Chapter 2: TOUCH NO UNCLEAN THING.
Chapter 2: TOUCH NO UNCLEAN THING.
“Depart ye, depart ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing: go ye out of the midst of her; be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.” - Isa 52:11.
THESE STIRRING WORDS must refer to the same scene that is described in Ezra 8, which records the return journey of a large party of Jews from Babylon to their own land. The weary seventy years of exile had run their course, Cyrus had given the edict for the restoration of the chosen people to the land of their fathers, and a halt was called, beside the great river, to gather up the stragglers, and to prepare the whole expedition for its march across the long expanse of sand which intervenes between the strip of green pasture-land that bordered on the river, and their own Gilead.
Whilst halting there, Ezra sent for a body of priests to accompany their march. He was specially eager to secure their presence, as he was at a loss for the transportation of the sacred vessels of the temple, gold and silver, which had been carried off by Nebuchadnezzar, but had been restored by Cyrus. It was not permitted that common or ordinary hands should touch or carry these treasured relics of the venerable and holy past; and therefore it was a great relief when, according to the good hand of God upon them, thirty-eight priests and two hundred and twenty Levites were forthcoming.
At a great convocation, on the eve of their starting, Ezra committed the vessels and other freewill gifts into the hands of these men, saying as he did so: “Ye are holy unto the Lord. The vessels also are holy. Watch ye, and keep them until ye weigh them before the chiefs of the priests and the Levites in the chambers of the house of the Lord.” Notice the stress he laid on the necessity of holy vessels being cared for by holy men. It was as though he said, “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
We need not dwell further on the reverent care with which those selected men bore their sacred charge, or on the invisible escort which accompanied their march, or the joy with which they laid down their charge in the temple, and weighed out their treasures. It is enough that we should learn our own lessons from the stirring exhortation “Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.”
To us also, as ministers, officers, and workers in the church of Christ, a sacred charge is given. In the same paragraph in which the Apostle Paul said that he had committed his deposit to God, he charged Timothy to guard God’s deposit which had been committed m him. It is as though the Christian worker makes out a Complete inventory of all he has and is, and asks the Mighty Savior to see to it; while on his side he receives a sacred treasure from His hands, which he is in turn to keep for his Lord “That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.”
Every Christian is entrusted with something to keep and carry through the world for God; the Holy Scriptures, with their divine message; the sacred rest-day, now so terribly invaded and threatened; the conception of the church, with its two institutions of the Lord’s Supper and baptism; the doctrines of the evangelical faith; especially the doctrine of the anointing and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Each body may be viewed as a sacred vessel, whilst each life should be accounted as a vessel meet for the master’s use. (1Th 4:3; 2Ti 2:21). Each has some vessel entrusted, larger or smaller according to opportunity and ability. And therefore, without straining our text, we may apply it very widely and generally.
Just as those who handle the vessels of the Lord’s Supper do so with clean hands and reverent care, in their staid behavior witnessing to their sense of the importance of their charge, so we who are called to public office must needs see that our behavior and character are in harmony with our holy charge. To us must come the perpetual reminder, “Be ye clean, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord.” The Apostle Paul appears to quote the same verse, when he says, “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.” Having therefore such promises, let us cleanse ourselves.
Let us examine ourselves in the light of our sacred charge.
In order to acquire fitness for bearing the name of Jesus through the world, we must be separate from evil habits.
The perpetual cry of the Epistles is that we should put off the old man, which always stands for the habits of our former life. “Put away, as concerning your former maturer of life, the old man, which waxeth corrupt.” “Putting away all Wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings.” “Put away all these; anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your mouth.” “Let us cast off the works of darkness, revelling and drunkenness, chambering and wantonness, strife and jealousy. Make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof.”
God will certainly show us any habit of evil which clings to us, as the grave clothes did to Lazarus, even after the Lord had given him life. And when, in the growing light, we are definitely shown that some evil thing is grieving Him, we must at once and absolutely put it off, and have done with it. He who bids us, will enable, and take away the very desire, and absolutely set us free.
We must be separate from inordinate appetite. The appetites have been implanted for wise and beneficent purposes, but they may be abused, either by being directed to wrong objects, or in an inordinate degree toward right ones. But we must restrict them. The stream must flow in the divinely assigned bed. We must always have the girded loin, and be sober. At our meals, and in our taking of ease and rest, as in all other respects, we must do all to the glory of God, and in the name (or nature) of Jesus Christ. The holy Brainerd said, “I felt no disposition to eat or drink for the sake of the pleasure of it, but only to support my nature, and fit me for divine service.”
We must be separate from worldly alliances.
The business man must separate from his partners if they are perpetually violating the law of God, and offending against his sense of integrity and honesty. The Christian girl must refuse the offer of marriage of a man who is not regenerate; and the Christian man must marry only in the Lord. (1Co 7:39). “For what communion hath light with darkness? Be not therefore unequally ,yoked with unbelievers.” (2Co 6:14-15).
We must be separate from worldly aims and ambitions.
How many of us, who are engaged in the Lord’s holy service, are secretly cherishing some proud purpose of excelling other men, of making a name, of securing money and applause! We will use the pulpit as a pedestal for the adulation of the world, and the cross for a post on which to hang garlands to our own glory. How often do we preach sermons, or make addresses, and attend meetings, with no other thought than to secure the “recognition and goodwill of those with whom we desire to stand well! We are not willing to trust our reputation with Christ, or to be called fools for His sake. We are not willing, like the French soldiers under the first Napoleon, to be in the ditch and be trampled under feet, so long as the master rides on in triumph. But all this must be laid aside. We must have no private purposes to serve.
We must be separate from worldly pleasures.
There are some of these which are specially associated with the world and its fashion; and the command which bids us abstain from every form of evil demands that we should keep clear of all that might justly be misinterpreted as savoring of conformity to the world. The world will have its card-parties, its balls, its masques, its theatres and operas, its fancy-fairs. We do not here condemn it, it knows no better. It seeks to festoon with flowers the way to destruction, and to enliven its unsatisfied heart with mirth. But we do say that if those who are privileged to carry the vessels of Christ’s holy gospel want such things, they should first surrender their sacred charge. It is not fair to endeavor to continue the diversions of the camp of darkness with the commission of the Prince of Light.
We must be separate from the emotional religions life which is always seeking for signs and manifestations.
This is a greater evil than appears at first sight. Many of God’s professing children confound the Christian life with an hysterical sensationalism and a large amount of emotional and noisy manifestation. This is not the best way of serving God, or of growing in grace and in the knowledge of God. To be always on the outlook for signs and dreams, for voices and visions, for strong emotional responses, and for an ecstatic state of rapture, is not the best. And we do well to separate ourselves from such a condition, so that we may live hi the will, ever answering with a glad Amen to the least indication of the holy will of God.
The emotional manifestations which too many substitute for a deep religious life are like the yeast, which Jews must cleanse from their houses before the Passover. A pious person was once asked if she enjoyed herself. She replied that she could not speak positively for herself, as she was not accustomed to dwell on the workings of her own nature, but she enjoyed God.
We must be separate from the activities of our corrupt nature.
We are so fussy, so eager to serve God after our own style, so prone to take up anything which another has done successfully, without staying to ask whether it is God’s will for ourselves. We work so much for God, instead of waiting for Him to work through us. We do not wait for the pattern to be shown us from the Mount. One of God’s most honored teachers tells us that we ought perpetually to sink into Christ’s grave, to claim the silence of Christ’s grave, to die to the activities of our own nature, even when they are exerted in a right direction and for a holy purpose, to allow God to winnow away the chaff before we attempt to sow the wheat.
From all such things we must cleanse ourselves. There is a defilement of the spirit as well as of the flesh. There are weights as well as sins. There are things which are not expedient, as well as those which are positively unlawful and wrong. From all we must be separate and clean.
You may say that yon have tried to separate yourself, but in vain, the evil clings to you like a shadow. Then fall back on the philosophy of the will. Be willing to be clean. Be willing to be made willing. Then say to Christ: “I am eager to have my leprosy cleansed; if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean”; and immediately He will stretch forth His hand and touch you, saying, “I will, be thou clean.” And you will be delivered.
But do not suppose that you are always to be looking on this side of your life, on-the renunciations, the excisions, the amputations. Present yourself to Jesus, as those who are alive from the dead and constrained by His mercies.
You are His, because He made you. “It is He that hath made us, and His we are.” Surely the builder of a house has a right to the product of His own . labor.
gait are His, because He redeemed you. Ye were redeemed with precious blood, and are not your own, but His by purchase.
You are His, because God the Father has given Him all who come to Him. And if you have come to Him, you are assuredly His, though you have not avowed yourself so. (Joh 6:37).
Will you not, therefore, present yourself to Him, that He may forgive all your sins, and cleanse you from all that is unholy and inconsistent, and fill you with His sacred fulness? See, He waits to receive you, with such blessings in His hands as will enrich you for evermore. Come now to the altar. Be bound there as a willing sacrifice. Then, as His holy priest, bear His sacred vessels through the world. But, whatever you do, resign your commission and charge rather than disgrace them by aught unworthy of your master and His cause.