A WORSHIPFUL SPIRIT
J.C.Evershed
Genesis 22: 4,5; Deuteronomy 26: 9,10; Judges 7: 13-15
I wanted to say a word, dear brethren, about a worshipful spirit. It is evident from our hymn and prayer that worship itself is an experience which is not by any means uncommon to us, but I have been a good deal exercised myself and no doubt others have, that we should maintain constantly a reverent spirit. One could not undertake to say much about worship, being the occupation of heaven which we learn down here. There are certain times no doubt when our hearts and spirits are extended in a definite way, perhaps only for a comparatively short time, in the worshipful appreciation of who God is and the way in which He has made Himself known to us. We should be thankful for that and should always maintain a worshipful spirit. No doubt there has always been worship to God, in the early time as Almighty and, as we have read, known as Jehovah, but now true worship would be to Him as revealed in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and particularly as having the Father in view. The Lord said "We worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews", John 4: 22. God is a spirit, therefore He must be worshipped in spirit and truth (v 24). In other words, we should appreciate the true nature of God as a spirit and worship Him in truth, that is, in accordance with the way in which He has made Himself known. A thing that has often struck me is that the Lord connected worship with salvation in saying "for salvation is of the Jews". I can say, and no doubt the brethren too have found, that to have a worshipful spirit is in fact practical salvation to us; it preserves us from all that is evil and unholy, all that is merely of self, and many other things; it becomes a preservative and saving thing to have a reverent spirit.
So I ventured to read these three scriptures which bring out that the persons concerned in their time and age were worshipful in their spirits. In Abraham we have a man who was anticipating a most critical and heart-rending matter in the path of obedience to God. What we find is that as the place is seen and the act of sacrifice becomes nearer and nearer, he is found in a worshipful spirit and says "I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you". The light of what our brother mentioned in his prayer, of the resurrection day, was really already in the heart of Abraham, yet he would scarcely know how God would come in in His peculiar mercy. How important this scripture would be for us right down the ages as portraying in a figure the way in which God has given His only begotten Son for us. But there is just another side of it also, that these two went on together, so that we have the older generation going on with the younger. There may not now be the same age gap; Abraham was well into the second century of life, I suppose, and Isaac in his early teens, yet the same principle is now, and are we able to influence those who are younger and say, as it were, that "I and the lad will go yonder and worship"? Can we carry a worshipful spirit over to those who are younger? Abraham would have known what was in store for Isaac in the ways of God. In what he anticipated he did not fail, but he just said we will go yonder and worship. How are we, brethren, in the face of what the pathway of the will of God may mean for our younger brethren? They may have to give their lives. We older ones might have to. Some in parts of the world have had to do so. But, nevertheless, are we able in such a critical time to maintain this spirit of worship?
I speak now of the man in Deuteronomy 26. As has been pointed out, it is the only occasion of worship in this book that speaks so much about the land. Here we have a worshipper in normal conditions which we might say set out normal Christian surroundings. He had come into the land and he was enjoying it. I think we need, dear brethren, to think more of what is normal in relation to Christianity. It is a normal thing that we should be in the enjoyment of what God has provided for us. This man did not overlook the lengths to which God had gone to bring him in. Indeed in thankfulness for what God had done he came with praise for His acts in adoration of the way in which He had com out with a powerful arm, and now he was in worship before God. We might say to ourselves, Well, it is nice to think about what is normal, and we ought to be like that; but a thought like that gets very near to unbelief. It may be true that we ought to, but I have discovered that when I say I ought to be like that, it often means that I do not expect to be. It means that I am looking at self and getting into bondage. To say that we ought to, or I ought to, could well become self, unbelief and legality. You will remember that Caleb did not say that about going into the land, he did not say we ought to go into the land; no doubt they should, but he said, Let us go into the land, we are well able to do it. And that, dear brethren, is a voice speaking of God, faith and liberty. So that this man sets down his basket; what he is enjoying is one thing, but his concern is that God should be worshipped. I have no doubt that God would be worshipped as together, because this scripture can be read as being instruction to the people as a whole, that what God would look for in the one He would look for in all. So that He says "thou shalt rejoice in all the good that Jehovah thy God hath given to thee, and to thy house, thou, and the Levite, and the stranger that is in thy midst". We see how, when God is worshipped, there is a very great enlargement of heart, and one looks towards the whole of the people and the stranger, one's outlook becomes immeasurably increased as we accord to God what is suitable to Him in our spirits.
Well, contrarywise in Judges we have a man in a time of extreme breakdown and departure from God, a time when the land was impoverished and the people held in bondage. Gideon had an early private history which is in a way a model for that of any brother or sister. In secret he had to do with God, but here we find him in his public life and God taking him up and using him. When he heard certain news and the interpretation, he worshipped. One might have thought that in his joy he might have overlooked that and just returned to the people and said, Now I am going to lead you to victory. But it meant that the man himself and what he was went out of sight and on the telling of the dream and its interpretation he worshipped. One has wondered whether, if someone said, O, you are really only like a cake of barley bread, should I worship? Well, Gideon did. And it would turn one's attention the more to the greatness of God. Gideon said, God has given Midian into your hand. He was emptied of self, I think, because he had God before him and that is really the only way. Some of us are more prone to introspection than others, but God takes account of all that and makes provision for us. The more worshipful spirit we have towards Him, the more we shall be free from, as it were, these thousands of Midianites who really represent the oppression of self in some way or another. Deliverance for Gideon and for the people he was with was in God and in what God could do. So who can tell what trumpets and empty pitchers with torches can do in the testimony? I suppose the sounding out of the word in testimony, the fact of being vessels and having the torches, would help to dispel what is opposed to the truth. One has often thought how Mr Darby, in meeting all the infidelity of his time, shone the torch of truth and it really blinded the opposers and set them against one another as happened here.
Well, dear brethren, I do not speak with lack of exercise by any means, because I am the first that needs a word like this, but I believe it is a word for us now and at all times to maintain a worshipful spirit with God before us. In the Lord's Name, Amen.
LONDON
1 February 1983
THE CHILDREN'S SHEPHERD
It is well within living memory that flocks of sheep used to graze on the green commons of inner London. They were not folded down, as farmers say, but with the instinct that so-called silly sheep have they kept to the pasture and were safe. If danger came from one source or another the shepherd would appear for their protection. At other times it was difficult to tell where he was, but he was always watchful. It used to remind us that the Lord Jesus said of His sheep, "I give them life eternal; and they shall never perish, and no one shall seize them out of my hand".
The scripture just quoted was on a text card sent by a kind friend to a young girl who was ill in bed and also anxious about her own soul. She was however disappointed as she read it and let the card fall onto the coverlet, sighing how much she wished she were one of the Good Shepherd's sheep. As the card fell it turned over and taking it up again she read "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners". 'Oh!’, she said, 'Even if I'm not a sheep I'm a sinner, therefore Jesus came to save me!' There and then she proved that, as trusting in Him, she was not only a sinner - a saved one - but one of His sheep as well.
No doubt some children have found that a happening such as an illness or a disappointment has been the means of bringing them to a living knowledge of being in the flock of Jesus. It may not always be that way, as indeed when He took up little children in His arms, as lambs to His bosom, and blessed them. He laid His hands on them as well which means for one thing that He wanted them for His own and to grow up for His pleasure.
From Scripture you will know that the Lord spoke of Himself as the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep, and not exactly for the fold or the flock. His love singled out each particular sheep - and each lamb - as a precious possession to possess which He would give His life. How this endears Him to us! But His devoted care was not ended by His death. He is the Great Shepherd as raised from among the dead. Those who tasted His tender care in His days on earth were comparatively few. But many sheep and lambs have enjoyed and do enjoy it in the years of His being in the glory. Then to those who look for His appearing again and who seek to care for His own meanwhile, He is the Chief Shepherd. Are you looking for Him to come?
J.C.Evershed