2 out of 600.000! About Faith.

“The land, which we have passed through to search it out, is a land that eateth up its inhabitants; and all the people that we have seen in it are men of great stature…and the whole assembly said to Moses and Aaron, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or in this wilderness!” (Numbers 13:32 ;14:2)

The grand principle of the divine life is faith, simple earnest, wholehearted faith that just takes and enjoys all that God has given us. We all live far, very far, below our privileges. We are content with merely knowing salvation without earnestly cultivating the affections belonging thereto. This is the cause of much of our coldness and barrenness.

Nothing exhibits more of the deep-seated unbelief in our hearts than our being satisfied with having the foundation laid and not being anxious to build upon it. God would have us enjoying communion with Him in the highest truths.

Let us now look at Israel’s case. Surely, no one would say that an Israelite ought to have thought nothing beyond the blood-stained lintel that saved them. That was merely the starting point, but the land of promise was the goal. But what kept them back? Just that same hateful thing which robs us of the highest stages of the divine life—unbelief! “They could not enter in on account of unbelief” (Heb 3:19). 

Instead of looking at Jehovah’s power to bring them into the land, they were looking at the enemy’s power to keep them out! They concluded that all was useless—the spirit of unbelief had taken possession of their hearts. In unbelief we shrink from our responsibility and quail before difficulty.

The fact that 600,000 men came out of Egypt, but only two planted their feet in the land should teach us a lesson. May we have ears to hear, and hearts to understand!

C.H.M.