THE IMPORTANCE OF OUR SPIRITS
W. Dickson
1 Chronicles 15: 15, 16; 2 Chronicles 5: 11–14; Colossians 3: 16, 17; Ephesians 5: 18–21
Beloved brethren, we live in days of great gravity and the course of the testimony has always called for much sobriety and a continual sense of responsibility for all who partake of the Lord’s supper, and what I want to speak about now, as having the Lord to help us, is positive activities, positive actions. The Lord would help us as to the positive outlook of our spirits as well. It is a very important matter in these days that our spirits might be maintained at the right level. Among the unclean animals in Leviticus 11 is the groaning lizard, and the spiritual meaning of that would be to instruct us to keep our spirits rightly; to correlate the activities of our hands in serving in the assembly with a spirit which conduces in itself to the furtherance and the development of the work of God. It is a very important matter, beloved brethren, because as to fact we sometimes influence more by our spirits than we do by our actions. It is one of the very attractive things about the spiritual order of things. In man’s world a man’s measure is related to his activities, his achievements; they point to his accomplishments in a material sense; but the beauty of Christianity is what can be effected by persons in their spirits, as being marked by what is right.
I turned to this passage in 1 Chronicles 15 because in a sense it is historical in its bearing. A brother made reference in the reading to the
characteristics of a certain period, and what we would have to say humbly is that the ark was not carried according to the due order; we would all subscribe to that; that was what characterized that period, and humility has marked the dear brethren in regard to it, and I believe it does still. But in the recovery which marked David in this passage there comes to light something that did not so strongly characterize the time of failure, and that was the bringing in of this feature of song. What marked the original bringing up of the ark was the predominance of what was military; the writer in 2 Samuel 6: 1 perhaps enlarges upon that more than the writer in Chronicles. Of course, the analogy to history is clear; but when the recovery comes in in David, he moves again in the furtherance of his desire that the ark should find a resting place in Jerusalem and “spoke to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren, the singers, with instruments of music, lutes, and harps, and cymbals, that they should sound aloud, lifting up the voice with joy”. Without being imaginative, perhaps someone would have said to David, ‘Well, David, are you right; do you not think we should proceed into this matter with the utmost gravity, clothed in sackcloth, with your head bowed?’ But no; he gave instruction about this wonderful addition of bringing in the musical instruments and the singers, and I think that, beloved brethren, is an allusion to the spirit in which we should move in a conscious sense that the Lord has recovered a situation in His own grace, characterized by the spirit of joy and thanksgiving.
The passage in Colossians is the New Testament analogy to this—“Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly”. What was the danger in Colosse? The allowance of the human mind and intellect, philosophy and vain deceit—intruding into the christian circle and causing Paul to be apprehensive
lest anyone would lead them astray. It was in effect a new cart, and therefore he brings forward in the Colossian epistle the glory of the Person of Christ, the ark in all its greatness and glory; he brings it forward, again assuring the saints that the great point of recovery was what was in mind. So Paul says, “Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly”. I do not think there will be room for anything that is subversive if the word of the Christ is dwelling in us richly. It is a very remarkable expression, it seems to involve all that is connected with the glory of that Person. His greatness, and what He is in God’s thoughts as the centre of that vast universe of bliss; and we are to be occupied with it. “Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly”—we are to be occupied with it, to be filled with it, to find it our constant theme of conversation. Then, “in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God”. That is the spirit of recovery; that is the spirit in which David took up the ark again to Jerusalem with these singers with the cymbals and with the lutes. You can almost read into this “psalms, hymns, spiritual songs”, these holy activities.
So, beloved brethren, what can we say about psalms? It is well taught amongst us that the psalms relate to experience. I do not think that they exactly refer to experience in conflict, that you can detail your part in the various crises, that you can give an historical account of things. I do not think that is a psalm. I think a psalm is an experience with divine Persons.
You can relate for the help and the encouragement of God’s people some experience of the help of divine Persons, where the Spirit has helped you in a testing exercise. He helped you as to how to deal with it.
and the spirit in which to deal with it. He helped you, and you could write a psalm about that, a spiritual song, an ascription to divine Persons, in other words, a heart welling forth so that God Himself gets a portion from every exercise in spiritual songs. Well, we want to be humble and yet we want to ponder in our spirits the greatness and the glory of Christ—and what has been brought back to us in this day of recovery despite what had come in in the new cart and the failure associated with it. In the recovery the Lord is giving us in ministry touches of freshness and power which are an evident testimony to the continuing presence of the Spirit amongst us.
If we turn again to 1 Chronicles 15 there are one or two beautiful touches. It says at the end of verse 20, “with lutes on Alamoth”; the note says, Probably ‘voices of young women’. That is fine! Are we not thankful to have our young people with us today? We must be thankful, leaving out the literal side of it, for the freshness of affection that the Lord is bringing out amongst His people. Then it says, “with harps on the Sheminith”, and the note reads, ‘eighth, probably the bass octave’. It would have reference to the depth of things; pure and holy depth of feeling enters into our spirits so that we are not trivial, we are not light; and then it says in verse 22, “And Chenaniah, chief of the Levites for the music” or, as the note says, ‘transport’.
Beloved brethren, we have been transported as coming to the gathering of the saints and had our spirits uplifted, getting a touch from a divine Person.
So in Colossians 3 we have, “whatever ye may do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father by him”. What a spirit! What a spirit in which to move in and out amongst the brethren. Visiting an old sister,
you do it in the name of the Lord Jesus; it is the spirit in which you care for the Lord’s interests, “in the name of the Lord Jesus”.
One other point in this section is that as well as singers there are doorkeepers. Well, beloved, I would say you want to enlist the service of the doorkeeper in anything that is going to be done in this spirit. If you see any root of bitterness or malice or any sense of a grudge in regard to the past history of things, you need the doorkeepers so that your spirit is not damaged. That is why the doorkeepers come into it. We should be continually on the alert, so that our spirit is not affected or damaged by matters either universally or locally.
In 2 Chronicles 5, which is quite a remarkable passage, there is the synchronizing of the one hundred and twenty priests sounding the trumpets, and the singers, as mentioned in verse 13—“it came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one voice to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah”. It is a synchronizing, beloved brethren, of our spirits with the attestation of divine glory and supremacy in the assembly. These trumpeters!
O, beloved, what a sphere the assembly is! You have the constant attestation in the assembly as to the supremacy of divine Persons, as to the Lord’s supremacy, and as to the Father’s supremacy. I have said it once or twice recently, because it causes me a lot of concern, that there is nothing that tests me more if I hear it in the meeting than the expression as to the importance of giving the Lord the first place. It is one of the most common expressions amongst us, and yet if you ponder the implications of that statement, giving the Lord the first place, it involves every matter that comes up domestically, every matter that comes up in your local meeting, every matter that comes up circumstantially. I think it is one of the biggest tests that the Spirit can apply to an exercised believer—how we give the Lord the first place.
Here are these one hundred and twenty trumpeters, typically sounding the attestation of the supremacy of God consequent upon the installation of Christ in the point of highest glory, and every knee is going to bow to Him in that place. It says the singers and the trumpeters were as one. It is a matter in which your spirit is in perfect accord with the divine supremacy.
And then, when they were as one, they praised Jehovah for His loving-kindness, and it was then that “the house, the house of Jehovah, was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house”.
It is a wonderful psalm this—Psalm 136 would be in mind, “For he is good, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever”. Could you sing that in Redbridge? Could you sing that in London? Could we sing it in Edinburgh? “For he is good, for his loving-kindness endureth for ever”. Some authorities on the Old Testament Scriptures tell us that when David established the twenty-four courses, on festival occasions all were employed and twelve of the courses sounded the praise and the other twelve answered in the refrain. Think what that would be when twelve of the courses sang, “Give thanks unto Jehovah for he is good”, and the other half answered, ‘Yes, for His loving-kindness endureth for ever’. O, beloved brethren, the importance of unity in the truth, based on the supremacy of God being acknowledged, and our spirits being entirely in accord with it; it leads to the greatest triumph that can possibly be envisaged in the praise of God. There is nothing to equal it in its blessedness.
So it says in Ephesians 5, “And be not drunk
with wine, in which is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit”. O, beloved brethren, be filled with the Spirit! Then there could be no question as to your spirit; there could not be any question as to the character of your spirit if you are filled with the Spirit. Our hearts would be always rejoicing, completely in accord with God’s great thoughts. “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and chanting with your heart to the Lord”; beloved brethren, how much of this is with us? How much in a practical sense are our spirits affected so that we are constantly expressing ourselves in this wonderful activity and in this wonderful service? Think of the edifying effect of this holy occupation. It is like Psalm 45, our hearts welling forth with a good matter. Perhaps we dwell too much on the past; perhaps we dwell too much on the current activities of persons who have departed from the truth.
There is a basis for consideration as to these better things.
We can never have too much of these psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, ‘giving thanks at all times for all things to Him who is God and Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ’. You attest the supremacy of God; the trumpeters give expression to it; they attest the supremacy of God, the supremacy of the Lord. But it goes beyond that. This is the test—“submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of Christ”. If the weight of that got into our spirits how meekly we would accept adjustment. I think that if our spirits are right, beloved brethren, we will get the answer; if our spirit is right we will get the answer to all that the Lord is saying in the assembly amongst His own, and contribute to the edifying, the building up and strengthening of God’s people in a positive way. That should be our heart’s desire and our life work.
May the Lord bless the word for His name’s sake.
Address at Redbridge
26 November 1977