LOVERS OF GOD

Robert Taylor

1 Corinthians 8: 3; 2: 8-10; Luke 2: 25-32, 36-38; 2 Timothy 4: 8

It is quite a striking passage we began with – “if any one love God, he is known of him”. You may say, and rightly, Does not God know everyone? He does, but the passage here is showing that there are persons who have become distinguished in God’s eye – not through their knowledge. This passage deals with that, “knowledge puffs up” (v 1), but there are persons who I trust the Spirit will help us to speak of to encourage us, who become distinguished because of their love for God. This is open to every one of us. There may be degrees of knowledge in a right sense with us, but it is open to everyone, however young, or however old, to become distinguished in God’s eye as being a lover of God. It shows that such persons are very precious to Him.

You may rightly wonder why we need to be stimulated to love God. It says “God commends his love to us”, Rom 5: 8. Not in creation – that does speak of Him – not even through prophets or the Scriptures – they all speak of Him – but “God commends his love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us”. The writer of that passage almost struggled with the verse to understand it. He says “”for the good man some one might also dare to die” (v 7). He is thinking of these persons who have gone before, but he could hardly fathom a love that would come out to die for sinners. What reason was there for it? What cause was there for God to commend His love to sinners in such a way as that? No point in giving the law to sinners, no point in sending a prophet to tell them to mend their ways and do better. God commends his love, “in that, we being still sinners”. After five years, after ten years, maybe after twenty years hearing the gospel, still sinners – God commends his love to us in that Jesus has died for us. What a commendation of love! Who could doubt it? May it remain with us all our days, the way that God has commended His love to us being still sinners.

That love has been commended to evoke an answer in our hearts that we may be classed among persons who are lovers of God. That is what the Lord is looking for. There are many persons in Scripture who we could speak of, distinguished like that. God says about Abraham, “I know him”, Gen 18: 19. God at that point was going to come in judgment on Sodom. Speaking simply, He was wanting to tell someone what He was going to do, looking for someone to come and share His exercises about the state of things in the world, and he found that in Abraham and He says “I know him”. He told Abraham something about it. What a spirit it brings out in Abraham! How did He know him? He knew him because he had obeyed God. It is a very simple truth. He knew Abraham at that stage for his obedience. He was not yet the father of a line of faith; he was coming into that, but at that point God knew Abraham for his obedience. He had presented circumcision to him and he had called them out from the system of idolatry and Abraham had come out. He knew him for his obedience. It is a great feature of a lover of God, indeed it is a great feature of any lover, the love of obedience, the love that acts not seeking a reward, not seeking some answer, but a love that obeys because it is seeking to please the one that it loves.

There are many persons in scripture of whom God speaks like that, and He would stir our hearts at this time to be among them. I would like to make it simple. It is not through exploits. There are these things, but “if any one love God, he is known of him”. May our hearts be drawn to be enlisted in that great company whom God knows, knows like this.

It says in 1 Corinthians 2, how great things He has prepared for them that love Him, as if our love for God is the entrance into the enjoyment of these wonderful things that God has prepared. I would like to speak of Caleb at this juncture. I think he fits very beautifully into this passage. He is distinguished in Scripture as one of the persons whom God knows and he comes into what this scripture is speaking of, the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. God, in Numbers 13, tells the children of Israel to go and search out the land (see Num 13: 1), He gives them some impression of the great things that God had prepared for them that love Him. Think of how far they went into the land. It says they came to Hebron to explore the great heights and depths of that land. None of them could dispute its beauty or its resources, the things that God had prepared for them that love Him. How gracious of God at that very early point in their history to give them an insight into the great things that He had prepared for them. Oh that they had had a heart for it! What sorrows they would have spared themselves! Is that not true about you and me? What sorrows we may have spared ourselves had we made room for the great things that God has prepared for them that love Him. The nearer you come to God, the more you prove the riches of His grace. If you live on the circumference of things, you do not really prove the great things that God has prepared for those that love Him. But as you come into the circle of divine affections, as God was drawing them into in Numbers 13, you prove some of the resources of divine grace. Scripture speaks about that, “the riches of his grace”, Eph 1: 7. There God was showing them something of it as He gave them insight into the land.

They spoke of the great things they saw, of the wonderful resources of that land, and they brought it back. Think of Moses’ joy as he saw those grapes and heard the report. We have all heard the report. I trust the report comes to us constantly in the gospel, a report not only that Christ has died for our sins, but that there should be a report in the gospel preaching of the great things that God has prepared for them that love Him. Indeed the scripture speaks of that incident in Numbers 13 as glad tidings. In Hebrews it speaks of them having glad tidings presented (see Heb 44 2). That was what Caleb and these others brought back and they said the land is very good – the things that God has prepared. How it held Caleb’s heart through all the wilderness! He was living in something of the things that God has revealed to us by His Spirit. They are not left as something far off, that we are going to heaven in a day to come to enjoy them. It says the things “which God has prepared”. What an expression of His love, that He has prepared them. At what cost He has made them available to us! We would never forget that, the lover would never be far away from the sacrifice of Jesus and the way He has gone. That has laid the basis for God to prepare these great things. It says, it has not come in to man’s heart. You will never reach it by intelligence only, but Caleb reached it by obeying the glad tidings in that sense. He went into the land and he tasted of that heavenly fruit. May the blessed Spirit of God at this time stir our hearts through some interest in what God has prepared for them that love Him. They are available for all, but they are enjoyed by them that love Him. How simple it is, not your knowledge or your ability, but it is there prepared.

It reminds you of the wedding feast. The king says, I have prepared my feast. The whole wedding supper was there ready, What a feast it was that he had prepared, oxen, fatted beasts! They were all killed, cooked ready to enjoy. That is what the king was saying, Come in. Alas there were few hearts to respond; those that should have responded made excuses. How readily we bring up excuses, but would that our hearts were drawn by His love, the appeal of His grace, to come in and enjoy the wedding, what He had prepared. I can think of Moses enjoying them. You say, Moses did not go into the land, but how he enjoyed it, that good land beyond the Jordan. It is very beautiful the way Moses speaks of it in Deuteronomy as the land that flows with milk and honey, the land of springs and water-brooks, the land of mountains. There was a man who had entrance into the things that God had prepared, not physically, but it was revealed to him by the Spirit, bringing it into our time – how great things God has prepared. Think of how he could bless the people at the end of his life telling them of that great land. He says, You will come into houses that you did not build, you will eat of trees that you did not plant – the great things that God has prepared for them that love him. Our hearts are far too slow to embrace something of these great things, but the Spirit would just touch us now with them, as it touched Moses to be able to speak of them, to be able to enjoy them. How he longed to go in, but he saw it, he had an insight into heaven with the saints in it. It says “God showed him the whole land”, and mentioning the tribes in the land, he saw them, as it were, there dwelling. How his heart must have been full to think of the tribes there enjoying their inheritance, these same tribes that he had nursed through the wilderness. What patience he had spent upon them! Now God was giving him an insight into what their place would be in the land. How his heart was thrilled as he wrote that book and wrote Deuteronomy!

There need to be persons like that among us who have some insight, and I think that Simeon was like that. I would like to speak of Simeon as a man in the locality who had an insight into the great things of God, because he was among those that love Him. It says, “there was a man in Jerusalem”. Were there not thousands of others in Jerusalem? The city at that time was teeming with people, but it says “there was a man in Jerusalem” – “if any one love God, he is known of him”. There are two people in this section, a man and a woman in Jerusalem, lovers of God who were known of Him. How fine that is! There are persons in localities, and the locality is known by these persons. It speaks of Bethany as the village of Mary and Martha (see John 11: 1). That is how the village was known. There were many other things about Bethany, but it was characterised by the lovers who were in it. That is how cities would be today in the divine view. May I raise the question – Are you among them? In your place, does God look on it and says that is the place where so and so is, one of my lovers? The man in Jerusalem. How precious he was to heaven, and he was known. God was looking for someone at this time in a city that was full of Pharisees, Sadducees and all the rest of them. “Knowledge puffs up”. What a place Jerusalem must have been with all the ordinances, the rituals, the temple and all that was round about it. But there was a man in Jerusalem, someone ready to receive the Lord’s Christ, a lover. That is how God communicates His mind to those that love Him. Here is this man, a simple man. We do not hear anything about Him before or after, but He is here, one of the most distinguished men in the history of time, a man in Jerusalem. There he is, the child Jesus in his arms. He was there in safe-keeping. There was the temple, the priests, yet all round about the cold and indifference but there was a man, a lover of God ready to receive the child in his arms.

This was not the first time God had found him. These things go on in secret, the man in Jerusalem had been there a long time. Anna had been a long time, despised, maybe not known, passed by by the hierarchy of the day, but there they are, known in heaven, “he is known of him”. It was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit, something here that turned the whole system upside down, all professedly looking for the Messiah, paying these tithes and tributes and so on, but they are all passed by. There is the child Jesus in the arms of a lover, it being divinely communicated to him that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ. What exaltation filled his soul, what joy filled him! He was able to look far beyond what anyone else could see in Jerusalem that day. Think of the long history, these thirty three and a half years that would proceed after this. Simeon looked beyond all that. He saw in that child a “light for the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. He saw the land, he saw right in to these great things that God had prepared. Simeon found his place in it. I do not know quite what that place would be, I suppose he will be in the family of Israel, but he saw beyond it all. He saw God’s thoughts completed and secured in Christ. He had some insight into His death. I do not think that any one else had that at this time. He says “a light for revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. That required the death of Jesus, His burial and resurrection and there is a lover given an insight in that dark day, into the great things that God has prepared for them that love Him.

There is Anna too. I would like to speak of the importance of persons in the place being characterised as lovers of God. It is the life of the local meeting. As God points out here, it is what He sees in the place, lovers of God, a place characterised by these two persons. It required them to be there. They are an essential part of these ways of God in the incarnation that there were these two people in Jerusalem who were able to have some insight into the great things that God was doing. It required that there were lovers, few there were it may be, but there were some there who were able to speak of Him. You would like to hear Anna speaking. You say the sisters do not speak in the meeting; no, but they can still speak of Him. Here is Anna making every opportunity. She had been known in the place, may be bypassed by the priests, ridiculed by others, but there she is, she went on. It says she “spoke of him”. These are the characteristics of a lover. A lover cannot keep silent about its loved object: it would be a poor lover who never spoke about its object. You would question it. She spoke of him “to all those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem”. It reminds you of the end of Malachi; the dispensation was fading, the very last chapter in the Old Testament but it says they spoke often one to another; and Jehovah observed it, and heard” Mal 3:16. Those that feared His name, and those that thought about Him.

May we be encouraged to take up these things. It is open to every one of us to be in this august company to know something of divine secrets, to have a view beyond what is around. You could not disturb Simeon. You might have said to Simeon, do not go to the meeting tonight, you were there last night you do not need to go again tonight. Think of what he would have missed. You could not keep a lover away. We should not need to be told that we should be at the meetings. The lovers gravitate there, it is the normal thing that you look for. I would expect of everybody, as they say their prayers in the mornings, that they are thinking of the meeting at night, thinking of the time of release from the daily round of things. That would be Simeon in the place. It must have been trying in Jerusalem at this time, but there it says, “came in the Spirit into the temple”, a man in Jerusalem, just and pious. These are simple things, characteristics of a lover. The lovers of Jesus and of God, have very simple features about them. Also Caleb of whom we spoke, God says “he had another spirit in him”, Moses was known for his meekness. He was not known, in the way I am speaking of it, for the great things that he did in opening up the Red Sea and such things, but he was known among those that were meek. Love is formative. It is another great feature of a lover, they are conformed to the features of the loved One. Moses in his meekness, Caleb in the way that he embraced divine thoughts. It says “my servant Caleb”. I feel searched as I speak of these things. What can heaven say about you and me? We are just a member of ‘the brethren’. Does heaven have some records? It has records, heaven has books. How wonderful to look at these books in a day to come and see names in them, and something written against the names. I wonder what God will write against your name and mine? It is open to us. These things are not fanciful. Heaven has its books and it speaks about names being registered in heaven, and as I have said already you can see that persons are known there for their qualities of meekness, obedience, and this man just and pious and Anna because she spoke of Him. Fine letters of commendation these persons would have – not that they preach well or they do this or that, but they are known in heaven for these characteristics and features of Jesus that are shining in a dark day. Simeon regards himself as a bondman. Lovers would always take a low place, “let thy bondman”. He, you might say, was one of the most favoured of men in the race to have had the child Jesus in his arms. He says “let thy bondman go … in peace”. Love is never puffed up; love is ready to be in a place of service to the loved One. There are Simeon and Anna left in Jerusalem, as God has left you and me, who are to be known as lovers of God.

Paul, closing his days here in the passage we read in Timothy, is speaking of those who love His appearing. That would be another feature of a lover that they have an interest in the things of the loved One. You would not be a true lover of any person if you were not interested in their affairs, interested in the things that belong to them. Paul is speaking of persons who love His appearing. He was looking on to the day when the Lord of glory, the once despised Jesus, will be seen in all His majesty. As I read this passage it reminded me of Daniel, another great lover of God. You could say that Daniel was among those who loved His appearing. He lived in a very dark day and he felt the conditions that were around, the departure, the love of the most had grown cold, like our own day, and the day that Paul was writing of here. Men, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, Daniel’s day was very much like that, but he interested himself in the things of God. It says about him that he understood by the books (see Dan 9: 2). He wanted to know something of God’s ways, and he interested himself. It was not that he was a professor, he was not just one who professed to love Jesus and sang happy songs, but he was a man who interested himself in the things of God. He did it by prayer in large measure. To put it simply he was in a day when persons were giving up things, but he saw that that was not the true way that God had been made known. As interested he saw there was a glory that was past, but he also saw that there was a day coming, another day. God tells him about these great kings, and these people that are suffering today, these despised Jews, God says, I have them all in hand. Daniel was concerned about the confusion that there was and wondered how to find his way amidst all the confusion and breakdown, and God, as he was praying, spoke to him, addresses him by name – that would be a feature of those who were known in heaven – God addresses them by name. Perhaps, and I trust it is so, He is addressing you in this meeting. We are a company here and it is very easy to regard ourselves as one of the company, but God would speak to you directly. Here He addresses Daniel, by name and gives him an insight into the great ways of God, that Israel, that despised nation, and the despised saints of this dispensation, are soon to come into their place in the ways of God. God, as it were, said to Daniel, do not be overcome. He was almost overwhelmed by things as they were, but God says, I have it all in hand. So he was not overcome by the breakdown. He knew that things were going to proceed for a certain number of years, but he was looking beyond those years, he was loving His appearing. May our hearts be stirred to think of a day that is coming when the despised Jesus, the Lord of glory will come to be universally adored. What a day it will be when He comes into His rights!

Yet wider praise in Zion waits for thee,

Her Lord and King.

Creation too in rest and liberty

Shall tribute bring        (Hymn 75)

Think of the whole universe coming into the great realm of blessing already prepared for those that love Him. Paul was looking on to that, a man despised and set at nought by all that was around him. He says “Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present age” (v 10). What a snare! A man who was a lover of Jesus, a lover of Paul too he had been, but he was deflected by the present age. How easy it is! We all know that in our hearts. He says “has forsaken me, having loved the present age”. There he is, Paul alone, but he is looking and loving His appearing. May our hearts be stirred to look beyond the present time to be able to be restful as Daniel was that God had these things in hand. So God says to Daniel, “Go thy way, Daniel”, (Dan 12: 9), “But do thou go thy way until the end; and thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days “ (v 13). What a fine word God gives to one of His lovers, oppressed and feeling the confusion and the sorrows, “Go thy way … and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”. Nations and kings will come and go, times and seasons will pass, but He says “stand in thy lot at the end of the days”. God is seeing His lovers through, and is comforting them in the present sorrow and giving them rest in His love.

Paul would encourage us here – he says “not only to me, but also to all who love his appearing” – to look beyond the gloom, to look beyond the sorrows, to look beyond the weakness of our body, the smallness of our localities – to love His appearing.

We wait for it, and I believe that there should be greater longings in our hearts. It is not the rapture, wonderful and blessed as that will be, but what a time it will be for heaven and earth, for the saints, to see Him coming in His appearing, coming in all His majesty and His glory and the whole universe answering in tribute, glory and dominion, to the Lamb that was once slain. May we be encouraged, dear brethren, to increase in our love, to be among lovers of God. I trust I have shown that it is a very simple thing, something that goes on secretly, hidden it may be, and yet well known in heaven. Jude says “keep yourselves in the love of God”, Jude 21. It should not be difficult. I often wonder why that had to be said, and yet I know. There in the apostasy rising, difficult days, is a very fine word that Jude closes with “keep yourselves in the love of God”. It is all around us, it is in the local meetings, it is to be enjoyed in your own secret history: keep yourselves in the love of God. I believe that was like Moses’ last words to the people, keep yourselves in the love of God. You could write that over these pages of Deuteronomy as he wrote to them. He knew their propensities to turn back, the kind of heart that was in them, yet in page after page in Deuteronomy he is encouraging them to keep themselves in the love of God, in describing that land that was soon to be their home – soon to be our home, soon we are to be there, soon to be in that august company in that glorious home and we will be there, lovers of God. May it increase, for His Name’s sake.

 

LONDON

18 September 1999