HEAVEN'S INTERVENTIONS
HEAVEN’S INTERVENTIONS
Acts 2:1 - 4; Acts 9:3 - 5; Acts 10:9 - 16
What is in mind, dear brethren, in these scriptures which have been read is to call attention to heaven’s interventions in this book. The book of the Acts is, as you will all know, Luke’s second treatise. The first treatise, setting out in the most touching manner the service of Christ from the evangelical point of view, culminates in the remnant of Israel seen in Bethany, or rather led by Him as far as Bethany; that was not the full end in view, but it was as far as He then in wisdom led them. Bethany is a very auspicious point, its history disclosing much that was precious to Christ; His leading always culminates in some advantage, even although it may not be finality. The patience of God requires lodging places for those who are in the way, and, as lovers of God, we do not complain if we are held at a point to fill out some wise, gracious, patient purpose; that is the end of Luke. Whilst they were led to Bethany, they, in the liberty wherewith Christ sets free, returned to Jerusalem and were in the temple “praising and blessing God”. They were well occupied, for in these lodging places we are not to be idle but well occupied, and in no way can we be better occupied than in praising and blessing God. The book of Acts, the second treatise, on the other hand, has finality in mind, reflected for the moment in the assembly, not the remnant of Israel, although that is taken account of in the book as it is said, “Such as should be saved” — the remnant are in mind in that. But finality is in view, for the assembly is final in the sense of affording a residence for God without reserve; God resides in it without reserve. It is a residence, too, for His glory and a residence for all His thoughts, for all His counsels [p. 339] and thoughts reside, find a place, in the assembly. The remnant of Israel was not great enough for that. According to Ephesians the assembly is the lesson book even for angels, the all-various wisdom of God is seen in it, and that even now. And then moreover in that same chapter in Ephesians (chapter 3) it is stated that God is to be glorified there — glory to God “in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages”. You can see therefore, dear brethren, that finality in principle is in mind in the assembly; and so in this second treatise the writer speaks of the Lord presenting Himself to the saints — to the apostles, of course, those whom He had chosen, but to the saints, to whom, as it is said, He presented Himself living. It would be enough for us, no doubt, if it said He appeared to them: it is also said in great detail by the apostle Paul that He did appear to them, He was seen of them in various circumstances. But the early verses of the book of the Acts say that He presented Himself living; a very remarkable statement and one to be well noted, because it is the Lord presenting Himself, taking up an attitude toward His own so that they may have every advantage in seeing Him in the sense in which He intended to be seen, that is, as living, but as living after He suffered. He is presented by Luke before He suffered and after; after He suffered He is presented living, but not in the sense of living as He was here in the flesh, but in a wholly new condition, a condition and a life which entered into the constitution of the assembly and the material to form it, for the tabernacle is to be a greater and more perfect one, not of this creation, as it is stated in Hebrews. It is of material that is not of this creation; it is a new creation; Christ is the pattern for that, He is the beginning of the creation of God; whether we look at it as it is materially or spiritually, He is the beginning of it. He is not part of it — we must never admit the thought that He is [p. 340] part of the creation — He is the beginning of it, for the new man is created “according to the image of him that has created him” (Colossians 3:10) — created in full knowledge, and the Creator there is Christ. So that it is Christ presented as the pattern of the material that should form this great building, the assembly. And, in order to fill the thought out, Luke continues to say that the Lord was assembled with them, He assembled with them; He was not only the pattern of the material, for it is a question of persons who have suffered, but who live after having suffered. But He is not only the pattern of that, but He is the pattern of conduct in the assembly, of service in it, so that He was assembled with them — not they with Him — meaning that He would take part in the position with that great assembly, as I may say, the first one properly after the Lord rose — being assembled with them. So that you can see that in the second treatise the outlook is the assembly — other things come in, of course, the wonderful patience of God in waiting on Israel, for instance — but that is the great end in view in this treatise.
Well now, that being so, dear brethren, what we should spiritually expect is that the Lord Jesus having gone up into heaven, as we are told He did in chapter 1, there should be heavenly intervention. Surely there must be! The object of His heart is here on earth, that for which He gave Himself is here on earth, His eyes are on it; He “loved the assembly”, we are told, “and has delivered himself up for it” (Ephesians 5:25) There must, therefore, be interventions, and in these interventions, heavenly impressions, reminders that ‘Your place is not down here; your place is up there’ — that would be the reminder. The Lord would say, ‘I know where you are; you are in the world; you are where I have been; you are where I suffered, and I am not forgetting you; I know all about it’ — and hence these interventions. We are kept, as it were, on the [p. 341] qui vive of something to follow — we should be, dear brethren; the movements of heaven come in to remind us that ‘This is not your resting-place. You are there just for a moment for wise purposes; you have to suffer in that scene, to testify in it, but it is not your place’.
Now the first great intervention is in chapter 2. Of course there is much more in it than I can undertake to speak of tonight. I have only one thought in what I am now presenting, and that is heavenly intervention, not as a mere historic matter, but as having a present bearing, that there is such a thing as heaven intervening, and, in doing so, it is to remind us that this is not our place, we belong elsewhere. “Where I am ye also may be” (John 14:3), ye must be, ye shall be — that is what the Lord said. That would surely never be forgotten by those to whom it was said. He said, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes” — He would cover the extent of the Father’s domain, the Father’s house; but “I go”, He says, “to prepare you a place”. It seems to me that in His remarks to them in that passage, He assumes that they would expect something like this; He says, “Were it not so, I had told you”, as much as to say, ‘You have had such a thought in your mind and you are not to be disappointed’. No spiritual instincts will be disappointed; however vague, they will always be gratified. So He says, “Were it not so, I had told you” as if they had expected they would have a special place and that He said that was in His mind. Why, He says, “the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me” (John 16:27) — what a comforting thought that is. And so you will have a special place; there is a special place for you; and lest this should be forgotten or the thought disappear or weaken in any way, heaven is intervening. Now the first great intervention was when Jesus went up. As you will remember, there were two men at the ascension [p. 342] clothed in white, and the disciples were on Olivet beholding the Lord as He went up. A cloud had received Him out of their sight and they evidently kept looking up, but the men said, ‘He is coming back; why do you stand looking up?’ — that is, they would be adjusted as to this — “This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, shall thus come in the manner in which ye have beheld him going into heaven”. Note the word ‘manner’ — He went up, they beholding Him, they are not to lose anything. You say, ‘Well, what does that matter? that is a mere trifle’. It is not a trifle — “They beholding him” — they saw the movement; it was the movement of ascension, a movement we are to understand, for we are to ascend too; that is, we are to be taken up; and the Lord is to come in like manner. And now that He is taken out of their sight, the faith period has begun, but heaven is to come in. I wonder if we understand these things; have we had any experience of heaven coming in either in sound, or in rushing mighty wind, or in the way of light, or in the way of a vessel? These things are to be apprehended spiritually, they are the great features I have in mind: first, the sound, the power; then the light; and then the substance. Veritable substance comes down from heaven. There can be no dwelling place of God here aside from this, it is a question of what is in heaven brought down. But the first thing, dear brethren, is the sound from heaven.
Now we have to just note for a moment what was in Jerusalem, what was in mind, what heaven was thinking of in this. Would that our thoughts could be transferred a little to heaven — think of what goes on in heaven. Even the conversion of a person occasions joy up there; but think of how much more interest is a company of people formed by the hand of Christ, every one of them not only convicted sinners, but having a name and distinction given by [p. 343] the Lord. Think of what they are to heaven amidst the general state of things at Jerusalem, in the world! To make it simple, dear brethren, think of what we are — without occupying ourselves with ourselves except for the sake of being practical and concrete. Do you not think heaven is interested in this meeting? Do you not think heaven is pleased with this meeting? Do you not think heaven is restful in this meeting? I do. It is a veritable green spot amidst the general sterility around, not to say anything of the corruption. As to the saints, the corruption is, as it were, dealt with by the fire, like the two loaves of old that were baked with leaven, but the leaven was inoperative — made so by the fire. That is what the assembly is, and that is what any meeting gathering in faith in the recognition of the Spirit of God is.
Now these dear brethren spoken of in Acts 2 — we are told in the previous chapter the crowd of the names was about a hundred and twenty — are together, we are told, in one place; and they are sitting — a word to be noted in this book too, a word pointing to finality — they are sitting. It was while the feast of Pentecost was accomplishing, the thing was running its course, and heaven asserted itself. Jerusalem did not know, Jerusalem as such was not affected by this: it was the house where these people, so interesting severally — each having a name, were — and not exactly “were” as in John 20, but they were sitting. That would imply a certain restfulness and a permanency as to position; they were not idle people, they were not watching the clock to see when they should go home; they “were staying”, we are told in chapter 1, in the upper room; it was the place of intelligent affection, the place of mutual sympathy. Now they are sitting, there is a certain dignity about them that is perhaps indescribable — heaven would understand it, they are the handiwork of Jesus; He [p. 344] left them behind Him. And, as they were sitting, they heard “a sound ... as of a rushing mighty wind”; that is to say, you are going to be preserved in this attitude; you will not be disturbed in this attitude; there is power in your favour. It does not say the place was shaken here; it does in chapter 4; it is called a “house” here, it is called a “place” there; they are “sitting” here, they were “assembled” there. They have made headway. Here they are restful, and heaven says, ‘All the power up here is on your behalf’; do you not think the apostles understood it? I am sure they did. And then we are told, “There appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it [not ‘they’] sat upon each of them”. It is one idea, marked by these great features, features that faith does not recoil from; that mighty power is in the favour of faith, faith reckons upon it. Nor does faith recoil from the fire, it welcomes it. Who is there who is with God, as understanding the cross of Jesus, who does not welcome what withers up the flesh, what purifies the soul, what maintains the assembly in purity so that God can be in it! It is to be welcomed, dear brethren. Well, that is the first thing. It is a question of sound; that is to say, heaven is going to speak, heaven is to be heard during all this period. A sound — heaven is to be heard in power; that is the idea, as I apprehend; and the sound filled the house. What a moment it must have been! Neither before nor since, I suppose, has there been any such moment; but it is to be carried down, the same Spirit is here tonight as was there at Pentecost on that day. Let us be believers in the Spirit, that He is here; not simply that He exists, but that He is here under the wonderful term of Comforter or Paraclete. That is, He is here beside us, here in power, here to make heaven heard; and He will be heard. Through whom? Well, through us, dear brethren, to be simple. How great that is,
[p. 345] that I may be used by heaven to make a sound; not a confused noise, but a sound, a distinctive sound, a heavenly sound — that person is speaking from heaven. And then there is the power going with it, filling the house too.
The next thing — and I suppose the order is right morally — is an intervention in the way of light. What I have spoken of refers to the Spirit in the great general features of His presence here; but there is, added to that, the thought of a light out of heaven. We must always be ready for any movement from heaven in the way of additional light; not that the thing is not complete in one sense, but there is this constant intervention from heaven in the way of light, and it gradually becomes clearer, because in the third account we get there is increase in the quality of the light. Not that it was not the same light at the beginning; it is a question of our apprehension. How often it is some thought comes; it is not very clear, but it is there. Why is it not clear? Because I am not clear, because of some clouding principle in me that God has to remove; and I have to be brought to it. Let us be brought to it, let us not throw a thing aside because we do not understand it. Maybe the thing will become clear, and clearer and still clearer, until it shines round about us and we will call it “a light above the brightness of the sun”. How affecting that is, when the thing becomes so clear and brilliant that we are able to describe it as above any natural light, above the brightness of the sun. That is going on, dear brethren, in a small way, of course, for we are not in such times as these, but the assembly is the same to the Lord as it was then, and He is constantly intervening and causing light to shine round about us. We may say, it shone round about Paul — so it did, and that is the first thought of it — but it shone round about all who were with him. I believe that is the thought. Some [p. 346] brother gets a thought, it shines for him, perhaps not for others then; but presently all get it — that is the thought, it includes all, it shines round all who were with him. We should be prepared for heavenly light. In that beautiful hymn we often sing, it says, ‘Heav’nly light makes all things bright, seen in that blissful gaze’. Let us be prepared for that, let us not be afraid of the light — let it shine. It is to prepare us for heaven itself; so that this great light Saul saw would prepare him for the light that shines in heaven — not only out of it, but in it. Think of the brilliancy of it shining in its own sphere.
Then another thing, dear brethren, is that in this second intervention, we have the thought of the saints being something peculiar that had not been disclosed before, that is Christ’s body. The light is progressive, and in this case the very saints who heard the sound in chapter 2 are now to be regarded as Christ’s body, as Himself indeed — “Me”, He says. You can see how progressive this is, and how preparatory it is for chapter 10; it is the Lord Himself: the first intervention was in relation to what was there in the way of approval. The fire did not mean that the flesh was active; it meant that, if it were active, it would take care of it, it was a provision. There was no reproof in the presence of the fire, it was a provision; it was a question of deference to the one hundred and twenty, or whoever were there. Heaven is coming in in relation to them; the Spirit of God, a divine Person, can actually rest on them — It sat on them, it says; it is the public position, it is God identifying Himself with them, but in such a way as to prevent anything that would disturb Him. But now, Saul was not pleasing to heaven — he was a violent persecuting man — it is no question of deference to him; what is in mind is prospective now, it is what is to be. So this second intervention should be taken in that way, that the Lord comes in from heaven [p. 347] in view of what is to be, meaning that things are not altogether what He would wish, that there is something more, and that is always true in the most practical way. I say certainly I invite anything that indicates something that is to be in regard of myself, for the Lord intends much more; He has much more in mind as to me than He has realised; it is a question of what is to be, hence we invite the light. This great vessel is to be — What is he to be? Well, the Lord says to him, as we learn later, “Rise up and stand on thy feet; for, for this purpose have I appeared to thee, to appoint thee to be a servant and a witness” (Acts 26:16). It is what he would be; and in speaking to Ananias, the Lord tells him, He “is an elect vessel to me, to bear my name before both nations and kings and the sons of Israel”. How much of that is needed, dear brethren, amongst us, the Lord taking up someone — for the need is very great. One servant after another passes away; the Lord takes His servants, you know; they do not live beyond the ordinary life of men, and the Lord takes up others. Who are they to be? The need is there; there must be the continuance of the testimony; hence it is a question of who it is to be. Am I a potentiality? The Lord has a long look out, and He prepares a long way ahead. Who knew what He was doing here on the way outside Damascus? Only Himself. What was He doing? He was beginning to make the great apostle Paul. Who knows what He may be doing now? Who knows who is in the making? Is there anyone here who says, ‘I do not wish to be in the making’? The Lord forbid it. The Lord has His thought as to you, and it is a question, not of what you are now, but of what you are to be. He will make you what you are to be if you will let Him. He has His thought about you. “That I may apprehend”, says the apostle, “that for which also I am apprehended” (Philippians 3:12). The Lord will make [p. 348] us that if we allow Him to. Did Paul let Him? Yes; he said, “What shall I do, Lord?” — he said, “Lord”. I would say to any young man or woman here, ‘The Lord needs you: He will make you what He has in His mind for you if you will let Him’. Paul was told to go into the city, “and it shall be told thee what thou must do”. That is a humbling thing, certainly it would have been to a man like Paul to go into the city and learn from a hitherto unheard-of disciple; but Paul did it. The Lord made him what He had in mind for him, it is what he is to be; so the Lord said, “I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest”; He did not let him off, the Lord would never let us off in His love — “whom thou persecutest”, that is, You are persecuting Me when you are persecuting My people; those people in those houses whom you are persecuting are Myself. Now, as we have often heard, the mystery is here, that the Lord is completely identified with His people, that we are the body of Christ. That is a very great thought; but it was not stated at Pentecost or subsequently; it was stated in this mysterious way, as I might say, to Saul before he had the Spirit, but it is recorded there that we might know and understand what the Lord had in His mind at this juncture. The Lord was moving forward and the light was increasing, and He was to be represented here, not only by certain ones with names on earth, but in a body, in the saints vitally linked up as an organism. That is what He has in mind.
Where does this come from? That is the next intervention, and what is meant in this well-known vision to Peter is substance out of heaven, that is, the material in the assembly is out of heaven; the body is of Christ, not Christ as He was here on earth, but Christ as He is now; that is the thought in the church, the body is of Christ. Well, you may say, ‘These creatures did not represent the body’. No,
[p. 349] they did not as creatures, as quadrupeds on the earth, but it is what they are potentially. As I have been saying, it is not what is, but what is to be. God can call things that be not as though they were, and that is the idea when the Lord says, “Me”; this is the substance, taken up, to be sure, as each of us has been, in his local responsibility, as a sinner cleansed and purified and formed and indwelt by the Spirit — all that is from heaven — not a bit in the assembly, not an item, that does not come out of heaven. Peter had to learn that; not that he did learn it here, but he was certainly an apt learner; he was not rebellious, and that is a word for us. Saul was not rebellious, nor was Peter — they are examples for us. What could the Lord do with these men, or with any of us, if they or we are rebellious? Nothing. I mean as to what He is doing positively. He can deal with us in judgment, of course; but in a positive way He can do nothing with a grumbling person or a complaining person. He has to stand over such, as He did over Peter’s wife’s mother, so that they might become subject. But, as subject and obedient, the Lord can do much with us. So He can bring in this thought of a large vessel, a substantial thing, knit at the four corners, let down from heaven with all these creatures in it, reminding us of Noah’s ark. Now they are in this sheet come down from heaven — they came to Noah in the ark, they are obedient. How did they get up there? Of course, it is a vessel, but there it is. There are the quadrupeds of the earth and the wild beasts and the creeping things — and Peter is to be brought round to that. It is not that he is to be with these people in this character. No. “What God has cleansed” implies the removal of all those hideous features; but what a God He is to let them come down from heaven, as if to imply that even such thoughts are in heaven. Why does God admit such thoughts as are expressed in these wild beasts [p. 350] in heaven? On our account. It is God saying, ‘It is what you are, and in spite of that, I am going to make you what I want you to be, a member of Christ’. And Peter doubtless learnt that. We have to learn things abstractly, and then to see how God works them out; so Peter says beautifully afterwards, “It came even to me”, as much as to say, ‘I was greatly honoured. I did not think so at first, but I do now’. How wonderfully he explains the matter at Jerusalem; ‘God is working’, he says; that is the great thing in the sheet, it is a question of the counsels of God, what God can do and what He is doing to accomplish His counsels out of the most extraordinary material to bring out the most wonderful thing that has ever been conceived, that is Christ and His body, Christ and His people.
That is what I had in mind to present to you as to heaven’s interventions, and to seek to show that, while these things are historical, the bearing is always on the present, that heaven is always intervening in relation to that which it loves, to make them suitable to heaven. Men will say — if they are not saying it already — Let God be in heaven: we on the earth; but the point is that God is the God of the earth; in the book of the Revelation God asserts Himself as on the earth, as He will, but, in the meantime, He is asserting Himself in relation to those He loves. This book tells us that God purchased the assembly with the blood of His own; that is what it is to Him; it is a question of God and this four-cornered sheet in regard to His creation, what He can do, what He can take account of in it pending its complete deliverance from the thraldom of sin and of Satan.