ENERGY IN GOING THE WHOLE WAY
[p. 136] ENERGY IN GOING THE WHOLE WAY
Luke 16:16; 1 Timothy 6:12; Philippians 3:12 - 14; 1 Chronicles 18:3
These scriptures have been read because they bring to our attention energy in relation to the things of God, so that is what will engage us, by the Lord’s help, during this service, and I would add, thoroughness in the energy. The world has made rapid strides of recent years in the way of energy, and increased education has promoted the acquirement of thoroughness. The christian is set in these circumstances, among many others, and in them God would lay it upon him to encounter them in the way of energy in regard of His world, and thoroughness also, that is to say, going the full length in regard to any and every feature of the truth and any line divinely indicated, for half measures are well nigh equal to no measures at all. Not that heaven is not ready to accredit us with any interest or any movement at all, for even in a man like Ahab, God says, “Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?” (1 Kings 21:29). There is not a movement of heart or mind or affection in regard of God or His things or His people that is not noted in heaven. But, at the same time, our salvation, practically, depends on going all the way, especially now that we are drawing near to the end of this wonderful period called “the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke 4:19). The time of the end is manifestly near and the Spirit of God would be urgent, pressing upon us to go on to perfection, one saying, “If he draw back, my soul does not take pleasure in him”, but remarking further, “But we are not drawers back to perdition, but of faith to saving the soul” (Hebrews 10:38,39).
Now the first scripture that I read treats of the kingdom of God in a very remarkable way, the Lord saying that “the law and the prophets were until [p. 137] John: from that time the glad tidings of the kingdom of God are announced, and everyone forces his way into it”. The law and the prophets represented a great period, yet we have to remember that the law made nothing perfect; still there was a great period of testimony from Moses till Malachi, and indeed up to John the baptist. No lapse is supposed, no interval of inactivity of any kind by God, the preaching of the kingdom was from the days of John the baptist; and I wish to speak of that first, that the preaching of it brought out energy, not the want of energy that is often seen in believers listening to ministry, perhaps to the gospel, and returning home forgetting what they heard. The preaching brought out energy, and that is what is needed in all these matters, but particularly now in regard to the kingdom of God. Daniel had already spoken of the kingdom of God, indeed it had been intimated throughout in the law and the prophets, but I speak of Daniel so as to enlist the sympathy and interest, and to call out the energy of young people, first of all. Daniel in his interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, arrived at the stone cut out without hands, and he says, “In the days of these kings” (Daniel 2:44), that is, the four great monarchies that we often speak of and which are now commanding the attention peculiarly of those who have eyes to see. The Lord Himself spoke of them, calling the period the times of the nations, or gentiles, and Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar that in those days, in the days of those kings, the God of the heavens shall set up a kingdom. Now I wish the young people here particularly to pay attention to what is being said, for young people are apt to droop, in having to do with the world as it is in its energy in this great iron age, as the scripture regards it; not all iron, it is partly clay, hard and fragile at the same time, but it is very imposing, and young people are at times overwhelmed as they see the marvellous [p. 138] strides that are made in energy and power and apparent results. But it is in those days, in the days of those kings, that the God of the heavens sets up a kingdom. If you will allow me the time, I will read the verses so as to have the facts clearly before us: “And in the days of these kings shall the God of the heavens set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the sovereignty thereof shall not be left to another people: it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, but itself shall stand for ever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold, — the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain, and the interpretation of it sure” (Daniel 2:44,45). The feature of it presented here is perhaps future, but the power contemplated is now as much as it will be then, only taking another form. Mark 9:1 tells us that the Lord said, “There are some of those standing here that shall not taste death until they shall have seen the kingdom of God come in power”.
Now this is a matter for young people, as I said, and the word is to force our way into it. Instead of shaping entirely in regard of this world, as many, alas, do, let us take a word here from the Lord, “every one forces his way into it”. You may say, ‘What does forcing my way into it mean? Has it tangible intelligibleness?’ It has, beloved friends. Many of us here know that it has, many of us here have forced our way into it, and we have proved it to involve power. The Lord said, as the Pharisees enquired as to whether it should come with observation, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation” (Luke 17:20), not in its then form, nor in its present form. It will come with observation presently when the Son of man shall appear as the [p. 139] lightning from the east to the west, but now it is a moral thing and challenges uprightness of heart in us. It exists, and so the Lord says in the next verse, “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you”. That puts it upon us, beloved young people, for it is to you I speak for the moment, to find it. That it exists is unquestionable, hundreds here tonight are witnesses to it, to the actuality of it. There is not time to go into the details, I am just pressing one point and that is, that it exists, and the Lord indicates the manner of its existence at the present time, that it was there in His Person; His presence here on earth involved the kingdom of God in the midst of them. So, now He has gone up to heaven, the Spirit of God here involves it for us; so that it exists, and a large part of the New Testament is taken up with instructing us as to it. First, as to the sovereign work of God in our souls, the Lord says, “Except any one be born anew he cannot see the kingdom of God”, and then, “Except any one be born of water and of Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:3,5). So that that is the challenge. The new birth lies at the foundation of the thought, but the kingdom itself is established in Christ in heaven and made effective down here by the power of the Spirit. There is no mistake about it, and the Lord would lay it upon everyone to force his way into it. Failing to do it, you will be carried along in the energetic world that is around us, leading to perdition. There is no use in mincing words; the drift is swift, and we know whence it comes and whither it goes, and young people need to be on the alert to escape it, and to escape the corruption that is in the world, coming under the authority of Christ, and in that way, in subjection, coming into the reality of the presence and operations of the Spirit here below. Salvation lies there, salvation from the world as it is, as I have been saying.
Well, I go on to the next thought, and that is eternal life. I am hoping to get on to David at the [p. 140] end, so as to bring all of us who have in any little way touched the heavenly side, into the scope of the inheritance, extending out to the Euphrates; I want to speak about that particularly at the end. I am speaking now of entrance into the truth from the normal side, as each believer experiences salvation, deliverance, eternal life, and the heavenly calling. As we reach the elevated level of the heavenly calling, then we are morally equal to looking out toward the utmost limit of the inheritance, so as not to let one iota of it slip away. God is laying this upon us, that there is not to be one foot of the inheritance allowed in the enemy’s hands. We have to reach the David position for that, which I hope to touch on, but eternal life comes in on the way, and, significantly enough, we have the same thought of laying hold of it, as it were, stretching out for it. It is presented to us, of course, in the gospel, but it is put upon us now. I would speak to a young man, “Ye are strong”, says the apostle John, “and the word of God abides in you” (1 John 2:14). It requires that; it is not a mere matter of light now. Timothy was beyond that limit, he had advanced in the truth; he was a young man, and he is a type for us, for, although engaged in the service and effective too in it, we may miss this great matter of laying hold of eternal life. As I said, so that no one should misunderstand, it is presented to us in the gospel; it is proposed in it, that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes on him may not perish, but have life eternal” (John 3:16). There is no mistake about that, as to what is in God’s mind; Timothy had that, you may be sure, he had that light, that faith. He had developed from his childhood in the Scriptures, and the Old Testament scriptures had taught this matter, had spoken of eternal life. Timothy would not miss it; we may be sure his mother and grandmother would call [p. 141] attention to the mention of it in the Scriptures, so that he would understand what the apostle said, “Lay hold of eternal life”.
Well, lest anybody should be in any way beclouded by what I am saying, the way of this is very elaborately set out in Scripture. What is put in a few words in one setting is elaborately set out in another. What would Timothy do, think you, as he read this part of Paul’s letter as to eternal life? ‘I have read about eternal life’, he would say, ‘I have heard Paul speak of it; it may be Paul thinks I am neglecting it; very likely I am’. It is a wholesome thing to challenge ourselves in that way: ‘Why should Paul say that to me? He knows well enough that I believe his doctrines, I follow them up; why should he say that to me?’ And what would be the normal result of such a challenge to his own heart? Why, to turn up the Scriptures in dependence on the Lord and see what they teach us as to the matter, and what this laying hold of it means. The epistle to the Romans was written at this time, and Timothy doubtless knew about it. That epistle would tell him that grace reigns “through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:21). It is not ‘in’ there, but “through”. He would stop at that preposition, and he would say, ‘Well, the Lord Jesus Christ has effected this matter, it is through Him’, and he would turn over the page into chapter 6, and he would find at the end of chapter 6, that it is “fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life”. Well, he would say, that is another side to the picture. Chapter 5 (they did not have chapters, of course, in those days) says, “through Jesus Christ our Lord”. All these ‘throughs’ refer to His gracious service, costing Him so much, “so also grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. Timothy would say to himself, ‘At what cost! I see it is available to me on that line’. But the next paragraph begins with baptism; entering into it, laying hold of it, is on that line.
What comes to me through the Lord Jesus Christ is a matter to be believed, it is a matter for faith. It is a great section of “the faith once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), but baptism is the next point, and if Philip touched on that point in speaking to the Ethiopian eunuch, it would make all the more forceful in his mind the necessity for baptism. Am I to live here as I used to? Am I to turn the grace of God into lasciviousness in going on with the world when this great blessing has been brought close to me through our Lord Jesus Christ at such infinite cost to Himself? Impossible! “We who have died to sin, how shall we still live in it?”. That is the question. Baptism is the figure (I am speaking simply, dear brethren) of Christ’s death, but, mark you, it is unto his death, “As many as have been baptised unto Christ Jesus, have been baptised unto his death”. There is salvation by water in Peter; that does not cost us any suffering. What it prefigured cost Christ intense suffering, but not me. But if I am to be saved by fire, it will cost me something, it is a terrible thing to be saved by fire. It means that my works are burnt up and I am just saved. Is it not likely that definite feelings will pass through my mind and heart if I am saved by fire; why should it be so? But water is a symbol of the sufferings of Another, not my own. I am speaking now for a moment so that you may get the idea of laying hold of eternal life; Romans 6 is the way. I cannot go into Romans 6 now, but I just direct you to it, that is another line. In Romans 6 eternal life is seen in a Person, in Christ Jesus, not through Him, but in Him. Now I know where it is. In chapter 5 it is a great general thought effected by Christ, through Him, to be appropriated by me, but surely I want to know where it is. Romans 6 tells [p. 143] me where it is, and it shows me the way to it, and, as I said, it begins with baptism, not only to Christ but to His death. Complete submission to the will of God is the teaching of the chapter, “righteousness unto holiness”, and the end “eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. “But now, having got your freedom from sin, and having become bondmen to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end eternal life. For the wages of sin is death; but the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. There it is.
I will endeavour to make the thing a little clearer, if I may, so that young people here may not think that it is so very far away from them. Years ago, when this was the great theme and the occasion of great conflict (thank God for that, and for the victory of it!) I used to think it was a great thing at a distance I had not touched. But in the measure, dear brethren, however small, in which we have touched it, I think we understand it, and the divine teaching runs on that line, so it is not so far away from us. If you will allow me to be very simple, the atmosphere of it is right here where we are. How very different each one of us feels here from what he would feel out in the street where sin is rampant! How different the atmosphere! How different the feeling! What a sense of subjection to God! That is the thought, and I speak thus that no one might think it is far out of his way; it is not, you have tasted it already. Timothy had tasted it undoubtedly. How could he be in the apostle’s company, as he used to be, without realising something of the heavenly breath, of what that great servant of God was experiencing constantly? You could not be in his company without it, and suppose you had others like him, for there were many like him in those days, how a young man like Timothy, coming into the company of those christians, those children of God,
[p. 144] would breathe the atmosphere of heaven, a righteous holy atmosphere. Well, but it needs more than that. The apostle would speak about it to Timothy, and Timothy would feel he would like to know what the apostle knew, and, beloved brethren, it is well for us to listen to Paul in regard of himself. I suppose nobody in Scripture speaks more of himself than Paul; you wonder why. I will tell you why. He is worth speaking about. Aside from Christ, I do not know a man in the universe more worth speaking of than Paul. What a mighty product of the work of God he is, and particularly as to intelligence, “Ye can understand my intelligence in the mystery”, he says (Ephesians 3:4). Why? That they might set the pace faster. Why am I so far behind? That is God’s way. So, in regard to this great matter, we need to know, and that is what John wrote his epistle for. “These things have I written to you that ye may know” (1 John 5:13). That word ‘know’ refers to conscious knowledge; it is not simply objective knowledge, what I know in Christ; it is what I have got consciously. The apostle John by the Spirit of God wrote his epistle that the saints might know they had eternal life as believing on the Son. No doubt they knew it, as many of us do, without understanding it or tasting it, but he says, “These things have I written to you that ye may know that ye have eternal life who believe on the name of the Son of God”, that you might have the consciousness of eternal life as believing on the Son of God. And so to make the thing simple, he begins with the neuter, “That which was from the beginning”, and then he speaks about fellowship. I am seeking to draw you into the line.
Romans shows us how an individual progresses from righteousness unto holiness and the end eternal life in Christ Jesus. John brings in fellowship at once, “that which we have seen and heard we report to you, that ye also may have fellowship with us”;
[p. 145] they had a peculiar status with God in this matter — “And our fellowship is indeed with the Father”, he says, “and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we to you that your joy may be full”. Well, you say, what about that? Is there anyone here who has not had a little bit of joy in the company of the brethren? I doubt if there is. It may pass off, but it is there; the apostle would have it to be full and to stay. Joy is a great matter in the Scriptures, and so he speaks about fellowship, “That ye also may have fellowship with us”; that is, that the saints might be drawn into this great matter of the apostles, what they were going on with. A new world had been inaugurated through them, and in it was this great matter of eternal life, and it is initially a matter of fellowship, “fellowship with us”, that is, laying hold on what they were doing and being with them in it. Take the lame man in Acts 3; he held Peter and John, he had got into fellowship. Would he not breathe this great thing in that fellowship? He would. You find him standing by them; he needed them too, he was a witness to the power of God through them; he held them, he was with them in what they were doing. But then the apostle John goes on to say, “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:7). We have not got the apostles now but we have one another. That is a beautiful phrase, “one another”; we have one another. I thank God for the brethren always, “one another”, “we have fellowship with one another”. The word there is not simply that I love the brethren, but I have got fellowship with them, I am in the thing, we have partnership together. We are sustained in the position, and “the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin”. Well, what do we get there? We get a holy healthful atmosphere as walking in the light as God is in the light.
[p. 146] You may see the thing from the Psalms, which are more than a type. The Songs of degrees really have in mind the way to it as amplified in the New Testament, until we reach Psalm 133 and there the blessing is commanded under certain conditions, namely, unity among the brethren; brethren dwelling, not now simply in fellowship, but dwelling together in unity. Well, that is a happy state of things, and the word is, “there hath Jehovah commanded the blessing”. That word ‘commanded’ is to make the thing fixed, that the thing that I am so enjoying, that God calls the blessing, is a fixed thing now. It is a great thought, beloved, to reach in one’s soul the sense of blessing, of eternal life as a blessing, and that it is a fixed thing by the divine commandment, “For he spoke, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast” (Psalm 33:9). The speaking really is in the Songs of degrees; if I go through those psalms my heart will be illuminated and my mind drawn into another order of things altogether. “I rejoiced”, said one, “when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of Jehovah” (Psalm 122:1). “Jerusalem”, he says, “which art built as a city that is compact together, Whither the tribes go up”. What a grand thought that is, of the tribes; and the progress reaches the summit morally, for it is an elevated mountain, indeed it is plural, “the mountains of Zion”. As one thinks of the mount Zion, one is impressed by the language. It is a question of how God reaches our minds in “the mountains of Zion”, something coming down from heaven like “the dew of Hermon that descendeth on the mountains of Zion”. It is “there hath Jehovah commanded the blessing, life for evermore”. That is the last but one of the Songs of degrees; the next one refers to the priests serving God.
Well now, is there a christian here who does not follow that, what it is to be amongst the brethren in [p. 147] holy unity, with a sense of heaven’s influence upon us? Thank God I have experienced it. Even in the house of prayer, God says, ‘I will make you glad there’. There is a sense of heaven coming down there making us glad; that is the idea. If I get the idea I will follow it out; the mind has a great deal to do with it. So, as I said, the epistle of John brings the saints before us, and then, in the last chapter, the teaching of the water and the blood. That is to say, I am ready now for that. “This is he that came by water and blood, Jesus the Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that bears witness, for the Spirit is the truth” (1 John 5:6). Now, am I ready for that? I have tasted something (the word ‘taste’ is important) of this heavenly joy and I cannot afford to surrender it. There is more beyond; I must go in for it; it must not elude me, it is too important. As it says a little lower down in 1 Timothy 6:19, “Lay hold of what is really life”.
To go on now to Philippians, of course, I have to speak to those who are advanced (and yet I must speak to all!), there you get the greatest evidence of energy, and that is in the apostle himself actually telling us that he did not count he had already attained. It is encouraging to think of such a man as that making such an admission. In spite of his knowledge, in spite of his great progress, he says, “Not that I have already obtained the prize, or am already perfected”. I should like to have heard him say that. And so he goes on to say, “I pursue, looking towards the goal”. That word ‘goal’ is something for the mind, for the eye; it is, of course, an athletic figure, that is, you have something in the distance, like that which Balaam, “the man of opened eye” (Numbers 24:3), saw! But what did the apostle Paul see? He actually saw the goal. I think the Lord is keeping this before us, dear brethren. The time is short now,
[p. 148] and we do not want to miss this great matter; the Spirit of God does not shrink from using an athletic figure so as to bring home to us the necessity for energy in these matters. The apostle actually sees the thing in the distance, but he says, ‘I have not reached it’; and so he stretches out, as he says, “towards the goal, for the prize”. The prize is a different thing from the goal; the goal is the end of the race, “for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. That is one of the finest bits of language you can get. Here is a man who is thoroughly set for one end, “but one thing” he does. Not that he was not doing other things, you understand, but this is the supreme thing, this is the thing I cannot neglect. “But one thing — forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”. There is but one step into heaven, such a one is ready to step into heaven. Would you not like to feel like that? I should, certainly. No stranger now, and one, as it were, steps into heaven in that attitude, in that state of soul. When the Lord comes you will be perfectly at home there, no stranger. Well, that is the goal, “for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”.
Now I come back to what I spoke of to just briefly remark on how such a person, such a believer, scans the whole domain of divine territory, and that includes every inch from the great western sea to the Euphrates. It is very remarkable that it is in David you get this thought in his establishing his dominion on the Euphrates, and that leads me, dear brethren, to review the ground I have covered from another angle altogether, from the moral altitude spoken of in Philippians, and confirmed in Ephesians doctrinally, that the heavenly man turns round, as it were, and looks at the whole territory divinely [p. 149] given. There is no word about the Euphrates when Israel had passed the brazen serpent; it was Canaan all the time, that is the heavenly land that Paul had in his mind. But now David has come, and he is, as we might say, at the very summit. In 2 Samuel David ascends from Ziklag to Hebron, and from Hebron to Jerusalem. That is, God has brought the people in. “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, the place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy dwelling” (Exodus 15:17). We reach that in David, a wonderful thought! Joshua did not do that; he brought them into Canaan but not to Zion, and although Joshua had the Euphrates pointed out to him by Jehovah, he did not extend his conquest there. It remained for David. That is our own position, dear brethren; let us not let a foot of it go, not a inch of it. Jephthah contended for part of this territory in Judges 11, but he could not contend for it as David did. He spoke wonderfully, but he was a Gileadite, not a man of Canaan. God has brought us to the Canaan side of the position, and one would urge on the brethren not to surrender it for a moment, it is too precious. It is not only the land, but “the place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy dwelling”. That is David and Solomon. Secured there, we cast our eye towards the East, to the Euphrates, and in true David-like energy and military skill, the territory has to be secured, the dominion established. And, dear brethren, it is not merely in holding the doctrine as to it that it is garrisoned, but the great thought with David is not only conquest, not extirpation; he did not destroy, as Joshua did; David subdued. The point with David is subjugation, a subdued people garrisoned. And how one looks across the face of the earth today and loves to think of the garrisons of God in the territory of God, holding the ground in the power of the Spirit of God; that is the idea. So David established [p. 150] his dominion, we are told, there, as if every inch of the territory must be held, and held in power, not simply in doctrine, for the garrisons mean that the territory is held in power. And not only that, but what you will observe in this chapter is that these territories yielded for the house of God; they “brought gifts”, we are told in verse 6. “And David put garrisons in Syria of Damascus; and the Syrians became servants to David, and brought gifts. And Jehovah preserved David whithersoever he went. And David took the shields of gold that were on the servants of Hadarezer, and brought them to Jerusalem. And from Tibhath, and from Chun, cities of Hadarezer, David took very much brass, of which Solomon made the brazen sea, and the pillars, and the vessels of brass”. How essential these are at the present time! What we get in these distant conquests, what we might think of little value, what in earlier days was not even secured, is now yielding for the house of God. That is the position.
May God help us then to be energetic, and in our energy to go all the way, whatever it be, go the full limit, and God will be with us. “And Jehovah preserved David whithersoever he went”.