Separation from evil is, in a great sense, the principle of communion with Him. The truth, the knowledge of God, life in Christ, is the positive principle or secret of communion, surely; but separation from evil must accompany that. For if we meet the Blessed One Himself, we must meet Him in conditions suited to His presence. Ezra soon finds that the returned captives had practically forgotten all this. They had mingled themselves with the people of the land. They were involved again in that evil from which the call of God had separated them. They were defiled. For sanctification is by "the truth"; the washing of water is "by the word"; and, if holiness be not according to God's word, and God's word as He applies it at the time, or dispensationally, it has no divine quality. There is no Nazaritism in it; no separation to God. The children of the captivity had been marrying, and giving in marriage, with the Gentiles. Ezra sets himself to the work of reformation, and does so, in the same spirit in which he had set himself to be for God, before his journey, and on his journey. And this is what we have very specially to mark in Ezra. He was, personally, so much the saint of God, as well as a vessel gifted and filled. This shews itself in Ezra more than in any who had served among the captives before him. He was a vessel that had, indeed, purged itself for the Master's use; and the reformation in Jerusalem is accomplished in the like zeal as the journey from Babylon; and the blessing of God waits upon it. There is no miracle; no displayed glory; no mighty energy bespeaking extraordinary divine presence: nothing is seen out of the common measure, or beyond ordinary resources. Service is, if done and rendered according to the written word, for the glory of the God of Israel, and in the spirit of worship and communion. It is but a sample of what service with us at this day might be, and, as we may add, ought to be. Ezra, throughout, does not listen to expediency, or yield to a difficulty, or refuse diligence and toil; he maintains principles, and carries the word of God through every hindrance. Deeply do I believe, that the saints of God in this our day, may read the story of the returned captives, as very good for the use of edifying; and find plenty to instruct, to encourage, to warn, and to humble them. "How precious is the book divine, Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, No. V. MEDITATIONS ON SUBJECTS OF INTEREST. 1. THE AIM OF MINISTRY. The means GOD's object and end ought to be ours. ought never to supersede the end with us. strength and power in the words, "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth!" Paul says, he labours to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. What an aim was this! In my mind, responsibility to Church truth, so far from being lessened by the new, wonderful, and gracious evangelic work which has lately arisen, is the rather greatly increased. A man's aim gives a character to all his acts. A low aim can never carry a man high, but a high one has power to attract from a very low position; and when it is divine, it will be like the path of the just, becoming more positive and clear, the more it is pursued. No minister of the gospel ought to be satisfied with a condition for any believer inferior to what would satisfy the heart of Christ, not only with regard to the infancy of such a soul, but to its fruitful maturity. "Feed my sheep," is the claim of true affection for Christ; but if His present organization for the Church, and His future glory in her, be now disregarded, or untaught, are not the most precious secrets of His love suppressed or overlooked? One, who, in ministering to God's people, proposes to himself God's end and object for them, and nothing short of it, while feeling increasingly the responsibility of the trust, knows also that he need only deal out honestly and faithfully what has been committed to him, and abundantly will the need be supplied. Truth is so fallen in the streets in these days, that the call to each is to be valued for the truth, and not merely to be convinced of the rightness of a position. Truth, being fully revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ, there will be no further revelation of it. If any part of it be misrepresented, there will be an imperfect evangelization; for the Gospel is, that "grace and truth are come by Jesus Christ." Are we sufficiently alive to the responsibility of seeing that the truth of God so long undeclared, but now fully declared by our Lord Jesus Christ, should not suffer in our attempts to expound the fulness and greatness of it? What painful misrepresentations of our Lord's doings and intentions down here, do we find in the current religious publications of the day! Therefore, I am bold to say, that if a soul does not see how he is called to vindicate Christ in these days, I see little use in gaining his approval of my position. If we were called to vindicate God, we must at once retire from a work for which we are utterly incompetent; but the Lord Jesus has vindicated Him by declaring the truth; and it is only a veritable adherence to what He has done that we are called to. If the "Spirit of truth" be working in a soul, there will be exercise as to what is truth, and, in teaching souls, how necessary to be assured that they are learning the truth, that the Spirit is thereby guiding them into it. Full truth alone can keep us from slipping off from our proper place; the more fully we know it the better we know our position; for truth is but the mind and judgment of Him, whom the better we know, the more are we bound to, for we thus find how absolutely He is for our blessing. The more one line of truth becomes diffused, the more does every other line require to be pressed, or there will be departure from the moral symmetry belonging to the Body of Christ on earth. The Lord keep us loving His truth-the unfolding of Himself! He is but a poor friend who would not like to know more, and all about me, or I must be very unworthy. How blessed to be allowed of God to set the seeds of His truth in the souls of His people; and how we ought to rejoice at every apprehension a soul gets of the truth of our God! "This God is our God for ever and ever: He shall be our Guide even unto death." 2. THE BLESSING OF WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD. If the heart be in secret true to our God, it is marvellous how much of our own ways we are allowed to follow, in order to find out the folly of them, without losing our place of confidence in Him. David is the man after God's own heart, because God was always His God. He was a man of many errors and failures, but in his extremities God was always His resource. If I have a false God I have no real resource; therefore, as long as the soul is really zealous for the truth of God, and maintains it, though it may yield to many vacillations in practical life, yet it will ever revert to Him, as the needle to the pole: the nature of God is not misrepresented; and the heart turns thither from its own perversions. If Peter may fail, but his faith in God must not fail; and, by it, he is restored. If the soul has a true Christ, be the vacillations ever so many, still, in the end, there it must gravitate. And, therefore, it is so necessary for souls to get a right idea and apprehension of Christ. we have not, we are like the disciples when on the sea, and Christ on the land. If we have, though, perhaps, equally unbelieving with them, we have, at any rate, the assurance that he is in the ship with us. It is while running the race, that we discover the many impediments which our nature obstructs to our progress; and, as we discover them, if really desirous that our pace be not abated, we deprecate and shake them off. But in order to this the eye must be on the goal. If it be, the swifter we run, the more we may have to discard; because the more sensible shall we be to the embarrassments occasioned by our natural activities; these always hamper the spirit. We know the fable of the sun and the wind. The blast may cause us to wrap up our coverings around us, but when the sun breaks forth we soon cast them aside. So with any moral encumbrance, or natural burden. The eye on Christ always affords evidence of our position, and is the only true means of deliverance from every false way. |