Vanity and Glory
DAILY Readings: — DEUT. 20.; ECC. 12.; ACTS 12.
We have been singing and praying together, dear brethren and sisters: —
“Satiate with truth and love
Our hungry souls:
Fill from Thy springs above
Thine altar bowls.”
Short of the immortal satisfaction of the Kingdom of God, these are the occasions upon which we can most closely approximate to that satisfaction, for here we partake of the truth and love of God, that ministration by the Spirit which supported even our Lord Jesus Christ in the days of the flesh. It all focalises in Christ, whether we are reading from Moses, from Solomon, or from the apostles of our Lord and Saviour.
We are reading together in the first portion of our readings the last book of Moses, the book of Deuteronomy—a book which Christ read; a book from which he quoted in repelling the temptations in the wilderness; a book which spoke of him beforehand, and concerning which he said to his own countrymen, “Had ye believed Moses ye would have believed me, for Moses wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?”
The more we read of Moses’ writings the more we believe Christ’s words. We have been reading some of Moses’ utterances in this 18th chapter, and the occasion is striking—it is rebuke, and prohibition of what is still most popular in these last days of the Gentiles, witchcraft and necromancy; it means literally a divining from the dead, and that is the outstanding feature of the popular cultus of spiritualism which is founded on the first lie, “Thou shalt not surely die.”
THE PROPHET LIKE UNTO MOSES
These practices were current in the land of Palestine in Moses’ times and were sternly prohibited to Israel. “The Lord thy God hath not suffered thee, O Israel, to do so. He will raise up unto thee a prophet like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken. The Lord spake unto me, saying, I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.”
Moses then spoke thus of the prophet who was to come, and he has come, and Jesus is he; and even the strange military orders that we have read—that is, those who have read them in chap. 12. this morning—are not without their bearing on Christ, both antitypically as concerning the truth, and more literally as concerning the literal warfare of the age to come.
When the hosts of Israel went to war the officers were to speak, and say: “What man is there that hath built a new house, and hath not dedicated it? let him go and return to his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man dedicate it.” What a merciful provision and how unlike “the times of the Gentiles.” “And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him also go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and another man eat of it. And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife and hath not taken her? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle and another man take her.”
A Jew pleaded that before a Gentile court during the late war, but, alas! the military officials were not Jews. But this is the part that affects us: “What man is there that is fearful and fainthearted? let him go and return unto his house lest his brethren’s heart faint as well as his heart.” And that applies to the Truth’s warfare—do not be fearful and fainthearted, lest you affect your brethren. It is better not to enter the battle at all than not to go into it with the determination to fight through.
And now in connection with the cities; when they came to a city they were to proclaim peace to it—of course, on terms of unconditional surrender. If it accepted peace the inhabitants were to be tributaries and serve Israel; if not, there was war. But in the war they were not to destroy the fruit trees, which was another merciful provision. But then there was an exception to this matter—there were certain cities and certain people altogether devoted to destruction and extermination.
THE AMORITES
The Amorites were given 400 years to fill up the cup of their iniquity; then there was brought upon them a chosen generation of Israel to take possession of their land. That is what is going to happen in the earth, and there will be the same discrimination. We see it in the prophecy of Daniel—the fourth beast is devoted to utter destruction. “I saw till the beast was destroyed, and his body given to the burning flame.” The others were spared, answering to the type in Israel’s time. There are peoples not so responsible as the European body politic—nations afar off, who have not had the same opportunities. They will come up; the Word of God will come to them, and if they submit, it will be meet. But that European system is doomed, destruction is before it. And as regards Rome itself, in that terrific vision of the Apocalypse it is blotted out like Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus in Deuteronomy, even in that unpromising chapter, we see how it connects with Christ.
As we look at the last chapter of Ecclesiastes it has a pathetic illustrative point to it this morning, in the recent death of our old sister Emerson, aged nearly 100. She has long been a sort of land-mark among us. “Remember now thy Creator, in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt cry, I have no pleasure in them.” We read this, of course, in connection with the youth of Christ, and we have this singular and beautiful reflection with regard to him, that he never knew old age. “Take me not away in the midst of my years,” was his prayer; and yet he was put to death, but immediately restored to life. He was a young man when he died, and a young man when he rose; he will be a young man for ever. But although he knew no old age as so pathetically portrayed by Solomon, yet he fulfilled to the uttermost the opening exhortation of this chapter: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.”
We look at Jesus, at twelve years of age, tarrying behind in Jerusalem, hearing the doctors, and asking them questions, and all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers. Of course, he is the outstanding illustration of this, though there are others in the Scriptures. We look at Joseph—a young man, a righteous young man—getting into trouble first of all because he brings an evil report of his elder brothers to his father, and getting into bitter trouble later on, until, as a type of Christ, he is exalted to lordship over Egypt.
We look at Moses, a “goodly child,” and cannot doubt that the seeds of the covenants were sown in his mind by his parents, and it brought forth fruit in his dispute with the Hebrew. What if it brought about his exile? We know his mission and its nature, and what remains in the Kingdom of God.
If we look through the history of Israel we get another illustration in good King Josiah, who instituted such striking reforms in Israel. And in the New Testament have we not Timothy, Paul’s son in the faith, who knew the scriptures from a child, who was beloved by the apostle, and concerning whom he said to the brethren, “Let no man despise your youth.” And coming down to this meeting, are there not many present who have given attention to this exhortation: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth”? There are; well, what comfort there is in it!
What a pathetic and beautiful picture this is. “While the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them, while (for thee—we must understand this implied “relativity”)—while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened.” (They will exist when thou art gone, but not for thee). “Nor the clouds return after the rain.” What a figure of the brief vapour of human life, which “appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away.”
And so this figurative language goes on. “In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble”—the poor old man, with trembling hands and bowing knees, and toothless jaws coming together, darkening eyes and deaf ears, and fear concerning heights — “and the almond tree shall flourish.” This is the earliest of trees to blossom in the land, and with its masses of white blooms very suggestive of the idea here of old age. “And the grasshopper shall be a burden.” The verb is reflexive here — “shall be a burden to itself,” or, as R.V. margin, “shall drag itself along.” The angular lines of the grasshopper are very suggestive of an old man, bent and bowed down, with elbows stuck out, with a stick in his hand. “And desire shall fail, because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets; or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.” “Then,” says the preacher, “shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”
Yea, and the wise man will recognise it to the full, whether in youth or in old age. “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit,” said the Lord Jesus. The spirit is not the man, it is God’s. The man is that organism in the divine image, held together by the Spirit of God, energising him by the mode of life, whether by blood, refreshed by the breathing of the atmosphere, or that higher life, of which we know nothing experimentally. The Spirit of God in that higher life renders a being independent of atmospheric conditions, so that he can ascend from the Mount of Olives to the Father’s right hand. Man is the result of a combination of spirit and matter, of God’s design. Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He expired, he literally died, and there was no Stephen, except “in the book of God’s remembrance.”
“Vanity of vanities” is the conclusion of this book, but with this reservation—there are words of life, of God. This life is vanity, but there is a better life, and with a hint of this better life, the preacher concludes, “The words of the wise are as goads, and are as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.” Ah! the Lord Jesus was “the Word made flesh,” he dwelt among the Israelites, and he was “the Good Shepherd,” and he has the Word of Life. In the last crisis he said to his disciples, when many forsook him, “Will ye also go away? And they said unto him Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
There is the “One Shepherd,” and the Word of Life, and the exhortation to us now is as strong as it was to Israel in the days of the Preacher, “By these, my son, be admonished.” If his remark in that time had point concerning books, what is it now? “Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” You will observe that the word “duty” is in italics. The Hebrew here is pretty well untranslatable, it means the whole existence, the raison d’être, as the French say, the whole object of man’s being, expressed in the words of the Apocalypse, “For thy pleasure they are, and were created.” Anything else is an abortion. The words of the wise are as goads, and there is a reason behind it: “For God shall being every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.”
And so we pass from the preacher of old times to the preacher of Christ’s times, and onwards, and in the Acts of the Apostles, what have we before us? First of all, Peter’s defence concerning preaching to the Gentiles at the house of Cornelius. There is something there to reflect on, and it harmonises with the position of the Amorites as described in the book of Deuteronomy. There was a sharp distinction drawn between Israel and the nations, and it figures for a moment in the episode of Peter going to the Gentiles. The distinction was so sharp that Peter needed that triple vision to break down his scruples. Even then the disciples said, “You went in to the Gentiles!” Peter said, “Truly so, but why? Under what circumstances? The Almighty by His vision broke down my scruples, and convinced me, and when I preached the Holy Spirit attested the work. What could I do in the circumstances?”
What could you do? They could only rejoice that the door of faith had been opened to the Gentiles, and so it was. Even the personal experiences of Peter bring before us another and a very beautiful theme. He was apprehended by Herod the king, to please the Jews: “He killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.”
But there was another proposal than Herod’s at work, and that was God’s; and so he was liberated in the night by an angel. Let us try to picture the scene: this man, bound, sleeping between two soldiers, and guards standing at the prison door, and presently he is conscious of a touch, and hears a voice saying, “Arise up quickly.” Who is the speaker? This was an extraordinary thing in a prison, where no one is supposed to intrude. Angels’ visits may be “few and far between,” but there are many on record in the Bible, and a study of them is most enlightening, and, moreover, comforting.
Supposing any of us were in extremis in any way, God could liberate us like this. How would we like to be warned like this one night: “Put your clothes and boots on and follow me?” Well, this man had that experience. It was not the end of the matter, but it was an angelic deliverance. We have the assurance of the Psalm: “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.” They need not be visible; they need not touch you or command you to rise and dress; they can manipulate the forces round about you, and did so to the fathers of old. “Cast thy garment about thee and follow me,” said the angel to Peter. “And he went out and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel, but thought he saw a vision.” It reminds one of the allusion of Paul afterwards; he saw visions of paradise which were so real and substantial that he could not say whether they were real or not. And here is a man who had an experience so amazing that he could not say if it was real or not. The end will be like that. We have read, and thought, and talked about it, but at the end we shall be like the rest of them — “fall at his feet as dead.” But if we are of the type of the prophet Daniel, the angel will lay his hands on us, and say, “Rise up.” So we look back on these things, and realise that the things which happened to the apostles are still possibilities. We are in “the latter days,” when the Lord says he “will send his angels to gather his elect from one end of the earth to the other.”
We look at the Holy Land of old, and think of the experiences that are recorded of this angelic ministration. We look at Abraham, with his son laid on the altar, and the angel of the Lord arresting him in the act of slaying his son, and directing him to slay that typical ram of sacrifice. And right through the scriptures we might refresh our memory. We look at Moses, exiled for 40 years in a foreign country, until it would almost appear that his hope was getting a little dim, for he did not circumcise his youngest son. Yet one day the angel appears, and he is sent to deliver Israel. We look at the prophet Daniel, and see how he was delivered by the angel from the lions’ den. We look to our Lord Jesus Christ even, and see how angels heralded his birth; how an angel appeared at the right side of the altar of incense, before the birth of “the prophet of the Highest.”
What a beautiful coincidence here with the type and ritual—the angel at the side of the altar of incense; how naturally you drop to the right meaning. In the Apocalypse the prayers of the saints are said to ascend from the altar of incense. It is a very real thing that we are face to face with here, though it does not seem so. The things seen are those which obtrude themselves upon the senses. Paul assures us that the unseen things are the eternal, and on these occasions, we try to see “him who is invisible,” so that when he is visible, he may look upon us with favour.
CC Walker, The Christadelphian, 1925, PAGE 445–449.
