CONSCIOUSLY KNOWN OF GOD
These scriptures speak of persons whom God knows, and I want to speak about the different lights in which we are or may be known of God. God’s foreknowledge is spoken of in Romans 8, and that lies for us at the beginning of everything. That scripture speaks of those who love God, “who are the called according to his purpose”; then it says, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called”. So when the gospel reached us, God was making effective His call, but His call was the result of what He had previously determined in relation to certain ones whom He had foreknown, even ourselves. Before He laid the foundations of the earth there were those in His mind marked out for blessing and glory. Hence that lies at the very beginning of this matter of those whom God knows.
In Psalm 139 David speaks, not from the standpoint of God’s foreknowledge, but from actual experience of God in connection with his everyday life. First he speaks of the knowledge God had of him, and the consciousness he had that God knew him, as something which was rather terrifying, as though he would have liked to get away from such knowledge. “Whither shall I flee from thy presence?” It was indeed remarkable knowledge that he was made conscious of. He says, “O Lord, thou hast searched me and known me”. The light of God had penetrated into David’s heart and mind, and even his secret, unexpressed thoughts, and all the motives underlying those thoughts, were made bare, and he was conscious of it. We might say, Of course it is so, because God is God—which is perfectly true; at the same time it is another thing to be made conscious of it,—and God wants us to be conscious of it, so that we might know Him and be really at home in His presence. At the end of the Psalm David did not desire to get away from God; he invited God to go on with this process of searching him. “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting”. Now that man is making progress in his soul, for he had learned to value having to do with God. At the same time the seriousness of it is apparent, as we read in the early verses, “Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising”. Even if David sat down or rose up, God was taking account of it, and of the motive which underlay it.
In the presence of such knowledge he says, “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me”; he felt he could not get away from it, for he says, “Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there”. He felt that God was round about him, examining everything he did and seeing all the hidden motives, for “all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”. The first effect upon the psalmist was to cause him to fear, to make him feel uncomfortable and to wish to get away from God, who not only knew him so thoroughly, but made him feel in everything he did and everywhere he went that His eye was upon him. But there comes a point when David says, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made”. He begins to take account of God’s work in him. It is a great thing, dear brethren, to take account of God’s work in ourselves and the saints, not only in a material sense, but spiritually. He is producing great things in us. He is very patient and persevering, and if His working with us is to prosper according to the plan He has in mind, then it involves, amongst other things, that we must be prepared to subject ourselves to this light of God, because the light of God shining into our souls is intended to enable us to disentangle things. God has already come to a judgment of the flesh and all its workings; He has expressed His judgment of it in the cross of Christ, and the Lord in grace took that place on the cross in order that the judgment might be executed fully without any mitigation, and yet at the same time that we should not come under it, so that in the light of it, under the influence of love, we might come to the same judgment. Then, not only has there been on God’s part the definite judgment and setting aside in the cross of Christ of the flesh: and its works and fruits, but in answer to that God has given us the Holy Spirit, whose mission is to bring Christ before us in His varied excellence, so that what is according to Christ should be formed in every one of us.
We began with the foreknowledge of God, and the foreknowledge of God has reference to those whom He has predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. That sets before us the standard to which God is working, the ideal before His mind, and His work in the saints is proceeding by reference to that thought which He had in His heart before the foundation of the world, that conformity to the image of the Man of God’s pleasure, the Son of His love, is to be brought about, by the Spirit’s power, in the saints. So here David begins to look at things differently when once he takes account of the work of God; he says, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth”. There is no doubt an allusion to the death of Christ; in Ephesians 4 it says, “He that ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth”. He went down into death, and the death of Christ is the great lesson book, the great lever which God uses in our souls to bring about with us this disentanglement of which I am speaking, the ability to repudiate the first man and to judge every working of the flesh, but at the same time to appreciate and desire the blessed features of the Man out of heaven. God always brings us back in our souls to that point where Jesus went, the lowest parts of the earth. We have to learn not to tolerate that which God has so unsparingly judged; the Spirit of God brings before us the preciousness of Christ in order to help us on this line; there is the constant displacement on the one hand and the constant formation and addition on the other, so he says, “Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”. He is referring to the gradual, persevering progress of the work of God through the long period of many days. Hence he exclaims: “How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” Who can measure the blessedness of God’s thoughts before the foundation of the world!
It is a great thing for us to take account of the work of God in us, and to learn to repudiate all else. If our minds are in that direction, then we begin to value this intense knowledge God has of us. It is a knowledge we should never shrink from, but learn to value. How much we need it in a world of evil! Satan will do his best to spread nets, snares for the feet of those who want to go on with God, hence our need of being watchful, preserved in lowliness, submitting ourselves continually to this wonderful knowledge which God has of us, and indeed inviting it, saying, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” Our understanding and valuing this knowledge which God has of each one of us lies at the foundation of our spiritual progress. When we come to the prophet Nahum, we read, The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him”. It is those whom God knows in a circumstantial way, those who trust in Him in a day of distress. How blessed to be known in that way! We all know what resources we have in knowing God in times of distress, and if we trust Him, God knows, and He will make us conscious that He knows, as it says in the Psalm, “The Lord taketh pleasure in those that fear him, in those that hope in his lovingkindness”. God loves to find people who will really rest in the sense that God is good and to be trusted, and in a time of distress will turn to Him. You will remember that David, when he had been allying himself with Israel’s enemies, the Philistines, and had even purposed to go up with them and fight against Israel, but was not allowed to do so, was sent back to Ziklag, and when he returned there, the Amalekites had raided the place, burned the whole city, taken captive his two wives and the wives and children of all his men. Worse than all, his men spoke of stoning him; you can hardly conceive of a worse day of distress, accentuated, doubtless, by the sense that it was his own fault, for he had been in a wrong position, on a wrong course, and now circumstantially God’s faithful governmental ways had overtaken him. Yet, in the presence of such apparently irretrievable disaster, “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God”. Whom else could he turn to in these circumstances but God? Thank God, we can turn to Him in the sense that He is full of mercy, and though we fail, He will take account of us, knowing those who trust in Him; we can trust in God in spite of our own failure, for God is greater than our failure and sets His love upon those who trust in Him. We are not to go on with what is contrary to God, but the great thing is to turn to God. David did so, and the Lord “knoweth them that trust in him”, and proved Himself to David “a stronghold in the day of trouble”.
We read also that a million Ethiopians came out against King Asa, and what did he do? He trusted in God, saying, “O Lord, thou art our God; let not man prevail against thee”. How could God possibly refuse such an appeal? Jehoshaphat his son was later attacked by a huge army against which naturally they had no hope of victory. He appealed to God, saying, “... neither know we what to do; but our eyes are upon thee”. God proved Himself a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him. God has placed these things on record that we should be encouraged to put our trust in Him in the day of distress.
The third scripture refers to God’s knowledge of Abraham. We come now to a higher level. Abraham is spoken of in Scripture as the father of us all; this is written with intent and has in view that we should learn from our father. In natural things children will learn from their father; they look to him for example, instruction and guidance, which a father should afford, and he should accept the responsibility. So Abraham is presented as the father of us all; he is pre-eminently a man who was marked by faith and obedience to the light which God gave him, and he shaped his course through this world consistently with it. At this point he is found in true pilgrim character. The background is Sodom. Lot, who had previously parted from Abraham, had pitched his tent towards Sodom, later living and occupying a position of magistrate there, whereas Abraham was apart from it, dwelling by the oaks of Mamre, which is Hebron, which stands for the purpose of God. The “oaks of Mamre” represent the stability of it. God’s purposes are absolutely stable; there is no possibility of their breaking down. Hence, if we have the purpose of God in our souls and are shaping our course according to the light God has given us, with the consciousness that God will not fail us, we shall maintain a true pilgrim character, and not have our life and interest in the world around us. So here, when Sodom is coming into judgment, Abraham, as pleasing to God, knows it already. That is exactly the position God desires us to fill at the present time. The world is very shortly to be judged, it is heading up in irretrievable evil, and in the very presence of it and before the judgment-day comes, God finds pleasure in those governed by the light given, maintaining true pilgrim character in this world, not finding their life and interest in it, but separate from it. God can come to such; they have power to intercede with God and are of great value to Him.
Another thing that comes to light with Abraham is the need of securing a succeeding generation characterised, in the presence of increasing evil, by the maintenance of what is right in the sight of God. So of Abraham God says, “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him”. God has taken us up and blessed us, beloved brethren; He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”; but He looks for certain moral conditions in those who are the subjects of His blessing, as a basis on which He can bring to pass His thoughts concerning them, which are all connected with another world. In Abraham He found them, and in His knowledge of Abraham God knew that he could be trusted to command his children and his household after him, that they should keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment. Judgment is the application of the principle of righteousness to matters of detail. In that connection God says, “I know Abraham”. In his household there were conditions suitable to God, so that God visited Abraham, and was pleased to receive at his hand the repast which he prepared for Him; and not only Abraham, but also Sarah and the young man were brought into it. It is a question of providing conditions pleasing to the Lord in our homes and in the meetings, so that He may be found happily with us.
Now Abraham being what he was, God said, “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” He was about to give Abraham the great privilege of being in the secret of what God was about to do. The result of that on Abraham was that he reasoned with God, and took up the wonderful service of intercession. God loves an intercessor, He loves to have His creatures sympathetic with Himself, not governed by natural feelings but by spiritual feelings. If Abraham had been governed by natural feelings, he would not have stopped at ten, but he had right sensibilities. He knew what was due to God; he had a sense of the wonderful mercy of God, but he also recognised that there must be a kind of minimum in the way of what was right. It was due to God that there should be at least ten righteous persons in Sodom, so Abraham was spiritually intelligent. It is a wonderful privilege to intercede with God and be answered by God. Although Sodom was not spared by God, for Abraham did not ask that it should be spared if the conditions were such that there were not ten righteous persons there, yet God heard his intercession, for it says that God remembered Abraham and delivered Lot. He delivered the righteous man in Sodom and his daughters, and his wife, too, would have been spared had she been obedient. In the prophet Isaiah we read that the Lord “wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore his arm brought salvation”, Isa 59: 16, as though the condition of things was so bad before He intervened, that there was no one in Israel who would take up the service of intercession. Let it not be said in our day, if God looks down and sees the condition of things in this world and the condition of the professing church, that there is no intercessor.
Finally the scripture in 1 Corinthians speaks of those known of God as loving Him. The apostle is raising the challenge with the Corinthians, and thus with us. Which do we value most, knowledge or love? Not that he would decry knowledge of the right sort, but the position at Corinth was that certain ones boasted themselves of their knowledge and the liberty it gave them, but then there was the danger that certain ones weak in the faith might be stumbled. It is all very well to have knowledge, but in exercising my knowledge is a weak brother going to be stumbled? If so, I am not walking in love. The apostle says, “Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him. Now if I say I love God, how do I show it?” If any man love God, the same is known of him”. I would like to be known of God as one who loves Him, to be made conscious that God takes account of me as one of the thousands of those who love Him. How do I show that I love God? I prove that I love God by keeping His commandments and loving the brethren, 1 John 5: 3; 4: 21, and if so I shall be careful not to do anything that will stumble a weak brother, not boasting in my liberty, but taking account of the brethren and seeking only their welfare. Paul was so marked by this love of the brethren that he said that if meat caused a brother to stumble he would not eat meat for the rest of his days.
May the Lord help us to take account of the way God knows us. There are the exercises of Psalm 139 which would help us to identify ourselves with the work of God in us; then that we may give God pleasure in trusting Him unreservedly in the day of trouble; then to be like Abraham, walking so that God may take account of us, in contrast to the world around, as marked by moral features pleasing to Himself; and finally to be known of God as loving Him, this showing itself in our loving the brethren self-sacrificingly.
PENGE
19th June 1943
From Words of Grace and Comfort
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