THE MAKING TIME

D. Robertson

Isaiah 13: 12; Luke 2: 25–28; Ephesians 2: 8–10

This verse in Isaiah 13 I believe has the believer in type in mind. In the sense in which I am considering making today it could not apply to the Lord Jesus for there is no need of process in Him, no need of making. As Man He was marked by intrinsic excellency, that is, He brought His own features into manhood. He derived nothing morally from Mary; He was His own root in manhood. So that we need to bear in mind the unique character of the manhood of Christ and indeed to seek the Spirit’s help to understand, in some measure, the glory of that uniqueness; that every feature that was displayed in Him He brought into manhood Himself.

We come into things by process, moral and spiritual process. God takes a man up and works with him. We are in the time when God is making men, taking us up in divine grace, because we could not enter the divine system apart from that. The divine calling stands at our entrance into Christianity. It is a sovereign matter, and that is to humble us that God in His sovereign goodness has taken up such persons as you and me. His intention is that He might make us something, and I thought this verse suggests a very precious thought, where God says, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold”. Think of God working with a believer and making him more precious than fine gold, working out His great thoughts in persons just like ourselves. It is a very real thing. It involves no doubt the secret work of God in us, how He works according to His own pleasure. It involves too His disciplinary ways with us; how He disciplines us, in our circumstances, in our bodies, and in so many different ways. In all these things God is undertaking this great making of a man, having in mind this precious result, as it goes on to say, “even man than the gold of Ophir”. That would be the best kind of gold. But what God is working out in the believer exceeds all that; it is something exceedingly precious in the sight of God.

I would like to encourage the younger brethren particularly, but all of us, to be subject to what God is doing; do not rebel against Him. It may be we become rather confused in our minds as to the whole situation of

what God is doing, and we may think that things in the world are better. Satan is so skilful in making an appeal to us and making things seem attractive to us, but I would say that there can be nothing greater than to be the subject of God’s work in this making time. God has taken you up in grace, He has reached you, He has brought you into a knowledge of salvation in Christ. You understand something of what it is to be set in His presence in His righteousness; you understand something of the precious value of the sufferings and the death and the blood-shedding of Jesus. That is the basis on which God has secured blessing for you.

But what is in God’s mind is that He has taken you up to make you something. It involves time, it involves days and hours and even minutes, as God in His patience works with us.

The beauty of God’s work exceeds any beauty that is in this world, whatever it may be. The fine gold would represent something of outstanding value, but it is not to be compared with what God is doing in the believer in the making time. I want to impress that thought upon your minds and affections. If you are left here much will happen in your histories, as it has happened in those who are older, even the possibility that you may fail the Lord at times. But in all that God in His grace will not give you up. He will hold you with a view to making you what is precious to Himself. If I could speak in a reverent way, God is determined not to let you go. He is making something very, very precious in His sight; it is after the pattern of Christ. We read of the Lord Jesus as “the second man, out of heaven” (1 Corinthians 15: 47); that is. He is God’s pattern man.

The subject of prophecy, especially in the book of Revelation, deals with all kinds of men; kings, emperors, dictators, are all covered in the scope of Revelation. But in this book, which sets out prophetically the whole scope of God’s operations in relation to the earth, there is a reference which is distinguished from all that. In chapter 19 there is the statement that, “the spirit of

prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”, Revelation 19: 10. The spirit of prophecy brings into the heart what God is doing. Prophecy shows you what God will do, He will settle the whole history of this world. He has the power to do it, and there is a Man great enough to do it, One that places “his right foot on the sea, and the left upon the earth”, Revelation 10: 2. It is the great power of Christ to assert His claim and to regulate and adjust the whole world according to the will of God, involving the dispensing with evil and all its forces, but “the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”. We read in Revelation of persons who have the testimony of Jesus. Have you that testimony? I believe it involves inward conviction that this is the secret pattern which God has before Him. He is working in view of a universe that will conform to the pattern that is presented in the Lord Jesus Christ.

You think of the fine features of Christ that are being formed in the saints. Does it not stimulate your heart? It may be in a brother rising to his feet in thanksgiving to God, and you have an impression of a feature of Christ being displayed. Or it may be in a suffering sister, or a young person under the attack of the devil and superior to it, and that is the testimony of Jesus. The results of the present making time can be seen in that testimony being formed substantially in persons. Elsewhere in this book God says, “the souls which I have made”

(Isaiah 57: 16); that is, we are not robots, we are men, men formed in feelings by the Spirit of God, feelings for God and feelings for one another. Maybe someone in this company is growing cold in their affections; we feel for you. Why is that? Because God has wrought in our hearts in this making time, and we would feel anything that would steal away from God what is His due in any one of us.

I thought about Simeon as it says in Luke, “there was a man in Jerusalem”. Well you might say there were many men in Jerusalem in those days, there was

this man who was a focal point, you might say, of the interest of heaven. You are that, dear brother, dear sister; you are under the notice of heaven, you are under the notice of God. God is interested in you. So in Simeon we see a man who was held in the divine centre of things.

It is a great matter to be held where God is operating. Christendom has become a great wide scope of things and it has been filled with rebellion after rebellion. People think they can act as they like; they think they can separate from what is acknowledged by God and is on firm scriptural ground, and that they can set up what is convenient to themselves. Christendom is full of that, so it is a great thing to be consciously and morally held where God would put us.

The test for every true Christian is, Is God operating there? Where is the Lord in the midst?

Where is the Holy Spirit free? That would be the concern of a man in Jerusalem. I would like to be amongst such.

I believe that is the kind of man that God is making, a man that is more valuable than anything this world can produce. What God is producing is in character men in Jerusalem.

God says, “I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem”, Ezekiel 36: 37, 38. That is what God is doing, producing qualities in man that He Himself values. Holiness is a great quality, no one receives holiness by faith; holiness is something that is arrived at through experience and through intimacy with God. Indeed, it says of holiness, “without which no one shall see the Lord”, Hebrews 12: 14. Issues arise amongst the saints, and at times there is difficulty in discerning them. Why is it? Without holiness there is no power to see it. I believe it requires these features which God is forming in men. I trust the brethren will see the drift of one’s exercise. Here is a man in Jerusalem, a man who is held at the centre of God’s operations, and we are given the moral features that marked him. It says “this man was just and pious, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him”. If we are to be

made by God, it is in view of taking on moral features, features that are of moral worth in the sight of God; righteousness and piety, features that God would recognise as belonging to true manhood. These are the features which are seen here in this man in Jerusalem.

We also read, “it was divinely communicated to him”. Think of God having a man to whom He can communicate something. Is that not precious to God? We were also saying last week that beloved Mr. Taylor said that in creation he thought God would start with the ear. I think it shows that God had a desire that there would be an avenue in man through which He could communicate the thoughts of His heart. Think of God communicating the revealing of His heart and will to man! The ear is necessary for that, and I have no doubt that Simeon was a man who had that kind of ear. It says, “it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit”. Now I believe that divine communications are important. They would test us as to how much we know of communion with God. I would leave that question with all of us as to whether we know what communion with God is. There is prayer; we have a need and we approach God, but communion goes far beyond that. I believe it means the seeking out of the presence of God just to be intimate with God. You remember it says Moses went in to speak with Him, and He spoke to him (Numbers 7: 89). Wonderful matter! We need to set aside time to go into the presence of God, and to remain there quietly and find that God will communicate something of the secrets of His own mind.

Well what He communicated to Simeon was “that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ”. That would all be part of this process that God is proceeding with in relation to the saints as He would work with them until their whole sight is occupied with Christ. The detail of the truth is so important, but there is nothing that will replace the soul being occupied with the beauty of Christ and to appropriate Him. If we are going to be like Him we need to learn how to feed on Him; this brings about likeness to Christ. Simeon was led this way so that he would see the Lord’s Christ. I am applying the thing morally and spiritually, that we might be led this way in our dealings with God until the beauty of Christ is filling the soul.

I believe Paul’s moral being was completely filled with the beauty of Christ. You get that impression as you read his epistles. So that it says so remarkably, and so challengingly to each one of us, “for me to live is Christ, and to die gain”, Philippians 1: 21. Then it says here in Luke, “And he came in the Spirit”; his movements were regulated movements. That is a feature of the kind of man that God is producing. God is making persons who are, we may say, subjects of divine regulation, subjects of the regulations of the holy fellowship of God’s people and the fellowship of the Lord’s death. What was referred to in the first epistle to the Corinthians as to the fellowship of God’s son is a matter of divine calling (1 Corinthians 1: 9). I think it is a sovereign matter, God has called us to it. We could never put ourselves into that fellowship. The calling of God is involved in our place in the fellowship of God’s Son.

The test is, Are we really in it vitally? That really brings up the truth in 1 Corinthians 10, because it is a question of man’s responsibility; that is, Are we faithful to the light of the death of Christ, the communion of the blood of the Christ?

I want to refer to this here, “he came in the Spirit into the temple; and as the parents brought in the child Jesus that they might do for him according to the custom of the law, he received him into his arms, and blessed God”. I do not know of anything in a sense greater than that. It is a wonderful experience in the assembly to see a priest with Christ in his arms. Think of the assembly, the holy circle that we understand something about, and we treasure our place in it!

You see a man who has been made by God, and who becomes conscious of being made by God, he will remain in his place. He will not wander like the wandering stars that are filling Christendom, he will remain in his place, and Simeon is typical of that. He is a man in his place, a man in the right place at the right moment. That involves the way we come together in our local assemblies that we are like men in Jerusalem. God brings in an impression of Christ and there is the ability on the part of the saints to receive it. It is not Christ here on God’s side, it is Christ, we may say, held by the moral power of the priest. It refers to moral power on man’s side to hold an impression of Christ. Beloved brethren, we are in the making time. God has great things in mind for each one of us, and may we all be exercised and convicted of the necessity of being in God’s hands that we might be made according to His own mind. I believe there is a very fine picture of it in this man. Simeon, in this fine result of seeing him as a priest with Christ in his arms, having the ability to appropriate and to present features of the beauty of Christ.

I want to draw attention to the expression that Paul uses in Ephesians 2. It says, “ye are saved by grace, through faith; and this not of yourselves; it is God’s gift—not on the principle of works, that no one might boast”. That is the sovereign side, but then it goes on to say, “For we are his workmanship”. I love that expression. We are God’s work, we are the product of God’s work, but also His workmanship. There is not much workmanship in the world these days. I am speaking even in the best sense. In former days men served a very thorough apprenticeship, and that apprenticeship led to good workmanship. Now it is mainly mass production and that is not exactly workmanship. A craftsman may work patiently in the forming of a beautiful piece of furniture. It is not only his work but his workmanship. Now I just want to transfer that to God, “we are his workmanship”. He is working out something that only He could in this making time. All His skill and affection are involved in what He is doing, and the day will come when God will display the product of His workmanship. He will show it to a wondering universe, and all those features of Christ will be displayed perfectly.

I believe in the holy city, new Jerusalem, that there will not be one feature omitted, in its formation, of the beauty of Christ. I do not think any individual Christian can fully display all the glories of Christ. God has formed some of these beauties in one and another but in the city, especially in the world to come, I believe it will be seen that not one of the beautiful features of Christ will be omitted from its formation. The city will display it all. What a holy substantiality it is, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and it is shining. What is it? It is a tribute to the workmanship of God. God will display to the whole universe, in that vessel, the acme of His work. It will be seen as the crown, and what will be seen in it is the perfect formation of Christ in its entirety. The features of the manhood of Christ will be seen morally in all their beauties in that great vessel in the world to come.

These were the thoughts I had, that we are in the making time, and that city will be the display in perfection of what God has secured in it. In the meantime the making time involves God’s discipline, it involves His patience, and it involves His deliberate purpose. You may say, I know what I would like to become. God would say, I know what I would like you to become, “I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even man than the gold of Ophir”.

May we submit ourselves to God. Do not turn your face away, do not rebel against Him. God has desires for you that you could never have for yourself, involving thoughts of divine excellency, and, as I have said, the pattern of it all is the second Man out of heaven. May the Lord bless the word.

Address at Los Angeles
3 June 1995