DIVINE RESOURCES

Exodus 15: 22–27

PAG It is in my mind that we should enquire together about divine resources. This scripture has been before me for some time and in particular the last clause in verse 26, “I am Jehovah who healeth thee”.

God has infinite resources under His hand and His desire is that they should be taken up by us in order that we might be set forward. Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and they went a certain distance, and then they moved again and came to Elim and encamped there; we know that after that they journeyed again. God has in mind that we should be set forward as depending on divine resources, but He is towards us in blessing too; “I am Jehovah who healeth thee”. They had just come out of Egypt and would have been exposed to the manners and customs of Egypt. They had tasted Egypt’s food; but God would set them free from that. So the first thing that He does for them is to show them wood; He showed Moses wood. That means it was there. Moses was not sent away to fetch it or to collect it; it was there. And wood speaks to us, as I think we have been taught, of the manhood of Christ. I thought that the hymn given at the beginning of the reading, “Thy grace, O Lord, that measured once the deep, Of Calv’ry’s woe” (Hymn 293), was God showing us Christ, just as we came together, having in mind that we might draw from Him, and that the bitter waters of death might become sweet; for we have to accept that, that death applies to us. But He has been through death and He is out of death now. Could we enquire together about these things?

AMcK There is certainly plenty to take account of in the Lord Jesus, is there not? What did you have in mind particularly as to Jehovah showing him wood? It is quite distinctive, is it not?

PAG Well the fact is that it was there. The Lord Jesus is always available. I might not just recognise Him, or I might be distracted by other things. They were taken up with the bitterness of the waters, but God had in mind that they should be taken up with something else, and I think the Holy Spirit serves us to set our minds on another Man in another world. I know the wood here would suggest Christ in manhood, and we can feed on that, and get benefit from it, but I think it is as though God said to Moses, the answer is there, and it is in Christ. Does that seem right to you?

AMcK Yes. The answer seems to come very quickly does it not? He casts it into the waters and the waters became sweet. They were impossible before were they not? They became sweet.

PAG What you say is very helpful. The waters were impossible. And naturally for us to accept that death has passed upon us is impossible. Naturally it is so unpalatable, but really when we come to it that Christ has been through death, and we accept the truth of baptism for ourselves (that is that we have to go out of sight), it is not impossible because He has been raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father. He went through death and He is out of it, and He becomes our objective, rather than ourselves.

JSp The waters becoming sweet, would it relate to what is the “good and acceptable and perfect will of God”, Romans 12: 2?

PAG It would. We have to prove it, do you think? It is not something that we just come to automatically, but we have to prove it. Say more as to what is in your mind.

JSp Well the waters were unacceptable initially, but when we commit ourselves fully to the compassions of God, we find it becomes acceptable and perfect, do you think?

PAG Yes. The compassions of God are important, do you think? Paul beseeches by the compassions of God (Romans 12: 1), as it were saying to these saints to whom he is writing that God is for them, having already said that “If God be for us, who against us?”, Romans 8: 31. Really God is showing Israel that He is for them; He has brought them out of Egypt, He has brought them through the Red Sea, but that is not the end of the matter, He is still for them.

MWG This must have been a very trying experience for Israel. Is there some expression of God’s kindness? He loved these people, and He would provide for them in this very difficult situation.

PAG Yes, Egypt had been trying for them, they were under hard task masters, but this was trying in a different way. They were out of Egypt; but what were they going to do? They had gone three days, they found no water, and then when they did find water they could not drink it. And sometimes we are brought in our experience to the point where we say, Well what am I going to do? But if I may speak simply, God only ever has one answer to that question, which is Christ.

JMcK What does Moses represent here?

PAG Moses is leading them. It says he “brought Israel”, so I suppose there is what is authoritative connected with Moses. But even as to the apostles, what they had as Paul says “I received from the Lord”, 1 Corinthians 11: 23. He did not just go on his own charges.

JMcK The solution seems relatively simple, but it requires that Moses is obedient and that he is acting under God, do you think?

PAG I think that is right and yet the people murmured against Moses; but he cried to Jehovah so he did not murmur back. He cried to Jehovah and Jehovah showed him wood, so he was dependent in this setting. You might ask whether he ought to have seen the wood, but the steps that were being taken here had in view that the people should be educated. God was taking them step by step, and He does that with us too.

GBG Do you think, involved in that education, is that the wood was cast into the waters? There has already been a Man here who has been amenable to God’s will, and that is a help to us; that Man was completely for God’s pleasure.

PAG Would that remind us that the Lord accepted great indignity at the hands of men? He was smitten, He was buffeted, He was spat upon, clothed with a purple robe, and they put a crown of thorns on His head. They gave Him a reed. They said, Prophesy, who struck thee? In that sense He was cast into the waters, but it was all in submission to the will of God.

GBG But He did not resist all these indignities. He actually took them from God’s hand.

PAG I was thinking just coming to the meeting, of the scripture in Peter as to Christ, “who, when reviled, reviled not again; when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously”, 1 Peter 2: 23. He accepted it in submission, and not only did He accept it, but He committed it all back to God.

JAG The wood grew up here, the manna comes down from heaven. Would Isaiah 53 help us to see how the water becomes sweet?

PAG That is very helpful. You are thinking of “he shall grow up before him as a tender sapling, and as a root out of dry ground”, Isaiah 53: 2. The first impression they have is that “when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire him”; but then they look again, and say “we did regard him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted”, Isaiah 53: 4.

JAG The thought of the sweetness of Him is in my mind; how the Lord has suffered here, how “the pleasure of Jehovah shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied”, Isaiah 53: 10, 11. It is a very full chapter, is it not?

PAG So do you think that that is why in many cases in the offerings the thought of a sweet odour is connected with Him? There was something uniquely for God’s own heart, but it is intended that there should be something for us too in the contemplation of Christ’s manhood.

JS It is there He tested them. Do you think we may be put through circumstances that are irksome, testing for us, but it changes the complexion of them when we see that God has His resource in Christ? We learn how He went through according to the will of God, and we accept the circumstances as God’s will.

PAG Yes, if as the scripture says we are “put to grief by various trials” (1 Peter 1: 6), then it also says, “that the proving of your faith”; now it is our faith that is “much more precious than of gold which perishes” (1 Peter 1: 7). God does not test us in order to break us. He tests us in order to prove the value of His own work in us.

JS I think that is the point of it; to prove His own work. That is very reassuring, and in that process we learn what He has provided in the way of resource to see us through, do you think?

PAG Yes; what Moses says of the people in verse 16 of chapter 15 is, “Till the people pass over that thou has purchased”. God is testing His own people. He is testing His own work; He has paid a great price to purchase them and He is not going to let them go.

JCG You mentioned baptism. Romans 6 says, “For if we are become identified with him in the likeness of his death, so also we shall be of his resurrection” (Romans 6: 5). That is in view of life to make forward progress, and does that leave the murmuring behind?

PAG Yes it does. They come to Elim, the twelve springs of water and the seventy palm trees; they come to an area where life can be sustained. It is sustained in persons, so there are persons who are operating under the administration of the Spirit. My impression is that the seventy would suggest persons who have known victory. God would have us to come through to victory, because Christ has won the victory.

JAG So would you say that it is all preparation for the sanctuary?

PAG Yes, go on, that is very helpful.

JAG “The Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared” (Exodus 15: 17). They are under the hand of the Lord and being prepared for the sanctuary.

PAG Yes. It is not as men might think of testing, to toughen us up; it is in mind that we should go in to where God would have us to be. God says of the mercy-seat, speaking to Moses, “And there will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee”, Exodus 25: 22. He has prepared a place where He will speak and He wants us to be there.

APG I was thinking of Naomi, she felt the bitterness of what she had been through, but did she find the sweetness in the mighty man of wealth? You are thinking of resources that are available in Christ.

PAG Yes she did, and Naomi and Ruth came back at the time of the barley harvest. They came back at the point when the freshness of life is seen in resurrection. Christ’s risen life was really before the people. And then she found there was a man whose resources far exceeded everything she had known before. Naomi and her husband had gone away because things were difficult, and she had suffered loss after loss, but when she came back she found there were resources that really had never entered her mind before.

EJM Our brother has referred to Romans 6. The chapter finishes with “ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life” (Romans 6: 22). It is in order that there might be a yield do you think?

PAG Yes there should be a yield for God. I think “the end eternal life” would link with what was said about the sanctuary. God would have us come into the sphere of things where His love is known and enjoyed; the centre is Christ.

JAB Why did God not show them different water? In other instances in the wilderness journey when they did not have water, God brought it forth, or He told Moses how to bring forth water out of the rock. But the water was not exactly replaced here, it was made sweet. Say more about the meaning of that. The hymn says, “Death’s bitter waters met our thirst, But Thou didst make them sweet” (Hymn 271); He has not taken them away.

PAG Well you can help as to it; there are certain exercises or experiences that believers go through, and we have to go through them. We cannot say, I do not much care for that, I would rather have something else. To start at the basics, the experience of finding out that I am a sinner and I need a Saviour, I cannot avoid that. There is not another way round. And really there are certain experiences in our lives that teach us that without the Holy Spirit we really cannot make any soul progress. We cannot do it ourselves. Does that bear on the question?

JAB Yes it does. So that if I gather what you are meaning rightly, while the wood is a resource, and then what we come to in verse 27, involving many resources, in one sense the waters of Marah become a resource too, do they not? a resource that in our experience as believers we cannot do without.

PAG I agree. When Philip had spoken to the eunuch about the Lord Jesus from Isaiah 53, the eunuch says, “Behold water; what hinders my being baptised?”, Acts 8: 36. Instead of saying that the thought of going out of sight is abhorrent to me, he said, I know I must go out of sight. So that water as you rightly say became a resource rather than a challenge to him.

DTP The bitterness of the exercises in a believer’s life and pathway bring a challenge to the soul, it casts you back on divine resource. They had proved God’s power. They had been brought out on the ground of redemption, but there is something more, a believer has to learn in their soul experience, in view of development, and when the bitterness is gone through the sweetness of Christ fills the soul.

PAG That is helpful, and you speak from greater experience than I have. They had come through the Red Sea and they had seen the waters piled up, they had seen in type Christ’s death for them; but I was struck by the fact that this is a footstep towards the Jordan when they were going to have to accept their death with Him. It took them forty years to get there. God is gracious and He wants to lead us on.

DTP That is what I was thinking of, just for younger brethren to lay hold of that. They need to grow in their souls and that comes about by being amongst the saints, and from their own individual links with the Lord Himself.

PAG It involves the recognition that “whom the Lord loves he chastens”, Hebrews 12: 6. Now that is not easy to accept, but it is true none the less.

AMcK Paul went through a very difficult experience and he says that he thrice besought the Lord (2 Corinthians 12: 8), but the difficulty was not removed. He was given the Lord’s grace and it was sufficient.

PAG That is important. “My grace suffices thee”, 2 Corinthians 12: 9. What lack is there with the grace of the Lord Jesus? Paul says to the Corinthians “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”, 2 Corinthians 8: 9. So he says to them, ye know it, and yet sometimes I act as though I thought it was not sufficient. But we do know it, and it was expressed in its fulness at the cross. It is available now and it is just the same.

AMcK Yes. We usually say that Paul was better off with the thorn with the Lord’s grace, but then sometimes these are easy words to say, are they not?

PAG They are, and then we go through an experience that does prove bitter. But at the end of it we have gained some impression of Christ that we did not have before, and that is a great blessing.

AMcK I was just going to ask about that. He says, “I am Jehovah who healeth thee”. Could you say something about the healing aspect?

PAG This is a very great name of God, “I am Jehovah”. He had said to Moses “I AM” (Exodus 3: 14), and He had made known His name Jehovah, the name of the covenant. Not only is He the “I AM”, the self-existing One, but also He says, “I am Jehovah”; so He is the One who wants to be known, and who desires that we enter into relationship with Him. And then One who is infinitely great and eternal, immediately says, “who healeth thee”. What grace! One might say that this would be a moment where there ought to be worship, and no doubt there should be. But instead of saying, I am Jehovah and I am seeking a response, He says, I have put things right for you after you have come out of Egypt, so that you might be in liberty before Me.

TCM You mentioned that Jehovah had showed him wood. From the record it does not say that He said that they should cast it into the waters. What would you say about that?

PAG God would, as He educates us, give us right spiritual instincts, so that when a ministry of Christ is presented I would know how it applies to me; because there is living ministry. We have what we have on the bookshelves, and are very grateful for that. It is of immense importance, “an outline of sound words”, as mentioned in 2 Timothy 1: 13 I suppose, but there is what is current as well, and a current ministry of Christ must have a living application. It cannot be anything other than that, otherwise it is not a ministry of Christ.

JAG We are delivered from Egyptian independence, so that we become like the wood and become dependent.

PAG Well I was thinking of that. Why did God say He would heal them? He had brought them out after all, what else did they need? But the influences of Egypt would still be with them, and we know later on (in Numbers) their taste for the manna diminished, and they asked again for the food of Egypt; they wanted it back again, so their taste had not been changed. In relation to independence, it would be in your mind that the king of Egypt says that his river is his own, he made it for himself (Ezekiel 29: 3). I feel the need to learn that I have no resources in myself apart from those that God gives me, and nothing else will do. Is that in line with your impression?

JAG Yes. I do not think we can get the gain of divine resources unless we are consciously dependent upon them.

PAG They came this way and God taught them what it was to depend on Him, and when they came to the Jordan they had to be utterly dependent because without following the ark they would not have got through.

JCG The ark was of acacia wood and it has been drawn attention to as being overlaid with gold, which typifies the greatness of the person of Christ. But the character of the wood was durable and lasting and dependable, bringing out something of the character that God was looking for, and which was found in Christ in manhood here.

PAG If we depend on Egypt, does scripture not tell us that it becomes a broken reed and we lean on it and it pierces our hand (2 Kings 18: 21)? It is no good, but if we depend on Christ, He is the foundation of everything that is for God. That is a foundation that cannot be replaced. Paul says, “other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 3: 11. So everything that is going to be built up for God rests on that one foundation, and we can lean on it as hard as we want because it will never give way.

JSp I was thinking of Moses’ song, the fulness that is in it. It speaks about His mercy, His strength. Does that not encompass everything there is for us, to give us a good start on our journey?

PAG Yes it does. We come by way of repentance and it is necessary that we should, but what God has in mind is “that whosoever believes on him” (that is Christ) “may not perish, but have life eternal”, John 3: 16. But then He has in mind that we come into the present enjoyment of eternal life, and His resources and His mercies and His blessings towards us have that in view, so that He should be served.

RGr Do you think that what Paul says would bear on this when he says to the Corinthians all things are yours (1 Corinthians 3: 22)? He includes life and death in that. We begin to find that not only are the positive blessings, and the Lord Himself, and the gift of the Spirit, for us surely, but what appears to be adverse as accepted from God, is for us too, and would bring about the divine end, do you think?

PAG The scripture says “if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live” (Romans 8: 13); well that has in mind that we should live to God not to ourselves, so what you say about these resources is important. God is not putting things in front of us to stumble us or to turn us aside, but rather that we might learn from them. Mr Darby’s hymn says;

‘In the desert God will teach thee

What the God that thou has found—

Patient, gracious, powerful, holy;

All His grace shall there abound’. (Hymn 76)

What a God He is, and everything we need He has prepared for us. As you say, some of it might involve grief, and the grief is real; some of it might involve suffering, and the suffering is real, but the end is Christ.

MWG And do we find that what God supplies is more than we actually ask for? I would have settled here for water that was drinkable, but it is sweet. What do you feel about that?

PAG You have put it better than I could. God has not in mind that we should settle for subsistence. When the younger son came back in Luke 15 he was going to say, “make me as one of thy hired servants” (Luke 15: 19), but God had no such thing in mind for him. The father said, “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet” (Luke 15: 22). This is the God of whom the scripture says that He is “able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think”, Ephesians 3: 20.

KW It says, “ye have tasted that the Lord is good”, 1 Peter 2: 3. Do you think that is what they would have said after this experience? I was thinking of what you said; the world has resources which probably are attractive to us all in one way, but what you get here, and what God is providing is something day by day for our sustenance and for our good. It is sweet, for our benefit, and for our satisfaction, is it not?

PAG What was said earlier as to the durability of the acacia wood is in contrast to the world’s resources. Whatever else they are, they are not durable. I do not want to be diverted on to these things, but just to put it as simply as this; if we listen to worldly music, it is not the same this year as it was last year, and next year if we are still here it will be something else again. If we listen to the songs of Zion, and to the praises of Israel, they are the same. They are the same in character as they were two thousand years ago, and they will be the same, as we touch what is eternal. They do not change, and Christ does not change; that is what sustains us. We sing in the gospel the hymn 122 ‘Loved with a love that’s unchanging’. Now we might be thankful for that when we are converted, but I think we grow more thankful for it as we go on.

JW You have quoted that verse, ‘In the desert God will teach thee’; God knew Himself what was there, but He teaches us what is there. So it was not a mistake. They came to Marah, that was not a mistake was it?

PAG No. That is very important. It was not a diversion. It was part of God’s teaching, and what you say about God knowing what is there, reminds that God knows the end from the beginning; but He takes us a certain path in order that we may learn more about Him.

JW He is very generous with us because at the end they came to Elim. It does not appear as if there is any murmuring there. There was an area of refreshment there.

PAG Well as we said the murmuring was really left behind when the sweetness of the waters was known.

GBG You were mentioning that as we go on Christ becomes more precious to us. We enjoy the sweetness. Do you think Paul in prison is an example of that? At the end of his life he was not repining or complaining in prison, the sweetness could be seen in these few verses in Philippians 2 in regard of Christ. There is the sweetness that Paul was enjoying, which helped and sustained him in his trying circumstances, do you think?

PAG I think that. I have often been struck, in that light, with the last words of David. He says, “The ruler among men shall be just, Ruling in the fear of God; And he shall be as the light of the morning, like the rising of the sun, A morning without clouds; When from the sunshine, after rain, The green grass springeth from the earth” (2 Samuel 23: 3, 4); these are among the last words of David. You might say his last preoccupation recorded in scripture was with the glory of Christ, rather than the fact that he was old and dying. His last preoccupation was with the glory of Christ.

JCG Say more about the testing; “There he made for them a statute and an ordinance; and there he tested them”. Does it have some bearing on the bringing out of the glory of God’s work in the saints?

PAG That is what I had in mind. He made for them a statute and an ordinance. That suggested that God was now satisfied that these were persons capable of fulfilling His will. He tested them and then he made a statute and an ordinance for them. He said, now I know that you will be able to keep what I have asked you to keep because I have tested you. Would that be right?

JCG I think that is helpful. I was thinking that there is a parallel in the man in John 9 where the Lord heals him and then leaves him. He is tested by the opposition of the Pharisees and their violence, but he remains steady and constant; he obviously had an appreciation of Christ, had he not?

PAG And he was willing to accept, you might say, a statute or an ordinance because the Lord says to him, “Thou, dost thou believe on the Son of God?” and he says, “And who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?” (John 9: 35, 36), so he was accepting the Lord’s commandment, he was recognising Him as Lord. He says to the Lord, If you are telling me that I have to believe on the Son of God that is what I am going to do.

JS It goes on to say, “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah”. Do you think it would set us so that we are looking for some living fresh indication from God?

PAG I think so. God is sustaining life through the Spirit, so the springs of water suggest what is constantly flowing. It is not a stagnant area of things at all, there are springs of water.

JS That is what I was thinking. It is good, I think, when we come to a meeting and we are looking for something that will apply to ourselves.

PAG That is so. Do you think also that what applies to you might not be what applies to me, but it does not mean that we both cannot get something from the meeting?

JS Well if we know anything about divine resources, He is able to satisfy every living thing.

PAG I was thinking about that, to satisfy the desire of every living thing. So that every brother and sister in this room young or old can carry away an impression of Christ, and even if every impression is different it is still of the same Person.

JS These impressions are going to be carried forward in view of the service of God, providing substance for it, do you think?

PAG Yes, they are going to form substance I believe, for what is eternal. They will be offered to God in eternity, but we can touch it now in the service of God.

JAG Do these twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees involve spiritual administration, so that we learn to do things as God would do them, and so God is reflected in the local meetings, wherever they are?

PAG I think that. It says in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 4, “But there are distinctions of gifts, but the same Spirit”, so it all involves the administration of the Spirit. I know gift is general and not local, but what is in mind is that, as under the control and direction of the Spirit, the people of God are fed. But then in the local setting as you suggest, the acceptance of the rights and place of the Spirit would mean that our local meetings are carried forward in accordance with the mind of God.

JAG So there would be some reflection of the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace, one body, and so forth; it may be feebly seen, but it is there.

PAG The uniting bond of peace is important because without peace our spirits are unsettled, but the Holy Spirit is able for that and can bring about peace.

JAB I know you had a lot in mind about “for I am Jehovah who healeth thee”, but all that God says here in verse 26 about diligently hearkening to His voice, and doing what is right in His eyes, and inclining thine ears to His commandments, and keeping all His statutes, suggests that the voice of God is a resource. I just wondered if you could open up more of what you had in mind as to divine speaking here. It is really the first time that God has spoken to them in the wilderness after the experience of the Red Sea, and what He says here is, in a sense, a summary of all that He is going to say to them in the next four books.

PAG In Psalm 19 it says that “The law of Jehovah is perfect, restoring the soul” (Psalm 19: 7), and I wonder if that links with what we have here. Then it goes on to say as to these various things that are brought in. “They are more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold; and sweeter than honey and the dropping of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is thy servant enlightened”, (Psalm 19: 10, 11). The voice of God and His commandments bring in a resource that we could not otherwise have. Do you think there is any link with the fact that the Lord is spoken of in John’s gospel as the Word, and really in John’s gospel the fulness of divine resources in Christ are opened up to us? Would that link with your thought?

JAB That is helpful, and I think it would link with what you said already about what is unchanging. The divine will expressed in revelation must be unchanging. But when we come into the light of that, and that light results in formation, that is a tremendous resource for the believer. You see people in the world floundering around because they have no anchor for the soul, and they have no set of reference points. Morally they are nowhere. I need to value more divine speaking in revelation. All that we know as truth, and it is all in Him, the One who was the Word, is a great resource, is it not?

PAG In Galatians when a challenge arises Paul says, “But what says the scripture?” (Galatians 4: 30), and that would involve the divine standard. But in Romans where there is a question raised in chapter 11, it says, “But what says the divine answer to him?” (Romans 11: 4). So there are the Scriptures on the one hand setting the divine standard, but there is the present speaking of God; “what says the divine answer to him?”. We can still get that in the temple.

JS Do you think that would be embraced in what the Spirit is saying to the assemblies?

PAG Yes. So it is not what the Spirit has said, but it is the current speaking of the Spirit. What would you say about the speaking of the Spirit?

JS I think it would come through someone. It would have the mark of divine speaking, the Spirit’s voice, do you think?

PAG It would. I wondered if the twelve springs of water might involve the speaking of the Spirit; there were twelve springs, so it must be persons. But I am just exercised for myself to understand more about the distinctiveness of the Spirit’s voice. We speak of hearing the Lord’s voice, and it is good that we should, but to be able to distinguish the Spirit’s voice would be important and require sensitivity, do you think?

JS I think so, and do you think the suggestion in these twelve springs of water is that there would be something fresh and living about it? We are thankful for the ministries on the bookshelves; I think the Lord had in mind that the Spirit’s speaking in a present sense, would continue.

PAG Yes. So when it speaks of the Spirit taking the things of His and announcing them to us (John 16: 15), that is a present demonstration of the glory of Christ intended to meet whatever circumstances may prevail at the time.

EJM Chapter 16 of Exodus, when Aaron spoke to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and the people turned towards the wilderness, when the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud, is that like the ministry?

PAG Yes. You might say turning toward the wilderness was negative, but they were turning their back on Egypt. They were turning away from what had held them, and they were ready to move. And as they were ready to move God endorsed that by His glory appearing in the cloud. He would encourage them in that way that the step they had taken was a right one.

JAG “Saved in the power of his life”, Romans 5: 10.

PAG That is a great subject, saved in the power of His life. That involves Christ’s present position. The power of His life involves not just that He is risen, but that He is ascended and glorified, and He is seated at God’s right hand; that life is now available to us as power. I have been thinking recently of the things that are spoken of in Scripture as linked with power. There is power in the blood. We might think of the cleansing by the blood, but there is power in the blood and there is power in the life of Christ.

JD This is really God’s great answer to His being taken from the earth. You referred to Philip and he quotes from Isaiah 53, but he sums it up by saying, “for his life is taken from the earth” (Acts 8: 33), and I wondered if that was like the wood being cast into the waters. But then God comes in and helps us to work that principle out, and will put none of the complaints of the Egyptians upon us. And then we have this area of eternal life, with the twelve springs of water, where there is what is formed in persons that answers to all this.

PAG So that our lives too are taken from the earth, and they are in relation to another Man in another world. Is that what is in your mind?

JD So God would give us another power which is Christ’s life and where it is now, do you think?

PAG Exactly. It is all leading us to where Christ is.

RGr Would you link this matter of speaking directly with the healing?

PAG I would link listening to the healing. In most meeting rooms, in most places there is a preaching of the gospel every week, and every week I believe God speaks. But the healing comes in when somebody listens.

AMB Would that involve the truth of the kingdom, which seems to me to be implied by what God says to the people in verse 26, including the matter that you are alluding to as to hearkening to the voice of Jehovah thy God? Do you think that as we come into what the kingdom means, in becoming subject to the Lord Jesus, then we are able to hear His voice, and we are also going to be sensitive, and be able to hear the Spirit’s voice? Then we will enjoy the things that are spoken about in verse 27, do you think?

PAG The Lord puts it in a very simple way when He says, “If ye love me, keep my commandments”, John 14: 15. So that we move from the point where we are simply thankful (and we are indeed thankful for the healing), to the point where we recognise the source of it and we want to be subject to Him.

AMB That is very attractive because it would take us back to Isaiah 53 again, “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 5). And the believer can never go far without remembering that, do you think? It would involve our affections and would draw us to Christ.

PAG It would and what would impress itself on our souls is that “He shall see of the fruit of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied” (Isaiah 53: 11). In our hearkening to the speaking, coming into the good of the healing that is available, there is something to delight the heart of Christ.

JCG I was thinking that your reference to the twelve springs of water is very important for us currently. It would save us from dropping into any formality or routine. We are creatures of routine naturally, and we need to have the Spirit to get the voice of Jehovah. I was thinking of the Lord’s references in John 14 and 16 as to that. It is that the Spirit will teach you but also that He will announce to you, and these bring out the authority of the Spirit, the importance of what He is as speaking to the saints.

PAG The twelve springs would remind us again of authority and all that involves, because it suggests that this is something that is regulated and administered. It is not haphazard in any way. In what is described in Christendom as what is Pentecostal, there is a great upsurge of activity, but this is regulated activity, not unregulated activity. The Spirit’s activities in believers have in mind that persons are kept in life and freshness, but in regulation too. So that when we come to the meetings, in one sense we have a regular order of things, and yet there is life in every occasion and that is the result of depending on the Spirit.

JAB Is that why they came to Marah before Elim? There is a meaning in the order of it all, is there not?

PAG There is. Just help us to open that up because what you say is very helpful.

JAB Well you have spoken about what the twelve springs of water means, and in character it is the same as what verse 26 is, which is divine speaking, but God speaking in verse 26 is by way of a statute and an ordinance, and there is moral exercise as a result of testing. By nature we would love to get to Elim right away. It is very attractive. Literally it is an oasis in the desert. It is still there in the Sinai desert. It is lovely, everything is green, and I would like to get there first, and not have to face Marah. But God does something at Marah, and He says something at Marah, which is really the basis for the enjoyment of what Elim speaks of, is it not?

PAG Yes He does. If I went to Elim without going to Marah, all I would do in Elim is to intrude myself, whereas what God wants is that Christ should be the object.

GBG Elim and the twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees subsists because persons have been through these exercises; so Elim is a result of Marah, is it not?

PAG Yes it is; you mean that the liberty of the Spirit and the sense of victory in our souls can only be truly known as we have been through the exercises of the waters of baptism.

GBG The twelve springs are persons. They have been through these moral and spiritual exercises, and our localities are what they are because persons have been through these exercises and proved divine resources.

PAG I think that is very important. We speak of this as a journey and each of us will be on a different stage of the journey, but we are not speaking about this as something we simply regard as an objective; we can see it here today. It is not something we might come to next week or the week after, the evidence of it is here today.

JCG Do you think what the brethren are speaking about is somewhat illustrated in Agag? Saul spared him. That is the man that would like to decorate the flesh and make it palatable. Agag actually said, “Surely the bitterness of death is past” (1 Samuel 15: 32); he was not prepared to face in type Marah, but then Samuel dealt with him unsparingly, did he not? He was a spiritual man.

PAG What you say is important, and it says that “Samuel hewed Agag in pieces” (1 Samuel 15: 33). Not to dwell on the negative, but in that sense the whole structure of man’s system has to come down in our eyes. He hewed it in pieces. It was not that he said that I will push it aside, or I will just suddenly put him to death, but the whole structure has to go, because Babylon will come down in an hour. We have a choice between what is heavenly and eternal, centred in Christ, and what will just go; we should all choose for Christ.

DS So “He takes away the first that he may establish the second”, Hebrews 10: 9. Is this the second order of man that is going to Elim? God is removing that first order in every one of us, but is it not in order that we might come to Elim and enjoy the twelve springs of water?

PAG Yes, Christ was the order of man that went through, but the first order with us it does not go through. He was the second man out of heaven (1 Corinthians 15: 47); He came out of heaven. He was indigenous to heaven, and He spoke of Himself as the Son of man who is in heaven (John 3: 13), and that is what God delights in. The testings of Marah have in mind that the first should be set aside, it should be taken away. But what is important is this, that “he may establish the second”. Not simply that He might replace it with the second, but that He may establish the second. So Christ is established in our souls, but we are established as a result of that.

DS So this establishing is something progressive with every one of us. The work of God in our souls is not something that comes to fruition overnight, because of what we are in the flesh, but God in His grace takes us a path that He may establish that order of man in each one of us, is that right?

PAG He does, and Paul I think uses the words stablish, strengthen, ground. It is to make the thing firm. Scripture does not unnecessarily repeat itself, but when it does it is important. So it speaks of having an “anchor of the soul, both secure and firm” (Hebrews 6: 19); that is the line of establishment that I believe God is working on. It is to make things secure and firm in our souls.

DAB There is no encampment referred to as to Marah, but there is as to Elim. There is movement in mind. We have not to stay at Marah, we have to move on to Elim, and really reach something of what God has in mind for us, and then there is victory.

PAG I think that is of the greatest importance because you come to the point of the bitterness, and you come to Romans 6 and there is the question of what is around, and then to Romans 7 and the question of what is within, but if you stayed there you would constantly be saying, “O wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7: 24). That is not where God has in mind for us to stay. He has in mind for us to come to the point when by the Spirit we are crying Abba, Father, that is where He is leading us on to.

JSS It says that they encamped there by the waters. They seemed keen to be close to the waters.

PAG Well what you say is important. I feel for myself that more constant dependence on the Spirit would be of great benefit, it is good to turn to the Spirit at particular times, or when we face particular exercises, but to encamp by the waters suggests that there is a constancy of dependence on the Spirit.

CMcK I was just thinking about Mary of Bethany who had chosen the good part. She was really enjoying all that the Lord was as a resource, and He was everything to her. There was something that He delighted in, having her in His presence, do you think?

PAG Yes I think that. She found everything in Him, and she sat at His feet. She was just restful there. Martha was somewhat distracted. We should not be too hard on Martha, but she was a bit distracted at that point, but Mary was undistracted. To quote a hymn, ‘So may we undistracted be, To follow, serve, and wait for Thee’ (Hymn 328). That is what the Lord has in mind. The healing is here; He says, “I will put none of the complaints upon thee that I have put upon the Egyptians”. They would all be things that would distract them, but God has in mind that they should be undistracted, and come to this place where there are twelve springs and seventy palm trees.

RGr Would this bring out the importance of local companies and the way we respect them?

PAG Absolutely. We have spoken about the kingdom and about administration. Administration is not haphazard. God has established local assemblies where administration takes place, and that is where it does take place; and there is blessing in that because that involves the acknowledgment of the rights of God. We acknowledge His arrangements. And say, I will accept God’s arrangements and I will work within them, because that is the right thing to do.

RGr There may be a tendency perhaps to undervalue what goes on in our local companies, because we are so familiar with everyone, but the fact is that it is God’s arrangement. He has put us where we are, with the personnel in our local company, and it is in that area that God works out His thoughts, do you think?

PAG It would be normal that in every local assembly there would be the resources to meet any matter that arises. You say how many brothers and sisters are there? That is not the point. The point is that God has put the resources in every local company to meet whatever need arises, because the resources are in Christ and the Spirit, and they are not limited by numbers or by location.

JAG We begin with the Lord’s supper which is the manifestation of the greatest of divine resource.

PAG That is very good. What resources there are in the loaf and in the cup. That has sustained the hearts of saints in the darkest of days. Say more about that.

JAG The administration is to take character from that, is it not? We learn love’s administration.

PAG That is helpful. Part of love’s administration is that Christ said through the psalmist “then I restored that which I took not away”, Psalm 69: 4. Man’s administration might be to try to distribute the resources fairly or evenly, the Lord brought in resources, and it was not through any fault of His, the sinless One, that they had been taken away in the first place. He brought in what was needed when no one else could.

JCG Do you think that all our localities are to be in the light of the victory of the palm tree?

PAG I do think that; seventy palm trees. The Lord sent seventy out, and were there not seventy elders who prophesied in Moses’ day as well? It seems to suggest the expansion that victory makes way for. The twelve you might say is the nucleus of the thing, but the seventy suggests that God’s work is a work of expansion.

JCG I was thinking in relation to what our brother has said that the palm also brings in peace. It suggests that the victory has secured peace and that is one thing that the Lord says to them during the forty days, “Peace be unto you”, Luke 24: 37.

PAG That is important too, because I was struck in reading over this beforehand, it is not palm branches. I know that there were palm branches made available when the Lord came into Jerusalem, but this is palm trees. This suggests that peace and victory are substantially formed in persons. It is not a transient matter. In a sense the palm branches suggest something that was transient, and how quickly people turned against the Lord after they had welcomed Him into Jerusalem. But a palm tree is not something transient, it is something solid with roots.

AJL Would there be shade under the palm trees?

PAG Yes there would. That is helpful.

AJL I was just thinking of being out of the heat of the day, it would be a place of rest.

PAG Yes. This is a place of rest and refreshment. There are palm trees and there are springs. You might say there are the conditions where the love of God can be known and where there is no hindrance to it.

GBG We are thinking rightly according to the scripture of what there is for ourselves in localities, but localities are of great benefit to divine Persons. “There therefore they made him a supper”, John 12: 2. Divine Persons have an avenue to speak in localities; the temple functions in localities.

PAG It does, and that is very important. I suppose our limitation means that whenever we come together in a meeting like this we can only cover certain things, but it is of paramount importance that we see that all God is doing has in mind that there should be response to Him. My blessing is not the end, God’s glory is the end in all that He is doing. David says, “of thine own have we given thee”, 1 Chronicles 29: 14 (A.V.). If we speak of these resources what is in mind is that they should all go back to God.

EJM It says of Deborah that she dwelt under her own palm-tree (Judges 4: 5), and she was quite effectual in that setting, she was able to move, and act with Barak.

PAG That is good. One’s exercise would be that each of us should have our own palm tree, our own assurance as to victory, our own sense of peace. In that way I believe the service of God would be greatly enhanced and furnished, if persons are coming to it with the sense that victory is secure in Christ, peace has been made, and there is no hindrance to the return flow for God.

Reading at Brechin
16 April 2011

KEY TO INITIALS

A. M. Brown	A. Gray	D. T. Pye
D. A. Brown	R. Gray	D. Spinks
J. A. Brown	A. J. Laurie	J. Spinks
J. Drummond	A. McKay	J. S. Speirs
J. A. Gardiner	C. McKay	J. Strachan
A. P. Grant	J. McKay	K. Walker
G. B. Grant	E. J. Mair	J. Webster
J.C. Gray	T. C. Munro	M. G. Wood