MEETING THE NEED
James A.Petersen
Psalm 40: 6-8; Malachi 3: 14-17
These two scriptures speak of someone answering to the great need of the moment. We have to know the need of the moment and to see if we are in the answer to it. Psalm 40 refers to the Lord Jesus: speaking reverently, it says in verse 7, "Then said I, Behold, I come". He saw and met the need. In the reference to Malachi 3 the godly overcomers saw the need. "Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another"; and such were pleasurable to God. Some might call these persons the remnant, but to those of us who are part of the assembly period and as having the Spirit, we are in the assembly; and hades gates shall not prevail against it Matt 16: 18. There were all kinds of unbelief current, but faith marked some, "Then they ... spoke often one to another''.
I was thinking firstly of Psalm 40 and what the Lord Jesus saw: "Sacrifice and oblation thou didst not desire". Wonderful to think of divine Persons speaking to each other, the Lord Jesus speaking here, as we believe, as knowing the heart of God. Sacrifices in this world are not what God is looking for. "Ears hast thou prepared me", there was one here who would listen to God. "He wakeneth mine ear", Isa 50: 4; Christ as Man listened to God, how pleasurable He was to Him. God looks down, as it were, on men and women here in the Plainfield area, and who has He got here with an opened ear in the morning? Satan has managed in the homes of the world to have means to turn on and hear other voices, but the speaking from heaven may be shut out. How many has God got to hear Him and His beloved Son and the voice of the Spirit? The Lord Jesus was here as hearing and it was delightful to heaven - the day beginning, as it were, in His sojourn here and He was here as hearing. The day beginning with Christ giving delight to heaven in this way on earth; "This is my beloved son, in whom I have found my delight", Matt 3: 17. "Ears hast thou prepared me", then He says as answering to the need of God, "Then said I ... in the volume of the book it is written of me - To do thy good pleasure, my God". Wonderful to think of the pleasure of divine Persons; not whether we are happy, that will come too, but to seek the pleasure of God is a great matter; that is what the Lord Jesus secured for God. God had delight in Jesus and our delight is in Him, too. We think of that Man as He began each day in dependence on God.
In Malachi it says of the overcomers "they shall be unto me a peculiar treasure"; that is what the saints are. Such were refusing the statements of the then religious element: "It is vain to serve God"; and also saying 'we have been righteous yet God brings tribulation on us'. We have heard people say these things and perhaps we have thought the same. God may bring in suffering and distress now, for we are in the time of His governmental operations publicly on Christendom, and unbelief was saying, "what profit is it that we keep his charge" (v 14). Our outlook is "that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the coming glory to be revealed to us", Rom 8: 18. Let us make up our mind as to suffering for Christ, "suffered for a little while" (1 Peter 5: 10), and Christ says, "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?", Luke 24: 26. The Lord Jesus went that way, He did the Father's will, He went to the cross. Peter began to rebuke the Lord, saying, "God be favourable to thee", Matt 16: 22. God's name was brought in in that sentimental way by Peter. The Lord said, "Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written to me to do thy good pleasure." We are to be acquainted with ''the volume of the book" that the Scriptures have in mind. "Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory?". The Lord was saying this to the two going to Emmaus. It is a suffering time - they had to turn around and go back not to do their own will but to the company in Jerusalem - what recovery! Many of us have had to turn around, like Mary in John 20 she turned around and heard the most wonderful communication from the Lord: "I ascend to my Father and your Father", John 20: 17. That is the thing we may have to do, to turn around. "He that has suffered in the flesh has done with sin", 1 Peter 4: 1. It costs something, the flesh being practically annulled in us by the Spirit's presence and work. The Lord suffered, He took on the whole matter according to Psalm 40. He said sacrifices and oblation was not the thing before God and He saw what was needed. Then He committed Himself, "thy law is within my heart", and God's mind was that He should suffer here below, and those that suffer with Him now will reign with Him. Our fears at times are related to sufferings from which we may shrink. God does not take away the sufferings of the Christian but He gives grace; "My grace suffices thee", He said to Paul (see 2 Cor. 12: 9). "Burnt-offering and sinoffering has thou not demanded"; there was the need, and He said, "Then said l, ... To do thy good pleasure". What an answer to the need of God in that Man. What an answer in Malachi 3 to the need of God, "Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another ... and that thought upon his name". They did not abandon the gatherings of their brethren. Many may not be gathering at the present time as they should and we pray for recovery, but there are a few going on like those that feared Jehovah and spoken often one to another. They are not overwhelmed in unbelief as Asaph in Psalm 73, but then he went into the sanctuary of God and was adjusted and came out in victory as an overcomer with God's mind about His ways, and he said, "and after the glory, thou wilt receive me", Ps 73: 24.
Beloved, be not weary of well doing among those who speak often one to another and think upon His name - our faith is strengthened although tried. God observed this devotedness in some. He says, "I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him". "A peculiar treasure", that is what the saints are to God; and Christ is His beloved and ours also. For His Name's sake.
PLAINFIELD NJ
17 November 1998