OUR DAYS
I trust that the Lord will help me say a word about the importance of the present time, and every day of the present time. It is indeed in this time that each and all of us are called on the one hand to secure the holy charge in relation to God’s service and, on the other hand, to pursue the work of God, a work glorious in character and in its full result.
The first verse read in Numbers 3 establishes the normal position of saints as identified with the testimony of God in this world, the tabernacle representing this testimony. God dwelt there; it was where He was approached, where He was served. And moreover, the tabernacle was carried through the wilderness. Every time the Israelites moved, they had to disassemble the tabernacle; when the cloud stopped, they had to set up the tabernacle again; and God’s service had to continue in relation with His movements.
But the tabernacle was always erected to face the east; that is what we find in this chapter. It was always orientated to the east, which means that the perspective of the saints, as dedicated to the testimony of God down here, is always towards the sun rising, that is, the coming of the Lord. This is confirmed to us in the first epistle to the Corinthians, which deals with the saints in their local setting: where it says in verse 7 of chapter 1: “so that ye come short in no gift, awaiting the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The Corinthian assembly, established in the testimony of God in Corinth, is seen in this way, that is, waiting for the revelation, or the manifestation, of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that is what must be before us, dear brethren, and not only that, but those who camped in front of the tabernacle, to the east, in front of the tent of meeting, towards the sun rising, were Moses and Aaron and his sons, seeing to the service of the sanctuary, for that was entrusted to the sons of Israel. “Aaron and his sons” is an allusion to the priestly family. Today, the saints are this priestly family. And they were always in that position. When the tabernacle was erected, Aaron and his sons were always in the same position: they camped towards the sun rising, and saw to the service of the sanctuary. They recognised, each of them, their responsibility to ensure that God received in His sanctuary what He sought, as it had to be according to the divine prescriptions, to see that it maintained the demands of His holiness, all that was required by the fact of God dwelling among His people. And that was the priests’ responsibility at all times.
Is this not a subject that concerns us, dear brethren? I would like to emphasise to young people among us as well as older people, this idea of responsibility for God’s service. You will find out that, if you take it to heart, it will be a great help for you. You absolutely need to be careful to exclude anything that deprives you of liberty with God. If you lack liberty with God, you are deprived of the ability to participate in His service. God is then deprived of your contribution. And the saints themselves feel deprivation. That is why you will easily understand that taking responsibility for the service of God, and maintaining what is due to Him in His dwelling place, provides a basis for exercise that helps us in our practical walk. So every brother who has the privilege of being able to express himself vocally in praise and thanksgivings and prayers should be exercised to remain at liberty with God, an evident holy liberty, the liberty of the Spirit, and not a forced liberty and certainly not the liberty of the flesh! It is said: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty”, chap 3: 17. If the Spirit is unhindered, there will be liberty, but it is of all importance for each brother, no matter how young, to understand that he is being held responsible to contribute to prayer, and to thanksgiving, and to praise, virtually at least in the case of very young brothers. (However, there is no need to wait a long time for this to become a practical reality.) But suited conditions must be maintained by the grace of the Lord and through the service and power of the Spirit. The sisters are in no way exempt from these things, not that they give expression to the thanksgiving and praise other than by their ‘amens’ and their singing, but they can provide the spirit of response, the richness that such a spirit produces in their souls.
When it comes to Chapter 23, the end of the journey is in sight, and we have this remarkable story of Balaam, God using this wicked man to communicate His thoughts about His people. It is a very touching story for the saints, because we are well aware, especially as we get older, of the reality of the powers of wickedness in this world, powers that manifest themselves against the saints of God. Here, with Balaam and Balak, there was an attempt on the part of certain powers of wickedness to curse God’s people. And God accepts the challenge; that is very encouraging. We read first at the beginning of chapter 23: 3: “And he went to a hill. And God met Balaam”. The following verses reveal that, for Balaam, these were enchantments. He was only looking for such things. And Jehovah met him; He went before him and put a word in his mouth. In verse 23 that we have read, it says: “For there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel”. Many powers of evil may be at work, God does not allow them; He turned them aside in favour of His people. “At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!” God’s people are seen as fully identified with God’s work in those who compose it. The brazen serpent was lifted up and the Spirit, in the figure, was received. It is said that anyone who looked at the serpent lived. Then being in the gain of the Spirit, the people sang at the well. Thus, God’s people are in the full benefit of what took place at the cross, that is the judgment of man in the flesh and everything that attaches to him; they are seen as a new creation, which each one is conscious of by the Spirit. The Spirit having operated in them, God’s elect are identified with God’s work in them, before God. This is a very important thing to us, dear brethren, and it is to be desired that young people take it to heart; even if they do not understand much, they can seek the Lord’s help to identify themselves in mind with God’s work in them. There needs to be a starting point, even if we still find ourselves, as we say, in the anxieties of Romans 7. A man who goes through the exercises of Romans 7 can say: “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man”: he is conscious of certain aspirations, the fruit of the work of God in him, that make him take pleasure in God’s law. That is why we are entitled to identify ourselves in mind with God’s work in us and drive away any other thought in the light of the cross of Christ, the Spirit being the only power by which we can do it. But we will not experience the help of the Spirit if we are not exercised and if we go on in a way that grieves the Spirit.
Here then, Balaam, having God’s point of view, sees the end and says, “At this time”—the note says: ‘the present time’—“it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!” Jacob is alluding to God’s people in their responsibility, and the Lord exercises us greatly about assuming our assembly responsibilities in our localities, and He helps us in that regard. He exercises us and helps us to consider whether all the prescriptions of the divine calendar are respected for the pleasure of God and if everything that comes up among us is treated in a proper way according to God. God looks for what answers to Jacob, the full expression of people taking responsibility as a testimony in this world.
Then there is Israel, a reference to what the saints are in their dignity, their relationship as sons, the liberty they have, week after week, to participate in a godly way in assembly service, not only on the first day of the week when this service reaches its highest character, but also on the evening of the prayer meeting, when incense rises to God in hundreds of localities in every part of the world, and prayers are addressed to God in relation to divine interests, in the affection and intelligence of sons. There is a sweet odour pleasing to God.
What a perspective on the glory of God’s work in the saints and the grace that gives us part of it! Thus Balaam says: “At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!”
And now the passage read in 2 Corinthians engages us with God’s work. We have many things that have oppressed us in these times. We recently learned that two young brothers and a younger sister were taken to be with Lord in an unexpected way, and from one time to another, elderly people leave us. This is in view of impressing on us the fact that eternal things are very close to us, and the importance of recognising the value of each day. If one of us knew that the Lord would take him in a week, or in a shorter time, I think that he would well be concerned about how best to fill the days that remain. So the apostle says: “Wherefore we faint not; but if indeed our outward man is consumed, yet the inward is renewed day by day”. See the importance of this daily renewal. Renewal is not something automatic; it does not happen without our share of exercise. It says: “For our momentary and light affliction works for us in surpassing measure an eternal weight of glory”. This is an allusion to God’s work in the saints. It is something that can be weighed. The apostle gives us the right to call it “momentary and light affliction”, the sorrows even that we experience are those that we can bear. And he adds that it “works for us … an eternal weight of glory”. So things are not just light in the saints, but substance. There is a real weight attached. That is what is in mind, to know that God’s work continues in us, and it will be manifested in its full completion in the heavenly city “coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God” (Rev 21: 10), each of us being an essential part of this glorious vessel. Nothing will be missing, nothing will be superfluous; all will be to the right extent and have the character of the work of God in all of us. The sufferings of the present time, and God’s ways towards us, have in mind to produce in us, as it is said, “an eternal weight of glory”. If we are oppressed by the circumstances, it will result in enlargement; that is what we find Psalm 4: 1; and the oppression helps us to develop in us the compassions of God, sympathies, the movements and services of love, things in which God takes pleasure, because when the city descends out of the heaven from God, love will be the great glory it will express. Love is the glory of God. The glory of God is the love that is expressed, and the vessel that must express it is currently being formed in love. The tribulations of the present day are not only for the enlargement of those who suffer them, but they are to develop love and compassion among the saints, so that these things operate for us an eternal weight of glory: “we look not at the things that are seen”. What are we looking at? That is an important question. A very great difficulty for us is to control our minds, and if we have to be renewed day by day, on what are we going to look? How is this renewal taking place? It depends essentially on the point of attraction of our eyes. If we allow them to fix on the things that are being seen, there will certainly be no spiritual renewal; but if we look at things that are not seen, the renewal will occur continually; it has to be the exercise of every day in relation to things on which we focus our gaze, on the things our minds are occupied with.
“For we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. The Lord may come at any moment; then will end this expectation of destruction of our earthly home, not that this tent, that is, our frail body, will be removed as it is, at the coming of the Lord, but it will be changed. The Lord “shall transform our body of humiliation into conformity to his body of glory”, Phil 3: 21. But if the Lord delays a little time and if a few of us fall asleep, what matters is what the apostle says: “we know that if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. And he continues: “Now he that has wrought us for this very thing is God”. Consider that precision! Whatever God does in everyone of us, in the present time, which is according to Christ, and morally of God, will be clothed with a body worthy of this work. God has wrought us for this very thing and it is added: “who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit. This is indeed to give us confidence: “Therefore we are always confident”, and we look at it in the light of what the apostle then said, “and know that while present in the body we are absent from the Lord”. He also says: “we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord”; but it is added; “Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him”.
I have nothing more to say, other than to insist on the importance of the present time as the one when each of us must accept responsibility as to the service of God, the charge of the sanctuary; and on the other hand, the one when the work God is fulfilled in us day by day, so long as we provide suited conditions, so that our eyes are not on the things that are seen, but on the things that are not seen.
Date and place not given
From Paroles d’Édification Mutuelle July/August 1962
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THE WHOLE HOUSE OF LEVI
I feel, dear brethren, the Lord would give us a distinctive impression of Himself at the present time. There is this staff, the staff of Aaron for the house of Levi. The saints of today are really the house of Levi, for Levi was taken in place of the firstborn ones, and the saints of today are the assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven. And in this incident the Lord comes before us typically as risen from the dead and now appearing in the presence of God for us. And what was seen in this staff was that it “had budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and ripened almonds”. It really covers in type the whole course of the life here of our Lord Jesus. Luke seems to delight to draw attention to it; Luke presents Him to our hearts as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, and when He appeared thus all heaven was stirred, saying “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”.
Pleasure for God had begun now in men—not that there may not have been pleasure to Him before in some of the saints of past ages in whom features of Christ were wrought, you might say, anticipatively by the Spirit’s work—but now the substance, speaking reverently, had come in, there was a babe there. A babe! And there was a pledge there of God’s complete pleasure in a Man. He would be there as a babe, filling out in perfection what was proper to a babe under the eye of God, absolute dependence, which is man’s glory. It was there set forth in Jesus as a babe, and then Luke carries us on to the blooming of the blossoms, to the age of twelve when He was found concerned about His Father’s business and yet maintaining the proper characteristics of a boy of twelve, sitting at the feet of the teachers, asking them questions. How precious all this is as the Spirit of God enables us to see that from the very moment of birth right up to the full maturity of manhood all that is proper in man under the eye of God has been before Him in Jesus. You find the buds, and the blossoms, and the ripened almonds; you have the full expression of fruitfulness in man there in Jesus, and that is what is so comforting to us. And He is there for all the house of Levi, for all the saints now. He is there in the value of all that has taken shape substantially in manhood for the pleasure of God, and He is there now for us.
And so this little child has a Saviour who has been precisely that age. How precious all that enters into the redemptive work of Christ! From one day old up to thirty three and a half years this that we have spoken about has been seen under God’s eye in Jesus, and He has accomplished redemption. And He is there in the presence of God now in the value of His precious death and in the value of His Person; He is there for the house of Levi, the whole of the saints. And our brother and sister in their sorrow may be greatly comforted as they think of this little one aged seven and a half months, for the Lord Jesus has been precisely that age. All that God looks for at that age has appeared under His eye in perfection.
Our brother has referred in prayer to what the Lord has to say to us in this city in these things, and we may well seek that the Lord would give us some divine wealth as the outcome of what He has brought about. We know our brother and sister feel the sorrow, but we are assured they know something of the support and sympathy of Christ. We have to remember that this little one has been taken away from the sorrows that are to come. There is much coming, if the Lord leaves us here, in the way of sorrow and pressure and difficulty, but this little one has been taken away from it to be with Christ. Why should He not have little ones with Him? We cannot say what measure of intelligence by the Spirit God may effect in little ones, but we know that “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established praise”, Ps 8: 2. Before they learn to speak according to natural ability, God has established praise out of the mouth of babes and sucklings. So we may rejoice thus in the full fruits of the death of Christ. If it is a babe of a day old, or an old saint of a hundred years old, the whole position has been covered, babyhood to maturity and old age, all has been covered by our Lord Jesus Christ.
There are God’s ways and we would all enter into them sympathetically with our brother and sister. What a comfort it is that God has in mind our being partakers of His holiness! He has a positive end in view, that we should be more at home than we have ever been yet in the presence of God. It is marvellous that God has nothing less than that in mind as regards every one of us. Every one of us has had some experience of God’s way. We know that God is never against us, always for us, the hand of a Father in relation to His sons having in view that we should become partakers of His holiness. Therefore we are to be encouraged and comforted indeed. This little one has a Saviour, a Redeemer, who has been just at the same point in life which she had reached. So we can rejoice in that, rejoice that the Lord, in the greatness of the power and love that are His, is even now in the presence of God for the whole house of Levi, whether old or young, He is there in the value of all that He is in His Person for the pleasure of God.
May the Lord be pleased to comfort us by these things and may we learn more of His moral and personal glory, for His Name’s sake!
LONDON
22nd November 1962
From Ministry of the Word, 1963
At the burial meeting for an infant
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