THE SECRET OF HIS PRESENCE

A.A.Bellamy

Psalm 31: 19 -2 1; John 17: 24-26; Colossians 3: 4; 1 John 3: 1-3

It always helps us to consider what draws out the exclamations of godly persons. We have many exclamations in the Book of Psalms, indeed throughout Scripture. These exclamations help us, denoting what is spontaneous in the person. In the Psalm from which I have read we have an exclamation celebrating the goodness of God and referring to what God has laid up for them that fear Him. It is comparable to such a reference as Paul makes to things that God has prepared for them that love Him (see 1 Cor 2: 9), persons who are called according to His purpose, in whose hearts the love of God is shed abroad by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us. But not only is His love shed abroad there, but such are persons who love Him. He has many of them - thousands, He says, of them that love me; David doubtless was among them. He is speaking here of what God has laid up, not already, so to speak, dispensed but laid up, kept; it may be a reference again to His purpose. We have often noted in Luke 15 that in dispensing his substance the father did not dispense everything, there is what was held in reserve. Wonderful things God has kept in that sense, kept for the present time, kept for this dispensation. The truth of the mystery as confided to Paul and by Paul in his ministry to us, dear brethren, is something which God laid up in His goodness for the sons of men. It is now part of the testimony, part of the great unfolding of the mind of God involving the purpose of His love. Are we interested in these things? Where are they to be known? Where can we get a better understanding of them? Where indeed? God has provided so that we get a better understanding and appreciation of what He has laid up for them that fear Him and what He has wrought for them that trust in Him. God has furnished an environment where these things can be looked into, where we can absorb them and be affected by them. What He has provided is nothing less than His own presence.

So David speaks of persons who are kept and concealed in the secret of His presence. What do we know of the presence of God? One of the commonest things in our experience is to be present at a meeting, a holy convocation; thank God for every one of them! Some of us have been at a good many in our time. In a year how many meetings have you been to - in ten years, in fifteen years, or fifty years? Do you think of these occasions as the secret of His presence? Some would like to have it all for themselves at home; God would not deprive you of His presence in that sense, but the secret of His presence involves our being gathered together unto His Name - "there am I in the midst of them", Matt 18: 20. The disciples were in the presence of Jesus day by day, involving experience, in the days of His flesh. It has been said that if we do not understand how Christ was among His disciples we can hardly understand how He is in the assembly. It is a wonderful thing to consider how He was among His disciples, how they were in the secret of His presence. They sought His presence. At times they were exercised; there were those who went up the mountain to get the gain of the Lord's teaching; that involved exercise. They sought Him and they found Him. The secret of His presence is a wonderful provision. David says "Thou keepest them. concealed in the secret of thy presence"; not only His presence but the secret of it. We see the disciples in His presence in the synoptic gospels; we see them in the secret of His presence in John's gospel. What unfoldings there were! What depths! "Even the depths of God", Paul says, 1 Cor 2: 10. These things are worthwhile; we have to lay ourselves out for them and to put ourselves in the way of getting them. Are we content that He should conceal us? We have not always been, alas! The great thought is the secret of His presence and to be concealed there, not to figure in any public way whatsoever, in any religious way, but kept in the secret of His presence from the conspiracies of man. This is David writing from His experience, David who had the experience of the rising up of Absalom; he knew what the conspiracies of man were. I think we do too. The great thing, dear brethren, is to be concealed in the secret of His presence; it is a place of power. The Lord would draw us more and more apart from the whole course of things here in this world - religious, political, perhaps especially political - all connected with the conspiracies of man which are antichristian in their moral character, totally antichristian. Oh! to know more of the secret of His presence and to be hidden from the strife of tongues. "Conspiracies of man", I think, are political; "the strife of tongues" is what is merely religious; and where the truth is held we may expect conflict. Paul's ministry in the Acts shows what the strife of tongues was in the area of religious opposition as he brought the testimony into one city after another; that is what arose, strife of tongues.

Well, David is saying here that there is a hiding place from that. I think Paul knew it, he knew what it was to be apart from all question of the conflict just to be in the presence of Jesus. Do we know it? Do we value it? In Moses was a man who valued the presence of God, who would never think of going out of it. Some have gone out of it; Cain was the first, to go out from the presence of Jehovah, and many have since. But Moses says "If thy presence do not go, bring us not up hence", Exod 33: 15. These are real matters, wonderful matters, for which we increasingly need to set ourselves so that we may be preserved a great people, not in the public eye because the world knows us not. There is a certain mystery about the people of God. Why is that? Is it just that they are peculiar and aloof? No, it is not; none should be more available, more approachable. Why is it then that they are different? "Thus is every one that is born of the Spirit", the Lord says (John 3: 8), referring to certain characteristics in persons. They are like the wind, it blows where it will; we hear the sound but we do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so is every one born of the Spirit. That is why the people of God are different.

In John's gospel we see the Lord's desire to have His own with Him; in an extraordinary way He would show us that His desire is that we might be with Him. For instance, He says "If any one serve me, let him follow me, and where I am, there also shall be my servant", chap 12: 26. It is a great point in the Lord's mind to have one who would serve Him, follow Him, that he might be with Him. Perhaps we have not thought about it from His side; we want to be with Him, but then He wants us to be with Him. He says "I will come in unto him and sup with him, and he with me", Rev 3: 20. 'With Me' is the guiding light in John's gospel, not only individually but collectively. In chapter 14 it is the Lord's great desire that where He is we might be with Him. Again in chapter 17. Oh! John 17 is the secret of His presence. The Lord addressing the Father expresses His desires, culminating, as to those that the Father had given Him, in this thought that "where I am they also may be with me". In what He has said to the Father He has referred to those whom the Father had given Him; many things He has said about them, and it is very affecting to see how He comes back to it here: "Father, as to those whom thou hast given me" - it is an added thought about them - "I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory". It is another feature of the secret of His presence that we behold His glory. It begins, I think, in chapter 13 when the traitor had gone out "Now is the Son of man glorified" (v 31).

Well, it was the Lord's desire that we should be with Him to behold His glory which the Father had given Him. It is one of the many things that the Father had given to Christ; "The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand", John 3: 35. Could we enumerate those things? We have some of them in John 17, things that the Father had given to the Son - authority over all flesh, "that as to all that thou hast given to him, he should give them life eternal" (v 2), is one of the things that the Father has given to the Son. And the words that the Father gave to Him: "for the words which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received them" (v 8). What a range of the most wonderful things there are that the Father has given to Christ! The very words, and He has given them to us. And the glory, He says: "And the glory which thou hast given me I have given them" (v 22). That is another thing that the Father had given to Him: "the glory which thou hast given me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one". These are the things that impress us, beloved, in the secret of His presence. We might say what is that for? what has it in mind? If the Lord is extending these wonderful things and making them known to certain whom He keeps concealed in the secret of His presence, what is it for? Well, there is nothing secret which shall not be made known and come to light (see Luke 8: 17). I understand this to refer to God's work in the saints which is going to be brought out into manifestation. What a time it is going to be! Paul says "when he shall have come to be glorified in his saints, and wondered at in all that have believed", 2 Thess 1: 10. That is the time of His appearing in glory, not in humiliation; had we known Him thus we know Him thus no longer. He is only to be known in glory, the blessed Man in glory.

Paul says in that verse I read in Colossians: "when the Christ is manifested who is our life"; what a searching matter that is! And "for ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God" (v 3). How much in practical reality is that true of us, our life hid with the Christ in God? The Lord says there are twelve hours in the day. Just look back over twelve hours in the day and how much of your life has been hid with the Christ in God? There may be much activity and little communion; our life being hidden with the Christ in God involves communion. Therein lies power, in the secret of His presence. James raises the question "what is your life?" - a vapour, appearing for a little while, and then disappearing, chap 4: 14. But the Christian's life is where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Christ is our life. When the Christ who is our life shall be manifested, then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory, for a witness to the universe, for the verification of the mystery of God. That is not to say that there is not already a testimony. Peter and John went up to the temple, at the hour of prayer going up together to pray; what a testimony there was in those two men! as if God would bring forward in the present time, as may be needed, what He has for the purpose of testimony. The church invisible? No; it is a question of what is here in testimonial power, as we see in Peter and John going up to the temple.

In Jonathan and his armour bearer it was a matter of conflict. By those two men - no doubt representing "two of you", not a vast number - the Philistine domination was met in difficult times. Jonathan undertook that matter; he said "we will show ourselves", 1 Sam 14: 8. That was not the love of prominence; it was a question of the work of God in those persons. The Philistines said "Come up to us, and we will shew you something" (v 12) ; they can always do that. But think of God's work in a soul, of what is involved in it, the purchase price and then the work of the Spirit, how precious! Is not God able to bring that forward as needed in testimony? He is, and that is in anticipation of the moment of the manifestation of Christ, when we shall be manifested with Him in glory.

John speaks of the same thing, leaving an exercise with us as Paul does: "every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure". But he says "See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God". It is a question of what we are now; "now are we the children of God"; that is, we are recipients of His care, of His love, the Father’s love. What love! It is a holy love. Persons who appreciate the Father's holy love are here unknown by the world. Oh, you say, you mean they are separate; exactly. How have they arrived at the truth of separation? By the appreciation of the Father's holy love. Nothing is more separative than holy love, and John says "See what love the Father has given to us. Paul speaks of God's great love wherewith He loved us (see Eph 2: 4). How great the saints are! Surrounded by the apostasy and by the conspiracies of man, by all that is happening politically and religiously, there is a company of saints here who draw out the Father's affections because they ha e believed that Christ came out from God.

So John says "Beloved, now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested". What is true to faith is understood by us; he is not referring to what is unknown to faith but to what is not yet manifested. "We know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is". Does it not awaken the desire of our hearts to see Him as He is? We shall see Him as He is! "And every one that has this hope": the hope is in the One who is going to be manifested, and it is in the hearts of those who love Him, who are loved by the Father, who are separate, not only as a duty but constitutionally so in the appreciation of the Father's holy love.

Oh, dear brethren, that we might know more of these things, that we might learn them in the secret of His presence, that we might be set to know more of what the secret of His presence is and to be content to be in concealment for the time being until we are needed for testimonial purposes. It will not be long; every evidence leads to the conclusion that the time is exceedingly short; scripture speaks of "a moment of time", Luke 4: 5. Let us seek, in the little time that remains, to be found more in the secret of His presence. What an elevation it gives to every holy convocation - the secret of His presence, to come under His influence so that we should be the more presentable. When the time for the display comes there is what is presentable. It is all the fruit of His work, wrought in those who have known something of the secret of His presence. The Lord's supper, already referred to, is the experience par excellence of the secret of His presence. Dear brethren, we need to be developed more in the sensitiveness that is proper to the secret of the presence of Christ amongst His own. May He grant it for His Name's sake.

CROYDON

24 April 1976

THE CHILDREN'S EYESIGHT

More people than ever before can now view the wonderful sights of God's handiwork and of man's. Of these latter the pyramids of Egypt must be amongst the most interesting, although they are really only tombs. Abraham and the patriarchs may well have seen them. In their time the sight of these monuments was much more striking than now as they then had shining granite casings which have since vanished. For Moses, however, a really "great sight" was a thorn-bush in flames yet not burnt up. When Moses turned aside to see this sight there came the voice of God Himself speaking out of the bush to him at some length. God had come down to where His suffering people were so as to deliver them. We know that when Jesus came down to this earth to redeem us He remained ever the holy God in His person; yet He did not come to consume in judgment but "that the world may be saved through him".

The apostle Paul wrote about looking on the things that are not seen. This sounds quite impossible at first but he referred to the inward eyesight of faith. You will remember that the Lord Jesus spoke of the serpent of brass that Moses made and lifted up on a pole in the wilderness. This was shortly before the Israelites went into the promised land. Because of sin they had been bitten by deadly poisonous snakes, but all those who looked by faith on the fiery serpent were healed. That serpent had never bitten anyone! It was a type of Jesus the Son of man who was lifted up on Calvary's cross so that "every one who believes on him may not perish but have life eternal". How thankful we are to be able to say that He who knew not sin was made sin for us!

When the Israelites had crossed the river Jordan they began to enjoy the blessings that God had stored up for them in the promised land. Twelve great stones from the dry bed of the river were carried over on the shoulders of as many men and set up on the bank. It was expected that the children would ask the meaning of those stones, just as we now encourage children to enquire about "the things of Jesus Christ". There were two distinct questions and answers about the memorial stones. The answer to one question was that the waters of the Jordan were cut off and heaped up when the ark of Jehovah entered the river; the other answer was that all the people had been able to cross on dry land. The Lord's supper reminds us that the majesty of Jesus overcame death when He entered its domain; but also those present at the Supper and many others besides have in their spirits and affections followed Him and enjoy the fruits of His death and resurrection. Let me ask again - Have you desired to remember the Lord in the breaking of bread?

J.C.Evershed