THE GLORY OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION
Exodus 16: 9, 10; 36: 20, 31–34; 37: 1, 2
I seek help to encourage our hearts, dear brethren, with the glory of the present time. We have been speaking of the inward side of things today and there is a glory about that, a glory that is going through, and is soon to be displayed. Many things that are working out in the saints today have a glory about them that is unique and very soon will be the admiration of myriads. These features, such as meekness, humility, long-suffering, and patience, may be despised in the world today, but they are going through. However much may seem to be against them, “the meekness and gentleness of the Christ” (2 Cor 10: 1), is going through in persons who will soon be clothed with glory.
Isaiah uses fine words when he gets a touch by the Spirit of heavenly things. He says, “I will beautify the house of my magnificence”, Isa 60: 7. I would like all of us, the young ones especially, to get some impression that we are connected with a system of glory. From the outside it may seem to be breakdown. As we read, as we should, church history we see what men have done. We see there has been sorrow, there has been conflict, there has been standing for the truth—all these things have been necessary. But there is also another side which I would like to attract you to—that there is a glory about the present time that is going through.
In Exodus 16 Israel had not long come out of Egypt. They were in a very difficult position. What could they get in the wilderness? What outlook was there? You may raise these questions yourself, you know, as going into employment. You cannot join this association, you cannot claim support from here, or from another source. What outlook is there? How can we get through? Well. God addresses these people who were just wondering how they would get through. Aaron calls the people together and what happens is that as they turned their view to the wilderness “the glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud”. Oh that something like that might come into your soul today, beloved! They did not then speak about how they would get through. They did not then wonder how they would manage if they did not have this means of support, or that; “the glory … appeared in the cloud”.
I would appeal to you to come into a position where you can see the glory appear! It is there, you know! You may look at numbers elsewhere, you may look at one thing or another, but I would appeal to you to come into this divinely appointed position where the glory appears. What a view to have! In type another Man came to fill their gaze; that should have, and could have, stilled their murmurings for ever. They were longing for the kind of things they had in Egypt. God says, I will give you something that is infinitely superior. He gave them the manna. Was there ever a day when the manna failed? I ask you to go through these books of Moses. There were murmurings, there were conflicts, there were divisions, but, except on the sabbath, there was never a morning that the manna was not there to be gathered. Joshua and Caleb certainly gathered it. Two men went through. God established in two men what He would have liked to do with myriads, and the glory sustained them above all the breakdown.
Oh that I could convey some impression of the glory carrying things through at its own level. Turn your eyes, beloved, turn today! God is coming in like this. Think of His grace and His patience. He hears their murmurings, but He does not come in judicially. He might well have upbraided them for what they had done, but He comes in and He gives them an appearance of the glory. Where did it come from? Did it come from Egypt? It was God’s own thoughts that came in, “The glory of Jehovah appeared in the cloud”. And it did not cease. Time after time, in Exodus especially, the glory comes in to meet the situation. Think of God answering things with His glory; strife and complaint on their part, but what God brought in was the exceeding riches of His grace. The glory in Exodus is the riches of divine grace. It says He heard their murmurings and He comes down to those murmurings with His glory, not with a word of rebuke. God feels these exercises that you have. He feels as you do about not having the friends you used to have. The enemy would cause us to be discouraged, but God eclipses the whole thing with a view of His glory, and the glory that He brought in here was that there was manna on the ground. The prophet prayed that the young man’s eyes might be opened to see what there was for him—the whole mountain filled with horses and chariots, 2 Kings 6: 17. Things are not just what you see, beloved. What you see may be true, but it is not all the truth.
The breakdown and the sorrows of the testimony are not everything. God has come in with a display of His glory to quicken your affections and to establish your soul in His grace. That grace will never fail. As I said, whatever morning it was, however difficult the day before may have been, however long the night may have appeared to some of these Israelites wrestling with their sorrow, in the morning there was the manna. What a new start, as it were, Christ here in lowly circumstances. He went with His people. That is a fine word in Acts 13: 18 (KJV), “He suffered their manners”. Despite these complaints that there were among the people, God went along with them. He has done that with us, beloved, He has suffered our manners. How bad they have been!—and the answer to it is a view of His glory, in another Man.
Well, this is the inauguration of a system that Paul speaks about. He says it was introduced with glory, but the system we have come into subsists in glory, 2 Cor 3: 11. It is not now a glory in a cloud—it is the glory in a Man, the Man Christ Jesus. I like that word in Timothy, “God has been manifested in flesh, has been justified in the Spirit, has appeared to angels, has been preached among the nations … has been received up in glory”, 1 Tim 3: 16. What an answer to the pathway of Jesus! That is our great Priest, beloved; that is how the system is going through. That is how things are going to be maintained. The system subsists in glory because of the place that Jesus has, because of the kind of Man that sustains the system. That is what comes out in Hebrews. It says He has gone in. He was here, went through those circumstances, and was “received up in glory”. He is enthroned in glory and from that position is maintaining the testimony at its true level. Not only that, He is maintaining us. It speaks in our scripture in Hebrews of “the hope set before us, which we have as anchor of the soul, both secure and firm”. It is a fine thing to have an anchor! What storms and exercises we may have known! Thank God our anchor will hold—it is fixed in Jesus. It says, “both secure and firm”. It has often been said that the anchor is no use in the ship. It is only of use as it is attached to the ship and is fixed in firm ground. So, beloved, our anchor is “both secure and firm”. Assembly sorrows never upset the position in heaven. God is affected by them in His feelings, but it is fine to enter His presence and get beyond your circumstances and mine, however oppressive they may be, to get into God’s presence where things are “both secure and firm”. Beloved, you have a place inside there. It says He has gone in; we can all understand Jesus going in in the right and glory and worth of His own Person, but I often marvel at the rest of that verse. It says, “Jesus is entered as forerunner for us”. It means that if He is there, you have a place there. We will soon be there eternally in that glory, and we shall see His face unveiled; we will contemplate His glories. But in the meantime you have a place in there that belongs to you. I think there is a need for us to accustom ourselves and get to know that there is a place there for us. You will have exercises; there are still sorrows in the path, but they do not overcome us as we have a sense that our true place is there.
In Hebrews 9: 24 we have that Christ has entered “into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”. The Lord said to the disciples, “Rejoice that your names are written in the heavens”, Luke 10: 20. Not rejoice that you have been successful in your service, or that you have a good local meeting, or that you enjoy things, but “that your names are written in the heavens”. Beloved, they can never be obscured. Your place there does not depend on your state, your place in glory does not depend on how good you are. It depends on the One who has gone in as Forerunner for us. Oh blessed be His name that He maintains things when I break down! He maintains the saints before God in their true dignity when they go astray. Let us get a greater sense that everything depends on Him. Some of us have said that all depended on men and that everything has broken down. If it depended on men all would have broken down long ago. But it depends on Christ, the Man who endured, and from this point of view it depends on Him alone. He has gone in. Other priests, as it says, had to change, but He “has the priesthood unchangeable. Whence also he is able to save completely those who approach by him to God”.
Whatever your burden, “He is able to save completely”. That is not only your sins, not only those acts and offences that you have committed, the guilt of the sinner away from God. He is surely able to save you from that. But I think it refers as well to the sorrows of the testimony. I think it refers to the need for encouragement that there may be. It means He is able to change you. He is able to convert you again. Conversion is just like what we read of in Exodus; they turned away from Egypt. It says, “they turned toward the wilderness”. Now conversion is just like that, and we need it so often—we have to turn—turn from our own way of thinking; turn from our habits; turn even from the ideals we may have, turn to see God’s view, to see Christ installed in His own glory. In type, Joshua and Caleb proved that He was “able to save completely”. What exercises these two men must have known! Not a local meeting, but a whole nation against them, saying the very opposite to what they were saying. They proved that “He is able to save completely those who approach by him to God”.
O, beloved, as I have said, it depends on Christ, not on me. What a Man He is as installed there! It says, “Such a high priest became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and become higher than the heavens”. It has often been said as to man’s affairs that the office confers something on the man, but here is a Man who has gone into the office and conferred a glory upon the office that it never had before. He has the priesthood unchangeable. What a range of glories He has given to it! He has proved Himself worthy of the office. It is not just an act of power, but He has proved Himself so as to win our hearts, to attract us so that we may trust Him. Well, if it all depends on Him, our joy depends on our trusting in Him. For us to come through, for us to have these features of meekness, it depends on our having our anchor in Him. There is a chain that connects the ship to the anchor, and we are responsible to keep those links clear. We are responsible to enter in. It says, “those who approach”. How often do we approach? How often, alas, we may be content to labour at things ourselves, but let us approach. That is another word that Paul uses, “Let us approach”, Heb 10: 22. Let us draw near. Let us turn away from the scene of sorrow to have an impression of a scene of glory.
In Exodus 36 and 37 we find a material that bears the gold, not now a glory that comes in, as it did in Exodus 16, but here we have boards and an ark, both made of acacia wood, and they were overlaid with gold. What was underneath was the acacia wood—these moral features of beauty that God appreciates, and clothes with a glory that is suited to His holy presence—
Like Jesus! Grace supreme!
Like Him before Thy face;
Like Him, to know that glory beam
Unhindered, face to face! (Hymn 72)
These boards had become like that. You would not see in them the sorrows of the testimony; what was prominent at this time was no longer the ability to endure things, but the fact that here that same feature that endured can sustain glory. Think of the saints taking on glory! You know, heaven will be all the more interesting a place with the saints in it. It is full of interest indeed as we think that Jesus is there, but think of the saints also being there! Think of the number of saints there will be! What exercises they will have gone through in time. But they will all be seen in glory—all like Christ.
All like Thee, for Thy glory like Thee, Lord. (Hymn 249)
Let us be encouraged that, as the inward features of the truth are enjoyed and displayed by us, God can clothe with His glory that which is so delightful to His eye. As you went in, all around was glory. Whether it be a board standing on the west or the north, or wherever it was, that board was covered with glory. Well, think of the brethren being covered with glory. The Lord says, “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them”, John 17: 22. Think of Jesus imparting that to suffering saints, to saints who have displayed, in measure, the Man who shines in heaven—acacia wood overlaid with gold.
When we come to the ark it is unique. It was overlaid with pure gold inside and outside. It speaks of Christ, unique as to character and in the glory and worth of His Person. Yet the saints take after His character—the boards are overlaid with gold. Well, beloved, it all makes much of Him. Think of this whole environment; all that is in heaven will be suited to Him. Everything there will be yielding its own tribute of glory and praise to the God who has done these things. May we be attracted to take it on. May we not think that this suffering time is the whole thing. Let us not think of our exercises as the end in view, but be weaned over to God’s side—to see that He is clothing the saints with glory now. We sing—
Where the saints in glory thronging. (Hymn 206)
Think of heaven being full of persons who have come through—a tribute to His own work. The gold had a certain weight about it that had to be borne, and what bears it suitably is the acacia wood.
Well, may we not be discouraged through the present time but may we be encouraged to turn our face to see what God is doing, what He is doing, not outside of us, but in the saints and with the saints. As I said, it will soon issue in a vessel that will be the wonder of the universe, but we are having part in it now; having part in it in our local companies, in our local exercises, household exercises, and daily personal exercises. We are having part in this kind of wood that is going to bear the gold, and is bearing the gold. May we take it on more, for His pleasure.
MALVERN
25th October 1975