KEEPING OUR EYES ON THE LORD JESUS
I feel led to speak from this passage, not that I think that my dear brethren have no vision or have cast off restraint, but that we should be encouraged by this verse. I want primarily to speak about our vision, and to begin with the latter part of the Proverb, “happy is he that keepeth the law”. Men may think that keeping the law is very difficult and restrictive; they may even recognise that it is impossible, for so it is for man in the flesh. I think that we can look at a passage such as this, and not only relate it to the laws that God set out through Moses on those tablets of stone, but we can include in this statement – “happy is he that keepeth the law” – the whole of the truth, including all that has been revealed to us of God Himself by the Lord Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
Another proverb which links with this one is, “Remove not the ancient landmark which thy fathers have set”, Prov.22:28. There is that which has been handed down to us through our fathers, under the influence of the Lord Jesus, which has been tested by Scripture. We do well, dear brethren, to hold on to those things like the person referred to here; “happy is he that keepeth the law”. We can all find comfort, happiness and sustenance in that which has been made known to us.
Now coming to the earlier part of this proverb, “Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint”. One of the most prominent illustrations of this in Scripture is in Exodus 32 where the people said as to Moses, “for this Moses … we do not know what is become of him!” (v.1). They lost their vision. Dear brethren, our vision is absolutely essential to our welfare and to the praise of God Himself. If there is to be a response to God, it is essential that our vision is fixed upon the Lord Jesus, who Moses represents in that passage. The people said, “for this Moses, the man that has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, – we do not know what is become of him!”. We know what took place; they made a god and it says, “And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered up burnt-offerings, and brought peace-offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to sport”, (v.6). That is one of the most prominent examples of lack of vision in the history of the Scriptures.
But I wondered whether we could touch on one or two examples in Scripture of faithful men who did have vision. We can begin very early in the Scriptures and think of Noah and what he faced in the circumstances of the world around him, a world full of sin and corruption, yet it speaks of Noah as a man who “walked with God”, Gen.6:9. He is a wonderful picture of the way in which God works. God did not leave Himself without persons here in that scene, despite all that was around. Was Noah taking account of what was around him, the sin and the corruption of what was around? I am sure he was. Was that his occupation? I think not. Noah knew God, he loved Him and he walked with Him, and God walked with Noah. Noah was sustained in a world of great corruption because of the vision that he had of God Himself. How essential that was as men around him no doubt ridiculed him as he fulfilled God’s commandment to build an ark in a place where there was no water. Noah had vision which served him well and there was an answer for God as a result of it. How essential that is.
We can touch on many other examples. Moses himself had a vision of the land that God had put before him, and despite all that had come in, and although God in His faithfulness did not allow Moses to go into the land, He gave him the joy of seeing it. Moses saw what he had reached out for as he had led the people through the wilderness. God showed him what He was going to do. The fulness of God’s heart is wonderful.
What did Joshua see as the people of Israel went through the wilderness? It says as to Joshua that he “departed not from within the tent”, Exod.33:11. He remained there. Did Joshua take much account of what was going on in the camp when the tent was pitched outside of it? No, he was in the tent, taking account of Moses’ communications with God Himself. Joshua had a different view altogether. How could he have led the people if he had not had that impression of what God had showed him? Later, he said that it was “a very, very good land”, Num.14:7. Others criticised and suggested something very different, but who was right? Joshua was. He was given that view of the land, he laid hold of it, and he had it for the rest of his life. It helped him when he was fighting the battles in the land, conscious that God was with him. He had that vision before him of the land under the hand of God and under His influence, a land which was abundantly different to the wilderness through which he had come.
We could think of David and his desire that there should be a house for God’s praise. David knew Jehovah, he had proved Him and he had come to know Him. Think of the way in which David was able to speak in the Psalms of what he had before him; “Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in”, Ps.24:7. Surely David had a vision outside of this scene; in principle he had a vision of the Lord Jesus Himself, and he laid hold of that light. It led him throughout his life. God said it was not for David to build a house for Him, because David had been a man of war, but he had that vision before him.
I wanted to touch specifically on the prophet Isaiah, because I think he helps us to understand what I am speaking of. It says at the beginning of Isaiah, “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz”. I do not think that this was a vision like the vision that Daniel had, for instance, or the vision that Joseph had; I do not think that what Isaiah saw was a dream. It was the entire scope of what Jehovah had shared with him and it took him a whole book to write it down – the vision of Isaiah. The book is so richly full of the view that Isaiah had of Jehovah Himself. Jehovah begins, “Come now, let us reason together, saith Jehovah: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”, Isa.1:18. I trust that, if there is anybody here whose sins remain as scarlet, that you will have a view of the Lord Jesus Himself, the only One who can make your sins as wool. He is able to do that, dear friend; His “hand is not shortened that it cannot save”, Isa.59:1. The Lord Jesus is available today. Very early in this record of Isaiah’s vision, we find him speaking of God willing to come and reason with you and with me. Do you have that view of God willing to come in on your behalf? Or do you think it would help, when it comes to the temptation of the flesh and of Satan, to cast off restraint? No, Isaiah saw something very different. What did he see? He saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, and the seraphim saying, “Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”, Isa.6:3. How essential it is that we have some sense of the holiness of God Himself. As we have some sense of the perfection and glory of God Himself, surely it helps us in our pathway here to realise that we are to be subject to Him; we are cast on the Lord Jesus.
Isaiah went on to say, “Woe unto me! for I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (v.5). May we have an impression, as we sense the holiness of God Himself, of our own poverty, of the squalor in which we live as away from God, shapen in iniquity. And yet God is a Saviour God and He “desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, 1 Tim.2:4. Something interesting then comes into Isaiah’s account. Having just recounted how helpless he felt, one of the seraphim flew to him with a glowing coal, and said ”thine iniquity is taken away” (v.7), then straight away there is a need expressed; “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” (v.8). Isaiah said, “Here am I”. There is a need, beloved brethren, for us to be available to take up what God would have us to do. It was an exhortation here to a man who had just realised, in the presence of the holiness of God, his own utter paucity, but through the work of the Lord Jesus in type, as that scripture would suggest, he made himself available, he offered himself to God for His service.
What did Isaiah find? He found One who, I trust, you have found also: “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name is called Wonderful …”, Isa.9:6. Do you know a Man in heaven whose name is Wonderful, a name perfectly suited to Himself and to no one else? I sometimes wonder about our using that word wonderful, bearing in mind that it is a name of the Lord Jesus, a description of Him in the fulness of all that He is. Manoah was asked, “How is it that thou askest after my name, seeing it is wonderful?”, Judg.13:18. Would that we had a clearer vision of the Lord Jesus in the way that Isaiah had. And He is Counsellor. God is so good to us, He has made available to us One of whom it says, His name is Counsellor. There is no counsellor like the Lord Jesus, and He is available to each one of us if we lay hold of Him. Then “Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace”. What can we say as to these things, except that I trust we have some impression of them for ourselves in our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Himself.
Isaiah goes on to say, “And there shall come forth a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch out of his roots shall be fruitful; and the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of Jehovah”, Isa.11:1,2. Then Isaiah had another impression of the greatness of our Lord and Saviour when he wrote, “Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. And a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the storm; as brooks of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”, Isa.32:1,2. I trust, dear brethren, that each one of us has some sense of the Lord Jesus in that understanding way and that we prove Him day by day as “the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land”. This world is a land without succour, without strength, without resource; it is a world where we desperately need this view of the Lord Jesus in all His greatness and His glory, the One who is able to keep us for Himself.
I can only touch on a few of these references, but I was struck by Isaiah speaking in chapter 40 of the greatness of God in His creational power; “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out the heavens with his span, and grasped the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in a balance” (v.12). Do we all have some impression of God in His greatness and His power in the way in which He has brought about everything here for His own glory and praise, although one day it will all be rolled up as a covering (Heb.1:12), when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, something Isaiah included at the end of his prophecy. He says, “Do ye not know? Have ye not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have ye not understood the foundation of the earth?” (v.21). All of us here have been brought up to know and understand something of the greatness of God and what He has worked out, and it is something we need to lay hold of and keep for ourselves. Isaiah goes on to say, “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high, and see!” (vv.25,26). Would that we spent more time, and were encouraged through the power of the Spirit, in lifting up our eyes and seeing what is above. That is where our vision should be, not here in this scene. What help is there here as we look around? We find little, but we will be sustained in our pathway down here together, enjoying the things that belong to the Lord Jesus, if our vision is kept fixed on the One who is above and we are maintained in that.
Isaiah goes on to chapter 53 which we know so well. It links with two things which I think stand out in this vision. We have spoken of the greatness of God and His creational power, and of Him as a Saviour, and now we find here in a special way the cross of our Lord Jesus. Think of the way in which God in His tender mercy gave Isaiah this vision. The detail of it is wonderful, given to this man long before the Lord Jesus came into this scene, as is the accuracy of it and the feeling character that comes out here. How impoverished we would be without this passage of scripture, helping us to understand something of divine feeling as to what the Lord Jesus undertook upon the cross. We sing:
‘O the cross of Christ is wondrous!
There I Iearn God’s heart to me;’
and
‘Holy claims of justice finding
Full expression in that scene’ (Hymn 212).
Dear brethren, what it meant for God to lay upon Jesus the iniquity of us all. It says of Him prophetically that He would “grow up before him as a tender sapling” (v.2). Think of God taking account of the life of the Lord Jesus here as a tender sapling, a root out of dry ground, having no resource in this scene, but drawing entirely from that which was above, pleasurable to Him. And yet “his visage was so marred more than any man” (Isa.52:14); think of the suffering that the Lord Jesus, God’s beloved Son, has gone through for you and me. It is something that we must lay hold of, and it is good for us to have in our vision, to have in our contemplation day by day, the greatness of the Lord Jesus and what He has accomplished.
“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, but he opened not his mouth … men appointed his grave with the wicked, but he was with the rich in his death … Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise him; he hath subjected Him to suffering” (vv.7,9,10). Dear brethren, these are things for our contemplation, for our vision. They lift us out of this scene, although they happened in this scene to a Man who, as it says, “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God … taking a bondman's form, taking his place in the likeness of men … humbled himself” (Phil.2:6-8), coming down here to lay down His life in your place and mine. These things are not to be forgotten, but not only that, they are to be contemplated with affection by us, taking account of the Lord Jesus in the way in which He has gone for you and for me individually, taking up our cases there by Himself upon that cross. It is for us to lay hold of. Can we go back to the affairs of this world as we take account of what is presented here? No, we cannot. Let our vision be maintained, let our walk be maintained also in a right pathway, holding to this view of Jesus, that there should be a result for God’s glory and for His praise.
Before moving on to the New Testament, I wanted to touch the completeness of Isaiah’s vision, because at the end, he says, “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain”, Isa.66:22. Isaiah’s vision goes right through to the new heaven and a new earth.
I wanted to speak about Stephen, a man in our dispensation who saw what you and I can see. In Acts 7, he had this vision as he was being killed, right at the end of his life. Stephen was “a man full of faith” (Acts 6:5) who “full of grace and power, wrought wonders and great signs among the people” (v.8). Did he do that in his own strength? No, he did it in the strength that came from this beloved Man, Jesus, where He was at the right hand of God. Stephen tells us what he saw there; he knew the Lord Jesus in heaven, and he communicated with Him there. This vision which Stephen had at the end of his life, in circumstances so hostile, helped him to remain unchanged by all that was going on around him. His eyes were set; it says, “having fixed his eyes on heaven, he saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God”, Acts 7:55. How wonderful: that view preserved Stephen through the greatest opposition a man could face as his life was being taken from him: his vision was maintained.
Later on in the book, we know well the vision that Paul had, and which never left him. He said to Agrippa, “I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me”, Acts 26:13. Paul never lost that vision, and I trust that each one of us has some sense of what was made apparent to Paul in that vision of a light above the brightness of the sun. He saw the Lord Jesus in all His glory, the One against whom he had been anxious to do so much. You may say, I am not set against the Lord Jesus. But are you willing to lay other things aside – and I take this to myself – to devote more time to being here for this Man? His glory remains the same; it has not dimmed. Paul has long since gone to be with the Lord. I often wonder how he would describe that glory if he had been left here longer. One thing is certain – it would not have dimmed. The more that Paul thought about this light from heaven, the impression of it grew brighter. It goes on and brightens, it never dulls. Dear brethren, would that we had a clear view, as these men had, of the greatness of the Lord Jesus in all His glory and His wealth and His majesty there at God’s right hand. He was able to ascend through heaven after heaven after heaven, and “set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high” (Heb.1:3) in all His glory. It is a vision of Him there that will help us in our pathway here, and set our faces steadfastly to be for Him here in the time remaining which He has given to us.
What can we say as to these men, and the way in which they ended their lives? In his hired lodging, Paul’s view was not dimmed at all. Men wanted to take away his freedom, but did it limit him? No: he had a vision outside of this world and it provided him with a stability that men could but marvel at. Here was a man prepared to stand in the face of any opposition because he had “met with the help which is from God”, Acts 26:22.
Then we find John on the island of Patmos in difficult circumstances. You may say there was plenty for John to be sorrowful about, and he felt that, but what did John write about? What is the vision that he was given? He was instructed to write it down and he did so for us; it is there for us to enjoy. The book of Revelation has often been presented as for those in the last days, in days of difficulty, and it is for us to lay hold of what John saw. He says, “And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice out of the heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God”, Rev.21:2,3. That was what John was occupied with, not Patmos. No, that was not of interest to him. His vision was of the assembly, the answer to Christ’s love and glory, a holy and perfect vessel suited to accompany Him for eternity; coming down out of heaven as a bride adorned for her Husband.
Beloved brethren, I have reached the end of the Scriptures, and we find in them examples of those who had no vision, who saw what was around them and failed in it. But put those to one side. I would like us to remember all those who did have a vision of Christ in glory, who laid hold of it and as a result, was there anything that these men would not put to one side for Him? Where we began – “Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint” – that was not just something that happened in the old days, it can happen today. Has your appreciation of Christ dimmed? The value of the gospel? The value of the Lord’s supper? Your appreciation of the assembly? If we cast off restraint and start to take an easier line, I assure you that the result of that would be turmoil, and no answer from us for God. May we be preserved together with our eyes set on the Lord Jesus Himself, the One who is immovable, with an answer to every need, and may we be kept under His care. He is the one who is our Shepherd and our Friend. May we have a greater impression of Him, for His name’s sake.
Address at Sunbury
24 November 2018
A.A. Croot