LEAPING

^[p. 448] LEAPING

Acts 3: 7 - 9; 2 Samuel 22: 30; Deuteronomy 33: 22

I Have been thinking, dear brethren, of the use of the word ‘leap’ in the Scriptures, and what the Spirit had in mind in using this word. It is an athletic term, which is not foreign to Scripture. Perhaps we wonder at Scripture alluding to the arena and the racecourse, but Scripture was indited by the Holy Spirit, and the power of holiness is never affected by any detrimental element in the sphere of inspiration; indeed, the word in this respect is “To the pure all things are pure”. And yet one would warn young minds of things that are in themselves impure-not to play with them. We may safely follow the Spirit of God in His use of language. Even the word ‘dancing’ has a great place in the Scriptures. It applies to physical ability in itself; the members of the body, the framework, are taxed by the exercise. God Himself, in the parable of the prodigal son, inaugurates the thought of dancing-”music and dancing”. The psalmist alludes to it, “As well the singers as the dancers shall say, All my springs are in thee”, Psalm 87: 7. That is in Zion-not in the arena or field, but in Zion. That is where we are just now, to be simple. All our springs are drawn from Zion, and I think it wise to begin with an example.

The book of Acts is a book of examples. That book is rightly named; but whose acts are they? Someone would say, The acts of the Holy Spirit. But that will not do. The book is intended to convey human acts, angelic acts; acts of the Spirit of God, too, but we do better to get to the title; not that it is inspired, but it is like many other things, semi-inspired, because it has had such a holy and wide usage. It is as if heaven would say, ‘The saints are to be seen in their own setting’. The saints are in their element in this book. No one, if he is a christian, is in his element in any music place or any dance hall or any picture hall or any theatre; he is not in his place at all; he is out of his element. And the Spirit of God would say, You are to be engaged in relation to the book of the Acts. It is the place of acts, a word that is also used in a desecrated way. One of the acts is in this man that I have read of, and another one is Peter. I selected this man to begin with because it is said that immediately Peter took him by the right hand and lifted him up, “leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”, Acts 3: 8. He is immediately brought into action, but as usual, there is initiative in the divine action. The great first cause is God in anything that is of Him. And so the action here is distinctly through Peter. The man is taken by the right hand. Peter took him by the right hand and lifted him up. So that I am speaking to the younger brothers and sisters, and the idea of initiative comes down the line from God, as we had it this afternoon. He selects His vessel, and in no book do we find His selection more than in this. God is going to act and act mediately, and He is bringing in the actors. It is a great honour to have part in such a book as this.

The writer had already written to Theophilus, but lest he might be taken with what are called ‘democratic’ ideas, Luke is not concerned about that. He is not shutting it out either, the idea of men acting, men as men. But he has selected a man that had a place among men. You cannot imagine that God would leave all the places of distinction to the devil on this earth. We read of seven thousand names of men that were destroyed. God did not give them their names, and they were destroyed in the fall of the city, for they were of the world’s system. The world ^[p. 450] is systematised, involving individual, political, and social distinctions. The devil, of course, makes much of their names, and there were seven thousand names of men that were destroyed at once. If we were to go over the realm of ‘Who’s Who’, we should find a good many in all the country, and they are not diminishing. Seven thousand is a goodly number. There are gradations in it, of course, but the word ‘name’ covers all, and they come under judgment. Well now, coming to this book, as I said, we have a distinguished man in the opening. “I composed the first discourse, O Theophilus”-it is a slight reduction; he was called “most excellent” earlier. So that we get a good start in this book, not on the line of the seven thousand names, but heavenly names. “Rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”.

And so I select one of the names of this book, and he is described by the Spirit: “A certain man who was lame from his mother’s womb was being carried, whom they placed every day at the gate of the temple called Beautiful, to ask alms of those who were going into the temple” (verse 2). Well, that is the Spirit’s introduction of this man, this actor. He is taken from the dunghill and placed among princes. Peter ennobled him, as he does others in the book. “Peter, looking stedfastly upon him with John, said, Look on us”. So that we can see how the idea of personality comes into the scriptural account the Spirit gives of this man; he was, of course, marked by lameness; that is, he was unfit for any distinction on athletic lines. He could never aspire to that naturally. Peter fastened his eyes upon him. These are words of great importance as to this book-what is to be worthy of our eyes. The book of Leviticus makes a great deal of the priest’s eyes, and where we are defiled by sin, any of us (I hope none of us is), we have to do with the priest’s eyes, that is, God’s eyes through the priests. “All things are naked and laid bare to his ^[p. 451] eyes, with whom we have to do”, Hebrews 4: 13. So the priest fixes his eyes on anyone who is erring from the truth and is turning aside. But this is not the point here; the point here would be the eyes of the apostle, the eyes of a person who had power to help. The priest’s eye is discriminating. He names the thing, whatever it be, whether it be a white hair or a black hair. There is distinction as to colour, and that, of course, is necessary, but what the man needed here was a question of power. It says, “Peter, looking stedfastly upon him, with John”, showing that this book brings out the idea of association with persons, two or more. It is a great thing to have two associated. I say a great thing because there is blessing in two associated together in the fellowship. But the idea of special links, making special links among ourselves, is to be abhorred. With Peter and John, if their links were special it was because they were formed by the workmanship of Christ; they were made fishers of men. The Lord said to Peter and Andrew, I will make you fishers of men. They were made by the Lord, and their special links are safe. They are associated in what the book indicates, which is the fellowship. The fellowship of the apostles is really one of the leading points in the book. “Our fellowship is indeed with the Father, and with his Son” (1 John 1: 3); the twelve of them are linked in special fellowship, and here Peter and John are linked together. But Peter was the one who looked on the impotent man; he fixed his eyes on him. It is a most serious matter to offend the divine eye in that sense, because it acts mediately; it acts through others, and in this case it was on the poor lame man who had no distinction at all save that he was lame and a beggar. But he is going to be distinguished, taken up from the dunghill and set among princes. That is what is going to happen, and that is what has happened to all of us who are christians, and I believe ^[p. 452] most of us have been taken from the dunghill and set among princes. Therefore how great it is to have men linked together by heaven; one of them fixed his eyes on this man. Later on, another great servant (that is Paul, another great actor in the book) has to do with a similar man, and it is said of him by the Spirit that Paul saw that he had faith to be healed. That is not said of this man, but it is true of him, as the sequel shows. I would remind the brethren of the necessity for having faith if we are to come into the things of God at all, or to have any part in what He is doing. “Without faith it is impossible to please him”, Hebrews 11:6. It says of the man whom Paul healed that he “heard Paul speaking, who, fixing his eyes on him, and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Rise up straight upon thy feet and he sprang up and walked”, Acts 14: 9, 10. He was raised in the same sense, but I am not going to speak further of him. My point here is that he leaped up, it says, “Peter ... having taken hold of him by the right hand he raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong”.

I want to work up from the bottom in this man. Most of us work from the top, even spiritually, and in a certain sense that is right, because God needs our mouths and eyes and ears, but then we may stop too soon in the downward course. This man began down at the bottom, his feet and ankle bones. So we must not hide behind our diseased feet. Mephibosheth was lame on both his feet, and sometimes we say his feet were under the table, but not always. You cannot always hide your feet under the table. There are feet-examiners as well as eye-examiners, and you have to look after your feet, where they take you and where you go. You cannot hide your feet. You cannot say, My heart is right but my feet are not. You cannot hide behind your feet when you have bad ways. The feet must be dealt with, and that is the first thing that is in mind here. It says, “And having taken hold of him by the right hand he raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong”. Where would those feet go now? Our feet need examining. Jesus’ feet were feet for anointing and the woman in Simon’s house did that. His feet are mentioned several times. Many of us have often touched on the frequency with which the word ‘feet’ is introduced in Luke 7. But there was one person there whose feet could hardly be anointed then, but she anointed the feet of Jesus. She knew those feet deserved anointing. The Lord later said to her, “Go”. That means, ‘Use your feet’, and it implies that her feet were affected. The Lord’s feet were anointed by her with myrrh. How beautiful that she should have myrrh! If God is working with us and things are to be done, we shall have the means wherewith to do them. The Samaritan had the means wherewith to look after the needs of the poor man that fell among the thieves. He had the means with him, and so had the woman in Simon’s house. She certainly did not borrow from Simon, and the Lord in due course said to her, “Go”. How could He say, “Go” to her unless she had feet that could be guided? She would never go to a picture show any more with those feet. She would not go anywhere that could not be approved by the divine eye.

Well now, here you will observe that “immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong. And leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”. Now I just touch on these matters, because spiritually we are simply out of it unless we are in these things, simply out of it as to any special recognition of heaven: first the feet, then the ankle bones, then the idea of leaping, then the idea of walking, and then the idea of praising God. But where did the thing begin? Sometimes we seek to help souls, and ^[p. 454] we meet people that have no record at all of their spiritual birth, no record of their conversion, no record of any such event as this. Well, their christianity is simply doubtful; it is just doubtful and worse. There must be a beginning spiritually. There must be a beginning in everything. If the creation is made out of nothing, its beginning is with God. Jesus is the first-born of all creation. There must be a beginning, and anyone who has no record of his beginning is just out of it. He is doubtful, and I should not go around this world with any such papers. They are no papers at all; they have no credentials in them. Even if I have had credentials I have not got them now. All this is what is going on now — what can I use now in my walk and ways? My point here is that the leaping is first. That idea is stressed. He leaps, and that immediately. Peter looked on him and took him by the right hand, that is where the link is. The universe is one thing; judaism is one thing; Israel is one thing; christianity is one thing; the human race is one thing. It has a beginning, and so with each of you. You must go back to the beginning. Whence the beginning? Here the beginning is not that Peter fixed his eyes on the man, or even that he gave him his right hand, but that is really the point. He fixed his eyes on him, took him by the right hand and lifted him up. At any time in the future you may be certain this man would say, I will never forget that, when Peter took me by the right hand. It was a transaction. It was a delegated transaction. It was from God, and that is the way it is with every christian. What are they without history? I must have a history in heaven, and what is my history among the brethren? It must correspond with heaven if it is real. And this man’s history really was morally in the link that Peter established with him in taking him by the right hand, and the power began there. It was delegated power flowing out ^[p. 455] through Peter to him. Now what I am saying is most important, because we are challenged constantly as to our history, and as to what we are at the present moment; and what we have to bring forth.

One could say a good deal about the papers we have to carry now. Aliens have to carry certain papers, or to be sure they have them within ready reach. The Government relies upon us. And so it is with those in the assembly, the searching character of the Spirit of God is sure to light upon us, to fix His eyes on each of us. And then there is this matter as to whether I have got any power. Peter took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and he, leaping up, stood. He never needed Peter’s support again. It is what I get inwardly by the link which is from God. This man, we are told, leaped up, and as I said, illustrates the idea of superiority, beginning down at the bottom with the feet and ankle bones, and reaching up to the knees; it applies, as we get elsewhere, to the loins, so that we are able to swim. We must know something about all these members and their actions, and swimming is another divine word. “Waters to swim in”, waters are waiting for the believer to swim in, and without these members that I mention, we cannot swim, nor can we leap. This man leaped and walked and then afterwards walked and leaped, as much as to say, we are going back to the proper order. When I was a babe, I began to walk, maybe when I was twelve or fifteen months. I did not leap then. So that the first idea is the transmission of power as a believer through the right hand. He leaped up and “stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”. That is the order in which the power comes and operates. That is the general idea, I have power to leap, but that definite order is in mind, and I go back to the walking, and then to leaping, and then to praising God. That is a very wonderful thought, standing in ^[p. 456] the assembly and praising God, but what about the feet? We come afterwards to dancing, but you need the feet for dancing, the whole being is brought into the thing, the Spirit of God operating in each member. It is a living situation, dear brethren, that is in mind and the order that God has is walking first. Naturally, it would be creeping, but it is not creeping here. It is walking, first, and then leaping. He is walking and leaping and praising God, and it implies that I am doing this in the strength that I have. I have the strength in myself that I need for walking and leaping, and I am turning it to account and praising God.

This is, I might call it, the beginning of my subject, and I cannot go very far beyond, just enough to get to this idea of being made to live by the heavenly touch, and that we are to be associated together in our praise. No one is to be like a wandering star, which is out of hand. The morning stars were not out of hand when they sang together. Dear brethren, these are great thoughts for us, practical thoughts for us to have, so that we might praise God in the leaping and in the walking, reverting to the source of the power, that is, God. We are made to live also, but the whole idea is that of reverting to the source, so that he praised God. And then it is said not only that he did that, but all the people saw him walking and praising God, as much as to say that we must have the walk anyway. The leaping may be left out. It is already there, but the walking and the praising God are normal things among christians, but not praising God by itself. It is the walking and praising God that the people saw, and it is a great testimony, that you can walk and at the same time praise God; people take notice of that.

Well now, in Samuel, I only want to show how the idea proceeds in the believer. There is great education in this second book of Samuel that touches on this matter of leaping, and that is what we saw in Acts 3.

David says, “For by thee I have run through a troop; by my God have I leaped over a wall”. David is a believer; he is a type of the believer and his song is largely due to his experiences with God. “I have been young, and now am old, and I have not seen ...”.

That is where he has it. This is his dying word. Let us face that. It is for us, no doubt, dear brethren. The coming of the Lord is near, but for most of us it may be death. For David, it was very near in this chapter. He speaks about the last words of David.

It is how you are in the last moment, you know. One wants to be right in the last hours. This is largely David’s book, the first and second books of Samuel, but especially this second book. The twenty-second chapter is a great song, one that David had composed; it may be a great deal earlier as he incorporated it in the Psalms, in the first book, and he says, I will put a title in the beginning of it. That makes it worthy of its place in the book of Psalms; it is a song here.

Psalm 18 is this song, and verse 30 here says: “By my God have I leaped over a wall”; it is not simply by God, but by my God. He had a God, you know. Sometimes you are prone to ask some brother or sister, Who is your God, whom do you worship? David says, “My God”, Paul says, “My God”; Jesus says, “My God”. And I thank God that I can say that, “My God”. Paul says, “But my God shall abundantly supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 4: 19. And so David says here, “By my God have I leaped over a wall”. That means a lot, you know. He had overthrown the Philistines by his God, and he did many other things by his God, and he could have said that these things were done by God. But he says he did them by “my God”. Let us get the idea not only to walk and leap and praise as the result of a touch of Peter in the first flush of conversion, but let us learn through real experiences, because David is a man of ^[p. 458] experience and he can tell us of many things that he did by God, and one was that he leaped over a wall by God. Many an athlete has leaped over a wall, but not by God. Many of us have perhaps leaped over a wall, but not by God; that is, we get into difficulties, even dangers it may be, and we get out of them by our own ingenuity or cleverness it may be, but that is not what David says here. He says it is not by them but by God. I would like to ask what wall it was and why it was he had to do that. Paul had to go over a wall. It does not say that he leaped over it by God nor by any one. He was let down by the brethren. It is worth while to face that; that one can submit oneself to the brethren. He escaped from the king of Damascus through the way the brethren let him down. It is a very wholesome thing to be let down sometimes. They lowered him over the wall through a window. It is a remarkable thing that there should have been a window in the wall at Damascus. We read of the street called Straight, but I think it would be very interesting to know what that window in Damascus was like. I believe that street is there to this very day, but I do not suppose there would be any monument set up to commemorate the window. Paul says, I was let down through a window and I escaped his hands. But the brethren did not help David. We may get into straits by ourselves, and none of us is much when we get into a strait. When you get into a strait things seem despicable, but God can take you out of them, and that is what David has in mind here. He was in some strait place, and God enabled him to leap over a wall. We are told in one instance that when Saul was set to slay him, his wife Michal, who had enough good in her to let him down by a window, helped him to get over a wall to flee his father-in-law. The devil attacks us through our natural relatives sometimes. They are close to us and have some advantage, but then the Lord used Michal, who ^[p. 459] was a natural relative, to save David, but he is not alluding to that here. He is alluding to some other wall, and says, “By my God”. I am stressing now that it is the simple thought of experience. David is picturing himself as a man who learned how to use God. Pardon my using that expression, but he says, “By my God”, and that is superiority. “By my God have I leaped over a wall”.

In Deuteronomy 33 Moses, the man of God, blesses the tribes of Israel; some of the tribes are not mentioned by name, but Dan is not left out. He is left out in other places, but not in this; as much as to say, if Dan is the first to introduce idolatry into Israel, he straightened it out. If a man or brother gets into difficulty, sometimes you think you can say just anything against him. People are very free in saying things against a brother if he has a bad name. It is a horrible thing to have a bad name, but it can be changed into a good name. Why not? God blesses, you know, as well as curses. The book of Deuteronomy has a blessing and a curse, but this chapter is not a chapter of cursing. It is a chapter of blessing, and that is why I venture to speak of Dan as he is here. I would say to anybody who has a bad name, and has himself to blame for it, that God can change that name and turn it into a blessing. Dan, when his father was blessing, was included like the rest, but at the same time Jacob says, “Dan will be a serpent on the way ... which biteth the horse’s heels”, Genesis 49: 17. The allusion is to Dan the bad, Dan the apostate, Dan the idolator, but he is Dan the blessed. He was blessed of his father and that blessing can never be reversed. We must be on our guard about saying what we like about a brother or sister who may have a bad reputation, because in spite of what was said about Dan in Genesis 49, he was blessed. It is a question of what a man is as the subject of the work of God, so do not forget what he has been or what he ^[p. 460] really is abstractly. Dan was blessed according to Jacob’s blessing, and now Moses has a say in the matter, and Moses is the lawgiver. I would be more afraid of Moses than of Jacob. Pardon my homely remarks. I would be much more afraid of criticism from Moses, because he is the lawgiver. He has a peculiar place with God, and he is now saying something about Dan, and he is not telling us that he bit the horse’s heels: Moses is not saying that here. Let us have our blessing words ready and forget many of our cursing words! Cursing is necessary at times, but blessing is always necessary. When there is nobody to bless on earth, then the Spirit of God is not on the earth. There is always somebody to bless. You say, What about Adam and Eve? how long did they remain without a blessing? A very, very short time. There was somebody to bless all the time while Adam sinned. I want to be among those who bless and curse not. Let us learn to bless, as Moses here is blessing. “And this is the blessing wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel”, Deuteronomy 33: 1. He was king in Jeshurun. He has a great charge. He is king among the righteous and dwells among an upright people; I would be afraid of anything that is to be arraigned or condemned if Moses sits down on the judge’s seat. The Lord speaks of those that sat in Moses’ seat, and there is such a thing as that. Let us not forget that! that there is such a thing, but then the Moses who is there is the blesser. Our Moses is Christ, and He went up to heaven blessing. He stretched out His hands and blessed them, and so it is now. And that is why I ventured to speak about Dan, not as under a curse. As in Christ, he is blessed, whatever else you make of him. God blessed him. It says in verse 22, “Dan is a lion’s whelp; he shall leap from Bashan”. We have got to find out about this brother-how he has got out of the difficulty. He has got into an unholy place, and he ^[p. 461] has got out of it. He has gone up in power. What can I say about him now? He is out of it. Bashan is called the great place of strong ones, there are bulls there that encompass Christ, but that is not the point. We must read Scripture contextually, and if a man as seen in this chapter is blessed by Moses as leaping from Bashan, then Moses is saying something of him as a brother, and we are to leave off our cursing for a little while. We may have to use it again, but leave it off. Dan is blessed. He is left out of it sometimes, but he is blessed, and the blessing is irrevocable. “The gifts and the calling of God are not subject to repentance”, Romans 11: 29. And so it is that I ventured to bring Dan in last after David, a man who learned to do things by God. This man learned to do things in his own power and to do big things; leaping from Bashan belongs to Deuteronomy, and we are to understand Dan, what he has been. Moses says, Do not disrespect him any more. He belongs to the blessed. He is of the family of the blessed. He is amongst those of whom it is said, “What hath God wrought!”. So we are to learn not simply to leap, or leap over a wall, but to leap from somewhere. Dan has been in Bashan and has leapt out of it. May God bless the word!