MORAL AND SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD
There is special interest, dear brethren, attaching to the histories of Gideon and Samson, because they are the two judges in connection with whose history the thought of the service of God appears. It appears in both these passages we have read. Gideon had the thought of serving God with that which was acceptable to Him, and Manoah and his wife, the parents of Samson, having received intimation that Samson was to be born, and would deliver the people of God, had a similar thought, that what should be in view was that God should be served. I take up these two histories because I believe they represent two important features that must be borne in mind, in relation to the service of God, and which are in keeping with what we have had before us in our meetings.
The first is in connection with Gideon, that there must be suitable moral conditions. It is a question of the kind of man that is to have part in the service of God. When I speak of moral conditions, I mean, of course, conditions that relate to matters of good and evil, and right and wrong, and that is always necessary if we are to have part in the service of God, that we should consider what kind of conditions God looks for in those who have to do with Him; and that in turn raises the question of the kind of man that God will have to approach Him, and that leads us in due course to the appreciation of Jesus as the kind of Man that God intends to perpetuate before Him. The history of Samson on the other hand involves the idea of spirituality. Not that moral conditions are left aside, for they are not, they never are left aside, but in addition to suitable moral conditions, if we are to enter upon the greatest things which God has in mind for us, and to serve Him in the light of those things, we greatly need spirituality. I think we shall see by the Lord’s help that Gideon’s history involves the necessity for the appreciation of the Holy Spirit. I take it up in that light; as I say the service of God is in view in both cases.
The book of Judges gives us God’s intervention from time to time, to deliver His people from influences to which they had become subject through carelessness and departure, in order that they might be secured for His pleasure; and let us always bear that in mind, dear brethren, we are now enjoying the fruits of a marked intervention of God, which commenced about a hundred and twenty or so years ago, and which has been maintained in the Lord’s faithfulness, and in the power of the Spirit, through much in the way of conflict. It has been maintained until the present time, and we should ask ourselves what has it in mind? Is it simply our own blessing that is in mind, or is it that God would secure us all, all the saints, to serve Him in keeping with the light in which He has been pleased to make Himself known? It surely has the latter in mind. That was the case when He intervened to bring His people out of Egypt, that they should serve Him. He would bring them into the land indeed, but even before they were brought into the land, they were to serve God upon the mountain at which God had appeared to Moses.
Well now, another thing that will be noticed in regard of each of these incidents is that the rock is brought in, and that I believe is a reminder to us of the faithfulness of God, the great stability that we have in our souls as we in any way respond to the truth in the knowledge that God is faithful. It is emphasised in the two epistles to the Corinthians, it is emphasised in the second epistle to Timothy, that God is faithful, He is not going to allow things to go to pieces. If there is departure from Him, the saints will suffer the governmental consequences of it, but on the other hand He will bring in deliverance in His faithfulness, in order that His thoughts may be realised. And so in Deuteronomy 33, it says, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”, that means a finished work, a work deliberately undertaken. That is the great thing for comfort to our hearts, that if God intervenes in grace and brings in recovery of the truth, He intends to carry through His work, a finished work, to completion, and that is that the full measure of His thoughts regarding His saints in sonship, and in association with Christ, and as the assembly, and all that God has in mind to secure from them will be realised.
Well now, at the time that Gideon is introduced, the people of God were under bondage to the Midianites, and also the Amalekites, and also as we find later on, as we read the history, the Ishmaelites. Three alien influences, by which the people of God had been brought into bondage. There were some who felt things, we read that they had to resort to the dens and caves of the earth, in the beginning of chapter 6, and it is alluded to in the Hebrews 11, showing that those who were thus marked were in the line of faith though in great obscurity. But now Gideon appears. He was threshing wheat in a winepress. The Midianites were descended from Abraham through Keturah, the Ishmaelites were of course, descended from Abraham, Ishmael being a son of Abraham, and the Amalekites were descended from Abraham, Amalek being a grandson of Esau. So that all these influences represent those who have had some link with the truth, and yet are not formed by it, and not in any way in keeping with it, but rather prove to be hostile to the truth. How important it is, beloved brethren, that we should not allow links in any way with those who are opposed to the truth. These hostile influences were brought to bear upon Israel and it was a question how they were to be delivered. The Midianites had two notable princes, Oreb and Zeeb. They had two notable kings, Zebah and Zalmunna. The history of Gideon fits in thus with the Corinthian position. It is the state of things that has reference to a named locality, and in Corinth, they were boasting in their princes. They were saying “I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas”, although it was not Paul and Apollos and Cephas literally that they were boasting in, it was their own local princes they were boasting in. Man was great before their eyes, but it was the wrong man. It was not the man after God’s own heart, it was the wrong man. And then they were reigning as kings too; so that in every way the position obtaining at Corinth is exactly what corresponds with the conditions that were found among God’s people at this time of Gideon’s history. And the question is, is that to have dominion over the people of God? Are they to be under the dominion of the wrong man? That was what Paul was so concerned about when he went to Corinth. He was determined, it says, to know nothing among them save Jesus Christ; he had got just one Man in his heart, and that was Jesus Christ. When scripture speaks of Christ Jesus, it refers to Jesus as the One who has all along from the very outset been in the mind of God. The Man who has been in His mind from before the foundation of the world, in whom His pleasure would be brought in and established forever. But when scripture speaks of Jesus Christ, it is the same Man of course, it is Jesus, but it is Jesus as brought in, in contrast to the Man that obtains here at the present time, brought in with a view to displace him. And that is what has to be brought in in ministry. If the saints are in any way making much of man, then what has to be brought in is the Man whom God delights in, and whom He has anointed to the exclusion of every other.
Now Gideon says, “If now I have found favour in thine eyes, shew me a sign that it is thou who talkest with me. Depart not hence, I pray thee, until I come unto thee, and bring forth my present”—my present. The note shows that it was the food offering, the meat offering that he had in mind, that is to say he had in mind the kind of man that is acceptable to God, that is what the oblation or meat offering always represents in scripture. And Gideon had in mind to bring that forward—to introduce it; how is it to be brought to pass? We may speak of Christ objectively, so to speak, and that is all good, but then an oblation really represents a certain subjective appreciation on our part—a certain subjective formation, in accord with what which we appreciate in Christ. I know that the oblation as presented to God in Leviticus 2, of course it refers to Christ, but when we speak of the offerings generally, there is the burnt-offering, which is especially a reference to Christ, as the One in the value of whose Person and work we stand in unchanging acceptance with God, and then along with the burnt-offering, God always required an oblation and a drink-offering, and that refers to certain subjective conditions that He looks for in those who draw near to Him in the gain of the burnt-offering. He expects that those who draw near to Him shall have been formed in some measure, at least, of consistency with the personal excellence of Jesus—of the Man whom He delights in, and are devoted to the pleasure of God, so that they are poured out, so to speak, in devotion to His will, and afford that which will really minister joy to the heart of God. So that our approach to God is not to be formal, it is indeed to be characterised by a real appreciation of Christ in our hearts, but also by a certain subjective correspondence with it, so that there is that which affords pleasure to the heart of the blessed God.
Well now, Gideon, as I say, had the food offering particularly in mind. He does indeed present a kid of the goats, which no doubt, was his understanding of the burnt-offering for the moment. It was a suitable recognition of the smallness of conditions amongst the people of God—just a kid of the goats. But what is to be noticed peculiarly is this, that while he presented a kid of the goats, he presented an ephah of flour in unleavened cakes. He had a great sense of the need of unleavened bread. The usual amount of flour in the oblation accompanying a lamb or kid for a burnt-offering is one tenth of an ephah, but Gideon is impressed with the need of unleavened bread. And so he brings a whole ephah of unleavened flour in cakes. And that was the exact exercise, dear brethren, at Corinth, and it is an exercise that we have always to carry with us. The apostle understood that the way to meet the conditions which existed at Corinth was first of all to bring in Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and then later on as he proceeds and deals with the details of the conditions that existed, he reminds them of the passover. He says, “Christ our passover has been sacrificed”, have we forgotten it? If anyone here is going on with what is contrary to God, have you forgotten that Christ our passover has been sacrificed? that He has actually borne the judgment of God against sin? It was unmitigated, it was roast with fire. There was no mitigation of it at all. Christ our passover has been sacrificed. We are always to carry that in mind, and what goes along with it is that we are to keep the feast. The feast of unleavened bread was what Paul insisted on, to meet the conditions that were prevalent at Corinth. He says, “Christ our passover has been sacrificed”, it has been roast with fire, the passover lamb was roast with fire, and it was to be accompanied by a feast that lasted for seven days—the whole period of our history here, the feast of unleavened bread. And he says, “ye are unleavened”, that is the abstract view of the saints. And abstract does not mean that it is untrue, it certainly is true of the work of God in the saints. There is no leaven in that. The work of God is entirely of Christ. What we need is to keep in our minds, what we are as the result of the work of God, and identify ourselves in our thoughts and exercises with that, and see that the light of the passover, and all that is involved in it, is maintained in our souls in the power of the Holy Spirit, in regard of all that which God has judged in the cross of Christ. And so he says, “Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump”, and then he says “let us celebrate the feast, not with old leaven”, not with what marked us in our unconverted days, “nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but with unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. Now that means, dear brethren, that we walk before God. There is no power to maintain sincerity and truth save as we walk before God. Because it is innate in every one of us to try to make things appear what they are not, and it is in the world all around us, and the only way to preserve sincerity and truth, and that is what God looks for, truth in the inward parts, is to see that we walk before God.
Well now, as I say, Gideon saw that the great need was unleavened bread, and so he brought with the kid of the goats an ephah of flour, in unleavened cakes. He brought the kid of the goats, the flesh it says, “he put in a basket, and he put the broth in a pot, and brought it out to him under the terebinth, and presented it”. There was the burnt-offering in the kid of the goats, and I suppose there was some suggestion perhaps of the drink-offering in the broth, although the usual drink-offering, of course, as prescribed, was wine, but still there it is; he brought these things. He brought the kid of the goats, he brought the unleavened bread in cakes, and he brought that which could be poured out.
Well now, as I was saying, the whole issue in Gideon’s history is, what kind of man is to be found marking the people of God as having to do with God. There were these two princes to be overthrown, and they were overthrown. There were the two kings to be overthrown, and they were overthrown. But now apply it to ourselves, dear brethren, you remember how Peter on the day of Pentecost refers to Jesus, he says, “This Jesus”, he says that after quoting in full the last four verses of Psalm 16. He says, “This Jesus God has raised up”, so that he is directing our attention back to Psalm 16, a Psalm which the Spirit of God takes up to delineate the features in moral perfection, of the Man Jesus Christ. Paul determined when he went to Corinth to know no other Man among them, to know nothing else among them save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified, and that was what Peter started with. The assembly was not exactly founded on that ministry of Peter’s, for it was already in existence when he spoke that word, but it is founded. “Other foundation”, Paul says in another setting, “can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. And the Spirit having come, Peter in his first address directs attention to the kind of man that Jesus was. I expect we all know Psalm 16, “Preserve me, O God: for I trust in thee”. Dependence on God, the first feature coming into evidence, it was what came into evidence when Jesus came into this scene. “This is the sign to you”, the angel said to the shepherds, “ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger”. What greater expression of dependence on God could you possibly have, then a babe. A babe, that was what they should see. The announcement was “I announce to you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be to all the people; for to-day a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord”. A Saviour, the people of God were to be saved, just as the people of God in Gideon’s day were to be saved, and now “this is the sign to you”, you can imagine what they would expect to see; with what expectancy they would look for the sign. “This is the sign to you”, they would say to themselves, what is the sign? The sign that God has intervened in a Saviour, what is to be the sign? “This is the sign to you: ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger”. God was introducing a different kind of Man. I say it reverently, a different kind of Man. And introducing a different kind of Man in order to displace the man that was, and that is the work of the Spirit now, He is engaged in that work with us all, dear brethren. He is engaged with it all the time that we are here, to displace one man in order to replace him with another, the Man of God’s choice. And so the second verse of Psalm 16 is lowliness, and the third verse is finding His pleasure in the saints of God, and then you find other features in that Psalm, all features of true manhood according to God. They are not much esteemed amongst men, but they are features that are delightful to God. They are the features that are going to fill heaven. Then you find complete separation to God from all that was around, “Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another: their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, and I will not take up their names into my lips”, and so on. And then you find joy in God, and contentment with his assigned portion, and then you find confidence in God with death before him, that is what we come to at the end of the Psalm. And Peter quotes the last four verses in full, on the day of Pentecost, and then he says, “This Jesus, has God raised up ... Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God”, and so on, but it is this Jesus.
And so as I was saying, Paul as entering into Corinth, determined to know nothing among them, save Jesus Christ. This kind of man had been presented in testimony to Israel, they knew the kind of Man that Jesus was. They knew it well and the builders cast Him out, He would not fit into their system. He was the stone which the builders rejected, cast out as worthless, as though they would say, we cannot make anything of this Man Jesus. He is not the kind of man that will fit into our system at all. And so they cast Him out as worthless. But He is the One to whom we are to come, according to Peter’s epistle. He is the One whom we are to learn to appreciate. He is the only Man that is pleasing to God, the only Man whom God wants to see in His assembly, the only Man to whom God can safely entrust His testimony, the only Man who is acceptable to Him in those who draw near to Him in His service. Let us understand this, dear brethren, the kind of Man that God looks for in those who have to do with Him. And so as I said, He was presented in testimony and He was crucified. That was man’s estimate of Jesus, and it was at the same time the exposure of the first man. The two things actually coalesced: there was man’s estimate of Jesus on the one hand, and the very fact that they had such an estimate of Him, and crucified Him, exposed what they were, in the sight of God, as morally worthless. Whatever they might have appeared to be in grandeur according to all that Midian had, they were morally worthless in the sight of God. But then not only did they crucify Him, but God seized the occasion, when man was thoroughly exposed, to bring that man to an end in judgment vicariously, in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. How wondrous God’s ways are! Do we just hear these things and then forget them, or do they have a place, dear brethren, in a formative way in our minds and hearts? Do we understand the cross of Christ? It is not only that there our sins have been borne and put away, but it there that God has judged the man that has been fully exposed in the life of Jesus as utterly abhorrent to Himself. He has judged that man and ended his history, and now He has given us the Holy Spirit in order that the features of the Man that He delights in, might be found in us.
And so, as I say, Gideon presents his offering, and it says, “And the Angel of Jehovah put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes”. That is, his offering was accepted. He had got the right ideal before him. He had had the ideal before him that God was to be served, but He was to be served in connection with an order of manhood that was according to Christ. And so with this ideal before him you can understand that God would be with him, and that God used him. He passed him through much in the way of discipline and reduction, in order that he might be effective as a servant, but God used him for His deliverance. Indeed he says to him at the very outset, “thou shalt smite Midian as one man”, and that brings us again to the cross, dear brethren, because whatever there is that has power over us that is contrary to God, is just the first man, that is all it is. It is just the first man in some form or other. And the way to get rid of it is to come back to the cross. It is just one man, it is just one man, it may be an infinite number of varieties of the same man, but it is just one man, and God has judged that man, He has judged the one man. And what we want, dear brethren, is to come back to the cross continually in our souls, and maintain it in our souls, in the power of the Spirit, and it will dispose of every enemy, everything that has power over us, and make room for the Spirit of God, to bring the Man that delights the heart of God.
So now I must pass on to Samson’s history, not that the chapter we have read refers to Samson. The chapter we have read refers to his parents. But it has in mind the bringing in of Samson, and what was to be secured for God, as the result of Samson’s service. And so the angel as we know first appears to Manoah’s wife, and gives her certain instructions which were to govern her, and certain instructions which were to govern the son she would receive. And she tells her husband and it says, “Manoah rose up and went after his wife”, and said to the angel, “When thy words then come to pass, what shall be the child’s manner and his doing?” and the Angel ignores the question, He does not answer the question, He answers you might say the man—Manoah. He says, “Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware: she shall not eat of anything that cometh of the vine, neither shall she drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean: all that I commanded her shall she observe”. Now applied to ourselves, dear brethren, it just means that we are to be watchful against anything that would displace the Holy Spirit. “Be not drunk with wine”, it says in Ephesians, “in which is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit”. The wine here, “do not drink of anything that cometh from the vine, neither shall she drink wine or strong drink”, in its application to us, would be just that which excites the flesh, and then there is not to be eaten anything that is unclean. You would say well these are moral conditions. They are moral conditions, but they are moral conditions that are necessary in order to leave full room for the Spirit of God, because when we come to the greatest things in Christianity, what is necessary is not only suitable moral conditions but spiritual conditions. And so that is what the Angel says to Manoah: “Of all that I said unto the woman let her beware; she shall not eat anything that cometh from the vine, neither shall she drink wine or strong drink, nor eat anything unclean; all that I commanded her she shall observe”.
But now Manoah has also the thought of ministering to the pleasure of God. He needed a little instruction. First of all he proposes to minister to the Angel that spoke to him, although he did not know that he was the Angel of Jehovah. So he was wrong in that, he says, “I pray thee, let us detain thee, and we will make ready a kid of the goats for thee”. And the Angel said to Manoah, “Though thou shouldest detain me, I will not eat of thy bread; and if thou wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou shalt offer it up to Jehovah. For Manoah knew not that he was the Angel of Jehovah”. So that the Angel is adjusting him, and telling him that any offering that he presents, must be to Jehovah. But now he asks “What is thy name … And the Angel of Jehovah said to him , How is it that thou askest after my name, seeing it is wonderful?” How this, of course, directs our minds to Isaiah 9, while referring prophetically to the Lord Jesus it says, “his name is called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace”. The first thing is Wonderful, the third thing is Mighty God, these are names of Jesus, “His name is called Wonderful”. And now the Angel says, “How is it that thou askest after my name, seeing it is wonderful?” I believe this incident in relation to the incoming of Samson has in mind the greatest and final thoughts that God has recovered and which He would get us into, as set before us in the gospel of John. The gospel of John peculiarly presents to our hearts appreciation of the One whose name is Wonderful. It starts with the “Word”. “In the beginning”, it says, “was the Word”. One well known to the disciples, One whom they had recognised as conveying to them the mind of God. They had called Him among themselves the Word, as we read in John’s gospel and also in Luke’s gospel. But now John by the Spirit of God says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God ... All things received being through him, and without him not one thing received being which has received being”. He was in the beginning with God. But not only that but He was God. And then it says lower down, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. Now these are wonderful things connected with One whose name is Wonderful. Not only is the Angel’s name Wonderful, but it says, “he did wondrously”. And it says, “Manoah and his wife looked on”. That is the gospel of John. “We have contemplated His glory”. First of all John introduces the One whose name is Wonderful, then begins to show us how He has done wondrously. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”, what a marvellous thing to say in regard of Him who is God. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”, moving about as a Man amongst men, “and we have contemplated His glory”, they contemplated, they looked on. And what did they discern as they contemplated? “We have contemplated his glory, a glory as of any only-begotten with a father, full of grace and truth”; that is what they contemplated, that God was setting out in the Person of His Son, His choicest thoughts in regard of men, that He had in mind that men should be brought into a relationship of affection with Himself in sonship. He would set it out supremely in His own beloved Son, become Man for the express purpose, having taken up Sonship in Manhood, in order that this idea of an only-begotten with a Father, might be before their eyes. And so we might say we follow the Lord Jesus in His movements in John’s gospel. He certainly does wondrously, you follow Him through His movements and as you come to the end of the gospel He goes out of this world by way of death. John does not present Him, dear friends, as being led as a lamb to the slaughter, or anything of that sort, John’s gospel presents Him as departing out of this world to the Father, and moving in a wonderful dignity all His own, going into death as One who was going to break its power, and open up a way through it, in order that God’s thoughts regarding man might be made good in Himself the other side of death. As we were hearing yesterday afternoon, He says on one occasion, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where He was before”. Think of the ascending up of Jesus in His own right and power, in the right of His Person, and yet He is the Son of man, setting out in Himself God’s thoughts in regard of man. Not that we have any right or power to ascend in our own person, I am not meaning that, but I mean that He is opening up heaven and a heavenly relationship for men, and setting it out in its glory in His own Person. How wondrous are the movements of the Lord Jesus! It says, “He did wondrously, and Manoah and his wife looked on”. And then it says, “it came to pass, as the flame went up from off the altar”, that is the rock becomes an altar, “towards the heavens, that the Angel of Jehovah ascended in the flame of the altar”, they see him now ascending and again it says, “and Manoah and his wife looked on”. That is what the Lord leads us to in the gospel of John. He says, “Go to my brethren and say to them I ascend to my Father”, and we are to look on. We are to take account of Jesus in relation to His Father, what Jesus is in relation to His Father. “I ascend to my Father”, and then He says, “and to your Father”, we are to learn to identify ourselves with Him, in this wondrous position which He sets out in His own Person. We are to look on, so to speak, and then it says, “and to my God and your God”. We are to seek to get help by the Spirit, to take account of Jesus, in relation to His God, and then as I say, to place ourselves alongside of Him, for that is what in grace He entitles us to do. It is a question of what God has brought in now, His thoughts in relation to man. They are His choicest thoughts and His final thoughts, a completed work. “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”. It is a completed work that He is going to bring in, as a result of His own wondrous faithfulness in spite of all the departure that has marked the public position of the assembly, and we are now in the closing days, dear brethren, when God is bent on completing His work.
Are we concerned to be with Him in it? It is only the Spirit of God that can complete the work. The work can only be completed in us as we afford unhindered scope to the operations of the Holy Spirit of God, and that is what is in mind, I have not any doubt, in the history of Samson. You find that the great foe in Samson’s day was not the Midianites, nor the Ishmaelites, nor Amalekites, it was the Philistines; that is the natural mind of man trying to compass the things of God in mental energy, but we have to judge all that in order that there should be way made in an unquestioned way for the operations amongst us of the Spirit of God. And as we do so we shall find that He loves to exalt Christ before our hearts. We shall know something of the glory of the Person whose Name is Wonderful and we shall love to contemplate how He does wondrously, culminating in this wondrous ascent—“I ascend to my Father, and your Father, and to my God and your God”. And as the Spirit of God gains with us the place that He desires then we shall be ready (as we were having yesterday in our reading) for spiritual conditions and spiritual manifestations, so that the Lord came into their midst, coming in through closed doors. There were spiritual conditions and He could show them His hands and His side, showing how love had served to set them free by His cross from all that is attached to the old, and then in opening up before their intelligence that they were wholly of Him by the work of God, and therefore suited to be with Him in the new and heavenly relationships which He had opened up in His own Person.
Well, beloved brethren, that is what I had before me to say. We need to watch moral conditions, we need also to be concerned as to spirituality; and it is only as these things—right moral conditions and also spirituality—the Holy Spirit being unhindered in His movements amongst us, that we shall reach in any degree of reality and power the thoughts that God has in His mind for us and He desires that we should serve Him as in the good of those thoughts.
May the Lord bless the word to us, for His Name’s sake.
BUCKIE
21st September 1953
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