DIVINE SUSTENANCE FOR TESTIMONY AT THE END
[p. 213] DIVINE SUSTENANCE FOR TESTIMONY AT THE END
Psalm 104:15,16; Genesis 27:26 - 28; Matthew 25:1 - 10; Revelation 22:16, 17
The exercise that I have had in view of this meeting is as to how the assembly is to finish its course, how it is to quit the scene of its testimony — whether it is to leave in corresponding dignity to that in which it began its course in this world. It was set up, as we all know, not only in dignity in the way of position and of title, but in the furnishing from the Lord that was meet for such a dignity and position; “in everything ye are enriched by him”, 1 Corinthians 1:5.
I referred, therefore, to the Psalms, because in the passage read we have God’s provision for man, that is, for man as His representative in the creation. The psalm throughout speaks of God’s wonderful faithfulness in providing for all His creatures, but when the Spirit comes to man, we have provided for him that which should in every way sustain him in the creation as God’s representative. We have wine to gladden his heart, oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart; these three features were intended to set man up so as to represent God in the dignity that was fitting. They contemplate man in redemption rather than man as created. Not that God has surrendered His thought in man in creation, for He has not; God never surrenders any thought of His, but His thoughts find fulfilment only in redemption. Hence in Christ here we have set out the divine thought in man, for Adam was but a figure of Him that was to come. We read nothing about wine in Genesis 1 and 2. We do find it later as the product of Noah’s husbandry; not, however, to bring about a dignified representation of God, but the opposite, alas! It waited for the [p. 214] Lord Jesus to bring out these features in man — a heart gladdened by the wine of God, a face shining with the oil of God, and a manhood that was marked as that bread which came down from heaven, whose meat and drink it was to do the will of Him that sent Him. The thought of God was that that should be continued, that there should be here a representation in keeping with that.
In the gospel of Luke we have developed what Christ was here. At His sepulchre there were two men; we are to have adequate testimony to what shone under God’s eye in Christ — the wine in the Spirit, the oil in the Spirit, and the bread which is the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ — the bread of God which came down from heaven to give His flesh for the life of the world. Thus in verse 15, while we get the divine thought set forth in Christ, in the next verse we get the trees of the Lord spoken of — the testimony here corresponding to Christ. These are not the men of history known to this world. “The trees of Jehovah are satisfied” — for that is how it should read — representing men moving about in this world under the direction of the Lord Jesus, satisfied. The world and its evil have nothing to offer to seduce and attract them; they are satisfied. I have no doubt that in the apostle Paul we have set out this great idea. I touch on it just for a moment so that we may see the great place that man has in the divine thoughts, and that that should be sustained according to those thoughts. The furnishings are ample; we have in the apostle the idea of a man — a Jew, indeed, with all the advantages after the flesh that any Jew could have, but his testimony had reference to the Man Christ Jesus, and his ministry was to build that up in the saints.
So that in writing to the Corinthians, who were influenced by the principles of the world and were walking as men of this world, and who had laid but [p. 215] little hold of the divine idea of the trees of the Lord — of men divinely satisfied and built up after Christ, the apostle has to refer to what he might have kept secret, but which, indeed, should have been known to them in a moral way — for he had been amongst them eighteen months or more — that is, to “a man in Christ” whom he knew. Morally he should have been known amongst them but their measure was according to man in the flesh; “these”, he says, “measuring themselves by themselves ... are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12); that was the standard they had. Paul’s standard was different from that. He apprehended Christ as a Man before God, a Man who spoke to him out of heaven in the Hebrew language, saying, “I am Jesus” Acts 9:5; he laid hold of the divine thought in Christ as He is, so he says, “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”, 2 Corinthians 5:16. It was Christ in another sphere, in another condition. Then later he says, “I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago ... caught up to the third heaven”, 2 Corinthians 12:2. Was ever such a tree in paradise?
Paul, most surely, was one of the trees of Jehovah, satisfied, one of the cedars of Lebanon which He had planted! The paradise of God is to be ornamented with such trees. The tree of life is there in Jesus; but there are to be trees there, and Paul was one of them. He has to refer to that, “I know a man in Christ”. But it is not peculiar to the great apostle; it is the divine thought for every one of us. In the Authorised Version it says, “The trees of the Lord are full of sap”; but that is not the thought exactly, although it is true they are full of life, but they are satisfied in the dignity in which God has set them and they spurn the dignity of this world; they are beyond it. That is the testimony that God intended to be continued here in a moral way in the absence of Christ.
[p. 216] I say in a moral way, for the apostle’s reference to himself in the first epistle was as “the filth of the world ... the offscouring of all things”, 1 Corinthians 4:13. The apostles accepted this; God had set them to be such as in the testimony; it is the corresponding effect of one’s heavenly calling.
Now God has not surrendered His thought. The title — the dignity, is accorded to us, and the supplies are available; the question is, whether we are appropriating this wine, this oil, and this bread; and whether we are to go out as men in Christ characteristically, for how shall we be caught up otherwise? “Caught up to the third heaven”, 2 Corinthians 12:2 he says. God would have it that we should go up in that dignity, and that dignity refers to that place; the corresponding moral dignity is that we are hidden here. We go up in private. The Lord went out of this world publicly by the cross, but He went up into heaven privately, “the world seeth me no more” (John 14:19), and His disciples saw Him no more in this scene, but “this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven [what dignity there was in that], shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven”, Acts 1:11. Shall we appreciate seeing Him come that way, or shall we “be ashamed before him at his coming”? 1 John 2:28.
Now in regard of Jacob, what I want to say is that in him God sets out the idea of “a field”. Jacob is a believer here under the discipline of God; these things run together, as I hope to show. Isaac says to Jacob, “Come near now, and kiss me”. Very few of us — one has to admit it as to oneself — understand divine kissing; it has to be learned. God has to show us the way of it, and He has done it. The father of the prodigal “ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him”, Luke 15:20. I suppose it is, caressingly. As the Holy Spirit comes into our souls He gives us to know the depths of the love expressed in that figure.
[p. 217] It says he fell on the prodigal’s neck and kissed him. Then in Joseph we have typically the kiss of our Lord Jesus Christ; as Paul says, “who loved me, and gave himself for me”, Galatians 2:20. The apostle was made to realise the warmth of the kiss of Christ, and so he enjoins the saints at Rome, at Corinth, and elsewhere to kiss and to kiss holily. We have to begin the path of discipline, the path of testimony for God, with a kiss, or it will grow irksome and we shall become hirelings. It has to be in love, and Isaac says, “Kiss me ... my son”; and as Jacob drew near, Isaac smelled the smell of his raiment. What kind of an odour was it? Not an odour of this world, “The smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed: therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven ... and plenty of corn and wine”.
The idea of a field has a great place in Scripture, but this is a unique reference, and I take it to correspond with Acts 1 and 2. I think Acts 1 is like a field; there was never a field like that before. The Lord had been looking after it; it was the smell of a field which Jehovah had blessed. What wonderful potentialities were in that field! But they should be developed through discipline. We all know the agricultural processes which bring about a desired crop, and so we can understand the history of Jacob. What a brilliant end he had! Would that one could reckon on such an end for oneself, and for the assembly! He went out of this world like the sun in its splendour; he went out at the end of his course worshipping. God had a wonderful crop in that field. Jacob had the mind of God and he worshipped in intelligence. Shall we go out like that, dear brethren? We shall do so only as we understand the supplies.
The supplies which Acts 2 indicates remain; and so, in speaking to Esau later, Isaac goes on to say, “With corn and new wine have I supplied him”. Genesis 27:37.
[p. 218] The supplies were there; the position was great, the mind of God about Jacob was wonderful, but the supplies were equal to it. Thus, as set here in the testimony of God, for that is what Jacob represents, we must come under discipline: “whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth” Hebrews 12:6; but it is to develop His field. He will not be diverted from that; the king himself, we are told, lives by the field; Ecclesiastes 5:9. God will have His crop; hence the discipline which every one of us has to go through. Shall we go through it and come out at the end like Jacob? See the brilliancy, as I said, of his departure! possessed with the mind of God, guiding his hands wittingly, worshipping, and indicating the history of his sons with perfect accuracy from his own knowledge of God and His ways — there is the end that God has in mind for us, as availing ourselves of the corn and the new wine. Jacob was to be sustained with corn and new wine. Those of us who have tasted it and enjoyed it are not wont to say, “The old is better” Luke 5:39; the more one experiences of the divine path, the path of faith, the more one values what is new. Anyone who is given to speaking of old things, unless he speak of the new first, has lost the sense of the new wine.
If we are inclined to say “The old is better”, our speech betrays us. We have not followed, alas, the fresh vigour of what God supplies for His people! I urge upon you the importance of cultivating what is new, not what is novel, but what is new spiritually, what is new according to God, for freshness is what marks God’s activities. “There is a river the streams whereof make glad the city of God”, Psalm 46:4. A river suggests energy and freshness. Thus Jacob was to be sustained with corn and new wine.
Jacob sets forth the saints viewed, not as the “man in Christ”, of whom I have been speaking, although it is a correlative idea, but viewed as under discipline,
[p. 219] and the result of that discipline which involves a crop for God. If God sets out an idea, He does not relinquish it. God’s intent now is to bring to pass that we should go out, as Jacob went out, in brilliancy.
Now in Matthew 25 we have an assembly idea. It is a parable of the kingdom of the heavens, but it refers, as you will observe, to the virgins. We are not now occupied with manhood, or the discipline of God, or the testimony of God exactly, but we are occupied with affection for Christ. Is the assembly to finish her course here as she began it? I think the parable answers in a definite affirmative, and one has great encouragement in it. The number is reduced by one half, but what God looks for is not quantity, but quality. Ten would suggest to us the responsibility attaching to the assembly in her virgin betrothal to Christ. Five brings down the thought to one of weakness, but notwithstanding the weakness, there is the possession of the oil — of that which carries us through. The oil refers to the Holy Spirit as sustaining us as luminous in this world, and He suffices to guide us, and to sustain us to the end. Let us then recognise the Spirit in the fullest and most absolute way. There is enough in the Spirit for us viewed as espoused to Christ; as Paul says, “I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ”. 2 Corinthians 11:2. The Lord lays great store by the espousals: “in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart”, Song of Songs 3:11. But of what value is the espousal unless there be the corresponding affection for Christ? We are now in the presence of what is collective, of the assembly’s proper relation to Christ whilst He is away; are we in accord with the virgin thought, that chastity of love for Christ that refuses the influence of the tempter? “Lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ”. 2 Corinthians 11:3. The Lord would preserve us in simplicity as to Christ; He would bring in the simplicity that marks Himself; as the apostle says to the Colossians, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him”, Colossians 2:6.
Again he says, “I ... beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ”, 2 Corinthians 10:1. We are to have these thoughts in our souls so as to be preserved in simplicity as to Christ, and to be in accord with Him in the power of the Spirit. I believe the epistle to the Colossians is to bring about correspondence with Christ; as ye have received Him. How did they receive Him; how was He presented to them in the gospel? It is thus that we are to walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, for “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily”, Colossians 2:9. All that God is is in Christ; and although we speak of the simplicity in Christ all the fulness of the Godhead, is there bodily. And then we are filled full in Him, so that we need nothing outside of Christ. What spiritual independence the epistle to the Colossians gives the saints! Like Elisha, we, as risen with Him and as quickened with Him, can walk with Him and talk with Him, and in that way we become intimate with the Lord.
The rapture will not be a surprise to those who are accustomed to walk and talk with Christ over Jordan; hence he says, “Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God”. Colossians 3:1 - 3. It will be a question only of change of position; the rapture will be no surprise if we are in entire correspondence with Christ. It is this that sustains us in virgin character here. “And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the Bridegroom!” — that is how it should read; it is not exactly a question of His coming. There are those [p. 221] at the present time who make much of His coming, and surely it is a great subject, but the point here is Himself. And the five wise virgins having oil in their vessels with their lamps, go forth to meet Him, and they enter in; they go the whole way. This is in keeping with Matthew’s way; he shows us the end of things, and how precious is the thought, as having gone forth, to enter in to the marriage! Already the Bridegroom is known in a well-known love, so there will be no surprise with those who, in the truth and reality of Colossians, maintain communion with Him.
The sequel of it all is presented in the last passage read. The Lord says, “I Jesus”. I think He is saying that now. He addressed Himself to Paul in that way, and now He is saying, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches”. What faithfulness! During all these centuries that wonderful ministry has been carried on, judicial indeed though it be, nevertheless to be valued by those who love Him. It is Jesus who does it. The great recovery we are benefiting from now is the fruit of the whole course of His judicial dealings in professing Christendom, and those who love Him know it. And then the love that could add, “I ... have sent mine angel”. Let us not neglect that testimony, the testimony to the seven assemblies that were in Asia; Philadelphia is one of them, and that testimony remains in all its force. The angel, so to say, is witnessing it at the present moment, and the point of all the letters to the assemblies is to be an overcomer; that is the great result. Jacob was an overcomer. God looks for that, and, as the Lord says, “I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches”, love understands. Then He says, “I am the root and offspring of David, and the bright and morning star”. We are now on the threshold of another day; we are in the [p. 222] presence of the root and offspring of David, but we are also in the presence of the bright and morning star, which means the introduction of another day. How it should stir our hearts, dear brethren, that wonderful day of glory, and inspire us to more strenuous devotedness! As He says here, “Let him that heareth say, Come ... and whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely”; that is the maintenance of the attitude of God by those who hear.
Now I want to refer to the word, “and the Spirit and the bride say, Come”. It is not that they should say Come, but they do say it. The Holy Spirit has completed His mission, so to speak. The Comforter — He who has come out to bring the assembly to Christ — has secured her. Wonderful result! What a wonderful triumph! The Lord is, I believe, leading up to it amongst us in the way He is presenting Himself to us; this cry of “Come” is, I believe, audible, and it is how God intends that the assembly shall finish her sojourn here. “The marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready”. Revelation 19:7. That is a subjective readiness. She has made herself ready. And then it says, “To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of the saints”. Revelation 19:8. God has granted her to be arrayed thus.
Pages 223 to 335 — “The Lord’s Movements in Relation to the Assembly”. 1924 (Volume 66).