By J.G. Bellet
In reading Matt. 1, 2, we learn, among other things, how the word of prophecy ought to be used; but we see also, how the carnal intellect treats it; and thus it furnishes a sound and healthful word to us, when we set ourselves down for a meditation on the prophetic Scriptures; for we are both guided and warned by what we find in those chapters.
The evangelist himself, under the Holy Ghost, shows us one of the right uses of prophecy. He calls the words of the prophets again and again to mind, in the course of those two chapters, as the realization of those words again and again passes before him. In Matt. 1 he remembers Isaiah 7, when the manner of the birth of the child was announced to Joseph by the angel. In Matt. 2 he calls Hosea 11 to mind, when he tells us that Joseph had to take the child down to Egypt. He does the same with Jeremiah 31, when Herod had sent forth and slain the young ones of Bethlehem. And again, when the child had been brought back from Egypt, and was taken to dwell at Nazareth, he remembers, as I may say, the sum of all the prophets, or a common testimony which they would all give in touching such a fact; and, as in their name, expresses it in these words: "He shall be called a Nazarene."
This illustrates, again let me say, one of the godly uses of the prophetic Scriptures. Of course, I know that all this was done in and by the evangelist through the Spirit of God. But it evidences how the word ought to be treasured up in the heart of the saints, that it may come forth with ease, and, as with divine authority, seal one occasion after another, as it arises. It is a beautiful exercise of the renewed mind. It is of ourselves judging what is right. It is discerning the time as we would the face of the sky. (Luke 12: 56, 57). This identifying, with holy intelligence, of the ancient oracle of the Spirit of God with the present acting of the hand of God, is one form of the obedience and service of faith and worship.
But again. In these same chapters we see the men of the east illustrating, for our further instruction, another use of prophecy. They had, as we may say, kept it in mind, though delivered centuries before. They had waited for it though it tarried, knowing that it would come and would not tarry. They had lived upon it, as I may again say, from the day of Balaam to the day of Christ. And they had counted all but second to it; for as soon as the old oracle was fulfilled, and the star which had been promised appears, they become obedient to the heavenly vision; and, according to it, begin a long untried journey in faith and hope.
This, surely, was another godly use of the word of prophecy, a very fine and noble-hearted use of it, the best and the highest. Beautiful, as we have already marked it, to see the evangelist himself, with a mind fraught, through the Spirit, with Scripture-recollections, able, in holy intelligence, to use and apply them; but it is something finer still, thus at personal cost, to act upon Scripture or prophetic communications. This was Abraham's or Daniel's use of the Word of God. When the approaching judgment of Sodom was announced to Abraham, he at once acts on what he heard, and intercedes for that wicked city because of the righteous that might be found there. When Daniel knows by the prophetic books that the seventy year's captivity was just running out, he set himself, by prayer and fasting, to seek mercies for his land and people. And after this manner these men of the east here use the Word of God which had been left among them by the prophet of old. And so ought we, beloved, still to use it. The word is not to be as a dead letter in the intellect. Nor is the head to be more busy with it and about it than the heart and the conscience, though this word may surely rebuke some of us; but we are to put it forth to use, and let it prove its value.
