WATCH
THOU AND ENDURE
"Out
of the spoils won in battles did they dedicate to maintain the house of the
Lord" (1 Chron. 26-27).
This
historical statement is pregnant with spiritual instruction and
doctrine. It was ever in the mind of the Lord to dwell among His people in
holiness and separation from evil. The Lord said to Moses:"Let them make
Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" (Ex. 25:8). The Levites were
chosen for the service of the Lord’s house because they gathered together unto
Moses when he sent forth his challenge, "Who is on the Lord’s side? Let
him come unto me." Their kinship with the wicked did not influence the
Levites when judgment of evil was required (Ex. 32:26-28).
The
treasures of God’s house today are many, and they must be guarded diligently by
those whom the Lord has stirred up, that the testimony may be maintained in
spite of growing spiritual darkness. At no time in the history of the Church
has there been a greater need to hold fast those things recorded for us in the
Scriptures and committed to us by the Spirit of God. There can be no spoils won
if our battles are not fought in subjection to the whole Word of God,
making use of the whole armor of God. See Ephesians 6:11-18.
The
great cry today for Christian unity and the trend toward that end is based upon
compromise, a "form of Godliness but denying the power thereof" (2
Tim. 3:5). Even the atoning work of Christ is discounted. Many of the Lord’s
people, being in an unscriptural position through disobedience, are drawn into
this compromise, having turned away from basic and precious truths for the sake
of fleshly ambition.
In the
Book of Samuel, Israel’s decline becomes evident when in their restlessness
they reject God and want a king like all of the nations. They choose Saul to be
king in spite of the warning of God by the prophet Samuel, and they become
subject to leadership of their own choosing. Saul’s attempt to justify a
partial obedience leads to his rejection and the rebuke:"To obey is
better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as
the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry" (1
Sam. 15:22-23).
The
voice of the Lord through the prophets applies no less to us in this day in
which the instructions given to Timothy by Paul are often ignored. The
exhortation of 1 Timothy 3:15 — "that thou mayest know how thou oughtest
to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God,
the pillar and ground of the truth" — stresses not so much the Church’s
being the one body of Christ, but rather its being the witness for Christ upon
the earth. It is the assembly of God acting in obedience (in spite of conscious
weakness and failure) as a pillar upholding revealed assembly order and
principles with the Holy Spirit as the guiding power. Hence the word of those
in this present or Laodicean period of the Church’s history is directed to
individuals for the encouragement of those who at the risk of separation from
loved ones seek to maintain a testimony to the truth in this present evil
world.
"Let
us go forth therefore unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach"
(Heb. 13:13). “For where two or three are gathered together in His name there
He is in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20).
Let us
not lose the sense of Christ’s Lordship and our responsibility to Him. A. J.
Palmer