When after forty years' wandering in the wilderness the children of Israel were about to cross the Jordan and go into the promised land, Joshua gave them directions about following the ark, that they might know the way they should go; for, said he, "you have not passed this way heretofore." (Joshua 3:4)
Thus it should always be with the people of God. A new experience should be theirs every day. For forty years the children of Israel had been wandering in the wilderness, crossing and recrossing their path, going forward and backward, and making no real advancement. They were always in the same territory.
It need not have been so. All the progress that they made in all those years they could have made in a few days, if they had believed the Lord and obeyed His Word. Immediately after they left Egypt, the word of the Lord to Moses was, "speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward." (Exodus 14:15)
Going back was not in God's plan for them. The work which He did for them that day, in dividing the Red Sea, so that they might go forward, was amply sufficient to show them the power by which they were to advance. They were always to be treading upon new ground, and consequently they would always need His guidance.
Where they failed was in assuming that after one or two experiences they had learned it all, and could manage for themselves; and this is where people are most likely to fail today. "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they were compassed about seven days." (Hebrews 11:30)
The people had absolutely nothing to do with the capture of that city; invisible hands had thrown down its walls, without their lifting a finger; all they had had to do was to follow the Lord, and trust. Yet when the next city was to be taken, they thought that they knew all about how to do it. Ai was a much smaller city than Jericho, therefore they concluded that only a few of the people of Israel were needed to capture it. But they had not been that way before, and so as they trusted to themselves, they were defeated.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths." (Proverbs 3:5-6) "The way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walks to direct his steps." (Jeremiah 10:23)
There is nothing so simple but that it needs the wisdom of God to understand it thoroughly; nothing so small but that God's own power is needed in order that it be done properly. Someone will say: "I thought that we were to learn by experience, so that we could know how to do things right ourselves. What is the use of our experience, if we are never to apply it?"
Ah, the trouble is that we so often misapply it. We do not learn by experience. Take the experiences of the children of Israel. What do they teach us? Simply this, that when they trusted the Lord it went well with them, and that when they assumed that they knew how to do things themselves they made pitiable mistakes. That which all our experience should teach us is that "power belongs unto God," (Psalm 62:11) and that we have real success only as we trust Him. We are to learn by experience to trust the Lord. The fact that we go on trusting in ourselves, trying to do things, and failing, shows that we do not profit by experience.
How often after having by the grace of God successfully resisted a temptation, and having gained a victory over some besetment, have we assumed that now we knew how to do it, and have met with shameful defeat the next time. There is no saint so skilled in the devices of Satan, and so experienced in gaining victories, that he can win one alone. Though a man walk with God, as Enoch did, for three hundred years, he is no more able to walk alone the last day than he was the first. He is as absolutely dependent on the Lord for strength to resist at the close of that time as he was at the beginning.
The one lesson which God wishes men to learn is submission, and trust in Him. Only by His power are we kept. Never in time or in eternity can a saint of God stand or walk alone. The true overcomers are those who "have no confidence in the flesh." (Philippians 3:3)
So in Christian work, that is, work that has to do directly with others besides ourselves, why is it not more successful? There are thousands of earnest, zealous souls engaged in it; why are not greater results seen? One great reason is that the workers so often assume that experience has taught them how to do it. It is so easy and so natural to make this mistake. By the grace of God we have some measure of success. Straightway we think that now we have learned how the work is done. We went forth at first in fear and trembling, but now success has given us confidence, not in God, but in ourselves. It is vain confidence.
Only when we realize that the work is God's, and not ours, can success attend us. Consider this: When we think that, having become familiar with a certain work, we are able to do it ourselves, and do not feel the need of such absolute dependence on God as at first, but lean more to our own understanding, is it not plain that now we are going round and round over the same ground? We are making no advancement, else we should feel the need of the Lord's guidance in the new territory.
Does not this explain the whole matter of the little success that attends so much of the work that is supposedly done for the Lord? We have forgotten that it is the Lord's work, and that only He can do it, and have also forgotten that His word is, "Go forward!" (Exodus 14:15)
The Lord has a large place, which He wishes to bring us into. It is nothing smaller than "the breadth, and length, and depth, and height" (Ephesians 3:18) of infinity. But we have not been this way heretofore; in this vast field we need a Guide constantly, and we may have one. So although you have gained a thousand victories, trust God for the thousand and first as much as you did for the first one.
If you have preached five thousand times, remember that you don't know how yet. In order that real work may be accomplished, the old preacher must go before the people with as great distrust in himself, and as much sense of absolute dependence on God, as he did the first time he ventured to open his mouth.
It is always over new ways, and to fresh victories, that the Lord would lead us. "Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength." (Isaiah 26:4)--Present Truth, October 20, 1898--Joshua 3:4
E.J. Waggoner