THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD AS THE ROCK
D. Robertson
Deuteronomy 32: 1–4; 2 Samuel 23: 1–4
One is impressed, beloved brethren, with the way that both Moses and David speak about God as “the Rock”. We were saying earlier that it is a wonderful blessing to have the knowledge of God. It is the greatest blessing of all, the greatest possession that any person can have, and it is to affect us in the experiences of life. It is not something theoretical, it is a matter that enters into our experience day by day. It seems to me a very blessed matter to arrive, in any measure, at the knowledge of God as the Rock. It gives a sense of dependability and reliability, firmness, what is immovable, what is absolute in itself, what is unchangeable—many thoughts would come into our minds. I want to encourage the brethren to look into this great matter, and to look into our hearts to see how much we do know God as the Rock, how much reliance we can place upon Him. How often we are tested by that! We may be lacking in faith, wavering, our minds and hearts may be filled with some sense of doubt as to circumstances and other matters, even involving the testimony and our local assemblies. Beloved brethren, I would say to you in all simplicity, God can be relied upon.
These two men, Moses and David, have come to the end of their lives, and they are speaking about God as the Rock. Moses had a good deal to do with the thought of the Rock. Those who know their Bibles will remember the incidents in Exodus 17 and Numbers 20 where Moses was put in touch with the rock. Indeed, we remember how Paul speaks of the great matter of providing water, saying that they “all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of a spiritual rock which followed them” (1 Corinthians 10: 4), and the
scripture adds, “now the rock was the Christ”. What a wonderful suggestion is in that, “a spiritual rock which followed them”. It is a wilderness setting. It is a different thought completely from the ark. The true place of the ark was in the midst, but in Numbers 10 the ark went before. It suggests the great service of Christ in love to the saints, perhaps at a critical time. We have proved that too, beloved brethren, that at critical times the ark goes before, typifying how Christ serves the saints in love and leads them forward.
But the Rock followed them. How affecting that is! It suggests One following behind carrying water. It may be when other sources they had tried had failed, they could fall back on this great matter that the Rock followed them, and “the rock was the Christ”. How marvellous that is, and how we have proved it, the unfailing service of Christ as the One who is the spiritual Rock following us, prepared to serve in the most menial way. He met the murmuring of the people in chapter 17 of Exodus, and yet, when you go to the record of it in Numbers, there is no question raised as to the murmuring. God says in the scripture simply, they
“encamped at Rephidim, where there was no water for the people to drink”, Numbers 33: 14.
God could see that the real need was water, the flowing of the water, and there was One who could provide it.
In the type in Exodus 17, water was provided in the light of the sufferings of Christ. God said, “I will stand before thee there upon the rock”, Exodus 17: 6. Think of God being there when the rock was smitten. God was there when our Rock was smitten, when Christ took the place that really should have been yours and mine. He was smitten that the water might flow.
It says, “there shall come water out of it” (Exodus 17: 6), and “he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them”, Isaiah 48: 21. Again, when the people contended in Numbers 20, it is not then a question of smiting the rock, but speaking to the rock; Moses was to take the rod and speak to the
rock. It is a different rod from that in Exodus 17, as I understand it. The rod in Exodus 17 was the same rod with which Moses had smitten the Red Sea. It speaks of the authority of God over death. But when it comes to Numbers 20, the rod there is Aaron’s rod, it is the priestly rod. It is really a type of Christ risen out of death. Not only risen, but ascended, living before God, for the rod had sprouted too. It is no question now of smiting the rock, it is a question of speaking to the Rock. We are in the day of speaking, when we can speak to the Rock, as it were, and prove that the waters flow. So I bring that in to show that Moses was well acquainted with this great thought of the Rock and the reliability that it suggests.
In Deuteronomy, Moses comes to the end and speaks the words of this song until their conclusion. It is a wonderful song. One would encourage the brethren, especially the younger brethren, to read these last sections of Deuteronomy and see the fulness that marks Moses. He is presented in Deuteronomy as the man of God, a man who knew God, and God knew him. I think Moses rises to a great height in this chapter. He is calling on the heavens and he is speaking to the earth to hear, he says—
“My doctrine shall drop as rain,
My speech flow down as dew,
As small rain upon the tender herb,
And as showers on the grass”.
How often it is that when we grow older we speak of the past. That might all be very interesting, but there is not much food in it. Moses is not speaking in that reminiscent way.
He is speaking of what is coming freshly down from heaven. He is a man in touch with God and what He will do for Israel at the end. It would be good to be like that among the saints. I speak to my older brethren particularly, that we might be with God, that we might be able to bring freshness into the meetings to affect the young people, because Joshua is here in this section, and he is to continue. It would
impress Joshua no doubt, the great freshness and vigour that marked Moses. The knowledge of God that was in the man’s soul is shining through.
I have often thought that the main characteristic of the local assembly is the knowledge of God. It is not that there is a company of persons who are skilled in the word or doctrine merely—we should know the doctrine and we should know the truth and we should value it—but the real secret of the assembly in its local setting is that it is composed of persons who know God. In that way they can assure and strengthen one another through the faith that is in each other. So Moses says,
“For the name of Jehovah will I proclaim—
Ascribe greatness unto our God!”
True greatness in man never arrogates anything to himself, it attributes greatness to God. That is true greatness in man and Moses is shining in his true greatness. Then he goes on to this word, “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”.
We live in final days, when apostasy is rising, when departure and declension from the truth is rapid, and as we look at the public situation the question may well arise in the mind, ‘Is God thwarted of His thoughts?’ Never! “Ascribe greatness unto our God! He is the Rock, his work is perfect”. God is carrying His own thoughts through, and He will carry them through to completion. We can rely on that. One would love to encourage the brethren and to establish them in confidence in God; not in any confidence that we might feel in ourselves, because the less we feel that the better; but that our confidence in God might shine in these latter days. “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”—the footnote says that it is work that is done to an end. God is carrying it through to an end, to completion. Moses is about to die in relation to the will of God, a very remarkable thing, and this is part of what he has to say to Israel at this time: “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”. God has the ability, the power to bring every
thought through to completion. You could never think of God being thwarted in His thoughts.
Beloved brethren, if you are feeling the weakness of the present moment, let your heart be strengthened in the Rock. Find your Rock in God. We have proved that we cannot have it in men, our Rock is God and that is absolutely firm and reliable.
Then he goes on to say, “For all his ways are righteousness”. Could you expect anything else? His ways are like God Himself,
“A God of faithfulness without deceit,
Just and right is he”.
Oh, how the faith of Moses is shining. May our faith shine like this in these last days. May we be firmly fixed in our faith in God, that we may know the Rock in this sense. “He is the Rock”, it is a capital, it is a divine title—“He is the Rock, his work is perfect”. You may see only a few feeble saints here and a few feeble saints there, but make no mistake that God is completing His own thoughts. When John sees the city coming down in Revelation, one of the things that is said of it is that the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal. The length and breadth would suggest the operational side of God’s work; but they are equal with the height, that would be the measurement of God’s purpose. We can be sure that the operations of God will be, and indeed are, equal to His purpose. God never works below His own standard and never fails to reach it.
When we come to David, he too speaks of the Rock. He speaks much of the Rock. At one point he says, “he brought me up ... out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock; he hath established my goings”, Psalm 40: 2. I would like to speak to the young brethren just for a moment. Think of the miry clay in which you could sink, in which your faith could flounder, in which you could find yourself being swallowed up in the morass of Christendom. You need an experience with God, one
who can take you up out of the miry clay and set your feet upon the rock. Think of the rock that God would set your feet upon, the rock of the truth. The truth is of God, it is imperishable, it cannot be overthrown; the truth will stand. No one can do anything against the truth (2 Corinthians 13: 8).
There is also that which remains, what Paul speaks of as “the firm foundation of God”, 2
Timothy 2: 19. What has been established in the light of the death of Christ, that remains, and the firm foundation of God is well able to sustain all that is of God. I speak to encourage the young people, that you may find your feet on the rock, on the firm foundation of God, as Paul speaks of it. If you have an exercise in your relation with God, the firm foundation will support it. The firm foundation will not support iniquity. The firm foundation of God will not support you if you are going on in sin and wilfulness. God in His grace and mercy will help you, but He will not support you in it. Christendom is full of what is iniquitous and, alas, we are sometimes not far short of it in some of our own thoughts and activities. The feeblest believer who is trusting in God and seeking to go on in the path of God’s will, the firm foundation of God will support him. He brings you up out of the miry clay. He will set you upon the rock and establish your goings.
Then there are times when we are greatly tested, when our hearts are almost overwhelmed.
Great tests come in our lives. How do we fare then? What does David say? He says, “From the end of the earth will I call unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed—thou wilt lead me on to a rock which is too high for me”, Psalm 61: 2. What a wonderful thing it is to find God leading you that way, at a time when you are overwhelmed, when you think that things are too much for you! It may be because of things in your own life, or in your family life, or in the testimony, or in the assembly. Have you ever felt like that? I am speaking of what is real—“... when my heart is overwhelmed: thou wilt lead me on to a rock which is too high for me”, or as the footnote says, ‘which is higher than I’. It is higher than you. It is something to be proved; that is what David is speaking about here in his final days.
Then he says, “The Rock of Israel spoke to me”; that is that David had something communicated to him by God that was absolutely dependable. His faith could be pinned upon it. It was all about another Man and another scene. It is really a millennial world that is in mind when Christ will reign. That is what God really gave David the light of. You will remember what Paul said to Timothy, “Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first”, 1 Timothy 1: 15. Think of that— Faithful is the word—that is, there was the presentation of something to Paul’s soul, and now Paul was passing it on, that was trustworthy. What David is speaking of here is like that. One would not wish to engage the beloved brethren with anything that is unreliable. Let us seek to engage one another with things that can be relied upon, with things that come from God, from the One who indeed is the Rock of Israel.
In verse 2 of 2 Samuel 22 he says, “Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; God is my rock, in him will I trust”. What fine language that is! Here he is speaking of the Rock of Israel. Now I just want to bring that practical touch in before I finish, that we need to cling to God’s thoughts about the assembly. People assert today that there is no collective position. God has not given up His thoughts of the assembly. It is not that we could claim to be the assembly, but let us be persons who are exercised to walk in the light of the assembly, and to walk in the light of God’s thoughts about the assembly. So there is the reliability of these thoughts, and the blessed sense we may have in our souls that God will complete the great matter He has in His mind regarding the assembly. It is the great
overriding matter of the dispensation. Paul says, “I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly”
(Ephesians 5: 32), and God will see it through.
I believe it is a very great thing to have God before us as the Rock, so that we might be able to encourage one another and to establish one another’s faith more firmly, because we ourselves have confidence in God as our Rock. I love the thought, and I see the importance of it in a final day like this. The outward appearance would suggest that God is thwarted of His thoughts, but “He is the Rock, his work is perfect”. It is work that is done to an end, to a completion. Then you look around, and see we are living in the days that are prophesied of in the book of Daniel, when there is mixture, part of iron and part of clay, and they do not cleave one to another (Daniel 2: 40–43).
Oh, that the light of God’s word might be in our souls. It is a great bulwark to have the light of the coming King. There will be no iron and clay in that day. God’s King will come and what glory, what majesty will shine in this world then. The thoughts of God will be maintained in relation to this earth, but the same power is operating now to secure God’s thoughts as to Christ and as to the assembly. May our faith be strengthened in these things, and especially beloved brethren, may our faith be resolute and firm in the knowledge of God as our Rock. May God bless the word.
Address at Buckhurst Hill, 30 December 1995
FATHERS, YOUNG MEN AND CHILDREN
M. Cowan
I thought it might be appropriate to draw attention to these scriptures, beloved brethren, in the light of what has happened amongst us, our beloved brother being taken to be with Christ, having left an example to us, particularly in the feature of fatherhood. I have been impressed, as thinking about his life and his place in the locality, with the interest he had in the prosperity of the saints; the prosperity of the young men, young women and the children, and that we might all be moving on together. Our brother has referred already in his word to the last words of David and the weight that they carried. There is a certain maturity related to fatherhood that is very affecting as we make way for it and appreciate it; something wrought by God, not wrought on the lines of nature, but wrought by experience with God. There is nothing more valuable than to covet to have experience with God. It is the only thing that is going through after all. Things concerning this world, our life naturally will end, if the Lord is not here before we die; then we enter into death, but what is going through is very fine because it is wrought by God, it is His workmanship and will abide to eternity.
So I just refer to these scriptures because John is intent upon, I believe, the testimony continuing in some sense of power, as governed by divine light, and in the energy of life.
John always has in view light. He speaks a lot too about love; I suppose liberty would be another feature that John would remind us of. These are features that belong to the saints in the last days. John also speaks with urgency, and I believe that at this time we would be impressed with that, that the Lord may speak to us with urgency. We are not to be in things
casually. How easily we can be casual about the Lord’s things, about His interests, about what proceeds in relation to the testimony. So many other things engage us, but maybe we would be encouraged to be related to divine things, related to God.
John writes to the fathers, he says, “because ye have known him that is from the beginning”.
That is very fine, that there should be that kind of experience in persons who have such a knowledge of Christ. It must involve what has come into expression in Christ as presented in the four gospels. We have come to know the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. It is a wonderful thing that God has made Himself known in the economy of love, and He has had to do with us. It is good to be reminded that we are subjects of divine choice, and that God has brought us into a wonderful area of things, this area of life that John speaks about. I think perhaps that might be involved in what he says here, that “ye have known him that is from the beginning”. I could not say too much about it, but it must involve the scope of God’s operations in love. John would remind us that love did not begin with us, it began with God.
It is not that we loved God, but that He first loved us; that love has come into expression in His Son and it has found its entrance into our hearts. There should be an answering love and an answering committal and an answering devotion with us all, that would be appropriate to our place and our calling.
So there is something that belongs to the fathers that is unique, and can be taken account of; we have seen that in our brother, and we see it in many amongst us at the present time, what fatherhood would be. These are features to be desired, dear brethren, and not only desired but that we may be exercised to acquire. It is interesting too, if we think about the young men, that it does not mean because you are a young man that you cannot have some features of fatherhood. I noticed in the scripture in Philippians that we were reading on
Lord’s day, that there is quite a peculiar expression there when it speaks of Timotheus, “that, as a child a father, he has served with me ...” (Philippians 2: 22); it is very interesting that these features can be taken on substantially in someone younger; it is something to be gone in for, to be acquired in view of the prospering of the work of God in the souls of the saints.
So he says, “I write to you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one”. Now that is a commendable feature at the present time if it can be taken account of that the young men have overcome the wicked one. He is ever active, beloved brethren, and we need to be reminded of that so as to be diligent. John refers to Satan as the wicked one; he is against God, against Christ, against the saints, against everything that would be for God’s pleasure.
How good it is if it can be seen that young men have overcome the wicked one. So we might be encouraged to take on these features. It cannot be done in your own strength; none of us has the strength to stand against the wicked one on our own; but Ephesians reminds us that we can put on the panoply of God. God has provided a resource, he has provided the wherewithal to stand against the wicked one, and all he has. It speaks about these wicked darts that he can use; there are various things that the enemy uses against the saints and against the souls of the saints, but there is protection to be had. I believe we would be encouraged to lay hold of these resources so that the testimony might continue at the present time. We are in the last days, we are in the last hour indeed as John reminds us. If he said it then, when he wrote these epistles, how much nearer we are today, the very last moments of the assembly’s history here, when it is just about to be raptured. May we be encouraged in thinking of that and be exercised too and sobered. It sobered me what our brother has said as to what our last words and our last actions might be before we are taken, what we might be saying and doing just before the Lord comes. How exercising that becomes
when you think about it, so that there might be something that is pleasing to the Lord in our lives. Just to be simple, I am sure we would all want to be pleasing to the Lord, we would all want to continue as pleasing to the Lord, and I am sure the Lord would help us as these desires are with us.
So he says, “I write to you, little children, because ye have known the Father”. That involves confidence. In your own family, where there are little children, you want your children to be confident in you; you want them to understand that you have a care for them, you want them to progress in a natural way, you want them to progress in their education and so on. Well, spiritually it would be so too, that the little children would have confidence in their heavenly Father. What interest the Father has in us, beloved brethren! The Lord speaks much about the Father in John’s gospel particularly, and gives us to understand the character that belongs to Him. His interest and His care in His children—“See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God”, 1 John 3: 1. How very fine that is! May it be that we appreciate the Father’s interest in us. It is little children here, meaning that we are dependent, little children are dependent; they are not dependent on their own resources because they do not really have any; but they are dependent on their father, they are dependent on their father’s resources, what can be used to protect them and hold them. So we need to rely on these resources, that we might be protected and maintained in the present course of things until the Lord comes. What a time we are in! It is the time of privilege; sadly a time of breakdown but also a time of great privilege. I think John would remind us of that.
Then he says, “I have written to you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning”, repeating what he has said already, as if to emphasise the importance of that; everything in Christianity having had its beginning as presented in Christ in the four gospels.
Then he says, “I have written to you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one”. So he helps us to understand how we can be strong; not strong in our own resources, but being strong in the Lord as he says elsewhere (Ephesians 6: 10); and being good soldiers of Jesus Christ, as is said to Timothy (2
Timothy 2: 3); that is the kind of strength we need today. It is not that we can draw from ourselves, but being strong in the Lord. It is interesting the scripture that has been referred to as to the sons of Levi; they needed strength to carry the tabernacle, all that belonged to the tabernacle, all that was needed for the service of God. You can have your part, dear young brother or young sister, in things that pertain to the service of God, and the maintenance of it, maybe in times of difficulty, times of pressure, when things are not easy, because it was an arduous task in the wilderness. So may we be helped to draw on divine resources, to find strength from God. Then it says, “because ... the word of God abides in you”, how important that is, to draw on the word of God. How wonderful that God is speaking! It is not only what is in the Bible, what is in the written word, but the current voice of the Spirit, the current word of God that would be amongst the saints at the present time. So it says, “the word of God abides in you”. What an element that is to bring about strength, so that the wicked one is overcome.
There is the exhortation not to love the world nor the things in it. The whole world around us is going on in all its corruptness, it is going on to its own end, going on to destruction; let us remember that, it is going on to destruction. God will have to say to it in a very definite way in judgment, the god of this world too will be dealt with finally according to Revelation 20: 1–3, 10. So the whole area of things that may appeal to us on the line of nature, what belongs to lust and pride, and is so natural to us all, is all going to end very soon. It has been ended already, of course, in the death of Christ. God
has finished with that order of man entirely; what is going through is man after God’s own heart. It is typified in David; how wonderful that it is extended in the saints. What is going through are these precious features that have been formed in us, that are really the features of Christ that God can find delight in eternally. May we be encouraged, beloved, to move on together, seeking to do the will of God, as it says here, “he that does the will of God abides for eternity”. How reassuring that is! May we be sustained, helped to move on together, the fathers, the young men, and the children, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy, 18 April 1995
LIBERTY
J. A. Brown
Leviticus 25: 8–13, 54, 55; Luke 4: 16–22 (to “mouth”); Philippians 2: 5–8; Romans 8: 1, 2, 12–15; 2 Corinthians 3: 17, 18
I want to speak about liberty. It is something that we speak about often in the service of God, the liberty that we have to enter into His presence. Liberty is a very precious thing. It is so in man’s world. There have been men in history who have given their lives for liberty. Men have been prepared to die so that their fellow men might be free. It is a very important thing, and yet it seems to me, that once men have it, quite often they do not count it of very much value. We speak about this as being a free country; the western nations generally are what we speak of as free countries, in contrast, for instance, to other countries where things are very rigid. In this country, we enjoy freedom of speech, a very important thing; freedom of association, that too is an important liberty; we value these things.
We can be here tonight because, in this country, there is freedom to gather together to preach the gospel.
Men, in these western nations in which God has placed us, have these liberties, but what they do not realise is, that all the time, unless they know the Lord Jesus, they are under bondage; they do not really have true liberty because they are under bondage. If you do not know the Lord Jesus in a personal and living way then you too are under bondage, although you might not feel like it. If I spoke in the street to a passer-by and said, Do you realise that you are in bondage and slavery? he would probably laugh at me and think I was mad; he certainly would not agree with me. But it is certainly true that unless you have come to a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus as your own Saviour and Friend, then you are in bondage, you are not in liberty, you are in the very opposite of it, you are a slave to sin. The word
‘bondman’ in scripture means ‘slave’, it is exactly the same word. So you are a slave to sin unless you have heard this reverberating blast of the horn. It is a fine thing to hear that; that is what jubilee means. The note in Mr. Darby’s translation of the Bible says that it is strictly
‘the reverberating blast of the horn’. It says here in Leviticus 25, “on the day of atonement shall ye cause the trumpet to go forth throughout your land”. Think of that, every fifty years they counted, and on the day of atonement, in the seventh month, on the tenth of the month, they caused this trumpet to go through the land, and to be blown. They were to hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty in the land, to all the inhabitants thereof; “a year of jubilee shall it be unto you”.
It is a wonderful thing that the year of jubilee that we are in has lasted for nearly two thousand years. In the days of the Israelite nation under the law, this event happened once every fifty years. People might have been in bondage for forty-nine years, or they might have come into poverty, and have had to sell their field to get money. Then they had to wait as long as forty-nine
years before they could get it back again, or before they could be restored to their rightful possession. But the day of the gospel that we are in, the day of grace, is the antitype of the year of jubilee; it has lasted for nearly two thousand years, and it is still going on, as is this reverberating blast of the horn. The jubilee is still being proclaimed mightily, it is being proclaimed tonight throughout this world, and there are millions of persons hearing the sound.
Now the question for you is. Are you hearing it? And have you answered to it? It says, “and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family; a year of jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you”. Think of the happiness there would be then; families brought together again, things put right and possessions restored to their owners. What a time of great blessing it would be. Well, tonight in the gospel God is giving you the opportunity to hear this proclamation of jubilee; the proclamation of release by virtue of the work of Jesus. This proclamation was made, you will notice, on the day of atonement.
Every year on that day, the priest took the blood of the sin offering, went into the holy of holies, and put the blood there, right in the presence of God. And on that day, every fiftieth time it was done, the year of jubilee was proclaimed.
I thought of these words of the Lord Jesus in Luke 4, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance”. What good news it was! We have been thinking of how people might have been waiting for nearly fifty years for the year of jubilee and how they would be longing for the year of release. What a time of rejoicing it would be! Well, here was the One in whom it was fulfilled, “he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord”. That was the
proclamation of the year of jubilee; it started then and it is still going on. It will not go on for ever; I do not know how long the year of jubilee will last. That is in God’s hands, but it is going on now. It is the day of grace, the time of the gospel being preached; that is the time we are in. My question again for you and for me too is. Have I heard the reverberating blast of the horn? Have I answered to it? We sometimes liken God’s voice to a soft gentle voice, but there is also something arresting about the gospel. We speak about the proclamation of the gospel; the year of jubilee is being proclaimed and God wants men to pay attention to what He says in the gospel about the Lord Jesus. Here He was saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me”. O, what an Object of attention He is!
Then, having rolled up the book, He sat down and said to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. What day would that be? I believe that it would be the day of grace.
Think of how the Lord Jesus had to go on to death. What would He be thinking? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach glad tidings to the poor; he has sent me to preach to captives deliverance, and to the blind sight, to send forth the crushed delivered”. It must involve His death, and the necessity of His precious blood being shed and its efficacy remaining before God. O, the preciousness of that blood in the eyes of God! So He says, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. Then it says, “all bore witness to him, and wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth”.
I trust there is no one here under bondage to the power of sin; under bondage to their sins. I trust there is no one here like that. We all know each other here, and yet there sometimes can be things that we do not know about, but God knows them all. I would just ask the question.
Have you answered to the appeal of grace in the gospel? What a gracious word this was! The words of grace were coming out of the mouth of Jesus.
The eyes of all were fixed upon Him. What an opportunity they had! Do not you let this opportunity pass. You may have had many opportunities previously but do not let this one slip by without answering to the appeal, to the proclamation of Jesus as Saviour. If you are not in liberty, if you feel under bondage to anything, just answer to the opportunity that God is giving you in the proclamation of Jesus—“Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears”. It is still being fulfilled, the gospel is still going out, what a wonderful word of grace it is! God has liberty, freedom, in view for every one of His creatures, but at what a price has it been secured!
That is why I read in Philippians 2, because we see there the way that Jesus had to go so that we might know what it is to have liberty, to have freedom from the power of sin. When the slaves were emancipated two hundred years ago or so, it needed an act of Parliament, but for the bondage of sin to be lifted, it needed the life of Jesus to be given up on the cross. Men struggled for a long time to achieve what they called emancipation, and even then it was not a full emancipation, because although slavery was abolished the conditions of misery and poverty endured. But what Jesus did on that cross He did completely. He broke the power of sin, and He broke the power it had to hold men and women in thraldom, in bondage. Jesus broke that power. He burst the fetters of the grave, but it meant that He had to go into that place of restriction. It says here that He “emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”. Let me remind you again that that word means ‘slave’. Jesus came here and He put Himself into the lowliest position that He could have taken, the place of a slave; the place of one who had no right, who had no liberty, no freedom to do as he wanted. We know in another context that it was His will to do the will of His God, but here He took “a bondman’s form”. He put Himself into that place of restriction; and having been found in figure as a man. He “humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. Just
remember that. It may be that you know Him; it may be that you know the blessedness of having your sins forgiven, but remember the place that Jesus had to take. Never ever get beyond being affected by His death on the cross. That death involved the shedding of His blood. That death was for you and for me. I trust you can say that; I can say it was for me that He went into death, into that awful restricted place. Remember who He was and who He is, the Son of God, of whom it says, “Christ Jesus; who, subsisting in the form of God”. He created the universe, not only this world, but He created the whole universe, and then He came down into the world that His hands had made. It says of Him in a typical sense, “They afflicted his feet with fetters; his soul came into irons”, Psalm 105: 18. That is what happened to Jesus. He went into that narrow place, the place of death. What a contemplation that is, the Son of God, the One who “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God”, and His soul came into irons. Think of that! He could not be held there, thank God for that! We know that the power of God and Jesus’ own inherent power could not be held by the constraint of death; He burst it asunder, and because of that we can proclaim liberty to the captives.
God is offering this in the gospel; liberty and freedom from the power of sin. What a wonderful thing it is. I trust that you know it yourself, I trust there is no one here who feels themselves under bondage to anything, except the true liberty of being a bondman to God.
Bondage to sin is a terrible thing, and what makes it even more terrible, is that most who are in bondage to sin do not realise that they are thus held. It is a very, very specious thing. The enemy of souls holds people there, but tonight God is offering you freedom and liberty, as we sang in our hymn—
‘Hark! ‘tis a message free,
Of pardon, joy and peace;
A trump of jubilee,
Glad tidings of release!’ (Hymn 432)
I trust you have this freedom for yourself.
So we have freedom with an object in view and that is why I read that last verse in Leviticus,
“For the children of Israel are servants unto me; they are my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am Jehovah your God”. I wondered why God added that at the end of all the instruction as to the year of jubilee. It takes your mind back to God’s words in Exodus, “Let my people go”, Exodus 5: 1. Why? It was, of course, to bring them out of Pharaoh’s service where they suffered greatly, making bricks without straw and being very greatly oppressed. It was freedom from that, but it also had a very great and positive objective in mind, and that was that the people might serve God. And so “the children of Israel are servants unto me”. That is the objective of the year of jubilee.
God has that in mind in the gospel now and that is why I read in Romans 8. It is a wonderful chapter of release, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death”. It may be that you know freedom from the power of Satan as far as your sins are concerned, but are you delivered from the power of sin, from this influence that reigns over men? It is a very wonderful thing to know your sins are forgiven, but I would say this carefully, it is an even more wonderful thing to know full and true deliverance from the power of sin, because the enemy still tries to keep you in bondage. If you have never read the epistle to the Romans right through, then read it tonight, it is a wonderful piece of scripture. It tells us how we get free from that bondage and into the good of deliverance. What a wonderful thing it is, “no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. You hold to that. At the end of the previous chapter, we have these words that I suppose nearly all of us have cried to God at some time or another, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of this body of death?” You
feel under the power of something else, but then you come to it, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Then, “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”. What a wonderful thing deliverance is!
It goes on to speak about the Spirit in verse 13, “but if, by the Spirit, ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live: for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”.
Jesus has died to accomplish and to make available the liberty of which we have been speaking, but here it brings in the Spirit of God, “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For ye have not received a spirit of bondage again for fear, but ye have received a spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. What a wonderful thing it is to realise, not just to know it as a doctrine, but to realise in the liberty of your own soul that the way in to the presence of God is open and clear, and that there is nothing standing between you and access to God. So we have that access by means of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of liberty. I believe it is right to refer to Him reverently in that way.
Then we read in 2 Corinthians 3 as to liberty. I wonder if you know in your soul the blessedness of that liberty, the liberty that allows you to go into God’s presence at any time and be at home there. That is a wonderful liberty, and I trust that we all appreciate it. This is really what started me thinking about the question of liberty. We enjoyed it this morning, the liberty that the Lord Jesus has brought us into, and we spoke of it in thanksgiving as we often do. But remember, the reason we have that liberty is that typically the blood of Jesus is on the mercy-seat. He has opened up this way; He has given us this liberty by virtue of what He has done, and He is there and we can be accepted in Him. What a wonderful thing it is to feel comfortable in the presence of God. The reason we can feel comfortable in the presence of God is that Jesus is there; He has died and His blood, according to the type, has been put on the
mercy-seat; and then too we have a spirit of adoption whereby we can cry, Abba, Father. That is why I read in 2 Corinthians 3. Those words came to me, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”. We need the Spirit for this, the Holy Spirit of God; He is the Spirit of liberty.
O, that we might just get a fresh sense of the importance of this, and enjoy the experience of being in liberty in the presence of God. We enjoyed it when we were together this morning but we can enjoy it at any time, to know it individually. Romans is an individual epistle, and we need to know this, being there in the presence of God and feeling comfortable there, because of the efficacy of the blood, and that Jesus is there and we are accepted in Him. What a wonderful thing it is, “the Lord is the Spirit, but where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”.
The next verse is a wonderful verse, “But we all, looking on the glory of the Lord, with unveiled face, are transformed according to the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Lord the Spirit”. That is what God has in mind for His people, what He had in mind when He said, “Let my people go, that they may serve me”, Exodus 7: 16. He says, “I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”, Exodus 19: 4. That is the provision God has made for every believer. May we enter into the full enjoyment of it; not only to enjoy liberty from our sins and freedom from the power of sin—essential as that is—but also to enjoy the experience of being in the presence of God and being in liberty there. Thus we are able to praise, able to respond, although always with a sense of reverence in our hearts. May we all have this full enjoyment of liberty for ourselves, for His name’s sake.
Preaching at Bo’ness, 30 October 1994
EXTRACTS
Even in natural things what a different effect is produced upon us by an object according to the level from which we look at it—whether we see it from above or from beneath. And you cannot be on both at the same time; you must keep either to one level or the other. The apostle says, “What man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?
even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received ...
the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God”.
Thus what God has done is, He has brought in another power. He has revealed these things to me, and given me the power to understand them. He says, By the Spirit of God I can unite you to the One who sits at My right hand: I can bring you into association with Him up there.
Do you say, I do not think I ever have enjoyed what you speak of? Well, if you have not, it is a good thing to be awakened to find it out.
J. B. Stoney (Vol. 3, p.97)
The slippery path of sin is always trodden with accelerated steps, because the first sin tends to weaken in the soul the authority and power of that which alone can prevent our committing still greater sins—that is, the word of God, as well as the consciousness of His presence, which imparts to the word all its practical power over us.
J. N. Darby (‘Synopsis’ Vol. 1, p.384)
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