A Goodly Heritage

Memory is a faculty given to each one of us whereby we can recall the past. It is a selective ability for we usually remember most easily those things which are of special interest to us and forget that which is unpleasant. While it is easier to remember events of recent occurrence, we can also recall without difficulty those incidents which have occurred long ago if the experiences were sufficiently moving and which therefore have greatly affected our lives. Such incidents can be kept to the forefront of our minds by frequent recollection in conversation or in quiet meditation.

There is no more vital and moving experience to us than salvation. It is an event which we should want to keep fresh in our minds by constant reflection. What a joy it must have been for the children of Israel as they passed as on dry land through the Red Sea! These waters, which normally rose and fell, ebbed and flowed, now stood as a rock-like wall on either hand. Yet when they had all passed through safely to the other side, these same waters enclosed their enemies and swallowed them up. Now they were saved from the remorseless hand of him that hated them. Spontaneous joy filled their hearts, and their voices which, but a short while before, had uttered their groans, were now raised in gladsome praise. Their words are:

"I will sing unto the LORD, for He hath triumphed gloriously:

The horse and his rider hath He thrown into the' sea " (Exodus 15. 1).

One would imagine such a memory could never be erased from their minds, but alas!

" They remembered not His hand,

Nor the day when He delivered them from the adversary"

(Psalm 78.42).

"They forgot God their Saviour,

Which had done great things in Egypt"

(Psalm 106.21).

How God's heart must have grieved at their lack of thankfulness and appreciation, even as the Lord Jesus Himself was saddened when only one of the ten lepers returned to give thanks! They forgot those days of toil, and how Pharaoh had made their lives bitter with hard service, but recalled those things which had had a fleshly appeal for them.

We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt for nought; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick."

(Numbers 11.5).

It is good for us to reflect again and again upon God's goodness to us, lest we in like manner forget all His benefits, and our memories become dulled and our voices too are raised in complaint instead of thanksgiving. We sing that,

" We have known redemption, Lord,

From bondage worse' than theirs by far."

We too have been saved from the hand of him that hated us. Let us look again to the hole of the pit whence we have been digged. Let us recall that we have been snatched as brands from the burning. The rich man in Hades tells us what might have been our punishment, in anguish in the flame in the place of torment. But instead the lines have fallen unto us in pleasant places and

"We have Canaan's goodly land in view And realms of endless day."

We are told too that, " Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to come" (1 Timothy 4.8).

As an earnest of our future inheritance God has given us His Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 1. 22). The word earnest suggests a token payment, a kind of first instalment. Sometimes, when a field is being sold, a piece of turf cut out from the field is brought into the auction room as a sample for prospective buyers to examine, and then given to the highest bidder as an "earnest," or an assurance that the transaction has been carried out-although as yet he has in his possession but a very small part of that which now belongs to him. The grapes, figs, and pomegranates which were brought back by the spies from the Promised Land, were only just a small sample of the fruit of the land, but were sufficient to assure them it was an exceedingly good land, a land that flowed with milk and honey.

Our present day Spirit-filled experiences, though fragmentary, are similar in quality to the unbroken joy which will be ours in glory. Here and now we can enjoy the firstfruits of the Spirit, giving us a sweet foretaste of the portion which soon by God's grace shall be ours, when we enter the land that is fairer than day and the inheritance shall be fully ours. Now we can only see through a glass darkly, but then face to face we shall see the King in all His beauty.

At that moment we shall doubtless feel like the Queen of Sheba that the half was never told us. We shall realize that the best wine has been kept until the last. In the meantime, though it hath not entered the heart of man what things God prepared for them that love Him - yet :

" On earth some glimpse is given

Of joys that wait us

Through the gates of Heaven."

for "unto us God revealed them through the Spirit."

As we experience these sweet foretastes of the realms above, how truly we sing,

" But if the little that we know

Of Thee and Thine while here below,

Such triumph gives, what will it be

When face to face Thyself we see?"

unknown | Oct 1954
For Young Believers