Numbers 23:23 Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel: according to this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!
How this should cut up root and
branch all silly, superstitious fears!
Even if there were any truth in
witchcraft and omens, they could not affect the people of the LORD.
Those whom God blessed, devils cannot curse.
Ungodly men, like Balaam, may
cunningly plot the overthrow of the LORD's Israel; but with all their
secrecy and policy they are doomed to fail.
Their powder is damp; the
edge of their sword is blunted.
They gather together; but as the LORD is
not with them, they gather together in vain.
We may sit still and let
them weave their nets, for we shall not be taken in them.
Though they
call in the aid of Beelzebub and employ all his serpentine craft, it
will avail them nothing...
The spells will not work, the divination will
deceive them.
What a blessing this is!
How it quiets the heart!
God's
Jacobs wrestle with God, but none shall wrestle with them and prevail.
God's Israels have to prevail against them.
We need not fear the fiend
himself, nor any of those secret enemies whose words are full of deceit
and whose plans are deep and unfathomable.
They cannot hurt those who
trust in the living God.
Joshua 6:21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
It is needless to go into a defense of what some
call the atrocities of Joshua,
in slaying women and children as well as warriors; in short,
making a clean sweep of the inhabitants.
The Lord ordered it, and that is enough.
We may be sure that, whether He obliterates a
nation by war, or blots out the entire race with a flood-He has
good reasons for it, although He may not choose to give them.
The extinction of one race by another, and the
occupation of its land, is one of the common things in the history
of the world.
And whether it is done by the swift process of the
sword, or by gradual demise, or the introduction of disease and
vice-the principle and the fact remain the same.
The Lord ordered it, and that is enough.
Deuteronomy 32:39 See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Isa 45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
Revelation 19:6 And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
John 5:16 And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus, and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day.
John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
A True knowledge of the Lord Jesus will reverse a good many of our ideas, and a good many of our procedures.
A True knowledge of Christ and union with Christ, with all that that means, will make us go to work in entirely the opposite way from that in which we have been accustomed to go.
We shall come to be governed by this one consideration, that it is not what we would do for the Lord, but what the Lord would do through us, that is alone to rule.
It is a very testing way.
You can hardly believe, unless you have been the same way, how often and intensely and bitterly the enemy fights and tempts you to come down on to a lower position...
And to take up things again for God and launch big schemes, enter upon big undertakings, set up some thing on the earth that can be seen...
Because all those who are governed by that standard of things seen have said: "You see, you are doing nothing!
Show us what you are doing!
You cannot show us anything for it all!
Satan does work on that line.
To the flesh that is not easy.
To go on with God and have nothing to show for it...
Never to be able to have the work written up in the papers, to publish no reports, nor statistics...
And yet to know in your heart of hearts that, although it is hidden, something is going on...
And that you cannot do otherwise than you are doing, is far from being a path of ease to the flesh.
It is a testing way, but, blessed be God, if we do endure the testing and go on patiently with Him...
In His time, when that flesh has been finally laid low; when the voice of natural ambition is no longer sounding and having influence...
And we are now utterly at the place where if things are not going to be of the Lord then there is not going to be anything at all...
Then the Lord has a free way, and He is able to indicate that all the time something has been going on.
He shows how He has been at work, and how that in time there will be manifested a work of God...
A work that shall have such a large percentage of spiritual value and meaning in it that you are very glad, after all, that you walked with God and not with men in the work of God.
