THE CURRENT OPERATIONS OF THE SPIRIT
A. C. Craig
Luke 15: 8–10; 14: 21–24; 13: 6–9
These three scriptures refer to the current operations of the Spirit. I thought this morning that one day soon the world is going to wake up and there will be a terrible feeling of loss. People will not be aware of what it is altogether, but they will have a feeling of loss, because for nearly two thousand years there has been a divine Person down here. Think of that! One of the Trinity, a Person of the Godhead has been down here; He has been operating for nearly two thousand years. One day soon that will cease. Also there is the fruit of His work here which is a tremendous testimony too, maybe not discerned by men, but it is still here having a certain power. The Spirit Himself here is a certain power even in the world; He is holding down the evil that would erupt if He were not here. The saints come into that too as well as government and other things, such as angels. Think of what it will be when He goes, and the awful loss there will be, when men will be free in a measure to do what they want. Today, He is operating with a view to man’s blessing.
Our brother prayed in the home about the work of Christ; that is past—what I am speaking about is present. But you could not have what is present without what has already been done by the Lord Jesus on the cross when He accepted the liabilities, the punishment that was due to His people. He suffered judicially for all men that God might be propitiated, but He suffered too on the cross all the judgment due to His people. There would be no gospel without that. What is your estimate of those six hours on the cross, when the Saviour suffered, but especially of the three hours when He endured the unmitigated judgment of God? That is past, the judgment is past, that is over. He was buried, He bore
man’s liabilities. Do you know what man’s liabilities are, what your liabilities are? They are death and judgment, the penalty death, and the penalty burial; those are man’s liabilities, what he is liable for, and the Lord Jesus has undertaken them. He suffered for our sins in His body on the tree. Have you come into that? Do you possess that knowledge? Can you exercise faith in the suffering Saviour? I would urge you to exercise faith, your faith, in this presentation of Him as to His work, as He accepted the liabilities of death and judgment and burial. Then He was raised again. These are the facts of the gospel as to what has been done, and without that there would be no preaching.
Now we come to this scripture in the light of what the Lord Jesus has done, and where He is now. The Lord presents this parable and we come to this section where He presents a woman undertaking to find the lost piece of silver. That is what the Spirit has come to do, He has come to find the lost pieces of silver, the pieces of silver, so to speak, with the king’s head on. The first section of the parable is a picture of the work of Christ in going after the lost sheep until He finds it. That is the basis of it really, “he lays it on his own shoulders, rejoicing”, and brings it home. So He proceeds now to speak about this woman who represents the Spirit. The whole parable is like a picture of the economy and divine Persons operating. It is not the economical order of the Trinity, but it is the operational order, the work of Christ, then the Spirit, then the Father.
So He presents this second portion, and He is referring to the Spirit having come at Pentecost.
This woman comes and the first thing she does is to light a lamp. What light is it that she puts in the lamp? She has come from heaven, so to speak, the Spirit has come from heaven. What is the light she puts in the lamp? She puts the light of a glorified Saviour, the finished work of Christ and a glorified Saviour. Without that there would not be much use in sweeping the house. The
Spirit is bearing testimony. These are the operations that are going on now. You may say, I am not much aware of them. I am, I am aware of them, I have been aware of them for nearly sixty years. I do not forget that time, when I was found, a piece of silver, not a piece of copper or brass, a piece of silver. That is to say, it is already redeemed. The Spirit has come then to find the redeemed material. Why does it give the figure of a woman? It is to bring out the earnestness and thoroughness of the Spirit’s operations. Believe me He will miss nothing!
He will find every coin, every drachma that is lost. That is why I think the Lord uses the figure of a woman. A woman is more thorough than a man sweeping the house; a man might be liable to miss the corners, but not a woman. It is the thoroughness of the Spirit’s operations that the Lord is referring to. How keen He is to find you. Think of His committal to this service and how He will find you!
You may say, What responsibility have I got in this if it is His matter to light the lamp and sweep the house carefully until He finds it? You have to repent. That brings about some movement in heaven. Did you know that? Your attitude to the preaching, your attitude of repentance towards God, would bring about a movement in heaven; there would be “joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner”. You come to repentance, you come to it that you have been lost. Who could describe or explain that word, lost. That is a state. That had been for four thousand years, man was lost; what a day when man was lost! God came down day by day, and He conversed with His creature, His greatest creature, man. God came down day by day and sought his company. One day He came down and man was not there, he is lost. You know that cry, with God I think it is not only a cry, that man is not there, but the very feelings of His heart are in it. Adam, where art thou? It was from the heart of a seeking God looking for His creature. That comes out through the gospel—Adam, where art thou? He was lost, he had sinned, he was
hiding himself from God, because of his conscience. What a state to be in, lost!
The Spirit knows that, He will seek carefully until He finds it. These operations are going on.
You are responsible to yield to what you are hearing. It may be that for the first time the Spirit of God is seeking you, and you are responsible to respond, to repent. Repent because of the presentation of the work of Christ and the fact that everything is cleared away from God’s side to settle your need so that you might come into blessing. The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. The Spirit carries on that service. Dear friends, my point is, this is going on now. You may not want it but it is true whether you believe it or not. The Spirit of God is here. Is there anybody here who knows they are lost and has not been found yet? The Spirit of God, in His earnestness, would find you. He is not casual; His whole heart is in it, the heart of God is in it. It is a question of yourself and your immediate response to this presentation. There is a divine Person here, and He is presenting the testimony of the finished work of redemption and a glorified Christ. He expects that you might yield; how insistent He is. He would not miss one.
Now in Luke 14 it is something else. It is the testimony rendered on the part of the Lord Jesus. The bondman goes out at the hour of supper; now is the hour of supper, another hour will come which will not be the hour of supper. This is the hour of supper, that is to say the opportunities are becoming less, the day is wearing on, it is drawing to the close. That is one thing about this time we are in, it will not last for ever, it is drawing near the close of this wonderful period which has lasted nearly two thousand years. Such is God’s patience coming out in the gospel! He will delay, so to speak, the celebration of the supper because He wants you in His house. He wants you to partake of what He has Himself. So the Lord presents these three men who all say, We are not coming. Now I think that took place
by the Lord Jesus; I think in His testimony these three persons come forward. They represent the Jew; they were favoured people who had been invited, and they were being alerted as to the time of the supper; it arrived when He came here, when He appeared in the world. He is God’s great provision for men.
These three men, the first had bought land, another had bought oxen, and another had married a wife; they represent the favoured ones, the Jews. The call of God comes in the gospel and it is capable of loosening you from your moorings and freeing you from where you are. You come by way of Christ here. They would not come! They did not want it. Think of the Lord Jesus coming here with all the wealth of heaven and the grace of God, bringing out what was in His heart. You can be sure about it, dear friend, the heart of God is in the gospel; the heart of God was in Christ here. They did not want it. The master of the house was angry it says, in Luke’s gospel, so full of grace, but he was angry. What were the feelings of God when they refused Christ personally and crucified Him on the cross? He was angry. Did He bring in judgment? No, but He was angry. Then He said to his bondman, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city”. That is like Pentecost, that is the Spirit, that is this bondman.
The streets and lanes of the city are in Jerusalem. It is the present testimony of the Spirit. This is the beginning of it. Were there any found? Yes, three thousand on one day. Bring them in, was the word. Had you been there would you have been among the three thousand? You are here now and this service is still going on. Have you yielded? Are you willing to be caught up by the Spirit and brought along to the house where everything is prepared? All things are ready, Come. You have no idea what you will get when you come. There are some blessings that you might come into immediately like the forgiveness of your sins. Just think of being in this world, having a catalogue of sins, long or short, but having the sense of being forgiven, knowing the heart of God coming out and
forgiving. How wonderful that is! You can have that possession.
So this servant comes back, and he says, “Sir, it is done as thou hast commanded, and there is still room”. Thank God for that, that allowed me in. I do not belong to the streets and lanes of the city; I belong to the ways and fences, that is where the gentile is. There was room for the Jew, three thousand of them, five thousand; then he had to go out again into the ways and fences and bring persons in; no, compel them to come in! The day runs on, operations go on, and things become more urgent, heaven becomes more earnest, if I can say that of heaven—
compel them to come in, “that my house may be filled”. God wants you in, He wants you in His house; He wants you to sit down at the table. This is no mean thing I am presenting, you can be quite sure about that; I only wish I could do it better. These current things are happening. How do I know? I know because I experience it. Who is this servant? It was Peter first of all in the streets and lanes of the city. Then Paul went out into the ways and fences, out among the nations, he has never returned yet; there is no record of him coming back. The book of Acts closes and Paul is still serving in his own hired lodging. The service goes on, the current service of the Spirit is still going on. Now will you come? Maybe you are converted, maybe you are the Lord’s, but now at this supper time, when these provisions are ready, there is opportunity for you to come into the full thing and be there in perfect liberty, with the full blessings of the house conferred on you.
One of the blessings of the house is the breaking of bread, that is one of the things that has been prepared. You think of the great favour of sitting down with the Lord’s people and partaking of the Lord’s supper. Is there anybody here who knows that they are the Lord’s and that they love Him and yet are not breaking bread? Are you going to come? That call goes out in the
gospel. How old are you? You are not breaking bread, and you love the Lord! This opportunity will not be open for ever, it is all part of what is prepared in the house, the great supper. May you in your young heart make up your mind and say, I am going to step forward and take my place, to sit down and partake of the Lord’s supper. What a privilege! Make sure that you love Him, and if you love Him you will be sure that you will get the Spirit. That is another necessity. The Spirit is not here only to carry on these wonderful operations, but He came here to take up His place in your heart too. He will fill your heart, and you will have the experience of knowing the Lord in His own company.
But will you come? that is the question, that is your part. The appeal goes out; do not be like those who said, I am not coming; they were favoured but they turned it down. God goes right out to the gentiles, and invites men to come to fill His house; divine purpose is in that, not only your blessing—“that my house may be filled”. Hezekiah said, “Jehovah was purposed to save me”, Isaiah 38: 20. That is God’s objective, not only the meeting of your need or your blessing, but that His house might be filled. If you love God, if you love the Lord Jesus, it will mean something to you, that you answer for His satisfaction, so that God’s house might be filled. His house is not filled yet, I know that for certainty. How do you know? Because we would not be here; if the last seat was taken we would be all away. There is still a seat for you. What a privilege! If the queen invited you to a function in the palace, you would not sleep for days beforehand. What an opportunity you have to come into God’s house, that it may be filled!
Now I want to speak about the stay of execution. Here is a situation when a man comes and he had planted a fig-tree in his vineyard. Who would do a thing like that? Plant a fig-tree in a vineyard? The Lord had been speaking about the need for repentance, and some had told Him about Pilate mingling people’s blood
with that of their sacrifices. How wicked that was, that the Roman governor should actually have shed blood of the people who were offering sacrifices. The Lord Jesus says, “I say to you, but if ye repent not, ye shall all perish in the same manner”, Luke 13: 3. Then He referred to something Himself, “those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them” (Luke 13: 4). Now that is an accident, whether it is open murder or accident, and there are plenty of them today, the Lord says, unless you repent you will perish. He says, Do you think they were more sinners than the others? Then refers to debtors, sinners and debtors, but He says, unless you repent you will perish. The answer to sinnership is forgiveness, the answer to debtorship is the Spirit. They come by way of receiving the gospel, the forgiveness of your sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Then we get this parable, a man planted a fig-tree in a vineyard. The Lord is teaching the privilege it is, using the figure of a fig-tree in a vineyard, to bring out the distinctiveness of the present time. How wonderful the moment is! In the whole history of the world there is nothing like this present period. That is why I think He presents the fig-tree in a vineyard.
The master comes seeking fruit and there is none, year after year. Think of that! No fruit.
What fruit is this master looking for from this fig-tree? What fruit is He expecting?
Repentance! That is the fruit He is looking for. The Lord brings out the great truth of repentance and then He tells the parable. What He is after is repentance. How many times has He come amongst us? How many times He has walked up and down the rows? What is He looking for? Repentance. He says to the vinedresser, “cut it down; why does it also render the ground useless?”. Now that was righteous, it had been given ample opportunity to produce fruit. Then He says, Cut it down. You do not want that to happen in your case. Suppose God had to say about anyone. Take him away, or take her away, I can get somebody else to sit on that seat. God has a right to do these things. It was
righteous that he should say, Cut it down, it is only rendering the ground useless. The vinedresser said, “Sir, let it alone for this year also”. It is the stay of execution, or stay of judgment.
The blessed Spirit is here in that attitude. By His very presence here, He is staying the judgment. What a moment it is! Make no mistake about it, it will not last for ever, “Let it alone ... until I shall dig about it and put dung, and if it shall bear fruit—“. Note the dash in the text, like a stay of execution. How long has it lasted? That dash represents nearly two thousand years. His presence here has deferred the judgment; it is a stay of execution, “but if not, after that thou shalt cut it down”. That is four years. Luke always gives you that dimension more, the fourth year, three years and then another year. How we ought to be thankful for the presence of the Spirit, and His present operations that He is staying the execution. Are you going to bear the fruit of repentance. Why should you not? You are obliged to repent, as well as to know what you may come into in the way of blessing.
Exercise your faith in Christ, know the forgiveness of your sins and have your sinnership met; then have your debtorship met by the gift of the Spirit, and take your place in the house.
May He bless the word.
Preaching at Dundee, 19 February 1995
UNDERSTANDING
W. McKillop
Luke 18: 31–34; 24: 44, 45; Matthew 13: 51, 52; 1 John 5: 20
My exercise, beloved brethren, is to speak about the Lord’s concern as to our understanding.
We perhaps do
not think the Lord is concerned as to what follows meetings such as these, or any other meetings, but the Lord is interested in whether we understand what He is saying. It is wonderful to consider that “the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding”.
We have the capability, therefore, of taking in divine things in their fulness. But the Lord would take us up in the simple way that marked Him with His disciples, to help us understand just where we are in regard of spiritual understanding of the truth. The apostle Paul was concerned about that too, because he said to Timothy, “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”, 2 Timothy 2: 7. The Lord is acting administratively to give us understanding in all things; the way to come into that is to think on what Paul says.
Not that we forget the other apostles, but what Paul says to Timothy is perhaps the most pertinent word for us at the present time. He says, “Think of what I say”, that would be the current bearing and value of what has come to us through Paul. What he has to say is still coming to us in the Spirit’s power through what he has written. In that sense we might say, he, being dead, yet speaks (see Hebrews 11: 4).
The Lord is acting administratively to give us understanding in all things, whether it be the ordinary matters of life, such as occupation, marriage, our movements, what we have linked on with, or how we function in our localities. The Lord will not fail to give us understanding in all things. Nothing can come up about which He could not give us understanding. It is like the Queen of Sheba who came to Solomon, he explained to her all that was in her heart. The Lord would act in that way to clarify things for us and to make us spiritually intelligent in every matter. “All things” is a very wide expression. While He was here, the Lord was marked by the greatest simplicity with His disciples. The more spiritual we are, the more we will be marked by simplicity with one another. It says, “he took the twelve to him”. They were the special object
of His affections. It was not a matter of selecting one sovereignly for any purpose, but He took the twelve. The twelve would indicate a number that is marked by love, that the Lord can utilise spiritually. He said to them, “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem”. He was going up to die, as He indicated, but He said, “we go up to Jerusalem”. The bearing of this would be that the Lord is looking for us to be with Him in His movements in the testimony until He comes.
His movements now will not eventuate in His death, but will eventuate in our translation.
He says, “all things that are written of the Son of man by the prophets shall be accomplished”. You can see the whole scope that the Lord had in His holy mind. And then He goes into the detail of what was before Him, “he shall be delivered up to the nations, and shall be mocked, and insulted, and spit upon. And when they have scourged him they will kill him”. What an awful thought, that the Son of Man, the One who was here on man’s behalf, should be killed! But then it says, “and on the third day he will rise again”. He must go through these things, as He says in chapter 24, “Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things” (Luke 24: 26). It was imperative that He should suffer them. The Lord referring to Himself as “Son of man”, would be to draw us affectionately and sympathetically alongside Himself in regard of the sufferings of the testimony at the present time. If we understand the Lord’s current movements, it really involves the working of death in ourselves. As the Lord came down from the mount of transfiguration and went to Jerusalem. His pathway became more and more narrowed up. The area in which He moved was more limited; the cities in which He had served earlier. He was no longer there. He was going on to that one solitary spot of Golgotha. Now in a moral sense the Lord would give us to understand that our way is being narrowed up, but, as Paul says, “not entirely shut up”, 2 Corinthians 4: 8. The question is whether we are ready for reduction with a view to spiritual understanding
and spiritual refinement. At this point it says, “they understood nothing of these things”.
After three years of companying with the Lord, they understood nothing of these things.
The question is, how much do we understand of these things? How much has it come home to our souls that the sufferings of the Christ testimonially involve the working of death, the reduction of what would naturally please the first man, and the deliberate setting aside on our part of what appeals to nature? “And this word was hidden from them, and they did not know what was said”. Now we can say of them, and say it feelingly and sympathetically, that they did not have the Spirit; they did not have in that sense the capability of understanding what the Lord was saying that we have. They understood it far better later when the Spirit came down. Indeed, after the Lord was raised they understood things better, because in John 2 we are told that after His resurrection they “believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken” (John 2: 22). Of course, in Acts 2, you could not find a more intelligent company of persons in the universe than those hundred and twenty when the Spirit came on them. But here it says, “this word was hidden from them, and they did not know what was said”.
That is true of Christendom today. There is no understanding in Christendom of what the Lord is saying and of His movements testimonially at the present time. It is not the Lord’s thought that we should be left like that, however. He loves us too much to leave us with lack of understanding. So in Luke 24, as He came among them, He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was yet with you, that all that is written concerning me in the law of Moses and prophets and psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures”.
I can say without any hesitation that the Lord has a great desire to open the understanding of every one of us here to understand the Scriptures. The Scriptures are a
sealed book to persons without faith and without the Spirit, but the Scriptures ought to be well understood by us in their spiritual bearing. I am not thinking merely of the letter of Scripture. A great deal of emphasis sometimes is placed on memorising Scripture, and I would not deprecate knowing the Scriptures, but understanding the Scriptures is a greater matter than being able to quote them, because I might quote a scripture without understanding its spiritual import. In fact you remember that when the Lord was in conflict with Satan, Satan quoted scripture to suit his own purpose, but he did not quote it according to the import of it, and so the Lord turned the scripture on him and defeated him. You remember he said twice, “it is written”, and then the third time, “it is said”, and it says, “the devil, having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time”, Luke 4: 13. The spiritual import of Scripture is what we need to lay hold of, and the Lord would open our understanding to that end. No doubt what He is referring to here is the Old Testament, but for us it would include what we call the New Testament too. So you have “the law of Moses and prophets and psalms”, but the point is “that all that is written concerning me”. Every scripture in some way presents Christ to us, and if we fail to see that then we need our understandings opened to understand the Scriptures. In saying this I am not suggesting that we do not have a measure of understanding of Scripture in its scope and its intent, but I would encourage us to have to do with the Lord because He wants us spiritually intelligent about the moral bearing of Scripture. Mr. Raven said that what confirmed him more than anything that Scripture was the word of God was its intensely moral bearing; so the moral bearing of Scripture is what should affect us. They had a wonderful advantage here compared with the previous passage I read. That was before His death, this is after His resurrection; here is this blessed Man out of death and “he opened their understanding to understand the scriptures”. The Lord would not do less for us at the present time.
The recovery of the truth really is that while the Lord sovereignly unfolded the scope of the truth through gifts that He had raised up, at the same time He opened the understanding of persons that they might lay hold of what He was sovereignly ministering, that they might come into the current of His present mind. In Matthew 13 He says to them, “Have ye understood all these things?”. We have spoken about a good many things today in the measure that we could speak of them, and the Lord would enquire of us, “Have ye understood all these things? “. You notice that at the beginning of this chapter He “went out from the house and sat down by the sea”, that is to say, He took up a position that had a general bearing on humanity; but when you come to verse 36, “Then, having dismissed the crowds, he went into the house; and his disciples came to him, saying ...”. We have had the advantage in these times today of being in the house and of having the Lord available to us to open things up as one and another has spoken by the Spirit, to be simple about it. We have had things in some measure opened up for us as to the Son of God in His greatness and glory, and all that is intended to enrich us and enable us to acquire spiritual treasure. So the Lord says,
“Have ye understood all these things? They say to him, Yea, Lord”. The Lord must have been pleased with that. No doubt the Lord would be pleased if every one of us today at the end of these meetings could say to Him honestly, ‘We have understood, Lord, what You have been saying’. Again, I would say, we need to think about how simple the Lord was with His disciples, how simple He is with us, and therefore how simple we can be with Him. There is no need to fear the enquiry. If He says, “Have ye understood all these things?”, a simple ‘yes’
or ‘no’ is what the Lord is looking for; or even, ‘I have understood in part but I need further instruction’.
Then He said to them, “For this reason every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens”.
We spoke quite a bit in the earlier reading about discipleship, and
He says here, “every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens”. The scribe would no doubt be an accurate person. Another way of saying it is that he would be like a Berean, he would verify things that had been said by scripture. We were noticing in the household reading this morning that the first person mentioned in the company in Acts 20 is Sopater, a Berean (Acts 20: 4). Paul would count on a person like that, as he ministered, to confirm what he said by the scriptures. Those who serve, and brothers here who serve can confirm this, as you say things you feel the Lord has put in your heart, you look for the brethren to confirm them by scripture, you look for the Berean feature to come to light. But then I can hardly be a Berean unless I am discipled to the kingdom of the heavens, I must recognise the authority of heaven. It is striking that in Luke’s gospel, the younger son as he returns says, “I have sinned against heaven”, Luke 15: 18. You might say, Why does he not say, ‘I have sinned against God’? But he says, “I have sinned against heaven”; I have rebelled against the authority of heaven, because divine authority is seated in the heavens in Christ. That is where authority resides, and it flows down from that point. We must not think there is no authority on earth, because Matthew 18 and Mark’s gospel would show otherwise. The assembly has authority from Christ according to Matthew 18, and according to Mark He gave “to his bondman the authority”, Mark 13: 34.
Bondmen would be like disciples. So He says, “every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens is like a man that is a householder”. In saying “a man” the Lord is not overlooking the sisters. He could have said a man or a woman, but He says “a man” because He is thinking about the race as composed of men and women. He says “a man that is a householder”. In that sense every one of us, as discipled to the kingdom of the heavens, has a certain area for which we are responsible to the Lord. We have an area in which we can acquire
and store spiritual treasure. So He says, “a man that is a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old”. “Things new” would be what we were saying about the principle of revelation. You get an impression of Christ that you never had before, and you bring it out. “Things ... old” would be what you have known in scripture, and you can bring that out as needed. But a householder is a person who has a certain area in which he exercises authority and in which he exercises affection. It is not like the house the Lord spoke of that is swept and garnished and is empty; this householder has a house that contains spiritual treasure. It is something that he has acquired by the Lord’s instruction, by his own exercise, and from time to time he can bring out things as needed, “things new and old”. So take account of your treasure. What have you, in a spiritual way, under your hand that you could bring out for the profit of the brethren? We have often heard that “things new and old” would be the New Testament and the Old Testament, but “things new” involve the principle of revelation. It is a fresh impression that you get either in your communion with Christ or by the Spirit in the assembly. As you bring that out, it enriches the brethren. The wonderful thing is, while it enriches the brethren it does not diminish your treasure. The spiritual system is wonderful in that way. It says, “There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth”, Proverbs 11: 24.
The more that you present spiritually the more treasure you acquire. It is not like worldly wealth. You can give that away and eventually it diminishes, but in spiritual things what is scattered or spread abroad increases.
I want to finish with this thought in 1 John 5, “And we know that the Son of God has come”.
Well, do we know that? Do we know that the Son of God has come? It does not say exactly that He came and went, but that He has come. He has come into the sphere of testimony and He has “given us an understanding”. That is something we have collectively. He has “given us an understanding”. Only the Son of God could do that.
Paul could present the most marvellous light to the Ephesians. He could say to them, “I have not shrunk from announcing to you all the counsel of God” (Acts 20: 27), but he could not give them an understanding. The greatest servant can only bring light to the saints. Paul, I suppose, brought more light to the saints than anyone else who ministered, because he announced the whole counsel of God, but having done that he says, “I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”, Ephesians 3: 14. He would say, ‘I brought this wonderful light but I cannot give you understanding in it, I cannot make it formative in you’. Therefore he prays, he bows his knees. How intense his exercise was that what he announced to them in its fulness should become effective in them by the Father’s Spirit. I am sure every one who ministers in some little way today feels this, although we are very far from being like Paul in his measure, and we are not apostles. We cannot give effect to what we bring to the saints in the way of light. It requires the action of the Son of God. John says, “the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding”.
Notice now that it is not that we should understand the scriptures, or that we should understand what is said, but “that we should know him that is true”. In contrast to all the false knowledge in the world, we are to know Him that is true, that is the Son of God, and “we are in him that is true”. Wonderful position in which we are spiritually! We “know him that is true; and we are in him that is true, in his Son Jesus Christ”. It is hard, as we have been often told, to distinguish between God and Christ as John writes in his epistle, because he refers to divine Persons with these personal pronouns of Him and His, often without naming who he is speaking of, which means that we need the understanding the Son of God has given us to follow what the apostle is writing. He says, “we are in him that is true”, no doubt that is God; and “that we should know him that is true”, that would be God; and then, “in his Son Jesus Christ”. Then he brings in this marvellous statement, “He is the true God
and eternal life”. In John 17 the Lord speaks of the Father as “the only true God” (John 17: 3). Here the apostle, who was in the Lord’s bosom, says of Christ, “He is the true God”. We can say, too, reverently of the Holy Spirit, He is the true God. It is not a statement found in Scripture that I am aware of, but the statement conveys the truth of the Spirit’s deity.
But the great point here is that the apostle is saying that we are in the presence of deity in Christ, “He is the true God and eternal life”. The wonderful life that God had in His purpose for man is what Christ is, and “we are in him”. As in that position we can enjoy this life. The Lord would appeal to us and would move among us sympathetically and affectionately but in power that this might come home to us—“that the Son of God ... has given us an understanding”—that we might be intelligently in the realm of the knowledge of the true God, the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and that the enjoyment of what cannot be touched by death would be in our souls as a known and enjoyed matter, eternal life. Eternal life really underlies the service of God. As we take it up tomorrow, on the first day of the week, if the Lord will, all these wonderful things we have been speaking about will enter into that occasion, but they will enter into it only objectively unless the thing is working in us subjectively. Hence the importance of how the Lord moves among us in the greatness, and yet the simplicity, of His affection to give us a fresh apprehension of what He has done, and of who He is, and of what He has brought within our range to enjoy, the knowledge of God and eternal life. We can finish the week with a sense of victory, with a sense of joy, and with a sense of spiritual readiness for the great occasion on the morrow. May God bless the word.
Address at Denton, 30 September 1995
THE LAST WORDS OF DAVID
W. Wallace
2 Samuel 23: 1–4; 1 Chronicles 23: 24–28
You will notice that these scriptures refer to the last words of David. We have the last recorded words of many in the Scriptures, but I do not know that they are actually spoken of as the last words; David is singled out in that respect. There are the last acts of persons too, and it is important to consider that what we may say or do at any given time may be our last, our last words or our last acts, we do not know. So it behoves us to live in the light of that.
We are exhorted that our word should be always with grace seasoned with salt; that would be proper to the believer.
David here is an old man. On the one hand, viewed responsibly he is weak, but on the other hand he is viewed as going out in triumph and power. He is one who like ourselves failed, but I do not think the Spirit of God would engage us with David’s failures except to be a warning to us. The Spirit of God largely draws attention to David and his faithfulness to God’s will, as the book of the Acts brings out, God says, “I have found David” (Acts 13: 22). It is like God going through the ages looking for a man, even among those patriarchs. Moses and others prior to David, wonderful men as they are in the testimony, particularly Moses, and yet it is not until David that God said, I have found “a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”.
It is Christ that is in view of course, a beautiful type of the Lord Jesus. David was in his personal attractiveness and beauty; even as a youth, he was ruddy and of a lovely countenance and beautiful appearance (1 Samuel 16: 12), singled out by God and anointed.
God only anoints what He is pleased with; he was anointed in view of public service. He took David up as a young man; largely He takes us up when we are young and preserves us as we are maintained in
dependence and faith, and in self-judgment. There is so much that would occupy us in this world, legitimately perhaps, but it is of no profit spiritually. Even physical exercise, scripture tells us that it is of some profit, not much, but piety is profitable for everything (1 Timothy 4: 8). God loves a pious soul; He would set him apart for Himself it says (Psalm 4: 3). A pious man, set apart for Himself, speaks of Christ, often typified in David. It is not just a question of bringing God into our circumstances, but our circumstances being such, regulated by us, that God can happily come into them. That would be a challenge for us.
I was thinking of the last recorded act of Abel, it says, he brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat (see Genesis 4: 4). It was his apprehension and appreciation in type of Christ in His perfection, what He is to God. How that should engage us! Then you think of these patriarchs; Jacob in particular, generally viewed in responsibility here, and yet a man who was preserved in dependence, and he could speak of God shepherding him all his life long.
How God has done that for us thus far, and we have faith that He will do it right through, to preserve us in the path of His will.
David here he is recording his last words. It is oracular speaking as the footnote points out, it is not just normal speaking; he is speaking in principle as under the Spirit of God, as a man who was raised up on high. God raised him up because of the pleasure He found in him; “The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel”. You think of the service of God as set on by David, the increase in it too, the increase of the courses, and the reduction of the age as we read of in view of the filling out of the service of God. God has in His heart and mind that the young people should be active in His service, not just testimonially, but in service Godward, because that is the main thing. You are thankful for those who are active testimonially, many believers who are zealous for Christ and for souls, and
yet there is so little going out Godward; really what flows out testimonially rightly, flows out from what is Godward. So we begin the Lord’s day with the Lord’s supper and the service of God. We fill it out and finish with the testimony, the preaching of the word of God. That would be right, and all would have Christ in mind and the glory of God.
So these are the last words of David. What will our last words be? Will they be concerning things here, mundane things, things that belong to time and place, or will they be concerning Christ and the assembly, Christ’s chief interest here? That is a challenge to us. I trust these scriptures may be for our stimulation and encouragement, so that we may be engaged with these things characteristically. When David failed it was not characteristic of him; what was characteristic of David was that he was a man here in the path of God’s will.
So in Chronicles we have another reference to the last words of David, that is the reduction of the age to twenty years old. The age of the Levites in Numbers 4 was from thirty years upwards, and then in Numbers 8 it was reduced to twenty-five years, but here you have David numbering them from twenty years old and upward. That would involve that the believer has arrived in the wilderness journey at the brazen serpent, typifying the displacement of man after the flesh, the removal of that man in the cross of Christ, and then the Spirit given; because apart from the Spirit being given there would be nothing for the pleasure of God. So the believer is set up as having the Spirit, set up in power; he is no more to carry the tabernacle because the journey in the wilderness is over, the tabernacle is at rest. That is what David had in his heart according to Psalm 132; he had God’s rest in view and the ark in its place. He had that in his heart as a young man, and it was in his heart all the way through. He had a singular purpose, he could say in Psalm 27, “One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after—that I may dwell in the house of
Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah, and to inquire of him in his temple” (Psalm 27: 4). There was one thing that was constantly before David, one thing, what would be for God’s pleasure. And so the numbering of these sons of Levi was to be from twenty years old and upward, that they might be active in the service Godward. The tabernacle service in the wilderness is now passed and it is temple service that is in view.
Temple service has rest in mind. Solomon in all his glory, typifying Christ coming into His rights even in a public way as He will do in the millennium, and the service of God proceeding at its height. Then it says, “For their place was by the side of the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of Jehovah”. In Chronicles the Levites and the priests merge in view of the service Godward.
May we be encouraged to be constantly engaged in our minds and affections with what belongs to that heavenly realm, having Christ before us. We can think of those two old brethren at the beginning of Luke; Simeon and Anna; the last act of Simeon, you might say, was that he took the Babe in his arms, and blessed God, having seen God’s salvation in that Babe. Then Anna, who was one hundred and six years old, or thereabouts, very elderly; what was in her heart and mind was Christ, and she spoke of Him to all those who waited for redemption in Jerusalem. May we be encouraged, beloved brethren, to have our minds and affections engaged with these things. For His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy, 18 April 1995
EXTRACT
Ques.
What is the significance of the burning bush?
JT It is God coming into lowly circumstances in His love for His people. The discipline of the people in the wilderness is also in view. The people would be under
the discipline of God and not consumed. They would survive. Moses got this impression there. Gift is an impression that remains with a man, and gives character to his ministry.
Moses’ ministry came out in the wilderness. It undoubtedly flowed from impressions received at the bush. Though the people were to be under the discipline of God so that all that was contrary might be consumed, yet they were to remain.
The fact that there was to be no fear supposes that the love of God had full effect on the heart.
The burning bush also signifies God’s dealings with Moses himself. Moses went through the experiences of the wilderness before he led the people through. He is a type of Christ. The bride in the Song of Solomon is seen coming up out of the wilderness leaning on her Beloved. Moses had been that way before. He is the most interesting minister in the Old Testament. He was not “consumed”. He remained in all his vigour at the end of the wilderness journey. The history of Moses is given great place in Scripture. All the circumstances connected with his birth and manhood were prepared, so that Moses might be qualified as a vessel to be the great minister, which he became. One important feature is that he was baptised by his parents. He was committed to the Nile by his mother. She could not hide him any longer; she committed him to death, and God intervened and took care of him.
When he came to years he decided for himself and came into fellowship. I say all this to show how a minister is formed and fitted by God for the service He intends him to render.
Ques.
What do you mean by saying that Moses came into fellowship?
JT He committed himself definitely to the people of God, as in reproach; that is not simply coming to a meeting. He deliberately chose to suffer affliction with the people of God.
He did not choose them as affording worldly advantage but the opposite.
J. Taylor (Vol. 39, pp.256, 257)
Edited and Published by J. Strachan, 59 Frederick Street, Dundee, DD3 9DE, Scotland Printed by Crystal Stationery, 22 Western Road, Billericay, Essex CM12 9DZ, (T) (01277) 650661