FORMATION IN MANHOOD

A.J.E.Welch

Genesis 22: 15-18; 1 Chronicles 17: 16-23; 2 Timothy 2: 1-2.

What has come to us in these times together has unfolded the greatness of what God from His side is pursuing to its final culmination, which is God all in all. The history on the way to that, the course of events that shall yet appear, is very full. But a glorious finality is to govern us, and to govern us affectionately and intelligently as we seek our own way through in our times. What a God we have! How infinitely blessed is the way in which He has brought us to know Him! How appealing, and yet how full of divine power and wealth, is the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit! What depth of knowledge the One to whom we may freely speak as our God would establish in our souls concerning Himself - the glory of His love, the way His love has taken in its majestic course through twenty centuries of a time in His ways in blessing which has not ended yet, but the end of which as we have sober assurance, is very close.

Well may we say, What a God we have been brought to know. And how glorious is the One, even Jesus, blessed Man, risen and glorified, who fills God's presence with that which answers to His satisfaction. He is the One through whom we come into the blessedness of that knowledge of God.

If I may linger a little upon impressions that have come to us in these past days, let us never lose sight of the fact that our present links in life are links with that glorified Man. Let us never lose sight of the distinctive, glorious place that God has given to His beloved Son. Let us never be drawn away again, as we have been, from that simple, living attachment of heart to a glorified Christ. Let that be the great governing link in our souls, by which in any little time of testimony that may remain we may be kept steady and resolute in the features of God's testimony that might yet need to be worked out.

But what a testimony it is! There is no testimony known to men that matches it. Let us reflect now on the character of the testimony itself and see what God has secured and sustained right through this wonderful time. Let us carry our thoughts right back to when God began to open out the stupendous extent of His thoughts to Abraham. Let us carry our minds back to the time when God had kingship in its time, royal shining character in view in David. I single out these two because the Spirit does. In giving us the gospel of Matthew, He says as to Jesus, "Son of David, Son of Abraham". That is, something is being carried forward; the generations in the first of Matthew would show that God is carrying something forward which in its quality is connected in His mind. So we can go right back, beyond our dispensation, and take account of such men as these two, Abraham and David. They are to assure us of the kind of manhood that God delights in: the kind of manhood that He is able to develop. The miracle of this time of the Spirit is the immensity of the work of formation that God is treasuring up as the fruit of the way He has come in since Pentecost. What a lovely study that is! Think of the men that God raised up - not all prominent ones; not all gifted ones; not all apostles or prominent servants, and yet contributing to the aggregate wealth and substance of what the Spirit of God has had to do in formation since Pentecost. The city that we have been engaged with can rightly be regarded as the aggregate of it all. What a size it was as John saw it! It could be measured and shown to be of stupendous proportions, not just to cause admiration to the universe, but to secure for God the full wealth that belongs where His dwelling is.

So all these sorrows, all these pressures, all the times of searching exercise, maybe of questioning, God has come into, that something may be contributed to what He is gathering up for Himself. God does not willingly afflict His people. There have been times of affliction; few have escaped it - I doubt if any have escaped it. There are sorrows in families, sorrows in local meetings, sorrows of many kinds; God has been in them, not just that the negative side should be in view, but to produce something in depth of formation which in the perfection of His wisdom He chose to secure that way.

So God is seeking formed men, formed women, persons who have something established of God in their souls. The way of it, initially, is submission to Christ; the way of the continuance of it, continuing submission to Christ. I say that for the benefit of the youngest here. Your submission to the Lord leads you into the grandeur of what God is doing. Your submission to the Lord brings you into the great divine scheme of operations in a positive sense, in which He would make something in you that contributes to His satisfaction. Submission to Christ, submission to the Lord, is the first great thing for many beloved ones here, including younger ones to attend to!

Now I read of Abraham at a very significant moment when, as the scripture we read says, "the Angel of Jehovah called to Abraham from the heavens a second time". He had spoken to him before, and now he speaks to him a second time; it is as if the Spirit of God, by the use of that expression, is marking off something distinctive that He has in view to convey. Here is a man that God took up for His own sake. That is, for God's interests He took up this man. He had a glorious matter to work out, and He took up this man to work it out. We have to understand sovereignty in that sense, and yet to understand, alongside of that, the responsibility in which God sets us. So that God went along with Abraham in a most singular way. He called him out in chapter 12; He caused him to move to what must have been to him a strange kind, to leave his former place, to leave his kindred, to go out and become a sojourner. And he went.

It must have been a very great proposal for Abram but even then the divine promise was singularly full, for God said to him as He sent him out, "Go out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, to the land that I will show thee. And I will make of thee a great nation" (chap 12: 1, 2). "A great nation" - he might have said that there was not a shred of it in view yet, but God is committing Himself to make of this man a great nation. And God is standing by that in all that follows. What follows is a great deal of history which shows that God is not hurrying over this matter, but is absolutely definite in going forward with it, "I will make of thee a great nation".

Think, therefore, of the potentiality of Abraham, of what that man meant under the eye of God as he continued. Abraham was marked off as He looked down upon the sons of men; here was a man that He would make a great nation. Men would have said, 'How shalt it be?' God proved Himself abundantly able. So it is that the testimony may seem in our time to be reduced. Some of us are favoured in being in settings with larger numbers; we are the more responsible. We do well to keep continually in mind the faithfulness of persons in smaller companies, and do everything that faithful love in the truth would do to support such practically. What a time it is, then, for binding together in mutual support in a testimony so glorious! And yet, what can God make of one? Abraham shows us. "I will make of thee", he says, "a great nation". We might have said, "It will take a long time". It did take a long time; but God is prepared, if need be, for the furnishing of what is for His own satisfaction, to spend a long time. God is equal to that. Some of us, as one or two were remarking in conversation, are apt to be very impatient in respect of these things; but let us go on, dear brethren, and let us pray on, and let us be expectant of what God can do with one, or with two, or with three, or with four, or whatever it may be. God is able; "a great nation", He says to Abraham. The means none could foresee, but God has it all in His hand - all, as we might say, in reserve.

I have been very impressed of late with the distinctive character of that scripture in Matthew 18, "Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them" - wonderful promise! If you have one person, it is just one person. God can use one person and bring much out of one person. But if He has two, or if has three, He has a point of territory which He can claim in a special sense as His; "There am I in the midst of them". Let us not be afraid of being small. Let us be dependent in being small. Let us be resolute in being small. But let us not be afraid in being small, because "where two or three are gathered together unto My name", the Lord says, "there am I in the midst of them". That is a bit of territory secured and held for God. It is more than a person; there is a significance in what Matthew presents in that relation. If the Lord has that in a place, He has a point of territory in that place that belongs to Himself and His own testimony, which He takes very great account of and will delight to sustain and, maybe, to expand.

Abram's history goes on from chapter 12, and we get the idea of a seed as the dust of the earth; and then we get the thought of a seed as the stars of heaven for multitude. Coming on into the chapter we read, we get those two sides, somewhat differently, emphasised again, "as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is on the sea-shore" - two figures that God brings forward in respect of Abraham. The heavenly side is first, the saints according to their heavenly calling. See the stars in the heavens, distinct, star differing from star in glory, to quote from an other scripture. It is a majestic sight, even creationally, to see the stars in the heavens, especially in a clear atmosphere - thousands upon thousands of stars. They are shining, distinct, marked off in their constellations, related to one another, and related to the whole, but each with a certain distinction, a distinct place. The heavenly order of things affords delight to God as expressing the expansive character of His thoughts, the saints in their heavenly dignity, the dignities that belong to sonship, marked off by God Himself in His heavenly conceptions as to those who belong to Him.

Then there is the sand on the sea-shore; it is something that is related to what is here, but has a formative relation to what is here. It seems to me to link on with what God can produce in the immediate circumstances, the wearying circumstances, of what is here - yet something that is distinctly for Himself.

All these things are opened out to Abraham. What a man he proves Himself to be in the midst of these experiences! He proves himself in relation to his brother Lot. He is singled out by God for what we may speak of as miraculous support by Melchisedec; he is strengthened by bread and wine, ministered to him by the priest of the Most High God. We see how God is dwelling on this man, how God is bringing things out in this man. God is testing this man, and proving that he is equal to the testings. God is going to make a nation of this man.

Human wisdom would have said, "A long time is being spent over it". God knows. We may say that God has not yet chosen to answer our prayers very much in respect of recovery, for the expanding of through the history of Abraham, and see how God produces His result. See that He takes a long time over it, twenty-four years or so in the episodes that are covered by the piece of history that I am speaking of - a long time. God is in that. He is not having things done in any arbitrary way. He is entering in divine care, in divine wisdom, in divine love, in divine power into every point of the matter. He is working it out.

Very often in the very manner of our prayers, we seem to want to work things out. God would say to us, 'I am going to work this out; you may not even figure in the finality of the thing'. That is a lesson we may see in David. 'You may not even be on the scene when the finality of the matter arises but I am keeping the situation in mind'. Yet God would remind us that He looks for a man from whom to make something. A great principle that is brought out in Abraham's case is, Am I ready to answer to God, that He may make something of me? The way is rigorous for Abraham. His course is not what men would speak of as an easy course. It is beset with testings, beginning with his calling right out of his own country and his kindred, and his becoming a sojourner in a foreign land. You might say, 'What a break!', but Abraham sustained it. What are we ready for, dear brethren? We may pray every day, or more than every day, for increase in the locality where God has set us; but what am I ready for in the sense of the making process that God has in His hands? What am I ready for? Is there something in me that God can take up, and make into something that answers to Himself? There was something in Abraham. God set it there. And if He has something of which He can make a nation, something of which He can make a local meeting, something of which He can bring increase, that something must be such that God has had to do with the fashioning of it. What a need there is to be submissive under the mighty hand of God, and to realise that He is forming something in the souls of His saints which is of such quality that, if He please, in His sovereign wisdom and love, He can take it up and make something distinctive out of it.

You will understand how I am applying the point. It may come about in many ways. The patriarchal thought is very strong, pre-eminently so with Abraham. Can God make a patriarch of any one of us? Shall we have sons spiritually, grandsons spiritually? Is there something progenitive in any one of us that God can use in a productive sense, to build up among His beloved ones what is like Christ in the sense of formation and development in true manhood?

The time comes when Abraham is supremely tested. When this beloved son comes on the scene, as the previous history of this chapter shows, God says, "Take him up to the mountain and sacrifice him". What a test! Just think of the character of the test, driving right into the depths of Abraham's affections. What a test - to yield up his son! Yet he moves as God directs him. He takes the knife in his hand; what it must have been to carry that knife up the mount, knowing what the divine intent was in that knife, and yet submissive to it! But he goes on just as God tells him. There is something in the man that is ready for the supreme test. Hebrews 11 reminds us a little of the depth of what God is working out in this by referring to Abraham in two distinct sections of the chapter, the second section beginning with this very episode. The light of resurrection power was in Abraham's soul, and that relates to this great point of the second time. He called to Abraham from the heavens a second time; that is, the glorious light of resurrection power was in view now. In principle Abraham has reached the point of the power of resurrection working to raise up his son from the dead; in principle he has reached that, as Hebrews 11 shows us. Now the voice comes a second time. That is, we look on now beyond the power of death and see that God has a generation in view outside of death and its power. What He would make us relates to that - not to the scene of death, nor to what is to come under death. So the word is, very significantly, "the Angel of Jehovah called to Abraham from the heavens a second time, and said, By myself I swear, saith Jehovah, that, because thou hast done, this, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, I will richly bless thee".

There may be many matters in which God is testing us. God is not hard - far be it from me to represent that - but He delights to bring out the qualities of manhood formed in His beloved saints. The sisters are not outside of this in any sense. Scripture would support us in referring to many who bore the burdens of the testimony at crucial times. Think of Hannah and the way she carried things in secret. This is all part of the glorious testimony, at least in its antecedents before this time of the Spirit, the testimony to which God has called us.

How much God worked out in David. What a history! What a man! If we were but to dip into the history of David we would need another three days for it. The wealth of what God can effect in a man is an impression that I would leave, because we see it happening in our time. We see changes going on, great changes. We see stature being taken on. We see depth being realised in persons in a most remarkable way. God is in that.

So the history of David is a long one, but there came the time when, thinking for God, he conceived the thought of a house for Him, a house for God. We might say, 'What a right thought'. God confirmed it in the sense that the house was soon built; but David was not to be the builder. I trust I can briefly put the point of what is contained in these chapters. The true heart of David considers for his God, looking on to the great point of a spot where God should dwell, and find His rest. Do we seek that, dear brethren? Do we long that there may be a complacent divine dwelling, where everything answers to God and is for His satisfaction? Are we yearning after that beyond all the vicissitudes of detail in the current course of His testimony? This is the way in which the heart and the mind of David were moving. And he makes the proposal. At first the proposal is accepted by one in whom, as a prophet, David placed trust. Then the prophet has to be adjusted and go back and say to David, putting it very simply, 'This proposal is not of God. You shall not do this'. How does David display himself at such a moment? It says that he went in and sat before Jehovah - a unique reference, showing a measure of liberty with God in David which is distinctive of this point; he went in and sat before Jehovah. Have we ever done that? I ask myself, Have I ever done it? Have I ever done anything like it, going in and just sitting before Jehovah?

Here was a man, I suppose, who was a greatly disappointed man; but he goes in and sits in the presence of God, and speaks to Him. And it is the speaking of manhood; it is the speaking of a man with no self-interest; no self-interest. He is thinking of his house because he knew what his house would be in the sight of God; but he was not speaking as a man with self-interest. How often self-interest runs along, and into, our exercises in different directions! How often the keen, precious point of what is for God is blunted by some point of self-consideration on our side. What a view we get of manhood in David! He is not concerned for his reputation. He takes his place before God; he addresses God, as has often been pointed out, under a remarkable variety of titles, expressive of spirituality in David, in principle. How do we speak to God? Has He not disclosed Himself in His infinite blessedness and glory and love and power, even in these days we have had together? Do we not say - as we said at the beginning - What a God we have? Go in and sit before Him. Maybe you have disappointments; maybe things have not eventuated as you thought they might have done. Maybe the local meeting has not increased as you thought it might. All these things are very, very real. But as we go in and sit before Jehovah, everything gets its right place and setting in our view. We speak to God about it, and He is able to speak to us about it. He uses a prophet to speak to David here, and God makes remarkable use of His prophets in the history of David. That may be a pointer to us. Let us in no way neglect what is prophetic; let us cherish these prophetic meetings, as we speak. Let us be concerned before God to put something into them in a right sense, not always expecting another brother to give the word. The sisters are to be prayerful, and expectant of what the Spirit of God may bring in. I express myself thus, because I feel that these are occasions of immense potentiality as we rightly take them up, and as we understand how God might speak to us. It might, literally, be in five words with the understanding. We sometimes have in mind a kind of framework that a prophetic meeting should follow, and we might be a little critical of it if it does not measure up to the framework; but let us leave the Spirit of God just free to speak to us in the sovereignty that is His, being Who He is, and address Himself to us in a prophetic way, the way that bears in depth upon the current situation, and is bringing in from God the strength, the grace, the power, the wisdom, to meet it. So God used a prophet, but as for David, he went in and sat before Jehovah. What had God promised him? That he would make of his son a king whose throne would abide. This was not to be David; it was to be Solomon. God has looked right down the course of His testimony and He is saying to David, "I am going to establish his throne". It does not say David's throne, but his throne. But David goes in as in character a worshipper, not taking any self-seeking part or place, but acknowledging the mighty hand of God upon him. God is going to carry forward in royal dignity and power that which David himself had conceived. Solomon would build the house, and Solomon did build the house. It is a sad reflection how quickly decline came in even with, and after, Solomon, but that is not the point before us; the great point is that God is looking right down and is preparing for a continuance of what is precious to Himself, and He is saying to David, You have had your part in the course of the conflicts; you have shed much blood. It is not exactly that God is attaching specific blame to David for that at this point; it was the battles of the testimony that he was fighting. But God is, saying, I have full regard to your concern to build a house, but another shall do it. And another did do it.

So it may be that God will not allow us to see what He finally has in view. But He would have us in the connected course of what He would do. And He would have us content to fill the place that He in His love and wisdom would give us immediately in the filling out of what is due to Himself. God is moving in the long term. He is able to extend things if it please Him . I do not think the extension will be long, if I may venture that; but God is working out things according to His own time-scale, and He would have us to be submissive to the manner and timing of what He does. So maybe, brethren, we have to pray yet, and labour yet, and be before God yet, that His testimony might expand, maybe just a little, before the Lord comes; that in places where He has set His Name there may be something that in a fuller way answers to Himself, and provides conditions that afford Him His rest.

I read that well-known scripture in 2 Timothy, not to dwell upon it; the reading of it, in one sense, is enough. When we come down to Paul we think of the remarkable heights of his ministry, the remarkable extent of his service, the remarkable volume of his untiring labour. It is not just the heavenly level upon which his ministry was - not just that. Think of the area this man travelled over. Think of the energy unsparingly committed in the testimony of God by Paul; think of his willingness to do more yet at a time when God in His wisdom ordered that he should be in prison conditions. What a life was the life of Paul! This is the character of the testimony of God in the day of the Spirit.

So we are not to be surprised if our lives are full. We are not complaining of the number of meetings. God's testimony is a very great matter, and all our purely personal and domestic interests are to be in their place, made dependent upon it. Let us see to that, dear brethren. Let us, to use a simple, common expression, be marked by putting first things first, with some added sense that God would give us of what His testimony is to Himself.

Would this continue? Was the character that Paul set on just to die out? Was there never to be another man in the least like Paul? That challenge faces us to-day. Paul personally we recognise as a special vessel, raised up of God and distinctively commissioned; but is the Pauline character to be lost in our time, dear brethren? Just weigh that, dear brother or sister. Let me leave it with you to be weighed and pondered over. Is the character of the testimony that Paul set on not to be found in our time? God forbid that it should not be! But it calls for committal; it calls for a Timothy. It calls for faithful men, competent men, ready to take on what needs to be taken on; ready to keep by the Holy Spirit the good deposit entrusted.

We might well just take a look at that bookcase at home and think of what has been ministered in the power of the Spirit in the course of these times of recovery. Let us each say to himself, or herself, is the character of that to be lost in any degree as to its expression in vitality and power in saints under the eye of God? Bear in mind that it depend s upon me, and it depends upon you; it depends upon all of us, to carry on the line in continuance in that true, energetic heavenly character in which Paul himself set it on.

So God is going on, dear brethren, to the glorious conclusion, that glorious climax, God all in all. But He would have us with Him intelligently with Him, affectionately with Him, understanding the way in which He is working out things amongst His own until the Lord comes. May we be so, for His Name's sake!

 

BUCKHURST HILL

26 December 1972