WE see from the 9th verse that God’s purpose for Israel was for them to keep a Feast, and in 1 Cor. 5 the same is applied as the present condition of God’s people. The mention of the leaven there couples it definitely with the Feast of the Passover―they were delivered from Egypt; we are a people delivered from the wrath to come: the object of it unceasing, unchanging joy. It was to be “a Feast unto the Lord.” The scene in Egypt was laid in the deepest trial; but the purpose of God was for them to keep a Feast. Nothing is of more importance than to consider our exceeding short coming in outward manifestation, by the failure of this condition of soul. Our hearts well know that this fruit is not pressed, so as to yield its own juice in present support to the soul. Glory be to His grace, we have always to sing that our failure does not affect the security of our souls, because we are set in Christ. Though we may not be keeping the Feast to the Lord, there is One keeping it whoever rejoices the heart of God: we have Jesus, by whom God wrought out all His pleasure, and we are in Him. God knows no disappointment in Him. He is the Man of His right hand; but that does not militate against the failure of our ways.
And not only is this table the Feast, but it gives its coloring to the whole dispensation. “The table in the wilderness” is the character of this dispensation; spread by God, guarded by God, but presenting one unbroken scene, all of God’s doing; we had no part in it. We are brought into the house by the Father; it is for the children within the house to be merry, and God has provided for Himself joy in the sorrow; and where we fail is in not apprehending the character God affixed to this scene. We are to have joy in the sorrows; and if you fail to realize this, you fail is something that the joys of heaven will never be able to give you; for then the sorrows will be over. Get out of the place, and the occasion is lost forever; get into the glory, and you cease to realize trial. It is unmixed joy.
We so shrink from trial now. Why? Because we know so little of the joy in the trial, and God alone knows the terrible trials of the wilderness.
There were two things specially marked here. The denial of letting the children go (vss. 7-11); there is the denial of Pharaoh (the wicked one) to God’s purpose, that they should keep a Feast in the wilderness. And how could they keep a Feast of joy while their little ones were in Egypt? A Feast implies circumstances of joy. We cannot keep it without a merry heart; and it is said that “a merry heart is a continual feast.” Pharaoh knew it. The attempt was most crafty, to get the tenderest object of their affections absent. He says, “Leave the object of your affections behind, and you go. Do not hazard all you have, but reserve something. Evil is before you, wilderness fare; do not expose them!” Had they yielded, God’s purpose would have been impeded.
In verse 24 (after Moses’ denial of this), Pharaoh proposes to leave the flocks behind, and to take the little ones. “The flocks behind!” still objects of affection, alas! though of a lesser kind: they were their property. Moses’ reply does, to my mind, express most simply the true nature of a Feast, viz., real dependence on God for everything. Moses, by the Holy Ghost, tells Pharaoh, “We know not wherewith to serve the Lord till we be come thither;” everything they had was given by God to serve Him with.
Psalm 63 was a song of merriment “in the wilderness of Judah,” as the heading tells us; in one sense, the desert, yet a wilderness of praise. Why of Judah? Because God was with them. He had undertaken all for them to the end. They were delivered to Himself; and this must place Israel in dependence on Him. The food of their table, their shoes, their garments, the manna; it was His place to provide all. They had nothing to do but to hold the Feast; but that that hindered would be the leaving anything in Egypt. Pharaoh tried first to keep their persons, then the children, then the flocks; but not till they were clean delivered from Egypt, and apart from it could the Feast be kept. And surely this same thing is at the root of our individual failure. It is not our persons only that are to be devoted to God, but everything we possess is to be His. Our property, our little ones, Are they in Egypt? Is it the tenderness of Pharaoh, or of God, I am exercising with regard to my little ones? Have we anything left in Egypt for the day of destruction? Oh! the tendency of all our hearts to lean to flesh and blood. It was Pharaoh’s aim to bring them to independency.
Jesus carried out the separation fully, and left none of His little ones in Egypt. He was the true Nan-rite. He knew the depth of sorrow in that broken heart. That separated Son could tell the joy of the Lord’s strength. Though He was a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, He kept the conditions of the Feast, and knew the true meaning of its being “a Feast unto the Lord.”
The whole scene of the Passover is brought before us in 1 Corinthians 5. “Purge out the old leaven.” This would take in everything, “that ye may be a new lump,” &c. even as Christ. Would you know why you are unleavened? Because true of us in Christ. God can say, “Amen” to you and to me, because He kept the Feast. But there is something definite to you and to me besides. Our Feast may be with terrible crying and tears, but the Feast is to be above all my sorrow. That is what Israel did not know, but we are called to it. In spirit like Abraham (Rom. 4), “to hope against hope.” Temptation, tribulation, failure, these will be, but the Feast is to be kept; nevertheless, let it give its stamp to every step of the way.
One word more. Any word that skews the depth of grace is a terrible word. “Let us keep the Feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (vs. 8.) The old leaven was the flesh-pots of Egypt. All was to be brought out before they partook of the Lamb. But what is the distinction between the “old leaven” and “the leaven of malice and wickedness?”
God presents us with an object, a Feast―the Lord Jesus Christ’s work and person. But what may we be keeping the Feast with? We may be filled with the love of the world, in some shape or other―dress, relations of life, &c., &c. We may be filled also with the “leaven of malice and wickedness.” I believe there is a sharpness in these words that none but the children of God know. God is, as it were, going into a disquisition with His children, with regard to their dispositions, &c. What may you have in your heart at the Feast? “Malice.” It is an awful word. It is probing with the probe of God the desperate evil of our hearts.
Here is what God would have us put away―any root of evil, guile, deceit, &c.―that the Feast may be in spirit and in truth, to the Lord, “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Israel was to hold everything in readiness to serve the Lord. I say the experience of the Feast was conditional, not the security of it. It is eternally secure in Jesus. But let us observe the conditions. The victory will be ours in proportion as we keep all this evil under.
“This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
IF we would have our own sorrows soothed, our own wounds healed, and our troubled breasts calmed, we must meditate much on the wounds and sorrows of Jesus, when “it pleased the Lord to bruise Him,” when “He was wounded for our transgressions.”
THERE is a temptation when men do not please us, for us on our part to displease God. If we do not seek to please ourselves, but God, He will show us how to act when men displease us. “Even Christ pleased not Himself.”