PURGED OR JUDGED
[p. 292] PURGED OR JUDGED
The sure way to discover and elicit the hindrance and the nature of the hindrance to the truth which God has revealed, or that which He is reviving at any time, is by simply pressing it. The obstacle to its reception and adoption, as that which blocks up a narrow passage, must then be discovered and encountered, in whatever form it may exist. God reveals His mind and will, and the way this is received discloses the real state of man. The mind of man is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be; and the effect which follows from pressing the truth and mind of God at any time is always the same, namely, some are purged by it, and the rest are judged. † It is evident this must be the case. Let us bear in mind that man is in his nature opposed to the will of God, and that where the nature is unjudged and unmortified by the Spirit of God, Satan can use it in direct antagonism to God.
But how is it, one may say, that man, if thus opposed in purpose and intent to the mind of God, seems often in some sort to accept truth and to range himself under it? The answer is simple. Man will accept and bow to anything which exalts man as man; and assuredly christian ethics do this, inculcating high elevated relations between man and man, and thus contributing to man’s sense of his own dignity. Hence they meet with approbation even from those who recklessly deny the author of them. It is only when the truth is pressed as God’s word to man that there can be the savour of His knowledge, which is to one the savour of death unto death, and to the other the
†By ‘judged,’ I mean one openly proved to be unwilling to accept the leading of God’s Spirit.
[p. 293] savour of life unto life. To elicit the real state of man’s mind regarding God’s mind, the truth must be so pressed that God’s claim is paramount and man convicted in His presence. This man naturally rebels against; and hence it is that, as truth is plainly insisted on, the nature of the hindrance which opposes its reception is in every case touched or elicited.
But we must draw a distinction between those who have no link to God at all in their souls, and those who have, but who are choked and embarrassed by their associations and the indulgence of nature; and also those who are inwardly sighing for strength to escape from a state of things which is intolerable to them. There are these three classes of persons to be found in the professing company of God’s people on the earth whenever general declension has set in. The first we have noticed are merely professors, and are in nature opposed to God’s truth and mind; the second, not in soul opposed to it, but because of circumstances and associations, warped and disobedient; the third, tried and oppressed, but ready and longing for divine light and guidance.
Now declension cannot set in unless there be an imperfect reception of the truth; for it is the carelessness and inaccuracy with which it is held which, like breaches in a garrison, open a way for the entrance of those who assume the guise of the converted, but who are in heart opposed. It is most important to bear in mind that if the truth of God were faithfully maintained, no one not of His Spirit could long submit to it. True, the good seed may be received for a time in the evil soil, but the surest way to expose that it has no root, is by the increased faithfulness and self-surrender of those who have received the word in truth; for if it be maintained in any careless way, opportunity is afforded for the indifferent, mere professors, to follow in the wake and company of the true-hearted. What is to stay, order, or determine the [p. 294] course of man, but the mind of God? God has revealed His mind. If this be imperfectly presented, then the standard by which everything of man must be judged is lowered, and error escapes; therefore it is the insisting on the truth of God which the Holy Spirit authenticates and confirms to the soul, which alone exposes all the elements of nature which clog and hinder souls from adopting and following His will. Hence when the testimony is revived, it is always with this effect: some are purged from the confusion, and the rest judged as immersed in it. I think the servants of Christ ought to lay it to heart how far they are accountable before God for the low slumbering state of the church. It was when the servants went down and did eat and drink with the drunken that the kingdom of God was likened unto ten virgins who slumbered and slept, and the two great evils in the professing body took place. Had the servants done their duty, had the wise virgins kept lively and wakeful, walking according to their vocation, the foolish would have shrunk from association with them. When God revived His work, and there was a cry made, the effect was evident enough: the wise were purged and the foolish were judged.
Now among the third class of persons I have mentioned above, the really true-hearted, there is often a complaining that we are in the midst of evil association and the like; but while ready and desiring to escape from it, they do not see that the only way to do so is by becoming practical exponents of the truth committed to them, in the power of which they would be purged from their false associates, and the false associates would be judged. There is really no other way to emerge from the confusion, and it is a way in which, as the difficulties increase, the moral power of overcoming them is known also. Thus Paul exhorts Timothy that the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. But what does he then enjoin [p. 295] on him as his duty and the only remedy in such a state of things? “Do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry”. He has not to be a careless, unexercised servant, mixing himself up with the world, but to make full proof of his ministry. Thus also does Jude address the faithful themselves: “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit”, as the sole and adequate remedy and power to counteract the confusion in which they were.
It is plain enough that the upholding of the truth of God, not only in His grace and mercy towards man, but in the scope and purpose of His own mind as He counsels and devises, is that which alone can separate His people from hindering associations, and that when they simply walk in it, they are purged from them through the power of it, while those from whom they are distanced are at the same time judged by it. A double effect follows, blessed to the faithful, but disastrous to the blind and wilful. It is after this manner that God effects deliverance for His people from time to time, when declension and intermixture have set in because His mind and counsel have been departed from or feebly maintained. Thus was it at the very first, when the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and took of them wives as they chose. When the consequences of this confusion (for it is always the case that the good degrading itself to the evil, the high to the low, leads to a greater corruption than evil by itself) were manifest to Noah, as God’s servant - the one used by Him to effect deliverance out of such a state of things - God’s mind is declared; and through it he was purged, as we know, and the rest judged. How simple and unique the principle! There is one course and only one for the faithful on earth, and that is to maintain the truth of God committed to them, as we shall not fail to see if we pay ordinary attention to the way souls have allowed [p. 296] themselves to slip away from the distinct counsel of God, while they preserved the appearance of being His witnesses. For instance, Israel for 490 years, and even in the days of David, neglected to keep the seventh or sabbatical year. Alas! how often without noticing it at the time do we drop important parts of truth, which, in years to come, bears its sad consequences.
Now the point of moment for us to examine is the mode and manner in which souls are diverted or hindered from accepting the deliverance which God offers. There is no difficulty in seeing why an unbeliever cannot yield himself to the mind of God, when it is simply and distinctly pressed on him. This is class 1. But the question of interest and anxiety to us is, What would hinder saints from adopting and following the counsel and will of God? What, in short, is the cause of the difference as to the reception of it between No. 2 and No. 3 of the classes I have mentioned? It is, I believe, that the one has been prepared by exercise and discipline for the acceptance of increased light; while the others, on the contrary, are by their habits and self-indulgence so warped, and so blinded by nature, that they are unable to accept it. We learn from Scripture that at no time did all who professed to be God’s people, and who had taken their place as such, accept and follow the word of God pressed on them in order to revive His name and power among them. And hence the effect of that word was to mark off some as faithful, the rest as unprepared. It purged the one and judged the other. Now the cause of this unpreparedness is not because of the difficulty of the course prescribed by the call of God in order to revive His testimony at such a time, but because of the habits and tastes which have been allowed and fostered previously to the call. If there be any unjudged selfishness which I allow to preponderate, I am unable to let the Word have its true [p. 297] force with me, and I lose it. Hence it is said, “Lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God”. There is a preparedness of heart for rejecting the truth offered, as there is for accepting the truth when presented. When a strain is made on anyone, the strongest element, good or bad, is tested and declared. If you fail in the day of adversity your strength is small, simply because if you have any strength at all it will be called into exercise when the pressure comes fully on you. Many a one floats on as solvent and capable who collapses into insignificance and shame when times are trying. Difficult times test and bring out latent strength and ability, according as it is there; and then also will the dominant purpose be disclosed.
This comes out in various ways. Mere contention will oftentimes disclose it, which, though it happens unexpectedly, is ordered of God to test and prove His servants at the time. The contention between Paul and Barnabas confirmed and established Paul in the right course, while it exposed how Barnabas had previously suffered from association with the Jewish element connived at by Peter (Galatians 2), and when the strain came, he betrayed how much he had been injured by it; Acts 15: 37 - 39. Had there been no contention they might have gone on apparently smoothly; but the contention brings to light the strength of the truth in Paul, and exposes Barnabas, who, having allowed himself to tamper with Peter’s inconsistency, is unprepared for divine action when the call for it comes; the result is, he separates from Paul and sails to Cyprus. It is thus that the moral atmosphere is purified. When Abram’s herdsmen contend with Lot’s herdsmen, the faith of Abram is elicited, and at the same moment Lot’s worldliness is disclosed and finds a vent for itself, so that the future course of each and their relation one to another is determined. When the Philistines contend with Isaac and eventually [p. 298] drive him from their territory, the moral greatness of Isaac is made apparent to Abimelech and he follows him into his separation, because he sees that the Lord is assuredly with him. What the king did not see while Isaac was mixed up with them, he does not fail to see when Isaac is purged and separate; and in following Isaac he acknowledges his superiority, while he admits the deficiency of his own nation. The weakness of the one is exposed while the moral power of the other is distinctly expressed. Neither appears in his true light and character until there is a strain; the demand elicits the good of the one and the evil of the other. Thus the good are purged and the evil judged.
At first David and Saul seemed to harmonise; but when the test came, and the conflict arose, and as it increased, the moral virtue of the one was exhibited, while the treachery and baseness of the other were open and palpable. The more the evil pressed against the good, as set forth fully in our Lord’s life here, the more significantly and finely did His excellency shine forth and strike the line between what was of God and what was against Him. Those who followed Him were purged, the rest judged. It is the conflict of the opposing forces which elicits the qualities of each. Hence when there is slumbering, the foolish virgins appear similar to the wise; but when the wise take their true place and maintain the truth by responding to the cry, separation instantly ensues; the good is marked off distinct and separate, and the evil marked off as evil and worthless; “the good figs, very good; and the evil, very evil, that cannot be eaten”, Jeremiah 24: 3. Principles are disclosed according to their true nature and intent. Hence there is always with supineness a feeble demonstration of power, as there is corresponding feebleness of opposition to it, or rather of the virus of the opposition. But when a stir comes, the slumberers are disturbed, and elements arrange themselves according to their order; the true and good are [p. 299] strengthened by their own, and the evil are supported and swollen by their own. The closer the conflict, the more clearly and fully are the moral qualities, the purposes, and aims of both discovered and patent.
But besides this - and it is a solemn fact - it is when the conflict occurs, when the day of testing comes, that the causes and habits of life, which have prepared and led a man to oppose the truth, or which have blinded him against his right course, are found out. We often forget that we are weaving blinds for our own eyes by not studiously cultivating the activities of divine life. We often deceive ourselves by concluding that because we steer clear of certain evils we are preserved in capability and fitness for service in the field. But this is not enough; we must walk in the Spirit. Life is a positive thing; it does not merely sever one from certain carnalities, it declares its own virtue and power, and thus prepares and qualifies one for any emergency. He that lacketh these things - he with whom the activities of life are not present - is blind, short-sighted (see 2 Peter 1). If the activities of our new existence in Christ are not maintained, we cannot be proof against the direful influences of this evil scene. There can be no preservation for us but by the power of the Spirit rebutting the antagonistic and damaging elements. Now if we grow blind and short-sighted because of our neglect of these, or from habits of selfishness which we always drop into when they are not displaced by those of grace, it is evident that when a stir comes, when we are told the Philistines are on us, when the conflict occurs, we shall be like Samson, unable to meet the foe; and like him we shall have to say that we wist not that the Lord had departed from us. And still more: our inability to act in the crisis, discloses the cause of our weakness. With Samson it was that he had allowed his hair to be shorn off by Delilah; with Barnabas, that he had connived at Peter’s dissimulation. In neither would [p. 300] the feebleness have been found out had there not been a call for action. Saints think at times that they have nothing to do but to shake themselves like Samson and to be free when the strain for decision and action comes upon them, forgetting that the influences of their previous course have warped and damaged them; nay, that if the activities of life are not kept up, they will be incapable - they will be blind and short-sighted. It is not merely that they must be proper and orderly, it is much more. There must be the continual “adding”. “Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity”, 2 Peter 1: 5 - 7. I must be active, growing in my new existence, or I shall become short-sighted. The more fully grace occupies me, the more simply and effectively will it express itself by me, just as wine long in bottle imparts to it a bouquet peculiar to itself.
When Israel refused to go up and possess the land, they let out the real thing which hindered; they had still in their memory the fleshpots of Egypt, and therefore were unable to accept the word which Caleb and Joshua were ready and prepared to respond to. Thus was it also with Demas, who “loved the present age”, 2 Timothy 4: 10. The greater the pressure, the more difficult the time, the more simply must the soul be set for God. It is then that the live coal from the altar is needed by the one who would stand for God. Then it is that we must put on the whole armour of God. “Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things”. Hence the apostle adds, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest.. . when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway”. I may be like one of the 9,700 who followed Gideon, who were neither fearful nor afraid, ready in courage for anything; and yet when tested [p. 301] by the mercies here, the things which address themselves to man’s nature, they are unfit for service; and out of 10,000 only 300 are temperate enough to follow Gideon - to understand or walk according to the Lord’s mind. This is very solemn; but does it not explain the inability of many in the present day to take advanced ground, while it accounts for others falling back after having taken it? The action, the fruit of truth, is the same in every age; some are purged and the rest judged. Some are marked off and girded up to be more devoted to the Lord, while the rest drop more openly into the current of the world and are lost in its systems and ways.
One word more as to the third class; those who are oppressed and tried by the state of things in which they are, and who are prepared and sure to be delivered as accepting the call of God.
The “good ground” always receives and fructifies the truth presented to it; it is the “honest and good heart”. It is not the amount of intelligence or of usefulness, but it is the honest and true heart prepared by the Spirit of God to accept the word of God. Such an one knows the voice of the Shepherd. He may be very ignorant, like Mary Magdalene, but he has, like her, an honest and true heart; he has a taste for the good seed, for the truth, and there is nothing to prevent its acceptance. Thus it is the poor of the flock, devoted in heart, who are ever ready to follow the call of God when He revives His testimony among His people. I do not mean those merely poor in circumstances, but those who are of that character of soul; of a broken and contrite heart — such are always guided. “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way”. It is easy enough to see it. The one who really trembles at the word of God will accept whatever of it is given, be it little or much. It is all a question of condition of soul before God. There is a great deal put down to the [p. 302] abstruseness of fresh truth and the want of clearness in the delivery of it, which in reality is only attributable to the want of that state of soul which eagerly bows itself to all that is of God. You will never find souls bow to increased light who have slighted or been unmoved by lesser light. The Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, not being baptised with the baptism of John; but the publicans justified God, being baptised of him. And it is a well-known fact that the most earnest and devoted in the higher lines of truth have been distinguished for faithfulness and zeal when they knew much less, and were in far lower lines. It simply turns on condition of soul. The Simeons and Annas are sure to be led on and instructed; the Mary Magdalenes, no matter how great their ignorance, are sure not to be left in ignorance, but will be led on through grace to the fulness and blessedness of the truth; and not only so, but with accompanying power to testify of it. If we have but the “good ground” in the heart, we need not fear but that every truth that is given will in mercy be cast therein by His own blessed hand, who nurtures and cherishes each of His members. Nothing can be surer than this! Be the truth cast forth where it may, all that have honest and true hearts share in it, be they at the antipodes from one another as to place.
But besides this readiness, like good ground, to receive and imbibe every word of God presented, there is another remarkable quality belonging to those who follow the Lord and His word. It is their sensitiveness as to the company they keep; this may be termed exclusiveness, but it is in reality a desire to be for the Lord and His truth in this day of surrounding defilement. Thus they shrink from everything not of the truth, even as a Jew, who, in accordance with the word delivered to him in his day, would not eat with a gentile, and would shake off the dust of his feet when he entered his own land. Even as Daniel and his [p. 303] companions would not eat of the king’s meat, so he who would maintain the truth of God now, must abide by it, even as he is enjoined, “do not receive him into the house, and greet him not”. God’s principle of separation to Himself has been the same in all dispensations. The whole regime of Israel was a holy exclusiveness; and now the meek, the teachable, those who bow to the word and are ready to be formed by it, will be found the most careful about their associations. The good ground is not only ‘good,’ it is also ‘honest,’ and hence it shrinks from unhallowed intercourse. It does not turn away from the weak if true, but it does from the strong and the busy if not true. And by true I do not mean merely true to certain doctrines, but true in their sensibilities as to the holiness which becometh thy house, O Lord, for ever! One without this sensibility is never prepared to accept the leadings of God’s Spirit; and hence, when others are led on and thus purged, he is judged. If Moses had not had this sensibility, he could not have seen the course of God’s Spirit when Israel had made a calf and worshipped it; Exodus 32: 26, 27. If Phinehas had not had this sensibility, he, a priest, would not have grasped the sword and have done strange work for him, by which the plague was stayed, and the covenant of peace was ensured to him and to his seed for ever; Numbers 25: 7 - 13. If Ezra had not had this sensibility, he would not have rent his garments and plucked off his hair when he heard the people of Israel had intermarried with the gentiles. And if Paul had not had this sensibility, he would not have withstood Peter to the face, and the truth of the gospel would have been risked to the church; Galatians 2: 11. And, above and beyond all human instances, how do we find this sensibility in its perfection in the Lord Himself, who could rebuke Peter even so far as to say, “Get thee behind me, Satan”, when he, in the tenderness of human nature, would have spared his Lord the [p. 304] terrible judgment by which only sin could be put away, because he savoured not of the things of God, but of the things of men?
Can anything be simpler than that, if I am really true-hearted for Christ, the first desire of my heart must be to keep myself separate from everything in word and deed unsuited to Him? Hence, when words which “eat as doth a canker” (2 Timothy 2) - not merely leaven - were allowed to be babbled in the assembly, the apostle tells us that the vessel to honour and fit for the Master’s use is not the gifted one, not the laborious one, not the amiable one, but the purged one, the one who purges himself from all association with the rest who tolerate that state of things. I do say, and I anxiously press it on the hearts of saints, that there is a great want of this sensibility in this day, and I believe many souls are delayed and hindered from blessing from the want of it. The testimony of the Holy Spirit is that if I tender an ordinary salutation to an unsound teacher, I am partaker of his evil deed; 2 John 10,11. The spirit of indifference to Christ which leads me to do so generates in me practically a similarity of deeds; if I allow the flesh, I allow the works of the flesh, and it cannot be otherwise. If I am absolutely for Christ, while, on the one hand, everything and everyone that would subserve to His honour will be valued and welcomed, on the other, everything disparaging to Him will be refused and repudiated. There must be this twofold action - the soul tremblingly eager to hear and to follow every word of God, and at the same time increasingly sensitive to keep separate personally and in association from everything unworthy of Him in doctrine or in practice.
And this will not be as with the Pharisees and Sadducees, who opposed because they were blind, and condemned what they could not correct. This is just the difference between those true to Christ, and those who oppose because they are blind. The one [p. 305] true to Christ, while he repudiates anything trenching on the dignity of Christ, always, because he is purged from that which he repudiates, exhibits in his own walk more temperateness, because Christ is with him as a defender of the faith; and he is satisfied, because hereby he ensures the company and co-operation of the “pure in heart”, those who are distinctly for Christ; while the one who opposes as a Pharisee or a Sadducee drops down into a lower order of things, and seeks support and countenance from the mixed multitude, the unpurged; from those to whom, if he had maintained his separation to Christ, he would never have had recourse.
May the Lord’s beloved ones be up and doing; loving one another with a pure heart fervently; washing one another’s feet; that is, so ministering His word in speech and practice that the stains of the world and its associations may be removed from them; and may all of us be more ready to follow every leading of His Spirit, knowing that we shall be purged if we follow Him, but judged, if on any account we are unprepared to do so.