Jottings

by J. Miller | Category: Jottings | Oct 1962

There are times of crisis, both in the history of Israel and of God's people in this present dispensation of grace, when men are made or marred by the personal decision they make to follow the LORD at whatever cost, or to take what seems the more profitable and easier course to "follow a multitude to do evil" (Exodus 23.2). Many have lost their crown of reward by taking the latter course instead of standing for God and His truth. Such a day of crisis was that of Kadesh-barnea. The twelve spies had gone and returned with the fruits of the land. These fruits were proofs to the people, encamped as they were on the border of the promised land, that it was a land as God had described it to them, a land flowing with milk and honey. There was the bunch of luscious grapes which it took two men to carry on a pole between them, a bunch of the grapes of Eshcol such as never was seen perchance before or since. It was taken as a type of Christ by a writer in past years. The front spy who carried the pole on his shoulder knew it was coming behind though he did not see it, this was compared to the prophets who testified that Christ was coming, but they never saw Him. The other spy who came last saw the bunch of grapes always before him, that was taken as a picture of the apostles who saw Him and bore witness that He had come.

The ten spies saw more than fruits in the land; they saw also giants and cities fenced up to heaven. They were more taken up with giant men than with giant fruits. They saw themselves as grasshoppers as compared with such men, and their hearts failed them and they in consequence failed God and limited the power of the Holy One of Israel. Had they not seen His power in Egypt, during the plagues, and in their deliverance? Had they not seen His power at the Red sea where they sang His praise? Indeed all the way along their journey they had seen evidences of power such as mortal men had never seen on earth. But here at Kadesh-barnea their faith fled before the sight of men great of flesh as the giants were, but flesh before the God of Israel vanishes like snow in a thaw.

In this crisis Israel decided to follow God no longer, and they would dismiss Moses and choose a captain to return to Egypt (Numbers 14.1-4). In this crisis Joshua and Caleb rose supreme. They sought to encourage the people not to turn back to Egypt, but their words of assurance and strength fell on deaf ears.

We find at a later time, when the children of those men who sinned at Kadeshbarnea had grown up in their fathers' stead and were about to enter the land and when Reuben and Gad proposed not to cross the Jordan, Moses warned them against acting as their fathers had done, and if they did, what calamity would

fall upon them and the whole of Israel.

"Surely none of the men that came up out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed Me: save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun: because they have wholly followed the LORD. And the LORD'S anger was kindled against Israel, and He made them wander to and fro in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the LORD, was consumed. And, behold, ye are risen up in your fathers' stead, an increase of sinful men, to augment yet the fierce anger of the LORD toward Israel. For if ye turn away from after Him, He 'will yet again leave them in the wilderness ; and ye shall destroy all this people."

(Numbers 32.11.15).

It was a tragic event in Israel's journey through the wilderness when God sentenced to death the numbered men of the twelve tribes save Joshua and Caleb, 608,548 men.

It is said by Caleb, "I wholly followed the LORD my God". Moses said of him, "Thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God," and God's commendation of him is, "He wholly followed the LORD, the God of Israel" (Joshua 14.8, 9, 14). What does it mean to follow the Loan? It is just this, that we obey His commandments.

The cause of the rejection of Saul as king of Israel was similar to that of the disaster of the fighting men of Israel who were numbered at Sinai, even disobedience, and such disobedience as is classed under rebellion, the sin of self-will (Hebrews 10.26). In both cases it was sin unto death (1 John 5.16,17). The circumstances were different; at Kadesh-barnea Israel refused to enter the land, but in Saul's case be refused to destroy wholly the Amalekites, and brought back Agag their king and the best of the sheep and oxen. Saul was in high spirits on his return, and to record his victory he set up a monument to himself in Carmel and went on to Gilgal. Gilgal was a place of significance in Israel; it was their first camping place after they crossed the Jordan. Here they circumcised with flint knives at the hill of foreskins the men who were born in the wilderness, who had not been circumcised. What was the significance of this? It was the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt from off Israel, for the Egyptians are described as a people "great of flesh" (Ezekiel 16. 26). At Gilgal, Israel by circumcision ceremonially rolled away the flesh. "The flesh profiteth nothing; it is the Spirit that quickeneth", so said the Lord. Circumcision signified that they were a nation under divine authority to obey the commands of Jehovah their God, otherwise there was no value in the rite whatever (Romans 2.25-29). Had they gone on in Canaan, a people empowered by the Spirit of God, how different their history would have been But the flesh gained the upper hand and disaster upon disaster followed.

Saul was on dangerous ground at Gilgal with Agag the Amalekite king and with the sheep and oxen of the Amalekites. It has been seen for many years that Amalek is a type of the flesh, and at Gilgal, the place of the rolling away of the flesh in circumcision, Saul was proposing to sacrifice the Amalekite cattle to the Lord the God of Samuel.

Here at Gilgal Samuel met Saul with the solemn message couched in the words of the LORD,

"It repenteth Me that I have set up Saul to he king: for he is turned back from

following Me, and hath not performed My commandments" (1 Samuel 15.11). Samuel had been wroth at this judgement of the LORD, and cried unto the LORD all night, but he had to reconcile himself to the LORD'S decision, as he afterwards said to Saul, "The Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for He is not a man, that He should repent" (verse 29).

We can see this method of following the Lord in clear perspective, that it just means obeying God's commandments, and to disobey these is to turn back or away from following the Lord. Many with a scant or false understanding of the Scriptures may think otherwise, but they will find in the day of the Lord's coming that it is what is on the Statute Book of Heaven, the Holy Scriptures, that matters. There will be no ejaculations then of, "You are too narrow-minded," and the like, against such as sought in their lifetime to adhere to the words of Holy Writ. The words of Samuel should be a corrective for nil time, and will be to those who esteem God's word above all earthly things, "Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams." "Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, He hath also rejected thee from being king" (1 Samuel 15.22,28). Thus the sentence fell and so it remained. Years after, on the sanguinary slopes of Gilbon, the Amalekite stood over Saul and finished his unfruitful life, and came with the tidings and the proofs and trophies of his act, only to find what an Amalekite would find at the hand of a true Israelite, according to the ancient statute (Exodus 17.14-16), the death he inherited and which he merited (2 Samuel 1.1-16). David was then in Ziklag and he had cause to remember the deeds of the Amalekites at his city (1 Samuel 30.1-25).

The Lord during His earthly ministry was wont to say to such as believed on Him the simple yet profoundly important words, "Follow Me." No one can follow Him who does not first believe Him. The divine order is, "Believe Me," "Follow Me," " Serve Me." Some would seek to serve Him who do not follow Him in obeying His commandments. The Lord said, "If any man serve Me, let him follow Me" (John 12.26). How many are seeking to serve Him who pay no heed to the words of the great commission of the Lord when He sent out the apostles following His resurrection! See Matthew 28.19,20. Also, no attention is paid by many to the words of Acts 2.41, 42, when obedient disciples in Jerusalem followed the teaching of the apostles, even as the Lord had taught them. Among the Lord's last recorded words to Peter were, "Follow Me," "Follow thou Me" (John 21.19, 22). Let us do likewise.

J. Miller | Oct 1962
Jottings