Apr 13
27
“Draw me; we will run after you! Let the king bring me into his chambers.” Song of Solomon 1:4
How many of us can take the words of the bride into our lips, or have ever been able at any one time of our life to use such an expression? We must have had some sight and sense of the preciousness and loveliness of Jesus before ever we can cry, “Draw me,” from the depth of a sincere heart. For the sincere soul is afraid to approach the holy Jehovah, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and insult him with mock petitions and words that it does not feel. But if ever that desire has been kindled, and that prayer raised up in your soul, “Draw me, we will run after you,” it must have been the work of the Holy Spirit in your hearts, to raise up those feelings and to give you a living faith in the Son of God.
And “he that believes shall be saved.” Whatever doubts, whatever fears, whatever temptations, whatever exercises beset the path, “he that believes shall be saved.” He that has had given him one grain of spiritual faith in Christ’s glorious person, who has had one sight of his atoning blood, one sip of divine love shed abroad in his heart, is sure to go to glory; he is saved with an everlasting salvation, in his covenant Head. The Lord that has kindled these strong desires after himself in his soul, will surely fulfill them. As we find he did in the case of the bride; he said to her, after a little time, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.” J.C. Philpot
Separation from the Ungodly World
“Therefore, come out from them and separate yourselves from them, says the Lord. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.” 2 Cor. 6:17
There is not a stronger mark of the Lord’s people than their separation. They are separated from the world, separated from their families, separated from their own righteousness, and often separated from the religious world–a godly people whom the Lord has set apart from all others, that He might set them apart for Himself. Now, it is this distinctive badge of separateness the Lord will have His saints retain in all their Christian course. We are very apt to forget it. We live in the world, mix with the world, hold transactions with the world, and, in some measure, are guided by the conventional habits of the world. Still, we have need to be continually reminded that, though living in the world, and, of necessity, compelled to conform to its proper and lawful customs, we yet are not OF the world. “I have chosen you OUT OF the world,” says the unworldly, loving Savior to His disciples; “therefore the world hates you.” “You are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Now, in what sense, oh my soul, and to what extent, does your loyalty to Christ demand your separation from the world?
The words which suggest the present reflection are, by a slight variation, taken from the prophet Isaiah 52:11, and originally were applied to the captive Jews in Babylon,
“Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing! Come out from it and be pure, you who carry the vessels of the Lord.” Now, Babylon, a city of proud, unclean idolaters, and opposed to God, was an emblem of this ungodly, Babylonish world, in which the saints of the Most High dwell, but from which they are called to come, and from whose inhabitants they are called upon to separate themselves, touching not the unclean thing.
The religion of Christ is not ascetic and monkish. It knows nothing of “nunneries,” or “monasteries,” or “retreats.” These are all opposed to the genius and requirements of Christianity–its divine, social, and spiritual nature. Our blessed Lord, the Divine Founder of our religion, expressly warns His disciples of this perversion of His gospel–“Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold He is in the desert; go not forth–behold, He is in the secret chambers; believe it not.” It enjoins nothing like this upon its disciples, “for then must you needs go out of the world,” says the apostle.
But it does teach crucifixion to the world, nonconformity to the world, spiritual and marked separation from the world, from its pleasures, its gaieties, its principles, its religion. We are the professed disciples of an unearthly Christ, the followers of an unworldly Savior. “Let us go forth, therefore, unto Him outside the camp” (of the Babylonish world), “bearing His reproach,” keeping our consecrated garments unspotted from the world, touching not the unclean thing. Then will Jesus, our Lord, receive us, and infinitely make amends for all we have lost of power and wealth and honors, for His holy and precious Name.
Let our separation from the world be our closer union and fellowship with the Church of Christ in its every branch, and with Christ Himself, the one Head of the Church. This will tend more strongly to define and sharpen the line of demarcation between us and an ungodly world. Association with the saints will render us a more marked and distinct people. The world will take account of us that we are the Lord’s. O my soul! come away from an unclean and defiling world. “If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Lord! by Your cross may I be crucified to the world, and the world to me! Octavius Winslow.
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“Tell me, O you whom my soul loves, where you feed, where you make your flock to rest at noon–for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of your companions? If you know not, O fairest among women, go your way by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.” –Song of Solomon 1:7-8
If you say that you want food and rest, to know Christ for yourself and to enjoy his presence and love, the Lord gives you two directions to attain to the enjoyment of these two blessings–
1. to tread in the footsteps of the flock, to walk in the way in which the saints of old have walked, in the path of tribulation and faith;
2. if you are favored in any way to live within reach of the shepherds’ tents, and have the privilege of hearing the gospel preached in its purity and power, to bring your young goats in your arms beside the tent, and to put them down to feed on the juicy herbage. And be assured that if you come to the shepherds’ tents with a prayerful spirit and a hungry soul, begging of God to open your heart to receive the word with power, and to crown it with his blessing, sooner or later you will find food and rest.
But these things go together. If you want food you will go where it is to be obtained; if you want rest you will go where it is to be obtained. You will get neither in the world. But as you get food and rest beside the shepherds’ tents you will find that it is really and truly Jesus himself who feeds, and Jesus himself who makes you lie down and rest. The shepherds are but servants. Christ is the Bridegroom, and he alone has the Bride. The shepherds’ joy is to bring the sheep to Christ that they may find food and rest in him; and as your heart receives the joyful sound, and you feel the power of God’s truth in your soul, there will be a doing what Christ bids as well as enjoying what Christ reveals. J.C.Philpot
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“Do not be conformed to this world.” Romans 12:2
Reader, would you wish to leave this world in the darkness of a desponding death bed, and enter eternity as a shipwrecked mariner? Then be worldly! Join up with Mammonites, and refuse to go outside the camp bearing Christ’s reproach.
But would you have a heaven below—as well as a heaven above? Would you comprehend with all saints, what are the heights and depths, and know the love of Christ which passes knowledge? Would you receive an abundant entrance into the joy of your Lord? Then come out from among them, and be separate, and touch not the unclean thing!
Would you attain the full assurance of faith? You cannot gain it while you commune with sinners. Would you flame with vehement love? Your love will be damped, by the drenchings of godless society. You cannot become a great Christian—you may be a babe in grace—but you never can be a perfect man in Christ Jesus—while you yield yourself to the worldly maxims and lifestyles of the world. It is bad for an heir of heaven—to be a great friend with the heirs of hell. It has a bad look when a courtier is too intimate with his king’s enemies.
Even small inconsistencies are dangerous. Little thorns make great blisters. Little moths destroy fine garments. Little little frivolities and little rogueries will rob a Christian of a thousand joys. O professor, too little separated from sinners—you know not what you lose by your conformity to the world. It cuts the tendons of your strength, and makes you creep—where you ought to run. Then, for your own comfort’s sake, and for the sake of your growth in grace, if you are a Christian—be a Christian—and be a marked and distinct one! Charles Spurgeon.
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One point in the sin offering demands a few moments’ attention, After the fat had been burnt on the brazen altar (Lev. 4:9, 10)—significant emblem of the acceptance of the sacrifice of Jesus as a sweet-smelling savor, the skin, head, legs, inwards, etc., of the bullock were to be carried outside the camp, into a clean place, and there burnt on the wood with fire. (Lev. 4:11, 12.) This carrying forth of the body of the sin offering was significant of two things—1. That Jesus suffered outside the camp, as the Apostle speaks—”For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate.” (Heb. 13:11, 12.) He was to be despised and rejected of Israel, and therefore was not crucified within the walls of Jerusalem, but “near to the city,” (John 19:20,) or, as Paul testifies, “outside the gate.” Jerusalem was considered “the holy city,” (Matt. 27:53,) as through the temple bearing the same sacred relation to God as the camp of Israel of old through the tabernacle. (Deut. 23:14.) Jesus, therefore, as a condemned criminal, was cast out of the city as unclean, as afterwards they cast Stephen out of the city before they stoned him, (Acts 7:58,) no execution being permitted within the city, as defiling its holiness.
But the carrying of the sin offering outside the camp, there to be burnt in a clean place, has a reference also to the spiritual position of those that believe in the crucified Son of God. Their place in worship is where his place was in suffering—clean, though outside the camp. Thus the Apostle says, “Let us go forth, therefore, unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach.” (Heb. 13:13.) Jesus was despised, hated, and cast out by the professing Church of his day. It was not the mass of the people, though their fickle minds were wrought upon to cry, “Crucify him, crucify him!” who a day or two before had cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” but it was the chief priests and scribes and pharisees, who conspired to put him to death.
And as the disciple is not above his master, we must drink in our appointed measure of the same cup. The Holy One of Israel was cast out of the professing Church, crucified outside the gate as a malefactor whose very death within the walls would pollute the holy city. Where is our place, then, as believers in the crucified Son of God, but where he suffered, bled, and died? In the camp are the scribes and pharisees, the chief priests and the elders, and all who cry, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we;” holding the form, but denying the power; wrapped up in the letter, but destitute of the Spirit; satisfied with a name to live while dead in sin; professing the gospel, but the veil of ignorance and unbelief upon the heart. Must we not leave all such, come out from among them, and be separate; and go forth unto Jesus outside the camp, bearing his reproach. (Extract from JESUS the Great High Priest) by J.C. Philpot.