WALKING WITH GOD
[p. 317] WALKING WITH GOD
1 Thessalonians 4: 1; Genesis 5: 21 - 24; Genesis 6: 9; Genesis 17: 1
The subject in mind is walking with God. It has a very great place in the Scriptures, and it appears in the first scripture significantly as addressed to young christians. The Thessalonians had been converted only a short time; they had “turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to await his Son from the heavens”(1 Thessalonians 1: 9, 10). Their conversion was thus very genuine and definite. But they had not long been converted in this way when the Spirit of God saw it needful that they should be addressed in an epistle. In chapter 4 the apostle Paul, seems to have come to the end of what he had in mind, and in his usual way he says, “For the rest”, that is, whatever remained to be said. He had said what he mainly had in mind. He urges on them this matter of ‘walk’, how they should walk and please God. He had already touched on the matter, and not without effect, for, as in all else, they were proving themselves genuine, a great matter. As weeks elapse after conversion what marks converts is a matter of great interest, for the mere conversion or turning to God may be regarded as a historical thing, and what normally should flow from it may be neglected. The apostle had not overlooked this, and as he said, had spoken to them. He says, “Ye have received from us how ye ought to walk and please God”. Not only had he put it before them, but they had received what he put before them. It is a matter of urgent importance for young christians not only to listen but to receive the ministry and to receive it honestly. They had done this, but the writer, the great apostle Paul, was concerned that the work of [p. 318] God should continue and increase more and more. More and more is indefinite, implying that there is really no limit to the increase that may be looked for, for the standard of walk is not really less than God Himself. He is the first to have walked, according to the record.
Before touching further on this scripture, I would remark on the great fact that God is the first to be spoken of as having walked, and it was concurrent with the temptings of the serpent which led to the alienation of the heart of Adam and Eve from God. That is the first record we have of walking, and the allusion is not so much to the walk as to the voice that accompanied the walk. Adam had heard the voice of the Lord God walking; the voice is what he heard, not the footsteps. That is to say, a voice, conveying God in His feelings, what He is; and what feelings, dear brethren, must have filled Him at this juncture. Whilst God knows everything from beginning to end, He is a feeling God, and nothing occurs in regard to His people, but is felt by Him. We are told later that man’s conduct was a grief to him every day. What a new experience it was to God, speaking reverently, as on this eventful occasion the garden was occupied (indeed one could hardly call it occupied, for they were hiding) by alienated hearts, by hearts that had proved untrue, disloyal. God feels that; there is nothing God feels more than disloyalty. His voice, we may be sure, would be changed, if indeed it could be discerned with these feelings. But He was walking, and He has been walking ever since. As the matter of sin, the matter of the disloyalty between His creatures and Himself was gone into, He continued on. That is His way was before Him; it necessarily took on different features, but it was the way of God; one of the most interesting epithets or phrases you can get is the way of God. A great believer, Apollos,
[p. 319] came over to Ephesus from Alexandria in the early days of christianity, knowing only the baptism of John. He spoke to the people there, the interested ones and others, about the Lord Jesus, but only in a very imperfect way, for he did not know the way of God fully, like millions today who have some light, but not the full light, of Christ. A certain man and his wife in that city, devoted persons left there by Paul, took him to them. They heard him preaching, and he preached exactly according to the light he had, but that light was very limited; and so, these two persons took him to them and showed him the way of God; they showed it to him more exactly. There are those today who disregard these things, and accuse brethren who want to be right as to spiritual things, of being exacting, and hair-splitters. But the Spirit of God wrote approvingly of Aquila and Priscilla as taking this man to them and showing to him the way of God more exactly. I can understand that Aquila would tell him something of what he had heard Paul say, of what matters he had touched upon in his preaching. Priscilla, in her womanly, sisterly way, would join in and confirm her husband and between them both Apollos would get help. How loyal they were to the way of God and what a contrast to Adam and Eve. God is calling for that today, dear brethren, because there are voices all around us, diverting us from the way of God, whereas one voice is ever sounding, This is the way, walk ye in it — the way of God. These two persons instructed this great servant in the way of God more exactly. The instruction had come down to them from Eden, as it has come down to us in this city tonight, the way of God. There is only the one way, and it has come down to us, and our business here tonight is to seek to instruct the brethren in the way of God more exactly. In order to make the position clear, I would remark [p. 320] that after God had walked in Eden calling for Adam and Eve, and finding them in disloyalty, His way involved sacrifice. I would like to say here, Let no one assume to be in the way of God unless on that principle, the principle of sacrifice. The entrance to that way is stamped with sacrifice and so all the way along. Hence the Lord, as I said, dealt with the sin question in the most pointed and effective way, and, I have no doubt, led Adam and Eve into His way; although that is not formally stated; the spiritual eye can see that He led them into His way, the way of sacrifice. God had a new experience, if you will allow me to use that word in a reverent way, a new experience in making clothes. He had made the heavens and the earth, and He made beings too before this of which we know but little, but the making of clothes was a new experience. It entered into the way, the way of God. Walking is not merely going from one point to another; it is a question of one’s manner. That is, the idea is in what is proceeding and in the way He is proceeding, and He has recourse to this great service, this humble service. Think of it, dear brethren! This humble service rendered by the great eternal God so that all that enter upon His way now should understand that it is a way of sacrifice. The first one that formally entered upon it was Abel; he understood; he added his quota to that way, that shining way, the way of God; he walked in it. But God inaugurated the idea, and so, in making clothes, He sacrifices. He not only sacrificed His dignity as Creator but He sacrificed what belonged to Him; whatever the creature was, it belonged to Him. How that is enlarged and enlarged as we go down the shining way of God, in the sacrifices of Genesis, and the obligatory sacrifices of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, until we reach Calvary’s cross. It is the great divine way [p. 321] that God was on and is on, for He purchased us (that is the assembly) with the blood of His own, with what belonged to Him (see Acts 20: 28). The principle is seen there in Genesis 3: 21. Was it nothing to God to slay and skin a creature that belonged to Him? Was it nothing to God? He is a feeling God. But in the light of the great Gift by which He was to be infinitely glorified we can understand how God entered on that way by the principle of sacrifice. And, if we turn to the New Testament, so as to clarify this point, what we find in John’s gospel, is John the baptist, who was God’s servant pre-eminently at that time, looking upon Jesus as He walked, that is, as He was on the way. The Lord never walked aimlessly, He never went out for a walk, He was always definite, always had something in mind. He was here for nothing else than to do the will of God. The word ‘sent’ is written in large letters in John’s gospel, and enters into every moment of the Lord’s life here, and He was leading others into that. The man in chapter 9 was led into it; Siloam means “sent”. So John the baptist sees the Lord walking, and he says, “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1: 36). That word “Lamb” denotes sacrifice, it has no other meaning, the meaning of it as presented in Scripture implies sacrifice; it runs from Genesis to Revelation, and the very last thought in Revelation is that of God and the Lamb and the temple; it is the heavenly side. Sacrifice runs right through, John the baptist discerned it. The use of the word “Lamb” brought out his spiritual understanding and carried with it the spiritual significance attaching to that creature throughout scripture. He was in the way; never had one walked that way before, although there had been foreshadowings of that walk. The Lord was on the way of God when John saw Him walking. Never had the way been so adorned as at that moment, and John’s heart was full of the thought. He was not exactly like Bartimaeus, sitting by the wayside. He was on it; he had been moving but was standing then and speaking glorious things about the Lamb, about Jesus, things that made little of himself, for he says, He “takes a place before me because he was before me”. What a worthy bystander! The real meaning of his standing was that when this glorious Person was walking, what could he do but stand and admire? It is not that he would not be walking, but he has to stand and admire. There was never anything seen on earth to be admired like the walk of the Lamb. John says, “Behold the Lamb of God;” and he set others in motion, those who heard him speak followed Him in the way of God. That is our point tonight, to draw our hearts into the way of God. In this scripture in John we have the thought of walking; it is the thought of God walking in Genesis, and the Lamb walking in John’s gospel. It is the same thought carried through, so we have the full divine idea set out in these two passages; we cannot add to them at all. The gospels set out the complete idea and the epistles are to lead us to that idea. The gospels are the great standard, and the epistles are the way to it, sometimes rising almost to their level as in Ephesians, but God’s level is the gospels.
Now I go back to speak of the educational side in regard to men like ourselves. What I have been saying is not on the educational side, but it is the standard and then we have education that leads up to the standard. The great teacher to lead us to that standard is Paul. Of course Peter had the thought in mind, but Paul teaches the gentiles how to walk. The one gentile who had never walked, the man at Lystra, who was lame from the beginning, represents the gentile, us poor dogs as Scripture calls us. It is well to go back and think in that [p. 323] humble way of ourselves. In the dark regions and ages of paganism, from east to west, from north to south, we never walked. There were ethics and philosophy among the Greeks, but they never walked, the great masters of Greece never walked according to God. It is humbling to own that there are those who live and die under the great masters, but who have never walked and pleased God. That is the great point. Paul came out among the gentiles and taught them how to walk and his teaching remains. God had said of Himself, years before, that He taught Ephraim to walk. Israel had to be taught how to walk. I apprehend the allusion is to the instruction in the book of Numbers, which sets out the manner of the divine way and how Israel was to go through the wilderness. They are taught how to walk, to walk in relation to God. God says, I taught Ephraim to walk. Ephraim was situated at the west side of the tabernacle with two other tribes, and he was nearest to the ark of the covenant. The psalm calls upon Jehovah to shine forth upon him; there is the light of the glory; the glory lit up the way in those wilderness times. There was no way in the wilderness, there were no roads there, the way was marked out by God, the way of glory. The glory moved and then the tabernacle, and Ephraim followed. That is to us the idea of teaching. “I it was that taught Ephraim to walk” (Hosea 11: 3).
The antitype corresponding to that in the New Testament is Paul’s system. The tabernacle system is not really set up till you have Paul’s ministry. It is a figurative representation of things in the heavens. God, as He looks upon it, in speaking to David, says, I went about with you, I walked with you in the wilderness myself. He knew the way. Think of God using such language as, “In all my going about with all Israel” and again “I have been [p. 324] from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another” (1 Chronicles 17: 5, 6). Jehovah said, I never asked you to build me a house. He was pleased to dwell with His people and went with them from one tent to another, from one tabernacle to another. See how much He had to put up with! And how much He has to put up with in our meetings! How patient He is with us! As we seek to walk in the light of the tabernacle to make conditions suitable for the divine dwelling, He comes in to walk among us. God said He would dwell among them. Our exercise should be for God to walk amongst us. God is pleased to dwell among us if in any little way we walk in the light. In addressing David through Nathan He says, ‘I have walked among you from the time you came out of Egypt and I did not complain at all’. How wonderfully gracious He is! In the New Testament the idea of the tabernacle in its full thought required Paul’s ministry; the book of Acts is really the setting up of the tabernacle, and it requires the great services of Paul and Barnabas at Antioch, at Philippi, at Thessalonica, at Corinth and, particularly, at Ephesus. It is in the great services and the light that shines in them that we apprehend what there is for God to walk in, and if God is to walk with us He wants us to walk alongside of Him.
Now I just want to touch on Enoch to show how delightful it is to walk with God. Paul, who is the educationalist, says, I have showed you how to walk and I want it to be more and more pleasing to God, that God may not have to look down from His holy abode and see the things He had to look at in the tents of Israel. The idea is how we should walk and please God. There may be hundreds of places where there is what God is pleased with, but not entirely. I am only speaking in general terms, but my thought is that the Lord may lay it [p. 325] on us that this walk is to please Him, and to be more and more pleasing to Him. So that we have our way cut out for us, and there is no limitation, because the standard is seen, as I have been seeking to put before you, in God walking in the garden and in Jesus walking here as the Lamb. Paul’s ministry and the power of the Spirit are available to enable us to walk with God and to please God more and more.
These Thessalonians were young christians, and the allusion here to this matter of walking is significant because the Spirit of God is constantly concerned about the young people amongst us. They are much on the mind of the Spirit of God, because tomorrow the burden will rest on them, so the desire is that they may increase more and more. These Thessalonians are said to be the assembly of the Thessalonians. It is, as the Spirit of God would say, the assembly of Brisbane, those who have been converted here, and have grown up here in the truth. They are addressed as “in God the Father” in the first epistle and “in God our Father” in the second, meaning they are in the place of young children, loved of the Father. All the feelings and affections of the Father are drawn out by this young assembly, freshly converted and turned to Him, as if God would say, You are in my heart, everyone of you has a place in my heart to care for you. It is a very remarkable address in that way; so that the point is, how delightful young christians are to God as they go on in any measure in a walk that pleases Him. I referred to Enoch, Noah and Abraham as exemplifying all this. The first is Enoch, and I would say to any parent here that the connection in Enoch is with the family. He was a man of sixty-five years old when his first son was born, and after that, it is said, he began to walk with God. Why he did not do so before I cannot [p. 326] say, but the Spirit of God connects his walking with God with Methuselah, and surely every parent will discern that there is a voice for him in this, for it is as if Enoch recognised that if Methuselah were to be brought up rightly he must walk before him in such a way as would tend to lead him to God. It is the outcome of the work of God in the man’s soul, but evidently there was the sense of responsibility in having a son. This son lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years and there is not much to say about him. It does not appear that he was lost in the flood. His father, Enoch, began to walk with God when Methuselah was a babe, and he walked with Him three hundred years. What an example! The Spirit of God does not rest on that; not a word is said about the effect on Methuselah, but the Spirit of God runs right on with what God thought about this companion, what He found in the first companion He is said to have had. “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” God would not walk far with Enoch unless they were agreed. We know there was agreement, for the Spirit of God carries the thought on to the New Testament, where it says, “before his translation he has the testimony that he had pleased God” (Hebrews 11: 5). I do not believe there is anything one would covet more, than to have in his soul the testimony that he pleased God in this life. It is open to us, dear brethren, especially the young people here, that you should begin with this idea, that you make God your companion in walk and please Him. It does not say God walked with him, the point is that God found a companion, wonderful thought, and a companion that walked with Him for three hundred years. I am speaking very respectfully and reverently, but I think it is in accord with the truth of the Scriptures to say that there was companionship for God with this man; he walked with God. What [p. 327] times Enoch must have had in nearness to God, in companionship with Him, in these early days when all the world was alienated and corrupt around him.
Of Noah it says he walked with God; he was perfect in his generations. It does not say that of Enoch. There was nothing said as to conflict, nothing as to service in relation to Enoch, it is a question of companionship with God. Of course there was service but that is not presented to us; the thought is how pleasing he was. But when you come to Noah, it is a cumulative thought; the same person has to take on onerous responsibility. Noah is a man who did things, a man of exploits, that is what is needed today, men who can do things for God. As to his sons, his brothers, his mother, you could not say anything, he was perfect in his generations. There can be no doubt that there would be persecution of a man like that. If any of us is to serve in the assembly in this city, we cannot close the mouths of our enemies, but we can take away opportunities from those that seek them. Noah took away opportunities. He was perfect in his generations, and he walked with God in a crisis. We are approaching a greater crisis, the world is about to be engulfed in the judgment of God. Noah had to do with God in similar circumstances and he walked with God. How needful he was at that time, but men who can do things are needed just as much today. There are many who do nothing, but the point is to do something for God; that is what Noah would suggest; he is a man of exploits, he would take on a great matter. There is nothing about Enoch with regard to the saving of his house. He went the right way, but Noah had faith and went the whole way; he prepared an ark for the saving of his house. It is a most urgent matter, for if our children are not saved the enemy has a great advantage. God has greatly revived the truth of the [p. 328] house recently, many are moving in it and the testimony is greatly augmented by the way brethren are taking up the truth of the household, preparing an ark for the saving of the house. The thought is cumulative. Jehovah carries the thought on; He says to Abraham, Walk before Me; indeed He says, I want you to walk before My face, as if God’s face were in a certain direction, but it does not say much about that in this section. The point for the moment is that Abraham is called to walk before Jehovah’s face and be perfect. Noah was perfect in his generations; Abraham is to be perfect from the divine standpoint. I apprehend perfection is that you walk in the full light you have, in the full light available. The light greatly enhances the shining out of God at this time as compared with the days of Enoch and Noah, and so later on God comes and says, ‘Abraham is a friend of Mine’. What a great thing it is to be a friend of God! Abraham is the first one to be called a friend of God. The thought is carried down through the Scriptures. God says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” (Genesis 18: 17). He had already answered to the divine command to walk before Jehovah’s face. Jehovah came to him in the heat of the day, and found him just where he should be. He was not asleep, he was vigilant. There is need for vigilance. As the Lord says, “what I say to you, I say to all, Watch” (Mark 13: 37). Abraham is vigilant, and he sees three men coming to him, and they found him just as he should be. I need not enlarge on that beautiful scene in Genesis 18. Abraham was before the face of God, he knew God and addressed Him, distinguishing Him from the other two. And God graciously says, I have proved Abraham, that he is walking before Me; I found him unawares, but he was all ready. What a challenge as to what we may be in our houses; on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, when we [p. 329] are not under the eyes of the brethren. God walks among us, and not simply when we are gathered together. He moves around our houses; He looks into our houses. Jehovah made a great matter of the tents of the people, that everything about the camp should be suitable to Him, that there should be nothing about them unsuitable to Him. He came to Abraham and found him just as he should be. What a fine thing! If God moves about the city, and looks into our houses, what will He find? He found what He delighted in in Abraham, and He says, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing?” He says, he will be a great and mighty nation, but he will look after his household, he will command his children and his house after him. Abraham dwelt in tents with Isaac and Jacob, he thought not only of his immediate child, but of his grandchildren also. God would look in on these tents, and find them as they should be. Abraham would walk with God and be perfect.
Well, dear brethren, that is all. I think you will admit it is an important matter, especially for young people, whether married or about to set up households, to pay attention to our walk and ways, and whether our houses are being secured for the testimony. Preparing an ark for the saving of his house is a powerful word for every parent.