Bible Commentaries

Numbers 24:2. (Comp. 2 Chronicles 20:14; 2 Chronicles 24:20)] the son of Oded [by some identified with Iddo, the prophet and historian of the two preceding reigns]" ( 2 Chronicles 15:1).

Inspiration and Action

SUCH words as these should make us solemn, and glad. Here is the eternal force, the Spirit of God; here is the transitory medium, the individual man upon whom that force so suddenly and graciously acted. God is still here, man is still here: why should inspiration cease? Men still depend upon the living God for instruction, truth, law, guidance; and men are still made in the image and likeness of God; they are the very elect and chosen of the heavenly One: why should he turn his back upon them, and withhold from them the living air, which, breathing through their souls, should purify and ennoble every faculty? There is no reason why inspiration should cease; there 1 Chronicles 28:9, and Jeremiah 29:13]; but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you" ( 2 Chronicles 15:2).

A very intelligible message; an eternal proposition. If ye seek me, ye shall surely find me—if ye have rent, not your garments, but your hearts. "Them that honour me, I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed." No other law is possible. There is nothing dogmatic or arbitrary about this declaration; it roots itself in reason, and grows up towards the sun in firmest fellowship, because it belongs to the household of light. We cannot shake ourselves clear of this bondage; we may deafen ourselves to the proposition; we may turn away from it in irrational hilarity; we may fill our ears with multiplied noises; we may create a pagan Pentecost of our own: but there comes a time, one quiet, solemn hour, in which we call ourselves fools, and ask to be permitted to pray. Let all experience verify this. No man can succeed who is not on the side of God. The word "succeed" is here used in its largest signification. He does not succeed who gathers a table which he cannot enjoy, who piles up luxuries until they become the merest commonplaces of daily life. A man may easily out-build and out-decorate himself; he may look round to see where he can put something more. Is there an end of furnishing, decorating, table-spreading, wine-drinking, banqueting? There Judges 3:7, Judges 3:12; Judges 4:1; Judges 6:1; Judges 8:33; Judges 10:6), which were followed by repentance and deliverance], and without a teaching priest [The Israelites had never been without priests of one kind or another; but there had been occasions when none of their priests taught them the true doctrine], and without law" [see Judges 17:6; Judges 21:25] ( 2 Chronicles 15:3).

The long season referred to was a period of thirty years. The inspired 2 Chronicles 15:14-15).

It is pleasant now and again to be caught within the range of genuine human and religious excitement. There is an excitement that is vicious, but every blessing may be turned into a curse, and we are not to turn away from the blessing because it can by vicious hearts be depraved. Excitement of a genuine kind, balanced by intelligence, inspired by gratitude, sparkling with tears of the heart, is almost essential to our higher spiritual education. It is beautiful to notice how this kind of excitement operates in the direction of personal enlargement of ministry. The people could not be content with their own voices. This self-impatience has to do with the development of our best nature. We want sometimes we cannot tell what, but it is something beyond. We are sure there must be instruments and ministries which, if we could seize them, would multiply our personality and crown our weakness with ineffable strength. What do we find here?—"A loud voice," and "shouting:" but that would not do alone. Men will have assistance; in this instance the assistance came in the form of trumpets and cornets, and if they could have laid their hands upon them, they would have had the whirlwind, and the thunder, and all heaven's resources to express the love that burned with holy glow in their excited and grateful hearts. We must take care how we undervalue revivals, excitements, various ranges and qualities of spiritual enthusiasm. Such enthusiasm would be distasteful to us if our poor souls were not in the same key. What can be less welcome, less harmonic than great religious excitement and gladness when we ourselves are sunk in worldliness, and in sordidness of the most pitiable description? Then such excitement becomes a rebuke, a judgment, a chastisement; we would close our ears, and run away from it, and call it sensational, unhealthy, undesirable; and thus we would tell falsehoods to our own souls. On the other hand, what a mistake it would be to suppose that there can be no spiritual life, of the highest and purest, and tenderest kind, apart from a loud voice, and shouting, and trumpets and cornets; the truth is not exhaustively stated by either one experience or another. Whatever man can feel may indicate a further necessity in the instruments of his education. Whatever can most centrally touch his heart is essential to his spiritual culture. Let us rest assured of this, that if there is a danger on the side of excitement, there is a deadlier danger on the side of indifference. When men talk about religious quietness, and peacefulness, and restfulness, let them be careful lest they be abusing terms, or lest they be excusing themselves from sacrifices and endeavours that would call up dormant faculties, slumbering or neglected powers. It is easy for indifference to complain of excitement: it is easy for excitement to undervalue a quietness that cannot express itself in kindred enthusiasm. There is a middle line in life, but that middle line in life would become monotonous if we could not occasionally ascend, yea, and vary our progress, for then, after such association and variation, we return to the great average scheme and thought of life with recruited power, with renewed and sanctified hope. How poor is the condition of the soul that is never, so to say, maddened by religious inspiration! Such a soul cannot believe the Bible except in the narrowest and most superficial sense. The Bible is never quiet; when it seems to be peaceful it is then expressing the last result of momentum, energy, force, terrific impulse. The earth is at rest because the earth never stops. Do not mistake death for peace; do not mistake indifference for restfulness; and never imagine that you can live in nothing but excitement: the foam, the froth, makes but a poor banquet for necessitous and hungering souls. Who would obliterate red-letter days from the history of the Church? What a cavity would be left if we took Pentecost out of the New Testament! As we perused the sacred record, in the absence of that baptismal day, we should feel that something was wanting; not something little, impoverished, but something great and affluent and mighty. Every soul should have its pentecostal day. We need it to fall back upon sometimes when the devil is heavy upon us; we say, when he lays his tremendous stroke upon our souls, This will certainly overwhelm us, there is no answer to this; then our soul is reminded of the pentecostal time when we were real Christians, if but for one moment. We cannot obliterate that moment from our recollection. There was a time when we saw God; it was but a moment, a flash, an unmeasurable period of time, but the sight is an everlasting recollection, and ought to be a steadfast and inexhaustible inspiration.

Prayer

Almighty God, thou art the Lord and Master; we are thy creatures: grant unto us the spirit of obedience, that we may do thy will with delight and readiness, and count it the only possible heaven upon earth. We rejoice that we are in the body which thou thyself hast constituted; thou hast made us such members as seemed best to thy wisdom: let each accept his lot, and be thankful; it is enough to be in the body, to have been chosen by God for that position: may we receive our election herein, and recognise the good hand of God, and live in a spirit of thankfulness, and be always ready to do the Lord's will. Thou knowest how peculiar we are, in that we sometimes consult ourselves; we ask ourselves what we should prefer, what would be easiest or pleasantest; we do not always consult the cross, the sacrifice, the point of agony. Help us to know that we have no law in ourselves; we are not authorities; we are creatures, not creators; we are under government, and if we would live wisely we must live obediently; may our obedience have a divine origin, a divine motive, then shall it have a divine reward. Help us to go through life in a spirit of trustfulness; may we live in the spirit of Christ, then we shall count the cross as but a stopping-place on the way to eternal glory. Dry our tears when they are hot and large; help us to bear life's burdens when our poor little strength gives way, and at all times and in all things may we show that we are the sons of God by displaying a filial obedience. This we say, every word of it, at the cross; the one altar where no prayer was ever lost. Amen.