I have read these two passages together, be-loved friends, because I believe they help much, when so read, to the understanding of-either. I think you will easily see that the two scenes have close and designed relationship with one another. For although surely 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, "the things that happened to them happened to them for types, and are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come."

In the first place, we have in each of them God giving the water from the rock in answer to the need and to the murmurings of the people; and 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." Then, in Exodus, immediately after, we have the conflict with Amalek, and the next thing after the scene in Numbers, the attempt to pass through Edom. The connection of these things is not so evident at first sight, but there is a very real one nevertheless; for if you will turn to Genesis 36, 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; and as in the one book Amalek opposes Israel, so in the other does Edom, although it does not come to actual war.

The very difference we shall find to be instructive, and 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. The book of Numbers is the book of progress, we may say rather, looking at it from the point of view in which we are now to do, although there are many other features. It is the history of the wilderness, as properly speaking Exodus is not, although it speaks of the wilderness, and part (and a large part) of its history is there. But the object of that part at least in which this scene occurs is to bring out the grace of Him who having redeemed them out of the hand of the enemy, provides also, with unfailing goodness and forbearance as to them, for all the need of the place into which He has brought them. Thus you have the bread from heaven, 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 the world through which we pass is, and where trial brings out as to them, what it does as to us no less, their proneness to constant failure, their readiness to start aside continually. Yet the grace that has laid hold upon them does not desert them here, does not fail to show itself in the fulfillment of its own unrepenting 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. Spite of the failure, an essential feature of the book of Numbers, therefore, is progress. At the close, 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 carries 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." The name itself is but Adam, with the change only of vowels, which in Hebrew change in a way that modern languages know nothing of. Edom is but over again that first man, which naturally indeed we all are; for Christ is the Second Man:there is no second 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; and that " old man" is crucified with 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:the lowest part of man now characterizes him as a fallen being. Edom is this flesh in us, if we take this scene in Numbers as a picture of internal experience; and such it surely is.

Now, in relation to the question of progress, what of Edom? 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, Edom? Right across their path it lies, an obstruction which to go round would cost them about six times the trouble (only looking at it as a matter of distance) that it would to go across. But the road across is not only the shorter, 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-a welcome exchange 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 if they had even to force a passage, could not He who had brought them through the sea without needing to strike a stroke in their own defense have as easily brought them through?

Assuredly; and this if is that conclusively shows 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?' No; but 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 lay for them in another direction, where Edom was not.

And just so, right athwart the path of progress for the saint lies the barrier of the flesh – the old nature. Who would not say that God's way for His people was-if the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and is contrary to it,-by the conquest of the flesh ? How much less, according to our thought naturally, the simple injunction which . takes the place of such an one–" This I say, then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh"? How many have undertaken to prove for God that the former is His method! How much doctrine is there afloat of this kind, according to which the narrow strip of Edom is to be crossed, and Edom to be overcome and got rid of! Yet God's Word does not bid us fight the flesh, or destroy it; but, as Israel in the scene before us, to turn away from it. So the apostle Peter:"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-keep away from. But to keep away from a thing is the very opposite of fighting it. It makes fighting impossible. If I am fighting, it is a proof, rather, I have not, been keeping away.

I think, beloved, friends, that some of you will be disposed to turn round upon me and say, It is all very simple to talk about; 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 practicable, thank God, or of course it would be folly to speak of it. It is not only practicable, but the only practicable thing.

But let me ask you to observe how it is that the apostle addresses Christians here. He says expressly that he beseeches us " as strangers and pilgrims." It is only practicable for those who have this character; and while it is true that it is a character which rightly belongs to every follower of Christ as such, it is also true, as we must all sadly confess, that Christians may be very little Christian.

Are we pilgrims, beloved friends? What is a pilgrim? Does it make us that we are all drifting, as it must be confessed we are, upon that stream of time which is hurrying all the world,- every child of man,-on, fast on, to a near eternity? Are we pilgrims perforce, because what we clutch we cannot hold,-because it slips out of our grasp, or bursts as a bubble there, or we who grasp pass away ourselves and cannot retain it?

Nay; if this were to be pilgrims, all the world would be such, and one no more than another. But 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, and because He is there; our hearts being where out 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 the substance of things hoped for. Thus we shall be those whose hearts are urging on their feet to a fixed point beyond the present; and thus alone shall we have power over the present. We shall be, in the spiritual sense, Hebrews; for that is the force of that word, inscribed, as you know, upon the epistle in which the stranger character of faith is put before us. Its first occurrence is a very beautiful one, and full of interest in connection with our present subject. It occurs in Genesis xiv, 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 it is not there his great victory is gained. Many an one has conquered others who has never yet conquered himself. Abram has now to meet the king of Sodom's offers-" Give me the people, and take the goods to thyself." It is then 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 to a shoe latchet; neither will I take any thing that is thine, lest thou shouldst say, I have made Abram rich."

Now, Sodom is the plain type of the world, characterized, as the apostle characterizes it, by lust-" the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes." And here it is, in connection with this scene, that the word occurs," There came one that had escaped, and told Abram the Hebrew; " 1:e., the " passenger," or, as we may say now, the "pilgrim." As such the lust of the flesh has not 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!

God has made Christ to be sanctification to us; and, speaking of this practically, according to the line of things before us now, how fully has He provided for the drawing our hearts out of this scene, by giving them an object, a completely satisfying object, outside the whole scene of the flesh's lusts altogether!
Sanctification is separation to God. In Christ, He who had been lost to our souls in the darkness in which our sin and unbelief had enwrapped Him again shines out in the true light come into the world. Here alone I know Him; I know Him, and I rejoice in Him. Meeting me in my sins, and putting them away by the offering of Himself, He 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." 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.

Christ for our object, Christ for heart companionship, sanctification is secured. Even the world can say, Tell me who are your companions, and I will tell you who you are; and in Scripture, your associations form part, so to speak, of your individual character:you must purge yourself from vessels to dishonor, in order to be a "vessel unto honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use." 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."

If then where our treasure is our heart shall be, and our treasure is indeed in Him who has passed into the heavens, pilgrims and strangers we shall be of course. The apostle's admonition will be in proportion easy as we have this character. With our eyes on Christ, they will not be caught by the baits of the prince of this world; we shall be able to "abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul." What faith wrought in Abraham should be wrought tenfold more in us with whom things, unseen and eternal have brightness and blessedness of which he could know but little. Yet how God dwells upon his 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 set out, they might have had opportunity to have returned; but now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He hath prepared for them a city."

By faith, then, thus manifest, the elders obtained a good report. We are thus, says the apostle, " encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses;" not eye-witnesses (as some take it)-spectators of our course down here, but witnesses (those giving testimony) to this acceptability of faith with God. But there is One other, of whom the apostle speaks directly, not giving Him place among the other witnesses, but One who instead of showing merely certain characters of faith, as these, is "Author and Finisher of faith" in His own person. People mistake the meaning of this expression also, by version, which says, "Author and Finisher of our faith,"-taking it to mean that He begat it in us, and sustains it to the end. This is surely true, but the truth in that place it is not. For, as you will see by the italic letters, the "our" has been added by the translators, and is not found in the original; and this insertion, which the late revisers have unwisely followed, alters the meaning of the passage altogether. The true" thought is, that in His own person He is " Leader and Perfecter of faith "-One who has begun and completed its whole course, so as to be Himself the one perfect example and witness of what faith is. And thus the apostle goes on to speak of His path,- " who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

That cross endured was the complete trial and the perfect exemplification of faith. As the result, He is now at the right hand of God, pattern and object of our faith in one. " Therefore," says the apostle, " seeing that we are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us 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, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of faith."

Notice how similar that exhortation to what we had in Peter. It is as pilgrims that both passages address us, and those whose hearts are outside the scene through which we 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, however earnest, words! Strangely quiet, it may be, to those who are proving how easily indeed sin doth beset. To lay aside sin! how easy to talk of it! How gladly would many a soul do it, as he thinks, who 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. Let us lay aside every weight, and sin. It is only as laying aside the weight that the laying aside of sin be-comes 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 connection between the weight and the besetment should be very obvious.

What then is the weight ? Manifestly it is something different from the sin itself. It is something not in itself sinful; on the other hand, not a duty, clearly, for duties you have no right to lay aside. Duties, moreover, and for this very reason, are never a hindrance, never an occasion to besetting sin.

Some may be disposed to dispute this. Nay, to how 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 nevertheless, 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 unfit for any duty; we must not confound what comes of 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;" yea, and the "evil that I would not, that I do." It is the secret of power that is lacking in such an one, and such may be helped by what is now before us; but the fault is not in the duty, but in the personal state.

And again, we must distinguish between duties of God's imposing (which, of course, only are such,) I and those which people often consider such, which the artificial state in which we live, which custom, which society,-which the world, in short, imposes. 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. 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. There are 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 competence, 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, and duties are never weights.

A weight is any thing you are at liberty to lay aside, but which you choose to retain instead. The retaining it proves you are not a racer in the full and proper sense. You have not the eye simply on the object before you. You do not, with the apostle, count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. 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, that sin easily besets. What miracle shall God work for you that it may be otherwise- that you may be able to save your life in this world and keep it unto life eternal too ? If, on the other hand, your eye is on the object? :and Christ that object, and your heart affected by your eye, you will not be endeavoring to see how much of this world you can carry, but how far you can strip yourself to run the race. 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.

But as surely as the weights are by God's grace laid aside, so surely shall we find that we are distancing besetting sin. It is a mistake, I believe, to suppose that this is some special form of sin. None can indeed deny that we have, each one of us, some special form to which we are prone, and that thus one man's temptations lie in one direction, another's in another; still, here, it is sin as sin.

Drop the weights, and you will distance the sin. I know, beloved friends, you will be tempted to look on this and that which you are clinging to, and to ask, as Lot of the city that he desired as a place of refuge, "Is it not a little one?" A thing, too, not in itself sinful; for, as I have said, we must carefully distinguish it from sin. 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 in your inmost heart you say of them ? 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 just because a little thing, yea, a thing of naught, is really followed, as if it had value, that such immense consequences result to the soul.

Still, I can imagine, the question is asked, Is this Christianity-this wearisome observance of little things? No, dear friends; nothing of this sort am I advocating. I would not be of the company of those who would judge the tone of a man's spirit by niceties of style. A Saul might misjudge a Jonathan because of honey taken by the way, and Gideon's men who lapped seem to others not different from those who bowed down on their knees to drink; the deep and real question is, whether as before God our purpose is with him who said, " This one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and pressing on to that which is before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

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."

For Israel, the path of progress did not lie through Edom; for the Christian, the way of progress is not found in conciliating or in conflict with the flesh. That word of the apostle, " Reckon yourselves dead indeed unto sin," if acted out, would exclude the thought of either. God's pilgrims and strangers have another, 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, died unto sin once, but in that He liveth, liveth unto God.

Do you even understand, beloved friends, this privilege to turn away ? To some, yea, to many here, it may seem yet mystery or unreality to speak of being dead to sin. You are so conscious of its presence, yea, and of its power in you, that you would think it a mere untruth to speak of being dead to sin. Yet Scripture not only speaks of it, but as true of every Christian. It is not any special class who are dead, nor does it speak of a gradual process of dying to it, as so many think. " How shall we that are dead to sin"-we-all Christians. 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 so, because you do not feel or find. 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,"-for " thus," rather than "likewise," we may better read it,-"thus reckon yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, and alive unto God in Christ Jesus."

It is not mysticism, then, but only faith to say, if we are Christians, that 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." In Christ there is no sin, no flesh; and in Christ we. are, Thus, from that which we find within us we are yet privileged to turn away, as Israel from obstructive Edom, its type in the scene before us in the book of Numbers.

Yet in Exodus we have conflict, and with what springs from Edom too. Amalek was Edom's offspring, as we have seen. And the apostle reads the type for us-" Fleshly lusts, which war against the soul." 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. We have already seen that the giving of the water from the rock is the type of the gift of the Spirit, that living water which has flowed forth for us as the fruit of Christ's smiting. It will be no wonder to any instructed mind that in connection with the type of the Spirit we should have the type of the flesh or of its working. " The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." It certainly confirms the interpretation already given as to Amalek that we find it so.

But let us not imagine that is the whole thing; and that because we have the Spirit, conflict with the flesh is the direct necessity. Nor if even we find continual conflict, that therefore what we find is the inevitable thing. The word is, "Reckon yourselves dead;" and 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, such an one 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:if His ways are in the seas, they are in the sanctuary too. With us also, if the eye be not on Christ,-if the heart be not occupied with him,-if we be not abiding there,-the world will surely come in to fill the gap, and the lusts of the flesh find their opportunity. Amalek 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, without a struggle, to be free. Conflict becomes a necessity, not merely to progress, but that we may not be captives to the ever-watchful enemy of our souls. An ordained necessity to progress it is not; and to view it as such, a serious mistake. What did Israel gain in this respect? Even their victory left them still but where they were, although fight they had to when the enemy was upon them. Their toils, their wounds, were so much hindrance only. In the wilderness, God's thought for them was that they should be pilgrims, and 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 of 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, as most of us perhaps know, the epistle of Christian experience; and that not as laying hold of the heavenly places, but expressly as going through the world. It is the experience of one who was, perhaps of all mere men most, a stranger and pilgrim,-of 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 thus a constant warfare with the flesh and its lusts? Every one knows, the very contrary. The flesh is only mentioned to say 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."

That was Paul. If you say, We are not Paul’s, I agree:alas! it is too plain we are not. Yet Paul bids us follow him; and the picture is but of what is proper to our common Christianity;. it is but the effect of the governing object upon his soul. Are we to allow any thing else than scriptural Christianity?

Faith said in Paul, "All things are dung and loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus." Can faith in any of us say less or else than this? Only let this be simple and clear in us, and how easy, how joyful, 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 our hearts have been entangled. Still there is hope, blessed be God, and help. One is on the mount for us with God:One on the plain leads us to victory,-if indeed we are not willing captives. Can that indeed be for a moment a question as to any of those who have the Scripture-title to be called " saints of God " ?

Let us look at this conflict, then; it is a thing which surely our souls know well, and yet in its details we may have much to learn that will be profitable to learn. This Moses upon the rock, who is he? and this Joshua upon the plain, who is he? Upon these two, manifestly, every thing depends for us.

Upon the mount, Moses holds up the rod which has smitten the rock. That the streams of refreshing might flow out for us in this wilderness-world, the Rock of Ages must be smitten. Righteousness struck the blow; and thus righteousness it is that justifies the sinner. God's righteousness is toward all; it 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 all 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 none the less. His name shines by its own light. "Joshua" is "Jesus;" the great Captain of our salvation is here again, and in a character which is of the deepest significance. Joshua, as we know, is the one who leads them into Canaan afterward, and he is the leader here no less. Let us look at this closer, for it is a point of great importance.

The world of sight and sense is what we have learned to be the antitype of Israel's scene of wandering. 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 that 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 enough, 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, of course, to be poor and dull enough. Israel, in full presence of all the miracles, could question still if the Lord were really with them. To spiritual sight, the evidence and the miracles will be as plain for us as them.

But there is another sphere, into which not only are we permitted to enter, but 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 drop out 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. 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, of course, not as Israel did-to fight, but to rest. Thus all the Canaan conflict is; as to any typical meaning, an inexplicable mystery. They know nothing of being in heavenly places, of being crucified to the world, or 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. I cannot dwell upon this side of things now, and for most of you here, I trust, it will not be needful.

But on the other hand, there are those who having learned the blessed truth that they are already, for 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 that for them it is already ended. At least, to be there is failure,-unbelief, and not faith. This is a complete mistake. It is to faith that the world is a wilderness. Unbelief will ever seek to settle down there. And, as we have seen, we are there, not as natural men, but as redeemed. In this way too all the experience of weakness, of need and dependence is lost sight of-lessons which every day and hour, one would think, would be teaching us; and along with this, the blessed lessons of the Lord's unfailing care and love.

To such, all this Amalek conflict must be a thing impossible to understand. They may think it no loss; but what about the manna, and the streams from the smitten rock?

In truth, the presence of Joshua in this scene in the wilderness is just a proof of the coincidence of our heavenly and earthly positions, and of how needed is the knowledge of the heavenly 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; and who, one feels tempted to ask, can be really ignorant of this ?

In the book of Genesis, the life of Abraham,- pattern life of faith as it is,-is a lesson of the same kind. It is as dwelling in Canaan that he is a pilgrim and a stranger; any where else he might have settled down. These two things are beautifully united in his history, and they are never to be sundered in our own.

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 no 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 pilgrims and strangers, we are to abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. We are to reckon ourselves dead to sin; and laying aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, to 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 Himself has traveled, and on which the light of the glory streams from the place to which He has ascended.
Plainfield, NH, July 29, 1882 F.W.G.