NOTE ON JOSHUA 7:10
NOTE ON JOSHUA 7:10
Prayer will never compensate for neglected action; it leads to action - seeks light and strength for action. But if I use not the light I already possess, no amount [p. 449] of prayer will obtain more for me; for if I believe not the revelation which I have received I am not prepared to receive more.
I notice the effect that heavenly scenery has on the soul. It is not only a revelation, it is something with which you feel yourself connected; and being connected with it necessarily has the effect of detaching you from the scene in which you are, and that in proportion as you realise your connection with the better thing.
I think that when near the Lord, you look at your mercies. When away from Him, at your troubles.
How God draws us off from things here by presenting to us visions and pictures, if I may so say, of the future glory! The more you mix with the refined and beautiful, the less you can feel yourself at home with the contrary; though if you were happily sensible of your right and title to what is elevated and were obliged to descend to the lower, you would always retain your sense of the contrast.
I assure you I have no confidence in transplanting - single trees suit the park but not saints in this world. I am all for solid squares. I date all my own sorrows and failures from living at a distance from the basin and towel of my brethren. We belong to the body, and for happiness, usefulness and strength the more we keep together corporately the better. ‘I dwell in the midst of my own people’ is my advice to every saint.
[p. 450] The habit of contemplation is essential to a christian, because he is in a scene where all is assumption and counterfeit, and that which is real and blessed is all outside it. Prayer is of this order. The word for ‘meditate’ is used for roaring as a lion for his prey; for ‘mourning’ as a dove; for ‘mutter’ as wizards do; for ‘studieth’ as the righteous do, to answer, and for ‘imagineth’ as the deceitful do.
The more I dwell on divine things the more I am capacitated for them, because they are only grasped by the Spirit of God.
In the ark a whole year, and then a new history begins, not on the old earth, but on the new one in the favour of God. If we are not in the ark as to every day here, we cannot enter on the new history - the resurrection day. We must know that He was delivered for our offences before we can see Him risen for our justification.
If you walk in charity and justice, as in John’s epistle, “love” and “righteousness”, you will always have moral influence.
If the old man got no place Satan’s wiles would not avail, and though in Egypt, in the wilderness, and after (Israel) had left the wilderness the foe could be seen, in the land, where he would be most unrelenting, there was hardly anything visible. We are then opposed by the rulers of the darkness of this world. They poison us before we feel it; our only safety is to exterminate the old man. I believe all our difficulties come from not being heavenly. Be anything less than heavenly, and you are sure to be defective on [p. 451] one side or another. Many have come to Marah - the bitter waters made sweet, who have never touched Gilgal - the reproach of Egypt rolled away.
Oh, to live for one minute outside one’s old self!
May you know the deep blessing of sitting near Him and there hearing His word. I do not see that there is any real gain without meditation. Many are interested in reading (they say a fish lives on suction). I admit that a measure of help is derived from reading and hearing, but it is in meditation, in complete seclusion, that you are rooted and grounded. It is in the winter (a dreary time) that the growth of the summer becomes wood in any tree!
The Lord never changes His heart; He does His manner, when my condition or associations oblige Him to do so. When His hand appears to be most against us is often the moment in which He makes known His heart to us, a greater favour than His hand could render. It was to Joseph’s brethren a very dark hour when they lost their father - a painful visitation from His hand. But then the heart of Joseph was known to them. This is something infinitely greater than anything His hand can do - it is Himself.
It is very remarkable and touching that we are enjoined to remember “all the way which the Lord thy God led thee”, (Deuteronomy 8: 2) and the result of it all is that we should be simply dependent on Him. Whenever we have made a wrong turn, it was because we were not dependent on Him. One false turn may involve us in years of trial before we are on the right road again. It is a great cheer to see that discipline by circumstances [p. 452] prepares us for the ministry of the word. The more ready you are to hear, the more will be given you to hear. The Lord satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.
The keenest eye may not foresee that there will be a revival of imperial power in the old Roman kingdom. But this is foretold in Revelation 13: 1 - 6, and the image of imperial power in Daniel 2: 45 is standing when it is struck. Be assured armies will increase, and when the army is supreme there must be an imperator.
If you want to enrich a man, do not increase his riches, but diminish or alter his desires!
Prefer His company to every other. Accustom yourself to seclusion with Him, and the more you do so the more you will cultivate it, and be thus richly blessed. ‘From Christ, by Christ, to Christ. Him first, Him last, Him midst, and without end!’ Acts 2. The Holy Spirit limited Himself to the place where they were sitting, He connected Himself with the individuals, the living stones; these are built up a spiritual house. Go where I will I am part of that spiritual house, and the Spirit of God has charge of me as part of His own house.
May we live more as those who will meet one another in glory.
[p. 453] I find that the flesh ever remains the flesh, and moreover that if you allow it in the smallest way, while refusing it all round, you are damaged even where you would honestly reckon it dead, you have allowed it to live and hence your whole system is poisoned by it. It is here that a man’s foes are of his own house. I find it a most difficult thing to be dead to the natural mind, the way of looking at things after the natural mind. Some satisfy themselves that they are dead with Christ to their own state. If they confined it to the blessed fact that the believer is dead with Christ in God’s sight, I should approve, for it is true and ever remains true, but you are not practically dead with Christ, but as you walk in the Spirit. Baptists as a rule console themselves that they have accepted death in baptism. Baptism is a figure of the only way you can be before God in a place of judgment, that is, in the confession of Christ’s death.