THE DAY WHICH THE LORD HATH MADE
[p. 88] THE DAY WHICH THE LORD HATH MADE
Psalm 118:22 - 24; Acts 2:1-4; Acts 2:32-36
In reading this passage from the Psalms what I had in mind was to call attention particularly to the twenty-fourth verse: “This is the day that Jehovah hath made”. I wish to call attention to that day, a day of divine design and making; and in speaking about the day that the Lord hath made one is reminded of the first piece of workmanship in the creation as we know it. It was a day: “There was evening, and there was morning — the first day”, Genesis 1:5. God in that way began His work with one day. I am not ignoring what He had done before, for much preceded that day, both in regard to time and in regard to work. God speaks to Job of a day, antecedent to this, a period in which God had laid the foundations of the earth. He wrought by weight and measure, having in mind the top stone, as it were, so that all should be perfectly poised. He wrought with design, and it is said that “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy”, Job 38:7. They took account of what He was doing and they sympathised with Him in it. They were “glad in it”.
In Genesis 1 the measure of time that we find, covered by the word “day”, involves, as I said, a piece of workmanship. God had commanded that there should be light. He commanded that. It was imperative; anything that God commands is imperative. It was imperative on account of the darkness; it says, “there was light”, and, the light appearing at His word, He names it. “God called the light Day” (Genesis 1:5) and it “was good”.
Now I mention all this so that you may at the outset have before you what I have in mind, namely, that a day is a measure of time, and that it is equivalent to light. “He called the light Day” (Genesis 1:5) then, as [p. 89] a measure of time divinely prescribed and named, it involves responsibility. In other words, in our histories each day has its own responsibilities and its own possibilities. As the sun arises on each of us, normally we think of what lies ahead, of the possibilities of the day, and of the responsibilities of the day. So that our lives are just so many days.
Now God makes each day for us, as I was saying. I never look at my days as simply the product of the revolution of the sun; that is mechanical. They were all seen in the distance by God, and I never curse any of them. A Christian never curses any of his days. Do you ever regret the days? Jacob’s were six score years and ten multiplied by three hundred and sixty-five. They were evil days, according to his own judgment of them. “The days of the years of my sojourning”, he says, “are a hundred and thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life”, Genesis 47:9. Now that should not be a Christian’s experience. Job cursed his day, the day on which he was born. Think of that! A day on which the sun arose, a day in which, as we might say, the moon and the stars with all their benign influence appeared. A puny man lifts up his voice to curse a day on which he was born! Were there no others born on that day? Such is man left to himself. He cursed his day in eloquent language, too.
I am making these remarks in a very practical way to raise concern with us as to how we look at our days, and how we spend them. It is happy for us if we can take a retrospective view, and see that there has been something for God in each day that is past; and thus as day is added to day, and week to week, and month to month, and year to year, there is woven out in my history that which God can take up, and this is in view of the great moral system of things that He has in His mind for the [p. 90] future. Such I perceive are Christian days, days in which men and women, justified through the death of the Lord Jesus and indwelt by the Spirit of God, spend their time on this earth. Such days are not evil: a day in which one lives in the Spirit and walks in the Spirit is truly very good. But what I have in mind is not our days, but the day which God has made for His own satisfaction; a day in which His nature and attributes are seen.
Now I want to say a word about a day mentioned in the book of Joshua, about which the Spirit of God says, there was none like it before nor after; that is, up to the time in which the event was recorded. It was a day in which God’s people, led by Joshua, were confronted by powerful enemies, and Joshua lifts up his voice to God. He prays, as we may say, to Jehovah, and the word was that the sun should stand still and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. Now think of that for a moment, as a day. It was an arresting of the course of the heavenly bodies at the voice of a man. Is that not like our day? Has not the course of moral history been stayed by the voice of a Man? As the Lord Jesus Christ hung on Calvary’s cross, there was being perpetuated a crime the like of which never had been enacted before nor since. The normal answer to that crime, the normal penalty, would have been vengeance. The normal course of government implied that penalty should have been meted out to the perpetrators of that crime, and others that had been accumulating up to that time; but a Man speaks! One might picture all the heavenly intelligences hushed, if those on earth were not, to hearken to the movement of those holy lips of Christ on the cross, as He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”, Luke 23:34. We might say the course of government was arrested as that voice arose. He dies; He is buried; He rises; He goes into [p. 91] heaven, and again a voice of prayer. He received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and He sheds it forth, and we have thus introduced what we may call “The day which the Lord hath made”. Viewed from the governmental side, a parenthesis had begun. The clock, as it were, the clock of time, as we have often heard it, had stopped. In that parenthesis, I may say, following the figure, we have brought about according to divine design, a day.
Joshua caused the sun to stand still. It stopped its course then for vengeance. Heaven helped Israel in the execution of vengeance on their enemies. Now contrast that with the voice of Christ! “Father, forgive them”, He says, “for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) and the clock stops. Christ dies, as I said, and goes into the grave. He is “raised up from among [the] dead by the glory of the Father”, Romans 6:4. That does not involve judgment. In that word, “glory of the Father”, we have the secret of this great day. It was in the heart of the Father that there should be such a day. Christ was “raised up from among the dead by the glory of the Father”; and it is said that He “is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2) not on His own throne yet. That does not enter into the day which the Lord has made; He is on the Father’s throne. Jesus is on the Father’s throne tonight. Instead of wrath, Christ says to His disciples, “Do ye remain in the city till ye be clothed with power from on high”, Luke 24:49. He had a day in His mind, and He says further to them that “repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem”, Luke 24:47. That is another element of the day.
After saying these things He blesses His disciples and is carried up into heaven. He is thus made the Head of the corner. Now it is in Christ being there that one sees the completion of what one might call the heavenly side of the day, for the day stretches [p. 92] down to earth. The light is there. The Psalmist says, “This is of Jehovah” (Psalm 118:23) He has placed that Man on His throne. It is said of Solomon that he sat on the throne of Jehovah. A remarkable expression, meaning that in that man’s reign there should be the fulfilment of the promises of God to Israel. Now what about Christ’s position on the Father’s throne? What does that mean to me? It means the fulfilment, not of promises, although promises will be fulfilled; it means the outshining of what God is. I want to make that clear to you.
What I am leading up to is the day in which we are now. Christ on the Father’s throne means the outshining of what God is, and the administration of all the blessing He has in His heart for men. It is the day of the reign of grace and of the activities of the Holy Spirit. Think of all that entering into a day! We must allow God to limit the length of that day. If He makes it, He makes it great enough and long enough to accomplish His blessed designs. Jesus is on the Father’s throne! Let those words sink down into your hearts. He is on the Father’s throne. John says, referring to this very thing, “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things [to be] in his hand”, John 3:35. Now there must be a period of time in which Jesus, the Son, administers the “all things” and so, the next person He meets, according to John’s record, is the woman of Samaria. Jesus “sat just as He was”. If there is one thing about the blessed Lord more than another, it is that He never was affected. He was always just as He was. He “sat just as he was at the fountain” (John 4:6) but beneath that outward garb of humanity, yea human weariness, was the Son. “If thou knewest” He says, “the gift of God, and who it is that says to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water”, John 4:10. Living [p. 93] water is given in that day that the Lord has made. It belongs to it.
The Spirit of God in the second of Acts sets out in beautiful order the facts that occurred on the day of Pentecost. It says, “When the day of Pentecost was now accomplishing ... there came suddenly a sound out of heaven as of a violent impetuous blowing”, That was what was observable in Jerusalem. Instead of wrath, there came out of heaven a sound “as of a violent impetuous blowing, and filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them parted tongues, as of fire, and it sat upon each of them”. And then it says, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave to them to speak forth”. Now these are the facts and I want you to note them. They are all simple, well known perhaps to many of us, but I wish you to note them. “They were all filled”, it says, “with the Holy Spirit”. Filled! You see the day had extended down to earth. It was complete. The Son is in the heavens, Jesus is on the Father’s throne, and as there, as Peter explains, “having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this”.
Now I want you to dwell on these things. My point is that we might go back to the beginning and see what the day is that Jehovah had made. It says, “he has poured out this which ye behold and hear”. You may say to me, ‘We have no difficulty about Christ in the heavens. We believe it. We believe that Christ is in heaven, but our difficulty is that we do not see here on earth that which is spoken of in this chapter’ . With shamefacedness we, as Christians, have to admit that, whilst we are assured, yea certain, that the Holy Spirit is here, yet there is very little to “see and hear”; but, whilst I say very little, I imply that there is something on earth. You [p. 94] will remember how the Lord said to Philadelphia, “thou hast a little power”, Revelation 3:8. Now it is worth while to look out for that “little power”, if you desire to have some idea of the day in which we live. It may require, and indeed men of God have done this, that we put our faces between our knees, like Elijah at mount Carmel, to see it. Elijah sent his servant to see the sign of the blessing coming. He says, “Behold, there is a cloud, small as a man’s hand, arising out of the sea”,1 Kings 18:44. That is enough! If you put your face between your knees, or as Paul says, “Bow my knees” (Ephesians 3:14) in exercise of soul, you may depend upon it that you will see the evidence of blessing. The use of the words “a man’s hand” is suggestive. A man’s hand belongs to the day. Whilst the Lord was here His hand wrought. “I must work ..”. He says, “while it is day. [The] night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4), and so the work goes on. What work? The work of God. I have not a doubt about it. At the beginning we see “the wonderful works of God” these works continue, the Holy Spirit being here, the hand of God is here, and so the work goes on. Thank God for that! I thoroughly believe that as we are exercised before God we shall see it, and the more you see it the less discouraged you are. But it is not only that that hand is for me, I want to be with it. You want to be with that hand, and the more you are with it, the more you realise that it is with you. That is the encouragement that I see for the moment.
Now that is the nature of the day; that is, the day which Jehovah has made, and I want to appeal to every one of you and to myself, as to whether, first of all, you see it, as to whether you are aware of it and its magnitude, and as to whether you have any joy in it? The Spirit of Christ says, “we will rejoice and be glad in it”. I am prepared to get down with brethren as regards the failure of the [p. 95] church. I believe it; I own it; but we must not lose sight of the day that the Lord has made. We must not lose sight of that day, and in apprehending it you are not going to be out of accord with it. I would cite you as an example of what I am remarking, Gideon. The book of Judges depicts a period in which Jehovah was acknowledged to be Israel’s King. Gideon accomplished a great victory and the people are prepared to make him the king. Ours is the day in which there is outwardly no king. I hope it is not a day in which every one does what is right in his own eyes. We should be like the locusts who have no king, yet “they go forth all of them by bands”, Proverbs 30:27. Now we do not want to alter that state of things. The people say to Gideon “Rule thou over us”. Gideon replies: “I will not rule over you ... Jehovah will rule over you”, Judges 8:23. That was a noble reply. Is there anyone who wants to be in the place of leadership? Think of Gideon! He was true to his day. His son Abimelech, alas, came forward to rule, and slew his brethren to this end. We do not want that, we want things as God has made them. We cannot improve on the day. It is the day which Jehovah has made. Our part is to rejoice and be glad in it. Is it so with us?
I close with that, although I have treated the subject very imperfectly and inadequately; but I think I have made clear to you that God has inaugurated a period of time, a day, which is according to His own blessed nature. It is governed from His own throne, the Father’s throne, by a Man. As Ezekiel saw in the vision the figure of a man in the bright spot “above the expanse” (Ezekiel 1:26) so Stephen sees Jesus in the brightest spot in the glory. Seeing Jesus there, Stephen bows his knees. He was a wonderful reflection of the light of the Father’s throne and the prayer uttered by Christ! “And kneeling down, he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”, Acts 7:60. He was in wonderful accord with the day that Jehovah had made. He was equal to it under the most painful circumstances. He was a perfect reflection of Christ in the midst of the darkness in Jerusalem. How one would seek to be that! To be just unvarnished, unaffected, to be here according to the divine appointment, maintaining in one’s ways, and walk, and spirit, the day which Jehovah has made, and rejoicing in it and being glad in it! May God grant this to us!