Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Aug 1956

The words, "Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help" were running through my mind, and as I settled down to seek in Isaiah for the place where they are found, my Bible opened at the very chapter, Isaiah 31.1. It is clear enough in this chapter that to seek Egypt's help in horses, chariots and horsemen, was the opposite of seeking the help of the LORD, for such as sought Egypt's help, "look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek the LORD." There was a fundamental reason why Israel should not seek Egypt's help and that is contained in the story of Israel's experience in that land, as given to us in the beginning of Exodus, and their deliverance from it. Each year they were to commence with the passover, on the 14th day of the month Abib. The children were to ask their fathers, "what mean ye by this service?" And their parents were to relate to them the bondage of Egypt and how the LORD had delivered them from Pharaoh and from Egypt and brought them out into the wilderness to serve God. The blood of the passover lamb was the line which God drew between the destroyer of the firstborn and His people safely sheltered beneath the blood; and the waters of the Red Sea (a type of baptism, 1 Corinthians 10.1, 2), the line which separated them for ever from Egypt. The land of their bondage was to them the land of doom, and as each year commenced they were to taste afresh in the roast lamb the sweetness of their redemption, and in the unleavened bread (the bread of affliction or misery), and the bitter herbs, they were to remember the cruel days of their servitude, when they cried by reason of their bondage. To go down to such a land for help was the complete negation of the deliverance they had known.

That deliverance from Egypt and the consequent separation from it which had to be maintained by Israel, were an echo of an earlier separation, that of Abraham from the land of his nativity in Ur of the Chaldees. In Chaldea at Babylon there had been a great revolt of the earth 5 inhabitants against the knowledge of God It was led by Nimrod that notorious man whose fame is crystalized in the words

"a mighty hunter before the LORD".

He and those under him refused to have God in their knowledge (as Paul writes of men in Romans 1) and commenced to build their city and tower their purpose being to build for themselves and their own honour, and to shut God out. It was an earlier declaration than that of Pharaoh, who said, "who is the LORD that I should hearken unto His voice to let Israel go. I know not the LORD and moreover I will not let Israel go (Exodus 5 2) Pharaoh was at least honest in his declaration I know not the LORD, but how fearsome is the consequence of not knowing the LORD and Maker! Paul told the Athenian philosophers, "He is not far from each one of us: for in Him we live, and move, and have our being; ascertain even of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring" (Acts 17.27,28). Many like Pharaoh and Nimrod, disobedient men, are alive in our time, men that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus. Such in God's time shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of His might (2 Thessalonians 1.8, 9).

There was a collision between the will of God and the will of Pharaoh, as there had been earlier between Nimrod and God. God, in Nimrod's day, segregated men by the miracle of different languages (which was a miracle of mercy at the time of Babel, but has involved many weary hours for many since in the acquisition of other languages), but Abraham did not leave Chaldea owing to the language difficulty; he was not driven from it, as others were, but he was called out of it by the God of glory who appeared unto him (Acts 7.2-4; Hebrews 11.8). This is also true of Israel. "when Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called My son out of Egypt, " (Hosea 11.1).

The call of God to Abraham made Abraham a pilgrim and a stranger, and the call of God made Israel also strangers and pilgrims on the earth. They were ever to remember that they were outsiders, outside this world's system, men of the wilderness and not of the world. It was impossible that they could change the course of the world, but they were to be witnesses for God among men in a world which belonged to God; yet by Satanic deception men walked in their own ways and not in God's. There were therefore fundamental reasons why Israel was not to go down to Egypt for help.

To " men of the world, whose portion is in this life" (Psalm 17. 14) the words of the hymn must sound strangely in their ears

Blest Saviour, we would own Thee0 Lord, 0 Master, help us

Amid the world's proud scorn, To walk apart with Thee,

The world that mocked and crowned TheeOutside the camp, where only

With diadem of thorn. Thy beauty we may see;

The world that now rejects Thee,Far from the world's loud turmoil,

Makes nothing of Thy love, Far from its busy din,

Counts not the grace and pityFar from its praise and honour,

That brought Thee from above. its unbelief and sin."

The worldly believer immersed in the world's things and finding in the world his portion and his pleasure knows nothing of what it is to go outside the camp to Him who suffered outside the gate of Jerusalem, cast outside its walls to die a felon's death, numbered with the transgressors, and who is despised and rejected still. But to go outside the world's system to the rejected One is a fundamental part of the Faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 8). who can doubt that Calvary was in view from the very day sin entered the world? The lone cross with its Victim midst dying men and jeering, violent sinners is envisaged in the ancient prophecy, "I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed: It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel" (Genesis 3.15). Wrought in the story of mankind is the promise of a Divine Deliverer, but this Deliverer was to be a Sufferer as well as One who in glorious power would judge and reign. The sufferings of Christ were to come before His glory. As with the Lord so was it to be with His servants, whether in past ages, or now, or in times vet to be.

The enmity between the serpent, the beast of the field, and mankind is an outward and visible sign of that deeper, malignant and more poisonous enmity between the old serpent, the devil, and all who are in some measure like Christ, the Seed of the woman. All such in any age who sought to live godly suffered persecution. The earliest in the long line of sufferers was Abel. "Cain was of the evil one," we are told, "and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil, and his brother's righteous" (1 John 3.12). From Cain descended men who filled the world with wickedness and ended their proud, sinful and miserable lives in the waters of Noah's flood. In days before the flood Enoch walked with God and saw and prophesied of the coming judgement. Noah also walked with God, preached righteousness and wrought righteousness as he built the ark and all the while the wicked went on heedless of the storm of God's wrath, "eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away" (Matthew 24.38, 39). Noah who walked with God lived apart from all this carelessness and wickedness.

It is easy enough to trace the way of the wicked and the way of the righteous throughout the Old Testament. Psalm 1. 6 tells us,

"For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous:

Rut the way of the wicked shall perish."

Even in Israel, among a people whom the LORD had saved and separated to Himself, it was not possible for the righteous to walk with each one of the Israel people. We know of the days of David's suffering, when by a man, and by other men of his own people, he was sorely persecuted for years. Have we not often found comfort in those words of Malachi 3.16?

"Then they that feared the LORD spake one with another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, for them that feared the LORD and that thought upon His name."

Such folk were of the remnant which had returned from Babylon to Jerusalem to build the house of God. The house had indeed been built and the temple service re-commenced, but, alas, the behaviour of the priests was such as to bring the testimony of the LORD into contempt.

J. Miller | Aug 1956
Jottings