THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SCRIPTURES IN A TIME OF RECOVERY

D. Robertson

Ezra 7: 10; Nehemiah 8: 1–3, 13–17

These two books speak of a time when God was active in the recovery of His people. They are interesting books, and one would recommend, especially to the younger brethren, that they are worth reading. They have a definite moral bearing on our own day. One sets out the principle of God’s sovereignty in days of recovery, that is the book of Ezra, and the other sets out the necessity of men being faithful to it, that is the book of Nehemiah. What also has interested me is that one of the features of this recovery is the revival of interest in the Scriptures. I would like to exhort the brethren to read the Scriptures, and to seek help from God to gain from them. Another has suggested that the right way to read the Scriptures is to put ourselves in the presence of the Scriptures and let them speak to us. So often we go to the Scriptures with our own thoughts but if I can say simply, when you go to the Scriptures it is almost like going into the presence of a person. The Scriptures contain the revealed mind of God and should be read in the presence of God, in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, that they might have a present voice to us.

So this man, Ezra, is called the priest, a man who was considering for God and for His pleasure. It says of him here, “Ezra had directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah”. That is a good exercise for each one of us, that we might direct our hearts to seek the law of Jehovah; we will find that in the written word. I think the law of Jehovah involves two things. Firstly it involves the will of God; that is the line of commandment, that is all in the Holy Scriptures for us. I am not speaking about the commandment merely in its Old Testament sense but the thought of commandment is carried forward into the present time. That involves that as we read the Scriptures we are enlightened as to the revealed will of God for us. So we are not haphazard in our lives, our lives are under direction, we know something of the commandment of God, and as Mr. Raven taught us, what is light to us becomes law to us.

The second thing involved in the law of Jehovah is the mind of God and that, I think, involves His word to us. So these two vital principles are set out in the Scriptures, the commandments of God and the word of God. It is a fine thing, in such a day as the present, that we can turn to the Scriptures and find the living word of God in them. You might say, Well, I sometimes read Scripture and it does not appear to be very living; but the idea is that the word of God becomes living in your soul, and that requires faith, it says in Hebrews 4, that the word of the report did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith (Hebrews 4: 2). So we need to seek help that we read the Scriptures as having faith; faith in the One who inspired them, that is God. Ezra was a man who directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah. May the same definiteness mark us, that we might direct our heart to seek the law of Jehovah.

Not only that, but it adds, “and to do it”. There is a word in that, especially for those who minister. We should not seek to minister to the saints without the exercise of being consistent with the word of God. I think God has a very great dislike of persons who would seek to minister, and who are not consistent with what they minister. Here is a man who not only “directed his heart to seek the law of Jehovah” but “to do it” and then “to teach in Israel”. I believe that is important for us, that the doing comes before the teaching, else there is no power in ministry. We must be concerned about the ministry that it is not blamed, that there is no cause of offence, but that in some measure, at least, there is consistency with the will and mind of God. One is sobered when speaking of these things, and tested, and measured. I believe we are in days, as our young brother prayed at the end of the reading, when reality is being demanded from us.

I want to go on to Nehemiah because it would seem to me that what had begun in Ezra in his desires to direct his heart in this definite way had borne fruit among the saints, and their minds were alerted to the importance of the Scriptures. It says, “And when the seventh month came, and the children of Israel were in their cities, all the people gathered together as one man to the open place that was before the water-gate; and they spoke to Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses”. There was a state brought about in Israel where they were alerted to the importance of the Scriptures. Beloved brethren, the Scriptures are important. I feel the necessity of a simple word to exhort all to read the Scriptures, to value them, and to become convicted of their importance.

So they are gathered here, as it says, “as one man to the open place that was before the water-gate”. Now I think that is a beautiful reference typically to the service of the Holy Spirit; He would help us as we set ourselves to read the Scriptures whether individually or collectively; as we take the matter up in a subject and humble way the Holy Spirit will be free. This open place that was before the water-gate suggests to me that there is a condition of liberty where the Spirit is unhampered in His service of bringing in the vital teaching of the Scriptures so that everything might be on a sound basis. There are so many alternatives available today but the Scriptures are the measure of all teaching. Is it according to the word of God? You remember the word, “To the law and the testimony!” Isaiah 8: 20. That is everything is measured as it stands related to the word of God in the Scriptures.

I believe where there is a subject state there is peculiar liberty for the Holy Spirit to open up the treasures of the Scriptures. It says of Ezra, “And he read in it before the open place that was before the water-gate from the morning until midday”. If in our collective gatherings we are to experience the opening up of the Scriptures we need the operation of the temple of God, and that can only be realised as room is made for the Holy Spirit. Capacity to understand the teaching and the liberty of the Spirit requires a moral basis. I believe these persons, typically speaking, are giving the Holy Spirit opportunity to open up the truth.

Now I come to verse 13. There is much that I have passed over which is of great interest, but I wanted to bring out one of the treasures that is discovered in the Scriptures; it says, “And on the second day were gathered together the chief fathers of all the people, the priests, and the Levites, to Ezra the scribe, even to gain wisdom as to the words of the law. And they found written in the law which Jehovah had commanded through Moses, that the children of Israel should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month”. What a discovery! Many of us have experienced that, how the Lord has used the Scriptures to open our understanding as to something preciously collective in a day of recovery. They discovered that it was God’s mind that the children of Israel should dwell in booths. That is that there should be the collective enjoyment of the rest that God has secured for them in the land. The feast of booths was the last of the feasts of Jehovah. It was the crown of all, when the people were to be found in rest, in the enjoyment of all that God had provided in the land. No doubt that involved what was secured for God’s own portion, for where the saints are in rest you can be sure that is where God is served. So they find they “should dwell in booths in the feast of the seventh month, and that they should publish and proclaim through all their cities, and at Jerusalem, saying, Go forth to the mount, and fetch olive-branches, and wild olive-branches, and myrtle-branches, and palm-branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths, as it is written”.

These items that are mentioned here involve beautiful suggestions. “Go forth to the mount” would suggest that elevation is in mind and energy to go up. These things are not discovered in the ways of the world. I think in many cases, if the brethren will pardon a very plain word, there is the possibility of persons being overwhelmed by worldliness. The world has assumed overwhelming propensities in our day. You will not find material there that will fit in in any way to these booths that Ezra is speaking of here. It says, “Go forth to the mount, and fetch olive-branches”. I think olive-branches would suggest the appreciation and the recognition of the Spirit’s service, one of the great matters that has assumed a place in the recovery in our own day. How blest we have been! You think of the progress of the recovery right up until the present moment, and all the treasure that has been brought to light; among these treasures the saints have been recovered to the appreciation—and the recognition of the Spirit’s Person and service. I think that is involved in the olive-branches. Then there are the wild olive-branches; that speaks of what we were in our histories but met through mercy. I do not know what you were but I know what I was. Who else could have met that but God? Who here does not appreciate the sovereignty of God? He took us up just where we were and blessed us on the ground of His mercy; that is the wild olive-branches. What a precious matter!

Then there are the myrtle-branches, l think myrtle suggests the idea of restfulness, involving that our souls are at rest with God. Paul speaks of the peace of God. There are things that rightly concern us, but even these things cannot disturb the peace of God in the soul, they only intensify the enjoyment of it. “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11: 28), that is the myrtle, and it is to be pervading the gatherings of the saints; it is a tranquillity you do not prove anywhere else. Then it says, “and palm-branches”, that is the celebration of God’s victory. It is a question of what God has done, “thanks to God, who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 15: 57. That is the palm-branches.

Then it says, “and branches of thick trees”. I think that refers to exclusivism. We may have become rather afraid of that word, but it is one of the principles of the recovery. It does not mean that any regard themselves as better than anyone else. It is what God has set for Himself on the principle of exclusivism, something that God can claim wholly for Himself, and we dare not break that principle down. Unity among the saints depends on separation from evil; to depart from that leads to break up and collapse. I think these thick branches hold up the whole booths. There are beautiful branches woven through them, but the structural thought in the thick branches is that they provide strength, like the principles of the house of God. If you take the thick branches away the whole thing comes down, no matter how beautiful it looks.

These matters, I believe, are of the deepest interest to God, and we cannot have them and other things as well, that is what Scripture would teach us. If you look at Isaiah, “Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, and instead of the nettle shall come up the myrtle”, Isaiah 55: 13. That word “instead” is important. The principle that governs Christendom is, ‘as well as’; that is how men would like to read this Scripture; as well as the thorn shall come up the cypress, and as well as the nettle shall come up the myrtle. We cannot have one thing mixed with another; it is instead of, that is the vital principle of exclusivism. We have the thing instead of the other thing. That means there is a cutting off of everything that cannot contribute to the booths and to the saints dwelling in them. To bring in extraneous matters is only to spoil the whole thing. It leads on to the day when God will finally remove the fruit of the curse from this whole earth; there will be no longer these troublesome things like the thorns and the nettles.

These are things that speak of the sting of sin, and what it has plunged the race into, and how it has affected even the physical creation. God is working towards the day when the effects of sin will be removed, and He has already established the basis for it in the cross of Christ.

Christ has borne the curse, and now God is working towards that day. It is antedated when the saints are dwelling together and enjoying the feast of booths, where there is a sense of blessing, tranquillity, and rest, so that, as it says here, “there was very great gladness”. I believe we taste this as we are together, when worldly things have no place amongst us, worldly principles are kept out, and our minds are concentrated on the wonderful treasures of Christianity. I am not preaching exclusivism as men speak of it, I am speaking of a divine principle, the principle of exclusivism. It really is related to God’s holiness, and a holy state in the saints, without which no one can see the Lord.

May we learn to direct our hearts in the law of Jehovah; to be governed by scriptural principles; and to let the word of God operate in us; so that our constitutions may become morally stronger, and we might become substantially, spiritually increased in the sense of the kind of man that the works of God can produce. What a need there is for persons who can stand in the presence of the breakdown and represent, even in such a day, something of the great thoughts of God. There were other things to be discovered, but one of the things they discovered was that the children of Israel should dwell in booths, and ‘beloved brethren, that has its own application to us. I believe the enemy has made a great attempt to divide and scatter, but God has helped us thus far.

May He help us further, and may we be with God so that these conditions of love might prevail, love for one another, love for the truth and love for divine Persons. How precious it is to love divine Persons collectively, to share together in the outflow of affection Godward, that really is worship. I do not know if you could define worship, but I believe it involves an intelligent outflow of affection to God. That is only possible where we ourselves are at rest, where we are happy in communion with one another, and where all is governed by the principles so clearly and so wisely given by God in the Holy Scriptures. May we learn to value them, and may we be convicted of their importance, for His name’s sake.

Address at Denton
27 May 1995