APPEARING BEFORE GOD
[p. 345] APPEARING BEFORE GOD
It will be known to most of us that Deuteronomy gives us the words of Moses himself. He is in the position, not of being commanded to say certain things to the people, but rather of saying them of himself, and in saying them, he would convey the affection that he had for the people of God. Thus this book brings out uniquely the “man Moses”. In Numbers 12:3, the Holy Spirit tells us that “the man Moses was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth”; thus he is a figure of Christ. We have to take account of the Lord Jesus as the representative of God here, but we have also to take account of Him as He was, or as He is, “the man Christ Jesus”, (1 Timothy 2:5). Moses was but a figure; the Holy Spirit says all that is possible about him, there was none like him! He will say all He can about any of us: we may be sure that our good qualities shall not be unheard of. We need not advertise, the Spirit of God will place His own estimate where it will be known. And so, as Moses is envied, and, alas, by those nearest to him, Miriam and Aaron, the Lord came down to the tent door, so concerned was He as regards His servant and the place he had. He was one of three; God had sent before the people Moses, Aaron and Miriam, (Micah 6:4). Moses was one of three, but he was the first of the three. There is always that principle with God, and He has a very good reason for it. So that the man Moses was entitled to the place, not only had God given it to him, but he filled it well; and God came down to the door of the tent of meeting to settle the matter. We never need to defend ourselves, for it is a matter that God undertakes for everyone He came down specially to adjust this matter, and in the record of the adjustment the Holy Spirit says that the man Moses was the meekest in all the earth.
[p. 346] We get the man in this book — what a place the saints of God had in his heart! But, as I said, he was not the Man Christ Jesus: he was the best there was in those days, but the heavens were never opened upon him, nor did a voice announce heaven’s delight in him. So that over against this you have in Christ substance that God approves: “that holy thing”. It is not only that holy babe, but that holy thing essentially, holy in all the growth “in wisdom and stature”. There was substance in what He said: the Lord Jesus, in saying what He said, was what He said, “Altogether that which I also say to you”, (John 8:25). John, in his epistle, in bringing out the peculiar distinctiveness of Christianity, that it was a substantial thing as over against all other religions of the world, ancient or modern, deals with a thing: “That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, that which we contemplated, and our hands handled, concerning the word of life; (and the life has been manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and report to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and has been manifested to us:) that which we have seen and heard we report to you”. You have thus presented in Christianity what is substantial. Moses being what he was, could not be referred to thus; indeed, in this very book he reminds the people that God had spoken to him and said: “Gather me the people together, that I may cause them to hear my words”, (Deuteronomy 4:10). And he says: “Ye saw no form”, “the day thou stoodest before Jehovah thy God”. It was a question of words, of what they heard, not of what they Jew. Whereas in Christianity it is what has been heard, what has been seen, what has been contemplated and what has been handled with hands. It is important to bear this in mind. But it was suggested in the man Moses. He was the best; he came nearer to Christ than anyone of his day; so much so that God came down and spoke with him mouth to mouth, face to face.
[p. 347] And so He says to Aaron and Miriam: “If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known to him in a vision ... Not so my servant Moses ... Mouth to mouth do I speak to him openly, and not in riddles; and the form of Jehovah doth he behold”, (Numbers 12:6 - 8). So that there was a remarkable correspondence between Moses and Christ. What a reflection there must have been in him at times because of what Moses saw! He saw the tabernacle in pattern on the mount. No one could have set up the tabernacle save Moses; the specifications alone would not have sufficed. In Moses you have a man who saw the thing, and who saw the form of Jehovah. He was an ordinary man like the rest of us, but what flashes of light, not only in his words but also in his manner, would at times emanate from him! But then think of Christ! “In him all the fulness of the Godhead was pleased to dwell”, (Colossians 1:19). What infinite substance you see in the Lord; what shining out, the very expression of the divine substance!
Well now, in this book you have the man Moses and what he said. “These are the words which Moses spoke”; that is how the book begins. So that it is not a question of repetition, but of a presentation of truth from the standpoint of such a man. In chapter 16 he takes account of Israel’s year. Elsewhere our days, our weeks and our months are taken account of, but in this chapter it is a question of the year. However many years an Israelite might have lived, they would all be filled out; that is to say, Moses is making room for God in the people for every year. There are the days of our years, but then there are our years.
The idea of compression is important with God. The life of Jesus represents more compression than any other life. If God takes account of Jesus for a day, it is as if he took account of me for a thousand years: “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years”, (2 Peter 3:8); for [p. 348] what can that be other than what was in Christ. That is the idea of compression. And so the life of Jesus was wonderfully compressed: He was cut off in the midst of His days — that is to say, they were but a half of seventy years — but it was not until every item of the divine will was expressed.
David lived seventy years, his was a wonderfully compressed life. Several men of God were employed to write it, such as Samuel and Nathan; it was a life of events; he was full of days, full of experiences with God. There were blemishes, but generally all those years of David were precious in the sight of God. No believer can but admit that our years should be filled up with God. Or, as I might put it, that God, in so far as we can fill, should be filled with us, to use such an expression reverently — and we have to use human expressions. God has a heart, and He looks for something out of us every moment of our lives, but certainly every year. “Three times in the year shall all thy males appear before Jehovah thy God in the place which he will choose”. You see how love in Moses by the Spirit provided for God, and for the years of the lives of His people, how these years were to be occupied. And so in the first month of the year a godly Israelite would be thinking thus: ‘Fourteen days hence I have got to come before God’. What heart-searching there would be as the tribes in their different settings would be thinking thus of God! It is said of one that “God is not in all his thoughts”, (Psalm 10:4), whereas this provision is that God should be ever in the mind. In spirit Jesus said: “I have set Jehovah continually before me”, (Psalm 16:8).
In these verses the first, feast was the feast of unleavened bread, (Deuteronomy 16:16,17). Earlier in the chapter it is the feast of the passover. Now, what I want to say is, dear brethren, that what the first feast would impress upon the mind is: if I am to appear before God, I cannot be there as inflated. Because we cannot deceive God;
[p. 349] God is not mocked. I may, so to speak, make a good show in some of the synagogues up north, or down in Beersheba, or toward the west, but how am I to appear before God? The first suggestion, therefore, is deflation; it is the feast of unleavened bread.
The feast of the passover has two sides. The one is more objective: “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, (1 Corinthians 5:7). I do not do that, it is done for me. But the point here is the feast of unleavened bread — the state in which Israel was to go out of Egypt. They were to seize the lamb, a lamb for a house, each according to the measure of his eating; the lamb was to be according to the capacity of the house, and if perchance the capacity was too small for a lamb — for it was to be a yearling — then the neighbour next unto his house was to share it. It was not only the neighbour, but the neighbour next unto him, for there are graded neighbours contemplated in Scripture: it was not the neighbour at a relative distance, but the neighbour nearest who was to share with him. If I am to sit down and eat the lamb with the neighbour nearest, then I must be careful as to the feelings I have for him. But there is no question of the quantity of unleavened bread. The neighbour is to bring the unleavened bread as well as I, and it is not likely we will have too much: but the Israelites were enjoined not to have leaven in all their houses.
So that the feast of unleavened bread is not the objective side. The objective side is connected with the lamb, and my measure, my capacity in relation to that. It is a whole Christ, and so the basis of unity is laid in the passover. Not a bone of Him was to be broken. There was a whole idea, and I bring my neighbour in to share it with me. One lamb, as it were, for the whole of Israel. And it was not to be sodden with water, it was to be roast with fire and eaten that very night. That is all objective.
But then, as I said, the quantity of unleavened bread [p. 350] is not given, but the more I have, the smaller I shall be. What I want to show is that you have deflation here in the first feast; then you have expansion in the feast of weeks, and then again reduction in the feast of tabernacles. Now all this is very practical. It is a question of how we begin the year, and with us, of course, of the maintenance of littleness, a self-imposed littleness. God will not lose an opportunity to make me small, as here in the flesh. He knows how to do it. He brings in circumstances to this end. And the saints as a rule do not miss an opportunity to make you feel small, and that is a service. But self-imposed littleness, self-imposed reduction is what God highly values, and that is the feast of unleavened bread. The neighbour comes in — how much unleavened bread has he got? That is really the test; because ordinarily each lamb of a year old would be about the same size, but the difference would be in the quantity of unleavened bread and bitter herbs. How much has the neighbour got? How much have I got? So that it is not a question now of my meeting the brethren at Jerusalem; the point here is that I appear before God. How am I to appear? Throughout the Old Testament, in the types especially, you have the idea of God appearing to men, a most interesting subject; but this is, how am I to appear before Him? I have come down from Dan — a long journey — and I am here at Jerusalem, the place where Jehovah has placed His name, and I partake of the passover; I have got the unleavened bread with me. But now I say, that is not all. Earlier in the chapter they were directed to go back into their tents after this feast. But now I am to appear before God, God is going to take account of me, it is a question of appearing. In Chronicles God was looking out; not simply looking down on the mercy-seat, but looking out; that is one beautiful phase of the type, that God is looking out for any comer. And here are Israelites coming from all parts, and God is looking out [p. 351] for them. It is a most searching matter at this first feast — how much deflation? how much reduction? — for in my spirit, if I have any idea of worldly status or if I have a little money, all these things are leaveners in themselves. I cannot appear before God as marked by any of these. I can appear before the world with them, they will help me there very much, but they will not help me in Jerusalem; I shall be ashamed of them there. The godly Israelite has come to Jerusalem to appear before Jehovah, and the first thing God would remind him of is, that it is the feast of unleavened bread, that sin must be judged, that all that would inflate must be disallowed. That would be the light that governed the position the first month of the year.
Well, I begin with this reduction in which God has pleasure. Although the lamb was a year old and developed, it was to convey what is attractive. The Lamb of God is lovable, attractive, John 1. I feed on that; that is the great objective thought presented to me in Christ, what Jesus was here, “a small round thing”; it was a complete thing, but it was small.
Now, the second feast is “the feast of weeks”. God said, as it were. You can stay here as long as you wish. At first I am limited to seven days; I go through an exercise of reduction in the presence of God. Now, He says, you are capable of being filled to the full. The Corinthians were straitened in their affections; the apostle says: “For an answering recompense, let your heart also expand itself”, (2 Corinthians 6:13). And so in the feast of weeks the idea is enlargement. It is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit — the period of the Spirit. Think of what is opened up to me in the Spirit of God! It is called the feast of weeks, which just means it takes place at the end of a period; but there is no limit at all. Love will never limit us; it is a question of my capacity, whether I can take in all these things. As you get on to the feast of [p. 352] weeks you see what God has prepared before the world for our glory! And God says, as it were. You can stay. It is the one feast on which there is no time-limit. And we can understand it, for in the Holy Spirit we have access into eternity. It is a marvellous thing God has opened up to us! Jacob spoke about the gate of heaven, but he did not go in.
‘And see the spirit’s power
Has ope’d the heavenly door,
Has brought me to that favour’d hour
When toil shall all be o’er’. (74:5)
This is your home. When the two disciples said to the Lord, “where abidest thou?” He said, “Come and see”, (John 1:39). We have come to it now: “The day of Pentecost was now accomplishing ... . And there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them ...” (Acts 2:2,3). They were to get a conception of it, for Christianity is a substantial thing; it is not only what came out in Christ, but the Holy Spirit is here. Christianity is not a theory. The Holy Spirit is a Person. He appeared to them and He sat upon each of them — that is where He is. So I have come to the realm of the Holy Spirit; I appear before God now in the largeness of the capacity which the Spirit gives. As it says elsewhere: “Borrow vessels ... let it not be few”, and only when all the vessels were filled with the oil, it stayed, 2 Kings 4. God does not give His Spirit by measure from His side. But as for me, the measure is my capacity, when that is reached it has to stop. Think of the capacity that was in Jesus! The Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove, bodily, that is to say, the whole idea.
This is a marvellous feast! A good deal of time was given to prepare: from the morrow after the sabbath on which the sheaf of the first-fruits was presented to [p. 353] Jehovah. How glorious was Christ in resurrection! — for that is the thought. In the sheaf being presented, waved, you get the idea of what God is looking at in Christ. Now God says, I will give you fifty days to prepare for this; there was to be ‘a new meat offering’; the saints were to be presented as corresponding with Christ. God would have us thus before Him. It is His eternal counsel that we should be before Him in love, holy and blameless. I need not say that a good deal more could be said about this feast. The wave-loaves were to be baked with leaven — sin is owned to be there, but rendered inactive by the fire. Pentecost involves access into eternity, what was before the world, prepared “for our glory”. Not for beings of that time, but for ourselves; prepared for us before the world by God because He loved us, and because we love Him now. Love delights in company, it abhors distance, and so God would encourage us to remain in His presence, as this feast indicates.
The next feast is “the feast of tabernacles”. There Leviticus. There it is a question of the whole course of God’s dealings with His people; but not so here: the point here is appearing before God, and God selects three. All the males (the saints viewed in the intelligence which the Holy Spirit gives them) were to appear. The question now is, how small can I be after being in heaven? What the Holy Spirit leads me into as in the feast of Pentecost shuts out all that is of man all that is of the flesh. How much of that heavenly principle can I carry back? That is the idea of the feast of booths, for the word is “booth”, it is a small idea. And what it means, I apprehend, is, how small I can be — how great I am is illustrated in my smallness; because, really, from this point of view, my smallness is an evidence of my greatness. I disregard for ever greatness according to man; this is greatness according to God. And greatness according to God is [p. 354] smallness here, as exhibited in Christ, the “small round thing” — that is, the life of Jesus outwardly. No attempt at show whatever, it was all a question of bringing heaven here. The ark of the covenant illustrates it. How small it was relatively! Now the idea is, can I dwell in a booth with two or three brethren? I am in a small place, not in a big house where I can occupy a room of my own, but in a booth; there are no compartments there, the idea is smallness. And so, to bring it down to practical working out, it is a question of whether I love the brethren, whether I can be with the brethren in smallness and reproach; whether I can live with them, or whether it is simply a question of tolerance. In Nehemiah’s day, you will remember, they had this.
The feast of booths has two parts. Compare Leviticus 23:34 - 36; Leviticus 23:39 - 43. The first had a fulfilment in Solomon’s day, but not, the second. The first had reference specially to God, it was a “holy convocation”; the second part of the feast is brought in at the end of Leviticus 23, and the kind of things they were to use to make the booths is mentioned, branches of trees, and the like. The latter part has the love of the saints for one another in view and their mutual joy before God.
It is said of Nehemiah’s feast that there was none like it since the days of Joshua; that is to say, Solomon’s did not come up to it. Solomon had the first part of it, from the fifteenth day to the twenty third day of the seventh month, but there is not a word about the booths, 2 Chronicles 7:9,10. Solomon had a great house, things were big in his day, according to God, of course, but the corresponding smallness was what was wanting. That is what I take the second part to indicate, and I believe that it marks, or is intended to mark, the end of our dispensation. As I enter into the truth of the Holy Spirit, I come out here in this world in littleness and in readiness to share with the brethren; it is no hardship to me to live with them in the smallest circumstances. Moses had [p. 355] experience of living in very great circumstances in the king’s palace, but it says that he fled to Midian, and in Midian he sat by the well. He says, as it were, I see now that it is no question of natural energy, of slaying Egyptians with my own hand, it is a question of the Spirit of God. He sat by the well, as much as to say, I have arrived at this, that it is a question, not of my energy, but of the Spirit of God. Then he watered the flock of the daughters of Reuel, he did not slay any of the shepherds. The presence of the Holy Spirit means that I am able to help, not to destroy. Then it says that he was “content to dwell with the man”, the priest of Midian. So whatever the circumstances into which I am led in the government of God, I am to be content. In my relations with my brethren, or in my financial circumstances, I am restful; I know what I have got up there, by the Spirit, and I am content with what I have got down here; I make no effort to change. Moses was content to dwell with the man, and during all those years he stayed there he never-asked for my wages. Jacob did; it was a question of wages with Jacob, but not with Moses. The man who sits down by the well is not serving for wages; he that does so, when the wolf comes, will leave the sheep. At the end he is said to have led the flock of his father-in-law, showing what good terms existed between them, to the backside of the desert, to the mount of God, to Horeb. Could he have done better? I do not think so. He led them to the backside of the desert and came to the mount of God. What a word for every servant of Christ! And God said to Moses, as it were, I see what you are at, and He appeared to him in the bush and called him by name: “Moses, Moses!” (Exodus 3:4). Moses understood this in his own experience, and therefore he could speak feelingly about the feast of booths. God said through him to the people earlier: “I caused the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt”, see (Leviticus 23:43). So [p. 356] God, when He takes us out of Egypt, would teach us love. Now He would teach His people how to love; as the apostle says to the Thessalonians: “Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another”, (1 Thessalonians 4:9). So He puts me alongside His people in humble circumstances, and teaches me how to love them. He says: ‘I do not want you ever to forget how to love: keep this feast on the fifteenth day of the month. Appear before Me during this feast’.
It is very beautiful. Shall we not enjoy it in heaven being near to one another? We are now being taught for heaven. He took them out of Egypt eating the passover lamb. They were to replace Egypt. Egypt was slain in its first-born. Egypt is to be superseded by Israel. But what is the Israel that eats that lamb? Small outwardly, like Christ. So He says, I will put you into booths and you will love one another. The point in this book is to make them fit for heaven, for Canaan. Balaam saw them dwelling thus, they were like lign aloes by the waters, he looked on them with the vision of the Almighty. He saw them dwelling in tents, dwelling in love, for they had the Spirit typically there. God says. You must never forget this. The Lord said to His disciples: “Have love amongst yourselves”.
Well, you will see that these are three important feasts — the feast of unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and the feast of tabernacles. May we understand them!