Read Exodus 17:1-16 and Numbers 20:1-21 before continuing.
I believe if we study these two passages together, beloved friends, they will each help the understanding of the other, as the two scenes have a close and designed relationship with one another. In these passages we also find truth applicable to God's people today regarding the conflicts we face and the effect that conflict has on our spiritual progress as believers. For although these passages surely relate facts of history, it is a history so superintended and controlled by the providence of God, and so recorded by Infinite Wisdom in our behalf that, as the apostle says, "all these things happened unto them [for types]; and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the [ages] are come" (1 Corinthians 10:11).
In the first place, we have in each of them God giving water from the rock in answer to the need and to the murmurings of the people. Also, in each case the same name--for the same reason--is given to the place: "And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel"--so it is said in Exodus. In Numbers we read, "This is the water of Meribah; because the children of Israel strove with the Lord, and He was sanctified in them." Additionally, each passage includes a conflict: in Exodus, immediately after the water is given, we have the conflict with Amalek; the next thing after the scene in Numbers is the attempt to pass through Edom. The connection between these two conflicts with Amalek and Edom is not so evident at first sight, but if you will turn to Genesis 36:12 you will find, "And Timna was concubine to Eliphaz, Esau's son; and she bare to Eliphaz Amalek." Amalek was thus the grandson of Esau--that is, Edom.
The differences between the two passages we shall also find to be instructive, according to the line of truth proper to the two books. The book of Exodus is the book of redemption, the deliverance of Israel out of the land of Egypt being the type of ours out of that land of bondage in which we all are naturally. We may say that although it has other features, the book of Numbers is the book of progress, looking at it from the point of view in which we are now to do.
Exodus is not so much a book of the history of the wilderness, although a large part of its history is there, as it is a telling of history to demonstrate God's dealings with His people. I believe the object of the part of the book in which this scene occurs is to bring out the grace of Him who, having redeemed them out of the hand of the enemy, also provides, with unfailing goodness and forbearance, for all the need of the place into which He has brought them. Thus you have the bread from heaven and the water from the rock.
Numbers, on the other hand, is devoted to the history of the wilderness itself as a place of trial--as is the world through which we pass--where trial brings out in them what it also does in us: a proneness to constant failure and a continual readiness to stray. Yet the grace that has laid hold upon them does not desert them here, and does not fail to show itself in the fulfillment of its own unrepentant purposes in spite of all. God has engaged to bring them into the land of which He has spoken to them, and into it they must come. In spite of the failure, an essential feature of the book of Numbers, therefore, is progress. At the close of the book they are found, after all their varied experiences, looking from the plains of Moab over into the promised land. Blessed be God, the same strong and holy hand which carried them through is that which has undertaken for us also, and these are indeed our types.
Let us remember, then, that whereas in Exodus we have redemption and its fruits, in Numbers we have the path of progress through the world. This will be found to bear upon the character of the opposition in the two books--the enemy in the one case, Edom; in the other, Amalek.
Esau got this name Edom from the red pottage for which he sold his birthright. It is connected with that which stamped him as a "profane person ... who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright" (Hebrews 12:16). The name itself is but Adam, with the change only of vowels. Edom is but that first man all over again, which naturally indeed we all are. Christ is the Second Man, and there is no new man until we come to Christ.
Even when we are Christ's there is that in us which connects us with the fallen first man. It is not scriptural, indeed, to say that the "old man" remains in us, but the "flesh" surely does. The "old man" is the man in the flesh--identified with it and acting according to its lusts. That "old man" is crucified with Christ: when we come to Christ we have put it off. That is always said in Scripture. It is the man in the nature, identified with it before God. The flesh, on the other hand, is the nature itself, the lowest part of man--that which characterizes him as a fallen being. Edom is this flesh in us, if we take this scene in Numbers as it surely is--a picture of internal experience.
Now, what is Edom in relation to the question of progress? Have you ever looked at the map of the journeying of the children of Israel toward Canaan, and noticed the position of this long, narrow strip of land called Edom? It lies right across their path, an obstruction which, looking at it as a matter of distance, would cost them about six times more trouble to go around than it would to go across. Also, the road across Edom is not only the shorter way, it is the more pleasant way. As you may see in Moses' message to the king of Edom, there are wells of water and a king's highway there--a welcome change from the pathless desert route. Which of us, had we been of Moses' council, would not have decided for the shorter and easier way? And even if they had to force their way across, could not He who brought them through the Red Sea just as easily bring them through Edom?
Assuredly, and this it is that shows conclusively that God's way for His people did not lie through Edom. Had it been of Him--this attempt to pass along the easier road--could He have allowed the king of so small a kingdom to stop His path? The path itself was human calculation, not where the pillar of cloud and fire led. The attempt only brought out fully the enmity that was in Edom's heart and the powerlessness of Israel in the matter. After all, God's way for them lay in another direction, where Edom was not.
In the exact way, right across the path of progress for the saint today lies the barrier of the flesh--the old nature. Since the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and is contrary to it, who would not be inclined to say that God's way for His people is by the conquest of the flesh? How much less esteemed, according to our natural mind, is the simple injunction, "This I say, then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). How many have undertaken to prove for God that the former is His method! How much doctrine there is around today of this kind, according to which the narrow strip of Edom is to be crossed, and Edom to be overcome and gotten rid of! Yet God's Word does not bid us fight the flesh or destroy it. Rather, as Israel in the scene before us, to turn away from it. So the apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:11, "Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." To abstain from is not to fight, but to hold off from--to keep away from. Keeping away from a thing is the very opposite of fighting it; it makes fighting impossible. If I am fighting something, it is a proof that I have not been keeping away from it.
I think, beloved friends, that some of you will be disposed to ask, "This is all very simple to talk about, but is it as easy in practice to do this?" No, I do not say or imply that it is as easy in practice--but it is possible, thank God, or of course He would not tell us to do it! Here is a key: observe how it is that the apostle addresses Christians here. He specifically beseeches us "as strangers and pilgrims." While it is true that this is a character which rightly belongs to every follower of Christ, it is also true--as we must all sadly confess--that Christians know very little of this character which the apostle here gives as the prerequisite of abstaining from fleshly lusts.
Are we pilgrims, beloved friends? What is a pilgrim? Does it make us a pilgrim because we are drifting upon that stream of time which is hurrying us on to a near eternity? Are we pilgrims because what we clutch we cannot hold, because it slips out of our grasp, or bursts as a bubble there, or because we who grasp pass away ourselves and cannot retain it? Of course not. If this were to be pilgrims, then all the world would be such, and no one any more than another. Mere circumstances make no man a pilgrim. For that, we must be first what the apostle puts first--strangers. We must be those whose real home is elsewhere, who are "heavenly" because Christ is such, and because He is there--our hearts being where our treasure is. Being strangers after this pattern, we shall be pilgrims, those with whom faith is not only the evidence of things not seen, but also the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1).
Thus we shall be those whose hearts are urging their feet on to a fixed point beyond the present, and thus alone we shall have power over the present. We shall be, in the spiritual sense, Hebrews, for that is the force of that word. Its first occurrence is a very beautiful one, and full of interest in connection with our present subject. It occurs in Genesis 14 where, in the raid of the four kings from the east upon the plain of Jordan, Lot, Abram's brother's son, dwelling then in Sodom, was carried away captive. Abram is told, and arms the men of his house, and with certain of his allies pursues the plunderers, overtakes them, falls upon them in the night, and, defeating them, brings back all the goods and captives. But his great victory is not gained there. Abram then has to face the king of Sodom's offer: "Give me the people, and take the goods to thyself." It is here that he shows himself the man of faith. "I have lift up my hand," he says, "to the Most High God ... that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet; and that I will not take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." Sodom is a plain type of the world, characterized as the apostle characterizes it, by lust--"the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes" (1 John 2:16). And here it is, in connection with this scene, that the word Hebrew occurs--"There came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew:" that is, the "passenger," or the "pilgrim." As such, the lust of the flesh has no power against him; he does not fulfill it. How much more should it be--will it be--for him who "walks in the Spirit" now!
Sanctification is separation to God. Speaking of this practically, according to the line of things before us now, how fully has He provided for drawing our hearts out of this scene by giving them Christ as an object--a completely satisfying object--outside the whole scene of the flesh's lusts altogether! Meeting me in my sins, and putting them away by the offering of Himself, Christ has opened the very heart of God, and, by His mighty love, loved me into love. Risen again and gone up for me on high, I look up to where in His face shines all the glory of God, and my life is (in its practical character) a life "hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). The object before the eye is power for the heart. In the blessed place where He is, I am free to let my heart out. There is all that is real, of value, and abiding. I am free to covet there. There liberty is safe. I am free to let my heart out in a scene where sin never enters, where the flesh, the world, and the devil have no place, but where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.
With Christ for our object, and Christ for heart companionship, sanctification is secured. Even the world can say, "Tell me who your companions are, and I will tell you who you are." In Scripture our associations form part, so to speak, of our individual character. We must purge ourself from vessels to dishonor in order to be a "vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use" (2 Timothy 2:21). And if our hearts are in company with Christ, how truly we shall be known by the company we keep. We all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord, shall be "changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:18).
Since where our treasure is our heart shall be, and because our treasure is indeed in Him who has passed into the heavens, strangers and pilgrims we should be of course. The apostle's admonition to "abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul" will be in proportion easier as we have more of this pilgrim character. With our eyes on Christ, they will not be caught by the baits of the prince of this world. What faith wrought in Abraham should be wrought ten-fold more in us with whom things unseen and eternal have a brightness and a blessedness of which he could know but little.
Notice how God dwells upon Abraham's pilgrim character as that which had special value in His eyes! "By faith he sojourned in the land of promise as in a strange country, dwelling in [tents] with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.... These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city" (Hebrews 11:9,13-16).
By faith, manifested in this way, the elders obtained a good report. After these are given as examples for us of the pilgrim character, we are then likewise exhorted to "lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1). Notice how similar this exhortation is to what we had in Peter. It is as pilgrims that both passages address us, for those whose hearts are outside the scene through which they pass stay upon that which is unseen and eternal. "Abstain from fleshly lusts." "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us." Quiet, though earnest, words! Strangely quiet, it may be, to those who are proving how easily sin does beset. To lay aside sin! how easy to talk of it! How gladly would many a soul do so, but finds that when he would do good, evil is present with him! But it is absolutely necessary to heed the order and connection here. To lay aside sin is not the first thing given. "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin." It is only as laying aside the weight that the laying aside of the sin becomes a possibility at all.
How important, then, to realize these first words in the depth of their meaning! What is a weight? Only as racers can we rightly estimate its force in this connection. Think of a pack of wolves behind you, and how you would flee, and what a weight would be to you then. How easy to see that to drop the weights would be the only possibility of escape from what was pursuing you. Sin is this pack at our heels, and the weight is anything that would contribute to our being caught in its clutches. What then is a weight? Obviously it is something different from the sin itself. It is something which is not in itself sinful. It is also clearly not a God-given duty, for these duties you have no right to lay aside. God's duties, for this very reason, are never a hindrance or an occasion to besetting sin.
Some may be disposed to dispute this. To many, conscious of the entanglement of a crowd of cares which claim and possess them continually, will it seem almost self-evident folly to assert that duties are never a drag upon the soul. Yet it is true, and should be plain that God would never impose upon us that which would drag us down from communion with Himself. It could not be. Of course there are states of soul that make us unfit for any duty, but we must not confound what comes from our own condition with what is due to the nature of the things themselves. There is a state of soul (alas! how common!) in which, as the apostle says, "the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do." (Romans 7:19). It is the secret of power that is lacking in such an one, and such may be helped by what is now before us. In such a case, the fault is in the personal state of soul, not the duty.
And again, we must distinguish between duties of God's imposing and those which people often consider such, which are imposed by the artificial state in which we live, by custom, by society--in short, by the world. How little we realize what the world is, and that "all that is of the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1 John 2:16). We must not expect that if we accept a scale of duties which the fashion of the world imposes that we shall not find them weights, which if we seek to carry will hinder all progress and expose us to besetting sin. We have no duties to the god of this world, beloved friends, and he that will be the friend of the world is the enemy of God. Duties to society, duties (as they are subtly called) to one's family, to maintain a certain social standing for them in the world--duty to lay up a sufficiency of means for the necessities and conveniences of life, or a little more for a possible old age, or a "rainy day"--with how many do such things as these eat out all the vigor and freshness of spiritual life! These are weights, not duties, as true God-given duties are never weights.
A weight is anything that you are at liberty to lay aside but which you choose to retain instead. Retaining it proves you are not a racer in the full and proper sense; you do not have your eye simply on the object before you; you do not, as the apostle, count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:8). Things present--the seen and visible--weigh somewhat against the things unseen and eternal. No wonder that the freshness of spiritual life is lost, that real duties drag, and that sin easily besets. Running the race while carrying weights is not only frustrating at best, it also deprives one of the joy of the course and the promised blessings for those who run faithfully.
If, on the other hand, your eye is on Christ as its object, and your heart affected by your eye, you will not be endeavoring to see how much of this world you can carry, but rather how far you can strip yourself in order to run the race more effectively. Christ will be practical sanctification to you, and sanctification is separation, separation to God. It is only as we have this spirit that we shall even realize what is a weight.
As the weights are by God's grace laid aside, surely we shall find that we are distancing besetting sin. I know, beloved friends, you will be tempted to look on this and that to which you are clinging and ask, as Lot did of the city that he desired as a place of refuge, "Is it not a little one?" It is a thing, too, not in itself sinful, for, as I have said, we must carefully distinguish the weight from the sin it exposes us to. How can it be, you ask, that such consequences can result from observing little points like these? But the thing is, are they indeed little points? Is that what you say of them in your inmost heart? Alas, dear friends, it is a question of the whole tone and temper and spirit of your life! Is it a race you are running? Are you strangers and pilgrims here? Is it a little thing whether you are or not? It is exactly because a "little thing" like this is really followed, as if it had value, that such immense consequences result to the soul! The deep and real question is whether before God our purpose is with him who said, "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13,14).
If you are racers, you will find out very soon what is a weight; and then the word is, "Let us lay aside every weight, and [thus] the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith" (Hebrews 12:1).
For Israel, the path of progress did not lie through Edom; for the Christian, the way of progress is not found in conciliation or in conflict with the flesh. That word of the apostle, "Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin" (Romans 6:11), if acted out, would exclude the thought of either. God's strangers and pilgrims have another path, which if it lie through desert scenes is yet bright with the beckoning glory, which we follow to its home. The cross of Christ is at one and the same time the hopeless condemnation of the flesh, and our privilege to turn away from it altogether to occupy ourselves with Him who, "in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, liveth unto God (Romans 6:10).
Do you even understand, beloved friends, this privilege to turn away from sin? To some, yea, to many, it may seem to be a mystery or unreality to speak of being dead to sin. You are so conscious of its presence and of its power in you that you would think it untrue to speak of being dead to sin. Yet Scripture not only speaks of it, it says it to be true of every Christian. It is not any special class who are said to be dead to sin, nor does Scripture speak of a gradual process of dying to it, as so many think. "How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" (Romans 6:2). We--all Christians--are in fact dead to sin. But then notice, the word is, "Reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin." It is not "feel," or, "find." You are to reckon yourself to be dead to sin, not because you feel or find it to be so, but because it is so. In the context, it is faith's application of the death of Christ as putting one in a new position before God. "In that He died, He died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God: [thus] reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:10,11).
It is not mysticism, then, but only faith to say that if we are Christians we are dead to sin. For us, that death on the cross was our death. In it, for God and for faith, our old man--that is, all that we are as sinners naturally, or for experience now--is crucified with Christ (Romans 6:6). In Christ there is no sin and no flesh, and in Christ we are! Thus, we are privileged to turn away from that which we find within us, as Israel turned away from obstructive Edom, its type in the scene before us in the book of Numbers.
In the passage in Exodus we also have conflict, and that with what springs from Edom too, for as we have seen, Amalek was Edom's offspring. The apostle reads the type for us--"Fleshly lusts, which war against the soul" (1 Peter 2:11). His words illuminate the scene in Exodus, for he does not say, Fleshly lusts against which we war. Israel had not sought out Amalek, and had no charge from God to make war upon them. The assault was on the side of the desert tribe--"Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim." The occasion and the exact way in which this is stated here deserve to be carefully examined, for we are apt to pass over what is of the greatest importance for the interpretation of the chapter. The giving of the water from the rock is the type of the gift which has flowed forth for us as the fruit of Christ's smiting. It is no wonder that in connection with this type of the Spirit we should have the type of the flesh or of its working here also. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other" (Galatians 5:17). It certainly confirms the interpretation already given to Amalek as the flesh that we find it so.
But let us not imagine that because we have the Spirit, conflict with the flesh is the direct necessity. Nor if even we find ourselves in continual conflict, that this is the inevitable thing. The word is, "Reckon yourselves dead." Dead men are not fighters. You are called to reckon yourselves dead to that with which people suppose you must inevitably fight.
Notice, then, the connection in Exodus: "He called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not? Then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim." Amalek's coming up is mentioned in direct connection with the failure and unbelief of the people when, their eyes being on their circumstances--judging by sight, and not by faith--they questioned the Lord's presence with them. That led to the attack of the enemy.
There could be nothing arbitrary in it. With such a Leader in their midst, how was it the terror of the Lord was no longer upon their enemies, as at the Red Sea they had sung it should be? The chapter, as we have seen, supplies the answer. Faith had failed, their divine Leader had been dishonored, and the attack of Amalek was the result. Nothing is arbitrary in the government of God. With us also, if the eye is not on Christ, if the heart is not occupied with him, if we are not abiding there, the world will surely come in to fill the gap, and the lusts of the flesh will find their opportunity. Amalek then comes up, we are entangled, and must fight.
To abstain from fleshly lusts is that to which we are called. Dead to sin is what we are to reckon ourselves to be. But when we have failed to do this and our hearts have become entangled with any of the thousand things which are ready to lay hold of them on every side, then we shall find it impossible to be free without a struggle. Conflict becomes a necessity, not merely to progress, but that we may not be captives to the ever-watchful enemy of our souls. Conflict is not an ordained necessity to progress, and to view it as such is a serious mistake. What did Israel gain in their conflict? Even their victory left them still in the same place. Their toils and their wounds were only so much hindrance. In the wilderness, God's thought for them was that they should be pilgrims, not warriors. By and by, in the land, they should be warriors, but not here.
You are inclined, perhaps, again to stop and question the truth of this. Alas, for how many of us the Christian conflict is a conflict with the flesh! And instead of its being an exceptional thing, how much it makes up the experience of our lives! But do not let us on that account accommodate Scripture to our low condition, but judge our condition by the higher standard of Scripture.
Take the epistle to the Philippians, for instance. It is the epistle of Christian experience, not as laying hold of the heavenly places, but expressly as going through the world. It gives the experience of one who was a stranger and pilgrim, one whose occupation was with one object, to whom to win Christ and to be found in Him was all. Does he give as his experience a constant warfare with the flesh and its lusts? No, the very contrary. The flesh is only mentioned to say that he has no confidence in it. His experience is, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:11-13).
That was Paul. If you say, We are not Pauls, I agree. Yet Paul bids us to follow him, and the picture is that of what is proper to our common Christianity; it is the effect of the governing object of his faith upon his soul. Are we to allow anything else than scriptural Christianity? Through faith, Paul could say that he counted all things as dung and loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Can faith in any of us say less or other than this? Only let this be simple and clear in us, and how easy, how joyful, it will be to cast aside dung and loss to win Christ! How gladly shall we lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith!
If our hearts are entangled, we must fight; but let us confess that our hearts have been entangled. Even then there is hope and help, blessed be God! As Moses stood on the hill, holding up his hands, and as Joshua led the battle in the plain, there is One on the mount for us with God, and there is One on the plain who leads us to victory. Let us then look at this conflict. It is a thing which surely our souls know well, and yet in its details we may find much that will be profitable to learn.
Overlooking the battle, Moses holds up the rod which has smitten the rock. So that the streams of refreshing might flow out for us in this wilderness world, the Rock of Ages was smitten. Righteousness struck the blow and thus righteousness it is that justifies the sinner. God's righteousness is over all them that believe in Jesus--over them as their shield from all assault, from all accusation. It is the rod of righteousness which has become the rod of deliverance, the rod of power in behalf of the people. It is this that Moses holds up, appealing by it to God.
How wonderful that righteousness should be on the side of sinners through faith in Christ Jesus! It is the basis, as we know, of all our blessings. How can we escape from the power of the enemy, what can bring in the help of God for us, if righteousness did not appeal through Christ's work in our behalf? It is Christ Himself who holds up this rod for us in the presence of God, not with Moses' weary hands. Upon this the victory depends. Not even Joshua could avail for us in the plain if those patient hands of our royal Priest were not held up in the presence of our God.
But Joshua in the plain is needed nonetheless. His name shines by its own light. "Joshua," meaning "Jehovah is salvation," is the same name in the original languages as "Jesus." The great Captain of our salvation is here again, and in a character which is of the deepest significance. Joshua, is the leader of the battle, but, as we know, he is also the one who later leads them into Canaan. Let us look at this closer, for it is a point of great importance.
Israel's scene of wandering is what we have learned to be the world of sight and sense. It is the place of need and of dependence, a need in which God's unfailing power and tenderness are made known to us every step of the way. How wonderful to think that all the miracle-history with which we are so familiar is but the shadow of our own history as we pass through this world! How it would brighten and glorify many a life that seems tame and dull to remember this! We have only to realize that, as it was with them, blindness and unbelief may blot out all evidence of God being with us, and leave our lives to be poor and dull. Israel, in full presence of all the miracles, could still question if the Lord were really with them. To spiritual sight, the evidence and the miracles will be as plain for us as it should have been for them.
But there is another sphere into which we are not only permitted to enter, but also to abide. We have a Canaan--our dwelling-place--which even now by faith we take possession of, while nevertheless our feet are actually treading the wilderness sands. It puzzles many to reconcile a place in the wilderness with a place in Canaan, and the tendency is to want to drop out of one of them. For most, the plain hard fact is that we are in the world, and to talk of being in heaven is to them only mysticism. In this way, the typical meaning of the book of Joshua has thus dropped from the knowledge of the mass of even true Christians. They go to heaven when they die, after the experience of the wilderness is over, and they enter it, not to fight as Israel did, but to rest. Thus any typical meaning for us today of all the Canaan conflict is an inexplicable mystery. They know nothing of being in heavenly places, of being crucified to the world, or being dead to sin. These terms are of course admitted to be in Scripture, but they are not in their souls, nor even in their minds.
On the other hand, there are those who, having learned the blessed truth that they are already, by faith and in Christ, in the heavenly places, are now almost unable to grasp the fact that they are in the wilderness at all. They too only enter Canaan when the wilderness is ended; only for them they suppose it is already ended. For them, to be in the wilderness is failure--unbelief--and not faith. This is a complete mistake. It is to faith that the world is a wilderness. As we have seen, we are there--not now as natural men, but as redeemed. Unbelief does not put us in the wilderness, it seeks to have us settle down there. They also lose sight of our weakness and dependance upon the Lord, lessons which every day and hour would be teaching us. Along with this, they also miss out on the blessed lessons of the Lord's unfailing care and love. They may think it no loss to pretend to leave the wilderness, but what about the manna, and what about the streams from the smitten rock we find there? To such, all this conflict with Amalek must be a thing impossible to understand.
In truth, the presence of Joshua in this scene in the wilderness is just a proof of the concurrence of our heavenly and earthly positions, and of how needed the knowledge of the heavenly is for power upon earth. For who is He who leads us in the struggle with the flesh but He who leads us into Canaan? The knowledge of what is ours above is what is absolutely necessary to break through the entanglements of flesh and sense. It is only by the consciousness of our portion in that which is unseen and eternal that we can find power to overcome the world. The knowledge of Canaan is necessary to the encounter with wilderness trials and difficulties.
I would reiterate, finally, beloved friends, that conflict with the flesh, as we have it in the picture here, is not what we are called to. It is not an element of progress, but the contrary. Numbers, in the scene we have been looking at, will show us that Edom does not lie on the road to our inheritance at all. As strangers and pilgrims, we are to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul, reckon ourselves dead to sin, and, laying aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith. May He quicken our steps on the path which He Himself has traveled, and on which the light of the glory streams from the place to which He has ascended.
--F.W. Grant
Plainfield, NJ, July 29th 1882.
Pages in this Category:
Being A Nazarite
Building God's House--Willingly
Cleansing, Communion, and Rest
Come Near To Me
Fear Not
Nurture and Admonition
The Liberty of the Spirit in the Lord's Supper
