SEPARATION OF WALK
SEPARATION OF WALK
The Nazarite undertook the vow for a certain time; when he failed before the expiration of that time, he had to begin over again. The application of this to us is that there is no account taken of our course when we have departed from the Nazarite walk. It is not that all that was of God does not [p. 156] remain and that for ever, for God says, “I remember the kindness of thy youth” (Jeremiah 2: 2); but however well a Nazarite might act after he had defiled himself, his act would not be acknowledged because he was defiled; he had not a good conscience in his act, however intrinsically good it was. He has not a right sense of God. Conscience, as it is true, must respect God according to the light given him. A saint now defiled fails to please God in any act until he returns to the spot where the failure or defilement occurred; like Abram returning to where he had the altar at first, all the interval (some count fifteen years for Abram) was lost, and in that sense he had to begin again; he had at least to begin from the point of departure.
If I become defiled by any worldly association or church fellowship, the interval which is spent under this defilement does not count, however I may serve or preach, because I have retired from a separation which I had accepted as of God, and I cannot have a good conscience in my course, however good my conduct may be. I am not in integrity before God. I must go back to where I first became defiled. Peter had to go back to the root of his failure.
If you are dependent on God about anything and seeking His help, you cut off all confidence in yourself and your own efforts and actually fast, or refuse to minister to the desire of the flesh, in order to secure His strength. When I walk in faith I am like one walking on the water. It is my own weight which sinks me. When I am self-exhausted I do not sink. But in order to be self-exhausted I must not minister to that which feeds the flesh, or which calls out its peculiar fascination. The Lord’s heart never changes towards us. He does change His manner when my condition or my associations oblige Him to do so.