HOW DIVINE HELP COMES IN AS WE MOVE IN ANSWER TO THE LIGHT
[p. 114] HOW DIVINE HELP COMES IN AS WE MOVE IN ANSWER TO THE LIGHT
Philippians 2:12,13; Numbers 10:33 - 36
Ques What was the thought you had before you?
JT Well; that divine help appears as the saints are themselves moving. In Philippians the injunction is to work out our own salvation; then immediately “it is God which worketh in you”. Of course there could be no movement on our side save as God begins first, but this passage and many others like it, especially Numbers 10, show that divine help appears as the saints are moving. It will be observed that it was as they set forward that the ark went before them. “And they set forward”, Numbers 10:33.
Ques Do you mean that as we take up and act upon light already given, God comes in for us?
JT That is what I thought. The history of the Philippian saints furnishes abundant evidence of the divine intervention as there is movement according to light already given. The apostle and his associates could have no doubt as to divine guidance — in Numbers 10 the prominent feature is that, divine guidance — they could have no doubt as to divine guidance in reaching Philippi, but the hand of God is not there immediately. Nevertheless they were moving. They did not sit down and wait for it. They went out to the riverside and sat down there, not to look at the river or the scenery but they talked to the women that assembled there for prayer, and then the work of God shows itself. The heart of Lydia is opened, and later, in the jailor we see remarkable testimony to the divine intervention as we are moving in relation to light already furnished. The Philippians would thus understand that as they worked out their own salvation — something that was peculiarly their obligation — God worked in them. “It is God which worketh in you”. So Numbers 10 furnishes wonderful [p. 115] guidance, for it is in the movement — not a word is said about the ark going before them in all the instruction — it is in the movement that that appears.
Rem That was a distinct and new thing that had not been given before.
JT You never can tell; love reserves the right of its own movements. It is never restricted by its own laws. The early part of the book furnishes abundant instruction as to how they are to move, but there is nothing of this; that is, divine love would reserve the right to come in, and then it gives you the opportunity to move first.
Ques “Even as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much rather in my absence”. Does the apostle set forth there the light having been brought in?
JT They had abundance of light as in Numbers, but we may have that and not move. The word should be translated, ‘set forward’ — not ‘departed’. They did ‘depart’, of course, but the point is not that they were leaving somewhere, but going somewhere, and it is in that movement that the ark comes in. It is in the movement that love comes in, perhaps in a way we have not looked for.
Ques How would you link this up with the previous part of the chapter, where the movements are regulated by the silver trumpets?
JT I suppose the trumpets refer to the testimony as conveying the rights of Christ over us, would you think, in redemption? He has a right to speak and no one should turn a deaf ear, because it is one that loves us. Silver would refer to that. It is one beaten piece, meaning that it is one medium conveying the Lord’s mind, first in calling us together, as it says, “They shall serve for the calling together of the assembly” Numbers 10:2 unto Moses at the door of the tent of meeting. Then they are for the calling together of the princes, the heads of the tribes. I suppose the [p. 116] trumpets are to regulate us in regard of Christ’s authority over us. First, I think, it is the whole congregation (verse 3), then the princes; then the alarm was for the setting forward. It was thus clearly the testimony to the Lord’s rights over us generally. They were to assemble to Him, and then those special representatives — the heads of the tribes — then the alarm for the setting forward. There is the idea of gathering, whether it be the whole congregation or the princes. Then there is the idea of setting forward, first east, then south, meaning that the work of God is taken into account. It is in the east and in the south that they are to move. There is much involved in it.
Ques Is your thought that this is a more intimate leading?
JT I thought that the whole chapter enters into this. The ministry of the trumpets refers to priestly discernment — some testimony in the way of ministry that reminds us of the Lord’s rights over us. Then we are told that they moved according to the prescribed arrangement, and then Moses says to Hobab, “We are journeying to the place of which Jehovah said, I will give it unto you; come with us, and we will do thee good ... and he said, I will not go And they set forward ... and the ark ... went before them”. Numbers 10:29 - 33 They are moving without Hobab.
Evidently they are able to move without the natural thing that Hobab would imply. The ark takes his place — a better guide. There is no thought in Hobab’s mind of sacrificing to help Moses. We can never trust nature in these matters, however kindly disposed. Love is sacrifice. That is what I think is meant in the ark acting thus without any previous announcement of it. That is to say, love will never fail the saints of God. We may seem to be lacking leadership or weakened by some circumstance, but love will never fail, whatever [p. 117] else fails.
Ques What do you understand by the three days’ journey?
JT I think it shows that they were ready to go the whole road. “They set forward from the mountain of Jehovah and went three days’ journey”. The question that arises in the mind is, How far are you ready to go in the testimony? Some are not ready to go very far. Many break bread without the slightest thought of going beyond that. They break bread and they are known in that relation, but that is a poor thing. That is not fellowship with the death of Christ. The fellowship of the death of Christ means that I have to go somewhere. Then there is the fellowship of His Son. Think of the glorious dignity of it — Jesus Christ our Lord. It is the fellowship of His death in 1 Corinthians 10, and the fellowship of the Spirit in the second epistle. So the question is, How far am I ready to go? Here they credit the thing. They went three days’ journey. If you take that road, you find the company of divine love in it.
Ques Is that why it is spoken of as “the ark of the covenant”? Up to this point it is the “ark of the testimony”.
JT That is very interesting. It would be what God is to us.
Ques What do you understand is involved in the movement of the people? What is it for us?
JT It is spiritual with us. Some of us were noticing that in the Scriptures the truth of the house of God appears in connection with journeying. It appears first in the history of Jacob when he was on a journey. Then twenty years later he is still on a journey; he is going to Hebron — to Isaac. When he returns to Bethel God comes down and speaks to him in Bethel. He is still journeying. That is to say, the house and all that enters into it is to aid us in our journeying. We are on the road to the eternal [p. 118] purpose of God; that is the point. It is the positive thing. It is not simply that they departed from some place, but that they were going to some place.
Ques Do you get this in Paul himself, letting everything go that the flesh could rejoice in on account of Christ — reckoning it to be loss? Is that the taking of the three days’ journey? Then to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings — is that the affinity between the people and the ark?
JT Quite. He says, “Not as though I had already attained”. Philippians 3:12 He was on a journey.
Ques In Genesis 22 in regard of Abraham, the same expression is used. Abraham took three days’ journey and it was on the third day that he saw the place afar off. Would these two scriptures bear on each other?
JT They do. The three days’ journey involves death and resurrection.
Ques The Lord in Matthew 15 has compassion on the multitude because they were with Him three days. Then the feeding of the multitude follows. Is that the same principle?
JT I think so; it is the general thought, representing complete exercise. As we were saying in regard of the house, Jacob, after a most blessed experience typically in the house (Jehovah coming down and standing by and speaking with him) journeys, and in the journeying Rachel dies — a sorrowful thing. Rebecca’s nurse had died just as he had reached Bethel. Nature’s ties were thus broken up. We are thus helped in the main thought — that is, to reach Isaac in Hebron where, it is said, Abraham sojourned and Isaac sojourned. We get the identification of Hebron; it was given there so that we might understand what the thing means spiritually, and so in the end of Exodus, the setting up of the tabernacle, which is a type of the house, is [p. 119] marked by active service. As the various features are set up, what they are intended to convey is actually there. The table is there and the loaves are on it; the candlestick is there and the lamps are lighted; the altar is there and the sacrifices have been offered upon it; the laver is there, and Moses and Aaron have washed their hands and feet in it. That is the house as a living thing. You are already living and moving in the thing. Then it says, the glory entered and the cloud was upon it and the people journeyed according to the cloud. It was journeying so that in these circumstances as we accept that it is a living order of things, if this movement is on, love will show itself in unexpected ways. We shall find what love can do. It is love’s opportunity; it delights to serve.
Ques So that at the beginning of Acts 1 we get a living order of things marked by prayer. Then does the glory come in in chapter 2?
JT Yes; they do not sit down in the upper room and await the promise. The Lord had said, “Await the promise of the Father, which ... ye have heard of me”. Acts 1:4. But they were active according to the exigencies of the moment, showing that principle, that there is always something you can move on in. You do not sit still and fold your hands as in Haggai. There the people were saying, ‘This is not the time to build’, but it was the time. Jehovah says, ‘If you begin to build, I will help you’.
Ques Was there building at the riverside?
JT That is the principle; there was something going on. It was the place where prayer was wont to be made. That was the idea; the idea is that I identify myself with that. That was where God showed Himself.
Rem We are liable to be satisfied with a settled order of things — things are duly carried out in order without the living power [p. 120] of it.
JT Whereas everything that is mentioned — the mind of God conveyed in it — is there in an active way.
Rem It is to be realised now in spite of the weakness of things.
JT There is always something, however weak.
Ques “Work out your own salvation” refers to a local company. Is that the thought?
JT That is the thing. We see how love will show itself. It will show itself in some correspondence with Christ. The previous paragraph of this chapter shows what marked Christ, “Being in the form of God ... took upon him the form of a servant”. Philippians 2:6,7. It was a downward thing. That is how God worked in keeping with the three days. So we are to “do all things without murmurings and disputings” Philippians 2:14 that we “may be blameless and harmless ... holding forth the word of life”, and so forth. Then he goes on, “If I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all”. Philippians 2:17 It was not a question of calling on the gifts, but what was within the range of them all. Things were to be done in that way. “Do all things without murmurings and reasonings; that ye may be harmless and simple, irreproachable children of God”. Philippians 2:15.
Rem It is like the Lord, “holy, harmless, undefiled”. Hebrews 7:26.
JT Just so. Certainly God is not working in worldliness; that is not His way. Christ was not worldly; when He was reviled He reviled not again; when He suffered He threatened not. Love shows itself in these things. So Paul brings in Timotheus and Epaphroditus in this chapter to show the kind of way in which the work of God proceeds — how love moves. God works through mediums; He takes up this and that one and works in that way.
Rem The Philippian company is the only company that goes on with Paul to the end, of all the [p. 121] assemblies to whom the epistles were written. You were speaking of love in an evil day continuing to the end.
JT The whole point of ministry is to bring us into accord with Christ, to accept His sufferings — the ark went before. The history of the Philippian assembly shows how the ark was reflected — the spirit of it in the apostle. See what sufferings he endured — how love wrought in such a vessel. If we had more vessels in accord with the work, we should have more evidence of divine love, because love must work in a vessel. Therefore the question is, Can I be that? The epistle to the Philippians would bring that about, for we see it for example in a man like Epaphroditus who was grieved because they had heard that he had been sick.
Rem It is very encouraging in that way for Epaphroditus was an ordinary kind of brother. In one sense he was an extraordinary one, but he was not a great servant like Paul or Timothy. It is open to each one of us.
JT So that each one of us may become a vessel of love.
Ques Is there correspondence with David’s three mighty men here? Do they bring the water to David in this chapter?
JT Quite so. “We ought to lay down our lives”. 1 John 3:16 The point is love; It is the most practical thing in the history of christianity.
Rem This is the first experience that Israel has with the ark.
JT Yes; the ark is now moving. It is objective; they could see it. Love says, Now that I see you move, I will move.
Ques Does Romans give the spring to set us in [p. 122] movement?
JT One of the great features of Romans is to bring out a vessel for love. If love is in a vessel then you can see what love will do.
Ques Do you regard each one at the end of Romans as one of those vessels, exemplifying the movements of love?
JT Exactly; the Spirit of God would call attention to certain persons — not in the east, though they had been there, but they are now at Rome — persons who were evidences of this great principle of love.
Rem One feels thankful that our attention is being called to this. It has been a burden that each of us might be marked by movement. It is easy to become stagnant.
JT So that John says, “Hereby we have known love”. That is the first thing — “because he has laid down his life for us”. 1 John 3:16 That is the idea of the ark going before. “And we ought for the brethren to lay down our lives”. 1 John 3:16 We can do that.
Ques Would you say a word about the resting place? It says the ark went before them to seek out a resting place. Although they were taking a journey there was a resting place in view.
JT I think that is in resurrection — that it may be reached on the way. They would thus have a testimony in every movement of the ark to what they were finally to come to. The Lord in John 13 shows what He is at. He would teach us how to serve in love. It is the service of love. Hence, you see, the Lord laid aside His garments and girded Himself with a towel, and poured water into a washhand-basin — a small portable basin. You do not ask the objects of your affection to come to you; you go to them with the thing. It is portable, and so He goes around and washes their feet. They do not have to move at all. So it says, “He comes therefore to Simon Peter”. John 13:6. That is the idea — that one becomes [p. 123] a vessel so that love can act through one. Then the Lord having done all that sits down and says, ‘Now, you see what I have done’. It is an object lesson that I should be taught how to love.
Ques Is this movement of love included in the first word at Philippi: “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house”? Acts 16:31.
JT What you see in that man is that he began to move immediately. He did not fold his hands; he began to move. He took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and set meat before them. Then he was baptised and all his.
Rem Salvation was not a stationary condition; it alluded to activity.
JT That is the point exactly.
Ques It says, “Work out your own salvation”. Philippians 2:12. Does that suggest that the material was there amongst them — Paul having been there?
JT Yes; they were thoroughly furnished.
Ques Are we not slow in realising that where Paul has been, there has been left material to be worked out?
JT Quite; you have all the light and all the furnishing, and as you work things out you find that love can do for you more than you expect. Wisdom is love acting wisely; love will never make a mistake. Thus you have in these journeys witness of what God is about to bring us into, because to reach the resting place you need the action of love. We may make a move towards it; for instance, we come together to break bread. There is the furnishing — all the external things — and God takes account of that, but it only makes room for love. The ark is the principle of love; it brings us to the resting place.
Rem It is not the end, but the means to the end.
JT Exactly; God brings us to His dwelling. He does that. So here they have these celebrations.
[p. 124] They would become accustomed to things. It says, “It came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered ... and when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel”. These things were forming the people of God; they were becoming accustomed to victory and the results of victory. We are not therefore a defeated people; we are accustomed to victory in the assembly.
Ques Does the fact that the cloud overshadowed them when they moved, suggest the care God took?
JT That is God’s own action; they had nothing to do with that. So that verse 34 says, “And the cloud of the Lord was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp”. That is to honour you. That is the point here; it is the setting forward.
Ques Would it not be the sense of God’s presence?
JT Yes; God honouring us. That is there as we meet together in the sense of God’s protection, but it is a distinct thing from the ark, so that every assembly meeting is, rightly apprehended, a means of realised victory.
Ques I was going to ask if this really involved the whole of the Ephesian position — in the scope of it.
JT I think so; the saints need to be reminded of victory — consciously brought into the thing. When the ark moved, as it says, Moses says, “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered ... and when it rested, he said, Return, O Lord, unto the many thousands of Israel”.
Ques What do you mean when you say that every assembly meeting is a means of victory?
JT You are made to realise the power that wrought in Christ as He went forward. It is “the power of his resurrection” Philippians 3:10 — the power of it. Then the result of that is the returning — God coming into the midst of His people, the thousands of Israel.
Ques Do you mean it is the power of His resurrection [p. 125] not merely the light of it? There is some effect of it in the soul.
JT That is right; the realisation of it as together.
Ques Does it involve constant conflict?
JT We are not in conflict when together, but there is that principle coming in — a sense of victory. In Matthew 28 the Lord greeted the women who brought the disciples word. He said, “All hail”. Matthew 28:9 That is how He met them. The angel had sent them; that is to say, His subordinate sent them. They can take orders from him — that was the test. “Lo, I have told you”, Matthew 28:7 he says. He was one divinely accredited. He had everything about him to indicate that he was accredited. Still, he was not Christ, and I have got to learn to take orders from someone less than Christ. The principle of representation is a very important one in christianity, involving one that represents Christ. That angel had every evidence of one accredited. “Lo, I have told you”, he says. Well, they take orders from him and they are on their way to execute the orders when the Lord meets them, as if He would honour you taking orders from a subordinate officer. He says, “All hail”. He confirms the message — the orders — but instead of saying ‘my disciples’ He says “my brethren”. Matthew 28:10 The women are lifted up to that. He says, “All hail”. They are brought into the sense of victory in the movement.
Ques Is that not seen in 1 Corinthians 15:57, “Thanks to God, who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ”?
JT I am sure it is. That is what the Corinthians were missing on account of their state. It says, “Who gives us the victory”.
Rem What you are suggesting is very encouraging. If on every occasion on which we came together we had the light of victory in our souls, what an elevation we should be lifted up [p. 126] to.
JT The Corinthians were low down; some of them were saying that there is no resurrection.
Ques One of the psalms says, “I will not come into the tabernacle of my house ... until I find out a place for the Lord”. Psalm 132:3,5. Then this portion of Numbers is quoted there (verse 8). Is there a connection between this and Psalm 132?
JT Well, there it is the final thing. It is David. David prepares the way for the resting place; it is no longer being carried. Here it is not a question of entering into rest, but of rising up. “Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered”. You are still in the presence of the enemy; he is still to be scattered but there is no doubt in your mind as to it. We go through. We are “raised with him through faith of the working of God”. Colossians 2:12 That is, we understand the power.
Rem Then after that verse in Corinthians it goes on, “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord”. 1 Corinthians 15:58 You go on with the work.
JT Just so, in the light of resurrection.
Ques Do we get the idea of power in Matthew 18:20? “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them”.
JT That is right. He is there for support. You are really invulnerable.
Ques Do we get fresh light in regard of the ark as we go on?
JT Every assembly meeting is to give us an increased appreciation of Christ.
Ques Would it be fresh light when they got to the Jordan?
JT The final three days would be the Jordan; that led them into the final resting place. They would be aware as to what they were going on to. But in the meantime we learn what the future [p. 127] is.
Rem Every step would be in anticipation of that.
JT You can see how God intended that the thing should be kept alive. It was not only power at the Red Sea, but love acting in power. The wilderness journey is the way we learn how love acts for us — the way of surpassing excellence; that is what the wilderness journey really implies. I become accustomed to love’s ways. Eternity is that we are at rest. We are becoming accustomed to it. We touch the thing but it is just temporary. The journey’s end is really the purpose of God — Hebron — “that world and the resurrection”. Luke 20:35 What a lesson we are learning every week! It is love’s way — how love can come in in its own way. So that every assembly meeting is different. It is the infinitude of the variety of love in its action and service.
Rem “He appeared in another form unto two of them”. Mark 16:12 Love takes the initiative. Paul did not wait for the Corinthians to love him. “I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved”, 2 Corinthians 12:15.
JT Yes; love is not going to stop. The second letter shows that definite headway is being made.
Ques Would the last verse be what love would secure? The many thousands of Israel.
JT Yes; I suppose so.
Ques With regard to the breaking of bread, would you look out upon “the many thousands of Israel”?
JT That is the relation in which to break bread. It is one body. It is not ‘ye being many’, but “we being many”. 1 Corinthians 10:17. All the saints are included in it. Generally the local pronoun is used but there it is “we” — the whole of the saints.
Rem The “thousands of Israel” would indicate the dignity of the saints.
JT We are reminded in a very initial epistle of the many brethren in view. Christ is “firstborn among many brethren”. Romans 8:29.
[p. 128] Rem It is an immense comfort when you are consciously just a handful of saints to feel that “we being many, are one loaf”. 1 Corinthians 10:17.
JT It is indeed; it lays the basis of Ephesians, “Till we all arrive ...”. Ephesians 4:13. Ephesians is the full exhibition of love. Even if it is a question of going up to heaven, we do not want to go up alone. We want to go up with the brethren. We are raised up together, and made to sit down together in the heavenlies. We are all there.
Rem The ark was to be in the midst, but here it seems to move out of that setting.
JT That is the point. In the earlier description it was to be carried in the midst of the camp; that is to say, it is the dignity that belongs to Christ. He has the honoured place. But then, love forgoes that dignity. As in John 13 He laid aside His garments; He forwent all that as showing His love. So for us, whatever dignity I have, the importance of it is that I can lay it aside.
Rem So that when the disciples wanted to be first, the Lord says, “I am among you as he that serveth”. Luke 22:27.
JT Yes; that is a good way — a model way. He dwelt among them as One that served. “All the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us” Acts 1:21 it says. It was in a model way.
Rem 1 Corinthians 10 says, “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them” 1 Corinthians 10:4.
JT Yes, it was pioneering work, and the water carrier was behind them — a most menial position. The Rock followed them. That is the way of love. So that 1 Corinthians 13 is to impress upon us that it was not at Corinth, but he has to present it in an abstract way. He calls it “a way of more surpassing excellence” 1 Corinthians 12:31.