RESULTS FROM THE DISCIPLINE OF GOD
E. W. Johnston
It is interesting what our brother has referred to as to experiences. The point is, we are not to promote self in any sense of the word but Christ. God puts us through different exercises personally, and individually, in
writing a psalm. This psalm helped me early in my converted days, and we need to encourage one another. I think many exercises which are burdens are mainly concealed, and probably rightly so, retained in the soul with God Himself, for He is the source of all, and we are to accept things from Him. But the great thing is what results from it. It is a wonderful thing to me that God brings us into a condition of things where there is that which is for His pleasure, and is producing in us a divine formation. I think we should understand that there is a divine formation and it is perfect. We may not readily accept the process as each one of us knows, but let us understand that it is the hand of God that is moving in regard to this divine formation in love. The scripture says in Colossians that the Father “has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light” (Colossians 1: 12); I understand that involves a divine formation in our souls. That to me is a most wonderful thing. The spirit of a believer is to be controlled under the hand of God and formed as coming through times of pressure. It tests us to the very limit, and naturally we may tend to give up. All here know their own exercises, their own experiences in relation to God.
This result is, “Bless our God, ye peoples, and make the voice of his praise to be heard; Who hath set our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved”. Think of the way God has operated initially. I think it is a wonderful thing to go back in your life to the very beginnings as to how God took you up, to the first feelings that came into your soul, to the first impressions you had of Jesus. Some of us might not be so privileged as to be brought up in a believer’s household, but when the divine work begins your soul is immediately turned to God. We should ever maintain our first links with God, and return there according to custom in keeping with the custom of Jesus (Luke 22: 39). The manhood of Jesus is something for us to meditate upon, just to go over in our spirits. Paul speaks about the “supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”, Philippians 1: 19. There is thus promoted what God sees for His pleasure here in this scene, people like Jesus!
We get here, “For thou, O God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us, as silver is tried”. The refining is going on at the present time, we are being refined. If we accept the discipline of God, if we move in relation to the Spirit of God, we shall find that God is forming something in us, refinement is taking place, “Thou broughtest us into a net, thou didst lay a heavy burden upon our loins”. As brought into a net, you are restricted in your movements. Then what you have learned results in an expression of your heart by your mouth and your tongue to God; to the God who loved us! What a man Jacob was, with his ideas and views twisted, but God took him up. There was the time when he wrestled with God when he said, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”, Genesis 32: 26. Let us lay hold of that, ‘I will not let thee go’, be determined to be real in these things. Refinement brings in reality, and reality brings in refinement. So it is a question of being with God in discipline, and to maintain our links with Jesus all the way through. He has been here. He has gone lower than any one of us could ever go; His sufferings were beyond what any one of us is able to suffer. It is wonderful to ponder on the sufferings of Christ; books have been written, and hymns have been written, regarding the sufferings of Jesus. What an occupation for the soul and for the heart, so that we may be built up. Think of the refinement it brings in to what God is doing with us.
Then there will be results in the burnt-offerings reminding us in type of Jesus, the One who was here absolutely for the will of God. I was thinking recently as to how man, in his aspirations for worldly wealth and so on says, ‘I will’. As the man who said, “This will I do—I will take away my granaries and build greater”, Luke 12: 18. The devil said, ‘I will ascend’. Jesus said, “Not my will, but thine be done”, Luke 22: 42. That is the spirit of Jesus.
These are just simple thoughts as to what ascends to God as a result, in the typical way of burnt-offerings and fatted beasts, and the incense of rams, all for divine pleasure. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh
3 September 1991