"Remember those who have the
rule over you [or your leaders or your guides], who have spoken unto you the
Word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation [or
the outcome of their well-spent lives]" (Heb. 13:7).

In the Epistle to the Hebrews we
find a whole chapter devoted to human examples of faith. A great cloud of
witnesses looks down upon us in the eleventh chapter, and in the closing
chapter of the book, the writer speaks of their "guides" or
"leaders." They were to remember those who had passed away and
imitate their faith; they were to obey those who remained, realizing that they
were charged with weighty responsibilities, and were to salute them in all
honor and affection.

Scripture not only warrants but
commands the remembrance of those whom God has given as leaders of His people.
To forget them means, too often, to forget the truth they brought, and paves
the way for that "building the sepulchres of the prophets" by a
godless posterity who are indifferent to every warning spoken by those prophets
(Luke 11:47). There is a sober, discriminating way of dwelling upon the
ministry of faithful servants which encourages our own faith, quickens
conscience, and stirs afresh to follow them as they followed Christ.

Most biographies are written from
a human standpoint; the man is before us rather than his message. Such
biographies are not helpful; but who has not been stimulated by the narratives
of devotion, self-denial, unresting toil of faithful men at home or abroad? We
realize on either hand that they were men "of like passions with
ourselves" (Jas. 5:17), and that a Power wrought in and with them which is
for us too.

The passage we have quoted at the
beginning shows us how we can properly "remember our guides." First
of all, what makes their remembrance profitable is that they spoke to us the
Word of God. It was not for special personal excellence of character, either
natural or gracious; nor for great activities and results in the Lord’s work,
considered in themselves. What gives value to the remembrance of the leader is
the Word of God with which he was identified, the message he brought. 

We read of one of David’s mighty
men, Eleazar the son of Dodo, that he stood alone against a great host of
Philistines when "the men of Israel had gone away." He smote them
"till his hand was weary and his hand clave unto the sword; the LORD
wrought a great victory" (2 Sam. 23:9,10). His very name, "God is
help," turns from the man to God. What could he do single-handed against
the host of the enemy? His arm grew weary, but the weary hand cleaved to the
good sword, and we see no longer the feeble arm of man, but the power of God
behind that weary arm, hewing out victory with that sword. The man has become
identified with the sword, and God can use such a one.

So are all God’s mighty men;
feeble, and with weary arms, they cling to that "sword of the Spirit which
is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). Their very weariness and feebleness makes
them cling like Jacob who, his thigh out of joint, could no more wrestle but
cling (Gen. 32:24-26). Such men God can use, for they are identified with their
sword, with the Word of God. To remember such is to remember the sword, the
Word which they brought. There can be no higher honor to a servant of Christ
than to identify him with the truth he ministered and to think of the sword he
held in his feebleness. The world may honor its soldiers, its men of wealth,
its benefactors, its entertainers, its athletes, and build them monuments. They
are its departed great men. Believers recall the memory of those who have left
their greatness in our hands, the Word of God. To do this is simply to have
mind refreshed and heart stirred by that which abides forever.

We are also to consider the issue,
or outcome of their walk. What has their life ended in? It has now ceased. A
rich man’s life ends, so far as what he leaves behind is concerned, in wealth;
a statesman’s in power and influence. In what shall we say the life of Christ’s
servant has ended? What has he left as the sum of that life? It is significant
that the very next clause gives what is really the answer:"Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Heb. 13:8). The issue of their
life is the abiding Christ. They have passed off the scene, but Christ, the
object of their ministry, abides. With Paul they could say, "To me to live
is Christ" (Phil. 1:21). Christ is the end, the goal of their life. To
depart and be with Him is far better. Happy indeed are those who are called to
lay down their burden and enter into His rest. They loved and served Him here;
they enjoy unclouded peace and rest as they wait with Him there. The outcome,
the end of all their life’s work, toil, testimony is Christ. They enjoy
Him to the full now; they have, as it were, left Him as a priceless legacy to
us here.

Their life was a life of faith—the
refusal at once both of creature righteousness and creature strength. They had
learned to "rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the
flesh" (Phil. 3:3). We are not called to do, in detail, their work. God
calls and fits each of His servants for some special work, peculiarly suited to
the special gift with which he is endowed. We are not to be imitators of one
another, but ever to be imitators of the faith that casts the feeble
upon the Mighty.

Lastly, we note the warning not to
be "carried about with divers and strange doctrines" (Heb. 13:9). The
servant of Christ ever stands for His truth against all opposition of error.
His ministry, in so far as it was under the guidance and in the power of the
Holy Spirit, brought home to heart and conscience the truth of God and the
Person of the Lord.

Do we not need to be especially on
our guard in these days against the subtle inroads of error? The Person of the
Son of God, His atoning work, His Church, the destiny of man—are all objects of
the enemy’s attacks. Let us hold fast the truth, and Him who is the truth, and
His Word of truth.

We have, then four characteristics
of a proper memorial of departed leaders:(1) The Word of God ministered by
them; (2) the outcome or issue of their life, Christ for them and for us ever
the same; (3) the faith which occupied them with this blessed Person; and (4)
the warning against error. If we ever have these features before us, there will
be only profit in remembering those who have gone on before us.

There is nothing that the men of
this world dread more than solitude and reflection. They would rather be
overpressed with engagements than have leisure for thought. The conscience, ill
at ease, will at such times lift up its voice; but its warning voice must be
hushed by the convenient word "duty" and its honest speech is soon
and willingly forgotten. Sins—many sins—are there, and the thought of God as
the judge of sin is dreadful. The condition of the soul is such that it cannot
bear the light; therefore darkness is loved (John 3:19). The activities of this
present life are sought and welcomed, that the crushing weight of reflection
may be escaped. The pleasures of the world, too, in due time and place, serve a
similar purpose.

Thus every care is taken that
solitude may be avoided, and that there may be no opportunity for calm and
serious reflection. The solemn and eternal realities of the soul have no
portion of thought or time allowed them, the higher, nobler, and better part of
man is totally neglected and left uncared for and unprovided for,
notwithstanding its deep, pressing, and eternal need. "For what shall it
profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what
shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Mark 8:36,37). Such alas! is
man—man without the knowledge of God, without the knowledge of his condition as
a sinner, and without the knowledge of Jesus as the Saviour of sinners.

But turn for a while, O my soul,
from the contemplation of a scene so heart-rending; though strong, yet tender,
are the links that would draw thee there, and lead thee to wean loved ones from
it and win them for Christ. Cherish a spirit of meditation in the sweet solitudes
of the soul’s separation from the world, where the scene is radiant and joyous
with the presence of the Saviour. The wider the separation from the world, the
deeper the communion and the richer the blessing. When heart and spirit have no
sympathy with the world, then really, though in the world, they are yet
far away from its bustle and all its unhallowed scenes. A mighty chasm now
separates believers from this present evil world:"They are not of the
world," says Christ, "even as I am not of the world" (John
17:16). The position of Christ in resurrection is the definition of our
position as seen in Him. The calm, reflective quiet of the soul in communion
with the Person of the exalted Lord is what characterizes its sweetest moments
while here on earth. These may be found in the sick room, in the quiet country
home, or in the very seat and center of this world’s activities.  All
depends on the state of the heart. To be alone and yet not alone, how blessed!

"My meditation of Him shall
be sweet" (Psa. 104:34).

(From Meditations on the Song
of Solomon.)

Have you ever thought much of the
exercise of meditation, and how frequently it is spoken of in Scripture (Gen.
24:63; Psa. 1:2; 19:14; 49:3; 63:6; 77:12; 119:99,148; etc.)?

Perhaps it may be from want of
this holy exercise, and really comprehending it, that the Church of the living
God is wanting in unity of doctrine and in spirituality of mind.

The study of God’s Word may be
concentrated, deep, constant, like searching for a vein of gold; and memory may
marvelously retain and bring forth what study has discovered. But meditation is
not the discovery of more or new things, but a calm sitting down with God to
enrich oneself with what study has discovered, and feeding with Him upon the
stores which memory has laid up.

Study and memory make the ready
and admired speaker; but meditation makes the sweet, living exhibition of Jesus
everywhere, whether speaking or silent (Josh. 1:9; Psa. 104:34; 119:15). Truths
from an infinite, all-wise God have in them more than the best meditative
faculty has ever or can ever digest.

May the Lord unfold to you and me
some of His own rich stores. They are so deep! But I am only at the surface of
them. They are our inheritance, and our "inheritance shall be
forever" (Psa. 37:18).

(Reprinted from Words of Truth,
Vol. 6.)

"Meditate upon these things
… that your profiting may appear to all" (1 Tim. 4:15).

It has pleased the Lord to teach me
a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than 14 years. The point
is this:the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every
day is to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about
is not how much I might serve or glorify the Lord. Rather it is how I might get
my soul into a happy state and how my inner man might be nourished. I might
seek to set the truth before the unconverted, to benefit believers, to relieve
the distressed, or to behave myself in other ways as it becomes a child of God.
But if I am not happy in the Lord and not being nourished and strengthened in
my inner man day by day, these things might not be done in a right spirit.
Before this time my habitual practice had been to give myself to prayer after
having dressed myself in the morning. Now I have seen that the most important
thing I have to do is to give myself to the reading of the Word of God and to
meditation on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned,
reproved, and instructed. Thus, while meditating upon the Word of God my heart
is brought into experiential communion with the Lord.

I have begun therefore to meditate
on the Scriptures early each morning. The first thing I do, after having asked
in a few words the Lord’s blessing upon His precious Word, is to begin to
meditate on the Word of God, searching as it were into every verse, to get
blessing out of it. This is not for the sake of public ministry of the Word but
for the sake of obtaining food for my own soul. Almost invariably I have found
that after a very few minutes my soul has been led to confession or
thanksgiving or intercession or supplication. Thus, though I do not give myself
to prayer but to meditation, yet it turns almost immediately more or less into
prayer.

Having been for a while making
confession or intercession or supplication, or giving thanks, I go to the next
words or verse, turning all into prayer for myself or others as the Word may
lead to it. All the while I keep before me that the object of my meditation is
food for my own soul. The result of this is that there is always a good deal of
confession, thanksgiving, supplication, or intercession mingled with my
meditation, and then my inner man almost invariably is nourished and
strengthened.

I often find that the Lord is
pleased to use that which He has communicated unto me to minister to other
believers at some later time. This occurs even though it is not for the sake of
public ministry of the Word that I give myself to meditation, but for the
profit of my own inner man.

The difference, then, between my
former practice and my present one is this:formerly, when I awakened, I began
to pray as soon as possible, and generally spent almost all my time till
breakfast in prayer. I almost invariably began with prayer except when I felt
my soul to be more than usually barren, in which case I read the Word of God
for food or for refreshment, or for revival and renewal of my inner man, before
I gave myself to prayer. But what was the result? I often spent a quarter of an
hour, or half an hour, or even an hour, on my knees, before being conscious of
having derived comfort, encouragement, humbling of soul, etc., and often after
having suffered much from wandering of mind. I scarcely ever suffer now in this
way. My heart is brought into experiential fellowship with God; I then speak to
my Father and to my Friend (vile though I am and unworthy of it) about the
things that He has brought before me in His precious Word.

It often now astonishes me that I
did not sooner see this point. In no book did I ever read about it. No public
ministry ever brought the matter before me. No private discussion with a
fellow-believer stirred me up to this matter. And yet, now, since God has
taught me this point, it is as plain to me as anything that the first thing the
child of God has to do morning by morning is to obtain food for his inner man.

As the outward man is not fit for
work for any length of time except we take food, and as this is one of the
first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. What is
the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God. Again, it is not
the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our
minds, just as water runs through a pipe; rather, it is considering what we
read, pondering over it, and applying it to our hearts.

When we pray, we speak to God. Now
prayer, in order to be continued for any length of time in any other than a
formal manner, requires a measure of godly desire. The season when this
exercise of soul can be most effectually performed is after the inner man has
been nourished by meditation on the Word of God where we find our Father
speaking to us to encourage, comfort, instruct, humble, or reprove us. We may
therefore profitably meditate, with God’s blessing, though we are ever so weak
spiritually. In fact, the weaker we are, the more we need meditation for the
strengthening of our inner man.

Thus there is far less to be
feared from wandering of mind than if we give ourselves to prayer without
having had time previously for meditation. I dwell so particularly on this
point because of the immense spiritual profit and refreshment I am conscious of
having derived from it myself. I affectionately and solemnly beseech all my
fellow believers to ponder this matter. By the blessing of God, I ascribe to
this mode the help and strength which I have had from God to pass in peace
through deeper trials, in various ways, than I had ever had before; and after
having now more than 14 years tried this way, I can most fully, in the fear of
God, commend it.

In addition to this, I generally
read, after family prayer, larger portions of the Word of God when I still
pursue my practice of reading regularly onward in the Holy Scriptures,
sometimes in the New Testament, and sometimes in the Old. For more than 26
years I have proved the blessedness of it. I take, also, either then or at
other parts of the day, time more especially for prayer.

What a difference it makes for the
soul to be refreshed and made happy early in the morning, compared to meeting
the service, the decisions, and the trials of the day without spiritual preparation!

The Song of Solomon has been
called the book of communion. We have that beautifully set forth in the first
seven verses of the second chapter. The bride and the bridegroom are conversing
together. We delight to speak with those whom we love. One of the wonderful
things about love is that when someone has really filled the vision of your
soul, you do not feel that any time that is taken up communing with him is
wasted. Here then you have the lovers in the country together and she exclaims,
for it is evidently she who speaks in verse one:"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys." Generally we apply those words to the blessed
Lord; we speak of Him as the Rose of Sharon. We sing sometimes, "He’s the
Lily of the Valley, He’s the Bright and Morning Star." It is perfectly
right and proper to apply all these delightful figures to Him, for we cannot
find any figure that speaks of that which is beautiful and of good report that
cannot properly be applied to the Lord. But the wonderful thing is that He has
put His own beauty upon His people. And so here the bride is looking up into
the face of the bridegroom saying, "I am the rose [really the narcissus, a
blood-red flower] of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys"—the lily that
thrives in the hidden place, not in the town, not in the heart and bustle of
the city, but out on the cool countryside, in the quiet field. Does it not
speak of the soul’s separation to Christ Himself?

It is when we draw apart from the
things of the world, apart to Himself, that we really thrive and grow in grace
and become beautiful in His sight. I am afraid that many of us do not develop
spiritually as we should because of the fact that we know so little of this
heart-separation to Himself. One of the great griefs that comes to the heart of
many a one who is seeking to lead others on in the ways of Christ is to know
the influence that the world has upon them after they are converted to God. How
often the question comes from young Christians, "Must I give up this and
must I give up that if I am going to live a consistent Christian life?"
And the things that they speak of with such apparent yearning are mere trifles
after all as compared with communion with Him. Must I give up eating sawdust in
order to enjoy a good dinner? Who would talk like that? Must I give up the
pleasures of the world in order that I may have communion with Christ? It is
easy to let them all go if the soul is enraptured with Him; and when you get to
know Him better, when you learn to enjoy communion with Him, you will find
yourself turning the question around. So when the world says, "Won’t you
participate with us in this doubtful pleasure or in this unholy thing?"
your answer will be, "Must I give up so much to come down to that level?
Must I give up communion with Him? Must I give up the enjoyment of His Word?
Must I give up fellowship with His people in order to go in the ways of the
world?" Dear Christian, do not think of it as giving up anything to
go apart with Him and enjoy His blessed fellowship.

In these days of hurry and bustle,
we find ourselves face to face with a terrible danger—no time to be alone with
God. The world in these last days is running fast; we live in what is called
"the age of progress." "You know we must keep pace with the
times," so the world says. [Ed. note:This was written 95 years ago!] But
this spirit of the world has not confined itself to the world. It is, alas, to
be found among the saints of God. And what is the result? No time to be alone
with God. And this is followed by no inclination to be alone with God.
Can there be any condition more deplorable than the condition of a child of God
who has no inclination to be alone with his Father?

Nowadays how many of God’s dear
children have picked up the "spirit of the age"; and how many
Christians are pushed into service for God, or thrust themselves into it, who
have had no "apprenticeship," no desert training. They have taken a
terrible short-cut into the front of the battle, a short-cut that has cut off
entirely the school of God!

How different is this from what
meets our eye in the pages of our Father’s Book. If we look at Abraham, we find
him sweetly communing with his God, far away in the plains of Mamre, sitting in
his tent door in the heat of the day (Gen. 18:1), while his worldly nephew is
keeping pace with the spirit of the age in ungodly Sodom. We find Joseph at
least two full years in God’s school—although it be an Egyptian dungeon—before
he steps up to teach her "senators wisdom" (Psa. 105:22) and
"save much people alive" (Gen. 50:20).

We find Moses at God’s school in
the back side of the desert (Exod. 3:1). Then, but not till then, he appears
publicly as the deliverer of the people of God. For David also the wilderness
is the school of God. There he slays the lion and the bear (1 Sam. 17:34-36)
when no human eye is near. He gets the victory alone with God. Fresh from God’s
school, he steps before the thousands of Israel; and while all Israel follows
Saul, the people’s man, trembling, there is one who trembles not, and he is the
one who has been at God’s school in the wilderness alone with Himself. Little
wonder, then, that the Lord wrought a great victory in Israel that day!

We might multiply instances from
the Book of God. We might tell of Elijah, a bold witness for God, who was
longer alone with his God than standing in the place of public testimony. He
found the solitude of Cherith and the quiet seclusion of Zarephath (1 Ki.
17:3,9) a needed training before he delivered the messages of God. John the
Baptist was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel (Luke 1:80).
The apostle Paul’s journey to Arabia seems to have been for no other purpose
than to be at God’s school in the desert (Gal. 1:17). But from the instances we
have noticed, nothing can be clearer than this, that if you and I are to be of
any use to God down here—if we would glorify Him on the earth—we must have time
to be alone with Him.

Whoever or whatever is put off,
God must not be put off. Whether we are "gifted" or not
"gifted," every one of us must have time alone with God. It is in the
closet that the "lions" and the "bears" must be slain. It
is in the secret presence of God, with no one near but Him, that the spiritual
Agags must be brought out and hewn in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal (1 Sam.
15:33). Then, when we appear before our brethren or the world, we shall find
ours to be the "strong confidence" which is the portion of all who
have to do with God in secret. The "Goliaths" shall be slain; God’s
work shall be done. We need not fear that God will not use us. It is only by
being in God’s school that He can use us—not perhaps in the dazzling way that
the world and many Christians admire, but in His own way, in a way that will
most honor Him.

The Lord makes all these things
clear to us while we are alone with Himself. It is only then we really do God’s
work, it is only then we do it in God’s way, it is only then we do the very
things God has fitted us for and at the very time appointed of the Father. What
secrets we get from the Lord alone with Himself! If we do not care for the
secret of His presence, what does He care for all our boasted service! It is
ourselves He wants, and it is only service flowing out of the joy of His
presence that is worthy of the name. It is only such service that shall stand
the fire of the judgment seat, and bring joy in the day of Christ that we have
not run in vain nor labored in vain.

May each one of us have an open
ear to the Master’s voice when He says to us, "Come ye yourselves apart
into a desert place" (Mark 6:31), remembering that though He were the Son
of the Father, we find Him time after time departing "into a solitary
place," and there praying, although in doing so He had to get up a
"great while before day" (Mark 1:35). The faithful witness Himself,
as well as His faithful and trusted servants in every age, required a desert
experience—a wilderness teaching alone with God. Beloved, so do we!

(From Help and Food, Vol.
21.)