SPIRITUAL INWARDNESS (2)

SPIRITUAL INWARDNESS (2)

2 Samuel 15:23-30: 1 Kings 3:10-16; 1 Kings 3:28; 2 Chronicles 5:7-14

SMcC As was intimated this morning, we are considering what would make for spiritual inwardness amongst us in the assembly, in line with David building round from the Millo and inward. It was thought that the two lines of the truth as to Christ presented so peculiarly in the sections we have been reading from have this in mind, namely the building up of the saints inwardly in relation to another world, and particularly in view of the service of God. We considered Solomon personally this morning, and now we get the parallel line of truth as to Christ in the thought of the ark. Of course, in Scripture the ark is a very great subject, entering into many books, but we hope to confine ourselves to the way the ark is presented in the passages that we have read. The line of truth linked with Solomon, as we considered this morning, links with Colossians, the great place that Christ acquires in the hidden position, inwardly in the souls of the saints. That is, Colossians has in mind the hidden position. And it is to act as a preservative over against all the philosophy and vain deceit and manipulation of the truth linked with the mind of man. So that you have the thought of headship in Solomon in a certain sense, which corresponds. But now in connection with the ark, in relation to the passages that we have read, we have Christ more on our view testimonially and officially, as we have been taught, and Ephesians links with this. Ephesians leads the saints into the apprehension of Christ in a peculiar way, as the Centre of the whole scope of the truth, the Centre of the testimony, the Centre of the vastness of the divine domain. So that in the passage that we read, dispensationally, in the type, there is conveyed to us the thought of the rejection of Christ. David has been rejected, just as the Lord Jesus has died and has risen from the dead, and has gone into heaven. David represents that side of the truth here. Christ as rejected and gone into heaven. But then, as often has been said, there is that which is left here, the Spirit of God comes into the Acts in relation to what is here, in relation to what is fixed and eternal, from one point of view what God commits Himself to in connection with Jerusalem and the ark. This is a great means of stability in our souls as we apprehend Christ in this way, over against the state of things around us, and in which we have our part publicly. We have to see the place that the ark and Jerusalem have, secretly in a hidden way, in this whole matter. Faith would apprehend the great thoughts of God linked with Christ testimonially in this sense. That is, the Spirit has come down, and there is the thought of the ark in relation to Jerusalem. The testimony of God is maintained in a hidden inward secret way in the power of the Spirit, the unity of the Spirit entering into it. We thus have what is fixed and eternal, and abstractly never can be violated, it remains inviolate. And David here apprehends the importance of this, and conveys the importance of it, because they went out bearing the ark of the covenant of God, and David says “Carry back the ark of God into the city”. That is, there is a fixed position, and an abiding position which must not be interfered with. And stability is linked with that position, whatever the power of evil may be, as suggested in Absalom and his system, involving the dethroning of David, and the rejection of David. Despite the reproach linked with the position, Christ outside, we are always to see spiritually that there is an inside position linked with Christ in testimony and the assembly. And the unity of the Spirit is linked with that. If we do not hold that, we shall drift into sectarianism, schismatic thoughts and feelings. We want to see that whatever has happened in the dispensation, that the ark and Jerusalem remain; the ark abides, and it is to be held in that relation. There is nothing less than that, that is, it is the whole scope of the truth in regard to Christ and the assembly. And nothing less than that is to govern us. Now, the apprehension of Christ in this light is very important, as building us up inwardly over against the drift and the departure that enters into the operation of antichristian principles that are in the context in these chapters.

PL Do the references to the testimony of our Lord in 2 Timothy, and the seven-fold allusion to the expression “in Christ Jesus” in that same epistle bear on what is before you, in the way of fixity?

SMcC Yes. Whatever may have come into the dispensation in the way of ruin and breakdown, it never alters what is in Christ Jesus. Then there is not only that, but in that same setting we have the foundation of God; it stands firm, it is sure.

GHSP Might there be some link at all with your two thoughts in that John’s gospel gives us the glory of the Person of Christ, and John’s epistle brings in what has been established substantially as in the expression “that which was from the beginning”?

SMcC I think so. There is a definite link in John’s writings, because the ark is the centre of the truth, “the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”. All the way down from Genesis to Revelation we have the testimony of Jesus. And the ark represents Christ as the centre of the truth, the centre of prophetic thoughts, the centre of the whole mind of God. And we are to be held in relation to that. Like the ark, John stresses the truth, the ark makes way for itself. Even suppose there is no-one there by it, the ark makes way for itself, just as the truth makes way for itself, as John’s ministry conveys to us.

AH Is there any importance in the way the city is referred to in these verses? He says in verse 25, Carry it back into the city, and then he sends Hushai back into the city. It says in verse 37, “And Hushai, David’s friend, came into the city, and Absalom came into Jerusalem”.

SMcC I think there is. The city is the great divine thought in regard to the ark. It represents a fixed order of things, that however great may be the power and influence of what is antichristian, this is maintained, and the knowledge of Christ in this way is important, as over against all that is so unstable and so shifting in what we have to do with publicly.

ACSP Does it link with the expression in Ephesians 3: 17 “that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”, and then what follows, “rooted and founded in love”?

SMcC Exactly, and following up, in chapter 4, with the unity of the Spirit. We have these great thoughts of what is fixed and abiding, and the idea of rooted, in chapter 3, links with that.

PL In the first scripture in Samuel, the ark is called the ark of God, and it is called later, in the other Scriptures, the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. Is the first to assert against the great imitation, alluding to the foundation of God in 2 Timothy? And is the reference to the ark of Jehovah, that God is now free, in propitious conditions, to open out the thoughts in Christ, in His faithful love?

SMcC I think so. The ark of Jehovah would link on with God’s relations with His people, too, would it not?

SR It says “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”. Is that a suggestion of the ark in the city?

SMcC I think it is. Matthew 18 helps us to cling to assembly thoughts, to full thoughts - not any half or quarter thoughts, but full thoughts. Even supposing the number is reduced to the lowest possible, we cling to assembly thoughts. We see that as far as the testimonial Christ is concerned, it must be linked with the city, and with the ordered state of things in that relation.

PHH Is it remarkable that Saul of Tarsus, having been spoken to by the Lord, was directed to rise up and go into the city? Would he gain fresh light and direction from there?

SMcC He would. Because there was an order of things linked with the city there, where he would come under direction and control. We might say, of course, the Lord is in heaven. Yes, the Lord is in heaven, but everything is not in heaven. I speak reverently and soberly, but at the Glanton division, there were the leaders who said that everything had gone into heaven, and that there was nothing down here. That is not scriptural. And there are those today that say there is nothing down here; they say it is nothing but ruin and breakdown, and everything is on individual lines. That is not according to Scripture. The Spirit of God is here, Christ testimonially is here, the ark is here in relation to Jerusalem, and the city.

PHH So the Lord was really drawing attention to what was fixed, although down here in the sphere of the opposition?

SMcC That is it - fixed in the testimonial position. Think of the power of Christ testimonially in the Acts, in the early days; every city fell before that power! Well, what we are brought back to in days of recovery and revival is the same Christ testimonially as was there in the Acts.

GWB When Paul says “So also is the Christ” (1 Corinthians 12: 12), is he not referring to what is down here?

SMcC That is, there is the anointed system that God is committed to, in which all His thoughts are set out in an ordered manner and way in this world.

RWS Is there room in this system for all? There is Zadok and Abiathar, and Hushai, and Ahimaaz, and Jonathan; the whole range of persons in their spiritual personalities and ages comes into the matter, does it not?

SMcC I think that is very important, because we see right leadership in David. Right leadership will see that the young are brought rightly into matters, and that they are not just there standing looking on, but they are brought in as an integral part of this fixed system of things that is operating, and that God is committed to. David will come back to it. Absalom’s power may seem supreme, and David may be outside, and we go forth unto him, as rejected, on the one side of the truth. But then on the other side of the truth, in the light of these five persons you referred to, we stand linked with Christ in the testimonial position, holding the ground in relation to the fixed system of things in the unity of the Spirit.

EJH And is that the guarantee that every enemy will be overthrown, and the King will be finally in His own place in glory?

SMcC That is it. And it brings the element of victory into our souls, so that we do not succumb to the strong currents and movements of antichristian principles, principles of unbelief and lawlessness.

EJH So that “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love, and of wise discretion”, 2 Timothy 1: 7?

SMcC Just so.

PHH Is that hinted at in the mount of Olives? It says, “David went up by the ascent of the Olives, and wept as he went up”, but had he, in the Spirit, a great outlet towards victory, holding the ground?

SMcC And is not that to help us to see the great need of the recognition of what is linked with the Spirit in this suggestion of the Olives? In a day of ruin and breakdown, we come back to what is linked with the Spirit, because it is the testimonial Christ in the ark here. It is not the ark in the holiest, exactly at the moment, it is the ark back into the city; it is the administrative order of things, where the testimony is maintained in secret in a hidden way over against the power of the enemy. But it can only be in the reserves that are linked with the Spirit as suggested in the Olives, do not you think?

PHH Yes, I was thinking that. There must be great power, and a great system suggested in the ascent of the Olives. It speaks in the New Testament, does it not, of the mount of the Olives, as if it were a great stable system.

SMcC Well, what could be more stable than what is linked with the antitype in that sense, the presence of the Spirit? It would help us not to throw up our hands, in the sense of an impasse or the sense of ‘What can we do?’ The mount of Olives is there, and there is the seemly behaviour and deportment of David in keeping with it.

ACSP So that while David speaks in a measure guardedly about himself, as to what God might do with him, he speaks with certainty about the ark, as he says, “Bring me again and show me it, and its habitation”.

SMcC It is very important to see how he speaks of it, and its habitation. He does not give up that ground for a moment, whatever the power of Absalom may be. If there is anything that has been a full exposure of the antichristian principles operating in the world, and the lack in the apprehension of the truth, it is seen in the independent breaking of breads that have been set up by those that have departed from the truth.

PL Would you say that the priestly regard for the ark, in verse 25, and the humble submission to God’s government “let him do to me as seemeth good to him”, furnish a combination in manhood that indicates moral recovery already, and assures final recovery?

SMcC That is it. You might say in those verses the full recovery is assured, that David will come back. That is God will bring David back, it says “he will bring me again”. It is a beautiful thought - “He will bring me again”, not ‘I will come again’, but “He will bring me again”. “If I shall find favour in the eyes of Jehovah, he will bring me again”. That is, it is a question of what God is to do.

PL Is it a heart-broken churchman that writes second Timothy, and that speaks so much of this line of sovereign love and mercy, and all the stability attaching to us, do you think?

SMcC Yes. And do you not think in that sense that the testimonial Christ, in the ark in this setting is the great test of every one of us. That is, How do we stand in relation to it? If we are not affected rightly by Christ in the testimony in this sense, then we are making everything of ourselves. We are the centre of our thoughts, and we are the centre of divine thoughts, instead of seeing that the ark and the city represent abstractly, the fixed and eternal thoughts of God.

GHSP You are connecting Christ testimonially with each local position?

SMcC Just so. The testimonial Christ entered into Corinth, the testimonial Christ entered into Thessalonica, entered into Ephesus, and so on; and every power was brought down before the testimonial Christ, in the movements of the ark in that sense.

RGB Does the unity of the Spirit that you referred to, link on with that? Is that something that abides in the Spirit here, and that we are to endeavour to keep? It cannot be broken into itself,

for the presence of the Spirit ensures the unity of the Spirit.

SMcC That is it.

RGB And we are to endeavour to keep it.

SMcC It is a great thing to apprehend that abstractly, a great thing for the young people. Oh, that God might open their eyes to see this wonderful hidden secret side of things in which Christ is apprehended mysteriously, and yet in testimony! But in relation to which everything is held for God.

AH Is that involved in what David adds, “it, and its habitation”? Is that seen in every locality?

SMcC Yes. What the enemy would say is there is no habitation today, that is, things are in so much ruin, and breakdown that there is no habitation. But there is a habitation; there is the ark, and there is its habitation, and we want to find it.

AH Are you thinking that that is the fixed position, and as known in the soul it involves the overthrow of Absalom and Ahithophel?

SMcC Yes. Jerusalem in this sense is eternal. That is, while it is provisionally in testimony, it is an eternal order of things that will go right through. All the power of antichrist, and the operating principles linked with him, will never break in upon this inviolate unity that our brother has referred to in Ephesians 4.

GHM Does the transfiguration suggest the ark in its own position?

SMcC That is not the ark in the testimonial position; it is the ark in the scene of glory and would link more with what we read in 2 Chronicles 5, the final thought.

WMcK In regard to this verse “he will bring me again”, might not that suggest the Philadelphian recovery? And is it not remarkable that the Lord speaks to the overcomer of the temple of my God, and of the city of my God; linking it on with his own thoughts?

SMcC That is very good. That is just what we have here, the “bring me again” is that things have been brought back in Philadelphia, to what we have here. That is, there is the ark in its proper place, and the city had its proper place; there are no half or quarter thoughts in Philadelphia, it is all the assembly or nothing. It is no segment, it is no few brethren. In Philadelphia we have got the full thought of the assembly in the Lord’s mind, and we want to cling to that.

PL “He that has the key of David” commences the Philadelphian epistle, does it not?

SMcC And “the holy, the true”. What a contrast to what is in the antichristian system and environment!

JWB There is nothing outside this system you are speaking of, is there? Are not those that would seek to go off on independent lines really heading for what is spoken of as systematised error, according to Ephesians 4?

SMcC Yes. The folly of it would be apparent to those who are with God, not that we need to waste precious time speaking about those that are gone. Like David, we feel things; our heads should be covered, and the barefoot condition comes into view. It is all that which would be contrary to any natural feelings, what would be seemly in the sight of God as we feel the sorrow of the whole position. And yet we cling to Christ apprehended in this mysterious inward way.

PHH Is it interesting that worship is mentioned here? It says in verse 32, “when David had come to the summit, where he worshipped God”. Is that one of the features which the Lord has graciously left with us, and promoted with us, even to completion, the worshipping of God, and the full recognition of the hidden position, in spite of all the breakdown?

SMcC So that these thoughts are very fine in the setting in which they are here. They are like gems in this dark background where things are dislocated by the power of antichristian influence.

PHH Is it not important that it is on this very matter of the worship of God that fresh departures have been noticed? But while that is so, the worship of God itself is strengthened amongst us. We feel we are being sustained in it, if we may speak humbly.

SMcC It is very interesting in that way, verse 31, “Then said David, Jehovah, I pray thee, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness. And it came to pass, when David had come to the summit, where he worshipped God”. That is, it does not say he worshipped Jehovah, the name or title used is God, alluding, I suppose, to the sense of God’s supremacy in his soul, in the midst of these difficult conditions and circumstances.

AEM I would like to say this, that in verse 30 David and his men were weeping as they went up. We understand weeping as we go down, but do we understand weeping as we go up?

SMcC Very good. That is, we generally link weeping with going down into the valley, like the valley of Baca in Psalm 84, but here weeping is linked with the summit of the mount of Olives. That is a very fine reference, showing that the nearer we get to God, would you say, the more we feel things about the dislocation?

AEM I think so.

RWS Having its beginning in the torrent Kidron, do you think? Is there some allusion there to the death of the Lord Jesus?

SMcC I think that is very important. In type the ministry of the cross, the ministry of the death of Christ, is so near in this environment. It is that ministry that would free us from the features of the man of sin and shame, that have dethroned David, that have given Christ the outside place. We need to see the nearness, the proximity of that, in this realm.

EJH It was not at all an attractive place for all these little ones. Is it not encouraging to see how many small ones are identified with a weeping testimony from one point of view?

SMcC Well, it is. It is very interesting throughout the Scriptures in that way, as we go down through the Scriptures, to see the tears that are linked with the testimony in circumstances of pressure and reproach. Well, perhaps we need to know something more about the ability to weep, as Mr. M. has been saying, not only going down, in regard to our circumstances, personally, but in the going up in what affects God, in what the enemy has sought to do in putting his hand on the throne of Jah.

PL They are written in a book, are they not; they are so precious to God?

SMcC And preserved in a bottle, is that so? Psalm 56: 8, “put my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?” That is, they are preserved; God would preserve the precious testimony to inwrought feelings by His own work, in those that are sympathetic with Him in relation to all the damage that the enemy has done.

ALRT Would Timothy’s tears in 2 Timothy 1 come in there?

SMcC Yes. The tears of Timothy bear on the darkening state of things in the assembly, and how the enemy has wrought. I am sure it is important that we all should see the ark in relation to the city in this relation, it brings out the greatness of David, and the intelligence of the man. We might say he falls under the power of sin in the book, and his affections get misplaced as to Absalom, but that is only but a salutary warning to every one of us, how easily our affections may be misplaced. But then there are these breakings through, where we see what the man is, rising according to God, to the truth, and to the importance of the truth where the truth has been assailed. That is what we need in leadership, for a leader leads. A leader is not a man that just sits on a platform, he may sit on a platform, but a leader leads. Leadership is nothing if there is not the leading. So that David leads here, for all the people that were with them covered every man his head, and they went up, weeping as they went up. What David does, they do.

JWB So does leadership involve example?

SMcC It does. That is, the matter is set on in leadership, so that the saints do not lose their way. I mean, we are not a democracy in that sense; leadership is essential, so that the saints should not lose their way; we do not want to be afraid of the thought of leadership.

PHH What is presented in the direction for Hushai to go into the city? Is it like the lead to connect us with the system known in secret?

SMcC That is it. The ark and its habitation in the city represent the abstract side, but the five persons represent the concrete side that is in a locality. You must cling to the abstract side, otherwise you will never be able to work out the truth in the day of brokenness, but then there is the concrete side, there are the persons, and five is the numeral of human dependency and weakness.

PHH Would the friendship side in Hushai represent personal loyalty in attachment to David more than what is official?

SMcC Yes, exactly. A very important side of the truth, that there should be good personal relations in crises. If there is anything that the enemy works hard to do, it is to develop bad personal relations between the brethren, and if bad personal relations are developed in localities, we may lose the position, as it were. Paul, when he went to Galatia to combat, and to enter into the conflict regarding the truth, lays great stress on good personal relations. He went up to make Peter’s acquaintance.

EJH So here, would you say, each one has his own work to do, but they are all working in perfect harmony with one end in view, and that is the glory of David?

SMcC So that both lines of the truth that we have been considering lead into unity. Where the saints are being built up inwardly in the knowledge of Christ in these relations, it will always lead to unification among them. What leads to disunity amongst us is when the affections get misplaced, and when the wrong man becomes the centre. Only Christ can be the Centre of unity in the sphere of God.

AH Does Psalm 132 help at all in these exercises here, seen in David, do you think?

SMcC It does, and Psalm 133, they are of a piece in that way, the unity of the Spirit the central place that the ark has.

P.L. And Psalm 134?

SMcC Exactly, the service of God, you mean?

PL Those who stand by night in the house of the Lord. This is the night time.

GHSP Is this light in the soul vital if we are to have any part in the maintenance of prophetic ministry? I was thinking of Zechariah, in the days of recovery in which he lived; he was asked what he saw, and he said, “I see a lamp-stand all of gold” - a living system functioning in the power of the Spirit. Does that bear at all on what you are saying?

SMcC Well, it does, very much; so notice how it comes in here, verse 27, “And the king said to Zadok the priest, Thou art the seer”, well, that is an important thing, that we should see this. David is bringing Zadok back to this, the hidden system linked with the ark and the city that Absalom does not understand, the mind of man never will understand; but linked with it is the power of God. The ark is not exactly, in this setting, an object of affection, it is not to draw out the love, so much, of the brethren, it is linked more with the side of power and glory; power in testimony, and glory entering into the final side.

ECL Do you think when we assemble together for the Supper (I am thinking of going up from our houses), there should be these kind of feelings where we are breaking bread, and where the service of God is carried on, to free us from all that is outside?

SMcC I am sure that is right. And as we sit together in the testimonial position we watch the brethren coming in. We do not sit looking at the floor, we are looking for the brethren coming in, and see them take their seats, and we look at the loaf, and we see that some are missing, some are not there. Well, we have got to have right feelings about that; but then, because they are not there we do not cease, we do not cease to go on, for the position suggested in the ark and the city is maintained, and we go on, while we feel the loss of those that are absent, that are represented in the loaf.

ECL So that the going on would mean that you are holding the ground for everyone that belongs to the Lord. The loaf would include all that, would it not?

SMcC That is it. It is not that we claim to be the assembly, that would be pretentious, and the enemy is seeking to accuse the brethren of the utmost pretension, that is another device of the enemy. Philadelphia is that believers have returned through the Lord’s own service and the service of the Spirit, to stand in the truth proper to the whole assembly. They will not have anything less than that, what belongs to the whole assembly, and that is not pretension.

- .H. Would it be right to say that if any of us are there in effect really, we are there as brought there, even as David says, “he will bring me again”?

SMcC I think that is the thought. We have got a sense of the sovereignty of God in the matter, that He has brought us again. That covers the whole period of the last 150 years, that God has brought us again. That is, Christ is brought back in testimony in the power of the Spirit, and the position is maintained in that light.

RWS It speaks of the man at Bahurim in the next chapter, verse 18, but it also speaks of the woman in verse 19, and it speaks of the maid in verse 17. I was thinking thus of the sister’s part. Sometimes in a financial crisis the wife has to work as well as the husband, but that is not to be a characteristic thing, is it? It would possibly weaken the testimony in a place. I mean work outside of the home.

SMcC That is, the sister’s place is the home. There may be circumstances in which a sister has to work, to meet obligations where illness may have come in, and certain circumstances, but the sister’s place is the home, and especially is it weakening in the testimonial position if brothers who are leading in any way, or ministering among the saints, have their wives working.

RWS Because the whole position at the moment hinged on what she did, and what the maid did.

SMcC Yes. In forestalling and operating against the movement of the enemy, you mean?

ALRT Do the circumstances in chapter 15 bring out true friendship for Christ as in Hushai?

I was thinking of 3 John 14, “The friends greet thee, Greet the friends by name”. Would that link?

SMcC It is important to see how friendship comes in in that way and in the epistles you refer to, because, what is the bond between David and Hushai? Hushai is in the city, he is linked with the testimonial Christ in the ark, the official Christ in type in David is outside, rejected, He is in heaven. What is the link between the two? It is the ark, it is the truth, the centre of the truth, the centre of the testimony. And we are to see that. A lot has been said in our time about the truth being made an issue. Well, if we are not held together by the bond of the truth, what is going to hold us together? It is not only that Christ is the bond of the fellowship, but John’s epistles show us that the truth is a bond, in the fellowship.

PL Hushai’s name means quick; does it suggest alertness and agility in a crisis?

SMcC Yes.

PL And the word ‘Archite’ means one who continues, length; does it refer to such as John, who would continue in character until the Lord came?

SMcC Exactly.

PHH Do you think the characteristics governing David in this time were, so to speak, passed on to Solomon, so that he asks for wisdom and discernment and understanding? Would that ensure that the next generation is able to do battle in a crisis, and stand?

SMcC So that you would say that what we read in 1 Kings 3 is a kind of a reflection in Solomon of what was seen in David in chapter 15 of 2 Samuel in that sense. That is, Solomon came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark. That is the thing has got into Solomon’s soul, and right leadership in that sense will always pass that on into those who come to fill up the ranks.

PHH I was thinking that, and the references several times to David my father, show where he had got this wisdom. That is, there have been brethren who have preceded us, in whom the truth has been built and established, and we have come into the recognition of that. Is that how we stand before the ark now?

SMcC That is it. In relation to all that has gone before, we are to notice the unity of the testimony, for the testimony is one. While there may be fresh moves in the testimony, the testimony is one whole, and so, what we come into is just that one whole, although we may come into a different phase of it. So that what is said of Solomon here, I think, brings out a real touch of his greatness; he came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant. And there is nothing said beyond that he offered up burnt-offerings. Well, in connection with the burnt-offerings, you would have thought it would have said that he came and stood before the altar, but it does not say that. It says, “He came to Jerusalem, and stood before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah, and offered up burnt-offerings”. It is prefaced by his not asking for riches, or long life, but asking for a wise and understanding heart, and for discernment.

AH Does this test that comes in immediately show his wisdom to discover affection for the man-child?

SMcC It does. And I think that only a person who in that sense, has stood before the ark has a moral right to bring in what the sword represents. It is very fine to see that it follows him standing before the ark, and the judgment that is arrived at is binding on all Israel. It says “And all Israel heard of the judgment which the king had judged; and they feared the king, for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do justice”.

PHH Referring to this matter of Solomon offering up these burnt-offerings. The brazen altar was at Gibeon, was it not, and according to the opening of 2 Chronicles, the tent of meeting was there, and so on; and Solomon offered up many offerings there, on the brazen altar? Does it show that, in what it means for us, Solomon has got on, and come to something that is substantial in regard of Christ in the ark itself, not in the altar?

SMcC That is how I understand it. It is not the high places here, he came to Jerusalem and stood before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. It is the truth abstractly apprehended in its fixed relation and setting in connection with God.

PHH Yes, thank you. I thought something like that.

EJH And standing there, would you say, it is intolerable to think of anyone wishing to divide the living child?

SMcC Just so. Because the ark is the centre of unity, it is the centre of unity in Israel. It is the centre of the unity of the truth, and the testimony; it is the great bond of the whole position. How could such a thought as division come in, if you are standing before the ark.

GD Does Josiah understand that, in days of recovery when he says put the holy ark in the house that Solomon built for it?

SMcC What he said about that is very interesting. Of course, that would be the full thought that would be in mind there. In what we have here, the ark would be in the tent that David had spread for it. But the last revival is marked by recovery to what was seen under Solomon in that sense, the ark in its proper place.

GHSP Would you say another word as to what you had in mind in saying it is only as standing before the ark that we shall have any right or ability to use the sword?

SMcC I think we are all measured by Christ. Christ is the test of every man, and if we do not stand before the ark, we will be like Adonijah, we will have runners going before us, paving the way for us, and our prowess and renown. Whereas a man that stands before the ark has got no runners going before him; he is not spreading his own renown and prowess. He is in the presence of what may be small to the human eye, and the human mind, but what is the great centre of the universe of God, the Christ, in Ephesians 3. It strips you of all thought of self, does it not?

GHSP Yes, indeed. I wondered if you had also in mind that it is only as the divine thought of the assembly of God is laid hold of by us that we shall have power to deal with these uprisings that you allude to.

SMcC I think so. That is, the sword brings in the death of Christ. The torrent Kidron brings in the death of Christ in another setting. Now the death of Christ in the sword comes in in another relation. But only one who stands before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah - notice “the covenant of Jehovah” is brought in here - can rightly bring in the sword. It says, “They saw that the wisdom of God was in him”. What a marvellous statement! It is like Jehovah loving the Babe. We have not got a babe here now; we have got manhood in Solomon. But the wisdom of God was in him. It is a remarkable statement in the Old Testament, before Christ came. It anticipates Christ, because He was the One in whom wisdom was set out perfectly. But it does not say here that the wisdom of God was with Solomon; it says “the wisdom of God was in him, to do justice”. That is, it is the inwardness that we are stressing,

the question of spiritual inwardness with us, as to matters of administration.

RGB Would that link with the all-various wisdom of God being seen by the principalities and powers in the heavenlies working in the assembly down here, the result of the presence of the Spirit?

SMcC That is it. The ark in Jerusalem, in verse 15, and the wisdom of God in Solomon in the last verse, all link with that marvellous order and system of things in Ephesians 3. So that the heavenly intelligences are learning from the skill and wisdom employed in this system of things here below.

WJT Is it important that in verse 7 he has small thoughts about himself, and in verse 8 he has great thoughts about God’s people?

SMcC Very good. Would to God we had more small thoughts about ourselves. We have got such big thoughts about ourselves, prefigured in men like Joab, and Adonijah, and Absalom. Oh, how Absalom thinks of himself! He injects poison into the minds of the people, that their matters were not being taken care of. They are not bringing your matters up as they should, he would say. It seems nice in one way, but it is injecting poison into the minds of the brethren, so that Christ is displaced. Absalom did not have any small thought about himself. But of Solomon, it says, “And the word pleased the Lord, that Solomon had asked this thing”. “I am but a little child: I know not to go out and to come in. And thy servant is in the midst of thy people which thou hast chosen”. It is very fine language.

PL Would “less than the least of all saints” be the spirit so pleasing to God, that the great unfoldings of Ephesians would be given to such a man?

SMcC Is it not striking how that comes in there? Over against the greatness of the dispensations that Paul had, he speaks of himself as less than the least of all saints. I take it that that is Solomon standing before the ark. Paul was a true Solomon who stood before the ark, and who could bring in the sword like Paul? How he would save the situation at Corinth on this principle. The enemy would divide, bring in the schism, but Paul had nothing less than the whole thought in mind, “the assembly of God which is in Corinth”.

PL “Oh, lowliness, how feebly known, That meets the grace that gave the Son!”

SMcC Very good. How the writer of that was marked by such lowliness, a man that stood before the ark, you might say, in Jerusalem. Well, the time has gone. Just the thought in the final resting place of the ark, as to the unity that is arrived at, and the service of God augmented. You can see how all these thoughts of the ark, and the passages of the ark, and David and Solomon in relation to it all enter into this idea of the augmentation of the service of God, and the unity in it amongst the saints.