THE FEELINGS OF THE SAINTS CHARACTERISING THE PRESENT DISPENSATION

^[p. 153] THE FEELINGS OF THE SAINTS CHARACTERISING THE PRESENT DISPENSATION

Jude 20,21; Matthew 26:30; Acts 1:10 - 14

These passages give us the means by which we maintain ourselves at the full height of the present dispensation. According to Scripture, it is clear that the dispensation in which we are is to finish as it has begun, not as to its outward power and range, but as being of the same quality; for that, the best feelings of the saints must be set in activity. Music is what awakens the best feelings in us, so in Revelation 22:16 the Lord addresses Himself to the church as being “the root and offspring of David”. David brings out, among many other things, the service of song; he is called the “sweet psalmist of Israel”, (2 Samuel 23:1). Jehovah was dwelling in the midst of the praises of Israel; that shows us that spiritual song has a great place before God. In the depths of His sufferings on the cross, our Lord Jesus spoke to God as “thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”. He Himself was about to sing praise in its most beautiful tones. In Psalm 22 then, when He addresses God as He who dwells amid the praises of Israel, He says also that He will praise Him “in the midst of the congregation” (verse 22). It is in the assembly that the sweetest notes and the deepest, rise to God. Jesus then presents Himself to the church as being the Root and Offspring of David: Christ was the root of all that which was developed in David. “The Spirit and the bride say, Come”, (verse 17). The bride suggests the best feminine feelings; the Spirit had brought the bride to contemplate Christ from this point of view.

Where we have read in Matthew 26, the circumstances which had come to pass awakened in the saints the most profound emotions. The old dispensation was closing, the new dispensation was beginning, and these ^[p. 154] two dispensations were seen there in a most touching way. The first was passing into the other with song, as it were. Typically, David brought forward the fusion of the two dispensations. The number twenty-four characterises his ministry, and in his divisions of “twenty-four thousand men” music is prominent. There were thirty-eight thousand levites, of whom twenty-four thousand were occupied in presiding over the work of the house of Jehovah, six thousand were officers and judges, four thousand were doorkeepers, and four thousand musicians, who “praised Jehovah with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith”, 1 Chronicles 23:4,5. We see how great was the proportion of the levites devoted to music; their number was in accord with the number of the doorkeepers, whose service shut out all human sentiment, especially religious sentiments. What is set out in David is therefore identified with what is set out in Christ at the passover. All the best affections and spiritual emotions were brought out at this last supper, embodying all that God had been for His people, in delivering them continually, from their departure from Egypt to the present moment. It was but a small number who were there, but let us think of the qualities of the feelings produced in those few. Then the Lord says, “With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer. For I say unto you, that I will not eat any more at all of it until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God”, (Luke 22:15,16). He placed Himself at table, and the twelve apostles were with Him: there never had been a passover like that, it was not the formal passover of the Jews. It embodied all that the passover signified. Now, dear brethren, all that has been developed in the new dispensation: There was that too instituted which was going to characterise our dispensation. The very expressions of the Lord summed up His deepest affections for His own: “With desire” or “With desire I have desired”. We are told that they sang a hymn, which suggests to us the inauguration of a new order of things. The new dispensation is inaugurated with the best feelings and best affections; singing denotes these feelings and affections, it is the way in which those who have such feelings express themselves. Singing is an element which is found since the beginning of God’s ways and which is maintained until the end. When the foundations of the earth were laid, there was a song: “Whereupon were the foundations thereof sunken? or who laid its corner-stone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:6). There you see the stability and the wisdom which enter into the building, and we claim therefore, dear brethren, that with the activities of God, all the best feelings were active. “The morning stars sang together”, that is, there was harmonious song, and “all the sons of God” — not one of them absent — shouted for joy. All creatures and all intelligences were moved by the most profound feelings in the presence of God’s work. But in the inauguration of the marvellous dispensation in which we are, the Lord Himself takes an active part. All took part in it, for it was a matter of mutual feelings, and what quality, dear brethren, was in those feelings! What I had in mind was that all that should be maintained in us today. It says that “they went out to the mount of Olives”. Scripture never describes a thing to us simply to satisfy our curiosity, the Spirit of God would never descend to that, but He recounts these things for our instruction. The fact that they went to the mount of Olives has a spiritual meaning for us, as if the emotions produced could be maintained only in connection with the mount of Olives.

The first chapter of the Acts fits in with that in a wonderful way. The Lord had been with His own for forty days; He presented Himself to them, it says, living, with many proofs. They learned to know ^[p. 156] a living Christ. Life out of death is a divine thought; promise of life had been made a long time before sin and death were in this world, but in Christ living they had life out of death. The first figure of the death of Christ is before the introduction of sin and death into this world; Adam having been made to sleep, Eve was formed from a rib taken from his side, which means that the assembly is to set forth life out of death. It is there that life is found, dear brethren! “He presented himself living, ... with many proofs” (Acts 1:3): He assembled with them too, as if to teach them how they should assemble in this new realm of life and spirituality. He puts, so to speak, the last touches to this vessel from whom the sweetest notes will rise to God. So He says in Psalm 22:22, “in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”. What comes out of the Lord’s ascension to heaven is the element of responsibility in those who remain. “Men of Galilee”, it says, “why do ye stand looking into heaven?” Notice how the heavenly message puts them into relation with Christ; they are called “men of Galilee”, for it is a question not of national relations but of the reproach in which they were. “Men of Galilee” — that is what characterises our position, and what should continue to characterise it. What were they doing? Looking into heaven; the Object of their hearts was there, for the Lord had ascended to heaven. It is not for them to ascend there but to continue down here, maintaining these thoughts and these marvellous affections expressed by the One who had come out of death. After that, it says they “returned ... from ... the mount of Olives”. They started there, and we shall finish there, in the presence of the Spirit, for we begin there. “They returned ... from ... the mount of Olives”, and the distance from Jerusalem is given to us. Jerusalem is the place where all these things are to be expressed; the testimony of God is to be expressed in the very place where the power of evil ^[p. 157] is found. The Lord has prayed for us: “I do not demand that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them out of evil”, (John 17:15). Our position outwardly is in the city, that is, in the presence of evil in a concentrated form; can we stand in this position? We notice the wisdom characterising the disciples as they enter into the city; they are intelligent, having understood that they are in reproach, as the heavenly messengers had told them. Their aim will never be to have a high religious position in this world. They were not men of Jerusalem, but “men of Galilee”, of whom it says later that they were recognised as being Galilaeans: “Behold, are not all these who are speaking Galilaeans?” (Acts 2:7). Neither are they seen in the great religious buildings in the city. Perhaps you will ask why Luke tells us that they were in the temple, praising God. It is because Luke’s thought is to present grace right to the end. Their position “in the temple, praising and blessing God” (Luke 24:53) was a priestly contribution to Christ; it was God’s thought for Christ. It was God’s thought for Israel, and there was the most spiritual company which was ever in the temple, a true priestly company, praising and blessing God each day. If we had questioned the apostles named here, each of them would have given us a thought which would touch our heart. No one had had the opportunity of learning Christ like them; they were full of Christ. So the dispensation has been inaugurated with them and has continued with them, as to principles, as to doctrine, as to authority. Nothing was lacking in this company; in germ everything was there. These brothers, too, with a spirit of authority, gave themselves to prayer, “with several women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren”. You see what a company was in the upper room, and the place which the women have in the company. If I have any counsel to give to the sisters, it is that of studying the holy women of whom Scripture speaks. In ^[p. 158] reading their history, from Genesis to the end of the New Testament, you will be surprised at the importance of sisters in the testimony. Some of us have been speaking about the woman of Luke 8; in a striking way she represents the feminine element in the assembly. One of her characteristic features is transparency. For twelve years she had suffered from an illness which no doctor could cure, but she saw that she could touch Christ, or at least, the hem of His garment. When she touched it, power went out of Him and entered into her. In that way the great subjective feature was commenced in her. It is not a question only of the light which shines in Christ, but also of the power which comes from Him and which enters into me; this power develops in me an expression of Christ — transparency. The woman would have liked to have hidden the blessing which she had received, she would have been content with the power of God working in her, without anyone knowing anything about it, but that is not fitting. The power of God operates in me so that Christ may be reflected in me, and this is seen in transparency. The Lord will not allow you to go away after you have been healed by Him. He wants everything to be declared in the presence of all; nothing can remain secret. That is why He said, “Some one has touched me”: Peter said, Yes, everybody is touching you, but Luke is not concerned with the crowds, but with persons. “Some one has touched me”; actually just one person had touched Him and had been healed of her illness. Then, “the woman, seeing that she was not hid, came trembling, and falling down before him declared before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was immediately healed”. I remind the sisters of this, for it is the subjective trait of the assembly. This element is basic to the assembly; power which has come from Christ and which has entered into me, works in me. Not only does it heal me, but it also forms me,

^[p. 159] and ought to form me. That is, the person healed from the disease described in Romans 7 is formed in chapter 8 in a spiritual state; it says, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God”, (verse 14). We are no longer in flesh, but in Spirit. “The mind of the flesh is death; but the mind of the Spirit life and peace”, (verse 6). Then blessed movements of liberty come to light: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God”. So the Lord can say to this woman, “Daughter”: she is taken out of her natural circle and placed in the divine family as representing an assembly feature. In Romans 8, movement is produced not only by the light received, but by the Spirit: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God”. You take home to yourself the place which the women have in this service. They “gave themselves all with one accord to continual prayer”: in this way they expressed their dependence on God in connection with the great responsibilities which rested on them. They had the responsibility of maintaining this marvellous affection displayed by the Lord Jesus. The following chapter, Acts 2, introduces the Holy Spirit, whose presence is essential, for only by the Spirit can the dispensation be maintained for God.

In Jude we see how all this exists in difficult days; he tells us that he had the intention of writing a treatise on the gospel, but instead of writing to us of “our common salvation”, he writes in order to help us “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints”. Unprecedented efforts had been made to deprive the saints of their common salvation; there was in those days something which the brethren had in common, and the enemy was trying to deprive them of it. Then Jude gives us an outline of the course of evil in this world; he shows us the evil in Cain, in Balaam and in Core, and then he alludes to Enoch, one of the most interesting types for the saints today. Enoch is picked out of the ^[p. 160] Old Testament saints, for he is a striking type for us, because he finished as we shall finish, by rapture. Our hearts would then be encouraged by Jude, in view of the rapture. He speaks of Enoch and says that he “prophesied also as to these”. Those who are to be raptured have the light of things to come, of good and of evil. Enoch says, “Behold, the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads”. How fitting are these words on the lips of Enoch, who, according to what we know about him, walked alone with God! The antediluvian world was defiled; all flesh had corrupted its way on the earth, but he says, “the Lord has come amidst his holy myriads, to execute judgment against all; and to convict all the ungodly of them of all their works of ungodliness, which they have wrought ungodlily, and of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him”. In view of all that, Jude shows us how we can continue on the elevated level which has been given. I speak of an elevated level in a spiritual sense, not a natural sense. The elevation I speak of is reproach — “men of Galilee”. We should never forget that those who compose the assembly are “men of Galilee”. If it is a question of moral elevation, it is reproach from the outward point of view. He who looks for something else will be disappointed and will injure others. When one is maintained on this level, it can be said that one is spiritual. Jude continues, “But ye, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. You will notice how much the character of mutuality is emphasised by Jude. There were “love-feasts” in those days; we perhaps know only very little about things. But alas! there were spots in their love-feasts; there were submerged rocks against which the boats are crushed. At the last supper, Judas was one such; this last supper was one of the most blessed love-feasts, and ^[p. 161] the submerged rock appeared on the surface of the waters. If love is experienced, God is holy, and the rocks will be apparent, so that no one makes shipwreck. It says, “praying in the Holy Spirit”; they started with prayer, giving themselves to it, they persevered in prayer and the Holy Spirit came. Then throughout the book of the Acts, it is always a matter of praying in the Holy Spirit. It is in that way that we keep ourselves in the love of God; we keep, so to say, the hive at the normal temperature. We await “the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”.

May God bless His word!