ACCUMULATION IN VIEW OF SERVING GOD

Paul Devenish

Job 42: 1; 2 Samuel 7: 18,28; Psalm 108: 1-8; 57: 7-11; 60: 6,7; 45: 1,2

Paul speaks about those "upon whom the ends of the ages are come" (1 Cor 10: 11), things having been written for us. So it is a wonderful time that we are in, everything, we might say, flowing into the present moment, the Spirit of God having conserved everything that is precious. Another Psalm speaks thus; "There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God" (Ps 46: 4) – a great river, to which every dispensation, every age, has contributed. I suppose even the praise, the future praise, that awaits for God in Zion, is anticipated in the assembly.

The very expressions of men such as ourselves have been conserved. How often we hear in the service of God the acts,ia l words of Job: "I know that thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine". Indeed it is in one of our hymns, the very expression:

'We thus extol afresh Thy wondrous Name,

And bow before Thy glory all divine.

We worship still, while gladdened hearts exclaim -

"Thou canst be hindered in no thought of Thine!' (No.406)

It is wonderful to think about how the Spirit of God has conserved, brought forward, the precious words reached in the experience of a man who lived supposedly in the time of Abraham. Nothing is lost; he arrived at it through discipline. I suppose we may say the same words just repeating them; I trust not, but rather that we can say "thou canst do everything, and that thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine" through some experience with God, perhaps through discipline. Some of us have lost our families; that is current amongst us, a great sorrow. It is not that we can think of ourselves having the depth of the apostle's feelings but he speaks of himself as having "uninterrupted pain", Rom 9: 2. I suppose that is in some measure a current felt experience. Job is brought step by step; first of all he put his hand upon his mouth – that is a good thing to do – then he comes further, Elihu brings in conviction. Elihu is a remarkable minister, he says I am just like you are, I am a man. He speaks of his terror not making Job afraid. He drew alongside of him sympathetically and affectionately. How much we need to do that, dear brethren, need to help the saints, help one another into the truth. Sympathy and affection enter into any service that is for God; we bear fruit to God.

So Job arrives at this remarkable utterance. He is just a man and a poor failing man who had experienced such discipline in his body and in his family, but the Spirit of God loves these words, and He loves the man who gave voice to them. So that the preciousness of them even now, thousands of years later, is expressed in the service of God. Scripture speaks of "the voice of a man" (Josh 10: 14) which would look on to the voice of Jesus. Never such a Man as He! Never such a voice as His! It is wonderful to me that flowing into this dispensation is the wealth that was reached in a man's soul like Job. It is cumulative, it is brought forward, gathered up you might say in view of the enrichment of God's service. It was something reached through discipline. So if we repeat these wonderful words – and there is no reason why we should not, this remarkable utterance that Job reaches through his experience – I think we would in some degree have to come the same way. He says, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes". He said, "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear" – that may be the case with many of us – but he says, "but now mine eye seeth thee". That is spiritual vision. It is probably so with many of us, that we have heard many things by the hearing of the ear or read many things, but it is wonderful to come to the point in our experience where we can say, "but now mine eye seeth thee". He says, "Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes".

I suggest that we want to value what has gone before which has been reached through the experiences in men such as we are. I wonder if any utterance that we make would be carried forward like Job's, so precious to the Spirit of God that it is current in conversation and the service of praise now. Job would never have anticipated that what he said would be on the lips of those who love God at the present time. So nothing is lost, the Spirit is the One who is conserving everything that is precious.

So with David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. It is remarkable that sweetness is linked with David, not with Solomon. He speaks of himself as "the sweet psalmist of Israel", 2 Sam 23: 1. I do not think Solomon is so much the thought of experience as David is, experience with God. What is linked with David's service is sweetness. Intelligence certainly; 2 Samuel 7 is a remarkable chapter, David in the spirit of sonship sits before Jehovah and says, "thou art that God". Among many other remarkable utterances he says, "Lord Jehovah, thou art that God". We sang that hymn: ‘"Thou art that God" to the ages eternal' (No.129), the very words uttered by one who was a man after God's own heart, and it has been carried forward. So it would encourage us to long to have experience with God and to come to this conclusion, "Thou art that God", and to sit before Him in the spirit of sonship restfully absorbing His great thoughts. You may say, We are so few, things are so splintered, will we be able to continue? what will happen to us? Oh, beloved brethren, we are in the presence of the greatest thoughts that God has conceived for men who love Him, and He is bringing us through experience, through sorrowful experience, having to reach things in our own souls as David did. What experiences David went through! Why does Scripture give us such a life size picture of this man, of his failures as well as his successes? Something was reached in his soul that brought out this remarkable expression of praise in this book: "thou art that God". He had pure motives in this chapter; at the beginning it says, "See now, I dwell in a house of cedars, and the ark of God dwells under curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in thy heart; for Jehovah is with thee". But he came to it that God's thoughts were much greater than his. That is something for us to come to. And he distinguishes God in his service. The Spirit of God brings that forward for our help to see that what David reached we can reach. You say, I have been such a miserable failure. I suppose many of us can say that. But David rose up out of it. I would like to see the brethren rise up out of failure to see the greatness of God's thoughts and to distinguish, to mark out, the God whom David marked out, the same God. We need to come the same way; otherwise we are repeating what someone else said. Such an expression needs to come from the soul. You young people want to think about this. What has been your occupation touching the King? Have you something to say? Psalm 45 is often repeated: "My tongue is the pen of a ready writer". "I say what I have composed" – what has been my occupation – "touching the king". Can you say something because you have been occupied with the Lord Jesus? You can repeat something that others have said, but you want to have your own experience; there is to be a sweetness reached through experience in serving God. In Judges the fig-tree says, "Should I leave my sweetness and my good fruit...?", chap 9: 11. There is something peculiarly delightful about David, the sweet psalmist of Israel. Such sweetness is to enter into the service of God now, sweetness that God can enjoy.

I have read these other scriptures in the Psalms. It is very interesting that the words of Psalm 108 are words selected from Psalms 57 and 60. The Spirit of God takes out of one setting these remarkable utterances of David's and puts them into another setting, takes them out of the setting of history and puts them into the setting of the service of God. You say, They are the same words, why would they be repeated? One is in connection with David historically in relation to the cave of Adullam when he was rejected and the men that were in distress and in debt and embittered came to him and made him a captain over them. That was part of David's history when this Psalm was given utterance to. It is a remarkable Psalm: "My heart is fixed". You say, But David you are in rejection, everybody is against you, Saul is against you, you are going to flee for your life. He said, "My heart is fixed, O God... I will sing, yea, I will sing psalms".

So with Psalm 60, it is something gone through historically, through a happening in David's life, something reached in the knowledge of God in his soul. But then the Spirit of God, as it were, takes these Psalms and puts them together into another setting. I think someone said it was like the re-setting of precious stones. It was a dark setting in which the brilliance shone but the repetition of it is in the setting of glory, a setting of exaltation, a setting that links with the service of God. It is lovely to see, when perhaps coming out of a day at school you felt persecuted because you confessed the name of the Lord Jesus, something rose up in your heart towards God, towards Christ. The Spirit of God says, That is so delightful to Me, I want to bring it into the service of God, I do not want to leave it just in the history of that believer, that young believer, I want that to enrich the service of God. That is a fine thing, what happens in the experiences of the saints. That is what the Psalms mean, a psalm involves experience with God. What happens in the experiences of the saints is to be brought forward by the Spirit of God as most precious to enrich God's service.

Surely we would all desire to have a composition because of having personally been occupied with the King. I suppose two things are very much needed by us; one is what is spontaneous. It is a wonderful thing to bring into the service of God what is spontaneous. You get a sight of the King in His beauty and you cannot sit still, you must express your thoughts as to Christ. I suppose the children in the temple singing Hosannah is just what is spontaneous. In a sense it should be a current experience. Every time we gather in relation to all our meetings, but specially the Lord's supper and the service of God, there should be what is spontaneous when the King comes, when we see His beauty, when we see His glory. It says, We see Jesus, not yet all things put under his feet but we see Jesus crowned with glory and honour (see Heb 2: 9). We are in full concert, we might say, with heaven's delight in that Man. I must give expression to it – something springs up in me spontaneously that fills God's heart with pleasure.

But then there is the thought of composition which is very fine. The part that we take, I believe, should in a sense be a composition involving that we are affected in our souls by the greatness of Christ. Well, Psalm 45 is very interesting; he says, "I say what I have composed" or what has been my occupation. You do not have anything to say unless you have been occupied with Christ. Composition involves rather that something has been accumulated in a way of knowledge and affection for Christ through experience that comes into expression. "I say what I have composed touching the king. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the sons of men; grace is poured into thy lips". Oh, dear brethren, let us read the Scriptures and enjoy them. In one of the Bibles the preface says that if you read so many verses a day, you get through the Bible in a year. That might be a wonderful experience but I do not think It is the most important experience. I think we need to read the Scriptures to enjoy them, just savour them. "Thou art fairer than the sons of men"; think of all the sons of men and he says "Thou art fairer". He discovered that for himself. Have you found that out in your occupation with Christ, that He is fairer than the sons of men? "Grace is poured into thy lips". Enjoy how the Scriptures speak of Him. It says in John 1, "for of his fulness we all have received, and grace upon grace" (v 16). In Luke 4 it says, "And wondered at the words of grace which were coming out of his mouth" (v 22). The psalmist says, "therefore God hath blessed thee for ever"; and goes on to speak of "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre of thy kingdom: Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness; therefore God, thy God, hat anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy com pan ions". These are wonderful words in this Psalm – "Of the sons of Korah. An instruction; – a song of the Beloved". Well, we know what that means, what the background is, what mercy, sovereign mercy, was experienced by the sons of Korah. They are objects of the sovereign mercy of God and so are we. let us through occupation with Christ enjoy the truth, enjoy the Scriptures, enjoy the ministry – read them to enjoy them. I wonder how we read. How readest thou? Do we read it to enjoy it? Philip said to the eunuch, "Dost thou then know what thou art reading of? And he said, How should I then be able unless some one guide me? And he begged Philip to come up and sit with him. And the passage of the scripture which he read was this: He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb in presence of him that shears him, thus he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation his judgment has been taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth. And the eunuch answering Philip said, I pray thee, concerning whom does the prophet say this? of himself or of some other? And Philip, opening his mouth and beginning from that scripture, announced the glad tidings of Jesus to him", Acts 8: 30-35. Just enjoy that scripture, dear brethren, read it to enjoy it. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter.

One would just desire that we may be encouraged at this time, not discouraged, not depressed; it is not a time for depression, it is time to be encouraged that we have come into such a time that all that has gone before is brought forward and is held in current power and reality and sweetness in the hearts of the saints and that we have our own part. May we be encouraged in this time, this peculiarly wonderful time in which we are, that God may find infinite pleasure in the praises of those who love Him.

May it be so in His Name.

NEW YORK

22 ApriI 1989