GOD'S DWELLING-PLACE
GOD’S DWELLING-PLACE
There are four things spoken of in this psalm: the house, the temple, the pavilion, and the tabernacle — each suggesting its own peculiar blessing and each of the greatest importance to us as saints. We might say that all our blessing is covered by these four things. Sonship is connected with the house; priesthood is connected with the temple; salvation is connected with the pavilion; the privileges of the assembly are connected with the tabernacle.
It is an important question for each of us, What do we really desire and what are we seeking after? We might desire and seek after many things in this world and not get them, but in the divine and spiritual sphere we can have all we want. With spiritual desires there is always certainty of possession: “He satisfieth the longing soul”. God proposes all the blessedness covered by these four things, and here is a soul ready to accept them. Are we prepared to accept them and go in for them with purpose of heart? “One thing have I desired” — that is to have a definite object like Mary — one thing is needful. It is wonderful how we get on when we become persons of one object. We have so many objects, seeking to gratify ourselves in some way or other, but, if the eye is single, the whole body is full of light.
[p. 291] In the house we come into the circle of divine affections. The thought covers the whole system of divine affections; the house is the place of privacy and affection. “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”. Think of one lying in the bosom of the Father in all His affections! That gives one an idea of the house; it is a circle of affection. We read in John 8, the Son abides in the house ever — it is the place of sonship. The servant comes in and out, but the son abides in the circle of affection, and we are called in to contemplate the perfect love of the Father to the Son and of the Son to the Father. All that love has acted for our blessing; it has manifested itself in grace. We are free to abide in the house in the spirit of sonship, in responsive affection to perfect divine love. The house is not only to be visited once or twice, but it is to be a dwelling-place. We are not free with God, we do not come into the house, until we are conscious of perfect divine love. It is the Son who brings us in; we have not earned or deserved anything — that would be the thought of the hired servant — but it is the Son who introduces us into the same relationship with Himself, as He said to Peter in Matthew 17, “For me and thee”.
The revelation has come to us of perfect divine affection. “The Father loves the Son”, and He has put all His thoughts of divine grace into the hands of the Son to give effect to them; the Son has come to carry them out. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them” — that is sonship. Sonship is in the Son of God, and the glory of that relationship seen in a Man is given to us — it is for us to seek to dwell in the region of these affections. The house is a restful place; when we get there we rest. What rest has come in for God in a blessed Man in this world! John bore witness that he had seen the Spirit abide upon Him as a dove. He had never found a resting-place before, but He could come and abide on Jesus. “This is my beloved Son, in whom I have found my delight”. There is rest for the Spirit, and rest for the Father. That blessed One came here to bring us into His own place and [p. 292] relationship with the Father. Do we believe it? I find it difficult to take it in, it is so amazing! Think of coming in to dwell in that circle of perfect and divine affections! Such blessedness throws everything else into the shade.
The house is the home of holy love, so the crown of it all is, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes ... I go to prepare you a place ... I am coming again and shall receive you to myself, that where I am ye also may be” (John 14: 2, 3). That is the consummation of the thought of the house.
“Grace reigns through righteousness” — if we come under the reign of righteousness we have our fruit unto holiness, and that fits us for the house. The kingdom is the sphere of righteousness, and the house of holy love; the Lord would have us perfectly at home in the sphere of holy affections, loved by the Father and by the Son, set in the relationship of sons to the Father. How little we are ready to let it in and to be strengthened by the Spirit of the Father! All this issues in praise. What we see in the house, and learn in the temple and in the pavilion, prepares us for the tabernacle, which is the tent of meeting where all the saints come together. Every bit of divine blessing ought to fit us for coming together in the assembly.
The temple is the place of the holy oracles — “To inquire of him in his temple”. It is the place of divine enquiry; the holy oracles are there; we get God’s mind there. Priesthood is connected with the temple. If one had a question, one could go to the temple and enquire, and get the hardest question solved by divine wisdom. That is the privilege of holy priests. Sons have the freedom of the house, but holy priests of the temple. The freedom of the temple is the privilege of spiritual persons. A priest is what the New Testament calls a spiritual man (1 Corinthians 2: 15); he discerns all things; he is the man of vision.
In connection with the oracle it is the mind of God; not so much to find direction, but to see the mind of God. I should not go into the holiest to know where I am to live — for that I can pray to the Father in the sense of His care and I can ask [p. 293] and get wisdom. But wisdom connected with the temple is the light of God’s mind, of the blessed sphere where all is filled with the glory and blessedness of divine thoughts. God would have us acquainted with His thoughts. We have His heart in His house, and His mind in the temple. The wonderful thing is that we have the divine glory there — a Man is there who is equal to sustaining divine glory and giving effect to every thought in the divine mind. Scientific men for centuries have been investigating God’s matters, seeking to look into His universe, but mind is greater than matter, and we are brought to look into God’s mind.
We have minds as well as hearts. In 1 Corinthians it is a question of the mind — “We have the mind of Christ”, and there is the mind of the Spirit. In Psalm 40 we see the immensity of divine thoughts — “They cannot be reckoned up”. All that is connected with the temple. If we were more exercised to know these thoughts, we should not crave for the literature of the world and say, I must have something to feed my mind — as if God’s things were only enough for the heart! We need to go and enquire in the temple. The devil often steals the saints’ hearts through their minds. There are many interesting and instructive things in the world, and while I am occupied with them I am missing heaps of pure gold, jewels of incorruptible value, which I might be picking up, but instead I am occupied with grains of sand or a few coppers. We want to see the incorruptible excellence of divine things. “How precious are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139: 17). His thoughts cannot be reckoned up, they are more than can be numbered. We enquire in the temple as to all these thoughts. A divine Person came into manhood, and He can carry all these thoughts into effect. We find them in the temple and we can treasure them in our hearts.
In connection with this, one has often the feeling, These things are very precious and great, but I am not capable. That is another exercise; it shows I must be fed. All right strength and state comes through food; we come up to what [p. 294] we are now by faith. We see in John 6 that divine food has come in so that we might grow up to God’s thoughts. One has come down to bring God’s lofty thoughts; He is the bread of life, and as we feed on Him we grow up in spiritual capability to the region of divine thoughts. The reason there is so little movement with us is lack of food. We see in Leviticus the great importance of priestly food. The priests had their part in the offerings; as they fed on them they were qualified for temple service. They had the wave-breast and the heave-shoulder; a man who fed on these would be capable for anything.
The pavilion is the place of salvation; it has to do with the power of evil — in the evil day the saint is hidden. It is the place of safety and protection against all the evil here. Those who have been in the house and have enquired in the temple need the pavilion in relation to the power of evil outside. The more familiar we are with the house, the more we shall feel the contrariety of everything outside and the need of salvation. My impression is that we do not feel the need of salvation until we taste the blessedness of the house and temple — in proportion as we taste it we feel the need of the pavilion. We do not want as much of the world as we can get, but to be as secluded as possible from it. The pavilion is the place where the divine power of salvation preserves sons and priests who belong to the house and temple. Outside we are conscious of the evil and we are glad to creep into the holy enclosure where we are preserved from the hostility of the enemy. There comes a time when we feel the need of the pavilion — then we get an experience. How many stories one has heard of the marvellous intervention of divine power for the saints! When we meet the hostility of evil men who would like to harm us or do us an injury, that is the time for the pavilion. If we have not known the blessing of the house and the light of the temple, we shall not realise the need of the pavilion. If we come down to the level of people and go along with the same kind of thing that the world does, we shall not be persecuted, but if we seek to keep up the blessing of the [p. 295] house and temple, then we are conscious of great hostile power, but also great divine power, for all God’s power comes in for His tried and persecuted saints. Paul said, “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me” (2 Timothy 4: 18). He stood in the pavilion before Nero, a ferocious monster who thought nothing of killing three thousand people. There is no greater confirmation of faith than for saints to prove the Lord’s safeguard. When you could not lift a finger to preserve yourself, then the Lord came in. Daniel was in the pavilion, secure in the lion’s den. It is a wonderful experience — you cannot help yourself and the Lord throws the curtains of His pavilion around you.
We do not think enough of the ministry of angels; they are mentioned many times in the New Testament; they are sent forth to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation. It is good to pray the prophet’s prayer, “Lord, open the young man’s eyes”. The whole mountain was full of chariots; they were all there before he saw them. The angels are round about us, charged with this ministry to care for the heirs of salvation. An angel can do a great deal; we read that one of them killed 185,000 valiant men.
All this leads to the tabernacle. The one whose heart is enjoying the house, whose mind is satisfied in the temple, who has proved the security of the pavilion, is the one who can come to the tabernacle. What answers to that is the coming together of the saints. We do not make public display. In the religious world, as the building gets finer there is often more deadness. The Lord began His course as a stranger, and all through His life He had not where to lay His head. J.N.D. said that our path here ought to be activity in obscurity; that is, activity in divine love but a hidden place of obscurity. The saints are called, “Thy hidden ones” in Psalm 83. By and by we shall be displayed.
The saints are our attraction, there is nothing like them. If we could only see the saints clothed in the divine beauty of all that Christ is to them, and all that the Spirit has conferred on them, we should think it a privilege to save them. The [p. 296] humblest saint is greater than the highest monarch. Let us not get occupied with blemishes in one another, but let us get the habit of looking at what is of Christ. The saints are the attractive power, and that is how we get to the tent. Everyone is to bring what he has learned to the common fund, just as bees bring honey to the hive. What meetings we should have if every saint were dwelling in the house and enquiring in the temple and all these streams were flowing to the tabernacle. “Sacrifices of shouts of joy” (verse 6), are the praises of God’s people flowing out of happy hearts. That is a fine thing; we ought to have praises to give. All should be expressed in the tabernacle, the tent of meeting where saints come together in separation from the world, and where divine joy can express itself in spiritual sacrifices. These sacrifices are acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. All the substance of the praises that go up to God is Christ — God could not but delight in it.
In Leviticus we see that all the exercises of the people were to be brought to the tent of meeting. Whether it was that they were troubled about sin, or whether it was a vow they had made, or whether they were bringing a burnt-offering or a meat-offering, whatever exercise a man had was brought to the tent of meeting. Every spiritual exercise was focused there. It is the same now; whatever exercise we have in secret is meant to have an effect on us when we come together to the tent of meeting.