GOD'S WAYS WITH THE BELIEVER

GOD’S WAYS WITH THE BELIEVER

Genesis 28:16-19; Genesis 35:1-5; Genesis 35:14,15; Genesis 37:5-11; Genesis 41:44-52; Genesis 41:55,56; Genesis 45:25-28

I wish, dear brethren, to touch lightly on the history of Jacob, having in mind that he is representative of every believer as the subject of the work of God. He represents divine sovereignty, for you will remember that he and his brother were twins, and before they were born and before either of them, as Romans says, had done good or evil (Romans 9: 11), God said that the elder should serve the younger. So that, sovereignly, Jacob was marked out, as you might say, for the best, and in that way he is representative of every one of us, for that is exactly the position that we are in if we are true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We understand that in God’s sovereignty, before any question of responsibility on our part arose, we were marked out for the very best, and it would be well for every believer to let it sink into his heart, the young ones and the old ones, that before the foundation of the world we were foreknown, every one of us personally, in relation to the very best thoughts that God’s love and wisdom could conceive. Then, if He has marked us out for the best, He has in mind to bring us practically into accord with His thoughts, for God always justifies His sovereignty, and Jacob, in a particular way, illustrates that. He is one who was the subject of the ways and discipline and formative work of God, and who, as the finished product, abundantly justifies the sovereignty of God, for he closes his days with seventeen years of great spiritual dignity and power, being able to bless Pharaoh and to bless his sons, not in a natural way, but in a spiritual way, and to bless the sons of Joseph, and then also to worship.

Now, I think it will be seen that the history of Jacob divides itself into two periods, one of them commencing with the light which God gave him in Genesis 28, of God’s house, and terminating in chapter 35 where Jacob is found completely in accord with it, and the second period beginning with the light which God gave him in chapter 37 through Joseph’s dreams and finishing at the end of his career. I want to touch on these two divisions in the life of Jacob. One is connected with the light of the house of God and has reference to our being adjusted and formed, on what I may speak of as moral lines. When I speak of moral lines, one has in mind matters of good and evil, and we have to learn that our standards of good and evil as being Christians, are not to be governed by the standards of men, but are to be governed by an unerring and unwavering standard which is that of the house of God, what is befitting to it. Then the second period of training, so to speak, has reference not so much to what is moral, but to what is spiritual, and raises the question as to what order of things we are going to find our life in, in the natural order of things, or whether we are going to have an apprehension by the Spirit of the spiritual order of things bound up with Christ and finding its expression at the present time in the assembly, the great administrative system of which Christ is the Head and in which we are intended to have part as a present matter, as, indeed, our commanding interest.

Now, to begin with the side of the truth connected with the house of God. It may not perhaps be understood by all that we, believers, as having received the Holy Spirit, are constituted God’s house. We are not God’s house simply when we are together. We are God’s house at all times. The Holy Spirit has come to indwell believers, to abide with us for ever. God is dwelling in us by the Holy Spirit. That means that at all times, wherever we are, in whatever circumstances we are found, we are God’s house, the dwelling place of God by the Spirit. If this is weighed over, I think it will raise wholesome questions with us as to what is befitting in God’s house. I think all will admit, that a person is entitled to have his own house in accordance with his own tastes, and you can form a fairly good idea of what a person is like if you can see his house. You will get an impression of the person from his house, and from the kind of things, so to speak, that he has in his house. If we transfer that idea to God, we must recognise that God is entitled to have things in His house according to His own tastes and in accordance with His own nature. Indeed, to any extent in which it is not so, not only will God Himself feel it, but there will be the danger of God being misrepresented to those who are in touch with His house. Hence, this question of the house of God is a very wholesome and sobering one. When Jacob first got the light of it, he said, “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven,” Genesis 28: 17. The house of God is not dreadful. It is a dreadful place to man in flesh. It is a dreadful place to a believer who is not characterised by the Spirit of God, but actually the house of God is a place of fatness, a place of satisfaction, a place which is characterised by constant praise, and not constant praise as a formality, or as being what is demanded, but rather as what springs forth spontaneously from those who compose it. When the light of God’s house first reached Jacob, he discovered that he, himself, was out of keeping with it, so that he says, “How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

Now Paul, when he writes to Timothy in his first epistle, writes in order that Timothy may know how to behave himself in the house of God, which, he says, “is the assembly of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth,” 1 Timothy 3: 15. The matter of behaviour enters into this question of the house of God, and it becomes thus the great regulating factor, so to speak, for believers as to what is suitable in their conduct. It is a question of what is suitable to God, and so God has in mind to bring Jacob into practical accord with His house, and in Genesis 32 Jacob has to face certain exercises in the presence of God as to what he is in himself. Romans 7 goes into that in great detail, the necessity of discovering what each of us is according to the flesh. We have to find out in the presence of God that each of us according to what we are in flesh is entirely unsuited to the presence of God. The apostle records it in Romans 7: 18, saying, “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell.” If good does not dwell there, there can be no production of good fruit, and finally so deepened is he in the conviction of what his flesh is, he says, “O wretched man that I am.” On the other hand, in the process of exercise and spiritual analysis that is depicted in that chapter, he came to recognise that there was something of God in him, not, of course, as unregenerate. If there is anything of God in us, God has had to begin entirely anew. Paul says, “It is no longer I that do it, but the sin that dwells in me,” and again he says, “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.” He begins to recognise that there is an I that he can identify himself with, that which is the result of the work of God, and what he comes to in result is that the power for deliverance from what he is naturally, the power for victory, the power for anything that is pleasing to God, lies in the Spirit of God.

In Genesis 32, Jacob faces these matters with God. He wrestled, it says, with a man, but the man was God, as we learn from Hosea 12, and the result of it is, that Jacob comes, in the presence of God, to the acknowledgment of what he is. God says to him, “What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.” Unequivocally, without explaining it away, without making excuses for it, he comes out with the truth, he immediately says, Jacob. And God says, “Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel.” It really depicts the exercise of soul by which he comes practically to the recognition of the Spirit of God, and to identify himself with what God has wrought in his own soul, and thus takes account of himself as one who is ennobled in Christ by the Holy Spirit. It is a great thing when we learn to pass over, as one of the honoured servants of the Lord used to say, to change our man. That is, to understand how, as having accepted the glad tidings concerning the death and burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ and having received the Holy Spirit linking us with Christ in glory, what we were in flesh has been ended judicially by God in death, and put out of His sight in burial, and we are now set up before God in the life of another Man, and the Spirit of God is the power by which we can derive from Christ and live in a way that is suitable to the blessed God. There is no other way of being found in accord with the house of God but by recognising the presence and power of the Spirit of God.

Following on that experience in Genesis 32, Jacob goes a little further. He still has not gone quite the whole length when we come to chapter 35, and God says to him, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar unto the God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.” It is a question of a definite understanding by us of the house of God, the assembly of the living God, and that as regards our conduct, our standards of right and wrong, these matters are not to be regulated by what is current among men,

but are to be regulated by what is suitable to God in those who compose His house. The result of this word to go up to Bethel and dwell there, was that Jacob said to his household and to all that were with him, “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments.” It necessarily involves certain exercises, certain looking around, so to speak, as to what it is we are carrying along with us, as to what our ordinary manner of life is, as to what our associations may be, for garments often refer to associations in which we move and appear among men; Jacob says all these things are to be taken into account. They are to be brought under review in the light of the house of God. “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and cleanse yourselves, and change your garments,” and the result is, “they gave to Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hand, and the rings that were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the terebinth that is by Shechem.” Then the next verse shows how God acknowledges and honours anyone who moves in exercise on these lines. “The terror of God was upon the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob.” Remember what God said to Eli, “Them that honour me I will honour, and they that despise me shall be lightly esteemed,” 1 Samuel 2: 30. It is a great thing, dear brethren, to be honoured by God, and the way to be honoured by God is to honour Him. “Them that honour me I will honour.” So because Jacob had honoured God He placed His own terror upon the cities that were around in order that Jacob should go through unmolested.

We now come to the verse we read in Genesis 35, where it says that God talked with him. In verse 10, God confirmed to him his new name; He says first, “Thy name is Jacob,” remarkably enough, but then He says, “Thy name shall not henceforth be called Jacob, but Israel.” That is to say, He would have us to understand that so long as we are here the flesh remains unchanged - but the flesh is not really what we are. He says, “Thy name is Jacob.” That is flesh, but then “Israel shall be thy name,” and “He called his name Israel.” Israel means a prince, and that is what we are as having the Holy Spirit. We partake, by the Holy Spirit received from Christ in glory, in the life of the heavenly One, and we are sons of God and have received the Spirit of adoption. Think of the dignity that is placed upon us as being the sons of God! We are to understand that God regards us as Israel, and we are to regard ourselves as Israel, and we are to do that in the recognition that if flesh is allowed to act, it is still flesh; and therefore, “Thy name is Jacob,” is just a warning note that unless he watches his natural tendencies he will come out in the features of Jacob, but they are not to be allowed to come out. The position is to be governed by the light of the house of God, and God confirms His blessing to him and calls his name, Israel. “And God went up from him in the place where he had talked with him. And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where he had talked with him, a pillar of stone, and poured on it a drink-offering, and poured oil on it.” He set up a pillar in chapter 28, but he poured no drink offering on it there. He was not equal to pouring a drink offering on it there. He is equal to it now. The drink offering is something which affords pleasure to God and thus Jacob shows that he has now come back to the house of God, in every way in keeping with it.

I pass on to the other section of Jacob’s training and it has its roots, I believe, in the dreams which Joseph had and which he recounted to his brethren and his father, for you will notice that the Spirit of God particularly says, “And his brethren envied him; but his father kept the saying,” Genesis 37: 11.

His father did, indeed, rebuke him, but at the same time he observed the saying, as though even at the very moment when he was rebuking him, he had some kind of intuitive feeling that there was something of God behind this dream and therefore he observed it. It was really light that God was giving to Jacob in view of the further training He had in mind for him. The first of Joseph’s dreams is remarkable and, I believe, particularly points to what the assembly is at the present time on earth. Joseph says, “Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field.” A sheaf is an entity composed of many constituents bound together, and Joseph’s sheaf, it says, “rose up, and remained standing.” The word used for standing is a word of particular importance, meaning ‘taking one’s stand’; that is, ‘standing deliberately.’ Joseph says, “Your sheaves came roundabout and bowed down to my sheaf.” Now there are many bodies in the world today, religious and other kinds, but they all have in them the element of disintegration for the simple reason that they are of man, and anything that is of man is bound to be corrupted and disintegrated. It is unavoidable, it carries the seed of corruption with it, so that whether the body is of religious character, and there are plenty of efforts to bind sheaves in the field, it will not be able to remain standing. But there is one company in the world which is standing and will remain standing, and that is the assembly.

When I speak of the assembly, I mean the assembly, not merely as in the mind of God, that is an abstract conception, but as finding practical expression in the saints of God who have separated from all that is iniquitous and displeasing to God and, recognising the lordship and headship of Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit, are able to walk together in the light of the assembly. In such, the features of the assembly are, or may be, livingly expressed, and what the Lord is making us conscious of increasingly as the days go on, is that He has a company here on earth bound together in love and held under His own influence. Colossians 3: 14, speaks of love, “which is the bond of perfectness,” and there is a company which lives in His life and which remains standing. Whatever may happen in the world, the saints of God, as moving in the light of the assembly, remain standing, and one reason is this, that their life is not bound up with the things in the world which are subject to change and decay and capable of being shaken, but their “life is hid with the Christ in God,” Colossians 3: 3. Their life is in Christ, and is hid with Christ in God. They are supported by the fulness that there is in Christ. They are bound together in life, and whatever arises in the world, whatever Satan may seek to bring to bear on the assembly by way of attack from this or that, there is in the presence of the Spirit of God and in the grace and wisdom which Christ affords, the ability to resist every attack of the enemy. As the Lord says, “Hades’ gates shall not prevail against it,” Matthew 16: 18. That is a great triumph for Christ. It is not to make much of the assembly that I am saying these things, although the assembly is God’s great masterpiece, but it speaks much for Christ, that He is able to sustain in the world a company which remains standing in testimony here and in response to the heart of God. No other company will remain standing and that is undoubtedly true, and that is what I believe this first dream of Joseph indicates. It indicates the living character, the enduring character of what is here on earth under the hand of Christ at the present time. It is not exactly known to men. It is in large measure in mystery, but to be apprehended by the saints so that they find their life and interest in it.

Then the second dream looks on in its interpretation to the future. If the first dream links very largely with the epistle to the Colossians, the second dream links with the epistle to the Ephesians, for it presents Christ as typified in Joseph as Head of all principality and power and exalted to the highest place, as Ephesians 1: 20, 21 says, “He set him down at his right hand in the heavenlies, above every principality, and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name named.” But it is now more particularly the administration which Christ has under His hand in the assembly at the present time, that I had in mind to speak of for the moment, and that is, I believe, why the history of Joseph is brought in now for several chapters. Joseph is seen as one who suffered. He is presented typically as one who died and is raised again. He is spoken of in Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 33: 16, as the one “that was separated from his brethren,” and this is the position with our Lord Jesus Christ. He is separated from His own by death and resurrection, or it may be from His earthly people. In whatever way you view it, He is separated from them by death and resurrection. Joseph, of course, did not die literally. He was put down into the pit, but the Spirit of God says there was no water in it, and he was drawn up out of the pit; he was sold into Egypt; he was put into the prison in Egypt, and then brought out of the prison.

There is great detail entering into Joseph’s own formation, but the final position we come to in Genesis 41 is that he is in great exaltation. He is second only to Pharaoh. Pharaoh says to him, “I am Pharaoh; and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or his foot in all the land of Egypt.” Then, very interestingly, what is brought in at this point is the question of the administration of food. I am sure all will agree that the question of spiritual food is an important matter. We shall languish as saints if we have not spiritual food, and spiritual food becomes prominent at this point in Joseph’s history. God had given Pharaoh light that there should be seven years of great plenty, and then this should be followed by seven years of famine, and as a result, Joseph is established in the place of administration in order to conserve and administer the food supply. That is what the Lord Jesus is doing at the present time in a spiritual sense. I believe it is right to say that, spiritually, the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine are going on alongside one another, for there is no question that this is a period of great plenty for those who are in a position to receive it. There is no lack in the fulness of Christ, and there is no lack in spiritual ministry at the present time, there is great plenty, but, on the other hand, if you look abroad, there is very great famine of spiritual food outside the realm where the Lord Jesus administers. In the application of this passage to our souls, the two periods of seven years of plenty and of famine are going on together.

There is another thing to be noted and that is that although Joseph was established in the place of administration of food by Pharaoh, before he commenced his administration we are told that Pharaoh gave him a wife, namely, “Asnath, the daughter of Potipherah the priest in On.” Then later on in the chapter she is again referred to, and again it is stated she is “the daughter of Potipherah the priest in On.” It is as though the Spirit of God is emphasising what is priestly, and what is priestly means that suited moral conditions are maintained, for the priest always considers for God and what is due to God in His house. This is a most important matter. While all spiritual wealth is in the hands of the Lord Jesus, “In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” Colossians 2: 9, yet the administration of it among the saints is dependent on suited moral conditions being found with us. The two have to be allied. Before Joseph enters upon his administration, he is given this priestly wife. That is a very important thing because the administration of food works out in localities. That is clearly indicated here where it says, “He gathered up all the food ... and put the food in the cities.” In general, the administration of spiritual food amongst God’s people is carried on in the local companies. It is there and there only that it finds expression. Largely, it is maintained through those who constitute the local companies, but there is also what is additional in the way of gift which is, so to speak, a further touch of the Lord Jesus Christ in His consideration for the assembly. He furnishes gifts, and they are not confined in the exercise of their gift to any one locality, but the actual administration of it is in the local companies, and this is a great thing to bear in mind, but before the administration can take place there must be found suitable moral conditions.

That was particularly emphasised in the history of God’s people in the days of Eli. The moral conditions in the days of Eli were as bad as they could be, and what was the result? It says, “The word of Jehovah was rare in those days; a vision was not frequent,” 1 Samuel 3: 1. There was nothing that you could call spiritual food. Why was that? It was not that God’s hand was shortened. It was not that His love to His people was any less, but the conditions among God’s people precluded the food being given. There was one woman in Israel, Hannah, who felt it keenly in exercise before God, and in answer to her exercise Samuel was given, and with Samuel there began to arise consideration for God. Before he developed as a prophet, he was morally a priest, for we are told, “Samuel ministered before Jehovah, a boy girded with a linen ephod.” He was not officially a priest for he was not of Aaron’s family, but he was morally a priest as over against the corruption of the official priesthood. He “ministered ... girded with a linen ephod”; that is, in suited moral conditions. Now, that being secured, the word of the Lord began to appear. The Lord made Himself known to Samuel and it says, “Jehovah was with him, and let none of his words fall to the ground, and all Israel ... knew that Samuel was established a prophet of Jehovah,” 1 Samuel 3: 19, 20. That is, conditions were developing among the people in readiness to hear the word of God and respond to it, and the result was that there was a continual increase in the mind of God for His people, resulting, as we know, in David being brought in, and then David being crowned by the whole of Israel, and eventually in the service of God being instituted in all its richness under David, and finally established under Solomon. All this resulted from the exercises that began with Hannah and with little Samuel. That only supports what one is saying, that of there is to be the administration of food by our Lord Jesus Christ through the local companies, there must be the suited moral conditions, and these are suggested in the priestly wife which was given to Joseph.

There is another result brought in in this chapter of suited moral conditions being found, another result of the alliance of Asnath with Joseph, and that is, two sons were born to Joseph. They are suggestive of what the saints are to Christ at the present time; Manasseh meaning, “For God has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house,” and Ephraim meaning, “For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction,” or as the name itself means, Doubly fruitful. All that is very suggestive of what the Lord Jesus finds in the assembly at the present time. There is what more than compensates Him for all that He has suffered at the hands of His earthly people, causing Him to forget all His toil and affliction,

and then on the other hand, double fruitfulness, that is, a greater character and measure of response to the heart of God through Christ than He could ever receive from Israel. All these things are spiritual, and that is what I want to come to in closing; that is, as to how far we are finding our life in spiritual things. God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ,” Ephesians 1: 3. Our blessings are spiritual in contrast to natural, and heavenly in contrast to earthly. Christ is not here and everyone who loves Christ will come to it that they do not want to find their life in things where Jesus is not. In Matthew, the assembly gospel, when the women came to the tomb on the resurrection morning, the angel says to them, “He is not here, for he is risen,” Matthew 28: 6. “He is not here”; that is to ring in our ears, dear brethren. Christ is not here, and our interests as bound up with Christ through grace are transferred from this scene to the range of interests connected with Him where He is. I do not mean, of course, that we have not to fulfil our responsibilities in this life, and they can be fulfilled in the power of the Spirit and only thus. We fulfil our responsibilities in the power of the Spirit individually and we find our place collectively in the wilderness in the testimony here, but our real life is bound up with things above, where He is.

The Spirit of God through Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: 46, “That which is spiritual was not first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual,” indicating that, all along, God has had in mind what is spiritual as His final thought. He brought in the natural and the earthly merely as testimony in His ways, but He has now reached the spiritual in that our Lord Jesus Christ is a quickening spirit, and this is the day of the Holy Spirit, and the blessings are spiritual and heavenly in character. Therefore it is a question for everyone of us to ask himself, How far he is finding his life practically in the things that are above; that is, morally above, in the things connected with Christ and with His assembly which, is for the moment down here on earth? The assembly is not earthly, it is heavenly; it is on earth in the ways of God in testimony at the present time and for God’s service, but it is heavenly: heavenly in its origin and destiny as the vision given to Peter in Acts 10 clearly shows. It is just that which was raised with Jacob in this second part of his history, as to where in fact he was going to find his life and interests and whether he was spiritual or unspiritual.

We may be good Christians on moral lines and our conduct may be blameless, measured by the standards of what is fitting in the house of God, but the next question arises as to whether we are spiritual, whether we are finding our life in the things of the Spirit, and that was exactly the test proposed to Jacob. He had lost sight of Joseph, and did not know that he was alive, far less had he any conception of the glorious administration that existed under his hand. Joseph’s great desire was that Jacob should come down to him where he was. He should leave his own sphere of things and find his life and interest in Joseph’s circle of interests and Joseph’s message is that he will maintain him and his little ones. By command of Pharaoh, Joseph sends his brethren back with wagons, and it says they came to Jacob, their father, “and told him, saying, Joseph is still alive and he is governor over all the land of Egypt. And his heart fainted, for he did not believe them,” Genesis 45: 26. How easily unbelief may find a place with us, dear brethren. “He did not believe them.”

There is no excuse for us if we are marked by unbelief, for we have the Holy Spirit and He has come to bear testimony to the glory of Christ. The Scriptures are full of it. If we read the Scriptures,

we shall get an impression of the glory of Christ, and the glory of the system that He is administering on earth in the assembly, and how there is enough to keep us fully sustained and occupied. You will notice that in Genesis 47 Joseph introduces some of his brethren into the presence of Pharaoh, who may be regarded as typical of God, and the only thing which Pharaoh is recorded as saying to them is, “What is your occupation?” Now that is a wholesome question to have raised with us. It is as though God would say to us, as the Lord brings us before Him, “What is your occupation?” How are you filling in your time? There is plenty to do in relation to Christ’s sphere of interests, to contribute to it in spiritual wealth, in prayer and exercise and in the care of the saints, and so on; for while the administration of the assembly is in the hands of Christ and He is quite equal to it, He always does it through His people, and is largely dependent upon suited conditions among His people. So God would raise the question, “What is your occupation?”

And so, as to Jacob it says, “his heart fainted, for he did not believe them. And they spoke to him all the words of Joseph, which he had spoken to them. And he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him.” That is, he is now, if I may apply it to ourselves, waking up to the fact that he has the Spirit of God from Christ in glory and the Spirit of God is quite capable of making these things real to Jacob. If others are in them, why should not I be? If other brothers and sisters are finding their life in spiritual things and are happy and prosperous in them, why should not I be? It is a question of realising that I have the Spirit of God from Christ in glory and that He is quite capable of carrying me over in thought and affection so that I find my life in spiritual and heavenly things and contribute to the sphere of administration that is under the hand of the Lord Jesus Christ and which is subsisting here on earth among the saints, and so it says, “Israel said.” You will notice that the Spirit of God calls him Israel as soon as his spirit has revived and, typically, he has come to recognise that the only thing necessary is to avail himself of what is in the Spirit. The wagons would refer to the Spirit and when he has come to that, the Spirit of God calls him, “Israel.” He is answering to the true nobility of a prince of God, Israel. “And Israel said, It is enough: Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die.” And he did so, and the rest of the history shows what a period of, spiritual elevation and dignity and prosperity lay before him. He talked of being about to die, but he had seventeen years more granted to him, seventeen years marked by not a single feature of complaining or unbelief, but marked by spiritual dignity as a great blesser, blessing Pharaoh, blessing his sons, and blessing the sons of Joseph, and, finally, completing his history as a worshipper.

May God grant that the work of God may prosper with us similarly, so that all His thoughts concerning us may find with us a present answer, for His Name’s sake.