RESPONSE TO GOD IN HIS OPERATIONS AND INTERESTS
[p. 158] RESPONSE TO GOD IN HIS OPERATIONS AND INTERESTS
Deuteronomy 18: 21; Luke 15: 25; Acts 11: 22 - 26
The Spirit of God records, that from the very outset God had sympathy from His creatures in His operations. When the foundations of the earth were laid, we are told that “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy”. As God operated to effect His counsels, those who were regarded in the relation of sons were all interested; not some, but “all the sons, of God shouted for joy”. On another occasion, at the greatest event, the birth of Christ, He again found sympathy on the part of these angelic beings. They took note of what was going on, and multitudes of the heavenly host were there expressing the profoundest sympathy and interest in that which had taken place on earth; and what had taken place was not specially for their own glory, for the Son of God did not become an angel; He became a Man. His incarnation involved the glory of an order of beings which was at that time inferior to angels, hence if there had been anything in those angelic beings of the nature of envy it would have manifested itself. But instead of that they expressed the profoundest interest and sympathy and delight in that which God was accomplishing.
Now the Spirit of God records these things for us; they are not recorded simply as an historical account. The Spirit of God never would engage Himself in merely writing history. What He records is intended to produce exercise in the people of God now. The Spirit of God records for us that all the sons of God were interested in the operations of God, and that is to produce exercise in us. All Christians are expected to be in sympathy with what God is doing.
[p. 159] The passage I read in Deuteronomy has reference to Israel. God did not limit the idea of sonship to angelic beings, but He gave that place to a nation or family. The fact is, beloved friends, the very existence of father and son in the human family, as a divinely ordered relationship, is but a testimony as to what is in God’s heart. If God has placed in our hearts affections for a son and delight in a son, it is but a testimony to what is in His own heart. We have in the creation not only a testimony to “his eternal power and divinity”, but we have a testimony also to His affections: for the relationship which God has ordained, called father and son, parent and child, and of brethren, are witnesses to the primary thought which He intended to accomplish through the incarnation of His own precious Son. In taking up Israel He brings His own thought nearer to us. His thought was that men were to be in the relationship of sons with Him.
Now Israel went down into Egypt, and there in the government of God they became bond-slaves. The government of God has to do with discipline, and discipline works out in us appreciation of the relationship. Israel went down to Egypt under the government of God. Egypt was no part of the counsels of God. It formed no part of the promises indeed Abraham was prohibited from going there, and yet we find that Jacob goes there. He is compelled to go there: the very necessities of the times forced him to go. He comes to Beersheba, to the confines of the land of Canaan and there God meets him. Jacob had his misgivings; we also have our misgivings; things sometimes are not clear to us; a cloud hangs over us, but we arrive at a point when God appears to us. God appeared to Jacob, and what did He say? “Fear not, I am the God of Isaac”. He does not say the God of thy father Abraham, but of Isaac. Thus God caused light to [p. 160] shine into the heart of His disciplined child, and that light was, that every thought he had cherished, all the result of light previously received, is immutably secured in Christ risen. Isaac is a type of Christ in resurrection, and God intimated to Jacob that every thought he cherished was secured in Him. That is wonderful light to shine into our souls in the moment of discipline.
From Jacob’s point of view everything seemed against him, but then he learned that all these things were for him, and were but the occasion of God assuring him that every spiritual thought he had cherished was fixed in Christ Jesus, and established in Him. So the government of God goes on and Jacob goes down into Egypt. There his posterity remain for many years and under the government of God they become bond-slaves. God permitted His governmental dealings to go on till they realised what the bondage of this world really is. But in due time God remembered His people and He takes Moses and causes him to go through forty years of discipline. It is a disciplined man only who is suitable to become the vessel of light to a disciplined people. If we are a disciplined people we are in relationship with God: if not, we are not in relationship with God. Hebrews 12 shows that. Moses was qualified by his experience in the wilderness to become the light bearer to a disciplined people in the land of Egypt.
Now look at the way God takes up Moses and sends him with a message to Pharaoh and to the people.
The message to the people announces God’s faithfulness. He did not tell the people that they were His sons. He sends that message to Pharaoh. The message to the people announces His unfailing faithfulness, revealing Himself as Jehovah to them. To Pharaoh He says, “Israel is my son, even my firstborn: And I say unto thee, Let my son go,
[p. 161] that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn”. What do you see in that? It is God announcing His eternal thought in regard of man, and He appeals to a well-known affection which had a place in the heart of Pharaoh, an affection which God had placed there Himself; for natural affection is of God. He says in effect to Pharaoh, ‘You have a son, and you have affection for your son; I have the affections of a father. Israel is My son, My firstborn, and if you do not let him go I will deprive you of your son’.
He had an avenue into Pharaoh’s heart by the affections which He had placed there as Pharaoh’s Creator, and yet Pharaoh hardened his heart and refused to let the light shine into it. And the result was that God deprived Pharaoh of his son; and more than that, in depriving Pharaoh of his son, God secured His own son. He delivered Israel out of Egypt and led them into the wilderness. As He says, “I have borne you upon eagle’s wings”.
Underneath those eagle’s wings were the affections of a father. The time for the display of them to Israel had not come. Christ must appear for that. When Christ appeared and went up out of Egypt, God does not simply tell others that He is His Son.
No, He opens the heavens and looks down upon the Son and declares to Him, “Thou art my beloved Son”. There was God’s Son in the Person of Christ here upon earth. God’s affections expressed themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they are known to us now by the Spirit.
Now I will turn for a moment to the dark side of the picture. Deuteronomy 18 discloses to us how God took account of Israel’s rebellion in the wilderness. The wilderness is the place of testing, the place in which is brought to light whether we have answered to the relationship in which we are set or otherwise. The wilderness may be divided into three [p. 162] sections. The first section refers to the people under pure grace; Exodus 15 to 18. All is on the principle of pure grace. The next section refers to the time of the law, and in connection with it you have the formation of God’s system. In the first section the individual is under the reign of pure grace. God is revealed in pure grace; then you become associated with the system of things in which God’s testimony is placed, and in which God’s law must be adhered to. These are two sections of the wilderness, and in connection with both of these you will find irretrievable failure on the part of the people. They failed in both connections. In the first they speak against God and Moses; in the second they made the golden calf and said they would go back to Egypt. That is what the flesh is. Now the third section has reference to the Spirit. It begins with Numbers 21. When we are no longer debtors to the flesh, we move on in liberty to the land of Canaan, but in each section it is the wilderness.
Now, beloved friends, what I wish to point out in connection with that is that the character of the stubborn son appeared in Israel. Israel was really the “stubborn son”, and this is in keeping with the book of Deuteronomy, which deals with the relationship formed between God and His people. The priesthood and the tabernacle are not prominent in this book; it is a question of relationship formed between God and His people; and in the passage I read God shows how He regards the rebellion of Israel in the wilderness and onward. They were rebellious at every point, and wholly unsympathetic with what God was doing.
Now I pass on to show you how that same spirit of rebellion and utter want of sympathy was found in connection with the proclamation of the glad tidings. We have it in this wonderful chapter, Luke 15. That chapter is not, however, so great as chapter 14, which presents the “great supper”, representing God’s delight in Christ as having accomplished righteousness. God invites all to that. Chapter 15 has reference to God’s delight in the returning prodigal; and the close of it shows us that that which delighted God was wholly without interest except in the way of opposition; to those who had the part and place of the “elder brother”. The elder brother represents the man after the flesh in the place of privilege, and represents Israel as having the first place with God. There is no reproof in the father’s words to the elder brother here: the next chapter suffices for that. It would not be suitable for the father to judge the elder brother; it was all pure grace. But see the hardening of heart expressed in the elder brother. The father comes out to him and says, “this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found”.
He appealed to his heart. This should have touched him, but as of old in Pharaoh’s case, he was proof against the divine appeal; that of a father; he disregarded the divine appeal to him as a brother; he had no brotherly affection. Pharaoh had no true fatherly affection; if he had he would have had respect for God’s fatherly affection. The elder brother had no true brotherly affection; the Jew manifested utter want of it.
Now when you come to the historical order in Acts you will find the stubborn son expressed in Saul of Tarsus. He was the embodiment of all that was antagonistic to Christ, and to the disciples of Christ; and that in the presence of Stephen, who was the most wonderful expression of the Spirit of Christ. What made Saul doubly responsible was that in the testimony of Stephen there was the most perfect expression of the Spirit of Christ. Saul was one of those who held the clothes of those who stoned the martyr. The Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of the [p. 164] true Son, was brought close to Saul, and in spite of that there was utter hatred; he went out of Jerusalem with authority from the high priest, displaying the greatest hatred to everything that belonged to Christ, “breathing out threatenings and slaughter”. Such was the stubbornness of Israel against God and Christ.
According to Deuteronomy there was nothing for that man but stoning, that is what he deserved; but instead of that the Lord Jesus calls to him by name. When the Lord calls you by name it means that you have a place in His heart, and when He repeats it He shows the intensity of His interest in you. He said to Saul, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” He would inquire of Saul, ‘What have I done?’ What damage had He done to Saul? Nothing. When a father has a stubborn son you will notice there the evidence of unreasonableness, and that was the case with Saul, he manifested the most unreasonable opposition. There was no occasion for it, hence the Lord asks him what is his ground for it. Why are you doing it? Saul was kicking against the goads, and it involved suffering for him. He is brought low and becomes known no more as the embodiment of the stubborn son, but the great announcer of the obedient Son; that is Christ. His first preaching was about the Son of God, showing how completely he was converted from stubbornness to the Man who was manifested to him. What does conversion mean? It means that you are turned to Christ who is God’s Son. Saul was converted to Christ, and he preached Christ: He apprehended God’s Son, and he preached God’s Son.
John says of Jesus, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father”. Paul becomes the great announcer of this blessed One. The conversion of such a one as Saul shows the effect of the administration of the Lord. There are various [p. 165] services, but one Lord. The whole chapter, Acts 9, is engaged with bringing under our attention the authority of Christ. We must give way to the authority of Christ. The next chapter shows us the operations of God. There are distinctions of operations, but one God. Now God operates in Peter, and the sheet is let down from heaven to intimate what God’s mind was towards the world. God’s operations are universal, and He wants to enlist the sympathy of Peter in what He is doing. God is not defeated: He secures the sympathy of Peter, so that Peter should become the vessel for the announcement of the glad tidings to the Gentiles. God wanted to enlist the sympathy of Peter, and He did so. And while Peter was preaching, the Spirit of God fell upon those present. God did not wait for the Gentiles to say anything. When they were on the road to Him the Spirit came on them collectively. He had come upon the Jew, now He comes upon the Gentiles. Peter’s sympathy was secured, and when they find fault with him, he said, “What was I” — God did it. He did not arrogate the glory to himself.
Now in Acts 11 you find the spirit of the stubborn son in that very Christian profession. Those of the circumcision contended with Peter, and he was forced to vindicate his preaching. He says, “What was I that I could withstand God?” But there was in those Christians at Jerusalem the lack of sympathy with what God was doing. We get a contrast to this in Barnabas; he had the true spirit of a true son; “when he came and saw the grace of God he was glad”. The Spirit of God explains that he was glad. In the early chapters Barnabas was in sympathy with the testimony; he sold his land and gave the money to the apostles. In this chapter he is in complete sympathy with God; he was glad when he saw the grace of God. Then we are told why, because “he was a good man”. He was devoid of selfish motives. Goodness is an attribute of God, and it applied to Barnabas: Barnabas was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit; that man is in sympathy with what God is doing.
Now God is doing something today; God is never inactive; from the outset He has been operating. The question is, What is He doing now? If God is doing anything, He seeks to enlist the sympathy of His people in it. We should be exercised so as to be set for the promotion of whatever God is doing. He is doing something. Let us discover what that is. In a day of small things, He is not acting as in a day of large things, but the great thing for us is to be in sympathy with what God is doing. The widow with the two mites may be taken as a case in point. The temple then represented all that belonged to the interest of God on earth, and she was in sympathy with that. It was recognised as the house of God, and she was contributing to it: she discerned what was of God, and she acted to promote that. She was in sympathy with what God was doing.