WHAT GOD LOVES
E.C.Muggleton
Hebrews 12: 22-25 (1st sentence); Psalm 78: 67-72; 47: 4; 87: 2,3
I want to say a word about what God loves. There is that which God loves and that which God hates and rejects. The question when we are together like this is as to what we have really come to, what we have experienced in our souls in the knowledge of God, because we want to be stable. Some of us have not been too stable but we want to be concerned now that we are preserved in stability.
Hebrews is an interesting book. I suppose Paul wrote it; I think we get a clue to that in what it says in the end of the epistle: "that our brother Timotheus is set at liberty"; that is Christianity, that everybody should be set at liberty, no bondage. We have not come to a mountain that is on fire. What we have come to, dear brethren, is mount Zion. It is a great thing to have some experience in ourselves of what we have come to. We might have a reading, as we have had, and at the end of it ask ourselves what feature of the truth has registered in our minds and affections? Well, this is an elementary epistle; and there is another reason why I think Paul wrote it; the use of the word 'heavenly'. Paul was seeking to get the dear brethren into a spiritual elevation, into the enjoyment of heavenly things. As the Lord said in John's gospel: "If I have said the earthly things to you, and ye believe not, how, if I say the heavenly things to you, will ye believe?", chap 3: 12. Christianity is to help us get into heavenly things because they are eternal and abiding, they are stable, and we want to encourage one another to get into these heavenly things. The a post le speaks about what we have come to: "ye have come to mount Zion". I think that mount Zion stands for divine sovereignty, a great principle with God, and what He loves is related to His sovereignty: we can see that all through the Scriptures. We want to encourage one another in relation to what God loves, so that we love what He loves and we hate what He hates.
So we might refer to the gospels in relation to what God loves; they bring out what He loves in Jesus. Think of what God loved in Jesus in manhood! You will recall that when Solomon was born it says that Jehovah loved him - a beautiful touch as to him. And when Jesus was born God loved Him. He had in Jesus in manhood something that He had never had here before. We do well to encourage one another to live more in the gospels, and to feed on heavenly food. So there was that in Solomon when he was born that Jehovah loved. I think it is a beautiful comment that the Spirit gives, that Jehovah loved him, and He loved him because he was peaceful. So Solomon brings in the glory. We love to think of Jesus; He says Himself "more than Solomon is here". How God loved Jesus in manhood! We come to love and appreciate what God loves and to hate what He hates. That is a thing we need to dwell on and it is based on the principle of divine sovereignty, it enters into God's choice. There is what He rejects, what He hates, but there is what He loves; and I think if we look at the brethren we see what God loves, what He loves in the saints is what He sees of Christ, and that is the result of the formative work of the Spirit. We need to keep ourselves in constant self-judgment so that the Spirit can go on working in us and forming us after Christ. That is the new man, which is a creation, and what is going to abide.
I read from the Psalms in regard to mount Zion. In Psalm 78 there is what God rejected: "he rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim". God's sovereignty, as we have been taught, enters into what He rejects as well as what He loves. I think that is an important thing to remember; but He " chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved". The darkest period in Israel's history is lit up with this thought of divine sovereignty. God, as it were, comes back to it and it says that He "chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved". That is something to come to in our histories, in our experience, that we love what God loves; and He acts on the principle of His sovereign mercy. You get that touch in Ephesians (I think it is connected with mount Zion): "God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love wherewith He loved us", chap 2: 4. His sovereignty and His love are brought together, He has acted according to His sovereign mercy in taking us up; as it says in Romans: "vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared for glory", chap 9: 23. God had the very best thoughts in His mind when He took us up in His sovereign mercy. The darkest period is depicted here in this Psalm. It says "Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep, like a mighty man that shouteth aloud by reason of wine". The Lord was like that; it is not that He was asleep, the Lord has never been asleep in the history of the recovery, He is fully awake as to what is current in the history of His assembly. That is a comfort to us, that the Lord can arise and awake like a mighty man. What a mighty Man He is! We love to think of Jesus going forth as a mighty man and shouting aloud by reason of wine. The Lord is going on, and the test is, dear brethren, whether we are going forward. We may have reached a point in the history of the testimony now, but are we going to settle for something less than what God has in His mind for us? God not only brought His people out of Egypt but His great objective was to bring them into the land, that they should enter into His purpose and into the inheritance which He had prepared for t hem. So we get what He loves, He loves mount Zion, and Judah is connected with mount Zion. The principle of royalty enters into it, He had David in mind as the man after God's own heart. Let us have a greater appreciation of the Man of the gospels, the Man after God's own heart. Jesus did everything that was pleasing to His Father. "I do always the things", he said, "that are pleasing to him", John 8: 29. What a test it is to every one of us as to whether we are here pleasing to the Father, doing the Father's will. Jesus said at the age of twelve in His holy boyhood: "Did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father's business?", Luke 2: 49. Think of a boy at the age of twelve, how it embraces the youngest of us here, that we might be set to be occupied in the things of the Father. I know of no occupation like it. It is something that is to characterise us every one. That is one of the things that must have been lovely and delightful to God, to look down and see Jesus in holy boyhood occupied in the things of His Father. I would encourage the young ones, for we want to carry them along with us. Moses said "We will go with our young", Exod 10: 9. The enemy would seek to hold them, bring them into captivity by bringing in something of the world, but I think the Spirit of God is giving us an urge to carry the young forward and to show that divine things are attractive because they stand related to a Man whom God loves, and that is Jesus. We love to speak about the Man of the gospels, the Man who was always in communion with His Father. I think that is another beautiful feature seen in Him, and I would encourage all of us to maintain our link in communion with the Father. The gospels bring out that there was one glorious Man who was always in communion with His Father, and therefore He was always occupied in the things of the Father. It brings out the love of the Father for the Son. Think of those precious words: "my beloved Son"! Think of what God found in Jesus, the great anti-type of Solomon, of whom it says "Jehovah loved him", 2 Sam.12: 24. I commend that to the brethren, to dwell on the Man whom God loves, and that is Jesus. There was never a man like Him here in testimony. It goes on to say here that "he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheep folds". That is the kind of man God loves. He was the beloved, and he was anointed; Jehovah said to Samuel "Arise, anoint him; for this is he", 1 Sam.16: 12. There is no other. There is only one Man who filIs the heart of God, He is the centre of the whole world that the Father has brought in. This is a delightful thought: "he chose David", just a humble man looking after sheep. What are we doing in our local meetings? Are we caring for the saints? The Lord says "How much better then is a man than a sheep?", Matt 12:12. The sheep involve the idea of care. David was caring for the sheep and God had him in mind. It brings out this great thought of what God loves, he loved David. He rejected Saul, he was not the divine choice. Paul says that God removed him: "And having removed him he raised up to them David for king", Acts 13: 22. God's sovereignty enters into it; that is my point, that God's love is linked with His sovereignty because He loved David and he rejected Saul. It takes us a long time to reject Saul, a man who was head and shoulders above everybody. He was not the divine choice, David was the divine choice, the Man of the gospels is the divine choice. In recent meetings in Edinburgh Mr Bellamy said that if you have not an ideal you will have an idol; that struck me very much. I think it is true, dear brethren, that if we have not the divine idea, before us we shall have an idol somewhere. Let us be preserved from idolatry. God's supreme thought centres in Jesus, the Man of His pleasure. So God rejected Saul but He chose David. He brings Samuel round; He had to say to him "How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him", 1 Sam 16: 1. How long is it that we mourn for that kind of man? God has removed that order of man in the cross of Christ. It says in Hosea (chap 13: 11): "I gave thee a king in mine anger, and took him away in my wrath". God will remove and has removed that order of man. So it is a wonderful thing that we can come into line with God in what He loves, that is mount Zion. Mount Zion is "Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth", Ps 48: 2. Could you find better elevation anywhere today than in a company like this? It is wonderful to be amongst brethren who are seeking to maintain the principle of separation from evil and the world, and to be here in an atmosphere that is so congenial to our spiritual progress and advancement in the knowledge of the truth.
I refer to Jacob because most of our histories have been very much like his. We often dwell on the discrepancies of Jacob; I do not think the Spirit of God would detain us on those features but on what is excellent in Jacob. So you get in this Psalm, "He hath chosen our inheritance for us, the excellency of Jacob whom he loved". I think that is a beautiful touch - God has chosen our inheritance for us. Could you have anything better? Could any one of us be in a better atmosphere today, greater elevation? This is the joy of the whole earth, to be amongst the saints who love the truth and who love the Lord Jesus, the One who is the centre of the Father's world, that is a spiritual world. We want to get the thought of a spiritual world. Mr Coates fits in with Mr Darby very well on that point, as you may know in the ministry: the spiritual world is the Father's world. We want to be related to that. Let God choose your inheritance. He has chosen our inheritance for us and He has chosen the very best. You have a touch here: "the excellency of Jacob whom he loved"; there was something in Jacob that was lovable to God. God says in Malachi, "I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau", chap 1: 3. His sovereignty enters into that. You know what happened when Jacob and Esau were still in the womb of Rebecca; there was a struggle going on. You can look back over your history and find there has been a struggle, and it may be that the struggle is still going on. Rebecca inquired of Jehovah "Why am I thus?", Gen 25: 22. And what did Jehovah say to her? "Two nations are in thy womb, And two peoples... And one people shall be stronger than the other people". I think that is connected with Jacob because it involves the sovereign work of God in new birth. It is a wonderful thing to think of new birth: "Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God"; and "Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God", John 3: 3. It is just impossible on the line of nature; we must come back, every one of us, to the sovereign work of God in our souls. I would encourage the young, and all of us, to relate ourselves to the work of God in you. That is something that is stable, something that is strong, stronger than the flesh; as the Lord goes on to say in John 3: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit". I think we shall be characterised more by the feature of stability in our souls if we relate ourselves to God's sovereign work in us, that which is stronger. Well, the struggle went on and it proved in time that there was that which God loved in Jacob. You will remember that, when he went out to get a wife, he obeyed his father and his mother. Obedience is a lovely feature, and we all need to be obedient. Jacob was obedient when Isaac charged him that he was not to get a wife from the Canaanites, he was to go to his own kindred. I think that unless this moral feature of obedience is with us we shall not get on very far spiritually. Well, that is a feature of excellency that God loved. I think it was found very early in Jacob and God loves to bring it out. Then the struggle came later still when he had to face his brother. So the struggle goes on because we have to face Esau in ourselves; what God hates is what is after the flesh. The struggle goes on in Romans 7 and you come to it that in me, as the apostle says, "in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell" (v 18). That is the Esau type of man, that is the flesh, and that which is born of flesh is flesh and will not be anything else. We have to come to it through bitter experience, it is a very happy experience if we do come to it, "that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell". What is of God is what is good, and that is stronger than the other, and I think the apostle brings in his own experience to help us. The struggle goes on in Romans until you find at the end of the chapter "I thank God": "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord". What a deliverance that is! We have to go through these exercises in order to reach what God loves in us and in the saints. There is what He loves, there are the excellencies of Jacob.
In the other Psalm, as I read: "Jehovah loveth the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob". Or are we forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the custom is with some? The apostle says encourage one another (I think the ministry carries with it the feature of encouragement): "Encouraging one another and by so much the more as ye see the day drawing near”. That refers, I have no doubt, to the coming of the Lord; - that day is very near. In the apostle's mind it was approaching, and was very near at that time; and how near it is to us now! The time of our receiving up has come. Well, do we love the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob? How much time we spend in our own habitation. Of course, God loves our habitations but He loves the gates of Zion more. Let us love more what God loves. God is looking for a full committal to His interests. So we are not to be casual; we can become so and settle down in our own habitations; but I think that the Spirit of God would awaken us as to what God loves, He loves the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob. May we be encouraged to go on, to go forward and not backward. There is a verse in Jeremiah (see chap 7: 24) which always challenges me, when God had to say to a rebellious people that they went backward and not forward. We are to go forward in the testimony today and not backward. The word to Moses was "Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward", Exod 14: 15. God is looking for a people that have spiritual energy to go forward in loving the gates of Zion more than all the habitations of Jacob. It must have grieved God to have to say to His people in Jeremiah's time that they went backward and not forward. May it never be said of any one of us! In John's gospel it says that many of His disciples went away back and walked no more with Him (see chap 6: 66). Think of the mercy of God that has put us in touch with the truth, in touch with those who love the truth and who love one another. We are to be a people who are going forward and entering into our inheritance, the things which God hath prepared for those that love Him. Think of God preparing these things for us that we should enjoy our inheritance now, because we can enjoy it as having the earnest of the Spirit. He has given us the earnest of the Spirit so that we can enjoy the inheritance together. May we go in for these things that are eternal in their very nature, because the things which are seen, as Paul says, are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. May eternal things become to us more real and more enjoyable. We shall enjoy the brethren, a heavenly people, as we appropriate them. That is what God would encourage us in.
Well, it is just a simple word, to see how divine sovereignty and divine love are related to each other and that God is working on the principle of sovereignty. Think of God marking us out beforehand for these things, for adoption according to the good pleasure of His will. God's will will go through; may we be in relation to it because His will abides for eternity. And may we be encouraged as having seen the brethren today and enjoyed our communication with one another over these heavenly things. May the Lord bless the word.
MAIDSTONE
12 October 1974