THE VOICE OF GOD AND THE VOICE OF FAITH
[p. 28] THE VOICE OF GOD AND THE VOICE OF FAITH
I read these few verses mainly because they contain the voice of faith: On the one hand the voice Of God, and on the other hand the voice of faith. The voice of faith is first introduced in this chapter, but I suppose that before there can be the voice of faith, the voice of God must be heard in our souls. The Lord causes His voice to be heard in our souls to the intent that there should be an enunciation Of faith Godward. Now, if God speaks to us, He speaks very pointedly. Many seem to think that God is very indefinite, but those who have heard His voice testify that He is very direct and very pointed. He goes to the root Of the matter, and it is not at all likely that He should speak to you about things that are beyond you. It is more than likely that if God speaks to you, He will remind you of things that are immediate, that need calling attention to, things that are obviously of moment. That was the service the prophets rendered to the people. Their office was to call the attention of the people to certain things then existing, and it was essential that they should be noticed. Is that clear to you? “Have I hewed them by the prophets”. That is a remarkable expression. The figure is that of hewing down trees. When we come to the Scriptures we find that the instrument by which God cuts is the word. “The word of God is quick and powerful ... to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do”, Hebrews 4: 12, 13. In other words, if God speaks to your soul through a vessel, a prophet, your soul is brought into direct touch with God. The vessel is Of no importance in that respect. When God speaks to you, everything is exposed. The dissecting instrument Of God is so keen and so sharp that everything is rooted out. Let [p. 29] us recall the ministry of Samuel and the prophets which was to bring the word Of God unto the people of God. The Lord says, “Have I hewed them by the prophets”. You may remember one instance of it in the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 18: 17 - 40). God exposes everything; Elijah says, “How long halt ye between two opinions?” That was God’s way Of addressing the conscience Of Israel at that time. “If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him”. What a word that was. If some Of those seven thousand in Israel, unknown to Elijah, who had not bowed to Baal, were in the audience, they would have responded to the call of the prophet. Usually people that come to gospel meetings are exercised, though some may come out of curiosity. If you come persistently, it shows that you are exercised. Exercise of soul is very often covered by a thick veil, but when I observe people persistently coming to hear the preaching of the word Of God, I think that generally there will be results. The word Of God is loathsome to the flesh. It is a bore, and there is nothing attractive in it to the flesh. Many of God’s people are hidden, and Elijah ought to have known that. God knew of them. They were not in public; if they had been Elijah would have known it. Even today many of the Lord’s people are covered up. They come to hear the word Of God. What do you come for? There must be some bit of interest in your heart or you would not come. There must be something there, and that is what encourages one. Elijah called the people together and on that occasion, by the help Of God, he exposed the prophets of Baal. What a marvellous moment for the prophet of God, one man alone in the presence Of four hundred prophets of Baal. The people were halting between two opinions. If you are halting between two opinions, your leanings are against God. You may appear to be neutral, but your sympathies are sure to be against God, just as the people’s sympathies were with Baal. Neutrality in the things of God is an utter impossibility. Let us suppose there were some of those seven thousand there in Israel who secretly refused Baal, refused to kiss him or to [p. 30] bow the knee to him. How they would have appreciated Elijah and his call to the people: “How long halt ye between two opinions?” God had His mind about Baal. I know many here that are on the Lord’s side because they have taken a public stand for Him. They are not hidden. If Elijah were here he would see them. There may be some here who are hidden. There is no doubt a resolution in your heart that you are not going to serve Baal, but you have not come out publicly for Christ, and taken a stand, yet you are secretly approving of what I am saying. The Lord says: “Have I hewed them by the prophets”. God had His way in that respect. You will remember that Elijah took the four hundred prophets of Baal and slew them. That was direct wrath upon those prophets; the wrath of God executed by His prophet. But he did more than that, he hewed the people as well as the prophets, but in the case of the people, he hewed their consciences. That is what one would like to do. There is no work outside conscience work. The prophets were engaged in ploughing up the consciences of the people. The Lord said that men had laboured, the prophets had laboured. They had been ploughing for centuries. They had been hewing the consciences of the people by the word of God, and the greatest and the last of them, John the Baptist, continued this ministry. He went out to the wilderness and preached to the people, and by the word of God he effected conviction. There is nothing at all for God in your soul if you are not convicted of sin. Peter says, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord”, Luke 5: 8. Now John the Baptist says, “The axe is laid unto the root of the trees”, Luke 3: 9. That is the idea of hewing. The moment was come when the tree was to be cut down by the roots. Not at the centre but at the roots. Do you understand that? God goes to the very bottom. God intends you to be rooted and grounded in love. That is where the roots are to be. The root of the tree is shown by its fruit and if the fruit is bad (and, in the case of man after the flesh, it certainly is) the tree has to be cut down by the root. That is the idea of conviction. The word of God enters the soul,
[p. 31] and the whole moral being is ploughed up by the heart being rendered thoroughly unhappy and uneasy. I was saying elsewhere some time ago, that you never have a good conscience until you have had a bad one. When the word of God enters your soul, it brings home to you what you have been and what you are, and you smite your breast and say: “God be merciful to me a sinner”, Luke 18: 13. You may thank God for any vessel that brings the light of God to your conscience. It is a mercy to you.
In the beginning of the chapter we read “Come, and let us return unto the Lord”, and what I want to show you by this, beloved friends, is that the word of God not only exposes you, but it brings to you the light of God, the God who is love. Look at the gospels, which are the unfolding of what is intimated in these few verses: “He hath torn and he will heal us”. In a sense these few words put together contain the ministry of the Lord Jesus. The Lord exposes by divine light and then He ministers grace — a wonderful thought. The law came in by Moses, but grace and truth came by or subsist in Jesus Christ. The Lord anoints — He does all that is necessary for those who are wounded in spirit. He binds up the broken hearted. “He hath torn”; do you know anything about this experience? The tearing is what one may call surgical work, and then follows the binding up and the healing. There is a wonderful picture of all this in Luke 10. There was a man going down to Jericho having the oil and the wine, and he bound up the man who fell among thieves. That is the ministry of grace, “He hath torn”, and “He will heal”. How is it with you? Is your spirit torn, your soul rent with sorrow and conviction? You remember the bride in the Canticles, how she says, “I am black but comely”. Why was she black? The sun of conviction had looked upon her and had scorched her. I say, turn to the Lord. It is better to turn to the Lord than to suffer, for we know that they who are under conviction do suffer. It is a question of the grace of God. Christ died. Death had to be accomplished before anything could be effected for man. The Lord Jesus went into death that God might have a free hand to bind up.
“[p. 32] He hath smitten, and he will bind us up”. Faith does not stop there. You want to get on to new ground. The man who was bound up in Luke 10 was not left on the road. On the other hand we have the woman in John 4. The Lord did nothing for her but He set her in motion. She left her water pot. There is no intimation of His doing anything for her. She moves herself. That is in entire keeping with the fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. In Luke 10, the man is carried. The Samaritan placed him upon his own beast, and he is carried and taken care of until the Lord comes back. That is what the Lord does. What souls require is to be led on to a new position, on to new ground. Do you follow what I am saying? There are multitudes of believers hidden away, and they are as yet on the old ground, they are simply where they were before their conversion. I want you to see that a change of ground is involved in the gospel of God. Notice what is stated further: “After two days will he revive us”. Everything has to be noticed in Scripture. The two days must be taken account of. Then it says: “In the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. Now without enlarging on this subject (because it is a very great subject), I may say the verse suggests life, and there is nothing in the Scriptures of wider bearing than life. I may say that the Lord raises the question of eternal life every now and again with His people. Many saints are not clear on the subject, and the Lord will not allow us to rest until we understand it. The question of life and everlasting life arises here. “After two days will he revive us”. Not binding now but being in the position of death. Faith accepts it. Have you accepted it? The apostle Paul says, “If one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Corinthians 5: 14), so that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves but unto Him who died and rose again. Here there was before the eye of God a Man who answered in every way to God. Adam had transgressed the covenant, but the Lord says, “Thy law is within my heart”. He had not transgressed the covenant. He delighted in the law; He magnified it. That Man must live before God. He would [p. 33] have a title to live before God, and the two days were testimony to it. “After two days will he revive us” is the testimony to a man that lived before God. He was here for God’s pleasure. He was endowed with the power of the kingdom, and with that power cast out demons. “I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected”, Luke 13: 32. In other words the Lord would die and take up life in an entirely new state. He was entitled to life in the flesh, but in the spirit He has taken up life in a new condition, and that was on the third day. The Lord rose from the dead on the third day, according to the Scriptures. Hence the resurrection of Christ is for faith: “In the third day he will raise us up”. Now I want to ask you if you have any part in the divine thought expressed in the apostle’s words: “Lay hold on eternal life”, 1 Timothy 6: 12. Life after the flesh would not answer to the mind of God. The Lord established a title to live, but in resurrection He has taken up a life which is a life out of death. So that it says, “in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. I wonder how many of this company have gone through these three days. You have got to pass through them in your soul. Jonah 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”, Matthew 12: 40. The fourth day is the day of decay. “In the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. I understand that to be everlasting life. It is life after three days, a double testimony. This, beloved friends, is death and resurrection. It is what I understand to be the peculiar blessing of God for us, reviving us and raising us up that we might live before Him. Where do you live? I fear most of us live before men. The apostle’s idea was, he judged that if one died for all, then all have died. Christ was raised that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves but to Him who died and rose again. “O that Ishmael might live before thee” (Genesis 17: 18), said Abraham, but God said, not Ishmael but Isaac; and Isaac had to die in figure and he rose in principle out of death. Hezekiah also is brought up out [p. 34] of death in figure to live before God. It is “The living, the living, he shall praise thee, as I do this day” (Isaiah 38:19). God accomplishes that for Himself. “After two days will he revive us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight”. If you get hold of that you have something that will give you a footing on new ground and that ground is the ground of resurrection. It is not Ishmael, but Isaac; as the apostle Paul says, we are children of the free woman, and hence we live before God. You want to keep in God’s sight. He takes pleasure in you. You may not know it, but God has pleasure in the believer. He will raise you up, and it is to the end that you might live. What is the idea of living? I understand it that your affections are taken up with another. The Lord’s word to the woman at the well was that a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life was to be in her. The Spirit takes hold of the believer’s affections, transfers them from the world to divine Persons, and in that way the fountain springs up into everlasting life.
In the next verse, the language of faith is “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord”. There is a resolution, a resolve to follow on to know the Lord. God is before you and you wish to know Him, and you follow on to know Him. So it says, “His going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth”. It points to His highest present position in heaven, and He comes down as the heavenly rain. We shall follow on to know the Lord, and we shall have, as I understand, the heavenly influence of Christ. This influence comes out of heaven upon our souls, so that you and I are on new ground and under a new influence. And, beloved friends, the Lord Jesus as in the highest place should influence all below, as the sun influences the earth. It is an immense thing to be under the influence of a heavenly Man. May the Lord bless the word to us.