THE SERVICE OF GOD
Psalm 22: 1-3, 21 (from “Yea”) -22
1 Chronicles 16: 7, 36; 25: 1-2, 6-8
JTB On Lord’s day we sang hymn 100:
Holy, holy, holy! Blessed God, we praise Thee;
From eternity Thou art, to Thee all glory be!
What a privilege it is to be participative in the service of God, one of the greatest blessings that could ever be bestowed upon us, and the exercise is always that we should be enriched in our contribution to it. I wonder if these scriptures might give us some indication as to how our part might be strengthened in acquiring greater wealth.
Psalm 22 would bring out that all praise is founded on the sufferings of the Lord Jesus. The doxology in Revelation expresses appreciation of the work of Christ, in particular that, in His love for us, He shed His precious blood, and the young people might be encouraged by that as they seek to participate in the service towards God. In the Acts, we have how conflict, and what is adverse brings forth that which is contributive to the service. Asaph, as described in Psalm 73 and 1 Chronicles, is a very interesting person. He was perplexed, as so many of us are at times; but had recourse to the sanctuaries of God, where he got some impression from God as to why things were so. Then, as we trace his history, he became, in effect, an instrument of David, “which I made, said David”, 1 Chron 23: 5. Thus in 1 Chronicles 16, David’s psalm was delivered through Asaph and his brethren, and then he becomes a prominent contributor in chapter 25. The references in that chapter to prophesying and singing are interesting, as linking them to the service of God.
AMB This is being worked out at the moment in the time scene, as you have mentioned, with adversity and these things, but the result is eternal. The service of God is something that is not bounded by the time scene.
JTB The writer of hymn 100 encapsulates that: ‘To eternity’, (v 4); worship goes on to eternity, and we will praise there eternally! But we often say that what goes on in our lives and our pathways here helps furnish us for what will be our eternal portion, and what a joy it is to be lifted up above circumstances and to absorb ourselves in what is for God and His service. For it to be inaugurated required that the Lord Jesus had to be forsaken. These words “why art thou far from my salvation” convey the depths to which the Lord Jesus had to go in order that the holy nature of God might be vindicated, without which the service could never begin.
PAG The foundation of the house of God - I am thinking of the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite - was on the basis of sacrifice, and it says as to David that he paid the full money, 1 Chron 21: 24. We may think of the full money as involving a quantity, but do you think that in Psalm 22 we are brought into touch that the full payment was measureless.
JTB That is interesting. Two principal things that David did were to bring the ark to Zion (1 Chron 15), and to purchase the place of the threshing floor of Ornan for the full price. It brings out the glory of the work of Jesus; we could never enter into these things so glorious were it not accomplished in its entirety and perfection. But it involved such distance: “why art thou far from my salvation”, and then these words from His lips, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”, bring out the deep feelings which it occasioned Him.
NJH Stringed instruments require tuning for full praise. I am thinking that applies to us, but with Christ it was always perfect, “I praise thee, Father”, Matt 11: 25.
JTB Yes, every string plays its own note and, as applied to us and exercise through which we pass may perhaps even add a string. We have in Habakkuk: “On my stringed instruments”, and “he will make me to walk upon my high places”, chap 3: 19. These upward movements! The service of God ascends; it goes upwards. We have the Lord’s supper, and then we rise up and move from glory to glory. “And thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”: it is God in His holiness that is the subject of praise, and it required that the Lord Jesus, who Himself is the Holy One of God, must suffer that there might be an answering response to God.
AMB A great feature of the service of God and His praise is that He is known. He has made Himself known, and we answer to the way in which God Himself has made Himself known. I wondered if that comes into this first scripture, “And thou art holy”, something we learn of God; and we see how that holiness of His was upheld in the depths to which Christ went, which brings about depth in the soul of the lovers of Christ, those who love God.
JTB He was heard “from the horns of the buffaloes”, from that extreme point, but He was answered in resurrection. Perhaps we do not sufficiently ponder that going into death was part of His vicarious work, but His rising again was also vicarious, because He was “raised for our justification” (Rom 4: 25). Were He not raised we could never have been introduced into such glorious things; so how important resurrection is. But how affecting it is to think of the Lord Jesus, as enduring these three awful hours so fully borne! He was far from God. What it must have meant to the heart of God not to answer His Son! We should contemplate the significance of that. It is as having been heard and answered that the Lord declares His name to His brethren, and then there is the wonderful expression “in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”. My own limited experience is that we speak to God, and also the Father, very much of Christ’s acceptability to Him and that is very appropriate, but perhaps we do not ponder enough what God is to Christ. Here He says, “in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”. What is He saying to God and to His Father? As our brother has quoted, He said in His pathway here, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth”, and He does say also to His Father that “thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17: 24. The Lord Jesus was ever appreciative of the Father’s love. How affecting to consider what God was to Christ in His infinite love.
PAG Do you think that “to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge”, (Eph 3: 19) is not just His love for me or His love for the assembly, but it is His love for the Father? We can ask the Lord what He thinks of the Father, if I might put it as simply as that.
JTB The reference in Chronicles to prophesying might bear on that. There were those who were to prophesy with the harp, the only instrument mentioned as being in heaven, perhaps suggesting that by this means we might be given an insight into these precious relationships between the Father and the Son, between God and the Son. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son” (John 3: 16), that must involve the deepest affection between the two. At the end of 1 Chronicles we have some indication of the greatness of God as known and appreciated by David, which he was able to express relating to the headship of God, and the wisdom, power and majesty attaching to Him.
GBG You mentioned what God is to Christ. In Psalm 16 it says,
Therefore my heart rejoiceth, and my glory (or it can mean tongue) exulteth; my flesh moreover shall dwell in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol, neither wilt thou allow thy Holy One to see corruption, v 9-10.
It says, “my heart rejoiceth”, and His tongue “exulteth”, and his “flesh moreover shall dwell in hope”; that would be hope in God! That was what God was to Christ. And -
Thou wilt make known to me the path of life: thy countenance is fulness of joy
(v 11)
It is very attractive.
JTB That is very helpful. So that the path of life for Christ lay through death and involved His resurrection, and what God has in mind is that we should enter into the sphere of life, which Christ has opened up for us.
GBG Resurrection has that in mind for us; it says that in the epistles, does it not? So he says, “thy countenance is fulness of joy”; you can in some way understand that! To be in the presence of the Father, but then, “thy countenance is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore”. It is what God was to Christ but then Christ being there, we can think of how much the Lord Jesus contributed to that scene of joy as a Man. He had never been there before as a Man.
JTB The King James Version of the Bible says, “thy presence is fulness of joy”, but “thy countenance” really exudes the favour of God towards Christ, and what Christ enjoyed as in that favour. So Christ rejoices to make known His God and Father’s name to us in the light of what God meant to Him.
TWL We often quote it, but in John 20, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (v 17) is what God was to Christ, and what the Father was to Christ, and what we are to God.
JTB I thought that “my God” in John 20 is the counterpart to “my God” in Psalm 22. In the latter, He addresses God as conscious that the sense of the relationship, hitherto enjoyed, was broken, but when He says, “I ascend … to my God and your God”, He has in mind a great realm of favour for us, as in the joy of sonship. Yet, when He says, “my God and your God”, in John 20 He draws a distinction, and there must be a reason for that, no doubt to emphasise His own unique relationship with His God. It thus causes us to ponder what God is to Christ when He addresses Him in such a way. It brings before us the distinctiveness of the relationship between Christ and His God that He addresses Him so explicitly as “my God”.
DCB Ephesians refers to “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory” (chap 1: 17), distinguishing God; and that remains, that He is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ.
JTB That is very helpful; so it is something we should carry in our spirits, the uniqueness of that relationship between Christ and His God.
DCB So the apostle is bowing his knees to that One. We come into the benefit of the excellence of the fact that He is the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. I was thinking that in Ephesians 1 we have, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us”: it is the One who is His God and Father, and we come into the benefit and blessing not simply that He is ours, but that He is His!
JTB So it would encourage our hearts to appreciate the great system of relationships into which we are introduced. He is our God, but He is also Christ’s God. We have a link with the same God, but Christ has that distinctive relationship and is able to say, “my God”.
APG With the overcomer in Philadelphia (Rev 3), the Lord refers there several times to “my God”; is that an encouragement to us at the present time to be overcomers, that we can share in what belongs to Him?
JTB Yes; we derive these wonderful resources and blessings from the One whom the Lord Jesus addresses as “my God”.
NJH Does the matter of revelation apply to God and to the Father? He makes a difference “my God and your God” and “my Father and your Father”. Both involve revelation for us.
JTB Yes, that is helpful, so that what we know about God is on the basis of revelation.
In Revelation 1 we have a doxology, this outburst of praise “To him who loves us”. How that strikes a chord in every heart in relation to Him who “has washed us from our sins in his blood”. It is affecting that the Lord Jesus Himself has done it. In chapter 7 the persons themselves wash their robes and make them white in the blood of the Lamb (v 14), but in this chapter, so specific to those who love Him now, He washes them Himself. How very affecting to think of the action of the Lord Jesus in washing us from our sins, and in what? In His precious blood! So that must immediately evoke a chord in our affections that our precious Saviour should wash us from our sins in His blood. The conscious nearness of the love of Jesus must surely underlie our praise toward God, and that really motivates us and sets our hearts forward to glorify Him.
WMP We begin with the emblems before us on the table. What a testimony of the love of Jesus! I am impressed with what you said about how wealth is to be developed in our souls; so for a believer there is to be something of that in our own affections, something freshly touched by the way that He has gone on each fresh occasion.
JTB And then too He has made us priests; He constitutes us as able to participate in the service of God. The priest of old went into the holy place, where the candlestick was, typically, for us to see the glories of Christ shine, and that stirs our affections for Him. And then, “made us a kingdom”; so we are brought into a protective area where the praises can ascend unhindered. It is not ‘the kingdom’; it is “a kingdom”. It is a protected area, where we are able to participate so freely in the service.
ABB Peter speaks in his first epistle of “a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you”, chap 2: 9. Do you think this praise and response would be involved in the setting forth all the excellent things He has done for us and the excellency of His love?
JTB Yes. He loves us and He has washed us from our sins in his blood, but then He is so much more to us. Our opening hymn brought before us that He is our Head, our Saviour, and our Leader. What a galaxy of glories attaches to Him and these colour our praise as we are together so that we are moved to say, “to him be the glory and the might to the ages of ages. Amen”. We can all say, “Amen” in this way as freshly appreciative of the One who has done so much to secure us for Himself.
DAB Say something further as to “made us a kingdom”, the thought is of it being a protective area where we can be at liberty and in freedom in the divine presence.
JTB I thought perhaps our local gatherings should be that, each having the same desires and longings and, as together, having no other object but to praise God. We find that at the Lord’s supper, as we each come from our houses freighted with impressions of Christ which can be released in an area where we can share such precious things all together. It is a kingdom, it is protected, and the Lord Jesus Himself would give us that protection. It is not the kingdom of the heavens, nor the kingdom of God exactly, but an environment devoted to His interests and praise.
DAB It is on the basis of One who loves us and has washed us; it is, “To him who loves us”. I appreciate your remarks as to that, because we come together as those who have come under the divine will but in perfect joy and liberty so there is a free flow as we come together, and there is no inhibition as we come as contributors as to what is in the divine mind.
JTB This “Amen” is significant, and I think it just bears that out, that, as coming to this protected area, we are at one in our desires. Elsewhere, “all the people said, Amen! and praised Jehovah”,1 Chron 16: 36. We are happy to do that. We are joyous; we have harmonious links with one another blending in praise to Him, who has made us priests to His God and Father.
RB So what He has done in washing us from our sins is past, although we enjoy the benefit of it, but His love is still present and current; does that always evoke a response, the preciousness of the love of Christ, the way as gathered we can take account of it together?
JTB That is right. One of the things that actuates praise is the conscious sense of love for divine Persons, and their love for us. So, “To him who loves us” is the start of everything. He loved us before we loved Him, and that love continues and will be with us eternally. Love is the divine nature, and that love will never end throughout the ages of eternity.
RB Love underlay the revelation of God, and that necessitates a response from our hearts.
JTB So this doxology should be an encouragement to us all. It is the outflowing of a heart conscious of the love of Christ, and thus able to utter these very precious thoughts.
MBG Is it the persons that are the kingdom? I wondered, because that will then show the importance of each one who forms part of that protective area that you have spoken about, and that should be our experience. If you have a company of persons who are all conscious of the love of Christ and the effect of His work in washing us, then it is a great experience to be part of such a company.
JTB I think that is right. Each person assembling with the same desires and longings and as a partaker of the divine nature helps contribute to a seclusive area that is so conducive to praise.
AGM In Psalm 22 at the end it says, “A seed shall serve him”, but then it speaks as to “a generation”, v 30. Do you think that is the divine end? The doxology comes from His affection for us, “who loves us”. Every believer has their part there, but all may not enjoy it. Do you think we should appreciate more, be deepened more, as to the love of Christ? He went to such lengths to secure us.
JTB That is fine! The last verse of Psalm 22 is very blessed; “They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it”! Everything has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus Himself. Psalm 22: 27 says, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah”, and then it says in verse 25, “My praise is from thee, in the great congregation”, no doubt referring to Israel but, by and by all nations will be brought into this anthem of praise that will ascend to Him eternally.
AGM Is that why it brings in the idea of priests? We are really priests serving in relation to the Lord Jesus and also to the Father and to God. It is a spiritual service.
JTB Yes; He has constituted us in that way. We have been given a priestly constitution that enables us to participate in these blessed things.
NJH Does the very presence of the kingdom, “made us a kingdom”, mean that the service of God will continue whatever the outward conditions are?
JTB Yes. It is the great barrier to anything extraneous intruding into our joy and our worship.
When we come to Acts 16, there could hardly be conditions of greater adversity or opposition but here, at midnight, at the darkest hour, Paul and Silas “in praying, were praising God with singing”; what a wonderful outcome that, in conditions so dire, in that dank prison, there were praises ascending to God. The jail became a sanctuary it has been said, praises ascending to delight the ear of God.
PAG The prisoners listened to them, but do you think that the jailor is evidence that God wants us to do more than simply listen? He wants us to be part of it!
JTB That is good; how the jailor was affected, and his whole house! It must have been a wonderful experience! Initially a painful experience for him as thinking he had lost his prisoners, then he is brought to appreciate that there was something far better in store for him.
DAB I was thinking of the minor prophet Habakkuk; chapter 3 begins with a prayer of Habakkuk, but at the end of that section,
… he maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,
And he will make me to walk upon my high places.
To the chief Musician. On my stringed instruments.
You almost get that picture in Acts 16. What they were really doing as praying is praising God; one leads to the other.
JTB There they were dependently praying to God and then there must have been some sense of what God was for them in these awful conditions, and that led to an outburst of praise to Him.
DAB I suppose the martyrs knew something of this. I have just finished reading the book that our brother published about the martyrs1, and it gives you some idea of the sufferings, but the glory to God that emanated from their lips and from their hearts.
JTB Yes, and Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ is very interesting, full of what those who have gone before have suffered on account of the testimony of our Lord. So often they uttered these expressions of praise and glory, even as they suffered and died!
DCB This passage shows it is not confined to thinking of an hour on Lord’s day, and it would come into our own prayer meetings when appropriate to be moving on to praising God.
JTB Perhaps that is something that we are not too good at, but the meeting is for prayer and thanksgiving. We come together with that in mind, and perhaps it should have a greater place in all our gatherings. We often start our reading meetings with some expression of praise to God which is very appropriate, evoking the help of divine Persons, but thanksgiving is something that ought to enter into our prayer meetings.
AMB Is part of your thought as to this scripture that deep exercise and sorrows that we as believers pass through are to yield for God in greater appreciation of Him, and response to Him?
JTB Yes; it is a path of suffering, but it is not suffering without purpose, and one of the great outcomes ought to be a result of richness and wealth which can be released in the service of God.
AMB There are some among us who pass through exercises that we know about, such as ill health; and others who no doubt pass through sorrows that we do not know about, and you would encourage us to take all our matters before the Lord and before the Father, spread them out and to ask to be shown what He has in mind for us in them.
JTB Yes; the psalm says, “in pressure thou hast enlarged me”, Ps 4: 1. It leads to expansion and a fuller understanding of how and why divine Persons are operating to deepen their work in our hearts and, importantly, develop greater conformity to Christ.
GBG So it is “in order to the partaking of his holiness”, Heb 12: 10. Chastening and discipline would involve being more like the Father, like God, so that God “looked on Abel, and on his offering”, Gen 4: 4.
JTB We often refer at the Supper to the Sanctifier and the sanctified being all of one, that is, of one kind, Heb 2: 11. That is because of what Christ has done and thus He can say, “in the midst of the assembly will I sing thy praises”, v 12. We are regarded there abstractly, as I understand it. But the understanding of divine Persons operating in our hearts, and of what is in mind for us, would lead to a greater practical outflow.
GBG We need what is abstract: as we gather for the Supper, we are not thinking of faults and failings: we are only looking at what is of God in a person. But it is important that there is practical formation after Christ for God’s pleasure.
JTB Yes, “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified are all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren”. It is a blessed thing that He is not ashamed; so you can see that what is abstract enters into that. But then, of course, the more we enjoy that relationship, the greater the incentive to bear it out practically.
TWL Does it help us to see in our practical circumstances when it comes to suffering, it is how God separates us to Himself. It is not just suffering in relation to circumstance, or suffering as consequence, but it is how God separates us to Himself. It is where we have the intimacy of relationship outside of physical circumstance.
JTB So it encourages us therefore to take matters to God, to divine Persons, to seek the help and grace that enable us to react to the circumstances we encounter in a way that pleases God. I think that is what Asaph found when he went into the sanctuaries; he understood what God had in mind for him.
TWL I think it was Mr Coates that asked that the particular affliction he was going through be removed until he found out that, actually, it was a much more blessed thing to go through the affliction to its completion, because it expanded his knowledge of his Saviour, which is a very testing thing when you are in the middle of it; and there are some who have been in the midst of it recently. It separates you to the Man who loves you so well. This is just what you were saying in relation to sanctification, that came about by the most intense suffering.
JTB That is something we should touch on more perhaps, as contemplating what is said in Psalm 22: 3, “thou art holy, thou that dwellest amid the praises of Israel”. It required that Christ be forsaken in order that God’s holy nature should be vindicated. Only Christ as the Holy One of God could, through suffering, accomplish the work to secure an answer, which could satisfy, in praise, the affections of God. So that if we can approach adversity and circumstances, which are so painful and so bitter sometimes, in the light of what Christ has suffered to secure us for Himself, it helps alleviate them and bears us up in the endurance of them.
WMP The suffering in Acts 16 is on account of the testimony. Could you give us a thought on that? We know what the pressures are in that regard as well as what we have said about personal matters and health and so on, but there are testimonial pressures on the saints, are there not?
JTB Much comes into the testimony that affects us in families and in other ways but there is a particular challenge for each of us as standing for the truth in relation to the testimony. We have had brethren in the past having to deal with trade unions and such things, because it affects the testimony of our Lord. Paul speaks to Timothy about that: “Be not therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner; but suffer evil along with the glad tidings, according to the power of God”, 2 Tim 1: 8. It suggests the glad tidings themselves were being attacked, which is happening at the moment, and so the testimony of our Lord needs to be protected and kept before us.
RHB I just wondered if the link you are making between suffering and praise is not illustrated in our own hymnbook. Many of the much-used hymns, some very choice hymns, are the product of deep suffering.
JTB Yes, that helpfully brings us on to 1 Chronicles 25: “And David and the captains of the host separated for the service those of the sons of Asaph …”. We might wonder why this military thought is introduced. It relates to this matter of suffering as linked with praise. By illustration it has been suggested that Mr Darby was a military man as engaging in conflict for the testimony in so many settings, while some of the most beautiful hymns in the hymnbook are his. Thus we have the dual reference in this first verse, “David and the captains of the host”. There we have David as the sweet psalmist of Israel and the chief Musician operating with the captains of the host, thereby combining the musical and military sides.
RHB The hymn ‘The Man of Sorrows’ arose from the personal suffering of Mr Darby at the time he wrote it.
JTB Hymn 14 gives the other side: “Hark! ten thousand voices crying”! So we have both sides, the outcome of his links with God in affection but his determination too to stand for what is right in the sphere of testimony at great personal cost.
NJH Some of his choicest hymns were written in periods of conflict. If you look at the dates, it is quite choice; he rose above it all.
JTB Yes, it is helpful to see that.
Asaph is a very interesting study. He was perplexed, and we are sometimes worried and puzzled about the route the testimony seems to be taking and about what things are bearing on us circumstantially, family-wise, and collectively. He was almost overwhelmed; his steps well nigh slipped, but then he went into the sanctuaries. Then he understood, and got God’s mind about things. What then emerges as to his function in the great system of praise is very interesting. He is used by David, as the ark is brought up to Zion, to deliver the psalm which David himself had written.
AMB Asaph went into the sanctuaries of God. It was a deliberate action on this man’s part; he sought out the presence of God and he prepared himself for it. The idea of sanctuaries suggests he would not have gone in casually there, but with desire to have God’s mind, to see God’s view of the thing.
JTB Later in Psalm 77, he says as to God, “thy way is in the sanctuary”, v 13. He establishes that that is the place where we find the answer to our difficulties. Asaph wrote most of the Psalms in the third book of the Psalms. It is interesting to trace the variety of the titles; Psalm 74 is an instruction; Psalm 75 is a song; Psalm 76 is on stringed instruments; Psalm 77 on Jeduthun, which means praising or celebrating; and Psalm 78 an instruction. What a variety of experience in his links with God there was that Asaph was able to put into verse. What scope there is for turning our own experiences into praise.
ADM I was thinking of the children of Asaph, numbering one hundred and twenty-eight, and they had instruction under Cyrus to go and rebuild the house of God at Jerusalem, Ezra 2: 41. The first thing they rebuilt was the altar, and they had two hundred singing men and singing women, as part of that service, v 65. Is that really the fruit of Asaph’s experience, being able to bring in response and lead in the burnt offerings that were offered?
JTB You are helpfully referring to the recovery from Babylon as set out in Ezra. It is helpful to see how Asaph’s experience is carried forward. He is referred to elsewhere as Asaph the seer (2 Chron 29: 30), so that he had that prophetic perspective, enabling him to understand the mind of God. It is interesting that what pertains to Asaph, and indeed David and the instruments which he had made to praise, are carried forward into the various recoveries. We find references to the instruments of David, and to Asaph, for example, in Hezekiah’s day, v 26. So that nothing according to the divine mind is lost, and that should encourage us. We were speaking about the testimony, and it is reassuring that nothing which pertains to the rights of God and what is secured for His pleasure is ever lost or diminished but rather accumulates. That recovery in Ezra to which you refer is very interesting: they built the altar, but what follows is a great movement of praise to God, chap 3.
ADM It says there that the foundation of the house was not yet laid (v 6), but the important thing was the praise of Jehovah, praising His Name and offering; that was re-established first of all.
JTB It was as if they could not contain themselves; they could not wait until the house was built, but they wanted to engage in the sacrifice of praise just as soon as it was possible.
PAG You might say something for our help about the expression in 1 Chronicles 16: 36, “Blessed be Jehovah the God of Israel, from eternity and to eternity!”. Could you open that up for us.
JTB What we are engaged with is eternal and will never cease. What a thing to stir our hearts and galvanise our affections, that the God with whom we are engaged is the eternal God, and what is for His pleasure will endure throughout the countless ages of eternity!
PAG It might just encourage us all, and especially our younger brethren, that when we are responding to God, we are participating in something that will never end. We think of suffering, and the response to God is not temporary relief; response to God is what is formed in the heart of a saint, and it will never go away. I am not minimising the suffering, which can be very real and taxing, but the God who came out from eternity in Christ to claim us will have our response eternally; that is His thought.
JTB Yes, Mr Darby’s hymn, ‘Rolls around the endless song’, Hymn 14. Then we also have, ‘On earth the song begins’, Hymn 308.
APG The final verse in some of the books of the Psalms close on this note. The first book of the Psalms ends, “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, from eternity to eternity!” Some of the other books are similar. Is that the outgoing of heart, the fruit of experience with God?
JTB So it should stir our hearts and encourage us that we are engaged with something that will never end. It may be perhaps gained through conflict, pain and sorrow, but what is thereby established in our hearts is for all eternity.
AMB And all characterised by the love of God. We might have certain thoughts about eternity, particularly when we are young, that it is too vast to understand, and it is beyond our finite minds, but eternity will be a celebration of, and a response to, the love of God revealed in Christ.
JTB So we can see that we have an immediate basis for participating in it as recipients of the love of God.
1 Chronicles 25 helps us in the service of God, and we sang about the headship of Christ in our opening hymn. The sons of Asaph were under the direction of Asaph, “who prophesied at the direction of the king”. In that regard we often speak about a word at the service of God. It is not a word that would tax our consciences as we might have at a ministry meeting, but it is one that would direct and sensitise our hearts to what the Lord has in mind as the Minister of the sanctuary.
SCL Do you think that draws out the distinctiveness of every occasion? Sometimes a brother will get up and prophesy in relation to a word that has been given, drawing particular attention to the distinctive glories of the Lord at that particular occasion; it is not vain repetition.
JTB Yes, all comes through Christ Himself so that we move as “at the direction of the king”. He gives character and tone to the service as the Minister of the sanctuary. It is interesting to read that “all these were sons of Heman the king’s seer in the words of God, to exalt his power; and God had given to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters”. A brother would give a word, but some touch might come through a sister if we are sensitive to it. And then it says, “All these were under the direction of their fathers Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman, for song in the house of Jehovah, with cymbals, lutes and harps”; so there is great variety in the praise that comes from hearts that are under the direction of the King.
GBG You could come in with a hymn, and also as a brother on his feet in addressing divine Persons, and the Lord can speak to us in these ways also. What I mean is we do not need a formal word for the Lord to speak to us under His headship.
JTB In fact, we have in ministry that the giving out of a hymn is really the most elevated service in the house of God, and requires the most profound spirituality, CAC vol 27 p246. What I meant by the service of sisters is simply that they have part in this, not speaking, of course, but in fact something might be conveyed to and through them which can sensitively be felt by the brothers who can articulate and express it. All this underlines the need for thoughtfulness in giving out a hymn.
TWL Could you give us your thoughts on what it was for them to be instructed? To be instructed makes you intelligent in relation to the things of God. It is not just what you feel, but it is the knowledge of God.
JTB Yes; it involves the knowledge of God. I was thinking about what we have in Colossians where we grow by the true knowledge of God and thus become instructed, while in Ephesians we grow up to Him in all things, who is the Head. As deriving from Him in that way we become instructed. The Lord Jesus took the place of hearing “as the instructed”, Isa 50: 4. What an example! Increasing in our knowledge of God, as you say, must help us.
TWL And I wondered if it did not go back to where we began in what God was to Christ and what Christ was to God. A person who is instructed would have spent time to learn what Christ was to God and what God was to Christ.
JTB That is done in the sanctuary. You can see how important the sanctuary is, a sphere where everything that is contrary to nature is excluded, and we can be in the presence of divine Persons and become instructed by them.
PAG Do you think the service of the Spirit would enter into that? It was said by those around at the time of the apostles after the Lord had gone on high that they were ignorant and uninstructed men; they were not educated persons. Every instruction they had came from Christ as Head by the power of the Spirit: “the teacher with the scholar”. Everyone can receive something from the Holy Spirit. We should be intelligent, but we should not be inhibited in contributing to the service of God.
JTB I thought that; and that is why I read verse 8, “the teacher with the scholar”. So young persons might think they are inadequate, but ‘scholars’ suggest those who are devoted to learning. We can learn from those with experience, and as in the school of God we are learning all the time.
Linlithgow
11th January 2025
List of initials:-
A M Brown, Linlithgow; A B Brown, Linlithgow; D A Brown, Bo’ness; D C Brown, Edinburgh; R Brown, Linlithgow; R H Brown, Maidstone; A P Grant, Dundee; G B Grant, Dundee; M B Grant, Grangemouth; P A Gray, Linlithgow; N J Henry, Glasgow;
S C Lock, Edinburgh; T W Lock, Edinburgh; A G Mair, Cullen; A D Melville, Grangemouth; W M Patterson, Glasgow