“ONE THING HAVE I ASKED”
J. G. Chalmers
I want to engage the minds and affections of the saints further with what is here, what is of God. I have read from this psalm, for in verse 4 David speaks of the house of Jehovah and of His temple, while in verse 5 he speaks of His pavilion, and of His tent. All these things are here, and they are of God. The house of God and the temple, we understand, are universal thoughts, but they are expressed in local companies. The house of God and the temple of God are expressed in this place. As Paul says to the saints at Corinth, “Do ye not know that ye are temple of God?”, 1 Corinthians 3: 16. It was not that they were the temple of God, but that they represented the thing in that place. You think of the house of God and you think of your local brethren, and so with the temple of God, pavilion of God, and the tent of God. It makes them attractive does it not?
I think the house of God would be very attractive to a lover of God, and we are in
days, beloved, when lovers of God are scarce. I speak of true lovers of God, the real thing.
Many profess to love God, but in 2 Timothy days you find that lovers of God are scarce. Men are lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, anything except lovers of God. I think the index of a man who loves God is that he is interested in the house of God. David says here,
“One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after—that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life”. That is where the happiest persons are. He says, “I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thy glory dwelleth”, Psalm 26: 8. Can every one present say that?
There is a certain family in the Psalms called the sons of Korah; they are vessels of mercy, brands snatched from the fire, and they tell us in Psalm 84, “Blessed are they that dwell in thy house—they will be constantly praising thee”. That is so; the happiest persons dwell in God’s house. They are really happy. The world may not think much of them, a few sparrows or swallows, you know, that is what it says of them (Psalm 84: 3) but it says they shall dwell in God’s house and “they will be constantly praising thee”. That is what affected the queen of Sheba. She says, ‘Solomon, you have happy men’. Why were they so happy? Because they were constantly dwelling in the house. They had no other interests, and the queen of Sheba was impressed with how happy they were. How do you regard the house of God? Is every one here a lover of God? To dwell in God’s house requires a certain state.
There are three men in the Old Testament who particularly had to do with the house of
God—Jacob, Moses, and David. In his first contact with the house of God, poor Jacob is not very much at home. He says, “Surely Jehovah is in this place, and I knew it not”, Genesis 28: 16. ‘Oh! I came amongst the brethren and I was most miserable’. He says, “Jehovah is in this place … this is the gate of heaven”, and he moves on. What was wrong? It was Jacob’s state that was wrong, because whilst righteousness is the leading principle in the kingdom, holiness characterises the house. “Holiness becometh thy house, O Jehovah, for ever”, Psalm 93: 5. It is the law of the house in Ezekiel 43: 12, “Upon the top of the mountain all its border round about is most holy”. Therefore to dwell in God’s house you must be a holy person.
Many of us when we were young did not feel the meetings very attractive. We were glad to get out, like Jacob who went away to Padan Aram and spent his time there, I suppose, making money. Was he happy? Not all the time. He says to Laban, ‘You have changed my wages ten times’. He was complaining. But he had had a touch of God’s house and there was something of God in Jacob’s soul. Some of those years he just wasted on something else. But then something happens, there came the day when Joseph was born. Oh! that is a great day in your soul’s history! When Rachel had borne Joseph Jacob says, ‘I should not be here, I should be in Bethel’. So he makes a move. Joseph comes into his soul, a type of Christ, and he says,
‘This is not my place; my place is where Christ is supreme, where Christ is adored, where Christ is made everything of, and that is the house of God’. So he faces up to things with his brother and faces the matter of his associations, and he comes to the house of God. I suppose Jacob represents
the way the house of God is reached by the way of practical experience. We come to a state suited to dwelling in God’s house. Moses represents the side of ministry. He was a faithful servant in His house.
David represents a very attractive side in God’s house, because when he was a young man he heard of the ark. He heard of it at Ephratah. I suppose when David wrote this psalm the ark was in the house of Abinadab on the hill and David would say to himself, ‘That is not a suitable condition for the ark’. So he goes about to prepare a house for it. The house of God at the present time is a suited environment for the Ark. So David provides the material, and Solomon puts the material together. Thus the ark finds a resting place. Oh the glory of the house of God! From the Davidic standpoint it is most attractive; it is most delightful. You think of the saints as constituting the house of God and providing a glorious environment for the Ark.
At one point in his history Asaph went in and sat in the sanctuary provided for it, Psalm 73: 17. Do you ever do that? Take time to go in and sit in the presence of Christ. Think of the circumstances the ark was once in. The staves would remind you of the circumstances that Christ was once in, Mark 1: 13 says that He was with the wild beasts in the wilderness. You think of those Pharisees, taunting Him, trying Him. Think of the conflict of John 8 and the Man of John 8. Mr. Taylor said that is the great chapter of conflict, conflict with the Pharisees. That was no environment for the Ark. Think of Gethsemane; think of the cross, all those crowds gaping on the holy Sufferer. Oh that was no environment for
the ark!
So David provides a suitable place for the ark, a glorious environment where the ark can be at rest. He provided the material out of his affection, and out of his affliction. How attractive this is! The ark is a wonderful type of Christ. It is generally said that there is no perfect type of Christ in the Old Testament, and that is true as far as men are concerned, but there is one perfect type of Christ and that is the ark, because if you go through its history you find that the ark never let God down. At one point Moses let Him down when he asked Hobab to be eyes to them (Numbers 10: 31), but the ark went forward and sought out a resting place.
When Israel was in a low state and the ark was amongst the Philistines, the ark took care of itself.
What glory comes into your soul as you contemplate the ark, the one perfect type of Christ.
Well, that is what David wanted to see; he says, “One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah”. He just wanted to dwell there and let his eyes rest on the ark, typifying the Man in whom God has been made known, God in Christ. He is the Man who has made known the heart of God, the love of God, and the grace of God. Oh how good it is to behold the beauty of Jehovah! Mr. Darby says—
“There with unwearied gaze
Our eyes on Him we’ll rest,
And satisfy with endless praise
Our hearts supremely blest”.
All this is to be known now in the local assembly as we come together in the light of the house of God, the sphere where sons are
free. The bondman does not abide in the house for ever. The son abides for ever, John 8: 35.
It is the sphere of sonship, and the Ark is the central thought in the house. The One in whom the manifold glories and the beauty of Jehovah are unfolded is before our raptured gaze, we just dwell on Him personally, and then look around on the surroundings. The Lord looked round in a circuit and said, “Behold ... my brethren”, Mark 3: 34. We see Christ characteristically in the saints, we see beauty in the saints. Moses in Psalm 90: 17 says, “Let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us”. Look round on the beloved saints and see how attractive they are. David says, ‘I just want to dwell there, in these conditions where the ark is, and where the saints are seen in their attractiveness and in their glory and beauty as the subjects of the work of God’. They are like Christ because He is the One from whom the work of God takes character. The great end in each of us will be conformity to Christ, to the image of God’s Son; that work is proceeding now and we are to have eyes to see it.
Then David says, “to inquire of him in his temple”. It is not man’s temple, not a Greek temple, not a heathen temple, it is God’s temple. God has His temple here in this very place.
“Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
That is said to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 3: 16), and so you see the saints here represent the temple of God. They are that characteristically. It is what they are in this place. That is the burden of my heart here today, to be occupied with what is of God here in this place and what
is going through triumphantly, that will never break down. So the temple is here and we are to enquire.
What do we enquire about?—God’s thoughts as to Christ and the saints. Let us learn by’ the Spirit to use the temple more, because God’s thoughts are vast. God’s appreciation of Christ is so vast! What He sees in Christ is so delightful, so attractive. God would tell us that in the temple. He would tell us of the vastness of His thoughts of the assembly. Paul says, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”, Ephesians 5: 32. Let us come together in all our meetings in the spirit of enquiry. The Spirit would unfold to us something of the vastness of God’s thoughts for the saints. How vast they are! The Psalmist says, “How great is the sum of them!” Psalm 139: 17.
Then Paul says the temple is holy and “If any one corrupt the temple of God, him shall God destroy”, 1 Corinthians 3: 17. We must be sober in the presence of these things. Mr. Taylor said, ‘If there are two companies opposed to one another, one of them cannot be the temple of God or anything like it. It is simply a deception and a mockery, and repugnant to heaven for any practising unrighteousness to assume that they are temple of God’ (N.S. Vol.52, p.433).
That is sobering. Let us then be in a state of holiness that becomes the house of God and the temple of God, for the temple of God is holy and in it every one says, “Glory!”, Psalm 29: 9.
Let us be in the experience of these things.
Then David says, “In the day of evil he will hide me in his pavilion”. Paul says to the Ephesians 5: 16), “the days are evil”. I suppose this place was never more prosperous financially and materially, and I would venture to say that it was never more evil. It is an evil day, but there is a place where we can be safe, in God’s pavilion. God has reduced us in our circumstances; He has reduced us numerically. Our safety lies in smallness. The way that Mr. Taylor put it, and there was conflict over it, was that salvation is in the assembly; salvation is amongst the saints.
You young ones, take this to heart, that you are only safe amongst the saints. They are God’s pavilion. It is a most unusual word, not much used in Scripture. It is a safe place. It represents the assembly as a sphere of practical salvation. Now David says, ‘I want to experience that in His pavilion’, “in the secret of his tent will he keep me concealed”, hidden from the world, unknown to the world. His tent is known in the local assembly. Paul set up the economy of local assemblies and he was a tent maker. It is what is working out now in the provisional time. He says, ‘In the secret of that He will keep me concealed, set me high upon a rock’, a stable position. “The firm foundation of God stands”, 2 Timothy 2: 19. Let us be assured of that. It should be in all our souls like rock. You can stand high upon it. What God has founded will never be overthrown.
Then David says, “Now shall my head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me; and I will offer in his tent sacrifices of shouts of joy: I will sing, yea, I will sing psalms unto Jehovah”. The great result is to be for the pleasure of God. It is in the tent that the service of God proceeds in this place. It is universal, of course, but proceeding in the tent. It is an
obscure, unpretentious place publicly, but what is proceeding in it is sacrifices of shouts of joy. In those verses we are really happy. We are not afraid to let ourselves go in the assembly for the pleasure of God. The sons are free; “Sacrifices of shouts of joy! I will sing … psalms unto Jehovah”. It is
not only for our blessing, but the great result is in response to God. Let us increase, therefore, as the days go by, for His glory.
Address at Peterhead
13 April 1974