FEATURES OF SOUL HISTORY
I wish to speak of certain features of soul history, which these scriptures present to us, because normally the life of the believer comprises a good deal of soul history. When I speak of soul history, I mean experiences and exercises by means of which we become led on in the truth.
Now, Abraham is taken up in scripture as a typical believer. He is said to be a father of us all, so that we do well to pay attention to the history of Abraham, just as children in a family naturally look to their fathers, for example, and guidance and instruction. And if the father does anything like what he is intended to be, they would regard him as a kind of model or pattern of what they in due time are to grow up to. So in spiritual things, we may well get gain by paying attention to Abraham and his history. We have, of course, to have Christ constantly before us as the great Model, the great standard of manhood according to God. On the one hand, He is the one in whom the light of God
shines for us. On the other hand, He is the one in whom there is seen in manhood a perfect answer to that light. So on the amount of transfiguration, you will remember, according
to Matthew's gospel, it is said that the face of Jesus shone as the sun and His garments were quite as the light. That is, on the one hand, He was Himself the full light in which God was shining out, His face shone as the sun. On the other hand, He set forth in himself a perfect answer to that light in manhood, for it says that His garments were quite as the light. But while we are always to have Christ personally before us, we may also learn much from the history of Abraham. And in this 14th chapter of Genesis, he is presented as standing apart and indeed living apart from the course of the world that was all around him. Four kings had entered into conflict with the five kings, and the victory had been won by the four kings, and they had carried away Lot captive. But in the midst of those conditions, Abraham was dwelling apart from it, dwelling by the oaks of Mamre. He represents a believer who has in his soul the great stability of the purpose of God, for that is what Mamre, which is Hebron, represents. And as having the light of the purpose of God, he is not affected by changing and disturbing conditions all around him; not that he is unfeeling in regard of them, for having the Spirit of God, we should not be unfeeling, but we are not moved or disturbed by them. There is, of course, much that tends to be disturbing in conditions around, both in the international
sphere and closer at home in local and industrial conditions. And the believer cannot be entirely impervious to those things, but in his soul, he is stable as having his hopes and outlook connected with another world.
I would say to the youngest Christian here, be concerned to have in your mind the purpose of God. You might say, what is the purpose of God? Well, I will tell you one item in it at any rate: “whom He did foreknow”, scripture says—that means every one of us, who are believers, that God foreknew us, He knew us personally, before we had any being. “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate”—that means mark out beforehand—“to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be first born among many brethren”, Rom 8: 29. For that is God's purpose, that He took account of us before we had any being, not in view of the life we ought to live down here during a short space of time, but in relation to eternal conditions in which we are to be like Christ before God in sonship, in the affection and the liberty and the dignity that such a position involves. The youngest Christian can take account of it, but that is God's purpose in regard of him.
Well, now Abraham, as I say, was dwelling in the life of God's purpose, and not only so, but
he had a household. We are told that he had three hundred and eighteen servants trained in his house, three hundred and eighteen of them, trained servants in his house. Now, most of the brethren here, most of the young people here, I suppose, have been brought up in connection with the truth. They know what it is to come under training. If they are subject, they benefit from that. They are instructed in principle for thought of God. It says that the kingdom of God is righteousness, that is what is right, what is practically right in the sight of God. The kingdom of God is “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit”, Rom 14: 17. And as brought up among the saints, you find that you are in a circle or a system of things where there is certain training, where there are certain principles that are of God laid down and maintained. And if I am subject and not rebellious, I get the good of it. I find that it results in prosperity and peace and joy, but not prosperity in relation to material circumstances, although that those who live piously and fear God often are prospered in their circumstances. But it is not prosperity in material
circumstances that God has in mind for us. It is prosperity of soul and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And so, as I say, Abraham had this system, a trained service. There they were, you might say a little world on their own, apart
altogether from the world around them. And that is exactly what the Christian circle is. It is a little world on its own, not taking character from the world that surrounds us, but taking character from God as known in Christ, and enjoying the peace and the joy that belong to the knowledge of God. Well now, in those conditions, Abraham is able to secure the salvation of his brother Lot. But as he returns from the victory, he is met by Melchisedec, a remarkable personage, one who typifies Christ, the Son of God. And I believe he represents Christ as known in the secret way in our souls. Melchisedec is an extraordinary character in scripture, for he is mentioned in this chapter without any introduction. Then we do not hear of him again for centuries. And then in the
110th Psalm, David speaks of him, “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek”, then again we hear nothing more of him for centuries. And then when Paul, if it was Paul, wrote the epistle to the Hebrews, we find that his history is enlarged upon in that epistle. He is, as I say, intended to present Christ to us. But Christ known, you might say, in a kind of secret or mysterious way. And he is said to be priest
of the Most High God, and he brings up bread and wine and says to Abraham, “blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth”. What a salutation for
Abraham. What a surprise it would be to Abraham to hear that he was blessed of the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth. We were speaking this afternoon of our names being written in heaven, and of the Father being the one of whom every family in heaven and earth is named. Do not think that the things of God are small, for they are not. They are very great. Soon we shall see them in their glory and the wonderful expansiveness of them. It is a great thing to get some sense that the Father with whom we have to do is one who names families, some in heaven, some heavenly and some earthly, and that He has given us a place in heaven. He has written our names there. You do not want any honour in this world. You do not want to belong to any worldly fellowship. You do not want to covet any recognition in this world, if you have the sense that your names are written in heaven. And Melchisedec comes to Abraham and says, “blessed be Abraham of the Most High God, possessor of heavens and earth”. But then he adds something further. He says, “and blessed be the Most High God”. As though to say to Abraham, now in the sense that you are yourself blessed by the Most High God, and possessor of heavens and earth, you are in turn to bless God. God wants to be served by the persons that He blesses. And Abraham is given that impression, that he is taken up in a
most remarkable way in order that he might serve the God who has taken him up. Now if we are to serve God acceptably, we must be entirely free of the world and its influences. That was what Melchisedec had in mind. He had in mind that Abraham should be preserved and not come under the influence of the king of Sodom. And his service to him was successful. It says that Abraham gave to Melchisedec the tenth of all. Melchisedec for the moment represented God, whose priest he was, and Abraham gave him the tenth of all, showing that Abraham was now recognising that he was to serve God. And then in the light of that, when the king of Sodom offers Abraham the property, Abraham says he would not take from a thread to a shoe's latchet, from a thread even to a sandal thong, “lest thou should say I have made Abraham rich”. He was quite content to be enriched by God in relation to God's world, and he did not want to have any recognition or enrichment from this world.
Well now that is the first great feature in Christian history, that we should come to it, dear brethren. And this especially applies to us when we're young, because this was early in Abraham's history. He was, I know, a man of something like 86 years at this time, but that was not very old according to the reckoning of age in those days. And in any case, this is what
happened to Abraham early in his spiritual history. It is something really that applies to us when we are young, that God would give us the impression that we are blessed of Him and that, as blessed of Him, He looks that we should serve Him; and that if we are to serve Him, we must be entirely apart from and independent of the world in all its features.
But now in the next chapter, we find that God has told Abraham about what he is to inherit. And Abraham says, “how shall I know that I shall possess it?” How shall I know it? That is, now he is moving on in his soul. He is not content merely with the promises of God, blessed though they are. And one great idea in the thought of promise is that it Is something that you can always fall back upon. Even in your darkest day, so to speak, you can fall back on the promise of God. But then Abraham said, “how shall I know that I shall possess it?” He was not content merely with the light of things, but he wanted the consciousness of things. And God is pleased, I may say, dear brethren, when this kind of exercise arises with us, that we are not content merely with having things in Scripture, however precious that may be, but we want the inward experience and consciousness of them. Not that we are to measure divine things by our experience of them, far be the thought, but on the other hand God intends that
we should have the actual experience and consciousness of them. And so he says, “how shall I know?” Well now, having expressed that desire, God passes him through an extraordinary experience, an experience which was not altogether happy while it was being experienced, but it was an experience that was to result in great enrichment to Abraham. So in answer to his enquiry as to how he should know, God tells him to take me, He says, “take me, a heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtle dove, and a young pigeon”. Take me
these things. You see, God is enforcing the thought of serving him. That is a great matter to keep in mind, that we are to serve God. The great thing to keep that in mind, dear brethren, when we come to the assembly, when we assemble ourselves, especially at the Supper, but other occasions also; all are intended to yield the pressure of God. It will greatly elevate our comings together if we can be helped to keep that in mind. But every occasion of our coming together is intended to yield something for the pressure of God. And so he says, take
me these different creatures, a heifer of three years old, a ram, a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and so on. You
can see what Abraham would do. He would go to his flocks, the substance that God had given
him, what he had in the way of substance. He would have to go to it. He would have to look for a heifer, and when he had found a heifer, he would have to make sure it was three years old, and then he would have to look for a she goat and make sure that it was three years old, and then look for a ram and make sure that it was three years old, and so on. That is, it would mean that he would have to examine carefully the substance that he had got, the substance that God had given him. And having done that, he was through to divide them, or rather, he did divide them. He did it without being told to do it. We read in the first verse of that chapter, “After these things, the word of Jehovah came to Abraham”. And the word of God, if we allow it place, always has a dividing character with us. It's a good thing to submit to the dividing character of the word of God. It says the word of God is “living and operative, and sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the division of soul and spirit, both of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”. And there is not a creature unapparent before him, but all things are naked and laid bare to him with whom we have to do”, Heb 4: 12, 13. That is the character of the word of God. It lays things bare. It makes the finest distinctions. And if we are to make progress in our souls, we must be prepared to submit
ourselves to the fine distinctions that the word of God makes as it applies itself to our consciences and hearts. And so we find that Abraham, as I say, had to examine carefully the substance that God had given him. And then we find that a horror falls upon him, a deep sleep and a horror. And he is told about his seed, being in a land that is not theirs, and having to serve there as bondmen, and being afflicted for four hundred years, and afterwards they should come out with great property. It all describes a certain experience that for the time being is dark and not far from a spirit of bondage, but which eventually results in coming out with great substance. Now that time gets answered in the spiritual experiences that we go through as depicted for us in the sense chapter of the epistle to Romans, the secret in which is that we begin to take account of what there is with us that is evidence of the work of God. You find in your own experience that you would like to do what is right, and you do not find the power for it. You want to live as a Christian ought to live, and you find yourself troubled with all sorts of propensities and all sorts of legal thoughts and all kinds of things of that sort which greet you all the more, and bring home to you your helplessness as in yourself. But then as you go through that chapter, you find that God begins to show you that the very fact that you have
these desires, even though you do not have the power to realise them, is an evidence that there is something there that is of God. The flesh, that is man in flesh apart from any work of God, has no desire after things of God at all. It is entirely unsubject to God, has no capacity to appreciate divine things; and so as you go through that chapter, you find that God shows us that the very fact that there are these desires, there are these exercises, is itself evidence that there is something in you that is the result of God having wrought in you, that there is something there that you can identify as I myself. As Paul says, “I myself with the mind serve God's law but with the flesh, sin's law”, Rom 7: 25. But then somehow or other we are to arrive at it that we are to serve God, and not only with the mind but in actuality, in liberty and power. For the moment with Paul as he reached the end of that chapter, he says, it is just with my mind. And he longed for the power. He said, “who shall deliver me from this body of death?” But there it is. There was the thought with him of serving God.
And so we find that as the sun went down, it says that there was a smoking furnace and a frame of fire which passed between those pieces. And then Jehovah enters into a covenant with Abraham that he will get the whole extent of the territory. From the river Euphrates, it
says—“from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates”, far beyond what they ever went into under Joshua, the whole extent
of the territory, the whole extent of the inheritance was assured to Abraham as the consequence of this experience being gone through. I know that the flaming fire that
passed between those pieces represents God Himself entering into the position. Our God, it says, is a consuming fire, Heb 12: 29. God is
not going to lower the standards of His holiness to accommodate Himself to the flesh. What He has done is that, “having sent his own son in the likeness of flesh of sin and for sin, has condemned in the flesh, in order that the righteousness requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”, Rom 8: 3, 4. His answer to our hopelessness as in the flesh is in the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit of God will
bring home to our hearts that God is not expecting us to be able to do anything in the flesh. He has condemned sin in the flesh. He
has ended the history of the first man vicariously in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. But what He does do is that He gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him, and the Spirit of God will keep the heart engaged with a Man who does the light God, and that is Christ. And He will become the power in us to hold us in our
thoughts and affections in relation to the Man, Christ Jesus. God has brought in Christ, the
Man who is entirely according to His heart in every particular; and that man loves you and
me, and is prepared to direct us. He is prepared to be influence and wisdom and all that we
need. Indeed the Spirit of God as received by us takes the form of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. He becomes the power of an entirely new life which takes its character from Christ and, as held in our hearts in relation to Christ, we find that we are able to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law.
Well that is an immense thing to arrive at that but even that is not the terminus. The ability to fulfil the righteous requirement of the law is not the terminus. It is an important matter, because God is not going to take us to heaven because we have been a failure here—do not think that. What He intends to show is that He has the ability through Christ and in the Spirit to make His people victorious here, so they do not just fail in their responsibilities but fulfil their responsibilities. It is not a people who cannot be trusted to be here that God is going to take to heaven. It is a people who can be trusted to be here and to fill out their responsibilities here and this is the pleasure of God here. It is such that God takes to heaven. Enoch walked with God for three hundred years, day by day, and had the
testimony that he pleased God before he was translated; and that should be our exercise now, dear brethren, because the moment of translation is drawing near, and we want to see to it that we walk with God and get the testimony that we please God. So that He takes us because He loves our company, not because we are failures here. And so that is what this section of Abraham's history illustrates. The way he arrives at the point typically of learning to repudiate the flesh and yield himself to the spirit of God and once that is arrived at there is no limit to what we may arrive at in the Spirit. He is the earnest of our inheritance. He is the power for life, so that responsibility is fulfilled, but He is more than that; He is the Earnest of our inheritance. So when this point is arrived at it serves that God spoke to Abraham that “unto thy seed will I give this land from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river of Euphrates”, and then He mentions no fewer than ten enemies, all of which would be overcome in the power of the Spirit of God. I am referring to it now in its typical bearing. He means then that, once this point is arrived at, there is no reason why there should not be complete victory and a full entrance into all the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
Now that is how we are to know that we shall assess these things, dear brethren, by the Spirit,
and only by the Spirit. Romans 8 from which I have quoted has specially in mind our arriving at the point that we answer to every righteous requirement of the law; and not as under law but as in liberty and power in the Spirit. But the third of John, which is a companion passage, which alludes to the Son of man being lifted up, has in mind that we should receive eternal life. That means that in the power of the Spirit you enter into the inheritance.
Well now in Joshua we come to a further point, which in a sense is somewhat similar in character to what we have been speaking of in Genesis 15, in that there is the thought in it of identifying ourselves in mind with the work of God in us; only than it is in a more advanced way. They were now just on the point of
passing over into the land. The land of God's purpose for us of course lies beyond death. I was saying at the beginning that the purpose of God involves that we are to be conformed to the image of God's Son, that He might be a firstborn among many brethren. That is what God has in mind, sons before him patterned after Christ, like Christ with His Spirit in their hearts, with intelligence derived from the Spirit of Christ. Wonderful conception, that that is what God has taken us up for. Well now that involves the
other side of death. We are not like Christ as to our bodies down here, that is quite clear; but
God has in mind that we should be not only like Christ as to bodily condition but entirely free and that forever from every link with the flesh and all its features. What a prospect that will be. As we discover what we are now in our experience, what awful possibilities of evil that are in the flesh. What a joy it is to look forward to the moment when we shall be forever free of it, forever free of it, never to be troubled with it anymore. But, thank God, we can be in very large measure free of it now, though conscious of its presence, just in the measure in which we are yielded to the Holy Spirit.
Well now, as I say, the people were now on the point of passing over Jordan. They were to go into the land. They had passed the experience of the brazen serpent and typically had come, in singing to the well, to the appreciation of the Spirit of God as always available to them, available to them individually and collectively. I believe the well refers to the Spirit as available to us collectively, because it says, “Assemble the people and I will give them water”, Num 21: 16. But before that, they had come to the appreciation of the Spirit individually, you might say, because it says that every one who was bitten who looked at the serpent lived; he lived, and that involves the Spirit of God known individually. Well now, they had come to the point where they were just about to go over
Jordan to get into the land, and the point was that how were they to get there, and before the third chapter comes in, which presents to us the ark as moving into Jordan and they themselves going into Jordan after it, we find that Joshua sends these two spies. That is, it is all part of
the exercise as to getting over Jordan, getting into the land. He sends these two spies and
when they get there, they find a harlot’s house named Rahab, and they link on with this woman Rahab. She represents the work of God. You might say she had a disreputable history: perfectly true she had, and so have we all had, dear brethren. It is a good thing to come to it. It may be that your history and my history has
not been disreputable publicly. It may be that there has been nothing particularly shameful about our conduct publicly as known by our families and our neighbours, and so on; but in the sight of God, it has been very shameful. There is not one of us but has not had a shameful history when we look at it in the light of God; and Rahab had had a shameful history, but she had come to repentance. She was no longer marked by sin. That is evident by the fact that she had stalks of flax laid out on the roof. That is to say she had laid them out under the sight of God. Whatever she had been in the past, she
was now marked by righteousness. Flax is the base of linen, and linen is the type in scripture
of righteousness, practical righteousness; and there she was, the very beginnings of righteousness were there now in Rahab. Whatever she had been in the past, there she
was now a righteous woman, and she was a righteous woman under the eye of God. She
laid out these stalks of flax on the roof. And
now these spies identify themselves with her. It is a good thing for us to identify ourselves in mind with the work of God in us, not now simply as a matter of how we are to get free from the domination of the flesh, but as reminding us that our portion is in Him, that we belong to Him. If God has wrought in us it is in a heavenly calling. He has not wrought in us in relation to a position down here on earth. We have a certain position provisionally on earth in the ways of God in connection with His testimony here. But at the same time if God has wrought in your soul and mine, He has wrought in our soul in reference to heaven. Let us never forget that that we belong to Him. Our names are written down. The place that Jesus filled in heaven is the place that belongs to us. He says, “I am coming again and will receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be”, John 14: 3. That is the place for us in divine purpose. And it has been committed to Christ to bring the purpose of God to pass and to secure us in relation to it.
And so it is a great incentive to us to desire to pass over, no longer to be detained by the things of earth or the things of nature, but to pass over in spirit in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is a great incentive to us to move on these lines, to identify ourselves in our thoughts with the work of God in us, because that work of God connects us with the scene the other side of death. And that is what the spies did. When they got into the land, they found a woman there. The work
of God was there showing itself. And they identify themselves with it. And she identifies herself with them. And it says that she recognises that both what God had done in drying up the Red Sea, in making a way through the Red Sea. And what they had done to Sihon and Og, which represents the power the believer proves when he comes to recognise the Spirit of God. Sihon, I believe, represents Satan’s effort to overcome us by pressure of circumstances, pressure of certain things. You remember that the people of God simply asked Sihon to be allowed to go through. They asked for nothing else. They said we just want to go through the king's highway. We will go through on our feet. We will pay money for any water that we use, and so on. All we asked to do is to be allowed to get through. And Sihon came out with all his forces, as much as to say you shall not get through. And in the power typically of the
Spirit of God—it was after the brazen serpent and the springing well—they overcame him and took his territory. And that is what those who have the spirit of God know. That is whatever pressure of circumstances comes upon them. There is power in the spirit of God to sustain
you above them. That is what Paul proved in prison. According to the epistle to the Philippians, there he was an old man. And
when we get old we are not as capable of bearing things naturally as we are when we are younger. But there he was an old man, and in prison and wrongfully. And certain brethren added tribulation to his bonds by preaching Christ out of contention. What, you might say, an overwhelming combination of circumstances was brought to bear upon Paul. He asked the prayers of the saints, and he desired the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. His one thought was that Christ should be magnified in him whether by life or by death. And a man like
that, supported by the grace of Christ and the power of the Spirit, could not be overcome.
And he was not overcome. And so that is, I think, what Sihon represents. And Og on the other hand, possibly represent easier circumstances. But also represents I do not doubt that greater enemy, ‘the big I’, as we sometimes say, because of the man the size of whose bed is told us. It represents ‘I’, that
figures so largely in our thoughts and exercises; and the Spirit of God is the only power by which that can be overcome. But they had overcome Sihon and Og. So they had proved the power that they had in the Spirit of God. And they had no thought about it.
And now we read that she let them go, and they tell her that she is to bind the scarlet line that she let them down by in the window. It is called a cord, and it is called a scarlet thread, and then it is called a scarlet line. The thread, I think it has been suggested, conveys the idea of a certain texture, a moral or spiritual texture in that woman as a result of the work of God in her, which has its own distinctiveness; it is a scarlet thread.
Well, all that I have in my mind is this dear version that the spies linked on with that and she linked on with them. They wanted to get over into the land, for the people have got to get over. And when they got there, as a kind of advance guard to speak, they found this woman there;
the work of God was there already and they identify themselves with it. Now I think if you will just work it out in your minds, you will find that that will help greatly in the exercise of passing over. We ought to pass over and I have no doubt we do. We ought to pass over every Lord’s day morning. We come together as in
the wilderness. We come together as in the scene of Christ's rejection, that is the wilderness. And we pass over under the influence of the love of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, to find our part with Christ the other side of death; and to have our happy portion in all those things—those wondrous thoughts—of divine love which the Father has counselled for us.
But it is a great item in our passing over to learn to identify ourselves with the work of God in it. It does in the epistle to the Colossians, “And you, being dead in offences and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has quickened together with him”, Col 2: 13. It is when ye were dead, that is to say no pulsation of life there, and then God has quickened us. The very fact that we love Christ is evidence of it. He has made us to live and that is the work of God in us. But the work of God, as I say, does not have in view our finding our life in things here, but has in view are being able to enter upon the things that lie in His purpose that are connected with Christ the other side of death, things that He has prepared for those who love Him.
Well, I trust I have been able to convey, dear brethren, something about the import is of these incidents we have read, indicating certain stages in soul history. And if we are able to take them
up, I believe they will be for our profit as enabling us in the first place to be separate entirely from this world and to have before us from the outset that we are to serve God as blessed of him; and then the way by which we even arrive at things experimentally, finding power for life in the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, and then finally the power to move over on to the other side where Christ is. The only power for that also lies in the Spirit.
May the Lord bless the word.
LINLITHGOW
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