SPIRITUAL INSTRUCTION

W. Dickson

Isaiah 50: 4; Proverbs 4: 1–6; 2 Timothy 2: 1, 2; Acts 18: 24–26

I desire, beloved brethren, to speak of spiritual instruction in view of what has already engaged us in our gatherings. The Lord saw fit to call attention to it in every reading and it seems to underline the great importance of being instructed, not only in the sense of acquired knowledge but being instructed in virtue of your link with the Lord Jesus and your link with the Holy Spirit, and thus, as being instructed, you will be competent to have your part in the building, in the building up of what is for the divine pleasure. As we have been often taught, the first and second epistles to Timothy are to instruct him to know how to behave himself in God’s house, it says, “which is ... the pillar and base of the truth”, 1 Timothy 3: 15. Paul was at great pains to instruct his young disciple in the matters that were relevant to the testimony, and one feels it is a situation of the utmost need at the moment that the brethren should be divinely instructed and that room should be made in the ordering of our lives too, and the apportioning of our time, so that we are instructed in the things of God and able to give help.

This scripture in Isaiah is one that affects me very much as it is an allusion to the Lord Jesus Himself personally. That He should thus speak prophetically, that He should speak as an instructed One, is of profound interest. When you ponder the greatness and the glory of His Person? His word giving effect even to creation, that as Man here in dependence He should take the place of being an instructed Person is wonderful. It is one of those touches in the Scriptures which bow your spirit in holy adoration as you think of the perfection of that manhood, so normal, so perfect in its advancing stages; day by day He took the place of an instructed Person. It says, “Jehovah hath given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary”.

We spoke earlier today of feet washing, how that word ‘succour’ enters into the service of feet washing, and how we can only do it as instructed by God to give a word to him that is weary, to minister refreshment to a weary soul. So the Lord Jesus served thus. Think of Him drawing near to those two on the road to Emmaus, those weary souls as they wended their way away from the divine centre, and in His condescending grace He moved towards them and spoke a word to those that were weary. What a touch! The word of His grace. Luke’s gospel in all its richness setting out that thought. So we should go after weary persons. How many of them are amongst us, weary of the way they have come, in exercise of heart and needing a word of instruction, needing a word that has come from the Lord Himself and from God Himself.

It says, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”.

We recall what has been said about this that even the Lord was wakened out of His sleep by the Father. In the morning He was wakened, not so to speak by the natural movements of His body as having rested, but He was wakened by the Father each day, and His ear was wakened to listen to the divine instruction that was required for that day. What a picture of perfect dependence!

Beloved brethren, are we dependent enough? are we dependent enough each day? are we dependent enough as we approach the gatherings of the saints? I feel that if we were more dependent in our links with God we would prove help to a greater degree than we do. There is nothing so devitalising in a spiritual sense than to be self-sufficient; as believers in our pathway here nothing should be undertaken without absolute and constant dependence on God. We should be simple about these things. We tend to take only matters of moment to God, only matters of burden and deep crisis, but the essence of spiritual life is that a believer takes even the simplest matters to the Father. It betokens that attitude in which your ear is wakened morning by morning to hear as an instructed person. I say this to younger brethren because of the complexities of business life and the need for direction. How often we enter into situations naturally feeling able for them. We should not enter into any situation except in utter dependence on God that He will help us to keep in the path of His will. Every move you make, even household-wise, every move you make in your employment, every action you take in relation to the Lord’s interest in a place, never do it except in absolute dependence on God because, in doing it that way, you are like the Lord Jesus Himself, and what greater example could we have than the Lord Jesus as a Man here? He moved that way day by day in everything. And that way God will bless you and help you in your movements.

In Proverbs it says, “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father, and attend to know intelligence; for I give you good doctrine—forsake ye not my law”. Every believer should read the book of Proverbs as part of his constant daily reading. The book of Proverbs is one of the outstanding books of Scripture for moral instruction, because, after all, everything that occurs in the life of a believer has a moral bearing. A believer’s life is not entirely related to what is material and circumstantial; a believer’s life as under the Father and as under Christ and under the Spirit has a moral bearing and he needs the instruction of the book of Proverbs by the Spirit, not in the sense of a legal precept, but by the Spirit, for wisdom. So it says, “Hear, ye children, the instruction of a father”. Thank God, beloved brethren, for the fathers amongst us. I do not say exactly, although it might be synonymous, Thank God for older persons. I say, Thank God for the fathers and for the instruction that they can give us in the way of wisdom and experience in the things of God, and let us increasingly value the spirit of fatherhood amongst us. This young man says, “I was a son unto my father”. He did not say, “I was a son of my father”; he said, “I was a son unto my father”.

Are all the younger brethren in this room at this time sons unto their father? Can your spiritual fathers and your natural fathers look upon you and say, You are a son unto me? One of the great needs of the moment is a spirit of confidence between older men and younger men both naturally and spiritually. I think it is something that the Spirit of God is pressing that there should be the spirit of absolute trust, that older persons mean what they say and say what they mean, and that younger persons can have confidence in them in that way so that the glorious features of sonship come out. What is sonship? Sonship in effect is just this matter of holy confidence and love in that relationship between a father and a son. So the book of Proverbs gives you the counsel and the instruction of a father in regard to all these things, and not only in delivering you from the morass of evil as depicted in the case of the wicked woman but also in regard to the glory of wisdom’s house. And that is a fine thought, beloved brethren, that the path of instruction leads you to wisdom’s house which has been built; it is on its seven pillars and is established there in glory and blessing for men, that which is greater than, and outside, everything that this world can give.

We should be exercised to testify and to demonstrate that what obtains in the christian circle is in its quality, and in its power, and in its moral excellence greater than any attraction that this world can afford to our young people. The spirit amongst the brethren, the demonstration of unity and grace, the evidence of life and vitality, the fact that persons love the Lord and do not love the world, that their walk and their ways are in accord with the truth, these things, beloved brethren, are a demonstration to our young people that wisdom’s house in its moral excellence is greater than anything that this world can offer. Instruction comes that way, and it comes in Proverbs, as we have been taught, in the way of influence and headship. Proverbs is a book of headship. Proverbs is not a book of lordship. Proverbs is a book of headship in which things flow in a reciprocal way amongst God’s people on the line of influence through fatherhood towards sons. We value our young people. We pray to God constantly that not another one of them will be lost. We should, search ourselves, brethren, in the presence of God day by day as to our responsibility to our younger brethren and that it could never at the judgment seat be laid to our charge that we in any way diverted them because we did not demonstrate the features of fatherhood and and the instruction that was connected with wisdom’s house.

In Timothy it says, “My child, be strong in the grace which is in Christ Jesus. And the things thou hast heard of me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men, such as shall be competent to instruct others also”. There is a great need for instruction in fundamental things. I would like to speak in a friendly way to my younger brethren, and I trust I will not be accused of being too intellectual, but there are certain matters I would like to raise with you as to whether, as a young believer, you are instructed. Are you instructed as to the cardinal difference between the Old and the New Testaments? Does every young man in this room know that, as to the cardinal difference between the Old and the New Testament? Does every young man know the difference between the three synoptic gospels and John’s gospel? Does every young person know the difference between the rapture and the appearing? Does every young person know the difference between the wilderness and the land as related to the Lord’s supper? You know, brethren, I could go on and on and on; but if the work of God and the teaching according to the truth are to prosper amongst us, the younger brethren will have to be instructed constantly in regard to these matters.

I was preaching on an occasion and I made reference to the rapture, and a young person said to me that she had never heard of that in her life—in a christian household and she had never heard of the rapture! I trust I am saying this in the right spirit, beloved brethren; it may be I am not giving the younger brethren sufficient credit, but I can see that unless these great and salient points of teaching in the Scriptures are understood, the workmen will be inefficient, These things are acquired by personal experience in the power of the Spirit with the Lord Himself; not merely in the acquirement of the facts mentally but gone through with the Lord so that you know what they mean as related to the great spiritual order of things of which Christ is the centre.

In regard to Acts 18, here are two of Solomon’s workmen with a piece of timber from Lebanon, a man “mighty in the scriptures”. Beloved brethren, do we read the Scriptures sufficiently? Do we read the Scriptures as food for our souls? How good to use the living word of God to feed your affections with Christ, to ponder over the holy words, the holy record of Christ, and let your spirit worship as you ponder. Have you ever read the word of God and the depth and the power have so affected your soul that you bowed your head in worship? Apollos was eloquent in the Scriptures. There is no power in ministry, nor in preaching, nor is there real power to build without instruction in the Scriptures. A brother in the reading referred to the morning reading of the Scriptures. We did not touch on it yesterday, but in the ark that Noah built there was a window and it gave light from heaven.

Every household should have a window, and that window is the daily reading of the Scriptures; it is the responsibility of the head of the house to bring continually the light of God onto the household situation.

Oh how adoringly we should read the Holy Scriptures! Our heart should exult in the counsels and the purposes of God as they are expressed in the Holy Scriptures, the magnitude and the greatness of these thoughts of His. What a treasure we have in the word of God! It is the one book which multiplies its circulation year by year as the hungry souls of men and women thirst for the living word of

God. What for? Just to make them better acquainted with doctrine? No, but to feed their souls, to feed their affections in regard to the glorious Person of whom they speak, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

So Aquila and Priscilla heard of Apollos and took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly. They saw the great potentiality in such material for the house, and there is the suggestion of workmanship in that they “took him to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly”. In other words, they gave him instruction in regard to the great truth of the assembly, the great truth of what God had wrought in Christ, raised from the dead and ascended to His own place in glory, and the Spirit down here. These things give us enlargement as to the glory and greatness of the dispensation in which we are found; how much greater by far it is than anything that preceded it, and greater by far than the day to come. Mr. Darby said that the moral greatness of David dancing before the ark exceeded the millennial glory of Solomon on his brazen scaffold (‘Synopsis’ Vol.1 p.358). What a thought that is, that in its moral sense the present time and what is connected with the working out of God’s thoughts in relation to Christ is greater than the day of display. The Spirit of God would instruct us more exactly as to these great matters connected with the present time so that we are more serviceable in the work of the Lord.

Address at Brooklyn, N.Y.
2 September 1978