THE RIGHT THING IN THE WRONG WAY
THE RIGHT THING IN THE WRONG WAY
The wiser anything is, the more self-evident and convincing it is where there is any wisdom. The very fact of a proposition being right carries weight with it where there is conscience. When a right thing is proposed, it commends itself to everyone not destitute of moral sense. To the mere conscience there must be an immense charm in hearing and accepting what is right; and with such an one there could be no departure from the right thing if there were in man no will of the flesh, which, even when the right thing is accepted, spoils it by the manner in which it attempts to carry it out. Thus the right thing is accepted and approved, but because of the flesh it is hindered and damaged in expression; the good is evil spoken of. If one is really conscientious, one can readily and gladly adopt the right counsel; but it is the act which is the result which declares the extent of the influence of the counsel. If I am controlled by the word and counsel of God, my acts display correctly and proportionally [p. 297] the wisdom of it; I am myself the evidence of it - the body is light.
The first great fact to accept and understand is that though the heart may through grace approve and determine on the course or line of action proposed by the word of God, yet there is an antagonistic element in us; the carnal mind is not subject unto the law of God, neither indeed can be. When grace is in the soul, there is of necessity a nature which has an affinity for and fellowship with the mind of God, which would lead me into simple acquiescence and practical obedience, were it not for the working of the flesh, which cannot be subject to the law of God. An immense point is reached when I am afraid of myself, because of the contrary principle that is in me. “Happy is the man that feareth alway”; so that I am not satisfied that I have heard the word, as those with whom it was sown among thorns or by the wayside, but I am careful and exercised not to entertain or sanction any suggestion outside or apart from the word or way of God. If I had no traitor in myself, all would go on quite smoothly, but here it is that the extent or measure of my real subjection to the word of God is disclosed. Many a one readily accepts the word, like him who said, “I go, sir”, and went not; but the one who refused, and afterwards repented and went, discovered, and in power overcame, the insubjection of the flesh.
The first and most pernicious form of this snare is accepting the word of God in a human sense. Perhaps nothing has produced so much perversion of the word of God as the assumed interpretation of it by the natural mind. No truth has been more overlooked than that the natural mind cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God. The most elaborate and learned commentators extant have for this reason failed to reach the mind of the Spirit. The attempt to understand and elucidate was right in itself, but the using of the intellect, undirected and uncontrolled by the Spirit of God, has flooded the world with a mere human solution of divine wisdom. If [p. 298] it were possible for a lower animal to attempt a solution of man’s thoughts and learning, it would not have been so outrageous and inconsistent as the attempt on the part of learned men to grasp and explain the mind of God. And here assuredly the attempt of mere learning, however laudable, to produce a more correct translation of the New Testament must be a failure, because it is sought, through the means of learning and the knowledge of the Greek language only, to set forth the meaning and intent of the Spirit of God. By scholarship the meaning of the Greek word can be established, but the ability to explain the same word in different contexts and different books is something that no mere scholar can arrive at. Every book in the Bible is independent itself, and yet it is not complete without the other books; and as far as I know, the same sentence, or part of a sentence, in any two or more books, never means the same, whereas the mere scholar would make them identical. Hence by his assumed interpretation he only spoils the thing, right in intention by the wrong way.
But we individually fall into this snare. How many attach a mischievous meaning to a promise or precept by interpreting it according to their own feelings! It is very commendable to accept or cling to a promise or a precept, but if I impart my own selfishness to it I am turning the grace of God into lasciviousness. I am virtually trying to make the blessed God submit to my mind, and not His own. If I plead, as many do, that passage that God “giveth us richly all things to enjoy”, in order that I may be occupied with God’s gifts more than with God Himself, surely this would defeat and contravene the goodness of God, and would only expose my unfitness for His service, as the test of the water exposed the unfitness of nine thousand seven hundred of those who had followed Gideon in Judges 7; whereas if I only used and appreciated the gifts as the three hundred did the water, I could enjoy His gifts as mere contributions to help me on the road and in my service.
Likewise if I take up Paul’s words, and assert that I am to be “all things to all men”, in order to be at my ease in everyone’s company, it is plain that I am seeking my own comfort, and not the good of souls at such a time; and therefore I am using the right words in a wrong way.
Eve laid hold of the promise that her seed should bruise the serpent’s head. It was right and good for her to have received and clung to the promise of God; but when she called her firstborn Cain, she failed fearfully, because her selfishness guided her, and the right thing was spoiled and lost in the wrong way she reckoned on its fulfilment. So it is in all cases where the flesh dictates in anything of God; there is not only poison in it, but the contrary element produces a prodigy of great moral baseness. It succeeds in raising itself up into gigantic proportions through means of, as I might say, a divine pedestal. The vapid declamations of many preachers are in the same category. Thus the love of God, the great principle of His heart, has been degraded by a rationalistic theory into an impulse and a law which overrides and acts independently of holiness and justice. The best thing sinks to the worst. The thing which is right at the start is spoilt in the development.
Again, how much do some advocates of the new commandment, “Love one another”, overlook that which is due to Christ, because of the sensual meaning given to it. Under this precept they hold that christians are bound together with little or no reference to their allegiance to their Lord; that they are to be bound together in perfect amity, however incongruous their associations, and however derogatory to His glory. From the way this blessed precept has been perverted, and used as a cloak to shelter and bolster up all believers in one common brotherhood, church discipline has become almost a dead letter; so that the correction which would have so fully expressed divine love has been lost or abandoned because of the unspiritual way of applying it, and a thing so essentially right is utterly foiled. It will [p. 300] not then surprise one to discover this tendency or failure in our more individual practice, since we have seen that both the word of God and His love - His greatest attribute, and the most blessed bond between christians - have not escaped from the cankerworm of the human mind, but have been distorted into enormities destructive and contradictory of the very source from which they acquired existence.
Alas! how common it is for us to begin with a right intention, but because our own mind is allowed to dictate, it is quite lost, or it provokes the very opposite to what is sought. Thus Moses, no doubt with the most blessed intention and purpose of delivering his nation, encountered the Egyptian in his own strength. He, a most devoted man with the best and truest of purposes, was utterly and painfully defeated, because he had attempted to accomplish it in a mere natural way. Instead of succeeding, he had to fly into a foreign land, and be a stranger in the land of Midian. How many a true and ardent servant of the Lord has been subjected to the same process, not because he had not the right purpose, but because he had not learned that the flesh profiteth nothing. And it is not easy, even after one has learned this lesson, especially if one possesses anything of the flesh to boast of, to walk on in the continuous subjection of it. Where we most excel naturally, there we most need grace to preserve us from being carried away by it; and there it is that we are often humbled, in order that we should have no confidence where we naturally have the most. Moses, at the end of his course, when he smote the rock twice, had again dropped into nature. He was naturally strong and impetuous; he did the right thing in the wrong way, and he forfeited the land. Alas, how often we exclude ourselves from the place of divine testimony here by the natural way we act in a crisis. At the moment when all should be of God, when no flesh should glory, then it seeks to intrude; and if admitted, irreparable mischief ensues, so that the moment of the [p. 301] highest honour may be changed into one of perpetual reproach.
Abraham, divinely assured of an heir, is a ready prey to a natural contrivance, when tempted and under carnal influence. The assurance of a right thing gave opportunity for the tempter to inveigle him. So that the adoption of the right thing is in itself no security against failure; but unless there be increased watchfulness and walking with God, there is a greater failure than if there had been no right purpose. Where there is no right purpose, there is not the same opportunity for Satan to provoke to opposition. Hence, simply natural men are more attractive than those who have a right purpose through grace, because they are more even, following on in one unbroken course their own will and pleasure, restrained only by the natural influences which have weight with them; whereas with the latter the flesh is really in intention disallowed, and in a degree restrained; but the introduction of Christ rouses up the antagonism of the flesh, as on the festive day of the weaning of Isaac, when Ishmael mocked (Genesis 21). And if Ishmael - the flesh - be not overpowered, there is a vacillation in character and word, like the lame whose legs “are not equal”. This is just what Jacob was. With a right intention, he was ever seeking to accomplish the thing desired in his own way. Consequently, though the right thing was in the long run granted him, it was connected with some mark of reproach, until at length the life-long halt, because of the sinew that shrank, proclaimed that when God grants him the right desires of his heart, He must in a marked way expose that which has obstructed their accomplishment.
In ministering, and in any service, the right purpose has often been defeated by the ungraciousness of manner in which either has been presented. Hence, charity is the more excellent way. The gift, though undeniable, is often hindered or rendered ineffective from the lack of grace in the minister. It is well known that when the [p. 302] minister seeks to inculcate what he has practically learned - that is, what has given its own effect to himself - his teaching is effective; otherwise, though the truth be clearly known and set forth, it lacks power. When the teacher is unimpressed himself, when it has not affected himself, how can it affect his hearers? It is again the right thing in the wrong way.
Lastly, in church discipline, or in essaying to wash one another’s feet, there is continually a right or truly kind intention, which is not only frustrated because of the unskilful way it is done, but often the attempted remedy aggravates the evil. Uzzah meant well, but he was not the man to steady the ark, and a great sorrow ensued. It is too often considered sufficient for a man to have an honest and righteous purpose in his desire to set others right. He may most deeply feel the dishonour done to the Lord, and happily he has His ear, but he may not be at all qualified to interfere personally. A man, as we learn from the Lord’s rebuke to Moses in Exodus 4: 24, must be walking in circumcision in his own house, or he cannot be competent to take care of the assembly of God. The miscarriage in cases of discipline and correction is, I am consciously persuaded, to be attributed more to one’s own unfitness to undertake the responsibility than to the perverseness of those we attempt to serve. At any rate we are taught painfully that the mere purpose, however right, is not enough if there be not the fitting vessel for carrying it out. If there be “no part dark”, then there will be a suited vessel; “the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light”, Luke 11: 36.