WHAT GOD HAS WROUGHT
D.A.Burr
This scripture came into my mind when our brother spoke first, because it refers to what God has wrought; and I find too that it uses this word 'confident', which our brother has just impressed us with. What always impresses me about this scripture is its setting. Paul is writing about our bodies and, without saying so exactly, he conveys that what is in them is too great for them. He speaks about an "earthly tabernacle house", the tabernacle that groans, the tabernacle that awaits its house from heaven; but then how in that tabernacle there is the work of God.
It does us good to look on one another, beloved brethren. We often see one another's failings. I do not only mean failings of character but the manifestation of these burdens that Paul speaks about, the weakness and frailty. The gospel writer speaks of bodily weakness (see Matt 4: 23; 9: 35; 10: 1) and there are many such things among the brethren. We are moving towards a day when we shall be complete, a day of full growth, when we shall arrive (see Eph 4: 13). How glorious to have in our hearts the prospect of arriving! But now we know in part. We know one another in part; we know the truth in part; we know how to administer in part; we know how to bear testimony in part. In all these things we fail in measure, although God gives us grace for what He commits to our responsibility.
Now this is the setting of the work of God: as it says, "What has God wrought!" Num 23: 23. I believe, beloved, that this is greater than our mortal condition. It is greater than our bodies, than the physical bodies which God has given to us – it is what God has wrought. This is not exactly what was taken out of the dust or brought into being by a wonder-working word, as creation was, but it is what God has wrought. That is in every one of us. In some the process has been a long one and the product is almost complete. In others, maybe, the process has not long begun and much yet remains to be done; but whatever is there, God has wrought it. We prayed about a sister in this gathering last night who is aged 101 – what has been wrought in that sister! She says 'I never have anything to complain about'. What a manifestation in a weak and failing condition! She has weakness that she is not even aware of, but the work of God shines in that beloved soul. It is great and wonderful. It goes with the earnest of the Spirit, something else in the heart of the believer that is too great for our mortal condition. What a thing it is, that the Spirit has come to dwell in the heart of the believer, shedding the love of God abroad there (see Rom 5: 5)! You could not think of the Spirit confined by our hearts. How narrowed up they often are, how much they need enlargement; but even if they were enlarged, the Spirit is greater yet. Think of these things in these mortal bodies!
Paul speaks about a day in which these things are to be displayed, and he says "Therefore we are always confident". We can be confident now. "At this time it shall be said", Num 23: 23. We know that in the day of display, the lustre of the work of God will be manifested but it is there now. We can be confident about it. I believe this would encourage us and give us strength for the way. Then Paul says: "while present in the body we are absent from the Lord... we are confident, I say, and pleased rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. Wherefore also we are zealous, whether present or absent, to be agreeable to him". So it is our daily lives in which that work continues; then, it will all be manifested. It might make one a bit fearful to "receive the things done in the body, whether good or evil", but everything we receive at the judgment seat will be settled. Is that not a wonderful thing? As our brother read, He has not seen iniquity in Jacob (see Num 23: 21). Think of all that history and all that wandering, all that crookedness, and He has not seen iniquity there: it is all settled. The things that rear up in our lives and disturb the peace of our souls are settled. How wonderful that is! Things may arise in the way but we find that they have all been settled. The One before whom we are manifested is the One whose precious work has settled them. Beloved, consider what God has done! The basis on which every matter that may enter into the lives of any one of us will be settled eternally before God to His glory and His satisfaction has already been laid. The One who laid it is now enthroned, and we shall be manifested before Him. What we receive we shall receive settled, not so that it may trouble our consciences or disturb our peace, but to see the grace that He has shown which has met every matter that arose on the way.
May we not be confident as we take account of these things? There is a mixed condition, but God is working to arrive at His own end. It will need a body of glory to contain the product! I think of that when I come to a burial meeting. We see the body of a beloved brother or sister lying there, and I think of the work of God in that saint. Sometimes I long to have known it better, but think how God has taken account of it. When we next see them they – as we – will be in a condition, fit and able for the glory of the work which God wrought in this present time. May we be encouraged by these things.
LONDON
15 April 1986