“IS NOT THE ARROW AWAY BEYOND THEE?”

N. T. Meek

1 Samuel 20: 35–37; Genesis 11: 27–30; 22: 20–23

I would like to say a word, dear brethren, about what is perplexing or difficult for us to understand. We are made conscious of our limitations. We are often brought face to face with situations which we find difficult to understand, and one thing God intends by that is to keep us humble and dependent and not to trust in ourselves.

I refer to this scripture in Samuel because this period must have been a most perplexing time for Israel. They had witnessed in David a most remarkable deliverance from the power and pressure of the Philistines. Some of them had actually witnessed, I suppose, David as a young lad going in his simplicity against Goliath and with the most unlikely weapons meeting the power of the Philistine and delivering the nation, delivering the people. They would not forget him, it had been such an extraordinary deliverance, but as time went on they would have begun to realize that all was not well at the court. David’s place was empty there and it would raise many questions in their minds as

to what had gone wrong, what had happened. He may have appeared among them from time to time, I suppose, but that one who had shone so brightly, that one who had been such a signal deliverer, was somehow unwanted at the court. Things were not going the way that they had expected and, worse than that, it would have come to the knowledge of at least some of the people of Israel that there was personal antagonism against David, against that lovely personality of David, so unassuming in his character. It would have been a mystery, it would have been a question, would it not, it would have been an enigma to every thinking person in Israel as to what had happened, what had gone wrong, what was going wrong? Maybe some persons even had some light that he was to be the king, but what had gone wrong? It was too much, dear brethren, it was really too much for them. Sometimes I think things are too much for us; events occur and we cannot uncover, we cannot discern, we cannot see the workings of God’s ways. The lad here may be taken to represent the state of Israel, the arrow was beyond him, it was past his ability to reach. Have you ever felt like that, that the arrow is beyond you? You cannot grasp it, you cannot define it, you wonder what has happened, the problem is too great for you, it defies explanation, the arrow is beyond you. I think at some time in our lives we all have this kind of experience, dear brethren. In a certain sense we may have had it collectively of recent years; we may wonder, we may say, Why were things like it? Why did things develop on the course that they did? and we may cast around for explanations and maybe our conclusion is wrong. We develop our own little theory; maybe we are wrong, maybe the arrow is beyond us. How untraceable His ways!

I think it is that idea, dear brethren; I doubt if it is healthy for us to rush to explain it

all. Some things are a mystery and maybe we shall have to carry it that way; even to the day of our death, we may never be able to explain it. I am not saying there is not One who can explain it, but I am speaking about our limitations, and we are but a child, like this lad, and the arrow is beyond us. It is well for us to recognize it, I think, beloved. There is not too much profit in trying to explain all these things because there is such a thing as the mystery of God’s ways, and whilst I am not saying there is not room for godly exercise, and intelligence too, yet it is not to become too absorbing, not to take up too much of our time in the detail of it. David was characteristically a blameless person and you can think of blameless persons who are not where you would want them to be, and why is it? Well, perhaps the arrow is beyond us. We may point to certain reasons, we may acknowledge our own failures, and that would be good in relation to it, but as for explaining in detail how it is, who could do it? God in His creation divided between light and darkness, and we can understand that, but He also divided between waters and waters, and who of us could do that? Who of us could divide between waters and waters? To us it would all look the same, but God divided between it, oh blessed be God! He is able for it; He is able for what we are not able for; the arrow may be beyond us, but it is not beyond Him.

Well, with this in mind I read the scriptures in Genesis, and I have no doubt the brethren will have realized what is in one’s mind. We have had the flood and the tower of Babel, and we get now God taking up a certain family. His interest is more in that family than in the flood and the tower of Babel. One of that family is Haran and I think he is the first one of whom it is said that a man died before the face of his father. The brethren will understand the present bearing of that.

Humanly speaking it is a very sad situation, an abnormal situation, for a man to die before the face of his father. Abel, of course, was murdered, but that is a different case. Who can understand these things? Who can explain them? Our brother who was with us at Peterhead is well spoken of, the brethren speak well of him; they speak of his promise, they speak of what had developed, what was latent, what was potential there. He died before the face of his father. Can we explain it, dear brethren? I doubt if we should be too occupied with that, the arrow may be beyond us, but in due time God will work out His thoughts, of that we can be assured. It may seem strange here, but these names of the family are indited by the Spirit of God for some reason, and it tells us of how certain things were going to happen, but it is in a way that we could never have fathomed.

There must be Isaac and there must be Rebecca. When you come to Sarai, it says she was barren, so where will Isaac come from? Where will he come from? Where is he? In the line of nature it is impossible to reach, but it is not impossible to the power of God. Where was Rebecca? Had Haran’s apparently untimely death closed up the line? No; eventually you find her. You find her name in brackets but she is safely there, and really, dear brethren, that is what I wanted to say, that Christ is going to come. Isaac is going to appear, by a divine intervention. It is beyond us, beyond human resource, and Rebecca too is going to appear, Christ and the assembly typically. Dear brethren, Christ and the assembly! That was Mr.

Taylor’s ministry, was it not, Christ and the assembly? What does it mean to us? Are we in faith as to it? Are we conscious in any sense of the reality of it?—Christ and the assembly, reached not by human power but by divine intervention and arrangement,

taking the course and the way that we would not have thought of—Oh, blessed be God, it draws out worship to Him!—that which we are not able for, He is able for, blessed be His name! Our God is the Almighty God! We were saying one day this week that we do not drop that title. He is the Almighty God. As for ourselves, you feel you can hardly influence a thing, but God can influence everything, beloved.

Divine thoughts go through. What has happened in the death of our dear brother we wonder at. I suppose every one of us wonders at it, and soberly we may speak of it and we may consider it, but let us remember, beloved, that divine thoughts do go through, and if one of us is taken or another is taken, divine thoughts still go through. The route seems extraordinary perhaps, it seems to go round in a circuit; it is not, we might say, the normal way, it is not reached by normal or natural means, but it is reached by divine power. I say that to encourage us, to encourage all our hearts that things may be beyond us but we can rest in God, we can rest in the One who will bring it all through, who is going to display Christ and the assembly.

The universe will wonder at it. Have you ever wondered at it, you young people? Have you ever in the eyes of your heart, have you ever had a view of Christ and the assembly? Have you ever understood there is a heavenly Man and a heavenly consort for Him? What beauty will shine out in Christ and the assembly; how wonderful it will be! There will be a wonderful display of beauty and glory. The world has never seen anything like it; the world can never match it; never has been able to and never will be able to, the beauty of Christ and the assembly.

You see it, maybe, in a few brethren gathered for an evening reading. You see the thing in

principle; they are occupied with Christ. You look round at the brethren, you look round at the brothers and sisters; they may be old, they may be young; what you see is in character the assembly. Do you not see it that way? You see an old sister and you say she is rheumaticky but gets around. Oh, look deeper; you can see more than that. I sometimes think you can see the assembly better in old sisters than in young ones. Pardon me, dear young people, for saying that, but the superlative beauty, the deepest beauty, is the beauty formed through experience with God, the beauty that has come on that line, that has come with having to do with God. Well, I think some of us have seen it. It may be we cannot say much about it, but we have already seen it, and it is going through, by the power of God. May our hearts be comforted, for His name’s sake.

Address in Edinburgh
12 December 1987