Article October 12, 1912 Issue

ONE OF OUR OBLIGATIONS

ABBIE J. BAIN.

After the election of readers in a branch church the church has before it a testing time. The first year's experience after new readers are installed is usually supposed to be a test of their ability, but close observation will reveal the fact that it is also a testing time for the congregation. In thinking upon this subject the writer recalled an experience of the children of Israel, and its study may be helpful to others. It began at the time when Moses, directed by God, struck the rock and the waters gushed forth in streams to supply the need of the famished and thirsting host of Israel. We can well appreciate their gratitude and their increased faith in "so great a God," one who could meet their need in this dire extremity, in the midst of the wilderness where there was no water. No doubt they felt, after such a proof as this, that they could rely upon His care for every need.

They were, however, soon put to the test in quite a different way. We read that they were attacked by the Amalekites, a tribe who made war upon them at various times, with the persistent intention of preventing their entrance into the promised land. We find these assailants appearing and reappearing from the time of Moses to the reign of Saul, always alert and aggressive. In this particular attack, Joshua was chosen leader of the armies of Israel to repel the Amalekites. The battle was being waged in the valley, and Moses, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, the record says, stood upon a very high place witnessing the scene. While Moses stood with hands raised heavenward, the Israelites prevailed; but when his hands became weary and heavy and sank to his side, immediately the tide of battle seemed to turn and the Amalekites prevailed over the Israelites. Then Aaron and Hur, we read, "stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Thus Joshua, leading the hosts of Israel, discomfited the Amalekites and won the victory.

How like this is our experience! We have been drinking of the waters which flow from the spiritual rock,—Christ, Truth. We have been filled with gladness that proofs of Truth's sustaining power have come to us in the wilderness of lost hopes, doubts, and fears. We feel that nothing could be too great for Truth to accomplish, and we want the world to share it with us, but we have yet to learn that after our enemy is repulsed in the open, it may reappear in a more subtle form. The Amalekites are still in the land, and history shows them to have been a persistent and aggressive enemy, appearing and reappearing, compelling the Israelites to war with them all the way from Egypt to Canaan. At this point in our church experience it is well for us to discern the enemy's mode of attack.

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