THE END AND THE BEGINNING OF THE DISPENSATION
[p. 192] THE END AND THE BEGINNING OF THE DISPENSATION
Exodus 4:10-16; Exodus 4:22,23; Malachi 3:16,17; Malachi 4:4
I have had it in mind to speak of the correspondence between the end of the dispensation of God, and the beginning of it. I think doubtless that has been before many of us in many ways, but the Lord will, I believe, help us as to it afresh, so that we may see, and expect, that the end of this great dispensation may be or will be according to the beginning, not perhaps in volume or quantity, but in quality.
The Lord in His final announcement in Revelation has this in mind, He refers to Himself as “the root and offspring of David” (Revelation 22:16). David represents what is best and most excellent, at least typically and, in a sense, in substance, so that in the announcement of Himself under that head, as the root and offspring of David, the Lord has in mind what David represents. He represents what is best and most refined in the Old Testament, and the Lord Jesus is the antitype of that; He embodies it all as the root of David; He is the Author of everything that is of God. But for the moment I am speaking of what is most refined and excellent, as we have in Philippians 1:10, that the saints “may judge of and approve the things that are more excellent”. My remarks will be bound up with the thought of speaking, and with the idea of sonship. When I say speaking, I mean speaking as God has it in His mind. What is best, is bound up in speaking and in sonship. Now Luke deals with this subject peculiarly in his gospel, and indeed in the Acts as well; he has in mind to present the thought of speaking in its most excellent character. He presents the Lord, as you know, in His own town, Nazareth, standing up in the synagogue, and he calls [p. 193] attention among other things to His speaking, the words of grace which were proceeding from His mouth. The passage does not involve anything final, but what was begun. The Lord presents the passage He read in that way — “He began to say”. We may notice first, His beginning; second, the manner of His speaking; third, the words coming out of His mouth. Nothing could exceed in attractiveness those words, not only the words themselves, but the words as coming out of His mouth, the words of grace. Luke takes up the thought, and John pursues it; and we find it in its most exalted character in the two men who appeared in the Mount: we are told they appeared in glory (Luke 9:31). They were called “men” first, before we have their names mentioned. They represent the heavenly family; we all belong to it, dear friends; let us take it to our hearts that we belong to the family represented in these two men. Luke says that two men appeared in glory to the disciples, it is not necessarily the glory of Jesus there, nor the glory of the Father, but they appeared in glory. These men were talking with Jesus, the most exalted Person, the greatest Person, and the Jesus that was transfigured. “The fashion of his countenance became different”. It was that Jesus; there was not any change in His Person, but in His condition and in place; it is heaven, we might say. They spoke with Jesus, talked with Jesus, what men they were! But they are said to be men. “Two men ... appearing in glory”. Think of belonging to the heavenly! “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (1 Corinthians 15:48). Here are two men speaking with Jesus, talking with Jesus; what are they speaking about? They are speaking of the greatest Person and the greatest thing possible, beloved brethren, that is His death; they were able to do it, and they were doing it as it should be done. Therein, beloved, they prove that [p. 194] they are equal to it; as appearing in glory they are able to speak with the greatest Person about the greatest thing possible. That is how Luke presents to us the idea which the Spirit of God would keep in our minds, that we should be prepared for this great calling; that we might enter in some measure into this holy converse with Jesus and with one another as well. That is what I had in mind, that the end should be equal to the beginning. There must be the acquirement of prepared speaking; it is not only what we say but how we say it.
I took up this chapter in Exodus because it brings out and combines these two thoughts. The first is the question of speaking, and the second of sonship. Moses, as is said of him by Stephen, “was mighty in his words and deeds” (Acts 7:22) as a prince in Egypt. He would be educated and conversant with all the wisdom of the Egyptians. Doubtless he could make a good speech; he was a man who could do things and say things. This may be the case with many of us here, we may have been educated on these lines; but what I have in mind, dear brethren, is something more than this. The subjects which befitted the court of Pharaoh and this world are not subjects which would fit in heaven, so Moses had to be brought very low. He says to Jehovah, I am heavy, I cannot speak; “I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue”. One has a little sympathy with him although he went so far in his self-abnegation that Jehovah got angry with him, and one does not want that! We may think it is simply a matter of a humble-minded brother, but he may by his false humility cause divine anger. We do not want to hesitate in the service of God, or excuse ourselves because we cannot speak, and remain silent all our lives. The assembly is not a place for silent people, it is a place to learn to be silent and to learn to speak. For there is a time to speak, and if we are not able to speak when it is the time for [p. 195] speaking, we may arouse divine anger. That that is a matter to be avoided, I need not say. God says, “Who gave man a mouth?”. It seems that God loves the thought of a mouth; He says, “Have not I, Jehovah?”. One of the greatest things that God has made is man’s vocal power, including his mouth. God says that He makes blind people, and seeing people; He gives men mouths, and He gives them so that they should be used, and used according to the perfect Model, even the mouth of the Son of God, the divine Person who spoke to Moses here. He is the Person who spoke in the synagogue of Nazareth, did not He show there what man’s mouth is? His mouth was most sweet, there is no Model like Him, He is a model — an example — for us. The Holy Spirit would make our mouths like that mouth, and make our hearts like His heart, so that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth might speak.
What I want to bring to your attention is the place that this thought has with Levi. Levi refers to what is accurate, what is right, and what is according to order. Levi is not head, he does not represent headship, David does. Levi represents what is accurate; you get that in Malachi; it is very remarkable that he is brought into Malachi. You get Jacob, Edom, and Levi in Malachi; they are great features in this book. I want to show you, dear brethren, how God brings in this thought of speaking, so that it might be understood, why it is a great point with Him. He would have Moses speak, and Moses did speak, probably more than Aaron; no one is a more excellent speaker than Moses; no one had such aptitude in learning how to speak according to God; hence he is one of those who appear in glory speaking with Jesus. Were we to go over the typical books and count the number of times in which it says, “Jehovah spoke to Moses” we should be impressed. What an opportunity [p. 196] to learn God gave him, and He brings him to it. “I will be with thy mouth”, let us take that to heart and not be too slow in the assembly. We do not want to be forward, but we do not want to be behind. God says, “I will be with thy mouth”. In Exodus 4 Moses is not equal to it, and God says, “Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother?”. I speak of this because it brings in Levi. God knew all about these two brothers, He knows all about brothers, whether near in the flesh, or local in our meetings, God takes special account of them, especially if they are near of age. God watches them because the enemy is watching them too. The enemy watches because he knows that two brothers may irritate each other; God knows the irritating qualities as well, but they are qualities to be overcome. God says, I know Aaron. He knew both. I suppose that Moses was the most interesting man to heaven upon earth at that time, and I suppose that Aaron was the next. Aaron was three years older than Moses; he was about eighty-three at this time, and Moses was about eighty. God was going to put these two brothers together; they had been separated. Moses had had a history. He had been in the court of Pharaoh for forty years and had been in the wilderness for forty years; we are not told where else he was, but that is enough. God knows where you have been. He watches over the history of brothers and sisters. Miriam was there too, no doubt under the guidance of mother or father; that is not told us, but God does give us a life picture and history of both Moses and Aaron. Of Aaron, God says, “I know that he can speak well”. He was not a public man, but he was potentially a public man in God’s eye. It is what you are in secret that God takes notice of.
What I am speaking of now particularly is speaking powers: Aaron was a man who could speak. God may have heard him in his addresses to the Jews in [p. 197] their affliction in Egypt, but I do not think that God was alluding to that. I think that Aaron may have spoken to his suffering brethren, but when God said, “I know that he can speak well”, He had heard it, and no doubt He had heard it in his levitical capacity for He calls him “Aaron the Levite”. Aaron represents the idea of the Levite in Scripture. The history of Levi later is associated with what Aaron was in this chapter; he is “the Levite”, that is the man that God brings forward. He is going to be a yoke-fellow with his younger brother, yet his younger brother is put before him in spite of Aaron speaking well. God says, “Thou shalt speak unto him, and put the words in his mouth ... and he shall speak for thee unto the people”. Now I believe, dear brethren, that from this point onwards the idea of speaking is pursued unvaryingly by the Spirit of God. It appears in David in 1 Samuel 16:18; it is not so much that he spoke well, but it says that he was “skilled in speech”; that would mean that God helped him with his mouth. No one can be skilled in speech in the view of the Spirit of God save a man with whose mouth God is. Christ is in mind here and, as I said before, the thought appears in the book of Malachi where the Levite is brought forward. If you look at chapter 2:4 - 6, it says, “That my covenant might be with Levi, saith Jehovah of hosts ... The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips”. Then in the same chapter, verse 7, “For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and at his mouth they seek the law; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts”. You see there, dear brethren, how this thought is pursued, how the Levite appears in the last days of the dispensation. It says, “The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips”. God can revert to that as He would today. He reverts to what was, so that what was might be now. It is not impossible;
[p. 198] let us not assume that any of these things are impossible. In Revelation 1:8 it says, “He who is, and who was, and who is to come”. What was, may be brought into the present for the simple reason that the Spirit of God remains here. In John 14 the Lord tells His disciples of the coming of the Comforter: in verse 26 He says, “But the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and will bring to your remembrance all the things which I have said to you”. The Spirit is here, dear brethren; He is the guarantee, if we seek it, for the bringing forward of what “was”.
“The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips: he walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge”. I desire that this should be particularly before us, to show that God is pursuing the same line from the days of Aaron the Levite. God had the thought and He brought it out before Aaron; He anticipated Exodus. It is very interesting to look at Genesis comparatively with Exodus; Genesis is a free time, and represents a free state of things, in which the work of God shows itself. It is capable of showing itself and giving an account of itself. You have a number of people presented in that book in regard of this subject.
First I would mention the fact that Jehovah spoke with Abraham as a man speaks with his friend; what speaking that must have been! God says to Abram, “It is I”, as much as to say, I am a person, and you are a person, and I will speak to you. He proceeds to speak to him, but then it says, “He left off talking with him”. How one would love to know just what God said! What the gesture might have been — what the spiritual movement might have been! As breaking off the conversation, He went to heaven,
[p. 199] but He came back again and spoke and finished His word and He “went away when he had ended speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place” (Genesis 18:33).
Then again, Jehovah came to Jacob. In Genesis 28 Jehovah was in heaven and Jacob was on earth, but in chapter 35 Jacob comes back to Bethel after a long detour, and God comes to speak to him. In the assembly God comes down to us, so that we might learn what is the heavenly side. We do not go to heaven in an unsuited state but as able to take our place there. The assembly is heaven come down in a certain sense; it elevates us so that we know what the order of heaven is, and the wealth that belongs to heaven, and we move in that. That is what is involved; so Jehovah comes down and speaks with Jacob in Bethel. Jacob sets up a pillar in the place where Jehovah stood by him, speaking with him. Jacob was sensible that God was pleased with him; God’s eyes are on every one of us, He is interested in us before we are converted, but how different to be sensible that God is pleased with me! That is the sense that Jacob had; so he sets up a pillar, anoints it and pours a drink-offering on it; that means that he was sensible that God was pleased with him. It is as if, speaking reverently, the affections of God were stimulated by such a man as Jacob.
Let us apply that to Christ, what a stimulation to the heart of God was Christ here: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight” (Matthew 3:17); I have found it. It does not say there, ‘In whom I have found all my delight’, because God had in mind that we were to be brought into that, He has found His delight in us in relation to Christ. Jacob discerned that he pleased God; and if I come into the presence of God I can know that He is pleased to see me, that He is moved by it. Think of it, that the blessed God Himself is moved by the [p. 200] presence of a saint such as Jacob! That is what heaven will be. Think of Luke 15! It is a chapter of buoyancy; the shepherd rejoiced, and he called his friends and neighbours to rejoice with him; the woman rejoiced, and she called her friends and neighbours to rejoice with her; the Father says, It was meet that we should make merry and rejoice because of the return of the prodigal. That is what God is leading on to, to bring us to the sense of His pleasure in us.
Well, dear brethren, as I have said, there is ability in speaking right through Malachi; in chapter 2 as we have seen, and then in chapter 3:16 it says, “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”. Who are they? They belonged to the tribe of Levi; that is the idea. There are rebellious words all round us against God and Christ, but God gets something from the true tribe of Levi, the law of truth is in their mouths. Think of that, dear brethren, “Then they that feared Jehovah spoke often one to another”; that is what Levi was. It says of Levi in Malachi 2:5, “My covenant with him was of life and peace, and I gave them to him that he might fear”. So now in these days amongst many who are rebellious there is a true people, those who fear the Lord and in whose mouth is the law of truth — the true Levi. What are they doing? It is no question of oratory, “they spoke often one to another” — they spoke often. How can we stay away from one another, dear brethren? I do not understand a christian who stays away from his brethren; if truly a christian with love in his heart, how does he get on, how does he breathe? Those who fear the Lord do not do that, they speak often one to another, and the Lord hearkens and hears them. The Lord listens in, so to speak, to a company of His people. Think of God turning His ear to hear! That is how God comes down to us. “Shall he who made the ear not hear?”. That is how God comes to us. He has an ear, and He notes what He hears. It has to be enjoyed in a godly and living way.
So we have the true Levi as represented in Aaron, and we have the son which Jehovah had in His mind when He sent Moses to Pharaoh to say, “Let my son go”. That is what God had in His mind at the beginning, and it is in His heart now. According to Malachi they could speak well. Can you think that these dear people speaking together would speak things God could not approve of? Were we to learn with God this lesson, we should perhaps check our speaking sometimes, for He does listen. Here they spoke often one to another; we are not told what they said; we leave that with God, but God hearkened, and heard, and a book of remembrance was written before Him. You may be sure that it was good speaking. God hearkened to these dear people and a book of remembrance was made before Him, and He says, “They shall be unto me a peculiar treasure ... in the day that I prepare”. Depend upon it, they were excellent, the best! Is not that a word for us? We have often dwelt on this precious passage which is so simple and applicable and appealing in our own time. Think, dear brethren, of God listening! Think of the notations made, the words used would denote excellence, “treasure”, refined preciousness; all this is recorded. God graciously presents Himself as a treasurer surrounded by His jewels; we belong to those jewels.
In Malachi 3:17 we get, “I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him”. You see those words in what God said to Pharaoh, “Let my son go”. God had His sons in these people, they feared Him in true affection and intelligence. They spake often one to another; doubtless they went over the ground of Genesis, and Exodus, and Leviticus which in a remarkable way belongs to Levi. Think [p. 202] what the Psalms would speak of to them! Like Anna they would have glimmerings of Christ, though of course she would have more than they had. There is more than a glimmering in the New Testament, and she spoke of Him “to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem” — what a speaker she must have been!
I have one word to add, dear brethren, and that is in regard to Malachi 4:4, “Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, the statutes and ordinances”. In our speakings one to another we are not to forget the law of Moses. We have been speaking about Aaron, but let us never forget Moses; I am not now speaking of him as a speaker but as a lawgiver. One of the most important things in our time is the principle of law, and this bears on us universally. It is not mount Sinai here, but “Which I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, the statutes and ordinances”. In our speakings one to another there may be oftentimes irritability if law is brought in but a true priest always stands by the law, and he never allows the word ‘non-essential’ in his vocabulary in regard to what God has said. Everything that God has said is essential: “Which I commanded unto him in Horeb”. How much there is in the book of Deuteronomy; the ground is gone over again, from the standpoint of Moses himself as a leader of the people. God never forgets one iota of the law that He gave His servant at Horeb. Jesus Himself says, “One jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled”. “I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matthew 5:17). I think this passage in Malachi is typical of 1 and 2 Corinthians; the Lord is bringing things in detail before us in these scriptures, and we should not shrink from going into these details. Let us not quibble and criticise and say these things are non-essential. This verse is [p. 203] brought in because of our speaking together. The law of the house does not change, there is no development from what was set up at the beginning; that is the standard. “The law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him” (how respectfully God speaks of him) “in Horeb ... the statutes and ordinances”.
That is what I had in mind, dear brethren, as showing how the dispensation is going to finish, as well as speaking particularly of what is going to happen. Let us “remember” on our side; are we going to be faithful? God will be, there is no question about that. But God must have material. Can He use me? That is the point. Am I in His hand? If He has the material, there will be a wonderful finish. The responsibility comes to each of us whether I am in His hands thus? “The law of Moses my servant, which I commanded unto him in Horeb” is to be remembered. That is the test; we do not like it often, but God would have us love it, so as to be true levites with the law of truth in our mouth.