THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
I am impressed with the thought that God intends that we should be brought to the full knowledge of Himself. He not only wants to bring us to Himself, as He said to His people, “Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I have borne you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself”, but He wants us to know Him. There can be nothing greater than the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is sufficient to satisfy us throughout eternity. There must be a fulness in God which is inexhaustible, and therefore it is a stimulating thought to us that God desires that we should be brought to know Him fully, as fully as the Holy Spirit, who is God, can bring the creature to. That there must be a certain limitation attaching to the creature is evident, but at the same time the knowledge that is possible to the creature as indwelt and taught by the Spirit of God must be very great indeed. We are beginning, I think, to come to some sense of that in our actual experience in the exercises of the present time, that is, if, as I trust we are, we are exercised by what we may rightly call the present truth. The truth, of course, is always the truth, but there are certain features of it from time to time that God sees fit specially to emphasise, and the Spirit of God uses the expression in Peter’s second epistle, “the present truth”, to emphasise the importance of paying particular heed to what the Spirit of God is giving special currency to, at any particular moment.
One distinctive feature of the present truth is the place the Holy Spirit of God is to have in our knowledge, in our personal relations, in our communion, and one thing that has to be faced by each one of us, if we are to develop in the knowledge of the Holy Spirit, is that by reason of the fact that He is God, and that He has taken up His abode in us, His presence will necessarily have a searching effect. We must be prepared for that; it is a great thing not to evade it, because His searching is intended to deliver us from all that is unsuitable to God and to confirm us in all that is according to God. It is unmixed blessing that is in mind. Even David, although he lived in a day in which the Holy Spirit was not indwelling as He is today, knew, as this Psalm shows, and as Psalm 51 also shows, the searching character of the presence of God. Indeed, in verse 7 of this Psalm he refers to God’s Spirit. He says, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?” His first reaction to the searching that he was passed through at the time when he wrote this Psalm was that he would fain get away from it if possible. That, I suppose, is a natural reaction with every one of us at the start, but God will encourage us not to adopt such an attitude of mind.
David says, “Jehovah, thou hast searched me and known me. Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising”. What detail he is going into! How he is conscious of the presence of God! If he sat down, God was taking account of his sitting down, and knowing whether he was sitting down with selfindulgence and self-will in mind, and what his motive was in sitting down. When he got up he realised that God was taking account of his getting up. You may say, All this is going to put us into bondage, but it is not, it is to impress upon us that the presence of God is a reality, and that He sees everything. One has thought sometimes of Zacchæus, who sought to take a short cut because he was small in stature. Desiring to arrive at the knowledge of Jesus, who He is, he sought to take a short cut, but we cannot get past the effects of our shortness of stature in divine things by short cuts. The only way to overcome shortness of stature in divine things is to grow; that is a gradual process, and it really results from having Christ before us. So the Lord knew that Zacchæus was genuine in his desires and He said, “Make haste and come down, for to-day I must abide at thy house”. To Zacchæus’ credit he came down and received Him gladly into his house. No doubt it meant a good deal of adjustment to Zacchæus as he had the Lord with him in his house, but on the other hand what a standard he had constantly before his eyes as he saw in great things and small things what the Lord did, and how He did things and how He spoke. He had perfection before his eyes, and without his being aware of it his shortness of stature would gradually disappear. Zacchæus would be gradually growing, without being occupied with his growth, because he had the standard of manhood according to God before his eyes in the Person of Jesus.
Here it is not a question of the Lord coming into our house, but it is a question of the Spirit coming into our body, and dwelling there. How affecting that is, dear brethren! Some of us are beginning to get older now, and some are becoming very frail, and perhaps losing their faculties, but there is one thing we can rely upon, and that is that the Holy Spirit never deserts us. That is a most touching thing for every individual brother and sister to take account of; whatever he may come to, the Spirit of God will remain with us right through to the end.
That being so, we may well accept the exercise that His presence involves, and so, if on the one hand David said, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? and whither flee from thy presence?”. At the end of the Psalm he welcomes God’s presence and His searching. He says., “Search me, O God, and know my heart; prove me, and know my thoughts”. Anyone who has had anything to do with God knows that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. It cannot be trusted, but God can be trusted. Therefore we learn to pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart ... and see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting”. What is “the way everlasting”? It is a way in which we have Christ before us. If it is the wilderness path, it will be Christ as the manna; but we are not always in the wilderness, and then it is a question of following Christ where He is. It leads us out of the natural sphere and into spiritual things. It leads us also to the assembly, where Christ’s interests are concentrated at the present time. Leading “in the way everlasting” is the way that the Spirit of God will lead anyone who is prepared to submit to His searching.
God intends in all these things that we should arrive at a knowledge of Himself; for there can be nothing greater morally than that the creature should know God. So I refer to the two passages in Exodus which deal typically with the earlier experiences of a believer. God’s people had just been brought out of Egypt, and one assumes that we have all been brought out of Egypt. At any rate positionally that is where we are. By the grace of God we have been brought out of Egypt. Egypt is not a type of the world in its grossest features; that is Sodom. It is not a type of the world as marked by man’s glory in the things of God; that is Babylon. It is a type of the world as characteristically marked by independence of God. That is the subtle character of the world. In its detail it may take on different features, catering for every taste of man the most refined tastes are catered for, and the most depraved tastes are catered for. The world is a vast organised system, under the control of the devil, which caters for every taste of man. But the underlying principle of the world, as typified in Egypt, is independence of God. One of the Pharaohs says, “My river is mine own, and I made it for myself”, as though to say, ‘I am entirely independent of God I made my river and I am going to hold it to myself’. That is the character of the world; it is characteristically independent of God, and it intends to find its life independently of God; indeed even in features that in themselves could be regarded as commendable the same principle appears. The whole underlying principle of the world is independence of God. Now God’s thought is to bring His people out of that and deliver them completely from it, and therefore He brought them out into the wilderness in order that they should be entirely without resource in themselves, so that they should find their resources in God. Flesh does not like that; it resents it, but then it is intended to do us good; it is said, “who fed thee in the wilderness with manna ... that he might humble thee ... to do thee good at thy latter end”. The manna is not only food for the wilderness, but there is something of permanent value resulting to our souls through the experience of feeding on manna, and that is that we have acquired knowledge of God. So, as they are brought into the wilderness and they hunger, the question is how their hunger is to be met. It is said in verse 6, “Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, In the evening, then shall ye know that Jehovah has brought you out from the land of Egypt and in the morning, then shall ye see the glory of Jehovah”. In the evening they would see that God had brought them out of Egypt He would give them a display of that same power by which He had brought them out of Egypt. And so He brought up quails and covered the camp, as though to say there is no limit to His power. He could easily exercise His power and bring forth any amount of resource, at any moment, but that is not His way. He would just give them that exhibition of His power, so that they might be in no doubt as to it, but He says, That is not my way. He says, “In the morning ye shall see the glory of Jehovah”; that is something better. The glory of Jehovah known in the soul is real substance, and so in the morning you can understand how they would be saying to themselves, What are we going to see? And it says, “in the morning the dew lay round the camp. And when the dew that lay round it was gone up, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was something fine, granular, fine as hoar frost on the ground”. How different God’s thoughts are from ours! Who would have thought that the glory of Jehovah would take that form for the moment! It meant typically that God Himself was going to enter into the smallness of human circumstances, the very same circumstances through which we have to pass according to God’s will; God Himself in the Person of Jesus was going to enter into those circumstances in order to fill them out in a way that was according to God, so that He might thus become the food of His people in similar circumstances. Who would have thought that we had a God like that—a God who was prepared to come in in such outward smallness! Think of God humbling Himself into circumstances of that sort, because He knew that some of His people would be carpenters, and others of His people would work in similar employment and have similar circumstances and exercises to test them. And so, in order that they might have a standard before them and a satisfying portion for their hearts, God says, I will come into those circumstances, and He did in the Person of Jesus. What glory it is! This is the God that we are to know; our wilderness path is intended to result in our acquiring knowledge of God. We often tend to become restive or discontented in circumstances that arise, but there was never any restiveness or discontent with Jesus. The language of Jesus was, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage”, that was the way in which the Lord took up the pathway that the will of God had appointed Him. There were certain persons in relation to whom He was set, by God’s ordering; they had the position of being parents to Him, and they did not always understand Him, as we may read in Luke 2. All that is intended to be food for our souls, and those conditions that God appointed to Him in obscurity continued for thirty years. At the age of twelve He said to His parents, “did ye not know that I ought to be occupied in my Father’s business?” but, for eighteen years after giving expression to that, He went on contentedly, patiently, in the humble and lowly and unseen circumstances which the will of God had appointed for Him. Why? In order that His people should be formed according to Him on the one hand, formed in manhood that is delightful to God, but in the process of being thus formed should also acquire a knowledge of God. Every saint who goes through life here in any way according to God really goes through it as feeding on Christ. We can well understand that God said that an omer was to be laid up before Him, before the testimony, and in Hebrews 9 we are told that in the ark of the covenant was the golden pot that had the manna. Nowhere else are we told it was a golden pot, but, when the writer of the epistle writes that section, everything is glorious before his eyes—a golden censer, the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold, and the golden pot that had the manna, as though he is filled with the thought of glory. This was what they saw; the glory of the Lord. It was most unexpected, and they said, ‘What is it?’ That is what the word ‘manna’ means—‘What is it?’ They did not know what it was, and Moses said to them, “This is the bread which Jehovah has given you to eat”. We may well contemplate it, dear brethren. It is not only perfection in manhood, in wilderness circumstances, but it is also an expression of the wondrous grace of our God, that God Himself entered into those circumstances, in order, in the Person of Jesus, to become the food of His people.
In chapter 17 it is another test; it is a question of thirst. There was no water for them, no apparent resource; it was a desert land. God says to Moses, “Go on before the people and take with thee of the elders of Israel, and thy staff with which thou didst smite the river”, not there the Red Sea, but the river, the resource of Egypt. Moses had smitten it, showing God’s disapproval of it. That is to be before our minds, how utterly God refuses every idea and principle of independence of Himself; His jealous love abhors the idea. He wants to deliver us from it. So Moses was to take his staff with which he had smitten the river and go, “Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock on Horeb, and thou shalt strike the rock and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink”. Now it is not Christ, it is the Spirit; the first provision is Christ, the second provision is the Spirit. In either case it is God Himself coming in to meet the need of His people, first in Christ, then in the Spirit. Jehovah said to Moses, “I will stand before thee there upon the rock on Horeb”. He was to smite the rock with Jehovah standing on it. Jehovah and the rock really become identified, and indeed in many scriptures God is spoken of as the Rock it means that He is One who can be absolutely depended upon, we can build on the knowledge of God, and so He is the Rock. Think of Christ being smitten in order that we might receive water. It is intended to teach us to value the Spirit. The Spirit of God has been given to us as the result and at the cost of the smiting of Jesus. He could never have been given to us if the Lord Jesus had not borne the judgment due to us; God would never give the Spirit to anyone with his sins upon him. He gives the Spirit to those who put their trust in Christ, in the One who has borne the judgment therefore the Spirit cannot be given except on the basis of the judgment being first borne on our behalf by the Lord Jesus, God Himself in the Person of Christ having entered into the situation in order that we might receive this priceless gift which is ours for eternity. He is the source of all satisfaction, the Holy Spirit of God, but do we value Him?
It is very striking that the devil did not contest the position when the manna was given; there is no suggestion of any enemy challenging the position then, but, as soon as the Spirit typically is given, Amalek comes up. Satan is going to contest the position now, because he knows that, if the Spirit is really appreciated by the saints, they will find satisfaction entirely outside of this world, and they will find power to go through the world according to God, and power to go out of the world and move into God’s world. Satan knows well enough that all that is involved in our really coming to the appreciation of the Spirit of God, and therefore as soon as the water was given Amalek come the position is contested immediately. I believe Satan is sufficiently intelligent to know that, if only the Spirit of God gets His full place among the saints, his power is gone, and therefore he will contest it vehemently. But then the contest is to be taken up. “Choose us men”, Moses says to this young man Joshua. He is not telling him to wait until he is a little older; he is a young man and he is to take up the contest at once. “Choose us men”, he says, “and go out, fight with Amalek; to-morrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the staff of God in my hand”. We know the position, Joshua fighting Amalek down below, Moses on the top of the hill with the staff of God in his hand, and Aaron and Hur supporting Moses, Moses sitting on a stone and Aaron and Hur supporting his hands. The conflict with the flesh and Satan behind the flesh is very real, but then there is a great system of support. The first element in it is Moses with the staff of God in his hand; he represents the authority of God, the authority of the Lord. If the authority of the Lord is weakened in our souls, then things go wrong; that is the meaning, I believe, of Moses’ hands beginning to droop. It is not that there is any weakness in Christ, but there may be weakness on our side, in the authority of the Lord becoming weakened in our souls. If that is so the enemy gets the upper hand, but in order that that might not be so, we have this great system of intercession represented in Aaron—Christ on high interceding on our behalf, and it may be the spiritual among the saints interceding on our behalf too, and the element of purity that Hur represents. So that the hands of Moses were steady. But this second great provision is again God Himself entering into the matter, God in the Person of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, to become the power and satisfaction of His saints.
As we take up these exercises, learning to appreciate the manna, learning to appreciate the Spirit, valuing the Spirit because of the cost at which He has been given to us, there will result permanent substance in our souls in the knowledge of God after the exercises that have given rise to it have ceased for ever. When the wilderness is gone for ever, when Satan is cast into the lake of fire for ever, the substance that we have acquired in our souls in the time of testing and of conflict will remain the blessed knowledge of God will remain as a result of the exercises by means of which we have acquired it.
The passage in Deuteronomy shows that, while the wilderness has its great value as the place of education and formation, it is not God’s final thought; the land is God’s final thought for us. The land is our entrance now in the Spirit’s power into things that are heavenly and eternal and spiritual. The wilderness is a necessary part of God’s ways with us, but the land is what He has in His heart. Scripture speaks of the things that God has prepared for them that love Him. Christ is the Centre of them and we, as of the assembly, are in the very centre of things, as united to Christ and loved by Him. I love to carry in my mind the well-known words of the Lord Jesus, “I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”. It brings home to one’s heart, as I am sure it does to the hearts of the brethren, how absolutely we are bound up with Christ. That is how He regards us, and therefore, if we take account of Christ as the Centre of God’s thoughts, and the Centre of God’s world, we can say that that is where we belong. All these things that are Christ’s belong to us too, as the apostle writing to the Corinthians says, “All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things coming, all are yours and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s”. What a wonderful system of glory and blessing we are bound up with, as united to Christ and loved by Him! So Moses says, “Jehovah thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of waterbrooks, of springs and of deep waters, that gush forth in the valleys and hills”. It is very descriptive language, typical of course, but intended to convey something of the richness and variety of the things that are ours, that are to be known in the Spirit now, and that will be our portion eternally. It speaks of the Spirit-the waterbrooks, the springs, the deep waters—there is depth in things as well as wonderful volume and power and freshness and then it speaks of Christ—a land of wheat and barley—and then it speaks of the saints—vines and fig trees and pomegranates, all suggestive of the wealth that God has for His people in the Spirit, in Christ, and in the saints.
The saints are indispensable to God and indispensable to us. We are to be caught up together. God has raised us up together and made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, and we shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Hence the importance of being together now. The land involves our being together it involves fig trees and pomegranates, pomegranates particularly suggesting the thought of being together, and all this the Spirit of God brings out through Moses in order to incite the people to embrace the idea that God has great things before them. “A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, where thou shalt lack nothing”, and then he said, “And thou shalt eat and be filled and shalt bless Jehovah thy God, for the good land which he hath given thee”. That is the great end, not that we should eat and be filled away from God, not that we should be built up in independence of God, but that we should bless Jehovah our God. That is the great thing, that in all that we are given to enjoy, whether in the way of what Christ and the Spirit are to us in wilderness exercises, or whether it is in the wonderful variety that we enter into in the way of spiritual enjoyment and blessing in the power of the Spirit, the great end to be reached is that we are to bless Jehovah our God. For us it is more than Jehovah; Jehovah was His name of relationship with His people of old, the name that we know is the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. And the more we enjoy what God is as He is made known to us, the more it will result in that blessed Name being abundantly blessed by us.
STOURBRIDGE
January 1955
From Words of Grace and Comfort
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