The Pulpit Commentary — Numbers — Section 350

Not to withdraw from it powers that might better be consecrated to its service but to bri_ng to bear upon it, in the ea.use of righteousness, an energy higher and di;iner than its own. , III. THEIR MULTIPLICITY, "Who can count the dust," &c. The promise given to Abraham is gloriously fulfilled in God's spiritual Israel. "Thy seed shall be as the du_st. of the earth," &c. (Gen. :xxviii. 14). Tl:.ia indicates at cnce the grandeur of the Drnne purpose and the diffusive power of the Divine life in men. On both these grounds their numbers will surely multiply till they "cover the face of all the earth." Little as we may be able to forecast the future we know that the question " Ar~ there ~ew that be saved?" will find its triumphant answer in "the great multitude which no man can number, of all nations,'' &c. (Rev. vii. 9). IV. THE BLESSEDNESS OF TREIB END. "Let me die the death," &c. We gather from this not only Balaam's faith in the intrinsic worth of righteousness, but also in the happy issue to which a righteous life in this world must lead as regards the life to come. Why this wish if he had no faith in a glorious immortality and in righteousness as the path to it? There is an instinct in the soul even of a bad man that leads to this conclusion, and hie secret convictions and wishes will often bear witness to a diviner good of which hie whole moral life is the practical denia.l. You must be numbered with the righteous now if you would find your place with them hereafter, and live their life if you would die their death.-W. Ver. 'l:d.-BaJ,cu,;m-tM sec<>'11Al parable. We may look upon Balaam here as representing the Satanic powers that have ever been plotting and working against the kingdom of God among men, and as the unwilling prophet of their ultimate defeat. The spell of a higher Power is over him, and he cannot do the thing that he would. Looking down from " the high places of Bnal " upon the tents of Israel spread out over the plain beneath, he is constrained in spite of himself to utter only predictions of good. Hie magic arts are utterly baflied in presence of the Divinity that overshadows that strange people. It is a picture of what is going on through all the ages. In the triumphant host approaching the borders of the land of promise we see the raDBomed Church moving on to its glorious destination,_its heavenly rest; the kingdom that Christ has founded among men consummating itself, " covering the face of the whole earth." And in the failure of his enchantments we see the impotence of the devices of the powers of darkness to arrest its progress, The Satanic working has assumed di1ferent forms. L PERSECUTION. The followers of Christ soon verified hie prophetic word: 11 In the world ye shall have tribulation." The infant Church was nursed and cradled in the etonns. It no sooner began to put forth its new-born energies than it found the forces of earth and hell arrayed against it. But what was the result? The first outbreak of hostility only brought to the minds of those feeble men, with a meaning undiscovered before, the triumphant worde (Ps. ii.)," do the heathen &c. It drove them nearer to the Divine Fountain of str It made them bold (Acts iv. 23, 30). Scattered abroad, they "went everywhere preaching the wo , and the hand of the Lord was with them." A prophecy was thus given of the way in which persecution would always serve the cause it meant to destroy, and God would "make the wrath of man to praise him." Ecclesiastical authority has leagued itself with the tyrannous powers of the world in this repressive work. The sanctions ef religion have been invoked for the destruction of the truth. But ever to the same issue. Whatever form it takes, the persecuting spirit is always essentially Satanic ; there is nothing Divine in it. And it always defeats its own end. "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church." Th? fire .that has sw?pt over th! field, consuming the growth of one year, has only ennched it and made it more prolific the next.. The kingdom of Christ has rooted itself in the earth, and its Divine energies have been developed by reason of the storms that have raged against it. Not only bas" no weapon formed &~a.inst it prospered," but the weapon hae generally recoiled on the head of him who wielded it. The Satanic enchantments have been foiled just ,when they seemed to reach the climax of their success, and the curses of a hostile world have turned to blessings. II. Co1r&Ul'TUIG INFLUENCES WlTIIIN TllE PALE OJ' 'l'IIE CIUJRCU: ITSELF. Christianity OH. xxu. 41-nrv.] THE BOOK OF NUMBERS. 337