NEARNESS, THE WAY TO COMMUNICATIONS
W. McKay
Psalm 90: 1, 2; 91: 1; 1 John 4: 15, 16
The Lord has been helping us through our brother* in regard to the kind of persons who are capable of receiving divine communications. This is particularly seen in the beginning of Luke’s gospel where we have certain persons who received direct communications as to the current mind of heaven. Now I am sure that there is nobody here tonight but would value an increased ability to receive communications from God Himself as to what is in His mind currently.
We may know a good deal about the revealed mind of God in the Scriptures; we might know what He has done in the past; we might know—something and thank God we do know something—about God’s mind in relation to the future, but it is very important, beloved, to have some ability by the Spirit to receive something in the way of communication as to the present mind of God. I am sure we would all greatly value this.
Now it would be evident from Scripture that God does not care to communicate His mind to persons who are at a distance from Him. You will remember that in Numbers 11 the people murmured. Why did they murmur? I believe it was, dear brethren, that they were not in the current of God’s mind for the moment. They did not understand what God was doing, so they complained and murmured, and we are told in that
* see word printed in this Issue page 6
chapter that a certain number who were at the extremity of the camp were slain by the fire of God. That indicates that God is not interested in communicating His mind to persons who are content to remain at a distance from Him.
In Psalm 90, where we read that precious verse, we have Moses the man of God. I suppose there is not a better example in the whole of the Old Testament of a person who was capable of receiving direct communications from God than Moses. When Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses and complained against him in Numbers 12, God came down. He called the three out, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. How ready God is to protect a man who is near to Himself. Such as are interested in His current mind—God will protect them. So He came down and challenged Aaron and Miriam. He said, “If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known to him in a vision, I will speak to him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses”, Numbers 12: 6. And then He says as to Moses, “He is faithful in all my house”. That is a word for us tonight, dear brethren. Our brother has been speaking to us in regard of what is distinctive and clear. How clear Moses was as to where he stood, and God said about Moses that he was faithful in all His house; not only in some things, not only in the things he liked most, but he was faithful in all God’s house.
Every detail of the truth came into expression in a man like Moses and God goes on to speak to Aaron and Miriam as to Moses, “Mouth to mouth do I speak to him”. The result of Moses’
knowledge of God, and of his nearness to God, was that God spoke to him mouth to mouth as a man speaks to his friend. Would you not like to receive divine communications? It is open to every one of us to get some impression of what the current mind of God is. So Moses says
in this psalm, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. Think of God being a dwelling-place! Moses received the mind of God in regard to the building of the tabernacle, but he is not speaking of the tabernacle here as the dwelling-place, he is speaking of God Himself as being the dwelling-place. I think, dear brethren, that this wonderful privilege is open to all of us. The New Testament opens it up more fully, especially in John’s writings, that God becomes the dwelling-place of the heart. Every true lover of Christ can find a dwelling-place in God Himself, and that is what Moses is saying here.
David could say it, too. You will remember that David wanted to build God a house, a dwelling-place, and God sent Nathan the prophet to tell him that he could not build Him a house to dwell in (1 Chronicles 17: 4)—“Thy son that shall come out of thy loins, he shall build the house”, 2 Chronicles 6: 9. What did David do? He went in and he sat before Jehovah. David found a resting place, he found a home, he found all that his heart longed for, in the presence of God Himself. David could say with Moses, “Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. Think of that—what experiences the men had with God! Then if we think of the public side, what exercises there are to face in the testimony when things are broken down. Then conditions in the world are also to be felt by us. How serious the state of things in the world is at the present time. Yet Moses shows us the way that we can retire from the whole thing, and find a home. David showed the way to get into the presence of God and find rest and peace of mind; in the midst of the turmoil and the strain to find a resting place, a secure place.
The next psalm says, “He that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High”. What do we know, dear brethren, of the secret place? Paul writing to the Colossians says, “Your life is hid with the Christ in God”, Colossians 3: 3. It is not the time for public display; God never intended christianity to be on public display. I am not speaking against the proclamation of the glad tidings and the spread of them—may God spread them more—but God never intended that christianity as such should be on display in this dispensation. The time of display will come, but the time that we are in—let it sink into our hearts—is a time when we need to know the secret place. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”. Oh what security!
Beloved brethren, can we get together about it? Can we get nearer to one another about this secret place where God Himself is a refuge? God has been a dwelling-place through all generations. Paul speaks of generations; he says, “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations”, Ephesians 3: 21. Moses knew God; he knew the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, and he says, “Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”. Here is Moses, a psalmist, and he is speaking of the great things of the Most High. You know, that lifts us up above the confusion, above the storm. When an aircraft goes up above a certain height it is above the storm, above the weather. What a thing it is to be lifted up into the secret place of the Most High and to be elevated into what is heavenly, as our brother has been saying—the heavenly possession that we have lifts us completely out of the confusion that exists in this poor scene.
Now I want to confirm this in the New Testament. In 1 John 4: 15 John says, “God abides in him”
That is a wonderful thing. The Lord Jesus says in John 14: 20, “In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Think of that; oh, what links of intimacy!
Dear brethren, let us go in for it. I am sure that the thing that will give us stability in any storm through which we may pass is our known and experienced links with God, “In that day ye shall know”— do we know, dear brethren? Let us know it better. “I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you”. Is that not wonderful? It is the secret place of the Most High; christianity is characterised by the revelation of God.
We are here tonight in this room in the full light of the revelation of God in Jesus. It is the time when the light is shining—the full light of the revelation of God. And who revealed Him? Where has the revelation come from? From a Man who was in the bosom of the Father; but He is there, and the light of the revelation of God is found in the face of a Man who is in the bosom of the Father. That is what gives character to christianity. It is the greatest conception that God has ever had on earth; He has it at the present time and it is in the light of the revelation of God in the face of a Man who is in the bosom of the Father. John’s first epistle opens up for us that Christ wants our companionship with Him there. Not that we can be in the unique place that He has in the bosom of the Father, but He wants us to be near to Him where He is. The current mind of God is that we should know our links and relations with Christ where He is, and that draws us into relationship with God.
This passage goes on to say, “And we have known and have believed the love which God has to us. God is love, and he that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”. Is not that wonderful?
I think that it is amazing—the human mind cannot take it in. We need the help of the Spirit to understand what the place of intimacy is into which God would bring us even at the present time. So let us covet, dear brethren, to get these communications. We will not get them if we are content to remain at a distance. If persons are content to allow things to come between them and God, to separate them from God, they will not understand the current mind of God.
It is revealed to those who are in nearness to Him. May the Lord help us to understand these relationships that are open to us, and with the relationship will come the communications that stabilise us in a day of trouble, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dorking
12 October 1976