THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE MADE PLAIN

^[p. 95] THE WAY OF THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE MADE PLAIN

The people of God in every age have been tried and worried by the enemy. All that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. The more faithfully any one maintains the testimony of God for the time, the more he will be opposed; but inasmuch as it is God’s testimony, it can only be defended by His power. No one could deny that the blessed God would defend His own, yet oftentimes His people are as powerless in their attempts to do so as if God had forsaken them. As Gideon said in his day, “Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this befallen us?” Judges 6: 13. There is a readiness in the truly zealous to assert that God has withdrawn His support when the enemy has done wickedly in the sanctuary, and is succeeding on every side; and as this is accepted, there is necessarily a hanging down of the hands and the cry, “O Lord, what shall I say, when Israel turneth their backs before their enemies!” and finally, “what wilt thou do unto thy great name?” There is an implied doubt as to God’s power to preserve the testimony, and indirectly the impression is that the power is no longer available. There is therefore often a contentedness to go on in this state of reproach, like Israel in the days of Haggai, when they said, “The time is not come, the time that the Lord’s house should be built”. They were contented to let the house of the Lord lie waste. Joshua and Gideon ascribe the cause of their weakness to the absence of God’s help, as if He had ceased to be on the behalf of His people. They do not attach blame to themselves. They expostulate with the Lord as if He had left them uncared for, and they have to be told that the cause is entirely with themselves; in a word, that God’s power is available if they are in a state to receive it. Light is sown for the righteous. There are two fundamental principles which ^[p. 96] we must always maintain: first, that the power of God is always at hand, but secondly, that it is only available to those who are in a state to receive it. How could God lend His power to support the wrong? On the other hand, His eyes are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers; “Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken”; “the righteous Lord loveth righteousness”.

There is, alas, evidence enough everywhere of the absence of power on behalf of the people of the Lord in this day. The Joshuas and the Gideons who do not see the church, supplicate and mourn before God as if He were to blame, and as if the Holy Spirit had departed like the cloud from the house of God. Prayer meetings and humiliation meetings are proposed as if God required to be entreated to support the name of Christ on the earth. The real cause of the suspension or abeyance of the Holy Spirit is that He cannot countenance those who are defiled; and hence what is required is not prayer — calling upon God to help us — but self-examination — “great searchings of heart”. The moment that there is a mistake or any departure from God’s order, whether individually or in the assembly, then we should at once conclude that the lack is not at all on God’s part, but that there is something on our side which hinders the Holy Spirit from supporting us.

It is the same in the individual. If I grieve the Spirit He will not help me until I have renounced and repented of the defilement which I have contracted. Christendom has imbibed the idea that the Holy Spirit is not here because there is no evidence of His presence and power. If we are not decidedly assured of the presence of the Holy Spirit we have lost faith in the plainest scripture. The Holy Spirit was sent here consequent on the departure of Christ. “If I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you”. We must start, then, with the undeniable fact that the Holy Spirit is here, sent from the Father in Christ’s name to comfort and support the saints here, and also sent by Christ, as He said, to “testify of me”. The Holy Spirit being here for these two services, it is clear that if either of them is in any degree not fulfilled or in abeyance, we cannot ascribe the cause of the restriction or lack to the Holy Spirit. He cannot deny Himself. The cause, then, must be on our side, if we do not know His power and comfort in both services. The sun shines, and if I cannot avail myself of it the cause is in my eye and not in the sun. The believer who does not enjoy the Holy Spirit, sent of the Father in Christ’s name, must evidently be at fault, and suffers unspeakable loss; and surely, when by his unbelief or unrighteousness he has been refused the cheer of the Holy Spirit in this blessed way, he must also be unfit to be helped by Him in His other service, namely, to “testify of me”.

The question, then, which should arise whenever there is any withdrawal of His power and comfort is, How have I (or we) grieved or hindered the Spirit of God? The fault is not on His side, but on mine. I believe every mistake we make is to be attributed to our being out of communion. We have grieved the Spirit of God, and He will not help us, and often we are not conscious of His being in abeyance, (for He does not leave us) until, like Samson, we have no power to act on generally the very next occasion. Samson “wist not that the Lord was departed from him”. He had been unrighteous; how could the Lord help him? The more distinctly we are in the path of faith, the more promptly and manifestly will He refuse to aid us when we err from it, in order to expose to us our declension and induce us to search out the cause of His reserve. Whether it be an individual believer or an assembly, assuredly it will be found that the more faithful they were, the more openly and painfully were they exposed when they lacked integrity of heart. We see Lot saved as by fire, but we see his daughters, who had married in Sodom, and his wife, who looked back, consumed. God is not a respecter of ^[p. 98] persons. He judges according to every man’s work and “the way of the righteous is made plain”. If one were walking in communion the snare would be detected at once. “Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird”. But if it is not detected before we are taken in it, the Lord leaves us to find out our own helplessness without Him. And in the interval, before we discover the root, Peter-like — however the heart is drawn out or restored to the Lord, as his was — we are out of communion; we are not in the current of His will. This is the most marked evidence of the Spirit’s abeyance. Like Peter, there may be a curious mixture — real confidence in Christ’s love, and immense energy in work not according to His mind.

We do not sufficiently regard the rewarding openly. If I grieve the Spirit in secret by promoting, say, worldliness in my family, while seeking to get the credit of the opposite, surely the Lord will reward me openly. He will answer me according to the idol in my heart. (Ezekiel 14: 4.) The more we accept unqualified dependence on the Lord, the more are we openly exposed if we depart from it. For instance, if a man undertakes to serve the Lord, counting upon Him for support, if there be simple faith he may have trying moments, yet he will have a blessed time. But if he wavers and looks to man, the Spirit will not help him and he will be exposed. If a man desires to be acknowledged as one prominent in service, while secretly indulging in any worldliness which if known would disparage him as a servant, his way will surely not be made plain, and there will be a lack of confidence, though possibly no one can say why. The Lord does not support him. Not only will one’s sin find one out, but the darkness of soul, the intemperance of manner, the rashness, the lack of power in prayer and every ministry, is traceable to a grieving of the Spirit and a departure from communion which has never been judged. I know nothing that I am more assured of or that keeps me in more fear than the simple fact that if ^[p. 99] by any kind of levity I check the Spirit, generally in the very next act I shall betray myself; I am reaping what I had sown. It is to be noted that it is in the quality for which you have been most esteemed that you will fail most when out of communion. Moses speaks unadvisedly with his lips. David numbers the people. If I have a distinct gift of grace, in that very gift I shall fail most if I grieve the Spirit. If a man has any special or remarkable gift, in and by that will he be most exposed. Thus the man of faith may use his faith entirely and altogether for the world; and the man gifted to teach — as has occurred, alas, hundreds of times — may use his gift to the hindrance of the truth. Often we find a reputedly honest man baffled, and his way not plain, because God sees the latent defect, that with a great deal of open honesty there is not candour of heart. Perhaps there is nothing so hard as not to appear anything but what you are. If you do so to your advantage, you will some day be found out; but if to your disadvantage, there is no doubt that He who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins will one day vindicate you.

I have dwelt long and largely on the individual exercises and discipline, because I see there is no use proposing to an assembly to examine itself. The individual must do so. Joshua has to cast lots until at length man by man is taken. No believer is really better naturally than his brother; but the one who lives in continual self-judgment, and is afraid of the plague of his own heart, will be kept in righteousness; and he will see his way when others are tossed to and fro, and are as perverse, if not as staggering, as a drunken man. The man who sees his way walks out boldly and firmly on it. And the path of the just, or righteous, shineth more and more unto the perfect day. God stands by him also. “I have not seen the righteous forsaken”. “The Lord stood with me”, said the apostle at the close, when all forsook him; “the righteous are bold as a lion”. The prayer of a righteous man availeth much, and Satan is frustrated before the breastplate of righteousness. “So that a man shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: verily he is a God that judgeth in the earth”.