"TAKE THE ROD"
“TAKE THE ROD”
Numbers 20: 1 - 13; Numbers 20: 22 - 29
My thought is to show, from this scripture, what grace is. We are living in a dispensation of grace. How far we enter into that is another matter, and my thought is that we might enter into it. It is a favourable moment, one which may be likened to a fair wind to a mariner. It is a moment in which not only is the mind of God favourable towards all, but His power is in our favour. The day of Pentecost, recorded in the second of Acts, is an illustration of what I am saying. It was likened to a fair wind, the testimony moved on and the moving on of the testimony meant blessing for man. Chapter 7 shows there was rather a contrary wind later; it was an adverse wind when Stephen was stoned. Satan has a time of power over the wind as God allows. But in chapter 2 we see that things began with a very favourable wind. The mind of God towards Israel was favourable, and not only so but His power was favourable. Hence we read of a sound coming from heaven, “as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting”. Now that rushing mighty wind, as I understand it, was an instance of the favourableness of God’s power, it was favourable to Israel at that moment, it was the day of Israel’s opportunity. A more remarkable day even than the day of the Lord’s presence in their midst. The Holy Spirit is likened to a rushing mighty wind: a wind out of heaven. Scripture speaks of a north wind, and of a south wind, but here it is a wind out of heaven. On a previous occasion the waters of judgment had come out of heaven. These were not favourable to man. “The windows of heaven were opened”, and there issued forth from those windows the waters of judgment. They covered the earth and they represented God’s power in [p. 192] judgment, but here is the power of God in blessing, in the form of a wind.
Now I do not know whether you have thought of that, or whether you have come under the influence of that favourable wind. There was first of all the testimony of it in the saints, the one hundred and twenty, and Peter stands up. So doing he represents the mind of God. He unfolded in his address what was in God’s mind, a wonderful thing to listen to! He was allowed to finish his sermon in this chapter, but not so in chapter 10; there he only begins to speak when the Holy Spirit acts. God cut short his address by the gift of the Spirit. In chapter 2 he is the mouthpiece of the Spirit of God to unfold to Israel God’s mind about them at that particular moment. “The promise is to you, and to your children, and to as many as are far off”. The mighty wind had spoken, the power of God was there, and it was in their favour. It was available for every repentant Israelite, and we read there were three thousand of them in that day. Three thousand of them affected by the light and affected by the power. Any real repentance is brought about by the wind; it is the wind that does it! You see men brought down from their pretensions, that is the effect of the wind. The Lord said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh ... so is every one that is born of the Spirit”. The wind is in operation in its sovereignty, and it commands its own objects. How many there are who can thank God for the moment when they changed their minds about things! When they looked at the world with a different eye, it ceased to afford satisfaction to them; they looked at the people of God with a different eye, they thought of the Scriptures in a different way. They thought of their sins and they felt them, and owned them. There was an inexpressible longing, and desire and need,
[p. 193] which only God could meet. What do you think brought that about? Not all the armies of the world, or all the navies of the world; not all the learning of the world would bring that to pass. That is the miracle of God’s power; it is the effect of the wind, the sovereign achievement of the Spirit of God.
In Acts 2 the great point that is unfolded is that it is a moment when the mind of God is favourable; forgiveness was there through the death of Christ, and the gift of the Spirit was there waiting. “Repent and be baptised ... for the remission of sins”. The gift of the Spirit was already waiting to be given. Was not that a favourable moment — a wonderful moment? Everything went down before it. Every adversary silenced, every enemy in opposition to God put down at that moment, not in the way of judgment, but in the way of moral superiority. It was the day of grace. The Lord had said to Peter that repentance and remission of sins were to be preached “to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem”. Wonderful thing to have started where Jesus died, where He was murdered! Now that was a favourable moment for Israel. We get the opposite to it in chapter 7, where the adverse wind comes in. The wind had changed over. I refer to that only by way of contrast.
In the beginning of Numbers 20 Israel is found murmuring. They chode with Moses and with Aaron. That was the position at that time, and then God shows how He will meet it. Although there was all the outflow of God’s kindness and grace towards them, there was rebellion. They chode with Moses and with Aaron: the two men whom God had used for their deliverance and blessing. They were rejecting the vessels of their deliverance, the only hope, in that way, that they had.
Well now, what I want to set before you is the manner in which God met it. I want to impress upon you “grace”. “Take the rod”, God said to Moses. God had caused a rod to be used for judgment, but it is not so here. There had been two rods; in fact, the two are presented here, but when He is going to set forth His grace, He only refers to one.
He said. “Take the rod”, as much as to say, There is only one rod now, and that is Aaron’s. Now Aaron’s rod is really Christ in resurrection. That is all there is now, and it is infinite. If it be a question of meeting a soul’s need, it is the only rod. God never surrenders His authority, that is Moses’ rod; He never surrenders that, but the authority set forth in that rod has been fully met in Christ. In the book of Exodus Moses’ rod is used for smiting, “Take thy rod with which thou smotest the river, and smite the rock”. The smiting is all over now. The Lord Jesus looked on to it in the garden of Gethsemane, it was not over then. It was there in all its significance, as measured by Christ. The authority of God was there, the majesty of God was there, it was all there. The smiting was all future then, and Jesus knew it; He said, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me”. There was the persecution of One whom Jehovah smote. Christ was smitten, but that day is now past, and hence, from that point of view, there is only one rod. God said, “Take the rod” without saying which, as much as to say, “there is only one”.
Now consider what Christ was in resurrection!
He bore in His body the marks of the smiting, but it is all past now, and “by his stripes we are healed”, for “the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”. All has been perfectly measured. God measured it, and now God is speaking. Christianity is a day of speaking, not smiting. I do not deny that the day of smiting will come. God’s authority has been set aside, and those who have part in that will certainly come under smiting. Paul puts all that into a very small compass, saying, “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha”. Now think of that! If you have no love for Christ in that day, that will be your judgment, but there is no smiting now. This is the day of speaking. I would connect the speaking with the Spirit. You do not have to smite Christ for the Spirit, that was where Moses failed. This chapter presents God shedding forth His grace. There was no excuse for the people whatever, no merit in man, but God takes occasion to exercise His grace. He said to Moses, instead of answering back to the people, “Take the rod and speak to the rock”. It spoke of Christ in resurrection. That rod had bloomed blossoms, and had borne almonds, and God said, Take it and speak to the rock. Moses was to meet their murmuring in the Spirit of Christ; that is how God’s grace would meet the position. There was only one rod in His account, and that one was Christ in resurrection.
Now Christianity is regarded as a dispensation of speaking. God speaking to man about Christ and man speaking to God about Him. The gift of the Spirit was in connection with speaking. The Lord said, “I will beg the Father”, that was speaking, but all the smiting was over before that. He had settled the question of sins and then He speaks. God is speaking to us about Christ; it is all a question of Christ. The Gospels often speak about dumb people, but God has no pleasure in dumb people. He wants you to speak, and He gives you the Spirit in order that you might speak. Paul learnt to speak. The Lord spoke to him first in the Hebrew tongue, and Saul answers the Lord, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” It was speaking from heaven and speaking from earth. Then the next thing you get in regard to Saul is, the Lord speaks about him. He spoke about Saul to Ananias. He said, “He is praying”. Wonderful moment! That was the Lord’s introduction to, and commendation of, Saul. He was in favour with heaven. I am bold to say that all heaven was interested in that man. “There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth”. Not only interest but great joy, think of that! Well now, the Lord spoke about Saul to Ananias, and He said, “Behold, he prayeth”. That is to say, he is speaking to God. Did it ever occur to you that God is listening? The Lord’s commendation of Saul was, “Behold, he prayeth”; he was speaking to the Lord. You will remember that 1 Timothy 4 speaks of every creature of God being sanctified by the word of God and prayer; the one is God speaking, the other is man addressing God, that marks the dispensation. Things are brought on to a new platform on that principle, God speaking to man and man speaking to God. I know of no greater remedy for any anxious soul than prayer. If you pray, you must get something. I am not prepared to say what you may get. The Lord sees and judges all that, and He is a far better judge than we are. I know this, you will get the Spirit. I am not saying for a moment that you may not get it without prayer, you may, but I desire to impress the importance of speaking to God.
Well now, He said to Moses, “Take the rod”. I do not dwell upon Moses’ error, it only brought out the proof of the abundance of God’s grace. Moses used his own rod. We are living in a day of officialism which is standing in the way of God’s grace. It is a positive hindrance to the full outflow of, grace, the officialism which exists in this world, religious officialism. I would have the greatest respect for Moses, but he fell back on his officialism and committed this offence. If God is exercising His grace in this day, He is not calling men rebels. You cannot win a man by calling him a rebel, grace does not call him a rebel. But, in spite of the officialism, the water [p. 197] flowed, and thus we can thank God for it. It may be that a soul is allowing officialism to stand between him and God, standing between his need and the grace of God. Well, the grace of God is there, and it overflows; the waters of God’s grace flow freely; grace is on the throne. That means that there is no demand being made upon you. God’s mind in regard to you is simply forgiveness, and to give you the Spirit. All the officialism in Christendom cannot touch that. A throne, in Scripture, is absolute, and if grace is on it, man cannot touch it. “Let us come boldly to the throne of grace”. God loves that. We find the Beloved in the Canticles saying, “Let me hear thy voice”. He loves to hear our voice. He desires that we should approach in humbleness, and with the sense of need, not in the energy of the flesh.
Now I just want to go on to the end of the chapter before closing, because I think it enlarges on the point of grace. I do not know how you take account of the death of the Lord’s people? It is a very remarkable thing here that Aaron is directed to go up to the top of the mount to die. Now the Lord Jesus Christ came down to die. You know how the Spirit of God puts it. “He that ascended is the same also that descended into the lower parts of the earth”. He went down to die. Death for Him was not at the top of the mount, though He spoke about it there. Moses and Elias with Him, spoke about it there, but He did not die there. He went down to die. If it be a question of God’s judgment, the Lord Jesus went down to die. “Thou hast brought me to the dust of death”. That was not on the top, that was in the valley. That was where all the pressure of evil was, where Jordan ran. Rivers do not run to the top. Jordan is a type of all the concentrated power of evil. The Lord Jesus went under all that. He went down to die, but the saints go up to die. This is a very remarkable evidence of the grace of [p. 198] God to Aaron. He was dying under judgment, in a sense, he could not go into the land; he was to die on the top of the mount. It is as if God were to say to him: Aaron, come up near to Me, you must not die far away. And he was not alone, others were with him. God alone was with Moses when he died, and God buried him. These two wonderful men, although they dishonoured God, see how God honours them in their death. If you have to die, if dissolution comes in, it becomes the experience of grace. You go up to die, there is no judgment in it, there should be no fear of death for the Christian. You go up to die. Aaron had companions, he had Moses and Eleazar with him and he died on the top of the mount. There is nothing to fear in it, since the Lord Jesus has died. There is no smiting for you, the Christian sleeps, he is put to sleep through Jesus. I love that thought. “Them also who have fallen asleep through Jesus will God bring with him”.
Moses was brought into the land upon the mount of transfiguration, and that will illustrate what I am emphasising, that even the death of a believer is an evidence of grace, the grace of God going on to the end. We are kept by it, we stand by it, and we fall asleep by, it, and when Christ comes out, we shall come out with Him. Those whom Jesus has put to sleep shall come out with Him. What a triumph of God’s grace! “At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought?” At this time! When there is the completion of the mind of God, we shall see everything has been accomplished from beginning to end by God. “What hath God wrought?” “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace”, Ephesians 2: 7. Today is the exceeding riches of God’s grace and we shall come out in His glory in the future.