One of the last judgements that God brought upon the Egyptians was the plague of flies. He emphasised on this occasion that He was to put a division between Pharaoh’s people and His own people, the Children of Israel. God warned Pharaoh: “I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thy houses: and the houses of the Egyptians shall be full of swarms of flies, and also the ground whereon they are” (Ex 8:21). On the other hand, God promised that in Goshen, where God’s people lived, “no swarms of flies shall be there”; and God said that this division would be a sign to Pharaoh “that I am the Lord in the midst of the earth” (v 22). This was the God, the only true God, who had a right to rule over all His creatures, Pharaoh included; but the ruler of Egypt had a duty to obey whatever God commanded.
Yet Pharaoh still went on in his rebellion against the God who created all things and was keeping breath moving in and out of Pharaoh’s lungs and so preserving him in life – as Daniel said when rebuking Belshazzar for his disregard of God’s authority. Pharaoh had gone on rejecting God’s command to release Israel, His chosen people, from bondage in Egypt.
The plague of flies was followed by one final plague: the slaying of all the firstborn in Egypt. Here again there was the same division: all the firstborn among Pharaoh’s people died, but the firstborn among the Israelites did not die. But, if the firstborn in an Israelite family in Egypt was to be spared, that family must obey God’s direction, and it would seem that they all did so. A lamb must be killed instead of the firstborn; it must be roasted in the fire and its blood must be applied to the doorposts and the lintel of the door to their house. The blood was identifying that house as the home of a family that were showing their readiness to obey God.
These were outward divisions. And the principle lying behind them carries over to another division today: there are those who keep God’s commandments outwardly and, on the other hand, those who reject them, and likewise the authority of God, the foundation of His laws. As was true in Israel in the time of the judges, those who rebel do what is right in their own eyes. We, in this generation, live in a secular society, a society that largely rejects religion – that says it is possible, and even assumes it is far better, to live without any god. That, sadly, is what a majority of people in the United Kingdom claim.
Yet those who live “without God in the world” have “no hope” (Eph 2:12). They have no hope that will hold them up in the face of calamity, death especially. They may seek help from family members and close friends, who may offer sincere help but cannot give hope if neither the would-be helpers believe in God or the one seeking help. Perhaps the one needing hope is nearing death; that person may be told, It will all soon be over, in the hope of giving some comfort. Yes, the bodily sufferings may soon be over, but what about the soul sufferings in a lost eternity? They, solemnly, will never come to an end for the unbeliever.
What people generally need is to submit to the authority and the dependability of Scripture when it makes known the truth about this life and what follows it. Beyond it is eternity, to be spent either in the unending blessedness and happiness of heaven or in the never-ending punishment of hell – according to how people have spent their lives in this world. All have sinned in Adam; they came into the world as fallen creatures. But the great question is: Did people turn from sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Saviour of sinners, who died in the place of sinners that He might bring them to God, to bring them into a state of reconciliation with Him? How urgent and necessary is everyone’s need to obey the call, “Seek ye the Lord while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Is 55:6,7).
We come now to a further division; it is among those who profess to believe in Christ. The distinction is between those, on the one hand, who have truly sought the Lord and, by His grace, have found Him, and those, on the other hand, who have misunderstood some spiritual experience they have had and have wrongly assumed that they were believers. Indeed one of the great weaknesses of the professing Church today is a reluctance to confront the danger of false professions. Too often, the conclusion is that when someone has drifted away from a Christian profession, it is because of backsliding, when the truth is that the person never was converted.
It is the duty of individuals: “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves” (2 Corinthians 13:5). And it is the duty of preachers to proclaim the principles which individuals are to use when they seek to examine themselves.
What are these principles? First, are there any signs of spiritual life in those who are, in some degree, examining themselves, or is spiritual life completely absent? Have they looked to Christ, and to Christ alone, as the One whom “the Father sent . . . to be the Saviour of the world”? Or are they looking to themselves, at least in part, to earn salvation, not realising that every supposed good work is stained by sin? Someone may claim, for instance, to be honouring their parents by a degree of obedience to them. But is that obedience perfect? In fact, unless the obedience is perfect, there can be no salvation; this is a fallen world. Salvation by works is impossible. Salvation is through dependence on Christ alone.
And is it their desire to be kept by the power of God, realising that they cannot keep themselves from sin? Certainly they are under a responsibility to flee from every evil way, but they need help from above so that they might become obedient, and remain so. Blessed are they who are continually dependant on God for the grace that will keep them walking on in the narrow way that leads to eternal life.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit”, the Saviour said, placing them on the right side of the line of division. They find nothing in themselves on which to depend for salvation; they know they must find in Christ all that will supply their spiritual needs. Matthew Poole comments on this first part of Matthew 5:3: “Happy are they who, though they be not rich in this world’s goods, yet have a spirit suited to their state and condition, not looking for their consolation here but, having a poor and low opinion of the world and all that is therein, looking after more excellent riches; and, in order to it, are of broken and contrite spirits for their manifold sins, and cannot entertain any proud opinion of their own righteousness, but flee unto the free grace of God and the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ”.
As individuals pass into the great eternity, a solemn division is made between God’s people and those who have remained in Satan’s kingdom to the end of their lives. It is the division between those who have, in this world, been accounted righteous for the sake of Christ, for they have believed in Him, and those who are still in their sins.
A further and final division will be seen on the last day of time, when Christ, the great Judge, will say to the first of the groups just distinguished: “Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world”. But to the second group He must in justice say, “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and His angels” (Mt 25:34,41). How earnest we should be to follow Paul in expressing before God the desire to “be found in [Christ], not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith” (Phil 3:9).