"MY GOD"

A.J.E.Welch

Ruth 1: 16,17; 1 Chronicles 28: 20; Philippians 4: 19

We have these persons and others too in the Scriptures who speak of 'my God'. It enters in great wealth into the book of Psalms, a great book of experience where the Psalmist can say 'my God'. It brings out on the one hand the glory of God Himself as apprehended by those who speak thus, and it brings out too the distinctive quality of His own work that shines out in the apprehension of Him, of God. The expression is not so frequent in the Scriptures that its occurrence is not of deep interest when persons are found in circumstances who express themselves thus and say 'my God'. It raises very much the question of how deep our knowledge of God is by presenting to us the cases of persons who have learned God in singular ways. In Ruth's case much is still prospective as to her history but I read of her because of the bringing out in her of this fine element of total committal - not committal of one aspect of her path but of the whole of it, not committal for a certain span of time but for the whole of the time in which she was left in the scene of her committal. In these fine expressions that she uses she says to Naomi "thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God". She had seen something in Naomi which carried her back in her mind to the God that Naomi knew, a most affecting matter as we reflect over the God that these persons were brought to know. What was it that had brought out such choice features in Naomi in the midst of suffering? It was the God she knew! What was it brought out in David a long course that culminates in his committing the matter of the house to Solomon, a great extensive matter in which David had shone in many respects. What lay behind this? The God that he knew! And when later Solomon comes to the dedication, as we say, of the house, think of all that lay behind that in David and in Solomon. When Solomon came to the dedication of the house what lay behind it? The God of whom Solomon can say in another scripture more than once "my God". What lay behind the history and fruits of the service of Paul? What a pathway Paul had had, what devotion it had manifested, what readiness for suffering and for sacrifice, what fruits exceeding rich for God Himself! What lay behind all this in Paul's case? It was the God he knew! And as, if the Lord will, we assemble to remember the Lord Jesus, to partake of the Supper on the coming day, what lies behind the assembling of saints in very many places with one single precious object in mind? It is the God we know!

There must have been much about Naomi that would not have been attractive to the natural person. Hers was a path of suffering. I suppose she depicts for us a suffering testimony, and the testimony into which God has called us is in this sense a suffering testimony and has been ever since it was first set afoot. But there is a God behind it, infinite in love and wisdom and power. There is much about Naomi that to a person with natural inclinations must have seemed unattractive. The testimony of God is to man a despised testimony and has always been so, but there is a God behind it of whom those who have their part in this testimony can speak from experience, experience maybe in suffering circumstances. How was it the martyrs were sustained as their lives were given up for the testimony of the Christ? There was God behind that, there was the knowledge of God; not only was God behind it but in the persons there was the knowledge of Himself that made them ready not only to go through suffering but stand in triumph in the suffering; God was behind that. Now the question is, and it comes to every person here, are we ready like Ruth to be committed to that? It shall involve sacrifice, it shall involve the acceptance of reproach, for Naomi was in fact a person under reproach, but are we ready to go all the way as having, as Ruth had in mind, the same God? Think of what this testimony is. May I appeal to the young people here just to consider what this precious testimony stands for and how it has come through almost twenty centuries triumphantly? The greatness of God is behind that, not only seen by itself, but the greatness that is known in the history and experience of very many persons who have stood in this testimony, sometimes even to die in respect to it. It is God behind that. The question is, are you ready to come in relation to the same God, the self-same God who has sustained the testimony down through all these centuries and sustains it still in a measure of victory? God is behind that. He is the resource, His is the love, His is the power that has sustained the testimony so precious and He would remind us that all the furnishings of it have come from Him. Now the question is, can we say as Ruth said to Naomi, "thy God my God"? The God who has stood the resource of myriad saints in the midst of suffering circumstances - do you know Him as your God? Shall you be able, with heart bowed in reference to the One of whom you speak, to speak of the same blessed God who has seen His testimony through thus far as being your God? Are you ready for such a committal as this? The committal as I speak of it now is to God and what is of Him, involving committal to the Lord Jesus in the scene of His reproach, His shame, involving committal to the Lord in the way that He may direct you in the course of His testimony here, involving resource in the Spirit to sustain you in that committal at every point of your path. All this is for you, the experience of it all is for you. I suppose there is not a soul here that would not feel at the present point in the testimony of God the need of fresh committal, the need of a sense of recommitting ourselves to what the Spirit of God is doing in a definite sense, lest we might fall short, lest we might slacken, lest we might lose the keen points of concern in Christ where He is, that He might be glorified in every movement of this precious testimony until He comes. It is that coming of His, as we were reminded in the week, His appearing for which we look. We show forth His death until He come, and we look on to the glorious moment of the disclosure of Jesus in the power and rights that distinctively belong to Him. So let us be like Ruth - "thy God my God". You come into a testimony that is near its close (the history of it is sufficiently known I suppose to every person here) to see the majesty and the glory of the God who lies behind it. The point of the moment is that that God shall be your God, that you may be able to say, not because someone directs you to speak it, not because the thing occurs to your mind, but through the reality of experience in the course of such a testimony as this - my God. Recognising the resource, the constant resource He has been, recognising the glory in Himself He has opened up to our hearts, the blessedness of the knowledge of Him in the Father, the Son and the Spirit, the blessedness of His thoughts in purpose as to the assembly in relation to Christ; all these things are for you as you commit yourself and say 'thy God my God'.

Now David's case is very full again as he takes up this matter of the house. "David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and courageous, and do it; fear not nor be dismayed; for Jehovah Elohim, my God, will be with thee; he will not leave thee, neither forsake thee, until all the work for the service of the house of Jehovah is finished". What a labour it involved, taken in total, to build this house which Solomon eventually built! What elements of the history of David and of Solomon enter into the provision of this house! But it says "until all the work for the service of the house of Jehovah is finished". David in the course of it had learned his God. He speaks with manifest feeling at this point to his son, his beloved son Solomon; he was to carry matters through to completion. Well, beloved brethren, we are in the time of completion. I suppose no heart that is in any sense with the Lord as to current events (and I speak not of outward history but of assembly experience) would question that we are in the finishing time. Shall we be ready, dear brethren, for the finish? What a history David had had involving conflicts in many areas, in many times, many experiences involving suffering for him. God had brought him through, and brought him through with the concept in his mind of a dwelling-place for God. God had told David by way of His prophet that he should not build the house and David accepted that. He went in and sat before Jehovah in the acceptance of what the prophet brought to him. Wonderful thing, bringing out the stature of the man! What is behind the stature of the man? The greatness of the God he knew. And David failed, he failed grievously, and God had to say to him about it, and repenting he came to the sense of what his failure had been and God forgave his sin and brought him through. Think of a God who is able to do that! Think of a God who could disclose David as a man after His own heart, and yet this we might say, if we followed our natural conclusions, is the kind of man hat God took up. It only brings out the greatness of the God who took him up, His ability to bring that man through even a course involving such sorrowful failure. That is the God that David knew. As He brought him through, a remarkable Psalm was the result in David's history, Psalm 51. Where was the stature arrived at that lies behind that Psalm in which his failure is gone over with such thoroughness in relation to truth in the inward parts? It was the God whom David knew that brought him thus far. God had invested a great deal in that man, as He has invested a great deal in certain of His people in these days, and he brought him through, and David conceived this thought of the house. You might say what a disappointment for David that having conceived the matter he should not be permitted to complete it, but he accepts the situation. Remarkable stature in manhood David in that sense displayed, even before this time of the Spirit in which we are. David had a God and he says to Solomon "my God, will be with thee". We think of what has been prepared, dear brethren. Just as David prepared for the house, we have to think of this very day in which we are, of what has been prepared, what has been set afoot in view of a house, a dwelling for God. Think of what God has invested, if I can use the word again, in this time of reviving. He is going to carry it through to a finish, a glorious finish, a finish glorifying Christ, a finish yielding much by way of praise and response to Himself, but He would say to us are you ready to come into the finish, to take matters up, to perform the necessary labour? There was still a great deal for Solomon to do, the materials largely were there and the pattern had been disclosed to David and David had in turn disclosed it to Solomon, but there was still an immense amount to do. That appears to me to be very like the situation today. A pattern is known, God has disclosed through those that He loves the pattern of things, and now the question is to bring it all to fruition; and David says "my God, will be with thee; he will not leave thee, neither forsake thee". The experience, as the history shows, proved that this was indeed the case until we reach the point where Solomon himself, at the end of chapter 6 of the second Book of Chronicles, can say 'my God' and invite Him to come into His resting-place ; he says "thou and the ark of thy strength" (v 41). That is the God, dear brethren, whom we are called to have to do with, we are called to serve, we are called to labour for in full committal as Solomon did in the early part of his path, anyway. So what a moment of challenge this is, and yet we have the assurance that the God that has gone before in the histories of those that have gone before us, the same blessed God will go with us to the conclusion in view; as he says, "until all the work for the service of the house of Jehovah is finished". There is the view of the house which we need to take account of which involves the building going on and reaching completion, and that is the view that I would seek to engage us with, that we may be standing committed to the work of the house of Jehovah until it be finished; and God will be in that and God will be with His people even as He has shown Himself manifestly and gloriously to be with those that have gone on before. You cast your mind back to some that God has used even in this time of revival and you say to yourself, God was with that man; you see another and you say, God was with that man. God is still in this time of reviving, dear brethren, and He would have those that would follow in the steps of those that have gone before as knowing the same blessed God, and having the same resource, not only the sense of resource but the proof of the resource, in that what He has do ne bears the mark of what is of God Himself.

Paul knew this well. I touch lightly for a moment in closing on this expression of Paul's: "but my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus". I suppose by the very use of the designation 'my God' he would have in mind to call attention to the greatness of the God who had sustained him, and what a sustaining it had been when you think of the history of the beloved apostle from the very moment when he was struck down on the Damascus road and of all that was compressed into that history. We can only say as to the God he knew, what a God He is! If that leaves with any of us, beloved brethren, a sense of resource, I should be thankful. We need resource to go forward, we need strength, we need to have God to turn to in the knowledge of Himself, something in the steps of these men that have gone before that we may move on to completion. Paul says "my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus"; that is, the position is set out in a glorious Man up there exalted of God, filling that glorious place in heaven. The glory of everything from God towards man is set out in that Person and He would engage us with that Person as the One from whom all must derive, "according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus". The measure of what is in the heart of God for us is set out in Christ where He is; glory is there. The great centre of attraction for every true heart is there in Jesus, but the great point of supply, and that in glory, is known in that same Person. And so we shall go through as we have Him before us. Paul can say, even in prison circumstances in Rome as we understand, "according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus". How Paul had proved God! How he had proved the wealth of what is in the Father, what is known in the Son, is experienced in power in the Spirit; he traces it all back to God and says "my God shall abundantly supply all your need". So we have such a God, beloved brethren, with whom to have to do, such a God to sustain and see us through in view of the soon approaching end and He looks to us for that place in our hearts, that regard by all of us, that shall give us in some sense to take on this precious thought of 'my God'; that is, that we have a God that we know, and we can say as we assemble together, Our God; and we say it not because of any position or of any place into which the Lord may have called us but because we stand together in the experience of such a God as this who is carrying through His testimony and His service of praise till the Lord come. May we be in these things and sustained in them as having God known in our hearts, for His Name's sake.

CROYDON

25 September 1976