PROGRESS IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
James Alex Gardiner
On thinking of this meeting I was thinking of how we are getting on in our souls. It is not often that persons ask one another these days as to how you are getting on in your soul. At one time it was quite the normal. Somebody would ask you how you were getting on. It was referred to in the reading, in Timothy, Paul saying he had nobody who would care with genuine feeling how the saints got on. I thought we would look at one or two of these passages in the book of Daniel and see how progress was made, how we grow in our knowledge of God. They are very real and very practical.
The children of Israel were in captivity and the king of Babylon wanted the best to build up his system. I suppose from a natural point of view you could see how there was a certain matter of debilitation with them because Jerusalem had been pretty much starved into surrender and so forth, but now he is taking the best. He wants the best to build up his system, a royal seed, of the nobles, and they have to meet certain standards because Nebuchadnezzar would take them on. He wants them to be conformed to Babylon, or to be conformed to the world, so that there will be no moral evidence of princeliness, or royalty. or nobility according to God in them. They have to make a decision. This is faith. They will be built up in self-confidence and pride, and really manifesting the features of nobility that in themselves may not be evil, but if they are to be governed by them, there is the manifestation of the pride of man, and that is what Babylon consists of. That is the world.
But of Daniel and his three companions - it is very interesting - it says, “he purposed in his heart”, I am not going to go in for this stuff, I am not going to feed upon this kind of food, I want to keep and be maintained in the pure heart, I am going to call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. His three companions agreed with him, they take up that exercise and they are going to work it out, they are going to grow in their knowledge of God. The chief of the eunuchs says you are in danger with the king, you will get me into serious trouble if you do not do this. They make a very reasonable request - let us have a try at this for ten days, see how it goes, we will have pulse and water. The great contrast with the world system and Babylon is the lowly Jesus, very humble fare, as over against the rich and apparently substantial food that Babylon provides, but the pulse and water is far more effective. God is with them in it and power is with them. They find divine support because they look better, they are fairer and fatter in countenance. God gives them intelligence and all that is needed. Let younger persons, but let all of us, think of this. If you commit yourselves like these persons do to what is of God and refuse what is not of God, you will find divine support, you will look differently. It will be evident that God is with you, God is helping you. Without you feel very weak and unable to handle things, but that is good, because it casts you more on God. There is a great need to be dependent upon God. We were speaking in the reading as to walking with God. The man who walked with God before his translation was conscious he had the testimony that he pleased God.
God is going to support this line. It is very remarkable that we have the book of Daniel. The situation is left as they wanted it. It is three or four years and they have to be up to the mark to appear before Nebuchadnezzar. This brings out the superiority of Christianity as it is according to God and the committal of God to such persons to support them and see them through. Where I read, it says, “And Daniel continued unto the first year of king Cyrus”. How wonderful that is. He goes right through the captivity as an overcomer. It is very blessed to look around this room and see persons who have continued. They started off like Daniel and his companions, young persons, young brothers and sisters, now they are old brothers and old sisters, but they have continued and the Lord has been with them and helped. So in every local meeting, at least in every area, there are persons whom we can take account of and in some sense they are models for the flock. They are greatly concerned that they do not pollute themselves with the king’s delicate food, they have taste. You might say they are almost connoisseurs of what is right, morally good and excellent. They have ability to prove the things that are more excellent, a very remarkable statement. There is what is excellent and there is what is more excellent and these men are moving on that line, they are judging, assessing things for God, judging and approving what is more excellent, because they are going to be perfect and complete for Jesus Christ’s day.
The situation goes on and God is going to bring them forward in a most remarkable way. The king has a dream and he asks the most unreasonable thing - how unreasonable can the world be? He wants to know what this dream means. He is not telling anybody what he dreamt, but you have to find out, or else he says he will exercise his absoluteness and rule and he is going to slay whom he would. These persons, all these wise men, all their lives were at risk, in a very delicate situation. These men seemed to go from crisis to crisis, but God delivers them out of all. They could say with Paul, “if God be for us, who against us?” That is the triumph of Christianity, “He who yea spared not His own Son, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things?” These persons are in power, they are able to stand up before Nebuchadnezzar with all his worldly pomp and glory, because they have the knowledge of God. Daniel says to the chief of the bodyguard, we are going to look to God about this. Then he comes to Nebuchadnezzar and says I have the answer to it, and he opens up what Nebuchadnezzar saw. This great image is the times of the nations, the times of the gentiles, the head of gold, the shoulders and chest of silver, belly of brass, legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay. That is where we are at the present time, the days of the iron and clay.
Then there is going to be a stone cut out of the mountains without hands that is going to smite the image in the feet and the whole thing is going to come down, and will blow away as the chaff of the threshing floor. A stone cut out of the mountain without hands is Christ. He is going to come and take up His rights in government in this very world where we are. Then someone may say at this point that we need to be aware that the assembly is not the subject of prophecy. This interpretatively will have to do with the Jew and the dealing publicly with the forces of evil that are under the power of the man of sin. That is that exercise. Daniel has that matter cleared up.
Now what is the next thing with the devil’s side? Nebuchadnezzar, because of this image and because he is the head of gold, he is everything, he thinks he can do as he pleases in the exercise of his absoluteness, and when that happens it can be very testing for persons who want to call upon the Lord out of a pure heart. But, let us not be discouraged, because Nebuchadnezzar - you would never have thought that he was going to be converted - becomes one of the greatest preachers of all times. So he thinks about this image and his greatness, and he says, We are going to build an image and everybody is to bow down at the time when I say and worship this image. Daniel is not to the fore in that chapter, but his companions are and these men are not going to allow themselves to be influenced by what is idolatrous. This is very critical and serious. There are plenty of persons ready to report that they are not recognising the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar. So in a fury he says we are going to have a fire, heat it up seven times more than normal, tie them up in their clothes and throw them into the midst of the fire. He says, if you do not bow down and acknowledge this great image that I have made, this is what is going to happen to you. They say, we are not prepared to compromise, we want to be true to our God, true to our Lord and what is true to Him. Very well then, you have to face the test, and this is a great test, because we are very good at going along with the matters of the truth until the crux comes, until the climax comes in the crisis, and then if the Lord does not give us grace we are going to wilt. There is nothing like that about these men. They are cast into the midst of the fiery furnace. Just imagine this; this was literally happening to them. This will not happen to anybody here, I do not think, but you think of these men, cast in there, and what happens? They are growing in their knowledge of God. The very thing that was meant to be destructive to them and annihilate them becomes the means, under God’s hands, for deliverance. They could get up and walk about in the midst of the fire. What overcomers they are! Somebody else is there. One says, like the Son of God. Somebody else is here in this room this afternoon, and He is speaking to our hearts because He wants us to be maintained in purity of affection for Himself. They are in no hurry to come out of the fire - we can stay in there, it is not damaging us! Can you imagine it! They are supported in principle by the priestly service of Christ, One like the Son of God. The fire was so hot that the persons who threw them into it were consumed by it. Think about what happens in these men’s hearts now! They are walking about in the midst of the fire, perfectly at liberty in the appreciation of this great increased knowledge of God that they have through this experience. Is that not very wonderful?
Nebuchadnezzar is going to walk about in his palace – “is this not the great Babylon that I have built” and so forth - and he has another dream. Daniel explains the dream. He says you are going to be converted by this discipline that is going to come upon you. See the wisdom of God in what He does. This man, Nebuchadnezzar, the whole known world pretty much was under his control. Whom he would he slew and whom he would he kept alive. He could do what he liked, except that he had to recognise that there was a higher than the highest. There is a higher than he. He had to come to it that the heavens rule. That always remains. Mr Darby has a very fine article in the Synopsis on Revelation chapter 1 or 2, ‘God’s ways are behind the scenes, and He moves the scenes that He is behind. Man’s busy movements only accomplish His will, and when they have finished they all pass away. We have peacefully to do His will, and consequently we prove His support’. You can understand, without my saying too much, how these beloved men are growing in their knowledge of God, being confirmed at every step in the path that they have taken to preserve themselves in purity and maintain their vessels as vessels for God’s pleasure and service.
The next thing that Daniel is tested with is his employment. He is one of the top men and probably the best man in the whole of Babylon who maintains the success of the economy, and of course if you are good at your job and you are a Christian, the devil will not let you alone. They begin to be envious of him, they want to get something against him. They come to it that they cannot get anything against him except in his religion. He does not cheat, or cook the books, he is upright, they can never point a finger at him, but they have something about his religion that they might get him that way, which they try to do. Daniel goes on normally, and as is often referred to among the brethren, his windows were open towards Jerusalem, and he kneeled on his knees three times a day. I do not doubt in his heart he was cherishing God’s thoughts of Jerusalem. I think the prophet Jeremiah says, when you are in captivity give it a thought, let it come into your mind, think about it. Think about the city of the great king. How great it is, what is yet to be! That is Daniel’s outlook. We have often heard, right it is, that Daniel had an assembly outlook. They had the situation that the laws of the Medes and Persians could not be changed, they think they have him fixed. There may be persons here who have had that character of experience through envy because they are, may be, better at their work than somebody else, and they want to get you. But then, God is for us, who against us? There is nothing for it, Daniel, but the lions’ den, and it is going to be authoritative because the king is going to seal it, put his stamp upon it. Then the king himself finds that he is in a real corner; he did not want to do it, but pride in the heart of man made him do it. It is very difficult for somebody like that to humble themselves in case they lose face and so forth, because they are concerned about the promotion of the wrong man. Babylon’s food will never help anybody to be humble or teach them how to humble themselves. The Lord expects us to be able to humble ourselves and He is exceedingly gracious and if we are not able to humble ourselves, He comes and gives us a hand to humble ourselves, and that does us a lot of good. Whatever humbles you, as has often been said, does you good.
Here is Daniel in the lions’ den, an impossibility, these ferocious animals, king of beasts. God shuts them up. I would say now he is growing in his knowledge of God. This actually happened to these persons. The devil, the adversary, goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he can devour, and as Peter says, resist him. Bring in the name of Christ, hoist the standard, put out the flag. Mr Lyon used to say as to Buckingham Palace, when the sovereign is there the flag is up and it is very nice to see: it flies better when there is a stiff breeze. You know that you are under different authority, under a different government, and there is the Lord coming in for him. All through the night Daniel is in that lions’ den. The lions would be getting more ferocious, their appetite would be really sharp, but God shuts their mouths. Who, beloved, can stand against God? Hence, the king in the morning, in a mournful voice, wants them out; he is very thankful that Daniel is there. Those who were against him, and this is government - you have seen things happen almost impossibly, you would not think it could happen, and it does happen - these adversaries are put into the lions’ den, and before they hit the bottom of the den they are consumed. We do not want judgment on anybody, but we need to move consciously in the fear of God.
The next point is in chapter 9 – Daniel is exercised about when this captivity is going to be over and in his concern and exercise, he reads books. He read the prophet Jeremiah. How many of us have read Jeremiah and learned about the time of Jacob’s trouble, and what is going to happen? I would appeal now to every younger person here, brothers and sisters alike, learn from the books, engage your hearts with the truth as it has been set up interpretatively. Get the interpretation of it. You will get that from Mr Darby’s Synopsis. You can apply, in the Spirit’s grace, and in other ways, but find out first of all what it means, what is going to happen. When you have that in your soul, then you can steer a straight course and it is important that we read and engage our hearts with what the Lord has given us in the recovery to the truth. As that is so and as we proceed in this line, there is a possibility of gift developing amongst us. Daniel reads these books and finds things out and then he takes it to God in prayer. He is learning, he is going to bear the iniquity of the sanctuary and of the holy things. He is carrying the burden of it before God. Are you exercised, any young man or woman here exercised, that they should have gift from the Lord Jesus? He would be delighted to give you gift and ability in the truth. He will give you the discipline along with it to keep you in order, He is excellent at these things. He knows His business as nobody else knows his business. But you must have desire of heart so that you will be able, should the testimony stay here another, twenty, thirty, forty years, to maintain things at a level at which they have been carried down to us. This is important. You read the books, you find out, and you go to God in prayer, and take the burden of the thing upon yourself. Bearing the iniquity of the sanctuary, the charge of the sanctuary and the holy things belongs to the priesthood, and that includes sisters as well as brothers, so that the testimony and what is proper to it is maintained, and what is proper and in accord with the Lord’s Supper is available to Him every single Lord’s Day. You will find divine approbation. That is very beautiful, the reference to the evening oblation - “flying swiftly”, Gabriel comes to him at the time of the evening oblation. That is the time we are in now.
Now, it says, “greatly beloved”. See how heaven’s affections are drawn out to persons who move in this line and are interested genuinely and deeply, interested and concerned about what God is concerned about. They are not marked by frivolity, neither are they bores either. They are ordinary persons who seek to have their lives regulated by what is due to God and how the Lord Jesus has set things up. They are weak, they come short in all these things and they have deficiencies, but nevertheless God supports these persons because they are genuinely committed to Him. Would you like to have the Lord say, Daniel “greatly beloved”, draw out the heart of heaven; how delightful that is. Then he is instructed in what is to be. These three and a half years have yet to be fulfilled. He is knowing about that, he is getting instruction about that. Do you know anything about that? Sixty-nine weeks up to the time when the Lord came. He was here three and a half years, half of the last week the Jew is not in faith about, but God has the whole matter under His control and He tells that to Daniel. There are certain things that are kept secret, other things God tells him, but God can trust this man. So He says, “you go your way”. We will leave this meeting room, beloved, and we will go our various ways. May we go with the sense of divine approbation and desire that we might be more pleasing to God, more in accord with what He has in mind and what He is working out.
These three and a half years do not belong to the assembly; the time of Jacob’s trouble belongs to Israel. But I say again, it is important that we do not mix up the assembly with what is interpretatively prophetic ministry in the Old Testament, because the assembly is not the subject of prophecy, it is the subject of revelation given to Paul. The Pentecostal situations form the basis of what comes out and it is the same, so beautifully, in the heavenly city.
That is about all I have to say. I think it is very important that the work of God is going to proceed after the assembly is taken. It goes on to say, this will be the end, “many shall be purified and be made white and be refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly and none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand”. How enlightening it is to read of the persons who will be in the remnant in the day to come. What awful persecutions they are going to sustain. We need to be sympathetic with God and sympathetic with these people because their names are on the gates of the heavenly city, the twelve sons of Jacob are there - that we become increasingly sympathetic with God with all that He is going to do, what He has done and what He is going to do, and the scope of His operations right through until the day when the Lord Jesus gives up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father, that God may be all in all.
Beloved, may we be encouraged and seek help from the Lord that we will grow in our knowledge of divine Persons and divine things.
For His Name’s sake.
LONDON
21 September 2000