CRUMBS, &c.

"BEFORE THE LORD."

2 SAM. vi. 21.

Ir is a marvellous dignity to be brought to stand consciously in the presence of God, without any fear of judgment, or even of rebuke. Yet such is the standing into which the believer in Christ Jesus is brought, "according to the riches of God's grace," and "the good pleasure of His will." The thought of such a standing brings forth from the heart of the Apostle that burst of thanksgiving- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." We know the infinite complacency with which the Father rested, and ever rests in His beloved Son. But He rests in complacency also in the result of that work which His Son finished on the cross. There He can contemplate what His own grace has effected, "having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved, in whom we have redemption through His blood.... according to the riches

of His grace." We, indeed, are "slow of heart" to enter into the revealed thoughts of God respecting our own standing in and through Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has suffered once for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us unto God; but being brought there, we stand before God in Him. If our standing be in Him, as well as through Him, how can God see us there otherwise than according to the thoughts of His heart?" And you," says the Apostle, writing to the believers at Colosse, "that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh, through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in His sight." Of old, it was written of Christ as the Wisdom of God, "When He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth; then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." (Prov. viii. 29, 30.) And has not God His delight too in that which is accepted in Him? And when the Lord Jesus comes to be glorified in His saints, then the world will know that the Father hath loved them, even as He has loved Jesus Himself. (John xvii. 22, 23.) It is one of the most precious blessings of the believer to know the manner of love wherewith he is loved of God. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us;" and such is its perfection, that it has rested in nothing short of making us to be in Christ before God, even while we are in this world, as Christ is in the presence of God in heaven. This is the perfect love which casts out fear. (1 John iv. 16—

19.) One grand characteristic of Apostolical teaching is the anxious endeavour to maintain, in the souls of the saints, the consciousness, that, by the work of Christ they are brought into God's presence, as the object of God's delight. In the presence of God, they are in the region of love, but of light also. The Lord's presence is the large and wealthy place, the place of fulness of joy, but the place of holiness also. If the souls of the saints are kept in conscious nearness to God, then will they walk before Him; but the more they recede in spirit from that nearness, the more will their walk be before men. And the self-exercised Christian knows experimentally the difference between walking in the presence of God, and walking before

men.

When we are walking before men, we are scruFulously exact in answering what they expect from us, and are satisfied if we please men; but there is a freedom when we are walking before God, because we are not seeking to please men, but God that searcheth the heart. When we are seeking to please men, we are prone to judge others, but when we are before the Lord, we can only judge ourselves. It is to the joy of the heart of the Apostle, that he could thank God on the behalf of the Thessalonians, "for their work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father."

A passage in the history of David may illustrate the importance of being practically before the Lord. When David heard that the Lord had blessed the house of Obed-edom, "because of the ark of the Lord, David went and brought up the ark of God from the house of Obed-edom into the city of David with gladness.

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....And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod." He had stript himself of his royal apparel, as unseemly for him to appear in before the Lord. There was no commandment for him to do this, but the presence of Him before whom he was, instinctively taught David, that it was not the place for him to make a shew of the glory which the Lord had given him, when he was before the ark of the Lord of the whole earth." For David to have been prominent on such an occasion, would have been entirely out of place. "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest; Thou, and the ark of Thy strength." (Ps. cxxxii.; Numb. x.) So it ever must be. The sense of being in the presence of the Lord, and "beholding His glory," will instinctively lead the saints to "cast their crowns before Him." And even now the realized sense of being in the Lord's presence, makes us feel the becomingness of the linen ephod, even of being "clothed with humility." King David in the linen ephod, according to the fleshly judgment of Michal, is demeaning himself as one of "the vain fellows;" for human reasoning is entirely at fault in this respect; it cannot connect access with confidence" into God's presence, upon the assured ground of being accepted in the Beloved, with the greatest possible self-abasement. David, before the Lord, must needs cast away every thought of self-consequence, being lost in the admiration of that grace which had preferred the ruddy shepherd-lad before all the goodliness of Saul, and therefore could easily bear the rude taunt of Michal; true type is she of that religion which vaunteth itself, and utters hard speeches against the humiliating

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confession of those, who, before God, can only see their sin and vileness. "And David said unto Michal, It was before the Lord, which chose me before thy father, and before all his house, to appoint me ruler over the people of the Lord, over Israel; therefore will I play before the Lord; and I will yet be more vile than this, and will be base in mine own sight."

But David, even as others, lost in some measure the sense of the happy place of being before the Lord. "The king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies." How natural to be occupied with all these benefits, and to look now 66 on the house of cedar," in which he dwelt, and to compare his own stately dwelling, with the dwelling-place of the ark of God, "within curtains." How ready the thought, what shall I do for the Lord? and it requires that chastened state of soul, which being before the Lord alone can maintain, not to let such a thought supersede or dim the thought of what the Lord has done for us. The state of David's heart, when he sat in his own house, was very different from what it was when he was before the Lord. It was well that it was in David's heart to build an house unto the name of the Lord, (1 Kings viii. 18,) but God would teach His servant something more blessed than this, even that He Himself would build David an house. (2 Sam, vii. 11, 16.) This was the lesson which David needed to learn, and which, indeed, we all need to learn, before our service to the Lord can be healthy to our own souls. The last words of David have respect to this (2 Sam. xxiii. 1-5); and under the "strong hand" of God's teaching and instruction, we