BEING MAINTAINED IN LIFE IN RELATION TO THE TRUTH
I hesitate to speak, dear brethren, because I feel my grasp of what has been laid on my heart is very limited. There have been two thoughts running through my mind while here in Dundee, and one of them has been an interest in the recovery of the saints to the truth. There have been persons in this area, going back in the testimony, who have suffered for it and have given their lives for it. I would encourage us all to be acquainted with that history. I think it is very necessary. It is very easy, and I speak from experience, to be acquainted with tradition, but I believe what is needed is that we know what it is to be maintained livingly in relation to the truth. I read here in Genesis, because in my mind there is a link between the unstopping of the wells that we read of, and the way in which the saints have been recovered to the truth. How much of the truth got buried over the years. I was thinking, as we sang that hymn (279), of the latter days of the dark ages when it was written. We can be thankful that there were persons who lived in those times who had impressions of Christ:
‘Jesus! the very thought of Thee
With sweetness fills the breast;’
What a blessed impression Bernard of Clairvaux had of the Lord Jesus, and his hymn is left with us in the testimony to this day; we can be thankful for it.
Then I was thinking that there were different facets of the truth recovered over the centuries, and it is interesting to trace what I believe was the divine hand over it. In this part of the chapter where I have read, we have Isaac as a type of Christ. In the preceding section, we would have to view Isaac as a type of the believer, because of the way in which failure came in, but I felt encouraged to think of Isaac as being a type of Christ here because it says of him that Isaac “received in the same year a hundredfold”. Think of what Christ has secured – one hundredfold! There is no thought of any falling short with Him and that is to be an encouragement to us. Then too there is the way in which Isaac “became great, and he became continually greater, until he was very great”. The type falls short of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is to have the first place in all things in our lives, in our hearts, in our affections. Christ is greater than the type that we have here, and yet I believe that there are features which correspond with our Lord Jesus Christ.
Isaac was in the country of the Philistines at the time, or on the borders of it, and we find that envy came in. In the course of the history of the church, going back to the early days when the church was seen in pristine conditions, there were elements of envy that arose among persons who were not in the gain of the truth, of the blessedness of Christ as ascended on high, and all that flowed out of that – the church, His body here in this scene. There was that which came in which obscured the truth, and was contrary to the truth. I think that would link with what the Philistines did here in this scripture where we read of the blocking of the wells. What had been established of God was being blocked; the access to it was blocked. How essential it is, dear brethren, that access to the wells might be open, that the flock of God might be watered and might be sustained here in the scene of testimony. It is an essential matter and a needed matter, but we find here that the Philistines blocked the wells. We know that the Philistine represents the mind of man operating in the things of God. I find that very searching; I take it home to myself. How easy it is for my mind to become active and to seek to enter upon the things of God, but it is not to be so. We need to know what it is, dear brethren, to get back to these wells of water, get back to the origin and to know what it is to drink of the pure line of truth.
And so we have in verse 18 that “Isaac dug again the wells of water that they had dug in the days of Abraham his father”. Again, looking at Isaac as a type of Christ, I was thinking of the importance of any recovery being set on by the Lord Himself and by Him alone, and in the power of the Holy Spirit. If it is set on in any other way, it will not be prospered, but oh dear brethren, we can take account of the way in which divine Persons in their grace have operated in the recovery of believers to the truth. The truth has stood throughout the centuries since Christ was here, and will ever stand, on account of who God is and on account of our Lord Jesus Christ. We read on Lord’s day where our Lord Jesus could say “I am … the truth”, John 14:6. It is in that blessed One, but to think of Him setting on and leading this activity. Then too there is the side of the servants entering into it, and I believe it comes down to our own day. It is not just a historical thing to read of persons who translated the Scriptures into the common tongue so that we can read them. How we ought to thank God for their labours. Then there were persons such as Martin Luther and the exercises they went through: what he went through, the exercises in that monk’s cell and the extreme pressure of circumstances that he was under, but the truth of justification by faith was recovered. These things are all part of the recovery of believers to the truth. How far back it goes and how extended over so many years!
I believe that we need to know what it is to dig those wells ourselves and to take the exercise up ourselves in these days in which we are. It is not sufficient that we should be merely following in our parents’ footsteps, but to know what it is to have a real living link with divine Persons, in hollowing out these wells again. So we read here of the way in which Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and they found there a well of springing water. I believe they would represent us, and those who have gone before in the course of the testimony. It took me to what the Lord Jesus could speak about in John 4 to the woman there, that “whosoever drinks of the water which I shall give him shall never thirst for ever, but the water which I shall give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into eternal life” (v.14). Think of the gift of the Holy Spirit, and what He can be to us as seeking out these things. There will be exercise; we get reference to exercise here, the way in which there was strife. But to think of the divine objective to bring persons through, to bring Isaac and the servants through to this place where they did not strive, to reach a point where there is that secured where the saints can be in rest. What a blessed prospect is before us! I believe that at the present time, there is exercise that we might know what it is, each one for ourselves individually, to dig those wells. It is important that we have an understanding of the history of the testimony; I would encourage each one of us to have that. The apostle Paul could say to Timothy, “Have an outline of sound words”, 2 Tim.1:13. How we need it, dear brethren. It would help us and keep us as under the hand of Christ and under the hand of the Holy Spirit.
May we be encouraged in these things, and may the Lord use what has been said for our encouragement, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
4 August 2015
A. Alexander