WHERE ABIDEST THOU?

^[p. 108] WHERE ABIDEST THOU?

Exodus 25: 1 - 17; John 1:35 - 40 We get a very touching lesson in Mary of Magdala, for she had very little intelligence, but more heart for the Lord than anyone on earth at that time. The whole thought with her was, where the Lord was. She had a devoted heart, which is really the introduction to the assembly. As soon as you know the value of the work He has wrought out for you, the first question you ask is, Has He any place here? You see it imitated in christendom where religious buildings serve more as a diversion from the right spot than otherwise. Better to be in a country where there are neither churches nor chapels, and have your heart awake to the fact, Christ is my Saviour, and now I want to know if He has any place here. You see it first in the song of Exodus 15: “The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation”, (verse 2). Here God is before you, and if you know He has saved you and that you have been brought by Him into the cloudless joy of His presence, have you no feeling as to His having a place here? I trust that there are many hearts in this room that will respond to the question. Can I find a place where the Lord is? You get it illustrated in the Old Testament. As soon as the people are out of Egypt, three things are before them: first, they are clear of that place, then, “I will prepare him an habitation”, and, thirdly, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place, O Lord, which thou hast made for thee to dwell in, in the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy hands have established”, (Exodus 15: 17). You find that God has brought you to His own place - do not forget that bit.

^[p. 109] No doubt the Lord knows where every one present is historically. I learn a great deal from the palsied man as recorded in Matthew 9. You say, The Lord cured him. He did cure him, but that was not the first thing, He forgave him his sins first, and He cured him afterwards. You do not know what you want, but God does, and when you get it you say, That was the very thing I needed.

We find in Mary of Magdala the leading trait of the assembly. Where is He? And in the two disciples following Jesus who ask, “Where dwellest thou?” The devoted heart says, Nothing will satisfy me but Himself. Why? Because He is everything to me. The moment Mary of Magdala saw and knew where He was, she left Him to do His bidding. She was content, for love delights to do the will of its object. Many here can say, I know Christ died for me; but do you know Him risen? It is a grand day when you first become acquainted with a risen Christ by the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit has come down, and I learn that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. I know too I have a living link which connects my soul with that blessed Person who was here, but is not here now. It was consolation to Mary of Magdala’s heart to know that He was risen. All is, so to speak, in pattern in the gospels, it is not fulfilled there. What I want to convey to you is that it is a wonderful moment when the soul knows that the Lord is risen. It gives unbounded joy to the heart, and like Jonathan I strip myself to give to David. I make much of the Lord, and when I know Him as my life (Romans 8), I can suffer for Him, because it is not only what He has done for me, but what He is to me. I take it as indicating stages: first, you know His work; secondly, you have found Himself and know He is risen; then you ask, Has He a place here? And you find Him in the ^[p. 110] assembly. In the history of souls they must learn Him in priesthood before they know Him in the assembly. It is a most touching thing, and I see it set forth in Mary of Magdala. I know that He is risen and He is everything to me. I find pressure and grief and other things too that try me greatly down here, but what do I do? I turn to Him. For what? For sympathy. His sympathy has never been opened out to you and you have never known the effect in your heart of those two words, “Jesus wept”, unless you have the sense in your soul that Christ in glory has an interest in you. He it is that bears me above all the pressure of circumstances and other things down here. He is near me and how does this affect me? It severs me from earth. Never till you have tasted the sympathy of Christ will your heart be drawn out of earth and that by a Person who is not on earth. Do you think Mary of Bethany ever forgot that walk when Jesus wept? Never! To have His sympathy you must come near to Him.

The highest thing God could say to an Old Testament saint was, “I will be with thee”. Now the risen Lord says to you and me, You are to be with Me where I am. If you do not understand that, you can never know what His sympathy is. You may be devoted, but you have never tasted His sympathy. When I taste His sympathy in the history of my soul, I find myself personally outside this scene, and while in His company He endears Himself to my heart, and conducts me into the brightest spot - the holiest of all. I believe many are ready to go to the Lord, but I cannot see how any christian can understand the interests of Christ, unless he knows Him in the assembly. Every evangelist ought to come from the assembly. There were no missionaries in the Old Testament, the evangelist comes from the assembly. Nothing ought to delight our hearts more than to know that though the Lord has been refused and cast ^[p. 111] out, still He has got a place here. I trust every heart here is like Mary of Magdala - set on finding Him, and like the two disciples, who asked Him, “Where dwellest thou?” It was an unusual question to ask a Man - a stranger too - where He dwelt.

What I desire to press upon you is that you must have to do with Christ risen, and that you cannot have to do with Him as Priest until you have had to do with Him as Saviour. He is outside of everything here.

In Matthew 14 when John Baptist was beheaded, the Lord accepts the crisis; it foretold His own rejection. What does He do? He educates His disciples for the new thing. He walked on the water above it all. Peter joins Him there outside everything here; in association with Himself and above all the power of evil. When He led captivity captive, He gave gifts unto men and these gifts from a risen Christ rise above all the power of evil. No power of evil can quench a gift bestowed by Christ in glory. The Lord walks on the sea; Peter sees Him and says, “If it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water”, (verse 28). It is a question of affection. Can I join Him? To man it is superhuman, but affection carries the day. Peter says, “Bid me come unto thee”. The Lord says, “Come.” Let me ask each of you, Have you sufficient affection to want to join the Lord where He is? You see it in pattern in Elisha and Elijah. When Elisha asks for the double portion Elijah says, “If thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee”, (2 Kings 2: 10). Elisha never took his eyes off Elijah and what did he get? If the Lord said to you, What shall I do for you, what would you ask? Perhaps for your children to be converted? What does Elisha ask? - a double portion of Elijah’s spirit, and he gets it. A double portion is a complete portion. The Lord was taken up into heaven; Acts 1. What Elisha asked for from Elijah, God gives us, “He shall give you another Comforter”, (John 14: 16).

^[p. 112] Peter was not satisfied with seeing the Lord walking on the sea, but joined Him there. I would like to ask every young believer here, Have you affection for the Lord? He is the Stone, “disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious”. “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious”, 1 Peter 2: 3, 4. You have taken the first step and now you go on to the second step, “To whom coming”, etc. To reach that point you must travel outside all that is of man. Perhaps you say, I am not prepared for the consequences; then let me say that I never saw a man who calculated about taking a right step, that ever took it. The true heart says, “Bid me come unto thee”. What we have in John 6 occurs evidently at the same time as that in Matthew 14.

In Exodus 25 the great point is that all the people are interested in God’s place. I go to a place and the numbers may be small, but I find all thinking about the assembly; everyone is interested and concerned about it. I go to another place and I find it quite different; it seems there as if what was everybody’s business is no one’s business. Why? Because they were never in their soul’s history in assembly, for the effect of being in assembly is that you are taken up with Christ’s interests, you have got a new class of interests. In Exodus 25 all are contributors to God’s house, all are interested in it. There was the golden box and the mercy-seat above upon the ark, and there it was that Moses got the mind of God. We have to do with Christ now both as Moses and Aaron. We listen to Him as Moses and we accompany Him into the holy place as Aaron, and let me say that you will never understand the holiness of that place until you are brought there. Do not refuse to accept what I say, but do as the Bereans did - search the Scriptures and see if these things are so. You will never know what holiness is till you are where holiness is. The spot that no Jew on earth ever reached, the believer reaches now. “Whom God has set forth a mercy-seat”, (Romans 3: 25). You must know what the blood does for you before you have boldness to enter into the holiest of all, and when there, beholding the Lord’s glory, you become changed into His image. No amount of reading will do this, you must go in and know a Person there, and when there the first effect is you get an impression. There is an impression made upon you which makes you shrink from everything that would interrupt your enjoyment of Him, and therefore what comes out in you practically is found in Romans 6 - you die to sin. “Always bearing about in the body the dying” (not death) “of the Lord Jesus”, 2 Corinthians 4: 10. When you reach that spot, beholding Christ in glory, you are so entranced with the blessedness of it you are lost and you say, Now I should like to have everything that interferes with my enjoyment of Christ where He is - removed. You only arrive at this through death. You may not like the way to it, but God knows when you are set for it and therefore He rolls in death upon you, that is, He disciplines you. You arrive at it by a peculiar road. If I may so say, in order to help your progress, God removes the stone that is before the wheel. Once you are set for it, you feel everything that hinders and God removes the hindrance for you.

Rebekah’s nurse dies when Jacob gets to Bethel. Many a man is saved and perhaps goes on nicely and quietly for years. Then he builds a house, and his eyes, like Lot’s, rest upon the long grass and he sees nothing beyond. While he is there he is of no use to anyone else; he has easy times of it while others are enduring hardship and serving the Lord. Well, all we can say to him is, We do not envy you.

Let me repeat, that it is an immense thing to get the impression in His presence of what the house of God is. There I learn that He has got a place on earth while I know and enjoy Him in the place where He is.