“DO NOT HINDER ME”
Genesis 24: 53-61 (to “followed the man”)
It may be a fitting finish to the day we have had to reiterate the servant’s appeal in Genesis, “Do not hinder me”. The servant here, typical of the Spirit of God, has come from the Father, come from glory, fresh with the Father’s delight in Christ. What a matter for the Father that the sin question, which raised its head at the very beginning to spoil the relationships between God and man, has been finally settled! The great answer to that and the Father’s joy is that He has sent to secure a bride, a counterpart for Christ. That is the reason for the Holy Spirit having come here from the Father, with the wealth of heaven, come with “silver articles, and gold articles, and clothing”, precious things. What resources the Spirit has brought in to attract our hearts! How they attracted Rebecca! I can just visualise her eyes being enlarged, her heart swelling, as she saw those beautiful things. It does not just say that he brought silver and gold, but he brought articles; he brought on to her view some of the precious glories and features that have all been secured through Christ having gone into heaven. The servant comes freighted with these treasures and he displays them. They could not but be affected, the whole household is affected by the great wealth that the Spirit of God has brought in. They say, let us put it off for a minute, let us wait a few days. They could not deny the wonder or the blessedness of it, but they say, does it have to be now, does it have to be today? They say, “Let the maiden abide with us some days, or say ten”. But here we have the servant’s voice, “Do not hinder me”. I believe it is a voice that would be very appropriate to listen to at this moment, “Do not hinder me”. We have had these good times together and I am sure that all our affections have been stirred, but we will have other matters to face very soon. May that word remain in our affections, the Spirit’s appeal, “Do not hinder me”. He is carrying on a great mission. The glorious end of it will be that at the end of time, the assembly is seen as a bride adorned for her husband, see Rev 21: 2. What a tribute to the Spirit of God having come out with these articles of silver and gold and clothing. I have often thought that Rebecca, having accepted those things, could not but go to Isaac. Whose eye would appreciate them like his? Whose eye would be captivated by that clothing as she adorned herself with what the Spirit provided, but the heavenly man who could appreciate the detail and the beauty of her, clothed in those beautiful garments?
That is the great mission that the Spirit is bent on. Time is running out, time is short now. We were reminded of that at the close of the meeting, the glorious end is very near. The Spirit’s voice would be all the more urgent, “Do not hinder me”. We have all, at various times in our histories, been affected by spiritual ministry, but are we prepared to answer to it? It says, “Rebecca arose, and her maids”, and there as she moves on and responds to this appeal of the Spirit she finds a great system of help available. She must have wondered earlier when she saw all those camels—what is all this for? Did the man need all these camels, all these things, great resources and reserves that the Spirit has brought to keep us here superior to wilderness surroundings and circumstances. Rebecca as she moves had some fresh impression of those resources and power in the Spirit of God to carry her through into these final circumstances, where she can be in the embrace of Isaac. The time is near; soon He is to have His bride in all her beauty. Soon the true Isaac is to be captivated by what He sees, the glorious results of the Father and the Spirit’s operations, that there is a suitable counterpart to be with Him in the realm of glory. What it means to Christ to have the assembly not only for His own heart, but a companion that will be with Him in the affairs of the universe. What a comfort it is to His heart that He will never again be alone. I do not think that Christ will ever be seen again alone. It speaks of the assembly as being His fulness, His counterpart. As He takes up these matters with the nations, the subduing of all things to Himself, He will have a counterpart with Him, a great confidant, one who shares His great objective of securing a whole universe for the eternal praise of God. The Spirit of God is here today working to that great end.
We have had some impression in the meetings already of the great end that is in view, that Christ is to have a counterpart with Him in all His affairs, never again to be a Man alone. Blessed be His name, He was once alone, because there were matters that only He could deal with and He was alone in doing it, but the blessed answer to the completion of that work is that He has with Him, and will have with Him eternally, a bride suited to those realms of glory. This is the Spirit’s operations today, this is what He is bent on and He is saying again to you and to me today, “Do not hinder me”. May there be with us the captivated heart of a Rebecca, “I will go”. She said that in full calculation of all that it meant, maybe never again to see her father or mother or family. She said that with her eye on these beautiful garments; the man for whose eye these are, what a man he must be! She says, “I will go”. May our hearts be encouraged! As Pharaoh said to Joseph’s brethren, “Let not your eye regret your stuff”, Gen 45: 20. May our eyes be drawn, as the Spirit of God has liberty with us, to direct our hearts and eyes towards Christ where He is in His glory, waiting, seeking a counterpart to be with Him, and have confidence in the Spirit of God and the resources that His love has provided to conduct us very soon into that eternal home.
We spoke in the reading of the Spirit’s movements being largely what is individual. While that is true, I would like to say that the Spirit’s movements always have a collective end in view. That is the bride. The Spirit’s activities are not to set us up only individually, but to set us in relation to the whole. It says, “in the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body”, 1 Cor 12: 13. We are not left (we have individual relations), but the Spirit’s great end is to bring us to have part in this bride that is for Isaac. He has that always in view, He is always leading us into this one body. He is seeking a bride for Christ.
The woman in 2 Kings 4 knew some of these things. She says to Elisha that she was a widow of one of the sons of the prophets. They do not shine in a very good light in this book; they are very much like a good many of us, all of us at times, maybe less from today than before. They are persons who know the terms; they had known better times, they spoke of previous times, and here is this widow. She is left and what I want to bring out is that she did not appreciate what she had. She was there mourning; how difficult things had become. She was emphasising how weak things were. I would like to convey from this passage one very precious matter that I think helps us all—the Spirit operates within the realm of our faith. If you are living in doubts the Spirit is hindered. The Spirit was hindered with this woman. It is very sobering also to think of how the Lord wondered that they did not believe and because of their unbelief He was not able to do certain things, see Mark 6: 6. That is true about the Spirit being here, that He is hindered and may be limited because of our lack of faith. This woman was looking at all these things and she said it is death before us. She has to be adjusted, to come to realise that there is something there that has the power of life. It was despised, as she says “not anything at all in the house, but a pot of oil”. How discouraged she had become, how downcast! Perhaps there is a heart here that knows something of that, what it is to be downcast and feel that everything—alas some of our dear brethren feel that all has gone, things collectively are finished, they fear that the glory has departed. She says, “Thy handmaid has not anything at all in the house”, but Elisha says what you have is more than enough. This line of thinking brings us into bondage; it brought this woman into bondage. She was not able to meet her liabilities. One thing that the Spirit has come to do is to help us to fulfil our responsibilities. It is a very fine feature of the ministries of the recovery that in the assembly there is a vessel able to meet our responsibilities. The brethren should look at that; it is called fulfilled responsibility. A great many learned persons said that it was not possible to fulfil responsibility because everything from Adam right down has broken down. Noah broke down, Israel broke down, everything that has gone before has broken down, but here, in the assembly, empowered and indweIt by the Holy spirit, there is power to meet every responsibility and to glorify our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is the great service of the Spirit today, operating within the realm of our faith, that He gives us power to meet the liabilities and fulfil all responsibility and live in the joy of Christ’s love, the joy of our place as chosen in Christ before the world’s foundation. These are the things that the spirit, in the type, is bringing this woman into. He tells her that there is a way to go. If we have been discouraged, if we have said that there were better times, if we feel that things have become broken and almost lost, He says there is a way to meet it. Largely that way starts in self-judgment. The way of meeting these things is to own that our view has been wrong. There is no fault in the oil; the fault was that the pot of oil had been disregarded.
Paul brings the Galatians through this exercise of 2 Kings 4. He says “Ye ran well; who has stopped you”, chap 5: 7. “Having begun in Spirit, are ye going to be made perfect in flesh?”, chap 3: 3. It brings in a line of needing to judge things. This woman needed to judge how she had perhaps nominally assented to the previous ministries, but she was not vitally in it.
We said in our earlier reading that it all happened through a waning in our affections and the reviving begins in self-judgment, judging ourselves, judging how she had allowed such a state of things to continue when that pot of oil was there all the time. How much we would have to say it, feeling for ourselves, every one of us, how much the blessed Spirit of God has been disregarded, how little room has been made for Him. How often we have turned a deaf ear to His voice, “Do not hinder me”. May it be that we are turned around today, freshly revived, invigorated in our affections to regard what there is here in the house. It is like the ark in Samuel, in that house disregarded, a show piece, little respect paid to it. The Spirit of God says about that period, “the time was long”, 1 Sam 7: 2. How God felt it that the ark was so disregarded, and how heaven felt it too that this pot of oil in the house had been disregarded. Elisha puts her through exercises to go and borrow vessels, to make use of what was there and find that there was more than enough to set her up here, fulfilling every responsibility and living in power on the rest. I would like to have seen her filling those vessels. They brought these vessels; she pours out, the oil stayed. Every responsibility met, more than enough. It would be like the exercises of the soul going through Romans, I am sure. Think of her filling the vessels with oil. I think she would put a label on one of them and she would say, Justified. Very beautiful! She fills one vessel, and she says that is settled, I am justified. You say, Is she not justified in Christ? Yes. But the Spirit makes that good in her soul and she sees that she is no longer under condemnation, she is no longer under the liabilities that the devil would bring to put her in bondage. She says, I am justified. It says, “It is God who justifies: who is he that condemns?” Rom 8: 33, 34. Think of her filling another vessel, and she puts on the label, Reconciliation. She sees that not only has she been set up clear from every liability, but in the power of the Spirit’s grace she has been brought into the joy of being reconciled to God through the death of His Son.
These matters are real, the filling of these vessels is very real and experimental in our souls, that we come to see that we are not only justified and reconciled, and we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. What ground to be brought on to. She is brought on to enjoy sonship. She is brought into the wealth of the glad tidings. It is all here in the Spirit’s grace to give us the power to live, “thou and thy sons on the rest”. Think of the joy coming into her heart when she sees that she has more than enough! No longer criticising the brethren, no longer mourning all that has happened, no longer with her eye on the past, but there she is set up—
Thus joyful, bright and free,
I take the heav’nly road (Hymn 228)
—in all the joy that the spirit of God would shed abroad in her heart. That is one of His great services, shedding abroad in our hearts the love of God, and leading the sons of God through these circumstances in the joy of the resources and the power of divine love, and it is all there just within your reach, within the reach of faith like the woman in the gospel, the hem of his garment was just there (see Matt 9:20), ready to be touched, ready to be availed of. The Spirit of God is in the house, not in the world. The pot of oil is in the house. May we live in that area, to avail ourselves of what is available to meet every situation and be empowered, in the joy that the spirit of God would bring, to “live thou and thy sons on the rest”. It connects with the Galatian epistle where Paul mourned. He says, Ye are sons of God, and there you are overburdened with beggarly principles, see Gal 4: 9. How near these things come to us at times, short of the great grace that is there centred in the Spirit of God. He labours with the Galatians that they may come to appreciate what was there available in the house, instead of reverting to what is legal, or knowledge or even doctrine in itself, but he labours there to attach and revive their hearts again into the great grace that has come within their reach in the Spirit of God.
I referred to Peter to show that there is suffering involved. The circumstances of the way involve that. If we are to be true to what we have been called into it will involve suffering and I think the Spirit of God especially joins His help and is particularly known in circumstances of suffering. Someone remarked today already that in conditions of prosperity we are apt to be neglectful, but in conditions of suffering, the Spirit of God is made more room for. I think you see that shining in Stephen. There was a man reproached in the name of Christ. It is not exactly for Christ, but it says, “If ye are reproached in the name of Christ”. I think it means that there are some features of Christ coming out in your pathway, some expression of Christ in your life, and that will necessitate reproach, but it says, “blessed are ye; for the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. There it was upon Stephen. Stones, ridicule, how much was pressed upon him. How restful he seemed to be in the midst of these sufferings, able to speak as he did, and yet in the full consciousness of seeing the heavens opened, seeing Jesus at the right hand of God. There is the Spirit’s service to Stephen in a most remarkable way, “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. It means that He has not been hindered. The suffering that you and I may be passing through may be for that purpose, to rid us of the hindrances, to help us to make more room for the Spirit of God to rest upon us.
It reminds you of the dove, the way he came on Jesus, how beautifully he rested there, complacent. What He brought in with Him in heavenly glory and grace, “descending as a dove from heaven, and it abode upon him”, John 1: 32. Here in measure the same thing is true of the suffering saints, “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. It says, “suffering as a Christian”. Most of our suffering is in other ways perhaps. Here Peter is addressing people who passed through tremendous suffering on account of the faith, and there they were suffering in the name of Christ and he is encouraging them with these words, “the Spirit of glory and the Spirit of God rests upon you”. What communications He would bring into those sufferings. It reminds you too of the persons in Daniel in the fire. It says, “the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God”, Dan 3: 25. The Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. I am sure, in some measure, many have known it; the gibes and the attacks of men, how real and sorrowful they are, but what a recompense, the Spirit of glory and of God resting upon you. What communications they must have enjoyed! He tells those same brethren, as he begins writing to them of their great inheritance, “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by sanctification of the Spirit’, 1 Pet 1: 2. What a recompense in the suffering and the reproach for the Spirit to have liberty to engage us with our heavenly part. That brings me to Corinthians. The Spirit there is spoken of as the earnest. He is speaking here of the end of the journey. We have been speaking of something of that, the completion of the journey in glory. The completion here, as Paul is bringing out, is our body of glory, and that will be the great end of our time here, that we will be soon in a body of glory, but Paul is saying that in the Spirit’s grace there is already something here that is going to be clothed with a body of glory He says, “he that has wrought us for this very thing is God”. The work of God that has been worked out in the saints here in the Spirit’s grace is going to be clothed. Something substantial is going to be put upon it, a body of glory. It will be like unto His own body of glory. There is something here ready to receive it. Paul is bringing that to these saints, “if our earthly tabernacle house be destroyed” (v 1), but he says, “we have a building from God ... eternal in the heavens”. The great foretaste of that today, our heavenly hope, is not only described in the Scriptures, but in the Spirit of God there is some entrance now, some joy now in the present sufferings, of what our eternal home will be. He says, “who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit”. I understand that to mean that you already have the things in essence, you already have the joy, the foretaste of what that eternal matter will be, by the grace of the Holy Spirit of God. Peter had it. He speaks in his epistle of “that the putting off of my tabernacle is speedily to take place”, 2 Pet 1: I4. What does he speak of immediately? He speaks about the glory that he saw on the mountain. That experience that he had had some years before, the Spirit of God had made very real and dear to Peter. There he is speaking of putting off his tabernacle, and he speaks of what he saw on the holy mount, “eyewitnesses of his majesty”. In himself he was somewhat saying, Very soon I will be alongside of Him. He will be unique in His majesty, but we will be clothed in like bodies, suitable bodies, to be at home in the presence of divine greatness. May our hearts be encouraged that the earnest of it is now in the Holy Spirit of God. He says in an earlier chapter in Corinthians, “and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts”, 2 Cor 1: 22. Is there room for it? Is there room for Him in all these trials and sufferings that we pass through? Is there room made for the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts to engage us beyond what is of time, what is of man, that we may have some sense of the power that there is to bring us in.
May I again, in closing, use the Spirit’s words in an appeal: “Do not hinder me”. How great the hindrances are, but many of them, if we just enquired into them simply, would they stand the light of day? We often hear the expression, What is the harm of it? I would like to say in answer, ask the Lord. I once visited an aged brother who had become discouraged and was wanting to give up, and he was trying to justify to me the reason for his not being at the Supper. I just simply said to him, Can you say that to the Lord? Can you justify to the Lord why you were not at the Supper, because of these reasons you have told me? I think that is a very real matter. We make up many excuses. We speak about the pressure of our time, about many things that are coming in, but can we really, in the presence of the Lord, say that is the reason for my not being at the meeting? This is the reason for my not being so committed as I might be. Can we really say it to the Lord? Can we really say it to the Spirit in the presence of His appeal “Do not hinder me”? Dear brethren, may our hearts be encouraged, and not only have the goal before us, but in faith to tread that heavenly road in the power of the Spirit of God who has come here so near to us within the realm of faith to give us the power that eternal things are our joy and our hope now.
May I close with that word again, “Do not hinder me”. For Christ’s Name’s sake.
SUNBURY
June 1999
at three-day meetings with Mr Ron D Plant