GRACE AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF MERCY
F.E.Raven
2 Kings 6: 8-17; Hebrews 12: 18-29
We get a great many striking incidents in connection with the ministry of the prophet Elisha. He stands out as one of the conspicuous figures in Scripture. We do not read of many prophets in Israel; they were found more in Judah. We find two conspicuous prophets however in connection with Israel - Elijah and Elisha. There was a great difference between them; Elijah came more on the ground of law; that is, to recall the people to what was due to Jehovah. That was much the character of Elijah's ministry, and to a large extent he failed. It had one end in view which was very important; that is, it asserted the rights of Jehovah, but at the same time in regard to the people it failed, and they got no deliverance by it.
Then the ministry of Elisha came in, and the people time after time got deliverance by it. The oppressors of the people then were the Syrians. The children of Israel were under different oppressors at different times, sometimes the Philistines, then the Syrians, and at other times the Assyrians. At this particular time the Syrians were their great oppressors. The prophet Elisha was warning the king of Israel again and again where the camp of the Syrians was, and in that way he escaped the enemy. My object in reading this chapter is to show the effect of the man's eyes being opened. I cannot conceive anything much more important in the present day than that a man's eyes should be opened.
The servant of the prophet was distressed because the chariots and horses of the king of Syria were round about him. He looked at things with natural eyes and was distressed, and one can well understand it. I suppose he thought, and properly, that the prophet and all the people in the city were no match for the horses and chariots of the enemy. The prophet prayed to Jehovah that He would open the young man's eyes, and when his eyes were opened he saw there were horses and chariots of fire round about the prophet. There were chariots and horses round about the city but they were horses of flesh. It was man and the power of man that was round about the city, but round about the prophet there were horses and chariots of fire. Everything was changed in a moment. Surely chariots and horses of fire were much better than chariots and horses of men or flesh, and that was what the young man saw. How completely his thoughts must have been changed in a moment on getting his eyes opened! Then he saw things according to God, but before his eyes were opened he had seen things according to man. He had been terrified by the power of man, not only in regard to himself but in regard to his master. When he sees things according to God he is terrified no longer.
I think this is intended to convey a great lesson to us. Whatsoever things happened aforetime were for our learning. That is the principle of what is recorded in the Old Testament. It was not written for the sake of the contemporaries but for our learning, and it is important that we should get the benefit of it. What I want to come to is this, that instead of looking at things naturally we should be able to look at things according to God, and for this purpose we must have our eyes anointed with eye-salve that we might see. The great thing in the present day is, instead of looking at the world and the power of man, to see things as they are in the eye of God. I would like to come to this myself. You see the power of man here in a variety of ways and its wonderful influence. It undoubtedly has a certain effect on us. I believe it would be a great thing for us if our thoughts were withdrawn from that and our eyes anointed with eye-salve to see what there is in the present time in the eye of God. There are things which are not seen by the wit of man. You can depend upon it there are many things not taken in in that way but which are existing before God.
God has been pleased in His great grace to us to make these things known, and these are the things which are in the purpose of God's will to establish for His own eternal glory. I do not think any man with sense could conceive that God is glorified in the existing state of things. I would pray for the saints, and I am sure we can pray for one another, that our eyes might be opened, as the eyes of the prophet's servant were opened, so that we might not look at the chariots and horses of the king of Syria but at the chariots and horses of fire which are round about the testimony of God.
In the epistle to the Hebrews we read: "Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear, for our God is a consuming fire". Here the object of the kingdom is stated, i.e. that we may serve God with reverence and godly fear. Then it is a kingdom which cannot be moved . The reason is that it is a moral kingdom. When you get what is right morally it cannot be moved. People generally understand what they can see, they can understand the kingdoms of this world, but the kingdom of God is not like these. I think the kingdom of God will have a public character in the kingdom of the Son of man. It will fulfil what is spoken of in the prophet Daniel; that is, that in the days of the Gentile kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom. Then the kingdom will be the kingdom of the Son of man, but it will have a public, not simply a moral character. Now we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved. It is a moral kingdom; it exists in moral characteristics. It is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Now the kingdom has its own object; I think it is to give us the sense of security. The believer in the power of the Holy Ghost down here gets the sense of security, and I will tell you what I mean by security. He gets security from the power of evil. There are many forms in which evil might come to us. There is moral evil and there is spiritual evil. Man may come under the fear of death at the present day. He may come under the influence of spiritual terror and under the fear of man and under the fear of evil. The kingdom of God is established in regard to the Christian that he might have security from the fear of evil. If I know what God's attitude is towards me in grace, then I am secure from the fear of evil. I do not fear what man may do unto me because I know what God is towards me. Fear of ill comes to us to a large extent from man. The Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. The object of it is that we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
When God delivered the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt He brought them into a place of security with Himself in order that they might serve Him with fear. Exactly in that way the grace of God has come to us. The kingdom of God is established in the heart of the Christian in the power of the Holy Ghost to bring us into the sense of security that we might have no fear of evil and be at liberty to serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. I think Christians to a very large extent are in bondage to the world and to man. They are not set free from the influence of the fear of man. It is a great thing to be free from the fear of man. The apostle says in Hebrews 13: "be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me" (vv 5, 6).
Now I pass on to another point. When we can serve Him acceptably, God instructs us in His mind and will. It says "For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire ... but ye are come unto mount Sion". The children of Israel were brought to the mount that might be touched and that burned with fire. The reason was that God was dealing with a people in the flesh, therefore He set to work to awe them into doing His commands. That was the only way by which God could act upon man in the flesh, and they were brought to blackness and darkness and tempest, to all that was terrible to the mind of man.
Now if you could entertain the idea of such a people keeping the commandments recorded in the book of Exodus, they would have been morally apart from every other nation on the face of the earth. They would have been found under the favour and blessing of God on the one hand, and they would have been a testimony to all the world on the other hand. In a certain sense every right was protected. God protected His own rights, and every right, even down to that of the slaves. If the people could have carried out all these injunctions they would have been a testimony to God in the presence of the whole world. Well, they all failed, for the fact is that awe does no good to people. They may be awed for the moment but it passes off. It is not an influence which remains. Flesh can be awed, it was sometimes awed in the presence of Christ, but such an impression is not permanent. In the case of Israel the wilderness was a witness for forty years to their perversity, and the end of their history is before us at the present time. They have been carried captive beyond Babylon on account of their perversity in the wilderness.
Beloved friends, we have come to a different order of things. We are come unto mount Zion. What we need at the present time is to have our hearts impressed with the grace of God, and if our hearts are not impressed with God's grace we cannot see very much. I see Christians doing their own will a great deal, and what it proves to me is that they have never been deeply impressed with the grace of God. We need to be very much affected by divine grace. I see people with their eyes in every direction, their attention carried away by the least controversy. If I am affected by the grace of God , then I shall be attentive to that which God has to say to me. I can say that for myself I am very much interested to see what is for God; I do not care much about what is for man. Politics do not interest me. I notice what is going on in a kind of way, but the fact is this, it is all immoral. I mean it is all expediency and overreaching and covetousness. All these principles come into politics and I have no pleasure in them; they cannot endure. A man must be a maniac who thinks that the world as it is can satisfy God, or that politics can bring about a state of things which will be pleasing to God.
Now the first principle to which we have come is mount Zion. It is not in the wilderness like mount Sinai but it is in the land. God was dealing with Israel on the footing of responsibility which is connected with the wilderness, but He makes known to us the secret of His purpose. Mount Zion is that which God will surely establish; it represents to us the sovereign mercy of God when all had failed in connection with responsibility. God takes man up first on the principle of responsibility, and when everything failed on that footing, then it is that God says, I will act in the sovereignty of mercy.
Sovereign mercy is not the same thing as grace. I could present the grace of God to every person on earth, and so I could the kingdom of God. I could go to anybody and everybody and could tell them with certainty the attitude of God toward men and the purpose of His testimony in grace, that they might be here for the will of God, because every man upon earth ought to be here for the will of God. But I could not go and tell everybody of the sovereign mercy of God. In Christianity you find one person chosen in a family; or again, God may take up an entire family. I have known many families in which every member was converted, and others in which, perhaps, only one person had turned to God. He acts in the sovereignty of mercy, and that is the principle which is represented to us by mount Zion.
Time after time everything down here upon earth has failed on the footing of responsibility, and we have to accept the right of God to act in the sovereignty of mercy. If you take what men have made of Christianity, all is on the principle of responsibility. What has it become? So obnoxious to Christ that He says "I will spue thee out of my mouth", Rev 3: 16. But God presents Himself to us as giving effect to His own purposes and acting in the sovereignty of mercy, and every Christian has to accept it, It is not for me to attempt to reconcile the two things, the making known of God's attitude towards men in order that every man may be here for God's will, and the sovereignty of His mercy
Now we come to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. It brings this before me, that there is that where every promise and purpose of God is maintained to His glory. That is the great thought to my mind of the heavenly city. There were promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and to David. What came to pass was that Christ came who was the heir of every promise. Christ was rejected and cut off after the flesh. Where are the promises of God now? I believe they are established in a glorified Christ, and the promises are maintained in the heavenly city, that is the church.
In 2 Corinthians 1 we read, "For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us ... was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us" (vv 19, 20). Whatever promises of God there are, they are all established in Christ. He is the confirmation to us of every purpose of God. Mark the words "by us". It is in the church that the promises are held. Then the Spirit is the earnest of the promises. He has given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts, so that all the promises of God are maintained in that way in the heavenly city, and when the heavenly city is displayed, then it is that all the promises of God will come to light.
Then we have come to an innumerable company of angels, the universal gathering. This gives the thought of the greatness of God's hosts. They are for His pleasure, and God does not act by hosts of men. He has His own hosts, angel hosts, which do His pleasure. Men have their means of acting, but there is that which is outside man and man's power. We have come to myriads of angels, the universal gathering. It is by angels that God will interfere when He sets to work to bring out His purposes.
THE CHILDREN'S THOUGHTS
After a gospel meeting one night a man was asked by the preacher if he was saved. His reply was 'I will think seriously about it'. He said this quite earnestly and it was certainly better than blank indifference or unconcern. In fact many might have thought the answer satisfactory, but it was far from that because time is too urgent to put off a decision on such a vital matter. What, I wonder, would he have thought of a drowning man when hailed and thrown a lifeline saying 'I will think seriously about it'? What would he have thought of a child or young person in an extreme state of illness making such an answer when offered the only sure remedy? Maybe the man did not realise his danger and that 'procrastination', or putting the matter off, is the thief of souls. The scripture is plain: "behold, now is the well-accepted time; behold now the day of salvation".
In the ancient days when the great judgment of the flood was about to come upon the earth God saw that the thoughts of men's hearts were "only evil continually". Scripture reveals, touchingly, that this "grieved him in his heart", although one man, Noah, found favour in His eyes. After the flood it was again said that the thought of man's heart is evil from his youth. In spite of this however God said that He would not again curse the ground on account of man. This could only be because Noah had offered up burnt offerings as a sweet odour of rest, looking forward to another Man whom we know as our Saviour, the Lord Jesus.
To Israel God said through a prophet "I know the thoughts that I think toward you ... thoughts of peace". It is easily understood that God's thoughts are in every way higher than ours just as the heavens are higher than the earth. Moreover the unrighteous person is called upon to forsake his own thoughts and turn to his God. He will abundantly pardon. We could never know God's mind for us unless He were to reveal it by His Spirit. Israel as a nation has to wait for the blessings of God's thoughts to be made good to them, but believers on the Lord Jesus Christ may now enter into and enjoy the things that God has prepared for those who love Him, however young we may be. These things all relate in some way to the person of the Christ. When He was here He welcomed the little ones and spoke of His Father's will concerning them, and that their angels are always before the face of the Father. Do you thank Him for this?
J.C.Evershed