Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see

‘Lead, kindly Light, amid th’encircling gloom,

Lead Thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead Thou me on;

The distant scene, one step enough for me’.

Another man, Mr John Darby, wrote at about the same time:

‘Rise, my soul, thy God directs thee,

Stranger hands no more impede;

Pass thou on, His hand protects thee –

Strength that has the captive freed.

Light divine surrounds thy going,

God Himself shall mark thy way;

Secret blessings, richly flowing,

Lead to everlasting day’.             (Hymn 76)

The first hymn speaks of the encircling gloom, and how one step is enough. A first step is essential, and thank God for it. I trust that everyone here has taken that first step, when God in His goodness brings me to repentance and I come to know the blessedness of who the Saviour is. As taking that step, I find that the Lord Jesus has taken on my liabilities and responsibilities, all that I am as a man or woman here, and I find that they are met and discharged by His precious work. One step – we shall never forget it! If there is anyone here who has not taken that first step, I would urge you to take it tonight.

But God wants to bring you into something more as a result of that first step. He wants you to go on in the knowledge of divine things, into the fulness of His thoughts, to bring you into the fulness of His blessing, into the “inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me”. He wants to bring you into the fulness of His own presence, for His own pleasure. The first step is important; we must take that first step in faith, but let it not be the last one, lest we come short of the fulness of the divine blessing and miss out on the richness of all that God would bring us into at the present time.

Abram had come out of the world system. It is a very striking thing to look at the history and setting of these scriptures. You find in Genesis chapter 11 the building of the tower of Babel, when men decided that they would build a city, the top of which would reach to heaven, and make themselves a name. That may have been the point when, as scripture says, “they did not think good to have God in their knowledge” (Rom.1:28), when man decided that he would make his own way and he would build a world for his own glory. This whole world became independent of God, who confounded their language. How terrible the world had become. They decided to build a tower with bricks, things that are man-made. That is what is all around us. Beloved young ones, the world is still making things with bricks, the tower is still in principle being built, all that man has manufactured with his mind, with his intelligence. Everything in Babel was brick, but what God builds He builds with stone. You would not have found any stone in the tower of Babel. There is much that surrounds us, especially in the religious world, which is part of that edifice and which is being built independently of God and not for the glory of God.

So God called a man out of it. In the very next chapter after the tower of Babel, God called Abram out of his land, and He put something into his heart through faith as to another world, another place apart from man’s world. I think this is a very affecting setting. Stephen said, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham”, Acts 7:2. The great line of faith, the teaching of faith, came in with Abram and he became known as the father of faith. He is not the leader of faith, because that belongs to “Jesus the leader and completer of faith”, Heb.12:2. But Abram became the first of those who moved in faith and becomes an important part of the teaching for us.

The Old Testament scriptures are all very important. You may think that they are old and just history, but I was reading last Lord’s Day in 1 Corinthians 10, “Now all these things happened to them as types, and have been written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages are come” (v.11). These things are written in Scripture because they are lessons for us, types for us, situations which are alive and vivid. God called a man out of the world system into a pathway of faith. I would like to encourage everyone here that we might go on in relation to the great matter of faith. Our faith can be tested; the Lord Jesus said even to Peter, “behold Satan has demanded to have you, to sift you as wheat; but I have besought for thee that thy faith fail not”, Luke 22:32. You may say, I did not think that faith could fail, but these are the words of the Lord Jesus. Faith is light from God and it can become dim in our eyes. As far as what faith has secured for us, in relation to our souls’ salvation, that is secured forever in the faithfulness of God, but our faith can be tested and can become dim. The pathway of faith that we see beginning in Abram goes right through Genesis. God did not call him out because of the evil that was in Babel, bad as it was. The independence of men from God that was there in the world system, the idolatry and all these things that were there, were evil things, but God did not call Abram out because of what was bad there. He called him out because He wanted to show him His glory, He wanted to bring Abram into His realm of glory.

Abram went out from Mesopotamia, the centre of civilisation in the world at that time, and he went out not knowing where he was going. He set out on the path of faith because he believed God. So we find that the path of faith is set out in Abram. He became tested in it, he had his setbacks, he had problems to overcome in this way of faith, and we also shall find difficulties along the way. First of all, he was hindered by his natural relationship. He hesitated for a time; according to Stephen’s account, he delayed until his father died. There were hindrances that entered into his path of faith, but God had entered into the soul of Abram, God had shown him His light. That is what faith is – it is light from God. The God of glory had shone into Abram’s soul, into the heart of a man. He was able to penetrate right into and affect Abram and his movements. He can do that. Abram believed God and he moved out. But then he was diverted. We know what it is for diversions to come in, natural things come in, providential things come in. A little later a famine came, and Abram diverted down to Egypt, but none of that changed the fact that the way that he was on was following the path of faith.

We come to this section where we read, when Abram had come up out of Egypt, and his brother Lot, who came out with him, was diverted by the fruitful plains of Sodom. Lot “lifted up his eyes, and beheld all the plain of the Jordan that it was thoroughly watered, before Jehovah had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah; as the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt, as one goes to Zoar”, Gen.13:10. Lot diverted from the path of faith, and it is possible to divert from the path of faith. He represents a believer. You might look at his conduct and wonder at it, as he moved aside from the path of faith, chose something for himself, and settled down in the plain before Sodom and Gomorrah, “as the garden of Jehovah, like the land of Egypt”. It was present advantage that diverted Lot away from the path of faith; he went out of it. We can only imagine the effect that it had upon Abram to lose his brother. It was not that Lot was lost eternally, for scripture describes him as a righteous man (2 Pet.2:8), but for the moment Abram did not have Lot to accompany him in the pathway of faith, and I think that Abram felt it deeply. The question was whether it would divert him from the path of his faith. But God said, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that thou seest will I give to thee, and to thy seed for ever”. It is very affecting to me. We are not told of the thoughts of Abram’s heart, but he loved his brother. He was ready to go to war for Lot later, to fight to secure him when he was taken captive (Gen.14), only to see Lot return to Sodom. Abram was ready to intercede with God in relation to Lot, to be very bold when the men came to his tent in relation to the judgment of Sodom. Abram came down to small numbers, asking God whether He would save the city for ten persons. Think of the deep feelings of Abram for his brother Lot, but here Jehovah speaks to him and he doest not divert from the pathway of faith.

I would like to urge each one of us here, myself included, that we might be preserved and go on in the path of faith, go on in the way that the God of glory has set out. Abram did not come out of Babel and the world system because of its evil, even although it was so, but he came out of it because the God of glory had filled his heart with something better, something greater. It was not spelt out for Abram where he was going when he first went out, but he believed God. Such was the glory of the shining in his heart. The light that shone was so great that he was ready to move. These things come as a great test to us. Abram lost his brother but was preserved by God in the pathway of faith because of the glory of what was before him. It says, “for he waited for the city which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”, Heb.11:10. I would like to encourage the brethren to go on in relation to the path of faith. What is providential and what is natural are very powerful influences, and they act upon us, but they do not add to the path of faith at all. What is providential, circumstances that come in, things that may look convenient or pleasant at the time and advantageous to us – these things do not add to faith. I would just like to encourage everyone here to go on in relation to faith and see what is in God’s mind.

It may be, beloved brethren, that Abram’s eyes were downcast at this point because Jehovah says, “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art …for all the land that thou seest” – God is talking now about the spiritual perspective – “will I give to thee”. In Ephesians, Paul refers to “breadth and length and depth and height” (Eph.3:18); all these things are set before the believer on the path of faith. God says to Abram, “And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if any one can number the dust of the earth, thy seed also will be numbered. Arise, walk through the land according to the length of it and according to the breadth of it; for I will give it to thee”. How much it is appreciated by those of us who are older to see younger persons here. Seek God’s help that He might give you some vision as to the glory of what is before Him, something of the glory of Christianity, something of the glory of His thoughts, the fulness of what He has in mind. It all comes through the gospel, that not only would God come near to you in the wretchedness of your sins and set you up in Christ and establish you forever, but He would bring you into the “inheritance among them that are sanctified” and bring you into the fulness of His thoughts. He would not stop short of bringing you into His own presence forever. These are very blessed things.

It says, “Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint”, Prov.29:18. I do not know what your view of Christianity is, what your view of God’s operations is, whether it is limited or whether you feel that it is all known to you. We shall never see with our natural eyes the greatness of God’s thoughts that He would bring His people into. Paul says, “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 Cor.2:9,10. What wonderful things these are. Let the substantiality of divine things enter into our souls, so that we see that God has not only provided them but that He gives us the means by which we can realise them at the present time.

In response to the loss of Lot, “Abram moved his tents, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron. And he built there an altar to Jehovah”. I cannot explain what all these things mean, but there is the suggestion that Hebron was a place that was built before Zoan, one of the oldest places in Egypt (Num.13:22) where the negotiations between Moses and Pharaoh took place (Ps.78:12¹). Hebron was built seven years before Zoan, and there is the suggestion of the purpose of God in it. The word means communion, which may suggest to us what is collective, but I doubt that there was any real company in Sodom for Lot. He proved later on that there was no company there for him, but, in the purpose of God and the thoughts flowing out from God, there was going to be company for Abram in relation to this journey of faith.

Hebrews is an interesting book, a book in which there is great urgency. You get words such as “the race” and “forerunner”, and such expressions. Someone once said that you should read Hebrews backwards, the last part first. At the end of the book, you find that the Hebrew Christians were very low in their spirits, so the writer says “Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the failing knees; and make straight paths for your feet” (Heb.12:12), and “looking stedfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider well him who endured so great contradiction from sinners against himself”, (vv.2,3). That is at the end of the epistle to the Hebrews, and when you come back to the beginning, you find that it helps you when you start to read. What was happening to the Hebrew believers was that they were tending to revert to what belonged to Judaism, to what they had known before. It is something which marks the book – the danger of slipping back. The whole book speaks of the move from earth to heaven. It has been said that these Jewish believers were trying to remake the earth into a religious place, to bring Christian life and teaching down and establish it again in relation to the earth. It has been said that the Colossians were trying to make man a religious man, that was the Colossian error, but in Hebrews they were trying to make the earth a religious place². Sometimes these remarks are useful, giving a little key to the way the book is written.

There are some very wonderful things spoken about in the beginning of Hebrews, where the writer begins by speaking about the greatness and glory of Christ as the Son. But then he goes on to speak, not only about Christ in that way, but as “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus …”, Heb.3:1. Then Melchisedec is spoken of, “according to the order of Melchisedec” (Heb.5:6), but then there is, “Concerning whom we have much to say, and hard to be interpreted in speaking of it, since ye are become dull in hearing (v.11), almost as though they had switched off. The writer was speaking about this new order of priesthood connected with another Man now in heaven, not upon the earth, about Christ not only as He was here – the glory of that is great enough to fill all our lives – but about Christ as He is now, about a great salvation. He was writing about One who has been in this world in which we are, but now in glory, from whence He has sympathy for the weakness that we find in ourselves. He was writing about the fact that this great One, the Lord Jesus Christ, is now not only the Saviour in relation to our sins, but the Saviour in relation to our current life – that is the Priest. He wrote about the “order of Melchisedec” (v.10); another order of priesthood assimilated to the Son of God. It is as if the Hebrews’ interest had dropped and they had “become dull in hearing” and he said, “ye have again need that one should teach you what are the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food” (v.12).

The writer pleaded with them about “leaving the word of the beginning of the Christ”, bearing in mind that he was writing to Jewish believers who had come from Judaism, and tended to go back to the imposition of ordinances. He wrote, “let us go on to what belongs to full growth”. Let us go on to that, let us move on. What I would ask all of us here is whether we are ready to move on in what we know as to Christ, in what we know as to Him as the Priest. What do we know as to the Lord Jesus as the Priest? What do we know of the greatness of the One of whom the Scriptures speak, the One who takes hold of the seed of Abraham by the hand, Heb.2:16. Have you thought of Christ like that? He said before He went on high, “I sanctify myself for them”, John 17:19. He has set Himself apart in relation to a people here in their weakness and frailty. Think of knowing the Lord Jesus, the risen and glorious One, not only as our blessed Saviour, but as the Priest, and what it is for Him to take us by the hand in all our weakness. The children here can understand that it is a gesture of affection if someone takes you by the hand and helps you along. Think of Christ in the glory of His present service. It goes on in Hebrews to speak of Christ as “minister of the holy places and of the true tabernacle” (Heb.8:2), and then to speak of Him not only as the Saviour but in His various offices and the glory of the place that He fills.

Beloved, are we ready to go on to that, or are we content, as the old hymn writer said, with some low place within the door? Are we ready to follow up the fulness of God’s thoughts in relation to us? Let us go on to what belongs to full growth, because the fact that the Hebrews had not done that meant that they were in danger of falling back. What you get in the background to the epistle to the Hebrews is the great danger of falling away, the apostasy. That is not to say that a true believer would ever fall into that, but it speaks of those “who have tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God, and the works of power of the age to come, and have fallen away …”, Heb.6:4-6. It is possible to be in the Christian profession and to experience and touch something of the circle where the fulness of divine thoughts is known, and yet not be real in it. There is danger connected with that. I would urge the importance of going on to what belongs to full growth. Let us take advantage of the resources which are available to us, that we might learn something greater and greater as to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Hebrew brethren were slipping away, feeling their frailty. The writer wanted to go on and open up the glory of heavenly things. You have to bear in mind that he was writing to Jewish persons who were converts from Judaism, and that is why so much of the language is in terms which would particularly apply to the Jew. He says, “But we are persuaded concerning you, beloved, better things, and connected with salvation”, and then, “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work, and the love which ye have shewn to his name, having ministered to the saints, and still ministering” (Heb.6:9,10). There were some there who were going on, they were still ministering. Beloved, it is so important to be alive to divine things at the present time. Hebrews is full of life, it is full of activity, full of urgency. It speaks of those “who have fled for refuge” (v.18), it speaks of the “forerunner” (v.20). We know that the Lord Jesus is the Leader, but Hebrews also speaks of Him as the “forerunner”. Why the Forerunner? It is almost as if the urgency of moving is conveyed, so the epistle says at the end, “therefore let us go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach”, Heb.13:13. I would like to go on, not only to go on in relation to the path of faith, and through the trials and pressures that will come upon us because the enemy is set against it, but to go on in relation to increasing in depth and knowledge of the things of God and the Lord Jesus, so that we might not remain sluggish in divine things.

From the scripture in Numbers about the spies and the land, I would like to encourage the brethren to go on in relation to the truth about the land. It is an area of things that God has provided for His people at the present time. The land in Scripture does not speak of heaven exactly, it is the area of things which is available as provided by God for the blessing of His saints now. The land lies beyond the Jordan, on the other side of death, for those who have known what it is to die with Christ, who are moving in relation to a whole spiritual area. But in this scripture, the land is something which challenged those who went to look at it. It is a very interesting section of scripture. The spies were to go up from the wilderness to the south, into the hill country, “and ye shall see the land, what it is; and the people that dwell in it, whether they are strong or weak, few or many”, Num.13:18. It is the land that Jehovah had given them (Num.20:12). If you read in Deuteronomy, it gives you a description of all the kinds of materials and riches that were in the land, the water-brooks and fountains and the rich materials, the copper, that they would dig out of the mountains (Deut.8:9). This expedition was to find out the land and those who dwelt in it, whether they were strong or weak, whether they were in camps or strongholds, whether the land was fat or lean. These men, princes of the tribes, went to search out the land.

They came back with a report of it and they brought with them, on a pole, some of the fruit of the land. “And they came as far as the valley of Eshcol, and cut down thence a branch with one bunch of grapes, and they bore it between two upon a pole; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs”, Num.13:23. In other words, they brought back not only a report, but tangible evidence of the richness of the land. But what you find is that the more the men spoke of it, the more their hearts failed them as to the difficulties that would be there in relation to taking up what God had provided for them. They became part of the murmuring; they murmured against God. “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we”. But “Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up boldly and possess it”.

The land is an area of things that is known at the present time, although it is beyond the area of sight. It involves what is spiritual, it involves the taking up of the fulness of divine thoughts, it involves company, it involves the saints working together. It is spoken of as a land “flowing with milk and honey”, Num.16:13. We know that milk is suggestive of pure food coming in from another source, not manufactured. The honey speaks of the product of persons working together, the bees suggestive of what is collective, all working together and bringing in richness as a result. These things are part of the land. Let us not give up the land, let us not give up what God has provided; “Let us go up boldly and possess it, for we are well able to do it”. Beloved brethren, we can experience the land at the present time, we can know what it is. It lies in the Spirit, it lies beyond death. It is not something physically tangible in that sense, but it is something rich. It has been suggested that the opening up of the truth through ministry is like their search, but what the men brought back is like the fruit of it and the taste of it. There has been brought back a tangible expression of the richness and blessedness of divine things to be tasted and to be known, and there is more to come, there is richness that can be known in relation to the land. Of Caleb it said, “he hath another spirit in him”, Num.14:24. He was a man who had come out of Egypt, not a gifted man, not one, as far as we know, who had a prominent place in leadership. He was one of the princes of the people, a family man, and he intervened and said, “we are well able to do it”. He said as it were, ‘It is possible to know and enjoy the produce of the land now’. It is something that is in the thoughts of God and what He has provided for His people at the present time. Let us not fall back in relation to the enjoyment of the land. The land involves what is collective; it is something that is known in company with the people of God, and God has provided it. Let us go on to that.

Caleb was like a man who is spiritually growing, growing in the truth. He was keeping company with Joshua. Joshua’s name was changed from Hoshea, meaning deliverance, to Joshua, Jehovah is Saviour (Num.13:16). He moved on in his soul’s appreciation, you may say, not only of the work of Christ, not only of what Christ has done in His delivering work – how great that is – but he moved on in principle to the One who did the work, and so he becomes Joshua, ‘the saviour’. It has been suggested that the first chapter of Colossians is like this changing of the name of Joshua and is suggestive of Christ there. Caleb grew in his appreciation of Christ in type, not only now as the One who did the work, but the One who in His own Person is glorious and that is what emerges there in Colossians. Caleb said, “The land, which we passed through to search it out, is a very, very good land”, Num.14:7. It is a very, very good thing to share together what God has provided for His people in this day. Let us not go back, let us go on in relation to it. Caleb said, “fear not the people of the land; for they shall be our food. Their defence is departed from them, and Jehovah is with us: fear them not” (v.9). What great things these are.

The scripture in Judges refers to Caleb again. Israel were now in the land and they came to this point where these cities were a block to the people because they had to be dispossessed. Caleb came to the city of Kirjath-sepher and he was still well able to have captured the city (Josh.14:11), but he left it for another generation to take. This is something that is upon the hearts of many of us who are getting older. Caleb said here, “He that smites Kirjath-sepher and takes it, to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife”; he sets an objective before another generation. There are at least two generations here tonight, maybe more. Here is Caleb, a man of another spirit, a man who had fully followed Jehovah his God. In everything that he did in appreciation of the truth, he followed it up and was able to do it, “because he wholly followed Jehovah the God of Israel”, Josh.14:14. He did not draw back as he went on, he wholly followed God. There he is amongst the people of God and he has a concern for another generation who will take this city, the city of the book. Caleb said, “to him will I give Achsah my daughter as wife”. There is a suggestion there as to the assembly, but I wanted to touch upon the fact that there is a care for another generation, that it might take whatever this city of the book may suggest.

If you go to the ministry, you may find that this city is linked with the literature of the world, and these things need to be taken to heart, but I think it might also refer to the wisdom of the world; it might be a history book. There is a lot of history, and we have to hang our heads in relation to some of it. But may it be that another generation will ensure that the fulness of God’s thoughts can be realised so that history does not become a barrier to the taking up of the full thoughts of God. Then Caleb’s daughter asked her father for the field, and she also said, “Give me a blessing”. I do not think that there is any older person in this room who would like to withhold the thought of a blessing in relation to the next generation. “Give me a blessing; for thou hast given me a southern land; give me also springs of water”. Achsah had seen her father operate in the family, she had seen him in principle amongst the saints, she had observed what was there and she was conscious of what was operating in him, exhibited in another spirit. It was the presence of what would speak to us of the Holy Spirit and she said, “give me also springs of water”. -

If things are to be maintained and we are to go on, of this we can be assured – we will need the springs of water. It says, “Caleb gave her the upper springs and the lower springs”. There is plenty that has been said about that, how the lower springs relate to the Spirit in relation to the epistle to the Romans and all the teaching that is in it in relation to the Holy Spirit, while the upper springs may perhaps relate to the Father’s Spirit (Eph.3:16). Caleb “gave her the upper springs and the lower springs”; not only exercise in relation to the condition in which we are and the leading of the Spirit here, but also the upper springs which relate to what is for God both now and eternally.

May we be encouraged to go on, for His name’s sake.

Address at Dorking

16 December 2017

R.D. Plant