The Secret of our Strength
By J.B. Stoney
"SKIN for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life".
According as anything approaches in value to one's life, so is it tenaciously grasped and persistently retained. The sure evidence that the truth we have learned is of real value to us is the tenacity and inviolability with which we hold to it. If I believe it is the mind of God revealed to me, it must be dearer to me than my natural life, which is in itself terminable, while the other is not. The very fact of the warning, "Hold that fast which thou hast", shows that there would be an attempt to deprive the saints of the truth they had received.
In our warfare the devil always aims at the secret of our strength. In one day it was the ark of the covenant that he aimed at; in this day it is the truth to which the church has been awakened. To deprive us of this truth is his one aim. He concentrates all his force and craft upon this one point, and if this be surrendered, we shall easily be his prey. Seeing then that we know that the force of the enemy is directed to this end, namely, to deprive us of this truth, let us first ascertain what it is, and secondly, what is the only true way of holding it fast.
The truth which has been given consists of two parts. One relates to the Lord as He is intrinsically in His nature and being "he that is holy, he that is true"; the other refers to His power -- "He that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth". Let us meditate on them in detail.
In our warfare the devil always aims at the secret of our strength. In one day it was the ark of the covenant that he aimed at; in this day it is the truth to which the church has been awakened. To deprive us of this truth is his one aim. He concentrates all his force and craft upon this one point, and if this be surrendered, we shall easily be his prey. Seeing then that we know that the force of the enemy is directed to this end, namely, to deprive us of this truth, let us first ascertain what it is, and secondly, what is the only true way of holding it fast.
The truth which has been given consists of two parts. One relates to the Lord as He is intrinsically in His nature and being "he that is holy, he that is true"; the other refers to His power -- "He that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth". Let us meditate on them in detail.
The first, that He is holy and true, strikes a believer at once as a very simple fact that could in no wise be gainsaid or qualified. In a word, any attempt to contravene such a fundamental truth must meet with instant and indignant denial. And yet, strange as it may sound, all the confusion in Christendom, and all the variance between the Lord's people, arises from an inaccurate and insensible way of holding this truth. Things and associations are suffered and sanctioned which could never have been tolerated if there had been any true sense of His holiness and truth. The lack of godly discipline in the congregation, even where there is a pious, painstaking minister, has driven many a godly soul out of a congregation. There was a sense that in this association they had not respect to His holiness; and if I do not respect His holiness, I cannot acknowledge His truth. This sense of His holiness is only acquired by nearness to Him. He is now walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, and no one who is mixed up in the corruption of Christendom can draw near Him without being alarmed at His aspect there. Nearness to the Lord, when I am associated with evil, distresses me instead of cheering me, though the distress be the means of awakening me to the unsuitability of my position.
We are never really aware of the holiness of the Lord until we are near Him. Jacob could allow many things at Shalom which he found to be wholly inexcusable and unfit for Bethel. Nearness to the Lord declares at once what is fit for Him and what is not. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light". "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God". When I am awake to His holiness, I see clearly that nothing else is fit for Him in His own house but what He is in Himself.
The queen's daughter, in prophetic language, is suited to Him. She is "all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold". All that is evil or false is utterly at variance with Him. It is a great day for the soul when it hears this from His own lips, and accepts it in its greatness and reality. It exacts full and unqualified separation from everything and everyone unsuited to Christ. There is an exaction, a line of demarcation, a reiteration of the words, "come out from among them, and be yo separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing". It is a separation to the highest standard; as my heart turns and cleaves to Him, I am sensible of the only terms on which I can enjoy Him, even that Ho is holy, and that He is true. Much of His grace can be known, and there may be true faith in Him, without there being nearness enough to fool the exaction which His presence entails. "Put off thy shoos from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground". Then, however graciously Ho comes to us - as in a bush, and it is not consumed - we must fool and know, as Moses did, that it is holy ground.
Ono is simply at a distance from the Lord when ho does not enter into this, the first and the greatest point because the moral ono, that Ho is the holy and the true. It is said of a blind man that ho can form no conception of what light is until ho sees it. Can any ono comprehend holiness but near the Lord? and how can ho be near Him if mixed up with the corruption of christendom? If ho draws near to Him, ho must encounter His eyes like a flame of fire, for He is indignant at the state of the church. On the other hand great influence controls us - "With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure."
But as this is the great moral stay for us at the present time, we must be prepared for its being assailed in many various and violent ways. The effort of the adversary is to got the faithful to slacken this principle, or even to modify it, and thus to forfeit nearness to the Lord, and consequently all that Ho is. To "hold that fast which thou hast" is the only road to success. The more corrupt and leavened everything is around us, the more separate it becomes us to be, holding fast without any compromise this fact, that He is holy and that He is true. Every saint would own that it is unquestionably true of Him, but it is necessary in a day like this to press it on every one true to Him, who seeks to follow Him in these last days. He presents Himself to such in these two essential principles, for it is only in this connection, that is in holiness and truth, that He can declare the boundlessness of His power to the few besieged and almost overborne by the power of evil here.
Now as when grace was announced to Moses the holiness of God was insisted on, so when to Joshua it is power, very nearly the same words are used - "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy." It is from this, and in this connection only, that the power of God can be used in our behalf. As with the Nazarite, power was forfeited when separation or holiness was compromised, so is it every day and every hour. If any one be surrounded with evil and mixed up with it, the first thing he will do, if exercised after a godly manner and by the Spirit of God, is to draw near the Lord; and there he learns of His holiness and truth, he has a little power, has kept His word, and not denied His name, and he survives in spite of the terrible flood around. He is, as it were, worth helping, and therefore to such the Lord presents Himself as He is in nature and greatness.
We are never really aware of the holiness of the Lord until we are near Him. Jacob could allow many things at Shalom which he found to be wholly inexcusable and unfit for Bethel. Nearness to the Lord declares at once what is fit for Him and what is not. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light". "He that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God". When I am awake to His holiness, I see clearly that nothing else is fit for Him in His own house but what He is in Himself.
The queen's daughter, in prophetic language, is suited to Him. She is "all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold". All that is evil or false is utterly at variance with Him. It is a great day for the soul when it hears this from His own lips, and accepts it in its greatness and reality. It exacts full and unqualified separation from everything and everyone unsuited to Christ. There is an exaction, a line of demarcation, a reiteration of the words, "come out from among them, and be yo separate, . . . and touch not the unclean thing". It is a separation to the highest standard; as my heart turns and cleaves to Him, I am sensible of the only terms on which I can enjoy Him, even that Ho is holy, and that He is true. Much of His grace can be known, and there may be true faith in Him, without there being nearness enough to fool the exaction which His presence entails. "Put off thy shoos from off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground". Then, however graciously Ho comes to us - as in a bush, and it is not consumed - we must fool and know, as Moses did, that it is holy ground.
Ono is simply at a distance from the Lord when ho does not enter into this, the first and the greatest point because the moral ono, that Ho is the holy and the true. It is said of a blind man that ho can form no conception of what light is until ho sees it. Can any ono comprehend holiness but near the Lord? and how can ho be near Him if mixed up with the corruption of christendom? If ho draws near to Him, ho must encounter His eyes like a flame of fire, for He is indignant at the state of the church. On the other hand great influence controls us - "With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure."
But as this is the great moral stay for us at the present time, we must be prepared for its being assailed in many various and violent ways. The effort of the adversary is to got the faithful to slacken this principle, or even to modify it, and thus to forfeit nearness to the Lord, and consequently all that Ho is. To "hold that fast which thou hast" is the only road to success. The more corrupt and leavened everything is around us, the more separate it becomes us to be, holding fast without any compromise this fact, that He is holy and that He is true. Every saint would own that it is unquestionably true of Him, but it is necessary in a day like this to press it on every one true to Him, who seeks to follow Him in these last days. He presents Himself to such in these two essential principles, for it is only in this connection, that is in holiness and truth, that He can declare the boundlessness of His power to the few besieged and almost overborne by the power of evil here.
Now as when grace was announced to Moses the holiness of God was insisted on, so when to Joshua it is power, very nearly the same words are used - "Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy." It is from this, and in this connection only, that the power of God can be used in our behalf. As with the Nazarite, power was forfeited when separation or holiness was compromised, so is it every day and every hour. If any one be surrounded with evil and mixed up with it, the first thing he will do, if exercised after a godly manner and by the Spirit of God, is to draw near the Lord; and there he learns of His holiness and truth, he has a little power, has kept His word, and not denied His name, and he survives in spite of the terrible flood around. He is, as it were, worth helping, and therefore to such the Lord presents Himself as He is in nature and greatness.
Wherever we turn in Scripture, the one unalterable rule is that when you walk with God in true separation, you are invincible. When you deviate from this, you are shorn of your strength, however great it may have been. Joseph, a man of holiness, was the man of power. Aaron and the people failed when they forgot God, but Moses came from God and was in the power of God equal to the occasion. Lose holiness and you are like Samson when shorn, "as another man". "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you". Thus Isaiah found that, as soon as he was placed by grace at ease in the holiness of God's presence, he was equal for any service on which he might be sent; he could say, "Here am I; send me." If one is not without fear in the highest holiness, he will not be without fear in the face of man's wickedness. Hence glory is now the measure of our acceptance and of our power - in a word, the measure of all God's ways with us. "Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways ! I should soon have subdued their enemies . . . He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat", etc. (Psalm 81).
Joshua is admonished when he cries to the Lord because of Israel's defeat. The Lord said unto Joshua, "Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned", etc. The remedy is "Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow". When we fail and are overcome in any degree here, it should at once occur to us that the failure is not with the Lord, but because we are not separate from evil; we are connected with something unclean, otherwise He would espouse us and act for us. When the Lord is the only One before us, He is on our right hand, we shall not be moved. We learn in everything, "who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" It is a truth of the greatest value that if I walk in obedience to His word, He will uphold me with all His power. "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him", John 14: 23.
Joshua is admonished when he cries to the Lord because of Israel's defeat. The Lord said unto Joshua, "Wherefore liest thou thus upon thy face? Israel hath sinned", etc. The remedy is "Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow". When we fail and are overcome in any degree here, it should at once occur to us that the failure is not with the Lord, but because we are not separate from evil; we are connected with something unclean, otherwise He would espouse us and act for us. When the Lord is the only One before us, He is on our right hand, we shall not be moved. We learn in everything, "who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" It is a truth of the greatest value that if I walk in obedience to His word, He will uphold me with all His power. "If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him", John 14: 23.
In a word, just as I keep close to Him, He will keep close to me and make my cause His own; so that I am not to be occupied with opposition, but in truth and holiness to cleave unto the Lord. Then it shall be, "no man hath been able to stand before you unto this day. One man of you shall chase a thousand: for the Lord your God, he it is that fighteth for you, as he hath promised you", josh. 23 : 9, 10.
The lack of power or support can always be traced to some departure or turning aside on our part. In everything we shall find that true separation or nazariteship ensures the present and parental care and protection of our God -"come out from among them, and be ye separate", etc. (2 Corinthian 6 : 17.)
The lack of power or support can always be traced to some departure or turning aside on our part. In everything we shall find that true separation or nazariteship ensures the present and parental care and protection of our God -"come out from among them, and be ye separate", etc. (2 Corinthian 6 : 17.)
No comments:
Post a Comment