"AS HE DID AFORETIME"

“AS HE DID AFORETIME”

Daniel 6: 10; Luke 6: 1 - 5; Luke 22: 15

Daniel lived in a day when all was gone as to Israel outwardly; and as regards Jerusalem, that city was in ruins, the temple was laid low and there was nothing to show of its former splendour. All was desolation; Daniel also knew that the “decree was signed”, and that what he did was at the peril of his life, but that did not deter him from going on “as he did aforetime”. His window was open toward Jerusalem; he was only a “unit”, but this pious man goes on with his piety in the face of the break-up of everything outwardly. Jerusalem might be gone, but he could never forget the place it had in the thoughts and counsels of God, and his conduct is shaped as though it were still there: he prayed “toward Jerusalem”.

We see the same principle as regards the Lord in Luke 22. He not merely recognised the passover, but He said: With desire I have desired to eat it with you, though He well knew that He, the true Passover, was about to be offered up, and He announced that He would not eat of it again till it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God. He recognised what was existing, the passover as instituted of God, and He greatly desired to eat it with those He loved so well. We see here true piety. Then on the other hand, as to Luke 6. David in eating the shewbread did what might be looked at by some as a profane act, but he did it in a day when he, the anointed of the Lord, was rejected; he says, “the bread is in a manner common”. Why? Because things were all out of joint in Israel — institutions that have been owned in their day when God is reverenced, lose their force or power when the anointed of the Lord is refused. So it is now; there are institutions in Christendom which in their day ^[p. 412] have been owned and used of God, but have lost their force since the word of God is discredited — Christ is Lord also of the sabbath, and He supersedes in that way institutions that were ordained of God and used of Him.

What we ourselves learn from these scriptures is, that in a day of outward ruin, we have to go on as individuals, acting as far as possible as though the ruin were not there. As Daniel prayed toward Jerusalem, we too are to go on “as aforetime”, though the church outwardly has been carried captive to Babylon and but little of its grace and power, as seen in the beginning of Acts, be now seen. Again, as we find the Lord recognising that which God had instituted, though well knowing it was to pass away, so we cleave to what God has ordained; but, on the other hand, we drop things which had hold on us formerly, as having been used of God at one time, because we see that in the refusal of the word of the Lord those things have lost the place they once had, and have become in a manner ‘common’.