Friday, August 5, 2022

Practical Spiritual Application of Numbers 32:6

 Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here? Numbers 32:6
 
"The Reubenites and Gadites would have been unbrotherly if they
had claimed the land which had been conquered, and had left the rest of the people to fight for their portions alone. 
---We have received much by means of the efforts and sufferings of the saints in years gone by, and if we do not make some return to the church of Christ by giving her our best energies, we are unworthy to be enrolled in her ranks. 
 
The Master of the vineyard saith, 
"Why stand ye here all the day idle?" 
 
Shrinking from trial is the temptation of those who are at ease in Zion: they would fain escape the cross and yet wear the crown; to them the question for this evening's meditation is very applicable. 
Q: If the most precious are tried in the fire, are we to escape the crucible? 
Q: If the diamond must be vexed upon the wheel, are we to be made perfect without suffering? 
Q: Why and wherefore should we be treated better than our Lord? 
Q: The firstborn felt the rod, and why not the younger brethren? 
 
---It is a cowardly pride which would choose a downy pillow and a silken couch for a soldier of the cross. Wiser far is he who, being first resigned to the divine will, groweth by the energy of grace to be pleased with it, and so learns to gather lilies at the cross foot, and, like Samson, to find honey in the lion." 
Charles Spurgeon