DIVINE FORMATION IN MAN AND WOMAN

R. Taylor

Isaiah 32: 1–3; Numbers 12: 3; Daniel 10: 11, 12, 18, 19; Acts 13: 21, 22; Luke 2: 25–32; Acts 16: 13, 14

You will notice in these scriptures the reference to ‘man’ and ‘woman’. Particular attention is called to these persons I read about, that there is something tangible formed. We have been speaking in these days about the work of God proceeding and it results in something formed that is peculiarly attractive. The Lord speaks of these exercises, referring to the time of birth involving pain, then there is joy that a man has been born. This would be something of the exercises of these meetings, that there is something being formed through new birth and through the grace of the Spirit that is very attractive.

The first scripture that I have read refers to Jesus. I have often wondered about Isaiah and the things that he wrote; he must have said to himself. Who can this be? There was no man that Isaiah knew, who could fit into the description of that man of Isaiah 53: 5, “he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes, we are healed”. Who was the prophet speaking about? He was speaking about this Man too in chapter 32, a Man who has come into the race, not like Adam who brought in sin, “by one man sin entered into the world”, Romans 5: 12. The whole race has been affected by that, by sin, but here is another Man, who has come into the circumstances of humanity and has brought with Him all that was needed to meet the confusion and the distress of sin. It says a king shall reign; He will put everything right. What the governments of men today cannot do, Christ will put everything right in His kingly power and authority. The same Person who has the power and authority to set right

all the things among the nations is there as a Man for you and for me. It says, “a man shall be as a hiding-place from the wind”. What wind there is today in the histories of men! You may be feeling those winds that cause such distress. The storms that come into our lives, none of us escapes them; the workings and power of things around us that are too much for us. Have you never felt that in your life? Circumstances arise in your life that are more than you can handle, but there is a Man who has come in in all His grace to be a hiding-place, to be a covert from the storm, a shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. Many men pass through these storms without Christ. What happens is that they become hardened, and they try to find their own hiding-places. Maybe you are trying that too. The first thing Adam did was that he tried to find his own hiding-place, a place where the heat of the day would not affect him, where the eye of God would not detect his guilty state. Satan has produced thousands of hiding-places for men where they may try to forget the proddings of their conscience and try to forget about God. Someone may say, I will immerse myself in the things of this world. The hiding-places Satan has produced are innumerable, but they are all coming down. They will not stand the storm, they will not stand the power of these winds.

It says, “If thou hast run with footmen, and they have wearied thee ... how wilt thou then do in the swelling of the Jordan?”, Jeremiah.12: 5. It means simply this, that maybe you have got along with your companions so far, maybe you have found a way to run along with plenty of company and you can enjoy things today, but how will you do in the swelling of Jordan? A time will come when you need Christ. A time comes when there is only one Man who can provide shelter, and He has done it! He has done it in His death. He has done it by bearing the storm.

‘The storm that burst o’er Thy blest head

Is hushed forever, now,

And rest divine is ours instead,

Whilst glory crowns Thy brow’. (Hymn 227, 1932 Ed.)

A Man has come in to meet the whole course of sinful history that has come into the race and He is presented as a man—not an angel! He presents Himself in all the attractiveness of His humanity that you may come to find rest, that you may find these brooks of water in a dry place. There may be a dry place in your life today. You may have known brighter days but perhaps today is a dry place in your life, yet there He is. That woman in John 4 found that her water-pot became dry very quickly but she found streams of water, and the shadow of a great rock in a thirsty land. I only meant to refer to that to speak about beholding that Man. As coming under His influence and the shelter He provides, there is produced in men and women features of manhood and features of womanhood according to God.

We have been speaking in these readings of the work of God forming the character of Christ in persons. That is why I wanted to speak about Moses. It says of him, “the man Moses was very meek”. In these scriptures that I have read, it could have left out the word ‘man’. It could have said that Moses was very meek; it could have said, O Daniel, greatly beloved; but the Spirit of God specifically puts that word ‘man’ in—“O Daniel, man greatly beloved”, and the ‘man’ Moses was very meek, to show that there was another character developed in them that is pleasing to God. It does not speak about Moses as a man because of his administrative abilities. Although he was able to lead so many people through the desert, with all their problems for forty years, that is not what the Spirit comments upon. It says the man Moses was very meek. He was formed in the features of Jesus! He was formed in the character of the Man of Isaiah 32. This is how these features were formed; he went into that hiding-place when the storms were there and what did he find? He found that God had come down; he was fleeing from Pharaoh and he found a bush burned and it was not consumed. He speaks about it so beautifully, the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. That is the Man of Isaiah 53 and 32. God came down to be near Moses and Moses turned aside to see this great sight. He wondered that God would take account of him and be interested in him to make these communications to him that none other had heard before. So he speaks of the good will of Him that dwelt in the bush. That followed Moses through all his history. It says that the man Moses was very meek. He learned that in his links with God. In his psalm he very beautifully says, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”, Psalm 90: 1. I have often thought of Moses in the weariness of that history with the people, who were very troublesome, how he retired to the dwelling-place. He had some place that was not affected by the wilderness sorrows; where he was not overburdened by the murmurings of the people. He found a hiding-place outside of himself.

Here in Numbers 12, he is being wrongly criticised, perhaps the severest test any man could have to face. What does he do? He remains quiet. It says prophetically of Jesus, “he was led as a lamb to the slaughter … and he opened not his mouth”, Isaiah 53: 7. Moses had learned that Man—he did not take up his own case. The Spirit of God comments that Jehovah heard it, but the man Moses was very meek. He was content to remain in the shelter of the abiding place he had in divine affections. God settled the matter far better than Moses could. It is a feature of manhood that you can leave criticism to God, “Every morning doth he bring his judgment to light”, Zephaniah 3: 5. Here He brings that morning to Moses. He comes in Himself in all His grace and yet power; the Lord does not pass by anything, but as we try to defend ourselves and put things right ourselves we make a bad mess of it. But your morning will come. “Blessed the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”, Matthew 5: 5. God is going to fill the whole earth with these characteristics that are learned from Christ. He said, “I am meek and lowly in heart”, Matthew 11: 29. Moses had come to Him, he had learned from Him. The word is

not of Him but from Him. There was Moses in the yoke, day by day, in these exercises, he had learned typically from Christ, and the man Moses was very meek. It is the feature that heaven comments upon. I wonder what features there are in you and me that heaven can comment upon? There is something formed through the work of God in the man Moses, something tangible that is pleasing to heaven.

We have in Daniel another man in trying circumstances. There are quite a few references in the book to how Daniel was loved. How much heaven appreciated him and here he is in the sorrows of the testimony and we have heaven entering into it. In chapter 9 there is a man bearing the sorrows of the testimony. Daniel is going over the way breakdown has come in.

He had no part in it but he does not say it was the fault of my fathers, he says, “we have sinned” (Daniel 9: 5). He takes upon himself the sorrows of the testimony and feels his part in them and heaven notices that. I would like to call attention to how heaven appreciates the prayers of the saints and the way that the saints carry things before God. It was almost too much for him, he said. The sorrow of it pressed upon his spirit and he was faint, he comes over that more than once but he heard the voice, “O Daniel, man greatly beloved”. God was calling attention to something there in him that made him attractive to heaven. Here again, it is like finding a hiding-place. He is finding a covert from the storm in the provision of divine grace. It says, “And he said unto me, Fear not, Daniel; for from the first day that thou didst set thy heart to understand, and to humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard”.

Thy words were heard! The words of a humble man, that is what the Spirit of God is calling attention to. He could have brought up many things. If ever there was a man who could have been feeling that he suffered wrongly, it was Daniel. He was brought there away from the circumstances in which he had lived, and he could have felt wrongly done by, but it says here that he humbled

himself in the presence of the God that he knew. He felt how small he was, and that is how you get into the hiding-place. A proud man will never get in. Those two men in Luke went up to the temple to pray and one of them could not get in. He was too big for the mercy of God.

His heart was so full of himself, there was no room for divine mercy. The other man found a hiding-place. He found a covert from the storm. Like that woman in Luke 7 to whom the Lord said, “Thy faith has saved thee; go in peace”, Luke 7: 50. What mattered Simon’s words, what mattered the cold indifference of that Pharisee? These were the words of Jesus, how sweet and soothing to her ears. It was like Daniel who humbled himself, and it says, “thy words were heard, and I am come because of thy words”.

How do we come into these things? How do we understand? Well, read the book of Daniel.

He was made to understand for his day and for a day yet to come. The book closes very beautifully. He is told about the whole history that is coming on the people of Israel; he is told about things that have not yet happened, but the divine word to him is, “But do thou go thy way until the end; and thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”, Daniel 12: 13. There is a man who had been humble before God and sought to understand something of divine ways, and God put His hand upon him very gently, saying, Daniel, do not trouble yourself, I have it all in hand! He could not see how the breakdown would be adjusted, he could not see how, through the confusion, the work of God would go on. God very gently says, You just rest in my love, rest in the promises that I have made to you, “Fear not, man greatly beloved; peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And as he was speaking with me I was strengthened”. That is what happens in the hiding-place, that is what happens as we are under the influence and grace of Christ, there is something divinely formed that can stand the breakdown, can go through the difficult periods of time. He is resting, not in his own strength, but in the

strength and the grace of divine love towards him. May our hearts be strengthened as that of Daniel was. He was strengthened to go through the confusion as a man who has a direct link with heaven. That is what comes out in the book, the direct links that Daniel has with heaven.

There is Michael, there are other angels; part of a great system of help to sustain Daniel in manhood through the circumstances in which he lived.

I go on to David, the scriptures speak so beautifully about him, “I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”, Acts 13: 22. Think of these men down through the history of time and God is speaking of having found David, “a man after my heart”. Especially when we are young, we have our heroes and Saul was the people’s choice; a man who was good at sport, you may say, who was head and shoulders above all the rest; a man who was hero-worshipped by the people but he did not do for God. God tried him for forty years and he was a failure. How patient God was, exposing man after the flesh, but it says that He found David. Where did He find him? I think the Psalms tell us. He found him in the sheepfolds (Psalm 78: 70), caring for the brethren. If they needed help, he was there ready to stand as a shepherd between them and the foe. God found a man who loved the brethren, who cared for others and was prepared to suffer in their stead, but that was not the prime thing about David.

I wonder what you and I would have chosen to say was the great feature of David’s life. I suppose most of us would say, he slew Goliath, he did great exploits for the people. But David is called a man of God for one thing and that was for his music, the sweet psalmist of Israel! In Nehemiah, it speaks about that great choir as they went up on the wall, “with the musical instruments of David the man of God”, Nehemiah 12: 36. He instituted that great system of praise. How God loves to hear a praising people! How God loves to see what has been begotten in the hearts of the saints as liberated from all the bondage

of Saul and the system that would hold people in poverty; by a man who has brought in liberty among the saints and introduced the great service of praise, the instruments of music. I wonder if you and I are among them; one of them tomorrow morning in the great service of praise? There is something stirred in the hearts of those instruments that David has made.

They were largely instruments that required a good deal of skill and a good deal of practice to make them sound sweet. That is what David did, he had led the people, he had nourished them and brought in a system of praise. God is looking for men who are free from bondage.

Maybe some bondage has come into our lives that causes us to be silent. These things are not unknown that cause us to be held in bondage and our harps hung on the willows. There is not the power to overcome to touch these strings and these chords that are so pleasing to heaven.

Well, God found David. He must have been looking for such a man, as God is looking today for men after His own heart who will do all His will and introduce His people into the realm of peace and blessing.

These men stand out in Scripture in all their own distinctiveness. The man that we read of in Luke was perhaps the most privileged man in the whole course of time, “behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon”. Perhaps he was not too well known in Jerusalem but heaven knew him very well, and as the Lord Jesus comes in unrecognised a man is there waiting for him, a man in Jerusalem. I wonder, dear brother or sister, are you ready to receive Him as He comes in? There was Simeon with his arms open and there was the child Jesus in his arms. Oh, what a privilege! The rest of them were too impatient, they were trying to sort out things themselves, but there was a man who was waiting. It says, “And it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ”. That was everything to him! He did not want any more. He had obviously read the Scriptures. That also made Daniel attractive to

heaven. He understood by the books and it also says he understood by prayer. Heaven notices these simple things in the practical circumstances of our life; that we are not overwhelmed by what is around us, but seek to understand divine things by divine communications. That is what happened to Simeon here, it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit. He had simple links with the Spirit of God, and thus was able to receive fresh divine communications. The rest knew nothing about it, it was too simple, too small a matter for the priests and all that was around; but there was a man who was waiting and he says, “now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation”. He was satisfied in all that had come in in divine grace into his life, and he was ready to receive Him. Simeon was a man of little account in the city but he was waiting on the incoming of Jesus. I wonder if we are waiting for that, waiting for the Lord to come in, awaiting a touch from the Spirit that would set our hearts aglow as it did for Simeon and for Anna too.

I read about Lydia so that the sisters would not put themselves out of this. We have been speaking about man as a race, but that includes women too. It says in Acts 16, there was a woman by name Lydia. There is room for all, young and old, to come into these matters and to be formed in something of divine grace. You may be quite inconspicuous in your town or at your work or wherever—but these persons that I have read of are very important to heaven.

So heaven is looking on this woman. Lydia of whom it says, “who worshipped God, heard; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul”. What a fine service this sister did at the introduction of a fine meeting in Philippi—a certain woman in whom something was formed through prayer, somewhat like Samuel’s mother who went on in prayer and brought in Samuel in a broken day when things were disregarded by the official element. So this certain woman, Lydia was noticeable to heaven and it

says, “who worshipped God, heard; whose heart the Lord opened to attend to the things spoken by Paul”. I wonder if you would allow your heart to be opened to the things spoken by Paul? They are neglected and passed by today as being, ‘only Paul’. Lydia says, That is what I want; she wanted Paul’s ministry. These other things did not satisfy her. The Lord is ready to open our hearts, as we are interested. Peter says that Paul said many things hard to understand but here was a heart for them. Lydia would not understand it all but the Lord opened her heart. The Lord delicately touched the chords there to cause her to see that these were divine communications. This was not just some new theory of men. She has her house where Paul is received. So there is a house, and finally a locality where Christ is enthroned, where there is something formed of men and women in a very happy company in regard to the praise and service of God.

May our hearts be encouraged, dear brethren, to lay ourselves out to come under the influence of divine grace; to be formed, each in our measure, by what God is doing in us. I raise the question, as the Lord says, “Do ye know what I have done to you?”, John 13: 12. Do not treat it lightly that He has sovereignly operated in new birth in your heart. He may have passed by millions, but He has done something to you. He has given to you of the Holy Spirit springing up into eternal life. Do not treat these things lightly. Why should it be me? Praise be to God, it was you and me whom He took up and did His own work in our hearts! The end in view is to form us in manhood, to form us in womanhood, to attend to the things spoken by Paul, that there may be something here for the praise and glory of Christ! May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at Vancouver
8 July 2000