Notes on the Book of Deuteronomy Volume I Part 3

No doubt, our Lord may and does, at times, intimate His mind and indicate our path by His providence; but we must be sufficiently near to Him to be able to interpret the providence aright, else we may find that what is called "an opening of Providence" may actually prove an opening by which we slip off the holy path of obedience. Surrounding circ.u.mstances, just like our inward impressions, must be weighed in the presence of G.o.d, and judged by the light of His Word, else they may lead us into the most terrible mistakes. Jonah might have considered it a remarkable providence to find a s.h.i.+p going to Tars.h.i.+sh; but had he been in communion with G.o.d, he would not have needed a s.h.i.+p. In short, the Word of G.o.d is the one grand test and perfect touchstone for every thing--for outward circ.u.mstances and inward impressions--for feelings, imaginations, and tendencies--all must be placed under the searching light of holy Scripture and there calmly and seriously judged. This is the true path of safety, peace, and blessedness for every child of G.o.d.

It may, however, be said, in reply to all this, that we cannot expect to find a text of Scripture to guide us in the matter of our movements, or in the thousand little details of daily life. Perhaps not; but there are certain great principles laid down in Scripture, which, if properly applied, will afford divine guidance even where we might not be able to find a particular text. And not only so, but we have the fullest a.s.surance that our G.o.d can and does guide His children in all things. "The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord."--"The meek will He guide in judgment; and the meek will He teach His way."--"I will guide thee with Mine eye." He can signify His mind to us as to this or that particular act or movement. If not, where are we? How are we to get on? How are we to regulate our movements? Are we to be drifted hither and thither by the tide of circ.u.mstances? Are we left to blind chance, or to the mere impulse of our own will?

Thank G.o.d, it is not so. He can, in His own perfect way, give us the certainty of His mind in any given case; and without that certainty we should never move. Our Lord Christ (all homage to His peerless name!) can intimate His mind to His servant as to where He would have him to go and what He would have him to do; and no true servant will ever think of moving or acting without such intimation. We should never act or move in uncertainty. If we are not sure, let us be quiet and wait.

Very often it happens that we hara.s.s and fret ourselves about movements that G.o.d would not have us make at all. A person once said to a friend, "I am quite at a loss to know which way to turn." "Then, don't turn at all," was the friend's wise reply.

But here an all-important moral point comes in, and that is, our whole condition of soul. This, we may rest a.s.sured, has very much to do with the matter of guidance. It is "the meek He will guide in judgment, and teach His way." We must never forget this. If only we are humble and self-distrusting--if we wait on our G.o.d, in simplicity of heart, uprightness of mind, and honesty of purpose, He will most a.s.suredly guide us. But it will never do to go and ask counsel of G.o.d in a matter about which our mind is made up, or our will is at work.

This is a fatal delusion. Look at the case of Jehoshaphat, in 1 Kings xxii.--"It came to pa.s.s in the third year, that Jehoshaphat the king of Judah came down to the king of Israel"--a sad mistake, to begin with.--"And the king of Israel said unto his servants, 'Know ye that Ramoth in Gilead is ours, and we be still, and take it not out of the hand of the king of Syria?' And he said unto Jehoshaphat, 'Wilt thou go with me to battle to Ramoth-gilead?' And Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, 'I am as thou art, my people as thy people, my horses as thy horses; and, (as we have it in 2 Chronicles xviii. 3,) we will be with thee in the war.'"

Here we see that his mind was made up before ever he thought of asking counsel of G.o.d in the matter. He was in a false position and a wrong atmosphere altogether. He had fallen into the snare of the enemy, through lack of singleness of eye, and hence he was not in a fit state to receive or profit by divine guidance. He was bent on his own will, and the Lord left him to reap the fruits of it; and but for infinite and sovereign mercy, he would have fallen by the sword of the Syrians, and been borne a corpse from the battle-field.

True, he did say to the king of Israel, "Inquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord to-day." But where was the use of this, when he had already pledged himself to a certain line of action? What folly for any one to make up his mind and then go and ask for counsel! Had he been in a right state of soul, he never would have sought counsel in such a case at all; but his state of soul was bad, his position false, and his purpose in direct opposition to the mind and will of G.o.d.

Hence, although he heard, from the lips of Jehovah's messenger, His solemn judgment on the entire expedition, yet he took his own way, and well-nigh lost his life in consequence.

We see the same thing in the forty-second chapter of Jeremiah. The people applied to the prophet to ask counsel as to their going down into Egypt; but they had already made up their minds as to their course--they were bent on their own will. Miserable condition! Had they been meek and humble, they would not have needed to ask counsel in the matter; but they said unto Jeremiah the prophet, "'Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord _thy_ G.o.d [Why not say, The Lord _our_ G.o.d?] even for all this remnant; (for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us:) that the Lord _thy_ G.o.d may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do.' Then Jeremiah the prophet said unto them, 'I have heard you; behold, I will pray unto the Lord _your_ G.o.d according to your words; and it shall come to pa.s.s, that whatsoever thing the Lord shall answer you, I will declare it unto you; I will keep nothing back from you.' Then they said to Jeremiah, 'The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord _thy_ G.o.d shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil [How could the will of G.o.d be aught but good?], we will obey the voice of the Lord our G.o.d, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us, when we obey the voice of the Lord our G.o.d.'"

Now, all this seemed very pious and very promising; but mark the sequel. When they found that the judgment and counsel of G.o.d did not tally with their will, "then spake ... _all the proud men_, saving unto Jeremiah, 'Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our G.o.d hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there.'"

Here, the real state of the case comes clearly out. Pride and self-will were at work; their vows and promises were false. "Ye dissembled in your hearts," says Jeremiah, "when ye sent me unto the Lord your G.o.d, saying, 'Pray for us unto the Lord our G.o.d; and according unto all that the Lord our G.o.d shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.'" It would have been all very well had the divine response fallen in with their will in the matter; but inasmuch as it ran counter, they rejected it altogether.

How often is this the case! The Word of G.o.d does not suit man's thoughts; it judges them, it stands in direct opposition to his will, it interferes with his plans, and hence he rejects it. The human will and human reason are ever in direct antagonism to the Word of G.o.d, and the Christian must refuse both the one and the other if he really desires to be divinely guided. An unbroken will and blind reason, if we listen to them, can only lead us into darkness, misery, and desolation. Jonah _would_ go to Tars.h.i.+sh, when he ought to have gone to Nineveh; and the consequence was that he found himself "in the belly of h.e.l.l," with "the weeds wrapped about his head." Jehoshaphat _would_ go to Ramoth-gilead, when he ought to have been at Jerusalem; and the consequence was that he found himself surrounded by the swords of the Syrians. The remnant, in the days of Jeremiah, _would_ go into Egypt, when they ought to have remained at Jerusalem; and the consequence was that they died by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence in the land of Egypt, "whither they _desired_ to go and to sojourn."

Thus it must ever be. The path of self-will is sure to be a path of darkness and misery; it cannot be otherwise: the path of obedience, on the contrary, is a path of peace, a path of light, a path of blessing, a path on which the beams of divine favor are ever poured in living l.u.s.tre. It may, to the human eye, seem narrow, rough, and lonely; but the obedient soul finds it to be the path of life, peace, and moral security. "The path of the just is as the s.h.i.+ning light, that s.h.i.+neth more and more unto the perfect day." Blessed path! May the writer and the reader ever be found treading it, with a steady step and earnest purpose.

Before turning from this great practical subject of divine guidance and human obedience, we must ask the reader to refer, for a few moments, to a very beautiful pa.s.sage in the eleventh chapter of Luke.

He will find it full of the most valuable instruction.

"The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness. Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness. If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright s.h.i.+ning of a candle doth give thee light." (Ver. 34-36.)

Nothing can exceed the moral force and beauty of this pa.s.sage. First of all, we have the "single eye." This is essential to the enjoyment of divine guidance. It indicates a broken will--a heart honestly fixed upon doing the will of G.o.d. There is no under-current, no mixed motive, no personal end in view. There is the one simple desire and earnest purpose to do the will of G.o.d, whatever that will may be.

Now, when the soul is in this att.i.tude, divine light comes streaming in and fills the whole body. Hence it follows that if the body is not full of light, the eye is not single; there is some mixed motive; self-will or self-interest is at work; we are not upright before G.o.d.

In this case, any light which we profess to have is darkness; and there is no darkness so gross or so terrible as that judicial darkness which settles down upon the heart governed by self-will while professing to have light from G.o.d. This will be seen in all its horrors by and by in christendom, when "that Wicked shall be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming; even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because _they received not the love of the truth_, that they might be saved. And _for this cause_ G.o.d shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be d.a.m.ned who believed not the truth, but _had pleasure in unrighteousness_." (2 Thess. ii.

8-12.)

How awful is this! How solemnly it speaks to the whole professing church! How solemnly it addresses the conscience of both the writer and the reader of these lines! Light not acted upon becomes darkness.--"If the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" But on the other hand, a little light honestly acted upon is sure to increase; for "to him that hath shall more be given,"

and "the path of the just is as the s.h.i.+ning light, that s.h.i.+neth more and more unto the perfect day."

This moral progress is beautifully and forcibly set forth in Luke xi.

36.--"If thy whole body therefore be full of light, having _no part dark_"--no chamber kept closed against the heavenly rays--no dishonest reserve--the whole moral being laid open, in genuine simplicity, to the action of divine light; then "the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright s.h.i.+ning of a candle doth give thee light." In a word, the obedient soul has not only light for his own path, but the light s.h.i.+nes out, so that others see it, like the bright s.h.i.+ning of a candle. "Let your light so s.h.i.+ne before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

We have a very vivid contrast to all this in the thirteenth chapter of Jeremiah.--"Give glory to the Lord your G.o.d, _before He cause darkness_, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness." The way to give glory to the Lord our G.o.d is to obey His Word. The path of duty is a bright and blessed path; and the one who, through grace, treads that path will never stumble on the dark mountains. The truly humble, the lowly, the self-distrusting, will keep far away from those dark mountains, and walk in that blessed path which is ever illuminated by the bright and cheering beams of G.o.d's approving countenance.

This is the path of the just, the path of heavenly wisdom, the path of perfect peace. May we ever be found treading it, beloved reader; and let us never, for one moment, forget that it is our high privilege to be divinely guided in the most minute details of our daily life. Alas!

for the one who is not so guided. He will have many a stumble, many a fall, many a sorrowful experience. If we are not guided by our Father's eye, we shall be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle,--like the horse, impetuously rus.h.i.+ng where he ought not, or the mule, obstinately refusing to go where he ought. How sad for a Christian to be like these! How blessed to move, from day to day, in the path marked out for us by our Father's eye!--a path which the vulture's eye hath not seen, or the lion's whelp trodden; the path of holy obedience; the path in which the meek and lowly will ever be found, to their deep joy, and the praise and glory of Him who has opened it for them and given them grace to tread it.

In the remainder of our chapter, Moses rehea.r.s.es in the ears of the people, in language of touching simplicity, the facts connected with the appointment of the judges, and the mission of the spies. The appointment of the judges, Moses here attributes to his own suggestion: the mission of the spies was the suggestion of the people.

That dear and most honored servant of G.o.d felt the burden of the congregation too heavy for him; and a.s.suredly it was very heavy; though we know well that the grace of G.o.d was amply sufficient for the demand, and, moreover, that that grace could act as well by one man as by seventy.

Still, we can well understand the difficulty felt by "the meekest man in all the earth" in reference to the responsibility of so grave and important a charge; and truly the language in which he states his difficulty is affecting in the highest degree. We feel as though we must quote it for the reader.

"And I spake unto you at that time, saying, 'I am not able to bear you myself alone [Surely not; what mere mortal could? But G.o.d was there to be counted upon for exigence of every hour.]: the Lord your G.o.d hath multiplied you, and, behold, ye are this day as the stars of heaven for mult.i.tude.' (The Lord G.o.d of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as ye are, and bless you, as He hath promised you.)" Lovely parenthesis! Exquisite breathing of a large and lowly heart! "How can I myself alone bear your c.u.mbrance, and your burden, and _your strife_?"

Alas! here lay the secret of much of the "c.u.mbrance" and the "burden."

They could not agree among themselves,--there were controversies, contentions, and questions; and who was sufficient for these things?

what human shoulder could sustain such a burden? How different it might have been with them! Had they walked lovingly together, there would have been no cases to decide, and therefore no need of judges to decide them. If each member of the congregation had sought the prosperity, the interest, and the happiness of his brethren, there would have been no "strife," no "c.u.mbrance," no "burden." If each had done all that in him lay to promote the common good, how lovely would have been the result!

But, ah! it was not so with Israel in the desert; and, what is still more humbling, it is not so in the Church of G.o.d, although our privileges are so much higher. Hardly had the a.s.sembly been formed by the presence of the Holy Ghost ere the accents of murmuring and discontent were heard. And about what? About "neglect," whether fancied or real. Whatever way it was, _self_ was at work. If the neglect was merely imaginary, the Grecians were to blame; and if it was real, the Hebrews were to blame. It generally happens, in such cases, that there are faults on both sides; but the true way to avoid all strife, contention, and murmuring is to put self in the dust and earnestly seek the good of others. Had this excellent way been understood and adopted, from the outset, what a different task the ecclesiastical historian would have had to perform! But, alas! it has not been adopted; and hence the history of the professing church, from the very beginning, has been a deplorable and humiliating record of controversy, division, and strife. In the very presence of the Lord Himself, whose whole life was one of complete self-surrender, the apostles disputed about who should be greatest. Such a dispute could never have arisen had each known the exquisite secret of putting self in the dust and seeking the good of others. No one who knows aught of the true moral elevation of self-emptiness could possibly seek a good or a great place for himself. Nearness to Christ so satisfies the lowly heart, that honors, distinctions, and rewards are little accounted of; but where self is at work, there you will have envy and jealousy, strife and contention, confusion and every evil work.

Witness the scene between the two sons of Zebedee and their ten brethren, in the tenth chapter of Mark. What was at the bottom of it?

Self. The two were thinking of a good place for themselves in the kingdom, and the ten were angry with the two for thinking of any such thing. Had each set self aside, and sought the good of others, such a scene would never have been enacted,--the two would not have been thinking about themselves, and hence there would have been no ground for the "indignation" of the ten.

But it is needless to multiply examples. Every age of the church's history ill.u.s.trates and proves the truth of our statement that self and its odious workings are the producing cause of strife, contention, and division, always. Turn where you will--from the days of the apostles down to the days in which our lot is cast, and you will find unmortified self to be the fruitful source of strife and schism; and on the other hand, you will find that to sink self and its interests is the true secret of peace, harmony, and brotherly love. If only we learn to set self aside, and seek earnestly the glory of Christ and the prosperity of His beloved people, we shall not have many "cases"

to settle.

We must now return to our chapter.

"How can I myself alone bear your c.u.mbrance, and your burden, and your strife? Take you wise men, and understanding, and known among your tribes, and I will make them rulers over you. And ye answered me, and said, 'The thing which thou hast spoken is good for us to do.' So I took the chief of your tribes, _wise_ men, and _known_"--men fitted of G.o.d, and possessing, because ent.i.tled to, the confidence of the congregation--"and made them heads over you, captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, and captains over fifties, and captains over tens, and officers among your tribes."

Admirable arrangement! If indeed it had to be made, nothing could be better adapted to the maintenance of order than the graduated scale of authority, varying from the captain of ten to the captain of a thousand; the lawgiver himself at the head of all, and he in immediate communication with the Lord G.o.d of Israel.

We have no allusion here to the fact recorded in Exodus xviii, namely, that the appointment of those rulers was at the suggestion of Jethro, Moses' father-in-law; neither have we any reference to the scene in Numbers xi. We call the reader's attention to this as one of the many proofs which lie scattered along the pages of Deuteronomy that it is very far indeed from being a mere repet.i.tion of the preceding sections of the Pentateuch. In short, this delightful book has a marked character of its own, and the mode in which facts are presented is in perfect keeping with that character. It is very evident that the object of the venerable lawgiver, or rather of the Holy Ghost in him, was to bring every thing to bear, in a moral way, upon the hearts of the people, in order to produce that one grand result which is the special object of the book from beginning to end, namely, a loving obedience to all the statutes and judgments of the Lord their G.o.d.

We must bear this in mind if we would study aright the book which lies open before us. Infidels, skeptics, and rationalists may impiously suggest to us the thought of discrepancies in the various records given in the different books; but the pious reader will reject, with a holy indignation, every such suggestion, knowing that it emanates directly from the father of lies, the determined and persistent enemy of the precious revelation of G.o.d. This, we feel persuaded, is the true way in which to deal with all infidel a.s.saults upon the Bible.

Argument is useless, inasmuch as infidels are not in a position to understand or appreciate its force; they are profoundly ignorant of the matter. Nor is it merely a question of profound ignorance, but of determined hostility; so that, in every way, the judgment of all infidel writers on the subject of divine inspiration is utterly worthless and perfectly contemptible. We would pity and pray for the men, while we thoroughly despise and indignantly reject their opinions. The Word of G.o.d is entirely above and beyond them. It is as perfect as its Author, and as imperishable as His throne; but its moral glories, its living depths, and its infinite perfections are only unfolded to faith and need. "I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes."

If we are only content to be as simple as a babe, we shall enjoy the precious revelation of a Father's love, as given by His Spirit in the holy Scriptures; but on the other hand, those who fancy themselves wise and prudent--who build upon their learning, their philosophy, and their reason--who think themselves competent to sit in judgment on the Word of G.o.d, and hence on G.o.d Himself, are given over to judicial darkness, blindness, and hardness of heart. Thus it comes to pa.s.s that the most egregious folly and the most contemptible ignorance that man can display will be found in the pages of those learned writers who have dared to write against the Bible. "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not G.o.d made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of G.o.d the world by wisdom knew not G.o.d, it pleased G.o.d by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe." (1 Cor. i. 20, 21.)

"If any man will be wise, let him become a fool." Here lies the grand moral secret of the matter. Man must get to the end of his own wisdom, as well as of his own righteousness. He must be brought to confess himself a fool ere he can taste the sweetness of divine wisdom. It is not within the range of the most gigantic human intellect, aided by all the appliances of human learning and philosophy, to grasp the very simplest elements of divine revelation; and therefore, when unconverted men, whatever may be the force of their genius or the extent of their learning, undertake to handle spiritual subjects, and more especially the subject of the divine inspiration of holy Scripture, they are sure to exhibit their profound ignorance, and utter incompetency to deal with the question before them. Indeed, whenever we look into an infidel book, we are struck with the feebleness of their most forcible arguments; and not only so, but in every instance in which they attempt to find a discrepancy in the Bible, we see only divine wisdom, beauty, and perfectness.

We have been led into the foregoing line of thought in connection with the subject of the appointment of the elders, which is given to us in each book according to the wisdom of the Holy Ghost, and in perfect keeping with the scope and object of the book. We shall now proceed with our quotation.

"And I charged your judges at that time, saying, 'Hear the causes between your brethren, and _judge righteously_ between every man and his brother, and _the stranger_ that is with him. _Ye shall not respect persons_ in judgment; but _ye shall hear the small as well as the great_; _ye shall not be afraid of the face of man_; for the judgment is G.o.d's; and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it.'"

What heavenly wisdom is here! what even-handed justice! what holy impartiality! In every case of difference, all the facts on both sides were to be fully heard and patiently weighed. The mind was not to be warped by prejudice, predilection, or personal feeling of any kind.

The judgment was to be formed, not by impressions, but by facts--clearly established, undeniable facts. Personal influence was to have no weight whatever. The position and circ.u.mstances of either party in the cause were not to be considered. The case must be decided entirely upon its own merits. "Ye shall hear the small as well as the great." The poor man was to have the same even-handed justice meted out to him as the rich; the stranger as one born in the land. No difference was to be allowed.

How important is all this! how worthy of our attentive consideration!

how full of deep and valuable instruction for us all! True, we are not all called to be judges or elders or leaders; but the great moral principles laid down in the above quotation are of the very utmost value to every one of us, inasmuch as cases are continually occurring which call for their direct application. Wherever our lot may be cast, whatever our line of life or sphere of action, we are liable, alas! to meet with cases of difficulty and misunderstanding between our brethren,--cases of wrong, whether real or imaginary; and hence it is most needful to be divinely instructed as to how we ought to carry ourselves in respect to such.

Now, in all such cases, we cannot be too strongly impressed with the necessity of having our judgment based on facts--all the facts on both sides. We must not allow ourselves to be guided by our own impressions, for we all know that mere impressions are most untrustworthy. They may be correct, and they may be utterly false.

Nothing is more easily received and conveyed than a false impression, and therefore any judgment based on mere impressions is worthless. We must have solid, clearly established facts--facts established by two or three witnesses, as Scripture so distinctly enforces. (Deut. xvii.

6; Matt. xviii. 16; 2 Cor. xiii. 1; 1 Tim. v. 19.)

But further, we must never be guided in judgment by an _ex parte_ statement. Every one is liable, even with the best intentions, to give a color to his statement of a case. It is not that he would intentionally make a false statement, or tell a deliberate lie; but through inaccuracy of memory, or one cause or another, he may not present the case as it really is. Some fact may be omitted, and that one fact may so affect all the other facts as to alter their bearing completely. "_Audi alteram partem_" ("Hear the other side") is a wholesome motto. And not only hear the other side, but hear all the facts on both sides, and thus you will be able to form a sound and righteous judgment. We may set it down as a standing rule, that any judgment formed without an accurate knowledge of all the facts is perfectly worthless. "Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him." Seasonable, needed words, most surely, at all times, in all places, and under all circ.u.mstances. May we apply our hearts to them.