RECOVERY

Genesis 1:1-5; John 1:14-18; Psalm 51:7-19

I desire to speak about the matter of recovery. Recovery is a wonderful thing. One of the things that make it wonderful is that it is God’s matter; it is sovereign. I know there is also the side of responsibility in recovery; Ezra and Nehemiah would bring out the difference between these two aspects. In Ezra, God operated sovereignly, while in Nehemiah, the desire of one man seemed to stir matters up in the souls of those around him. But I think it is right to say that recovery is sovereign and it has a glory of its own.

God has operated in recovery from the very beginning. The first verses we read in Genesis make that clear; “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. That was the original creation which Job speaks of, where the sons of God are spoken of, and Jehovah asked; “Where wast thou ... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”, Job 38:4,7. But then it says in Genesis, “the earth was waste and empty”. God did not make it waste and empty, He had made it as it pleased Him. Something came in, and in the very work of recovery God showed Himself in a way in which He could not otherwise have done. It says “the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”. God in the person of the Holy Spirit was there. How that word “hovering” would remind us of the blessed Holy Spirit; how patient He is, how careful, how gentle, and yet He is God. So “darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light”. That is the beginning of true recovery, when the mind of God becomes known and there is light. We have ministry; we have God-given light by the Spirit as to the teaching of the truth, and of God’s mind. But when God acts in recovery, He shows Himself, He displays His own features. The characteristics that mark the blessed God come to light in a way that might not otherwise have been known

It says; “And God said, Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness”. That is another feature of recovery. The enemy works endlessly to obscure the difference between facts, accurate facts, and the supposition and personal feeling and all these things that come in to becloud issues that may arise. “God divided between the light and the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night”; a very valuable feature of God’s operations. It makes it possible to work through exercises with the help of the Holy Spirit and to gain help as we know what is at stake. Where there has been the allowance of what might tend to confusion, God has operated first of all to make things clear, that is to shed light on them, and then to put names on them. What is right is right and what is unrighteous is unrighteous. That was referred to in the reading at the end of Revelation; there will come a time when things will become fixed. “Let him that does unrighteously do unrighteously still” (Rev.22:11); may God preserve us from that. I want to leave this impression that God has worked from the beginning in recovery in order to set out His own thoughts. He has done this in conditions which can sometimes be hostile and difficult, but the more hostile and the more difficult the conditions, the more the grace of God shines out on the line of God’s reserves, God’s supply. The difficulties only serve to increase our understanding and knowledge of the resources to meet them which God possesses.

When God brings in recovery, there is a moral road to it; there always is. He said “Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided between the light and the darkness”. It is remarkable to think that, as God proceeded with the creation and all that followed, the fall of man and his recovery through Christ, God Himself dealt with things that He had not dealt with before. I trust it is right to say that. One scripture that might be referred to is that the Lord Jesus said at one point “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again”, John 10:17. That was something that had not been known before, “On this account”; something new had come in and that was part of the work of recovery. In a sense, you could write over John 1, “Let there be light”. What an incoming there was on the part of the Lord Jesus! He was God, He is God. John writes, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”. What was that but light? The Lord says so Himself, “I am the light of the world”, John 8:12. A light shone then that had not been seen before and it showed the mind of God and brought it in a luminous way into the souls of men. God began to make Himself known in the way of recovery, and so John says, “(and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth”. This was something entirely new, something that man had not seen before, but now it came out in glorious light; “and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father”. What does that tell us? That God works in recovery, and what lies behind it is His love. That suffuses everything that God does. There is judgment too; we should not forget that because God has given His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to die for us. God forsook Him there at the cross and the cry was uttered, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, Matt.27:46. What a cry! God felt that beyond measure, beyond what we could understand. I am saying that to show that while God is gracious and acts in fulness of grace, yet He is God and He must be regarded as God and His rights must be observed.

Then it says “This was he of whom I said, He that comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me;) for of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace”. Paul tells us about that, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sakes he, being rich, became poor, in order that ye by his poverty might be enriched”, 2 Cor.8:9. Grace has been shown; we have all received grace, but then this scripture says “grace upon grace”. I have the impression that there is included in the meaning of that passage that “grace upon grace” involves recovery. It was part of the provision that God made in Christ and by Christ, anticipating what was to come. God has given us grace, and He will give more. In James it says, “he gives more grace”, Jas.4:6. Matters may be intractable, difficult, even impossible to the human mind, but not to God. I believe that we are in a time when the enemy is set against the expression of assembly life and assembly walk and he is seeking to enter into local companies and disrupt them. But it says “of his fulness” – that is of the Lord Jesus – “we all have received, and grace upon grace”. Some here would know more about that than others. Some of us who are older and hence more responsible would have a real sense of the grace that goes into recovery. Did we deserve it? Of course not. We deserved recovery no more than we deserved the grace of the gospel; it is given by God, it comes from His heart, and is motivated by His love.

John the baptist said “( … He that comes after me is preferred before me, for he was before me;) for of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace”. This was the light shining and it was dispelling the darkness, it was dismissing the darkness. It was not that it gradually became light at this point; the darkness was there, but as Mr Darby’s hymn puts it so well;

‘As darkness, the dominion

Of day’s returning lord!’ (Hymn 189)

“No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. Recovery involves the action of divine Persons, sovereignly based on love. That is what God has in mind, that He should have the saints for His pleasure. The Lord’s prayer in John 17 bears on it; “that they may be one, as we are one” (v.22). Could you think of anything more elevated than that? Of course, we need the Holy Spirit to bring us together but, as we are often reminded, the scripture is not presented as a glorious impossibility, it is presented to us as something to be reached, and as we move in faith, the Spirit of God will help us. It says “the Spirit joins also its help to our weakness”, Rom.8:26. What it means is that, in our weakness, we are seeking to go on in the path of faith and do what is right, actively and pleasingly before God. We would have a sense of our weakness, but He joins His help to that. He joins His help to right exercises, and brings in the power that is needed.

There are many examples of recovery in the Scriptures. You see it in Judah. When Judah and his brethren appeared before Joseph, what did Joseph say? “Have ye a father, or a brother?”, Gen.44:19. He knew the answer to that perfectly well, but what he was doing was touching them in their affections. That is one way in which we can help one another; we can draw out the best, touch on the best. I know it is easy to speak, and that it is not so easy to practise these things, but the scripture is there for our help. Judah pleaded with Joseph; Judah spoke about his father respectfully and when Joseph said he would keep Benjamin, Judah pleaded with Joseph, saying that if he went back without Benjamin, his father would go down to Sheol in misery. Joseph could not resist that; he said “Put every man out from me!”, Gen.45:1. He shed tears over it. If I may say so reverently, I believe that we can bring before God an appeal that would touch His heart and cause recovery, but first it has to take place in my own heart. It has to work there. The skill of Joseph was to revive the family’s relationship; “Is your father well – the old man of whom ye spoke? Is he yet alive?”, Gen.43:27. He had said, “have ye a brother?”, Gen.43:7. Well, that is a question. Is there something that can be linked on with, is there something that can be laid hold of? I believe that in the ways of God, and with the help of God, it can be. I know it is easy to talk, but what I plead for is that we should make way for the Lord to work in our hearts. There is positive gain to be secured as we think rightly of our brethren and hold them truly in affection, hold them in respect. Think of Abraham pleading with God for a whole city, and for fifty righteous, then forty, thirty and twenty. You might say, that is enough, but no, he went down to ten! (Gen.18:24-32). That was intercession according to God and God listened to it and waited until he had finished.

Abigail too; what a peacemaker she was. David had sent to Nabal looking for some support but Nabal had insulted David’s men, and he was looking for revenge (1 Sam.25). David had been treated poorly, but to go and exact revenge was not God’s way and Abigail knew that. She was another one, like Judah in a sense, who went down; she took the blame. It was not her fault, but she took the blame and went with her hands full – a provision of wealth – and David listened. What a victory that was! She was a type of the church at a difficult time. It has often been said, and it is right, that it is possible to go down without compromising. You do not have to give up principles to go down. I repeat myself yet again, I know it is easy to say these things and more difficult to practise them, but God expects us to practise these things and He gives us His Spirit that it may be so. Abigail gave what she had and David accepted it. That was a real victory. I remember a long time ago in our locality, there were two brothers who did not get on, and it rankled, but one night we were reading about the holy city and its gates and one of the brothers said to the other one, ‘Who would go in by the gates of the city?’. The other brother said, ‘You and me!’. That made the difference; a chord was touched, peace was made and help was given.

In Psalm 51 we have David’s experience. What he had done was awful. He had committed sin, and then he compounded it, but God worked with him. Jehovah said through Nathan, “Thou art the man!”, 2 Sam.12:7. What a word it is when it comes to you that you have not been just a little bit out of line, but sadly wrong. Most of us have had that experience at some time; perhaps we have said something out of place or not quite truthful. David came to that, but what came out in this matter of recovery was that God showed Himself. The prophet said to David, “thou shalt not die”, 2 Sam.12:13. What right did he have to say that? God had told him to say “thou shalt not die”, and that is the word to us in the gospel. I have been struck recently with John 8 where that woman was taken in adultery, a dreadful sin, but the Lord wrote on the ground and then He stood up and said “Let him that is without sin among you first cast the stone at her”, John 8:7. Then He wrote on the ground again and while He did that, they all went out. Then He said, “where are those thine accusers? Has no one condemned thee? And she said, No one, sir. And Jesus said to her, Neither do I condemn thee”. That is what recovery is about; the grace of the Lord Jesus operating on this line of no condemnation.

In the psalm, David speaks of his guilt. It is very interesting, because it shows his recovery. He says in verse 16 “For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou hast no pleasure in burnt-offering”. And then he says in verse 19 “Then shalt thou have sacrifices of righteousness”. What made the difference? The man was repentant; that is what made the difference, and what a difference it makes. God values repentance. He knows better than any of us what it cost Him to answer repentance with forgiveness, what it cost His Son, what it cost the blessed Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit. We spoke about our knowledge of the Lord but I believe we need the help and presence and power of the Holy Spirit more and more. We need to know Him as a Person. We know the Lord Jesus as a divine Person, we know Him as a Man, but we need to know the Holy Spirit as a divine Person who is to be known and loved and worshipped. I believe the reference to seeing Him in bodily form as a dove (Luke 3:22) is intended to help us to see the Holy Spirit as a divine Person in His own right. I speak with the utmost reverence. We need His help.

So David says here “Then shalt thou have sacrifices of righteousness, burnt-offering, and whole burnt-offering; then shall they offer up bullocks upon thine altar”. Just before that, he says “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem”. It does not just mean that I get right with my brother. That is important and necessary, but what recovery means in its fullest effect is that the assembly as an entity before God is strengthened. It says so; “Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion; build the walls of Jerusalem”. David was asking that on the basis of his repentance. What a thing it is that God should receive something more than He had already as our shortcomings are judged before Him in repentance. Recovery is a marvellous matter! God is still working. I thought of reading 2 Timothy 2, “if God perhaps may sometime give them repentance” (v.25). I used to think that that meant it was very difficult. I am not now suggesting that it is easy, but what I am saying is that the door is still open and God has not closed it yet.

May we be encouraged, beloved brethren, in our relations with one another for the glory of God, and for His name’s sake.

Address at Buckie
30 April 2016

R. Gray