“THAT WORLD, AND THE RESURRECTION”
J. A. Gardiner
Luke 20: 34–38; Exodus 3: 1–6; Psalm 90: 10–12
There is another world—how thankful we are for that! The Lord Jesus in this section in Luke’s gospel speaks of it as “that world, and the resurrection from among the dead”. It is very comforting to know that our beloved brother is in relation to that world, living to God. It is a great comfort to know that God is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him. We are in the presence of death, and it is a time of great sorrow; it is a time of proving the sympathy and support of the Lord Jesus, and I am sure we are doing that. He would come into these scriptures and comfort our hearts and assure us as to what He has in mind—“that world, and the resurrection from among the dead”.
There are persons in this chapter in Luke who bring out the infidelity of the mind of man, who reason naturally and who can see no further than themselves. But faith counts on God and believes in God. It is related to God’s world, and faith proves that God’s word is true.
Our beloved brother proved that in his pathway here. He proved divine support, proved through his illness that whilst the bush in that sense burned with fire it was not consumed. How wonderful that is—how wonderful the work of God is. Our brother was consciously related to God, the God of the living. Think of the Lord Jesus saying this after all the years that Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had been dead—hundreds of years—yet the Lord Jesus is speaking to these Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection and who completely discredited the word of God, and He says, “But that the dead rise, even Moses showed in the section of the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob; but he is not God of the dead but of the living; for all live for him”, Luke 20: 37. How wonderful that is!
Our brother is in a state of eternal bliss. He knows the ecstasy and the blessedness of that position in the presence of Christ. We are about to bury his body, but he himself in his spirit is with Christ. The Lord Jesus said to the thief, “Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”, Luke 23: 43. What a blessed change from the sufferings that our brother has gone through, to be consciously in the full joy and the full gain and the full blessedness of the love of Christ.
Dear friends, we are in the presence of a great sight. Moses turned aside to see a great sight. We have been privileged to witness a great sight—a Christian superior to all the problems, pressures and difficulties because he was consciously supported by Christ. How wonderful that is! There was nothing unusual about a bush burning in the wilderness—because of the heat they would go up very fast and be consumed, but the marvel is that this bush which Moses saw was not consumed. It is a reference to the saints of God under His hand in discipline and pressure as God forms Christ in them. They are not consumed; they are able to sustain it. How our brother sustained the heat. He gave glory to God as he went through his sufferings. How faithfully he testified of his Saviour right up to the very last moments of his consciousness, testifying as to the blood of Christ. That is marvellous—the bush was not consumed.
We are on holy ground here; we would do well to, be like Moses and take our sandals off our feet; let us be fully conscious that we are on holy ground. We are in the presence of God, in the presence of the Lord’s actings in grace and in discipline. His hand is upon us and we seek to get the gain of that. We should behold this great sight, turn aside to see, give our minds to it, and give thought to it. We should seek the Lord’s presence as to it to get gain and profit from the exercise. May there be growth and fruitfulness with each one of us in the desire of our hearts as we seek to work out in the presence of Christ what He is saying, to us as a result of what has taken place amongst us.
We turn now to Psalm 90. Moses would think about that bush because it represents the history of the children of Israel in the wilderness. It represents God’s dealings with them and His ways with them, bringing out the goodwill of Him who dwelt in the bush (Deuteronomy 33: 16). In this scripture God has come into the history of a soul who appreciates the skill and the wisdom of God and the way that He has moved to sustain His people. God has maintained and will maintain rightly everything that relates to His attributes amongst us here. He maintains the standard of holiness. Moses says here that “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if, by reason of strength, they be fourscore years, yet their pride is labour and vanity, for it is soon cut off, and we fly away”. That all refers to the natural world; it does not refer to “that world, and the resurrection from among the dead”. We should keep that before us, beloved. We should be studious and earnest in our desire to be counted worthy of “that world, and the resurrection from among the dead”. That worthiness does not come about naturally. No man can gain access to “that world, and the resurrection from among the dead” by any natural prowess or natural acquisition. It comes about through faith in Christ. It comes about through accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour. It comes about through accepting and being conscious that in the sight of God we are sinners, lost sinners.
But it comes about through the light of God coming into our souls, that His beloved Son has come and has been made sin for us. We have to do with God about our sins. He presents to us a Saviour. How wonderful that is! The blood of Jesus, as our brother testified to it, is still available to us so that we can come under its shelter. We can come under the shelter of the atoning blood.
That is a feature of moral worth. God acclaims that; He accredits that. Somebody humbles himself, or herself, before God in the acknowledgement of their sinnership and God says that is worthy; thus that person comes under the shelter of the blood of Christ. He would have us all come under the shelter of the blood of Christ, so great is the love of God which He commends to us. Think of God in the greatness of His love seeking, as one has said, to ingratiate Himself with us so that we should really know that His desire and His love are towards us. Is it nor marvellous that He is ready to bring us under the shelter of the Saviour’s blood?
Moses is thinking about us in this passage in the Psalms, even though you are seventy; that is, you might say, the official time limit. Our brother did not reach that. The work of God was mature in him long before that time. Moses says, even if you go on to eighty the natural line is still the same. We should therefore be concerned that we are counted worthy, we should be concerned that there is that about us that is worthy of resurrection. So Moses goes on to say, “Teach us to number our days, that we may acquire a wise heart”. It is wonderful that we can acquire a wise heart. A clean heart, a pure heart, is a creation of God; but as we are concerned about our days—this day, the next day, and the day after that—we are to acquire a wise heart. Then we become serviceable to God in relation to His great system.
The divine system is here in function. That is wonderful to people who are wise-hearted because they are able to help it forward; they are able to contribute conditions; contribute substance, contribute wealth, for the divine abode in such a way that God can dwell there.
You read of wise-hearted persons (Exodus 36: 1), persons that can see that this world can offer them nothing. But God has another world. These wise-hearted people are bringing wealth, and material, they are gathering substance that will go right through into resurrection.
Is it not marvellous, beloved friends and brethren, that there is substance here that will be displayed in a time to come?
May we be helped and encouraged. May our beloved sister be encouraged and may we all be encouraged to find comfort in the word of God. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all live for Him.