THE PURPOSE OF GOD TO MAKE MY LIFE BEAUTIFUL
“And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”
Does it strike you, beloved friends, that the ending of this verse is very singular? “And they were afraid”. The people were afraid when they saw this. Why were they afraid? What was there to cause them to fear? We are not told that they were afraid in the former part of the chapter where we have the past condition of this man presented so graphically. There he was under this awful domination; living there in the place of death, crying night and day; poor, restless creature under this frightful domination.
They had sought to reform him, to restrain him; they had bound him with fetters reformation fetters - but the devil was too strong for reformation fetters, he had broken the bands asunder and they could do nothing for him.
They had known him under those distressing circumstances, but now they saw the man under a new domination, and in a new condition entirely. He was sitting - no longer restless, but sitting - he was at rest. No longer naked, he was clothed, and his brain was no longer railing as it had been all those years, but he was in his right mind. That is what they saw; they saw the man sitting in absolute rest, he was clothed and in his right mind. They saw it and they were afraid.
They were not afraid of the man under the past conditions, but now they see him thus they are afraid. I call your attention to this and then dismiss it. What were they afraid of? The fact is, men are more familiar with the power of Satan than they are with the power of God, far more familiar; they are more at home with the power of Satan in destruction than they are with the power of God in blessing. You will find that is so.
There is one passage in Psalm 14 I wish to call attention to - there are other passages, too, which I could quote - but it says, “There were they in great fear: for God is in the generation of the righteous”, v 5. They were in fear. And so here, here is a man who has been delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God's love. That is what this verse sets forth - it is a beautiful miniature picture of the kingdom of God. He is delivered from Satan's kingdom and has got into God's kingdom, and when you are there you have absolute rest in the kingdom of God.
Jesus was his Lord; he had come under a new domination; he was delivered from the power of Satan and had come into God's kingdom where Jesus was now his Lord, and he was under the subduing influence of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is a Christian. Are you one of those? Have you known the subduing power of the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you know what it is to be delivered from the power of Satan, from the kingdom of Satan, and brought into the kingdom of the Son of God's love? That is what this passage sets forth most blessedly.
In the previous chapter we find the parable of the sower sowing the seed; the seed was sown and the seed is the word of God - the revelation of God. If that is sown in man's heart he begins to know God. Now in this chapter we have the deliverance of the Son of God. There must be deliverance in order to enjoy the sowing - that is to say, the narratives given here set forth the true condition of man as he is, of man in the flesh. Now as such they need deliverance, and the Deliverer is the blessed Son of God. He is the Deliverer, He is the Son of God.
There is a verse of our chapter which I must call attention to - the first verse - it is a geographical verse; the Lord went through the sea and passed over. I quite admit that is a geographical statement, but underlying that is the key of the whole of the chapter. This is what I refer to. The Lord has been through the sea of death and has reached the other side. There is no other Christ to preach to you than a risen Christ. I repeat it, a risen Christ.
In the early days of the Acts, if you have looked at it, when they preached the gospel Peter or Paul, for instance, or whoever it was - the culminating point was a risen Christ. He has been through the sea and has reached the other side, or there would be no Saviour for us. He has reached the other side and is victorious over death. He is a mighty Victor, the Son of God.
In Romans He is declared to be the Son of God by resurrection from among the dead. Who He is is declared by resurrection. He was declared when He was here in the spirit of holiness, and in the exposition of the gospel in the Romans He is declared to be the Son of God by resurrection from among the dead. He has reached the other side. What a glorious Person He is. He has reached the other side; He has won the victory; been through the sea; made atonement. As I was trying to shew you last week, He has broken Satan's power and everything that is against us He has met.
You remember the story of Jonah: well, a lady said to me some years ago, as I was travelling with her and speaking about Jonah. ‘Mr Johnson, surely you do not believe in the story of Jonah, I thought that was exploded years ago’. My reply was, ‘Madam, I believe in God’. If you believe in God you must believe Jonah.
Dear friends, if you do not believe the story of Jonah you have lost Jesus, and there is no Saviour for you, for the blessed Saviour said, “As Jonah was” Matt 12: 40. Was He mistaken? Can you imagine it? Can you entertain such a thought? Do you remember what fell from His lips, “As Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”. Do you not see that if you do not believe the story of Jonah you have lost Jesus and there is no Saviour. I could not believe in a Saviour who was mistaken, who was fallible. You remember the story: Jonah was on the deck of the ship fleeing from the presence of God. He was not a type of the Lord Jesus in that; he was God’s sent one, and in despondency embarked on that voyage with the heathen mariners. A storm came up, the sea was white with foam, and the poor heathen mariners cried to their gods to deliver them.
Jonah was asleep in the side of the ship. They thought of their Jewish passenger and roused him from his sleep, saying, “Call upon thy God … that we perish not”, Jon 1: 6. And Jonah came on deck, and said, ‘I know what this is for, it is on my account; the only way out of the difficulty is to throw me overboard; the storm will never cease until you do’.
Now sailors are very tender with their passengers - I was a sailor once myself, and I know - passengers always get the first chance. So they called upon their gods, but the ship was sinking; they threw overboard all the cargo and the tackling, and then at last they called up Jonah and threw him over. He sank beneath the waves and there was a great calm.
Time was when Jesus, the Son of God, stood on the deck of our sinking ship; His eye surveyed it, and His heart was filled with divine compassion - that blessed Jesus, the Son of God. He surveyed it - it was white with foam - the wrath of God was deserved, righteously deserved - and He knew it, and He went beneath those waves and those billows. “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me”, Ps 42: 7. He was overwhelmed in that bitter hour. Are you so familiar with the fact that it has no place in your heart? Do you know the facts? How are you affected by the fact that Jesus died, that Jesus went underneath the wrath of God? He exhausted it; but He has reached the other side. There is no other Christ to preach than a risen Christ and a glorified Christ.
It is a momentous question. Where is Christ now? This blessed Man, the Son of God, Maker of heaven and earth, yet very Man, where is He now? Do you ever sit and think of that? Where is He? He is at the right hand of God. He has been through the sea; He has reached the resurrection shore and now He is exalted at the right hand of God. There He is. Do you see Him there? Do you see Jesus?
Beloved friends, these eyes have never seen Him; these fingers have never touched Him; these ears have never heard His voice; but He stands out before my soul in the living reality of what He is more than any living person on this earth. Thank God. He is the Son of God; He has been through the sea; He has reached the other side; He is declared to be the Son of God by resurrection from among the dead, and He moves through this chapter in mighty power.
I love to think of Him moving through the chapter; for, remember, these gospels were written years after the death and resurrection and exaltation of Christ; the Spirit of God wrote the narratives of the gospels years after, and in view of where Christ is; in view of what He has done and where He is; so that when we read the gospels we have it livingly before us, and what He is in this chapter He is to-night. He is as available to you now as He was here. Remember the words of our Lord to Thomas, “because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”, John 20: 29.
So you go through the chapter, and it is a most fascinating chapter; I could preach from it all the year round; if I thought of myself as a preacher I might diversify, but that is not my point. Something fresh and something original is what people are after, but we need the old, old story over and over again.
Now there are three narratives in this chapter. There is the man under the domination of sin - under Satan; there is the woman weakened and defiled by sin; and there is the little child of twelve years of age in the deadly grip of death. Man under the domination of sin; the woman weakened and defiled by disease, which sets forth what sin is; and the little child in the deadly grip of death. Can any of you dare to say that it is not here now? Satan's power, the defilement of sin, and the power of death; they are here. You will do well to take heed to it - to the conditions. If the ruin is dire and it is - the remedy is greater.
You have the most graphic descriptions of diseases put through your letter-boxes in order to present a remedy, and so that you may apply at once for the remedy. The description is all right, but the remedy is oftentimes very doubtful.
The ruin is great here, but the remedy is greater. How then are you going to appreciate the remedy unless you are made to feel the ruin? I cannot make you feel it, but the Spirit of God can. Here is this man under this frightful domination - held by Satan he is the mouthpiece of Satan, and dwelling in the place of death and restless. Are not people restless to-day? Oh, yes, they are restless in heart and growing more restless as the years go by, living in excitement away from God. Religious, perhaps, but I gave you my definition of religion the other night, the respectful recognition of God at a distance on certain occasions to appease the conscience. There is nothing in that. The respectful recognition of God at a distance on occasions is religion, but there is nothing in that.
Christianity, as I understand it, is this, though I may be repeating myself - God proposes to come into my life to make my life beautiful. That is it. “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: but let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me”, Jer 9: 23, 24. The glory of a man lies in the knowledge of God. I was never truly happy until I knew God. I never knew what real happiness was until I knew God, and God has become my exceeding joy.
There were moments in my history when I was glad to forget Him, to forget that I was responsible to Him, and I wanted my own way; I wanted to pursue my own way and I was glad to shut God out; but now through grace I am never happier than when I am thinking about God - never. God has become my exceeding joy. I am speaking also for other Christians of what is proper to a Christian, not simply of myself, but as a Christian, and I never knew happiness until I knew God, and He has become my exceeding joy for fifty-three years He has been my exceeding joy.
Let me tell you, dear friends, I have known the value of these things in hours of peril. My life has been very varied; I have been near to death. I have been covered up for dead, and I have been on the Atlantic when we expected to go to the bottom at any moment; the waves were dashing over us, and I remember rolling myself up in my blanket, dead tired and hungry, for we had had no food for thirty-six hours, and saying to myself, ‘I shall see the Lord directly’ and closing my eyes and sleeping as quietly as ever I slept in my mother’s house at home. I remember saying, ‘I shall see Jesus now’. Not one bit of trepidation in my heart. I have been taught the value of these things and can speak of them to you.
When I was preaching at Basingstoke one day people were saying, ‘Who is this man who is preaching?’. I said, ‘I have not come to preach about myself, I have come to preach Christ, but my name is William Johnson; I was once a sailor and have been tossed up like Jonah to come and preach to you’. The Lord said, Not yet, you are not to come yet.
So here this demoniac besought the Lord that he might be with Him, but the Lord said, No, you go home to your friends and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you. I send you on a mission now; by-and-by you shall come and dwell with Me, but I send you on a mission now.
What about the people here? May I point out to you the two extremes - on the one hand there was a man raving like a maniac in opposition to Christ, the Son of God, and on the other hand you see the people preferring their pigs to Christ. That is the devil. They prayed Him to depart out of their coast. What an awful thing. On the one hand the raving maniac and on the other the deadly power of Satan. They say, Go out of our coast, you are disturbing our commercial values, we have lost two thousand pigs through you; go away.
What have you preferred to Christ? It is an awful thing to slight Him.
I remember a poor woman at Canterbury who seemed to be anxious about her soul, and I said I would go and see her. On the Monday morning I called at her cottage; she knew I was knocking at her door, and she just opened it a little bit and said, ‘Mr Johnson I have thought it all over. I know what you will tell me, to come to Christ; but if I do, I shall have my husband against me and my children against me, and I could not bear it’, and she shut the door. How awfully solemn.
Here they preferred the man to be a wretched maniac, and they preferred their pigs to Christ. They had lost their swine - the Lord had sent the devils into them and the whole herd ran down the hill and were drowned - they had lost their prosperity.
If you want a Deliverer from Satan there is the Son of God. You are no match for Satan. What a folly it is - I have heard men singing, ‘Britons never shall be slaves’, and they are slaves to the devil all the time they are singing about their liberty.
Now I come to what I hope will be of blessing to many here. There is a woman brought before us as the Lord is passing along - Jairus had begged the Lord to come because his child was sick - and as He went His way to Jairus's house He met this woman. She had been twelve years in this sad condition. The child was twelve years old and the woman had been twelve years in this dreadful condition. She had spent all that she had, but instead of getting better she grew worse. All these weary years of disappointment, trying to be good, trying to be better, but only growing worse and worse. The more you try to be better, the more you find out the badness. So at last she comes to the end of her resources. ‘Man’s extremity is God's opportunity’ is a very good saying.
She hears of Jesus; there is a great crowd passing through the street, and pressing through the crowd the woman comes to Him. What brings you to Him is your need. Jesus only commits Himself to your need, He never commits Himself to your brains. He did not come here to be discussed. No. It says at the end of John 2, He “did not commit himself unto them, because he knew ... what was in man”, vv 24, 25. He will not commit Himself to anything but need.
If you have any knowledge of Christ it is through the necessity of your soul. You cannot understand Him by knowing Him mentally, it is through the conscience and the heart. It is no use trying to argue people into Christianity; there must be the living power of it in the heart and the conscience. This is an engaging story and I hope some will get help from this point. She says, If I may touch but the hem of His garment. She pushes her way through, her need makes her earnest. She had been ill twelve years - think of it. I think I can see her timidly going behind Him. Her need was great and she put out her hand and touched the hem of His garment and she was made whole. That is faith - the hand of need. ‘Lord, I need Thee’. She never said, ‘I need Thee’. She puts her hand out and touches Him, and He knows that touch. He says, “Who touched me?”. The disciples are astounded at such a thing. A vast crowd and the Lord said, “Who touched me?”
Supposing I am crossing by the Bank of England - the human tide is strong there and I turn round and say, ‘Who touched me?’ What would people say? ‘All are touching you; a great crowd touching you, and you ask who touched you!’ But the Lord says, There is a touch I know.
Have you given that touch? May you do so to-night in the need of your soul. He is here as much to-night as He was in this chapter. As you sit there in the sense of your need, in the sense of the glory of this blessed Person and how He is adapted to your need, you may put out your hand and say, ‘Lord, I trust Thee’.
I see a vast crowd around Christ by way of creed, and creed never saved a man yet. Never. I see millions round Christ by way of creed, but that never saved a man yet; it is personal faith; and amongst the vast millions around Christ in Christendom by way of creed there are tens of thousands who have come to Him and have put out their hand and touched Him. I often think of it, of the vast crowd around Christ by way of profession and creed, and among them are those who have really trusted Him. No matter what their creed, whether Lutherans, Greek Church, Romanists, or Protestants, there are in these vast bodies those who have come to Christ, they have given the touch that the Lord knows. I hope you are one of them. It is real, personal faith. “Who touched me?” The woman went away; she knew she was healed, but the Lord would have her back.
What does this garment mean that the Lord wears? It has no seam, woven from the top to the bottom. What does it mean? The fulness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. All that God is, He is in Christ. When you touch Him, all that He is is for you; you may have to learn it bit by bit, but all that He is is for you. Thank God. It is all for you, that garment which had no seam. She touched the hem of His garment.
She came back; the Lord had His aftermeeting with her. She came back and she fell down before Him and told Him all. He loved to be told it. He knew all about her, He knew every bit of the disappointment, but it is intensely interesting to Christ; the tale of soul history is interesting to Him. I am glad to say that on behalf of my Master.
She told Him all the truth. The truth about God will make you truthful about yourself. He knew it, but He loved to be told. I think I can hear her saying, ‘Twelve years, Lord, I tried this, that, and the other’. How He listened with the deepest compassion. What a blessed Jesus He is, the blessed Son of God. She told Him all the truth. Then He said to her, “Daughter”. If she touched Him by faith He touched her by the Spirit. If she said, ‘Lord, I need Thee’, He said, ‘I need you’. There is a Christian.
Let us look for one moment at Ephesians 1, the epistle which gives us the highest character of Christian blessing and where the glorious future is unfolded in wonderful language. It is God's mosaic.
In the first twelve verses of that chapter you get the blessings of Christians, and then you get the simplest idea of a Christian as setting forth what is here in Mark 5. The question may be raised - I have heard it raised - and I have said to myself, ‘How may I know that I am one little bit of stone in this beautiful mosaic?’
I have seen in Mark's gospel the mosaic work, millions of stones put in marvellous designs most charmingly. The first twelve verses of this chapter are God's mosaic work. Am I one little stone in it? How may I know?
The simplest idea of a Christian occurs in this epistle and I call attention to my chapter. It says here (v 12), “who first trusted in Christ. In whom ye also trusted”. Trusted in Christ. Are you a truster in Christ? Then you belong to this vast kingdom. I have thanked God that in the epistle in which there is the highest Christian blessing, the simplest idea of a Christian on the faith side is presented.
How admirable scripture is! It does not require a theologian to understand this. Have you trusted Christ? “After that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation”. The “word of truth” answers to the garment that had no seam. The truth about God is in Christ, so that is your salvation. What God is is your salvation. They trusted Christ in whom the word of truth was, and the word of truth was their salvation. “In whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise”.
That presents the idea. She touched Him in faith, and in her touch she said, ‘Lord, I need Thee’. He said, “Daughter” to her. What does that mean? ‘I will never forget you. You are an object of interest to Me; there is a link between you and Myself that can never be severed’. You are welcome to the blessing, and it gives Him the greatest possible pleasure to bless you.
I was going along the city some years ago on a cold wintry morning, and there was a man standing in the gutter holding out bootlaces. He said, ‘Buy a bootlace, sir, I haven't had a bite this morning’.
I might have said, but I did not, ‘My dear man, do you not see across the street there is wealth, why do you not go and ask for a shovelful of sovereigns. Wealth is there in millions’. When Christ comes it will all be done away with. What men are trying to do by political efforts will be done away with when Christ comes. Every Christian feels the need of man. If I had said to the man, ‘Wealth is there, go in and ask for some’, do you know what he would have said? ‘Yes, the wealth is there, but there is no welcome’.
The wealth is here in Christ and the welcome is there in like manner. Just trust Him as you sit there. He has done everything and His heart is full of compassion. Is there one sad and weary heart here? You have tried to be good; tried to be better; tried to love God and your neighbour as yourself; you have been here and there; to everybody but Christ. Come to Him; trust in Christ. “In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth”.
I was preaching at M-- some years ago I think on this very subject - and all at once there came something to me, and I said to the people, ‘I am going to get off the desk and sit on a chair, I feel I am in the way’. I did so, and sat down; there was great silence for ten minutes, and during that ten minutes five souls came to Christ as they sat there. You may come to Him now. May you feel by the Spirit that He is near to you. May you put out your hand in all your deep need - faith is the hand of need - and say, ‘Lord, I need Thee’. He will answer back; He will tell you that you are needed by Him, and it gives Him the greatest possible pleasure to bless you.
Now here, the child was dead, but the Lord says she sleeps. Do you know it? This little rosebud, the delight of her father's heart, was lying there in the silence of death. Do you know it? There is scarcely a household that has not been interrupted by the rude hand of death. Death is the rude interrupter of everything that is here. I will put a question to you, and then close. I remember going to see an old gentleman down in Devonshire; I went in and sat down, and he said, ‘Did you observe that beautiful wood as you came up the road? I gave three thousand for that, I did not want any neighbours here’. I said, ‘Yes, I noticed it’. He said, ‘Did you observe the beautiful sea view I have here?’ I said, ‘Yes, I stood and admired it’. Then I said, ‘I am a servant of Christ and am going to visit others, so cannot stay with you long, but I want you to put a question to yourself after I am gone’.
He was eager to hear the question, and I said, ‘When I am gone and you sit here in your chair I want you to ask yourself this question, What do I possess outside the reach of death?’ A fine question that. ‘What do I possess outside the reach of death?’ Put the question to yourself, all of you. I sit in my room and ask myself that question.
What a doleful man, you say. No, it gives me the greatest possible joy. I look round on those who love me and my departure would give them sadness; theirs would to me. I cannot look on any one here outside the reach of death, but my heart gives a leap, for I have got Christ, and He is outside the reach of death.
I have looked up through my tears into His blessed face in the hour of my bereavement and have said, ‘Lord, I shall never lose Thee’. No, never lose Him. Splendid. Have you ever told Him that? Are these things what you say on certain occasions? Let them be living realities in your soul. There is your testimony, not only in saying certain things, but the testimony lies in vitality, and vitality lies in nearness to Christ and in knowing Him. What a happy thing to ask the question, ‘What do I possess outside the reach of death?’
My story is over, poorly I may have presented it, but I plead with you, as I may never see you again - do you not see how you need Him? If you have a grave in front of you - one step more and you are in it, you do not know how soon; you may be full of health and vigour, but one step and you are in the grave - have you got any one the other side? Christianity gives you some One the other side of death, the blessed Jesus, the Son of God. May your heart trust in Him, and may you just be led to do it for His name's sake. Amen.
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“JEHOVAH MY GOD, MY HOLY ONE”
The next three addresses were given at Park Street, Islington, in 1921 and published together in booklet form
THE MORAL FEATURES OF A MAN OF GOD
Habakkuk 1: 1-4, 12; 2: 1-4; 3: 16-19
I have read these scriptures after deep exercise in regard to God's people and the result of that exercise is that I want to speak to you on subjects that are intensely important, and to draw your attention to some practical things that I trust may be for our profit and blessing. I am sure they will be so if there is exercise in regard to what we have read.
One thing that has struck me since I have been here is that I see such a number of young people, and I am rather diverted from the course I intended to take in regard to my subject. My subject is this - the man of God. The moral features of a man of God and his sensibilities - that will be my subject in a few words.
I will say this, that the man of God comes to light in days of departure, and you will find if you look through scripture that there are certain men designated as men of God - and you will invariably find that the man of God comes to light in a time of general departure. Bear that in mind. Now I think it is a moment for the man of God at the present time. One would desire greatly for oneself and for you all that you may come into this and that you may desire to be a man of God at this juncture.
I remember my beloved mother years ago when I was a boy, how often she said to me looking at me through her tears, ‘I would rather see you a man of God than anything else. I should not care if you break stones by the wayside for a living so long as you are a man of God’. That is what she desired for me, and no advancement in this world whatever. I am thankful for it and I often think of it. She did not merely desire that I should be converted and go to heaven at last, but that I should be a man of God down here. That was her desire and it is a very great thing. I feel for myself how poorly I have answered to it, still I may say that I desire to be that more than anything, to be a man of God - not a preacher or a teacher or anything of that kind, but a man of God. Inasmuch as we have here a number of young people I have to say what I did not intend to say, that to be a man of God you must know God. You must know Him first, secondly you must be with Him, and thirdly you must be for Him. Those are the three things.
I was told not long since by a brother who was a personal friend of a dear servant of Christ well known to all of us, that when he was dying he said to this friend, ‘I will tell you what is my dying wish for you. It is that you would preserve the thought of intense individuality’. He did not mean by that, that he would divert him from what is corporate; but everything rests here, as to whether we are intensely individual. Never mind other people, it is easy enough to go along in crowds, especially in a crowd that is in the majority. You may go in a crowd and not have any affection at all or any history at all. It is personal history and affection that we need. We are where we are, and we do what we do, because of personal history and affection.
If you think of what is corporate, you must admit that blessing depends upon our individual condition, it must depend upon that. Another thing is that while we have rejoiced in the truth and have had brought before us that which is corporate and what is due to the assembly, which has been so blessedly maintained by the Spirit and has been fruitful in result - I admit all that - yet on the other hand we have our own personal history and cannot set it aside. That is what is in my mind in these discourses.
Very well, then, first to be a man of God you must know God. You cannot be a man of God without knowing Him, that is as certain as anything can be, it goes without saying.
Those who are older will bear with me while I dwell a little upon a point that I did not intend to dwell upon. I put it to you all What has the gospel done for you? What does God propose in the gospel? What is the nature of the proposal in the gospel? I draw your attention to this. You will not find in reading the Acts, where we have the inspired record of the proclamation of the gospel - you will not find in any one of those addresses any such thought as this, that if the audience believed what was presented to them they would go to heaven. There is not one such thought from beginning to end. It is not put in that way, and if you pay attention to these things they will help you. What is the nature of the proposal in the gospel? Not a word is said about heaven not a word. Is that not singular? Does that arrest your attention? It should do so. What then is the nature of the proposal? The nature of the proposal is that you should be forgiven, that you should have remission of sins, and that you should have the Spirit and thus the knowledge of God.
It is the knowledge of God that is proposed in the gospel and in such a way that the knowledge of God shall make you happy here and now. That is it. That is the nature of the proposal. Is not that splendid? I could dwell all the evening on that one point, it is so excessively important. We have escaped from hell and shall be happy by-and-by. That is in it, but that is not the nature of the gospel. The nature of the proposal is that you should know God and that you should be happy now and that your happiness should not depend upon your circumstances here. What a splendid proposal.
Your knowledge of God will make you so supremely happy that your happiness will not be dependent upon circumstances, whether you have a long purse or a short one, or whether you live in a cottage or a palace. None of these things constitute the happiness of those who love the Lord. “The kingdom of God is not in meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost”, Rom 14: 17.
Now I would ask this personal question of every one here: Do you find your joy in the knowledge of God Himself? That is it. As it says in one of the prophets: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, neither let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth let him glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the Lord”, jer 9: 23, 24. There is something morally elevating in the knowledge of God, and it puts a true dignity upon you. You are to be brought into the knowledge of God, that is the nature of the proposal that is unfolded in the gospel.
Lest you should be mistaken by my remarks if I speak of heaven, let me add that after we receive the Holy Ghost heaven is spoken of, and heaven is always connected with the purpose of God, with the love that wants me there. There must be the love of God in the heart in order to understand what is heavenly. It is absolutely necessary to have ourselves pulled up in regard of these things. Do you know God? Does it give you pleasure to think of God? Has the knowledge of God brightened your life? Do you know Him? What a real thing it is to know the blessed God.
I do not ask if you know the truth, this, that, or the other, but do you know God Himself? He does what He does, and gives what He gives, in order that we may know Him, who He is and what He is. Whatever God does and whatever He gives, the consummation of it all is that we may know the blessed One who has done it all. Think of forgiveness, I know the blessed God who has forgiven me, therefore I am pretty sure of my forgiveness. Whatever the blessing may be, it is all in order that I may know God who gives me the blessing.
The consummation of it all is that we may know God, and the more we are taught by the Spirit the more we take in the knowledge of God. The truth is unfolded to us, but behind it all is the knowledge of the blessed God. That is the part that I did not intend to say, but I trust it may be of some value to those who are young in the faith, as well as some incitement to us who are older. My true expansion lies in my knowledge of God not in my knowledge of the truth. We may talk of all manner of things, but do we know God? That is the question.
Let me tell you that your knowledge of God is discovered to you in need - in adversity. Adverse circumstances will expose to you your knowledge of God. If you sink under adversity your spiritual strength is small, and He permits this state to come upon us to shew how little has been our advancement. A dear brother whom I knew some years ago, and who was well taught in the truth, said to me, as he lay on his death-bed, while the tears ran down his cheeks, ‘My dear brother, I have had to come here to find out how very little I really did know’. It is a fine thing to have your true measure with God. Never mind what the brethren think about you. You may have a spiritual reputation and it may not be worth one straw. It is what God thinks about you. I am not diverting you from that which is corporate and which is so blessed, which we know and enjoy in regard to the truth of the house of God and other things, but I impress upon you the individual side, as I told you that dear brother said, ‘I commend to you the thought of intense individuality’.
I come now to another thing and that is to be with God. The man of God knows God and he is with Him. It is interesting to see that the man of God comes to light in a dark hour. The first man of God is Moses I allude to him as the first man of God - I mean in historical order. The fourth book of the Psalms begins with Psalm 90, and is the prayer of the man of God - Moses. This book has for its subject the bringing in of the only begotten Son into the world; it is the setting up of what is so largely spoken of in scripture - the world to come - and the prayer of Moses stands at the head of that book of the psalms.
You remember how the book so sweetly closes - I cannot refrain from alluding to it “And let all the people say, Amen”. I pass from this world and all its confusion. How can you be with God without feeling what is going on around you? Do you think there is such a thing as being separate from the confusion and yet being indifferent to it? Surely not.
If I am with God I have sensibilities and I feel what sad confusion this poor world is in; but it will be ended - Christ will end all the confusion, and He will end the confusion in your soul - but I speak now of the world to come. “And let all the people say, Amen”, Ps106:48. It is the triumph of God. It often looks as if Satan is having his own way in the confusion that is going on. All the confusion is the result of the will of man. When your will is gone there is no confusion in your soul; ‘Every one shall say, Amen’. How one's heart rejoices to think of that.
I remember telling a young man this some years ago. He was a highly sensitive man, and he said to me, ‘I am very thankful for what you have told me, for I always had the feeling that the devil would get the best of it, but now I see that God shall have the best of it’. He rejoiced in the thought that God would have His way and His will on this earth. Think of it. Everybody in the world under one love and under one will. So shall it be. He will bring it about. He will bring man down - man will be weakened down to it - and in his misery and in his weariness he will come right down and will find God there - then he will be lifted up. Thank God.
It is a long history I know, but still the end will be that all shall say Amen. “all the people say, Amen”. Every one will be under one love and under one will. What a magnificent thing that is. Now you and I sojourning here and passing through to our heavenly rest can find comfort and rest in the thought of what God will have down here at the end. It is the triumph of God.
Moses prays for the world to come. He prays in the presence of the awful confusion recorded in Numbers 14. Israel had turned their backs on the purpose of God, and had come under the judgment of God governmentally, and God says, “Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness” (Num 14: 29); but in the midst of it all - how blessed it is - in the midst of disaster God says, “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord”, v 21. The dark departure of Israel suffering under God's hand - and righteously so - and yet God says, “The whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord”. Nothing shall defeat My purpose.
The first prayer of the man of God is connected with the condition of things set before us in the fourth book of psalms. He knew God, and when a man knows God he can speak boldly to God. He knew God, and he says, “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”. That is the man of God - he knows God. As He said in Exodus 3, when Moses said, What shall I say when the people challenge me as to who has sent me? God says, You say I AM THAT I AM hath sent you. I remain what I am and nothing can change me. That is what God is. Byand-by Israel will find out the I AM in Jesus. We have found it out in Him. If we have found anything we have found God in Jesus, that He is the I AM.
“Before Abraham was I AM”, John 8: 58. He is the One who was before Abraham, and poor Israel by-and-by will learn the meaning of Jesus. Does your heart delight in the thought of that? Moses says it, and he prays for it and he prays for the world to come. He states what man is and he states what God is. Then having stated what man is - as I have often said - Moses reads the funeral service. Most people are under Moses, but Christians have no funeral service.
He is so with God that he feels the condition of God's people and he bears it up before God on his spirit. That is the mark of a spiritual man. Being indifferent to the ruin of the church or looking at the church from the responsibility side is no proof of spirituality, but otherwise. It is impossible for a man to be with God in the knowledge of what the church should have been in responsibility without being affected by it. As sure as anything, that will be the first thing. I do not say that such an one will get under the power of evil, but he will feel it; he will have sensibilities.
Did you ever shed a tear over the ruin of the church? Have you felt the terrible disaster - I am looking at the church from that aspect in which it is proper to look at it. You cannot be with God without feeling the condition of things - not only in the world, but the poor church in its awful confusion, the apostasy it is in - most terribly. If you are with God you will feel it. I could give you many scriptures to shew you what I say. In Ezekiel you find the mark was to be put on those who cried for the abominations that were done. You remember in chapter 9 judgment was to begin at the house of God, but there was a mark to be put on those who sighed and cried. That man will be richly compensated, and he will know God in a peculiar way, that is certain.
Now this man cried. He bore the burden before God, though he was not under grace as we are. From verse 5 onward to verse 12 God says, I am going to punish My people. He will bring up the Assyrians to punish His people. Now look, Habakkuk bows and says, “Art thou not from everlasting, O Lord my God? ... we shall not die”. That is like Moses - “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God”, Ps 90: 2.
God sends up the Assyrians. They are allowed of God to chastise the people. “Thou hast established them for correction”. But he bows and says, ‘We shall not be crushed, we shall not die’.
What promotes life amongst us? The promotion of life has been the trials of the last five years, but we have not been killed by them. There has been life out of it, far more life out of it than sitting here reading the scriptures which we do so comfortably. I have often asked, What is going to happen to make the truth good in our souls?
My beloved young brethren, do you expect anything from this world? Are you astonished at what people do? Why are you astonished? I am not astonished, I have thought this last week, why am I allowed to live here? If Satan had his way he would crush me. It is the mercy of God, the protection of God that keeps you. I beg your attention to these things. God has kept you. If the devil had his way he would sweep us out of this world, and so I do not expect anything from it. Do you get disappointed because man is unrighteous? Have you realised the fact that there is no good in man? We find it out the moment things happen wrongly, but do we believe what we say “there is none righteous, no, not one”? “Thou hast established them for correction”. We shall not die. By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.
Would you like a simple pathway, to glide down the stream of time without any exercises and without a deeper knowledge of God? It is in your trials that you get a deeper knowledge of God. It is a splendid moment in your history when you are shut up to God and no one can help you but God. It is the finest thing that can happen to you and you never forget it. You learn what God can do for you in a strait where no human help can come. “Thou hast established them for correction”: Deut 32: 4, and then he calls God his rock. ‘Thou art a rock’; I like that. God is called a rock.
There are two ways in which He is called a rock in Hebrew. The first thing is rock and shelter, and the other word is a rock of impregnability, and that is a rock on which you stand unmoved. It is the same word that is used for the city of Tyre, which was built on a rock right out at sea, and all the waves of the sea could not disturb it. You are sheltered in the rock and you are immovable on the rock. God is the Rock Moses says in his song, they forsook the Rock and all along the chapter you notice it - He is the Rock. That is a fine thing. Do you stand on it? My blessing lies in what God is to my heart. People may change, circumstances may change, but He abides what He is. May the Lord give you a deep sense in your soul of knowing Him as the Rock.
Habakkuk pursues his subject. He says, ‘I do not understand it. The people you are using to discipline your people are worse than the people you are disciplining. I do not understand it’. What is he going to do now? How is the problem to be solved? He says, “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower … to see what He will say unto me”. Here we have it. The man of God is seen here, it is the house seen here. These are the things of God. He gets above it all and gets where there is a solution for everything in the house, and he gets the solution. What is God's answer to that? - to all the upheavals?
Blessed man that he is, blessed in his sorrow. He loved God and he loved His people. He is not thinking of himself at all he is thinking about God's people. Now he gets up into the tower and what does he see there? He saw a vision. What did he see? The world to come. He was to write it. The Lord said “Write the vision”. Write it down, not only so, engrave it on tablets. Where is the engraving? In Hebrews 11 it is seen. There were Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob: they are all written there livingly, they were in the faith of the world to come, and it is written there.
Is it written on your heart? Write it there livingly. Engrave it there livingly so that those who read may run.
If you live in the light of another world you run out of this world. It is because we are so much at home in this world that we do not run out of it. If you live in the light of the world that is set forth in Hebrews, and in the light of that blessed Man who lives before God, you come into the light of another world and you hasten out of this. Hence the running. “Let us run with patience the race”, Heb 12: 1. “Let us run”.
It is no use telling me to be unworldly; you must give me the light and joy of another world to make me leave this world. I must have the light of another world. God grant that we may cultivate being with God, that we may know what being with God means; we may talk about it and explain it, but we must be there with God, and when you are there, there is no confusion there. Christ is there - not the Christ in connection with your need, though that is very blessed, too, in the early part - but it is Christ there, the Man for God's pleasure, in whom that moral feature of the world to come is seen. Every feature in Him will be displayed by-and-by. And so it says here that he was to write it so that he who reads may run.
“The vision is yet for an appointed time … though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come”. Do you not see how the Spirit of God transposes it! “He that shall come will come”, Heb 10: 37.
It can only be in the light of the world to come. “He that shall come will come, and will not tarry”. We wait for Him. He will set up what we enjoy in His blessed company now. We see Him now, the Man for God's pleasure - every moral feature is found in Him and He is the One who will bring others into His moral features. Let me pause before such a thing.
You remember the dying thief. We often admire the grace that could say, “To-day shalt thou be with me” (Luke 23: 43), and we know very well that his title to be there was because the Person who was dying by his side was dying for him. The Spirit of God was brooding over the soul of that man, and was working there and making that man move away from himself. Did you ever think of that? He said, ‘I have done everything amiss’, but he goes from the man who has done everything amiss to the Man who has done nothing amiss.
He travelled that moral journey from himself to Christ - he recognised the moral beauty of the One there by his side.
He looked underneath it all, his eye guided by the Spirit, and he came to the blessed conclusion that none other than He should be King, and so he says, “Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom”, Luke 23: 42. Think of Him there, an Object of scorn, but he could see under all that the moral beauty of the Man who was there and say, “Remember me”. ‘None but Thou canst be King’. He passed in a rapid moment, though perhaps it takes us years and years to travel the journey from self to Christ so that Christ may be before your heart and not yourself at all. Think of the moral perception of the man who could see underneath that shame and scorn that none other could be King.
Now Habakkuk gets his text - “his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him: but the just shall live by his faith”. If your soul is inflated you are not upright. “His soul which is lifted up is not upright … but the just shall live by his faith”. I come now to the final features. The Lord says, “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea”. In the middle of all that black description of what man is, God speaks and says, As the waters cover the sea, so the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth. What a blessed thing!
Now I come to the end. He gets the prayer. If you are marked by these sensibilities you are to be a man of prayer. These are the days when we are to be here for God.
On the one hand feeling what is around us, but on the other hand knowing what shall be. In the light of that other world we can be in God's hand and can move forward. We do not want to be unduly depressed. I would rather live now than at Pentecost. I would rather be here just now than seven years ago. Why? It is the moment when we can learn what the Lord can do and what He can be for us in the power of the Spirit.
So he prays, “O Lord, revive thy work”. Your true interest in anything is seen in the measure in which you are interested in it privately - when no eye but God's can rest upon you. In the light of what he has seen here in chapter 2 he prays, “O Lord, revive thy work”.
There is going to be a revival - not of such a kind that it will attract the attention of men - but a true and deep revival of affection right in the heart, of affection for Christ. That is the nature of the revival. Not only so, but it is coming as certain as I am here, and there will accompany that revival a deep evangelical feeling that will flow out to others, for it is impossible to have a deep sense of the love of Christ without its flowing out to others. Not in the excitement of nature, but a true, deep working of the Spirit, and let me say to you, that the measure in which you mourn for the ruin is the measure in which you will be used to those who are in it.
You can separate from it in a cold, legal way without a touch of feeling, but I believe that those who take the ground of 2 Timothy will be marked by brokenness of spirit. If we are to separate from evil you will depart with a mourning spirit and a broken heart, because you see things in the light of the glory of God. Can you understand a broken heart and a rejoicing heart? I am afraid of a legal separation where there is no feeling; there must be feeling, or it is not of God. You may judge how far you have taken that line. The majority of us have never had to take that position - we have never had the pain, the excessive pain, of separation; but if you do you will be tender and gracious. You will not say, Let us hoist our flag and stand up. That is not of the Spirit. You can be faithful and yet have the gracious Spirit of Christ. That is what we want, the gracious Spirit of Christ, and yet to be true to principles - but to have this tender feeling.
You come to the end of the book. I do not know anything that speaks of the collapse of a man so strongly as verse 16 of this chapter. It is a verse that we have often looked at and considered, this and verse 17. “My belly trembled; my lips quivered at the voice: rottenness entered into my bones, and I trembled in myself”. It is in accord with his testimony. All these things shew the total collapse of the man.
“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls”. What desolation. What a collapse of man, and what desolation of his circumstances. But now look - “Yet”. - “Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation”. My heart is deeply affected. I long to know this better. It is here that the man is proved as to what he is. “Yet” - not withstanding my utter collapse - these circumstances of utter desolation.
There comes from such a man a sweet song to God. That is the music that God loves to hear. I put my ear close to it and I come to the blessed Person in God’s presence. Dark and desolate are the circumstances, but I am in the presence of perfection in the midst of disaster. There was not one bright spot for Jesus, God's true Servant, but He says, ‘I will praise thee’. Not for others but praise for God. A song for the ear of God. How God’s ear - the Father’s ear turned to the sweetness of it. “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth”, Matt 11: 25.
How dark the circumstances, nothing could be darker, but a note of praise came from His blessed lips. How God loves Him for it. How sweet is the music from a broken heart. No will there. “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight”, v 26. A note of praise came up. Where is this going on? I am permitted sometimes to see it and my heart is glad. The note comes up sweetly to Him. No memory recitation of truth. Mere repetition of truth is not praise; but from a broken heart that feels deeply, and a heart subject to the things of God, rises the song to the chief Singer upon stringed instruments. That is it.
The Apostle Paul in the dark circumstances in the prison at Rome, suffering through his own failure - though we speak very carefully of that - could say, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice”, Phil 4: 4. I may write that upon a piece of paper - I have done so and have had to burn it because I was not up to it - but you must be there yourself, it is no use indulging in platitudes, but the apostle says, “Rejoice in the Lord alway”. He is a prisoner, he is in dark circumstances, but he has a rejoicing heart. His heart rejoices even in that dark cell. I think I can hear the jailer say, ‘He is the same kind of man as he was when we first knew him; when he was thrust into the inner prison he sang praises to God’.
I am afraid some of our songs are dying down. How sweetly we sang under pressure; now the pressure is removed, what then? It is pressure that brings it out, as it is here. May the Lord in His grace be pleased to bless these few remarks. I am sure that you must know God in order that you may be with Him, and if you are with Him you know Him; that is the man of God.
Will you be a man of God?
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