WHAT IS HIDDEN IN THE HEART
I desire to speak of what is hidden, or secret, for what is secret must be found underlying what is public. In Psalm 119, the psalmist says, “Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee”. It could be that nobody other than God knew what had passed in the psalmist’s heart; his outward conduct and what characterised his path was seen by other people, but what governed him was inward and was known only of God. That is of great importance for us all. It is necessary that we should begin when we are young, and that we should continue in the same way our whole life, with God’s word hidden in our heart; it has a sanctifying effect. God is pleased to leave His own in the midst of an evil world so as to show His triumph in leading them through this world without being overcome. Jude in his epistle says, “to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”. He glorifies God in this light. God is ready to keep us without stumbling and to set us blameless before His glory, with exaltation.
The means of preservation is the word of God. One has often thought of Peter, how he would have been preserved if he had kept in this heart the words of the first Psalm. Without doubt, he knew it well; he had heard it read in the synagogue: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, and standeth not in the way of sinners, and sitteth not in the seat of scorners”. He came to a moment in his history when he sat among the Lord’s enemies and as a result he was overcome and denied his Master; if he had kept in his heart the teaching of the first Psalm, he would never have been found in such a position; hence the importance of continually having the word of God in our hearts. We have to read it. It is of the highest importance that we read it daily. The youngest must do this carefully each day; that must continue in this way as long as we are down here. We must be familiar with the word of God, even if we do not understand what we read entirely. The great thing is to have the thought in our memory and the Holy Spirit can work at an opportune moment; He can bring it to our remembrance when the occasion arises. So we must remember that the Lord Himself has answered Satan on this principle, not that there was ever any suggestion of sin in Jesus, but He was tempted by the devil for forty days, and after that He hungered. The devil drew near to Him and said to Him, “If thou be Son of God, speak, that these stones may become loaves of bread”, but the Lord’s answer was, “it is written”, that is to say that the word of God was in His heart, it was there all ready, as the means by which He resisted the temptation of the devil. He says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word which goes out through God's mouth”. The devil would suggest that He should make use of His divine power to face the needs of the moment, but the Lord became man for the will of God, maintaining what should be proper to man, and what entirely governed Him was the word of God. As we know well, the devil set other temptations before Him, each was resisted by the word of God, which shows how the Lord had it hidden in His heart.
I have already spoken of the first Psalm where the Spirit of God describes the blessed character of the man who does not stand in the way of sinners, and then it is added: “But his delight is in Jehovah’s law, and in his law doth he meditate day and night”. He goes on to show that one who acts in this way will prosper. He says, “all that he doeth prospereth”, so that one would insist to the youngest here that they begin in this way and continue in it to the end. It is on this line of thought that prosperity will be enjoyed. If you read the book of Daniel, you will find at the end of chapter 6 that it is said: “this Daniel prospered”, so that the Spirit of God directs our attention to the kind of person that Daniel was, as he is described in the first six chapters of his book, and He tells us that this kind of man prospers. So if we have desire to prosper, let us consider the first Psalm and also the first six chapters of Daniel.
I have read next in the book of Judges because grave local conditions are described there. The Spirit of God emphasises the idea of localities. It was in one of numerous localities, and general conditions among God’s people at that moment were extremely weak because of departure from God. There was a man in this locality who felt the conditions, this was Gideon. It is said that he threshed wheat in the winepress. A winepress is a very limited place for threshing wheat, but he was doing it in very limited conditions and the Midianites and Amalekites were all around, so that the land was totally ravaged and Israel became greatly impoverished. Gideon was nevertheless determined to have the best food possible. The fact of threshing suggests exercise with the object of removing what was not good so as to have only the good and pure food. Gideon therefore pursued this exercise so that, although the local conditions were poor, there was nevertheless no reason for not being an overcomer who would continue with Christ, we might say, having Christ as food and refusing all that would hinder enjoyment of Him. In acting thus in secret (I doubt there were any other people who knew he did this), it is said that the Angel of Jehovah came and sat, as if he would mark this young man specially. Gideon had a secret exercise, but God had taken account of it and the Angel of Jehovah says to him, “Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valour”. That is very encouraging. It could be that we would think there is nothing very valiant in threshing wheat in a winepress, but it was what was suitable to do at that moment. There was a lack of true food and Gideon was determined to obtain it. So God took account of this young man’s exercises, and said to Him, “Jehovah is with thee”. Gideon in responding shows what is in his heart. It is very interesting to see how what is in his heart is manifested. It might never have been manifested if the Angel had not spoken in this way, but Gideon says, “Ah my Lord, if Jehovah be with us, why then is all this befallen us? and where are all his miracles that our fathers told us of …?” The Angel says, “Jehovah is with thee”, but Gideon says, “If Jehovah be with us”, that is to say that he had all God’s people in his heart. God much appreciates those who love the saints and who have the saints’ welfare at heart. It is said in one of the Psalms that those who love Jerusalem will prosper. Jerusalem is seen there as the centre of God’s interests; for us, it is the assembly, and those who love the assembly will prosper, those who seek the peace of Jerusalem, a figure of the assembly. Although the Angel says, “Jehovah is with thee”, Gideon shows that he has all God’s people in his heart: “If Jehovah be with us”, and he makes allusion to all that Jehovah had wrought in the past, how He had delivered His people, that is to say that his faith apprehended God and he claimed the power of God as being the same to bring the people out of the conditions in which they were seen. It is thus that the Angel says, “Go in this thy might”. There are two features that constitute might: the fact that the people of God are in our affections and keeping in our hearts what Jehovah has done in the past. We can look back in our minds; we can recall what God has done for His saints during the past one hundred and twenty years, at the beginning of the last century. The liberty that we know now in the assembly was then unknown; there were many people who truly loved the Lord; they were marked by piety, but they knew nothing of the assembly or the service of God; they were held in bondage in an ecclesiastical system. There was therefore no liberty among the saints to respond to God, or any liberty for the assembly to be expressed. So God began to operate mightily; he opened the eyes of J N Darby and several others so that they could understand that the assembly has a living Head in heaven, and that the Holy Spirit is down here; they said, if that is the case, we can move in this light and in this power, independently of every human organisation. That was the beginning as of a new era and we enjoy the results now. But what is our present condition? Is it what God desires it should be? If not, there is room for exercise and we have to listen continually to God so that He may produce what is necessary so that He should be served according to His mind. This is what we find in what relates to Gideon who, with this might, would serve the people of Jehovah and secure again what He would be with them.
Now Gideon suggests that He would like to offer a present, that is to say that immediately he grasped the idea that what was in view was the deliverance of God’s people, it was that God Himself should be served. This is what the Lord is constantly emphasising now; the end of ministry and of all exercises that we have, is that God Himself should be served in a way which would be worthy of Him. So David, who cherished such a thought, wrote in Psalm 132: “let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy”. David recognised that there were two important sides in the service of God; that is to say, that the saints should be marked by practical righteousness and that they should also be marked by joy. It is really a dishonour to God if we are not marked by joy. There is clearly the side of sorrow; the Lord was a Man of Sorrows, knowing what weariness is; He felt the state of things existing in the world; He felt deeply, and He also felt sympathetically, the sorrows of His people, but at the same time He was marked by joy; he speaks of “my joy”, and Paul speaks of himself as being in distress but always rejoicing. So it is fitting in the service of God that we should be marked by joy. God Himself is the blessèd God, the source of all that which causes joy, and it is to His dishonour if we are not filled with it. Joy is one of the features that the Spirit produces. It is said to us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. So David prayed and God heard his prayer in going beyond what he had asked; God says, “I will clothe thy priests with salvation, and her saints shall shout aloud for joy”. Salvation is a greater thought than righteousness, and exulting with joy is an accentuation of the idea of joy. Gideon thinks of that, to serve the pleasure of God; he therefore brings a goat and unleavened bread and an ephah of flour. This was a large measure of flour; the normal offering morning and evening required the tenth part of an ephah, but Gideon brought an ephah, which shows that he had a great appreciation of what speaks of the perfect and holy humanity of Jesus, for that is what the fine flour represents. It is said that he put the flesh in a basket, the broth in a pot, and that he presented them; he had the idea of a suitable vessel. What is presented to God must be presented suitably, which is why we have such ministry as to the assembly and as to the Spirit, because the service of God must take form in a suitable vessel, that is to say the assembly, and in a suitable way, that is to say in the power and intelligence of the Spirit.
The Angel of Jehovah accepts the offering and Gideon is given the impression that it is for God’s pleasure. I mention all this to set before us the matter of Gideon’s secret exercises. We should never content ourselves with the conditions that exist among the saints, even if we think they are reasonably good; it is always possible to make them better and that must be a constant exercise that Christ Himself should be the measure of all that pleases God in man. The more we consider Christ so as to draw character from Him, the more we are for God’s pleasure.
In the first epistle of Peter, chapter 3: 3-6, we have the idea of adornment. The apostle is speaking particularly to sisters, although I do not wish to consider this passage from that point of view, but to speak simply of the adornment belonging to a woman as that which should mark the assembly. When God speaks of a woman, He generally has the assembly in view, and here it is what the assembly is to be adorned with. It is one of the thoughts attaching to the bride, as it is said, “prepared as a bride adorned for her husband”. The idea of a bride is that she considers what would be most for the bridegroom’s pleasure and the Holy Spirit seeks to manifest the features of the bride. The book of Revelation ends with that: “the Spirit and the bride say, Come”. The great feature of the bride’s beauty is the adornment which is for the bridegroom’s heart.
Now let us pose the question: what would a true ornament be in Christ’s eyes? What is the Lord going to consider as being truly beautiful? It is simply what would correspond to Himself. This passage speaks of ornament, or adornment, not of what is outward, but what is incorruptible and flows from the hidden man of the heart. That results from the fact that the Man is hidden in the heart and there is no doubt that the Man would be Christ.
As to the features that the bride should display, I should say that the time is come for that, dear brethren: we are coming to the end and the ministry of the Spirit has in view to secure the heart of the bride for Christ, not only to secure her as a wife. The idea of a wife is that she is established in the affections of her husband, and that she finds her joy in being occupied with his interests, but the idea of a bride is that she is adorned to be particularly for the pleasure of the heart of the bridegroom.
Here it is the feature of ornament that we have to put on and it develops from the fact that the Man is hidden in the heart.
That is all I have to say, dear brethren. It is a matter of moral value in God’s eyes, as to what is hidden: first of all the word of God hidden in the heart, so that we should be preserved in a scene of evil, then the secret exercises as to fruit for God which exists in every locality, having in mind that God should be served for His pleasure; and finally Christ Himself cherished in the heart so that we should be able to put on this ornament which is for His good pleasure.
God grant that it should be so for the love of His Name.
ST ETIENNE
11th November 1952
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’,
September 1953
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