THINGS SEARCHED OUT
These verses have come to my mind while our brother was speaking and I am waiting on the Lord to grant that we may get a profitable impression.
I believe that what we have read is of the greatest important because we live in a world where evil increases, and it is true that, on the one hand, the truth would give us more clearly as to the thoughts of God concerning the assembly in its heavenly character and holy privileges; on the other hand we can be sure that Satan will not remain inactive and that he will seek to annul the light of this truth in our souls and to introduce among us what will discredit it; and it is therefore important indeed that we remember that God’s government will operate infallibly, for after our conversion we are under this government as much as before. It is what has already been remarked to us, and it is true, dear brethren, it is in the assembly that we see the governmental ways of God manifested the most clearly. God has not yet publicly judged the evil in this world, but He does so in His house as it is said, “For the time of having the judgment t begin from the house of God is come”, 1 Pet 4: 17. Paul, in writing to Timothy also reminds us that “Of some men the sins are manifest beforehand, going before to judgment”, and he adds, “and some also they follow after” (1 Tim 5: 24), as if to insist upon the fact that, whether immediately or later, evil must inevitably be exposed. Then he says, “In like manner good works also are manifest beforehand, and those that are otherwise cannot be hid”, v 25. All this is very solemn and we have to admit the fact that in His house, God takes account of everything and that His judgment and His governmental ways infallibly come to pass, on the one hand to expose evil and to judge it; and on the other hand to recognise the good and reward it.
We can be assured that it is God’s great wisdom that we remain so long in a world of sin. It is the scene of Satan’s attacks against the truth, the gates of hades are opposed by every means and every kind of subtlety suggested by Satan to seek to destroy the testimony of God or to discredit it, but God uses evil even to achieve His ends. It is therefore very important, and on this very account, that the saints are found in a world of evil, for we have to learn there to judge the evil as God Himself judges it, it is a feature that must mark us. It is true that we must
occupy the proper place of the assembly, and it is indeed necessary that we progress in holy discernment and spiritual sensibilities
according to Christ, so that on the one hand we have a horror of evil, as Christ Himself had a horror of it, and on the other hand, we cherish what is good as Christ and God also have. We may think that the standard is very high, but nothing less than that can suit a vessel which is the counterpart of the Man Christ Jesus, a vessel which will be the fulness of Christ, the expression of the glory of God.
And so this Scripture, which consists of certain proverbs valued in a day of recovery, says: “It is the glory of God to conceal a thing; but the glory of kings is to search out a thing”. There is nothing more stimulating than to have some impressions of the greatness of what God is working, in a hidden way it is true, in the saints currently. The world around us cannot take any account of a marvellous vessel, having the divine nature, and spiritual sensibilities, which God is preparing in the midst of evil conditions which surround us in the scene in which we live. But the glory of kings is to search out a thing. If on the one hands God conceals what He is doing, the glory of the saints is to be made intelligent as to His work, for I have not the least doubt that kings in this part of Proverbs refer to the saints in their dignity, and as royal persons, and as those who are destined to reign; as it goes on (we will leave verse 3 on one side for the moment), “… Take away the dross from the silver, and there cometh forth a vessel for the refiner”. This indicates, undoubtedly, that the present service of Christ, His continuing ministry, and His discipline also, God’s discipline, but especially the ministry that the Lord gives us, is all to take away the dross from the silver, and there cometh forth a vessel for the refiner. How attractive that is! To think that the Lord, with patience and perseverance, follows us in all our assembly and individual exercises, and that He does this to take away what is in His eyes represented by the dross, so that a vessel may come forth which corresponds perfectly to Himself.
In order to arrive at this and to be a help to us, the Lord, it seems to me, uses two great means. If we do not respond to His ministry, if we remain deaf to the prophetic word, He will have to bring in discipline and chastisement, for He must reach His end—a vessel for the refiner. Our safety and blessing rests in the fact of having our thoughts on the lines of His own, so that we may discern the end to which He is working, and I see two ways that the Lord
brings in to help us to resist every discouragement, two things suggested by “the heavens for height” and “the earth for depth”; and then it adds “and the heart of kings is unsearchable”. This also contains a solemn warning: if divine things do not satisfy us, there is the danger that we may be offered what will be harmful to us: “the heart of kings is unsearchable”, showing indeed that there is in us, as in kings, a great capacity, a possibility shall we say, as possessing the Spirit of God, that allows us to receive what is of God and to be enlarged by it; but if in the presence of such great thoughts of God we do not allow our hearts to go in for them and be satisfied by them, Satan will not fail to seek to fill the desires of an unsatisfied heart with what would be of him.
The Scripture says, “the heavens for height”, and “the earth for depth”. I think that the Lord would impress us with what is heavenly. The Holy Spirit has been given to us so that we have the possibility of entering into this realm. We have all been given a strong impression of this passage in Romans 8 where it is said, “And if the Spirit of Him that has raised up Jesus from among the dead dwell in us”. How remarkable—When God raised Jesus from among the dead, this showed clearly the great appreciation which he had of Jesus, and at the same time, it showed that He could not approve any other man than Him; it was a selective resurrection, if I may also be allowed to say so. He raised Jesus from among the dead. Jesus was raised by the glory of the Father and set by
God even at His right hand in the heavens. What joy for the heart of God, not only to have Jesus as Man down here, but to receive Him as the risen One, and to set Him in the place which had been reserved for Him before the foundation of the world, having in Him the guarantee of introducing a new order of things, in blessing and in glory, such that what the Father purposed in Himself for His own satisfaction, and to which we have been called by divine grace. Having therefore received the Spirit of Him who has done that, we are made able by the same Spirit to have part in a certain measure in the Father’s thoughts and His feelings as to Christ, capable of understanding a little the delight that He finds in Christ, and also in the kingdom of glory which is seen in Him, a kingdom where the assembly has the first place.
What can be greater than God’s thoughts about us? Thoughts that He has fully revealed in Christ. Stephen, His eyes lifted to heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He saw the Centre of the glory,
He who was to mark Him with His own features, Him to whom He would be conformed and
to whom all are to be conformed; and Stephen, as drawn to Him, became like Him, entirely superior to death, finding his true life in
the scene of glory where Jesus was found. It is such a scene that we are to find our life also. Before long, we will fill this sphere for the pleasure and glory of God, such is the place of those who have taken on features like the features of Christ and who are full of the Spirit.
What a marvellous conception is that of Christ and the assembly, a conception which must have its expression now—a heavenly vessel, capable of serving God, a vessel which holds the ground for Him, for His glory. So it is in Acts 9, immediately after the martyrdom of Stephen, a light shone on Saul of Tarsus, a light coming from heaven. God led him to the light “the heavens for height”. The voice simply said to Saul: “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” The word “me” was enough that the heart of this man was filled by the light of what is heavenly. I desire that this word might have its place in all our hearts. If heavenly things fill them, they cannot fail to have a sanctifying effect on our souls, and to preserve us from evil. It is said in 1 John 3: 2: “Beloved, now are we children of God, and what we shall be has not yet been manifested; we know that if it is manifested we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”. It adds, “And every one that has this hope in him purifies himself, even as he is pure”. So I suggest that “the heavens for height”, that is to say the light of what is heavenly, if we apprehend it in Christ, is one of the means which the Lord would use to carry on His work of purification in our hearts; He brings this light to us so that it makes an impression in our souls.
In Philippians 3: 12, we can see what impression the light had produced on Paul when he says: “I pursue, if also I may get possession of it, seeing that also I have been taken possession of by Christ”; the effect had been such that he had therefore been able to count as filth everything that had previously been a great advantage for him as a man in the flesh, and that on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord.
The light of heavenly things had brought out the greatness of divine grace, the greatness of divine glory, the greatness of divine wisdom; but on the other hand, we have “the earth for depth”. I think that that refers to the depths into which the Lord Jesus had to go: three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The very presence of sin in this world, our being included in this sin, and the necessity for us to be redeemed, all that has furnished the occasion for God to reveal the depths of His love and the love of Christ by His death; the earth has been a witness and that was going to be another means by which the Lord pursues His work of purification. His desire is that our souls and our hearts’ affections should be maintained by the light of the fact that He has been into the depths of death so that every element of evil which is asserted or manifested in our flesh should be judged; and we have in us the power for that. If
we allow ourselves to grasp these marvellous truths relating to the heavens for height and the earth for depth, they will contribute under the control of Christ to His work of purification, a work which is going on at the present time.
And so it says: “Take away the dross from the silver, and there cometh forth a vessel for the refiner”. Once this end is reached, it will be easy for the Lord to “take away the wicked from before the king” and to establish His throne in righteousness; that is the end to which we should look. At present, all this goes on in secret—it is the glory of God to conceal a thing— but has given us to discern this work of God in the saints and to be in full accord with Him in that.
KENNINGTON
12th February 1946
Translated from the French magazine, ‘Ondées’, August 1947