Evening, August 5
Go To Morning Reading
“Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?”
Numbers 32:6
Kindred has its obligations. 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. Others are combating the errors of the
age manfully, or excavating perishing ones from amid the ruins of
the fall, and if we fold our hands in idleness we had need be warned,
lest the curse of Meroz fall upon us. The Master of the vineyard saith,
“Why stand ye here all the day idle?” What is the idler’s excuse? Personal service of Jesus becomes all the more the duty
of all because it is cheerfully and abundantly rendered by some. The
toils of devoted missionaries and fervent ministers shame us if we
sit still in indolence. 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. If the most precious are tried in
the fire, are we to escape the crucible? If the diamond must be vexed
upon the wheel, are we to be made perfect without suffering? Who hath
commanded the wind to cease from blowing because our bark is on the
deep? Why and wherefore should we be treated better than our Lord?
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.