TWO LANDMARKS

TWO LANDMARKS

We read (Exodus 33: 11), “Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle”. He had learned what it was to abide in the secret of the Almighty, and though the service of Moses might call him to go to and fro, this young man, whom God was instructing, knew it better for him to remain with God in the separated tabernacle. Service did not call him to the camp, and therefore he remained entirely apart from it with God. Moses has a service to render, and he enters the camp. But if there be no room for service, let us be as separate as possible, for the separation will prepare us for the most effectual service when we are called to it. Mere knowledge of God’s will and counsel is not the full effect of nearness to Him, but the sense of what suits Him and meets His mind: in fact holiness, and this is the great end of the Father’s discipline.

But Joshua is still a learner. The next notice that we get of him is in Numbers 11, where he misapprehends the mind of God. That very truth which had before saved him from defiling association, and preserved him in unison with God’s mind, he would now make use of to circumscribe God. It is very important to remember that it is God Himself who is to counsel me and determine my judgment, and not any single line of His truth. To remain in the separated tabernacle was plainly the way of truth and blessing when Israel was in apostasy, but when Eldad and Medad prophesy in the camp, God’s Spirit must be acknowledged, though they do not come to the tabernacle.

^[p. 126] So Moses rebuked Joshua as savouring of the things of men and not of the things of God.

The heart is right, but it has taken counsel from the flesh, and must be rebuked. This is necessary and bitter discipline, but effectual in preparing one for the entirely new and divine way in which God leads His people.