GUIDANCE BY GLORY
It was our first hymn, dear brethren, that led me to refer to these passages as to having a view of Christ in His glory and being led by it. It is striking that at the beginning of the wilderness journey God should have appeared with His glory, as if at the outset He would lift our view. The wilderness journey was before them, but in that journey there was to be guidance by His glory. I believe that God would normally meet things by His glory. The references in Hebrews to what was in the ark would substantiate that; the golden pot with the manna, Aaron’s rod and the tables of the covenant: these things were like the intervention of the glory in answer to murmurings. May we be helped to have our eyes lifted from murmurings and confusion and despair, to be led by the glory, to be led normally we may say. Few of us may have trodden that way, and yet may we be helped to speak of it, so that we may be encouraged to move that way. It is the basis of speaking, I believe, the basis of ministry. It says that Esaias “saw his glory and spoke of him”, John 12: 41. How much speaking there may have been without our eye on the glory!—maybe our eyes on the brethren, maybe our eyes on difficulties, but the basis of ministry would be that it is with our eyes on the glory, so that God is rightly spoken of, so that He is rightly represented.
I just thought that in Matthew the star may be an allusion to His glory, guiding these men, simple souls maybe but guided through a maze of confusion and the great weight of the enemy’s power against Christ. It says His star: “we have seen his star in the east”. There was a great area of speculation, Herod was troubled, his wise men were troubled; they all knew more than these men but they did not have their eye on the glory. Many other stars there must have been in the firmament that night, but it says, “we have seen his star”, His star. And that star guided them through all that confusion and brought them to an area where they were able to open their treasures and offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. So may we be helped, dear brethren, to seek in simplicity to be directed by the glory. His star: it will surely come, it is always there. These men for a moment were deflected from it. That may be in accord with most of our histories. But the star appeared to them again and it “went before them until it came and stood over the place where the little child was”. May we be conscious that we are being led like this; may we be helped to get free of other influences, however oppressing, and be led like these men to the area where there is liberty to unfold our treasures and bestow them on Christ.
The ones in Luke were despairing a bit, maybe. It says that the Lord drew near to them on that journey. They were disappointed persons—something else that may ring a chord within us—and yet the glory was so near at hand, so close by them. It says, “their eyes were opened, and they recognised him”. Would that we were helped, by prayer it may be, to recognise Him more quickly. How many things crowd in on us! —the breakdown, the sorrows of the testimony; there is not a heart here today but what carries these; but may they not overcome us dear brethren; may we be guided by His glory. As I said, it is always there. And as they see it they said, “Was not our heart burning in us”. None of these other things that they spoke of so much caused a burning heart; and things which we so often revert to do not cause a burning heart save as He comes in with a touch of His glory. The Lord is ever ready to do it. He was more ready to show His glory than they were to behold it, and that is so often with us. How ready He is to come near to us in our difficulties! He came near them as they were oppressed, but how quickly He would cause our hearts and our feet to move in relation to a presentation of Himself.
In Corinthians it is possibly more normal. It says, “We all, looking ... are transformed”. It is meant to affect us, that we are not the same as we were before. The word would be that it leaves us different. We could refer to many that that happened with. Paul himself speaks of “the glory of that light” at the outset of his life, Acts 22: 11. That light, the glory of it, the impact that it made on him, changed him, transformed him into a new man. That was a drastic change we may say, but may it in measure cause a change with us as we behold His glory. This very dispensation we are in has not only been inaugurated in glory but it subsists in glory, a glory that will never be annulled. This whole page in Corinthians is full of these references to the surpassing glory that marks our time. How Paul would encourage us! Abraham too, the God of glory had appeared to him, causing him to move in relation to the glory, not in relation to the breakdown. So it says “having this ministry ... we faint not”, 2 Cor 4: 1. May we be encouraged that we are not among those that faint. What a time of fainting it is! What a time of going back it is! And yet all the time, dear brethren, so near at hand, there is the glory to lead us, the glory to guide us. However we may magnify the peculiar nature of our circumstances the glory of the Lord is there to lead us through. May it be that we are among those of whom Paul can say “we faint not”.
LONDON
15th October 1974