Visit https://testbankdeal.

com to download the full version and

explore more testbank or solutions manual

Exploring Microsoft Excel 2013 Comprehensive 1st

Edition Poatsy Solutions Manual

_____ Click the link below to download _____

https://testbankdeal.com/product/exploring-microsoft-
excel-2013-comprehensive-1st-edition-poatsy-solutions-
manual/

Explore and download more testbank or solutions manual at testbankdeal.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Exploring Microsoft Access 2013 Comprehensive 1st Edition

Poatsy Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/exploring-microsoft-
access-2013-comprehensive-1st-edition-poatsy-test-bank/

Exploring Microsoft Office 2013 Volume 2 1st Edition

Poatsy Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/exploring-microsoft-
office-2013-volume-2-1st-edition-poatsy-solutions-manual/

Exploring Microsoft Office 2013 Volume 1 1st Edition

Poatsy Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/exploring-microsoft-
office-2013-volume-1-1st-edition-poatsy-solutions-manual/

Principles of Life 2nd Edition Hillis Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/principles-of-life-2nd-edition-
hillis-test-bank/
Venture Capital Private Equity and the Financing of
Entrepreneurship 1st Edition Lerner Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/venture-capital-private-equity-and-
the-financing-of-entrepreneurship-1st-edition-lerner-solutions-manual/

Leadership and Nursing Care Management 6th Edition Huber

Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/leadership-and-nursing-care-
management-6th-edition-huber-test-bank/

Management 10th Edition Plunkett Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/management-10th-edition-plunkett-
test-bank/

Effective Leadership International Edition 5th Edition

Achua Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/effective-leadership-international-
edition-5th-edition-achua-test-bank/

Gardners Art Through the Ages A Global History Vol 2 15th

Edition Kleiner Test Bank

https://testbankdeal.com/product/gardners-art-through-the-ages-a-
global-history-vol-2-15th-edition-kleiner-test-bank/
Ethical Obligations and Decision Making in Accounting Text
and Cases 4th Edition Mintz Solutions Manual

https://testbankdeal.com/product/ethical-obligations-and-decision-
making-in-accounting-text-and-cases-4th-edition-mintz-solutions-
manual/
 Name of file should be
Name the worksheet
e08c1Satisfaction_LastFirst
Salary Descriptive Statistics
Save and close
Mean 52426.4
Standard Error 2812.036
Median 45955
Mode #N/A
Standard Deviation 19884.09
Sample Variance 3.95E+08
Kurtosis -0.73866
Skewness 0.756551
Range 66983
Minimum 30176
Maximum 97159
Sum 2621320
Count 50

Create descriptive statistics

summary on a new worksheet
for the range D4:D53

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Cell F4
=RANK.AVG(D4,D$4:D$53)
Copy function down to
complete column F
Employee Statistics
ID Number Position Salary Job Satisfaction Salary Rank
1047 Sales Rep 45,855.00 3 27
1085 Sales Rep 46,063.00 4 23
1102 Sale Rep 45,700.00 2 28
1106 Sales Rep 47,572.00 3 22
1165 Support Staff 30,176.00 4 50
1473 Sales Rep 45,993.00 4 24
1486 Support Staff 32,666.00 1 45
1503 Support Staff 32,757.00 3 43
1519 Sale Rep 45,674.00 5 29
1529 Director 88,197.00 5 4
1601 Director 89,691.00 4 3
1603 Accountant 69,389.00 2 13
1675 Sale Rep 49,617.00 3 18
1828 Support Staff 35,230.00 3 38
2003 Director 83,240.00 5 6
2206 Sale Rep 42,383.00 3 31
2250 Director 92,700.00 4 2
2291 Support Staff 35,242.00 3 37
2292 Sales Rep 44,854.00 2 30
2416 Director 77,846.00 3 8
2528 Manager 70,125.00 3 12
2624 Manager 73,564.00 5 10
2742 Accountant 62,263.00 4 17
3004 Support Staff 30,982.00 2 48
3083 Director 84,937.00 4 5
3161 Support Staff 32,709.00 4 44
3217 Sales Rep 40,449.00 3 33
3314 Sales Rep 45,983.00 5 25
3338 Support Staff 36,942.00 3 35
3402 Support Staff 33,852.00 5 41
3473 Support Staff 33,501.00 1 42
3638 Sales Rep 48,005.00 3 21
3652 Sales Rep 48,706.00 5 20
3782 Sale Rep 45,927.00 2 26
3808 Support Staff 31,632.00 5 47
3818 Sale Rep 49,575.00 3 19
3874 Support Staff 34,154.00 4 40
3877 Support Staff 34,775.00 3 39
3948 Support Staff 37,404.00 4 34
3969 Accountant 65,492.00 3 16
4239 Support Staff 32,107.00 4 46
4243 Support Staff 35,316.00 2 36
4269 Accountant 68,365.00 2 14

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

4398 Sales Rep 41,130.00 4 32
4541 Manager 72,862.00 3 11
4584 Support Staff 30,701.00 5 49
4652 Accountant 66,009.00 2 15
4771 Manager 74,767.00 4 9
4911 Director 81,082.00 4 7
4954 Director 97,159.00 5 1

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

 Format cells with number
Cell I5 format and two decimals
=AVERAGEIF(C$4:C$53,H5,E$4:E$53)
Copy function down to complete cells I6:I9 Cell J5 =AVERAGEIF(C$4:C$53,H5,D$4:D$53)
Copy function down to complete cells J6:J9
Summary Information
Position Average Satisfaction Average Salary
Support Staff 3.29 $ 33,538.00
Sales Rep 3.60 $ 45,461.00
Accountant 2.60 $ 66,303.60
Manager 3.75 $ 72,829.50
Director 4.25 $ 86,856.50
Cell I12
Directors with > 4 Satisfaction =COUNTIFS(C4:C53,"Director",E4:E53,">=4")
Count 7
Cell I13
Average Salary $ 88,143.71
=AVERAGEIFS(D4:D53,C4:C53,"Director",E4:E53,">=4")

Managers with > 4 Satisfaction Cell I16

Count 2 =COUNTIFS(C4:C53,"Manager",E4:E53,">=4")
Average Salary $ 74,165.50 Cell I17
=AVERAGEIFS(D4:D53,C4:C53,"Manager",E4:E53,">=4")
Quartile Salary
0 $ 30,176.00 Cell I20 = QUARTILE.INC(D$4:D$53,H20)
1 $ 35,233.00 Copy function to complete cells I21:I24
2 $ 45,955.00
3 $ 69,133.00
4 $ 97,159.00

Correlation
0.23 Cell H27 = CORREL(D4:D53,E4:E53)

Bin Frequency
$ 30,176.00 1
$ 35,233.00 12
$ 45,955.00 12
$ 69,133.00 12
$ 97,159.00 13

Create a histogram in cell H29

Histogram using the salaries in column D and
quartiles in the range I20:I24
15
Frequency

10

5 Frequency

0
Bin

Copyright © 2014 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be
unto Him a people of inheritance, as ye are this day." (Ver. 20.)
Could any thing be more affecting than this? Jehovah, in His rich and
sovereign grace, and by His mighty hand, brought them forth from
the land of death and darkness, a redeemed and delivered people.
He had brought them to Himself, that they might be to Him a
peculiar treasure, above all the people upon earth. How, then, could
they turn away from Him, from His holy covenant, and from His
precious commandments?
Alas! alas! they could and did. "They made a calf, and said, 'These
be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of
Egypt.'" Think of this! A calf, made by their own hands—an image,
graven by art and man's device, had brought them up out of Egypt!
A thing made out of the women's earrings had redeemed and
delivered them! And this has been written for our admonition. But
why should it be written for us if we are not capable of and liable to
the very same sin? We must either admit that God the Holy Ghost
has penned an unnecessary sentence, or admit our need of an
admonition against the sin of idolatry; and assuredly, our needing
the admonition proves our tendency to the sin.
Are we better than Israel? In no wise. We have brighter light and
higher privileges, but, so far as we are concerned, we are made of
the same material, have the same capabilities and the same
tendencies, as they. Our idolatry may take a different shape from
theirs; but idolatry is idolatry, be the shape what it may; and the
higher our privileges, the the greater our sin. We may perhaps feel
disposed to wonder how a rational people could be guilty of such
egregious folly as to make a calf and bow down to it, and this, too,
after having had such a display of the majesty, power, and glory of
God. Let us remember that their folly is recorded for our admonition;
and that we, with all our light, all our knowledge, all our privileges,
are warned to "flee from idolatry."
Let us deeply ponder all this and seek to profit by it. May every
chamber of our hearts be filled with Christ, and then we shall have
no room for idols. This is our only safeguard. If we slip away the
breadth of a hair from our precious Saviour and Shepherd, we are
capable of plunging into the darkest forms of error and moral evil.
Light, knowledge, spiritual privileges, church position, sacramental
benefits, are no security for the soul. They are very good in their
right place and if rightly used, but in themselves they only increase
our moral danger.
Nothing can keep us safe, right, and happy but having Christ
dwelling in our hearts by faith. Abiding in Him and He in us, that
wicked one toucheth us not. But if personal communion be not
diligently maintained, the higher our position, the greater our danger
and the more disastrous our fall. There was not a nation beneath the
canopy of heaven more favored and exalted than Israel when they
gathered around Mount Horeb to hear the word of God: there was
not a nation on the face of the earth more degraded or more guilty
than they when they bowed before the golden calf—an image of
their own formation.

We must now give our attention to a fact of very deep interest,

presented at verse 21 of our chapter, and that is, that Moses, for the
third time, reminds the congregation of God's judicial dealing with
himself. He had spoken of it, as we have seen, in chapter i. 37, and
again at chapter iii. 26, and here, again, he says to them,
"Furthermore the Lord was angry with me for your sakes, and sware
that I should not go over Jordan, and that I should not go in unto
that good land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an
inheritance; but I must die in this land, I must not go over Jordan;
but ye shall go over and possess that good land."
Now, we may ask, Why this threefold reference to the same fact?
and why the special mention, in each instance, of the circumstance
that Jehovah was angry with him on their account? One thing is
certain, it was not for the purpose of throwing the blame over upon
the people, or of exculpating himself. No one but an infidel could
think this. We believe the simple object was, to give increased moral
force to his appeal, more solemnity to his warning voice. If Jehovah
was angry with such an one as Moses—if he, for his unadvised
speaking at the waters of Meribah, was forbidden to enter the
promised land (much as he desired it), how needful for them to take
heed! It is a serious thing to have to do with God—blessed, no
doubt, beyond all human expression or thought, but most serious, as
the lawgiver himself was called to prove in his own person.
That this is the correct view of this interesting question seems
evident from the following words: "Take heed unto yourselves, lest
ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which He made with
you, and make you a graven image, or the likeness of any thing
which the Lord thy God hath forbidden thee. For the Lord thy God is
a consuming fire, even a jealous God."
This is peculiarly solemn. We must allow this statement to have its
full, moral weight with our souls. We must not attempt to turn aside
its sharp edge by any false notions about grace. We sometimes hear
it said that "God is a consuming fire to the world." By and by He will
be so, no doubt; but now He is dealing in grace, patience, and long-
suffering mercy with the world. He is not dealing in judgment with
the world now; but, as the apostle Peter tells us, "the time is come
that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at
us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"
So also, in Hebrews xii, we read, "For our God is a consuming fire."
He is not speaking of what God will be to the world, but of what He
is to us. Neither is it, as some put it, "God is a consuming fire out of
Christ." We know nothing of God out of Christ. He could not be "our
God" out of Christ.
No, reader; Scripture does not need such twistings and turnings: it
must be taken as it stands. It is clear and distinct, and all we have to
do is to hearken and obey. "Our God is a consuming fire," "a jealous
God," not to consume us, blessed be His holy name, but to consume
the evil in us and in our ways. He is intolerant of every thing in us
that is contrary to Himself—contrary to His holiness, and therefore
contrary to our true happiness, our real, solid blessing. As the "Holy
Father," He keeps us in a way worthy of Himself, and He chastens us
in order to make us partakers of His holiness. He allows the world to
go on its way for the present, not interfering publicly with it; but He
judges His house, and He chastens His children, in order that they
may more fully answer to His mind and be the expression of His
moral image.
And is not this an immense privilege? Yes, verily; it is a privilege of
the very highest order—a privilege flowing from the infinite grace of
our God, who condescends to interest Himself in us, and occupy
Himself even with our infirmities, our failures, and our sins, in order
to deliver us from them, and make us partakers of His holiness.
There is a very fine passage bearing upon this subject in the
opening of Hebrews xii, which, because of its immense practical
importance, we must quote for the reader.—"My son, despise not
thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of
Him; for whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every
son whom He receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with
you as with sons; for what son is he whom the Father chasteneth
not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers,
then are ye bastards and not sons. Furthermore, we have had
fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them
reverence; shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father
of spirits, and live? For they verily for a few days chastened us after
their own pleasure; but He for our profit, that we might be partakers
of His holiness. Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be
joyous, but grievous; nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the
peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised
thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the
feeble knees."
There are three ways of meeting divine chastening: We may
"despise" it, as something commonplace—something that may
happen to any one; we do not see the hand of God in it. Again, we
may "faint" under it, as something too heavy for us to bear—
something entirely beyond endurance; we do not see the Father's
heart in it, or recognize His gracious object in it, namely, to make us
partakers of His holiness. Lastly, we may be "exercised" by it. This is
the way to reap "the peaceable fruit of righteousness afterward." We
dare not "despise" a thing in which we trace the hand of God: we
need not "faint" under a trial in which we plainly discern the heart of
a loving Father, who will not suffer us to be tried above what we are
able, but will with the trial make an issue, that we may be able to
bear it, and who also graciously explains to us His object in the
discipline, and assures us that every stroke of His rod is a proof of
His love, and a direct response to the prayer of Christ in John xvii.
11, wherein He commends us to the care of the "Holy Father," to be
kept according to that name and all that name involves.
Furthermore, there are three distinct attitudes of heart in reference
to divine chastening, namely, subjection, acquiescence, and
rejoicing. When the will is broken, there is subjection; when the
understanding is enlightened as to the object of the chastening,
there is calm acquiescence; and when the affections are engaged
with the Father's heart, there is rejoicing, and we can go forth with
glad hearts to reap a golden harvest of the peaceable fruit of
righteousness, to the praise of Him who, in His painstaking love,
undertakes to care for us and to deal with us in holy government,
and concentrate His care upon each one as though there were but
that one to attend to.
How wonderful is all this! and how the thought of it should help us
in all our trials and exercises! We are in the hands of One whose
love is infinite, whose wisdom is unerring, whose power is
omnipotent, whose resources are inexhaustible. Why, then, should
we ever be cast down? If He chastens us, it is because He loves us
and seeks our real good. We may think the chastening grievous—we
may feel disposed to wonder, at times, how love can inflict pain and
sickness upon us; but we must remember that divine love is wise
and faithful, and only inflicts the pain, the sickness, or the sorrow for
our profit and blessing. We must not always judge of love by the
form in which it clothes itself. Look at that fond and tender mother
applying a blister to her child whom she loves as her own soul. She
knows full well that the blister will cause her child real pain and
suffering, and yet she unhesitatingly applies it, though her heart
feels keenly at having to do it. But she knows it is absolutely
necessary; she believes that, humanly and medically speaking, the
child's life depends upon it; she feels that a few moments' pain may,
with the blessing of God, restore the health of her precious child.
Thus, while the child is only occupied with the transient suffering,
the mother is thinking of the permanent good; and if the child could
but think with the mother, the blister would not seem so hard to
bear.
Now, it is just thus in the matter of our Father's disciplinary dealings
with us; and the remembrance of this would greatly help us to
endure whatever His chastening hand may lay upon us. It may
perhaps be said that there is a very wide difference between a
blister laid on for a few minutes, and years of intense bodily
suffering. No doubt there is; but there is also a very wide difference
between the result reached in each case. It is only with the principle
of the thing we have to do. When we see a beloved child of God, or
servant of Christ, called to pass through years of intense suffering,
we may feel disposed to wonder why it is; and perhaps the beloved
sufferer may also feel disposed to wonder, and at times be ready to
faint under the weight of his long-protracted affliction. He may feel
led to cry out, Why am I thus? Can this be love? can this be the
expression of a Father's tender care? "Yes, verily," is Faith's bright
and decided reply. "It is all love—all divinely right. I would not have
it otherwise for worlds. I know this transient suffering is working out
eternal blessing. I know my loving Father has put me into this
furnace to purge away my dross and bring out in me the expression
of His own image. I know that divine love will always do the very
best for its object, and therefore this intense suffering is the very
best thing for me. Of course, I feel it, for I am not a stick or a stone.
My Father means me to feel it, just as the mother means the blister
to rise, for it would do no good otherwise. But I bless Him, with my
whole heart, for the grace that shines in the wondrous fact of His
occupying Himself with me, in this way, to correct what He sees to
be wrong in me. I praise Him for putting me into the furnace; and
how can I but praise Him, when I see Himself, in infinite grace and
patience, sitting over the furnace to watch the process, and lift me
out the moment the work is done?"
This, beloved Christian reader, is the true way, and this the right
spirit in which to pass through chastening of any kind, be it bodily
affliction, sore bereavement, loss of property, or pressure of
circumstances. We have to trace the hand of God, to read a Father's
heart, to recognize the divine object in it all. This will enable us to
vindicate, justify, and glorify God in the furnace of affliction. It will
correct every murmuring thought, and hush every fretful utterance;
it will fill our hearts with sweetest peace and our mouths with praise.

We must now turn, for a few moments, to the remaining verses of

our chapter, in which we shall find some most touching and powerful
appeals to the heart and conscience of the congregation. The
lawgiver, in the deep, true, and fervent love of his heart, makes use
of the most solemn warnings, the most earnest admonition, and the
most tender entreaties, in order to move the people to the one
grand and all-important point of obedience. If he speaks to them of
the iron furnace of Egypt, out of which Jehovah, in His sovereign
grace, had delivered them; if he dwells upon the mighty signs and
wonders wrought on their behalf; if he holds up to their view the
glories of that land on which they were about to plant their foot; or
if he recounts the marvelous dealings of God with them in the
wilderness, it is all for the purpose of strengthening the moral basis
of Jehovah's claim upon their loving and reverent obedience. The
past, the present, and the future are all brought to bear upon them
—all made to furnish powerful arguments in favor of their whole-
hearted consecration of themselves to the service of their gracious
and almighty Deliverer. In short, there was every reason why they
should obey, and no possible excuse for disobedience. All the facts
of their history, from first to last, were eminently calculated to give
moral force to the exhortation and warning of the following passage:
—
"Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord
your God, which He made with you, and make you a graven image,
or the likeness of any thing, which the Lord thy God hath forbidden
thee. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God.
When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye shall
have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves, and
make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do evil
in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke Him to anger; I call
heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon
utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to
possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly
be destroyed. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and
ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord
shall lead you. And there ye shall serve gods, the work of men's
hands, wood and stone, which neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor
smell."
How solemn is all this! What faithful warnings are here! Heaven and
earth are summoned to witness. Alas! how soon and how completely
all this was forgotten! and how literally all those heavy denunciations
have been fulfilled in the history of the nation!
But, thank God, there is a bright side of the picture—there is mercy
as well as judgment, and our God (blessed forever be His holy
name) is something more than "a consuming fire and a jealous
God." True, He is a consuming fire, because He is holy; He is
intolerant of evil, and must consume our dross. Moreover, He is
jealous, because He cannot suffer any rival to have a place in the
hearts of those He loves. He must have the whole heart, because He
alone is worthy of it, as He alone can fill and satisfy it forever. And if
His people turn away from Him and go after idols of their own
making, they must be left to reap the bitter fruit of their own doings,
and to prove, by sad and terrible experience, the truth of these
words: "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another."
But mark how touchingly Moses presents to the people the bright
side of things—a brightness springing from the eternal stability of
the grace of God, and the perfect provision which that grace has
made for all His people's need, from first to last. "But," he says—and
oh, how lovely are some of the "buts" of holy Scripture!—"if from
thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou
seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul." Exquisite grace!
"When thou art in tribulation"—that is the time to find what our God
is,—"and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter
days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto
His voice;"—what then? "A consuming fire"? Nay; but "the Lord thy
God is a merciful God; He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee,
nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He sware unto them."
Here we have a remarkable onlook into Israel's future, their
departure from God and consequent dispersion among the nations,
the complete breaking up of their polity, and the passing away of
their national glory. But, blessed forever be the God of all grace,
there is something beyond all this failure and sin and ruin and
judgment. When we get to the far end of Israel's melancholy history
—a history which may truly be summed up in that one brief but
comprehensive sentence, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself," we
are met by the magnificent display of the grace, mercy, and
faithfulness of Jehovah, the God of their fathers, whose heart of love
tells itself out in that added sentence, "In Me is thy help." Yes; the
whole matter is wrapped up in these two vigorous sentences, "Thou
hast destroyed thyself," "But in Me is thy help." In the former, we
have the sharp arrow for Israel's conscience; in the latter, the
soothing balm for Israel's broken heart.
In thinking of the nation of Israel, there are two pages which we
have to study, namely, the historic and the prophetic. The page of
history records, with unerring faithfulness, their utter ruin: the page
of prophecy unfolds, in accents of matchless grace, God's remedy.
Israel's past has been dark and gloomy: Israel's future will be bright
and glorious. In the former, we see the miserable actings of man; in
the latter, the blessed ways of God. That gives the forcible
illustration of what man is; this, the bright display of what God is.
We must look at both if we would understand aright the history of
this remarkable people—"a people terrible from their beginning
hitherto," and, we may truly add, a people wonderful to the end of
time.
We do not, of course, attempt to adduce, in this place, proofs of our
statement as to Israel's past and Israel's future. To do so would, we
may say, without any exaggeration, demand a volume, inasmuch as
it would simply be to quote a very large portion of the historical
books of the Bible on the one hand, and of the prophetic books on
the other. This, we need hardly say, is out of the question; but we
feel bound to press upon the reader's attention the precious
teaching contained in the quotation given above. It embodies, in its
brief compass, the whole truth as to Israel's past, present, and
future. Mark how their past is vividly portrayed in these few words:
"When thou shalt beget children, and children's children, and ye
shall have remained long in the land, and shall corrupt yourselves,
and make a graven image, or the likeness of any thing, and shall do
evil in the sight of the Lord thy God, to provoke Him to anger."
Is not this precisely what they have done? Is it not here, as it were,
in a nutshell? They have done evil in the sight of Jehovah their God,
to provoke Him to anger. That one word, "evil" takes all in, from the
calf at Horeb to the cross at Calvary. Such is Israel's past.
And now, what of their present? Are they not a standing monument
of the imperishable truth of God? Has a single jot or tittle failed of all
that God has spoken? Hearken to these glowing words: "I call
heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that ye shall soon
utterly perish from off the land whereunto ye go over Jordan to
possess it; ye shall not prolong your days upon it, but shall utterly
be destroyed. And the Lord shall scatter you among the nations, and
ye shall be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord
shall lead you."
Has not all this been fulfilled to the letter? Who can question it?
Israel's past and Israel's present alike attest the truth of God's Word.
And are we not justified in declaring that inasmuch as the past and
the present are a literal accomplishment of the truth of God, so shall
the future? Assuredly. The page of history and the page of prophecy
were both indited by the same Spirit, and therefore they are both
alike true; and as the history records Israel's sin and Israel's
dispersion, so doth the prophecy predict Israel's repentance and
Israel's restoration. The one is as true to faith as the other. As surely
as Israel sinned in the past and are scattered at the present, so
surely shall they repent and be restored in the future.
This, we conceive, is beyond all question; and we rejoice to think of
it. There is not one of the prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, that
does not most distinctly set forth, in accents of sweetest grace and
most tender mercy, the future blessings, pre-eminence, and glory of
the seed of Abraham.[11] It would be simply delightful to quote
some of the sublime passages bearing upon this most interesting
subject; but we must leave the reader to search them out for
himself, especially commending to his notice the precious passages
contained in the closing chapters of Isaiah, in which he will find a
perfect feast, as well as the fullest confirmation of the apostle's
statement that "all Israel shall be saved." All the prophets, "from
Samuel and those that follow after," agree as to this. The teachings
of the New Testament harmonize with the voices of the prophets,
and hence to call in question the truth of Israel's restoration to their
own land, and final blessing there, under the rule of their own
Messiah, is simply to ignore or deny the testimony of prophets and
apostles, speaking and writing by the direct inspiration of God the
Holy Ghost; it is to set aside a body of Scripture evidence perfectly
overwhelming.
It seems passing strange that any true lover of Christ should seek to
do this; yet so it is, and so it has been, through religious prejudice,
theological bias, and various other causes. But, notwithstanding all
this, the glorious truth of Israel's restoration and pre-eminence in
the earth shines with undimmed lustre on the prophetic page, and
all who seek to set it aside, or interfere with it in any way, are not
only flying in the face of holy Scripture—contradicting the unanimous
voice of apostles and prophets, but also seeking to tamper
(ignorantly and unwittingly, no doubt) with the counsel, purpose,
and promise of the Lord God of Israel, and to nullify His covenant
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
This is serious work for any one to engage in, and we believe many
are doing it without being aware of it; for we must understand that
any one who applies the promises made to the Old-Testament
fathers to the New-Testament Church is, in reality, doing the serious
work of which we speak. We maintain that no one has the slightest
warrant to alienate the promises made to the fathers. We may learn
from those promises, delight in them, draw comfort and
encouragement from their eternal stability and direct literal
application—all this is blessedly true; but it is another thing
altogether for men, under the influence of a system of interpretation
falsely called spiritual, to apply to the Church, or to believers of the
New-Testament times, prophecies which, as simply and plainly as
words can indicate, apply to Israel—to the literal seed of Abraham.
This is what we consider so very serious. We believe we have very
little idea of how thoroughly opposed all this is to the mind and
heart of God. He loves Israel—loves them for the fathers' sake, and
we may rest assured He will not sanction our interference with their
place, their portion, or their prospect. We are all familiar with the
words of the inspired apostle in Romans xi, however we may have
missed or forgotten their true import and moral force.
Speaking of Israel, in connection with the olive-tree of promise, he
says, "And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be
graffed in; for" the most simple, solid, and blessed of all reasons
—"God is able," as He is most surely willing, "to graff them in again.
For if thou wert cut out of the olive-tree which is wild by nature, and
wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive-tree; how much
more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into
their own olive-tree? For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits;
that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the
Gentiles be come in.[12] And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is
written, 'There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn
away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is My covenant unto them,
when I shall take away their sins.' As concerning the gospel, they
are enemies for your sakes; but as touching the election, they are
beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are
without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God,
yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have
these also now not believed in your mercy [or, mercy to you. See
Greek.] that they also may obtain mercy." That is, that instead of
coming in on the ground of law, or fleshly descent, they should
come in simply on the ground of sovereign mercy, just as the
Gentiles. "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might
have mercy upon all."
Here ends the section bearing upon our immediate subject, but we
cannot refrain from quoting the splendid doxology which bursts forth
from the overflowing heart of the inspired apostle as he closes the
grand dispensational division of his epistle—"O the depth of the
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable
are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counselor? or
who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him
again? For of Him," as the source, "and through Him," as the
channel, "and to Him," as the object, "are all things: to whom be
glory forever. Amen."
The foregoing splendid passage, as indeed all Scripture, is in perfect
keeping with the teaching of the fourth chapter of our book. Israel's
present condition is the fruit of their dark unbelief: Israel's future
glory will be the fruit of God's rich sovereign mercy.—"The Lord thy
God is a merciful God, He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee,
nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He sware unto them.
For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since
the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one
side of heaven unto the other"—The utmost bounds of time and
space were to be appealed to, to see—"whether there hath been any
such thing as this great thing is, or hath been heard like it? Did ever
people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire,
as thou hast heard, and live? Or hath God assayed to go and take
Him a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations, by
signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a
stretched-out arm, and by great terrors, according to all that the
Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it
was showed, that thou mightest know that the Lord He is God; there
is none else beside Him. Out of heaven He made thee to hear His
voice, that He might instruct thee, and upon earth He showed thee
His great fire; and thou heardest His words out of the midst of the
fire."
Here we have set forth, with singular moral power, the grand object
of all the divine actings on Israel's behalf. It was that they might
know that Jehovah was the one true and living God, and that there
was and could be none beside Him. In a word, it was the purpose of
God that Israel should be a witness for Him on the earth; and so
they most assuredly shall, though hitherto they have signally failed
and caused His great and holy name to be blasphemed among the
nations. Nothing can hinder the purpose of God. His covenant shall
stand forever. Israel shall yet be a blessed and effective witness for
God on the earth, and a channel of rich and everlasting blessing to
all nations. Jehovah has pledged His word as to this, and not all the
powers of earth and hell—men and devils combined can hinder the
full accomplishment of all that He has spoken. His glory is involved in
Israel's future, and if a single jot or tittle of His word were to fail, it
would be a dishonor cast upon His great name, and an occasion for
the enemy, which is utterly impossible. Israel's future blessing and
Jehovah's glory are bound together by a link which can never be
snapped. If this be not clearly seen, we can neither understand
Israel's past nor Israel's future. Nay, more; we may assert, with all
possible confidence, that unless this blessed fact be fully grasped,
our system of prophetic interpretation must be utterly false.
But there is another truth set forth in our chapter—a truth of
peculiar interest and preciousness. It is not merely that the glory of
Jehovah is involved in Israel's future restoration and blessedness;
the love of His heart is also engaged. This comes out with touching
sweetness in the following words: "And because He loved thy
fathers, therefore He chose their seed after them, and brought thee
out in His sight with His mighty power out of Egypt; to drive out
nations from before thee greater and mightier than thou art, to bring
thee in, to give thee their land for an inheritance, as it is this day."
Thus the truth of God's word, the glory of His great name, and the
love of His heart are all involved in His dealings with the seed of
Abraham His friend; and albeit they have broken the law, dishonored
His name, despised His mercy, rejected His prophets, crucified His
Son, and resisted His Spirit—although they have done all this, and,
in consequence thereof, are scattered and peeled and broken, and
shall yet pass through unexampled tribulation, yet will the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob glorify His name, make good His word,
and manifest the changeless love of His heart in the future history of
His earthly people. "Nothing changeth God's affection." Whom He
loves and as He loves He loves unto the end.
If we deny this in reference to Israel, we have not so much as a
single inch of solid standing-ground for ourselves: if we touch the
truth of God in one department, we have no security as to any thing.
"Scripture cannot be broken." "All the promises of God in Him are
yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God." God has pledged
Himself to the seed of Abraham; He has promised to give them the
land of Canaan, forever. "His gifts and calling are without
repentance." He never repents of His gift or His call; and therefore
for any one to attempt to alienate His promises and His gifts, or to
interfere in any way with their application to their true and proper
object, must be a grievous offense to Him. It mars the integrity of
divine truth, deprives us of all certainty in the interpretation of holy
Scripture, and plunges the soul in darkness, doubt, and perplexity.
The teaching of Scripture is clear, definite, and distinct. The Holy
Ghost, who indited the sacred Volume, means what He says and
says what He means. If He speaks of Israel, He means Israel—of
Zion, He means Zion—of Jerusalem, He means Jerusalem. To apply
any one of these names to the New-Testament Church is to
confound things that differ, and introduce a method of interpreting
Scripture which, from its vagueness and looseness, can only lead to
the most disastrous consequences. If we handle the Word of God in
such a loose and careless manner, it is utterly impossible to realize
its divine authority over our conscience, or exhibit its formative
power in our course, conduct, and character.

We must now look, for a moment, at the powerful appeal with which
Moses sums up his address in our chapter: it demands our profound
and reverent attention.—"Know therefore this day, and consider it in
thine heart, that the Lord He is God in heaven above, and upon the
earth beneath; there is none else. Thou shalt keep therefore His
statutes, and His commandments, which I command thee this day,
that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee, and
that thou mayest prolong thy days upon the earth, which the Lord
thy God giveth thee, forever." (Ver. 39, 40.)
Here we see that the moral claim upon their hearty obedience is
grounded upon the revealed character of God, and His marvelous
actings on their behalf. In a word, they were bound to obey—bound
by every argument that could possibly act on the heart, the
conscience, and the understanding. The One who had brought them
out of the land of Egypt, with a mighty hand and outstretched arm;
who had made that land to tremble to its very centre, by stroke after
stroke of His judicial rod; who had opened up a pathway for them
through the sea; who had sent them bread from heaven, and
brought forth water for them out of the flinty rock; and all this for
the glory of His great name, and because He loved their fathers—
surely He was entitled to their whole-hearted obedience.
This is the grand argument, so eminently characteristic of this
blessed book of Deuteronomy. And surely this is full of instruction for
Christians now. If Israel were morally bound to obey, how much
more are we! If their motives and objects were powerful, how much
more so are ours! Do we feel their power? do we consider them in
our hearts? Do we ponder the claims of Christ upon us? Do we
remember that we are not our own, but bought with a price, even
the infinitely precious price of the blood of Christ? Do we realize
this? Are we seeking to live for Him? Is His glory our ruling object?—
His love our constraining motive? or are we living for ourselves? Are
we seeking to get on in the world—that world that crucified our
blessed Lord and Saviour? Are we seeking to make money? do we
love it in our hearts, either for its own sake or for the sake of what it
can procure? does money govern us? Are we seeking a place in the
world, either for ourselves or for our children? Let us honestly
challenge our hearts, as in the divine presence, in the light of God's
truth, what is our object—our real, governing, cherished, heart-
sought object?
Reader, these are searching questions. Let us not put them aside: let
us really weigh them in the very light of the judgment-seat of Christ.
We believe they are wholesome, much-needed questions. We live in
very solemn times. There is a fearful amount of sham on every side,
and in nothing is this sham so awfully apparent as in so-called
religion.
The very days in which our lot is cast have been sketched by a pen
that never colors—never exaggerates, but always presents men and
things precisely as they are.—"This know also, that in the last
days"—quite distinct from "the latter times" of 1 Timothy iv.—far in
advance, more pronounced, more closely defined, more strongly
marked, these last days in which "perilous [or difficult] times shall
come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful,
unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady,
high-minded, lovers of pleasures more [or rather] than lovers of
God." And then mark the crown which the inspired apostle puts
upon this appalling superstructure!—"Having a form of godliness,
but denying the power thereof." (2 Tim. iii. 1-5.)
What a terrible picture! We have here, in a few glowing, weighty
sentences, infidel christendom, just as in 1 Timothy iv. we have
superstitious christendom. In the latter, we see popery; in the
former, infidelity. Both elements are at work around us, but the latter
will yet rise into prominence—indeed, even now it is advancing with
rapid strides. The very leaders and teachers of christendom are not
ashamed or afraid to attack the foundations of Christianity. A so-
called Christian bishop is not ashamed or afraid to call in question
the integrity of the five books of Moses, and, with them, of the
whole Bible; for, most assuredly, if Moses was not the inspired writer
of the Pentateuch, the entire edifice of holy Scripture is swept from
beneath our feet. The writings of Moses are so intimately bound up
with all the other grand divisions of the divine Volume, that if they
are touched, all is gone. We boldly affirm that if the Holy Ghost did
not inspire Moses, the servant of God, to write the first five books of
our English Bible, we have not an inch of solid ground to stand
upon; we are positively left without a single atom of divine authority
on which to rest our souls; the very pillars of our glorious Christianity
are swept away, and we are left to grope our way, in hopeless
perplexity, amid the conflicting opinions and theories of infidel
doctors, without so much as a single ray from Inspiration's heavenly
lamp.
Does this appear too strong for the reader? Does he believe that we
can listen, for a moment, to the infidel denier of Moses, and yet
believe in the inspiration of the psalms, the prophets, and the New
Testament? If he does, let him be well assured he is under the
power of a fatal delusion. Let him take such passages as the
following, and ask himself, What do they mean, and what is wrapped
up in them? Our Lord, in speaking to the Jews—who, by the way,
would not have agreed with a Christian bishop in denying the
authenticity of Moses—says, "Do not think that I will accuse you to
the Father; there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye
trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he
wrote of Me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe
My words?" (John v. 45-47.)
Think of this: The man that does not believe in the writings of Moses
—does not receive every line of his as divinely inspired, does not
believe in Christ's words, and therefore cannot have any divinely
wrought faith in Christ Himself—cannot be a Christian at all. This
makes it a very serious matter for any one to deny the divine
inspiration of the Pentateuch, and equally serious for any one to
listen to him or sympathize with him. It is all very well to talk of
Christian charity and liberality of spirit; but we have yet to learn that
it is charity or liberality to sanction, in any way, a man who has the
audacity to sweep from beneath our feet the very foundations of our
faith. To speak of him as a Christian bishop, or a Christian minister of
any kind, is only to make the matter a thousand times worse. We
can understand a Voltaire or a Paine attacking the Bible—we do not
look for any thing else from them; but when those who assume to
be the recognized and ordained ministers of religion, and the
guardians of the faith of God's elect—those who consider themselves
alone entitled to teach and preach Jesus Christ, and feed and tend
the Church of God—when they actually call in question the
inspiration of the five books of Moses, may we not well ask, Where
are we? What has the professing church come to?
But let us take another passage. It is the powerful appeal of the
risen Saviour to the two bewildered disciples on their way to
Emmaus—"'O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the
prophets have spoken; ought not Christ to have suffered these
things, and to enter into His glory?' And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the
things concerning Himself." And again, to the eleven and others with
them, He says, "These are the words which I spake unto you, while
I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were
written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms,
concerning Me." (Luke xxiv. 25-27, 44.)
Here we find that our Lord, in the most distinct and positive manner,
recognizes the law of Moses as an integral part of the canon of
inspiration, and binds it up with all the other grand divisions of the
divine Volume in such a way that it is utterly impossible to touch one
without destroying the integrity of the whole. If Moses is not to be
trusted, neither are the prophets, nor the psalms. They stand or fall
together. And not only so, but we must either admit the divine
authenticity of the Pentateuch or draw the blasphemous inference
that our adorable Lord and Saviour gave the sanction of His
authority to a set of spurious documents, by quoting as the writings
of Moses what Moses never wrote at all! There is positively not a
single inch of consistent standing-ground between these two
conclusions.
Again, take the following most weighty and important passage at the
close of the parable of the rich man and Lazarus: "Abraham saith
unto him, 'They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.'
And he said, 'Nay, father Abraham; but if one went unto them from
the dead, they will repent.' And he said unto him, 'If they hear not
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one
rose from the dead.'" (Luke xvi. 29-31.)
Finally, if we add to all this the fact that our Lord, in His conflict with
Satan in the wilderness, quotes only from the writings of Moses, we
have a body of evidence quite sufficient, not only to establish,
beyond all question, the divine inspiration of Moses, but also to
prove that the man who calls in question the authenticity of the first
five books of the Bible, can really have no Bible, no divine revelation,
no authority, no solid foundation for his faith. He may call himself, or
be called by others, a Christian bishop or a Christian minister; but, in
solemn fact, he is a skeptic, and should be treated as such by all
who believe and know the truth. We cannot understand how any
one with a spark of divine life in his soul could be guilty of the awful
sin of denying the inspiration of a large portion of the Word of God,
or asserting that our Lord Christ could quote from spurious
documents.
We may be deemed severe in thus writing. It seems the fashion
nowadays to own as Christians those who deny the very foundations
of Christianity. It is a very popular notion that, provided people are
moral, amiable, benevolent, charitable, and philanthropic, it is of
very small consequence what they believe. Life is better than creed
or dogma, we are told. All this sounds very plausible: but the reader
may rest assured that the direct tendency of all this manner of
speech and line of argument is to get rid of the Bible—rid of the Holy
Ghost—rid of Christ—rid of God—rid of all that the Bible reveals to
our souls. Let him bear this in mind, and seek to keep close to the
precious Word of God; let him treasure that Word in his heart, and
give himself more and more to the prayerful study of it. Thus he will
be preserved from the withering influence of skepticism and
infidelity, in every shape and form; his soul will be fed and nourished
by the sincere milk of the Word, and his whole moral being be kept
in the shelter of the divine presence continually. This is what is
needed: nothing else will do.
We must now close our meditations on this marvelous chapter which
has been engaging our attention; but ere doing so, we would glance
for a moment at the remarkable notice of the three cities of refuge.
It might, to a cursory reader, seem abrupt; but, so far from that, it
is, as we might expect, in perfect and beautiful moral order.
Scripture is always divinely perfect, and if we do not see and
appreciate its beauties and moral glories, it is simply owing to our
blindness and insensibility.
"Then Moses severed three cities on this side Jordan toward the
sunrising; that the slayer might flee thither, which should kill his
neighbor unawares, and hated him not in times past; and that
fleeing unto one of those cities he might live; namely, Bezer in the
wilderness, in the plain country, of the Reubenites; and Ramoth in
Gilead, of the Gadites; and Golan in Bashan, of the Manassites."
Here we have a lovely display of the grace of God rising, as it ever
does, above human weakness and failure. The two tribes and a half,
in choosing their inheritance on this side Jordan, were manifestly
stopping short of the proper portion of the Israel of God, which lay
on the other side of the river of death; but, notwithstanding this
failure, God, in His abounding grace, would not leave the poor slayer
without a refuge in the day of his distress. If man cannot come up to
the height of God's thoughts, God can come down to the depths of
man's need; and so blessedly does He do so in this case, that the
two tribes and a half were to have as many cities of refuge on this
side Jordan as the nine tribes and a half had in the land of Canaan.
This, truly, was grace abounding. How unlike the manner of man!
How far above mere law or legal righteousness! It might, in a legal
way, have been said to the two tribes and a half, If you are going to
choose your inheritance short of the divine mark—if you are content
with less than Canaan, the land of promise, you must not expect to
enjoy the privileges and blessings of that land. The institutions of
Canaan must be confined to Canaan, and hence your manslayer
must try and make his way across the Jordan and find refuge there.
Law might speak thus, but Grace spoke differently. God's thoughts
are not ours, nor His ways as ours. We might deem it marvelous
grace to provide even one city for the two and a half tribes; but our
God does exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, and
hence the comparatively small district on this side Jordan was
furnished with as full a provision of grace as the entire land of
Canaan.
Does this prove that the two and a half tribes were right? Nay; but it
proves that God was good, and that He must ever act like Himself,
spite of all our weakness and folly. Could He leave a poor slayer
without a place of refuge in the land of Gilead, though Gilead was
not Canaan? Surely not. This would not be worthy of the One who
says, "I bring near My righteousness." He took care to bring the city
of refuge "near" to the slayer. He would cause His rich and precious
grace to flow over and meet the needy one just where he was. Such
is the way of our God, blessed be His holy name for evermore!
"And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel:
these are the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments,
which Moses spake unto the children of Israel, after they came forth
out of Egypt, on this side Jordan, in the valley over against Beth-
peor, in the land of Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt at
Heshbon, whom Moses and the children of Israel smote, after they
were come forth out of Egypt: and they possessed his land, and the
land of Og king of Bashan, two kings of the Amorites, which were on
this side Jordan toward the sunrising; from Aroer, which is by the
bank of the river Arnon, even unto Mount Sion, which is Hermon,
and all the plain on this side Jordan eastward, even unto the sea of
the plain, under the springs of Pisgah."
Here closes this marvelous discourse. The Spirit of God delights to
trace the boundaries of the people, and dwell on the most minute
details connected with their history. He takes a lively and loving
interest in all that concerns them—their conflicts, their victories,
their possessions, all their landmarks; every thing about them is
dwelt upon with a minuteness which, by its touching grace and
condescension, fill the heart with wonder, love, and praise. Man, in
his contemptible self-importance, thinks it beneath his dignity to
enter upon minute details; but our God counts the hairs of our
heads, puts our tears into His bottle, takes knowledge of our every
care, our every sorrow, our every need. There is nothing too small
for His love, as there is nothing too great for His power. He
concentrates His loving care upon each one of His people as though
He had only that one to attend to; and there is not a single
circumstance in our private history, from day to day, however trivial,
in which He does not take a loving interest.
Let us ever remember this, for our comfort; and may we learn to
trust Him better, and use, with a more artless faith, His fatherly love
and care. He tells us to cast all our care upon Him, in the assurance
that He careth for us. He would have our hearts as free from care as
our conscience is free from guilt. "Be careful for nothing; but in
every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your
requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus." (Phil. iv. 6, 7.)
It is to be feared that the great majority of us know but little of the
real depth, meaning, and power of such words as these. We read
them and hear them, but we do not take them in and make our own
of them—we do not digest them and reduce them to practice. How
little do we really enter into the blessed truth that our Father is
interested in all our little cares and sorrows, and that we may go to
Him with all our little wants and difficulties. We imagine that such
things are beneath the notice of the high and mighty One who
inhabiteth eternity and sitteth upon the circle of the earth. This is a
serious mistake, and one that robs us of incalculable blessing in our
daily history. We should ever remember that there is nothing great
or small with our God: all things are alike to Him who sustains the
vast universe by the word of His power, and takes notice of a falling
sparrow. It is quite as easy to Him to create a world as to provide a
breakfast for some poor widow. The greatness of His power, the
moral grandeur of His government, and the minuteness of His tender
care, do all alike command the wonder and the worship of our
hearts.
Christian reader, see that you make your own of all these things.
Seek to live nearer to God in your daily walk. Lean more upon Him.
Use Him more. Go to Him in all your need, and you will never have
to tell your need to a poor fellow-mortal. "My God shall supply all
your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus." What a
source—"God"! What a standard—"His riches in glory"! What a
channel—"Christ Jesus"! It is your sweet privilege to place all your
need over against His riches, and lose sight of the former in the
presence of the latter. His exhaustless treasury is thrown open to
you, in all the love of His heart; go and draw upon it, in the artless
simplicity of faith, and you will never have occasion to look to a
creature-stream or lean on a creature-prop.
 CHAPTER V.
"And Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, 'Hear, O Israel, the
statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye
may learn them, and keep and do them.'"
Let us carefully note these four words, so specially characteristic of
the book of Deuteronomy, and so seasonable for the Lord's people
at all times and in all places: "Hear," "Learn," "Keep," "Do." These
are words of unspeakable preciousness to every truly pious soul—to
every one who honestly desires to walk in that narrow path of
practical righteousness so pleasing to God, and so safe and so happy
for us.
The first of these words places the soul in the most blessed attitude
in which any one can be found, namely, that of hearing. "Faith
cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." "I will hear
what God the Lord will speak." "Hear, and your soul shall live." The
hearing ear lies at the very foundation of all true, practical Christian
life. It places the soul in the only true and proper attitude for the
creature. It is the real secret of all peace and blessedness.
It can scarcely be needful to remind the reader that when we speak
of the soul in the attitude of hearing, it is assumed that what is
heard is simply the Word of God. Israel had to hearken to "the
statutes and judgments" of Jehovah, and to nothing else. It was not
to the commandments, traditions, and doctrines of men they were to
give ear, but to the very words of the living God, who had redeemed
and delivered them from the land of Egypt—the place of bondage,
darkness, and death.
It is well to bear this in mind. It will preserve the soul from many a
snare, many a difficulty. We hear a good deal, in certain quarters,
about obedience, and about the moral fitness of surrendering our
own will and submitting ourselves to authority. All this sounds very
well, and has great weight with a large class of very religious and
morally excellent people; but when men speak to us about
obedience, we must ask the question, Obedience to what? when
they speak to us about surrendering our own will, we must inquire
of them, To whom are we to surrender it? when they speak to us
about submitting to authority, we must insist upon their telling us
the source or foundation of the authority.
This is of the deepest possible moment to every member of the
household of faith. There are many very sincere and very earnest
people who deem it very delightful to be saved the trouble of
thinking for themselves, and to have their sphere of action and line
of service laid out for them by wiser heads than their own. It seems
a very restful and very pleasing thing to have each day's work laid
out for us by some master-hand. It relieves the heart of a great load
of responsibility, and it looks like humility and self-distrust to submit
ourselves to some authority.
But we are bound, before God, to look well to the basis of the
authority to which we surrender ourselves, else we may find
ourselves in an utterly false position. Take, for example, a monk, or
a nun, or a member of a sisterhood. A monk obeys his abbot, a nun
obeys her mother-abbess, "a sister" obeys her "lady-superior;" but
the position and relationship of each is utterly false. There is not a
shadow of authority in the New Testament for monasteries,
convents, or sisterhoods; on the contrary, the teaching of holy
Scripture, as well as the voice of nature, is utterly opposed to every
one of them, inasmuch as they take men and women out of the
place and out of the relationship in which God has set them, and in
which they are designed and fitted to move, and form them into
societies which are utterly destructive of natural affection, and
subversive of all true Christian obedience.
We feel it right to call the attention of the Christian reader to this
subject just now, seeing that the enemy is making a vigorous effort
to revive the monastic system in our midst under various forms.
Indeed some have had the temerity to tell us that monastic life is
the only true form of Christianity. Surely, when such monstrous
statements are made and listened to, it becomes us to look at the
whole subject in the light of Scripture, and to call upon the
advocates and adherents of monasticism to show us the foundations
of the system in the Word of God. Where, within the covers of the
New Testament, is there any thing, in the most remote degree, like a
monastery, a convent, or a sisterhood? Where can we find an
authority for any such office as that of an abbot, an abbess, or a
lady-superior? There is absolutely no such thing, nor the shadow of
it; and hence we have no hesitation in pronouncing the whole
system, from foundation to top-stone, a fabric of superstition, alike
opposed to the voice of nature and the voice of God: nor can we
understand how any one, in his sober senses, could presume to tell
us that a monk or a nun is the only true exponent of Christian life.
Yet there are those who thus speak, and there are those who listen
to them, and that, too, in this day when the full, clear light of our
glorious Christianity is shining upon us from the pages of the New
Testament.[13]
But, blessed be God, we are called to obedience. We are called to
"hear"—called to bow down, in holy and reverent submission, to
authority. And here we join issue with infidelity and its lofty
pretensions. The path of the devout and lowly Christian is alike
removed from superstition on the one hand and from infidelity on
the other. Peter's noble reply to the council, in Acts v, embodies, in
its brief compass, a complete answer to both.—"We ought to obey
God rather than men." We meet infidelity, in all its phases, in all its
stages, and in its very deepest roots, with this one weighty
sentence, "We ought to obey;" and we meet superstition, in every
garb in which it clothes itself, with the all-important clause, "We
ought to obey God."
Here we have set forth, in the most simple form, the duty of every
true Christian. He is to obey God. The infidel may smile
contemptuously at a monk or a nun, and marvel how any rational
being can so completely surrender his reason and his understanding
to the authority of a fellow-mortal, or submit himself to rules and
practices so absurd, so degrading, and so contrary to nature. The
infidel glories in his fancied intellectual freedom, and imagines that
his own reason is quite a sufficient guide for him. He does not see
that he is further from God than the poor monk or nun whom he so
despises. He does not know that, while priding himself in his self-
will, he is really led captive by Satan—the prince and god of this
world. Man is formed to obey—formed to look up to some one above
him. The Christian is sanctified unto the obedience of Jesus Christ,
that is, to the very same character of obedience as that which was
rendered by our adorable Lord and Saviour Himself.
This is of the deepest possible moment to every one who really
desires to know what true Christian obedience is. To understand this
is the real secret of deliverance from the self-will of the infidel and
the false obedience of superstition. It can never be right to do our
own will: it may be quite wrong to do the will of our fellow: it must
always be right to do the will of God. This was what Jesus came to
do, and what He always did.—"Lo, I come to do Thy will, O
God."—"I delight to do Thy will, O My God; yea, Thy law is within My
heart."
Now, we are called and set apart to this blessed character of
obedience, as we learn from the inspired apostle Peter, in the
opening of his first epistle, where he speaks of believers as "elect
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through
sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus Christ."
This is an immense privilege, and at the same time a most holy and
solemn responsibility. We must never forget for a moment that God
has elected us, and the Holy Spirit has set us apart, not only to the
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, but also to His obedience.
Such is the obvious meaning and moral force of the words just
quoted—words of unspeakable preciousness to every lover of
holiness—words which effectually deliver us from self-will, from
legality, and from superstition. Blessed deliverance!
But it may be that the pious reader feels disposed to call our
attention to the exhortation in Hebrews xiii.—"Obey them that have
the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your
souls, as they that must give account; that they may do it with joy
and not with grief; for that is unprofitable for you."
A deeply important word, most surely, with which we should also
connect a passage in 1 Thessalonians—"And we beseech you,
brethren, to know them that labor among you, and are over you in
the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love
for their work's sakes." (Chap. v. 12, 13.) And again, in 1 Corinthians
xvi. 15, 16—"I beseech you, brethren, (ye know the house of
Stephanas, that it is the first-fruits of Achaia, and that they have
addicted themselves to the ministry [or service] of the saints,) that
ye submit yourselves unto such, and to every one that helpeth with
us and laboreth." To all these we must add another very lovely
passage from the first epistle of Peter—"The elders which are among
you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings
of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed:
feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight
thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a
ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being
ensamples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd shall appear,
ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away." (Chap. v. 1-
4.)
We may be asked, Do not the above passages set forth the principle
of obedience to certain men? and if so, why object to human
authority? The answer is very simple. Wherever Christ imparts a
spiritual gift, whether it be the gift of teaching, the gift of rule, or
the gift of pastorship, it is the bounden duty and privilege of
Christians to recognize and appreciate such gifts. Not to do so would
be to forsake our own mercies. But then we must bear in mind that
in all such cases the gift must be a reality—a plain, palpable, bona-
fide, divinely given thing. It is not a man assuming a certain office or
position, or being appointed by his fellow to any so-called ministry.
All this is perfectly worthless, and worse than worthless; it is a
daring intrusion upon a sacred domain which must, sooner or later,
bring down the judgment of God.
All true ministry is of God, and based upon the possession of a
positive gift from the Head of the Church; so that we may truly say,
No gift, no ministry. In all the passages quoted above, we see
positive gift possessed, and actual work done. Moreover, we see a
true heart for the lambs and sheep of the flock of Christ; we see
divine grace and power. The word in Hebrews xiii. is, "Obey them
that guide you [ἡγουμενοις]." Now, it is essential to a true guide that
he should go before you in the way. It would be the height of folly
for any one to assume the title of guide if he were ignorant of the
way, and neither able nor willing to go in it. Who would think of
obeying such?
So also when the apostle exhorts the Thessalonians to "know" and
"esteem" certain persons, on what does he found his exhortation? Is
it upon the mere assumption of a title, an office, or a position?
Nothing of the kind. He grounds his appeal upon the actual, well-
known fact that these persons were "over them, in the Lord," and
that they admonished them. And why were they to "esteem them
very highly in love"? Was it for their office or their title? No; but "for
their work's sake." And why were the Corinthians exhorted to submit
themselves to the household of Stephanas? Was it because of an
empty title or assumed office? By no means; but because "they
addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints." They were
actually in the work. They had received gift and grace from Christ,
and they had a heart for His people. They were not boasting of their
office or insisting upon their title, but giving themselves devotedly to
the service of Christ, in the persons of His dear people.
Now this is the true principle of ministry. It is not human authority at
all, but divine gift and spiritual power communicated by Christ to His
servants, exercised by them, in responsibility to Him, and thankfully
recognized by His saints. A man may set up to be a teacher or a
pastor, or he may be appointed by his fellows to the office or title of
a pastor; but unless he possesses a positive gift from the Head of
the Church, it is all the merest sham, a hollow assumption, an empty
conceit; and his voice will be the voice of a stranger, which the true
sheep of Christ do not know and ought not to recognize.[14]
But, on the other hand, where there is the divinely gifted teacher,
the true, loving, wise, faithful, laborious pastor, watching for souls,
weeping over them, waiting upon them, like a gentle, tender nurse,
able to say to them, "Now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord"—
where these things are found, there will not be much difficulty in
recognizing and appreciating them. How do we know a good
dentist? Is it by seeing his name on a brass plate? No; but by his
work. A man may call himself a dentist ten thousand times over, but
if he be only an unskillful operator, who would think of employing
him?
Thus it is in all human affairs, and thus it is in the matter of ministry.
If a man has a gift, he is a minister; if he has not, all the
appointment, authority, and ordination in the world could not make
him a minister of Christ. It may make him a minister of religion; but
a minister of religion and a minister of Christ—a minister in
christendom and a minister in the Church of God, are two totally
different things. All true ministry has its source in God; it rests on
divine authority, and its object is to bring the soul into His presence,
and link it on to Him. False ministry, on the contrary, has its source
in man; it rests on human authority, and its object is to link the soul
on to itself. This marks the immense difference between the two.
The former leads to God; the latter leads away from Him: that feeds,
nourishes, and strengthens the new life; this hinders its progress, in
every way, and plunges it in doubt and darkness. In a word, we may
say, true ministry is of God, through Him, and to Him: false ministry
is of man, through him, and to him. The former we prize more than
we can say; the latter we reject with all the energy of our moral
being.
We trust sufficient has been said to satisfy the mind of the reader in
reference to the matter of obedience to those whom the Lord may
see fit to call to the work of the ministry. We are bound, in every
case, to judge by the Word of God, and to be assured that it is a
divine reality and not a human sham—a positive gift from the Head
of the Church, and not an empty title conferred by men. In all cases
where there is real gift and grace, it is a sweet privilege to obey and
submit ourselves, inasmuch as we discern Christ in the person and
ministry of His beloved servants.
There is no difficulty, to a spiritual mind, in owning real grace and
power. We can easily tell whether a man is seeking, in true love, to
feed our souls with the bread of life, and lead us on in the ways of
God, or whether he is seeking to exalt himself, and promote his own
interests. Those who are living near the Lord can readily discern
between true power and hollow assumption. Moreover, we never
find Christ's true ministers parading their authority, or vaunting
themselves of their office; they do the work and leave it to speak for
itself. In the case of the blessed apostle Paul, we find him referring
again and again to the plain proofs of his ministry—the
unquestionable evidence afforded in the conversion and blessing of
souls. He could say to the poor misguided Corinthians, when, under
the influence of some self-exalting pretender, they foolishly called in
question his apostleship, "Since ye seek a proof of Christ speaking in
me ... examine yourselves."
This was close, pointed dealing with them. They themselves were
the living proofs of his ministry. If his ministry was not of God, what
and where were they? But it was of God, and this was his joy, his
comfort, and his strength. He was "an apostle, not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him
from the dead." He gloried in the source of his ministry; and as to its
character, he had but to appeal to a body of evidence quite sufficient
to carry conviction to any right mind. In his case, it could be truly
said, it was not the speech, but the power.
Thus it must be, in measure, in every case. We must look for the
power: we must have reality. Mere titles are nothing. Men may
undertake to confer titles and appoint to offices, but they have no
more authority to do so than they have to appoint admirals in her
majesty's fleet or generals in her army. If we were to see a man
assuming the style and title of an admiral or a general, without her
majesty's commission, we should pronounce him an idiot or a
lunatic. This is but a feeble illustration to set forth the folly of men
taking upon them the title of ministers of Christ without one atom of
spiritual gift or divine authority.
Shall we be told, We must not judge? We are bound to judge.
"Beware of false prophets." How can we beware if we are not to
judge? But how are we to judge? "By their fruits ye shall know
them." Can the Lord's people not tell the difference between a man
who comes to them in the power of the Spirit, gifted by the Head of
the Church, full of love to their souls, earnestly desiring their true
blessing, seeking not theirs but them—a holy, gracious, humble, self-
emptied servant of Christ; and a man who comes with a self-
assumed or a humanly conferred title, without a single trace of any
thing divine or heavenly either in his ministry or in his life? Of course
they can; no one in his senses would think of calling in question a
fact so obvious.
But further, we may ask, What mean those words of the venerable
apostle John—"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits
whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out
into the world"? How are we to try the spirits, or how are we to
discern between the true and the false, if we are not to judge?
Again, the same apostle, writing to "the elect lady," gives her the
following most solemn admonition: "If there come any unto you, and
bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid
him Godspeed; for he that biddeth him Godspeed is partaker of his
evil deeds." Was she not responsible to act on this admonition?
Assuredly. But how could she if we are not to judge? And what had
she to judge? Was it as to whether those who came to her house
were ordained, authorized, or licensed by any man or body of men?
Nothing of the kind. The one great and all-important question for
her was as to the doctrine. If they brought the true, the divine
doctrine of Christ—the doctrine of Jesus Christ come in the flesh, she
was to receive them; if not, she was to shut her door, with a firm
hand, against them, no matter who they were or where they came
from. If they had all the credentials that man could bestow upon
them, yet if they brought not the truth, she was to reject them with
stern decision. This might seem very harsh, very narrow-minded,
very bigoted; but with this she had nothing whatever to do. She had
just to be as broad and as narrow as the truth. Her door and her
heart were to be wide enough to admit all who brought Christ, and
no wider. Was she to pay compliments at the expense of her Lord?
was she to seek a name for largeness of heart or breadth of mind by
receiving to her house and to her table the teachers of a false
Christ? The very thought is absolutely horrible.
But finally, in the second chapter of Revelation, we find the church at
Ephesus commended for having tried those who said they were
apostles and were not. How could this be if we are not to judge? Is
it not most evident to the reader that an utterly false use is made of
our Lord's words in Matthew vii. 1—"Judge not, that ye be not
judged," and also of the apostle's words in 1 Corinthians iv. 5
—"Therefore judge nothing before the time"? It is impossible that
Scripture can contradict itself; and hence, whatever be the true
meaning of our Lord's "Judge not," or the apostle's "Judge nothing,"
it is perfectly certain that they do not, in the most remote way,
interfere with the solemn responsibility of all Christians to judge the
gift, the doctrine, and the life of all who take the place of preachers,
teachers, and pastors in the Church of God.
And then, if we be asked as to the meaning of "Judge not" and
"Judge nothing," we believe the words simply forbid our judging
motives, or hidden springs of action. With these we have nothing
whatever to do. We cannot penetrate below the surface, and, thanks
be to God, we are not asked to do so—yea, we are positively
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

testbankdeal.com