INWARD FORMATION
A. L. Forrest
Ecclesiastes 11: 5; Psalm 139: 1–16, 23, 24
I have been thinking, beloved brethren, of the work of God in our souls. We often place great store on our knowledge, on what we can take in mentally as to the truth. In doing that I fear we often neglect what is inward, substantial, and vital, as to the work of God. I read the scripture Ecclesiastes because it brings to light something that is very mysterious, and the work of God is like that, it is something that the human mind cannot understand. In a way the human mind can lay hold of the truth and it does exercise itself in relation to the truth; there is really no mystery about that; that is just a question of our intelligence and of our learning, our ability to remember things. I would not discredit in any way the reading of the ministry and the understanding of the truth; we need to attend to that side, particularly younger men and younger women need to have a knowledge of the truth as it has been set out for us in ministry; Paul tells Timothy to give himself to reading.
But what I am concerned about, beloved, is that it does not stop there. I think very often what we take in stops in our minds, but what think the Spirit of God would have with us at the present time is what is inward, what is substantial, what is by the Spirit, and that is mysterious. It says, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit”; there is something mysterious about the Spirit; He has taken no bodily form. He took the form of a dove when He came on Jesus, but there is no bodily form as He is with the saints; there is no tangible expression as to the Person of the Spirit in the way of something that can, be seen; there is a certain mystery about that divine Person that is very wonderful. His power is there; His power can be known; but there is a mystery as to His Person and there is a mystery as to His work, and that relates to every one of us, that where the work of God is there is a certain mystery about it, a certain thing about it that cannot be understood. The human mind cannot relate itself to what the Spirit does inwardly in relation to any one of us in whom He is working.
So it says here, “As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, how the bones grow in the womb of her that is with child”. I just had in mind to draw attention in the scripture to the mystery of the work of the Spirit, the secret side of it. It is what goes on inwardly; it is the way the Spirit works behind the scenes to produce something that is substantial. The idea of the bones refers to what is substantial in the work of God, what is permanent, what cannot be destroyed, and it is a very wonderful thing to think that where the Spirit of God has wrought something with us in this way of inward formation, that can never be destroyed. No matter what the enemy may seek to do with us he cannot destroy the work—of God; he may get us into all sorts of shameful conditions and states but he cannot affect the work of God; that is mysterious and powerful and it is indestructible. I think we want to learn to value what is going on in secret in our hearts. It says, “even so thou knowest not the work of God who maketh all”, so there is something mysterious about that, dear brethren, that even I do not know myself how the work of God develops in my own personality; it is the Work of the Spirit and it develops as we make room for the Spirit. There is nothing of the work of God developed in any one of us without that divine Person.
I think that in the past we have tended to overlook the Spirit and the importance of His labour with every one of us. I am sure the problems of the last twenty years would not have arisen with us as they did if we had known what it was to make room for the Spirit, to let Him have His way with us in producing something that is inward, that is substantial, that is of God, in our souls. If we had learnt what it was to take in the truth and the ministry (through our minds certainly, because it must come that way) but as working things out with the Spirit, then what is secret, what is mysterious, what is substantial for God would have been more formed in our souls.
This psalm refers to the way David makes room for that in his relations with God. I wonder, dear brethren, how deep are our relations with God? How deep are our relations with the Spirit as He operates with us? I have a feeling we tend to be very shallow in our relations with God. I feel, as knowing one’s own experience, the tendency we have to take things in mentally and let them remain there; but David here speaks of the way he was conscious all the time of his relations with God. Wherever he went, whatever he did, he was conscious of God. He says, “Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off; Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways”. I am sure there was not a thing that David did in his personal life, in his own circumstances, but what he was conscious that there was a relation there with God, and I believe, dear brethren, that we want to cultivate that side of things. We want to cultivate surely the side of learning and intelligence—but I think we want to cultivate more and more what it is to work things out with God, as if God was just there all the time, and He is there in the Spirit, forming us and guiding us. David says, “For thou possessed my reins”; you can see the control that the Spirit of God had over David as he developed; as he went through one experience after another he went through it as having a divine Person with him working with him in the way he went through things.
Now the work of the Spirit in a sense is not automatic; I think David gave himself to this. I think, dear brethren, we need to give ourselves more to depth of experience with divine Persons as to every matter of each day. David says, “mine uprising”; when he got up in the morning he would be conscious of God, and when he lay down also. “Thou searchest out my path ... and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways”—I have a feeling that God is more interested in every detail of our lives than we often realize. The very details of the way we live, the way we are in our houses, the way we do our Work, the way the boys and girls are at school, I am sure God is interested in every detail of that; and that is what David sets out in this psalm; wherever he went, whatever he did, God was there, God was in it, and David would make room for that. That is the way David developed, it is the way he grew; it is the way he became a spiritual man, it is the way he became substantial.
I do not suppose Scripture speaks of .a more substantial man than David; he went through deep experiences; he knew what it was to sin most shamefully, but you can see even in that, as we get in other parts of the Scripture, ‘the depths of David’s exercises; he turned everything to spiritual profit. In every experience David went deep. It speaks of a man in the gospels who dug and went deep, and I think that is the secret of David’s power and David’s substance. If there was any exercise, no matter how small it was, he went through it with God. When he was a boy caring for his father’s sheep, and the bear and the lion came, David delivered the sheep. He says, “he arose against me” (see 1 Samuel 17: 35). David would say, ‘I felt the enemy’s power as he turned on me’; David made that a matter of deep exercise, of deep soul searching, that the enemy turned on him, and so he develops power, he learns where his power is; it is in his relations with God, the God who was there all the time; in every detail God was there with him.
David says, “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? and whither flee from thy presence?” You know, the Spirit is with us all the time; He has taken up His residence in us. The Spirit never leaves us; He may be grieved, we may hinder Him, we may not give Him the place that we should give Him, but He is always there. David seems to express that, that you cannot get away from Him; it is a blessed fact, a wondrous fact, dear brethren, that you cannot get away from the presence of the Spirit. His service is to build inwardly, to produce something that relates to the bones, the inwards of a man, the personality, the strength of a man. This is how persons become spiritual; it is not just that the Spirit comes on them; it is that the Spirit has been working away there through a history—and that is something we need to think of, that all of us are making history, making our own histories, and the Spirit would be with us in that. How wonderful it is when we give ourselves to that divine Person so that that history becomes a spiritual history and there is spiritual formation, spiritual substance, with us.
So David says that neither darkness nor Sheol, none of these things can separate him from the Spirit. Some of us got very far away; some of us have been away for a long time; we got lost; but the Spirit of God was always there, and that is why we have been recovered. That was a spiritual experience that some of us have had of being recovered. It is a wonderful thing to be recovered, to be lost for a time and get recovered; that is the work of God, that is the Spirit.
We need to give ourselves to that, beloved brethren; let us make these things a spiritual experience, let us work through them with God; let us work through them with the Spirit and we shall become spiritual substantially.
So David says, “I will praise thee, for I am fearfully, wonderfully made”; there is something very wonderful about the work of God, the mystery of it, the wonder of it. I might not think much about it, but God is thinking about it and the Spirit is there all the time building it up. David continues, “and that my soul knoweth right well. My bones were not hidden from thee when I was made in secret, curiously wrought in the lower parts of the earth”. There is nothing about us, beloved, no thought, no exercise, no circumstance, no feeling, no desire that God does not know about. David says, “Thine eyes did see my .unformed substance”. I suppose there is a suggestion in that of something that is not pleasant, the working through of things, the unformed substance; when there was no form in it God saw it. He was looking at it; He saw what was potential there. He saw what there could be in the power of the Spirit and what He could build, what He could make that would be of Himself, His own work. So it says, “and in thy book all my members were written; during many days were they fashioned, when as yet there was none of them”. I feel, beloved, that we need to give ourselves to this; as I said, we have come through a time that involved much searching, and how much searching we will yet have we do not know. I have a feeling that the time is not going to be easy. I do not think the enemy will leave us long; I think there will be times of searching for us, times of deep exercise; let us make them spiritual experiences, let us work through them with God, maintaining our relations with Him so that we may acquire spiritual substance, that the unformed substance may become formed so that there may be tangible evidence of His work.
Then David says in verse 23, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; prove me, and know my thoughts; And see if there be any grievous way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting”; it is just David opening his heart to God; , there was nothing he kept secret from God, indeed you cannot keep anything secret from God—not even your thoughts. David worked through them with God and he says, “Search me”; think of David speaking about his inwards, speaking about his unformed substance, and then saying to God, Just search me and see if there be any grievous way in me; and, lead me, the way everlasting. I had just that impression, beloved brethren. I think there is something in it for us if we give ourselves to spiritual experience. Certainly read the ministry, learn the truth, but let us get it down into our inwards and work it out through every experience of our lives with the Spirit, that we may be led in the way everlasting.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee
6 May 1980