FORMATION BY DIVINE IMPRESSIONS
H. Pfeiffer
I have in mind to speak about being formed according to divine impressions, impressions which we receive maybe privately in reading the Scriptures, or in being together. I note from experience that very often we receive impressions and they come very near to us. We think about them, but the many things we are occupied with very easily take them away from us.
So I think it should be an exercise with us all, young and old, to be more concerned when the Lord is seeking to speak to us that we open our hearts and follow the impressions up with method and diligence so that we may be formed according to His nature.
One of the greatest things we are able to learn in our strangership here is the knowledge of divine Persons. The Lord Jesus, who has come so near to us, has found a way, His own way, into our hearts. He would like us to be more earnestly occupied with His things that His work may develop in us so that we are really ready to be taken up into heaven. I think this word which we have read would help us on these lines. Luke 9: 51 speaks about His “receiving up”, at the time of the mount of transfiguration. You know, the Lord was always ready to be taken into heaven. There was nothing unsuitable, nothing disturbing, with Him. At the start of His service
the voice came, “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3: 17), and then again on the mount of transfiguration. Peter would make three tabernacles, but it is important to see that the Father does not allow anyone to intrude upon the uniqueness and preciousness of the Son. So I feel we should be more attached to Him in view of the nearness of His coming to take us to Himself. It says in Revelation, “The Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Revelation 22: 17), and every one who hears it is to say, Come. Do we expect the Lord? The time is near when He will come to take us, then all the children of God will be caught up together to meet Him in the air.
But now it is the time of His rejection and it is a time of formation. I wonder whether we think enough about this time of forming. Mr. Taylor often said that everything which will be displayed in the world to come is formed now in the saints. Should not therefore our exercises be in relation to the coming world and in relation to the One who will be the centre of that world? So it is good to think about that world which we are awaiting, and our desire is to be living more in view of it. It is remarkable to read Mr. Raven’s ministry; almost from the start he shows the importance of our being connected with the world to come. So the question is how far our hearts are really attached to Christ in glory.
There are two persons here, Elijah and Elisha, who seem to have a private history. It is not exactly what is going on publicly. What is outside we find more in the first chapter, where there is decline. So if we look around we feel really sorry about the scattering of God’s people and the iniquity, which is increasing. But God is surely securing something for His own heart and for His own pleasure. So I wondered whether these places where
Elisha went with Elijah would help us to be more suitable, to be in a state of expecting the near coming of our Lord. They both went together and Elijah in a sense tests Elisha in saying,
“Abide here, I pray thee; for Jehovah has sent me to Bethel”. You wonder when you read it what it really meant. We remember that Mr. Raven speaks about the course of the testimony and the tests connected with it. He said he would not persuade anybody to go in this way of separation because of the tests connected with it. On the other hand, I think it is really the love which attaches you to Christ which makes you feel you cannot be without Him. You really feel you cannot be without the Lord Jesus. That is so for the young ones and for every one of us, that we cannot be without Him and we would not be apart from His movements.
We would be in accord with the way in which He moves.
So Elijah goes on his way. He says several times, “Abide here, I pray thee”. I think that is only to bring out the genuineness of the work of God in every one of us. You think about the Lord Himself, how He could meet in real humanity, in flesh and blood conditions as ourselves, sin apart, and in holy dependence, every enemy, and bring to pass God’s will under the uttermost of trying circumstances. So you look at Him who has died for your sins.
You appreciate Him as the only One who was able to die for your sins, who cleared them away for ever from before the face of God. And He went through here in full dependence—
showing in every footstep and in every act, in everything He did, perfect dependence as Man.
Is that not something for every one of our hearts to think about?—what God had in that Man here, and how His pleasure was secured in Him, how something was secured in Christ here which is for His heart for all eternity. Think about what results through the greatness of
His death and the reality of His manhood. Well, I would like to try to present His greatness and preciousness so as to affect all our hearts, so that something may be developed by His Spirit which is like Him.
So these two persons could not be separated. “As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee!”. Is that not a good start, and not only a good start but a fresh appeal to our hearts to say, “I will not leave thee!”? The Lord Jesus desires to attach you to Himself, and how He values you, in the world where He is rejected. So they start at Gilgal. We remember the fact that it was at Gilgal, after they went through Jordan, that they experienced circumcision. I think there was really life working in their souls and in their lives which attracted them to the ark, and brought them through the Jordan, and there they could find that the flesh had no place in the thoughts of God. I think that really it is a lesson we have to learn all our lives through, how the flesh works in different settings. Think about the exercises in our young lives as to Amalek. It says in Exodus 17: 16 that “Jehovah will have war against Amalek from generation to generation”. But here we really find power working and see how Elisha is attracted to Elijah because of his affection for him, and what he appreciated in Elijah; he would not give up and leave him—“As Jehovah liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee! So they went down to Bethel”.
I think if we choose to find our place with Christ crucified, then we value this aspect of His death, His being crucified and being cut off. This would just make way for being able to be together with Him in God’s house, of which Bethel speaks, in a place where God pleases to reveal Himself.
self. We think about the Lord Himself and it is said, “The zeal of thy house devours me”
(John 2: 17), when He dealt with what was going on wrongly in the temple. So we find persons who are able to judge what they are in the flesh and therefore can appreciate that God likes to reveal Himself. He is revealing Himself where He has put His name, and then also, as we know, the Lord said, “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst”, Matthew 18: 20. That does not mean that we have exactly a claim to it, but we just like to provide conditions where He is able to speak to us, and where He is able to make known to us the preciousness of His Person. So what an experience it is to be on this line of God’s thoughts, and not to be diverted through all kinds of thoughts of men. God has established His testimony in relation to His thoughts, and I think every one of us should really appreciate the good teaching, how the Lord Himself was pleased to come in in the time of Mr. Darby and has helped His people so distinctly until now. But the exercise should be still with us to maintain a place that the Lord is pleased with, not letting one thought which He has recovered in His goodness fall to the ground.
In the letter to Philadelphia the Lord says, “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown”, Revelation.3: 11. I wonder, dear brethren, if we think about that. Is not the Lord attaching a great value to this at the present moment? We think about the times of the martyrs and all they went through. They gave up their lives, and how the Lord valued that, but I wonder whether we all think, or can imagine, how the Lord appreciates every one who seeks to keep what He has secured in this time of recovery, including that choice thought that He has in His heart, Christ and the assembly.
It is a mystery which came out, in times of great trial, in Paul’s writings. How we should really humble ourselves but, on the other hand, let us cling to these precious thoughts and desire to work them out in our local places, as one said, dying for the truth. I suppose every one here has gone through much exercise as to the solemn happenings in 1970 and 1972, .and it is remarkable, if you think back, how very early decline came in after the apostle Paul’s departure. We can only say that that was due to failure in responsibility. But how sure we can be that everything is secured in this Man and He will bring through something (we can say this without being presumptuous) for His own heart. So we really love, young and old, to give Him the first place in all our hearts.
Elijah and Elisha came to Jericho and it says, “And the sons of the prophets that were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, Dost thou know that Jehovah will take away thy master from over thy head today?”. There were these thoughts in their hearts of knowing quite a bit of the truth, but at the end we find from these men that they had no part really in the receiving up of Elijah. They told Elisha to send and look for him. They said they knew these things, and it really tests one’s own heart as to how far we are really in accord with the reality of what we know. I thought if we could follow this exercise, something would develop for the pleasure of God. It says that as they came to Jericho Elijah said, “Abide here, I pray thee; for Jehovah has sent me to the Jordan”. Jericho, as we know, was built up again, also there was a curse on it. The curse is on the whole course of this world. Dear brethren, we have to go through it, but in our hearts we would be attracted to greater things which are of much more importance and value. Everything that is attached
to this place where the curse is is spoken about in Revelation 18 where it says, “Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen”. All this is to bear very closely on my own heart, and on all our hearts, but the motive behind facing these exercises is love for the Lord Jesus, love for this glorious Man in heaven who likes to attract us to Himself. So we are able to go around this city, Jericho, as Israel did. We are unable to bring it down, only God is able for that; God is able to come in with His own power. But let us remember that He gives power to sustain us right through these exercises in attachment to our Lord.
Then they go to the Jordan, the place where we find we have died with Christ. Every one of us would surely have the desire to be in the good of that. We appreciate His death, but the question is whether, in time of testing, we are able to be in accord with the Jordan. We know of these exercises, may every one be going through them; God likes to give us power to be in the gain of them. So Elijah took his mantle and wrapped it together and smote the waters and the Jordan was divided. So the power of death has been broken, the Lord has gone through.
What a glorious Victor we have, beloved brethren. And in this sense, going through these exercises one by one, I wondered if something would develop in us which might be more for the glory of God and for His testimony for as long as we are here, for His name’s sake.
Address at Redbridge
10 July 1976