THE TESTIMONY PASSED ON IN FRESHNESS
[p. 34] THE TESTIMONY PASSED ON IN FRESHNESS
Deuteronomy 31:14 - 30; Deuteronomy 32:1-4; ; Deuteronomy 32:44
It is said in Ecclesiastes 1:4 that “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever”. I have in mind that there is that which is of God on the earth, and that it is to be maintained and passed on from the generation that is passing away to the one coming. I have selected this passage in Deuteronomy because to my mind it fits in with these thoughts exactly, that is, we have Moses as representing a generation — one marked by extraordinary events. Moses may be taken, indeed, as representative of those who are faithful in the maintenance of what God intends to continue, and we see the continuance in freshness in him.
Earlier, we have in Jacob a generation in connection with which also there were extraordinary events. He, too, passes away in freshness and energy. He, like Moses, passes on unimpaired to the coming generation what he held and treasured. You will recall how he strengthened himself upon his bed and conveyed to his sons the mind of God; in a most striking manner he was able to pass on unimpaired what he had maintained and cherished to those who followed.
So in a later day we have David, another great servant, representing a generation in which there were great events in the unfolding of God’s mind in testimony. According to Chronicles he passes away in vigour. It is true that in 1 Kings he is seen as weak and heatless, needing external warmth to keep him alive; but in 1 Chronicles we have a different David — as if God would maintain this great principle — for we read there that he stood up upon his feet.
[p. 35] Doubtless he had learned to do that early. Many of us do not begin thus. You will all recall how the man in Acts 3 who had been lame from his birth stood up; he had never experienced such a thing, he had never in his life stood up upon his feet. Peter takes him by his right hand — for God would use every opportunity, every advantage, to help him — and in the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean bids him rise up and walk, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong. Without these being made strong he could never have stood on his feet; but as he leaped up, in the consciousness of power in himself which was to be realised in a fuller way later — in the consciousness of that, he stood on his feet.
I would say, beloved young people, that apart from that experience, that is, the power of balance spiritually, you can never hope to be material for the assembly. Unless that is learned at the outset, that is, how to balance, in other words, the power to stand up, we shall never be material for the assembly, we shall be a public charge; we shall be leaning on others. We all know how infants need help in learning to stand and walk, but this man at the very outset of his spiritual experience stood. He was not to lean on others, he was to be an asset among the saints, and so he enters with the apostles into the temple, and he walked and leaped and praised God; and he held Peter and John; he held them, they did not need to hold or support him.
Now, obviously, in the passage referred to, David had acquired this power and carried it through; he had learned early to stand upon his own feet. You may be sure that he needed that ability, that balance in his conflict in his youth, when he met the lion and the bear. He had had, too, to stand up against the rebuffs of his elder brethren in the presence of Goliath’s challenge. One who had not learned to stand upon his feet would have withered under such a rebuke [p. 36] from his eldest brother — one of Saul’s army, but he says, “What have I now done? Is there not a cause?” (1 Samuel 17:29). There was a cause — a great cause. The sequel shows what it was, and how fitted and equipped he was for it. What would he have been in the presence of Goliath had he not gone through this experience in his younger days? And so in his old age it is recorded in 1 Chronicles 28:2 — as if the Holy Spirit would give us a picture of the vessel according to the mind of God — that he stood up upon his feet and uttered most wonderful things. He spoke of headship — something that we all need to learn and very few understand. But before David passes away, what was illustrated in his ministry in the ordering of the service of God, for he himself was head, he attributes to God: “Thou art exalted as head above all!” (1 Chronicles 29:11) he says to Jehovah. That is the end of spiritual development and growth; a blessed end! It was not with him as it was with Nebuchadnezzar, “Is not this great Babylon, that I have built?” (Daniel 4:30). He says, “all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee”, “all this store that we have prepared to build thee an house for thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine own”, (1 Chronicles 29:14,16). He stood upon his feet before he passed away to make one of the most remarkable utterances on record. The Holy Spirit tells us of it, and that his history, his acts first and last, were written by Samuel, by Nathan and by Gad, men of extraordinary spirituality and intelligence, as if to emphasise the principle of passing on what is of God.
Now Moses stands out strikingly amongst all these great vessels. He had arrived at the age of a hundred and twenty, or nearly so; but he is to die, as Simeon later was to die, according to the word of God; (Luke 2:26,29). It is a very great thing to live by the word of God, but to die by it, and that God should mark the period of one’s decease, is a great honour. And so here Jehovah Himself summons Moses and tells him that he is about to die, and that he and Joshua are to appear in the tabernacle of the congregation.
Now this is a most remarkable occurrence; it is full of instruction in regard to the epochs making up the history of the dispensation, in regard to the passing of active service and leadership from one set of hands into another. I wish to call attention to what took place in the tabernacle of the congregation in this connection, a connection that perhaps has not been much observed, but one of immense importance. As set up and anointed, the tabernacle is the great central figure in the history of God’s people. In the book of Leviticus God calls out of it; this underlies the epistle to the Corinthians; it is a question of calling; the saints are “called saints” — the divine call issuing forth from that which God has set up here and anointed, and so believers were gathered in.
In Numbers it is God speaking in the wilderness, that is to say, it is God taking account of us in our circumstances in a scene of adversity and trial. Let no one assume that God is at all indifferent to our position in the wilderness; it is Numbers that gives us the different encampments; they were written down by Moses by the commandment of the Lord (Numbers 33:2) to remind every christian that his particular wilderness circumstances are taken account of. God knows them and He is with you in them normally; so that Numbers is the speaking in the wilderness but out of the tabernacle; the emphasis is on the fact that we are in the wilderness, that God knows it, and that God speaks in it: “The Lord spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai”. Now that is Numbers; and so, in every movement of the people, God is there. In fact, in chapter 10 in their first movement from one camp to another, the ark left its own place and went before them — a most [p. 38] touching allusion to the service of the Lord at the present time. Normally He is entitled to the most honoured place amongst us, and every attention, but He leaves that and takes the most menial and arduous and exposed position in order to find a resting-place for us. Such is divine love in the wilderness! It is God in His love moving with us in all our movements, and taking up the most arduous tasks for us. We can reckon on that. There was not a word said about the ark doing that in the directions for the journeyings of the camp, but as the people moved the ark left its place in the very centre of the camp and went before — exposed itself, so to speak, to find a resting-place.
But in Deuteronomy there is very little said about the tabernacle of witness or of the congregation, because it is a question of spiritual formation in this book. There can be no passing on of the testimony merely as a question of light. Deuteronomy is the period in which the Spirit is operating typically. He has come in; He comes in after the brazen serpent. It contemplates, therefore, development, spiritual development in the saints. Without this the testimony must die out, the light must disappear. We may have our Bibles, and there are creeds and catechisms, but the testimony is not in these; and precious as the holy Scriptures are, even they do not convey in themselves the full divine thought. Without spiritual activities, spiritual formation, spiritual growth, the testimony must die. So that Deuteronomy is not a question of light, of what is objective, that is to say, the tabernacle, but of the subjective work of the Spirit, and all this is fully expressed in the great mediator, in the great figure of Moses; so that it is the words of Moses. And then we are given the geographical position in which these words were uttered; (chapter 29:1). Wonderful words! In chapter after chapter he urges motives for the people to love God. In a most skilful manner he urges upon [p. 39] them that they should love God; that God has loved them, and at the end he says, “Yea, he loved the people!” (Deuteronomy 33:3). God loved them, and that love was to be in the people’s hearts. So there were two covenants in Deuteronomy. We have one made in Moab besides the covenant that was given earlier at Horeb. You can understand how these two covenants, the first and the second, were intended to enforce the love of God, to bring it home to the people so that it should be in their hearts. It is not simply the love of God objectively, wonderful as that is, but it is the love of God in our hearts, “shed abroad in our hearts”, as it says in Romans 5:5, “by the Holy Spirit which has been given unto us”.
Now in the light of these things Moses is to die; and God summons him and Joshua to the tabernacle. If leadership is to pass on from Moses to Joshua, it is to pass on under the most advantageous circumstances; it is God’s doing and no transmission can be valid, or effective, or abiding save as it is done by God. Many may essay to be leader, as Adonijah said, “I will be king” (1 Kings 1:5), and many, like him, have taken things into their own hands, but it is God’s disposition, and everything in the divine service and administration must be a question of divine disposition and that disposition is in the tabernacle; it is in relation to the whole system of things that God has set up in Christ; it is no local matter. The tabernacle does not denote what is local, it is universal, it represents the whole system that God has set up in Christ, and that stands, “The foundation of God” (2 Timothy 2:19) stands; nothing can touch it, and all His dispositions are in that relation; they are general, so that God summons Moses and Joshua to the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. God does it.
Now the history of Joshua presents to us a most interesting subject, but I cannot dwell upon that now; but it ought to be studied by every young brother [p. 40] and sister. He was known to Moses, he was Moses’ minister; at times he was much behind his master, but his history in the main indicates spirituality. I do urge on young people the importance of spirituality — the importance of light, to be sure. But if you take a man like John the baptist, he was filled with the Holy Spirit from his infancy, but the intent was that he was to be spiritual from the outset, and before he had light; his spirituality preceded his intelligence. Intelligence without spirituality is a dangerous instrument. He was filled with the Spirit, we are told, from his infancy; there was the development of spiritual instincts with him. And then he was in the deserts — mark you, it is in the plural — where there is nothing for the flesh. How he would learn to keep his body under lest when he had preached to others he himself should be a castaway! (1 Corinthians 9:27). It is a question of the ability to keep the body under, that is to say, its natural desires and propensities by the Spirit; by the Spirit we are to put to death the deeds of the body, otherwise we are sure to be cast aside. And so John was carefully guarded, first by the giving of the Holy Spirit in his infancy and throughout, and then he was in the deserts until the day of his showing unto Israel (Luke 1:80), that is to say, God saw to it that this great vessel should be spiritual. By constant self-judgment we are to make room for the Spirit. Above all things be spiritual, that is to say, make use of the Spirit by self-judgment; the intelligence will come; there must be intelligence, and the Lord gives understanding; but as we see in Timothy the instincts of faith were there, and intelligence followed; hence his service. And so with Joshua.
The first great exploit of Joshua is in the battle against the Amalekites. Now, this is all for young people — it is a young people’s battle particularly. Although God would unfurl the standard, and said [p. 41] that He would carry on that conflict from generation to generation, yet it had to be begun then. The things written were to be rehearsed in the ears of Joshua that God would utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under the heavens. Amalek is a question of the power of Satan in the flesh, that is the issue there, and Joshua, on the principle of prayer and dependence and intercession on high, overcame — an immense beginning for a man who was to lead Israel into the land of Canaan. He began by overcoming, typically, Satan working in the flesh, and then he accompanied Moses on high, and when Israel went wrong he remained in the tabernacle. The tabernacle having been pitched outside the camp, the place of reproach, he was not ashamed of it and remained in it as a young man. We read that Joshua departed not out of the tabernacle. You see the education of the young man, what spiritual education he had. And yet, notwithstanding all this, in Numbers 27 when Moses is told he is going to die, he beseeches Jehovah to appoint a man over Israel who should lead them out and bring them in, that they should not be as sheep that have no shepherd; he does not mention Joshua. He does not venture to propose his successor; there is no such thing in Scripture as apostolic succession. The great prototype apostle, Moses, refrained from it. He asks Jehovah to appoint a man; and yet he knew that here was an eligible man whom he knew well, but he did not dare to appoint him until Jehovah spoke. It shuts out all personal predilections and preferences. It is God’s doing and God’s preference. You may say, I like this brother here and that brother there, but it is God’s doing; it is God’s province to dispose of His servants. “Separate me now”, the Spirit says, “Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them”. (Acts 13:2). It is a question of the Spirit. I might like this brother here, and that brother there, but [p. 42] what about the Holy Spirit? Is He remiss, is He neglectful? Perish the thought! He is down here, another Comforter, to look after things here, and He is ever active.
And so Moses refrains, and appeals to Jehovah, and Jehovah says, “Take thee Joshua the son of Nun”. And what is the commendation? “A man in whom is the Spirit”, not a man who can answer the great questions of the moment. In the handling of the testimony of God the Spirit must have His place, and so now here in view of all this God summons the great servant that is about to die and the younger one who was about to take his place, and they are both to appear in the tabernacle of the congregation, the tent of meeting — that is to say, where God is, where God meets with His people — and then the glory, the pillar of cloud, comes down over the door of the tabernacle where God indicates His mind. The door is the place of decision, the place in which God indicates His mind.
Think of the glory coming down in connection with the passing of the testimony from the hands of one generation into that of another; out of the hands of one servant into the hands of another! It is a question of the tabernacle of the congregation and refers to the whole divine system; the whole divine system is as it were involved in this; it is no local matter. Think of how important these matters are, and of having to do with them! It refers to the divine, universal system. Think of God who made the heavens and the earth, and who upholds all things, being occupied with this matter — the passing of the testimony from one servant to another, and when He came down the glory appeared at the door.
Well, Joshua is to receive a charge, but he and Moses are to serve together in a song. You say, You are making room for poets! That is not what is in view here. This song is more than poetry, it is more than rhymes — much more. Rhyming is a [p. 43] matter of words; poetry as ordinarily understood is a matter of skill in the placing of words, the substance may be a mere nothing; it may be a couch, or a house, a lake or a river, or even a tree. What spiritual substance is there in these things? Not any, but here we are dealing with substance in this song. Hundreds and hundreds of years later we read of “the song of Moses”; there is substance in it. But what I want to point out is this, that Joshua is allied in this peculiar service with Moses, to show how beautifully the old servant and the young one were merged in perfect harmony; there were no cross purposes. You cannot have cross purposes if you are going to write a spiritual song together; you must be one. Moses wrote the song, but Joshua had to do with it. It was attributed to Moses, to his freshness, to his spiritual faculties, to his intelligence, and it is attributed to Joshua that he was equal to join in this great service with Moses. He joined with Moses in speaking this song in the ears of the people. He will have something of his own, something distinctive from the Lord in time, but for the moment Moses is leading, and Joshua is joining with him, and you have a song, a standing testimony issuing forth at this juncture; it is something that will be retained in the heart and in the mind. We see thus how the testimony goes forward; it is what is in the saints in a spiritual sense issuing forth at this juncture, and it is to remain with them for ever.
I wonder what you understand by this, by the song issuing forth from Moses and Joshua as recorded here. It is put in the mouths of the people, to be retained in the heart, something to be remembered, something to remind us in a positive way of Moses, and on the other hand it is a song well worthy of close attention, a constant rebuke, as its terms plainly show, to the flesh in ourselves!
It begins, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will [p. 44] speak; and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew”. It was not with Moses a question of his years. What a man he was! What freshness marked him! If you sat down by Moses, how much he could have told you, not of what happened in Pharaoh’s house, for he would never tell you about that except to humble himself by it. There are those who live in the past and like to recite things that happened — early reminiscences. These things may be interesting to some, but they do not feed the soul. What does Moses say at the age of a hundred and twenty? As we read, “Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak”. He speaks of rain, dew, etc. What an old brother he was, as we speak! How refreshing! How he retained his freshness! These first four verses stand out as a tribute to Moses. How pious souls in Israel afterwards would cherish them and envy such a state in advanced old age! With what glory this great man departs! And then Joshua had part in it. He needed spiritual development and he was not now a youth, but a man of such experience as enabled him in a comely way to have part in this service with the great mediator, Moses, for he had part in the delivering of this song to Israel.
Now, beloved, that is what I had before me in referring to this song — that there might be at this juncture the passing on of things in a positive way to the coming generation. We see them coming and Joshua is a great model here, so that the coming generation and the one passing away join together in a song, in presenting what is positive and what is to remain in the hearts and in the mouths of the people of God. The law, on the other hand, as written and completed, as we are told here, was to be placed at the side of the ark by the priests who carried the ark. There was a book, not simply ten words, and those who carried the ark actively were to deposit [p. 45] it at the side of the ark, and there it is. That is the objective thing contained in the law in relation to the tabernacle, but the song was to be in everybody’s mouth, to be kept in the hearts and in the mouths of the people of God.