“ALL PRECIOUS AND PLEASANT SUBSTANCE”
A. A. Bellamy
Proverbs 8: 17–21; Deuteronomy 33: 8–11; Proverbs 24: 3, 4
I desire, as the Lord may help, to draw attention to, and to incite our interest in, substance.
These are a few of many references in Scripture to substance, and the thought stands in contrast to what is unreal or imaginary. The book of Proverbs is readily distinguishable from the books of the Psalms. The deep exercises in the Psalms, I think, produce in their result what we have in the book of Proverbs, hence Solomon refers to this thought of substance.
The true thought of what is substantial is seen in the Person of Christ, as in Hebrews chapter one, where the glory of Christ is dilated upon by the Spirit through the pen of Paul, and where, speaking of the created order of things, it is said of the heavens and the earth that they shall perish. We read these scriptures and perhaps do not ponder them. When we consider how men’s hopes, and ambitions, and the fulfilment of all their desires, stand related only to what is here, you can see how vain it all is. It is so in contrast to the thought of substance.
Solomon has a good deal to say in this book of Proverbs and also in Ecclesiastes about vanity and the pursuit of the wind. It is much better to pursue substance, to go in for what is substantial, to begin on that line, because much time may be wasted in the pursuit of other things which disappoint us, and lead nowhere.
So the true thought of substance is
expressed in the Person of Jesus. You can understand how one of His disciples said, “Lord, to whom shall we go?”, John 6: 68. He touched in his link with Christ what was enduring, than which there was nothing greater, to which nothing could be compared—what he had found in Jesus. As to those who went away back and walked no more with Him, we are not told what
they pursued, but it was not substance. So wisdom is personified in this book of Proverbs, and she speaks. It is a great thing to hear the voice of wisdom. It is wisdom who says, “I love those that love me”, and then, “that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance”.
I think we may apply this section to the Lord in the way He would speak to us. What is said of wisdom a little later, as to being brought forth, when there were no fountains, before the earth was, could hardly be applied to Christ personally, but the section we read, I think, is just what the Lord would say, “I love those that love me”. That is Philadelphia. Are we in that state, beloved brethren, at this moment? Are we being maintained in it, in the sense of the love of Christ for the assembly, that we love Him, because He loves the assembly? It is not the thought that we wait until a more propitious time. There is no more propitious time than now to love Christ. “They that seek me early shall find me”. The outstanding example of that is Mary in John 20. She sought the Lord early, and she found Him. So we are told here of this
“durable wealth and righteousness” and fruit that is better than fine gold, pure gold. These things are very attractive. You say, ‘I would like as much of these things as I can have’. Well, it is good if the desire is with us to go after these things.
Then wisdom says, “I walk in the path of
righteousness”. If we are going to have these things, it is in that path that we shall have them.
If we are in the company of Christ, “who has been made to us wisdom” (1 Corinthians 1:30), we shall find that that is the path in which He will lead us, “paths of righteousness”, as the psalmist says, “for his name’s sake”. We are not to be wandering. It is in conscious intimacy with Christ that we shall gain this substance. Thus we walk with Him and are subject to Him, “In the midst of the paths of judgment”. How we need to be led that way!
Paul writes two epistles to God’s assembly in a city, to lead the brethren into the paths of judgment. How important it is to have a judgment of ourselves, and of all around us; not to say that things are equivalent if they are not. Judgment is that distinctions are made, and wisdom leads in “the midst of the paths of judgment”—what for? “That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance”. Is not that attractive?
We read in the parable of the talents of the man who went out of a country and divided to his own bondmen his substance, Matthew 25: 14. That is the position in which we find ourselves.
To inherit substance is not just what is passed on verbally. It is a question of what is wrought in us. I do not know of anything more attractive than to inherit substance. People inherit fortunes and after a few generations they are worth nothing. I have no doubt that that process is going to continue. So do not let us trust in the uncertainty of riches. The Spirit of God would draw our attention to what is really substance and for substantial things we must have to do with Christ, who is the expression of them. Thank God for the apostles! Thank God for a servant like John Nelson Darby, who told us that it was the Epistle to the Hebrews that kept him out of the Romish church. Thank God for that! Suppose
he had gone there—how much poorer we would have been! Well, the apostles and others, faithful men, dealt in substance. That is what they ministered, and it is that to which I draw our attention afresh, beloved brethren—to inherit substance. It is not an inheritance quickly
gained—that brings sorrow. It is a day-by-day matter, and wisdom says, “I will fill their treasuries”.
You may feel that you are an empty vessel, but it is surprising how quickly you can be filled.
You turn to the Spirit, you turn to the Lord, and that is what He does. “Every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens, is like a man that is a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old”, Matthew 13: 52. It is the bringing out there. It is such persons who can bring things out and present them, and make them attractive, so as to awaken our desire to go after them. Not only are the things attractive, but the way they are spoken of is attractive. No one could speak as Jesus spoke. Those words of grace that were coming out of His mouth made the things of which He spoke so attractive. Earlier in the history of God’s ways, there were those who heard Aaron speak, and that would be attractive because when he spoke on one occasion the people worshipped God, Exodus 4: 30–31. It is a wonderful thing to listen to a man speaking like that of the things of God so as to bow the heart in worship to God. God has people like these. There are those who love Christ and He causes them to inherit substance and fills their treasuries.
I referred just now to servants, the apostles, and others, and we have in Deuteronomy 33,
“And of Levi he said, thy Thummim and thy Urim are for thy godly one”, or ‘The man of
thy goodness’ or ‘grace’ (see note). Levi was one of the tribes. The blessing here is of the tribes, and we have a certain history referred to in connection with them. Levi was an overcomer. It is one thing to see faithfulness in men of God, but it is another thing to be in accordance with it ourselves. I think the Lord would bring us all into the sense of being of Levi. It was a very damaging thing when the idea of ‘the levites’ became official, a group of persons, a company. All the saints are levites. Another thing about Levi is that he had no material blessings—Jehovah was his inheritance. It was a tribe that God set aside in that way and He says, as it were, ‘Those persons are going to be satisfied with Myself. That is all they are going to have, and all they are going to need’. Think of having something like that in your soul! And God proved him. He has proved us, has He not? And the proving of Levi brought out something. It brought out that God’s claims were more to him than the natural. Ah! this is something that is not faced once and for all, dear brethren. It goes on and on and on in our experience with God, whether His claims are paramount.
You say, ‘My father, my mother, my brethren, my children’. Of Levi God says, “Who said to his father and to his mother, I see him not, and he acknowledged not his brethren, and knew not his own children; for they have observed thy word and kept thy covenant”. What a commendation! I feel so little able to speak of it. The divine claim through redemption and the faithful love of Christ to the church is brought to bear upon us now, beloved brethren, right at the end of this dispensation and will we let nature supersede that claim? Not Levi!
No, Levi was to teach Jacob God’s ordinances and Israel
his law. Then there was what Levi was Godward. “They shall put incense before thy nostrils, and whole burnt-offering upon thine altar”. This is what will put us in the greatest liberty spiritually in the service of God. Here we have a man, a tribe, with substance and the
invocation is “Bless, Jehovah, his substance!”. These things are what we inherit, and have inherited, and God will see us through, beloved, on this line of putting Him first. If we put His service, His rights, and His claims above all others, He will see us through.
Finally, in the verses in Proverbs 24, we have the thought of a house being built and established. Wisdom, again, is the great principle. How we need it! We need to get wisdom and to get understanding. “Through wisdom is a house built”. Solomon said the house was to be built for Jehovah and must be exceeding great in fame and in beauty, 1 Chronicles 22: 5.
Let us think about God’s house. “Through wisdom is a house built, and by understanding it is established”. God is here; He dwells in His house; “whose house are we”, Hebrews 3: 6. “By knowledge are the chambers filled with all precious and pleasant substance”. Think of the chambers of God’s house! It is a wonderful system of things that is here for God in the assembly, comprising these chambers, these holy places. “The king hath brought me into his chambers” (Song of Songs 1: 4); there typically it is the assembly’s relations with Christ, the mystery of which Paul speaks, which is great.
Well, this passage says the chambers are “filled with all precious and pleasant substance”.
“Filled”; who is going to do that? Once you get the conception in your mind of the greatness of the assembly it is delivering in its power. Many meetings are very small. What
does it matter when what is before us, what is in our thoughts, and operates in our lives, is this great thought of the assembly, God’s house? What does it matter if numbers are small?
The chambers are to be “filled with all precious and pleasant substance”. If we had made our way to Bethany on that memorable occasion, there it would be: three persons with Jesus, and
“the house was filled with the odour of the ointment”, John 12: 3. Could there be any more precious or pleasant substance than that? It was Mary’s affection for Christ, suggesting the assembly’s love in a broken day such as we are in, and yet the chambers filled.
Well, these are wonderful things to engage us, to sustain us, dear brethren, not as remote possibilities, but as actualities, because the Spirit of God is here. The Spirit of God has not withdrawn His support in any sense at all. What was at the beginning is easy to see. In the time of pristine glory in Solomon’s day the glory filled the house. We might just read from 2
Chronicles 5: 13–14 for it gives us some impression of this thought of these chambers being filled—“Then the house, the house of Jehovah, was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God”.
That is just the impression one had, beloved brethren, as to the chambers being “filled with all precious and pleasant substance”. The Lord has left these things in our hands. Wisdom cries, “I love those that love me; and they that seek me early shall find me … that I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasuries”. What for?
Not to make something outwardly pretentious, but that the chambers of the house might be
“filled with all precious and pleasant substance”, to His praise and glory, for His name’s sake.
Address at Walton-on-the-Naze, 28 September 1974