WHAT IS TO BE SEEN

N.S.Brien

Exodus 3: 1-6; Isaiah 6: 1-7; Acts 7: 54-60

We have been engaged, beloved brethren, with the matter of our sight, involving the faculty of sight. One would desire with the Lord's help to have something to say as we proceed, in regard of what is seen, as depicted in these three passages. One feels greatly tested about this because of the character of what is set before us here. It seems to be quite clear from what is set before us in Scripture that God would have every one of us to have a view of Himself, something that is distinctive to each one of us as to His own nature and Person. We read that God dwells "in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen, nor is able to see" (1 Tim, 6: 16), God in the greatness of His own Person being utterly beyond anything that human eye could behold. But He has in wonderful love and grace chosen to come within our range, and He has done that in this marvellous way in the Person of Jesus. It says of Him that He subsisted in the form of God (see Phil 2: 6). Think of the light of that coming into the apostle's soul, that he was able to write to the Philippians like that He subsisted in the form of God. That passage continues: "did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God; but emptied himself, taking a bondman's form, taking his place in the likeness of men". We might, beloved brethren, just ponder that, let our souls be engaged with it, that the blessed God Himself chose to come within our range and to come in such a way as that, that He took a bondman's form.

Well, Moses was taken up to be a bondman, a servant, a great apostle, and it was necessary for him to have this experience of the presence of God. I wonder whether each one of us can identify something like this in our own souls, identify something of coming into contact with God Himself in the Person of Jesus. We spoke in the reading about those who wanted to meet Jesus, who wanted a blessing and were not content until they obtained it. What a wonderful picture for us of the accessibility of our God! He made Himself available. We read that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come", Heb 13: 8. He has not changed, He is the same Person always. Moses had this marvellous impression that engaged his attention, he was turned aside by it, it occupied his interest. Is it not so, beloved, that God is looking for that kind of interest on our part today? We spoke about the light coming into the world enlightening every man and shining and continuing to shine. How it has shone, beloved! How John loved to write about what he had witnessed! He said we have been eye-witnesses of these things. John was a witness. Are you a witness? Am I a witness? What have you seen and what have I seen that we could give evidence about? That is what a witness does, gives evidence. Thank God for those who give evidence in their lives that they have had a transaction with God, that results in persons becoming like God. "God is light", we read (1 John 1: 5), and we are to be light bearers, we are to be lights ourselves. I was struck with that when coming in last night on the plane, looking down, this vast city enveloped in darkness and here and there a light shining in between darkness, our inability to discern what existed there, but light shining here and there. That is just like the saints; God looks down on the city of New York and all these places where we live, and what does He see amidst the morass of darkness that there is? He sees light shining; the apostle says, "among whom ye appear as lights in the world", Phil 2: 15. We used to sing a hymn about that, did we not? 'Jesus bids us shine ... Like a little candle burning in the night'. What a wonderful thing it is to shine for Jesus! Do you shine like that? Do I shine like that? "Let your light thus shine before men", Jesus said, "so that they may see your upright works, and glorify your Father who is in the heavens", Matt 5: 16. As having to do with God we can become luminaries, His own nature of light becoming effective in us, the darkness having been dispelled. John speaks about that; he says, "The true light was that which, coming into the world lightens every man" (John 1: 9), and he speak about the darkness: "the darkness is passing and the true light already shines", 1 John 2: 8. Oh, beloved brethren, let it shine more brightly! Can we not in simplicity encourage one another to let our light shine more brightly? "The path of the righteous", the writer says, "is as the shining light" - it is like that - "going on and brightening until the day be fully come", Prov 4: 18. Our brother was speaking to us this morning about those who get discouraged and disconsolate about things, and we can all identify with that, beloved brethren, but can we not also identify the remedy? Jesus said "I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life", John 8: 12. How blessed that is! How simple that is! Whether we are nine or whether we are ninety, it makes no difference; there is that simple, beautiful, clear statement: "I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life". But is it not so beloved that as the darkness deepens, so the light that we have has opportunity to shine the more brightly? There is not much question about the deepening darkness, the moral darkness that is in the world, the thickness of it, penetrating. Think of a city like this, the things that go on in it, the darkness that has enveloped the minds of men, the wisdom of man working in these great metropolitan places that there are. Paul says that the wisdom of this world led men to crucify the Lord of glory (see 1 Cor 2: 8). So God is looking at the hearts of men. How God is searching about constantly, on the lookout we might say - like the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters - to see whether there is a spark of interest in you and me in relation to this great matter of God coming in in the Person of Jesus. How blessed it is. How rewarding it is. The writer of the Hebrews can speak about that: "he that draws near to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them who seek him out", chap 11: 6. How rewarding it is to seek out the knowledge of God.

So Moses is struck with this amazing experience. He said, "Let me now turn aside and see this great sight". Do you not think God would engage your attention, beloved brother and sister, and mine, with this great sight, the contemplation of the coming into manhood of Jesus, the Person of God Himself coming down. How Satan has sought continually to confuse the issue and to becloud as to who Jesus is, that in Himself He is nothing less than God at any time, yet here in perfect manhood in flesh and blood, exactly like you and me except sin apart. What consideration on the part of our God to come within our range in this way. What a wonderful glory it is, the glory of the incarnation, the mystery of piety. Paul speaks about that, does he not? "The mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh", 1 Tim 3: 16. It may well engage our interest and cause us to turn aside. We get so used to things, we might as well admit it to one another in honesty. Many of us have been brought up in these things from children; thank God for His mercy in the blessing of being brought up in the environment where holy things were the subject of conversation. But then has it engaged my interest? Has it caught my attention yet? Has it caught yours? Have we turned aside yet to see this great sight? God has the most marvellous things to set before us. You young ones, and older ones too, do you know that the apostle says - and he is referring to one of the Old Testament writers (Isa 64: 4) - "Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man's heart, which God has prepared for them that love him", 1 Cor 2: 9? It is not for everybody but for those who love God. What a thing it is to be numbered among those who love God. What a precious privilege that is, to be numbered among those who love God. He has prepared things for you and me, prepared things for us to see and things for us to hear. How closely those two are allied, as our brother was saying. God has prepared things for those who love Him. Moses became a great lover of God, in such wise that he came to know how God loved His people. I think that is a wonderful thing, that as saints get to know God He unfolds to us what He feels about His people. So Moses, as we were thinking earlier, is able to say, "Yea, he loveth the peoples", Deut 33: 3. It is wonderful to think about how God feels about His people, how He feels about men, how He feels about Israel and how He feels about the saints of the assembly. Would it not be wonderful, beloved, as a result of our being together today, if our interest in these things was a little stimulated, so that we sought to draw near to God and to inquire of Him.

I would like to refer to that passage, "One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life, to behold the beauty" of Jehovah, and to inquire of him in his temple", Ps 27: 4. Magnificent, is it not? The psalmist says that: what is to stop you and me from showing those feelings? Would not the Spirit produce that in every one of us in concentrating our desires? Moses' interest was sparked in this. He said, "Let me now turn aside", and he found that it was no ordinary matter and that the holiness of God was involved. How Satan has sought to bring the Lord Jesus Christ in the essence of His Being down to the level of ordinary men! You cannot do that. God says, "loose thy sandals from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground". It befits us, beloved brethren, to maintain the constant awareness of that as we enter into the presence of God privately, and more so as we come together. What sorrows we would have been preserved from had the holiness of the presence of God been constantly maintained with us. It says, "Be careful in his presence", Exod 23: 21.

Now to refer to Isaiah. It is interesting that these episodes come at the beginning of the history of service of these men, of Moses the great leader, the great apostle, and here is Isaiah, the great evangelist. I think it was referred to in the reading, that Isaiah spoke of Him because he saw His glory. It says that in John's gospel: "These things said Esaias because he saw his glory and spoke of him", chap 12: 41. Isaiah received this impression of the glory of the Lord. He did not have exactly the same impression as Moses; Moses saw God coming down, Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up; but in both instances the holiness of God was stamped upon their impression. So he says, "I saw the Lord ... high and lifted up". There are these seraphim here: what wonderful beings they are, relating to the nature of God in His holiness! Isaiah immediately feels his own state. Is that not just like what the Lord does with us? It is just like what He did with that woman in the fourth of John that we touched on in the reading. What did the blessed Lord of glory do? There He was - "If thou knewest ... who it is that says to thee", John 4: 10. He spoke to her, He referred to who He was in His Person and He brought out immediately the state that she was in. That follows as a consequence. We have to do with God. Moses was afraid to look at God. How suitable that was: He had the fear of God and reverence in a right way. What we had in Hebrews is always befitting: "let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear. For also our God is a consuming fire'', chap 12: 28,29. He has the power and the ability, His very nature is such that all that is out of keeping with Him will be consumed. So Isaiah is concerned immediately about his state. Is that not what our brother referred to about Job? When Job came face to face, we might say, with God what happened immediately to him was that he had light as to his own state. He says, "But now mine eye seeth thee: wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes" , Job 42: 5,6. Isaiah has a similar experience, the very holiness of the One who was high and lifted up coming home to his soul in such wise that he said, I cannot have anything to do with this, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips". How graciously the Lord would bring that experience home to us. He would convict you and me, and it does not matter whether we were converted ten seconds ago or whether it has been eighty years since we came to know Him and have been on the pathway, He would have us to have some understanding of the condition in us that had to be met. So it says, "And one of the seraphim flew unto me, and he had in his hand a glowing coal, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he made it touch my mouth". How the Spirit of God would bring home to us the way in which your condition and mine has been met! He took this coal from off the altar; speaks of the sense coming into our souls of where Jesus has been in relation to the condition in which you and I are. Think of Him coming into the very conditions of flesh and blood but sin apart. Beloved brethren, is that not something for us to contemplate, the absolute holiness of Jesus in flesh and blood and then that He should be made sin? "Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God's righteousness in him", 2 Cor 5: 12. How blessed for our souls: to lay hold of that, that Jesus was the One in His absolute holiness that went on to that altar! He offered Himself by the eternal Spirit without spot to God in view of redemption being accomplished, in view of you and me coming into the knowledge of God (see Heb 9: 14). It is to produce repentance in us. Job was a long, long time on the road. What a history he had - upright, nobody like him on the earth! What a wonderful man he was! Yet after all that time - how like each one of us - a long period of discipline, he finally comes to it as to what he is inwardly. Somebody said long ago that he wanted to get the brethren out of Romans 7, and I think perhaps it was Mr Darby who said, I am more concerned to get them into it. That is something for us to think about. It is possible for us to deal with the terms of the truth without getting to the core of the issue as to what was settled on the cross. It was not just a matter of my sins; thanks be to God for every one who knows their sins forgiven - a wonderful matter that! How blessed it is to know that my sins have gone in the cross because of the blood of Christ! Have you faith in that? Have you faith in His blood, not only faith in His Person but faith in His blood, that you are conscious that your sins, as to the guilt of them, are gone in the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross? You might be here today and not have that. Well, get it now. Exercise faith. It is always a propitious moment. The gospel is involved in that; "Now is the well-accepted time, now the day of salvation", 2 Cor 6: 2. Reach out if you have not done that before. You might have heard these words, as all of us have, for years and years and yet never grasped that in the depth of your own soul. Now is the time to do that; now is the well-accepted time, now is the day of salvation.

But then the Lord would lead you further, and me further, to see that the whole question of what I am as a sinful creature has had to be put out of the sight of God for ever, and it was done there on the cross at the sacrifice of Jesus. So that God has begun again: "if any one be in Christ, there is a new creation", 2 Cor 5: 17. Isaiah must have had some impression of that. Job evidently got hold of it, did he not? "I had heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee", Job 42: 5. Have we reached that point, beloved? Have you and I reached that point of now. Now my eye seeth thee and I repent in dust and ashes. It is the conscious sense that the holy Person of Jesus going to the cross at Calvary was necessary in order that everything that has offended God should be finished for ever and put out of His sight. Our Saviour did that, beloved; Jesus whom we love did that. Paul says, "I am crucified with Christ, and no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me", Gal 2: 20. Do you not think that is a real expression of affection for Christ, "I am crucified with Christ"? Do you not think that is an evidence of how Paul had come to love Jesus? It is one thing to know objectively that my sins have gone on the cross, but it is another thing to know that I belong there - "no longer live, I, but Christ lives in me". Let us ponder these things, beloved, let us seek the Spirit's help to be conscious of what He is working at with us to bring us to the awareness of the holy nature of God and that everything that is offensive to Him cannot be tolerated, and that was all concentrated on the cross when Jesus laid down His life there, taking His place there instead of you and me. "This man has done nothing amiss" (Luke 23: 41): - what a conclusion that malefactor reached when he was right beside Jesus at Calvary on the cross and he was able to say "we indeed justly". That is like Job; "now mine eye seeth thee: Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes", chap 42: 5,6. "We indeed justly" - there was nothing else for it but death. And Jesus came into flesh and blood so that He could go into death to end that whole condition of things in the sight of God. Do you believe it? You see that is a challenge. Do I believe that? Do you believe that? Have I really grasped that in the faith of my soul, that God has finished with that condition for ever, and in the resurrection and ascension of Christ He has expressed His pleasure in the Man of His choice in Jesus. He has nobody before Him but Jesus. "Let me now turn aside and see this great sight", Moses said. What is it? What is God saying to me in this great sight which typifies Jesus coming into flesh and blood?

Isaiah had the consciousness in his own soul of his uncleanness, but Stephen sees Him in the glory. Beloved brethren, may we not encourage one another to look into heaven. What an experience Stephen's was! The very beginning of the history of the apostle Paul was here. What was right in front of his eyes was a man who was totally occupied with Jesus in glory and he saw that man laying down his life for the Lord Jesus. What Jesus did was unique, but Stephen was following in the footsteps of his Master. He was witnessing faithfully; and what a scope of witness he had: "The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham ... " and he goes right through and sees "the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God". Oh, beloved, what a thing that is! How we should desire, every one of us, that the Spirit should have such liberty with us that He is able to give us such a sight! The hymn writer spoke about it:

'O the sight in heav'n is glorious!

Man in righteousness is there;

Once the Victim, now victorious,

Jesus lives in glory fair! ' (No.212)

Beloved, let us be engaged like this. Stephen was looking steadfastly on Jesus. That is what we are encouraged to do in Hebrews 12, to look steadfastly on Jesus. God has given us sight, let us use it; let us employ our faculties, beloved so that we hear better and see better than we have done before. How gracious of our God that He would set these things before us! He not only gives us the faculty but gives us the object on which to exercise it. We are to look steadfastly on Jesus the Leader and Completer of faith, the One who has not only left those conditions of the glory of deity and come down in the place of a servant but He was obedient, laid down His life, glorified God in the doing of it, opened up the way into heaven. We are to go there; He has gone as a forerunner and He has made the way open. Stephen saw that; how brightly it shone for him, how exclusive was his view! Are we not, beloved, especially at the end of the assembly's history here, to get some fresh impressions that concentrate our view on Jesus, concentrate our view on what is there in heaven? Every one of us may say how feebly we apprehend it, but how gracious of God to engage us with what is there at His right hand, "the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God".

Well beloved, may we be stimulated to have our view more and more occupied with what is there, for His Name's sake.

NEW YORK

21 February 1987