STEPS OF FAITH
[p. 314] STEPS OF FAITH
1 Peter 2: 21; Romans 4: 12; 2 Corinthians 12: 18; Psalm 37: 23
These scriptures, as will be observed, speak about human steps. They are used, I may say, symbolically. The allusion is not to mere physical imprints of human feet on this earth. They allude to walk as movement in a moral sense, impressions made in general conduct. I have read of four. The first alludes to Christ Himself, His own steps; the second to Abraham; the third to Paul; the fourth to a mature man, without naming him, so that it may include any of us. The word ‘good’ in the verse read in Psalm 37 is interpolated as if the translators thought that the word ‘man’ must be always qualified if we are to determine his character. The original word for ‘man’ here points to real or effective manhood, and his steps are established by Jehovah. Therefore, it is a most important thing to be one of the men so in mind by the Spirit of God, as one who is not exposed to the deflecting influences of this world, knowing that God is on your side, so that your steps are established.
Now, the Lord Jesus here is a Model. That is one of the features of Christ incarnate, that He is a Model. God has brought that idea in. He has brought it in in Christ, and His disciples, at least, should know that there is a perfect Model for them — for all conduct and for all work or workmanship. And that is why, in setting up Israel in the wilderness. God took Moses up into the mount. He says to him, “Come up ... and be there”, Exodus 24: 12. No momentary visit was intended; he was to be forty days and forty nights on mount Sinai. But Moses was to be there. God took him up, as knowing him and knowing that he was impressionable to what was of God, and in [p. 315] taking him up to the mount He is going to show him a model or pattern. He enjoined him that everything that was to be made for the tabernacle was to be made according to that pattern; no deviation. Now that pattern is Christ. God has introduced Him here as Man in infinite perfection. So the verse previous to what we read in 1 Peter says, “For what glory is it, if sinning and being buffeted ye shall bear it? but if, doing good and suffering, ye shall bear it, this is acceptable with God” (verse 20). There are many of our brethren exposed to knocks and cuffs and unfair rebukes, and these verses are for them especially, but they are for all of us. If you complain against such treatment to your employer or your officer or your foreman, you are not taking it patiently. You are missing your opportunity of learning from the great Model, namely, the Lord Jesus who has been alone in such positions: “Who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously” (verse 23). He was a Model.
And so the verse we read says, “For to this have ye been called; for Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model that ye should follow in his steps”. It seems to me, dear brethren, that as this thought comes home to us there should be a resolution to examine the Model, for that is the word. Set aside time to look into the heavenly pattern. It was shown to Moses on the mount. He was there forty days and forty nights and Jehovah showed him this pattern, and he was not to deviate from it in building the tabernacle. I do not know that I could give any better counsel to young people here than this: to give a little time, at least, to this pattern, to see whether it is possible to walk in it, to follow in it; for that is what the words “follow in his steps” convey. That is my first point. It is a question of a perfect Model in a moral sense, brought into this [p. 316] creation, for everything. We can go by it. We can be sure that we have God with us in it, and especially in having to do with persons outwardly superior. There are more overseers in this country than ever there have been before. God has so ordered it that young persons are put under other persons. Each is not his own master. He has another, or others, maybe half a dozen in the line-up. So that authority is pressed upon us, and that is of God. It is sobering and subduing and hence wholesome. The more it comes to the soul, the more you begin to look around for this Model, as to how you are to follow it, for penalty is attached to disregard of it, which is to be avoided. There is no testimony in the penalty attached to it. It is in walking according to the Model that there is testimony. God has brought it in, and He is bent upon having persons develop according to that Model.
Now the next point is fatherhood; instruction is to this end, either by model or mouth, but word from a parent ought to be the easiest to receive, the easiest to profit by. So I ventured to turn to Abraham as seen in Romans, not simply as a father, but our father as he is said to be. Scripture says he is the father of us all, so that we do not have different fathers to copy; the copy is one, both in Christ and in Abraham. Abraham is available to each of us in this sense, and so the verse we read in Romans 4 says, “And he received the sign of circumcision as seal of the righteousness of faith which he had being in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all them that believe being in uncircumcision, that righteousness might be reckoned to them also; and father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision, but to those also who walk in the steps of the faith, during uncircumcision, of our father Abraham”. As I said, he is not simply Isaac’s father and Jacob’s father and the father of the twelve [p. 317] tribes; he is ours, he is our model. All believers, both now and in the millennium, will lay claim to the fatherhood of Abraham, and that fatherhood involves a model for us as to steps, as to walk. He is first entitled Abram, but even before Isaac is born his name is changed to Abraham. The first means ‘high father’, that is, a man of distinctive character, a man worthy of attention at any time. And now God says, “Thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of a multitude of nations have I made thee”, Genesis 17: 5.
Now, Abraham dwelt in tents with his son and his grandson. He would frown on any irreverence. Jacob was fifteen years when his grandfather died. During those years specially he had great advantages in being a son of Abraham, and his father Isaac was in the same tent, so that all you young people here will do well to pay attention to the fatherly model that God has given you. I suggest that we have really only one model, for Abraham, in his fatherly character, represents God as Father, and His character is stamped upon every true christian parent. The believer is adopted as God’s son and has the Spirit of God’s Son in his heart, so that he carries with him the means of fatherly qualities toward his children. Therefore, the verse I read brings in Abraham as walking in certain steps before he was circumcised, lest the Jew might say, he is nothing to us until he is circumcised; but God, by His Spirit, says he is a father to us as much before he was circumcised as after. It is a question of the man. Circumcision was a seal of the righteousness which he had. He did not get it by circumcision; he had the righteousness before he was circumcised. He got it by faith, and surely it is your opportunity, all you young people here, to understand this: that what Abraham had by faith, is yours. As accepting it you are one of his children. Your parents also belong to his children. The Spirit of God is in their hearts carrying the fatherhood of God into their [p. 318] hearts as sons of God, and they are thus enabled to exhibit the steps of our father Abraham. Therefore, why not all come into this family, not only in word, but in character, in quality, in manner, in ways? All are to follow in the steps of our father Abraham before he was circumcised. The seal that he had was circumcision. Circumcision was a seal to him, meaning the flesh was not to be tolerated in his house, and his house was circumcised that very day, that is, all the males. So that God is saying things to young people here, if you belong to your father Abraham. Before his circumcision his steps were good, and after his circumcision his steps were good. They were the same steps; they were all through faith, faith working in a man. The righteousness which he had by faith was manifested in his walk and in his ways. That walk was brought into his house. Isaac was taught it; Jacob was taught it. And so Jehovah says, “For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him”, Genesis 18: 19. So that the thing is sure. And every one of us here today who believe are children of that man. This is God’s way of making the truth intelligible and practical to us: Abraham’s fatherhood is God’s fatherhood worked out in His great servant.
My second point, as you will understand, is fatherly qualities influencing you, affecting your ways, that you should be walking in the steps of our father Abraham, which he had before circumcision and after circumcision; that he might be the father of all of us gentiles, who, although we do not belong to the circumcision, are children of faith, the faith which he had. As Scripture says, “Ye are all God’s sons by faith in Christ Jesus”, Galatians 3: 26. That is a wonderful, but also a most practical thing, because it [p. 319] brings us into our true family in which there is a proper Model and in which there is authority; not only a Model, but as in Abraham, the principle of commandment, as is said of Abraham, “he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of Jehovah, to do righteousness and justice, in order that Jehovah may bring upon Abraham what he hath spoken of him”. That means that what God has spoken of Abraham will be brought about in us. Abraham is gone, and Isaac is gone, but we are here. Today the saints are the flock of God. There is no other, and Abraham’s fatherhood comes into it, that we might walk in it, as the apostle says, “... and father of circumcision, not only to those who are of the circumcision, but to those also who walk in the steps of the faith, during uncircumcision, of our father Abraham”. That is to say, we are to walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham. It is a model for us. Normally, the truth is brought to you young people here through your own parents, as if they were Abraham and Sarah. They have the same authority and faith as having the Spirit of God and as they walk in the steps of our father Abraham. It is a question of his steps, practically the steps of those who have faith and righteousness.
You can see the advantage God has in working out His thoughts at the present time in view of the end of this dispensation in bringing in these models for us. The Spirit of God is involved in it as in Abraham and in every parent here; “to those also who walk in the steps of the faith, during uncircumcision, of our father Abraham”.
Well now, the third feature of my subject is seen in Paul in 2 Corinthians 12: 18. Paul is speaking about himself to the Corinthians. They were refractory children; he calls them his children; he spoke to them as his children. But now he is speaking to them [p. 320] about himself and about Titus — two ministers. I am now coming to the ministry, not the parentage, not the model in Christ, but those engaged in the ministry, those whom God has raised up and whom He is using to serve His people. There are a good many of them. They are like Solomon’s workmen, of whom there were a great many, as most of us know. There were something like one hundred and eighty thousand workmen. Considering them in the antitype, all of those who are in any way qualified to serve belong to Solomon’s workmen. There are many being added to the number in most of the countries where God’s work is proceeding, and now it is a question of their steps, not their preaching. There were three of them in Corinth especially: Paul himself, and Timotheus and Silvanus, working there at the same time. In the verse I read he is talking, not of Timotheus nor Silvanus, but of Titus. He says, “I begged Titus, and sent the brother with him: did Titus at all make gain of you? have we not walked in the same spirit? have we not in the same steps?” Notice the word ‘steps’. It is not now a question of Christ as the perfect Model, nor of Abraham as a model of fatherhood, but of ministers, those who serve the Lord in seeking to serve His people. The apostle is not making a point of what they taught of their gifts, or their ability to preach, but of their steps. He might have talked at length about the way Titus spoke when he was there. He might have spoken at length of Timotheus, how he preached the Son of God, and of Silvanus and himself. He had said, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, he who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus), did not become yea and nay, but yea is in him”, 2 Corinthians 1: 19. He is not talking of that now. In this verse he is speaking about the steps of Titus and himself. Some of the Corinthians were very disrespectful in the way they spoke about Paul. Young people are [p. 321] apt to be disrespectful of those who serve, but it should be remembered that they are respected in heaven. The angels respect them, and certainly young people ought to respect their elders, those who serve them, those who preach and those who teach. The question is now, however, as I said, that of steps. Every christian is entitled to speak of steps that are not according to God. We might easily disparage the truth if our steps are not according to it. If, for instance, Titus listened to stories told against Paul, and there were those who said, “his presence in the body weak, and his speech naught” (2 Corinthians 10: 10), he would resent such evil reports, for he was thoroughly with the apostle. Paul endured evil reports, but a faithful God resents all such efforts against His servants. He stands by them and protects them. I speak thus because of the tendency, often manifest, to discredit the Lord’s servants.
But in the verse before us the apostle speaks of the steps in which he and Titus walked. Speaking of Titus and himself, he inquires of the Corinthians, “have we not walked ... in the same steps?” They could not deny that. The ministers walked in the same steps, and in walking in the same steps they would confirm one another in their ministry, so that the assembly would be edified. I think you all will own that this matter of the ministers is very practical. As I was saying this afternoon, the gifts came from beyond the heavens. Think of the origin of gift! One may say, I was educated in a certain place and began to preach there. That is not the idea. As a gift you are from heaven. “He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things; and he has given some apostles ...”, Ephesians 4: 10, 11. It is not simply that ability was given; persons with ability were given by Christ as ascended. These persons, morally, came from heaven. It is most affecting, as [p. 322] serving the Lord, to know that He sent us down from above. He went up there and received gifts in relation to men. “He has led captivity captive, and has given gifts to men” (verse 8). The apostles were generally all united. There were differences, but they were in general united. The question is whether those who serve are now united in the truth; whether there is any rivalry, any ambition; whether we are walking in the same steps. So that we have Paul and Titus brought before us as to how they behaved in Corinth, and he challenges the Corinthians as to whether they did not walk in the same steps. These dear men were united. Titus was one of Paul’s children: “my own child”. He took character from Paul, and the same is true of Timotheus. If we were to see these three men together at a table what words we would hear! What impressions we would receive as to brotherhood, as to fatherhood, and as to ministry! The early christians had those advantages; and whatever advantages of the kind there are, it is for us to avail ourselves of them and walk in them together.
And then, finally, I wish to speak of the person that I mentioned under the designation of ‘man’ in Psalm 37: 23: “The steps of a man are established by Jehovah, and he delighteth in his way”. It is no question of whether he has gift or not, or whether he is a family man or not; he is a man. The word as seen here clearly implies that he is that. He has manly qualities, and his steps are established by Jehovah. You might say, Will the Lord undertake for me today? The Lord would say, The whole realm of christianity is yours. There is plenty to pray about and plenty to love. You belong to the men. You are pleasing to God and He will sustain you. There are several words used for ‘man’ in the Scriptures and each has its own significance. The word here is similar to what Paul uses in the exhortation,
“Quit yourselves like men; be strong” (1 Corinthians 16: 13), and it corresponds with what Jehovah says to Job, “Gird up now thy loins like a man: I will demand of thee, and inform thou me”, Job 40: 7. “Like a man” — a person of that kind is under God’s eye, and the day stretches out before you. The testimony enters into it; services enter into it. God would say, Well, map out your course. And you say, “But do thou for me, Jehovah, Lord, for thy name’s sake”, Psalm 109: 21. That is what the psalmist says. God says, I will do that. God never fails us. Even if a thing seems hard, He will encourage you to ask, perhaps adding a condition as Elijah did in answering Elisha; he says, “Thou hast asked a hard thing: if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so to thee”, 2 Kings 2: 10. He presses upon him intentness. God looks for that; He loves it in us. As our outlook and motives are right, God encourages assurance and liberty in us in our relations with Him. “The steps of a man are established by Jehovah”. The word ‘good’ is not there. What the person is is expressed in the word ‘man’. “And he delighteth in his way”. God intimates to the believer, in those conditions, I am going to have a good day with you today. Do you think I am stretching the Scriptures? Not at all. God looks for good days. He has a heart; He has affections, and He looks for enjoyment, and He looks for it in men. Wisdom says, “My delights were with the sons of men”, Proverbs 8: 31. Every day is to yield for God; but how? In the steps of men, those who know how to walk like men. Not particularly men as doing exploits, but men as pleasing God in patient continuance of good works. Their praise is not of men, but of God.
One of them is starting out from his family in the morning; he has left it with God; he has gone over the day anticipatively with God; his confidence is in Him, and thus he is on the way to his business. He [p. 324] is taken account of by God. He is prospered as his soul prospers. He brings God into all his affairs. Adverse things may happen to him, but he takes them from God who will turn them into profitable discipline. There may be failure, but he turns to God, judging himself unsparingly, accounting that if his heart condemn him, God is greater than his heart and knoweth all things. He is God’s child. His steps are established. So it is that Jehovah “delighteth in his way”.
Then the verse says, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for Jehovah upholdeth his hand”. He may fall. That is admitted. As remarked, he does not fail to judge himself as to it. But do not be overwhelmed by the thing. Do not let the devil have any part in the matter at all. Keep it between yourself and God, and if necessary, with the brethren. “If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things”, 1 John 3: 20. It is His matter really, and He has provided means in Christ to meet it, so that it can be adjusted to God’s glory in the assembly. The verse says, “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for Jehovah upholdeth his hand”. How comforting all this is, and how establishing also! It aids us in our steps and prospers us in righteousness and holiness in the path which “no bird of prey knoweth, and the vulture’s eye hath not seen it; the proud beasts have not trodden it, nor the fierce lion passed over it” (Job 28: 7, 8); it is the path of life, leading to fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore.