約伯倫理 第 262 章

Verse 21. — But they that shall be left shall be taken away out of them. 73. Whom the world despises, God chooses. — Whom else do we understand by "the rest that are left," if not those despised by this world? Whom, while the present age chooses them for no use of any glory, it abandons as though they were the least and unworthy. Yet the Lord is said to take away the remnant of the world, because He deigns to choose the despised of this age, as Paul bears witness, who says: Not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but the foolish things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the strong (1 Cor. 1:26, 27).

This is well signified in the books of Kings by the Egyptian boy who grew faint on the way, whom the Amalekite abandoned sick upon the journey, but whom David found, refreshed with food, and made the guide of his own march; he pursued the Amalekite, found him feasting, and utterly destroyed him (1 Sam. 30:13). For what is it that the Egyptian boy of the Amalekite grows weary on the way, save that the lover of the present age, covered over with the blackness of his own sin, is often left weak and despised by that very age, so that he cannot run along with it, but, broken by adversity, grows sluggish? Yet David finds him, because our Redeemer, truly mighty of hand, sometimes turns to His own love those whom He finds despised by the glory of the world.

He feeds him with food, because He refreshes him with the knowledge of the Word. He chooses him as guide of the way, because He makes him also His own preacher. And he who could not follow the Amalekite becomes David's guide, because he whom the world abandoned as unworthy not only, being converted, receives the Lord into his own mind, but by preaching leads Him also into the hearts of others. Guided indeed by this man, David finds the Amalekite feasting and destroys him, because by these very preachers Christ destroys the world's gladness among those whom the world scorned to have as companions. Since, therefore, the Lord very often chooses those whom the world abandons, it is rightly said now: They that shall be left shall be taken away out of them. There follows: