REDUCTION AND REFINEMENT
[p. 470] REDUCTION AND REFINEMENT
Judges 7: 1 - 8; Matthew 18: 15 - 20; Revelation 3: 7 - 11
What is in mind, dear brethren, is to call attention to the fact that God at times reduces His people in order that they may be usable, that He may accomplish His purposes. This has been His way from the outset, and it is brought forward now because it has application tonight. God has things to do and He intends to do them by persons who are wholly dependent on Him, and dependent, it may be, on Him because of their fewness, because of their weakness, for it is said of certain ones in earlier days, “out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens”. So in this case of Gideon in the book of Judges, we have a remarkable illustration of war carried on for the defence of the truth, the defence of God’s people, and Jehovah decided that they were too many to accomplish the work, because He wished to make room for Himself. And so He said to Gideon, “The people that are with thee are too many”. As a matter of fact, history shows that in result, as the battle developed and increased, and was won by Israel, there were a greater number with Israel than there were at this particular time; there were more than thirty-two thousand, but that was the number at this particular time, and Jehovah decided and said that there were too many. And He said to Gideon that those who were fearful should depart, and leave mount Gilead and return to their tents. So they did, and you can understand, dear brethren, that those who returned would not be making any show of triumph, they would be humbled, and God intended that; that they should return, not a victorious people in war, but a humbled people, because they were fearful in war.
[p. 471] But then they were yet too many. God says to Gideon: “The people are yet too many; bring them down unto the water, and I will try them for thee”. That is to say, the number must be reduced, because the victory must be God’s, the work must be God’s, the result must be God’s, and whatever is to be done must be done by God. He will have it so. And so, dear brethren, He is with His people to wage their battles, to win their battles for them, but He wishes to have a certain number, He wishes to have a usable number. This is something which I believe has application to the present time, and therefore I have read it, and am speaking of it, and I want to continue the subject further in the gospel of Matthew. Matthew being the assembly gospel, as we have often said to one another, there is the same principle of reduction, and then we have the same principle in the book of Revelation. The same principle is there, although the idea of the assembly is retained, and that is just exactly what I want to enforce in what I have to say, that whatever reduction there may be made, in order that God should have a usable people, a people for His own use, a people that should glorify Him in what He does, He retains the idea of the assembly. This is the time of the assembly, the assembly period, and God is not giving up His thought at all; it is continuing. And so whatever happens, whether we are reduced in number, or increased in number, God will have the assembly maintained, so that His thought as to the dispensation may be realised.
Matthew is the evangelist that is selected to bring out this truth, but I have turned to the book of Judges, to bring out the type of it, a type of the situation which I believe is current at the present time amongst the saints, both here and in other parts of the world. That is to say, God is prospering His people in a material way, prospering them too in [p. 472] numbers or largeness of meetings, and prospering them in other respects, all of which, and indeed each of which, would tend to shut Him out, whereas His thought is to come in, and be in, and stay with us, hence in Matthew the Lord says, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”. So that we need not be without Him, and if He is not with us, we need not think that we can have recourse to some other means to accomplish our thoughts. God will retain His place with us, and He will reduce us to retain it, because He has designed to work Himself. He has come in, in Christ; He has the Man of His counsel, the Man according to His own heart, as David was, and He wishes to use Him, and He wishes to use those whom that Man would choose, and provide with gift to be used.
So in turning to Judges, it is just to bring out a type, and it is a striking type too; it is indeed brought into an anti-type in the second epistle to the Corinthians, an epistle that deals with church methods and manners and ways. And so I will just read a passage that intimates to us what is meant in this type in the book of Judges, and you will see when I read it, that it means reduction in a moral way if we are to be usable to God. The passage is 2 Corinthians 4: 7 - 14, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us, every way afflicted, but not straitened; seeing no apparent issue, but our way not entirely shut up; persecuted, but not abandoned; cast down, but not destroyed; always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body; for we who live are always delivered unto death on account of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh; so that death works in us, but life in you. And having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, I have believed,
[p. 473] therefore have I spoken; we also believe, therefore also we speak; knowing that he who has raised the Lord Jesus shall raise us also with Jesus, and shall present us with you”. Now that is what I understand to be the instruction of the type that I have read in the book of Judges. That is to say, the apostle deals with these types as we do. He was a minister as we are, only in a greater degree than any of us, in fact in a greater degree than any minister of Christ. And so he uses types, and he uses conveniently this type of Gideon. He does not mention Gideon, he does not mention his name, but he alludes to him to call attention to himself. No one in Scripture is allowed to call attention to himself more than Paul. I mean to say, no creature. The Lord Jesus, of course has a right to speak of Himself, “I Jesus”. He has a right to do that, and a right as no other one has, and Paul was very near to Him in that sense. “I Paul”, for instance, and “Paul the aged”, and so forth. And so it is that he becomes an anti-type of this type in the book of Judges, and I commend this passage to you, dear brethren, so that you may have it in your mind, and get profit from it as we proceed. Paul is putting before us a reference to the book of Judges; and he is saying in this passage, that he had gone through that sort of thing, the exact sort of thing indicated in the book of Judges.
So there were thirty-two thousand of the people, and God says they are too many. Now you may question in your minds what I am alluding to, and I do not wish to be literal in any allusion I am making; I wish to convey the truth, dear brethren, without any sense of accusing anybody, or questioning any thing or person in the service of God, in this country or any other country. I would only bring out certain truths, and we are entitled to do that; we should, if we are serving the Lord, bring out [p. 474] truth as we see it to be needed. And so it is, that God has prospered His people in many respects in a material way; and they are liberal too, and they are ready to lavish what they have on the promotion of God’s interests, and God is pleased with that. In fact, in this type that I read, the number thirty-two thousand is not really as great as the number that was employed in the battle eventually. So that it was only a question of bringing out a principle at the beginning of the conflict. That was the point, that the people were too many for a certain purpose. God could do with less than there were, and God is saying to us now, He can do with less. If He has to do something, He can do with less than are in this hall. He can do with a smaller hall than this too, if need be. I am only just alluding to these things to show what is on one’s mind, that God wants room for Himself, beloved brethren, and He is going to have it too. And if His things are to be done according to His mind, He must have it, and the day will come when we will all rejoice in the fact that God has been working in our time, and is working and will work until the assembly is completed, until every member of it is finished. It is the finishing time, and finishing people are needed too in the service. Therefore, it is a question for every one of us who is in the service, to see to finishing, to doing things well, as it is said of the Lord Jesus, “He hath done all things well”. Whatever He did, He did well. And if things are to be finished according to God, there must be good service, there must be able service, there must be skilled service; and all these things are available. It is a question of applying ourselves to the matter, the matter of the work of God, and of finding the ways and means to acquire things according to God.
So with regard to Gideon, I may allude to earlier facts that are mentioned about him. When he comes [p. 475] in early in chapter 6 he was threshing wheat, which was a difficult matter. It was in a certain place that was not very convenient for the purpose, but he was doing it, and he was doing it to hide the wheat from the Midianites. Without anybody but himself, he was doing that; he was threshing wheat. And Jehovah looked upon him, and He said to him, “Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Israel, ... thou shalt smite Midian as one man”. And so I would say, dear brethren, let us take up what any one of us can do. If we see that certain things are to be done, and they are not being done, well, the business of the person that sees that, is to do them, and do what he can. That is to say, with one man; do what one man can do. And that is the point with Gideon. Hence you can understand how Jehovah would reduce the number from thirty-two thousand. There would be a great many Gideons in that sense, and God would have the number reduced. He would have one man. That was the principle that He had then in mind, and at the present time, there are things that He has in mind, and maybe it is that He is not reaching His designs and end, because we have too many, and too much. I am not saying it is so, I am only suggesting, dear brethren, without questioning, or accusing, or hinting anything of that kind; but there is such a thing as one man doing everything at a particular time, and that is what God said to Gideon. And as to God, and Christ, and the Spirit, one Man is the principle; that is to say only one Person in the Deity became Man, became incarnate, and He has undertaken the whole matter, thank God. No one else could do it initially except Himself, and He did it. He said, according to John, “It is finished”. He did it Himself. But then in due time, others are taken on, and so it is that a large number here today have been taken on, amongst them myself, in my little way, and I thank God for it,
[p. 476] and thank God for others too, whom I know here, who are actively engaged in the Lord’s service; they have been added to the real Gideon.
But then Gideon had his questions. They were very reasonable too, but he came to perceive that the Speaker was God, was God’s angel. It is a great matter to learn to perceive God. There are certain circumstances in which God can be seen, dear brethren. No man has seen Him nor can see Him, in one sense, but still, in another sense, God can be seen. Gideon perceived it was God, no less, and he said to the Angel that he would like to present something to Him, he would like to offer something; as was said of the Lord Jesus as Priest, He must have somewhat to offer. And so it is, dear brethren, if we are to serve God, there must be something to offer. What have we to offer? Gideon had something to offer, and the Angel said to him that He would wait for him. This is God, beloved. God will wait for us, but He wants to have His work done in His own way, in His own way without any additions, or any human methods. And so it is with Gideon; the Angel waited on him, a very beautiful thought, just as Jehovah waited on Abraham, and as He is ready to wait on anyone here who essays to serve Him. God will wait for you, He will give you time to get ready, because there is the idea of readiness in the service of God, and God will give us time to get ready. And so the Angel waited. I cannot say just where He sat, or what He was doing, but He waited. Just as Jehovah and two angels in earlier days had waited on Abraham, till he prepared for them. They waited under a tree for him. So here the Angel waited, and Gideon brought his present, which is a very beautiful thought; and the Angel directed him as to that, because we must come under divine direction, if we are to do anything for God. So the Angel used His staff, nothing more than that. Just [p. 477] as in the case of Moses, the staff was the thing. God says, “What is that in thy hand?”. He says, “A staff”, and so he had a staff, and many things were done by it. So here the Angel used His staff, and caused the fire to ascend, and to gather up what Gideon had brought to Him and presented. It went up to heaven. There must be a going up to heaven, beloved. And so it is that Jesus went up to heaven, before He really began to operate as to gathering. He went up to heaven and then sent down the Spirit. The Spirit was sent down from heaven, and hence the great gathering that has come about. There is a great gathering here tonight too, thank God; it is the work of the Spirit.
So to enlarge further on what I am saying, as entering into the type, the Angel said to him that he should offer a bullock, the second bullock that his father had; and he did. But he was to offer it at a certain place, and it is to be according to the “ordered manner”, and that brings out the whole question, dear brethren, of how things are done, whether it be here, or elsewhere. How things are done — whatever they be, whether it be preaching the word, or ministering in any way, or discipline, it is a question of how things are done, because God is jealous as to His own methods, and He will have them abided by. And so it was in the ordered place, so that Gideon is now on the way to be used, and he was used in a most remarkable way. He was used according to what I read in Paul’s account, but used here in the sense that the ten thousand that were left, were brought down to the water, and God says, “I will try them for thee”; and the way was, that they must lap the water as a dog lapped it. That is a very humbling thing, that we have to do things as dogs do them, and yet it cannot be done otherwise, to be done rightly, at this point. And only three hundred succeeded, only three hundred [p. 478] were admitted as succeeding in this simple method of lapping water with their hand to their mouth. I do not need to enlarge on that in detail, as no doubt every child here will know something about this remarkable story of Gideon, but the three hundred were there, and were victorious, and all the others had to go home. It is a very humbling thing to have to go home; first, because you are afraid of the battle, and secondly, because you do not know how to do what is required. It would be very much better at times if we did go home if things are not done properly, because God will have them done rightly. He has His own meaning in them, and He will have them done rightly, if they are to be done at all. And so these nine thousand seven hundred had to go home. They were disqualified because they were unable to lap the water as dogs do. There were only three hundred that could do it, and they did it, and God says to Gideon, ‘I will save you with those; that is, those that do what I wish to be done, and know how to do it, I will save you by them’.
Well now, that is the simple outline of the facts here, only the further thought is the idea of the three hundred divided into three companies of one hundred, and they were to do everything that Gideon did; not as Jehovah said, but as Gideon did. He says, “Look on me”. And that is the point, dear brethren, in these matters of assembly character; look to the Lord, see how He did them. And so it is, as we often quote, that a certain one says to the Lord, “Lord, teach us to pray”. It is a very good thing that that brother, whoever he was, we are not told his name, did not say, ‘Teach me to pray’. He wished all the others to be taught as well as himself. That is a liberal mind, that you do not want to keep things to yourself, or think you have something for ministry that nobody else has, that you have it secretly. This brother said to the Lord, “Teach us
to pray”, and I suppose that is the great lesson, that we learn to pray; and it is the greatest matter at the present time, that we should pray. We noticed already today, in referring to Philippi, how Paul and Silas, in prayer, praised God. That is the idea of the service of God proceeding from glory to glory, even in prison, because it is done according to God. How precious it must have been in the eyes of God in that prison, that there were two men there, their feet fast in the stocks, who were praying, and who then praised God. That was something that was pleasing to God, and that is the point in all that I am saying, what is pleasing to God.
To return to the subject, the three hundred men were divided into three companies, and they were to go all round the camp. That is to say, the attack was to be all round. That is the idea of the ministry, that it is universal, whatever it is. Whatever we have had today, or whatever we are having now, must be universal. It must be fit to travel, to go abroad, and become a part of the instruction of the saints. And so the company of Midianites, however large it was, was encompassed, but encompassed by three hundred men only, and yet they were as grasshoppers on the earth for numbers. But in result, as I said, as the battle proceeded, there were others beside those three hundred; indeed very many more than the thirty-two thousand, because God has numbers too, and He can use them. Indeed we have in the book of Revelation the idea of God using numbers, a number of persons that was uncountable; the book of Revelation speaks of that, showing that God has numbers, and will have numbers, and especially quality in them. And that is what I have in my mind in a moment to bring forward, dear brethren, quality; that in all that I am saying, the assembly must be in view, and the quality suitable to it must be in view. And so it was that Gideon’s three [p. 480] hundred were men of quality, and the ways and means were a pitcher, an earthen pitcher, as Paul says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels”. That is to say, it is a question of what we are by the creative power of God, that we are to be used in that humble way, whatever the work is that is to be done. And so it is a question of pitchers and light in the pitchers, and then the voice of Gideon, who said to them, “Look on me ... as I do, so shall ye do”. And that is the order of the moment, dear brethren, to have things done as the Lord has done them; the Spirit would teach us to do them, and the teaching of the Spirit is universal. The Lord Jesus says Himself of Him, that “he shall teach you all things”, “he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”, “he shall guide you into all the truth”. Everything comes out subjectively by the Spirit here below; everything comes down from heaven, but works out down here by the Spirit, and in this and that one of us, whom God has fitted to carry on the work, but the eye must be on Christ Himself, as Gideon said to the three hundred men.
Well now I must pass on to Matthew. I have already remarked that Matthew is the assembly gospel, and there are good reasons for saying so. He carries out the Lord’s instructions. These instructions were given in Galilee, not at Jerusalem. They were given in Galilee and the converts were to be baptised to the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Then the Lord says, “Lo, I am with you alway”, so that we can carry out something of Gideon’s example, in having the Lord with us. He is never said to have gone up to heaven in Matthew. Now that may seem strange to some of you, but it is a point to be understood, that in that sense He remains down here. The Spirit remains too, but the Spirit is in heaven too, as well as remaining down here; that is to be understood.
[p. 481] These things are to be understood, as was said to a certain man, “Understandest thou what thou readest?”. The question is understanding, not simply the letter of Scripture, but the spirit of Scripture — the letter, of course, because the letter would not be written if it was not needed, but the spirit of Scripture is greatly needed. And so the word in Matthew 28 is, “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world”. A very precious and comforting thing, that the Lord is with us!
This comes out in the passage I read from chapter 18, in view of conditions that would reduce the brethren. That is to say a brother trespassing against another must lead to something being done about it by him; and if he refuses to do what he is told by the assembly then something must be done to meet that; that may mean reduction, and it does mean reduction. And so the Lord says the man who is trespassed against is to take the matter up with him alone, and ask him to judge himself; if he refuses, the Lord says, “Take with thee one or two besides”. This divine principle is running down from the Old Testament, the book of Deuteronomy; two or three witnesses are needed to establish matters. When we come to dealing with moral things amongst the brethren we need two or three witnesses. It is a question of witnesses, witnesses as to facts. And so there is the thought of two or three witnesses. And the Lord says, “But if he will not listen to them, tell it to the assembly; and if also he will not listen to the assembly, let him be to thee as one of the nations and a tax-gatherer”. So that is what happens, that the man is ostracised; ostracised at any rate by the man against whom he has trespassed. But then if the brethren are walking in fellowship really, and there are two or three there, or more, however many more walking in fellowship, they must abide by the principles which the Lord has so plainly [p. 482] set down; and that is that a man must listen to the assembly or he must be ostracised.
It is a solemn matter, and it implies what I said, it implies some reduction; a very humbling reduction for him, for the man, but also for the brethren too, because we cannot afford to lose our brethren. If we love the brethren, we cannot afford to lose them, as reduced, as ostracised. We love our brethren, it is therefore a pain to us if we have to walk without them, but walk without them we must, unless they abide by the principles so plainly set down by the Lord. In the early days of the revival in which we have part, there was refusal to abide by these principles of two or three witnesses, and the fellowship; and hence a great many saints left us; they turned away, and, of course, there was a great reduction. God had His own meaning in that too. Out of that reduction came more light as to the assembly, and that is just what I mean, that in all that I have to say, the assembly must be in view. On the one hand, God must have rights. He must have liberty to do what He pleases, and on the other hand, He cannot be forced to walk with persons who will not abide by His principles, nor will the saints be forced to do so either. So that we are in that position, that the assembly is maintained, however few, and at the same time refined. The condition of the material out of which the assembly is formed is refined by the process. God has that way of doing things, and we can thank Him for it, because we are all profiting by it tonight, what God has done on this principle of reduction, even although it meant the loss of saints. But it has meant also the refinement of the material of the assembly, although the number has decreased. I mean to say the quality is increased, and the number has become decreased. So that we have to go on on those lines.
[p. 483] Matthew shows that the decrease arises out of a man trespassing, a trespasser who took no account of his trespassing; he had not submitted to the pleadings of his brother, and then secondly, to the pleadings of two or three of his brethren. On this account there is no other course, dear brethren, there must be reduction, because the persons involved are not fit for the fellowship. The reduction happens, but at the same time the refinement happens, and the assembly is formed more and more according to God’s mind; that is the great point. And so in Matthew, the Lord says, “I am with you alway”, and there are those that can go on, and they do go on. First, the Lord says after this occurrence, “Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven”. Well, that is something. That is a great matter, dear brethren, that heaven is with us in what we are doing in the way of binding, but we must be sure that it is just done as it should be, according to the passage I read, according to the Lord’s own words. It must be done as it should be. And then the next is, “Again I say unto you”, the Lord says, “That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven”. “It shall be done for them”. Notice that. The persons who have been asking, who have agreed, who are of one mind; for God attaches great importance to unity. This comes out especially in the book of Philippians, which is so full of human feelings and sympathies. The apostle says that they were with him from the very outset. They ministered to him, and were with him, they had fellowship with him in the gospel up to the very moment in which he was writing, from the very beginning, and in that book we have it greatly stressed that we are to be of one mind. Not only that we are to be of one mind about things, certain things, but to think the same things,
[p. 484] as well as to say them And so the Lord says further, as I said before, “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven”.
Well, you see what results we have, that we are never forced to be by ourselves, no one is ever forced to be alone. John indeed, John the evangelist, the prophet I should say, in the book of Revelation, was alone, but he was in prison, he was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus. He would be with the brethren otherwise, he would be ministering among them. So that there is such a thing as being alone, but there is no need for any of us to be alone, except one who is imprisoned, or one who is unable to be with the brethren for other good causes. If one is not able to be with the brethren, then he can be alone of course, but he should be with them whenever he can be. The eyes of heaven are on the brethren, and, dear brethren, we cannot go alone without our brethren. And so Matthew goes on to say, “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”. The same thing is there, the persons are in mind. They are in mind in what is being done for them. So that we need not be afraid of being alone, heaven taking notice of us, and here in this city now we have many; and it is a glorious thing to look on the faces that I am looking at now, and to speak to such persons. It is a glorious thing, and one values it. And so one is encouraged at the work of God, I might say, universally, as far as I am acquainted with it. It is taking on the character that is in evidence here tonight, although perhaps in a lesser degree of numbers. And then, as I said, Matthew establishes us as to this matter of reduction, in the fact that we can have either two or three, and when it comes to the [p. 485] two or three, they are gathered together. There is an assembly feature in the gathering together, and thus situated we may count on increase, and we always find it, and it is the increase of God, dear brethren.
Finally, in the passage in Revelation, I had the same thought in mind; that is to show how it works out in refinement, in quality, and on the other hand, it works out in the recognition of the assembly. The Lord says, “thee” and “thou”. The word is to the angel of the assembly, but the angel as a representative of the assembly, and the angel is recognised in the pronouns “thee” and “thou”, and such words as these; meaning that the Lord is taking account of us as the assembly. Wonderful word to be able to communicate, as I am communicating it now, and it is particularly so when He says, that they may know “that I have loved thee”. That is not an individual, that is the assembly. What He has in His mind is the assembly, and He is causing it to be known that it is the assembly, and that He loved it, according to Ephesians. He “loved the assembly, and has delivered himself up for it”. So you can see how these few passages work out what I have endeavoured to present to you; that is, the idea of refinement; on the one hand refinement in the work of God, affording liberty to God in the service in what He wants to do; and on the other hand affording refinement in the assembly itself, and the assembly itself being in evidence, both in Matthew, and in the book of Revelation.
That is all I had to say, and I commend it to the brethren in the name of the Lord.