COUNSEL
[p. 325] COUNSEL
Revelation 3: 18; Psalm 16: 7; Nehemiah 5: 6, 7; Proverbs 11: 14
These passages, as you will observe, speak of counsel. They speak of Christ as counselling; they speak of Him — indeed God speaks of Him in the psalm as receiving counsel, and as a pattern for us. Then Nehemiah speaks of taking counsel with himself, and Proverbs speaks of safety “in the multitude of counsellors”. I propose to say a little on each of these points and those of us who love the Lord Jesus — and I trust we all do — are stirred in our affections by the reference to Him as “Counsellor” in the prophet Isaiah; the son given, the child born is said to be called “Counsellor”, Isaiah 9: 6. That was His name, one of the features of His name; He is viewed on our side as bearing all these titles. The prophetic spirit says, “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”. Believers are slow to appropriate what is thus recorded as theirs, and hence remain often in spiritual poverty, whereas such verses as I referred to — and particularly the epistle to the Hebrews — are calculated to enrich us even objectively, as I have been saying. The Corinthians were regarded as furnished in every way, coming behind in no gift; that was in an objective sense. Further, it is said in that same epistle that christians are of God, “Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption”, 1 Corinthians 1: 30.
These are all objective thoughts but they are available to us and intended to set us up with potential wealth, wealth to be worked out. So that remarkable verse says prophetically that Christ is born to us, given to us as a son; His name is called “Wonderful”
and then “Counsellor”. So that we are to understand that we are not to be left in the dark as to anything for we have such a Counsellor, who is available He is on our side, given to us — we need not be in the darkness. The presentation of this great fact as to Christ in the verse I have read in Revelation is peculiarly affecting, because He is speaking to Laodicea, the assembly that describes prophetically conditions current at this present time. The seven features of the public assembly, seen in Revelation 2 and 3, whether at the time of writing, or as covering the whole period of the public history here, are to be taken separately, if they are to be understood, taken, of course, in relation to all the others, but to be taken separately and, viewed in this way, Laodicea exists now. It did not exist, in the sense I am speaking of, when the book was written. There may have been potential conditions that would develop into the present-day conditions, but it is a development that is in mind in the Lord’s words here, that is to say, a state of lukewarmness, a state of indifference to Christ, a state of false pride in assuming riches which did not exist, and a state of nakedness in a sense of exposure. Things are not hidden, they are all open, and there is a state of blindness.
We wonder at times that the Lord Jesus should deign to address such an assembly at all, and especially that He should counsel it. It is full of grace, beloved brethren, that the Lord does so, and indeed He embodies, in a most striking way, the grace of the dispensation, the grace with which it began. It began with the announcement that “the Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”. That was grace to one who had shamefully denied the Lord.
It may be there are those here tonight who have denied the Lord, not in the same flagrant way, but, nevertheless, in some way. There may be such here at this present moment, and I speak to you [p. 327] so as to remind you of grace, that aside from grace there can be no recovery for any of us. The principle is grace: hence your recovery is quite possible. The Lord says to a faithful assembly, “Thou ... hast not denied my name”, Revelation 3: 8. Protestantism is, I believe, in mind prophetically, if you understand me. I believe that Judas is Rome. Nefarious practices and traitorship mark it, but in Peter we see Protestantism, I believe. Many make little of the denial of Christ’s name, taking on other names; but if I take on any other name it is a denial of the name of Christ. Still the work of God is going on in Protestantism, it is a great field; Rome is yielding very little. The Lord has dealt judicially with it, with Jezebel, and recognises the remnant among them from that point. There is very little in that field; the great operations of the Lord are in the field of Protestantism. It may be well to be reminded of the simple fact that Protestantism is negative; the very name is a negative idea, but still christians are there, the light is there, and the open Bible. Thank God for the open Bible, that is ordained in all English-speaking countries and, I may say, in most nominal christian countries today. But the open Bible is not enough, what is needed is grace, and grace actively.
So the dispensation began with the Lord appearing to Simon. He is ready to appear now, if you understand me, to all Simons, and is there one of us here who has not been a Simon? I should not like to say I have not been one. I should indeed question the christianity of anyone who denied that he had. The acceptance of it opens the door to grace: hence the Lord says to this assembly, “I ... have sat down with my Father in his throne”, Revelation 3: 21. That is grace, pure unalloyed grace; He is not simply sitting alone on the throne; He is with His Father on it; it is the Father’s throne. So that holds good for every [p. 328] Simon, there is no hope for a Judas; Judas “went out”, we are told, “and it was night”. He never changed his mind, he became remorseful, he became apostate, but he never changed his mind, he never repented. Peter did, Peter changed his mind completely at the moment the Lord looked at him; he went out and “wept bitterly”. The Lord is doing this all the time, during this Protestant period that begins with Sardis. The Lord is looking round now; He turned and looked on Peter, and it says, “Peter went out, and wept bitterly”, Luke 22: 62. That is the moral basis of the status of the assembly according to Luke 24, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon”, Luke 24: 34. “The Lord is risen indeed”. That certainly is a statement that is as true tonight as it was then, and the second part of the statement is equally true, the Lord appearing to Simon; that is to say, the Lord looks down at this moment for repentant Simons, and in view of all this, so as to maintain the character of the dispensation, He says, “I counsel thee”. If one is truly repentant of denying the Lord by taking on some other name than His religiously, how it should affect you, that instead of rebuking He gives counsel. He does rebuke, of course — as He says here, “As many as I love, I rebuke”. Rebuking is not strong enough for Jezebel. The Lord says, “I cast her into a bed”, for she repented not; there is no repentance in her any more than there was in Judas. Rebuking is not strong enough there. The Son of God appears to Thyatira with “eyes as a flame of fire”. He has dealt with her, but here He says, “I rebuke and discipline as many as I love”, Revelation 3:19. His words here really are intended to maintain the character of the dispensation in relation to professing christians. He says it has not changed, and yet appearing, as it were, at the present time, He says to the Simons, “I counsel thee to buy of me”. That is to come home [p. 329] to our hearts. People are ready to buy, you know, and to pay prices for things; even religious advantages are subjects of purchase. But the Lord says, ‘You are buying, buy of Me, and I counsel you to do it’. The word really is ‘I fully counsel you, I counsel you in the fullest way to do it’. ‘Buy of me’. You say, ‘Buy!’ Well, the apostle Paul says, ‘You suffer people that get your money, you do not object to that’. At Corinth, they did not. As a matter of fact, people like to be taxed religiously. It salves the conscience; you are doing something. So the Lord says, ‘Come and buy of Me, I counsel you to do it’. I am not undertaking to tell you what price you should pay, what money you are to give. Those of us who are spiritual understand that we must have transactions with Christ. No one is of any account at all who has not had a transaction with Christ and in the sense of obligation; He says, I counsel you, I counsel you fully to come and buy. It is a buying time. I am ready to sell, and I tell you what you need, “gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich”. He says, ‘Thou knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable’. The Lord would have you enriched, why not just try this, why not trust Christ and take this counsel? I would say this to the elder brethren, indeed to all of us. What an experience to have with the Lord! The Lord who proposes this to us says, ‘Let us have a transaction’; it is indeed all you need, a transaction with Christ. If there is to be any recompense, let us try it out, let us buy now. He says, ‘I want you to be rich’, that is what He has in mind. And then “white raiment”, He says, “that thou mayest be clothed”. You know things are exposed. Veneer is common amongst christians, to cover up their defects. But it is a time of exposure in spite of all the conditions that exist. The Lord says, ‘It is all out, let no one assume to hide things, things are all exposed’. What is spoken in the ear in [p. 330] the closets, He says, is proclaimed upon the housetops. The Spirit of God being here as He is, and the ministry being here in this distinctive way, there is light. The Spirit of God is still like the woman with the lighted candle, searching. There is light and the Lord is allowing exposure to take place; now He says, Come to me and buy. You have paid a good deal for what has happened; it has cost you a lot. What anxious nights, what sorrows! Come to Me and buy “white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear”. God loves us to wear beautiful clothes, and as He brings a sense of exposure He gives you counsel.
And then, “eye-salve, that thou mayest see”. It is very humbling to me, and I doubt not to many here, to see that, when difficulties arise amongst us, very few see the real issue, and how ready we are to bring up side issues, to becloud the real ones. The Lord always gives an issue in difficulties in something that stands out for the eye that can see, and He supplies “eye-salve, that thou mayest see”. So you can see, dear brethren, what a moment it is in christendom, and this applies to all christians; how the Lord is maintaining in this wonderful way the character of the dispensation, as He says, “I ... am set down with my Father in his throne”, and He would have us to be affected and to be softened, so that we should not be “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked”, but set up in the wealth that He has to dispose of.
Well now, I go on to the psalm, so that you may see, in the Lord’s own case on earth as a Man, how His humanity is involved. No scripture perhaps gives us such a view of His humanity as this, how real His humanity was, even to the extent of receiving counsel, as He says here, “I will bless Jehovah, who giveth me counsel”; whilst I refer to Jesus our Lord in this wonderful psalm, my object is to show [p. 331] how the brethren, how christians, may be counselled. It is not a question of grace here; it is a question of the Father’s affection for Jesus. What a time the Father had from the time of the incarnation, from the incoming of Christ here! It was one continual history of pleasure for the Father’s eye. In a way nothing affects one more than the satisfaction the Father had in the incarnation, what was involved even from the Lord’s birth; He was cast upon Jehovah from His birth. He had satisfaction, too, in what the saints were to Him, and how the Lord Himself, too, had enjoyment in every bit of the path, a path of suffering, of course, beyond our apprehension, but still a path of satisfaction. There never was a moment in that history save when He was on the cross (if I may make that exception) that the Lord Jesus as Man was not satisfied. It was a life of holy satisfaction, not only in what He found in His Father, but what He found among the saints, as the psalmist shows, and how He speaks of “the lines” that “are fallen to me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage” (verse 6). How contrary, how different from the complainings that we so much hear of! And yet the epistle to the Romans would bring us to this very thing, so that the most adverse things are working in our favour. But here, how beautiful from the lips of Jesus, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage”. He did not make a selection; it was all a line, it is all sovereign, marked out for Him, alluding to the inheritance given in Joshua; and then how He blesses Jehovah, who gave Him counsel!
Well, dear brethren, I am only speaking thus to draw the saints into this psalm. The Lord would draw us into it. If there is anything that would affect me, if I were here when the Lord Jesus was here, it would be to be drawn into the current of His mind at any time and not missing anything. There was a [p. 332] current there, and this psalm is wonderful in that way. The Lord would draw us into the current of real humanity, humanity according to God, that would make history in heaven every day, and cause delight in Him every moment of the day. And then counsel, as He says, “I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel”. This is available to us in whatever it may be that we are puzzled, or baffled, or depressed, this door is open, open to the christian; the Lord has opened it to us. And He goes on to say, “Thou will chew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (verse 11). He leads on in this wonderful way, opening up the way for us, into the divine presence, where we may receive counsel. It is the thought of God: “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God”, that is what it says, “that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not”.
Then another thing comes out here in this same connection — and that is the reins. It says, “My reins also instruct me in the night seasons”. The reins refer to the inner workings in a believer, as it were to the inner automatic organs, and the epistle to the Romans by a process of spiritual analysis enables me to be introspective in a sense that I understand what is taking place there. The Spirit of God having come in in the christian takes possession and He comes in in the night seasons. Many of us elder brethren lie awake for hours and perhaps the young ones do so, too; we have wakeful nights and the Lord would bring us into this. What a time you can have in the night season, when by such an experience you can emerge happier, brighter, fresher than you were when you went to bed. It is a wonderful organism, it is a wonderful inward condition that the Spirit lays hold of and acts upon, even if my mind is not in it. “My reins instruct me”, says the Lord.
What times He had! We are told by Luke that the [p. 333] Lord Jesus was teaching in the day and went to the mount of Olives by night. What nights He must have had! I am speaking so as to draw you, dear brethren, into the current of Christ; He would draw you from all business matters and from all seen matters, so that you might give yourself over to the Spirit of God. He is entitled to you, is He not? Where our inner feelings and affections are purified the Spirit would identify Himself with us, and thus we can say, “My reins instruct me in the night seasons”. Many difficulties are solved. The action of the Spirit in the christian effects this, so that insurmountable difficulties disappear. It is a question of real christianity, beloved brethren, that is what is available to us, making us independent of what is external.
That leads me to Nehemiah, a man well worthy of note in our time, he is a remnant man, a man who had a public position and who, while fulfilling, like Daniel, his responsibilities in it, had a constant eye for divine interests. Let no one say, ‘There are other matters’. I have heard of a man who is in a profession and when a care meeting was arranged in which the divine interests were to be discussed or considered, a meeting which heaven was intent on, he said, ‘I have sold my time for weeks to come’. Where is he alongside the disciples of Christ, alongside of Nehemiah and Daniel? See the amount of business Daniel had to do, the amount of business Nehemiah had to do; he was governor. He has got an eye constantly for the people of God, they are his chief interest. We read of usurers here, men who love money, and who have no conscience about wresting interest and the like from others. We are all exposed to this. Those who are in business — one speaks feelingly — are all exposed to this temptation and it is well to challenge ourselves. The very Jews were money-lenders, and they were reducing the people of [p. 334] God to poverty, and slavery. That is the effect of it; there was the total absence of a liberal and noble heart. The apostle says, “Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?” 1 Corinthians 6: 7.
Well, Nehemiah says, when he heard the cry of the people,”I was very angry”. You might say, ‘You should not be angry’, but it says “be ye angry and sin not”. He did not sin in his anger, he had a right to be angry, he was a governor; and this conduct is enough to make people angry, this flagrant way in which money becomes an object and others are wronged. “I was very angry”, he says, “when I heard their cry and these words”. He was like Jesus, the cry of distress reached the ear of Jesus. He never failed to turn an ear, nor does God fail to turn an ear to the cry of distress — whatever be the occasion of it — not only spiritual distress, but financial distress. It is a very real thing, you know, financial distress, the cry will reach God’s ear. He would say, ‘Come to Me, instead of compromising’. His name is involved in all this. Nehemiah says, “I was very angry when I heard their cry”. And what did he do? Did he send for the brothers he was specially linked up with? I am not saying there are not such spiritual men, but I do say this that we must avoid a fellowship within a fellowship. It is destructive of the real fellowship, making such-and-such an one a friend of mine, and not another. Heaven does not like it. Heaven will make room for all the brethren, they are all our friends. John says, “Greet the friends by name”, 3 John 14. 1 would deprecate the taking counsel with certain ones and not with others. I mean having personal preferences and taking on certain brothers and sisters, to my liking, of my way of thinking; however pleasing it may seem to be, it is destructive of fellowship. I believe verily that the Lord is specially speaking and stressing 1 Corinthians: He [p. 335] says the very least, the one least esteemed in the assembly, is to be used to judge. In a business matter even the least person in the assembly is to be used. I say that because Nehemiah happily consulted with himself. You can understand it in view of what I have said about Psalm 16. It spoke of Jesus, of course, as I know, but Psalm 32 extends it to the ordinary christian. “I will counsel thee”, says Jehovah, “with mine eye upon thee”, Psalm 32: 8. Undoubtedly Nehemiah understood something of Psalm 16. He understood “instruction in the night seasons”. He understood how to weigh things over by himself, and to be assured of the mind of God by himself. And that is what you need here. He says, “I consulted with myself”. You see what a christian is. Of course in Old Testament times brethren did not have deliverance, they did not have the epistle to the Romans, but still they understood something, and they had Psalm 16. So that one arrives at the mind of God in himself. I should endeavour to do that before I consult anyone. Why should I not? He has promised me “counsel”, and I have His Spirit in me inwardly “springing up into everlasting life”, as we are told. My reins are affected by the Spirit of God, who gives instruction in the night seasons. So that I would recommend, dear brethren, in regard to this matter, trying to arrive at the mind of God by yourself, first.
Then I go on to the book of the wise man — that is the book of Proverbs, and that is the finish. The book of Proverbs, as many of you will know, may be fitted in with chapter 1 of Colossians: “Giving thanks to the Father”, we are told, “who has ... translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love” (Colossians 1: 12, 13), that is what God has done for us. If He has done that for us He will give us counsel, as I was saying, for in that kingdom the Son of the Father’s love instructs us in the book of Proverbs. The book [p. 336] of Proverbs may be introduced into that verse, where the writer is the Son of the Father’s love. He says, “I was a son unto my father, tender and an only one in the sight of my mother”, Proverbs 4: 3. It was not simply that he was born to David; he says, “I was a son unto my father”, just as Jesus in an infinitely greater way was a Son unto His Father, delighting Him always, as He says, “I do always those things that please him”, John 8: 29. And so in this book of Proverbs, young men and young women are particularly in mind, the address is largely for them, and it should be read in that way, so as to guide our feet into the way of life, and into the way of peace. “The path of life is upwards”, we are told in this book, “for the wise, that he may depart from Sheol beneath”, Proverbs 15: 24. And so Solomon says in this verse I have read — and there are several others like it, I may say — “Where no counsel is, the people fall”. You see this is another thing, there is no counsel, people are not able to get it themselves and there is not one to give it to them, hence there is disaster, people fall. Then the other part of the statement is, “In the multitude of counsellors there is safety”. And that is, dear brethren, if you will pardon me for being so practical, what I understand to be what we call the care meeting. It has no official status, it has no executive status; the assembly has. A care meeting is deliberative, it is tentative, procuring information, evidences. Of course the word ‘care’ involves looking after the saints, too. You have an eye on the saints. There is much that can be done on the principle of confidence, but the general position is that it is a tentative matter in view of the executive power of the assembly. The Lord will not allow the assembly to be belittled. It is one thing that engages Him here on earth all the time, and He is very jealous about it. However feeble it may be, the Lord is very jealous about it, and He loves every movement rightly [p. 337] undertaken in relation to the assembly. And so “in the multitude of counsellors” (there were many) “there is safety”, and I believe the epistle to the Corinthians has this in mind. We have much about eldership in other epistles, but where you have partisan conditions, dear brethren, never talk about elders, because the partisan condition is sure to include them. There were partisan conditions in Corinth — self-named parties, one saying, I am of Paul, another, I of Apollos. Our very hope under these conditions is the multitude, if you understand me, of counsellors. And so the apostle says, “Sufficient to such a man is this punishment, which was inflicted of many” (2 Corinthians 2: 6); it is the many. Of course, it was an assembly position here, but “the many”, he says; they are all brought into it, let none be eliminated. He speaks reproachfully to them, addressing them as babes, but he says, “babes in Christ”, 1 Corinthians 3: 1. Let us not forget that a babe is in Christ. The Lord will not omit any of those, let us include them, let us make room for them so that He may get something “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings”. You may get a little child leading sometimes. I quite recognise, dear brethren, that eldership is eldership, and if there be an elder in the care meeting, he is an elder, and it will show itself — he is not a partisan. He is what he is, it will show itself. And the babe is what he is and that, too, will show itself, and he will find his place. If the Lord is there, everyone will find his level and know his measure. But let us remember this proverb, “in the multitude of counsellors there is safety”. He does not say a final solution of everything, but “safety”, it is a safe matter. It is safer than other matters, other methods; that is the point. May the Lord bless His word.