“I WILL SHEW THEE GREAT AND HIDDEN THINGS”
T. E. Druckenmiller
I feel impressed, beloved brethren, to draw attention, especially to verse 3, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and I will shew thee great and hidden things”. I think it perhaps links with our brother’s word to us as to the value of the Scriptures. Would that we could interest every heart here tonight more to appreciate the word of God, and to appreciate too communion with divine Persons as we read the word of God; and as we go through exercise that we might be given an insight by the Father, or by the Lord, or by the Spirit as to these “great and hidden things”. It impresses one’s heart that divine Persons are ready to show us things. I just wonder how ready we are to be shown. One would especially like to encourage our younger brethren. How precious it is to see them here tonight. Oh the value of the generation coming on! We see older brethren, middle aged, and younger persons.
It is a wonderful thing that the Lord is continuing His work in His people.
We have thought of those two on the way to Emmaus; what a yearning they had! They were desirous of seeing the Lord. They said to the Lord about the women who had gone to the tomb, “Him they saw not”. The yearning of heart on that early morn was to see the Lord. I suppose there is a yearning in every heart to see the Lord. Every true lover of Christ would want to see Him. I think it is a lovely touch our brother gave us as to the little child having a sense, in his own communion with the Lord, that as he was reading the sacred letters he was viewing the Lord. I have no doubt that the Lord gave an impression spiritually to that lad.
That is what I believe the Lord would exercise all our hearts about, and what undoubtedly He was exercising the heart of the prophet about. So you think of the time here. It says, “The word of Jehovah came to the prophet Jeremiah the second time, while he was still shut up in the court of the prison”. Oh the untoward circumstances that many who have been with the Lord have had to go through in their pathways! Hence, beloved brethren, we just want to be with the Lord whatever the exercises are through which in love and in grace He passes us. It may be physical pressure; circumstantial sufferings come into the lives of every one of us.
But I
believe the need is to be with the Lord in them. Jeremiah the prophet was in the court of the prison. This book of the prophet Jeremiah is a wonderful book to read. He was a man who saw things; he was a true seer, and he was given insight into how God was going to deal with His people through the carrying away into Babylon, and then right through into the recovery.
I believe we want to get a greater long-range view of what God is doing.
We were speaking on the Lord’s day of the beloved writer of the Revelation and what he was given to see. Think of that word, “Come here, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife”, Revelation 21: 9. It was what God had given to the Lord to show to His bondmen what must shortly take place. What a subject it is as you think of it, from the beginning of Scripture to the very end, God showing His precious thoughts. “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing? ... I know him that he will command his children and his household after him”, Genesis 18: 17, 19. God was prepared to show things to Abraham. The time of test came and he was led in Genesis 22 to mount Moriah. Moriah means, ‘shewn by Jehovah’ (2 Chronicles 3: l). It is wonderful that God was prepared to show things to a man of faith, to give him an insight, to give him a long-range view so that he had before him a city of which God was the artificer and constructor.
Well, beloved brethren, I believe the Lord would arouse every one of our hearts to have the desire to be shown things. So we have this verse—it is an easy one to remember—Jeremiah 33: 3—“Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and I will shew thee great and hidden things which thou knowest not”. This is one of the verses from “the sacred letters”. It should enlist our interest tonight to be more prayerful and more exercised. The young are rightly concerned about their schooling and about employment,
concerned about what is in the future for them; marriage, and the varied exercises of life.
How to work out my life in relation to the testimony should be the concern of every one of our hearts. It necessitates, I believe, intimacy with the Lord and preparedness to go to Him and to call upon Him, like the prophet. Just ask Him. He says, “I will shew thee great and hidden things”. Note ‘ e’ says ‘unattainable’. To the natural man they are unattainable, but to the spiritual what is of God will be shown.
Think of the Lord’s word when He lifted up His eyes and said, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes”, Matthew 11: 25. The Father is ready to make things known.
What a world of things we are brought into in which divine Persons are prepared to show us things which are unattainable to the natural mind. What words these are; how ready God is to show some precious hidden secret, if we are ready to be shown. We were having on the Lord’s day, “Ye have come to mount Zion; and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem”, Hebrews 12: 22. We are going to enjoy it in a coming day, but to have the reality of these things in our souls now would strengthen us in our pathway here. So as we go on, day by day we would have what would give us stability in our souls and give us steadiness when the element of mocking comes from any around. Oh it would lead us to just confess the name of the Lord and to express what is in our hearts as having been shown it by the Lord through faith and by the Spirit’s readiness to serve us.
So one would draw attention to this precious thought, beloved brethren, with the desire to interest all our hearts tonight to be enquirers of God, to go into His temple and enquire of the Lord.
Think of that woman who said, “Why am I thus?”, Genesis 25: 22. The Lord gave her the answer, gave her an understanding as to what was in the divine mind, what was in the purpose of God as to the struggle that was going on within. I suppose there is many a struggle going on within the hearts of believers in Jesus whose lives have been tossed about in the sea of confusion that is abroad in Christendom. Oh, would that we would go into the divine presence with our concerns! I think that is a lovely word in Psalm 119: 11, “Thy word have I hid in my heart”. Let us value the sacred word and appreciate divine communications so that we have an understanding from God and are preserved amid the confusion that is abroad.
Scripture speaks about that—“tossed and carried about by every wind of that teaching”, Ephesians 4: 14. What winds of wrong teaching blow! They come against us. Let us be among the trees of the Lord that are satisfied and are not blown down by the winds of confusion of this world, but whose roots go deep, drawing upon the resources that are in the Holy Spirit of God, so that we are steadied and made stable.
The word of God will strengthen us as we read it. There is no telling what thoughts the Spirit of God will give you in your daily meditations and prayer. It is like this prophet, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee”. What an influence he had upon another. You think of Daniel who “understood by the books” in Daniel 9: 2. He read the prophet Jeremiah and he would have gone into the presence of God, and what understanding Daniel was given as to the secrets, as knowing the God of the heavens. He could then convey even to that great monarch the mystery of what was to come in the ways of God with men. We are still in the time of Daniel’s prophecy, great monarchies that have come and gone, but we are still in the time of the last one, the time of the iron and the clay, where things are partly stable and
partly fragile. These elements are there in the public system of things among men. God will continue to hold His hand over believers in Jesus and will give us a steadiness and a stability that comes about through an understanding of what He is showing, great and hidden things which we know not, but which God is making known to His confidants.
It says in verse 2, “Thus saith Jehovah the doer of it, Jehovah that formeth it to establish it, Jehovah is his name”. What a God we have to do with!—“the doer of it”; oh what a God He is! He is doing things in the hearts of His lovers, the lovers of Jesus. Think of what the Lord was doing as He spoke to those two on the way to Emmaus and unfolded in the Scriptures the things concerning Himself. Oh, let us value the Scriptures more and let us value the fact that the divine mind is being conveyed to those who are exercised to know, to have understanding of the times we are in. The Lord will help us and encourage us and enlist our interest tonight, I believe, for His name’s sake.
Words in meeting for ministry, Plainfield
24 December 1985