WHAT GOD WILL SHOW US
[p. 199] WHAT GOD WILL SHOW US
Genesis 13: 10; John 16: 13 - 15
My thought is to point out the importance of having divine things shown to us. There are things which we see, public things, which are visible to all those who have eyes to see, but there are also things which are not public, things which have to be shown to us. It is of these I desire to speak. As regards the public things, they are such as are available to every one; the sun in the heavens, for instance, the moon and the planets, all these things are visible. So in the same way there are moral things which are public; they are there for all men, and their presence is a test to all. The fact that there is a moral system of things has placed all men under responsibility; every one is tested as to whether he has eyes or not.
John tells us that man naturally has not these eyes which see; he says, “Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”; the kingdom of God was there to be seen, it was there in the Person of Christ. Elsewhere the Lord says, “Blessed are your eyes, for they see”. The things they saw had been sought after and desired by kings and prophets of old, but they were not then visible, but in the coming of Christ into manhood certain things had become visible, and their presence here became a test as to whether men had eyes to see or not. The Lord could speak of the kingdom of God as among them. He said, It is in the midst of you. Even in the ministry of the seventy the kingdom was present, for He said to them, “into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you: notwithstanding be ye sure of this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you”, Luke 10.
[p. 200] Well, so it is now, and the presence of the kingdom of God puts all men to the test as to whether they have eyes or not. It is said of Isaiah that he saw the glory of Christ; that was a wonderful thing to see. John had just been citing from Isaiah 6 and Isaiah 53, and he adds, “these things said Esaias when he saw his glory, and spake of him”. What glory was it which he saw? It was the glory of the King. Have you seen that? The testimony of it is here; there are those here who are witnesses to the fact that Christ is enthroned above. It is public. No one is a true believer in Christ who has not recognised Him upon the throne; he is one who has seen the glory of the King. That is what I understand by the glory of the kingdom. You will never come under a healthy, life-giving influence till you submit to that, till you come under the influence of Christ upon His throne. His influence is like a pure river of life, clear as crystal. These are things which are said of the kingdom, and its presence here, as I have shown, places all men under responsibility. John 3 teaches us that naturally we have not eyes to see, and that in order to see the kingdom of God we must be born again, and further, we must be born of water and of the Spirit before we can enter the kingdom. We must have the Spirit in order to see what is spiritual.
That there are things which must be shown to us is a principle which runs through the whole of Scripture, but we get the idea first in connection with Abraham. The Lord says to him, “Get thee out ... into a land which I will show thee”. I want to engage your hearts with that. God desires to show us His purposes; He desires to bring us into the land of His counsels. Then on our part there has to be the desire to have them shown to us. Moses had seen the display of His power on mount Sinai; indeed, it was visible to all in the camp; it was [p. 201] public, and in that way placed all Israel under responsibility. Moses was not only shown things, he was shown a pattern, the pattern of all that was for God in Christ. You will never have a true idea of what is suitable to God until you see the pattern, and the pattern is Christ. Moses saw that in the mount; he was taken up by the Lord and given to see the pattern of all things in Christ. After the breakdown of Israel and their re-establishment in connection with the intercession of Moses for them, he says to Jehovah, “I beseech thee, show me thy glory”. He had a taste for divine glory; he desired to see more, he desired to see the Lord’s glory. You might have thought he had seen a very great deal of glory already, but not so in his account. He desired to see what lay behind the power which had been displayed.
To return to Abraham, God had said to him, ‘I have a land, and I will show it to you’. Abraham sets forth the path of an individual believer, he was the pattern of the man of faith. I commend to your study these chapters in Genesis, they record Abraham’s altar building. He was not a Babel builder, he was an altar builder. Now your altar sets forth the extent of your progress in the knowledge of God, and this is plainly indicated in the altars which Abraham built. He built several altars, but we are not told that he was directed to build any. The book of Genesis deals with the histories of the men of faith, and there are no instructions throughout it for building altars. The fact is, that having faith, you are sure to do something in regard to God, that is what I understand by an altar. If you do something in regard of yourself, you are building up Babel; but if you do something in regard of God, that is an indication of where you are spiritually; it is a response to God. The first altar that Abraham built shows that he had God before him; he had been an idolater, but what a wonderful [p. 202] change; he now had God before him, and he builds an altar to Him, to Jehovah.
Then with the next altar, we read, that he called upon the name of Jehovah; that shows progress. The young believer has God before his soul, that is what first marks him; but the next step is he will call of the name of God, as Abraham did here. He disregards every other name; he distrusts his own name, he trusts alone in the name of Jehovah. God now is his protector, his trust, his confidence, and he will put no confidence in any other name; he calls upon the name of Jehovah. Circumstances came in with Abraham as they so often do with us; things do not turn out just as we expected, we are tested and fail. So it was with Abraham, he is tested by circumstances, and he turns aside to Egypt, but he is recovered from the point of his departure and brought back to God. He has failed in his trust in God alone, and he turns to Egypt for help, but God comes in in discipline, and he is recovered.
That lesson learnt, he has more to face; he has to lose his brethren. We all have to learn this; we have to lose our brethren. Maybe we have learnt the vanity of human resources, we have come to depend upon God alone for help, but then we have to be tested, we have to lose our brethren. Brethren become the greatest test to us. It should not be so; the very name indicates the opposite, a brother should be a friend, and normally it is so, but here is the test. It will be your test, it has been mine.
What are you going to do with them? I verily believe, beloved brethren, that the Lord would teach us this greatest of lessons in the discipline of God, how are we to treat our brother? What are we going to do with him? Abraham here acts nobly, he acts with God. Who is content with separation? A worldly brother. Abraham did not desire separation, he felt for Lot; he was Lot’s friend; he prayed [p. 203] for him, and Lot never lost his place in Abraham’s heart.
Now I ask, Are we content with separation, when it comes to a test in our relations with our brother? Could we have left Abraham? Think of him, of the place he had in the mind of God! of the place he had in the counsels of God! Think of his faith, and yet Lot was content to separate from that man! Abraham was a model, even for ourselves, he was “the father of all the faithful”, and yet Lot is content to separate from him. We see people moving off, dropping out of the ranks, I would say to them, Whom are you leaving? From whom are you separating? Are you leaving the people of God? Think of the place they hold in the heart of God, in the mind of God, in the counsels of God. Think of their dignity, of the place that God has given them, think of what they are to Christ. Are you going to leave them? Are you going to leave those who are the depositaries of God’s testimony? Will you move away from that? To do so is to prove that your heart is in the world. Lot’s heart was in the world. “He lifted up his eyes”; many a young man has done that. And in which direction did he look? It was towards the plains of Sodom. It was before the destruction of Sodom, he would never have lifted up his eyes there if the destruction had taken place. If we lift up our eyes to the world, it is before its destruction.
God is allowing the world to prosper at the moment; in His all-wise ways He is letting it develop and prosper in its own way, and so it was in Lot’s day. He looked towards the plain before its destruction and it was a very desirable place in his eyes. To look upon it after its destruction was to become a pillar of salt, but Lot did not see its destruction, and it was beautiful in his eyes. It was a wonderful plain, well-watered and verdant. You get two [p. 204] thoughts brought together here to express how it appeared in Lot’s eyes; it was like the “garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest to Zoar”. These thoughts are not akin; the garden is the garden, and the land of Egypt is Egypt; they are not akin to one another. But Lot’s eyes were in that direction, and he saw the plains as the garden of the Lord. The plains of Sodom were in his heart, and depend upon it, you will go after that which is in your heart. I do not pursue that thought further but I come to Abraham. God said to him, “Lift up thine eyes”. He was invited to lift up his eyes, and that is what is the mind of the Lord for us. Look northward and southward, and eastward and westward, that is the divine domain.
Now the Lord said to the disciples in John 16, that the Spirit having come would show them “things to come”. That is one thing. And then He says also, “he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you”. He further adds, “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I ... he shall show it unto you”. The Holy Spirit having come He not only shows us things to come, that I refer to the millennial world, but lie shows us the Father’s things. Eternal things have come; they have come at this present time in this sense at any rate, that the apostle can say we look at them. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal”. The Holy Spirit has come out carrying tidings of all that belongs to the Father, not only of the millennial world, but of what belongs specifically to the Father, the eternal things, and they are the Son’s things, and the Holy Spirit is here in order to show us these things.
Moses said, “Show me thy glory”, and then he said, “Let me see the good land”. He had to wait [p. 205] till the glory to see it, but you will remember how he was taken up to the top of mount Nebo and shown all the land of promise. Abraham was to look northward and southward, and eastward and westward, he was at the centre, that answers to the epistle to the Ephesians. But Moses was in the wilderness, and he got a divine view from the top of the mount into God’s land, that answers to Romans 8. It is one thing to look into the land from the top of the mount; it is a wonderful thing to get there, but it is another thing to be there. If you get a look in you will want to go in, and so Romans lays the ground for Ephesians, and if you go in, you will be taken by the hand as it were, and shown things. It is a lovely thought that the Spirit should really take us by the hand and show us things! It is the Spirit who leads us to the top of the mount; we are led to that eminence by the Spirit; the flesh diminishes, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, and then you get the vision of God, you are conducted to a point of eminence from whence you can look into God’s land.
I know of no more wonderful thing than to be taken up by the Spirit and shown the land of purpose. I have often thought of the Lord Jesus as a Teacher; what it must have been to hear Him expound in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself! I have often pondered over what He would say as to the ark and the altar; what He could say as to the priest and as to David. Well, in a parallel sense, think of the Spirit taking you up and showing you all the beauty of God’s land. “He shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you”.
Then another point: in order to see that, you must leave the world. Our hearts are very reluctant to leave the world, very much more so than we sometimes admit. And again, it is one thing to leave the world, and another to go into the land; you do not step from one to the other; the Lord Himself [p. 206] did not. When Moses and Elias spoke to Him on the mount they spoke of His departure out of the world; He went out of the world at Jerusalem. Many would think He went out of the world at the mount of Olives; but no, He went out of the world at Jerusalem, He went out of it under reproach. He did not go to heaven under reproach. There is the place of reproach for us, it is where we, too, go out of the world, and in order to enter the land we must go out of the world morally. The Lord did not go up till forty days after; going up is another matter. His going out of the world was public, but His going up is private. It will be so with us; when the Lord carries us up it will be private.
Now suppose we had been with Mary when the Lord Jesus went out of Jerusalem bearing His cross; what thoughts could we have had of that city? Could we have gone back and become magistrates there? Mary says, “They have taken away my Lord!” — they. Who are they? The world. Shall we affiliate with them? Be amongst them? No, we can only go out from them; they have crucified our Lord. Well, if the Lord went out at Jerusalem, let us also go out, and then we shall know what it is to be taken up by the Spirit and shown another world, the Father’s world. “He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you”. The Spirit is still here, and He is set to lead us in where all the Father’s things are, and are known to be the Son’s things. May the Lord give us to desire to see them like Moses!