EXTRACTS

In Exodus 19 we have the heart of God disclosed, at least we can understand it in that way, and you will observe that the time is given. “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai.

For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai”; three months is a considerable experience. God takes into account where we are, and what He has in mind to disclose. He waited for the children of Israel for these three months. You will notice that it is not simply three months, but where they pitched—in the wilderness of Sinai—for they were departed from Rephidim, that is to say, from the conflict with Amalek. They had passed that point; I wonder how many of us have passed that point? Deuteronomy speaks of it as affecting the weak ones; they were actually cut off, but Israel as a whole was not cut off, they fought valiantly and triumphantly; it was a pitched battle. The experiences of a believer in himself are the greatest kind of a pitched battle; very few understand it, but it has to be gone through before we come to the wilderness of Sinai and pitch before Horeb. How many of us have passed it? It says here that they were departed from Rephidim and were come to the desert of Sinai and had pitched in the wilderness, and there Israel encamped before the mount. Now, beloved brethren, this is the most important bit of instruction that we can take in. It is a question of our beginnings, and our beginnings are the times of the greatest and most durable impressions; what you learn in those three months will stay with you. One would challenge those here as to this passage by Rephidim—how have we behaved in it?

What part have we had in it? Have we been one of the stragglers behind or have we followed in the wake of Joshua? This is like Romans 7, a chapter less understood than any chapter in Scripture, and consequently there is a weakness among the saints in practical righteousness, in practical holiness

and in practical deliverance. The battle is worse in a way than that by one of David’s mighty men who slew a lion in a pit on a snowy day. It is close quarters, and quarters in which one has to exercise one’s analytical powers, one’s spiritual analytical powers to understand the ground occupied and the difficulties to be met in the conflict, and the forces that are in action; so that the writer of the chapter triumphantly says, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”—He is our Joshua. A great pitched battle having taken place at Rephidim, the people were able to pass on, having disposed of this great enemy. Amalek is left behind a conquered foe, and the people can say by the Spirit of God, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord”; “With the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin”. The analysis is perfect, I have done with sin in the flesh, I have settled the matter.

J. Taylor (Vol. 96, pp.514, 515)

Think of the three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. What was that for? What a blank! I am not ignoring the effect of God’s work in the disciples, but as to the matter of life, they did not properly represent life. There was no one on earth who properly represented life until Jesus became Man, and when He died the thing had gone for three days and three nights. What was that to God? That life had gone; it was there infinitely in the Lord Jesus. He grew up before Him as a tender plant, as a root out of a dry ground. He drew nothing from His environment. It was all Himself. Five times we are told in the New Testament that heaven proclaimed, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. Well, that all stopped. You say, Jesus went to paradise. Jesus going to paradise is not the full thought of life. The full thought of life is Christ risen from the dead. It is Christ in a new condition.

When He was in the flesh here it was in Him; He was it, but He alone. Heaven delighted in it as there, but for the moment He disappeared in death. Let us take in the fact that He lay three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Why did He have to lie so long? The justice of God required it, the burial of Jesus was vicarious, as part of His death. Any one who says differently is saying what is derogatory to Christ.

Why should He lie for a moment in death save it was vicarious, to bring out the great fact that all were dead? But now He is raised again, and that is the judgment Paul arrives at; that “if one died for all, then were all dead—and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again”. It is Christ risen. The Father moved, dear brethren, as the three days and three nights ended. It was a wonderful moment for the Father. Let us think of what it was for Him to be bereaved of that precious Object of His affections for three days and three nights. Why should it be? It was! but let us understand why it should be. The Father, we are told, raised Him by His glory. Not simply by His power. He will raise all of us by His power, but I cannot say exactly that He will raise us by His glory. It is a question of the unlimited love of the Father reaching forth to take Him up out of that position. He was “raised from the dead by the glory of the Father”. If He has risen we are to live to Him. All outside of that is dead. Men may talk blatantly, their mouths speaking great things, but morally it is all dead. It is a state of death.

J. Taylor (Vol. 46, pp.378–380)

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