COMMITTAL TO THE DIVINE END

P. van den Berg

Genesis 24: 58–67; Colossians 1: 12–15; Revelation 22: 16, 17

I think the Lord would help us, dear brethren, in considering these passages in view of our being transferred into the realm where divine love is operating. There is great need for being transferred if the Lord is moving in view of leading the saints into the inheritance, and what is in the divine mind for us. I think it is a great thing that there might be readiness on our part to move according to divine speaking so that we might come into the best that God has for us. It is a great thing to lay hold of the calling of God, what we have been called into, what our portion is with Christ on the other side of death, and that we submit ourselves to the service of the blessed Holy Spirit who is here to guide us into all the truth. It is wonderful what God has prepared for those who love Him, “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him, but God has revealed to us by his Spirit”, 1 Corinthians 2: 9, 10. We often stop at that one verse, but we want to go on to the other—“but God has revealed to us by his Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God”. So it is a great thing to “go with this man”, a great matter to follow the blessed Holy Spirit in what He would lead us into.

“For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”, Romans 8: 14—God has in view that we should enter into the inheritance, that we should enter into His purpose, that we should not remain in the wilderness but enter into our proper place, an inheritance amongst the sanctified. He desires that we should lay hold of life eternal, that we should see His purpose expressed in Christ and lay hold of it, and that we should thus rise to the height of the heavenly calling, seeing what our place is in sonship in the presence of the Father and answering to it, that we might be brought into the liberty of sonship. The Spirit would help us to get into the liberty of sonship. “Ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear ... but a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”, Romans 8: 15. That is what is due to God, and He desires an answer in the light of it because sonship is for God. We are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus and He has given us the Holy Spirit so that we might be conscious of it, conscious of our relationship, and that we might respond to God because the Father has delivered us from the authority of darkness. He has brought us out of Egypt in view of our serving Him, “Let my son go, that he may serve me”, Exodus 4: 23. What a thing that is, that we serve God and that we serve Him not in a spirit of bondage, but as persons who are affected by divine grace. We have been set free from the authority of darkness, set free from so many things that the enemy would use to detain us, to hold us, things that are of the earth, things in our circumstances, things in family life, that detain us.

Dear brethren, I think we could all do more in being available for God that we might serve Him. It has great recompense because grace operating in the land results in there being more in the way of prosperity amongst the saints. We would all desire the prosperity of the saints in every locality represented here. It says prophetically that the pleasure of Jehovah prospers in the hand of Jesus (Isaiah 53: 10). How wonderful that is! The Father has committed all things in the hand of the Son and things are prospering in His hand, but how important it is that we should be under the hand of Christ, that we should be marked by heavenly desires. That is open to the youngest amongst us. It was seen in the family of Caleb and in the family of Joshua, who were persons who had an appreciation of the heavenly inheritance. Joshua says, “As for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah” (Joshua 24: 15), and Caleb has a daughter who has right desires. She has desires for the upper springs and the nether springs (see Judges 1: 15). She has desires for the things of God and God gives us according to our desires. He wants to attract us into all that His love has prepared for us because the land is a very, very good land, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land flowing with heavenly blessings. There is nothing that can fill our hearts in the scene in which we are, but think of what God has prepared for those that love Him and how the Spirit would help us to enjoy the wealth of it. It is all prepared for us in Christ, for Christ is the expression of the purpose of God.

So sonship is for God, but eternal life is for us. Eternal life is the blessing that God gives to persons—what is “really life”. Paul says to Timothy, “Lay hold of eternal life”, 1 Timothy 6: 12. It is in the inheritance. It is in the enjoyment of our heavenly relations with divine Persons and with one another, in the company of the saints, as loving them. At occasions like this we experience something of eternal life as we enjoy our relations with one another, engaged with heavenly things in an out-of-the-world condition. You are not thinking of the shops outside and the things out there. You just leave it for the moment and enjoy what is in an out-of-the-world condition of things altogether where Christ is your portion.

So although we are in wilderness conditions (and the leading of the Spirit is largely in the wilderness), the Spirit would engage us with a Man in another world. Whatever our circumstances may be in the wilderness we would be ready for transfer, because in taking up our daily responsibilities we would be conscious that our life is not there, but is bound up with the saints in another world—“Our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens, from which also we await the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, who shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”, Philippians 3: 20, 21.

Dear brethren, the coming of the Lord Jesus is very near, it is imminent. Things in the world are worsening, but things among the saints should be getting better and better. It says, “Let the filthy make himself filthy still ... and he that is holy, let him be sanctified still”, Revelation 22: 11. It is either the one way or the other. It is either deterioration or it is going in for what is best, and God has reserved what is best for the end, “Better is the end of a thing than its beginning”, Ecclesiastes 7: 8. I think the end of the dispensation will be real blessing. Psalm 133 shows how the oil flows down from the head of Aaron right down to the hem of his garments, and I believe that is just where we are. We are at the end of the dispensation, and there is a peculiar testimony as a result of it; nothing great in the world, but something that is known amongst the saints, known to persons who discern the Lord’s movements in the sanctuary, hearing the bells as the High Priest moves into the sanctuary; it is something that has come down by the Holy Spirit to the hem of Aaron’s garments. The hem is the finish and I think God is just looking for the finish. He is looking for what is complete, even in a day of breakdown. We want to wake up to the fact that God is arriving at what is complete, what is according to the pattern; that in a day of small things the seven lamps are still there and God has not given up His thoughts in spite of the scattering there has been.

If you read the book of Zechariah you see there had been a scattering, but God came in to counteract it. There was a young man, and Jerusalem was measured, the breadth and the length of it, and God says, I have yet chosen Jerusalem; I have not given up my thoughts in relation to the assembly. A young man, no doubt Zechariah himself, wakes up and sees the seven lamps. I want the young brethren and all of us—including oneself—to wake up to the fact that the assembly is the assembly and the seven lamps are there, and that the house is being built by the hands of Zerubbabel and that he will finish it. There will be the shoutings, “Grace, grace unto it!” when the headstone is brought forth. It says, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts”, Zechariah 4: 6, 7. So we have the Holy Spirit here and it is an authoritative voice; and yet it is a question of love and readiness to “go with this man”, whether we are prepared to be taken where the Holy Spirit would have us, whether we are prepared to go in for what He is presenting to us in relation to another Man.

The Spirit has in view that the assembly should be for Christ, that in every locality there should be an answer for Him in the light of what is so precious to His heart. He loved the assembly and delivered Himself up for it, and as you think of the assembly today you would value what is available in the light of it in persons, in localities, where things are worked out according to the pattern, where the saints are in touch with the living voice of the Holy Spirit as it comes to us in the ministry that the Lord is giving, because that is an evidence of where the Lord is. It is a great matter to go in for all that God has prepared for those that love Him and His thoughts will never change. Whatever there may have been in the way of breakdown, God is not defeated—He has everything in His own hands.

In John 21 the Lord had everything ready. In spite of all that was going on the Lord did not interfere and He did not go on the sea. He did not come in in that way at all. He just stands there with everything ready for them and says, “Children, have ye anything to eat?” (John 21: 5). It is a question of what there is for Christ. Well, dear brethren, how are we in our hearts in relation to Christ? Will we go in for what the Holy Spirit would present to us in relation to that Man? In John 4 the Lord is just available in that position at the well when that woman came and she was really brought to one Man. She had had many husbands, but the Lord touched her affections. He touched her in her history and she came to it that nothing was hidden in the sight of the One with whom she had to do, that He knew all about her. She said, “I see that thou art a prophet”, and then the Lord is able to say, “Woman”. The Lord was able to say that because she discerned the prophetic voice and so, in principle, the assembly comes to light and the Lord is able to bring her in her thoughts into the very highest features of the service of God. Then she goes into the city. She leaves her water-pot. She is ready, set free by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death, and she goes into the city and says, “Come, see a man”. A Man—she had another Man before her! Well, that is enough for us, dear brethren; that is what the Holy Spirit is presenting to us. That is what Paul was labouring for that he might present the Corinthians to one Man, not to two different objects, one Object, the good part that Mary had chosen in Luke 10 that was not going to be taken from her.

So it is a question of one Man. We have been delivered from “the authority of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of his love”. I think it is a great matter in Colossians to be ready to cross Jordan, to find that there is a Man on the other side of death. Christ at the right hand of God, and that our minds are set in relation to the things above, not on the things that are on the earth. There is so much that is not exactly worldly. We have to be very careful, dear brethren, in not allowing worldly things. But the enemy would also deprive us of the enjoyment of our heavenly part by drawing us into earthly things, things that are really against the cross of Christ. You will remember that Paul speaks to the Philippians, even weeping, of some who are “enemies of the cross of Christ ... who mind earthly things”, Philippians 3: 18, 19. They only talk about earthly things to you, and when you speak about heavenly things they are silent, you have no point of contact with them. Well, brethren, “Our commonwealth has its existence in the heavens”! The word ‘commonwealth’ involves the way that we share common interests and are able to talk about them. “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”, Malachi 3: 16. They were not waiting for things here, they were waiting for the Sun of righteousness to appear. Heaven was very attentive, and took notice of what was there.

What a sight it must have been to heaven in the beginning of Luke—Simeon, Anna, and others, the shepherds in the field—how interested heaven was in them. There was no visitation of Jerusalem, except to Zacharias, and there was unbelief with him, but there were those who were in the divine current and they would be engaged with these things as Mary want into the hill country—and what godly conversation there was! I think that searches us all as to where our interests are. Where our treasure is, there also is our heart (Matthew 6: 21). We have been transferred into “the kingdom of the Son of his love”. O, dear brethren, what a thing it is to be transferred, to make a moral journey, because the ministry has that in mind in view of every man being presented perfect in Christ; that we should arrive at the heavenly Man, “at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ” (Ephesians 4: 13), that we might arrive at the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, that we should not be babes, or dwarfs. Oh what need there is for increase, that we may increase in the things of God, that there may be a growing up amongst us, that we may grow in grace and in the knowledge of God.

So at the end the Lord Jesus is presenting Himself to the assemblies. The prophetic line is going on to completion and there is an answer at the end of the dispensation. There is what is ready to be transferred. You find in Enoch’s life a picture of the way things will move on to completion. When the point came that Enoch was translated, there was not much of a change. For Enoch it was not a big change when the Lord took him, because he was right there. He walked with God, and I think it tests us all as to how much we are with God in matters. There are things in the testimony that come, and will come, and will be a test to us. The Lord has helped us to see the pattern. He has helped us to see how things are in the divine mind, and that things are to be worked out according to the pattern, that we are to be governed by divine principles, and that whatever feelings we might have in a natural way they are not to be given any place in anything that occurs amongst the saints. The question is where the Lord is in any matter, and that tests us as to how much we are with God. It is a question of being with God, a question of priesthood, a question of right feelings. Things are to be according to God and we are to consider for what is due to God in the light of His assembly before we allow any other consideration to enter into the matter. Then you will find that something in the character of the bride, the Lamb’s wife, will come to light, faithfulness assembly-wise to the One who suffered here in maintaining the truth, in maintaining the testimony.

Standing before Pilate He witnessed the good confession. When Pilate said, “Thou art then a king?” the Lord answered, “I have been born for this, and for this I have come into the world, that I might bear witness to the truth”, John 18: 37. The Lord suffered rather than surrender the truth in the face of the enemy, and there is an answer to that in the assembly, the bride, the Lamb’s wife. She comes through in this passage. Jesus presenting Himself as “the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star”. What a presentation it is! We are tested as we read the promise of the Lord to the overcomer at Philadelphia, “I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God ... and my new name”, Revelation 3: 12. I trust, dear brethren, we have got a little further in our understanding of the light that God has given us as brought out in the ministry of the recovery. I believe there is something in the new name that has come out in ministry, and as we proceed the Lord presents Himself here as “the root and offspring of David”, “the root” referring to His deity and “the offspring” to His manhood. He came in in Matthew according to the line of David, but then He was David’s Lord. He was before David; He was the root of David. He is also “the bright and morning star”—that alludes to the prophetic line of ministry that goes through until the Lord Jesus comes, as Peter speaks of it, “We have the prophetic word made surer ... (as … a lamp shining in an obscure place) until the day dawn and the morning star arise in your hearts”, 2 Peter 1: 19.

Well, I wonder, dear brethren, how much Christ is in the ascendancy in each of our hearts, because He is the bright and morning star and He wants a greater place in our affections, in all our hearts. And the Holy Spirit would rejoice and delight in any greater apprehension and appreciation of Christ on our part, and particularly in bridal features in the recognition of Him as Head of the assembly, the glorious Person who will see things through for His own delight and glory and for the delight and pleasure of God. The pleasure of Jehovah prospers in the hand of Christ. He has been entrusted with all that the Father has. It says that, after Rebecca was brought to Isaac, “Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac”, Genesis 25; 5. Well, God has given all things to be in the hand of Christ. How worthy He is, beloved brethren! It says that God has “granted him a name, that which is above every name”, Philippians 2: 9. It does not say what that name is, but He has given Him a name that is above every name. May the Lord help us that our hearts and our affections may be set in relation to Christ, that there may be more committal on our part to Himself and to His interests here, and that the Spirit may have His way with each one of us, for His name’s sake.

Address at Buckie
10 May 1975