DIVINE OPERATIONS ARE CUMULATIVE
G. C. McKay
John 4: 34–38; Genesis 22: 4–14; Joshua 6: 26; 7: 1, 16–26; Matthew 26: 6–13
I was thinking, dear brethren, of the fact that divine operations are cumulative, that is, from the outset God has operated in a continuous way, developing His ways and developing His purposes. Nothing is left behind. What God does and what He has done from the beginning has had the end in view. The end is very near. Scripture tells us that as to ourselves the ends of the ages have come upon us. That is, all the dispensations, the ages, have culminated in us, they have come upon us. The responsibility for us is involved. With all that history through the centuries and through the dispensations all is about to culminate, God is about to arrive at His great end, and everything that He has done will contribute to that. In the world there used to be the word used ‘modernism’, that is, the setting aside of everything that has come down from the past and the glorifying of everything that is new and different and modern, and scientific, I suppose. It is a line which still runs in the world, but God does not work that way.
God operates in connection with what He has previously done; He works cumulatively in a most remarkable way. No man could think of this, it is a question of the greatness of divine operations. I would like to speak about that and how it might bear on our practical exercises, that things are cumulative and not left behind. For even with ourselves there might come in the idea that what used to be among the brethren, what we used to hold, the light that we have had, and the practices and the help that the Lord has given us are in a sense outmoded, and there has to be something new, something different, a new departure. God does not work that way. He works in connection with what He has already done and everything contributes to the great end that He has in mind.
In Matthew’s gospel you can see that the Lord Jesus comes in in connection with what was past. The first chapter indicates in the genealogy, that the Lord Jesus came in in connection with the promises; things are traced back to those who received the promises, to Abraham and to David, and the Lord Jesus came in in connection with the Old Testament prophecies which Matthew uses so liberally. John’s gospel is different; what John has in mind is the greatness of the One who comes in. He is greater than all dispensations, He is so great, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”, John 1: 14. How great He is, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. So He comes in and He cannot accept restrictions from what is past. Divine operations are proceeding at a wonderful level. Yet even in John’s gospel there is acknowledgment of what is past, and one of these acknowledgments comes in in the section we read in John 4. It is a question of the Lord Jesus doing work in John 4. He says, “My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work”. The finishing time was in view, when the Lord Jesus came in. Divine operations were approaching their finish, and what the Lord Jesus had in mind was to finish God’s work. So He speaks about the fields being already white to harvest. The ends of the ages have come upon us, the time of the culmination of God’s operations is being arrived at, and the Lord Jesus says, “I have sent you to reap that on which ye have not laboured; others have laboured, and ye have entered into their labours”. The question would be, Who had laboured, into whose labours had the apostles come? The Lord is looking back to the Old Testament, looking back to what God had done earlier, because what God had done earlier stood. It had contributed its quota you might say to the divine operations and to the divine end. It is a very remarkable thing that God can do that, He can work and develop things in that way.
Similarly in the next chapter when the Lord Jesus is challenged as to healing the man on the sabbath He says, “My Father worketh hitherto and I work”, John 5: 17. His Father had been working, God had been working, and then He says, “and I work”. What a blessed dispensation, what a blessed time, with not only the Father working but the Son working. This is an important principle that I am seeking to bring forward, and I believe it is a right one and one that we would neglect to our loss, that we should not despise or set aside or even forget things that are past.
So even in regard to the Old Testament things are cumulative. We can understand it being cumulative in this dispensation. You can see in Acts how matters developed—the Jerusalem setting, then the gospel going out to the Gentiles and Paul’s heavenly ministry coming in.
You can see how things were cumulative and proceeded in that way, but even over all the dispensations that principle has existed. What is past can contribute to us in our present exercises in this time when things are being completed, when God is moving to the end of all His ways.
And so you find in the Old Testament that there are certain things that are to be remembered.
You find events which are commemorated by the names given to places, and stones set up to mark certain things. The Old Testament is full of that kind of thing. The twelve stones that Israel took out of the bed of the Jordan were set up in Gilgal and they were to be there for ever, it says, as a testimony to the descendants of Israel, and they are a testimony to us too, a testimony that the saints have their origin in the death of Christ and they evince a life which shows that, life of another order. And so these things come into Scripture and I wondered whether we might think of them. There are so many such examples in the Old Testament, I can only think of having time to speak of two. Sometimes when these things are recorded in the Old Testament as remaining, it says of them that the thing remains to this day, and that means that it comes right down to our day. The Holy Spirit adds that in what He says. He means that these things are not left behind. These two matters we have read about in Genesis 22 and in Joshua 7 are said to eventuate in a place being named. It says in Joshua that the name remains there, and in Genesis there is a saying that Moses puts in, as it is said at the present day, “On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”. So you see these things are cumulative, they come down to us and they have a meaning for us that is not lost.
Now one of the remarkable things as to what comes down to us from Genesis 22 is that it is the experience of a man of faith. Think of this, that the experience of saints is not lost. I believe in these days the Holy Spirit treasures up things in the assembly; we think of those who have gone before us and their experience and the wealth that was with them and that is not lost; everything is maintained in the Spirit. Abraham’s experience is to come down to us.
After all he is our father in a sense. It says, “they that are on the principle of faith, these are Abraham’s sons”, Galatians 3: 7. So we should see how the thing comes down. The Jews could say, “Abraham is our father” (John 8: 39), but he is the father of those who believe, he is the great progenitor of the family of faith. So the thing comes down to us and his experiences are recorded for us, that in our path of faith we might learn from what he went through and prove the resource that he proved. What a test this was in Genesis 22! I do not know of any greater test that could come on anyone than the test that came on Abraham. God had been working with him, and knew what he was able for. You might say, Who would be able for such a test? Through much deep and sorrowful exercise, and passage of time, Abraham arrives at this, that he had Isaac, the heir that he longed for and had asked for. God had done it, He had given him Isaac and then God says to him, “Take now thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, Isaac” (Genesis 22: 2) and offer him up. Think of a man being told to offer up his beloved son, his only one. You might say Abraham had other sons, but Isaac was really the only one, the child of his bosom, the one he loved, and he is told to take him to a certain place and to offer him up for a sacrifice. Extraordinary!
Well, God knew what He was doing. He was trying Abraham, and He knew who He was trying. God was not trying him to make him fail, He was bringing him through a trial to bring out what was in his soul, and I think to establish something further too in the knowledge of Himself in the soul of this great saint. And so Abraham immediately rose up in the morning and saddled his ass, marked by the obedience of faith. These things come down. Believers are obedient persons as Abraham was an obedient person. He got up early in the morning, saddled his ass and for three days he journeyed towards the place of sacrifice. Think of that, three days, what it must have meant for him, how much he must have gone through in his soul. The third day he “lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar”. So he says to the young men, “Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you”. I must confess I used to have the thought that Abraham was hiding from the young men what was going to happen in saying that Isaac would come again with him, but it was not that. He was saying what was in the faith of his soul and the New Testament explains it to us. Abraham had such faith, he believed that if he obeyed God and offered up his son, God would raise him from the dead, so he says to the young men, We will come again. What faith marked Abraham! And so the terms, the details, are given so touchingly, the fire and the knife and the wood and how the father and son spoke together. Then in answer to Isaac’s question as to where the sheep was for a burnt-offering Abraham said, “My son, God will provide himself with the sheep for a burnt-offering”. There was something in Abraham’s soul, some light that God would provide.
Well, Abraham built the altar and piled the wood, he was allowed to stretch out his hand and take the knife; he was allowed to reach that point. What a touching section this is. You think of what is typified in it too, what we had in Romans
8, “He who, yea, has not spared his own Son”, Romans 8: 32. God did not spare His Son but here we have a son that was spared. But I am speaking rather about Abraham as setting forth a believer being tested. And so he bound his son. The details are all given. It is not embroidered, scripture does not do that, it is just stated and how touching it is. He takes the knife to slaughter his son and then there is the voice from the heavens. I do not think that Abraham had had this before, the Angel calling to him from the heavens. Things were opening up freshly, a voice from the heavens, “Stretch not out thy hand against the lad” and then he looks and sees that God has provided. As he had had in the faith of his soul, God had provided for the burnt-offering, the ram caught in the thicket by its horns. What a sight, as you think of it as typical of the Lord Jesus! How precious to think of it, not simply setting Him forth as a helpless Victim only (although the Lord Jesus was that. He went as a Victim, ‘A Victim led, Thy blood was shed’ as the hymn writer says (Hymn 415), but as a ram caught by its horns, pointing to the affections of Christ and His committal to the will of God, the vigour of Christ in that sense. Abraham offers it up, he has arrived at something in his soul, and when he has arrived at it he gives it a name. He calls the name of that place Jehovah-jireh. The footnote says, ‘Jehovah will provide’.
And now that experience of Abraham comes down to us and we can prove it too; it still stands good, that name exists, the name of the place, “as it is said at the present day”. Moses would add that, “as it is said at the present day, On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”.
Now that comes down to us, dear brethren, a wonderful stay in the path of faith, that God will provide. He will provide what is necessary, whatever tests, whatever eventuality, whatever might arise. We have to learn that. We turn so readily this way and that way when matters arise and difficulties arise and sorrows and tests and trials, but the thing is to look to God.
“On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”, suggests the greatness of divine resources, something that is entirely outside the capacity of anybody in the world; it is the resource that can come from God alone.
How touching it is that God provided that, and it takes you on in your mind to God providing in the death of Christ, sparing not His Son. There are several scriptures that speak most touchingly of the relationship between father and son in the Old Testament. You have Abraham and Isaac here, Jacob and Joseph, and David and Solomon, but the first one that occurs in Scripture is Abraham and Isaac. The first allusion to that blessed relationship that was to come in as Christ came into manhood, between the Father and the Son is in Genesis 22, and it is a sacrificial setting. “On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”. That is what is said to this day, says Moses, and he proved it. He had to do with God on the mount of Jehovah and he took the people through the wilderness. What experiences Moses had and he proved that in his day, “On the mount of Jehovah will be provided”. Now that is a very positive and blessed and encouraging matter that comes down to us to this day.
Now the reference in Joshua is a most solemn and testing one, but necessary. The setting is that the people of God have crossed the Jordan and overcome Jericho. They are about to enter the land of God’s purposes for them, heavenly blessings typically lying before them. They are going in to possess the land, cultivate it, become wealthy in it and provide for the service of God in the offerings they would bring. That was what was in view at this point. They had won a great victory at Jericho, and at that point Satan attacked to try to nullify all that God had in mind. He acted through the covetousness of Achan. The city had been devoted to a curse beforehand by Joshua, Jericho speaking of the world in its opposition to God, and its inveterate hostility to the people of God, and to all that God would bring about, the world in that terrible character. There is a curse on it according to what Joshua says, and Achan took of the thing which had been brought under the curse, and it says the children of Israel committed unfaithfulness. What this whole setting shows is that Satan attacks and brings in some simple action or simple principle to try and hinder what God would do, and the blessing that He would bring about for His people, and the result that He would get for Himself.
It is a very solemn section and it proves the principle that God will not tolerate sin among His people. He will not be with His people if sin is tolerated; sin must be dealt with, and that comes down to this day. We enjoy immense blessings; I know we are so small and there is such sorrowful history, but we enjoy wonderful blessings together, dear brethren. Not only do we have these fellowship meetings and then the special occasions of joy in three day meetings; in our own local gatherings too we have times of blessing, times of refreshing come from the presence of the Lord. We have the great privilege and enjoyment of entering into the service of God, moving into heavenly realms by the Spirit and enjoying the presence of the Father, the worship of God Himself.
These things that we enjoy are the result of the culmination of divine operations. They are the result of much exercise too among the saints of God. They could have been lost at any time, and some saints have lost these things because they did not recognise the great principle that is set out in Joshua 7, that God will not be with His people if they tolerate flagrant sin such as Achan’s. As soon as this unfaithfulness takes place the children of Israel are tested. They try to attack Ai and they are defeated, thirty-six of them are smitten and they are pursued, the hearts of the people melt. They had just conquered Jericho, they were on the crest of the wave, but there was a bad state there; there was self-confidence and a sinful act there among them, and the people had lost their power. How were they going to proceed? Well God indicates how the matter is to be taken up, and that is most encouraging that God will help His people to deal with these things. He will help to clear these things out of the way. This is one of the most solemn chapters in Scripture in a way but it comes down to this day, this place Achor, the name comes down to this day. We must remember that what we enjoy, we enjoy on the basis of the judgment of evil, and the provision of conditions where God can be with His people. How testing it was for them, all were tested.
One parallel to this at the present day would be an assembly meeting. Fortunately we do not very often have to go so far as that but sometimes that has to be. We have known it in this city, and others have known the solemnity of the fact that sometimes you come to a situation where you have to say that you can no longer walk with someone, and that is what the stoning of Achan represents. When that happens, and we have proved it, everybody is tested, not simply the person who has defected but everyone. Joshua took the tribes and every tribe had to go forward, and all the tribes were tested. The tribe of Judah was taken and then down to the family of the Zarhites, right down to Zabdi, and right down to the men of his household, then right down to Achan, everyone was tested. In other words they all had to feel the matter and they all had to have part in the stoning, they all had to participate in the judgment of what was wrong. We can take that as showing the importance of dealing with evil and keeping ourselves clear from evil. I have spoken of it as giving some kind of picture of what we might have to do in an assembly meeting as we call it, a meeting of assembly character to speak more accurately. But there have been great issues that have existed among the people of God over the years.
We speak of what is cumulative and we can bring it down to the recovery of the truth; there has been an accumulation of things, of deep exercises and some of them of this character.
These exercises are to be known by us and not forgotten. It was not very long in the early years of the recovery, in the 1840’s, that Satan attacked in a way that would have hindered the brethren from moving forward into the blessedness of what we enjoy now. He would have spoiled it entirely. He introduced evil teaching, and he introduced in what is known as the Bethesda matter an awful principle, the principle that you could be indifferent as to evil and you could still go on with God. Terrible doctrine was being held in Plymouth by one of the teachers, and the leaders in the Bethesda hall in Bristol were quite happy to receive people from there without making sure they were clear of this awful doctrine. It was doctrine affecting the person of Christ; it could not have been worse, and Bethesda took an indifferent, a neutral path. We cannot be neutral, dear brethren; it is impossible to be neutral. Bethesda did that. Mr Darby and others took a stand and there took place what was called the Open division. Now that is one of the great judicial actions of the recovery and it comes down to this day.
So do the other great issues that have taken place among the saints. They have not simply been quarrels or disagreements, it has been a question of Satan attacking and introducing a wrong principle. The principle Achan seemed to introduce was this idea of a Babylonish garment. He wanted to bring in something of the pride of man; that is what Babylon speaks of, the pride of man, and in Scripture it is brought into the religious setting, brought into the church itself. That was the kind of thing that he was introducing, and it would have destroyed everything, all the blessings of the people of God. So the young people, and all of us, should really be aware of these great matters that come down to the present day. They are not just things that happened so long ago that we can forget them. The persons who hold to the truth in these issues are blessed through it, and for the persons who do not the result goes on decade after decade right down through the history. There are persons, sincere persons, among companies of believers who took a wrong move at that time of the Open division, and they may be ignorant of the history but they are in a system that is affected by the principle that was set aside at that time.
Similarly you will find as to those who oppose Mr Raven and the teaching as to eternal life, there is a deadness about their system. So these things are not only a question of principle, but they affected the saints for blessing, for good or for evil. That is what this chapter brings out, this valley of Achor, of trouble, “Therefore the name of that place was called, The Valley of Achor, to this day”. We have to remember these things. There was the Glanton division too and other matters, there were all the terrible matters that had to be judged in the lifetime of some of us here. These matters have to stand and be held, they are not forgotten, right down to 1972 when we had to hold to the fact that we would not go on with professional associations. So these things come down, they are cumulative, and the saints are liberated.
These matters involve that Satan’s attacks are hindered, and the saints are free from the bondage of the world and from Satan would do, free to enter into blessing. So I have chosen two of these matters; there are many other incidents in the Old Testament that could be used in this kind of way, but I have chosen that one great positive blessed one of Abraham proving divine resources, and I have chosen also this solemn one, feeling led to do so, that we have to remember that we can only proceed with the sense of divine help if we judge evil and do not adopt a neutral attitude to it.
I thought it would be best to finish in the New Testament and that the thought of a memorial perhaps should be spoken about. There are two memorials in the New Testament. We read about one of them, this woman, and it is a memorial in connection with the glad tidings, something that is not to be forgotten. It must be of great interest then to everyone who preaches and those who have care of the gospel that the Lord Jesus says, “Wheresoever these glad tidings may be preached in the whole world, that also which this woman has done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her”. The question then is, how does this bear on the glad tidings? This unnamed woman in Bethany had an alabaster flask of very precious ointment. It speaks about her affection for Christ kept in purity, in the alabaster flask, and she lavished it all on the Lord Jesus; she poured it out upon His head—not on His feet in this incident, but upon His head; that is what she did. She was distinguishing the head which speaks of the distinction and dignity of a person. This woman was dignifying Christ.
She was saying in her affection that all distinction and glory belonged to Him, and so she poured this out upon His head. No other man, nobody else could share in this, the whole of the flask was for Him, all her affections were for Him.
She was opposed, of course. The disciples complained about what she did, but the Lord Jesus defended her; “For ye have the poor always with you, but me ye have not always”. What a poignant word, “me ye have not always”. He was about to die and this woman was lavishing her affection on Him, and then He says what this woman has done has to be mentioned wherever the gospel is preached. What does it mean? It means I think that the result of the gospel is not glory for the preacher, and it is not glory for the convert either. The result of the gospel is a heart that would give all the glory to Christ; that is the great result of the glad tidings, and this is a memorial. We are never to forget that. We congratulate the preachers quite a bit but that is not the great thing. The great thing is, Is there a result? Is there a result in my heart that I would lavish everything on Christ? that no other man can have any claim because of the place that Christ has?
And the teaching too I understand is, as it occurs here in Matthew, that it is over against the idea of men having some kind of glory in religious things. The clerical system involves that; you have all these orders and levels of priests and so on right up to the top and they have garments on them.
They are distinguished persons, they wear different clothes and sometimes very glorious and elaborate clothes, and these are Babylonish garments. That is what they are; they are just a token of the glory of man, aspiring to distinction in the things of God. And this woman is saying, No, I do not want any of these men. I do not want any of them, all the glory belongs to Christ. So I think the result of the gospel being this would prevent us, save us, from the sin of Achan, and from the thought we could introduce something of human glory into the things of God.
Now there is another memorial that I have not read about and the brethren all know what it is; the most precious memorial and that is the Lord’s supper, the loaf and the cup of the Supper on Lord’s day morning. We alluded to it in the reading briefly. How wonderful to think that that has come down to us too. It has been preserved to us in its simplicity. It had to be rescued, to be recovered. Human ideas, religious ideas meant there were alterations or additions which spoiled it, and in some cases completely subverted it, but we are thankful that it has come down from the hands of Christ in its purity, the memorial, so that we should not forget Christ. We are not to forget things, that is the idea in these things being said to this day and these memorials. We forget things very easily, we slip away from them, they depart from us, and even as to the Lord Jesus. We could be like the butler who did not remember Joseph but forgot him. But the Supper is still here. Is it not remarkable that woven into the fabric of our lives as believers week by week is the thought of a memorial, the thought of being constantly recalled to the love of Christ as expressed in the emblems? As we were remarking in the reading, not only did the Lord Jesus institute it in the synoptic gospels, but Paul received it too. That was a remarkable matter, that the Lord did not just leave it as what He had instituted when He was here, but He also gave it to Paul from heaven. In Paul’s account there is emphasis on the idea of a memorial. Luke had mentioned that, “this do in remembrance of me” (Luke 22: 19), and he attached that to the loaf but not to the cup. What Paul received from Christ was a memorial attached both to the bread and to the cup. It is to strengthen this matter in our souls that the love of Christ is never forgotten, and week by week there is what is cumulative, dear brethren.
How wonderful that is too. As Christ comes in there are fresh experiences. Our experiences in the week are meant to be cumulative and our experiences at the Supper too, so that things develop in our souls, and everything is moving on to the great end that God has in mind. We read of it in the reading, that the saints should be “conformed to the image of his Son, so that he should be the firstborn among many brethren”, Romans 8: 29. I trust these matters which have been brought forward will be useful to us, and help and encourage us as well as warning us, for His name’s sake.
Address at Glasgow
21 April 2007