LEANING
Genesis 32: 24-31; 49: 33 (from “he gathered”); 48: 8,10;
I read these scriptures, dear brethren, to seek to say a word about leaning. It is something that comes out in Jacob in a very fine way; the best days of Jacob were when he was leaning. You remember the word, the word of wisdom, to “lean not unto thine own intelligence; in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will make plain thy paths”, Prov 3: 5. We are slow to come to it, to lean. O, beloved, we have Somebody worth leaning on! That is what Jacob came to see, that there was somebody worth leaning on, and as I say, his best days were when he had learned to lean. He had spent a good deal of time living on his own understanding; he could have written a book about it, but he comes to a point where that will not do, to a point where he needs somebody to lean on. Have you ever felt that? Maybe you have been successful, made a lot of money; Jacob had. He had a big family, he was able to meet every circumstance as it arose, but here is a circumstance that he could not meet; he did not know what to do. What do you do? Call up the lawyers? look and see what your rights are? see how you can work things out with your resources, your money, your accountants? No, beloved, you learn to lean on Somebody who is far more than that, One who is a Friend. Jacob learns to lean; it says, “And Jacob remained alone; and a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn”. How will you do, beloved, in the swelling of the Jordan, Jer 12: 5? Perhaps you have run with the footmen; you have had friends who have thought the same as you, but how will you do in the swelling of the Jordan? This for Jacob was a real exercise and it will be so for you. Jacob remained alone—alone. He still had a large family and possessions, but what good were they? He was alone, alone with a man who was wrestling with him, who took no cognisance of his money or of his brains or his ability, but who says, Jacob, what are you going to do, you are alone with me? Lean not unto thine own understanding. I do not want to speak unduly of critical times, I trust we will speak of something greater than that, but Jacob here is in a critical time and what does he do? He was alone; he did not have his bookcase, he did not have these other resources that he would have called on perhaps in earlier days; he had hardly before met a man that he could not match. Laban tried but Jacob could match him. Here he is alone, and a man wrestled with him. Dear brethren, here is a soul going through exercises with God and coming out victorious. As I said, his best days are ahead of him. He would not have thought that in this hour and maybe you do not think that at the moment, but, beloved, the best days were ahead of him, a man who was limping and the sun shining upon him. But here a man wrestled with him until the rising of the dawn. It says, “he touched the joint of his thigh; and the joint of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled with him”.
To bring these exercises to ourselves it is God speaking to you, passing you through deep waters and yet allowing you to prevail. What a God He is! He could have brought up a lot against Jacob at this juncture; He could have told him the kind of man he had been, but He is touching the Spirit’s work in Jacob, He is touching a work of God in his soul and God has allowed it to prevail. He does this in circumstances that you may be in. God allows you to get some power; maybe He helps you in the preaching, helps you to ask questions in the meeting; He helps you through these exercises and yet you are still leaning to your own understanding. God would bring you through things into the victory that you lean on Him; you learn to walk with a limp, but you learn to walk as leaning on Christ. God would help you. Jacob says, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. O, beloved, get the fruit of an exercise. There are many exercises—we speak feelingly—that we have all passed through that have been fruitless, they have left a limp perhaps without a Beloved to lean on. Well, Jacob says, “I will not let thee go except thou bless me”. And what does God do? He changes his name. O, what a light dawns into the soul when God says you are no longer Jacob, your past history has forever gone—gone. His lawyers could never have done that; no advocate could do that for you. God brought him to this experience and said, All that you are as after Adam’s order with your schemings are for ever gone, and He says, Israel is your name. He is going to walk as a prince. Limping, yes, but walking in the dignity of leaning upon somebody well known. Dear brethren, there is a need for dignity among us; there is a need for Israel. Jacob has gone; is he gone with you? “What things were gain to me these I counted ... to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord”, Phil 3: 7,8. In a few chapters after, Jacob no longer uses his wits or his own scheme of things but he has learnt to lean on somebody and he walks as a prince. Can we move through these things, beloved, in the princely dignity of our name being changed? Or do we revert again to other principles? Paul calls them beggarly principles, persons bringing them into the assembly of God, bringing in bondage. That is what the line of Jacob would have done, but God says Israel shall be thy name “for thou hast wrestled with God ... and hast prevailed”. God gives a reason for it; it is not only conferred in the grace of Christ but there is something of the Spirit’s work coming out in him now. There is something that God has divinely wrought in the soul to be seen, and God says I name that as princely. Let it function, beloved. He may still be limping but he is a prince of God. It says here (I like that verse), “And as he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him; and he limped upon his hip”. “The sun rose upon him”: O, think of the warmth of divine love coming into his soul! The sun must have risen upon millions of others that day but it says that it rose upon him. You get a sense of divine love in its warmth coming into your soul that you no longer want to walk as a Jacob, you no longer want to walk in those diverse ways of leaning to your own understanding, but “in all thy ways acknowledge him”. At every step Jacob had to acknowledge Him, at every step he limped. O, but he leant heavily, he brought out those princely features in his movements. The Corinthians said of Paul that he was limping, that is what they would have drawn attention to: “his presence in the body weak, and his speech naught”, 2 Cor 10: 10. But Paul said, Did it matter? The sun was shining upon him. If you are in the sunshine and somebody else is in the shadow you feel for them. But you keep in the sunshine. The sun rose upon Jacob; his limp, his need of leaning did not hinder the sun shining, he felt it and enjoyed it all the more, the wealth and warmth of divine love coming in. There may have been some sore or tender parts, some parts that might not have been fully healed yet, but the sun shining on them brings its warmth and all its beneficent rays. There is Jacob, the sun rose upon him.
Now, dear brethren, have you known the experience? Maybe you have been alone, you have known the wrestling, you know what it is to have your name changed. God is ready to do it, He would do it today. Are you prepared to be finished with your own ideas, your own understanding, what you think about things, even what you think should be said in the ministry, what you think should be this or be that? Beloved, let us make way, as leaning, for the sun to shine upon us.
In these chapters that I refer to (I only speak of them briefly and simply) you see a man, a prince of God. At the end of his days he is seen still leaning, he worshipped leaning on the top of his staff. “The eyes of Israel were heavy from age”: did that deceive him? Not a bit! He could still guide his hands intelligently, he still knew right from wrong, he still knew what seemed to be right that was not just it; he had insight. Here is a man who is with the Spirit of God and who has had his eyes opened; they were heavy from age; even Joseph here thought he knew better. O, do not despise what may be failing outwardly; do not despise outward circumstances that may not seem so powerful. Jacob here is still as much a prince as ever he was, I would say more than ever he was; he is here a prince of God. Joseph said, Well, it really should be this. Dear brethren, we are very presumptuous at times, we think it should be this and it should be that. I do not speak disparagingly of Joseph one bit, but I speak to bring out the advantage of a man who had lost natural powers maybe, but who was in the power of the Spirit of God. It says that he guided his hands intelligently (see v 14); he says to Joseph “I know”. Joseph thought he did not know. Israel says, “I know, my son, I know”. There is a man who is leaning. How did he know? He did not see; you say he has not the advantage of youth, he does not have a quick mind. No, he did not even see, but he knew and guided his hands intelligently; he was a man that was leaning. O, beloved, if there is one thing we need it is dependence, dependence on Christ, dependence on the Spirit of God. What disasters have been wrought through persons leaning to their own understanding, and persons of ability bringing their own ideas in that seemed right! But it was not the divine touch. Here is a man who had lost his eyesight; his eyes were heavy from age, and it says again, “he could not see”; but he guided his hands intelligently and he says, “I know”. Do you know? The way to know, beloved, is through leaning. Jacob must have been told about this, he must have smelt the savour and odour of these sons; he had had that experience earlier in his history. He must have known, he did not see with his natural eyes but somebody must have told him—communion beloved, communion, dependence; leaning makes way for communion, makes way for speaking too, divine speaking in a local assembly. Personalities may project themselves too much, but here is somebody who is leaning, he does not see but he is leaning and he guides his hands intelligently. I only speak of that to show the advantage. It is no disadvantage to have a limp, dear brethren, it is no disadvantage to have been through these experiences with God, it is a blessed asset. May we be helped to make the most of it—leaning. It speaks of him worshipping too, on the top of his staff. O, what a father he is! These next chapters bring out the wealth of a man who has been leaning. He is not here disposing exactly of what he had gained by his own power, he is not telling them what he had brought from Laban’s land and what he had gained there. No, he says “the God that shepherded me ... the Angel that redeemed me from all evil”. He is a prince, he has something that has been handed down; he has acquired it in his own exercises and experiences with God as leaning, leaning on Him. Now may we be helped individually to lean, lean heavily, beloved, and, O, what a Man to lean on! the One who has changed your name, the One who has taken away all that stood against you and your offences and your sins, the Priest that we were speaking of today in Hebrews 3. What a One to lean on! The Word of God, the Apostle, the High Priest, is the One to lean on. “Mixed with faith”, (Heb 4: 2) comes into the leaning. Jacob did not know the days that were ahead, but he was leaning and he guides his hands intelligently.
I refer to the Song to see there one who is leaning upon her Beloved. It would be speaking of things not exactly individually, but there is an exclamation here: “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, Leaning upon her beloved?” Is Christ not going to see the testimony through, dear brethren? Does He not say, at the close of Matthew’s gospel, “I am with you all the days”, chap 28: 20. It has been well said that the Lord is with us as we are with Him. “Leaning upon her beloved”—she is with Him. She comes up out of the wilderness. The assembly is not a wilderness creature; she is not native to the wilderness exactly, she is coming up. Is that the experience in your local company? Not only wilderness exercises, not only Romans, not only the experiences of Corinthians, but is there some experience in your local company of coming up? “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness ...?” She is able to meet all the responsibilities of the wilderness way; but somebody here sees something very beautiful: “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, Leaning upon her beloved?” He is leading us, dear brethren, conducting upward. “I ascend” was His word to those few in John 20. Are you going to ascend with Him? They did. It says, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God” (v 17); there is the ascending line. The disciples came into something of that in John 20, they came up. They went to their homes, I suppose in despair, having looked into the tomb, but the word of God comes to them that He was risen and they begin to rise up.
It is not only wilderness exercises, dear brethren, it is not only times of sorrow, but there is a coming up—“Leaning upon her beloved”. O, how He would lift us up as we lean! He is going that way; may we not miss His movements. The assembly, as I said, is not a creature of the wilderness, she belongs to another sphere altogether, and He, the Beloved, is going there and she is leaning upon Him. There could be a reference in it too to the Spirit; the Spirit is with us in the wilderness exercises as the servant was with Rebecca. How she must have leaned on the resources in the camels and in the servant; she must have been drawing on that. But here there comes a point of leaving the wilderness. Are we ready to leave it, dear brethren? Righteously she is able to deal with the wilderness line of things, but as He comes in there is to be a change: “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, Leaning upon her beloved?”—“Leaning”. You will never come into the land in all its blessedness and all its features any other way, save us leaning upon the Beloved. What a title He has there! “I ascend to my Father”: what a title He has in heaven! What a place belongs to Him in glory, the angels and principalities and authorities all giving way to Christ! He belongs there, and as His counterpart we belong there too. May we be helped to get free of the wilderness circumstances, to see that the service of God is not carried on in the wilderness, it is carried on as leaning, leaning on the Beloved. What wealth He is ready to bring us into! He is more ready to bring us into it than we are to lean on Him and follow Him where He goes. If you are leaning on something and it moves, you have to move or you will fall. Leaning on the Beloved: as He moves, we would move under His touch. Has the wilderness such a hold that we cannot drag our feet from it? Have burdens become so heavy that we cannot arise as He moves? We have not been leaning on Him, dear brethren. There are exercises, burdens, to be carried and things to be done, but as He moves to rise we have to rise with Him. The test of righteousness in exercises is as we are ready to follow Christ as He moves. Are we leaning on Him so much that as He moves we move with Him? It says, “I awoke thee under the apple tree; There thy mother brought thee forth; There she brought thee forth that bore thee”. I do not know much about what this would mean but I think the Lord is reminding us of the divine work in the saints; the assembly is divine property. He would remind us of the power and the grace and the fruit of divine work: “the apple-tree among the trees of the wood”, chap 2: 3. The work of God, the assembly, has a different origin; that is the impression I get about the verse just now, that the assembly has an origin different from the wilderness. It is in the wilderness but it belongs somewhere else. “I awoke thee under the apple tree; ... There she brought thee forth that bore thee”. Beloved, the whole point of the assembly is to make much of Christ. She has her own shining, her own glory, but the glory the assembly has is not inherent, shall I say; the glories that it will ever have are conferred glories, reflecting the glory of Him who has it inherently—the apple tree. The apple tree is Christ in heaven, His own blossom, His own fruit, His own preciousness; the assembly is to augment that. In the wilderness can she point to Christ? In the settling of exercises and sorrows among us have the brethren been pointed to Christ? Are we leaning enough to bring Him in, to follow His movements? That is the impression I would leave, dear brethren, that the assembly belongs somewhere else. She has an origin outside of the wilderness altogether; you never saw an apple tree in the wilderness, she has an origin that is outside the wilderness sphere of things altogether, and as leaning on Christ He would bring us up—“Who is this ...?” No wonder there is an exclamation! The angels will yet exclaim (I feel it very humbling), but the angels will yet exclaim as to the wisdom of things working in the assembly—she belongs somewhere else. The fruit of leaning on her Beloved is that the wisdom of Christ comes through in exercises. It is someone else who is being drawn attention to and not me. How many sorrows there have been through men projecting themselves, but leaning means that the right thing is said, the power and wisdom is there, but it is all the time directing to Christ.
Well, do not let us think, beloved, that leaning is only for times of crisis—very largely perhaps that is our experience—but John was one who was at table, and he was leaning on the breast of Jesus. It was a constant thing with John. It says about him: “Now there was at table one of his disciples in the bosom of Jesus”, that is where he lived, it is where Jacob had learned to live. As I say, not only at times when difficulties are to be met but his constant pathway was that he was in the bosom of Jesus and leaning on His breast. He was there to be referred to; he was a fine brother to be referred to, somebody who is leaning on the breast of Jesus. Peter was leaning too; at times, like the most of us, he had leaned to his own understanding, but he says that that is not going to do here, no; it says he made a sign to him; it shows how near he was to him. Oh the advantage of a brother like this, the advantage of drawing on him: “Simon Peter makes a sign”; he does not even speak. Are these brotherly links strong enough among us so that there is a freedom just to look, to make a sign? There is somebody nearer the Lord than I am, consciously known. He says, “Lord, who is it?” He does not say he knew, he is still leaning. You ask somebody and they may answer quickly. John did not do that, he was still leaning, there was no pride with him. “But he, leaning on the breast of Jesus, says to him, Lord, who is it?” Beloved, may we ask questions leaning and prove the power and the resources that are available as we lean; let us lean heavily on Christ for His Name’s sake.
MAIDSTONE
24th March 1984