A Lecture by W. C. Johnston, Thursday, July II, 1889. (1 Chron. 21:; 2 Sam. 21:1, &100:; 24:1.)

We learn from these last passages what helps us to understand the state of things brought before us in i Chron. 21:From one point of view, you might say, David, and what he does, are chiefly in question. As we look again, in the light of the other scriptures, Israel is brought before us, and God is taking notice of the moral, state of the nation. Next, we find this thought coming out, that the circumstances give Satan a place and an opportunity. Look, then, first at the thought that it is the whole moral condition of the nation as discerned by God. It may find its expression in the conduct of the king, but putting that and the state of the people together, you then find that God permits Satan, as in the case of Job, to help to bring about the recovery and blessing on which the heart of God was set. But only to a certain extent can Satan accomplish the work, and when his part is accomplished, God can come in and do His own blessed work. In Job's case, you find Satan permitted to go a certain length, but ere the soul of Job can be reached, and God's thoughts for him brought home to him in power, so that he bows, taking his true place, God has to come in and reveal Himself. Now, as with the individual, we may find the same with the nation. We may also think of what the Spirit of God has given us here as some of the things which happened unto Israel, and are types for us, and that they are written for our learning.

Here, then, look at the previous chapter for a moment. (i Chron. 20:) "It came to pass, that after the year was expired, at the time that kings go out to battle, Joab led forth the power of the army, and wasted the country of the children of Ammon," etc.; and, after the victories rehearsed, in the last verse we may read, just to sum up, "These were born unto the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants." Why these triumphs come specially before us is, to see how we may discern the moral state of the people, and learn by what was then made manifest what may be instructive to ourselves, as these things were written for our learning. Just as we see in the Lord Himself, Satan soon has his place; and in the three things with which he tempts the Lord, we may say you get under so many heads all possible temptations of Satan. As it might be rendered, "When the devil had ended every temptation, he departed," etc. You may find, then, in the temptation of the Lord, briefly summed up, every possible way in which Satan may reach the people of God. By looking at such principles, we may be instructed as to how he may be permitted to reach God's people now, and how God's Word may meet us, and teach us through such trials, and bring us nigh in heart to Himself. We find, first, for instance, that with Satan there is that which is personal; he appeals to self in his first attack upon the Lord. He puts what comes home to the individual in a selfish way. Next, you find, if you take Luke's order, that it is what is held up in the way of worldly glory. Next, you find what is brought up in connection with the Scriptures, or the things of God, the spiritual temptation. Now take these principles and see how frequently they come up in the history of God's ways, and how they may throw light upon what is before us at this time. For instance, Israel in Egypt has to find out that Satan is acting by violence and power. There, you may find him so engaged at the beginning; but after they had been all these years in the wilderness, when on the plains of Moab, and about to enter the land, you find the same enemy with the same malice. But he has an entirely different method of attack, and through what takes place by Balaam, you find his subtlety is brought to bear so that God's purposes in connection with the people of Israel may be frustrated. He is the same enemy, only he is attacking" the people in another way. And we are told by the Spirit that we should not be ignorant of his devices, so that if now amongst the saints of God there may not be what there was in the days of persecution by the rack, the fire, or the sword; you may not have the wrath of the enemy, as in the martyr's pile, or the other forms of violence which came upon saints in earlier days; but what have we? The same enemy, ceaselessly acting in his malicious way to frustrate God's purposes in connection with the blessing of His people.

You may find this principle illustrated in David's history. Take his earlier career, when he and his followers are hunted like outlaws, you may find Satan's efforts to set aside God's appointed king. That could not be and has not been done. The king has been set upon the throne, and has prospered. Here, as we see, in one short chapter, you have a wonderful epitome of his triumphs. Has Satan missed what is going on? By no means. Now, then, he will attack David and Israel in another way. This surely gives the key to what we find here. There is a proud thought in the heart of the king, and he must number the people over whom he reigns. Ah ! what do we find there ? " Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." When David is hunted by Saul, and can scarcely find sustenance, he is depending on God. Satan fails to overcome this one taken up by and cast upon God. But now that he has prospered, and you find this epitome of history,- this indication of triumph and glory, Satan seizes the opportunity and insinuates pride into the heart of the king. There, surely, you had a clue to much that follows. But, as we saw from Samuel, the Spirit of God does not make it all turn upon David's state. God has been looking on the whole nation; He connects the king with the moral state of the people of Israel. Satan may be allowed to come in, but it is with God's permission, that God's purpose as to really lifting up the people morally should be brought about. That is surely what God desires even in chastisement.

Now, lest we should just miss the point, see at once the application of the principle. It is not at a time, possibly, when things are low, or when persecution is rife, that Satan succeeds. There may be prosperity in the highest and truest sense, and that may just be his opportunity. Indeed, as the extreme of man's need leaves room for God, the extreme of man's blessing may leave room for Satan. You may see it, if you definitely single out what most of us will admit as having taken place during the last fifty years. I refer to the blessed and marvelous work of God's Spirit in recovering truths which had been lost. Just as the book was covered up by debris in Josiah's days, and, on being found, was the means of blessing, so precious truths connected with the Spirit, the Church of God, and the coming of the Lord had been covered for centuries, and have been recovered during the last half century so "that souls have been blessed as has scarcely been known since Pentecost. Now see the parallel. When David has prospered, and you have victory, and he is at the very pinnacle of his fame, then Satan gets in his proud thought, and this terrible havoc comes upon the nation. Has it not been so with us ? Has there not been pride in connection with recovered truth ? Has there not been pride as to the position into which God has brought some of His saints ? That will be admitted. And thus you find that there has been a lowering of the tone,-making much of the blessing, and hence ceasing in proportion to make every thing of the Blesser. There we find, as in David's case, surely, Satan has been watching the success, and all in which the saints of God have been truly rejoicing. And hence you find, surely, that there has been a puffing up:the pride of heart about place, about truth, the looking down on many of the dear children of God, and making much of the few to whom these things have been brought in power. Who would undervalue what the Spirit of God has wrought? Who would make light of what many of the saints of God have been led into in connection with what we are accustomed rightly to call recovered truth ? Well, the enemy has not missed what has been going on. Just as when David was, you might say, in the zenith of his fame, there was an opportunity for Satan that he never found when David was like a fugitive before Saul. So, when the saints of God have been lifted up and occupied with these things until the truth has been more largely before their hearts than the One of whom it speaks, Satan has found the opportunity for accomplishing his purpose of frustrating the blessing, marring and spoiling, as he ever delights to do, that which God is seeking to bring about in connection with His people.

Sufficient may thus have been said to show what seems to me a parallel, and gives us instructive lessons. I might have taken up lower ground, and begun with such as have not been delivered from Satan's bondage, and brought into the liberty of the children of God. Others, perhaps, may feel it laid on their hearts to touch that, so I keep to this which is now before me; that here is prosperity,-great blessing,-and the blessing is what they are occupied with, until they really lose sight of the Blesser, and the moral state, not only of the king, but of the whole nation, has become what they themselves little understand. Yet God is looking on, and is not going to leave His people under Satan's power, nor to the consequences of their own failure. He will permit even Satan to have for a little, so to speak, his own way. Then out of that, God will bring what will glorify Himself and magnify His name in unfolding blessing they never knew before. It is, if one might roughly illustrate it, that God permits the devil to have a long start in the race. You always find with God that He can take plenty of time. He is characterized by having patience. Only wait and watch, and notwithstanding Satan's long start, he will be defeated; God will bring about His own purpose, and, according to His heart, bless His people. Thus, then, it would seem that Satan is permitted to bring this about, by insinuating the proud thought which leads the king to give the order to number the people. Surely we need not dwell on this to show the analogy in the way in which pride grew up among saints recently in connection with truth and position. And does it need argument or proof to press it home that Satan has seized the opportunity, and sadly succeeded, as in David's day, in working such havoc among the people of God ? Certainly not.

But now we find Joab introduced. There is nothing to show us any thing of spirituality about that man; yet see this, " The king's word was abominable to Joab." How I have been struck with that! David had spiritual intelligence, and knew so much in communion with God, but when he is out of communion, and lowering down until he is in Satan's power, so to speak, he will do without compunction what a merely shrewd natural man could see at a glance to be a huge mistake. And do we not see the principle illustrated ? Saints of God who have known His ways-not merely His acts-and who in communion with Him have certainly gained much of the knowledge of His mind, but let them lose that communion, and get occupied with the blessing, and the heart away from Himself as the Blesser, and you find things done, and that in spite of remonstrances, that worldly men can at once say, "That is a huge mistake-it is folly." How humbling that the man of God, taught in His Word and in His ways, in getting out of communion, may make blunders that the man that never knew God's mind and ways can at once discern to be folly, and use remonstrance concerning such conduct! Joab wishes the people to be a thousand times more than they are, but he sees that there is something wrong, and does not fail to express it. I need not dwell on that, as having been so illustrated among saints recently; but how humbling to us, and how instructive, if the thought reaches us in God's presence, that we need to be kept there ! because if we have judged ourselves, and in any measure learned how unfit we are to govern ourselves, having taken God's Spirit to be our guide, when we lose that guidance, we are more helpless and ready to do things that are contrary to God's mind than mere men of the world who never knew His mind at all. Then, without dwelling on it in detail, but trying to strike principles that may be thought out and brought home to our consciences, that the youngest and the oldest alike may feel the need of dependence, and see how readily the most instructed may do, when out of communion, what worldly men would deem at once to be altogether wrong. Surely we learn this from Joab's thoughts about numbering the people.

We next get what God thought about it. It displeases Him, and there is the point. He sees it, and sees it in the right light; and it is indeed a great offense. Yet having fallen into this, does He leave David and his people there ? No. The prophet is brought on to the scene. Oh, how wonderful and how gracious ! Instead of leaving David to His own ways, or leaving the people and the king under Satan's spell, God brings in His prophet, though the message he may bring may be one of judgment. There is no going back from judgment in such a case as this. Declension has gone too far for recovery to be wrought otherwise. The choice of these three things is put before David :famine, war, or the sword of the Lord. Then he wakes up to see where he is and what he has done. " I have sinned."

"Well," you say, "won't that turn back God's hand in judgment? "

No. Where there is a judging of a man's self, and a getting to God before God judges him, you may avert the calamity; but where self-judgment is only produced by the direct hand of God, you find the consequences in God's government roll on. Achan may say-can say with sincere sorrow, "I have sinned;" but this is after he has been singled out, and he is already under the hand of God for judgment. On the other hand, mark you, if we would judge ourselves, that would be entirely averted. Where there is real self-judgment, all such consequences may in a great measure be averted. "If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged." When self-judgment begins with the one who has failed, turning to God, oh, how much may be averted ! rather than, on the other hand, it should reach that point where God takes up the controversy, and begins to act in discipline amongst His people. Thus we find, then, there was no setting aside of the judgment. The choice of three things is given. There grace begins to act, and David at least comes to this conclusion that he will fall into the hands of God. He sees how infinitely better it is to be cast on the mercy of God than to be left under the power of his enemies. So the instructed soul would say, "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord."

Without dwelling further, then, on that, I notice next that this goes on, and such a vast multitude are swept away by the judgment of God. How it breaks down the king ! how it humbles the elders! You find both in sackcloth. Had it been a controversy with David alone, you need not bring in the elders; but when it is a question of the nation, the moral state of all is detected, and is now to be judged. All, in some measure, are to feel it. This also comes out in the end, "The Lord was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel." (2 Sam. 24:25.) Hence we see that in God's dealings with His saints there has to be the going through such a matter individually. In difficulties it might seem wise and well to reach the mass, and lead them aright without letting them go into questions raised. Have you ever thought it to be a solemn thing to lead saints right when they have no exercise of conscience ? It may be apparently a very great triumph, and the servant of God may try to do it; but if you look beneath, in God's dealings with His people, He leads them by their consciences; and where there is this question of their moral state individually involved, the conscience must be aroused, and personally there has to be brokenness and true self-judgment before God. Otherwise, they may have the knot cut for them, and you defeat, or rather postpone, God's purpose in discipline. The end will not be reached:there will be more trouble.
But here, the king takes it to himself, as if he had done it all. "And what," he says, "have these sheep done?" And doubtless the elders took it to themselves, and the people, more or less, must have been made to feel that God had a controversy with all. The principle is true and important at any rate, and we do well to notice it and lay it to heart, if out of failure God is to bring blessing. Where there is to be this recovery, and a lifting up to a higher moral platform, there will be individual exercise of conscience, so that one and all have to be exercised, that each may go through the trouble with God. Whether it is the case of a sinner being saved, or whether it is the restoring of a saint that has wandered, is it not true that we have to be alone? Read the gospel of John, and you will find how frequently we get a soul alone with God. He singles them out one by one. You may take up a Nathanael, Nicodemus,. the woman at the well, the man that was born blind, or the cases of Thomas or Peter,-take up the wonderful variety thus presented, and isn't that thought brought out that each must be alone ? If it is a question of salvation, that is found to have its place, and if with saints it is a question of restoration, again you have to be alone. And some of us have seen that; for even the husband did not tell all to the wife, nor the wife to the husband, the daughter to the father, nor the father to the son. And how beautiful it is when God's Spirit thus comes in and works brokenness, and isolates every soul alone with God, and each is there judging himself and his ways ! You are not far from a real lifting up when thus you get really broken down; for after all, as it has been said, the way up is down; and it can never be more true than when spiritual pride has been the cause of God's hand being laid on His people in chastisement. Surely it is for the saints individually; not to blame this one and that one, or this company or that, but to discern what the state of all has been, and take one's place as having to do with it individually; and by so getting before God, you will find the word for the occasion. You will realize a lifting up that is real; indeed, that is what you find in the chapter; and now the angel is made to stay his hand as he comes to Jerusalem. Always in the midst of judgment God remembers mercy. His people can never get so far down but they may be lifted up; if they will only take their true place and cry to God where they are, God can meet them there. If it is the prophet in the belly of the fish, as in the belly of hell, when his heart turns to the Lord, when he thinks of Him, and when he says, " Salvation is of the Lord," how soon there is deliverance and a fresh start in work ! he is to go again and preach the word that he was bidden. How mercy to saints individually and as companies is brought out by discerning such dealings! and how we, where we are, may, by looking at these things, learn something more of His blessed ways, and after we have suffered awhile, He may stablish, strengthen, and settle us.

Then you find the prophet sent, and there is now instruction to build the altar and offer sacrifice. Here is to me the point that was specially pressing upon me. David is brought to find the threshing-floor Ornan; Even Satan's work only helps on this consummation. And here you see the large-heartedness of Oman; how readily, how generously, he would have given all! but David is in some
measure recovered, and in having to do with God he will not take the place, nor the oxen, nor the instruments, for nothing. He is back now to the sense of having to do with God, and he knows what is due to Him, and every thing will be received at its full value. There you will find tokens, surely, of restoration. And now the altar is reared, the sacrifice offered, and what next? Fire from heaven:God answers by fire. Again, on the ground of sacrifice, the king and people are brought morally near to God, and Satan is completely defeated. He had thought to take them further and further away, but God uses Satan's action to bring them back, so that morally they are nearer than when Satan began his work of malice. And now see, what place is this ? Oman's threshing-floor, you say. What does David now find when he is in God's presence? He finds, surely, for the first time, the right place for the altar in Israel. Oh, what an immense thought if we could reach it, if God would give it to our souls in power! Think of David's victories; think of all that has been manifested by these conquests. Has David not also been a worshiper ? Has he not even had it in his heart to build a house for Jehovah ? Has he not cared for the ark? All that is true. Surely the king has been interested in the things of God, in considering His will, and what is due to His holy name. But see, for the first time, even partly through Satan's work, here is the discovery of the place for the altar and the site of the house of God. Oh, now mark, how God has given Satan a long start, and in the end He comes in such a long way ahead of Satan. " Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound." This is the spot on which God has had His eye from the calling of the people,-the spot where He would place His name, and where His eyes and His heart would be continually. I say, think of it to the glorifying and magnifying of our God. He brings out that spot at the very time when there is such deep failure, -when, apparently, Satan has had his greatest triumph ; here and now you have the place for the altar, the site for the house, the home for the ark.

The next chapter goes on, as if nothing had happened in the way of failure, with that account of the magnificence with which the king provides for the building of the house, and bringing the ark into its place. Oh, how that pressed home on my soul when alone in the bush in New Zealand, broken-hearted about what was going on among saints in Britain and America ! and when, through God's mercy, one was led to look at things in the light of this chapter, one could see and say of the trouble, " Satan is in it; pride has been at the bottom of it; and here is what has happened." The Lord has had to act in judgment. But what a gleam of light, what a lifting up of soul, when one saw that by this very failure, and even by the devil's apparent triumph, God was bringing out as never before the place for the altar, the spot where He has set His eyes and His heart, where His name should be continually ! Oh, if one could get what is surely in this,-if saints so learned the meaning of gathering to the name of the Lord, as if, under the Spirit's power, they were realizing what it is to be brought there for the first time, would it not be like the surprise and joy when the Lord answered by fire, and revealed the right place for the altar, the site for the house, and the home for the ark ? What a triumph on God's part! There might be gathering to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ in reality as never before. Shall we not be exercised as to its realization ?

But if the lesson is unlearned,-if these things are not taken up and individually gone through in God's presence, oh, what loss! what an opportunity is missed ! Satan indeed gets a triumph; saints indeed suffer loss; the Church as a whole must in some sort feel this tremendous mistake. There will surely be further discipline and judgment. But let there be ever so few who really get to God about what has happened, they will get blessing indeed ! Then let us try to look beneath the surface and see God's ways with us, and how He has had to deal with our pride and lack of charity. We have neither been humble before Him, nor generous-hearted in our thoughts toward other members of the body of Christ. Then, since God has had to humble us, surely we ought to learn not to boast of position, not to speak lightly of servants and saints who are apart from what we may think we are on,-divine ground. We need rather to be humbled, and all pretentious ideas removed. Is not this the lesson we get with the serpent of brass? instead of its being God's instrument, working deliverance and salvation, when the people have got away from God, and are in a morally low condition, acting by memory and rote, they make an idol of the symbol of blessing, and offer incense to the serpent of brass? When there is recovery, it is broken to pieces, and counted merely what it was,- a serpent of brass. We may bless God for what is true about gathering to the Lord's name, and what souls have learned of recovered truths through certain teachers, in connection with what grew up around them; but if faith in God gives place to the mere memory of and reverence for those through whom the blessing came, there may be a slipping into idolatry, as in offering incense to the serpent of brass. On the other hand, when there has been holiness and dependence, what real blessing has been the result. Then it has not been the smashing of things around, and showing up evil, and merely waking up saints to be against the evil that they are separated from, but then they find that the Word is brought against themselves, and they are broken and humbled so as to sigh and cry, taking their true place as having had a part in all that has come into the house of God. And when, beyond this, there is the beauty and matchlessness of that blessed One attracting the heart, you will find saints really gathered, formed, and controlled by the sense of what the Lord is in Himself. Peter, on finding with whom he has to do, says, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord," yet he is clinging to Him all the more closely. So when souls discern that all has been shown up and met by the Lord, and there has been the unfolding to their hearts what the Lord is Himself, there is this clinging to Him in spite of personal vileness and the general break-up of the professing church. It is when there is the realization of the terrible failure that there will be the learning of what gathering to Him really means, as brought about by the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

On the other hand, when evil is more before the mind, the saint may think of truth and stern righteousness until again, if you can discern it, he may be found to be a fresh Pharisee. Where did the Pharisees come from at first ? A thought by a brother put into shape what was in my own mind, as he showed that we never hear of the Pharisees until the remnant had returned from Babylon. That is a remarkable fact. Then as it was among the returned remnant that Pharisaism was developed, is there not a danger of those who have sought to be separate from the confusion of Christendom manifesting once more something of the spirit of the Pharisee ? Indeed it may be amongst those who have recovered truths, and have got the real thought of gathering to the name of the Lord that you find this spirit as among no other Christians? Do we not need, then, to be on our guard against such a spirit? Is not this one mark of our pride, on account of which the Lord has had a controversy with us ? Instead of talking of the denominations as Judaism, and attacking those in them so as to cause bitterness, we should try to get the Word of God to break us down, until, in true brokenness, there would be that among us which would attract rather than repel many sincere Christians. Then, where holiness and grace prevail, the Spirit would constrain and gather saints, so that it would be like finding the site for the altar and the ark. Thus God can bring about by the failure far more than what would defeat Satan. He can bring out of it for many what may never have been known before, as to being really gathered by the Spirit's power unto the name of the Lord.

Then, beloved brethren, look at these thoughts, however crudely they may have been presented. Use the opportunity to get out of the lesson what God has intended to teach ; and may we know what it is to be in His presence, and gathered unto His name, and all that was signified by the place of the altar and the ark, as we never knew it before. Miss the opportunity, and you may launch out in gospel-work (and no one who knows my past work will ever suspect that I make light of that or the work of the young evangelist)-but, oh, think! what are you gathering to ? When God speaks in connection with the tabernacle, have you ever noticed this one lesson ? You begin with the mercy-seat,-you are right in where God's very presence is. (Ex. 25:10.) It is not even the blood that suits the sinner which is first presented, nor the altar that manifests the accepted sacrifice; but the mercy-seat. So you find it also in Jno. 4:, where the Lord Jesus does not merely think of the sins, and the forgiveness and the peace which that poor soul may enjoy; He thinks of what, through God's infinite grace, that one is to give back in worship, in spirit and in truth, to the Father. How much such a line of things as we have suggested from this effort of Satan against Israel, may teach us when looked at in the light of what Satan has been doing among saints during recent years !

One would desire these crude thoughts to be taken up that we may learn anew what the true thought of gathering really is.

It is on my heart to say that one may rejoice in gospel energy and success, but let not that, however blessed, set aside what the Lord's thought is in connection with gathering, or what the Father's thought is in connection with His seeking worshipers who should worship Him in spirit and in truth. This will lead to another line of thinking and acting toward what is called "the systems," than many pursue. " Systems" ! Oh, I am sick of the expression, and even think it comes to be a little like cant! God has a system, of which Christ is the center, and I glory in the thought. Then, instead of being opposed to and trying to break up every thing in the nature of a system, we ought to learn more of the meaning of God's system, and seek to go on and get saints occupied with that. God may just have been breaking up what is ours, and even permitting Satan to have a hand in it, that we might not be building anything of our own; but learn to discern the things that be of God from those that are of men Yes, God is above all, and can bring out of the failure what will glorify His name. W.C.J.