“IN HIS PLACE”
P. van den Berg
Judges 7: 19–21; 2 Chronicles 34: 29–31; 35: 10–15
I want to say a word, beloved brethren, in view of the end of the dispensation in which we are.
The dispensation is not going to end in defeat, it is going to finish in triumph. You will notice in the scriptures that we have read that persons stood in their place, and that is an important matter, that each one of us stands in his place, whether it be in relation to the testimony of our Lord, in relation to the assembly, or in relation to the service of God. It is therefore important that we do not work out things according to our own thoughts, what we may think to be best. The place which God has given to each one of us is the place which each of us is to fill out in relation to the Lord’s testimony.
We are in difficult times. We have to do with a situation of which Paul said; “all who are in Asia ... have turned away from me”, 2 Timothy 1: 15. They were not in their place in that sense. You do not want to lose, or to leave, your place because of the difficulties. It says, “If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place”. Ecclesiastes 10: 4. Stand in your place. The Lord says, “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”, Revelation 3: 11. Beloved brethren, there is much that we are up against at times. We read of one of David’s mighty men who stood in a plot of lentils; he maintained his ground, and it says, “Jehovah wrought a great deliverance”—not just for himself but for all the people of God.
What is being maintained in the present time is held in relation to the whole church. We are to have no sectarian thoughts as to the position we have taken in relation to Christ, in relation to the truth, we have all the saints in view. We have them before us in the emblems at the Lord’s supper, we are not limited in our thoughts; we have all the saints before us, and we have Israel in mind, too, particularly in the cup.
So it is a time of standing fast, holding the ground for all. We have the history of Gideon here, a beautiful presentation of what will be at the close of the dispensation. It may not close in large numbers (although we would like to see many more here today) but the three hundred stood their ground. There had been reduction. There were thirty-two thousand to begin with and the number was reduced to ten thousand and even they were too many because man was not going to have the glory; the glory was to be for God alone. Man could present nothing but weakness. The three hundred with Gideon would be conscious of their own weakness, they would be conscious of what was represented in these pitchers, these earthen vessels. Paul says, “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”, 2 Corinthians 4: 7. And so there was victory. “When I am weak, then I am powerful”, 2 Corinthians 12: 10. There is victory in that. The power is in the resurrection of Christ, not in us. Christ was raised from among the dead. Think of how He came triumphantly and stood in the midst of His own. We shall come to that later, that the Lord stood in His place, His own distinctive place, like Joseph’s sheaf, which rose up and stood, and it will stand, dear brethren, it will not be displaced. God has raised Christ from among the dead; He set Him in the highest place in glory and everything flows from that exalted position.
We are here in a time in which the Lord is rejected. We are in a position of reproach; the King is rejected. Features of royalty are seen in Gideon. In dealing with his enemies later he speaks about those that had been slain, and they say to him, “As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the sons of a king”, Judges 8: 18. Beloved brethren, those who stand in their place in the testimony today have royal features. They endure suffering, they are true to their Lord and they are victorious. Gideon says, “They were my brethren, the sons of my mother” (Judges 8: 19)—“my brethren”! The Lord is Firstborn among many brethren. He stands triumphant in resurrection. A man in the camp of the Midianites dreamed that a cake of barley-bread came tumbling down, overthrowing the tent. The barley-bread would point to the resurrection of Christ. Think of the power that wrought in the Christ when He was raised from among the dead as seen in operation in the testimony today. Paul could say, “to know him, and the power of his resurrection”, Philippians 3: 10—what triumph there is in that, beloved brethren.
The cake of barley-bread came tumbling down, overthrowing the camp of the Midianites and the Amalekites. God is going to finish things in triumph and it is for each one of us to stand in our place.
So the three companies blew their trumpets and broke the pitchers in pieces. We know that this mortal condition is going to be broken up, but God has an unbreakable order of things that He has brought us into. We have been reminded of that today—“not a bone of him shall be broken”, John 19: 36. God will see that through. Our earthen vessels will be broken up, or, if the Lord comes, if He comes now, our bodies are going to be changed “into conformity to his body of glory, according to the working of the power which he has even to subdue all things to himself”, Philippians 3: 21. What a change that is going to be when this corruptible will put on incorruptibility and this mortal immortality. Everything for God has been established in resurrection, beyond the enemy’s power. What a triumph there is in that!
I thought of reading about Josiah’s passover. It was the last revival, and we are in the last revival in church history. There will be no revival after this before the Lord comes. What we see is the King standing in His place. How important that is! When the Lord came in according to Luke it says that He stood in their midst, but in John’s gospel it is in the midst. I think that is wider still, involving everything that will have its centre in Christ, because He rightly has the place of being the centre of everything for God. Christ is the One in whom all God’s thoughts have been secured. Now can we say in our localities that the King is in His place? Oh that Christ might have His rightful place amongst us!
We see in David’s history how Absalom rose up against him; David had to flee, and faithfulness came to light in persons like Ittai. David says, Will you not go back? But he said, “Surely in what place my lord the king shall be, whether in death or life, even there also will thy servant be”, 2 Samuel 15: 21. What a committal! Let us be fully committed to God’s King. The ark was carried outside Jerusalem, but David said to Zadok, “Carry back the ark of God into the city. If I shall find favour in the eyes of Jehovah, he will bring me again …”, 2 Samuel 15: 25. Divine thoughts centre in Christ. You cannot take the ark away from where God has appointed it to be. Whatever there may be in the way of breakdown, the thoughts of God will stand and He will see to it that the King will be brought back. We can truly thank God for the revival in which we are. God has used it to bring the King back to His place.
There was Hushai, a wise man, who was David’s friend. He was loyal to David and David sent him back into the city to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel. He was to keep in close touch with Zadok and Abiathar the priests until the crisis was over and David could say, “Why are ye the last to bring the king back to his house?”, 2 Samuel 19: 11. O, beloved brethren, may the King have His rightful place amongst us!
So it says here, “And the king sent and gathered all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem”. You want the saints in every locality to be in it—overseers, shepherds, teachers, with all the people. So it says, “And the king stood in his place, and made a covenant before Jehovah, to walk after Jehovah, and to keep his commandments”—the king in his place; it would also bear on our administration, the way we work things out in the assembly, the way we do things. We need wisdom. It is the glory of kings to search out a thing (Proverbs 25: 2). There are certain things that need searching out in matters of assembly administration and the king would represent that side of things. It would link on with what we had as to Gideon, there were those kingly features. In the movements of the testimony in the wilderness Judah was the first camp to move. Every movement of the cloud would initially be discerned by the priests and they would blow the trumpets and Judah was the first to move. The priests represent the spiritual element which is so much needed amongst the saints, but Judah is the royal element that will move when God moves. “The sceptre will not depart from Judah, Nor the lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come. And to him will be the obedience of the peoples”, Genesis 49: 10.
Following the king being in his place we read in chapter 35: 10, ‘And the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their place’. How important it is that the priest stands in his place, that every one of us stands in his place. Every believer is a priest, but we need priestly formation. We need the teaching of Romans in view of arriving at a priestly state in our own experience, to get clear of the wretched man in ourselves and the bondage of the body of death into the liberty of chapter 8—“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death” (Romans 8: 2). You are then in liberty, you stand as a priest in your place in view of the service of God. When the King is in His place and the priest is in his place you have a basis for working out the truth of the assembly. There is nothing greater here in the present time than the assembly and the service of God. It was in God’s purpose that there should be a response to His own heart according to the revelation of Himself. It says, “his servants shall serve him, and they shall see his face; and his name is on their foreheads”, Revelation 22: 3, 4. They have indelibly impressed upon them the name of God, the name in which God made Himself known. The word for ‘serve’ there is priestly service.
Let us be encouraged, beloved brethren, to take our place in the area of the testimony, to be committed like Ittai, in death or in life, or like Ruth, “thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God; where thou diest will I die, and there will I be buried”—to be prepared to go the whole way. It is the continuation of the royal line, it leads on to David as is seen in the genealogy in the end of the book of Ruth.
So we have the king standing in his place and the priests standing in their place and the Levites in their divisions, according to the king’s commandment. It is all under Christ. Paul gave the Corinthians the Lord’s commandment. He says, “If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord’s commandment”, 1 Corinthians 14: 37. In the assembly you cannot have your own way, you cannot have your own thoughts. If anything is introduced, is Christ the beginning of it? Is He having the supreme place? As He comes in He stands in the midst and you are in relation to Him.
Now we come to the singers. “And the singers, the sons of Asaph, were in their place, according to the commandment of David”. They were in their place; they did not carry on in their own way; it was not an independent believers’ meeting, it was according to the commandment of David. With the King and the priests in their place you can have the singing. The Lord has His unique place in the midst of the assembly, singing the praises of God. We anticipate that, beloved brethren, if the Lord leaves us here for tomorrow morning, if He has not come already. He may come at any time, and we shall see His face, to be with Him and like Him for ever. We also look for His appearing, the moment when the King will publicly take His rightful place. Christ is going to take the government of the world to come.
He will solve the problems that no government in this world could ever solve. Things are getting more complex in the world every day; it is all waiting for God’s King. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He will solve every problem here in Barbados and everywhere else; there will be a perfect administration in which there will not be one matter unresolved. What a wonderful day that is going to be! Solemn things will happen before that takes place. When the church is gone the enemy will take control through the beast and the whole earth will wonder after it and think its problems will be solved.
We have had to judge things that have happened amongst us that contained the germ of what will soon happen in this world, when one man will take supreme control to its own destruction, taking a place that is rival to Christ. The Lord is going to deal with all that in His own way and time. God has anointed His King upon Zion, the hill of His holiness (Psalm 2), and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day. God is going to display Christ to a wondering universe and the assembly, too, now here in mystery, will be displayed in that day when He is going “to be glorified in his saints, and wondered at in all that have believed”, 2 Thessalonians 1: 10. How much all this means for us in the present time! The watchman says, “The morning cometh, and also the night”, Isaiah 21: 12. Here we stand, watching in the night, in our place. The King is in His place, the priests are in their places, and there is the singing, there is the service of praise.
The prison in Philippi could not contain it, it was brought into confusion. But the singers stood in their place and what God secured in the jailor and his house was something that was going to stand too. He rejoiced householdly. Let us be concerned about households standing in relation to the testimony. In Nehemiah the priests repaired the wall over against their houses (Nehemiah 3: 28). We have to own how much we have failed and we can only marvel at the grace and the mercy of God that children have been preserved for the testimony, and will be preserved according to their own committal; and I would say, Let us have faith and be concerned about the younger generation also on this island. If there is any time left to us in the testimony let there be young life available; the Lord has need of it. When the King came into Jerusalem He claimed the ass and the colt, the old and the young together, he said, “If any one say anything to you, ye shall say, The Lord has need of them”, Matthew 21: 3.
So the King is to be in His place and the priests and the singers. The Lord died to secure the praises. What a thing it is to be in the service of praise, and the assembly is the vessel where the praises will be for evermore. May we all be in our places in relation to Him, beloved brethren, for His name’s sake.
Address in Barbados
28 January 1984