"BROUGHT TO GOD"

Robert Taylor

Exodus 19: 3-6; 21: 5, 6; 1 Peter 2: 9, 10

In Exodus 19, God says, I have brought you to Myself; from all that we were as once far off to Himself. It was all His own activities. He took up the children of Israel as slaves in Egypt, to be His own possession. He says, all the earth is Mine, and yet He chose them as He has chosen us. What barriers there were in the way. He says, I have borne you on eagles' wings. What divine power has been exercised on our behalf by God to bring us to Himself. Peter tells us that the Lord Jesus once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (1 Peter 3: 18). He has cleared the ground righteously to bring us to Himself. There is not a power in the universe that can challenge the fact that God has exercised His rights in sovereign mercy to bring us to Himself. It all has found its origin in His own heart of love - there was nothing in us. The Egyptians were, I suppose, in many ways, more wealthy, but God passed over them and chose the Israelites as He has chosen you and me, not only to forgive us our sins - what a wonderful matter that is on the way, bringing out the strength of His love for us, but the great end is to bring us to Himself. I wonder if we have come all the way, dear brethren, to Himself. We appreciate what He has done for us, that our sins are gone, and gone ever more, never to be raised again. That was all part of God bearing them on eagles’ wings. Pharaoh pursued them but he could not touch them. There is much in our own hearts that may hinder us and condemn us. John says, "if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart", 1 John 3: 20. There are those eagles' wings that He has used in power to rise and soar above all the circumstances here. Nothing could hinder those activities of divine mercy and grace to bring us to Himself. All Satan's forces were harnessed against Christ at the cross. Every power and resource that the devil could muster, political power and every other force was there against Christ; the stone rolled against the tomb, sealed with the Roman seal, they were all humiliated by divine power in raising Christ from among the dead, that our faith and hope might be in God. That was how God acted in the superiority of divine power to liberate us, from all that we were in our sins, and from the surroundings of bondage. We would all have some sense of how God has acted for us in simple details of live. I wonder if we appreciate that the heart of God brings us all the way, not only to be forgiven, wonderful fact that it is to be forgiven for our sins; John says that to the little children, "your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake" 1 John 2: 12. That Name and its authority silences every challenge to the fact that your sins, through faith in Christ and His precious, finished work, are for given for His name's sake.

Well, that is on the way, as I have said. God would have much more than that, He wants to bring us to Himself, not only to know what He has done for us "the things that God has prepared for them that love Him" (1 Cor 2: 9). Peter, again says, "the time past is sufficient", 1 Peter 4: 3 - that would be like the "And now " of this section - for the rest of time to be to God's will. So He says, "If ye will hearken to my voice". You know He has a lot more to say to us; not only that thy sins are forgiven for Christ's Name’s sake, blessed relief, but God has a lot more to say to us as we come to Himself. He wants to speak about His dwelling among them in the tabernacle, the great system of which the ark is to be the centre. Not only that Christ once died for our sins, but He lives in relation to a system of praise and blessing where God is served. So He wants to bring us into the divine service; He says, "And now, if ye will hearken to my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then shall ye be my own possession out of all the peoples". What a blessed proposal, "ye shall be my own possession". That is what the Lord would give us a sense of as we appreciate these eagles’ wings, that we belong to Him, we are His possession. And then He brings us into this great system functioning Godward. He has put substance in our souls as we have traced His ways of mercy and wisdom. Paul speaks about that, "O depth of riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable his judgments, and untraceable his ways!" Rom 11: 33. So God would have us to commit ourselves. That is what this section brings in - are we going to commit ourselves to the God who has brought us this way? We stand here now in this moment, "And now", God says, I have done all this, what is your reaction? I think the reaction is in the Hebrew bondman. He says, "I love my master, my wife, and my children". Are we going to be like this Hebrew bondman and say distinctly, "I love my master, my wife, and my children", to be committed to the circumstances into which divine grace has brought us? He says, I love, I will not go free. How many have gone free; they have accepted the blessings of Christianity, the forgiveness of sins and maybe even have come to know the gift of the Spirit, and yet living to themselves, not having understood what it is to be brought to Myself. They have appreciated the relief without coming into the fulness of what divine love has purposed. This man evidently came into the gain and the blessedness of the grace of the divine proposals and those eagles' wings, and when the opportunity came he says, "I will not go free": He wanted to live in the realm of divine blessing. The forgiveness of sins, justification by faith, these things, may I say, stand at the threshold of coming to God. God in justifying us and even in bringing in reconciliation is only preparing us for the house. When the younger son came back to his father, there were those activities outside the house. The father brought out the robe, and the ring and the shoes, and that would be like this; the father brings it out, and the younger son says, I will go in. There he is in the robe and the ring and the shoes, experiencing what the eagles' wings have done in view of knowing the father's heart inside. And that is what this man is saying distinctly, I love, I will not go free; he says, I do not want to live to myself in my own circumstances, my own surroundings, but I want to live in the wealth of what divine love has proposed - "a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation." This man comes into the gain of the great system of the priesthood and into the great environment of serving God in the tabernacle system. It is fine to go in, not only to see the offerings in the court and appreciate the laver - divine provision for us on account of our state and our condition - but to know something of the inside position; the fragrant incense of the golden altar. This man comes into it all through committing himself. He says, I love, I will not go free. I not only appreciate what you have done for me, I want to be near you, your household. God has a household here in the local meeting and He would encourage us to say we are not going to go free. In exercises that come up we are not pleasing ourselves but we are accepting divine regulation in the circumstances and we want to be part of them. That is what this man wanted to do. He could have gone free and had reminiscences about the time and all that the master had done for him, but he would be outside the house. You may say, he committed himself to the fellowship of His Son. The responsibilities of the fellowship he accepted in having his ear bored through with the awl, and the privileges of the fellowship he came into as he says, I will not go free. We have not been called into a formal system of priesthood but we have been called into the fellowship of His Son and we come into the joys and blessedness of it through saying distinctly, I will not go free. How wonderful to appreciate the Master, that we want to be in the circumstances that He has ordered for us in His house. So that man with his ear bored through; wherever he went you would see that he belonged to another. He would demonstrate in the way he lived, where he went, how he did things in his business, and in the home, that he was not pleasing himself. But his circumstances were regulated in relation to the master's house and the laws of that house, because there are certain laws attached to the house of God. Jacob came to a point where he learned that it was best to live in the house of God, not in his own arrangements where he had experienced both prosperity and disappointments, but when Joseph was born, Jacob got a view of another kind of man typically and he says, I have to readjust my life. In principle, Jacob came to have his ear bored through with the awl when Joseph came into his life and he says, I will have to leave these circumstances that I am in. I cannot live here, in the distance, I want to live in the environment and the area of the fellowship in the circumstances that God has ordained. So Jacob arose and took his journey to Bethel, the house of God. What wonderful blessing he came into, though not without exercises, but he came to live in the house of God where the laws of the house regulate his circumstances, not the other way round, but the principles of the fellowship become regulating to him. Think of the Father's pleasure in all who commit themselves to the fellowship of His Son, as well as the joy of the brethren. We are all tested in our lives, in different circumstances. Most of the time I believe we are being tested and we do not know it. The bondman was tested and he knew it and he rose to the test. But there are many circumstances in simple things that come up in our lives that test us and the Father appreciates when we answer to the test. Some of these tests are very severe; the Lord tests His own work and He finds great pleasure in seeing persons rising to the test, not doing it just because the brethren think it is the right thing to do, but He finds great pleasure in hearing a person rising to the test saying, I love, I love my Master and I accept that the arrangements that You have made are the best arrangements for me, and I want to live in them. Peter seeking to encourage the suffering saints in testing circumstances reminds them of what they are. He says, "ye are a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation". God has exercised the prerogatives of His love to enrich us and He would have us to rise to some sense of how He has brought us to Himself as enriched. It says He is bringing many sons to glory (Heb 2: 10), not sinners saved by grace only, precious beginning, but it says He is bringing sons to glory. You can visualise this letter coming into their hands as they were persecuted; some had lost their possessions, separated from their families, mourning the sorrows of the present time as they must have been. Peter says, "Ye are a chosen race". He would lift us above the confusion to have God's thoughts about ourselves. The Holy Spirit would give us this in a real way today, "a chosen race". It is not one company, it is all the redeemed; all the redeemed are chosen, chosen in Him before the world's foundation (Eph 1: 4). How blessed to get some sense of that in your soul. Maybe you are in a day when you feel the sufferings of the present time, the persecutions at work, of men who would ridicule persons who confess the name of Jesus; then the Spirit will give you a sense you are one of a chosen race. God sees these activities of men against the saints and in His own time He will intervene in favour of His elect and He will judge the ungodly. We can leave that to Him as we have a sense of His love as bearing us on eagles' wings and bringing us to Himself. So He would give us amidst these rebuffs to have some sense that we are a chosen race and then a kingly priesthood. He would have us in the midst of all the confusion to put on the festival robes, to enjoy the wealth of His purposes in relation to us - "a people for a possession". How beautiful that is, that God wants to live among His people. That is why He has called us out of Egypt, into the fellowship of His Son, that He might enjoy His saints as enriched and clothed with divine thoughts. So Peter writes that we may enjoy these heavenly things; he says, "that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light; who once were not a people, but now God's people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy." The Lord would just help us that in all the sorrows, and the confusion of breakdown, there is to be some testimony among the saints, but it would go out too to others '1hat ye might set forth the excellencies of him". That is not only praising the Lord Jesus for forgiving us our sins but I think it is appreciating the great wealth and depth of His love - "set forth the excellencies". The people here are in wonderful triumph, great overcomers. They are not only able for the breakdown; they are to be a testimony in their way of life and are able to fill out the service of God; "set forth the excellencies of him who has called you". What a tribute there is in the praises of the saints to the excellencies of Him who has called us. Tomorrow morning, if the Lord will, we will have a fine opportunity for the expression of the excellencies of divine grace and divine love - the excellencies of it. But then it is not only to be in word, it is to be in our lives, I think. There is a certain triumph in the believer that he owes nothing to this world, but in this very world of darkness, strife and confusion he is setting forth the true grace of God. He is setting forth the features of another Man, the Man Christ Jesus. I believe our hearts would be exercised to be setting forth the excellencies, not living in poverty but we are living in the royal apartments, where there is that heavenly food and those heavenly clothes that we are able to come out as princes, here amidst the darkness and the confusion, belonging to the royal household and setting forth the excellencies of Him who has called you. Well, to set forth the excellencies of the royal household we must live in the royal household, we must live in that realm and we must maintain the dignity of what belongs to that household. There is a certain dignity that belongs to persons who are of the household of God. Jacob came to see that and he had his name changed as he was coming to live in the circumstances of the house of God. God passed him through an experience and He says, You are no longer Jacob but you are Israel, a prince of God. So God would enrich us as we come into the house, as we come into the area of the fellowship of His Son. In our manners, our ways, our habits of life there is a tribute and a testimony to the excellencies of Him who has called us out of darkness. The features of darkness no longer apply to saints but they are vessels of light. They are here in the midst of this generation as lights in the world, setting forth His excellencies. They are a tribute to another Man, and to the fact that there is another world with wonderful resources to maintain us here in the joy of our heavenly calling.

May we be encouraged to live in it, to come in as committed in our affections to the Master to prove the wealth and the joy of all that is pervading in the house that we may be here in faith and in the joy of our heavenly calling. For Christ's Name’s sake.

NEW YORK

7 December 1996