GOD'S DWELLING

GOD’S DWELLING

1 Timothy 6: 13-16; Deuteronomy 33: 13-16; Isaiah 57: 15; 1 John 4: 7-13

One felt, dear brethren, that the Lord might help us to consider the subject of where God dwells. The great goal of divine activities is to have conditions that God can dwell in, and that for ever. Nothing could exceed the blessedness of an eternity marked by God dwelling with men. I trust we have all tasted, at least for a few moments, the joy of God being with us — the happiest moments of our lives! But think, dear brethren, of an eternity marked by this wonderful blessedness — “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them.” There will be a new heaven and a new earth — a heaven no longer defiled by Satan, the father of lies, but cleansed and new, with all Satan’s unholy influences gone for ever. And a new earth — no wonder the prophet exclaimed, “O earth! earth!” — the earth stained by sin and corruption, the earth which opened to receive the blood of Abel — these things will have disappeared never to return; but instead, God is going to be with men. How blessed to think of! And the apostle Peter says we look for it — we do! more earnestly than ever we did. “A new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”

And so I thought the Lord might help us to speak together of where God now dwells. God is pleased in His grace to approach men in spite of their condition. He did not leave Adam alone when he had sinned; He drew near to Adam. Later on, when men were busy building Babel, God said, “Let Us go down” — not dwell, but go down. But God has in mind that, before the eternal day, we should know what it is to have God dwelling with us. “Will God indeed dwell with men?” Solomon with true wisdom says, “The heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee.” I am sure the Lord would desire to give us all a deeper sense of the greatness of God. Timothy says, “He dwells in unapproachable light” in a sphere beyond the heavens. What a wonderful sense of altitude the heavens give us, do they not? Think of the first heaven, the second heaven, the third heaven, and all the heavens, and the heaven of heavens, and beyond that there is still a sphere where God has His essential abode. “Whom no man hath seen,” ever inscrutable, none can look into it, none can approach where God dwells essentially. He dwelt there before there were any heavens or the earth. God, in His own abode! What was in that domain? No man can tell beyond what the precious Scriptures have revealed, and that is very little. God was there, and in the Godhead there was distinction of Persons, and love existed there as between Divine Persons. I do not know that Scripture tells us much more. “To Whom be glory for ever. Amen.”

Isaiah speaks of the “High and Lofty One,” and God would have us grow in the sense of this, for it remains eternally true. Then, “Who inhabits eternity,” another of His dwelling-places; He does not live in time. We live in time, and God has divided time up into gradations we can take in; we live in minutes, hours, days, years, and so on. But He, Himself, inhabits eternity — He lives in eternity. Yet He takes great account of time, for it says, “When the fulness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son.” And “in due time, Christ died for the ungodly.” Isaiah adds that the high and lofty One, who inhabits eternity, dwells — “and with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.” Put these two together, “the high and lofty One” and also “the contrite and humble spirit.” God wants each one of our hearts and spirits to be His dwelling-place. He wants to live in our hearts as individuals. Do we want it? Think of it! He desires also to have a place in your heart. But He will not live anywhere — you would not if you could help it. In His grace He approaches men, but He will not come and live in unsuitable conditions. But these conditions suit Him always — a humble and contrite spirit. God is very sensitive as to where He dwells, but if there are the conditions in one heart, God says, “I will come and live there.” You do not wonder the apostle Paul could speak of God being with him, for what a humble and contrite spirit marked him — the contrition of his heart got deeper and deeper as he reviewed what had marked him in the past. Do we forget it? God never wants us to forget it. I do not think we would have much difficulty in getting on together if this spirit marked us. The apostle could say, “Sinners, of whom I am the chief,” “I persecuted the church.” He was of a humble spirit, too — he could say, “I, who am less than the least of all saints.” So we need to continually judge the movements of pride. If we depart from a contrite and humble spirit, God will not live with us. He will come to us and speak to us, but He will not dwell with us.

To have God with us is the very greatest thing possible. If we are self-sufficient, self-important, we lose the presence of God.

In Deuteronomy 33 we get a wonderful statement “The goodwill of Him Who dwelt in the bush.” There is a great lesson in that if we are going to serve the saints. This incident came just as Moses was going out to serve, after much education leading up to it; this was his final lesson, so to speak. And we cannot serve if we do not travel this way, and learn that He dwells in the bush; that His goodwill is such that He will come and live in the bush — a thorn bush! Will God dwell there? The thorn, as we know, is the proof that the bush has been affected by sin; and Moses sees the bush, and it is in the fire; but the bush is living and not consumed, because of the goodwill of Him Who dwelt there. I know the Lord’s people have got thorns, but God loves them and would dwell in them. He was not in the fire, but in the bush, and He spake out of the bush. People may go through all that the fire represents, testings and discipline of many kinds, but they do not perish, because God dwells in the bush. Moses says, “Yea, He loved the people,” and Moses had learnt to love the people, too. After going through much trial on account of them, and having been spoken against so bitterly, “As for this man we wot not what has become of him,” and after their idolatry, he says, “Forgive them — if not, blot me out” — he had imbibed some of that same goodwill.

Dear young men, and older brothers and sisters too, who want to serve the Lord, let this sink into your heart, that the Lord loves His people, even though they are thorny and weak. He wants you to see this great sight so that you will not be weary in your service. Moses departs blessing the people, and speaks of the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the bush.

And now a word about the last scripture. Not only does God want to give us as individuals the sense of Him dwelling in our hearts, but He wants to give us as together, dear brethren, the consciousness that He is dwelling with us. When you look at the Lord, you can understand that everything in that wonderful Vessel was according to God. It says, “God was in Christ.” That blessed Man was His perfect abode, as suitable as the light unapproachable. Matthew tells us His name is “God with us.” Let the sweetness and fragrance of every act of Jesus so shine into our hearts! God’s dwelling-place was here in Jesus — God expressed in His every act. It would revolutionise Scripture if we took this more into our hearts — God is there! What a theme for the Gospel! As one of our hymns puts it — “Sinner, see thy God beside thee,

In a servant’s form come near.”

But John says, “If we love one another, God dwells with us.” Individually we require a contrite and humble spirit, and this cannot be altered. In the same way love is essential collectively. What is love? We often have wrong thoughts about it. It is firstly expressed in obedience, and then sacrifice — the two great expressions of love. When we think of the love of God, we cannot apply obedience, but “in this was manifested the love of God, that He sent His Son.” What sacrifice! beyond all words can tell. But looking at the Lord Jesus as a man, we see love expressed in two ways. He expressed His love towards God in that “He became obedient unto death,” and then secondly, “Hereby perceive we love — He laid down His life for us.” What a sacrifice!

Do we want God with us? dear brethren. We do, I am sure. We shall have it on these two lines — obedience first of all to the Lord, subjection to Him and subjection to one another. But someone says, “I think — “ You will lose the presence of God on that line. Let the younger be subject to the elder, and obey them that — have the rule over you — the first great feature of love. This is love, to keep His commandments, and they are not grievous. The next great feature is sacrifice. I cannot tell you tonight the various ways in which sacrifice is available to us. I would speak to the young ones — if you want God with you it must be on the line of sacrifice. If we have nothing else, we have a body. What are we doing with it? The apostle says, “I beseech you ... that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice.” So where there is obedience and sacrifice amongst the saints, God dwells with us.

What is going to mark the new heavens and the new earth is to be with us now — a touch of eternity. These things are not known by the study of theology; they are not forms, but realities. Externally, there was nothing that Laodicea lacked, but the Lord was outside and standing at the door. One dreads Laodiceanism. It is the danger of the present moment to have everything externally and not have the Lord. I appeal to, us all. Obedience, sacrifice, and God is with us — nothing can replace that. He sees into our hearts, our motives, our ways. If we love one another, we get His presence.

Let these two features be with us in Melbourne or Sydney or anywhere, and God is with us. One just desires to leave these thoughts with us as to where God dwells, ever remembering, in a spirit of worship, that there is a sphere above all heavens where is His eternal abode. And never forget that God dwells in the bush. And as to ourselves as set together: “If we love one another, God dwells in us.”

May the Lord help each one of us!