THE THINGS THAT REMAIN
I desire to say a word, with the Lord’s help, on the things that remain. That severely limits the things we can speak about because there are very few things that remain as they were. Time has made great changes in everything here. Indeed the Lord sums it up: “treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust spoils”, Matt 6: 19. That covers about everything, either the moth gets it or rust gets it. Men try to make the most enduring things but they are all perishing. Everything here will be wound up too. When we speak about things that remain we must come to God—“Thou remainest”: what a fine word that is!
Changeless through all the changing years.
(Hymn 15)
It is fine to have a point of reference in life, some stable centre from which you can take direction. The seaman needs the stars or the sun to get a point of reference. It has to be in the heavens; there can be no point of reference in things here. A Christian has a point of reference in Jesus where He is. The Man who has been exalted to God’s right hand becomes a point of reference for the Christian. ‘Changeless’, as we have sung, ‘through all the changing years’.
So here God, speaking to the people, says, “The word that I covenanted with you when ye came out of Egypt, and my Spirit, remain among you”. What a word of encouragement! What a history had come in from the time that word was spoken, but God had not changed His thoughts about them—the word remains. Then He says, “my Spirit, remain among you”—a faithful God. What a word of encouragement this must have been to the godly remnant! He brings it in here to encourage them to work. That is what I would like to do—to encourage all our hearts to be committed to the work. How much there is to cause the failing knees and the hands to hang down as we look on our part in things and see what has been allowed in God’s ways. God says, My word, my Spirit, remain among you; it has not changed. Laying hold of that would help us to work. You say, Is it worthwhile? Well, God is addressing the remnant here; He says, “and to the remnant of the people”. God would be addressing us now like that, the remnant of the people. Few there may be, but God thinks it worthwhile to speak to them to encourage them. However few there may be God looks on them as part of the whole and He is encouraging the remnant to work, to lay hold of what He has left among them—My word and My Spirit remain among you. Oh, what cause there was for Him to take them away! They had broken the covenant, they had proved not only unworthy but unfaithful. What cause there was for that covenant to be broken! God says, The word remains that I covenanted with you. He is faithful to what He has said; He is bringing many sons to glory in spite of what has come in. Then He says, “and my Spirit, remain among you”; it is there to be availed of, it is there to be freely known. As you read part of the word you might say it would condemn them because it was their side of the covenant, but God says, If your side has broken down, my side remains, a faithful promise true to myself. So He encourages them. I would like to apply that to our time. I think the word may be applied to what the Lord says: “On this rock I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”, Matt 16: 18. Into this dispensation that we are part of there has come to light this vessel that Christ is building: “on this rock I will build”. That building has not stopped because of the breakdown, or the poor material, you may say, from man’s side, but there is the material under the hand of Christ that is the product of heaven’s activities. The Lord said to Peter, ‘‘flesh and blood has not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in the heavens”. So there is what remains. You may say, It is hard to point to it. But it remains and the light of it shines in the remnant. In the remnant there remains, as we have been so often taught, all the characteristics of the whole. The only difference between the remnant and the whole is the quantity: the quality is still the same, only the volume is reduced. It is the time we are in dear brethren, the quantity has been reduced but the quality is to remain; and God addresses the quality in the remnant that is left. The Lord would encourage our hearts as to what has come in through His word as to His assembly, “my assembly” He says, “and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it”. That remains and will remain until the rapture. In this wonderful time there is developed a bride for Christ through divine grace which is to be His counterpart, soon to be displayed in her own beauty and glory because she has a glory that belongs to her and her alone. The assembly will have a glory that outshines the glory of all other families. In a broken time the light of it is there and the remnant would seek to walk in the light of it, mourning that there is not the quantity, but seeking to work that the quality and shining may be maintained. It says, “be strong ... and work: for I am with you”. Think of the Lord’s promise; He said to His few: “I am with you all the days”, Matt 28: 20. In these days in which we are, the days of breakdown, the days of reproach, He says, “I am with you”.
It is very striking in this chapter how often it refers to “Jehovah of hosts”. What a word to the remnant: “Jehovah of hosts”. What an encouraging word that He has His hosts. He has them all. So few are available, so few known to us, but He is Jehovah of hosts, He remains the same, and He will have hosts too, He will have many families. What a company the redeemed will be!—
Hark! ten thousand voices crying
“Lamb of God!” with one accord;
Thousand thousand saints replying
Wake at once the echoing chord (Hymn 14)
What a company—Jehovah of hosts! It is not referring here to angels—there will be hosts of them too—but the hosts would be the redeemed. Jehovah of hosts—what a company! How beautiful to think of them, majesty belongs to them. What an encouragement to them that God should take this title to address the remnant of the people: “I am with you, saith Jehovah of hosts”. Then He says, My word, the word that He has spoken. What light has come into this time, as I say, of the preciousness and the uniqueness and the peculiar glory of the assembly, outshining all other jewels as the pearl of great price. The Lord is securing it through these conditions that we are in. “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith Jehovah of hosts”. What a mixture there may be around! God, in His disciplinary ways, is not spoiling the silver or the gold, He is refining it by removing the dross in the sufferings of the present time; but “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine”, that will not be damaged. God is very particular in His administration and in His government—“The silver is mine, and the gold is mine”. O, how precious it is! Much may be surrounding it but it is there and He has His eye upon it, and the remnant would have their eye upon it too. You can just visualise this passage being read to them, perhaps like us, feeling the loss of so many of their brethren, and how the former glory had gone, thinking there had been better days in the days of their fathers. How encouraging this word would be as it was read to them: “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine”, God unchanged and that same word remains among you. May we be encouraged to work, dear brethren, to work at these great things that we have been brought to have our part in—Christ and the assembly.
Then it says, “my Spirit, remain among you”. O, what grace! The Spirit has not gone; He has been offended, He has been insulted, but “my Spirit, remain among you”. God Himself is there. It is not angel’s voice but it is, my word and my Spirit; God Himself has come to be among them, identified with those suffering people. The blessed Spirit of God is still here. As I said, He has been offended, insulted, ignored, despised, yet He remains among you. What grace! I would encourage us to make room for Him. If He is here, what things are possible; He is not in the world but, it says, “remain among you”; the Spirit here with the saints to develop these assembly features, to maintain them in the light of their heavenly calling. It has been remarked before that the Spirit becomes very prominent in what we may speak of as the remnant epistles—in Timothy, which would have that character, things depend on the Spirit when men have broken down; in the book of Revelation, when all is broken up, the Spirit is emphasised: “He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies”. Those assemblies from Ephesus to Laodicea, whatever their state, my word and my Spirit remain among you; the Spirit is here. It has been well said that that covers the whole church period from Ephesus—the assembly set up in its freshness and glory at Pentecost—Laodicea—representing the decline and the departure that has come in in the course of the testimony. Yet the Spirit is speaking: “my Spirit, remain among you”. Whatever conditions we may feel, dear brethren, the Spirit is still speaking. This chapter would be to encourage us to have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He is not speaking to the world, but He remains among you speaking to the assemblies, ‘‘fear ye not”. I think the Spirit is particularly with the saints in suffering circumstances. Peter tells us that, if you suffer, “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”, 1 Pet 4: 14. What a beautiful word! You think of the suffering saints, persecuted by their employers, as they have been in this country and others, the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. What dignity marked the suffering saints! How God would clothe them with glory! If men despise them and shut them out from their societies and their arrangements, how God would honour them; the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. I think the Spirit draws near to us particularly in the suffering circumstances of the testimony in which we are today. The Spirit joins His help to us to comfort and to encourage and to strengthen us to work in the light of the whole, to be strong and to be courageous, for there is what remains and will remain to the end. Through all the circumstances of assembly history, decline, departure, recovery and revival, in it all there is My word and My Spirit remaining among you. What a point of reference, as I have referred to earlier, to lay hold of, that God is speaking and He is there to work out His own designs and His own thoughts; “The silver is mine, and the gold is mine ... The latter glory ... shall be greater than the former”. This dispensation, dear brethren, is not to end in breakdown or confusion, it will end in glory. It will end in the whole assembly being caught up to be with Christ. What a view to have before us that the end is glory, the latter glory shall be greater than the former. It does not refer to numbers exactly but to the accumulation of what the Spirit has wrought through the dispensation. We all mourn the limitations of the present time, and many would speak of the former days being better, but I do not think that is spiritual thinking. I think the Spirit is leading on, there has been progression through the dispensation and the Spirit is developing something that is going to exceed in glory the former. We just need to think of how the Spirit’s voice has developed among us in what we speak of as the service of God. The older brethren can think back on how in the Spirit’s gentle grace, there has been developed something that is precious to the heart of Christ, and response from sons’ affections to the Father that is greater than the former. Now the Spirit is going through and, as we are with Him, we come into the blessedness of the latter glory of this house. He is not building another house because there has been breakdown; that is what men do, they abandon one thing and try to start something else. That is not God’s way; He says, My word is still there and my Spirit is still there and “this house”, the same house, the same assembly that was there and began at Pentecost and went through the dark ages when seemingly there was very little. What spoils there will be from this dispensation, worked out through the sufferings of the saints and the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon them. It will be said in that day, “What hath God wrought!” Num 23: 23. It will all come in to display to a wondering universe. Do we not look on to that, the day of His appearing, “when he shall have come to be glorified in his saints, and wondered at in all that have believed”, 2 Thess 1: 10? The assembly will be with Him. Indeed, I think it is true that the assembly will add something to the glory of Christ as He appears; she will be with Him. The assembly with Christ will be the wonder of the universe and there she will shine in her own glory alongside of Him. We are having part in that today, dear brethren, amidst all the circumstances we are in. The silver is being refined, the gold is being purified, and it is soon to be in its true place when the assembly is alongside of Christ. May our hearts find recourse and encouragement to lay our hands to the work, to be committed to what is here in remnant conditions to which God is committed. Think of the Lord Jesus being committed to it the Spirit being committed to it and the Father being committed to it; may we be more committed to it. May there be proceeding in our local gathering, however small the silver and the gold coming to light, what is divinely wrought in the saints that God has His eye upon, and may we appreciate and value it increasingly.
I refer to Moses; he says he found a dwelling-place in God. He spent the latter part of his life in the wilderness with a complaining people. The Psalm has its added beauty as you think of the man Moses and what he had to bear with the people through the wilderness. He says, “Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. God remained the same. How many hard days Moses had; they spoke of stoning him and returning to Egypt, what a hard day that must have been! These thousands of people were all against him and saying, Did you bring us out here to die? Think of him going into His dwelling-place; he says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place”. What a comfort, dear brethren, in the reproach of the present time, that we have a dwelling-place in God. The heading of the Psalm is, “A Prayer of Moses, the man of God”. We do not have many of his prayers. How sweet this is! He says, “Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. What times passed over Moses’ head. In those forty years, as he saw one generation passing away under the government of God, he says, “Thou hast been our dwelling-place”. Have you, my friend, a dwelling-place? Have you a place that you have for yourself that you can retire into—the presence of God? How sweet it is! The psalmist speaks of it time and time again. David, when persecuted by Saul, says, you “come out to seek a single flea, as when they hunt a partridge on the mountains”, 1 Sam 26: 20. He had a dwellingplace in God. How safe it was! How secure it was! David speaks of Him as “my rock” (Ps 18: 2), a rock that he stood on; amidst all the shifting sands of men and what men did, David found a place, solid ground, on which his feet could stand. Moses had it here: “Thou hast been our dwelling-place”. He does not change. Could I just be very simple about it? He is always glad to see you. However downcast you may be there is a home. That is the impression this verse leaves with you, that Moses had a home, not in the desert sand and complaints of the people but a home in God. “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place”; it was where he lived. He came out to handle the complaints of the people, to speak to the people, to deal with their questions and bear their burdens. He carried them in his bosom. What a man he was! It was because he himself had a dwelling-place in God, the unchangeable One, ever the same; ‘‘from eternity to eternity thou art God”; and He has come into time in Jesus. It says He is ‘‘the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”, Heb 13: 8. It would not be true about any other person, but here is One who is the same, God come into time, ‘‘the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. I wonder if He is that to you and to me. Maybe He was more precious to you yesterday, the day that you saw the burden of your sins rolled away and you sang—
O happy day that fixed my choice
On Thee, my Saviour and my God.
Philip Doddridge (1702-1751)
Happy day when the burden of our sins was rolled away! Perhaps He meant more to you yesterday: did He? What about today? He is the same—very blessed that! It says, When we were still without strength, Christ died for the ungodly, Rom 5: 6. When there was no response in your heart or mine, Christ died for us. That was yesterday, you may say, in our experience. How about today? Still the same in love towards us, that same grace, not imputing, not raising questions as to us or what we have done, He is the same today, to be relied upon but perhaps not made room for the way He was yesterday. O, He would address the remnant, yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come, Jesus Christ the same. It says He became flesh and dwelt among us, the Man of the gospels, O, what grace, page after page as you go through Luke, the Man of grace—yesterday. What He was there in the days of His flesh. He would touch the leper, raise the dead, feed the five thousand: that He was yesterday. But how is He in your affections today? He is the same Person, no longer limited to the condition into which He came but the same blessed Person today in glory, His grace flowing out unhinderedly towards all who make room for Him.
Then it says, ‘‘to the ages to come”; ‘‘from eternity to eternity thou art God”—the ages to come. It is fine that through all eternity there will be a Man, the Man Christ Jesus, who will be our link with eternal conditions. He came into the conditions in which we are in order to make His grace known, to win our affections, to meet our sins and our liabilities; but that same blessed Man will be the point of reference through all eternity. “To him who loves us”—what a song that will be! —“and has washed us from our sins in his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father’’, Rev 1: 5, 6. He is a Person who remains the same, in His love and in the appeal of His grace to hold us. So it says, “It is good that the heart be confirmed with grace”. How many strange doctrines abound; what theories abound as to the Person of Christ, undermining His manhood and His deity. But what grace, beloved, to confirm the heart that that Person is ‘‘the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. May He be increasingly precious to us, that our link and our knowledge of Jesus is not historical. It is not what He was but what He is, what He is today.
May He become increasingly precious to us, as the days go on, to encourage our hearts to work, to be committed. What He has begun He is going to see through, He will see it through to glory. May we, as under the Spirit’s grace and hearing the Spirit’s voice, go through to God’s praise. For His Name’s sake.
NEW YORK
21st May 1994