LEADERSHIP
[p. 101] LEADERSHIP
Psalm 107:7; Psalm 77:20; Micah 6:4; Psalm 78:70 - 72
I have in mind to occupy us with leadership, but particularly in view of the end of it, that is the “city of habitation”. The reference to it in Scripture helps to give lustre to the subject on the journey to it. God would set before us, especially young christians, an end to be desired, in calling us out of the world. It is said that those of old who were called out might have returned had they been so minded; but they were not so minded, “they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly”, so that it is said, “God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:16). That thought is never lost sight of in the Scriptures; the Psalms take it up, particularly the last book, a book that has the city in view, a book which contains the songs of degrees, of ascent, as if those who had the city before them are buoyant and not mournful. If they are in Babylon they are mournful, they hang their harps on the willows, refusing to gratify the natural mind with the songs of Zion. The natural mind of man is not to be gratified with these holy songs. The songs of Zion belong to Zion, they only fit there; and this book of the Psalms contemplates that there are those who had been in Babylon, but who are now on their way to Zion. They are on their way to Jerusalem, “a city of habitation”.
Hence the significance of the thought in Psalm 107, reverting back to the early history of God’s people, and indeed, the early history of us all; for God does go back to our early days, and would encourage us to go back to them. Sometimes they are humiliating, as they verily are if we look at our own ways, but if we think of God, what He has been to us, they occasion [p. 102] encouragement. The book of Deuteronomy, for instance, from the pen of the great mediator, views what their history had been, but after they themselves had received and recognised the Spirit typically they move forward until they reach Pisgah, “which looks over the surface of the waste” (Numbers 21:20). That is, they would recall what God had been to them, and also as it says, what God had wrought in them. The work of God is a very great matter with Him. He indicates that He takes it on piece by piece, in the first chapter of Genesis, pronouncing on every day’s work. And we may be sure, dear brethren, that it is not written in regard of the physical creation alone, but that He alludes to His work in our souls, going on daily, bit by bit, as we might say. God works thus; He would come down to our way of teaching so as to draw us to Him, that is, to show us what He does, working graciously with us; and so, as we review our history, we say, “What hath God wrought!”. It magnifies God in our eyes, and reduces us in ourselves, because we are confident that all is of God, every bit of work is of God, it is His. So that in regard of Israel and Jacob, that is, Israel viewed from the spiritual side, and Jacob from the responsible side, viewing them in both ways it is said, “What hath God wrought!”. So we get a volume of praise in this last book of Psalms, ever swelling and swelling in the sense of what God is, until we reach the last psalm in which all His works praise Him, and “Let everything that hath breath praise Jah ... !”. That is the great end, dear brethren.
Now you can see how the thought of the city of habitation is introduced. The dire necessity of the saints, of His people, is in view in this first Psalm of the book, the 107th — and there is no one who honestly reviews his own history but will say ‘amen’ to what is said in this psalm. In dire distress and extremity we cry to the Lord and He comes in in every instance;
[p. 103] He never fails to come in and lift us out of our trouble when we genuinely cry to Him; and what is in mind is a volume of praise, “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!”. It says they wandered in a desert land, I suppose the allusion would be to Israel during their thirty-eight years of wandering. Wandering is not a word that properly belongs to faith; faith is definite, wandering is indefinite. For thirty-eight years or more, they wandered aimlessly, as I might say, and God followed them. Of course He took them out of Egypt, as He says here, but then how much wandering came in, and how much there is amongst the people of God today. Young people think nothing of taking positions for the mere sake of some monetary gain, with no regard for the city of habitation, with no regard for the thoughts of God. James 4:15 says, “If the Lord should so will and we should live, we will also do this or that”. There is dignity in that: “if the Lord ... so will” and then if “we should live”, that is another dignified thing. But it is otherwise very often and young people arrive at dire distress in this way. But “God is faithful”, in His public ways with us; that is in Corinthians: He is faithful, and He finds us. You will all remember how Hagar fled from Sarah when Sarah oppressed her; but still she was her mistress, and it was the household of faith, whatever Sarah was as a mistress. She fled from Sarah, and the angel of the Lord finds her, that is the faithfulness of God, a very important thing for young people. He finds her, and she had to retrace her steps; it is through her that we first get the thought of a well, for God is very tender with His people, especially the young. However little she regarded it, still it was divine consideration for her, and she returned. She says, “Thou God seest me” (Genesis 16:13): that is, we get experience in these cases.
So here it says, “He delivered them out of their distresses, and he led them forth by a right way”. Doubtless their experience had brought them to this. God allows us considerable rope in our self-will, but He knows when we have come to the end of it, and we are then amenable to be led. Think of God leading His people! The general principle is that He led them, and then follows, “that they might go”. That indeed is the general principle underlying christianity, and the position of God’s people here — I come under control, I am amenable. The working out of it is seen in Romans and Corinthians: we come under divine control. These epistles are governed by the leadership of Christ; the Spirit comes into them, of course, but the leadership of Christ is a leading feature. We are led forth into a right way (it may be there are those here who have not yet come into this way) — we become accustomed to it. Then it says, “that they might go to a city of habitation”, that is, you have a definite end in view, that you might go to a city of habitation, where you find inhabitants who are not lawless. There is no difficulty in finding those who are lawless, nor a lawless city; it is an age of cities. There never has been such an age of cities as the present, but to find a city of habitation according to God, that is a great matter! It may be there are those here who have not found it — most of us have. “Jerusalem is builded as a city that is compact together”, not a city spreading out into suburbs where the boundaries cannot be determined, but a city compact together. In other words, it is the assembly, those that walk in that light, governed by this principle; living not only individually, as in Romans, but living in relation to others who live, in relation to those who understand city boundaries, who understand what belongs to a city, the city of God. That is the thing, dear brethren, at the present time. “That they might go to a city of habitation”; the inhabitants are living. Romans, as I said, is the foundation, a foundational epistle in this respect, and Corinthians works out the thought of a city in its external features; there are the inhabitants. The prophets are full of the thought of inhabitants of Jerusalem. They have a distinctive character. It is for us to accustom ourselves to the thought, because the Spirit of God, in the writings of John in the last days, has opened up to us a wonderful city of habitation. There is the most perfect order; it is where the Lord God and the Lamb are; there is no distance there. How attractive that is! God’s wonderful thoughtfulness for us, to open up to us what meets the most excessive desire, for God will satisfy the desire of every living thing; He will open it up for us to receive, that we may go to it. So that Romans and Corinthians help us as to what is foundational and what involves the public order; and the epistles, Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians furnish us with the inhabitants. So that you find love in Colossians, “the love which ye have towards all the saints” (chapter 1:4) — that is the thought. You want people to love; there is love in a universal way, but love in a particular way too; that is to say, you will be loved. The Lord Jesus would say to you, ‘I love you, and gave Myself for you’; you will be singled out; at the same time, ‘I love the assembly and gave Myself for it’. It is the realm of love, the inhabitants are formed in love, and formed in intelligence too. This is most attractive for us, “that they might go to a city of habitation”. We are to be assured that God goes to the greatest pains to lead us, so that we might “go”. He loves to see us going according to intelligence. He says in Matthew 11:28, “Come to me, all ye who labour and are burdened, and I will give you rest”. That is the end of chapter 11; then in the beginning of chapter 12 He went on the sabbath through the corn fields, and His disciples [p. 106] with Him, and they took the corn and rubbed it in their hands, and ate it. Now that is a principle we want to notice, going beyond what the Lord did, for that was what He had in mind; it was cutting across current religious sentiment and order. He intends that, and He looks to His own to pursue that way — there is much beyond. The corn was there, and they took it and ate it, and that was exactly what He wanted; that is what underlies christianity, the way is indicated, and then the saints are to walk in it. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God” (Romans 8:14). “He that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12). I see the working of the Spirit of God in righteousness and life, and I want to have the light of life. The Lord has inaugurated that; what the Holy Spirit is doing here is to maintain that, and I walk in that way, in the light of life. It is a dignity set before us, and we reach the end — the city; the city is eternal, I get to that. I begin to understand what that is, and to look for it and find it amongst the brethren, “a city of habitation”.
Now in the second scripture, Psalm 77, much is said there about the way of Jehovah in the sanctuary and in the sea, and in the great waters, that which is outside the range of the natural mind. No natural mind can find that way, where the lion’s whelps have not trodden; it is for faith. “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron”. That is a very beautiful thought, and very different from what we get in Psalm 107, where they “wandered ... in a desert way”. I can picture to myself Israel straggling through the wilderness all those years, death all around them; it was the very opposite to this living state of things. Not that God was not with them in His mercy and grace through Moses and Aaron, but now He leads them “like a flock”.
[p. 107] The suggestion is not of a straggling lot of sheep exposed to the wolves, but of an ordered state of things, a flock. If one had time to open up the passage in John 10 we would see the force of it, what the flock is; but all I wish to note now is Moses and Aaron have one hand, “the hand of Moses and Aaron”. That is, God is doing the work, it is done in sympathy and authority, the authority and sympathy of “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1). Moses is the man who tells us what to do, and he tells us with authority as supported by the power of God. “Are we stronger than he?”, Paul says, “Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy?” (1 Corinthians 10:22). No, we cannot disregard His authority, maybe He will not let us, but still Aaron is there, suggestive of the vast sympathy of Christ. He can be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15). He will go to any length if it be a question of infirmity, mental or physical or whatever it may be, but in no sense will He allow the will; He has got a way of dealing with that. “Are we stronger than he?”, says the apostle. It is by the hand, as if it were the one idea of Moses and Aaron, the perfect combination of authority and sympathy. If we look into the epistles, especially Corinthians, we shall see that is exactly the blend. We have the apostle with authority, and the brother Aaron, Aaron is the brother, so they are led like a flock. How important that is, dear brethren, especially for the young ones in local gatherings, to move in that orderly way, not a straggling independent way which exposes us to the enemy, but as held like a flock under the hand, that blessed hand of Jesus — for that is the suggestion in the hand of Moses and Aaron. They are perfectly combined in Christ who is “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession”.
Now what links on very beautifully with that, to my mind, is the reference in Micah 6:4. Moses was sent before the people. “I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”. I want to dwell, dear brethren, on that combination now, Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. They are sent before. What I understand is, that these three persons were set up of God and wonderfully disciplined secretly. They are not taken on in service till a considerable age, Moses perhaps eighty years of age, Aaron eighty-three, and Miriam over ninety. That is the combination that is set before us. When God brings them forward and sends them before the people, it is not a question of a public position in front of the camp. That is not the idea. It is what they were before; they were there before, and they come out into prominence and prominence is needed. It is a question for all time, dear brethren, there are those whom God disciplines secretly, and no one is of any use save as he is in that school. It was an eighty-years matter. God is very particular when it is a question of putting before the saints those who are to be models for them, those sent before. Look at this child Moses; his history from his infancy till he was eighty years is given in the book of Exodus. Then we have forty years more of his life, until he finishes in the most marvellous way in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is really the man — what the man was. The book apparently was written by Moses when he was 119 years old or more; almost at the end of his life he wrote that wonderful book. It is a question of the man; that is what enters into what the Spirit of God says here; he was sent before the people. He stands before us, dear brethren, as a model. Then Aaron comes in, as I said, at eighty-three years of age, after his secret history with God. God says of him to Moses, “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother?”. Who is this Aaron the Levite? A man who had great faith in God; God is going to make him honoured before the people, He is going to be sent before His people. All the secret dealings [p. 109] of God with him in those years are that he may acquire a title. It is not Aaron a Levite, but Aaron the Levite, a word for every one who serves — he is “thy brother”. He is thy brother, you can trust him to do his best for you. That is what every servant ought to be, a brother to the saints. “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother?”, the Lord said to Moses. And what will he do? He comes to meet you, and when he sees you he will be glad in his heart. That is what every levite is if he is truly a levite, truly a brother, he loves the saints, he lays down his life for them — that is the principle. Of course, one would have to admit much as to these men, but I am speaking now of what God does for His people, so that they might have a trio like this before their eyes, fruits of the handiwork of God. That is what these three persons became as they are led and developed under the secret hand of God. Now they appear in the full view of Israel, Moses first, then Aaron, then Miriam.
Now this is a word for the sisters. Let us not forget that they also are to be leaders; they are to be led and they are to lead. Sisters lead in the sense of being examples. Nothing can be more important than sisterly example. How important that they should set a right example! The first epistle to Timothy speaks much of sisters; and in Titus, the elder women are to teach the young ones; they are to be before their eyes, yet they are to stand in relation to Moses and Aaron, so to speak; they are not to be independent. Miriam is not mentioned very often in Scripture; there is relatively very little mention of her; it is the fact that she was a sister of these great men that brings her into prominence. One mention of her is in the case of wrongdoing; that is a warning for sisters; she envied Moses and spake against him, a sorrowful matter! But I speak now, of what the Spirit of God has in mind in a trio like Moses, Aaron and Miriam, sent before the brethren,
before the sisters, “I sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam”.
Well now, the first mention we get of Miriam by name is in Exodus 15, and she had influence with the other sisters. One might say much about the prophetesses of Scripture; one has indeed spoken of them; but what is to be said about Miriam shows that she had influence with the other sisters in Israel, they followed her. It says, “Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took the tambour in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambours and with dances” (Exodus 15:20). A very fine example as representing the sisterly side! And when I say the sisterly side, I have in mind the subjective state of the saints, that which is connected with the interests of the young and of all, what there is for God in that sense. So that you find in a house like that of Philip the evangelist four daughters that prophesied. They are brought in as Paul is journeying to Jerusalem; what an atmosphere would mark that house! It is a question of that kind of thing amongst us, dear brethren, as outstanding, for it is a question of going before. They are there before, as it were; God sent them before. So if a sister prophesies or prays, there is much said about it, and what is said about the order is intended to tax her spirituality. We shall never come to the end of that passage in 1 Corinthians 11, but it is to tax our spirituality, as to whether we are subject, as to whether we are ready to go out of the way in the disregard of natural things; otherwise the spirit of prophecy is beclouded.
Now finally David, in the last scripture, is taken from the sheep-folds, from following the ewes great with young; it is a matter of looking after the young. David is marked by that, he leads them into what is spiritual. That contemplates headship, the kind of thing that God has in mind, that He has provided for them. They are in the city of habitation; that [p. 111] is marked by headship. David represents that side. Headship is very little understood, not that I am assuming that there are not those who know it, but it is very little understood by us generally; but that is what David represents. Moses hardly represents it, though he comes very near to it in Deuteronomy, for Israel is to go to the city of habitation, but it took hundreds of years for them to reach that city, and it is David who secures the city for them. It is he that had the thought of it and secured it; he took the head of Goliath to Jerusalem; he went there himself, and took the stronghold of Zion. That is to say, it is typically Christ laying hold of the hearts of the saints, of their intelligence — that is the idea. And “David ... called it the city of David”, a very great thought. We belong to the city of God, but then it is the heavenly side that we are called to, where the inhabitants are heavenly, not only risen with Christ, great thought as that is, for christianity is not merely based on the resurrection of Christ, but on Christ in heaven. Hence He is the pattern of the heavenly saints, “such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones” (1 Corinthians 15:48). How great a thought that is: the inhabitants are heavenly! Hence we are not only raised up with Christ, as Colossians 2:12 says, “raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, it is a question of faith there, but in Ephesians 2:6 the point is, He “has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies”. I love the saints, that is the idea: I would not be there without them. The Spirit of God so works in me, the saints become so much to me, that I would not be there without them! So we are raised up together, and made to sit down together “in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. How great that thought is! Well, that is the idea of the city of habitation, and David is the head. It says that “he fed them according to the integrity of his [p. 112] heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”: he is a type of Christ. As the apostle says, “To know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge; that ye may be filled even to all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). That is what is in mind. That is what God is working for, to lead us in on those lines to a city of habitation, where the inhabitants are all heavenly. What associations, what neighbours, what persons to associate with! There is only one street mentioned in the heavenly city, showing that we are all of the same kind; there is no West-end, so to speak, nor East-end in that city! No streets for the rich and streets for the poor; no, we are all there in the dignity of firstborn ones, “the assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven” (Hebrews 12:23). The word is plural, it means we are all firstborn, alluding to the Levites, so that we are inhabitants all equal in dignity and nearness to God and to Christ. We are to become accustomed to all this now in our associations; it is not to be new to us. We are brought to the assembly, to the saints viewed as heavenly; that is the companionship that God opens up to us. So that David “fed them according to the integrity of his heart, and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”. It is all a question of headship.