William Huntington

V. - The Believer's Pace Slow but Sure

"He that believeth shall not make haste," Isaiah, xxviii. 16.

THIS verse contains a noble account of the foundation which God the Father hath laid in Zion, which foundation is Christ Jesus. God chose this foundation, and he chose all the materials in him which are called his chosen, and chosen ones; and as he laid the foundation, so he brings all the materials to it. "No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him;" and as the foundation and the superstructure must be united together, so the Father "calls us to the fellowship of his Son."

It is the folly of the simple one to believe every word, but the character of the prudent is, "that he looks well to his way." This simple one, in the New Testament language, is one that hears the word, and anon with joy receives it; and this frothy joy, mingling with his legal self-righteous spirit, inflames him with an immoderate heat; he catches the lamp, and off he goes. This sort the Saviour calls "the first; but there are first that shall be last." The prudent man, who looks well to his way, has much work within to attend to, and he is obliged to order his steps in God's word, and to take heed thereunto according to that, so that he is in the general thought to be behindhand, or, as the Saviour says, "he is the last, and yet there are last that shall be first." Saul and David were lively figures of these two sorts of professors. Saul was always too hasty: he was to stay seven days at Gilgal, but Samuel comes not soon enough for him, then he forces himself into the priest's office. At the defeat of the Philistines he curses any man that should eat food till night; Jonathan transgresses the oath ignorantly. Saul inquires of God, and obtains no answer; he puts the matter to lot, to know where the fault lay. Saul and Jonathan are taken, and the people escape. It is cast again between Saul and his son, and Jonathan is taken; and Saul swears by God that he shall die, but lets him live.

He is sent "to the Amalekites, to slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Saul spares Agag, and flies upon the spoil, contrary to God's command; and in his last trouble and extremity, because he got not an immediate answer from God, he goes "to the witch of Endor."

When he is wounded in his last battle, he wants his armour-bearer to thrust him through, which he refusing, he falls upon his own sword, and dies by suicide. "The counsel of the froward carries him headlong." Hastiness, distrust, infidelity, legality, self-righteousness, human applause, and carnal fear, influenced him through all his conduct. He consulted carnal reason, and conferred with flesh and blood in almost every thing he did; and this self-dependance and self-contrivance pushed him on from bad to worse; and hence we see that "by human strength shall no man preveil."

But David's faith waited for God's warrant. He attacks the champion of the Philistines in the name of the living God. When he was solicited to go against the Philistines he inquires of God, and God said, "Go and smite the Philistines, and save Keilah." Will Saul come to Keilah, saith David? "He will come, saith the Lord. But will the men of Keilah deliver me up? They will deliver thee up, saith the Lord." O what a safe way is this! In all thy ways acknowledge him.

In David's behaviour before Achish, king of Garb, in his conclusion of falling one day by the hand of Saul, and in his determined destruction of Nabel's house, unbelief besets him; self was consulted, and the old man was put on. But this was not the habitual bent of his mind nor the constant course of his conduct, for that was quite the reverse of this. David's faith was long tried before he came to the throne; and, when he did, he reigned seven years in Hebron before all the tribes of Israel came under his government; yet his faith was the confidence of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen; and so faith claims them: "Gilead is mine, Manasseh is mine, Ephraim also is the strength of mine head, Judah is my lawgiver, Moab is my wash pot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe; through God we shall do valiantly, for he it is that shall tread down our enemies." Thus faith goes before, giving glory to God, and calls things that are not done as though they were already done; and God comes after and puts an honour upon faith, that he that believes may not be ashamed or confounded.

He that believes shall not make haste. The work of faith is God's work; "this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent;" and the Almighty will not be hurried in his work; we are not to say, "Let him make speed and hasten his work, that we may see it," Isaiah, v. 19. "The Lord will hasten it in his time," Isaiah, lx. 22. The first work of faith is to bring distant things near: Moses sees the threatened judgment of God coming upon Egypt, and casts off his adoption; "by faith he refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Noah was warned of the deluge not seen as yet; moved with fear, and influenced by faith, he builds an ark and saves his house; "by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith."

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and this wise man, who is brought to fear, is one that "foresees the evil and hides himself." The evil that he foresees is the day of judgment, the great day of the wrath of God; and under these fears he seeks the Saviour and flies to him, which in the New Testament is called "fleeing from the wrath to come," for refuge, to lay hold upon the hope set before us. The work of unbelief is to "put far away the evil day, and to cause the seat of violence to come near;" but the work of faith is to bring the sinner "to consider his latter end;" and when faith comes he cannot put the evil day from him, it will be uppermost in his mind, and always before him, in spite of all that he can do. To these God holds him, and for a while at the "bar of equity" he reasons with him. "Come let us reason together, saith the Lord." The sinner sees his folly and rues it, and begins to amend and reform, to be attentive, and to ponder matters over a little, and hopes that a change hath taken place; but, alas! self-righteousness is all in all with him still; to strip him of which, God brings in bill upon bill, and terror upon terror, and appears against him: "And I will come near to you to judgment, and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that defraud the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the Lord of Hosts; for I am the Lord, and change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed," Mal. iii. 5, 6. Under this trial severe inquisitions are made, and matters discovered to the bottom, sifted up, and canvassed over, till the mouth of boasting is entirely stopped, and the sinner "becomes guilty before God."

The Saviour is presented now and then at a distance, and the need of him is sorely felt; but the whole work is God's; we can neither forward it, nor let it. From Horeb the face is turned, and the face is Zionward; the eye of the sinner is to his Maker, and he has respect to the Holy One of Israel; and with supplication and bitter weeping God leads him, and he comes after him in chains. When God shines, then faith sees, not else, for it is in his light that we see light: this ray often withdraws, and we appear again as dark and as far off as ever. Not one sure step do we take, unless God draws us; not one act of faith is put forth, unless the wind blow, and cause the spices to flow out. Under every such pleasing sensation we struggle hard. "The captive exile hastens that he may be loosed, that he may not die in the pit, nor that his bread may fail." But this hastiness adds nothing to the work, "for ye shall not go out with haste, nor go by flight, for the Lord shall go before you," Isaiah, lii. 12.

After a little of this eager struggling of ours, the work seems at a stand again; at which we fret, repine, murmur, are self willed, stubborn, and perverse, till fear and terror alarm us again, and then we relent, take shame and confusion of face to ourselves, confess our madness, and implore forgiveness; and, when resigned and submissive, meek, and quiet, "come life, or come, death, here I am, let him do with me what seemeth him good," the Lord revives his work, makes known the matter more clearly, and in wrath remembers mercy. Under these self-abasing sensations of humility, meekness, contrition, compunction, and godly sorrow, the faith of the coming sinner takes all the steps that he takes.

When self is denied, abased, and mortified, then faith moves "from this lowest room it is that the Lord bids us go up higher;" before every step that leads us to the honour of adoption is this humility. In this manner we see that self can never contribute any thing to faith, nor can faith and self work in conjunction together; for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; the law of sin in the members wars against the law of faith in the mind, and these two are contrary the one to the other: but, if the flesh be mortified through the Spirit, we shall live by faith. Distant views, and budding hopes, at times soften and sweeten the soul, becalm and compose it, insomuch that terrors and torments begin to lose their force, and their violence to abate; the dreadful day looks farther off, and the alarming sight of it is more dim, and our meditations of terror do not recoil with that keenness and sharpness as heretofore; while a daily cross becomes more familiar, and sits easier upon the shoulder, and the chastisements of God yield more peaceable fruits: and when patience has had her perfect work in this business, and submission to the will of God takes place; human strength being exhausted, and the mercy of God in Christ implored; the sweetest savour of Jesus, and the odours of his ointments perfume the poor soul afresh, he appears more in view, and shews himself through the lattice of this chequer work; the sinner's hopes fly to him, and his mouth begins to confess him, "Thou art Christ the Son of the living God. Blessed art thou, Simon! for flesh and blood hath not revealed this unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." The fears and terrors of the law subside, an angry God disappears, love operates, and God shines upon the poor soul in the countenance of his dear Son, and gives him the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Now the will chooses him, faith flies out to him, and exercises all her power on him, love works by it, and joy and peace flow in; while Jesus takes possession of his own, and is crowned King of Zion, the poor sinner ascribing all glory, might, majesty, dominion, and power to him for ever and ever.

The most puzzling thing to the believer under all this work is, that when he does the most good, as he thinks, he is the least regarded; and when he draws the worst conclusions of himself and his state, he is the most cordially received; that when he detests himself, he meets with the most pleasing approbation of God; and that when nothing but damnation is expected, that then salvation is the most near to them that fear him: yea, and when he would entreat God to let loose his hand and cut him off, as Job did, being desperate against himself and his sin, that even then he finds the sweetest and most heart-melting seasons with God. But alas! we forget that salvation is of grace, and not of works; that God justifies the ungodly who work not, but believe; that his strength is made perfect in our weakness; and that God entertains them who are ready to perish; that he fills the hungry with good things, but sends the rich empty away. A bribe in our hand to obtain Christ, is the only thing that keeps us from him; and a foolish notion of rubbing off some of the debt, is the cause of the debt book lying open so long against us; "for when we have nothing to pay he frankly forgives us." But this state of insolvency is terribly mortifying and degrading to human pride. However, there we must come, or lie in prison till the utmost mite be paid; for the Surety will discharge all or none; he will be all in all to us, or nothing.

The Father of the faithful obtained the promise of a son, and waits for the fulfilment of it till nature itself militates against him; to remedy which Hagar is substituted into the place of Sarah. Ishmael comes into the world, and the end is obtained, and here he rests. "The steward of my house is this Eleazar of Damascus, and lo one born in my house is mine heir." All this human contrivance helps nothing forward; "O that Ishmael might live before thee!" No, reason and all her pleas must give way to faith, and faith must have nothing to look to, or depend on, but the power of God. Against all hope founded in nature, and supported by reason, he must believe in hope, founded on the power, truth, and faithfulness of God. "Abraham must believe that what God had promised he was able to perform, and Sarah must by faith receive strength from above to conceive seed, by judging him faithful that hath promised." And we must look to Abraham our father, and to Sarah that bare us, if ever our souls are quickened to serve the living God. For their faith and ours must centre, and meet in unity, in the same object; and all our fruitfullness, as well as theirs, must come from his promise; yea, it must come from the same seed, Christ, who is the living vine, and tree of life, from whom all grace and life comes: and he is a tree of life in us as well as in them. "In me is thy fruit found."