NEARNESS AND DISTANCE

^[p. 510] NEARNESS AND DISTANCE

Numbers 2:1 - 3; Deuteronomy 25:17 - 19; Exodus 19:1 - 6; Psalm 148:14

You will perhaps have discerned that these verses contain the idea of nearness to God and its blessed consequences; and, on the other hand, the idea of distance, and its sorrowful consequences. My remarks will cover these points in dealing with the latter first so as to lead up to this remarkable psalm — the remarkable statement, rather, in the psalm that I read, “A people near unto him”, coming in at the end of the psalm into which the Spirit of God compresses the great idea of praise to God. And the position of those who praise is “a people near unto him”. This is very attractive to us if we love God. We know He is love, and correspondingly love Him. The suggestion of a people near unto Him is extremely affecting and alluring. We cannot afford, as the people of God, to miss not only the experience and the atmosphere of the place, but the dignity attached to the position of a people near unto Him. “Praise ye the Lord”. It is those who, as knowing God, love God. The psalms are poorly understood by us, and not the least by oneself. There are a great many psalms — one hundred and fifty — and God has graciously divided them up into five books, so as to aid us in reading and in understanding them; foreseeing, as He did, our measure and the smallness of our receptive and retentive powers, God graciously arranged His thoughts in poetic form, which is the easiest form to retain, and in the division of books. More than that, there is not merely an arbitrary division into chapters, but each psalm had its own setting: the division is inspired, and some of the psalms are subdivided. For instance, some are ^[p. 511] arranged alphabetically so that we might learn under the letters of the alphabet, so that we might learn and retain the whole thoughts of God, the thoughts wrought out in those who love Him. They are the product of experience with God, and experiences with God are sure to issue in love to God, we cannot be near to God without loving Him. The psalms are a sort of finishing education, at least in the Old Testament, and the closing psalms especially are pregnant with the exalted idea of praise, Jehovah occupying supremely the intelligence and affections of His people. Well now, we cannot afford to be outside that realm; we cannot afford to be outside the realm of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. We are to be maintained in heavenly and happy, holy, victorious relations.

Now the converse of all that is indicated in the scriptures in Numbers and Deuteronomy. The scripture in Numbers begins the wilderness journey. That is, it begins with the effect of the wilderness journey on the people. Chapter 10 is the great start and there is no complaint in that chapter; everything is according to divine order, and the chapter culminates in triumph. The ark was moving out, and the word was, “Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered”; and when it rested he said, “Return, Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel”. What a glorious setting even if it lasted only for a day! If God can preserve His people for one day, He can do it for a week, or for a month or for a year, for eternity! It is a question of what He can do, but if He is minded to show what we can do, if God withdraws His hand, then it is a sad matter, and the first thing is complaint. There is hardly anything more ready to show itself in us, beloved brethren, than complaint, unless we are self-judged. The last person we complain against is ourselves; it would be well if we began with ourselves, but we do ^[p. 512] not. This chapter and the following ones are just full of this distressing condition, complaint, even extending to the great mediator Moses. He complains, too; he said to Jehovah, You have given me too much to do. As if God were not the God of measure! But I am not here to speak about Moses but to speak about the mass of us, and how the idea of distance manifests itself as soon as the complaint is expressed; and the judgment reaches those at a distance, so that instead of the happy enjoyment which we see at the end of the Psalms, a people near to Jehovah, we have some in the extremity of the camp burned, burned with the fire of God. You may say, That is the Old Testament; it is, but we must never forget that the Old Testament is always the New Testament. If the Holy Spirit uses it to your soul tonight it is as new as if it were spoken for the first time by God; indeed it is written for us, as we are told. If we say, That is the Old Testament, we cannot apply the fire today, we cannot think of God burning people today, let us not forget that the scripture says, “Our God is a consuming fire”, not their God, but ours. To us there is one God, He is our God, He is God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, He is our Father and our God, and our God is a consuming fire. It may not appear kind or gracious to press this upon us, but it is imperative our God is a consuming fire. If there be corruption, what can be more blessed than that fact to those who have to do with it, fire is the most drastic remedy for corruption?

So we are warned here of being in the extremity of the camp, it was those in the extremity of the camp that came in for the fire of the judgment of God. One would speak to the young ones here as to where you are in the march. Chapter 10 of this book shows the order of the march in the wilderness. It was not a mob, every person’s place was assigned to him in the march, as well as in the encampments. The ^[p. 513] order of the march was: Judah with two tribes, and then Reuben with two tribes, Ephraim with two tribes, and then Dan; four sets of three tribes each. After Judah came the tabernacle, taken down and carried by the Gershonites and Merarites, and after Reuben came the sanctuary, borne by the Kohathites; the position of each was assigned, and what an honour to be marching in such a company! God was in the centre of that array; the dwelling-place of God was there. Anyone using his own will and saying, I know some people in the camp of Ephraim who are congenial to me, I will march with them, I will take my place with those people, would be simply lawless. If you choose your own will, if you are governed by your own will instead of by the will of God, you will never prove that will of yours good and perfect, you will prove it to be bad and imperfect. Whereas the place assigned to you is according to the will of God, you will prove that position to be good and perfect, and you will prove the will of God in it. You may not know the place you have in divine counsel, young christians scarcely do to begin with, their business is to be subject, and in due course they will learn they have a place far beyond their expectations. It is a question not only of the love of God but of the great love of God. If you go back to the rear of the camp, when it is pitched next time you will find yourself on the outside of the camp; if you are indifferent to what is going on in the prayer meeting, or in the general work of God, if it is a matter of little or no consequence to you, you are on the edge of the camp, and the judgment finds you in that place of distance. That is what happens, the spirit of complaint is certain to lead us further and further away, and the judgment of God, whatever form it may take, is sure to find us there on the outskirts of the camp. The will of God has assigned a place to you and if you leave it deliberately, governed by ^[p. 514] some selfish motive, you will fall behind and Amalek will cut you off; you will die away into the world and lose all that is spiritual. Moses says in Deuteronomy, ‘Remember Amalek, remember how he cut off the hindmost of you, the weak ones’.

In Exodus 19 we have the heart of God disclosed, at least we can understand it in that way, and you will observe that the time is given. “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai”; three months is a considerable experience. God takes into account where we are, and what He has in mind to disclose, He waited for the children of Israel for these three months. You will notice that it is not simply three months, but where they pitched — in the wilderness of Sinai — for they were departed from Rephidim, that is to say, from the conflict with Amalek. They had passed that point; I wonder how many of us have passed that point? Deuteronomy speaks of it as affecting the weak ones; they were actually cut off, but Israel as a whole was not cut off, they fought valiantly and triumphantly; it was a pitched battle. The experiences of a believer in himself are the greatest kind of a pitched battle; very few understand it, but it has to be gone through before we come to the wilderness of Sinai and pitch before Horeb. How many of us have passed it? It says here that they were departed from Rephidim and were come to the desert of Sinai and had pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel encamped before the mount. Now, beloved brethren, this is the most important bit of instruction that we can take in. It is a question of our beginnings, and our beginnings are the times of the greatest and most durable impressions; what you learn in those three months will stay with you. One would challenge those here as ^[p. 515] to this passage by Rephidim: how have we behaved in it? What part have we had in it? Have we been one of the stragglers behind or have we followed in the wake of Joshua? This is like Romans 7, a chapter less understood than any chapter in Scripture, and consequently there is a weakness among the saints in practical righteousness, in practical holiness and in practical deliverance. The battle is worse in a way than that by one of David’s mighty men who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day. It is close quarters, and quarters in which one has to exercise one’s analytical powers, one’s spiritual analytical powers to understand the ground occupied and the difficulties to be met in the conflict, and the forces that are in action; so that the writer of the chapter triumphantly says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” — He is our Joshua. A great pitched battle having taken place at Rephidim, the people were able to pass on, having disposed of this great enemy. Amalek is left behind a conquered foe, and the people can say by the Spirit of God, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”; “With the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin”. The analysis is perfect, I have done with sin in the flesh, I have settled the matter. The next chapter brings out that there are lovers of God, not only that He loves us but that we love Him, we are lovers of God. Deuteronomy is full of lovers of God, and it is there that the mediator brings out this about Amalek, but here it says they had passed that point and had pitched before the mount. What a position for the people to be set up and encamped in having passed Rephidim! They are in the presence of these inexhaustible resources of God. God says at this point, Now I can say something about Myself. It is a great deal more blessed to hear God speak about Himself than to hear Him speak about us; He can speak of nothing greater than ^[p. 516] Himself, and He only can speak rightly of Himself. Logos means that only God can speak of God. So we are told here that Moses went up unto God, the mediator is liberated; how simple and how full God is never on our level, He comes down to lift us up, Moses went up unto God. In Hebrews it says, “Let us draw near”. The nearer we get the more liberty we have, let us draw near, the way is open. Moses went up into the mount and God says to him, “Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself”. God is reviewing the history, but it is history about Himself, it is what He has done. God would have every one of us here to follow this; it is a wholesome custom to review your history even every day, your beginning, extending back even to your unconverted days. It is salutary and humbling; you come to the days of your conversion when God came into your vision, and you began to think of God. You are reviewing now the history of God with you, and He is pleased with that, because it brings you to when He came into your vision and filled your heart with His love and gave you His Spirit. Now, He says, I have something more to say, it is never finished, the idea of Logos is constant disclosure, not in the sense of revelation, but in the sense of what is in the Scriptures that I have never seen. The Lord Jesus carries on that service, and He would come in with an additional thought. So God says to Moses here, “Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings and brought you unto myself”. Can anything be more blessed than to know that God has brought us to Him? We are not yet in the land, but He has got us with Him — “I ... brought you unto myself”. And then He proposes what is to be done. “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel”. One could dwell on these words at length, the position and the proposal — “all the earth is mine” — I have plenty of scope, if it is in other hands for the moment, that is nothing, you are to be Mine, and it is all to be yours. How are we to be with Him? A kingdom of priests; we are to be with Him on His terms and not on ours. This leads me to the psalm we read. The Psalms contemplate the terms on which the people are with God, they contemplate that the people are to be with God according to His ordering. We are not to be with Him as a promiscuous crowd, we are not to be with Him in any position that may suit us. The Psalms contemplate David and Solomon, the first book of Psalms is occupied with David almost exclusively, the second book finishes with “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended”.

Why are they ended? Because Christ has come in, and in Christ every thought of God is set out; one great thought is the priesthood and the singers, it is a question of the order of the service that God has set up. The Psalms contemplate us not as a set of labourers, but a people set in holy nearness to God and occupied with His praises eternally. “From eternity to eternity thou art God”. What a thought it is! What an incentive to come into nearness to God! We have that holy dignity, there are no forced expressions of praise, our hearts are full, inditing a good matter. Then in verse 14 we read, “He also exalteth the horn of his people” — the power of His people; you come out and worship God, and God comes in, it is not simply the power we have but what He does with it, He exalts the horn of His people,

^[p. 518] the praise of all His saints. The meeting ends in triumph, it begins very weak, but it is what God does, “He exalteth the horn of his people ... a people near unto him”. O beloved brethren, one would love to go in for that, in the place of nearness, and the occupation we have in it of praising Jehovah, praising God and the Father, and the exaltation that belongs to it, the dignity that belongs to it, in this holy nearness. So we are regarded as a people near unto Him, that is our privilege and our dignity, to be near unto Him.