THE SERVICE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT LEADING TO CHRIST WHERE HE IS

Genesis 24: 58–62; 1 Kings 10: 1–5; Ephesians 2: 18; 3: 14–18; Revelation 4: 2; 21: 9, 10

CKR We often think of Rebecca’s answer to this question, “Wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go”. It is a very fine result and a fine committal that came with definiteness, but I would like to raise the enquiry that we might look at, where was she going to? She was going with the servant to another realm where she had never been before. She was going to prove the help of the Holy Spirit typically, referred to in the servant, to take her to where, I would like to suggest, is a realm on the other side of death. I wondered whether we could enquire a little to see the tremendous advantage of the service of the Holy Spirit to take us all, as believers, to another realm and to hold our affections and minds there, because it is the realm where Jesus is. This may help us to understand a little more what the Lord says of the Holy Spirit, “He shall glorify me”, John 16: 14. Likewise the Queen of Sheba is a very interesting person. She was one who came to where Solomon was, and was totally taken over in her being and person by Solomon and his wealth. Solomon in Scripture generally refers to Christ glorified, and we could well enquire, Has every one of us made this journey and found for ourselves what Solomon speaks of, the whole heavenly administration of which Christ is the Head and Centre? Then we will begin to understand a bit more, according to Ephesians, that access is in the power of the Spirit to the Father in this realm. I refer to Paul and to John to see that the whole design and intent of the service of the Holy Spirit is clearly to move us from this realm to the realm where Christ is, which is the realm where divine purpose and blessings are. It was really the phrase “access by one Spirit” that I was thinking of in Ephesians 2, and then also, “to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man” in Ephesians 3, in order that we might have this great spiritual capacity to know “what is the breadth and length and depth and height”. As to John, it is quite remarkable in Revelation 4 and also in Revelation 21 that he becomes in the Spirit or is carried away in the Spirit and saw some wonderful things relating to heaven. Hymn 92 has been sung again today and you get a sense of your inward being and affections being moved into the realm of divine purpose. The theme of that hymn is the great truth of Christ and the assembly.

JS It says Isaac was dwelling in the south country, that is where he was and that was where she was going to, was it not?

CKR Yes, so who moved? It was Rebecca with the servant, typical of the Holy Spirit. She followed the man and was taken to the realm where Isaac was. He was a man of leisure in the centre of his own affairs, and the moment of presentation was about to come. This is a type of the experience of the Holy Spirit taking us in our mind and affections to that realm where Jesus is.

JS It is very interesting that when Isaac lifted up his eyes he saw the camels. Do you think that is a suggestion of the power of the Spirit to carry us to where Christ is?

CKR Exactly, and we will not get any other way. We will not get there just based on information. I trust we all understand that we need the service and power of the Holy Spirit to take us to the realm where Jesus is. There is nothing to compare with that!

MGW What would you say about the fact that this is worked out in a family arrangement? That did not work at all, but when they enquired of the maiden, she said, “I will go”. What do you think?

CKR There is something wrought in Rebecca herself. The servant has obviously become attractive to her. I have often thought that at the beginning of Genesis 24, it is Rebecca who is indispensable to the servant, but by the end of the chapter it is the servant who is indispensable to Rebecca. That is very interesting as you go through the chapter, because Rebecca comes on to view and the servant needed her. The focal point of his whole journey was to find this person that met the lineage and the characteristics and so in that sense she became indispensable to him. But then by the end of the chapter the servant is indispensable to her. The only way she is going to get to Isaac is by the service of the servant, who is typical of the Holy Spirit.

JTB(Gr) Do you have some sense of the thoroughness with which the Lord has presented the truth as to the Spirit when He says, “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you”, John 16: 14? The Spirit is the One “who goes forth from with the Father” (John 15: 26), and who became freighted with the Father’s thoughts as to Christ. What could be greater than the Father’s thoughts as to Christ, and what the Father had in mind in view of the satisfaction of Christ. The Spirit’s service was necessary in order that that might be secured.

CKR I think it is of the Lord that in these days we feel constantly led to refer to the Person and service of the Holy Spirit. At Grangemouth last week we considered the gift of the Holy Spirit and the whole transaction involved in that. Rebecca became such that she had full confidence in the servant, and therefore she would go with him. “Wilt thou go with this man?” And she said, “I will go”.

JS She made an enquiry, “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?” The servant said, “That is my master!” That would be in the line of glorifying Christ in the realm where He is, do you think?

CKR Well, have we asked that question? Has every one of us here asked the question, “Who is the man that is walking in the fields to meet us?” Is there something about Christ in His distinctiveness in His own realm that has drawn me? If that is so, that is of the Holy Spirit. It is the service indeed of a divine Person, and He has come with that mission. We need, under the power of the Spirit, to be energised inwardly to ask constantly, “Who is the man?” This brings the distinctiveness and glory of the Lord Jesus before us—there is no one like Him.

GBG The first scripture links very much with your scripture in Ephesians. It says, “Rebecca arose” suggesting that she was strengthened by power; she was, in type, “strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”. She had not seen Isaac, but she had confidence in the Spirit that He is able to quicken her affections in relation to this glorious Person.

CKR The strengthening power of the Holy Spirit is not natural; we are not promoting a religion, but are talking about something that is very much at the secret of the whole operation of divine Persons in this dispensation. The Holy Spirit is moving hearts and souls that have been redeemed and covered by the gospel, not to leave them in this scene, but to take them to another scene; to take them inwardly in their minds and affections to find a bond together in the realm where Jesus is.

GBG And what underlies this must be our individual relations with the Spirit, do you think? We just do not jump into this on a Lord’s day, do we?

CKR Well that is why I read it, as to the two types of individuals in Genesis 24 and 1 Kings 10. One is probably a development of the other, but it is true that every one of us here ought to be showing these Rebecca-type features, that we have some understanding of the presentation of the truth of the Spirit and the greatness and glory of these things. Our lives have been affected, and our inward beings and minds are beginning to appreciate more and more as we receive of the treasure of the master that is under His hand. We grasp a lot of these things, but now is the time for energy to come forward and go in the Spirit. Really, we cannot be restrained. We are proving the liberty of the Holy Spirit that we are attached to Christ in glory.

WMP We really move on this principle in the Lord’s supper, do we? Faith has been referred to, faith in the Spirit. Help us about our journey being spiritual, which must be a matter that involves what is inward.

CKR Physically we do not leave our seats, but actually in mind and affections we have moved to where Christ is. Is that not what we find? It is there to be experienced by us more than ever because of the service of the Holy Spirit, who helps us to rise above burdens, weaknesses and concerns, because Christ fills our view.

JAW You have referred to the gold and silver items. Is that what we gather up during the week. I feel the weight of that because what we gather up during the week is what colours our response on Lord’s day, does it not?

CKR Quite so, because we are beginning to appreciate what has come to us, and we grasp more of the treasures of the master which include such truths as redemption, justification, reconciliation and the fellowship. All these are things which we have received and been helped to understand a little. Now all that substance is coming together as we proceed so that the service of God is enriched because Christ is before us.

WMP We just get used to things being on a natural level, but to enter into what is spiritual is the very greatest thing. There is a divine provision for us that we might actually enter into this realm.

JMM The apostle speaks to Timothy about progress being manifest, and I think it is from familiarity with this realm that progress will develop, and then we come back into the ordinary things of life with a different approach. The testimonial scene is enhanced by the experience of the kind that you are seeking to encourage us in. The woman of worth brought her food from afar, and on another occasion a man came from Baal-shalishah with fresh ears of corn (2 Kings 4: 42).

CKR That is right. In essence you could say the result of this whole experience. Rebecca goes into becoming a wife, and she goes into all the experiences of life that relates to that in Genesis 25 onwards. She gives her own characteristics and her own glory, but I think some of the substance was involved in that because it says of Rebecca that she loved what God loved and that was all so necessary. I do think that we do need some impress of this if we are going to seek grace to work out, in our ordinary relationships of life, things according to this character, and not according to man’s standard or the standard that is all round about us.

JMM Let us not forget that the Spirit of God is speaking, even in times such as these, and there is still the opportunity for the overcomer to hear what the Spirit has to say to the assemblies.

CKR Yes, these are great comforts and the Holy Spirit’s service will have a glorious conclusion, and is to have that with every one of us. If you look round this room there are generations coming through, younger men and women, who have heard the gospel and received Christ and have the Holy Spirit. What we are talking about is the filling out of these matters for the blessing and encouragement of every one and for the divine pleasure.

APG I was thinking about the experience that Jacob had. He moved to be where Joseph was but the transport was provided, that is the waggons. “And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beer-sheba; and he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac”, Genesis 46: 1. That is the realm beyond death, is it not.

CKR I like the touch in that section at the end of Genesis 45 when Israel says, “It is enough—Joseph my son is yet alive; I will go and see him before I die”. What a wonderful matter when an ageing soul, who had been through so much, and whom God had in mind for blessing, yet when he saw the waggons his spirit revived and he is convicted and assured that Joseph his son is yet alive. I trust that there may be a touch in every one of us in this occasion that Christ is alive and glorified. Such matters we can attribute to the service of the Holy Spirit.

GBG Is the Spirit every bit as fervent in His commission now as He was at the beginning of this dispensation?

CKR I think that is well worth repeating and asserting that it is so; He is a divine Person. The Spirit’s service is not affected by any measure in which Laodicea is in evidence, indeed it cannot be. Yesterday, we had reference to the oil in Matthew 25—there was nothing wrong with the oil. The oil itself was pure; it was the protection and care given to it that was the test.

GBG Mr James Taylor said in relation to John 4 that the Spirit is the self-acting power in the believer. Do we really believe that there is a self-acting power in the believer? That is a very attractive way of putting it.

CKR I often query with myself if I really appreciate that in this dispensation I am living in is the day of the power of the indwelling Spirit. It was never known in a previous dispensation. The service of the Spirit was in a different character, but the gift of the Spirit affects the inwards of the believer, and this touches what is spiritual. We need to understand that there is something operating in a person (you may not be able to actually put your finger on it) but it is a very real matter and shows itself. The woman in John 4 says, “Sir, give me this water” (John 4: 15). If you look at the beginning of that section, she came out of the city to draw water because she needed satisfaction, but at the end of it she has left her water-pot, and had become a self-fulfilling person with the resource and power of a new source altogether.

JS I wondered if in that way our day by day exercises in relation to the Spirit would lead in this direction. Rebecca had been marked by coming to the well, that was a daily matter, and I wondered if that really prepared her so that she was ready for this further movement?

CKR Quite so, she was ready to go. She was ready to leave her own environment to go to another; am I? Am I proving that? Did I prove a touch of it this morning? I can truly say before the Lord I believe I did. It makes nothing of me but I give thanks for the service of the Holy Spirit inwardly that helps you in these things. I just feel that this is so important, because it is not the length of the experience, but it is the verity and truth of it that matters. To have a spiritual impression to me is an inward matter, an inward experience that captivates for the moment my mind, my affections and my being. I see clearly and experience and enjoy things relating to a glorified Christ and the realm of which He is the Head and Centre.

AMB We had brought before us on Tuesday, the Spirit’s work and guiding and leading and our part is to follow. Rebecca says, “I will go”, and then she follows the man. Do you think these features of readiness to be guided and readiness to follow spring from affection for Christ, and the Spirit can work within such hearts?

CKR Yes, that is the environment. It is like the soil. “That the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts” is the realm of faith in the Spirit that we have referred to. I think that attitude of following is developed with us as under the graces of the Spirit, so that you know you are not developing something just in your own mind, but are responding inwardly in your affections and being to what the Spirit is gently touching and leading you into. It is a gentle service, but it is a special service!

JS The Queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon and she was prepared to follow that up and take a journey. She was exercised to do that. Do you think that a report may come to us by way of ministry, but then do we just leave it there or do we follow it up?

CKR I think Rebecca and the Queen of Sheba are two excellent examples of the way to make progress in divine things. Have we ever followed up a report? Have we ever followed up an impression? Most of us might say we wished we had followed up much more the impressions that we have received. Let us do this more from here forward.

MGW It is a very wonderful time, is it not, when, after perhaps a long time of the happy enjoyment of the truth and its terms and all its different facets, suddenly by the Spirit you have a real experience of the Lord in all His blessedness coming before your soul, and you are never the same after touching that realm. Could I just add that true happiness is in such experiences. Your whole world has changed from all the terms and phrases of the truth that I can carry in my mind as something has gone deep into my soul by the Spirit. This must and does produce change.

CKR What is it that holds me in fellowship? Why do I come to the Lord’s supper week after week? Am I just filling some ritual, or am I just staying in fellowship to please my family and because of all my marital links, or have I pursued and have some real sense of the greatness of the true Solomon? There has been, in the recovery, great light and help given by the Holy Spirit on the place of a glorified Christ, and the realm according to divine purpose of which He is the Head and Centre, and the great truth of the assembly as being a vessel on which so much from God has been deposited; we should enjoy more of the substance of this by the Spirit. So the Queen of Sheba goes to Solomon and sees certain things including his wisdom, the house that he had built, the food of his table, the deportment of his servants, the order of service of his attendants, and the ascent by which he went up. This is all typical of the realm where Christ is the Head and Centre.

WMP Before that, there is the precious thought she spoke to him of all that was in her heart. You are raising questions with us about reality, so have I ever been in the Lord’s presence and just spoken to Him in that way? Do you think that might be one of the secrets that you have spoken about that would lead us into the gain of what is spiritual?

CKR Yes, I think all these remarks that have been made are for our profit and learning. We say life is very busy and there is not a spare minute, but what about the need for some quiet moments with the Lord Jesus, to follow up and to really grasp the greatness and glory of the realm that is beyond commerce and beyond everything of the family side altogether. There is such a realm, beloved brethren. I trust we are all proving more than ever that such things do exist.

PB I just wondered whether you could help us as to the fact that “there was not a thing hidden from the king”. Do we have to be careful how we speak and how we move?

CKR Yes. He knows everything because He is a divine Person. It is good when you begin to have confidence in Christ, and understand that He knows everything. In Revelation, how often the Lord says to the seven assemblies, “I know”. He knows everything, but in all of that He loves us through everything. The Queen of Sheba was increasing in her confidence and in her knowledge as the glory of Solomon was opening up before her, so that he was going to be greater than any other person in her life.

JTB(Gr) At the present time we see these precious features of Christ in the local assembly, do we not?

CKR We have different localities represented here of different sizes but then you find these features also among the local companies everywhere.

APG The word was that she came to hear of the wisdom of Solomon. It was what he had made known to her from his own words. That must be very precious as coming from Christ now.

CKR We trust we would have a sense of that as gathered. It involves His headship now to the assembly, that His words are being made known by the Spirit so that there is something received. She would value the words that were spoken, would she not?

APG Is that really what sustains us? It is what comes from Christ.

CKR That is right. We are not told what the Lord said to Mary in Luke 10 but she sat there adoringly listening to the words. We are not told what the words were but she would not forget them. She would receive them. The younger ones may say, Well how do I get that? You get it in your local meeting. We may also get a touch individually, but more comes in an occasion like this, or in a preaching, or in some other gathering; just that touch by the Spirit when you feel that the Lord has spoken to you.

RW I was looking at the verse that says, “It was a true report that I heard in mine own land of thine affairs”. When the Spirit is speaking to you, you know it is true. It assures your heart. Often we have been together and we have heard things, and you have read things, but then there is the time when the Spirit is speaking to you and you say, Why did I not see that before?

CKR Quite so. It would be a profitable occasion today if someone had a real sense of it being a true report that came out in the reading that there is a glorified Man in heaven! There is a realm that is worth going to! Actually in the rapture we are going to that realm physically, being translated, but anticipatively now it is a true report. One of the blessings of the Lord’s supper, I have always felt, is that the truth is confirmed in the souls of the saints by experience.

JS That would be involved in the ascent by which he went up. It is a wonderful realm where Christ’s wisdom comes out in all the arrangements. Then the ascent by which he went up is typical of how He would lead us upward in view of the service of God.

CKR And then in Ephesians 2 you go upward and inward, “For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”. Access is a wonderful matter. Paul is bringing out the height and greatness and glory of the heavenly truth and it is for Jew and Gentile. This scripture shows the result and glory of the work of reconciliation with Jew and Gentile formed together into one new Man, and in one body and then “through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”. You imagine what it must have meant for a Jew and a Gentile there together in Ephesus, when they both addressed the Father. What a triumph that is, such disparity on every hand, yet the glorious work of reconciliation has secured this access into the Father’s presence. Paul seems to be indicating that the whole gain of this was access to the Father.

JS This involves the three divine Persons. “Through him”, that is the Lord Jesus, a divine Person who has become Man and become known to us; “by one Spirit”, that is another divine Person, that is the power that you are speaking of; and access to this Person in all His personal greatness, “the Father”.

CKR This is the kernel of the truth of this dispensation. It is good to hear the younger brothers standing up on their feet and addressing the Father. That is the result of this. Do we realise what we are saying? Is our whole being involved in it? Are our intelligence and our affections flowing in the power of the Spirit? Do we realise the dignity it is to stand up and to address the Father? This is not religious observance, but the very heart and core of the maintenance of the service of God in this dispensation.

JS These are real Persons, are They not?

CKR Exactly.

GBG The result of this is in the testimonial aspect in verse 19, “So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints”. We have the one Spirit in relation to the Father, and as a testimonial bearing we are fellow-citizens. There is an outflow from what we enjoy together. If that is real we should get on very well together.

CKR Absolutely. I feel we ought to realise by now that state in a locality is never met by administration. State is met by ministry, and it is ministry at this level that has that effect, if taken on and recognised, that where the service of God and the full height and glory of it is realised and experienced, you are then moving out horizontally into the testimonial area together.

JMM The mind of the Spirit is life and peace. It has practical consequences of the kind we are talking about just now.

CKR Quite. It has great practical consequences. Paul sees the thing functioning in Ephesus. Think of what had transpired there. Look at Acts 19 and see what Ephesus was like before Paul’s ministry came to it, see the greatness and all that marked it as a city, and then consider that in that place Paul was saying to the saints, “Wilt thou go with this man?” And that comes through in the substance and function of the saints that they said really, “I will go”. Paul was drawing the saints into this realm of access to the Father, and the whole domain in which Christ is the Head and Centre.

JTB(Gr) Earlier in the chapter Jew and Gentile are brought nigh by the Christ. There is a moral basis for this. The enmity has been annulled. Every outstanding matter between Jew and Gentile has been annulled, and then you have this wonderful access to the Father. Not only are we fellow-citizens of the saints but we are part of the divine household.

CKR Quite so, and it is going to go on to the millennium by being fitted together and increasing to a holy temple in the Lord—and then to see in chapter 3, “to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man; that the Christ may dwell, through faith, in your hearts”. Think of the full service of the Holy Spirit desiring that the Lord Jesus Christ may dwell, in restful permanency, on the throne of the hearts of the saints.

JS Could you say a word as to why it is the Father’s Spirit that would strengthen us for this?

CKR Well I just wondered whether it flows on from having access to the Father. It is like the Father’s impress. A characteristic of the Father would be His Spirit, “to be strengthened with power by his Spirit in the inner man”. There is a touch of power in it, a touch of pre-eminence, and a touch of glory in it. It just enhances to me the characteristics of the service of the Holy Spirit inwardly in us.

JS I think that is helpful, so we are brought into something of the Father’s appreciation of Christ in this realm of glory. We may have some appreciation, but how much more the Father’s appreciation is, and how He would strengthen us by His Spirit to enjoy that.

CKR So what a privilege it is to bring the glories of the Son before the Father in our thanksgivings, to rise to that, to see, and as the hymn says,

‘And to know the blessed secret

Of His preciousness to Thee’. (Hymn 277)

We are touching the very core of divine affections and the divine arrangement, because the Father loves the Son and the Father will eternally love the Son.

JTB(Gr) Is that why he bows his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?

CKR Quite so. Paul is in prison. Outwardly he is restricted but inwardly he is in absolute liberty. His whole being is expanding as he is touching a realm that to him was so real. We should refer to the Revelation. It is interesting just to mention that in chapter 4, after all the breakdown, there is a voice which says to John, “Come up here”. Then “Immediately I became in the Spirit; and behold, a throne stood in the heaven, and upon the throne one sitting”. John gets a view of the glory of Christ. One aspect of the book closes in chapter 3 and another opens in chapter 4, and as you go into the judicial part of the book of Revelation, the power for understanding it is the Spirit. John is ready by the Spirit for that move upwards so that he sees the heavenly assessment of everything.

WMP It is interesting that where you have read really confirms the direction of travel. It says, “Come up here” and then “he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain”.

CKR Quite so. Now in chapter 21 it says, “Come here, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God”. What matters these are!

AMB The Spirit would always give us God’s view of things. I was just thinking of that reference to the great and high mountain, “and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God”. That was really a view from, speaking carefully, God’s standpoint, but the Spirit showed that to John. I was just wondering if that is a characteristic feature of the Spirit’s service to us that He shows us things from God’s point of view.

CKR Quite so. I notice from experience that people who write hymns such as No. 92, must have had some light and enjoyment of some of this in their own souls to put it into words. These hymns have become a great source of joy amongst the people of God and have been sung for generations.

AMB You have already quoted from Hymn 277,

‘In Thy grace Thou now hast brought us

Sharers of Thy joy to be,

And to know the blessèd secret

Of His preciousness to Thee’.

These words give insight into the very feelings of the Father, give us an appreciation of this by the power of the Spirit. Any question of our need is left behind, and we see by the power of the Spirit that we are there for the glory and satisfaction of the affections of divine Persons.

CKR Quite so. Well, perhaps these things will just encourage us so that we respond, “I will go”. Where was she going to? I trust we can follow in our minds and thoughts that there is a realm to which we can go, under the power and service of the Holy Spirit, and it is for the glory and pleasure of God.

Reading at Dundee
24 September 2006

KEY TO INITIALS

P. Batchelor

G. B. Grant

J. Strachan

A. M. Brown

J. M. Macfarlane

R. Wallace

J. T. Brown (Gr.)

W. Patterson

J. A. Walker

A. P. Grant

C. K. Robinson

M. G. Wood