Dear Brother Q: I am glad you are today
in -----, and if you make good your trust you will be the right
man in the right place. Keep self out of sight; let it not come
in to mar the work, though this will be natural. Walk humbly
with God. Let us work for the Master with disinterested energy,
keeping before us a sense of the constant presence of God. Think
of Moses, what endurance and patience characterized his life.
Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, says: "For he endured,
as seeing Him who is invisible." The character that Paul
thus ascribes to Moses does not mean simply passive resistance
of evil, but perseverance in the right. He kept the Lord ever
before him, and the Lord was ever at his right hand to help him.
Moses had a deep sense of the personal
presence of God. He was not only looking down through the ages
for Christ to be made manifest in the flesh, but he saw Christ
in a special manner accompanying the children of Israel in all
their travels. God was real to him, ever present in his thoughts.
When misunderstood, when called upon to face danger and to bear
insult for Christ's sake, he endured without retaliation. Moses
believed in God as one whom he needed and who would help him
because of his need. God was to him a present help.
Much of the faith which we see is merely
nominal; the real, trusting, persevering faith is rare. Moses
realized in his own experience the promise that God will be a
rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He had respect unto
the recompense of the reward. Here is another point in regard
to faith which we wish to study: God will reward the man of faith
and obedience. If this faith is brought into the life experience,
it will enable everyone who fears and loves God to endure trials.
Moses was full of confidence in God because he had faith. He
needed help, and he prayed for it, grasped it by faith, and wove
into his experience the belief that God cared for him. He believed
that God ruled his life in particular. He saw and acknowledged
God in every detail of his life and felt that he was under the
eye of the All-seeing One, who weighs motives, who tries the
heart. He looked to God and trusted in Him for strength to carry
him uncorrupted through every form of temptation. He knew that
a special work had been assigned to him, and he desired as far
as possible to make that work thoroughly successful. But he knew
that he could not do this without divine aid, for he had a perverse
people to deal with. The presence of God was sufficient to carry
him through the most trying situations in which a man could be
placed.
Moses did not merely think of God; he saw
Him. God was the constant vision before him; he never lost sight
of His face. He saw Jesus as his Saviour, and he believed that
the Saviour's merits would be imputed to him. This faith was
to Moses no guesswork; it was a reality. This is the kind of
faith we need, faith that will endure the test. Oh, how often
we yield to temptation because we do not keep our eye upon Jesus!
Our faith is not continuous because, through self-indulgence,
we sin, and then we cannot endure "as seeing Him who is
invisible."
My brother, make Christ your daily, hourly
companion, and you will not complain that you have no faith.
Contemplate Christ. View His character. Talk of Him. The less
you exalt self, the more you will see in Jesus to exalt. God
has a work for you to do. Keep the Lord ever before you. Brother
and Sister Q, reach up higher and still higher for clearer views
of the character of Christ. When Moses prayed, "I beseech
Thee, show me Thy glory," the Lord did not rebuke him, but
He granted his prayer. God declared to His servant: "I will
make all My goodness pass before thee, and I will proclaim the
name of the Lord before thee." We keep
apart from God, and this is why we do not see the revealings
of His power.