THE RESOURCES OF THE HEAVENLY POSITION
[p. 211] THE RESOURCES OF THE HEAVENLY POSITION
Last evening we were looking at the dignity of our position, if I may use such a word - the rank we are in. Indeed, we could not get any higher position, for it is not simply relationship, but position, because it is not merely that we are sons of God, but united to Christ, and therefore we could not be in a closer position. No company of believers has ever had so close a place as those who form the body, and we are able to carry it out, not only now, but to all ages. Thus we are the complement, that which completes Christ, the setting forth, the full display, you a little bit, and I a little bit; hence when the church comes down from God out of heaven as the bride, she comes down having the glory of God.
Now what we have to look at this evening is not the dignity of the position, but the resources of the position. A man might have a great position in the world, but be entirely without means to support it. And that is one of the dangers with us as far as we talk of our high position and have not the means to carry it out. Not that there is not power for it, but really we do not enter into what this is, what the blessed God has for us.
The world might say, I do not see you are in the high position you talk about. I reply, I do not say I am, but what I am saying is that I have the means to maintain that position. And you always find that if a man has the means to maintain his position, he does not talk of his position; while the person who has not the means is always more or less inclined to talk of his position, because he wants to get an acknowledgment for a position he has not power to maintain; if he has [p. 212] it, he need not remind persons of what his position is. Thus you will find with a person always reminding you that he is a heavenly man, very likely he is not walking at all as such, but wants to get the credit of the position he has not power to maintain. If he had the power for it he need not remind you of it, because he would be actually walking in it.
Now the resources are the consequences of a person having accepted his dignity; but if you have not answered to the latter part of the first prayer, this prayer would not touch you; you would not want it. Here is a person saying, I admit the wonderful dignity I am placed in as a member of the body of Christ, and now I want to know how to carry it out, for an empty title is nothing. Certainly this is a most necessary thing, and felt so amongst men, and in this country at least a man who has a title generally gets means to support it. What is a king if he has not a penny to support his dignity? A very great man, but he cannot maintain his dignity, he has not got the material support.
God grant we may enter into our resources more, for it is extremely comforting to us to know that the very place where people would deny the dignity is the very place where God gives me the power to support it. My dignity would not be denied in heaven; down here it is.
Well, tonight I do not dwell on my dignity, but on the means God has given me to support it. And I say it is the result of a person having taken his place in heaven, and therefore it is the prayer for it.
Now turn to two scriptures in the Old Testament in order to get types of what this is. And we shall find a great principle, and the constant order of God, especially during this period, that provision is made for the thing before the exigency arises - that is, that before God wants you to do anything, He has provided for it.
Deuteronomy 33: 25 says, “as thy days, so shall thy strength be”; but that is not the character of the present time, as you have your strength before the day, and you could not carry it out if it were not so. Thus we find it in our blessed Lord, and He was the full expression of it, for He came from God.
As I was saying lately, when God wanted to prepare Moses for the great trouble down here upon earth, He did not tell him one word about it, but occupied him with the patterns for the tabernacle, and with the beauties of heaven. A person says, That is too high, would it not make me unfit for anything here? Not at all; on the contrary, if we were more occupied with the heavenly, we should be all the better prepared to meet things here.
Moses had not a word of preparation because he was well prepared. He had been occupied for forty days in the full view of the beauties of God’s order, and he was imbued with it, coloured by it, with what suited God. He could say, I have what suits God; hence when he comes down here and finds what has come in, without a word of instruction from God he tells the levites to gird on every man his sword and go out in the camp and slay every man his friend, or neighbour, or brother. He knew what suited God, and without a word of scripture for it he was prepared. That is the character of the thing now, and that is what we have to learn. We all fail in not being up to the crisis. And why? Because you do not know what suits God in the crisis. It is not a question of an honest man, but you do not know what suits God.
Learn like the psalmist in Psalm 73! First he looks at the thing as a man here would look at it. But suppose he had first gone into the sanctuary, and had come from God, how would it have been then? I know well what a difference this makes.
Sometimes people say when a difficulty arises - and I am not objecting to the proposition at all - they say, Let us pray about it. Well, I ask, what do you expect [p. 214] from that prayer? Oh, I hope God will come in in some way and help us. Let me tell you, you will find that what you will get if you are really praying will be that you yourselves will be turned round to look at the thing in the way God sees it. The change takes place in you. Hence I have sometimes said, I will wait until you come back, I will wait to see what effect God will have upon you.
As I say, and I do believe it is true, there is a great effect that takes place in us. It is not that God comes in with some distinct manifestation of His power in the thing; the manifestation of the power is in me. He says, I have brought you round to my own impression about the thing. You were coloured with what you were accustomed to do, but you are now coloured with what I feel about it. And that is the practical difficulty; Nebuchadnezzar looks at the material power, and he sees a head of gold; Daniel looks at it, and he sees a lion. What made the difference? One looked at it with man, the other with God. They were both honest men, but not both divine. One was a divine man and hence had a divine mind.
Turn now to Deuteronomy 26. Here we get a type of the truth in the chapter we are considering. “And it shall be when thou comest into the land that Jehovah thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest it, and dwellest therein.. .”. That is just where you are. You have got in, and are dwelling in the land, and there is where the power comes in. Well, what to do now? Why, then you are to turn and praise the Lord that you have got in. In verse 9 you read, “And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey”. There you are brought to the place, and that is the first thing. Now what is the action of those who have come to the place? What do they do? The great action of that day was, as you get in the close of this chapter, that they worshipped. The first great thing [p. 215] is that you are brought to the land, and the effect of being brought out into this wealthy place is that you worship.
I know very well what may occur to some of you: I thought I had come out to fight; they were there to learn to fight. Quite true, but that was not the primary thing; I am a worshipper there.
Hence you get that beautiful doxology in Ephesians 3: 20, “But to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, to him be glory in the assembly in Christ [p. 226] Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”. Glory in the assembly - that is worship.
The first thing I want to lay upon your minds is that, having come and taken your place like Israel, this is what you are now to do. He took the first-fruits in a basket, and went up to the place that God had appointed and gave it to the priest. And he said, “I am come unto the country.... And now, behold, I have brought the first-fruits of the land, which thou, O Lord, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before the Lord thy God, and worship before the Lord thy God”. They were worshippers. What would be the action of a worshipper? What did they do afterwards? What is the practice? Just what would be the practice in Ephesians?
Turn to Deuteronomy 26: 12 - “When thou hast made an end of tithing all the tithes of thine increase the third year, which is the year of tithing, and hast given it unto the Levite, the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow, that they may eat within thy gates, and be filled.. .”. The activity of a worshipper was tithing. What was the tithe? The tithe was rendering to God His dues of the property God had given him. If a man had not any property, he could not give any tithes. I believe if you do not learn the truth of Ephesians 3 you will never come out with the practice.
[p. 216] He gives a tenth portion. The first time they came out was when Abraham gave them to Melchisedec. It was not properly what belonged to the priest, but to the conqueror, but he gave them to the priest, to Melchisedec; thus they became the portion of the priest. I only dwell on that as a type.
I ask you to pay attention to the fact that if you have been a worshipper inside with God, you come out to labour for God. There is nothing simpler. What do you call His dues? I call the practice in Ephesians 4 His dues. I come out to act for God in the power of the grace I have enjoyed inside. There is no question at all, I am to give Him His portion, that is my activity; therefore I do not deprive Him of it, no matter what may have come upon me. “I have not eaten thereof in my mourning, neither have I taken away ought thereof for any unclean use, nor given ought thereof for the dead”. I only dwell on that as a type of a worshipper, as a great thing; and that is what I want first to lay upon you, what is inside, and there is no difficulty in arriving at it.
Having come to this wealthy place, what is the first great thing our hearts are called to? It is to thank God I am there, and I worship. I often feel, as to Deuteronomy 26, that here was the great day for Israel, and I often lament that among ourselves, while I hear many thanking God that they have got out of Egypt, how very few there are who thank God they have got into heaven. Then, I say, Israel is beyond you. They could say, We are come to the wealthy place, and laying down their baskets before the Lord they could say, “I profess this day unto the Lord thy God, that I am come unto the country which the Lord sware unto our fathers for to give us”.
Now turn to Joshua 5 for a moment, and I hope you will study these scriptures for yourselves. It is impossible in an address to exhaust the word of God - that we never can - or in any sense to give the fulness of it. Joshua 5: 10 — “And the children of Israel encamped in Gilgal, and kept the passover on the fourteenth day of the month at even in the plains of Jericho. And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes, and parched corn in the selfsame day”. Now that is inside Gilgal, and Deuteronomy 26 is beyond this, but if further on, of course it includes this. You must have come to this if you have come to the spot in Deuteronomy 26, you could not do it else. If I am come all the way to London I must get all the towns between this and London. Hence if you come to the fact that you are dwelling in the land, as in Deuteronomy 26, it is a clear case that you must have passed Gilgal, and Gilgal is the first great principle you start with, and that is what I am coming to view. That is where I learn to be a soldier. The first great thing that is to characterise me - and it is the ground work of the rest - is that I am to be a worshipper; but I am obliged to learn to be a soldier. If there were no enemies I should not want to be a soldier, but I must be so because there are, otherwise I should be always a worshipper, and go on always as such. No, no! I do not want fighting, and I would much rather not fight; but the best way where there is an enemy is to be prepared for him, for if you are not, he will beat you. Well, here is the preparation for being a soldier, the other is for the worshipper, but you are both, and you are formed for both inside. But the worshipper is to render his dues to God outside, and a soldier is to fight the enemy outside. But where is he formed? Inside. Where is the recruit made a soldier? In the barracks.
Gilgal is not Marah. Marah is that you refuse that which would gratify the flesh. In Gilgal you have rolled off the whole thing, the old man is left behind. That is exactly in figure like a recruit; he comes up to the barrack gates with his country clothes upon him,
[p. 218] and his country manners and ways; but everything of this is left behind, and he has come to the barracks to be remodelled into a new kind of article altogether - a soldier. You are a soldier as to fighting, but a worshipper as to tithing. As a worshipper I am delighting in God and what God has brought me into, and my resources come out in this place, and I am going outside to labour. But whilst thus occupied, I find there is a terrible enemy, wicked spirits in heavenly places, the prince of the darkness of this world; but I am not a bit afraid, for I am a soldier and I am prepared to meet the foe.
Now in this chapter we see how the soldier is made; and the first great point is that your heart is made more animated with the love of Christ. It is love always that makes the soldier.
Look at a hen with her chickens, no dog will face her. She is a poor timid creature in herself, but love for her brood makes her valiant. Her love bristles up with such fervour that even a large mastiff would quail before her. What makes her such a valiant animal? Love. And if we had love for the Lord we would be wonderfully valiant. What is the really typical import of the Lord’s supper? I am calling to mind what He went through to bring me into this place. I am in the place, but not thinking of the place, but of Him in the place of unclouded light - this divine ground where everything is according to God. Thus in spirit in the Lord’s supper, I am really beside Him, brought to Himself who removed all the distance between Him and me, and I am thinking about what He did to bring me here, how He went down into death for me, and what He bore for me, to bring me into the place of gain; and the more the greatness of the gain comes before my heart, and what that blessed One went through to bring me there, the more I feel, as I leave that table, that I cannot face the world but for Christ. How does it come out? Look at the man of the world [p. 219] in his pride. I say Christ has died here, been driven from here; is this the place then for man’s indulgence, for man’s eminence, for man’s glory? Never, never! I have reached the very acme in the delight of His own presence, found out what He has wrought for me, and am dwelling on the greatness of the love that made Him go through that terrible judgment that lay upon me in order to put me into that scene of unspeakable joy; hence I am a soldier. It is not that I go through the evolutions of the barracks - my heart is touched with love.
But there is the tomorrow. Another day over, another day begins. When you talk of the morrow, I eat the old corn of the land, Christ in glory. “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings”; I come out then to have fellowship with His sufferings - there you are a soldier.
What is the nature of this prayer here? The apostle says, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, in order that he may give you according to the riches of his glory.. .”. Glory is the measure of God for everything now, and the glory is the expression of divine satisfaction according to His attributes - not a single thing left out, not holiness left out, love could not be, or the diadem of divine glory would not be complete. Everything is in its fulness; holiness is full, love is full, everything is full.
What is the first part of the prayer? That He would grant you to be strengthened. It is power. Power has acted for you to bring you up; and now you are gone up to understand the power that has brought you up, and so understand it that you may come out to act in that power. By and by when you come to the sixth chapter, it is to come from you, but I am acting in power in the tithing, and against the enemy in fighting. But the first thing your heart must necessarily delight in is “That the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”. It is not the place now, mind, but the Person of Christ - that He may dwell in your hearts by faith.
You see what a thing it is! You get a little of this in the type in the case of Isaac and Ishmael. It was not only Isaac who was in the house, but Ishmael was there - and Ishmael was there first. But at length Isaac was weaned and a great festivity took place; Ishmael was turned out. I call that the Coronation Day; Christ is crowned, and all the house is His. But you walk about the world with the thought, I do not see one who gives Him this place. I say there is a place He has got in heaven now, He must get His place anyway. And do you not like His place? There may be conflict or intrusion here, but there is a place where Ishmael could not venture; and therefore there is a moment in the history of the soul when Christ gets the throne of your heart. I do not say you will always maintain it, but there is a moment when the soul through divine grace lets Christ have the entire rule, and is that a poor thing? Christ has been rejected from this world, but is He king in your heart? Does He reign there? He is not reigning on earth yet, but is He reigning over you, in me?
He ought to reign in our houses, too; He said to Zacchaeus, I will dwell in thy house today. Christ has no property in the world yet, but if He has got our bodies, He ought to reign in them. As the little hymn expresses it
‘Oh, for a heart submissive, meek,
My great Redeemer’s throne,
Where God alone is heard to speak,
Where Jesus reigns alone.’
I am sure it must be blessed to have a heart like that, but you never get it down here; you will get it up there perhaps. “That the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts” - that is actually, He is at home [p. 221] there, just as you get in John 14 - “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him”. That is, the Spirit makes your heart sensible that your heart is a room, so to speak, for Them to dwell in. The same word is used in the beginning of the chapter. He has an abode for us up there, and He says He will have an abode in you down here in the world.
What do I gain by going up into that place? you hear a person say. I ask, What is the difference between the gospel and the church? In the gospel the joys of heaven come down to me through the Holy Spirit, home comforts before I get home. In the gospel you are a son while walking about the world here according to Romans 8, as the son of the highest and greatest potentate in the world; you are in the world like a man out in the bush all away, still you have the greatest personage for your father. That is the gospel. But in the church I go to where all the joys and comforts are. In the gospel it is the grapes of Eshcol come down to me, but in the church I go up to where they grow through being united to Christ. Individually I have them down here, corporately I have them up there. That is the first great thing. It is not even the thing before your mind, but it is the Person who brought you there, that is the Person who is now to dwell in your heart by faith.
Well, I say, that is a wonderful thing for power, and there is no one to disturb it. You say it is a great thing to get to a place where there is nothing to disturb. Just as in the language of the Canticles, “I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, until he please”. Just as you say, it was a happy meeting, there was no disturbance, the power of the Lord was present in the room and kept all disturbance out. No disturbance in His presence, that is the wonderful thing; everyone occupied with the Lord - there is power to keep out all disturbance. I delight to think He is in a place that suits me, and [p. 222] would I like to be there? That is what it is, I want Christ, that He may dwell in my heart by faith.
The next thing is, “being rooted and founded in love, in order that ye may be fully able to apprehend with all the saints...”. Down here we have to hate “even the garment spotted by the flesh”, but none of that there. I say, Come on, to every one of the saints; no matter how discordant, or how unfitted for company down here, all divested up there. You could not pass in with a bit of the old thing upon you. How could you get into the holiest with a spot upon you? It would not be the holiest if you did. No one with a spot does get in - but there is one with a spot, what then? He gets it washed off, and then he gets in. But he got in first through the blood, and has he lost his place there? No, but he loses the enjoyment of it, and that is another thing. He got his place first through the efficacy of the blood, but he loses the enjoyment of his place as soon as he gets a spot on him. What then is to be done with the spot? Why, wash it away, that there may be no sense of defilement. You must not bring in a speck. It is not a question of a little defilement, there must not be a particle. A great many have the sense of defilement - what are they to do? Go in as you went at first, your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and your bodies washed with pure water. A great many never come in.
People say to me, Well, you know, I am very dull today and very cold. And why? Well, one thing I say is that you were not always like it, or you would not be conscious of the dullness and coldness now. Some people never feel dull because they never felt bright. People are depressed, and I am not a bit sorry for it, for I say you can never be right until you go back to what is really yours; you could not have it and want it at the same time.
“Being rooted and founded in love... “. You being in a Person and now having a Person dwelling in your [p. 223] heart by faith, what are you looking at? “The breadth, and length, and depth, and height”; that is, the whole sphere of the domain of God’s counsels. But how get the view except where the view is? How can I see Exeter if I do not come to Exeter? And how can I see heaven if I do not go up? And how can I see the counsel and domain of God’s order if I do not go where it is? Moses went up mount Pisgah to look at the land, but here am I in it; and there you may be lost in the wonderful nature of the thing. What then do I fall back upon? The love you know - “and to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge, that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God”. You come back to the love, you know something of that.
What attracts the heart so to Christ? At one time we were looking at His death to get us out of the ruin we were in; then thanking God that we have got out through His grace; and what now? Now I am thinking of the love that brought me out; but up there, where I do not want it, I say, Now I can enjoy your love. Let me explain.
Very often persons do not understand love except in its activity. Let me ask you to ponder what I say. Some people do not understand love except in activity. In the world all insist that there must be love and love in activity, necessity makes it so. See a mother with a sick child attending on it so anxiously - how she shows her love to the object of her solicitude! But suppose the child gets well, has the mother lost her love for the child, now there is no longer need for the activity of love? I contend, and I believe everyone knows it, that the love is as great, and greater, where there is no necessity for its activity, than when there was. When the child is well, now the mother can say, How I do love that child. She was anxious about it, and slaving for it when ill - that was the activity of love; but now love enjoys itself, it is the known enjoyment [p. 224] of the love itself. If you know love only in its activity, you do not know what love is; you only know benevolence, you have not hold of love. You come to a needy person in order to benefit that person. That is only benevolence. Love delights in any sacrifice to accomplish this. Do you think, if a parent, I would not like my child to have the same happiness as myself? He went through all that terrible suffering to place the objects of His love in the same blessedness as Himself, and now He says, “He will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing”. Think how God can delight in that love. Well, that is what we get a taste of here, the love that passes knowledge. How you expatiate on it where there is no necessity any more for its activity! Down here in the poor world I want it in its activity; but here you are quietly dwelling on the love you know, your heart expatiates upon what it is in itself when there is no necessity for its activity.
Then you reach up to the fulness of God.
Now the last two verses should not be separated - it is the outburst of worship. “But to him that is able to do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us, to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”. There is what is to come out in the church, the glory of God. You must not separate the two verses, because verse 20 is the power in you, not the power in God.
Let me try and explain this a little, because I think there is a great lack in understanding what this verse teaches. One has constantly heard it used as though it said that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think according to the power in Him. Not so, it is according to the power in us. He has given me power to make me do something. He can “do far exceedingly above all which we ask or think, according to the power which works in us”. I cannot explain it to you in any better way than supposing the [p. 225] captain of a company referring to one of his men, John So-and-so; he says, There is a man I can do a great deal with, he is a man of great power, I can do a great deal with that man because the power is in him.
The apostle says something conveying the same idea. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”. But the power is in us, not the power towards us. In the first chapter the power is towards us, in the third chapter it is in us, and from us in the sixth.
Here you are made acquainted with the power that got us up. Just like a bird - it has its wings, but does not know it until it uses them. So we, until we get up there with Christ, never do know our power; it is in you now yourselves. It is not as it was with Peter, he had the power merely delegated to him, but the power is in us.
You do not know what He can do with you? Can I do the tithing? Certainly. And why? Because by the power in you He can make you do wonderful things beyond what you ask or even think. Take Paul’s thorn for the flesh. One might say, I should not be able to bear it in that way. He can make you do “exceedingly above all which we ask or think”, not by the power that He will give, but by the power He has given you.
I do not know how you could carry out your great dignity without this power. Here is the resource to carry it out.
First I come out with Christ in me, and now look at the effect of that - Christ dwelling in my heart. Well, I will do the things according to His pleasure, all the saints are before me, too; I see the actual scope of things, all the wonderful things in the “breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of God’s counsels; I have seen with all saints, and the love made to be more consciously before my heart. Now for the power; in us, remember. Now I am a worshipper: “to him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”.
Thus you now have the power, the resources for your dignity, to support your dignity. Last evening we were considering the dignity of the position; now, the actual state, and the state in which you are able to come out. I need not tell you, beloved friends, you will find it is not always that you are in it. Little any of us know of it, but once you have tasted it, once you have had a divine taste of it, you will say, I would like to have it again, I would like to know more of it. This is what qualifies for coming out and rendering to the Lord all His dues.
The first thing is to keep the unity of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace - the Spirit’s unity, the whole of the body of Christ; I am going with that unity. My eye keeps the unity of my body, my ear does the same. They do not talk about it, it is not a matter of sentiment at all; all conspire together, every member of my body conspires to keep the unity.
Well, I say, we are thus to be concerned here with what belongs to Christ in the world in which He has been rejected; maintaining for Him, and as in chapter 6, to be “praying .. . with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching unto this very thing with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints”.
The actual mystery is the church, the body of Christ on earth and Christ the Head in heaven. That is the acme of consummation to look for on this earth. The apostle tells us, before we come to this prayer, that what he wanted was that all men should see the administration of the church upon earth - alas, little seen, little talked of now - “in order that now to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies might be made known through the assembly the all-various wisdom of God”. Why, in the writings of the fathers of the first century there is not a word about the church, not a thought! Until the present century there is no [p. 227] notice of it in any of the writings of christianity. They never get beyond personal attachment to the Saviour, they know nothing of union with Him. I am attached to the Saviour, too, but mere attachment always gives occupation with the attachment. When union comes in you are settled, and never settled until then. I see many looking for all manner of divine and beautiful feelings, all occupied with attachment; but attachment necessarily lives upon itself, for it is not settled. If there is no union, it is not established; union alone establishes. And the greater the affection, the more it revolves round itself. You do not lose your affection, but in union you get established, because in union you can occupy yourself with the object of your affection. Before that your affection revolves round itself, whereas when union comes you are occupied with the object of it, and you are established, quite settled now.