November 16

The Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. - Deuteronomy 32:9.

“THE Lord’s people” have always been comparatively few; yet not so few as some have imagined. Let us observe what God says concerning them all:-“I have reserved them to myself; they belong to me; I own them, and they acknowledge me.” So, as soon as God had delivered the law to Moses, he said, “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people.” Therefore we find Moses here saying, “The Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

The Lord claims them as his own, and they acknowledge the propriety of the claim. They are witnesses,-his witnesses. They are worshippers,-his worshippers. They are servants,-his servants; as he says in the following chapter:-“Remember these, O Jacob and Israel, for thou art my servant; I have formed thee; for thou art my servant, O Israel; thou shalt not be forgotten of me.” When John ascribes power and dominion to the Saviour, he says, “Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God.” If they were to reign, they were to reign for him; if they were to serve, they were to serve him. Therefore the glorified acknowledge, “Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.”

We were lost to him before, but now we are restored, by this purchase, to the owner, to whom every thing that pertains to us belongs by a thousand ties. Hence it is that none of us, if we are the Lord’s, live unto ourselves, “but whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” They are called “jewels.” “They shall be mine,” saith the Lord, “in that day when I make up my jewels.” They are his “garden;” they are his “vineyard.” God says, “I will water it every moment; I will keep it night and day, lest any hurt it.” We here see how we should behave to all the Lord’s people.

This is an improvement of the subject which David leads us to make, when he addressed those who had been opposing him:-“O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing?”-the old English word for lying. “But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself.” And God says to them, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye.” We are to judge of them not by their outward condition and advantages, but by their relation to him. They are sacred as belonging to him. Christians, by a sense of their own littleness and unworthiness, often feel as if they were nothing; but there is an importance attached to them arising from their relation to God.

What are others, whatever they may possess and enjoy, compared with “the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty”? Then they should not be depressed by sorrow, or sink under their trials, but should ever remember to whom they belong, and say, “The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in him.”