LEARNING

^[p. 282] LEARNING

Genesis 47:7 - 10; Genesis 48:17 - 19; Joshua 14:6 - 15; John 21:18,19

I have in mind, dear brethren, to speak about learning, which has to be distinguished from teaching, although they run together. I was thinking more of the learning that is acquired by experience with God, and the discipline that enters into it. I had also in mind that we may learn evilly as well as holily. Learning in the world takes on the former character, what we call sophistication, worldly sophistication, without which the man of the world, in his reckoning and in the reckoning of the world, is at a great disadvantage. But it is to be judged and shunned by the believer; for apart from self-judgment, we are capable of it and likely to seek it for ourselves, and especially for our children. This is one of the most fruitful sources of damage to the coming generation in any given time. People who would perhaps refuse the world for themselves, take it on, at least educationally, for their children. A certain education, of course, is necessary, but all godly, God-fearing, faithful parents will see to it that the wild gourds of the school are nullified by the meal in the house, in family nurture. There is no other way really of nullifying the evil of worldly influence on children, and so the more they are under the immediate influence of their parents, the safer. But then believers are themselves capable of learning evil ways, ways indeed that may pass in a certain spiritual level, but which are discerned by the truly spiritual eye (for “the spiritual discerns all things” 1 Corinthians 2:15) to be defiling. For instance, the apostle Paul writes to Timothy about certain who “learn also to be idle” (1 Timothy 5:13), which is a remarkable kind of education, and, as the apostle shows, an education that is damaging. Not ^[p. 283] only do they learn to be idle, but in their idleness are “gossipers and meddlers”, as he says. I stress that a little, dear brethren, as on the line of learning it is to be strenuously avoided as damaging. Communities marked by retired residents, as the world speaks, and as we speak, rightly, too, are exposed to this. Time is on people’s hands, and this kind of learning proceeds; not only is there plenty of time on their hands, but they learn to use it unholily, going about and damaging by gossiping and meddling, as the apostle says. So that he enjoins wholesome occupation, and, above all, good works, for there is plenty to be done. So he says in Ephesians 2:10, “God has before prepared that we should walk” not in idleness but “in them”, that is, good works. We are not to be behind in good works. They add greatly to the wealth of the saints, meeting also current needs of various kinds amongst them.

And then the apostle also speaks in his second letter to Timothy about persons who are “always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”. 2 Timothy 3:7. That is another class. They are men more (the former are women), persons who are always apparently learning and never seem to be really formed of God, never to have arrived at the knowledge of the truth. A knowledge of the truth in 2 Timothy is to be specially noted as needed for protection. But there are those to whom he refers as “always learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”. 2 Timothy 3:7. It is a very common thing; one hesitates to say it, but it certainly should be faced, and there should be some evidence of progress in our souls if we are sitting under ministry from God week by week. For the reckoning day is coming: “Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard”, Revelation 3:3. God pours out His rain bountifully, but there are the useful herbs we look for, meet for those by whom the land is dressed, so that ^[p. 284] obviously, dear brethren, there should be results from the gracious ministry from God showered upon us.

Well now, I wish to show from these four scriptures how this works out in as practical and simple a way as I can, so that the youngest may understand, and all may get help. Jacob is a fitting illustration of what I have in mind, in one phase of it; that is, the learning that comes from discipline, involving failure, from which indeed none of us can claim immunity. We should all in truth be ready to take our place alongside of Jacob. He is one among several of whom we have a life-size picture drawn by the Spirit of God, and what is to be noticed is that the soil for divine education is there from the beginning, an important matter for young ones here, brought up in believing households; Timothy is an example in the New Testament of one who from a child knew the holy Scriptures. Having been brought up from a child, we can understand that it would not be difficult for him to accept his place as one of Paul’s children in the faith, as he began in his mother’s house with the holy Scriptures, knowing them; not that from a child he read them or committed them to memory, which is right too, but that there was an element of knowledge in him from a child; there was excellent soil for divine sowing, that is to say, specially of the ministry of Paul, and that is the great finishing instruction, dear brethren; it is the last course in divine instruction, Paul’s ministry. There are courses; and, as I said, the ministry of heavenly truth, the ministry of the assembly, which completes the word of God, is the last course.

And so Jacob, as I was saying, was from a child marked as of this kind of soil. “His hand took hold of Esau’s heel” Genesis 25:26, that is, he was a supplanter, which his name signifies. Not one who would supplant what was good, but what was evil or ^[p. 285] what was potentially so, as seen in Esau, a man covered with red hair, an evidence of great natural energy, and a dangerous type. I need not enlarge on it; every young person here will understand how it works out in his own experience, how he has to disallow in himself from the beginning this natural energy, which gives him a place in this world, as a cricketer, tennis player, swimmer, or the like, but which is most inimical to spiritual growth in the knowledge of God; the younger we begin to set our faces against that the better and the more we ensure spiritual headway in the school of God. Another thing about Jacob is that he valued, as we all know, the inheritance, and secured it. And then another thing is that he had good mothering. Whether it be in a physical or in a spiritual sense, nothing is more important than good mothering for the young. Rebecca has a place spiritually all her own. Sarah has, too. In fact, there are no duplicates at all in the line of faith. God is a God of variety. And although Rebecca came into Sarah’s tent, she was not Sarah. She might learn from Sarah; not that she could have learnt directly from her, but she could gather up something from her tent, and how she kept it. But as the Spirit of God gives us the account, we are shown that Rebecca mothered her son; she mothered Jacob, for she had spiritual discernment. She doubtless had watched his instincts, and without spiritual instincts there is little hope of any development in the school of God. Instincts in a way are greater than acquired knowledge; they are ever true. And Rebecca undoubtedly discerned this. So much so, such a value did she attach to her son, that she says to him, “On me be thy curse, my son!”, Genesis 27:13. Jacob divined that that curse would be the outcome of his desire to get the blessing from Isaac, and he told his mother. She provided him with clothes, she did everything in her ^[p. 286] power to secure the blessing and not the curse for her son; a most important matter for a mother, for it would be either the one or the other, either the blessing or the curse. But she says, “Upon me be thy curse!” Genesis 27:13 It is the spirit of Christ in the mother, ready to take on the curse for the sake of the son. What a lesson! Whether it be literal, actual mothers, or in the assembly, or the saints in a locality, we cannot do away with the responsibility towards our young. What can we expect from our young apart from example, the exhibition before their eyes of the spirit of Christ? Christ is not here personally; His spirit is to be manifested, reflected in the saints. He is to be known in the gates by the faithful wife, who is also the mother. And so she will take on the curse, she will do everything to secure the blessing, and she secured the blessing.

Now that brings us on to Jacob’s middle life, as we speak, and it shows what advantages he had. You can see now what he was in his infancy and his youth; what instincts he had, what desires, and what mothering. There must be the mothering. It went so far as to his wife, too; for the wives of Esau were a continuous source of grief to this woman, this dear mother, Rebecca. I say so because of the spiritual concern she evinced in regard of her son, who in the mind of God was to occupy such a place in the testimony.

And so we arrive at his advanced years, and of course now we are thinking of the older brethren. A man of a hundred and thirty years is an old man, although he admits that he had not attained to the years of the life of his fathers. It is a very fine scene here, in the 47th chapter, one of the finest in the Old Testament, and one that every old brother and sister should aspire to. There is a clear acknowledgment of his whole history. It is a matter of days; days of years. In Jacob’s mind there were ^[p. 287] no blank years, he recollected all; and if we have been in any way with God we shall have no blanks in our minds. It is a mark of spirituality to be able to take a retrospective view of our lives, and it is a wholesome thing to do too, for whilst it brings out the shortcomings, it brings home, back to our happy memories, what God has been to us, “What the God that thou hast found!” (76:6). It reminds one of the retrospective view from Pisgah. There are two views: one into the land with all its fruitfulness and beauty, “that goodly mountain, and Lebanon”, Deuteronomy 3:25. Moses had that view; he was in it in his heart and he gets a view of it with his eyes; and then there is also the retrospective view, looking back over and taking a survey of the way; that is a wholesome view, too; it is to remind us of what God is to us in all our ways, crooked and straight. God remains God, beloved. It is well to learn to think of God as He is presented to us in the New Testament. We begin with Him who is, what He is now. There are those who speak of what is in the past and forget the present, and of the future and forget the present; but surely we begin with the present, the present God, He who is; He is the same God that was and that will be. So that on the top of Pisgah, as it were, it is the present God, what He is. It is like Romans 8. Would that everyone here would bathe his soul in Romans 8! It is a wonderful chapter; it is the top of Pisgah. It is the present God. There is the land in all its glory, but there is the wilderness behind. The God who has been with us there is the God of the present and of the future. Well, that fits in with what we have here. Jacob reviews his history. He speaks of “the days of the years”, not the years simply, but the days of the years. If I speak of years, I may have in mind to enhance my place amongst the saints as an old person, but if I speak of the days, it is another matter, it is a question of ^[p. 288] experience, whether it be with God or not. Jacob says his were “few and evil”, a humble acknowledgment of what the previous history discloses; but then, beloved, there is every evidence that in all those days which he calls evil there had been a building up of something in his soul, and that is what I want all to get hold of. When Joseph brings his family into the presence of Pharaoh, he thinks perhaps, ‘These brothers of mine are poor men and unlearned to go into the presence of Pharaoh’. So he selects five, which we can understand; it is a question of the best, for surely that is what is suitable to bring before the monarch, and he tutored them. But there is no consultation or tutoring in regard of Jacob; no, Jacob is the greatest man now, greater than Joseph, as I hope to show, and greater than Pharaoh. That is to say, beloved, we are honest with ourselves and with God, and make a full admission of the whole history, not pretending to be blank in regard of anything, of any day. There is no blank in Jacob’s mind; he reviews the whole history, not only in years, but in days. But I say, look at the man! Have you heard a brother or a sister standing up and telling the whole truth? There is moral power in that person. It is a great moral triumph to be able to come forth and tell the whole truth. God knows it; and you may as well admit it too, but in doing so there is great moral power; it is a great moral victory. And so it is here. We are told that as Jacob went out he blessed Pharaoh. If the Holy Spirit records this for us, it is that He was pleased with the scene; certainly heaven was pleased with that scene. It is a great moral victory in a believer. One who tells the whole truth at the same time is greater than the monarch before him, for he blesses him. One would encourage anyone here to come forth honestly and with purpose of heart, for the Lord’s sake, and for the sake of the brethren. Will ^[p. 289] it not be so, that there will be not only a moral victory, but power for blessing? What a victory it is to be a blessing where I have been a curse! Do you think the language is too strong? It is God’s way. Jacob blesses the monarch, we are told, and goes out. What dignity! The monarch does not dismiss him, as ordinarily. Jacob went out, it was his action.

Well now, look at him in the next chapter just briefly, dear brethren. We get to the zenith. It is as the sun goes down. In this case it goes down in its glory. I mean to say he is dying, but he is living. What could be greater to God than this glorious act of Jacob! Not now a hundred and thirty years, but a hundred and forty-seven. I suppose those seventeen years were the best of his life; they yielded more for God. We hear of nothing derogatory in those seventeen years; much better than the fifteen years of Hezekiah. Those seventeen years are years of refinement, beloved. I believe we have arrived at the time of refinement in the history of the assembly, and it should be so with every brother and sister as we advance in years, that there is maturity with refinement for God.

Now Jacob crosses his hands and puts Ephraim before Manasseh; a wonderful evidence of spiritual intelligence, that is to say, intelligence acquired by learning. I am not speaking of teaching but learning in a man who had observed, who had learnt in his circumstances. Joseph says, “Not so, my father, for this is the firstborn”. What words had more authority (other than Pharaoh’s) than those of Joseph? Those words could command every ear in Egypt, but not Jacob’s. It is the greatness of the man, beloved, through learning. There is faith, of course, as the Spirit of God comments on it, “By faith Jacob when dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped on the top of his staff”, Hebrews 11:21. And so Jacob refused and said, “I know, my son, I know”. How great a thing for the dear brethren as we get old to be able to say this. Our vision is apt to grow dim; we are apt to let things go, but it should not be so. An old brother or sister has something the young have not; it should be available for God, but it will not be available unless we are learning. Jacob saw all things clearly. How important that is, for matters come up and if I am not clear in my vision I may take the wrong side, and the very weight of my experience comes in on that side. How serious that is! Jacob refused and said, “I know, my son, I know”, How often a father or mother has been diverted by the influence of a son or daughter, by the natural. Let us learn to refuse, dear brethren, and say with Jacob, “I know, my son, I know”.

Well now, briefly to touch on Caleb. I only wanted to bring forward the side of purpose; appreciation of what God in His love provides, and determination to have it, but with that determination not mere fleshly energy, but moral suitability. And so Caleb says to Joshua, “Thou knowest the word that Jehovah spoke to Moses the man of God, concerning me and thee”. How many years back? Forty-five years! How happily that occasion was retained in that dear man’s mind! It is not simply, Moses who commanded Israel, but “the man of God”, and forty-five years before! This is another thing; it is not now, “Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life”, not a word about the evil. Here is a man who can say, “Jehovah has kept me alive”, What a triumph! What a sense of dependence! All the vicissitudes of the forty-five years had passed, and now he says, “As my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in”. It is, beloved, the grasping of the purpose of love, the purpose of God for us, and the determination to have it; and the spirit and manner ^[p. 291] and way in all those forty-five years are in keeping with that hope, for surely if we think of the inheritance, of the coming of the Lord, and all that is in prospect for us, there should be some becoming feature manifested in us. It is a poor thing to talk about the inheritance, of the coming of the Lord, and to be worldly, to have worldly ambitions; the one belies the other.

If I look back forty-five years, what is my recollection? Is it what Moses, the servant, the man of God, said; what someone who represents God spoke of to me and to somebody else? It is a question of two at that time; the other ten went astray; the one was now the leader of God’s people, and the other represents one who gives character to be strong, for that is how Caleb stands in Joshua and Judges, a man who by his power gives character to the whole tribe. And so it is that the children of Judah come near to Joshua in Gilgal, for it is a spiritual setting, and then Caleb speaks, so that as we go on these lines we are insensibly representative of our tribes and we influence them. This passage and the next chapter and the early part of Judges prove conclusively that Caleb and his family were the characterising feature of Judah at this juncture. And so we are told that “the land rested from war”, It is by the great influence of a man like Caleb that war ceases.

Well now, finally, I want to show in Peter the idea of the end, the Lord Himself telling him what would mark him at the end. One has to have an eye to the end, and Peter in the New Testament occupies pretty much the same position as Jacob does in the Old, particularly in John; there is a peculiar touch in Peter as John introduces him to us. It is what he was to be called: “Thou shalt be called Cephas”, John 1:42 the Lord says to him. Now what do you think about that, young man, young brother? What are you going to be called? As Peter comes to the Lord, the Lord looks ^[p. 292] at him. One can see how the Lord is taking account of what is developing in that young man. We get nothing in John to correspond with what we get in Matthew about him, but we get this beautiful start, “Thou shalt be called Cephas”. “Thou shalt be called” John 1:42; I do not want to miss that; I do not want to be called anything that the Lord has not had in His mind for me. Whatever He has in His mind for me, I want to be called that, whether now or by and by. And what Peter was to be called implied that he was to be material for building. Who can be material for building, who has not got love? You cannot be material for building if you have not love; it is by love we build. It is persons who love who are built in. You do not want to be called anything else but a lover, a lover of Christ, of God, of the brethren, and one whom God loves, and Christ loves, and the brethren love, so that when you come into the meeting, how glad the brethren are to see you. “The disciples rejoiced therefore, having seen the Lord”. John 20:20. One should reflect that in some way.

And then in chapter 6, that long chapter so full of holy matter about eternal life, Peter is a learner. The Lord is not directly speaking to Peter; He is speaking mostly to the crowds, but Peter is listening; that is to say, he represents the learner. He is learning. Others are exposed in that chapter; Philip and Andrew show up poorly in regard to the feeding of the multitude; but at the end of the chapter when the Lord asks, “Will ye also go away?” Peter says, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal; and we have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. John 6:67 - 67. In those days in Galilee, in Capernaum, how his ears were opened! It is not that he was especially in view, he was one among others, among the twelve but among others as well. He was listening. Whether the word be to you directly or not, get the benefit, be a learner, that is the principle.

^[p. 293] And so, you see, Peter learnt not only that He was the Christ, the Holy One of God, but that here was One who could speak of eternal life in all its features, and who not only could say things about it, but who had the words; he could come to Jesus, and the words would be there, He has them; Peter learnt that. He had learnt that He was the Holy One of God. It does not say here, as in Matthew, that it was revealed to him of the Father; in Matthew it is a question of revelation, but here it is a question of learning. And then the final word in the verses read, “When thou wast young”, John 21:18 the Lord now is going back to his young days. Can we bear the light of the Lord on our youthful days? They will all have to pass before Him by and by, all will be manifested, the days and years, before the judgment-seat of Christ. But now it is “When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst where thou desiredst”; John 21:18 that was Peter’s youthful days. We do well to reflect on our youth, as to what our youthful days may appear by and by, for the Lord will bring them up; “but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire”, John 21:18. Now you see what a changed Peter he is, and how through learning he had learnt the principle of resignation to the will of God. What a lesson, dear brethren! “Stretch forth thy hands” is really resignation to the will of God; “another shall gird thee, and bring thee where thou dost not desire”: John 21:18 he is entirely submissive to the will of God. How pleasing to God that is! He had not then yet come to die, not yet come to his old age, but his second letter written plainly testifies to the old Peter, that he was ready to put off his tabernacle, he was ready to do it “as also our Lord Jesus Christ has manifested to me”, 2 Peter 1:14. How he remembered this; all those years of toil and suffering intervening only built up the preciousness of those words which Jesus said ^[p. 294] about him, what he should be in his old age. He did not miss it; he justifies the Lord’s words. How he could speak of the transfiguration, happening anterior to this, as he says, “Having been eyewitnesses of his majesty ... being with him on the holy mountain”, 2 Peter 1:16. How fitting that is on the lips of an old man about to put off his tabernacle! What an example for us who are older, to be wholly conformed to the divine forecast! We learn it, you know, in secret with the Lord. He does not leave us in the dark as to what we are to be called and to what He looks for right through to the end, for it adds, “But he said this signifying by what death he should glorify God”. John 21:19. What could be greater than that, that the end should be as the whole life, a sacrifice to God!

May God bless these thoughts to us. I believe they are applicable to us today,