Continuing To The End

CONTINUING TO THE END

In Samuel and Daniel we have two outstanding examples of men who had to do with God when they were young, and continued right through to the end. Samuel’s history gives us his relations with the people of God, while Daniel’s history gives us largely his relations with the outside world. These are, speaking broadly, the two spheres in which we have to move, and we need to be preserved so that we may not only start right, but continue to the end. The only way to guarantee going through to the end is to keep oneself right, one day at a time. The beginning of all defection started on some day, and if that particular day had been watched, no one would have turned aside. It is a principle with God that we are to number our days, as we see in Enoch’s history. He was one who walked with God for three hundred years. His history is recorded as “days”, All the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years”. God fed the people daily with manna and each day was to commence and close with a burnt offering, an oblation and a drink offering; that is, each day should begin with a renewed appreciation of Christ, and of the acceptance in which we stand with God in Christ on the ground of His precious death: but along with that there is to be subjective correspondence with that which we appreciate objectively in Christ. These are basic principles on which we can hope to be preserved.

Now Samuel’s history deals with his relations with the people of God, and what marked his day was that the official priesthood was corrupt; in contrast with that, the boy Samuel is brought forward. He was destined to be an outstanding prophet and judge, and he also became a remarkable intercessor. If we are to be intercessors effectively, we must ourselves be near to God and acceptable to Him. Samuel started by being morally a priest, though he was not one officially; we are priests as having the Spirit of God and therefore can have boldness to enter the holiest. The question arises whether we are in fact priestly, and marked by holiness and spiritual intelligence. Now Samuel started on these lines. He ministered before Jehovah, a boy girded with a linen ephod. Linen stands for practical righteousness and holiness. Young believers need to make up their minds that by the grace of God they will be characterised by drawing near to God continually. Make it your practice in your own affairs and in assembly matters; see that it is not formal, but definite, and that you have to do with God in a way that is morally and practically suitable to Him. This is the foundation of all spiritual prosperity.

We read in the next chapter that the boy Samuel ministered to Jehovah before Eli. It says that Jehovah came and stood as at other times and called, Samuel, Samuel! Now it is urgent, and Samuel says, “Speak, for thy servant heareth”. That is an important matter. We should learn to speak to God, and it is equally important that we should learn to listen, and to say, “Speak, for thy servant heareth”. Now what God had to say to him was to enlarge on the iniquity of Eli’s house and on the judgment about to fall upon it. You might think it was an extraordinary thing that God should communicate all this to a boy! He wanted him to learn His judgment of the evil around him. That would induce the fear of God in Samuel, a most important element—something we all need to cultivate in a world of increasing evil. We need to keep divine standards before us. God gave this message to Samuel, and he passed it on faithfully to Eli. He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much. Jehovah was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground. It was God’s answer to Samuel’s faithfulness.

In chapter 16 attention is drawn to Samuel when he was getting old and momentarily marked by weakness. He had been somewhat rebuked by Jehovah because he was mourning unduly for Saul, and he was told to fill his horn with oil and go: “I will send thee to Jesse the Bethlehemite; for I have provided me a king among his sons”. What a word for every one of us as to whether our vessels are filled with oil, filled with the Spirit! Samuel is a godly man, faithful but for the moment weak; for when he sees Eliab he is attracted by his outward appearance. This may happen with anyone; at the same time one who is with God quickly recovers himself. God tells him not to look on the outward appearance, for He looks on the heart. In David, He had a man before Him who was thinking of the things of God, and who risked his life for one lamb belonging to his father. That is the kind of man to whom God will commit Himself, so He says, “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”. Samuel is now committed to the man in whom God delights, which leads to the refusal and the repudiation of every other man. Have we anointed Christ—God’s choice—and repudiated every other man?

Daniel also started young and went right through to the end. He had to do with the outside world. Some of us, alas, break down in our part in the testimony and are carried away by the world around. It is sorrowful to see one drop out when things are reaching completion, when the Spirit of God is putting the finishing touches on the work of God. So we read of Daniel and his three companions, and we are told their names. God as He was known is identified with each of them, for each of their names ends with either El or Jah. It is the position of the saints at the present time, for the name of God has been called upon us. We have been baptised to the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We are not to sacrifice, or under any circumstances to surrender, what is properly connected with the holy name of God.

The prince of the eunuchs would give them names that would connect them with the heathen world in the midst of which they were, but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not pollute himself with the king’s delicate food, nor with the wine that he drank. You want to have a definite purpose in your heart, and while you have to do with the world, to touch it as lightly as you possibly can, and not be defiled by it. It is a question of what you feed your mind on. It was not easy for these four young men, and they were the only ones who adopted this attitude, but God came in for them and vindicated them in a remarkable way. In chapter 2 it is a question of having God’s estimate of the glory of this world, and of how it is to end. Nebuchadnezzar was the first to whom universal dominion was entrusted; he was the head of gold in the image, but the stone cut out without hands smote the image on the feet, so that no place was found for the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver or the gold; that is how things are going to end. The Gentile kingdoms and all the glory attached to them will just be like chaff on the threshing-floor.

Daniel had remarkable opportunities, and he was promoted very highly. A Christian in public service may rise to a certain level, but there will come a time when faithfulness to the truth will be a hindrance to further promotion. Set your mind on pleasing God, and what your hands find to do, do it with your might, and do it to God. It is clear that at one time Daniel had a very high position, but in the reign of Belshazzar he was unknown. There is no suggestion that he felt losing his position. His great concern was to go on with God, and he did that right on to the end. Ephesians tells us of the exaltation of Christ to fill all things, and this means that there will not be any room for anything but Christ. This would give us to have a right judgment of everything here.

In chapter 5 of this book, Daniel is sent for by Belshazzar to interpret the writing on the wall, and is promised that, if he did so, he would be proclaimed the third ruler in the kingdom and have a gold chain about his neck; but that very night Belshazzar was slain and the kingdom passed into the hands of Darius the Mede. Of what use were the gold chain and the proclamation then? That is how the glory of the world will pass. How quickly it comes to an end!

In chapter 6 we have most attractive features in Daniel, for he went into his house, his windows being open in his upper chamber towards Jerusalem, and kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime. Not that the crisis made him take up this attitude, but he had been characterised by it. In Psalm 122 we are exhorted to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee”. That is, we are to have the assembly in our minds as God has it in His. We can pray three times a day for the assembly, that God will bring in a perfect answer in the saints to what He has in mind in regard to the assembly. That is what we see in Philadelphia—a concrete answer to what God has in mind in regard to the assembly.

Daniel is presented to us at the close of his history as being marked by these features. At the end of the chapter it says, “This Daniel prospered”. That is the kind of man that prospers. Whether we are young or old, we should be concerned to continue to the end acceptably to God, both in our relations with the people of God and in our contact with the world around.

LONDON

Summary of an address

From Words of Truth 1956

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