which that iniquity could possibly have secured. A man gains ?50 by forgery, and his whole life becomes an utter wreck. A youth rejoices for a moment in the indulgence of his appetites, and consequences of a lifelong duration are entailed on him. Sometimes, also, the punishments are delayed until long after the actions occasioning them are forgotten. This is not infrequently the case. Years roll away, and the transgressor settles down quietly and respectably in life. The calm joys of home, the lapse of time, the eagerness for new pursuits, have obliterated from his memory the recollection of the long-gone, sin, when suddenly up rises, from the dark background and abysm of the past, the grim spectre of an unavoidable retribution. A doctor once asked a man dying of cancer, whether he could recollect ever having done an injury to the breast in which the cancer had formed. “Yes,” he replied; “some thirty years ago I had a heavy fall, which sorely bruised this breast.” “That fall of thirty years ago,” said the doctor, “is the occasioning cause of your cancer now.” So is it with the cancerous consequences caused by sin. They repose silently for many years, and then, long after the occasioning iniquity is forgotten, they break forth in fatal, calamitous, irrepressible malignity. Terrible, slow, subtle, long-delayed, are the punishments accorded to sin in this present life; and no transgressor can ever be quite sure that the remote, perhaps forgotten, iniquity of long ago will not, ere life is over, be punished by exposure, shame, and ruin. And these long-delayed punishments often come, not by degrees and after many warnings, but suddenly and with violence. At the meridian of the brightest summer day the avalanches come down irresistibly, overwhelmingly. Moreover, it is not active and heinous misdoings alone whose footsteps are thus dogged by the pursuing Nemesis. Extravagance, rashness, folly, negligence, procrastination, are often attended by terrible consequences. Most people have their opportunity in life, and every man his day. But if the day is unused, it cannot be recalled. And daily experience teaches that there is a certain bound and limit to imprudence and misbehaviour and negligence which, being transgressed, there remains no place of repentance in the natural course of things. Every life, like every year, has its cycle of seasons, and when the season is passed it is for ever and irrecoverably gone. Moreover (and the consideration is of serious moment), the punishment for neglecting opportunity or for committing iniquity is final. Considered in their temporal duration, the punishments visited upon vice and negligence are everlasting. Nor does it make the smallest difference to the fact and the certainty of these consequences whether we believe in them or not. Men may ignore consequences, but consequences come all the same. Considerations such as these appear to shed some light upon the vexed question of punishments after death. By thoughtfully reflecting upon the method of God’s dealings here and now, men may fairly conjecture what will be the method of God’s dealings with them hereafter, seeing that the same Unchangeable God presides over the destinies both of the embodied and the disembodied man. And, in this present world, we find that mere folly, wilfulness, feebleness of will, want of exertion, entail consequences almost as pernicious as those which attend upon actual transgression. We find, moreover, that the plea of ignorance or inexperience does not avert the retributions which await the transgressor. So, to this extent at least, the misdoings and the negligences of man’s mortal state may be punished everlastingly, in that eternity may prove too short for the full undoing of the ravages inflicted on the soul, by wrongs committed or duties omitted, during the temporary period of its habitation in the body. And if this be so--if the same principles which permeate natural punishments in this world extend to the punishments of the world to come--then it follows not only that the disbelieving or the ignoring of these punishments will neither moderate nor avert them, but also that habits of disbelief may induce practical neglect of laws, resulting in heavy retribution. Pain and suffering are facts which doubters may discuss or condemn, but can neither prevent nor divert. The belief in future punishments has an evident and direct tendency to diminish those punishments, and even to lead to an escape from them altogether, inasmuch as it assists in prevailing upon men to avoid the causes of evil upon which the tread of punishment follows ; whereas doubt of, or disbelief in, future punishment tends toward a recklessness of living calculated to make hell in life here, even if hereafter there were no life in hell. (J. W. Diggle, M. A.)Sin never forgottenLet a man try to forget any dreadful thing of which he hates the remembrance, and the more he tries to forget it, the more surely he remembers it, the more he bodies it forth, and every thrust he makes at it causes it to glare up anew, reveals some new horror in it. Doubtless, this peculiarity in our mental constitution is destined to play a most terrific part in the punishment of men’s sins in eternity; for there can be nothing so dreadful as the remembrance of sin, and nothing which men will strive with more intense earnestness to hide from and forget, than the recollection of their sins; and yet every effort they make at such forgetfulness only gives to such sins a more terrible reality, and makes them blaze up in a more lurid light to the conscience. Oh, if they could but be forgotten! But the more intense is the earnestness of this wish, the more impossible becomes the forgetfulness, the more terribly the dreaded evil stands out. There are cases, even in this life, in which men would give ten thousand worlds, if they possessed them, could they only forget; but how much more in eternity! The man that has committed a secret midnight murder, how often, think you, though perhaps not a human being suspects it, would he give the riches of the material universe, if he bad them at command, could he but forget that one moment’s crime! But it is linked to his very constitution; and every time he tries to cut the chain, he does but rattle and rouse the crime out of its grave into a new existence. (G. B. Cheever, D. D.)Life’s mistakesWe sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up to-morrow. He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause. (H. W. Beecher.)Numbers 32:38Their names being changed Changes of nameMany persons live in names.This is fatal to the grasp of complete truth and relation. The poet asks, “What’s in a name?” The name of a friend may be necessary to his identification, but the name is not the man. Character is to be studied, motive is to be understood, purpose is to be appreciated, then whatever changes may take place in the mere name, love and confidence will be undiminished. The change of names, both in the Old Testament and the New, deserves careful study. The name of Abram was changed, so was the name of Jacob, so was the name of Saul of Tarsus. Those changes of name symbolise changes of trust and vocation in life. The name should enlarge with the character, but the character should be always more highly valued than the name. The solemn application of this text is to the matter of great evangelical truths and doctrines. For want of attention to this matter, bigotry has been encouraged, and men have been separated from one another. Some persons do not know the gospel itself, except under a certain set of names, words, and stereotyped phrases. This is not Christianity, it is mere literalism; it is, in fact, idolatry, for there is an idolatry of phrase as well as of images. The truth is not in the letters which print it, the letters but stand to express the inexpressible. All life is symbolic. God has spoken in little else than parables. Revelation addresses the imagination, when imagination is used in its highest senses. It is not the faculty of mere cloud-making, but the faculty of insight into the largest meanings and the innermost relations of things. The letter in which you endeavour to express your love, is a poor substitute for the living voice and the living touch; it is indeed invaluable in the absence of the living personality; but what letter was ever written that quite satisfied the writer when love was the subject and devotedness the intention? There is a change of names that inspires the soul with hope. God is to give His servants a new name in the upper world; their name is to be in their foreheads; but in the changing of the name there is no changing in the burning love and the rapturous adoration. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 33Numbers 33:1-2These are the Journeys. The journeys of IsraelThis chapter gives a very graphic and instructive picture of a much larger scheme of journeying. The local names may mean nothing to us now, but the words “departed,” “removed,” “encamped,” have meanings that abide for ever. We are doing in our way, and according to the measure of our opportunity, exactly what Israel did in this chapter of hard names and places mostly now forgotten. Observe, this is a written account: “And Moses wrote their goings out.” The life is all written. It is not a sentiment spoken without consideration and forgotten without regret; it is a record--a detailed and critical writing, condescending to geography, locality, daily movement, position in society and in the world. It is, therefore, to be regarded as a story that has been proved, and that will bear to be written and re-written. The one perfect Biographer is God. Every life is written in the book that is kept in the secret place of the heavens. “All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Nothing is omitted. The writing is plain--so plain that the blind man may read the story which God has written for his perusal. Who would like to see the book? Who could not write a book about his brother that would please that brother? Without being false, it might be highly eulogistic and comforting. But who would like to see his life as sketched by the hand of God? “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.’ What a monotony there is in this thirty-third chapter! This will be evident to the eye. The reader sees but two words or three, and all the rest are difficult terms or polysyllables unrelated to his life. The terms are “departed,” “removed,” “went.” The language of actual life is a narrow language which may be learned in a very brief time. So with our daily life: we rise, we sit, we retire; we eat and drink, and bless one another in the name of God ; and go round the little circle until sometimes we say, “Can we not vary all that, and add to it some more vivid line? Has no friend of ours the power of flushing this pale monotony into some tint of blood?” Then we fall back into the old lines: we “depart” and “remove” and “pitch”; we “pitch” and “depart” and “remove”; we come and go and settle and return; until there comes almost unconsciously into the strain of our speech some expressive and mournful sigh. “Few and evil have been the days of Thy servant.” Yet, not to dwell too much upon this well-ascertained fact, we may regard the record of the journeys of Israel as showing somewhat of the variety of life. Here and there a new departure sets in, or some new circumstance brightens the history. For example, in the ninth verse we read: “And they removed from Marah, and came unto Elim: and in Elim were twelve fountains of water, and threescore and ten palm trees.” Sweet entry is that! It occurs in our own secret diaries. Do we not dwell with thankfulness upon the places where we find the waters, the wells, the running streams, the beautiful trees, and the trees beautiful with luscious fruitage? Then comes the fourteenth verse: “And they encamped at Rephidim,” &c. Such are the changes in life. We have passed through precisely the transitions here indicated. No water; nothing to satisfy even the best appetences of the mind and spirit; all heaven one sheet of darkness, and the night so black upon the earth that even the altar-stairs could not be found in the horrid gloom; if there was water, it had no effect upon the thirst; if there was bread, it was bitter; if there was a pillow, it was filled with pricking thorns. There is another variety of the story; the thirty-eighth verse presents it: “And Aaron the priest went up into mount Her at the commandment of the Lord, and died there.” Is that line wanting in our story? All men do not die on mountains. Would God we may die upon some high hill! It seems to our imagination nearer heaven to die away up on the mountain peaks than to die in the low damp valleys. Granted that it is but an imagination. We need such helps: we are so made that symbol and hint and parable assist the soul in its sublimest realisations of things Divine and of things to come. (J. Parker, D. D.)Moses’ diary of travels and its teachingsGod wished the people to remember these journeys; and He wishes all ages to know of them and to learn from them. Let us notice a few of the lessons God intends these journeys to teach us.I. They impress upon us the great fact of God’s continued presence and interest in human life.II. They point out to us that God is the one true and safe Guide through life.III. They present to us a picture of human life, and thus tend to give us correct views of life.IV. They show to us that the greatest evils of life and its only dangers come from sin.V. They suggest the comforting thought that by trusting in God and following Him we are sure to possess the inheritance which He has promised His people. (D. Lloyd.)The itinerary of Israel from Egypt to CanaanI. An incentive to gratitude to God.1. Emancipating them from bondage in Egypt.2. Repeatedly delivering them from their enemies.3. Infallibly guiding them in their journeys.4. Constantly providing for them in the desert.5. Inviolably guarding them from dangers.II. An encouragement to obey and trust God. He is unchangeable; therefore His past doings are examples of what we may expect Him to do in the future. History, properly studied, will be the nurse of faith and hope (comp. Psa 78:3-8).III. A monitor against sin.1. Man’s proneness to sin.2. God’s antagonism against sin.3. The great evil of sin.. (W. Jones.)The travels of IsraelThis is a review of the travels of the children of Israel through the wilderness. It was a memorable history, and well worthy to be thus abridged, and the abridgment thus preserved, to the honour of God that led them and for the encouragement of the generations that followed. Observe here--I. How the account was kept (Num 33:2). “Moses wrote their goings out.” When they began this tedious march God ordered him to keep a journal or diary, and to insert in it all the remarkable occurrences of their way, that it might be a satisfaction to himself in the review and an instruction to others when it should be published. It may be of good use to private Christians, but especially for those in public stations, to preserve in writing an account of the providences of God concerning them, the constant series of mercies they have experienced, especially those turns and changes which have made some days of their lives more remarkable. Our memories are deceitful, and need this help, that we may “remember all the way which the Lord our God has led us in this wilderness” (Deu 8:2).II. What the account itself was. It began with their departure out of Egypt, continued with their march through the wilderness, and ended in the plains of Moab, where they now lay encamped.1. Some things are observed here concerning their departure out of Egypt, which they are minded of upon all occasions as a work of wonder never to be forgotten.2. Concerning their travels towards Canaan, observe--(1) They were continually upon the remove. When they had pitched a little while in one place, they departed from that to another. Such is our state in this world: we have here no continuing city.(2) Most of their way lay through a wilderness, uninhabited, untracked, unfurnished even with the necessaries of human life, which magnifies the wisdom and power of God, by whose wonderful conduct and bounty the thousands of Israel not only subsisted for forty years in that desolate place, but came out at least as numerous and vigorous as they went in. At first they pitched in the edge of the wilderness (Num 33:6), but afterwards in the heart of it. By lesser difficulties God prepares His people for greater. We find them in the wilderness of Etham (Num 33:8), of Sin (Num 33:11). of Sinai (Num 33:15). Our removes in this world are but from one wilderness to another.(3) That they were led to and fro, forward and backward, as in a maze or labyrinth, and yet were all the while under the direction of the pillar of cloud and fire. He led them out (Deu 32:10), and yet led them the right way (Psa 107:7). The way God takes in bringing His people to Himself is always the best way, though it does not always seem to us the best way.(4) Some events are mentioned in this journal, as their want of water at Rephidim (Num 33:14), the death of Aaron (Num 33:38-39), the insult of Arad (Num 33:40); and the very name of Kibroth-hattaavah, “the grave of the lusters” (Num 33:16), has a story depending upon it. Thus we ought to keep in mind the providences of God concerning us and our families, us and our land, and the many instances of that Divine care which hath led us and fed us and kept us all our days hitherto. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)Numbers 33:50-56Ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you.The expulsion of the CanaanitesI. The imperative command.1. To utterly expel the inhabitants of Canaan.2. To completely destroy all idolatrous objects and places.3. To equitably divide the land.4. The authority by which they were to do these things.II. The solemn warning.1. Those whom they spared would become their tormentors. “Under these metaphors,” says Dr. A. Clarke, “the continual mischief that should be done to them, both in soul and body, by these idolaters, is set forth in a very expressive manner. What can be more vexatious than a continual goading of each side, so that the attempt to avoid the one throws the body more forcibly on the other? And what can be more distressing than a continual pricking in the eye, harassing the mind, tormenting the body, and extinguishing the sight?” “That which we are willing should tempt us we shall find will vex us.”2. The God whom they disobeyed would disinherit them. (W. Jones.)The danger of allowing sinThe Israelites were now on the confines of the land of promise. So God speaks to them about the future, tells them what it was His will that they should do when they enclosed the land of promise, and what would be the consequence of disobedience. These, then, are the two points which we may consider--Israel’s calling, and the consequences of neglecting it.I. Israel’s calling. This was to drive out all the inhabitants of the land, to dispossess them, and themselves to dwell in it. If we view this with reference to the inhabitants themselves, we must regard it as the righteous judgment of God upon them on account of their sins. But we may also regard this visitation with reference to Israel, and then it will become evident that it was necessary for their safety. The Israelites themselves were so prone to fall away from God that their being surrounded by many idolatrous and degraded nations would be sure to lead them gradually away from Him. They would soon cease to be a separate people--a people consecrated to Jehovah. That little word “all” is very expressive. It shows that the judgment was to be universal. It proved the greatness of God’s care for Israel. It was also the test of Israel’s obedience; and it was a test, we know, which they did not stand. They substituted a partial for an unreserved obedience, and drove out same, but not all, the inhabitants of the land. We find a long list of Israel’s defects of obedience in Jdg 1:21. Now, in this, as in so many other points, Israel’s calling is typical of the Christian life. In what way? We often take Canaan to be a type of heaven. Yet it is easy to see that there are many points in which Canaan was no type of heaven; and one of these evidently was that whereas in heaven there will be no sin, no enemies, no temptations, in Canaan all these existed. In this point of view, then, Canaan was not a type of heaven, but rather of the Christian life now; and to that command, “Drive out all the inhabitants of the land, and dispossess them,” we shall find an analogous one, descriptive of the Christian calling, “Put off the old man with his deeds.” There is a principle of evil, called in Scripture the “old man,” which comprehends sinful desires and evil habits; and this we are called to dispossess of the land. The old man is daily to be put off, the new man to be put on. The old man, though nailed to the cross, is never utterly extinct until the earthly house of our tabernacle is exchanged for the “building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The new man requires to be constantly strengthened by fresh gifts of the Spirit of God. When, then, God says, “Drive out all the inhabitants of the land,” it has a meaning for the Christian; and its meaning virtually is, “Mortify the old man,” crucify the whole body of sin. Do not spare any sin. Let all be resisted and overcome. Now, the old man is in no sense the same in every Christian. It is the principle of sin, the principle of self. In whatever heart it is, its nature is the same; but in other aspects it is not always the same--for instance, it is not always the same in its power. In one Christian it prevails much, in another more believing and watchful heart it is kept under control. Then, again, it is made up of different elements, and the elements which constitute it are not always the same in their proportions. Thus, the chief element in one case will be pride, in another self-righteousness, in another hypocrisy, in another vanity, in another temper, in another impurity. Sometimes two will appear together in intimate alliance, and those not unfrequently two very opposite evils. In endeavouring, then, to carry out the injunction, “Drive out all the inhabitants of the land,” it is important, on the one hand, that we should be aware of the element of the old man which is most prominent in it; and, on the other, that we should never forget that our besetting sin is not the only evil against which we have to contend, but against the old man as a whole.II. The consequences of neglecting this calling. We see it in Israel. They did not fulfil the command, “Drive out all the inhabitants of the land.” Most of the tribes allowed some to remain, whom they brought under tribute; in fact, with whom they made a league. The consequence was that those few inhabitants, though not powerful, caused them constant trouble; sometimes they seized an opportunity to attack them again; still oftener they proved a snare to them by leading them into sin, so that in the expressive language of Scripture they were “pricks in their eyes, and thorns in their sides.” Thus Israel’s sin was made their punishment. They spared those whom they ought not to have spared, and they suffered terribly in consequence. All this bears upon the Christian’s life. There is a deep mystery in the spiritual life. How wonderful it is that there should be two principles--two natures in perpetual warfare with each other in the Christian’s heart--the one of God, the product of the Spirit, the other of Satan, the result of the Fall; the one the ally of God, holding communion with Him, the other allied with the powers of darkness, an enemy in the camp ever ready to open the gates! It seems to be God’s purpose not to put His people at once and for ever beyond the reach of temptation, but to exercise their faith and patience, and to show the power of that Divine principle which His own grace has put into their hearts. Do not, then, be cast down when you are deeply and painfully conscious of this inward conflict. Take it as God’s appointment. Remember that it is to prove you, and that God proves you in mercy, to make you more than conqueror. But there is another point of view in which we must look at this. There are many cases in which this painful severity of conflict is owing, in great measure, to previous unfaithfulness to God. Suppose a person to have indulged in some sinful habit at any period of his life; it may be a want of truth, or impurity, or in any other sin, though the power of that sin will be broken by the entrance of the Spirit of God into the heart, yet it will cast its shadow long after it. The habitual sins of the unrenewed man are the snares and temptations of the renewed man. There is much of practical warning in this solemn truth. If ever you are tempted to indulge any sinful thought in your heart, remember that that indulgence will certainly find you out again. God may, in mercy, forgive it; but if He does so that act of unfaithfulness will bring bitterness into the soul, will prepare the way for new conflicts and temptations. We should cast ourselves wholly on Jesus for the forgiveness of all past and present sins, and for strength to drive out “every inhabitant of the land”--the old man, with all his deceitful lusts. (G. Wagner.)ThoroughnessThe subject is evidently thoroughness. Do the work completely--root and branch, in and out, so that there may be no mistake as to earnestness--and the result shall be security, peace, contentment; do the work partially--half and half, perfunctorily--and the end shall be disappointment, vexation, and ruin. Causes have effects; work is followed by consequences. Do not suppose that you can turn away the law of causation and consequence. Things are settled and decreed before you begin the work. There is no cloud upon the covenant, no ambiguity in its terms. He is faithful who hath promised--faithful to give blessing and faithful to inflict penalty. There was so much to be undone in the Canaan that was promised. It is this negative work which tries our patience and puts our faith to severe tests. We meet it everywhere. The colonist has to subdue the country, take down much that is already put up, root out the trees, destroy the beasts of prey, and do much that is of a merely negative kind, before he begins to sow corn, to reap harvests, and to build a secure homestead. This is the case in all the relations of life. The weed is not the green thing on the surface; that is only the signal that the weed is underneath. The work that has to be done is a work of eradication. The weed must be torn up by its every fibre. The theory of the Bible is that it has to encounter a human nature that is altogether wrong. It is not our business, at this point, to ask how far that theory is true. The Bible itself proceeds upon the assumption that “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way”; “There is none righteous, no, not one”; “God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions”; “there is none that doeth good, no, not one”; the whole head and the whole heart are not righteous or true before God. That being the theory of the Bible, see what it proposes to do. What iconoclasm it must first accomplish! How it must swing its terrific arms in the temples of our idolatry and in the whole circuit of our life, breaking, destroying, burning, casting out, overturning, overturning! What is it doing? It is preparing; it is doing the work of a pioneer; it is uttering the voice of a herald. Mark the audacity of the book! It speaks no flattering word, never uncovers before any man, bids every man go wash and be clean. A book coming before society with so bold a proposition must expect to be encountered with resolute obstinacy. If we suppose that we are ready-made to the hand of God, to be turned in any direction He is pleased to adopt, we begin upon a false basis; our theory is wrong, and our conception will lead us to proportionate disappointment. God has to do with a fallen intelligence, an apostate heart, a selfish will; and therefore He undertakes much negative work before He can begin constructive processes. What a temptation there is, however, to reserve something. Point to one instance in all the Biblical history in which a man actually and perfectly accomplished the Divine will in this matter of destruction. A good deal of destruction was accomplished, unquestionably; but was there nothing left? “What meaneth, then, this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” The temptation to reserve something is very strong. In many a life great improvement takes place without eradication being perfected. We are not called in the Bible merely to make great improvement. That is what we have been trying to do by our own strength and wit, and which we have always failed in doing. Nowhere do the sacred writers encourage us to make considerable advance upon our old selves. The exhortation of the Bible is vital. Suppose a man should have been addicted to the meanest of all vices--the vice of lying, the vice that God can hardly cure--suppose such a man should lie less, is be less a liar? Suppose he should cease the vulgarity of falsehood and betake himself to the refinement of deceit, has he improved? Bather, he has aggravated the first offence--multiplied by infinite aggravations the conditions which first constituted his character. So we are not called to great improvements, to marvellous changes of a superficial kind; we are called to newness of birth, regeneration, the washing of the Holy Ghost, the renewal the recreation of the inner man. If not, punishments will come. If you will not do this, “those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell”; they will tease you, excite you, irritate you; they will watch for the moments of your weakness, and tempt you into apostasy. (J. Parker, D. D.)Unexpelled sin a thorn in the sideEvery one can trace in his own life how one unconquered sin becomes a thorn in the side. For ours also is commonly but a half-completed conquest. We have not made war upon our sin in its fastnesses and breeding-places, in the lurking-places of thought and of our habitual tone. We did not believe that happy was he who dashed the little ones against the stones; we did not grapple and put an end to the young things that grow up to be strong and subduing sins. We were not remorseless, did not rouse ourselves to take stern and extreme measures. But it is not enough to let sin alone so long as it does not violently molest us. If we know our own hearts at all, we know that sin may be lodging in them, and gathering strength, without making incursions that visibly devastate the life. And so it has come true in our experience that God has not driven out what we would not rouse ourselves to drive out, and our sin has become a thorn in our side. Again and again that thing we would not slay makes us cry out before God that life is not worth having if it is to be life with this sin. We may learn to wear the thorn under our garment, and go about smiling, as if there were not terrible havoc being made of our peace with God; we may wear it as the ascetic wears his spiked girdle under his frock; but it is there, reminding us by pain and misery and weakness of our slackness in cleansing our life. One sin thus excepted and overlooked cleaves to us and makes itself felt in all our life: not a day passes but something occurs to give it occasion; it is a thorn in our flesh, carried with us into all companies, cleaving to us at all times; our one inseparable; exasperating, saddening, heart-breaking in its pertinacity. (Marcus Dods, D. D.)Numbers 34Numbers 34:1-15When ye come into the land of Canaan.The Promised LandI. The boundaries of this land were determined by God.1. A reason for contentment.2. A rebuke of selfish greed, whether on the part of individuals or of nations.II. The extent of this land was small. Mr. Grove thus speaks of its size, and briefly sets forth its boundaries: “The Holy Land is not in size or physical characteristics proportioned to its moral and historical position, as the theatre of the most momentous events in the world’s history. It is but a strip of country about the size of Wales, less than a hundred and forty miles in length and barely forty in average breadth, on the very frontier of the East, hemmed in between the Mediterranean Sea on the one hand and the enormous trench of the Jordan valley on the other, by which it is effectually cut off from the mainland of Asia behind it. On the north it is shut in by the high ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and by the chasm of the Litany, which runs at their feet, and forms the main drain of their southern slope. On the south it is no less enclosed by the arid and inhospitable deserts of the upper part of the peninsula of Sinai, whose undulating wastes melt imperceptibly into the southern hills of Judea.”III. The position of this land was secure. It was surrounded by natural fortifications. In one particular only was the position of this land perilous. “The only road by which the two great rivals of the ancient world could approach one another--by which alone Egypt could go to Assyria and Assyria to Egypt--lay along the broad fiat strip of coast which formed the maritime portion of the Holy Land, and thence by the plain of the Lebanon to the Euphrates.” This road was undoubtedly a dangerous one for the Israelites. And through this channel the destruction of the nation came at length. But, with this exception, this land was naturally surrounded by almost impregnable defences.IV. The soil of this land was fertile. At present the face of the country presents a rocky and barren aspect. For this there are two causes. “The first is the destruction of the timber in that long series of sieges and invasions which began with the invasion of Shishak (B.C. circa 970), and has not yet come to an end. This, by depriving the soil and streams of shelter from the burning sun, at once made, as it invariably does, the climate more arid than before, and doubtless diminished the rainfall. The second is the decay of the terraces necessary to retain the soil on the steep slopes of the round hills. This decay is owing to the general unsettlement and insecurity which have been the lot of this poor little country almost ever since the Babylonian conquest. The terraces once gone, there was nothing to prevent the soil which they supported being washed away by the heavy rains of winter; and it is hopeless to look for a renewal of the wood, or for any real improvement in the general face of the country, until they have been first re-established.”V. The Israelites failed to take possession of the whole of this land assigned to them by God. (W. Jones.)BoundariesLife is marked all over with boundary lines. Two different views may be taken of such lines--that is to say, in the first place they may be regarded as limitations and partial impoverishments, or, in the next place, they may be regarded as defining rights and liberties, possessions and authorities. Very subtle and delicate things are boundaries oftentimes. They are invisible. Are not all the greatest things invisible, as well as the best and most delicate and tender? Show the line of love. There is no line to show. It is at this point that conscience comes into active play. Where the conscience is dull, or imperfectly educated, or selfish, there will be much dispute about boundaries; but where the conscience is sanctified by the power of the Cross and is alive with the righteousness of God, there will be no controversy, but large concession, noble interpretation, willingness to give, to take, to arrange and settle, without the severity of the law or the cruelty of the sword. What differences there are in boundaries! We read of one, in the seventh verse, whose boundary was “from the great sea”; in the twelfth verse, “the goings out of it shall be at the salt sea.” There is so much sea in some people’s limited possession. What a boundary is the inhospitable sea! We cannot cut it up into acres, and lay it out; we cannot sow it with wheat, and reap the harvest, and enjoy the bread; it is to most of us but a spectacle--great, melancholy, unresponsive, pitiless; a liquid emblem of cruel death. Is not this the case with many men? They know they have great possessions, but their greatness is not the measure of their value. A little garden-plot would be to some men more valuable, for purposes of living, than the freehold of the Atlantic. Sometimes men are born to great estates that have nothing in them--boundless nothings; a proprietorship of infinite bogs and wastes and unanswering sterilities; sand that cannot be ploughed, water that cannot be sown with seed, and bogs that cannot be built upon. Contrast with such allotments the words of music which you find in the fifteenth verse: “toward the sunrising.” That is an inheritance worth having! The morning sun blesses it: early in the morning all heaven’s glory is poured out upon it with the hospitality of God; whatever is planted in it grows almost instantly; the flowers love to be planted there; all the roots of the earth would say, “Put us in this place of the morning sun, and we will show you what we can do in growth and fruitfulness; give us the chance of the sun, and then say what we really are.” We cannot all have our estates “toward the sunrising”; we cannot wholly cut off the north and the northeast--the shady side of the bill: somebody must be there. Does God plant a tabernacle in such sunless districts? Is there any temple of God in the northlands, where the storm blows with a will and the tempests seem to have it all their own way, rioting in their tumultuous strength, and, as it were, accosting one another in reduplications of infinite thunderings and roarings of whirlwinds? Even there God’s footprint may be found. Even a little may be so held as to he much. Quite a small garden may grow stuff enough for a whole household. Look for the bright spots; add up all the excellences; totalise the attractions of the situation; and it is wonderful how things add up when you know how to add them. Boundary is disciplinary. Who would not like to add just one more shelf to his library, and could do it if he were at liberty to take the books from another man’s study? Who does not desire to have just the corner plot to make the estate geometrically complete, and would do it if the owner of the plot were not looking? But to retire within your own boundary!--to have nothing but a ditch between you and the vineyard you covet! Who is stopped by a ditch? To have nothing but one thin, green hedge between proprietorship actual and proprietorship desired! Why not burn the hedge, or transfer it? “Whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him,” saith the proverbs of Solomon. To be kept within our own lines, to build our altar steadily there, and to bow down at that altar and confess that “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof,” and that, whether a man has much or little, he may be God’s child, God’s servant, and Christ’s apostle--that is the highest discipline, and it is possible to every man. Boundaries are suggestive. Every boundary, rightly interpreted, means, “Your last estate will be a very little one--a grave in the cemetery, a tomb in the silent place.” Does it come to this, that the man who wanted acres a thousand in number doubled lies down in six feet, or seven, by four? Can a carpenter measure him for his last house? Does there ,come a time when a man steals quietly upstairs with a two-foot measure, and afterwards hurries out to build for him in the eventide his last dwelling-place? It is impossible to exclude this thought from all our best reasoning. There is no need to be mawkish, sentimental, foolishly melancholy about it; but there is the fact that there is an appointed time to man upon the earth as well as an appointed place to man upon the earth, and that he is the wise man who looks at that certain fact and conducts himself wisely in relation to it. Men have the power of closing their eyes and not seeing the end; but to close the eves is not to destroy the inevitable boundary. Even the grave can be made beautiful. A man may so live that when he is laid in his grave other men may go to see the tomb and bedew it with tears, and even stoop down and touch it with a loving hand as if it were a living thing. (J. Parker, D. D.)Numbers 35Numbers 35:1-8Give unto the Levites . . . cities to dwell in.The Levites’ inheritance1. Cities were allowed them with their suburbs (Num 35:2). They were not to have any ground for tillage; they needed not to sow or reap, or gather into barns, for their heavenly Father fed them with the tithe of the increase of other people’s labours, that they might the more closely attend the study of the law, and might have more leisure to teach the people; for they were not fed thus easily that they might live in idleness, but that they might give themselves wholly to the business of their profession and not be entangled in the affairs of this life.(1) Cities were allotted them that they might live near together, and converse with one another about the law, to their mutual edification; and that, in doubtful cases, they might consult one another, and in all cases strengthen one another’s hands.(2) These cities had suburbs annexed to them for their cattle (Num 35:3); a thousand cubits from the wall was allowed them for out-housing to keep their cattle in, and then two thousand and more for fields to graze their cattle in (Num 35:4-5). Thus was care taken that they should not only live, but live plentifully, and have all desirable conveniences about them, that they might not be looked upon with contempt by their neighbours.2. These cities were to be assigned to them out of the possessions of each tribe (Num 35:8).(1) That each tribe might thus make a grateful acknowledgment to God out of their real as well as out of their personal estates; for what was given to the Levites was accepted as given to the Lord, and thus their possessions were sanctified to them.(2) That each tribe might have the benefits of the Levites dwelling among them to teach them the good knowledge of the Lord. Thus that light was diffused through all parts of the country, and none left to sit in darkness (Deu 33:10). They shall teach Jacob Thy judgments. Jacob’s curse on Levi’s anger was, “I will scatter them in Israel” (Gen 44:7); but that curse was turned into a blessing, and the Levites, by being thus scattered, were put into a capacity of doing so much the more good. It is a great mercy to a country to be replenished in all parts with faithful ministers. (Matthew Henry, D. D.)The Levite’s homeThe history of this tribe of Levi is fraught with many lessons for Christian workers. They were selected for the priesthood of the children of Israel, and on that account were separated from the rest of their brethren, and God ordained that they should have no inheritance among the children of Israel, and reminded them that God was their inheritance. But it is well for us to remember that it was not always so. At the commencement of their history this tribe of Levi lay underneath a curse (Gen 49:5). But there came in the history of the tribe a crisis. Moses had ascended to the top of the hill, and during his forty days’ absence the children of Israel made a molten calf, and bowed down to the idol. Moses came down from the hill-top, and at once standing amid the camp he shouted, “Who is on the Lord’s side, let him come over to me”; and all the tribe of Levi gathered themselves together unto Moses. It was the turning-point in their lives, they seized their opportunity, and from that time they were the tribe whom God chose for His service. But the call to Levi was not simply a call to privilege, it was a call to work. God calls not to idleness. When once you feel the consecrated hand of God laid upon you, you may be sure that He has work for you, and He has already commanded the help you need. And from that time that special characteristic of the tribe of Levi, which had in former times led them into sin, now is purified by God for His own special service. What was that characteristic? If I were to sum it up in one phrase, it would be this--intense sociability. Their very name, Levi, signifies the joined ones. It was this yearning for companionship which led Levi to join himself to the bloodthirsty Simeon, and to reap the vengeance which Jacob perpetuates upon his death-bed. It is a very important characteristic; it is a characteristic which the Christian ministry needs, which every individual Christian ought to possess. A Christian man should be a man of intense sympathy, and have his tendrils going forth to all around him. But there is another characteristic which is equally necessary to a true and faithful servant of God. And it is to produce this characteristic that God’s dealing with the children of Levi seems to be bent, namely, the power to stand alone. And not until these two characteristics are blended together is the Levite fit for the service of God. These are the true Christian servants--men who are ready to go forth to all, and yet men who are able, bravely, to take their stand alone, because they are joined to God. And now I want you to think of this one ordinance laid down with regard to these men, namely, the provision God had made in this chapter for their homes. We might have imagined it would have been better, as God had appointed this tribe to be workers for Him, for them to live about the temple of Jerusalem, so that they might be at hand to minister within its sacred courts. But no, God lays down the distinct command that this tribe of Levi, which He has chosen for His own peculiar service, should be scattered among the tribes. There were four or five centres in every tribe where these Levites were to dwell. What is the reason of this strange provision? I think it was made partly for the sake of the people, and partly for the sake of the Levites. It was in the first place, because of the people. In the wilderness the children of Israel were not likely to forget God. They had the tabernacle in their centre ; the pillar of cloud or file was always to be seen in the very middle of the camp. But when they became settled down in the promised land, and received their promised inheritance, then indeed they would be scattered abroad, and then would arise the danger lest they should forget the Lord their God. And, therefore, God ordained that their teachers should go and live in the very midst of them, because He wanted to bring religion to their homes. And this, I believe, is God’s law, that His people should go and scatter themselves; not simply settle down in some place, but actually go and let their light shine before men even in the very darkest places of the earth. But if the provision was made for the tribes, I think it was actually made for the Levites. If they had all been gathered together at Jerusalem, these Levites would consider that their work began, continued, and ended in their attendance at the ordinances of the sanctuary; and God wanted to show them, as His ministers, they were not simply to deal with the sanctuary, but with the home life of His people--to carry His religion into their various towns and villages. Further than that, by thus scattering them in these different tribes, God provides here that they may learn that their homes are not to be simply for themselves, but they are to be, as it were, cities of refuge. And this ought to be a picture of our homes. Not only would God scatter us as Christian men and women throughout the nations of the world, but each one of you has your home, and you want it to be a place where there shall be fellowship--a true Hebron. True, the Christian man’s home is in the midst of this world with all its defilements; but it is a home of fellowship, it is a royal city, where Jesus Christ reigns as King. (E. A. Stuart, M. A.)Numbers 35:9-34Ye shall appoint you cities, to be cities of refuge for you The cities of refugeI.The position of the homicide exposed to the stroke of the avenger is a type of our position in our sin. Few positions in the drama of life could be more tragic than that of the manslayer as he looks upon his victim and turns to flee with the speed of desperation to the nearest of the refuge cities. And is our case any the less tragic--difficult as it may be to realise it? Is there any sin we have done that is not pursuing us, or whose stroke will be lighter at last than that of the avenger of blood? No law is so sure as that of retribution.II. The position of the man-slayer with the city of refuge before him is a type of our position before the Cross.III. The position of the manslayer within the city of refuge is a type of our position under the shelter of the Cross.1. His safety lies in his remaining within the city. In proportion as a man forgets Christ, the avenging power of sin will find him out and bring darkness on his soul.2. On the death of the high priest the manslayer may safely leave the refuge (Num 35:28). For then the arm of the avenger is arrested, and the whole land becomes as a city of refuge to the homicide. And was it not because in after years the death of God’s great High Priest should set men free from the condemnation of their sin? Here for the first time we find a hint of a greater sacrifice than bullock or goat--a hint that He who is High Priest is also Himself the sacrifice. (W. Roberts, M. A.)The cities of refugeI. Their design.1. The first object aimed at in them was undoubtedly to save the condemned. The gospel is everything to a sinner, or it belies itself, it is nothing. It is either “a cunningly devised fable,” a mockery of human woes, or it is a great remedy in a desperate case, an antidote for a mortal poison, help in a total wreck, life for the dead.2. These cities had, however, a second end in view--they were undoubtedly intended to uphold and honour the Divine law. The Lord Jesus Christ humbled Himself and died to “magnify His law and make it honourable”; to show His creatures, in the very utmost stretch of His love, how “glorious He is in holiness,” how determined to do or give up anything rather than suffer one of His commands to fail, rather than suffer the authority of His eternal statutes to be even suspected. Nothing establishes His law, nothing honours it, like His gospel; nothing goes half so far in proving its unchangeableness; the destruction of a universe could not have clothed it with such an awful glory.II. We come now to the second point we proposed to consider--the means by which the protection of these cities was obtained.1. The manslayer was, in the first instance, to enter one of them. It is one thing to have the name of Christ in our ears and on our lips, and another to have Christ Himself in our hearts, “the hope of glory.”2. But it was not enough for the manslayer to enter the city of refuge; to secure his permanent safety, we are told in this chapter that he must abide in it. Within its walls he was safe; a step out of them, he was once more at the avenger’s mercy. And here we have another spiritual lesson taught us--the sinner who would be saved by Christ, must not only actually apply to Him for salvation, but must abide as a suppliant at His feet to his dying hour. And here we must stop; but the partial view we have taken of this ancient institution will remind us of the care which God manifested in it of two gracious objects. The first is the safety of the transgressor who seeks his safety in the way which God has prescribed. Another object secured in the appointment of these refuges, was the encouragement of the trembling offender. (C. Bradley, M. A.)The cities of refugeI. The names of the cities selected as places of refuge have been observed to convey, in the original Hebrew, some allusion to the offices which Christ bears to His Church, and will therefore demand our primary consideration. The name of the first city was Bezer in the wilderness, in the plain country of the Reubenites, which name, in the Hebrew language, means a stronghold, or fortified place, eminently calculated as a shelter to the distressed fugitive. The agreement between the name of this city and the office which the Lord Jesus Christ bears for His people, as their refuge and defence, may be very interestingly traced by observing the expression used, in reference to ibis subject, in Zec 9:12, where the same radical word is used: “Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope.” Thus Christ is called a fortress, a place of defence for His people. The name of the second city was Ramoth, in Gilead, of the Gadites, which signifies high, or exalted, as though the fugitive manslayer when within the walls of the city, was raised out of danger into a place of security. Under the same radical word we find God saying, “I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people (Psa 89:19). And “Him,” declares St. Peter, “hath God exalted with His right hand robe a Prince and a Saviour” (Act 5:31). His seed are therefore not only a saved people, saved with a present salvation, but they are also raised up together with Him, and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. The third city was Golan, in Bashan, of the Manassites, a name implying joy, or revelation, a suitable description of the frame of that person’s mind who had escaped the avenger’s sword, and fitly portraying Him who is eminently the joy of His people. The above three cities were upon the other, or eastern, side of the river Jordan; and when the children of Israel were settled in the land of Canaan, the Lord, through Joshua, directed them to appoint three more cities of refuge on this, the western side of the river (see Jos 20:1-9.). Accordingly they appointed Kedesh, in Galilee, in Mount Naphtali, whose name signifies holy, or set apart, which, in fact, all these cities were; for no avenger of blood dared to enter those sanctuaries in order to retaliate for the injury inflicted. As Kedesh, the holy city, was a sacred refuge to the unwitting manslayer, so Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, is a sanctified defence to His people. Again, the name of the fifth city of refuge was Shechem, in Mount Ephraim, a word signifying a shoulder, expressive of a power and readiness to bear burdens, and used in reference to magisterial and regal authority. Thus it is prophesied, concerning the Messiah, “The government shall be upon His shoulder” (Isa 9:6). And respecting the typical Eliakim, it was declared, “The key of the house of David will I lay upon His shoulder: so He shall open, and none shall shut; and He shall shut, and none shall open” (Isa 22:22). The last-named city, called Kirjath-arba (which is Hebron), in the mountain of Judah, a name signifying fellowship, or association. As the flier from vengeance shared in the privileges of the city of refuge, and dwelt as one with the inhabitants thereof, so those who have fled to Jesus for refuge dwell in communion with Him and with all His saints: they have fellowship with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and have access unto Him at all times.II. Their convenience for the purpose for which they were selected.1. They were so situated that there was scarcely any part of the land of Israel more remote than a day’s journey from some one of these cities, so that the distance was not too great for any one to escape thither. Placed, through the length of the land, on each side of the river Jordan, facility was thus afforded for crossing the river, if occasion required it, while the territory between the northern and southern boundaries of the country were regularly subdivided by them; the distance from the south border to Hebron, from Hebron to Shechem, from Shechem to Kadesh, and from Kadesh to the north border of the land, being nearly equal.2. The way of access to these cities was also to be kept perfectly free from obstacles; as Moses commanded (Deu 19:3). The gospel is a highway, “the way of holiness: the unclean shall not pass over it; but the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein” (Isa 35:8). Is not, then, the access to our refuge easy and plain? And, further, all the obstacles which the law, our depraved nature, and the machinations of Satan had placed in the way, have been graciously removed by our merciful Forerunner and High Priest.3. It may be observed, also, in connection with this part of our subject, that these cities of refuge were in the inheritance of the priests and Levites (see Jos 21:1-45.); so that the unhappy manslayer might there receive the consolations of religion, and enjoy communion with those who were specially set apart for God’s service, the immediate attendants upon the altar. This may also be considered as an interesting and typical allusion to Him, who not only shelters from wrath and judgment, but guides our feet into the way of peace enriches our souls with spiritual knowledge, and gives everlasting consolation, and good hope, through grace.4. Lastly, we may remark, that all these cities were situated upon hills; thus serving to direct the distressed person who was fleeing thither, and to encourage him with the hope that, although the last part of his flight was up hill, he would soon be in a place of safety. A striking comparison this, of Him whom “God hath exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins,” who, though once obscure and despised, is now highly exalted; who affirmed, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me”; and who now sends forth the savour of His name into all lands, declaring that “whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”III. The safety which they afforded. If once the unintentional manslayer entered into any one of these cities, the avenger of blood had no power to smite or kill him. Thus it is written in Joshua (20:4-6), “When he that doth flee,” &c. When we remark the particular directions given concerning these cities, and the repeated allusions made to them in various parts of Scripture, we may surely be warranted in concluding that they were, equally with other parts of the Jewish law, of a typical character. As such, therefore, we see in them an eminent type of the protection which Jesus affords to the distressed sinner, who is fleeing from the curse of the law, the penalty of death, and the wrath of God. No other prospect of relief is held out to the penitent transgressor, but in Christ. He is appointed by God the Father as the only way of escape from Divine vengeance. (R. S. Eaton, B. A.)The Divine guardianship o/ human lifeThe various provisions of this law afford an impressive illustration of the Divine regard for human life.I. In the institution of the cities of refuge as a provision that the life of an innocent person should not be taken away. The adaptation of these cities for this purpose appears in--1. Their accessibility from all places. A reference to the map of Canaan will show that these cities were so situated that one of them could be reached in a few hours from any part of the country.2. Their accessibility to all persons. “For the children of Israel, and for the stranger.” God’s regard is not simply for the life of the Israelite, but for the life of man as man.II. In the laws by which the trial of the manslayer was to be conducted. The Divine guardianship of human life is manifested in these laws at least in two respects.1. In the clear discrimination between intentional and unintentional manslaughter. “If he smite him with an instrument,” &c. (Num 35:16-24).2. In the absolute necessity for the evidence of at least two witnesses before a man could be adjudged guilty of murder. One witness might be mistaken in his view of the case, or might be prejudiced against the homicide; hence the importance of the testimony of at least two witnesses in the trial of such cases.III. In the punishment of the intentional manslayer. “The murderer shall surely be put to death” (Num 35:16-18; Num 35:21; Num 35:30). As an evidence of the regard of God for human life, this punishment has additional weight from two facts.1. It could not be averted by any ransom. The crime was too heinous to be expiated by anything less than life itself.2. It was insisted upon for the most solemn reason. The argument seems to be this: that the shedding of human blood defiled the land, that such defilement could be cleansed only by the blood of the murderer; that the Lord Himself dwelt in that land, and therefore it must be kept free from defilement; if the murder were committed, the murderer must be put to death. To spare the life of a murderer was to insult Jehovah by defiling the land wherein He dwelt.IV. In the punishment of the unintentional manslayer. When it was proved on the trial that the manslayer was perfectly free from guilty designs, that he had slain another entirely by accident, even then he had to bear no light punishment. He must leave his estate and worldly interests, his home and his family, and dwell in the city of refuge. His dwelling there closely resembled imprisonment; for if he left the city, and its divinely appointed suburbs, the Goel, if he should come upon him, was at liberty to put him to death.1. Respect human life--that of others, and your own also.2. Guard against anger; for it leads to murder, and in the estimation of Heaven it is murder.3. Cultivate brotherly kindness and Christian charity. (W. Jones.)Security in ChristThe son of a chieftain of the Macgregors was killed in a scuffle at an inn on the moors of Glenorchy, by a young gentleman named Lamont. The manslayer mounted his horse and fled, and though sharply pursued, in the darkness of the night succeeded in reaching a house. It happened to be the house of Macgregor himself. “Save my life!” cried Lament to the chieftain, “men are after me to take it away.” “Whoever you are,” replied Macgregor, “while you are under my roof you are safe.” Very soon the pursuers arrived, and thundered at the gate. “Has a stranger just entered your house?” “He has; and what may be your business with him?. . . The man has killed your son! Give him up to our vengeance!” The terrible news filled the house with lamentation; but the chief with streaming tears said, “No; you cannot have the youth, for he has Macgregor’s word for his safety, and as God lives, while he is in my house he shall stay secure.” This story has been told for centuries to illustrate Highland honour. What shall we say of the older story, that illustrates Divine love? To Jew and Gentile, high and low, rich and poor, friend and enemy, the grace of Christ is free.Hasting from dangerCan you be safe too soon? Can you be happy too soon? Certainly you cannot be out of danger of hell too soon; and, therefore, why should not our closing with Christ, upon His own terms, be our very next work? If the main business of our life is to flee from the wrath to come, as indeed it is (Mat 3:9), and to flee for refuge in Jesus Christ, as indeed it is (Heb 6:18), then all delays are highly dangerous, The manslayer, when fleeing to the city of refuge before the avenger of blood, did not think he could reach the city too soon. Set your reason to work upon this matter ; put the case as it really is: I am fleeing from the wrath to come; the justice of God and the curses of the law are closely pursuing me; is it reasonable that I should sit down in the way to gather flowers or play with trifles? For such are all other concerns in this world, compared with our soul’s salvation. (J. Flavel.)The nearest refugeAs the manslayer, being to haste for his life unto one of the cities of refuge, was ordered to flee unto that city which was nearest to him, so it is the duty and privilege of the poor sinners, when they see their miserable condition, to haste immediately unto Christ, the great Saviour; and unto that in Christ, which they have the clearest discerning of, and so, in that regard, is the nearest unto them as being a suitable relief for that part of their misery which most sensibly affects them. And thus some souls, being most sensibly touched with the guilt and filth of sin, have a more clear revelation of the blood of Christ, in its excellency and suitableness to cleanse from all sin, and are enabled to haste unto this, as the immediate refuge set before them. Other souls are more sensible of their misery, as naked creatures, and have a more clear discovery of Christ as a suitable, glorious remedy, in regard to His righteousness, and these are enabled to run in His name, “The Lord our Righteousness,” as the refuge that is next or most immediate unto them. And others, who have a more general sense of their misery, have a more general revelation of Christ’s excellency, and are enabled to flee unto Him for refuge, as a complete Saviour that is every way suitable to their case. Though the distinct actings of faith on Christ in all these vary, yet in the main they agree, inasmuch as it is one Christ that is believed on for justification and life. They all flee unto Christ for refuge, and so are all safe, though one flees unto Him under one consideration, and another under another, according to that revelation they have of Him as suitable to their case. For though the soul’s first actings of faith on Christ may more peculiarly respect one of His distinctive excellences than the rest, yet all are implied--faith acts towards a whole Christ. And those of His excellences, which were not at first so distinctly viewed and acted towards by the soul, are afterwards more fully discovered, and particularly dealt with. (Dutton on Justification.)Numbers 36Numbers 36:1-13Let them marry to whom they think best; only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they marry. The law for the marriage of heiressesI. The case stated (Num 36:1-4). These proceedings of the heads of this family were orderly, respectful, reasonable, and commendable.II. The case adjudicated (Num 36:5-9).1. The righteousness of the case was acknowledged.2. The difficulty of the case was removed.3. The decision in this case was made the law for all similar cases.4. The decision of this case was of Divine authority.III. The adjudication acted upon (Num 36:10-12). “They married their father’s brothers’ sons. By this it, appears,” says Matthew Henry--“1. That the marriage of cousin-germans is not in itself unlawful, nor within the degrees prohibited, for then God would not haw countenanced these marriages. But--2. That ordinarily it is not advisable; for, if there had not been a particular reason for it (which cannot hold in any case now, inheritances being not disposed of as then by the special designation of Heaven), they would not have married such near relations. The world is wide, and he that walks uprightly will endeavour to walk surely.” (W. Jones.)Marriage1. That marriage is a Divine institution.2. That the obligations involved in marriage are binding and sacred.I. That persons should not be coerced in marriage.1. Personal choice as opposed to compulsion.2. Personal affection as opposed to mere convenience.II. That there are important considerations which should regulate the choice in respect to marriage.1. As to property.2. As to consanguinity.3. As to health.4. As to suitability.5. As to character. (W. Jones.)Sensible marriageNo laws, however excellent, express, or multiplied, can reach every particular case which may arise; and still room will be left for the exercise of sound judgment and common sense. But when these are regulated according to the true meaning of the Word of God, and in dependence on Divine teaching, they will guide us through all perplexities, as far as our immediate duty is concerned. Yet the Lord frequently leaves us to feel our difficulties, that we may be habituated to reflect to search the Scriptures, and to trust Him more simply. All our inclinations ought to be subjected to the will of God: and in contracting marriage, future consequences to posterity, as well as to ourselves and our connections, should be taken into consideration. The Scriptures indeed suppose that esteem, affection, and preference are requisite in this important relation: but they know nothing of that irrational, ungovernable, and idolatrous passion, which, regardless of all consequences, and in defiance all authority, rushes headlong upon gratification; which is neither moderated by discretion, nor subordinated to the will of God; which is not rational esteem, nor tender friendship, nor congenial affection, but something vastly more rapturous, unintelligible, and undefinable: and which, with all its refinements, is inconsistent with common sense, the interests of society, the happiness of domestic life, and the Christian religion. Finally, though it is prudent to foresee and prevent disputes about temporal property, it would be better if we were equally quicksighted and attentive in respect of our spiritual and eternal interests. But “the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.” (Thomas Scott.) ................
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