TEN DAYS
P.
Revelation 2: 8–11; Daniel 1: 8–16; Genesis 24: 54–61
Beloved brethren, you will notice that in all these passages there is a reference to ten days. I think it is an expression which should interest us. I do not wish to make too much of the numbers in Scripture, but they do have some meaning. The number ten is always connected with our responsibility and trial. This is the case in all these passages, where we have proving and testing. In the first scripture it is a question of sufferings and hardships. The assembly in Smyrna was a suffering assembly and I think it is an important feature of the assembly that it is a suffering vessel here on earth. She is called the Lamb’s wife and that directs our thoughts to suffering. The apostle Peter says, “Beloved, take not as strange the fire of persecution which has taken place amongst you for your trial”, 1 Peter 4: 12. This is something which we must reckon on. It is good to remind the young brethren that the path of faith is a narrow one and that it is accompanied by adversity and sorrow. This will not change, but the Lord can graciously ease the sufferings; but His wisdom may require that they be intensified.
Thus we find this comfort here in this letter. The name Smyrna signifies sorrow, that is, the sorrow of persecution and suffering. A testing of ten days’ duration is here set before believers. It says, “Behold, the devil is about to cast of you into prison”. The devil is a very powerful creature but is at God’s disposal so that the saints upon this earth might be proved through him. His power has, however, always been limited and God sets bounds to his activities. Thus it is here. It has often been remarked that when it is a question of ten days it is neither nine nor eleven—
but ten. The length of time is exactly measured and allowed by God. These ten days may indeed extend to the whole of our lives, but these have an end. Even these sufferings here below have limitations and thus the brethren can be encouraged. “Fear nothing of what thou art about to suffer”, says the Lord. He speaks of Himself here as the First and the Last who became dead and lived again. The Lord Jesus does not speak as One who does not know conditions on the earth from His own experience. We have already referred today to the epistle to the Hebrews and what a wonderful encouragement it is to us to have a High Priest who is fully able to feel for us because He has passed through that which we encounter. He knows conditions on this earth since He has fully experienced them. Indeed there is no difficulty and no suffering from which He was spared; nothing was mitigated for Him. For us, much is mitigated, but not for Him. He drank the cup of suffering fully, and we must, as it says, “that ye should follow in his steps”, 1 Peter 2: 21.
So I feel that here we find an encouragement. We must reckon upon meeting contrariety in our pathways, for it is nothing abnormal. We are not able to choose our own way. This way is set before us by God and if it is allowed to the devil to imprison some of us we cannot avoid it and must bear it. It does not necessarily mean literal imprisonment, though some have known this and will yet know it; we cannot exclude this for ourselves. But we all know something here below of being subject to limitations on account of the testimony. These we cannot help. If we desire to be true we must accept that we can alter nothing. But we find a wonderful encouragement: “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give to thee the crown of life”. O, beloved brethren, that is something worth while! Dear young brethren, this is something worth while! Yes, it is worthwhile because the promises made to the overcomer are glorious and noble. May we take this to heart! May we be encouraged to be true in the face of all difficulties which we may at the present, or in the future, find. We cannot foresee things. We must be consciously dependent on the Lord and leave it all in His hands as to how He may lead us and what He may have in mind for the future. We do know, however, that His ways are ways of love and that the difficulties we pass through will have an end. His love has no end, His faithfulness has no end, but the sufferings will have an end. May we indeed be cheered and comforted.
In the book of Daniel we find a situation similar, yet different. If the devil should bring upon someone of us imprisonment, difficulties or limitations we cannot alter it and must go through the ten days of trial. With Daniel it was somewhat different since there were none of those things but rather the opposite. Something was in this instance offered to the saints which was attractive and appeared very much to be desired—the delicate food and wine of the king. How many might have wished and even longed for his food and to drink his wine!
Yes, many would have envied those saints. But we find that the young men would not pollute themselves. This is somewhat different from our first case in that this calls upon us to make our own decision. This is not something that we are obliged to accept and endure whether we like it or not, but it is a question of a ready refusal of that which the world may offer us. Is this not so today, beloved brethren? How much of the king’s meat is offered to us today!
How much of the world’s food comes before us and are we determined in heart not to partake of it but be given just what is necessary to our lives here? How wonderful
it is, as Paul wrote to Timothy, “But having sustenance and covering, we will be content with these”, 1 Timothy 6: 8. Yes, the world can offer us much, but it wants us to be one with it.
These young men knew well what that meant. They understood very well that the table of the king was a table of demons, every dish in those days was offered to demons. They knew quite well that it was contaminating and defiling for them and on no account would they have that.
Oh, what a danger is here for us also, dear brethren! Do we have the same determination as these courageous young men so as to take on these ten days of proving? Are we prepared to face this test? It is a different one from the earlier case. There we are subjected to the test, but here we take it on ourselves. This requires daily self-judgment and communion with the Lord, that we seek His face each day so as to receive power from above and thus be true to the Lord. What a witness it was; how wonderful that the countenances of the young men were fairer and fatter in flesh than those of others who ate the king’s delicate food!
Ah, do our countenances shine for joy although we do not partake of the king’s dainties? Are we happier and more radiant than persons who in this world have everything that its system can afford? This is the instruction of this passage for us today. Let us take on these ten days of testing and refinement so that we may appear in this connection also as having our countenances radiant for joy, although we take from this world and this earth nothing more than is absolutely necessary—yes, only pulse and water. Pulse, I believe, was the food that God originally appointed to man, and these young men really went back to the beginning. We can say that in type they abode in that which was from the beginning. How important it is for us to remain in that which was from the beginning. And that is best for us as saints and as of the assembly. Thus will our countenances shine through the whole of our ten days of testing.
Yes, indeed, the ten days may last our lifetime. Our whole life here is a time of refinement and of testing here below. May we sustain this time of trial to His pleasure and glory!
When we come to the last scripture we find yet another situation. Here it is a question of the help of the Spirit. So far we have not spoken of Him, but the Lord has given us the Holy Spirit so that we should find help in our pathways. And here we have the collective thought in Rebecca. There is here the thought of the assembly, and the servant, who typifies the Holy Spirit, hastens to depart at once to his master. He has reached an objective, he has fulfilled his mission, and indeed with the greatest results. And now he longs to appear before his master with the fruit of his journey. He will not stay, and Rebecca must go with him. So now again we have ten days. On the part of her relatives it is proposed that she remain some days longer,
“say ten”. They said as it were, ‘Thou hast still time; remain awhile here; abide still some time in the relationships of nature—with thy husband thou wilt spend much time, so thou hast time to spare now. Fill up the little time that thou now hast—thy husband will have thee much longer and thou wilt live many days in his tent, but in these relationships no longer’.
Yes, that is nature. And many beloved brethren yield to it. They say, ‘We shall have time for heavenly things after death, or when the Lord takes us to Himself, then we shall enjoy and fully realize everything’. This is certainly true in the sense that we shall then have the full and absolute enjoyment of heavenly things that we do not attain to here below. But Rebecca says, ‘No, I will go!’. And we should follow the call of the Spirit and answer to His strivings whose will is that we should even now taste and enjoy the wonderful relationship that we have with our heavenly Bridegroom. This is again something that tests us. Are we willing-hearted to find our all in the heavenly region? Is it our full joy to be in nearness to our beloved Lord? Does our happiness consist in this, that we can come into our Isaac’s tent to give Him joy? It says here, “And Isaac was comforted after the death of his mother”. Thus Rebecca was for his joy. Her life was no longer in natural relationships, but with him. Are we set for it that we should enjoy now our life with our Isaac? Do we find in heavenly things our chief joy—the mainstay of our life? Do we live in these heavenly relationships, or in nature?
Ah yes, we must continually return to natural circumstances, for we are not yet taken out of them. We have our responsibility, but that is a different matter. The question is. Where is my heart’s joy and where do I find my rest? The question raised by our earlier reading was.
Where is rest? Where was Rebecca’s rest? It was there in Isaac’s tent where Isaac’s heart was towards her. Oh, what a wonderful relationship! Do we know something of it? Not just head-knowledge, that is easy. It is easy to read about it and acknowledge the truth of it, but that is not all. We must maintain ourselves personally in this relationship. We must enjoy it all in actuality by the leading of the Spirit. We must in this respect be like-minded with the Spirit.
Yes, Rebecca said, “I will go”. Why? Because the servant said first, “I will go to my master”.
Thus, beloved young brethren, how many influences are around us which would readily detain us!
Let us deny them and not give in to them. But here is another influence, the mighty influence of heaven, a divine Person who has taken the place of a Servant, the blessed Holy Spirit Himself, who says, as it were, ‘I will go to my Master and come thou with me!’ Oh, may we follow the voice of the Spirit; may we be subject to Him; may we refuse everything contrary but allow ourselves to be attracted to this wonderful Person whom the blessed Holy Spirit brings before us so that we find our rest and our all in His tent where He also will find His rest and delight in us.
Beloved brethren, I have nothing more to say. May the Lord give us grace that these thoughts may bring forth fruits in our hearts which will be for the joy of divine Persons. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Address in East Germany
22 January 1983