It would be most blessed to dwell more on this, Shiloh as a picture of what the church was as built by Christ. We shall find the future history of Shiloh, a true picture of the sad history of the church. During the days of Joshua and those that overlived Joshua, Israel served the Lord. His words are very striking: he says, “Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served, on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose ye this day whom ye will serve... as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Josh. 24:14, 1514Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the Lord. 15And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:14‑15).) What a word to us now! Every form of idolatry in which we trusted, whether in Egypt or in the wilderness, must be put away. If we are dead with Christ and risen with Him, what need have we for all those things in which we trusted? All are now “beggarly elements.” If we now look at the book of Judges, we shall there see a most striking picture of the history of Christendom. In Judges 2, we have repeated how “The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and in the days of the elders that outlived Joshua.” Joshua then died, and all that generation. “And there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord.” Then the sad history how they did evil and served other gods. They forsook the Lord and served Baal and Ashtaroth; and for hundreds of years you do not hear a word of Shiloh, the place where the Lord had set His name at first.
Yet God did not forsake His people, but raised up judges; and though some of them were strange men, yet God did care for and deliver His people. There were Deborahs, and Gideons, and Jephthahs, and Samsons; but not one of these ever names Shiloh.
It was exactly so after the death of Paul and all that generation. There arose another generation that knew not the Lord and His ways, as at the beginning. Then did the devil teach the doctrine of development. But the Lord in His tender care, raised up individuals, and through them delivered the church from utter ruin, by the loss of all truth. But for centuries Christ is never again known and owned as the true Shiloh. Nay, a man is blasphemously put in His place as the center and head of the church. And even at the Reformation none of the reformers, so far as we have any record, ever recovered the long lost and only true position of the church as gathered to Him “whose it is.” They did escape from much of paganism, but never knew Christ as the only true center, around which the two or three should be gathered in perfect tranquility. For the most part they retained the worldly nationalism, or Babylonian principle, of confusing the church with the world. It is remarkable, that the very same idolatry has prevailed in Christendom, as in Israel during its centuries of darkness. Observance of days, turning to the east, worship of the queen of heaven, images of saints, as formerly Jupiter and Ashtaroth; monks, nuns, candles, and holy water; all these are real paganism—idolatry, so denounced in the Word of God.
But during those centuries of Israel’s history, did not the true Shiloh exist? Yes, indeed it did, and God surely remained the same. One verse proves this. “And they set them up Micah’s graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh” (Judg. 18:3131And they set them up Micah's graven image, which he made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh. (Judges 18:31)). Has it not been so during the dark history of Christendom? All the time they set up their altars and images which they made; all that time, it was still true that the only true church principle was, Christ in the midst, the true Shiloh, the only One whose right it is to gather His redeemed to Himself on earth, as it shall be in heaven. And no doubt a few of the unknown hidden ones may, in unknown places, have enjoyed the peaceful tranquility of blessed presence, This is sure, the Lord remained the same, though the true place of Shiloh was as little known in Christendom, as in the type in Israel.
There is a most sad history of the one man going to the house of the Lord, as he says, “And there is no man that receiveth me to house” (Judg. 19:1818And he said unto him, We are passing from Bethlehem-judah toward the side of mount Ephraim; from thence am I: and I went to Bethlehem-judah, but I am now going to the house of the Lord; and there is no man that receiveth me to house. (Judges 19:18)). But so great had been the neglect of Shiloh during these centuries, that few knew the way; indeed, it required the most minute description how to find it! “Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly, in a place which is on the north side of Bethel, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Bethel to Shechen, and on the south of Lebonah” (Judg. 21:1919Then they said, Behold, there is a feast of the Lord in Shiloh yearly in a place which is on the north side of Beth-el, on the east side of the highway that goeth up from Beth-el to Shechem, and on the south of Lebonah. (Judges 21:19)). Would it not have been the same for centuries: if a man had inquired where was the true place, the true Shiloh, where saints were gathered to Christ, as in the Acts, could any have told him the place or the way to it? Reader, could you tell it even now?
Yet there was such a place then, and even from which a Benjamite might get a wife; and there is such a place now, where many a preacher may get a sermon, though he neither lives there nor ever gives it a good word. “In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.” Last words of Judges (Judg. 21:2525In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes. (Judges 21:25)). Words also which describe the whole history of Christendom, perhaps the cause of every evil division is just that—the want of the true owning of the Lordship and authority of Christ, in the fear of the Lord. Where this is not, every man is sure to do that which is right in his own eyes—his own will. (Continued and to be continued)