DIVINE OBSERVATION
W. Lamont
Job 7: 20; Isaiah 42: 1–4; 66: 1, 2; John 1: 40–42; Revelation 2: 1, 4, 5
It is interesting to note that what Job says here, “Observer of men” is rendered as a divine title, one of God’s many titles in the Old Testament. Think of God taking account right from the beginning of the history of the human race, from Adam and Eve onwards, observing every incident in human history. In the matter of Cain and Abel, God was observing, taking account of Abel’s offering and not looking on Cain’s offering. God was obviously interested in Abel’s offering because it reminded Him of Christ. Cain’s offering was merely what was human and in that sense God did not appear to be interested in it. God is intensely interested in every one of us here for our welfare; of course Satan is too. Dear young ones, Satan is very interested in you but with the intention of your destruction. He is not interested in you for your welfare, he is interested in you to make use of you against what God is doing. But it would be a terrible thing for anyone for God not to be interested in him. It says of God, “upon Cain, and on his offering, he did not look”, Genesis 4: 5. Right down through the history of the human race He saw features in persons that reminded Him of Christ, what He would see in perfection in His own beloved Son.
It came to a point too in the history of the race when God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth. Think of God taking account of the state of the human race, and every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart only evil continually. Think of the feelings in the heart of the blessed God as He took account of the state of the human race at that point, then onwards interested in young persons. He was interested in Samuel as a young boy. “Samuel,
Samuel”, He could say, God was intensely interested. Then He comes down to this particular day when Job lived. Some say he is a contemporary of Abraham. Job knew that God was an Observer of men. What a history Job had with God! He came to it in the end, “thou canst be hindered in no thought of thine”, Job 42: 2 That is a fine thing to arrive at, that God can be hindered in no thought of His. Job is a very interesting man. He devotes a whole chapter to his birthday. Usually birthdays are something for celebration but Job curses the day he was born. What a history the man had, what a moral history, but he comes through to it, that God
“takes away the first that he may establish the second”, Hebrews 10: 9. Job had to learn that all through the history of the human race, also his own history, that God had another Man in mind altogether; God had Christ in mind, the Man of His delight.
Isaiah 42 brings that out, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!” He is looking forward, looking onward to Christ, the blessed Man who lived His life continually in the light of God’s favour, always doing the things that pleased the Father.
He could say, “I do always the things that are pleasing to him”, John 8: 29. No one else could say that. It is characteristic of Him; there was perfect consistency under the eye of God. God speaking through Isaiah, looking forward to that day says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold”. God supports this kind of Man, “in whom my soul delighteth!” Think of God speaking about His soul, telling men, I have a soul, so that we should understand that God has depth of feeling, and in this context depth of feeling as to Christ.
We have sung to the Spirit; think of that time right at the beginning when chaos came in, Genesis 1: 2. It has often been pointed out that, between verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 1, there could have been millions of years. And yet the Spirit of God was there in that scene of chaos hovering over the face of the waters. What
feelings came to light in the Spirit of God, hence that moment when He could descend in bodily form as a dove on a perfect Man. Think of the feelings of the Spirit as it says, “the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily form as a dove upon him”, Luke 3: 22. We know that in the gospels by Matthew and Mark the Lord Himself is recorded as seeing the Spirit descending as a dove. In John’s gospel it says that John saw it.
So again to refer to Isaiah, it is God speaking of His Servant, looking forward to Christ, “my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth! I will put my Spirit upon him”, a foreshadowing of the economy into which God has come and which will remain eternally. It reminds us of the ark as a type of Christ; “in whom my soul delighteth” would be represented in the shittim wood of the ark. It is like the trustworthy character, we might say, of the manhood of Jesus, and God found great delight in that. Then it says, “I will put my Spirit upon him”, that is like the gold, the ark was overlaid with gold within and without. “I will put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations”. Oh, how God values the greatness of the manhood of Jesus. “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench”.
As the gospels are read what comes to light is the tenderness of Jesus in His dealings with persons, with His own and with persons in need. Of course He also asserts His deity as when in the garden they came to take Him, saying, “Whom seek ye?” and, “I am he”. Then it says,
“they went away backward and fell to the ground”, John 18: 5, 6. It was like the ark in the house of Dagon. When the Philistines entered the house they found that Dagon was destroyed; nothing could exist in that sense in the presence of the ark; that is the judicial side of it (1 Samuel 5). But generally speaking what shines is the tenderness of Jesus. What a tender heart He has!
“A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench—he shall bring forth judgment according to truth”. That is a remarkable statement, “according to truth”. The Lord was governed by that Himself; grace and truth came to light in Him in a distinctive way.
“He shall not faint nor be in haste, till he have set justice in the earth”. The earth is crying out for justice and there is One who will bring it in, “till he have set justice in the earth—and the isles shall wait for his law”.
In Isaiah 66 God is speaking again, speaking of the vast extent of the heavens and the earth, the heavens are His throne, and the earth is His footstool. Then the point I want to come to is,
“But to this man will I look”. God is looking to another kind of man altogether. It is not ‘ for this man will I look’. He has found the Man, but it is ‘ to this man will I look’. The very language of scripture is most significant. God is looking to the kind of man that He can trust implicitly, who would uphold every thought of God, “to the afflicted and contrite in spirit, and who trembleth at my word”. God is looking to these features now. He is looking for them of course, He has a right to expect them because of the divine expenditure there has been, and the ending in the death of Jesus of the kind of man that could never be for God and that could never please God. God has a right to look for such persons that are of this kind, but I think we are in a day now more than ever when He is looking to such persons, persons that He can have confidence in. It means that whatever situation may arise in one’s own life, whatever situation may arise in one’s household or in one’s local meeting. God will look to us and have confidence in us. May we all be such persons!
I go on to John’s gospel and the reference to Peter. What I want to draw attention to here is the fact that it says, “Jesus looking at him”. Divine scrutiny is a tremendous thing. We have been saying that God right from the beginning has been scrutinizing carefully the human race, looking for features that were pleasing to
Himself, and observing features that were displeasing to Him. He has ended everything that could not in any way please Him in the death and burial of Jesus. He has put the kind of man that could never please Him totally out of sight. It is a deep lesson to learn that God has finished totally with the kind of man that could never please Him. We should be conscious even in a meeting like this that each one of us is under divine scrutiny, that is a sobering thing. So Peter here comes under the Lord’s scrutiny. If you will observe the note, it says,
‘looking carefully’. It was not a casual look. I think the Lord would look carefully at each one of us. He would look at us not only in the light of what has been done for us, and how much we should value that, but He is looking carefully at us to see what kind of persons we are.
Are we suitable material? Are we suitable assembly material? Are we material that He can use? Are we trustworthy?
Let us be prepared for the Lord’s careful look. He is looking into our hearts, He alone can do that. He alone can discern our motives. The Lord knows our motives, He knows us through and through. He scrutinizes us, not to find fault with us but to bring to light the glory of the work of God in us. He is looking for the beauty of God’s work in each one of us. How beautiful God’s work is! It is not only reliable, it is not only trustworthy, it is beautiful. It is beautiful to see the work of God in the saints, what God has done that no one else could have done. What the Spirit of God has wrought in human hearts is wonderful to take account of.
So here the Lord looks carefully at Peter and He says, “thou shalt be called Cephas (which interpreted is stone)”. The Lord saw in Peter that which was reliable basically, that which could be trusted, that which could be built substantially into the building that He was going on with. Peter got the gain of it, he speaks about the living stones (1 Peter 2: 5). The human mind cannot
understand that, a stone is just a dead mass physically speaking. The human mind cannot understand what a living stone is; the believer can understand it, it is the solid product of the work of God that is totally reliable, and can be built into the great structure that God is going on with at the present time. Elsewhere we are told at the end of the Lord’s life of Peter’s denial and that the Lord turned round and looked at Peter. What that look would convey to Peter! I think Peter would remember the look at the beginning of John when the Lord first met him.
Does any one here remember their first contact with the Lord, the reality of it? Sometimes we forget. The Lord says, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals”, Jeremiah 2: 2. We may have forgotten our brightest day. God says, If you have forgotten it I will remember it for you. I wonder if every one of us here is at our brightest.
Are you dear brother, dear sister, at your brightest? Are you shining as bright as you once were or have you waned a little? The path of the just goes on and brightens till the day be fully come (Proverbs 4: 18). The Lord turned round and looked at Peter. What an effect it had upon him, he went out and wept bitterly. Some of us when we were young were taught a little poem;
‘‘Tis that look that melted Peter,
‘Tis that face that Stephen saw,
‘Tis that heart that wept with Mary,
Can alone from idols draw’.
Blessing for any one of us is in our personal relationships with the Lord Jesus. Have to do with Him for yourself! Some of us who are older might have grown cold in our affections.
We might be going on maintaining things mentally and formally but in our affections we might have waned a little, or we might have waned much. The Spirit of God today would appeal to us and would revive us, rekindle in us depth and ardency of affection for Christ.
That is the key to
this, that we might find ourselves at the end of the dispensation among those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption (Ephesians 6: 24).
In Revelation the Lord is scrutinizing each local assembly, Ephesus and the other six. He is scrutinizing them carefully just to see what conditions really are; not the pretentious claims that there may be but what things really are. The Lord is doing that and He is doing that today. As we have seen, He is scrutinizing us individually, and He is scrutinizing and looking carefully at local assemblies. Sometimes we think we know how conditions are in our local meetings, and sometimes we are pretentious enough to pass judgment on conditions in other local meetings. The Lord knows, He says, “I know”. So He is scrutinizing carefully each of these local assemblies. I trust we realise that the Lord is doing so today, looking carefully at each one of us individually, looking carefully at our gatherings just to see exactly what exists in each one of them.
So here in Ephesus He commends what He can. The Lord is absolutely fair, what is to be commended He will commend. But there is one thing for sure, He will not commend what cannot be commended. So He says here, “I have against thee, that thou hast left thy first love”. They had lost their ardency for Christ. They were maintaining outwardly what Ephesus had been but the vital spark had gone, and the Lord knew it. Perhaps they did not realise it.
He is passing His comments upon it and His exhortation to them is, “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen”. That is a terrible thing to contemplate. We often enjoy reading the epistle to the Ephesians which, when it was written, showed the state of the Ephesian believers. Soon it became a matter only of light. Beloved brethren, is our state in keeping with the truth or is it merely a question of light to us? The Lord says the key to it is to repent.
Is the vitality there? Is it maintained by the Spirit of God, the vitality of affection that the Lord is looking for? Or do we need
this exhortation, “Remember therefore whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works”.
The Lord would speak to us, and speak to us in His love about these things. He says, “but if not, I am coming to thee”. We speak often of the privilege of the Lord coming to us, as He comes to us week by week; He fulfils His promise, “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”, John 14: 18. He comes to those He loves and from whom He expects a response in ardency of affection. But here, to an assembly that had the greatest light, He says,
“I am coming to thee, and I will remove thy lamp out of its place, except thou shalt repent”.
One side of the matter is, the Lord needs every one of us, but there is another aspect to it. He does not need any of us, He can go on without us. The Lord said that to the Pharisees, “God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham”, Matthew 3: 9. The Lord goes on with us as we go on with Him. There is a word in the Old Testament, “Jehovah is with you while ye are with him”, 2 Chronicles 15: 2. Those who love Him in incorruption are those who realise spiritually His presence. May we be encouraged to be vitally in these things, for His name’s sake.
Address at Plainfield, New Jersey, 23 May 1992
CHRIST KNOWN AS PRIEST AND MEDIATOR
D. Robertson
This scripture says, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?”. You might say that it is a formidable list, and I suppose in some
degree some of these things have been experienced by the saints. One was thinking of the beloved brethren in this place and their sorrows, especially with regard to distress. I trust with the help of the Spirit. I will be able to bring in a touch of consolation. It is one of the great features of the prophetic word, it has in view edification, consolation and encouragement.
One’s desire at this time is that there may be a touch that would console our spirits. This list of adversities as I may call them, if allowed to disturb our spirits, without the touch of the divine consolation, I believe would hinder us in our service Godward, and perhaps also divert us from the pathway of the will of God. It speaks here of the love of Christ, and I think it is the love of the Priest, the One who can fathom every sorrow that we are caused to pass through, who understands perfectly, and who has the resource in His love to console our spirits. We spoke to Him in our song, ‘Come fill our souls!’; He has the power to fill our hearts, to fill them with His own love, and bring in that touch of consolation that only the great Priest can bring in. It is the love of the Priest, greater than any of these matters that are brought in here, it surmounts all, the love of Christ.
There are times when in our love and affection for one another we express sympathy, and often feel the inadequacy of it, but there is nothing inadequate about the love of Christ, it is completely sufficient to strengthen, to console, to comfort, and I believe to help us to maintain our course in the will of God in an undiverted way, and to be held here for the service of God. I believe one of the great thrusts of the enemy in the present day, in matters which come in, is to divert the saints from the course of the will of God. The will of God is a precious matter, Romans deals with that. The bearing of the epistle is that men might be found here in complete adjustment to the will of God in every circumstance of life. You may be sure, if we are real at all, we have found and are finding that the enemy is bent to divert us from that. Beloved brethren, there is the
love of Christ, the One who has been faithful. Think of the piety of Jesus. What food it is to consider the One who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, and yet in the enduring of it He remained completely undiverted in His course relative to the will of God.
That is the One who is the Priest.
One would encourage the brethren in these days of difficulty and crises, to seek help to become more intimate in our relationship with Christ. Technicalities will not help us; mere formalities will not help us nor hold us. I believe the great need, and the great opportunity of the moment, is that we might be developed in our intimacy with Christ, and as developed in it we learn to trust His love. We feel our insufficiencies, our inadequacies, our inability, a sense of powerlessness at times, and it is well to do so, but I believe it is all with the end in view that we might learn to trust the love of Christ. I believe it is the love of the Priest, I believe that is what this verse refers to. It is a great system in operation, a system of help. It says, “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8: 28), it is a system of good.
It is not merely individual good; not merely the believer viewed as an individual, but the believer viewed in relation to the system of good. The Priest is the One who can hold us in relation to it. I believe the Priest serves us in our circumstances that He might get us over to His circumstances. That is the wonder of it, that He would serve us in our needs, serve us in our circumstances of sorrow and bereavement, in our sense of loss and sense too of what could almost be said to be inconsolable, but He can console, and He would serve us in such circumstances, that we might be brought over to His circumstances.
Now I just wanted to give that touch in verse 39, much comes in between, but it is these two verses I had in mind. There is again another list, “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord “. I think if we have in verse 35 where we began to read, “ the love of Christ”, the love of the Priest, I think what we have in this verse 39 is the glory of the Mediator. It is a wonderful thing to have a link with Christ, a living and enjoyed link with Christ; we may say an operative link with Christ, to comfort us; to bring us over to God’s side, where He can hold us as we can see in this verse 39 in relation to the great divine system where God is known. It is, “the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. What a touch that is—“in Christ Jesus our Lord”! We have great absolutes in the epistle to the Romans. The redemption which is in Christ Jesus, what a mighty rock that is! The Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus.
These are absolutes and here is another one, “the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”. We are tested by passing circumstances but these are absolute things, eternal matters.
Christ would not only serve us as a Priest in relation to our own circumstances, but I think He would hold us in relation to a great eternal system of things. We sung of that and we prayed about it—‘Come fill our souls!’, and think of the wealth that He would bring us into, in this great system of which He is the Mediator. He is the Spirit of the covenant, the One who can bring us effectively into the enjoyment of the love of God, and hold us in relation to a system where God and the love of God are known. These are the things that the Lord Jesus would help us in relation to, as we are developed in intimacy and closeness to Himself. He would comfort us, He would console us, but I think He would hold us in relation to the divine system; to this system where the love of God is currently known, where it is presently enjoyed. It is the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, that is where it is, it is there in that blessed Man in His ascended position.
That is all I had in mind and I trust that our hearts
might have consolation as we prove the love of the Priest, a precious matter. We often reflect on one of the hymns that used to be in the book, I liked it very much, it says—
‘With joy we meditate the grace
Of God’s High Priest above;
His heart is filled with tenderness,
His very Name is love’.
What a Person He is, beloved brethren! What a holy matter it is to have a link with Him as serving us, consoling us, comforting us, keeping us in a straight course. O, what a need there is to be kept on a straight course in these days when there are such powers of deflection at work; when there is darkness in operation. One would speak faithfully and clearly, the power of darkness is in operation to divert and deflect the saints from the path of the will of God, but the Priest is there to console us and to keep us steady, and also to link us up in our affections to another world. Mr Stoney spoke of it, ‘Another Man in another world’. That, I believe, is what will hold us in our present course; the love of the Priest where He is; the love of God in that blessed Person, in Christ Jesus our Lord; and all the wealth of that brought to bear on our present course in the testimony that we may be kept steady in it, and that we might find comfort as we proceed in the way, our hearts consoled by these precious things.
May God bless the word.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee, 2 March 1993
HOW THE LORD DOES THINGS
R. Gray
I have a simple impression as to how the Lord does
things. We were engaged on Lord’s day with how the Lord did things in John 13, when He washed the disciples’ feet. Not just what He did, but how He does it. This is what has led me to read from this scripture. The first thing mentioned is—“a certain priest happened to go down that way”. This person is occupied with what is official. He is occupied with himself and his service, but is devoid of what is moral. He perhaps could have given a doctrinal outline of the book of Leviticus, and imparted nothing for our souls. It is a fine thing to impart something when we speak, and that involves our own relations with the Spirit. This certain priest is not like our great High Priest, as it says in Hebrews 4: 15, “For we have not a high priest not able to sympathise with our infirmities”. The other man was a certain Levite who probably could have given us a doctrinal outline of the book of Numbers, but alas was not prepared to be a burden bearer, and therefore like the priest, living in what is official and devoid of what is moral.
The Samaritan, by way of application, was like a Christian affected by the book of Deuteronomy. You might say, What does that mean? It simply means that he loves God and loves his neighbour. What the Samaritan does first is priestly, and what he does secondly is levitical. He observes that this wounded man has life in him. He is only half dead. That means he has a pulse and a heart beat. There was life there. He is not a rebellious person, and hence he needs the intensive care system, and not the surgeon’s knife, which is cutting off.
Now, this Samaritan has what the other two were lacking. So it says—he “was moved with compassion”. It really is the tender feelings of Jesus. In Lamentations it says, “Mine eye affecteth my soul” (Lamentations 3: 51). That is exactly what is needed, in contrast to the priest, and the levite who passed by on the opposite side; what we might call the ‘bypass route’. The Samaritan is a true priest before God, and attends to what is needed. So it says that he “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine”, to revive his energy,
and stimulate his affections for the service of God. Luke ends with a praising company, and there is no room for half-dead persons or dumb priests in this company.
After the Samaritan attends to him in a priestly way, he then proceeds to attend to him in a levitical way, as it says here—“having put him on his own beast, took him to the inn”. This is a levitical service; he is a burden-bearer. It would not be an easy matter to lift him and put him on his beast. It was hard work, which is the true meaning of a levite. A levite is a person who works hard. So he takes him to the inn, to be cared for, in what we might call the intensive care system. May this be available in all our local gatherings. The Lord Jesus, as seen in the Samaritan, was a comfort to His own, but He could also say—“I will beg the Father, and he will give you another Comforter” (John 14: 16), which the innkeeper would suggest. Therefore, may this service be seen working out through persons in our local gatherings. It is fine to see that all expenses are taken care of. “Whatsoever thou shalt expend more, I will render to thee on my coming back”. Oh, how we long for the return of our Lord Jesus! However, in the meantime, He has left us a currency that is not affected by the upturn, or downturn of the economic situation in the world, and therefore does not lose its value.
I trust, beloved brethren, the word will stir us up to be more alert as to how we do things. The priest and the levite are unable to get down to the needs of the situation, whereas the Samaritan so beautifully displays the going-down mind, as seen in Philippians 2: 5, “let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus”. May we make more room for this kind of spirit in all our local gatherings. May the Lord encourage us, for His name’s sake.
Substance of word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh, 8 December 1992
HE DOES ALL THINGS WELL
R. S. Renton
While listening to what has just been said, this passage of scripture came forcibly to mind as our brother spoke about how the Lord did things. The Lord Jesus is our Model in everything as He says, “... learn from me” (Matthew 11: 29), and one feature for us to learn from Him is surely how things were done by Him. Our brother has spoken of the priest and the levite in Luke’s gospel. Luke presents to us the Vessel of grace. Mark’s gospel gives us the perfect Servant, and in the passage I have read he states, after the Lord healed the deaf man who could not speak right, that “they were astonished above measure, saying, He does all things well; he makes both the deaf to hear, and the speechless to speak”. It is recorded that the Lord put His fingers to his ears and touched his tongue, but also that He looked up to heaven and groaned, indicating the deep feeling He had for one who was deaf and could not speak right.
In the movements of Jesus there was a display of sympathy and compassion as the glory of His manhood shone out in all its lustre. How He felt the ravages of what sin had brought in.
Mark’s gospel giving us the sin-offering and how His holy soul recoiled from having to do with sin as we read, “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, 2 Corinthians 5: 21. Mark’s gospel records that in Gethsemane the Lord Jesus says, “take away this cup from me; but not what I will, but what thou wilt”
(Mark 14: 36)—what infinite perfection shone out at that moment, for when He uttered these words, “but not what I will, but what thou wilt” the position, as has been said, was irrevocable, there was no turning back. The more we dwell in a contemplative way on such passages of
scripture, the more the Lord Jesus is endeared to our affections in the power of the Spirit of God. Can we not, beloved brethren, add our amen to the statement “He does all things well”?
He has opened our ears to accept God’s offer of free forgiveness and used our tongues to confess His name and sing, with satisfied hearts, His praises.
In chapter 5 of this gospel, the Lord healed the man possessed by an unclean spirit, who had his dwelling in the tombs, and no man was able to bind him, not even with chains, but when the people came to see the man who had been possessed, they saw him sitting clothed and sensible—what a transformation! The word from Jesus was, “Go to thine home to thine own people, and tell them how great things the Lord has done for thee, and has had mercy on thee”, Mark 5: 19. What testimony this man would render! May our testimony be ever, “He does all things well”. Very soon it will be manifested, when the Lord Jesus takes over the reins of government, for He is coming to reign without a rival; this fact just thrills the heart of all who love Him. Another has said that the next move will be from the right hand of God (the place the Lord has presently), but while we await that momentous time of His coming for all those who have accepted Him as Saviour and Lord, may our theme be, “He does all things well”, for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh, 8 December 1992
DESIRE FOR THE HEAVENLY INHERITANCE
J. Mitchell
Numbers 27: 1–7, 12, 13, 16–21
There is not time to develop fully what is in this chapter, but it seems to me to be a most attractive
portion of Scripture and would, I think, have a particular bearing upon us at the present time.
It is a good thing to take stock. The children of Issachar had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chronicles 12: 33), and it is good to be exercised that we might have understanding of the times, and not just be wandering in a loose way. Our brother has referred to the Samaritan in Luke 10, that he journeyed, that is that he was moving with a purpose. In this section of the book of Numbers the people journeyed. Before that, from chapter 11 to chapter 20, they had been wandering. What marked them in that time was murmuring, lusting and rebellion, but from chapter 21 onwards they journeyed. Not only did they journey but their journeys were quick, and it was at such a time that the daughters of Zelophehad come to light. There is nothing said about them beforehand, but it was quite clear that amidst all that was going on publicly among the people, indicating the general state of things among the saints, there was a work proceeding inwardly and secretly in some persons, creating a real desire and a real urge for the inheritance. That I believe is what the Spirit of God would seek to develop with us.
Whatever the state of things might be publicly, I have no doubt that the Spirit has those in whom He has wrought, and whose hearts He has attracted, resulting in a real desire for the inheritance. That, I think, would have a very current bearing upon us. The enemy, of course, would always seek to lower the standard, in the bringing in of what is earthly, and what is worldly, and thus dilute the heavenly line among the saints. But I believe the Spirit of God would always be active to maintain what is heavenly amongst us. It is what is primarily in the divine mind for the saints. We are here in view of testimony, even our testimony has to be a heavenly testimony. Mr. Stoney wrote in that hymn of his, ‘Yon heaven is our home’ (Hymn 7), but then it is not only to be our home eternally, it is to be our home morally at the present time. The blessed Man who was
entirely for God down here is now enshrined up there. He has a great system under His hand where He now is, and He is seeking to attract us into it.
I believe the chapter that we read on Lord’s day, John 13, is the preface to what He has to say in the secret of His own company. John 12 concludes His public ministry, but chapter 13 is, so to speak, the preface to what He opens up, in the secret of love’s area, to His own; and what He opens up, of course, is the glory of His going to God, it is very affecting that the One who came out from God and was going to God, is not going back alone. He desires, even at the present time, that our hearts should find their home there. I believe that is where the Spirit would draw our affections, and it was found typically in these daughters of Zelophehad. They come forward, nobody tells them to do it, they “drew near”, it says. There was that inwardly in them that said that at all costs we must have the inheritance, come what may we are not to be losers of the inheritance. Let us be of that spirit, that nothing may hinder us from entering currently into our inheritance, because, as we have oftentimes been reminded, God’s inheritance in the saints is really dependent on the saints coming into their inheritance.
What affects me so much is that at that point the leadership is changed. That is very remarkable. It almost seems that the coming forward of the daughters of Zelophehad with that inward urge to have the inheritance at all costs, gives God the moral warrant to bring in Joshua. It provides the occasion of a change of leadership, no longer the leadership of Moses, necessary as that is in the wilderness circumstances. We would bear in mind in our dispensation, the wilderness and the heavenly side go on together so that we need Moses as long as we are here, let us make no mistake about that. But as set out typically for us there is this change of leadership to Joshua, indicating there is now power among the saints to go in and to take possession of the
inheritance.
That is what Joshua suggests. In Joshua 8: 26 it says that Joshua did not draw back his hand, but stretched it out with the javelin until the destruction of the enemy was completed, in view of the saints coming into their inheritance. You might say the inheritance is God given, so it is, and a wonderful inheritance it is. Earlier in this book it was despised, they tired of the manna, and the result of that was the despising of the pleasant land. But there were two men, Caleb and Joshua, who were quite content to go on with the saints in that forty years in the wilderness, though their heart was in the land all the time, they had the land in their affections. But what we possess is only, “Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread”, Joshua 1: 3. The daughters of Zelophehad had a desire for the land, it was in their hearts. The question is, beloved, is the heavenly land in our hearts? Is it in my heart, and in your heart? I think that would be a challenge to every one of us. If it is in our hearts there is power to go into it. So that the change of leadership to Joshua comes, and we know the history of Joshua. It says here of him, “a man in whom is the Spirit”. I believe that the Spirit of God would be seeking to attract us to the inward leading of the Spirit in view of our entering into the inheritance.
Now these are wonderful things, and they belong to believers. In the light of them, certain matters here, that so engage us and take up so much of our time and our resources, are not worth anything; there is absolutely no value in them. Let us be persons who value things rightly. These daughters of Zelophehad had a right valuation, and God says of them that they speak right. How pleasing it must have been to God as He heard these, daughters speaking, and He says, they speak right. That seems to me to give God the moral warrant for bringing in typically the inward leadership of the Spirit that will bring us into the land, in order that we might have what is in the divine mind for us, and that God Himself may be served. May it be so for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Edinburgh, 8 December 1992
STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS
J. C. Gray
Psalm 69: 7–9; Hebrews 11: 8–10
I have been impressed with the fact that the Lord Jesus was a stranger here. It says in the psalm, “I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s sons”. It is as if persons who ought to have recognised the Lord when He came, did not know Him. He should have been acknowledged by His own people, the Jews; He would not be known in any case by others such as the Greeks or Romans. I do not know whether we realise what it was for the Lord to be here in loneliness, announcing the kingdom of the heavens. He came to make God known, but outwardly nobody wanted to know. Therefore He was left alone in that sense as a stranger.
He stood for the truth maintaining a standard for God that no one else had previously maintained, and yet with it, He showed grace and love never to be excelled again. In Him there was a perfect blending together in such fashion that it called out the Father’s affection and approval. There are other scriptures that speak prophetically of the Lord in the lonely way that He was here. Indeed He says Himself that He was alone, and yet He says, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me”, John 16: 32. It indicated that although He was in constant communion with His Father in heaven, He felt, being here in His own creation, and among His own
people, that few wanted to know Him. Another scripture says, “I watch, and am like a sparrow alone upon the housetop”, Psalm 102: 7. The writer’s feelings in these circumstances must have been quite real, yet it is but a figure of how the Lord felt when He was here.
It says, “Because for thy sake I have borne reproach ... I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother’s sons”. I was impressed with a similar reference to Abraham. Not only does it say that “he sojourned as a stranger in the land of promise”, but further “as a foreign country”; that is as an alien. We know if you go to a city or any place you have not been to before, that you are a stranger there. If you go to another country, where you are not a citizen, you are an alien. The Lord Jesus came here having the right to everything, and yet to most He was an alien.
I think this is to lay hold of us in the day in which we ourselves bear reproach, that the Lord Jesus has gone before us and borne it Himself. That is what it says in this psalm, “Because for thy sake”, that is for God’s sake, “I have borne reproach”. Then it says, “For the zeal of thy house hath devoured me, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee have fallen upon me”.
So He bore the reproaches that were against God—He bore them as Man. He carried them as a stranger.
We are strangers here, and we have to feel it, beloved brethren. Soon we shall all be caught up into the place of glory where we belong—amongst our own company. Presently we find our company in an area where the Lord is obeyed, and holds sway. That is what is said about Abraham; “By faith Abraham, being called, obeyed to go out into the place which he was about to receive for an inheritance”. That is he was called; but then he moved by faith in obedience “to go out into the place which he was about to receive for an inheritance”. It says, that he “went out”; that is, he actually made a move, and later as in the land of promise he is a
stranger. In verse 10 it says that “he waited for the city which has foundations”; that is, he was waiting in faith for the heavenly city, not an earthly city.
How does this affect us? How do we feel as we move about here? Do we feel that we have an instant affinity with persons at work or whom we meet or are our neighbours? Of course as Christians we should be friendly with our neighbours, as far as we are able; but do they know that we are different? Do they know that we are strangers here, and are looking for the heavenly city that has foundations? These are challenging matters, and I think as we obey the glad tidings, as we go out, as we are obedient to the Lord, as subjects of the kingdom, we come into an area where the truth of the assembly can be experienced. This is bound to cause reproach, because, while we are standing for the truth we come up against persons who do what they like, and have no standard at all. Thus we are strangers and sojourners.
Well, are we sojourners? Alas, there are Christians who settle down here as if they belong to the world. Christians should as here in the world suffer reproach. So we take on in character what the Lord bore in reproach, and in doing so we become His friends and companions. We have for example, Mr Darby’s hymn ‘The Man of sorrows’, which is often quoted—
‘O ever homeless Stranger,
Thus, dearest Friend to me;
An outcast in a manger,
That Thou might’st with us be!’
What a thing it is that the Lord was here as a homeless Stranger bearing reproach on God’s behalf because He stood for the truth.
Abraham had light in his soul as to what God was about to do. We have light in our souls, but it is one thing to have light and another thing to walk according to the light. Each of us is challenged as to what extent
we bear the reproach of the Christ and stand for the truth. If others are not doing it, that is their responsibility, but as we make a stand we become sojourners here, and we are moving as if we do not really belong to this world—we are aliens in it. We are walking as if we are in the light of another place, that is, heaven.
If I do not make a definite stand, then it shows my heart has no treasure in the assembly, that is in this city “which has foundations, of which God is the artificer and constructor”. It is not man’s city, but God’s. He has planned something different, something better, something superior; Abraham had his spiritual vision towards that; and so should we. If this is so we will appear as strangers and sojourners down here. May we be strengthened in it for His name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Dundee, 2 February 1993
EXTRACT
We say it is the Lord in glory and that is quite right, but, at the same time, when the Lord is having to do with us now, in relation to His Supper, it is as in our present circumstances, and He is nearby. If He comes to us it is in our present circumstances. He does not take us up to glory in relation to His Supper; He comes down to our circumstances, and therefore He is to be known as with us in the suffering position. I mean as to the actual suffering that the brethren have to endure, the Lord is with them in it. Therefore, the Lord would say, as it were, ‘I am in the town too’. If anything is going on in the town that is causing sufferings to the brethren, the Lord is there too.
J. Taylor (Vol. 63, pp.134, 135)
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