Rightly Handling
The W ord o f God
A Warning of the Danger of Going Astra;? From the Bible in the Midst of all Our Orthodox^. By REV. JO H N M A C NEIL
for if you leave out any little leader, you will hear about it, and you will be sorry for it. Inside of our own ranks, one of the dangers today is this word “ Leadership” . I hear the word often, oftener than I want to hear it. I have no jealousy, and may God send us gifted men, who are large of heart and wide in their views. But they should be humble men, or they should not be leaders, and the conspicuous thing about them should be their self-efface ment and their modesty. And David saicl unto all the assembly of Israel, “ If it seem good unto ‘you, and if it be of Jehovah, our God.” God mentioned last— a mere splash of piety, to turn a phrase, to give the thing a religious flavor. For we are a religious people, and we must put it in some way ’ to make it devout looking. Just think of it; Captains of thousands and of hundreds and every leader, and if it seemed good to them and if it be of Jehovah our God! Bring God in at the end. God won’t have it! We cannot cheat God! No amount of seeming de voutness even among His own Israel Can put Him off. Now, instead of consulting with cap tains of thousands and of hundreds and with every leader, if dear old David liad only turned up the Book of Exodus! If he had only turned up Exodus, or Num bers, or Deuteronomy, instead of con sulting with all these people, when he went to move the ark. But he got into this wave of enthusiasm— and while David was the means of writing some
)W there is one passage here that just helps me to say what I want to say in de fense of the Bible. It is that well known passage, I Chronicles 13, where David and all of them went around so unanimously, so harmoniously and so enthusiastically, and— “ consulted with the captains of hundreds and thousands, even with every leader. And David said unto’ all the assembly of Israel, ‘If it seem gopd untò you and if it be unto Jehovah, our God, let us send abroad everywhere unto all our brethren that are left in ah the land of Israel, with whom the priests are in their cities that have suburbs that they may gather them selves unto us; and let us bring again the ark of our God to us; for we sought not unto it in the days of Saul. And all the assembly said that they would do so,'for the thing was right in the eyes of all the people. So David#assem bled all the people together from the Shihor thè brook of Egypt, even unto the entrance of Ham ath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath- jearim.’ ” Now, we all know how God inter rupted this great unanimous mood. Let us see if we cannot find out some reason for what happened so markedly. Can we not find some “ Little rift within the lute at the beginning, that by and by will make the music mute.” Of course, we all know how the story goes on. There is a dead man on the road. Then we have David angry, and then David frightened, and the music stopped, and the ark hustled into the nearest house that would take it. We will go back to the beginning, and we find that David consulted with the captains of thousands and of hun dreds, and even with every leader. And remember, if you are going along that line, you had better do it thoroughly,
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