STRANGERSHIP
[p. 92] STRANGERSHIP
Exodus 18:1 - 3; Hebrews 11:13 - 16; 1 Peter 2:11,12
I wish to speak about strangership, and I think I have selected the most suitable passages for such a subject, believing they will aid me in what I have to say. The first scripture speaks about Moses in this respect. He represents the service of God, the ministry. Of him God says, “he is faithful in all my house”, Numbers 12:7. Having part in the house of God tests us much; the apostle was concerned that those who served in it should know how to behave; saying to Timotheus that he wrote to him, pending the time of his coming, “in order that thou mayest know how one ought to conduct oneself in God’s house”, 1 Timothy 3:15. Then, so as to make clear what that meant, that the house was not like the temple at Jerusalem built by Herod or Solomon or Zerubbabel, he says, “the assembly of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth”. Such is the great and glorious designation of the house of God; and so great, correspondingly, is the necessity for knowing how to conduct ourselves in it. For in truth it is composed of the saints, not of stones cut out with hands, but of living stones, who are marked off as coming to Christ who is the Living Stone; and as having come, they “are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”.
So that Moses fittingly comes in at the beginning of the subject I have chosen, and he brings in this question of strangership as soon as his first child is born. It is very significant that this characteristic of true believers is written in indelible letters on the household of this great servant of God. Previous to this Moses had not been the head of a house. He had been brought up as a foster-child in the leading royal house of the world, really as a son in it, and was sophisticated according to the learning of that house, skilled in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.
[p. 93] I suppose he could shine in any court of this world in that period; he could represent Pharaoh in any court or diplomatic circle. He was an unmarried man. Pharaoh’s daughter really had become his saviour. He had been laid in the Nile by his mother, and could have only subsisted there a short time, as you can understand, but Pharaoh’s daughter came down to wash herself, which is not without significance. Not that such personages should not do so, but it is not without significance that she should come thus where this babe was lying in the Nile. It was in the sedge, not out in the stream where he would have been carried away to the delta, but in the sedge where he was held and protected, but still in the water. Household baptism was wrapped up in that fact. Pharaoh’s daughter found the babe in the ark that his mother had prepared for him, and the babe wept, portending something of value in the service of God, namely sympathetic feeling, of which Moses was never short in his time of service.
Well, he was nursed by his mother, under the wisdom of God; for his sister was wise, and his mother was wise, and through their skill the real mother of the child became his nurse. So that he is under good influence, living by his mother when he should do so, showing how children are to be brought up under a mother’s care, not only physically, but morally. The mother has the means and place of influencing the child when he needs influence. The secret of many departures later has been in the lack of this. New-born babes desire milk; spiritually they are to desire the sincere milk of the word, the pure mental milk; for a child soon begins to use his mind and that mind has to be ministered to, and the mother is the vessel for that in his early days. Moses remained in Pharaoh’s house for forty years, until he became great. Forty years is quite a mature age, although Moses lived three times forty; but at that age he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, hence qualifying for this [p. 94] great office of service that marked him, particularly during the latter forty years of his life. He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God. Whoever they were outwardly, in whatever station in this world, they were the people of God — the greatest distinction — and Moses whole-heartedly identified himself with them. There may be some here who have never thought of identifying themselves with the people of God as such; maybe you are a society person; but then, what is your society? Moses says, Mine has been Egyptian, but it is not so any more; henceforth it is the people of God. What a fine resolve! Heaven took account of that resolve.
Well, Moses occasioned the wrath of Pharaoh and fled the country, “not fearing”, we are told, “the wrath of the king”, Hebrews 11:27, not fearing it. You say, Then why did he flee? That is to be understood spiritually. Faith is never marked by fear of man — never! And it was by faith that he selected his society; faith was active. The Lord Jesus says, “Fear not those who kill the body and after this have no more that they can do”, Luke 12:4. That is all they can do. The most powerful man on earth, now or at any time can do nothing more; he cannot go beyond that; a limitation that is placed upon people of power in this world. The Lord says, Do not fear them, even although their attacks may be direct, do not fear them. They can only kill the body. “But I will shew you whom ye shall fear: Fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell; yea, I say to you. Fear him”, verse 5. That is a great word at the present time; and I suppose it explains why it says Moses did not fear the wrath of the king: he feared God. He fled into Midian and sat by a well, as much as to say, I have been a powerful man in Egypt according to the flesh, but the Spirit of God must be my power henceforth. There he watered the flock of Jethro’s daughters: he knew how to use the well: he [p. 95] used it unselfishly for others first. He is qualifying to be a great servant of God, and from that time till the end of forty years he is occupied in caring for sheep. A great Egyptian prince, as he was according to man’s estimate, is now just a shepherd; he is working evidently for whatever his father-in-law is pleased to give him. There is never a word said about salary with Moses, though he fed the flock of Jethro for forty years. Think of a man like that! What a discipline! What a school! And what a graduation! God graduated him from that school into the next school, forty years later. He called out his name, “Moses!” You understand that, you young children here; this very hall is used for just that purpose. His name was called out, “Moses, Moses!” Why did God call out his name twice like that? God was in the bush; the bush burned and the bush was not consumed, and Moses turned aside to see why the bush was not consumed. God says, There is a man of interest; he is interested in what I am doing, and that calls forth My interest in him. And He says, “Moses, Moses! ... loose thy sandals from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground”, Exodus 3:4,5. God says, so to speak, You are graduating into a much higher school than you have ever been in before. And Moses obeyed God — he was a subject man.
I have exceeded what I intended to say on this part of Moses’ history, but it is to reach the thought of strangership. The first forty years in Midian he tended the flock of Jethro, and during that time he married one of Jethro’s daughters whose name was Zipporah. It is said that he “was content to dwell with the man”, that is, with Jethro; content to do it. You may say, Why should he not be? But think of who he had been in this world! Were he not converted to God, would he have been content to dwell with a Midianitish priest, and marry one of his daughters who was a shepherdess? No! He would have married some [p. 96] princess in Egypt. But he did not; he was content to dwell with the man, not simply with his wife, but with her father. It may be assumed that thus he was quite at home, but no, he was not quite at home; no man of faith is quite at home in ordinary human circumstances, however much he may accept them. He is a heavenly man, his home is elsewhere; and so as this babe is born he names him Gershom. “And she bore a son, and he called his name Gershom; for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”, chapter 2:22. Moses would recall how as a boy he had wept in the ark; he would carry down the history which doubtless his mother would have told him. It is most important that fathers and mothers, as bringing up children, should remember; as one says, “I have been young, and now am old”, Psalm 37:25. We can never deal with the young rightly unless we revert to the time and experiences we had when we were young. We must sympathise with the young, or we shall not influence them.
Moses, if asked why he named his son Gershom, would say, Because I am a sojourner in Midian; I am in a foreign land. He is speaking by faith. This is not the language of an ordinary man; if he were only an ordinary man he would not be in Midian; he would be in Egypt, shining as a leading light, as people say, in the world, in the court of Pharaoh. He is not an ordinary man, he is a man of faith; and morally no one who is not of faith, is of any value in the sight of God. So that this is a matter of faith. Now what I want to show is that as years went on he arrived at the point I have already alluded to, when God appeared to him in the bush. Let every one of us recall in his history, every man of faith and woman of faith and child of faith here, when you had a direct transaction with God. No one is of any consequence in the testimony of God until he has had such. God appeared to Moses in the bush, and he turned aside to see. It was a remarkable thing: the bush burned and [p. 97] the bush was not consumed. He turned aside to see why that was, and God says, “Moses, Moses!” Then He told him to take off his shoes, etc., as I have already remarked. That was one great turning point in his life, and it was at the mount of God.
And now in Exodus 18 he is at the same mount, forty years after he went to Midian; and Jethro having heard what God had been doing for Israel, came to Moses there. Jethro was “priest of Midian”, he was not an Israelite, nor, as you might say, did he belong to Moses’ religion. People like to think of their religions. I am satisfied with my religion one says; it was good enough for my father, it is good enough for me. That is one of the poorest things one can say. The question to decide is, What is of God? “And Jethro the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done to Moses, and to Israel his people; that Jehovah had brought Israel out of Egypt. And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back, and her two sons, of whom the name of the one was Gershom — for he said, I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”, Exodus 18:1 - 3. Then verse 5 says, “And Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came to Moses with his sons and his wife into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mountain of God”. That is the same place to which he had led the sheep of Jethro when God appeared to him at the mount of God. Now let everybody challenge his own heart as to whether he understands the mount of God. Whatever your religion may be, does it represent the mount of God? The mount of God means that God provides all that is necessary for His service — for His people who are His house. It is the place of divine resource; and if I am not there, I had better get there. Religion in itself according to this world is nothing; it is a question of whether the mount of God is there. Abraham originated that idea, “On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”, he said,
[p. 98] Genesis 22:14. And that is the principle; everything that is needed, that is requisite for the service of God is provided by God on His mountain. Moses is there now, encamped there with Israel, and Jethro comes there. Was he ever at the mount of God before? I cannot say, but he is at it now, and it is to his great advantage that he is. If there is anybody here who has not come to that place, then I would urge you to look into this matter and see why you are not at the mount of God, where God provides things for man. God will never provide you with a cathedral, or a choir; not with that sort of thing at all; not with things of man’s art and device to be used in His service. Everything that is provided comes from the mount of God and is according to Himself.
Jethro came there, and he brought Moses’ two boys and their mother. It says of the other boy, “and the name of the other, Eliezer”, verse 4; which means, “El is my help”. You will see by what I have been saying, that this parent is stamping God, as it were, on his household; it is the secret of the preservation of our children; from the very outset our children are stamped, I might say, with the name of God. First, “I have been a sojourner in a foreign land”, as much as to say, I can never be at home in this world; my son is stamped with it, and I want him to be brought up that way. Someone may say, You will never be a successful man. Oh, yes, Moses would say, “God is my help”; that is the name of my second boy, and I will bring him up in the light of that; I am not a man of this world, and I depend on God in everything. I will bring up my children in dependence on God.
In the New Testament God promises us, “Wherefore come out from the midst of them, and be separated, ... and I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”, 2 Corinthians 6:17,18. Moses would say, I have proved that.
[p. 99] He proved it in the presence of Pharaoh in the exodus. And so he says, My second boy must be brought up in the understanding that God will help him. If I cannot go out with people, and take part in the things of this world, and hence may appear at a disadvantage in my business, yet I know God will help me. Moses brought up his family in the light of these two great facts.
Now going on to Abraham in Hebrews 11, I am not speaking of him exactly as a leading servant, but as a leading father; his name means father. First he is “high father”, and then he is “father of a multitude”; and we have a description of him in this chapter as a man of faith. I have spoken of Moses as a father, and of how his father-in-law helped him with his wife and children, so that grandparents are brought into the service of bringing up children; and we are told here that Abraham dwelt in the tents with Isaac and Jacob. “By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country, having dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise”, verse 9. That is, he would have in mind to help his son and grandson, so that he dwelt with them; and he dwelt with them in tents. There would be two tents, I suppose; Abraham would have one, and Isaac would have one. It is not good for families to dwell together in that sense; it is better for each family to have a tent, and to let the grandfather come into the son’s tent where the grandson is, and influence him there for good, showing his paternal interest in his children and grandchildren. That is the effect here, implying that Abraham was really a father, he had a true parental heart. You can see him coming down the fields or down the garden to Isaac’s tent: Isaac is there and Rebecca is there — comparatively young people — and Jacob, who at the most could not have been more than fifteen years old. From the time Jacob was a babe, until he was fifteen years old, Abraham would have been accustomed to [p. 100] come to the tent of Isaac his son, and to sit with his son and grandson. And you can understand how Abraham would say, Well, Isaac, I have been thinking of such-and-such a thing today. He could go back many years beyond a hundred; he was about one hundred and sixty years old when Jacob was born. He could say to Isaac, Jehovah appeared to me before I left Ur of the Chaldeans — adding many details of deep interest. How sanctifying that would be! A most spiritual man in later times says of that event, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia”, Acts 7:2. What a day that was! I do not suppose Abraham could say, “The God of glory”; it was Stephen who said that. But anyway, it was the God of glory; and we can understand how Abraham would say to Isaac, Jehovah said to me, “Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house”, Genesis 12:1. And Jacob was sitting there, a boy of twelve, we might say, listening to his grandfather; these words would sink into his heart: they should have sunk in anyway, and doubtless they did. That is what was said, “Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house”.
Well, that is the position. Verse 13 that I read says, “All these died in faith”, that is, those who were pilgrims and strangers; you could hardly refer to Noah in that way, or to Enoch. But I am speaking only of Abraham here. He moved out of the land of the Chaldeans at the word of Jehovah and came into the land of Canaan and died there. The word is, “All these died in faith”, that is, I apprehend, Abraham and his immediate family as mentioned in verses 8 - 12. These are the ones; but they died. How did they die? Did they die distressed or without hope? No! They died “in faith”. It may be translated, as we may see in the note, ‘according to faith’. That is how I want to die. If the Lord pleases to call me to sleep, as He may, I want to go that way, “according to faith”. “All these died in faith, not having received the promises”. But the writer further says, “but having seen them from afar off and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth. For they who say such things shew clearly that they seek their country. And if they had called to mind that from whence they went out, they had had opportunity to have returned; but now they seek a better, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he has prepared for them a city”, verses 13 - 16. My point now, just to close, is that they confessed to strangership. Moses confessed it in the name by which he called his first boy; it indicated that he had been a stranger in a strange land. He could not take up any offices there in the sense in which they are ordinarily taken up; he was a foreigner. Midian was not the land of promise, so that Abraham differs from Moses; he was actually in the land of promise, but still he is a stranger; as it says here, “By faith he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise as a foreign country”, verse 9; that is, he dwelt in the land of promise as a stranger. It was promised to him, and yet when he got there he lived in it as a stranger. The meaning is that the literal land is still under foreign domination, and Abraham’s entrance into it as his inheritance awaited redemption — the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. Thus only could there be a city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor.
“All these died in [p. 101] faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar off and embraced them”, verse 13. The actual land was under their feet; that was not at a distance; it was the faith realm that was afar off. Abraham began to see there was something even beyond the land of promise, the faith realm; because, after all, Palestine is there yet. Where is Abraham? The Lord Jesus, in replying to the wicked doctrine of the Sadducees, referred to “the section of the bush”, in which it is said God appeared to Moses; there God says, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob”, Matthew 22:32. It is not, I was the God of Abraham, but I am. Then the Lord adds, “God is not God of the dead, but of the living”. Where is Abraham living? In the realm of faith. He is with Christ, but he looked forward beyond the land of Canaan to the heavenly realm; that is where he lives in the measure in which he may live now. Presently he will have part in the first resurrection, and he will live eternally in the heavenly land, not in the earthly Canaan. Abraham will not come back here to the land of Canaan literally; his lot is in a better land. What does Scripture say here? Scripture says plainly that they seek a country. In the very land of Canaan they are seeking another country. And what is that country? What does God say about it? “And if they had called to mind that from whence they went out, they had had opportunity to have returned; but now they seek a better, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he has prepared for them a city”, verses 15, 16. God did not promise Abraham a city when He told him to go out from the Chaldeans; this city is a new thing that has come into view, and it is heavenly. It is about to come down from God out of heaven. Abraham waited for it: “for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”, verse 10. So my thought in regard to Abraham is that in the very things which were legitimate and which God promised him literally, he was a stranger; he was not even at home there. He was looking for better things. God would help us to look for better things than the temporal mercies which He may grant us. That is the word that characterises the epistle to the Hebrews — better things; so that we may learn not to be content or be satisfied with what nature calls the very best. There are [p. 103] things better than that, and these are what Abraham looked for. He died according to that principle — in faith; he died in faith, so that the things he looked for were not yet realised. But now they are realised, because every promise of God is yea and amen in Christ. There is just that word in Peter, “Beloved, I exhort you, as strangers and sojourners, to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul”, 1 Peter 2:11. That enters into this matter, for the youth amongst the brethren, and their parents need to be watchful of it: “abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul”. It is amplified in the word, “having your conversation honest among the gentiles, that as to that in which they speak against you as evildoers, they may through your good works, themselves witnessing them, glorify God in the day of visitation”.
May God bless the word to us all, parents, servants, and young people. These all enter into what I have endeavoured to bring before you, and I trust God will use the word to help us all.