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His burden.
"And unto one He gave five talents, to another two, and to another one: to every man
according to his several ability" (Matt. 25: 15).
"All these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as
He will" (I Cor. 12: 11).
"But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself
alone, and not in another, for every man shall bear his own burden" (Gal. 6: 4, 5).
We have not been careful to draw attention to the different dispensations that the
above scriptures represent, our idea being merely to show that, in all dispensations, true
service must be accepted and regulated according to the threefold principle of
Numb. 4: 49. Service that is not according to plan is disobedience, a waste of time and
opportunity, robbing someone else of service that might have been rendered, eliminating
any possibility of reward, and resulting in failure to glorify the Lord. The appeal to
apparent success, or expediency, and all the shifts of human reasoning leave us unmoved.
The word of God, unaltered, is our basis of salvation, and nothing lower or less can be the
basis of our service.
To every reader of this magazine we make a personal appeal. See that you have your
"marching orders" direct from the Word of God. If you have, happy are you. But if there
is the slightest tampering with "His commandment", the slightest departure from "his
service", the smallest attempt to avoid "his burden"--what kind of servants are you?
As we have already seen, the people of Israel carried the ensigns of the cherubim,
God's great pledge that He will surely accomplish His purposes of man's redemption
and restoration. An obedient Israel will have the inestimable blessedness of being
fellow-workers together with God. In like manner obedient servants of God to-day may
enjoy this privilege; but what a world of tragedy is found in the closing words of the
second numbering recorded in Numb. 26::--
"These are they that were numbered by Moses and Eleazar the priest, who numbered
the children of Israel in the plain of Moab by Jordan near Jericho. But among these there
was not a man of them whom Moses and Aaron the priest numbered, when they
numbered the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. For the Lord had said of them,
They shall surely die in the wilderness. And there was not left a man of them, save Caleb
the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun" (Numb. 26: 63-65).
I Cor. 9: 24 - 10: 13 and I Cor. 3: 11-15 show us that Israel in the wilderness and
Belshazzar in Babylon are not the only ones of whom it shall be said: `Numbered . . . . .
weighed . . . . . and found wanting."
May we truly pray the apostle's first prayer, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
(Acts 9: 6).