"LIFT UP THINE EYES"

C.J.H.Davidson

Acts 16: 6-12, 14, 25, 26, 40; Psalm 48: 1-3; Ezekiel 47: 1, 5;

Philippians 3:19 (from "who") -21

I want, with the help of the Lord and the Spirit, to take a view in the four directions in which Moses took a view of the heavenly inheritance in the third chapter of Deuteronomy. He was told to look westward and northward and southward and eastward - very interesting directions in which to look. The first passage we read is God moving westward. How thankful we ought to be that He did! What I read was the first entry of the gospel into Europe. None of us would have been here if God had turned the other way. Paul thought that he would like to go farther into Asia. Think of the collapse that came about in Asia! There is nothing left, in the Asia which Paul knew, of assembly enjoyment and testimony at the present day. They all turned away from Paul. But God, with that wonderful singleness of purpose, directed by the vision that for the first time the glad tidings of the glory of the blessed God should be heard in Europe. What a history it has been! I do not say that Moses could see this, but he will see the result of it. He saw a great deal on the mount of glory, but he will yet see the fulness of blessing in which God embraced the nations. As a prophet Moses had some light as to the westward view. He said at the end of Deuteronomy: "Shout for joy, ye nations, with his people", chap 32: 43. It is remarkable for an Israelite, as Moses was, to have the light that God would one day embrace the poor dogs of the Gentiles in His blessing.

So there is the westward look. It is, in a sense, the most important look. That is why Moses was told to look that way first, for God was going on with that glorious singleness of purpose. He never changes, He has gone on a straight course. You can see that in the working out of things. That chapter in Acts is very illustrative of the course of the testimony and, I might say, the ingredients that make it up. So, beloved, let us take it home to our hearts that we are on a straight course today. Let there be no weakening, no deviation, no compromise; but let it be like Paul in Philippians: "but one thing", chap 3: 13. That is a man on a straight course. There were others with him. Wherever you find the plural pronoun 'we' in the book of the Acts, it means that Luke, who wrote the book, was travelling with Paul at that point. So there is great encouragement in that. "Luke alone is with me", 2 Tim 4: 11. That man was still on a straight course. And two young men were to be on the same course: Paul says to Timothy "Take Mark, and bring him with thyself", 2 Tim 4: 11. When I think of the recovery that God has effected with me and with you, beloved! He has brought us back in grace, you might say like the second giving of the law, Deuteronomy. (I love the name of that book). He has brought us back to go now on a straight course. And what does that straight course involve? The fear of God; that was with Lydia, but an opened heart as with that woman and the things of God were taken into that heart. Paul's influence is as strong today as it was two thousand years ago; it is no different. The Spirit wrought in that man and the Spirit is still working out Paul's teaching, and the fellowship that he knew well, in separation. The Spirit is still working westward. How lovely then to see the prison opened, the great earthquake! Some of us have needed an earthquake to get us out of what is displeasing to God and to recover us to go on the straight course. What have we found, beloved? What I have found is greater liberty and enjoyment than I have ever known before in my life. I have known joy among the brethren before, but when you do not go on the straight course you are going to lose that joy, and it is the grace of God to recover us that we might continue to go westward with the testimony. It is not going to fade out; let us be certain of that. The wickedness of man has said only recently, Christianity is withered and will fade away. It will not! The name of Jesus is going to ring from pole to pole, from the river to the ends of the earth. There will be no opposition in that day. There will be no corrupting. There will be the completion of God's work in the westward movements of the testimony, and things are not going to fade out. If the light of the gospel goes out in Europe it will go out all of a sudden at one time. There is never any twilight at the end of the dispensation. It is a fulness of glory in the glad tidings, and if we will but come the divine way we shall find that all our bonds are loosed.

There was a whole prison full of poor wretches and they listened to men with bleeding backs singing praises to God. And God answered it by blessing. I should like to think, as I see the faces of the beloved brethren, that there would be no one in bondage left here today. I had an interesting time last weekend: no less than seven persons were present who were not breaking bread. I wonder how many here among the young ones are not breaking bread? I can tell you from experience, because I held back for a long while through fear when I was young, that you will never be safe and you will never be happy until you give Christ the full portion from your heart. So let it be that persons find their bonds loosed today. And what happens? At the end of that chapter the testimony, as it were, was enshrined in the heart of a woman and she would represent the features of the assembly that Christ loves to see. So Paul and Silas go back to Lydia and they see the brethren. Oh, let there be what Christ has died to secure in a westward glory in the testimony, the assembly in Christ Jesus! You read the gospel of John and you take account of Mr Taylor saying that wherever the capital 'W' is used for the word 'woman', the Spirit had the assembly in mind. The Lord says at the end "Mary", but He had said previously to her "Woman". And that, beloved, is to go through with us. Let us make nothing of ourselves, but let us magnify the grace that gives us the light of the assembly to walk in. We do not claim, in the arrogance of the past, that we are the church. There are believers all around us, our brethren in Christ, and one has said that even in the Catholic system there are more believers in Christ than anywhere else, because in numbers the Catholic system exceeds all others. But there are true believers there. One of them was made contact with by a young sister with us. The man was a Catholic but he said, I love the Lord Jesus. How marvellous that is! No one can use that title but one indwelt by the Spirit. So let us take heart, beloved; let us look out upon our brethren in Christ, and if we are on a straight course and preserved in it, let us seek out, as Mr Darby said in his hymn, 'those who rove' (No.85). There are too many of them roving around loosely in Christendom. Let us go on, therefore, to the end.

We shall find that the next view is testing. It is northward. But what a view Psalm 48 gives us of the sides of the north - "the city of our God... the hill of his holiness". Let us realise that if we have had to come under discipline, as so many of us have, if we have found the bitter winds of discipline blowing in our circumstances, it is that we might have part with God in His circumstances. "The hill of his holiness" will brook nothing but what is pleasing to Him. Let us be prepared. All this line of things is so beautiful: "Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King". It is all worth while, beloved. I have brought more discipline on myself through my own transgressions than ever I have had from God. I might say, in normal circumstances, every son that He loves is disciplined. The chastening applies to all of us, but mostly we bring more upon ourselves because we have turned aside from the straight course. Let us go on straightforwardly. Paul says at one time of Peter and others: "I saw that they do not walk straightforwardly, according to the truth of the glad tidings" (Gal 2: 14), and Peter had to have the sides of the north applied to him. You say, That is not very attractive. But the attraction is that, through the means that God uses to bring us back to the straight course in His grace, we get the most wonderful enlarged view of the city of the great King. So let us not be afraid, beloved.

The north is the wind that first awakens the spices: "Awake, north wind, and come, thou south", Song of Sol 4: 16. We like the south; we could do with it, we say, all the time, but to help us to enjoy the south God arranges that we should be disciplined that we might be partakers of His holiness. Mount Zion is a lovely mountain. It is the dwelling-place of God. He retires into the glory of His mercy in Zion. What elevation there is in that! "According to his own mercy he saved us", Tit 3: 5. So we find dwelling conditions among the brethren, because we are all the subjects of divine and sovereign mercy. Let us therefore see that between the beauty of mount Zion and the expression of His administration in blessing, the city of the great King, God has interposed the sides of the north. Which of us has not felt those sides enclosing us? God loves us too much to let us settle down to mind earthly things.

If we want the south we turn to Ezekiel 47, and we find there that everything that has come to us in the Spirit has come at the cost of the One who was altar, sacrifice, and offering priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. How blessed then to find that those waters come down! They issue; that is, there is a fulness of grace in this dispensation. I love one of Mr Darby's beautiful expressions as to John 4, where the Lord goes outside Israel to the poor Samaritan woman and the men of her city. He says, It was the torrent of God's grace that was irresistible. It is very blessed to think that that torrent is flowing, and it is flowing because a Man went to the cross, "left alone of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief", Isa 53: 3. I would appeal to anyone here who is not doing what He asked - "This do in remembrance of me" (Luke 22: 19) - to remember that that Man, God's best, was left alone of men. Let no one here leave Him alone. He says in the Psalms prophetically: "I am forgotten in their heart as a dead man", Ps 31: 12. It will not be a dead man that we remember tomorrow. We remember His dying, but we remember a living Jesus. The waters flow. Think of the beginning of the Acts! The southward side was there in that upper room. They were going to have the waters pouring forth from the south side of the altar. They had witnessed the sacrifice of Christ. Mary was there, her soul riven with a sword as Simeon had said it would be (see Luke 2: 35). She was there, and the violent, impetuous blowing, the inwards of God, were in that scene where the house was filled before the persons were filled (see Acts 2: 2). So the waters issued. The issuing was in keeping with John's record that, when the spear pierced the side of a dead Christ, "immediately there came out blood and water", John 19: 34. And when the river of God, full of water in blessing, issued at Pentecost, it issued immediately at the moment the divine time had come for southward movement and that wonderful river is flowing today. It makes glad "the city of God, the sanctuary of the habitations of the Most High", Ps 46: 4 - not 'habitation'; the city is one but the habitations are many and wherever there are persons walking in the light of the assembly, there is a habitation of God in the Spirit and He will have His portion tomorrow.

So let us be encouraged that while there is much to test in the west (testimonially we are, as the prophet says, "small, few, of no account", Isa 16: 14), yet in the mind of heaven the light of the testimony is going on to the end. Let us accept the disciplines of the sides of the north. Let us revel in the glorious outpouring of blessing as at this time in this place, southward. What of the end? The end is marvellous. We are looking, beloved, towards the sun-rising, not the sunsetting. Sir Edward Grey, foreign secretary at the time of the first world war, said, The lights are going out all over Europe; they will never be rekindled in our time. That is man's view. But the river of God's grace is going on. It is in Europe yet, and in all the extensions - America, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa even. Think of the way God has acted in the extension of the testimony.

But the last view that Moses had was eastward, toward the sun-rising. So it is that in Philippians, another prison epistle, Paul, going out to martyrdom from a Roman prison, says "our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour". Let us go on enjoying our associations of life together, beloved, and let us realise every moment that He may come tonight. He may come tomorrow morning, but if not, by the Spirit He will say again, "I am coming to you". I love to look eastward. The prophet Elisha when dying said to the king: "Open the window eastward... Shoot", 2 Kings 13: 17. Let something of that energy that was seen in the dying prophet come into this occasion and let us look toward the sun-rising. We shall see His body of glory, and when we see Him we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is. There will be power there. There was power in the resurrection of Christ. The psalm says prophetically that the Father "flew fast upon the wings of the wind... He reached forth from above, he took me, he drew me out of great waters" (Ps 18: 10, 16), the waters of death. But what will it be like when that assembling shout is heard and the sun will rise for the myriads in the resurrection and for the comparative few, compared with them, who will be among the living who remain? We are that today, but my eyes are on the coming of the Lord. May we be encouraged therefore. I do not say that Moses could have seen all this, but think of the glory of our time when all of this can open up to us! Let our hearts be cheered and warmed and filled and made steadfast by God's Spirit, for His Name's sake.

GRANGEMOUTH

28 March 1981