LEADERSHIP
[p. 432] LEADERSHIP
Numbers 1: 16 - 19; Numbers 7: 10, 11; Numbers 10: 29 - 36
It is in my mind to speak of leadership, and to speak of it as it is seen in this book. Each book of the Bible has its own significance, this book specially so. It was written without a name; the name we have here is not exactly its name. The significance of the book really is “in the wilderness”, suggesting that the wilderness is of divine appointment, not yet blossoming “as a rose”, but — ‘With thorns and briars overspread, Where foes and snares abound’ (151:2).
The book, whilst indicating this, also indicates that it is a place of divine growth and development; that is to say, that these actual things have happened. The truth of manhood is in mind, the age for military service denoting that of manhood, affording a great field for promotion. Numbers is a book of this kind, and hence the Spirit of God in the prophets indicates that God had appeared and that the people had been brought through, for the prophets always afford light, sidelights as I might say, on the Pentateuch. The people were found in the wilderness, but they were taken under God’s wing, borne upon it, indeed, as He says, “I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”. So these words were spoken in the wilderness, that is to say, after the Red Sea had been crossed. God was, as it were, rejoicing inwardly, for He said things in His heart; He knows the way to speak things in His heart without saying them aloud. In this case He spoke things aloud: “I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”. They settled down in the wilderness before Mount Sinai, and here God would bring out the manhood, at least in type, that had been developed. They had gone out by fives, meaning that there was an element of [p. 433] smallness. The allusion is to the five senses, what we prove in ourselves. They had gone out by fives in military array, as an army in that sense; they had gone through the Red Sea and were brought into the very wilderness and encamped before the mount. Now my thought is to speak of them in type and attempt to make an application of the position. God had brought them through, and not simply that, but He had brought them to Himself. He was pleased with them. It was an exploit of His own, and now He would show that they were men. We all remember the word in the epistle to the Corinthians, an epistle in which it needed to be said, for it was hardly obvious; “Quit yourselves like men; be strong”.
Then another thing that comes out is the lesson that had to be learned; how to walk; “how ye ought to walk and to please God” (1 Thessalonians 4: 1); and learning to be borne; to be carried. We are brought together, dear brethren, and we are given to each other. It is a great matter that God has given Christ and the Spirit to us, but He has given the saints to us too. They are worthy. One has had considerable experience of the saints, and can say that one thinks more of them than ever; they are more lovely than ever they have been in his eyes, and I believe the same was true as to the eyes of God at Mount Sinai. What comes out further is that in learning to walk we are princely. That is why I read these passages, because they speak of princes, of persons who have that ennoblement. I wish to speak of the saints in their princeliness and their ennoblement, and I can say without any sentiment or natural feeling that the dear brethren have proved that they are worthy of promotion. I am not speaking partially of those here, but generally. I believe God always speaks generally of His people. Of course He does speak partially and speaks of them [p. 434] locally and so on, but generally the principle is what is universal and that is what is presented at Mount Sinai. God’s people have come through, God has brought them through, and He has given us to understand that He has brought us through. I put myself amongst those who have been brought through. It has been one whole matter, and God would have it so. Presently we are all going up together and I do not believe any one of us would wish to go up otherwise. You might think the Lord would come and take us one by one, but He is coming to take us up together to finish the matter.
This all comes out at Sinai and the whole truth of the book of Numbers comes into mind. It involves princeliness in the brethren; that is to say, what is based on credit, what is based on what is due, for God is dealing on that principle with us. We are already brought, as it were, before the judgment seat of God, for surely it is due to God that we should keep and hold ourselves in the light of His presence, in the light of the presence of each other too, in the light of His operations and the promotions that are due to the people of God. The book of Numbers is full of the idea of promotion, promotion from the ranks, so to speak.
Having made those remarks, I begin with the first scripture read, which involves princeliness. The word is, “These were the renowned of the congregation, princes of the tribes of their fathers, heads of thousands in Israel”. These are the ones, and these have been chosen for the purpose of nominating in the ranks, of setting forward before God what there was in a military sense; that is to say, the six hundred thousand that God has. I refer to that because it is a question of what God has now. Many of us here can look back a considerable number of years and recall what there was, but I am speaking now of what there is. One generation passes away and [p. 435] another comes, and that one has come. A generation has come into evidence, brothers and sisters have come through, but they have come into evidence as taking part in the service. I am thinking of that; Numbers speaks of it. It is no question of the number of individuals, but of those who are taking part in the service, and when one is enlisted, speaking figuratively, one has part in the system. The woman of Samaria is illustrative of this. As soon as she is recognised by the Lord in her womanly relations, addressed by Him as “Woman”, she begins to think of the system. Hence, when the disciples came back, for they had gone into the city to buy bread, which was unimportant from this standpoint, the woman was there. They marvelled that the Lord talked with a woman, but she left her waterpot and she went away into the city; that is to say, something had come into her soul in the way of light involving that she belonged to a system. She left her waterpot and went into the city, and said to the men, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did; is not this the Christ?” It was a testimony, for in her mind she belonged to a system and that Man was the Head of it. I am seeking to bring before the dear brethren at the present time the matter of the system and our belonging to it, of our being systematised and knowing how to take part in it intelligently. So she had results.
Now I am coming to a point of importance; she obtained results in the system. She found the centre and she would direct others to that centre. She had got into the current of things. There was a current at that time, and that current was towards Christ, and the men of the city were moving in it; the woman was moving in it. That is the position; she had results. Now the ministry, as I said, has grown; the ministers have grown in number, too, but this systematising is the important thing. The whole [p. 436] universe is a system in many senses, especially in the universal sense, and in the system we learn to be universal, not simply local. The more we are with God the more universal we are. We have been pursuing lines of thought during the past day or so involving the thought of man. The education of man at the outset was not local, it was universal. The garden of Eden was at the centre of the universe. I am coming back to that in a moment, but I mention it now, the necessity of being universal and systematised in it, belonging to it as a system, and getting results. It is no question of the number of meetings I can book, the number of addresses I can give; the question is results, dear brethren, what accrues, and Numbers has that in mind. Hence we have nine chapters, and the most remarkable chapters in a sense in the whole Bible, because of the accuracy and correctness of things in them, because the will of God is so emphasised in them. The presence of the cloud is mentioned in chapter 9 more than it is in all the other part of the book; it refers to the presence of God in a system. God is visibly there. It is no private matter, nor am I dealing with private matters, I am dealing with public matters which can be seen and known in heaven and earth. The matter is not local, it is general; there must be the fitting into the universal idea and the success that accrues from it.
As I was saying, the princely thought has a great place, and that is why I have read these passages. First of all the princes who are nominated to count with Moses and Aaron; they were to count the persons of twenty years old and upward, meaning full manhood. They were to be numbered by Moses and Aaron and one man out of every tribe. The tribal thought is there and the tribal thought is really the universal thought. One of the most baneful things, I think, in the history of the assembly is national [p. 437] feeling. You say, It is a right feeling; but it is not a right feeling from the standpoint of God; it is a dangerous feeling, because it localises us, and localisation works out in the disregard of universal interests. The Lord’s interests are universal and the whole teaching of the book of Acts and the types is to bring out the superior intelligence of the Lord Jesus in setting up the divine system; that is, Christianity in a universal sense. It is localised later for a purpose but not at first. We have not the word assembly until quite late in the book of Acts. Acts 9: 31 refers to what was general and what was there to be admired of God; the superior intelligence that belonged to it and the love; for what is intelligence without love? But love was there, dear brethren, and it is love that makes the prince. Eleazar is the great prince in the book of Numbers, the prince of the princes of the Levites. The Levites represent those that minister the word and Eleazar is their prince; he represents love. So, as I said, the idea of princes comes in at once in chapter 1; one of every tribe is nominated to have part in the numbering. Then chapter 7 brings out the princeliness of these men; not simply that they were recognised as having distinction. We all know how readily we take on the distinction that any little ability we may have accords to us, and we make much of it.
When we come to Numbers 7, it is twelve men on twelve days and each man had his day in the sight of the people. What a prince each was! The facts of their offerings betoken perfect unity, but unity in giving to God, in the dedication of the altar; for it is really a question, as I was saying, of this system, of suffering, of sacrifice, and these men are marked off, each prince in his day, it says, as if the whole area and time, the twelve days, were filled with the princely thought. God would do that, and that is why I mention this thought of princeliness because [p. 438] of these men, how they offered, each prince in his day. One might say much about that, of the princes who have had their day in our times. Every one of us is tested as to what he exhibits in his day. How God loves those men who have spoken to us the word of God! “Remember your leaders who have spoken to you the word of God”, Hebrews 13: 7. Not their learning, not their money, nor anything of that kind, but those “who have spoken to you the word of God”; that is the point in the ministry. It is not the magnificence of the language that may be used, or the eloquence, but the word of God. Some of us can look back many years and remember those who have spoken to us the word of God. It is through them that we have been made what we are; it is a question of the word of God, and who is ministering the word of God. “Remember your leaders imitate their faith”. That is the thought, and every prince had his day. You may say to me, You are having quite a long day; you may well say that. I thank God for the ear I get amongst the brethren, but it is not that, it is a question of the word of God. “The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”, Hebrews 4: 12. It is a question of ministering that.
What a weapon a person who ministers that is in the hand of God; he is a prince. If he has died, he has gone to be with the Lord; we remember him, we recall him with pleasure; but if he is in life, we have to think of that word, “Obey your leaders”. You know there is a great deal of lawlessness amongst young people. I am not speaking exactly of this country, but of other countries well known to many of us here; how much lawlessness there is. Some speak as if the ministers of God were just [p. 439] ordinary persons, but they are not that. These princes were not that at Sinai, they were men to be regarded with respect and reverence. “Remember your leaders”; those who have gone. The mind is balanced in that way. But as to those that are alive, we should not only listen to them, but obey them, if they are worthy. It is another matter, as to what moral weight the ministers have in ministering. The ministers cannot hope for obedience in the youth unless there is moral weight.
Now take Caleb, a great prince in Israel who comes in in one of the later chapters, one of the sorrowful chapters. I did not intend to speak about these chapters in Numbers, what histories they disclose, what histories of lawlessness in men who had acquired greatness even, through the ministry. There were two hundred and fifty princes who rebelled in chapter 16 in the days of Moses and Aaron; they were men of renown. How did they get their renown? They got their renown because they were ministers, but they failed. Think of the lawlessness that prevails in Christendom largely through the state of those who have the status of ministers of the word of God!
I had in mind to enlarge on this idea of princes in chapter 7 because of the dear brethren who have gone, whose faith we are to follow and whom we are to remember. It says that each prince had his day. What I am saying, of course, affords food for contemplation as to the princes of Christianity. What days these men, these princes, had! It is a question of the younger men coming on now and acquiring a place in the ministry, as to the results from the ministry, whether it is worth anything, whether they are to earn promotion in it. These men had acquired a place in Israel, they were known in Israel to be men of distinction, and they were recognised as having distinction. But these twelve days were memorable days when these men were allowed to present [p. 440] their offerings to God. The list is given, it is a very remarkable list; they were perfectly united in what they gave. Of course, it is all figurative, but it is a remarkable thing how each prince had his day and gave in perfect accord with all the others.
Going on to chapter 10, I want to speak about Moses and the ark, and of the way in which real leadership is reserved till this chapter, just as Paul in his epistles reserved the real thing for the Philippians. The real leadership that could not be improved in the whole universe, and that is in the ark of the covenant. We have to come to that, we have to come to it in Paul’s ministry, in the gospels, and in the book of the Revelation; but the great book for that is the epistle to the Philippians, and therefore the princes are in mind. The apostle does not refer to the gifted men in that epistle; he refers to the overseers and ministers, not the preachers. He refers also to those women who laboured with him in the gospel; Paul reserved some of the finest things he had to say for that epistle, and hence the place the Lord Jesus is given. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who... emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form, taking his place in the likeness of men”. That is how He emptied Himself, by taking a servant’s form; in the place of a prince, a publicly acknowledged person. He was a servant in that position. A place once occupied by a prince is now occupied by a servant; in fact, the Person occupying it was in the form of God. He “did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman’s form”. That is how He did it. Let us learn how to do it; we can only learn it from the Lord, no one else had that place, no one else could do it. He emptied Himself. How did He do it? By taking a servant’s form, that is how He did it. Not simply taking a minister’s form, the form of one [p. 441] who could speak or teach, but taking a bondman’s form. The Lord did that before the universe; He did it for all time, for today, for me. The lesson is there, the place is there, and occupied by the Bondman, but the Bondman is God. Let us understand and be reverential about it. The form is a substantial thing, it is a real thing; the word means that, it is a real bondman; that is what the Lord became.
And then again, “Having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”. The Lord Jesus took His place on that ground, as I might say, speaking reverently, in the likeness of men. The word is men, not man. We read later that He was “found in figure as a man”, but He took “his place in the likeness of men”. The Lord occupied that ground, as I might say, as a bondman; it is the Lord of glory as a bondman. If He were thought of as an ordinary man, the Lord said nothing about that; the time would come when it was disproved, meantime He was ready to accept reproach. “I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and in whose mouth are no reproofs”, Psalm 38: 13, 14. When the suffering comes, when the reproach comes, let us take our place in that way. If it calls for reproach, let it be the reproach of Christ. Moses came into it, he deliberately came into that reproach in Egypt, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. That is the outward position, and that is the point we get in the book of Numbers. Now I want to come to a solemn thing — natural relationships amongst us, what they are capable of and how they are marked out as adverse. Moses would be content with his father-in-law. I want to touch this matter of natural relationships and local relationships, and how they affect the testimony and the ministry, working out in local preferences. They [p. 442] may be disastrous unless we maintain the universality of the system we belong to; let the local position, too, have its place. We are told that Hobab declined to go with Moses and the people. It was a mercy he did. The most distinguished relative I may have cannot come into the position because he is my relative. It is a mercy; he may do me harm. Moses said to Hobab in the passage I read: “We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it to you; come thou with us, and we will do thee good; for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel. And he said unto him, I will not go, but I will depart to mine own land, and to my kindred. And he said, Leave us not, I pray thee; forasmuch as thou knowest how we are to encamp in the wilderness, and thou mayest be to us instead of eyes. And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee”. That is all you get of the incident. Thank God Hobab did not go; it was a mercy. I am speaking now practically, dear brethren, of the danger of natural relationships in the things of God. If it be not natural relationships, it may be personal relations influencing us against what is right. The divine thought is what is universal, that is what God began with with man. If it cannot hold universally, it is not right. God is universal; His things are universal too; if things are of God they fit everywhere. All the Hobabs will lose heart if they come. The Spirit of God does not say that he came; the inference is that he did not come, because the ark occupied the place. It is the lowliness of Christ coming in at such a time when natural relationships would spoil us and damage us, interfering with the universal thought that God is pursuing. Hobab does not come; we are left with that impression, and it is proved in the fact that the ark had its place.
[p. 443] In Philippians 2 the Lord Jesus is said to have been “in the form of God”. He was on an equality with God; He made Himself of no reputation and He did it by taking a bondman’s form. The ark occupied a small position, but the position which God was in, and hence the passage which follows. Christ — the true ark — took His place in the wilderness instead of Hobab, and, when they set forward from the mount, Moses said, “Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thy face”. Think of the Lord Jesus coming out into the open as in Philippians! His place was to be carefully guarded in the centre of the camp, but He went out into the open. The place is occupied, not? by Hobab, nor even by Moses, but by the ark of the covenant, the Lord Himself, coming in lowliness into the universal place. True leadership must be in humiliation. Clericalism is distinction from religious causes, but the Spirit of Jesus is humiliation from love’s causes. Love would go down to occupy the small place to do the work. Hence the result. “It came to pass when the ark set forward that Moses said, Rise up, Jehovah, and let thine enemies be scattered, and let them that hate thee flee before thy face. And when it rested he said, Return, Jehovah, unto the myriads of the thousands of Israel”. Moses would never have said this if Hobab had been there, but why did he say it? He said it because the ark led the way in its littleness, but also in its power, for it is the power of God and the glory of God. That is what Christ is. We should never have had that if Hobab had gone with them, and, wherever any influence of that kind is working, whether natural or local, we shall be deprived of some universal thought that is profitable to the people of God.
May the Lord bless the word!