DEFINITENESS IN SPIRITUAL RESOLVE

W. Lamont

Genesis 32: 23–32; Exodus 21: 1–6; 1 Kings 21: 1–6; Psalm 132: 1–8

If we desire to see manhood according to God, we must look at Christ in His greatness, in all His perfection. He is typified in the oblation, the fine flour mingled with oil, in the perfection of manhood according to God. Indeed He was God. We must remember that behind the glory of His manhood lies the glory of deity, the One who could say, “Before Abraham was, I am”.

John 8: 58. Absolute perfection was there in manhood. He could say, “the ruler of the world comes, and in me he has nothing”, John 14: 30. Satan brought all his resources to bear on the Lord Jesus in His manhood at the temptations and he failed in his efforts, because there was no point of contact in that Holy One, nothing that Satan could affect. There is one particular feature I want to speak about seen in Luke 9, where it is said of Him that He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. That is a feature of manhood according to God. I want to illustrate it by speaking of these men in whom the spirit of Christ was, even before the Lord Jesus was on the earth. There were features seen in them that would be seen in absolute perfection in the Lord Himself. One feature I want to speak about is definiteness.

I am not speaking of the stubbornness of the flesh. I am speaking about the definiteness of moral and spiritual resolve. It is interesting to note that each of these men we read of say, I will not. This is not the stubbornness of the flesh, a feature which may often mark ourselves.

We take up an attitude and we just do not want to give up. But when these men say, I will not, it was holy resolve.

The first was Jacob, who says, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. I wonder, beloved brethren, if we are determined to have a divine blessing. It requires definiteness and depth of moral exercise. Jacob here had his family, but he had to go through an experience alone with God. I trust every one of us here has had that experience of being alone with God, and using in principle this language, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. As he pursues this exercise, he has his name changed to Israel, but in the Scriptures his name Jacob is also carried on. In Numbers 23 the names are linked and we see the product of God’s workmanship, “At this time it shall be said of Jacob and of Israel, What hath God wrought!”

(Numbers 23: 23). Jacob emerges from this exercise as prince of God. O for more princeliness! It is the dignity which ought to mark believers, especially persons like ourselves who have so much light. He wrestled with God and with men and he prevailed. Jacob called the name of the place Peniel. What a positive result from saying, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. It is an interesting study to see places that are named. We get the thought right through Genesis. But in this particular one meaning ‘Face of God’, I think, in principle.

Jacob arrived at “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”, 2 Corinthians 4: 6. What a thing it is to see the glory of God in the face of a Man, the face of Jesus Christ. The prophet says, “his visage was so marred more than any man”, Isaiah 52: 14. Yet the glory of God is resplendent in that face, and it will shine eternally. So Jacob got the blessing. But he got it by saying, I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

In Exodus 21, the Hebrew bondman is a type of the Lord Jesus, in all the perfection of Himself as here totally devoted to the will of God. He could have gone free, but He said distinctly: “I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free”. Let us take up the language, beloved brethren, of committed bondmanship. ‘ I will not go free’. It has been said rightly, ‘I love my master’ is vertical love, ‘I love my wife’ is horizontal love, and ‘I love my children’ would be descending love. So we can see it in perfection in the Lord Jesus, the One who set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem, and found Himself in a situation where He could say, “but then, not my will, but thine be done”. Luke 22: 42. What perfection in manhood! There in Luke’s record, His sweat became as great drops of blood falling down upon the earth, in the agony of His soul anticipating what lay before Him. We sometimes say that Luke does not give us the abandonment, and that is true as to the actual record, but when the Lord says, “Father, if thou wilt remove this cup from me”, it is in anticipation of being forsaken by the God whom He loved. Now like this bondman He says, “I will not go free”.

What do we want, beloved brethren? Some are saying today that they want freedom to go here, there, everywhere. That is not the path of bondmanship according to the will of God.

Let us be among those who can say, ‘ I will not go free’.

In 1 Kings 21, we have Naboth, a man who was not prominent, but he was faithful.

Definiteness of faithfulness was seen in him, in what he says, ‘ I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers’. Beloved brethren, we have an inheritance of our fathers, our fathers spiritually, men who have laboured, and we have entered into their labours (John 4: 38). Are we going to sell it in order that it may become a garden of herbs? Never! ‘ I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers’. It cost this man his life. Naboth was a martyr, in holy determination not to give up what had come down to him. We are in days when the enemy is

very active in order to get us to sell the inheritance of our fathers, or like Esau to sell our birthright for a dish of lentils. Do we value the inheritance? Paul speaks about it as the glory of God’s inheritance in the saints (Ephesians 1: 18). It is also our inheritance (Ephesians 1: 14). It is still referred to as Naboth’s vineyard, even after he was dead (1 Kings 21: 16). Well, he said, ‘ I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers’. May this feature mark us beloved brethren.

Psalm 132 is one of the Songs of Degrees, these ascending psalms which lead up to something wonderful. David says, ‘ I will not come into the tent of my house, I will not go up to the couch of my bed; I will not give sleep to my eyes, slumber to mine eyelids, until I find out a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob’. Here was a man who was prepared to deny himself what was legitimate in the way of what was natural, in order that Christ, in type, should have the first place. In Colossian language it is that He might have the first place in all things (Colossians 1: 18). It is not only in some things; some of us may allow Him the first place in some things, but He has to have the first place in all things. That involves in me personally, and in you personally, in our households, in our local meetings, that He has to have the first place in all things. He is worthy of it. So David says, “we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood”. What a sad statement of affairs! As in other instances, the ark was found in places which were not suited to it. That has happened in Christendom. The name of Christ is taken up in conditions which are not morally and spiritually suitable. Let us see, beloved brethren, that we provide suitable conditions, not only in our households, but that in our local assemblies there may be right conditions for the ark as typical of Christ. As we give Him His right place, as we shall prove tomorrow in His will, it will lead to worship, something for God. As David says, “Let us go into his habitations, let us worship at his footstool”. Beloved brethren in the sense of spiritual resolve, let us

be among these persons who are prepared to say, I will not. For His name’s sake.

Address at Vevey
28 April 1995