THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY AND THE SPIRITS OF THE PROPHETS
I desire to say a word, as the Lord may help me, on the spirit of prophecy and the spirits of the prophets. God has always maintained prophetic testimony in the world since time began (see Acts 3: 21 and Luke 1: 70). Abel was the first prophet; he is given that place by the Lord when He spoke of “the blood of all the prophets from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zacharias”, Luke 11: 50, 51. I believe that throws light on the intention of prophetic ministry, that it is a divine provision in the presence of what is contrary to the truth, or opposed to the rights of God. That being so, God has seen to it that prophetic testimony is carried right through until the coming of the Lord; indeed, prophetic ministry has that day in mind, for we are to be amongst those who love Christ’s appearing. Prophetic ministry at the present time would, in its moral effect, bring about conditions amongst the saints that are in accord with what will be established publicly at the coming of the Lord.
First, I would say a word as to the spirit of prophecy, which is said to be the testimony of Jesus. That comes in in chapter 19 of the Revelation, when Jesus is seen as publicly vindicated. It is a most exhilarating chapter. “The marriage of the Lamb is come”. There are voices in heaven, as it says in the first verse: “And after these things I heard a great voice of much people in heaven, saying, Alleluia, Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God”. Then again in verse 5: “And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great”. Then again, in verse 6: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready”.
That is the occasion when it is indicated by the angel that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. It is as though we are permitted to see His vindication publicly—“the marriage of the Lamb is come”—the idea of a marriage being a public celebration where the one concerned is the centre of everything and the object of honour. He is the Centre of the whole scene, and the One who is thus the Centre is the Lamb. Now the Lamb in the book of Revelation suggests very much the idea of the testimony. John was in Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus, and that is exactly what we are here for. Wherever God has placed us, we are there now at the present time for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. The mind of God is to be available to men—to any who want it—and the testimony is to be carried through, and it is to go through on the principle of maintaining the rights of God at all cost, but as prepared to go through in the acceptance of suffering. That is what the Lamb stands for in the book of Revelation.
In this book the greatness of His work, as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, is not the subject that is stressed; it is His character publicly as a Lamb slain. It is a diminutive idea, but it is on that principle that the testimony is carried through. It is as the Lamb that He opens the seals in chapter 5, where He is also described as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, and it is in the same character that He is seen as the central figure in chapter 19, where it says, “the marriage of the Lamb is come”. Then it says, “his wife hath made herself ready”. The saints are brought in, and they are in keeping with the position, for their clothing is “the righteousnesses of the saints”. It is a matter of our being in correspondence with Him as to practical acts of righteousness, especially where they have had to be maintained in the presence of what is opposed.
I want to stress that the saints in that day contribute to the occasion. The bride is in moral accord with the day when the Lamb is supreme, by having maintained the rights of God. It is well to understand that the testimony has, from its earliest days, gone through on that principle—the principle of suffering rather than surrendering the rights of God, and that was particularly set out in Abel, the first prophet and, I may say, the first man who ever died. To him was given in the grace of God that he should die for the truth’s sake. Wonderful mercy and grace of the blessed God that, when death passed upon all, the first man who died, died for the truth’s sake. That is the wonderful way in which God often operates when His government is accepted.
As accepting fully that death lay upon him, as his offering indicated, it was given to Abel, not only to stand for the truth, but to die for it. Cain was the elder brother and he brought as his offering what was an entire denial of the truth of the moment, which was that death had passed upon all and the only means of approach to God was by means of a sacrifice. God had given light as to that to Adam and Eve when He had clothed them with coats of skin, indicating that they should be clothed by the death of a victim. It was the light of the moment. The whole foundation of the truth lay there, and Cain, the elder son, moved in disregard of that light and brought an offering of the fruits of the ground, which did not suggest death. He moved first and he was the elder brother, and therefore it raised the issue with Abel as to what he would do. Will Abel follow the lead that his brother has given in order to preserve peace? Or will he stand for the rights of God as an overcomer? Abel acted as an overcomer.
The principle of overcoming appeared at the outset, like the principle of prophetic testimony. Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof, and that brought forth the opposition of his brother, who rose up and slew him. We might think that the testimony was defeated, but God knows no such thing as defeat. The worst thing that Satan can do to man, and the last thing he can do, is to kill the body; after that he can do no more. Death is the limit of Satan’s power. Therefore, if need be, all that the saints of God have to do is to be faithful unto death, and then Satan is overcome and the saints have to do with the God of resurrection.
Abel sets out the spirit of prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus. The rights of God and the mind of God are carried through to the end on that principle, that, if need be, we will suffer even to death for the truth’s sake. We shall not go through by fleshly energy. The Lord said to Peter, “Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword”, Matt 26: 52. The testimony is not to go through on that line, but in accord with the spirit of Jesus. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.
God rewarded Abel’s faith. He not only gave him the great honour of dying for the truth’s sake, but the Spirit of God says of him, “he being dead yet speaketh”. Then God gave to Adam and Eve another son, that is Seth, of whom Eve could say, “God ... hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew”. We need not be afraid that the testimony will go under, for it will not. It is in God’s hands, so that, if Abel dies, God gives Eve another seed. Seth was to take the place of Abel, not to perpetuate Cain, for Abel stood for what was to continue.
Then we read of Enos, and it says, “then began men to call upon the name of the Lord”. There was the recognition that man was mortal, but the resource of the faithful was in calling on the name of Jehovah. In the earliest days, God set out in Abel, and in those who immediately followed him, the principle on which the testimony is to go through right to the end. The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus.
Now I would like to say a word as to the spirits of the prophets, for God is the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets, Rev 22: 6. If there is to be a prophetic testimony, it is necessary that there should be prophets, and if the prophets are to be in this world before men as conveying the mind of God, and as thus representative of God, so that He could say, “Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm”, Ps 105: 12-15, it is essential that in their spirits they should convey a right impression of God.
We have no record of anything that Abel said, yet he was a prophet. He stood for the rights of God in the spirit of Jesus, but then he loved his brother, for God says to Cain, “unto thee shall be his desire”. Abel’s desires were towards Cain; he was not in any way affected by Cain’s murderous attitude towards him. If Abel had to withstand Cain in the testimony, he was completely in accord with God. God appealed to Cain, saying, “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door”, and Abel was in accord with that. God is the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets.
Of Enoch, the next prophet of whom we read, it says that he walked with God three hundred years. His testimony was most unrelenting. We have it in the epistle of Jude: “Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him”. In a word, all Enoch’s testimony, as far as it is recorded in Scripture, is unsparing judgment, yet in spirit he was with God, for he walked with God three hundred years.
I speak practically and feelingly as realising how easy it is, in a world where evil is developing, for our spirits to get out of keeping with the spirit proper to the prophets. We need to remember that our position here is as God’s anointed ones, and the God with whom we have to do is the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets. We read in Romans 9: “What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known ...” and He will. These are features of divine glory which will be expressed in their due time, but then it continues: “endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction”. That is the character of things at the present moment; God is enduring with much longsuffering vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. This is the period of God’s longsuffering grace, and, if evil is rising to its height, the saints of God are to be in accord with the spirit of longsuffering. The day will come when other features of divine glory will come into expression. God will show His wrath and make His power known, but at the present moment God is showing His glory in His grace towards all men, because Jesus is the propitiation, not only for our sins, but also for the whole world, and that gives God a righteous basis on which He can go on in longsuffering towards all. If we occupy in any degree the ground of being God’s prophets, our spirits should be in accord with the mind of God, just as Enoch, while giving testimony of judgment, all the time was walking with God.
Now we come to Moses in the book of Numbers, and he is the greatest of the prophets of the Old Testament, as we read in Deuteronomy 34: 10, “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face”. Now in the passage read from Numbers 27 he is seen in a remarkable position, for God had said to him that he was to go up to the mount to see the land which He had given to the children of Israel. “And when thou hast seen it, thou also shalt be gathered unto thy people, as Aaron thy brother was gathered. For ye rebelled against my commandment in the desert of Zin, in the strife of the congregation, to sanctify me at the water before their eyes”. It is a solemn consideration for every one of us that God must be hallowed and sanctified in those who publicly represent Him. It is for all of us to take up the idea of publicly representing God, for it is for that purpose that we have received the Spirit. We are God’s anointed ones and we have the power in the Spirit to maintain a public representation of God before men, but God must be sanctified by those on whose account He is prepared to reprove kings.
Moses was cut off from going into the land because on one occasion he failed to sanctify God in the presence of the congregation. Moses longed to go into the land; he besought God that he might do so, but He had to say to him, “Speak no more to me of this matter”. There was no moving God’s government, and Moses had to accept it, and he did wholeheartedly, for he said, “Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd”. What a beautiful spirit! He considered for the people of God and not for himself. God loves a spirit like that; he is praying that, as God is not allowing him to go into the land, He will set over them the right man—a man to lead by his own Spirit. God immediately takes it up; He says, “Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him”. A man characterised by the Spirit of God is the one who will lead the people. I only refer to that as an example of the spirits of the prophets.
Moses was entirely with God in the acceptance of His government; he was enlarged as a result of it, so that while cut off from going into the land, he had the great privilege of being shown it by God Himself. No one else was distinguished in that way. He stands out before us as an example of a great prophet, who had to learn the lesson that God is the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets.
In closing, I turn to Ezekiel, as one who sets forth the spirit of a prophet. Ezekiel lived in very difficult days, when God’s people were refusing His government, when apostasy was reaching its height. He had been prophesying to a people who were marked by an utter disregard of the word of God. It says, “And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died”. One of the rebels against the word of God, under the power of prophetic ministry, died at Ezekiel’s feet. What was Ezekiel’s attitude? He says, “Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said, Ah, Lord God! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?” A beautiful spirit, which shows that the man had the people of God before him! The prophet becomes a priest. I believe that the priestly feature must underlie the prophetic spirit, and here this prophet falls down upon his face. He is called “Ezekiel the priest”, as though that characterised the man.
He immediately receives an answer from God—a most encouraging answer. There were those at that time who were definitely refusing the word which Jehovah had sent through Jeremiah in chapter 29 of his prophecy, when God told the people that they were to accept captivity and were to build houses and pray for the peace of the city where they were carried away captive. Now God comes in with a comforting word to those who bow to His government. He says to Ezekiel in verse 6, “Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come”. I refer to that for the principle of it. If there is the bowing to God’s government in the acceptance humbly before God of all that He may allow to come upon His people in common with men, then He will be to them a little sanctuary. We shall know what it is to have a little retreat reserved to us where we may enjoy our inheritance, even in those conditions.
If you go through the prophets you will find the same kind of spirit marking others. It marked Amos, who cried to God and besought Him to take account of the smallness of Jacob when God’s chastisement was upon His people (see chapter 7)—a spirit that commended God.
It is open to every one of us to maintain the truth as to death lying upon men, and of Christ’s being the only ground of acceptance with God. We can maintain that in our verbal testimony, but we ourselves should be in keeping with it. The saints should be apart from what is going on in the world, and keep themselves in their own souls in keeping with the truth. As they do so, they have their own part in the prophetic testimony, and God will see to it that the testimony is carried through—it will be carried through in the Spirit of Jesus. “The spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”. On the other hand, the God with whom we have to do is the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets, and it is for us to see that our spirits are in accord with the mind of God.
CLANDON
15th June 1940
From Words of Grace and Comfort
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