THE EXERCISES OF THE PLAIN PRECEDING ELEVATION
[p. 255] THE EXERCISES OF THE PLAIN PRECEDING ELEVATION
Luke 1: 39 - 47; Luke 10: 17 - 24
These scriptures are read with a view to speaking of Luke from the standpoint of elevation, but since coming here this afternoon the thought came to me, not at once to speak of elevation, but of the plain, the moral plain first, so I will read chapter 3, verse 10, “And the crowds asked him saying, What should we do then? And he answering says to them, He that has two body-coats, let him give to him that has none; and he that has food, let him do likewise. And tax-gatherers came also to be baptised, and they said to him, Teacher, what should we do? And he said to them, Take no more money than what is appointed to you. And persons engaged in military service also asked him saying, And we, what should we do? And he said to them, Oppress no one, nor accuse falsely, and be satisfied with your pay”. This came to me with peculiar force as entering into what had already occupied us; but characteristically Luke avoids creating trouble, and shews us how the saints can serve on the level of the plain, in that sense, that is, on the level of ordinary conduct, for the government of God enters into it. I feel that attention should be called to it, to see how they can explain these words of John, because of the external circumstances around today; so much being asked, leading to legislation by rulers; and then other things are mentioned, tax-gatherers, soldiers, and the like. The enquiries all make up or tend to the burden of the legislation. And the question arises how the government of God may not be involved by the brethren by their avoidance of what is correct, and the brethren fail in unselfishness, “He that has two body-coats, let him give to him that has none”. I say that as a preface, as to [p. 256] unselfishness, pending the coming of the Lord. We are to hold the ground in a moral way as presented by John the baptist, not the Lord here. The gospel of Luke contemplates everything being avoided that will hinder the gospel. Luke contemplates the Lord going to heaven at once, because of the gospel. In the meantime the position is to be held in the government of God (not the assembly at the moment) and unselfishness is to mark us, to impart to those who have nothing, a very remarkable thing. We have dealt here today with current conditions, hence the tax-gatherers are told what to do, also the soldiers are to maintain God’s government here, day in and day out, to make way for the gospel, then the assembly the product of the gospel. These are the great priorities in heaven, and we want to see how we can exemplify in a godly way His character (for “piety is profitable for everything”, 1 Timothy 4: 8.). Then we have the soldiers of today as we have already been speaking of them, and their testimony, as to their being ‘Nazarites of God’, for God is supporting those who do their part among the brethren. We want to make way for the prime thought of God, what is elevated, but I have been speaking of the necessity of the exercises of the plain, of the dead level.
I now want to view the ornamental side, set out in chapter 1 and secondly in chapter 10. In the first we have two women, and in the second, seventy men. These two women who were ornamental to the truth suggest what should be; as we see the heavens garnished; in the heavens from the outset of the creation we have ornamentation; the Spirit of God is seen hovering over the face of the waters, involving the terribleness of what had happened, and pointing to what was coming in, the operation that begins with God; so firstly we see His Spirit hovering over the waters, then His great works of ornamentation. But [p. 257] we cannot deal with that now. We know God in His operations, and light came in first, followed by life, so that what we have now is the great operational sphere where God is carrying out His great thoughts into effect.
Beautification is in mind in this passage, a most remarkable one that immediately introduces the thought of elevation. I wish to impress this on our minds to begin with, why does it say Mary went with haste? I do not question it. It is scriptural. A great event had happened, the incarnation, not in its fulness, but in principle. Mary had had a conversation with Gabriel; how she drank in his words! No questioning at all with her; let all sisters take that in, for they are apt to question what is right. The Spirit of God is with the sisters to check these questionings; hence here the word is, “Behold the bondmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her”. He leaves her for a moment; so we are just left to test us out, to bring out what is of God, who knows what He has planted in our hearts. All these sorrows of the past five or six years are to bring out what was in these years of interest and teaching by the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of it is there and God knows that it is the normal and evident enhancement of the work of God. God has in measure relieved us of the pressure; He has heard our prayers. Jehovah says to Solomon (1 Kings 9: 3), “I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication which thou hast made before me”; let the brethren take it to heart; things are not over, worse is to come; but we are to take account of the things which are. So Mary is left, the angel departs, there is no evidence of loneliness; she had her husband, but she had God, or rather, His angel, and now he had departed from her. Now we come to the passage I read, beginning with verse 39. It is a question of what we are going to do [p. 258] next. This nation is occupied with measures of legislation, but there is nothing as to that here; we have a saint before us, a great saint, and there are such here; what John calls “great fishes” — John 21: 11, that is great saints, and I speak of Mary as such, for she had had a wonderful interview with the great priestly angel. Angels are “sent out for service on account of those who shall inherit salvation”. One is military, Michael, but Gabriel is priestly; these two are named, but there are myriads of them sent out as ministers to the saints, as heirs of salvation; Mary was one of those heirs! I do not go back on their wonderful conversation; it was the incarnation of the Word becoming flesh, a divine Person Himself. One of the greatest events had thus been the theme of conversation between Mary and Gabriel, for he is named here. Now, as I said, what will she do next? A moment of peculiar study for those who think of sainthood, what saints do, those to whom angels are ministers, sent out for that purpose. Much is said of Mary, and how she is seen in the upper room, when the era of great distinction began; the Peters, the Johns, and all the apostles were also in that upper room, but now she is here by herself and she had just said, “Behold the bondmaid of the Lord; be it to me according to thy word”, it was thy word, God’s word, it was the word of the Lord to her. What is her next move? It says, “And Mary, rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste, to a city of Judah”, note the words “with haste” in the scripture; and why? Not because she wanted to go to a certain city of Judah, but it was to the hill country, a point of moral elevation; not to relate or parade the great news, not as yet, but to this hill country, as much as to say, a high level is required, not to just talk lightly of such great things, not casting “your pearls before swine”, but to take them where they belong, to the [p. 259] hill country. Then we have too the persons, the kind of society that belongs to such things, in verse 40, so she “entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth”. Not a word about Zacharias, or how many acquaintances Mary had, but she went to the house of Zacharias, and salutes Elizabeth; she was worthy, she was about to be the mother of the next greatest person; she did not know it before, but she understood it now, the unborn babe understood, he leaped with joy; what a remarkable fact and what a suggestion as to these high and holy matters, things between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Their secrets. Do we know anything of them? John 17 tells us what is available. John the baptist is brought into this worshipful company in the hill-country; though he is not born yet, he leaps with joy. I am endeavouring to cover with holy thoughts, the most holy things, and I appeal to the priests, who alone can deal with such matters. Two things are said in this verse 41, “the babe leaped in her womb”, and she “was filled with the Holy Spirit”. She then shews that she is a priest worthy of these holy things, she “cried out with a loud voice and said, Blessed art thou amongst women”, she is a priest and can name the most holy woman without any sense of rivalry, which would be utterly out of place, so that we should see that we cherish holy things in a holy setting. “Whence is this to me?” she says. She had not noticed it before, it was a body matter. She discerns what came from Mary’s voice, and it affected Elizabeth and brought in a third, the unborn babe, a potential priest. Elizabeth discerns that he was joyful, “For behold, as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the babe leaped with joy in my womb”, verse 44. I commend all this to you dear brethren. I hesitate to speak of these holy things, having spoken of chapter 3, but we need both, as is [p. 260] implied in Ephesians 2: 5 and 6, “ye are saved by grace, and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together”, for “together” marks this also. And so, as I said, John the baptist is brought into it. A most remarkable thing that two holy persons with a peculiar maternal link are seen, with a third, John the baptist. It was a moment of supreme joy, the greatest in all history, and John understands, the babe understands what is proceeding, “the babe leaped with joy”; Elizabeth said it, she was most affected by it, next to John himself. It was not conveyed by a voice, but by the power of God operating in our organs, in view of affecting our voices, and Elizabeth is affected by it. Now I go on to bring out a word as to Mary herself; we are not left only with things said about her; there is what she said, and she said more than Elizabeth. Mary can discern between soul and spirit, another precious matter; so that we can see the faculties involved in worship. Can we discern between the Father’s voice, the Son’s voice, and the Spirit’s voice? We get the latter in Acts. All can be distinguished. The worshippers are to be discerning, to know their faculties, and what is effected, whether by soul or spirit; we cannot yet say “body” (though we must have it to worship with), but the day is coming when we shall have glorified bodies, then all will be accurate. So Paul says, “your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”, 1 Thessalonians 5: 23. God would extol the greatness of our persons, what He has made us, “Beloved, now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested; we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”, 1 John 3: 2. That should be enough for the Christian; it is all we have to serve and to own Him in. How they are needed; we pray for them to be kept. “He is Saviour of the body” (Ephesians 5: 23) in whatever state. God can keep us going in need, or rationing, or whatever thing He sees fit to allow. God can keep us as He did Israel in the wilderness. I only say this to draw attention to the spirit, soul and body of the believer; so that Mary says here, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour”, verse 47, and this holy contribution which Mary gives goes on to verse 55. I only touch on what comes from her soul and her spirit. So that, dear brethren, I think I am justified in calling attention to this scripture referring to the hill-country, to what reaches up to heaven itself. In Genesis I “God called the expanse Heavens”; it was the atmospheric heaven, but the hill-country is moral elevation, where we can reach up to where God is. I want all here to take in what this society means, the only society on earth at the moment where they could have holy communications and worship God. What a season they had as bound up together, involving the holy feelings of believers, that belong properly to every one of us; not on the level of the plain, where the tax-gatherers and the soldiers are complaining, but where the greatest things, the things of the assembly, are spoken of; these holy things belong to us, for we are constituted priests.
In the next passage in chapter 10, we have now seventy men, servants of Christ, directly commissioned by the Lord. He had instructed them in verses 1 to 16, then it says, “And the seventy returned with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us through thy name”. But He says (verse 18), “I beheld Satan as lightning falling out of heaven ... but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”, in the highest place above, like the hill-country of Judah. It is like Ephesians 1: 3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed [p. 262] us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”, in the Person, in whom we are given status up there. Then we have this further word in verse 21, “In the same hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said”, how He is lifting them up, but how He rejoices Himself, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth”, the secrets between the Father and the Son, these we are called up into. He lifts us out of all the service and says, Do not rejoice in this, but in something greater, between the Father and Myself. So He says, “rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”, not only having a place, but a fixed position, and status, and title, as having our names there. So our conversation is to be there, our politics are to be there, where our names are; those of the assembly have the first-born’s place, like the Levites in Israel, “the assembly of the first-born who are registered in heaven” — Hebrews 12: 23, which is a reference to the levitical family, and everyone there can lift up his head, because of this inscription in heaven, and because of the word in verse 23, “And having turned to the disciples privately he said, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see”. I put all these thoughts before you to shew what a position we have as to conversation, and as to status, themes to enter into our affections with one another, for the Lord said them privately to them, it is a private matter. The assembly of the first-born is a plural word, and these private words of the Lord are to search us, as to our eyes, that they may be kept in a holy way in order to be used in His service.