THE DESIRE OF GOD TO BE UNDERSTOOD
THE DESIRE OF GOD TO BE UNDERSTOOD
Psalm 14: 2, 3; Jeremiah 9: 23, 24; Mark 8: 14, 15
One has felt that it might help us in our spiritual exercises if we took account of the desire of God to be understood. We know in our own affairs that we all have that longing, and how we feel it when misunderstood. How touching is the word in Psalm 14, “The LORD looked down from heaven” — that is from the height of His sanctuary, from that altitude from which He sees everything and everyone, God “looked down.” He was deliberately searching to see “if there were any that did understand, and seek God.” The pleasure of God in finding a man who in some measure understood, is evidenced in relation to Abel. It says, “By faith we understand,” and God took account of Abel as one who had understanding. He may not have understood much, but he understood something, for he offered to God what God could accept; behind his offering there was evidence that he understood God in some measure, and what was suitable to God. Enoch also understood, for it says that he walked with God. How wonderful! — for 300 years he walked with God, so that in looking down from heaven, God would see in Enoch one who gave Him pleasure, and to whom He could unfold His secrets. God did not hide from Enoch what He was doing, and later we are told that “he was not; for God took him.” God had found in Enoch a man who was pleasurable to Him, and He took him.
Then of Abraham it is said that he was the friend of God, not only that God was Abraham’s Friend, but Abraham was God’s friend. God loves to have friends who understand Him. A friend understands, so the Lord says to His disciples, “I have called you friends.” A servant does not know what his master does, but a friend knows and understands. Thus right down the line of faith there were men whom God found in His searching, as He looked down to see if there were any who did understand and seek God. He found these men of faith who in some degree understood.
When the Lord Jesus was here in manhood every longing of the heart of God was met. There was one blessed Man here who did understand, and as God looked down from heaven there comes the word, “This is my beloved Son in whom I have found my delight.” God had found it! The pleasure of God was ministered to perfectly — because a son understands.
You can see that with Abraham and Isaac as they go on together. As they went, what holy intercourse there was between them. “My father,” says Isaac, “behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?” “My son, God will provide himself a lamb... So they went both of them together.” What an understanding there was between Abraham and Isaac — so that when Isaac is bound and placed on the altar, there is no evidence of a struggle, or of any resistance, there was complete understanding; figurative of that blessed journey of God’s beloved Son, when in the perfect understanding of the Father’s will, He came here to die. The Lord could say to the Jews, “I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you,” John 8: 55.
If God is pleased to hide His things from the wise and prudent of this world, and reveal them to babes, the Son says, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight,” Matthew 11: 26. And if at the end of His service here, the cup may not pass from Him — that awful cup — He is able to say, in perfect submission, “O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done,” Matthew 26: 42. Blessed understanding! — seen perfectly in Christ alone. What delight that ministered to God! — and God desires to extend it.
The Lord’s service as the Mediator of the new covenant has in view the extension of the knowledge of God, so that there should be myriads of hearts that understand and know Him. The apostle John takes up the thought and says: “We know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ,” 1 John 5: 20. He says, “We know the Son of God is come,” and having come, He causes the knowledge of God to enter into myriads of hearts; He gives us an understanding that we may know Him that is true. Jeremiah tells us that is the thing to glory in: “let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me.” What are riches? he says, do not glory in them. What is might? — or wisdom? The only thing to be desired is to understand and know God.
If God in His wisdom reduces our riches, and our resources, it is only that He may give us that wherein we may glory, that we should understand and know Him. Instead of our hearts living in the things that are passing away, and making them our all, He would bring before us that blessed One in whom we have an understanding and something in which to glory. The apostle Paul says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us,” 2 Corinthians 4: 7. The treasure was the knowledge of God; it was that in which the apostle himself gloried. Paul said to the Corinthians, “some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame,” 1 Corinthians 15: 34. In this day, after the Son: of God has come, it is a shame not to know God! One speaks humbly, for how little, alas, we know God, but he says, “I speak this to your shame.” One has come, who is the Declarer of God, the Son of God, making God known, “the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,” John 1: 18. It is therefore a shame, especially to Christians, if they have not the knowledge of God; but as having this treasure, we have that in which we can glory — “Let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me,” Jeremiah 9: 24.
Now I would like to refer to this thought as seen in the blessed Lord Jesus Himself. What touching words we read in Mark 8: 21, “How is it that ye do not understand?” He might raise that question with many of us. God brought the beasts of the field to Adam, and he named them, and whatever he called them, that was their name, but it says, “for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.” Think of the loneliness of Adam at that moment! There were beasts of the field, cattle, and fowl of the air, and he could recognise their various characteristics, and name them; but for himself, there was no help meet found. Adam was alone on the earth, for there was not a living creature that understood him, or could share his thoughts. God Himself had said it was not good for the man to be alone; in His consideration for His creature, God would not allow the loneliness to continue. Think of the desolation of heart that would be felt, if one were alone in New Zealand! Yet Adam was alone on the earth, with not one soul to commune with him or share his thoughts. And so God says, “I will make him an help meet for him,” Genesis 2: 18.
With this in view God began another work, different from anything else that had gone before, it says He “builded a woman, and brought her to the man.” And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” He found one that could understand him and share his thoughts, and with whom he could commune. Thus in holy manhood, the Lord Jesus was here alone. We can understand the loneliness of Christ; though He had the twelve disciples, and we know how greatly He appreciated them and their companionship, for He said, “Ye are they which have continued with me in my temptations,” Luke 22: 28.
He would reward them for that, as He said, “I appoint unto you a kingdom as my Father hath appointed unto me.” Yet when we look into things closely, we can see that the Lord was alone in many respects; He was alone, for He was misunderstood, even by His disciples.
The incident we have read in Mark shows this. The Lord had taken five loaves and two fishes, and had fed 5000, and they had gathered up twelve hand-baskets full of the fragments; and again, He had taken seven loaves and a few small fishes, and had fed 4000. They had witnessed all this, yet when He speaks about the leaven of the Pharisees, that awful deadening influence which deadens and destroys the real value of everything that is of God, they say, “It is because we have no bread,” Mark 8: 16. They had but one loaf, and they thought He meant they needed bread. So the Lord says, “How is it that ye do not understand?”
Think again of the Lord’s love for little children. No one ever loved them as He did; He would take them into His arms and bless them and put His hands upon them, and identify Himself with them, but the disciples drove them away and bade them depart. They did not understand the Lord, and He rebuked them for what they did. Then think of the Lord on the lake; He said, “Let us go to the other side.” Think of all He had said, and of all the power they had witnessed, and yet when He went into the hinder part of the ship and slept, they are full of fear. They cry, “Master we perish!” They do not understand Him.
The Lord takes them on to the holy mount, where there is to be a display of His glory; when His face will shine as the sun, and His raiment become white as the light, when there is to be “such a voice” — a voice never heard before, disclosing what He is to the Father — and it says “they were heavy with sleep”! They do not understand. He takes them into the garden of Gethsemane where He was to face the question of that cup, where His whole soul is being poured out in sorrow: “My soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death,” — but He comes and finds them sleeping — He is alone.
God had said, “It is not good that man should be alone,” and the Lord Jesus goes into death; answering in that sense to what is presented in figure in Adam, when the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon him. That really explains the present position in one view of it; primarily the deep sleep refers to the Lord’s death, but I believe that it also covers the whole of this present period, when publicly, the Lord is absent and unseen, when there is no evidence of His moving in a public way. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and so the Lord has gone out of sight, for close on two thousand years, while God by the Spirit is building a woman, for the assembly — the church — is taken out of Christ.
Building is a work of time; it is done little by little, not in a moment. God may command the seas to swarm with living creatures, but that is not building: the assembly — the woman — is built, and little by little the structure is added to, until there is a vessel formed which is soon to be presented to Christ, when He will be able to recognise that which is of Himself, just as Adam recognised that Eve was of himself in saying, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man.” So the apostle John hears the word, “Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife,” Revelation 21: 9, and he was shown “that great city, the holy Jerusalem” — the city “whose builder and maker is God.”
The great present work of the Spirit of God is to form livingly in our souls that which will enable us to understand Christ; that we should be material for the building, by the work of God. The city is seen prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and to all eternity she will understand,
and enter into the longings and desires of the heart of Christ. She will also have her part in the coming world, and from her will shine out that which has its origin in God Himself, for “the glory of God has enlightened it and the Lamb is the lamp thereof.” The source of its light is God. God is there. “The city had no need of the sun... for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the lamp thereof.”
I am sure the Lord would help us to make room in our souls for the work of the Spirit of God, so that we may understand His desires, that when the day of display comes, there will be seen that which corresponds to Christ, as Eve did to Adam, in the type. The Lord will have a companion that understands His own heart. It will involve on our side, deep exercises and the constant judging of what is unsuitable to Him, but how well worth while it is to be formed in the features of the true bride, so that what comes into display may be truly what is of Himself, as formed in us now by the work of the Spirit.
The Lord is extending the knowledge of God, knowledge that is yet to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. As we look out on the sea, how completely the waters cover the whole area. Whatever there may be beneath, the waters cover all; and the Lord will cover the earth with the knowledge of God — the coming world will be enveloped in it. As God says through Jeremiah, “they shall all know me” — this while specially true of Israel will be characteristic of men in that day.
If Adam and Eve had acted according to their knowledge of God what an answer they would have given to the serpent; they would have cast his lie in his teeth as he brought forward his misrepresentation of God. In the eternal condition yet to be brought to pass every lie will be outside — every false thought of God that has ever intruded into the universe — outside with all liars. The whole scene is to be filled with those who understand and know God, those who respond to Him.
God is bringing many sons to glory. Sonship in the divine mind involves sympathy, intelligence, and an understanding of God and of His love; and the great blessing of sonship in varying degree is going to spread to every family, Ephesians 3: 15. “In my Father’s house are many mansions” — abodes — suggests the final thought connected with the Father’s house; there will be many abodes, where the many families all-knowing and loving God, will have their dwelling places. But the Lord’s special word to the assembly is “I go to prepare a place for you.”
The Lord help us to take account of the desires of God. I would bring before your hearts the desire God has to be understood, and the intense longing of the heart of Christ to be understood. The work of the Spirit today is to give a present and eternal answer to those longings.
May God grant that we may be contributing a definite part to that now.