Feeding On a Whole Christ

Feeding On a Whole Christ

(No. 2407)

INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S DAY APRIL 7, 1895.

DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON LORD'S DAY, EVENING,
APRIL 3, 1887.

"The fourteenth day of the second month at even they shall keep it, and
eat it with unlea vened bread and bitter herbs. They shall leave none
of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it: according to all the
ordinances of the Passover they shall keep it." Numbers 9:11,12.

IN great tenderness God permitted the Passover to be kept a second
time, that those who had unavoidably been defiled at the first
observance might not be shut out from the memorable and symbolical
rite. But, although He altered the date of the Passover, He never
changed the form of it–the Paschal feast was to be the same whenever
it was celebrated and by whomever it was observed. Whether one family,
or an Israelite who happened to be a stranger and visitor in the house,
whoever it might be–kept the Passover–the same regulations were to be
carefully followed. From this I gather, learning a lesson from the
type, that, whatever may be the experiences through which we come to
salvation, Christ is always the same and we must partake of Him in the
same way. You who have been so defiled that you have, as it were, to
eat of the second Passover, even at the 11th hour, long after others
have been feeding on Christ–still there is the same Christ for you as
there is for those who come at the right time–who seek the Lord early,
and find Him while yet the dew of their youth is upon them.

There is none but Jesus for each one of us! There is no way for this
man, peculiar to himself because of his righteous life, and no way for
that person, peculiar to himself because of his ungodliness–but for
the most moral and the most immoral there is the same Savior to be
received by the same precious faith! Only by the sprinkling of the
blood of Jesus are we delivered from wrath and only by feeding upon
Christ can our spiritual life be sustained. There are not two gospels,
but only one Gospel. There are not two Christ's, but only one Christ!
There are not two roads to Heaven but only one road to Heaven. Let us
go together to the Cross, view the one great Sacrifice for sin and, by
faith, find salvation in

Him!

The subject for us to consider at this time will be just this–if we do
receive Christ, that reception is beautifully expressed and represented
by feeding upon Him. So, first, we are to feed upon Jesus Christ. The
Paschal lamb was to be eaten. Secondly, we are to receive Christ and
feed upon Him as a whole Christ–"They shall leave none of it unto the
morning, nor break any bone of it." Then, thirdly, we are to receive
Christ in union with others. It is a very blessed thing when our
personal reception of Christ, our personal feeding upon Christ, is not
a solitary act, but is done in company, as when, of old, a whole
household drew near to feed upon the Paschal lamb.

I. First, then, WE ARE TO FEED UPON JESUS CHRIST.

The true reception of Christ is very beautifully expressed by our
feeding upon Him. The point a sinner longs to know, when he is really
awakened and his conscience is thoroughly awakened, is first,
this–"How can I be saved? I know that Christ is a Savior, but how can
I make Him my Savior? I understand that He has provided an Atonement by
which sin can be put away–how can that Atonement put my sin away?"

When the Paschal lamb was killed in the household of the Israelite,
first the blood was sprinkled on the lintel and two side posts by the
man who was the head of the household. And as soon as it was sprinkled,
its virtue operated at on-ce–that house was secure. Next, they must
bring in this lamb which had been roasted with fire, they must gather
around the table and all they had to do with it was to eat it. Now,
eating is such a simple operation that I cannot explain it. I suppose
that the best way of explaining how to eat would be by eating–and the
best way of explaining how Christ is to be received is to receive Him!
Yet, since I am seeking to help some poor troubled one, I must try, if
I can, to explain what it was to eat the Paschal lamb and what it is to
receive Christ. I say again, eating the Paschal lamb was a very simple
process. Moses might have said to a Jew, "That lamb, roast with fire,
is yours if you will eat it. There is no ceremony to be gone through,
no incantation to be repeated, no genuflection to be performed. You
stand at the table, you eat the lamb, and it is yours."

Now, concerning feeding upon the Lord Jesus Christ, the first thing to
be done is to receive Him by faith. Receiving is the first part of
eating. You are hungry, bread is set before you. You put the bread into
your mouth, you receive it and it becomes yours. So receive the Lord
Jesus Christ–faith is the mouth by which He is to be received. Believe
Him–believe what is testified concerning Him in the Word of God. Say
to yourself, "This record is true, Jesus is the Son of God. He came
into the world as Man, He lived a holy life. He died a sacrificial
death–'the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God.' I believe all
this. I accept it as true, as true to me, and I take it, not into my
ears only as hearing it, but into my heart as believing it to be
assuredly the Truth of God whereby, alone, souls can be saved."

"But suppose I take Him and have no right to Him." Ah, if you once take
Him, you have Him, right or no right! Have I not often told you that if
you have eaten a piece of bread, though you had no right to it, it will
puzzle all the lawyers in the world to get it away from you?
Possession, in such a case as that, is more than the proverbial nine
points of the law! Yes, it is all the points of the law, and if you
take Christ as yours, then you have Christ as yours! Oh, that you would
grasp Him right now! "Well, but suppose it is not right for me to have
Christ?" It was never wrong for a poor sinner to take Christ, so have
Him now! If He is near you, seize Him now! "Lay hold on eternal life,"
says the Apostle, and if you lay hold on Christ, God will never cry,
"Hands off!" Be boldly daring for once and you shall not find yourself
repulsed. The door of mercy is open, enter–and if you are
repulsed–you will be the first that was ever rejected by Christ,
whoever you may be! "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be
saved."

"I have done that," says one. I am very glad if you have, but have you
really done it? There is a way of believing and yet not truly
believing. A man believes that such and such a thing is true–at least,
he says that he does–and yet he may act in such a way as shall prove
that he does not believe it. You are in your house, in bed and asleep.
Someone wakes you up by crying out that your house is on fire–and you
calmly turn over and go to sleep, again. I know, by your action, that
you could not have believed the report that was brought to you! One
looks you in the face and tells you that he can see, there, traces of a
deadly disease, and that, within a short time, you will be dead unless
you take a certain medicine. Do you tell me you believe that disease to
be upon you and believe that medicine would heal you if you took
it–and after telling me that–do you go home and think no more of it?
Then I know that you have not spoken truly in saying that you believe,
for true believing would move you to action–you would be seriously
affected by these things if you believed them to be true.

Come, then, let me ask you a question. Is sin a reality to you? Do you
accept the sinner's position and confess that you need a Savior? Do you
believe that the Son of God has appeared in human form on purpose that
He might save such as you are? Can you advance one step further and
say, "I believe in Christ as my Savior"? So far so good–the bread is
in your mouth!

In eating, the next thing is that the food should undergo a process of
digestion. It must lie in the body and be dissolved. So, in order to a
full reception of Christ, there must be somewhat of digestion by
meditation. The great Truths of God I have mentioned enter the
soul–they are turned over in the heart and mind by meditation. We
think of them, ponder them, consider them–they begin to influence us
and our mind sets to work upon those Truths, pressing the very juice
and essence out of them–making us to know their secret virtues and
powers. O Sirs, there are some of you who will never be saved by Christ
because you will not think! Unless the Lord Jesus should graciously
meet with you and, all of a sudden, you should be caused to believe on
Him–which I pray may be the case–I am afraid that you will certainly
be lost!

Some of you are not in a condition to get any good out of hearing the
Gospel because you do not think of what you hear. You do not lay up in
your hearts and turn over in your minds what is taught you on the
Sabbath. Many let the Gospel have a clear thoroughfare, for they allow
it to go in one ear and out the other and so, Sunday after Sunday, week
after week, month after month, year after year, with them it is only
hearing the Gospel and that is all! The Truth of God has no opportunity
to become food to their spirits, for what they seem to take in, one
minute, they cast out the next– and this is not feeding at all–it is
but folly and mockery!

Well now, after food has entered the body and has been digested, there
is a further process. I am not going into any physiological
discussions, but there is, as you know, the process that is called
assimilation. Certain vessels within the body perform their various
functions and so, gradually, the food which has been taken is made to
nourish the body and build it up. Thus the bread, which, a little while
ago, was separate from me, becomes inseparable from me–it has been
taken up into my system and has become part and parcel of myself. This
is the best form of feeding upon Christ when, having believed the Truth
about Him, and having thought it over till we have digested it, certain
secret faculties within our nature take Him up and assimilate Him into
our spiritual life.

Look, Sirs, I believe that Christ was the Incarnate Son of God. I do
not merely believe that as a mere matter of fact, as I might believe
that there is such a person as the Czar of Russia, but I look to be
saved by Him who became Man in order that He might save me! Look
further. I believe that this God Incarnate did bear my sins in His own
body on the Cross. I look to be forgiven–no, I know that I am
forgiven–because He took my sin away and ended it so far as I am
concerned. That is assimilating the great Truth of God of the Atonement
in the inmost part of my spirit. I do not need to explain the process
any longer–I want you to put it into practice. Now, Beloved, you who
have often fed upon Christ, feed on Him, again, at this moment! Think
of Him as you know Him and try to know more of Him! But what you do
know of Him, grasp it. Press out of these clusters their sacred juice.
Draw out of these Truths the Divine support which they are intended to
give to your spirit. Say, "These Truths of God are mine. I live on
them, I could die on them, I need nothing better."

If you really thus feed upon Christ, it will come to this–that Christ
and you will be one–and none shall be able to separate you from Him,
or to take Him from you. As the bread or the meat that you may eat
becomes one with yourself, so will Christ, absorbed into your inmost
heart by a childlike trust, become vitally and everlastingly part and
parcel of your own self! And, because He lives, you must also live, for
He has made you to live and He lives in you!

I am sure that if you have once learned to feed upon Christ in the way
I have been describing, you will not object to the "bitter herbs" that
were to be eaten with the Passover. Oh, no! Those bitter herbs seem to
give a zest to the feast. I thought to myself, when I was trying to get
into the soul of this text, "I have my dish of bitter herbs every day."
They come to me in this form–Christian ministers, whom I have
educated, forsaking the faith. Christian people, who I thought were
converted, behaving in an unseemly and ungodly manner. And anxieties
about many who do not seem to have so much care about their own souls
as I have concerning them. O Christ, my blessed Master, Your service is
very sweet because of You, but, in itself, woe is me that ever I was
born to it! But the regulation is, "With bitter herbs shall you eat
it," therefore, let us go on with our work and take whatever of
bitterness accompanies our service. Perhaps some of you get sneered at
for your religion–that is your dish of bitter herbs. Or it may be that
you are very poor, or, possibly, the more you know of Christ, the more
you also know of your own unworthiness, and that knowledge is like
eating bitter herbs. Very well, thank God that you have Christ, and say
nothing about the hitter herbs–for if the Israelite who is hungry gets
a Paschal lamb to feed upon, he may well be content to take the bitter
herbs with it.

The Israelites were also to eat the Passover "with unleavened bread."
Leavened bread is usually considered by our poor fallen nature to be
more agreeable to our taste, and there is a measure of self-denial
implied in the putting away of the leaven. Well, we are called to deny
ourselves for Christ's sake and we would put away all forms of
sin–everything that is leavened–that we may have our all in Him and
find everything that delights the palate and charms the spirit in
Christ alone! Yes, take away your leavened bread with all its
sweetness, and bring in the bitter herbs and the unleavened bread,
instead–we will be perfectly satisfied so long as the true Paschal
Lamb is upon the table and our souls may feed upon Him!

I will say no more on this first part of my subject, but I pray you, in
the silence of your spirits, to feed upon Christ Jesus.

II. This brings me to my second point, which is that WE ARE TO RECEIVE
CHRIST AS A WHOLE. The Lord said, concerning the Passover, "They shall
leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone of it." If we
receive Christ, we must receive Him as a whole.

We must receive Christ in the entirety of His Person. There was
Arias–he would receive Christ as a good man, but not as God. But you
cannot have Christ at all unless you have Him as a whole. There were
some who took the opposite side and were willing to receive Christ as
God, but not as a bleeding, suffering Man. But you cannot receive
Christ at all if you will not have Him altogether–you must have Him in
the entirety of His Person–as God and Man, or else you cannot have Him
at all, and cannot enjoy Him as the food of your soul.

We must also receive Christ in the entirety of His offices. He has come
to be a Prophet, Priest and King. Be willing to be instructed by Him,
to be cleansed by Him, to be ruled by Him–and mark you, you cannot
have the Priest unless you will also have the Prophet, nor can He be
your Prophet unless He also becomes your King! A whole Christ in
undivided honor, accepted as being all that He professes to be–you
must have Him so or not at all! And you must have a whole Christ as to
His work. He comes to put away your sin by the shedding of His blood
and you say, "I will have Him." But listen, He comes to take away your
sinfulness, and make you holy by the water which flowed with the blood
from His side. You cannot take justification and omit
sanctification–you must have both or neither! The Law concerning the
Passover was, "They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break
any bone of it." You must have Christ as He is set forth in His Word in
all parts of His saving work.

And we must have Christ in all His teachings. It will not do for us to
say, "I shall believe Christ when He speaks in His Sermon on the Mount
and teaches us the ethics of ordinary life. But I will not believe Him
when He opens up the mysteries of His love as He addresses His
disciples on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane." You cannot have Him
at all unless you are willing to believe all that He taught as far as
you know it, and to believe that what He spoke must be true, even
though, as yet, you do not know it. You must take the Lord Jesus Christ
to be absolutely Infallible to you– otherwise you cannot receive Him
at all.

You must also take Christ in all His warnings. You must not turn your
back when He says, "These shall go away into everlasting punishment,"
and think His language too severe. They who object to one word of
Christ have really objected to Christ, Himself! As one leak will sink a
boat, so will one objection to Christ destroy your loyal confidence in
Him. No, take every Word He says and believe it! Hang your soul upon
it, knowing that it must be true since the Christ has said it. You must
leave nothing of this blessed Paschal Lamb–you must break no bone of
Him!

So must it be as to Christ in all His commands. It is ours not to
reason why, but ours to do what He bids us! And we must not say, "This
is essential and that is non-essential." We must not say, "I will do
this which He bids me, but I will not do that which He bids me." You
are not disciples, but rebels, if you act so! You are not His friends,
but His enemies, if you thus pick and choose which of His commands you
will obey! How can he be a good soldier who will sometimes obey his
captain, but will sometimes disobey? Such discipline as that, or
rather, such lack of discipline, could be tolerated in no host, and it
will not be endured in the armies of the living God! No, you must take
a whole Christ in all His commands.

And it must be just the same as to Christ and His spirit. One says,
"Christ is very loving and I will be loving, too." You are right in
saying so, my Brother, but the Christ was very outspoken and very
uncompromising–will you also be outspoken and uncompromising? If not,
your loving spirit will go for little, for it will only be a kind of
pandering to worldliness. The spirit of Christ is a perfect spirit and
he that has it not is none of His! It is not for us to select one
quality of His spirit and say, "I will imitate that." No, but as the
Christ acted at all times, so do you act. As far as you are capable of
following Him, put your feet down where He puts His feet down. Do what
He did according to your measure and degree. A whole Christ fully and
faithfully imitated can alone produce a perfect character!

Well now, beloved Friends, you see what our orders are, here. We are,
first, to feed upon Christ and then, next, we are to receive Him as a
whole. But I regret that there are some persons who do not feed upon a
whole Christ. Some, alas, will not do so through sheer willfulness.
They will pick and choose and thus show their self-conceit and their
rebellion. Do not do so! Do not do so, I beseech you, but feed on the
whole Christ as the Israelites ate the whole of the Paschal lamb. Some
are unable through ignorance to feed on a whole Christ. They do not
know Him, or they would gladly receive Him. Let not ignorance hinder
any of you from partaking of the sweetest things on the table of God's
Grace–but say to yourself, "Little as I know, I feel that, if I knew
more, I would only wish to know what Jesus would teach me. And I yield
myself up to Him implicitly, even as a blind man yields himself up to
his guide, and I say to Jesus, "What I know not, teach me.'" In that
way you will at least be willing to eat the whole Paschal Lamb, even
though, through ignorance, you do not fully understand what it is to
receive Him.

There are some who, through timidity, fail to feed upon a whole Christ.
They are afraid to take in some of the glorious doctrines which He
teaches, some of the sweet things of His Everlasting Covenant, some of
the strong meat of His eternal purposes, some of the fat things full of
marrow, and the wine upon the lees, well refined. I pray you, shrink
not back, but, since Christ gives Himself wholly to all His people, if
there is a precious Covenant Word, feed upon it! If there is a rich
promise, believe it and enjoy it! Christ denies nothing to His beloved.
If you really come to His table and desire to have all that there is in
Him, then take it, and be not afraid! He will never chide you.
Therefore, come freely to Christ, Beloved. He, Himself, has given the
invitation–"Eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved."
Take all of Christ into your soul according to your capacity, till you
are filled with Him–come joyfully and partake cheerfully of all that
He freely gives to you–and be not afraid.

I think that I need not say more than that upon this second point. Only
I would to God that many here were willing to say, "I will have a whole
Christ." If you are willing to have Him, He is yours! If you will but
trust Him, He is yours! There is nothing for you to do but to take Him
as your hope, to take your supper tonight. Receive Him into yourself to
be the food of your spirit and He is yours forever!

III. I must say only just a few sentences on the last point. WE ARE TO
RECEIVE CHRIST IN UNION WITH OTHERS.

The Passover was not a solitary meal. A man did not shut himself up and
have the lamb roasted and set on the table, and try to eat it all
himself. No, it was a family meal–all who were in the house, of the
seed of Israel, master and servants, husband and wife and children–all
came to that table and fed together. Oh, I like to enjoy Christ for
myself, but if I may not speak for others, I will speak for myself, and
I must say that I always enjoy the things of God better with you than I
do alone. There is so much zest about having friends to enjoy Christ
with us. We can feast upon Him alone, blessed be His name–we know the
sweetness of solitary fellowship with Christ–but we love, still more,
to share the blessing with other Christians. I have no wish to go all
the way to the Celestial City alone! I would much rather go with
Christiana and Mercy, and all those little ones–the whole family of
pilgrims–and Mr. Greatheart, and all the rest of them! They had such
cheery talks together and when they met the giants, if one was a little
cast down, another brightened him up and encouraged him to play the
man.

What a fine thing it was for such a poor creature as Mr. Ready-to-Halt,
who always went on his crutches, and for poor Little-Faith, and Mr.
Despondency, and Miss Much Afraid, to get into such good company! It
would have been a dreary journey to them if they had gone all the way
to the Celestial City, each one, alone! But when they traveled in such
good society, you know, they grew merry. You remember that they were so
jubilant when Giant Despair's head was cut off that Mr. Ready-to-Halt,
though he had never done such a thing before, danced without his
crutches! It is wonderful what joy comes out of Christian communion and
holy fellowship! So it is good that you eat the Passover together, and
not alone. It is well that you rejoice in Christ in the company of
others who are rejoicing in Him.

The first with whom we should receive Christ is our own family. Well,
then, my Brother, what about the members of your family? Are they all
converted yet? Are they all saved? If not, breathe a prayer that the
Lord would bring the rest of them to the Paschal feast. Some of you
will have to go away, directly, when we remain for the communion. Some
of you husbands must leave your wives, here, and you will have to go
home, or go sit up in the gallery among the spectators. Remember that
there will be no spectators in Heaven! And in that last dividing day,
it will be an awful thing to be separated eternally from those we love.
Happiest will it be in Heaven, itself, if we shall all meet there–an
unbroken family!

Still, when the Jew met with his family and ate the Paschal supper,
that was not the greatest joy of it, for he recollected that everywhere
else, wherever there was an Israelite family, they were all doing the
same, and that the whole of the chosen people of God were one in
keeping this commemorative feast! So are all the people of God one in
Christ Jesus. I like to think that I have fellowship with all the
saints. I do not object to have fellowship with those who differ from
me in many respects. I think that there is a communion of saints that
cannot be limited. If there is the Life of God in you, and there is the
Life of God in me, you may be mistaken and I may be mistaken upon some
points, but the one Life in us will make us have communion with Jesus!

Perhaps you do not obey all Christ's commands and I say to you, "Well,
then, I will not commune with you." But I cannot help having communion
with you if you are in the body of Christ! Communion is the pulse of
the body and unless I cut my finger off, I cannot help having
fellowship with my finger! It may be very dirty. I may tie a bit of red
tape round it and say, "There, I will cut you off from fellowship with
the rest of my body," but it is no use. As long as the body lives, and
the finger lives, the fellowship must be there–the life-blood must
continue to flow through it! So, dear Brothers and Sisters, we see many
saints of God, many whom we believe to be the children of God, who, no
doubt, are mistaken, and have many faults–and who is there who is not
mistaken and is without fault?–but if the life of God is in them,
there is a fellowship beyond all rules and regulations! That is the
fellowship of the life which is in the Head of the Church! It pulses
through all the members and must do so evermore.

I hope to come to the Communion Table, tonight, then, enjoying
fellowship with all the redeemed of the Lord, both on earth and in
Heaven! Yes, and with those that have gone from earth hundreds of years
ago and, by faith, also to enjoy something of fellowship even with
generations yet unborn that, in the fullness of time, shall come to
know the Lord.

Thank God, many of us do know what it is to commune with Christ as well
as to commune with His people! Both as individuals and as a worshipping
assembly, we have often proved the sweetness of fellowship with our
Lord. Sometimes, at that Communion Table, He has been set forth
manifestly crucified among us. Sometimes, on our bed at night, He has
spoken with us. I have known what it is to sit up and try not to go to
sleep lest I should lose the overflowing joy of His Divine Presence. I
have been afraid, sometimes, to rise from my bed in the morning lest,
in going downstairs, I should break the spell of conscious fellowship
with Him! Our Lord Jesus is so near His people and there are times when
we have such rapt communion with Him that we can truly say that it is
eternal life! Then do we sing–

"I stand upon the mount of God,

With sunlight in my soul.

I hear the storms in vales beneath,

I hear the thunders roll!

But I am calm with You, my God,

Beneath these glorious skies

And to the heights on which I stand,

Nor storms nor clouds can rise.

Oh, this is life! Oh, this is joy,

My God, to find You so!

Your face to see, Your voice to hear,

And all Your love to know." God grant us more of that blessed
fellowship, for our Lord Jesus Christ's sake! Amen.

EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: NUMBERS9.

Verses 1, 2. And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai,
in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the
land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel also keep the
Passover at his appointed season. I should almost fear that they had
omitted the keeping of the Passover for a year. There was a first
celebration of it when they came out of Egypt, but then it was not so
much a type as a matter of fact–it was the thing itself–not the
remembrance of the coming out of Egypt, but the actual coming out, the
exodus. One would gather from this command of the Lord that, on the
first anniversary of that memorable season, the children of Israel had
omitted its observance and, therefore, Jehovah said to Moses, "Let the
children of Israel also keep the Passover at his appointed season." If
this conjecture is correct, it is very significant that a rite which
belonged to the Law of God and was, therefore, to pass away, was so
soon neglected–and certainly it was afterwards neglected for many,
many years. Whereas, the great memorial ordinance of the Christian
dispensation–the Lord's Supper–was not neglected even when Christians
were under fierce persecution from the Jews or other nations. When the
observance of that rite among the heathen was pretty sure to bring
death, yet Christians met together on the first day of the week and
continually broke bread in remembrance of their Lord's death, even as
we do to this day. I suppose that the Supper, which is the memorial of
Christ our Passover, has never been altogether neglected throughout the
world, but has been a matter of constant observation in the Church of
Christ and shall be "till He come."

3-7. in the fourteenth day of this month, at even, you shall keep it in
his appointed season: according to all the rites of it, and according
to all the ceremonies thereof, shall you keep it. And Moses spoke unto
the children of Israel, that they should keep the Passover. And they
kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the first month at even in
the wilderness of Sinai: according to all that the LORD commanded
Moses, so did the children of Israel. And there were certain seen, who
were defiled by the dead body of a man, that they could not keep the
Passover on that day: and they came before Moses and before Aaron on
that day: and those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body
of a man: therefore are we kept back, that we may not offer an offering
of the LORD in his appointed season among the children of Israel? They
were in a great difficulty. They were commanded to come to the
Passover–they sinned if they did not come–but they had defiled
themselves, either through accident or of necessity. And if they came,
thus, to the Passover, they would be committing sin, so that either way
they were in an ill case. There must be somebody to bury the dead. I
suppose that these persons had fulfilled that necessary office, and
there had not been time for them to purge themselves from the
ceremonial defilement involved in the touching of the dead–so what
were they to do?

8. And Moses said unto them, Stand still, and I will hear what the LORD
will command concerning you. Oh, how wisely we would give advice if we
would never decide till we had prayed about the matter! Possibly we
think ourselves so experienced and so well acquainted with the mind of
God, that we can answer off-hand. Or, perhaps, we think that we need
not consult the Lord at all, but that our own opinion will be a
sufficient guide. Moses was greater and wiser than we are–he said to
these men–"Stand still, and I will hear what Jehovah will command
concerning you."

9-12. And the LORD spoke unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of
Israel, saying, If any man of you or your posterity shall be unclean by
reason of a dead body, or be in a journey afar off, yet he shall keep
the Passover unto the LORD. The fourteenth day of the second month at
even they shall keep it, and eat it with unleavened bread and bitter
herbs. They shall leave none of it unto the morning, nor break any bone
of it: according to all the ordinances of the Passover they shall keep
it. So that provision was made for the holding of a second Passover,
that persons who were defiled at the first observance might have the
opportunity to keep the feast a month afterwards.

13. But the man that is clean, and is not in a journey, and does not
keep the Passover, even the same soul shall be cut off from among his
people: because he brought not the offering of the LORD in his
appointed season, that man shall bear his sin. What a solemn sentence
that is! Let me read it apart from its context–"Because he brought not
the offering of the Lord in his appointed season, that man shall bear
his sin." You see, the great offering of the Lord, the atoning
Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the only way by which sin can be
put away! And if any man will not bring that–in other words, if he
will not believe in Jesus–then here is his certain doom, "that man
shall bear his sin." No more terrible judgment can be pronounced upon
any one of us than this, "that man shall bear his sin." "If you believe
not that I am He," said Christ, "you shall die in your sins."

14. And if a stranger shall sojourn among you, and will keep the
Passover unto the LORD; according to the ordinance of the Passover, and
adoring to the manner thereof, so shall he do. You shall have one
ordinance, both for the stranger, and for him that was born in the
land. Now comes another subject–

15. 16. And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up, the cloud
covered the tabernacle, namely, the tent of the testimony and at even
there was upon the tabernacle, as it were, the appearance of fire,
until the morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it by day, and
the appearance of fire by night. This was the sign of the Presence of
God in the midst of that vast canvas city! I suppose that the great
cloud rose up from the most holy place and probably covered the whole
camp of the tribes, so that it shielded them from the fierceness of the
sun, while at night the entire region was lit up by this marvelous
illumination! The chosen nation had the pillar of cloud by day for a
shelter, and the pillar of fire by night for a light. God's Presence
acts upon us in much the same way as the cloudy fiery pillar acted upon
Israel–

"He has been my joy in woe,

Cheered my heart when it was low

And, with warnings softly sad,

Calmed my heart when it was glad." We get shelter from the fierce heat
of the world's day and deliverance, also, from the darkness of the
world's night through our Lord's gracious Presence!

17-20. And when the cloud was taken up from the tabernacle, then after
that the children of Israel journeyed: and in the place where the cloud
abode, there the children of Israel pitched their tents. At the
commandment of the LORD, the children of Israel journeyed, and at the
commandment of the LORD they pitched. As long as the cloud abode upon
the tabernacle they rested in their tents. And when the cloud tarried
long upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel kept
the charge of the LORD, and journeyed not. And so it was, when the
cloud was a few days upon the tabernacle; according to the commandment
of the LORD, they abode in their tents, and according to the
commandment of the LORD they journeyed. Happy people to be thus
Divinely guided! They could never tell when they would have to be on
the move. They had no abiding city. When their tents were pitched and
they were just getting comfortably settled, perhaps that very morning
the pillar of cloud moved and, at other times, when they desired to be
marching, it stood still. They could never be certain of staying long
in any one place. It is just so with you and with me–our Lord intends
to keep us with a loose hold on all things here below. We cannot tell
what changes may come to any one of us and, therefore, reckon on
nothing that God has not plainly promised. Be certain of nothing but
uncertainty and always expect the unexpected! You cannot tell between
here and Heaven where your Guide may take you–happy will you be if you
can truly say that you desire to always follow where the Lord leads.

21-23. And so it was, when the cloud abode from even unto the morning,
and that the cloud was taken up in the morning, then they journeyed.
Whether it was by day or by night that the cloud was taken up, they
journeyed. Or whether it were two days or a month, or a year, that the
cloud tarried upon the tabernacle, remaining thereon, the children of
Israel abode in their tents and journeyed not but when it was taken up,
they journeyed. At the commandment of the LORD they rested in the
tents, and at the commandment of the LORD they journeyed: they kept the
charge of the LORD, at the commandment of the LORD by the hand of
Moses. So may each one of us ever be Divinely guided!–

"Let the fiery cloudy pillar Lead me all my journey through."