TOUCHING
Norman Henry
Psalm 105: 14, 15; Daniel 8: 15-18; 9: 20-23; Revelation 1: 17-20;
There was a reference at the end of the reading to Daniel which made me think of these two scripture references in Daniel. But, I wish to speak first of all as to the thought of touching. The divine word is, “Touch not mine anointed ones”. God is able to protect His own and maintain His prerogative. In doing so, God always maintains His right to keep in contact with His people. That is a very great encouragement to us that we are not left here without contact with the blessed God and His Christ. It is not just a matter of redemption being accomplished, the power of the world broken in the Red Sea, brought out into the wilderness and left there, but God maintained through His word and as he refers to it here, “anointed ones, and … my prophets”. God maintains His contact with His people. That is a divine provision. I do not know where we would be without it, I do not know how I could be sustained spiritually without divine contact with His people. Our brother referred to the living God. Mr Grant in Dundee used to say, it is living relations with a living God, that is Christianity. “Touch not mine anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm”. He reproved kings, for instance, on behalf of Abraham, for the sake of His people, but He says, “Touch not mine anointed ones”. That is persons who are distinguished, an anointed person is a distinguished person. I think there is only one prophet referred to as anointed – certainly Elijah was told to anoint him – kings were anointed, the priestly family were anointed, (that was the great thought of the anointing), the cleansed leper was anointed – that is precious. The day the leper was cleansed he made his way to the tent of meeting and there was the pronouncement that he was clean and he was anointed and then he walked back through the camp. Think of that man walking back, he would not be cut from the people; the leper was cut off from the midst of the congregation but he walked back and there was anointing. He is now under divine protection. I know the thought was that there was a certain dignity and distinguishment in the anointing – it speaks of the Spirit – but persons were anointed. He would go through the camp and he was marked off. What a difference! That is how we have come in. In the three synoptic gospels, the first touch you will find of the Lord in gospel was that of a leper, He touched a leper. So the leper is going through the camp anointed, and the word is “Touch not mine anointed ones”. The Lord has His own rights over His people and He will not allow persons to infringe these rights; we must understand that.
Thessalonians helps us to respect what is in the brethren, respect and dignity: all the epistles do in some measure. As to the dignity that is due to the brethren, you respect a person whom God has taken up and whatever his view may be, we must always respect him. He says, “Touch not mine anointed ones”. The Lord has that right, it is a prerogative that He has, and I love to think of Him having access. When we sit in the assembly, as Mr. Wigram says, we sit there to be worked on by God. In other words it is not to ‘get through’ the meeting; it might be a very short meeting, I suppose most of the accounts we have must have been very short, brief meetings, but just sufficient to be worked on by God. Mr Wigram says, you read until something strikes you and then lay the book down because God is working. Why should our life not be made like that? Why should I become insensitive?
Balaam was a totally insensitive man, he asked God for the word – God told him not to go and he goes back to see if God had changed His mind. That is insensitive; that is worse, that is lawless. He thought that God might have changed His mind overnight. God had told Him not to go and he goes back, and eventually God says, Go. We know that as he is going along the angel appears to his ass first, and we know what happened on that journey. How insensitive we may be. We are not Balaams, because he died under the hand of Eleazar when he went out in Joshua and Balaam was slain, but how insensitive we can be to the rights that the Lord has to touch us in our affections, in our hearts, our minds, just a touch in the meeting, you would say, it is the Lord.
In resurrection, John said, “It is the Lord”. John is a very sensitive man to the touch of the Lord. In each case the touch was in view of what lies ahead. It gives you an understanding, it settles you and I think in this scripture, when He says, “Touch not mine anointed ones”, He was not only protecting them, but He reserved His right to keep in contact with the anointed ones. That is very blessed. He will see us through and if we are sensitive enough, He will touch us in our affections in every meeting, He will lift you up. You have had a difficult day, you come to meeting and something comes in from the Lord; you know it is from the Lord, you cannot mistake the touch of the Lord. That is what quickening really means. When He touches you it must involve quickening. How can you describe it? Something comes alive in your affections, you feel stretched inwardly, your heart is enlarged, some attachment to Christ as the last Adam, a quickening Spirit. How can that be effective in you and me unless we know the touch of the last Adam? Our bodies will be quickened – that will take place – but in our affections now He says, “Touch not mine anointed ones, and do my prophets no harm”.
My mind went to Daniel – Daniel was in a difficult time, something like our own, because there is a similarity between Daniel’s writings and John in the Revelation and you need this coming in to settle you. You have a touch, in this case it is the angel Gabriel, who is the priestly angel, and he comes to Daniel. Daniel does not understand – as you go through the book you come to the end of verse 14, “then shall the sanctuary be vindicated”. Everything was in ruin and what we have spoken of, the court was given up to the nations, the whole sanctuary was overrun by apostasy; that is what he was facing, the period of time he could not see daybreak. Sometimes in our hearts we do not see daybreak and a touch of Christ comes in to settle you. That is what Gabriel does here, “And he touched me, and set me up where I had stood”. He gives you strength to stand. Daniel was an extraordinary man, a man of deepest regard and feeling. As we know his windows were opened, not that he opened them, but they were open continuously towards Jerusalem and three times a day he prayed. He had kept things before his heart which were according to God, and yet outwardly the place was given up, the gates were ruined, the walls were down, and the whole thing was in terrible break up. What is going to sustain you and me in the face of the break-up in Christendom, the marks of the great house? Are we callous as to it? Do we feel the Lord’s feelings as to the great house? The house of God in 1 Timothy is not the house in 2 Timothy. 2 Timothy is what things have become in man’s hand in responsibility, the great house, vessels to honour, vessels to dishonour, but it settles us, He touches us, this dear Man, “And he touched me, and set me up where I had stood. And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be at the end of the indignation”, it is taken up with all the desolation that takes place. “Until two thousand and three hundred evenings and mornings: then shall the sanctuary be vindicated” (v.14). With the Israelite it is all future, they have not got it yet, there is no restoration yet. What they will have to face in the short period after the rapture and the coming of Christ, the awful things they will have to face, but eventually the sanctuary will be vindicated, things will be established, the tabernacle of David rebuilt. What a time it will be when Christ comes. Blessed anticipation! This man has a touch to help him to stand.
In chapter 9 it has been given – again Gabriel comes, Gabriel is the angel that is used, He “touched me about the time of the evening oblation”. What was being maintained in Daniel’s heart and mind was the morning and evening oblation, he was in keeping with it. It was not maintained in Israel, Israel was at a low ebb at this point, but in persons that were with the Lord they maintained the morning and evening oblation, and that takes place in the households of the saints. Daniel would take it quietly, no doubt he would share things with his three friends, and he would go over things, and at the time of the evening oblation he is entirely with the Lord, entirely with God. It is a good time to be with God to get a touch in your spirit. We need to pray more and be focused in prayer. Sometimes in prayer our minds are apt to be drawn aside to think of other things, maybe even just things, but be focused in prayer that you believe you are speaking to God, to the Lord Jesus or to the Spirit. You have freedom to do that, but address divine Persons and be focused in prayer. I think it is a very important thing.
It says here, “about the time of the evening oblation”. He is presenting things to God, he is confessing “my sin and the sin of my people”, and then he is presenting “my supplication before Jehovah God for the holy mountain of my God”. What feelings that dear man of God had! He felt things deeply, but he is maintaining what is due to God, and it says “at the time of the evening oblation”. It is the time of it; as the evening would come round, the time of the evening oblation, God is to get His portion. Think of the Lamb, the Lamb of the morning, the Lamb at night, still Christ – tender usage of that type of the Lord Jesus – and the great, blessed time that He would secure at the time of the evening oblation, going up to God. It says, “I am now come forth to make thee skilful of understanding”. That is what the touch is for to settle this dear man.
When we come to John in Revelation, it is a new experience for John to see the Lord in this posture. He is in this judgmental attitude. Think of what would be opened up to this man! It has been said he had dealings with these assemblies, and he probably did not realise the extent of the Lord’s feelings as to them, and yet it says here, “when I saw him”, that is Christ, “I fell at his feet as dead; and he laid his right hand upon me”. How blessed! It gave him strength for what lies ahead. Do we not need it? Everything is in His hand. He speaks about the seven stars and the seven lamps; He has everything in His hands. He will deal with the western nations; He will deal with everything on the earth, that is how great this Person is. But to see Him in this posture was new to John. You might say he had known and he had carried forward the wealth, the atmosphere of the bosom of the Lord, but here he sees that He is girt about the breast, he would listen to what the Lord said, and write down what He said about these churches. Some of the conditions which He speaks of may not have been extant at that time, but he gives a dispensational view of the church, conditions of the church that were present, and would be still to come. That is the moral condition of the church in the dispensation, and for that he gives John a touch, “he laid his right hand upon me”. It does not say He took His right hand off him; it is just a touch of support to this man of God. These persons are men of God who have gone before us, “men of like passions” (Acts 14: 15), as was told to Elijah, and this man here, feeling the pressure of things sees the Lord in this guise and knows that He is looking, His eyes were as a flame of fire. John would know the link he had with the Lord, how close he had been, how real the beatings of his heart. It says, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, John 21: 20. He did not lose that sense, he wrote at the end as to the one whom Jesus loved. He was the youngest of the apostles and here he sees him in this guise and He lays His right hand upon him. What a touch that was! Do we not need it? Is that not a prerogative of the Lord to touch our hearts, keep that avenue open? Why should we not place ourselves where He moves, where He acts? We say, Well I am tired tonight, I will not bother going out tonight, it has been a heavy day, but you get there and a touch from the Lord comes into your heart and you know that the Lord is dealing with you. That is how true Christianity is, your link by the Spirit to Christ where He is.
When you come to Jacob in Genesis, Jacob needs a touch with what lies ahead in his horizontal relations. How are you with your brother, with your sister? He gets a touch here; through this exercise he is made a prince. It was a princely action to wrestle with God. It says, “for thou hast wrestled with God, and with men, and hast prevailed”. This man is having to do with God and his name is changed, “he touched the joint of his thigh; and the joint of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated as he wrestled with him”. That remained with Jacob, his natural strength was affected, he appeared different through his relations with God. I think every touch from the Lord makes us different. We might read, we might do a lot of things, but we need relationship with the Lord and here he is touched and he faces his brother, who was incorrigible, you could never change Esau. Esau was always Esau; in fact at the end He says, “Jacob have I loved and Esau have I hated”, that is after the man had proved what he was, but you could not change Esau, but Jacob had to be changed, he could be changed. You cannot change an Esau. Jacob you could change and the Lord used that prerogative He had with Jacob and He changed him, and he was different, “he passed over Peniel, the sun rose upon him; and he limped upon his hip”. It was a new day in his life, the sun rising upon him. He was changed! There is nothing like a touch of Christ. He was changed outwardly, but what a man he was!
Think of that patriarch. There are not many patriarchs in scripture, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – David was a patriarch according to the Acts, but Jacob is a patriarch. Think of the whole expanse of God’s thoughts which he would take up as to Israel. What God would do, the opening up of everything, establishing everything according to His earthly people, all comes out here. This was some change in Jacob himself, he changed to Israel and as Israel he sets forth according to the sovereignty of God. Jacob was a responsible man and like all of us he makes his mistakes, always mistakes, one after another, but as Israel, it is what he is, he is made of God, the sovereign operations of divine grace. I think that comes through in the touch. As you get a touch you get a sense that you are loved by the Lord, and He wants to keep that way open and touch your heart.
I think it is very encouraging that He loves us so much that He continues to touch us in the assembly. I am not saying that He does not touch you otherwise, in family prayer, or your committals, but there is something special in the assembly that gives Him the door open to act in His own prerogative and right to touch His people so that they are ready for what lies ahead. I understand that is what is prophetic, it is not exactly opening up something that is not known before, that is in scripture and has come through in the ministries of the revival, but it is preparing the person. That is what I understand prophetic ministry does, it prepares you and me for what lies ahead. That is why what is prophetic in the meeting is intended to change us so that we are ready for what lies ahead, but it is all because He loves us so much. May we keep in the area of divine prerogative that He can touch our affections and help us to move forward together. For His Name’s sake.
DENTON
6 September 2003