THE WAY OF HOLINESS
[p. 106] THE WAY OF HOLINESS
Two things characterize the way of holiness. One is the attractiveness of Christ in glory, and of the purpose of God as set forth in Him, which puts us in the race and maintains us there, and the other is the chastening of the Lord, by which we are disciplined and free from things which are not according to God’s holiness.
Difficulties are apt to discourage us if we do not see the true character of the race we are exhorted to run, and if we do not know the gracious use which God makes of the attendant exercises. The first thing we need is to be assured that we are in the right path, and then it is a great cheer to know that whatever opposition comes in the way is discipline for us, and is “for our [p. 114] profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness”.
A man does not run very fast when he is not quite sure that he is in the right road. He is apt to be looking aside or behind, and every unexpected obstacle raises a doubt in his mind. The Hebrew believers had taken what was to them an entirely new road in becoming Christians; they were breaking away from religious associations of long standing and divine origin, and the only outward result was that they were plunged into difficulties and persecutions. Under such circumstances it became needful for God to encourage them by reminding them that the path of faith was no new thing. The eleventh chapter proved this. It is the history of men and women who trod a path in which were difficulties and dangers of every kind, and who in different ways gave up the earth. They accepted strangership, reproach, sufferings, and death in this world, because they looked for “a better country, that is, a heavenly”. All this is brought out as encouragement; it is as much as to say, “You see you are in the right road; now, go on”. When you are sure you are in the right road, the more difficulties there are in it the more anxious you are to shorten the journey, so you run. The Spirit of God calls upon us to “run with endurance the race that is set before us”.
It has often been said that the first question with a soul is, Heaven or Hell? We can all understand John Bunyan’s pilgrim running to the wicket gate with his fingers in his ears lest any voice should persuade him to turn back. It was heaven or hell with him; his eternal weal or woe was at stake. I dare say some of us ran rather fast at that stage of our experience. But farther on in his journey, when the pilgrim came to the hill Difficulty and found the arbour, he settled down and went to sleep. The second question with the soul is, Heaven or Earth? Many are glad enough to escape hell who are not at all anxious to get away from earth. They settle down and go to sleep instead of running.
Of course no one would run to a place he did not want to reach, but if we are partakers of the heavenly calling, and know the heavenly Priest, our hearts are attracted to heaven; we have links with heaven, and heaven is an attractive place to us. I do not believe anyone is in the race here spoken of who does not like heaven better than earth. The Son of God has come down from heaven that He might throw the golden chain of divine love round our hearts and link us with Himself for ever. And He is now in heaven to attract our affections thitherward. Heaven is a most attractive place to everyone whose affections are set upon Christ, and such are all eager to run the race which has heaven for its goal. This race is not, as some suppose, the race of life; it is a moral journey — a race from earth to heaven — and those who are in it have turned their faces to heaven, and they want to get morally away from the earth and nearer to heaven.
[p. 108] The first indication that one has entered upon this race is the discovery that certain things are a hindrance to us; we begin to feel the “weights”. Some believers do not seem to have any “weights”; you never see them laying anything aside. The fact is, they have never made a start in the race. A man who was sitting still might have a heavy weight in his pocket without being conscious of it, but if he began to run he would soon feel it and want to lay it aside. The longer and faster you run the more sensitive you become to “weights”.
There is a close affinity between “weights” and “sin”, but still there are things which we could hardly speak of as “sin” which may be serious “weights”. For example, I could not say that to be on friendly terms with a half-hearted or worldly believer was exactly a sin, but it might become a heavy weight to anyone who really wanted to get on. So far as I have seen, companionship with undecided and half-hearted Christians is as spiritually injurious as friendship with unconverted people. “Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge”. I have known many Christians who have discovered that a tobacco-pipe was a “weight”, and I have not yet met a believer who felt that he had been helped heavenward by reading the newspaper. Worldly literature is a heavy “weight” to many. There is nothing in it to attract the heart to Christ in glory; it drags the mind and heart down to the earth. And, what was, perhaps, specially in the mind of the Spirit, an earthly system of religion is a great “weight”. Judaism had all the sanction of a divine origin and the splendour of an imposing ritual; it was invested with a halo of traditional glory which acted powerfully on human feelings of veneration for antiquity. Yet, for the Christian, all this was a “weight” to be laid aside, a useless encumbrance, a positive hindrance. And we have the same hindrance to lay aside today, for Christianity has been perverted into a [p. 109] modified kind of Judaism, in which people are occupied with religious things on earth, and thus hindered from running the race to heaven. It would be a great gain if all Christians were exercised to keep their hearts free from the influence of religious things on earth.
At this point I may say that some believers make a mistake in fancying they are much hindered by things which are really a help to them. They complain of the opposition they meet with at home, and of the many trials they have in connection with their daily work, and so on, and they fancy they could get on much better if their circumstances were altered. But these things are not “weights” to be laid aside; they are part of God’s helpful discipline, and it would be a spiritual loss to be without them. I have known Christians fret and chafe under their circumstances, and seek to change them, until God has given them their request, and the result has been leanness in their souls.
Then sin is to be laid aside. It is represented as a garment ever ready to entangle the feet. Sin is that which is contrary to the will of God, and if we allow it our feet are entangled and we cannot run. This is a very solemn and practical thing. There must be decision of heart to part company with that which is not according to the will of God. It is sometimes said that things will “drop off”, and this is made the excuse for a good deal of self-indulgence. They have to be laid aside. Let me exhort my younger brethren to be uncompromising in this matter. You cannot afford to hesitate or parley when sin is in question.
Jacob’s preparation for Bethel is a fine illustration of all this (Genesis 35: 1 - 4). There were “earrings” and “garments” which might have been all right in Mesopotamia, but they would not do for Bethel. These things answer to the “weights”. There were also found with them “strange gods” — things positively contrary to God — answering to “sin”. And both earrings and idols had to be hidden “under the oak which was by Shechem” before Jacob and his family were ready for “the house of God”.
Believers may go on a long time cherishing many fragments of worldliness, and often having in the background that which is known to be contrary to God. But there comes a moment in the history of the soul when the attractiveness of God’s calling lays hold upon it, and it shakes itself free from its entanglements, and clears itself of its unholy links with the world, in order to enjoy its divine privileges. Shechem is the place of uncompromising decision. It is where Joshua said to the people, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve ... as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now therefore put away the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the Lord God of Israel” (Joshua 24: 15, 23). It is at Shechem, morally speaking, that the soul sets itself and strips itself for the race. And the tree mentioned in Genesis 35: 4 and again in Joshua 24: 26 is very suggestive of the cross. The man who has been at Shechem, and has laid aside every weight and sin, can say, “God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6: 14). Beloved friends, have we reached this point? To what extend are we really set for Christ and heaven?
The motive power for all this lies in “looking off unto Jesus”. If a Christian surrenders or lays aside anything without an adequate divine motive, he will either secretly hanker after it, and probably ere long return to it, or he will take credit to himself for having given it up, and will thus become self-righteous and spiritually proud. A certain school of religious teachers at the present day make much of “surrender” as the way to attain blessing, but it ends in self-sufficiency, because the only motive that is presented for it is the acquisition of a better spiritual state, or power for service, or something of that kind. A divine motive and
[p. 111] attraction is needed if souls are to be drawn into the race and prepared to surrender things in a truly spiritual way, and this divine motive and attraction is an Object outside ourselves altogether. It is CHRIST IN GLORY.
The Blessed One who is here presented to us as “the author and finisher of faith” could say, “I have set the Lord always before me” (Psalm 16: 8). He ever found His object and motive in God. He was here altogether for God — moving in absolute divine perfection over the whole course of faith, so that there is not a step in faith’s pathway which His feet have not trodden — and this at all cost to Himself. For not only did He endure the “contradiction of sinners against himself” all through His course, but He did actually resist “unto blood striving against sin”. Nothing could move Him from that path which,
“Uncheered by earthly smiles,
Led only to the cross”. (230:3)
He would give up His life, He would give up the earth, but He would not give up the will of God. His heart was glad and His glory rejoiced, even in prospect of being cut off and having nothing here. For “the path of life” lay through death, and “fulness of joy” and “pleasures for evermore” were set before Him in resurrection. He gave up the earth where Jehovah had nothing, and His heart was set on that bright and blessed scene where everything reflected the glory of God. In view of this He endured the cross and despised the shame, and He is now “set down at the right hand of the throne of God”.
The “path of life” involves death here — it involves being nothing here. It is a very great thing to be so under the attraction of Christ and of the place where He is, that we are prepared to accept death here prepared to become nothing here. Christ endured the cross and despised the shame because the vision of His soul was filled with the glories and [p. 112] joys of a brighter world, and it is as that world — and Himself, its blessed Centre — are before our hearts that we can accept the cross here. We can accept the “chastening of the Lord” which reduces and makes nothing of us, but which in doing so makes us partakers of God’s holiness.
You may depend upon it that this is not an easy path for the flesh. Indeed, the word here translated “race” is generally rendered “conflict” or “fight”. It is a path in which all kinds of opposition will be met. And let me say, for the sake of young believers, that it is always the next step which seems most difficult. The enemy concentrates all his power at the point where the Spirit of God is seeking to lead you on. Satan’s great object is to discourage us so that we may turn aside and be hindered in our spiritual progress. He will put darkness and difficulty around the next step, whatever it is, but if you press on you will find that three-fourths of the difficulties will melt away as you advance, and the remaining fourth will be turned by the grace of God into helpful discipline for you. Then
“Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take:
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercies, and shall break
In blessings o’er your head”. (307:3)
And after all, the hindrances are nothing if compared with the blessed attraction of Christ in glory. Paul could say, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (Philippians 3: 8). This is the language of one who was pressing on in the race, commanded by the object which he had in view, and rejoicing to have laid aside the weights that once hindered him.
Endurance is needed in this race, and this can only be imparted as the goal is kept in view. We may have often known what it was to be roused up by a stirring word, but [p. 113] incentives of this kind do not give power for endurance. They are like the crack of the whip, which makes the old horse mend his pace for a few yards, but he is soon back at his old jog-trot. What is needed for endurance is to have Christ commanding the heart. Turn the tired horse’s head towards home, and see how he will go! We want more of the attraction of HOME — more of the attraction of that blessed Person who is the Centre of all the thoughts of God, and of the place where He is. This will give endurance in the race, and nothing else will.
The joys and the exaltation which are of God — faith’s pleasures and heritage — are connected with another scene. Here is the place of faith’s conflicts and endurance. Hence there are difficulties, pressures, afflictions, persecutions, and innumerable trials which are peculiar to the path of faith. The man of faith will not anticipate an easy time in this world; he knows that he is going against the stream; he counts upon having to meet opposition and to suffer reproach; he freely accepts that the path on which he has entered involves the surrender of status here, and of the honours and pleasures which attach to life in this world. In short, he is treading a path which leads morally
FROM EARTH TO HEAVEN.
He esteems it a great honour from God that he is called in some measure to suffer in the path of faith, and he is greatly strengthened to face the difficulties and opposition by the consideration of the blessed fact that all faith’s difficulties and conflicts are discipline for his profit.
In the path of faith we come into conflict with sin, and the pressure may be and often is very severe — men and circumstances may seem to be arrayed against us by satanic power; but we may be assured that God is above all and behind all that is happening, and faith would receive it all as “the chastening of the Lord” — a chastening needed “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness”. Every difficulty in the path of faith is discipline for us. It is not a weight to impede us; it is a belt to gird us so that we may run better.
It is evident that we can escape this kind of chastening if we choose to do so. It is only found in the path of faith, and unless we are in that path we shall not have it. It is written, that “if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned” (Hebrews 11: 15). A worldly believer escapes the reproach of Christ; a carnal professor knows nothing of the difficulty of going against the stream; such cannot be said to be in conflict with sin, nor are they running the race of faith. I purpose to speak later on about other kinds of chastening which we may have, but for the present I speak of it as we find it presented in Hebrews 12, where the chastening is evidently in the form of
DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN THE PATH OF FAITH.
But it may be helpful at this point to consider for a few moments the great end which God has in view in every form of chastening. It is “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness”; and though “no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Hebrews 12: 10, 11).
I should like to point out what it is to be a partaker of God’s holiness. I can only suggest the thought of it, and you may work it out for yourselves. It has often been said that Scripture gives the history of two men — Adam and Christ. And the whole history leads to the conclusion that Adam will not do for God, but CHRIST will. The summing up of the whole truth of Christianity is that there is only one Man before God for His pleasure, and that Man is CHRIST. The holiness of God necessitates the absolute setting aside of man [p. 115] in the flesh, but finds its eternal rest and satisfaction in CHRIST. We see the condemnation of sin in the flesh at the cross, and God is bent upon His children being made partakers of His holiness. There is a necessity for the practical displacement in us of that which was judged and removed from before God at the cross. Chastisement is always “for the destruction of the flesh”. It always has the effect of reducing and bringing to nothing the activity and energy of man’s will and natural powers. How His chastening exercises us to this end we may learn in three typical cases which present illustrations of the three kinds of chastening to which the children of God are subjected. The three cases I refer to are those of Paul, Job and David.
In 2 Corinthians 11: 23 - 28 we have a long list of sufferings which came upon Paul because of his being in the path of faith. And in the following chapter he speaks of “a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure”, which was given to him because “the abundance of the revelations” might otherwise have lifted hint up in spiritual pride. Paul’s sufferings were the consequence of his devotedness and energy in the path of faith, or they were rendered necessary because of the exceptional favour which vouchsafed to him peculiar and blessed revelations. And I think we do not fail to see the result of the chastening in the spiritual history of the beloved apostle.
Paul must have been a man of great natural energy, and yet he was brought to glory in his weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over him. He had to learn that if “a man in Christ” could be caught up to the third heaven, it was a man “IN CHRIST” who could go there. As a man in the flesh, he had to find himself still subject to the terrible buffetings of “a messenger of Satan”. And the practical effect of the buffeting was that, as to himself, he was conscious of nothing; but weakness. All the energy that belonged to him naturally was reduced. Do you think that any of us [p. 116] like this process? I am sure we do not. Nothing but the present “supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” — the present ministry to our hearts of the grace of Christ — will enable us to bear it. “My grace is sufficient for thee”, said the Lord to His tried and devoted servant. The grace of the Lord is sufficient to make us willing to be weak and small. And when, by His grace, we are willing to be weak, we learn the blessed secret that “my strength is made perfect in weakness”.
Discipline breaks down what is of the flesh, but when we are willing, through the grace of Christ, that it should be broken down, we find that instead of being spiritually weakened we have gained immensely. The knowledge of this enabled Paul to say, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake for when I am weak, then am I strong”. Thus, conscious of nothing but weakness in himself, he found all-sufficient grace and strength in Christ. Often when a caravan is crossing the desert some member of the company will fall sick, and will at last become so feeble that they are obliged to leave him behind to die. And in such cases they will often stretch a little tent over the dying man, to shield him from the fierce rays of the sun until he breathes his last. Some such figure was present to the apostle’s mind when he said, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may tabernacle over me”. He says, in effect, “I am just a mass of weakness, without a single pulsation of power in myself, but I accept this weakness with joy because it becomes the occasion for the power of Christ to tabernacle over me”. It is perfectly lovely. The strength and energy of Paul as a man in the flesh were displaced by the grace and strength of Christ. He thus became a partaker of God’s holiness — the broken and reduced, but happy vessel of divine grace and power.
[p. 117] And we cannot read the epistle to the Philippians without seeing the gracious effect of a life of discipline in the school of God. The complete setting aside of his own will; the absorbing expectation and hope that CHRIST might be magnified in his body, whether by life or death; the lovely spiritual affections which shine out in so many ways; indeed, the whole epistle, so far as it presents the spirit and character of the writer, is one beautiful cluster of “the peaceable fruit of righteousness”.
A second form of chastening comes to us in the way of
THINGS COMMON TO MEN,
of which we get a full illustration in the history of Job. I think Job had to endure every kind of suffering that is common to men. He had to taste the sorrow of bereavement, of the loss of property, and of terrible personal affliction. But God’s end in it all was that Job might profit and become a partaker of His holiness. Job had a good deal of what we might call his own holiness before, but not until the end of the book do we find him really in the line of God’s holiness. Like many others, he had connected the fruit of God’s grace with himself, and in a certain way had taken credit to himself for that which divine grace had wrought in him. There had been much in him that was the fruit of grace, but it had turned into a kind of spiritual self-satisfaction.
In connection with Job’s history we learn a principle of the greatest importance. That is, he never got the good of the chastening until he found himself in the presence of the Lord. It was when Paul turned to the Lord that he got the profit and benefit of his chastening, and I believe it is ever thus. It is in the presence of the Lord that we get the good of chastening. One has seen people go through great sorrow and suffering without getting much good from it, and I think in such cases there is no real turning to the Lord about it — no true recognition of His hand in it. Hence the Holy Ghost says, “Despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth”. It is of great importance that we should recognize the hand and heart of God in any chastening that comes upon us. This puts us, as it were, in His presence, to learn there the profitable lessons He would teach us.
Job, in the presence of God, says, “I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. Now he has learned his lesson; he has discovered that man after the flesh is an object to be abhorred; he is now a partaker of God’s holiness. And the peaceable fruit of righteousness comes out, in that he prays for his friends. He conducts himself toward them according to divine grace, in spite of all their hard speeches. He thus becomes to them the practical exponent of grace — a subject with which they were very little acquainted.
There is a third kind of chastening, which comes upon us in the form of
CORRECTION FOR SIN.
For an illustration of this, and of its effect, I should like you to consider the history of David. You have, no doubt, noticed that the Spirit of God has brought together, in 2 Samuel 22, 2 Samuel 23, two of David’s songs. One belongs to his early days, for he “spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, and out of the hand of Saul”. The other contains “the last words of David”. What a contrast there is between the two! In the first it is all triumph, he is exulting in what God has done for him; but in the last, as he thinks of the character of the one who is to rule over men in the fear of God, he has to say sorrowfully, “Although my house be not so with God”. Forty years of discipline come between these two songs. How suggestive is this contrast!
Many of us have probably known what it was to rejoice [p. 119] in the grace of God without having apprehended very much of the true character of the flesh. It has often been noticed that where there is the greatest exuberance of joy in young converts, there is often a levity which fails to take into account that the flesh is unchanged. In such cases the grace of God is taken up in a self-confident way; there is very little self-distrust, or sense of weakness and dependence. And the inevitable consequence is a fall, or a succession of falls, that gradually bring home to the consciences of believers their utter weakness and incapacity as in the flesh.
We not only learn thus by our falls and back-slidings, but oftentimes these become the occasion of direct chastening on God’s part, and we may have to suffer under God’s government for years, or for a lifetime, the consequences of our sin and folly. David fell into a sin, the consequences of which he had to suffer all his life. He repented, and his sin was put away, but he had to suffer its governmental consequences all his life. “The sword shall never depart from thine house”. But all this chastening — solemn as it was in itself, and sad as was the conduct which necessitated it — turned to David’s profit, and in the lowly and chastened spirit of his “last words” we can see him a partaker of God’s holiness. For if he has to say, “my house be not so with God”, he has another Person in view, of whom he can say, “He shall be as the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain”. He had learned to distrust everything connected with his own house; but he had also learned the preciousness and beauty of CHRIST, and the stability of God’s purpose in Him. “Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure: for this is all my salvation, and all my desire”. God’s purposes secured in Christ were now not only all his salvation, but all his desire. Thus he became a partaker of God’s holiness.
[p. 120] Then, again, when he numbered the people (2 Samuel 24), he was not thinking of God, but of David. It was to make much of David that he would have his people numbered, even though their moral condition was such that they were not willing to pay the half-shekel of redemption money, which was requisite to avert a plague (Exodus 30: 12). God would only have His people numbered on the ground of redemption, and it would appear from the result that the people were not in a moral condition to take this ground when David numbered them. As a consequence of the numbering of the people, a pestilence broke out amongst them, and seventy thousand people died. This was the terrible governmental consequence of David’s sin and foolishness. It is true that the whole moral state of Israel was brought to light, and God’s judgment came upon it, but the pride of David’s heart was the thing that gave occasion to this solemn visitation.
Nor was the chastening lost upon him, for when he saw the angel that smote the people, he said, “Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against my father’s house” (2 Samuel 24: 17). When in vainglorious pride he had said, “Number ye the people, that I may know the number of the people”, he was far from being a partaker of God’s holiness. He was in a spirit of self-importance — in a state of sin. But when he said, “I have sinned, and I have done wickedly ... Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me”, he recognized himself as nothing but a fit subject for divine judgment. He was then a partaker of God’s holiness — morally delivered, as the effect of divine chastening, from the sinful self-importance which had led him astray. He had to confess, “Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept thy word”. (Psalm 119: 67). And he could also add, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalm 119: 71).
But it is perfectly lovely to see how all the chastening which came upon David had its blessed “afterward”. So that, though he had long years of affliction and sorrow, in which the governmental consequences of his sins came upon him in a terrible succession of calamities, yet, after all, his sun had a glorious setting. Instructed and humbled by all the chastening, he is found at the end of his days laying himself out for the building of the house of God (1 Chronicles 22: 5, 14; 1 Chronicles 29:2-5; 1 Chronicles 29:13-18).
There is something exquisitely beautiful in all this, if we look at it as the result of God’s chastening. How entirely the sin that occasioned the chastening, and the sorrow that accompanied it, are eclipsed by the magnitude and preciousness of “the peaceable fruit of righteousness” which it yielded in due season! There is no more lovely picture in the Word of God than that of David in his last days — laying himself out for the house of God — rejoicing to give back to God everything that God had bestowed upon him; in short, expending himself and all his treasures for a work which was altogether for the glory of God, and of which another was to have the credit.
I trust we may be helped by what has been before us at this time to see the character and object and result of “the chastening of the Lord”. It is a great thing for us to understand God’s ways with us. I am sure there is great encouragement in the thought of divine chastening if we apprehend it aright. Hands often hang down, and knees are feeble, because we do not know the secret of God’s ways with us. We get discouraged and depressed by things which are really most needful and profitable for us. If our hearts are set to run in the way of holiness, all the difficulties we encounter in the path of faith are the needed discipline to remove that which hinders our spiritual prosperity. And if we are passed through trials and sufferings such as are common to men, we must not suppose that they come to us by chance; too often such things are taken as a matter of course, the Lord’s [p. 122] hand is not distinctly owned in them, and this is really despising the chastening of the Lord. Chastening does not profit us until we hear the voice of the Lord in it. Then, again, if we suffer, as many of us do in one way or another — chastening for sin and folly — let us not be discouraged and depressed by it, but rather let us rejoice that the love of God is set upon our being “partakers of his holiness”. After all, nothing is destroyed or weakened by chastening but the flesh. Regarding ourselves as subjects of the work of God, we are in no wise hindered or impeded by God’s chastening; on the contrary, we are immensely and divinely helped by it. We cannot derive profit, and God cannot derive pleasure, from what is of the flesh; and God’s holy discipline reduces that which is altogether unprofitable, so that we may not be hindered from true “profit”.
No greater end could be proposed to us, and none more attractive to a spiritual mind, than that we should be “partakers of his holiness”. And every divine chastening has its “afterward”, its blessed answer and recompense even here. I believe a moment comes in the history of every saint when he comes in view of “the end of the Lord”, and in the estimation of his heart the end reached is well worth the painful course which has had to be travelled over to reach it. We may have to wander “in the wilderness in a solitary way”, we may by the way, like those of old, be “hungry and thirsty”, and our souls may faint in us, but when we reach the end which God has in view — the “city of habitation” — we see that the way by which He has led us is “the right way”. It may be a “way” rendered necessary by our sin and folly, but it is, after all, a “right way”, and we learn eternal lessons in it, the profit and blessing of which I believe God makes our hearts conscious of even here. In result we become partakers of God’s holiness.
I knew a young servant of the Lord whose career of usefulness was suddenly cut short, as men would say, by an attack [p. 123] of chronic rheumatism which affected every joint in his body, and reduced him to perfect helplessness. After he had lain in bed, quite unable even to feed himself, for about ten years, I asked him one day what he thought of the Lord’s dealings with him. A heavenly smile shone upon his face as he replied, “I can do nothing but praise Him for it all”. I think he had come in view of “the end of the Lord”. He had got the recompense even here. This is a blessed result of chastening which nothing else could impart, an after-yielding of the peaceable fruit of righteousness, which is more than a recompense for the suffering which precedes it. The whole secret comes out when the beloved apostle says, “We which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh”.