ENQUIRY

R.D.Plant

Genesis 25: 21-23; 2 Samuel 5: 17-25; Psalm 27: 4

I want to speak a Little as to the thought of enquiry, following on what we had at the end of the reading, when something came before us as to prayer. I wondered if we might consider these scriptures which refer to persons who enquired. We are accustomed to going to God to ask for things, and maybe we know something about being before God to thank Him for things, but I think enquiry suggests something further than that. Enquiry is not really asking with a view to a simple need being met, or thanking for something that has been done, or even asking for grace for the way, but it is a desire to know more of God's mind at the moment. I think what we said at the end of the reading as to prayer, dear brethren, finds an answer in every one of us. We are tested as to how and how much we pray. We are thankful to be together in occasions like this, but how often do we kneel down before God, not that a need may be met, not even as before a meeting like this, or before the preaching, great and needful as such prayers are, but how often do we simply get down before God to enquire of Him? I think many of our problems are related to that; we would rather enquire of some other brother as to matters, we would rather find those that we know think similarly to us, enquiring of them as to how we should move and what we should do, when I believe that spirituality would involve more enquiring of God. I think it was Mr Raven who said that if he could have his time again he would pray more. Well, let it not be until the end of our lives that we come to that. Let us see that for every step of the day we are dependent, every step of the day we are under God 's mighty hand; there is no time that we are at our own charges or capable of being able to do things ourselves. If we are here at all in relation to God's way through the wilderness scene, we need to be dependent upon Him and that means that we need constantly to be in communion with Him.

So I think this matter of enquiry bears a few words. As I say, it is more than asking and it is more than thanking; it involves that you go before God to find out more of His present mind. Whatever the circumstances that are a concern, it is more than asking for grace. We need grace; Paul beseeches God that that thorn might be removed, and His answer after three times was "My grace suffices for thee", 2 Cor 12: 9. There are things, maybe physical, which the brethren have upon them at the present time, maybe matters in their families, maybe things in their bodies which they have to bear that we need grace for; how much there is amongst the saints that is being carried at the moment! How much depth amongst the saints is being wrought as a result of the way we have come! I love to look at the saints and see the triumph of God's work, and see that He has brought through in persons to this day some tribute to His own blessed operations. How you beseech God, do you not? that what there is at the moment that is here in relation to Himself might be kept until the end! I wonder if all of us are before God in our localities that what there is there might be increased in a subjective way, so that when the Lord comes, as the scripture says, "But when the Son of man comes, shall he indeed find faith on the earth?", Luke 18: 8. May it be so in all our places! May every one of us be persons who spend more of our time as before God in relation to the furtherance of His interests; for this we need to enquire. We know that there are some things we cannot change. Sometimes we have to wait in relation to matters but we can always enquire, dear brethren. There is never a time when we cannot enquire of God; there is an avenue to His presence that is always available; let us make use of it more.

So I read three scriptures, although there are many others as to enquiry, and the first one is Rebecca. We know her history in Genesis 24 when she shines in a wonderful light. I would encourage the young people here to read these scriptures and to read them carefully, and to look for some fresh touch that will lighten them up. You can read the ministry as to a scripture and say it is very wholesome, and yet if you are before God He will give you some touch that will illuminate every page of that ministry or that scripture or that teaching, and will bring it livingly to life for you. It is an important thing to take advantage of what there is, but it is a most important thing that we get the present, living, you may say three-dimensional, character of it. The Holy Spirit is present here today to give a living touch that we might be kept in the brightness of what is proper to our gatherings at the present time. Rebecca had shone in chapter 24 where she is typical, as we know, of the assembly coming to Christ, and there is wonderful instruction for us as to the movements of the Holy Spirit. There is instruction for us as to the position of Isaac, but here we have moved on a chapter and you find the same Rebecca who is anxious as to what she finds within herself, the struggle within her. We need to remember, especially when we get older, that the struggle within is something that is very real especially in relation to those of us who are younger, and maybe those of us who are older. You do not know anything about a struggle within until you set yourself for God's things. If you have committed yourself and desire to be here for the Lord and His people, and you go to do one tangible thing in relation to that, you will immediately find the enemy will attack you. If you have not been conscious of any way in which there is a struggle, any way in which there is a pull within you which tells you to give everything up and another pull which tells you what is right, if you have never known these feelings, I would urge you to be urgent with God because I think the beginnings of spiritual movement begin very largely with a struggle in the sense that you want to do what is right, and yet you find the tendency to do what is not right is there too. Here Rebecca is one who was very largely alone and she is conscious of this struggle with in her. Dear brethren, how many persons here today are conscious of two forces pulling at them at the present time? How many young persons are like that? How many persons feel the pull of the world, and the pull of the flesh, and the pull of the first man acting upon them today?

How many persons have come here this morning but another pull would have taken them to somewhere else? These are very real things, times when you can almost get beside yourself as to what you shall do. Paul speaks about it, does he not, in chapter 7 of Romans? Let us be sympathetic; let us remember as we come together that these things operate, especially in those that are younger, and let us thank God all the time for those who have committed themselves this far, and let us remember that this struggle goes on, maybe in older ones too. When there is a struggle within you enquire of Jehovah; do not let it go; if you do not enquire you become depressed. If you let these things continue in your experience without enquiring you will find depression sets in. How many persons get depressed! yet I think if we were before God some of that depression would be avoided.

So it says "And she went to inquire of Jehovah". O, dear brethren, that is a wonderful thing to do. She wanted to know why she was thus. She might have thought, I know about Abraham, the heavenly man characteristically, I know that Isaac represents Christ as the One who has gone up on high, risen; she could say I know I have all this. And you may say, I know I have this wealth of ministry and teaching, I know I have brethren around me and a long line behind me, and that in one way I should be going on in power. Yet she says there is a struggle within me, and she goes to enquire of Jehovah, why it was thus. Do not stop short of that; do not let the enemy come in to cut short what is promising by way of committal, because if you set yourself for God there will be a struggle, let us make no mistake about it. In one sense if you find two things pulling within you that is an encouraging feature because it means that God is working; it also means of course that Satan is set to take it away. Well, dear brethren, let us not stop short of enquiring. God said to her "Two nations are in thy womb, And two peoples shall be separated from thy bowels; And one people shall be stronger than the other people". It must have been a great comfort to Rebecca as time went on that she had that promise from God that one people shall be stronger than the other people, and the elder shall serve the younger. It is a very important thing to get hold of early in our experience that the elder shall serve the younger. Let us be promoting the line of the younger. We know that the history of Jacob involved much in the ways of God, we know it involved much by way of what was devious and it took him a long time to come to God's end that the elder shall serve the younger. Think of what our brother said as to the flesh and the Spirit; these are very real things and they are, without any change, in any one of us. There is no way that in any one of us the younger will serve the elder, dear brethren, however refined and spiritual it may seem to be. I think that Rebecca got great comfort at this time from enquiring from Jehovah. Let us do it dear brethren, let us enquire in our personal circumstances. I know that there is far more struggle within many of the saints than we would care to tell each other about. It is in the quietness of times when we are apart that things test us and seem almost to overwhelm us. What a wonderful thing to be able to get before God and to enquire of Jehovah! I would urge everyone of us to do it.

In Samuel you come to conflict and David, and I think I am right in saying that there is more said of David as being an enquirer than anyone else in Scripture. If you look through the Scriptures you will find constant references to David as enquiring. It involves more than just asking in view of a specific need to be met at this moment; enquiring means that there is a desire for some understanding of the way God is moving. David here is one who constantly enquires. The Philistines were the traditional enemy of the people of God, representing, I suppose, the feature we mostly have to contend with, the mind of man operating in the things of God. Under David the Philistine is constantly subdued; it is not like Saul, and other men as in the Judges, who spasmodically defeat the Philistines; with David they are continually and constantly subdued. That is a wonderful feature to have amongst us, that the Philistine is constantly subdued. More than that, you find David in conflict retains his attractiveness. How many times do you read of David that he was ruddy and beautiful, of a beautiful countenance and lovely appearance? What a wonderful thing that a man of war, a man of conflict, should be so constantly identified with what was beautiful and attractive! Why should the facing of conflict, dear brethren, bring to light that certain persons seem to love conflict; they become depressing. Why should not the features of beauty that shone out in David as a man of war be maintained upon us? Why was David able to remain so attractive to the people and yet, as God has to say to him, the sword would never depart from his house? Why should these things be? I think you have to go to the underlying man that David was to find out; he was a man who typically loved Christ and who constantly enquired as to what he should do. Dear brethren, if conflict is to be faced - and after all we know not to what extent conflict may yet have to be faced - it would be a wonderful thing if the features of David and his attractiveness could be retained amongst the saints, so that while there are things and matters to be dealt with, the attractive features of David remain all the way through, David has slain his ten thousands (see 1 Sam 29: 5). What a man David was! How personally attractive he was! How attractive his men were! We were speaking about that honours list at the end of Samuel; I would encourage the young people here to read it, read the last words of David and learn something of the springs of the man and what it was that saw him through life, even through his disappointments; you find David the man underneath David the king. He was a man who could lead the people out and bring them in. How skilful David was! a man of integrity who could say at one time, What have these sheep done? This was the character of man that David was, and he was dependent.

So here you get the conflict; and I do not think that there is ever any time in conflict that we can say it is obvious what has to be done. It is very rare in Scripture that you find things going by precedent in conflict. If you look through the Scriptures you will find that there is the most unusual means that have been taken in conflict to achieve God's end. There were times when the numbers of the army were reduced - in Gideon 's time to very little. There were times when the means that they had to use was a light hidden in a pitcher. You will find sundry other things, the way God has moved in conflict; and I do not think that in any conflict amongst the saints - and there are current difficulties among the saints - you could ever exactly go by precedent and say it is obvious what has to be done. I do not think what is obvious, in a certain sense, is a word that is in a Christian’s vocabulary. I think what we need in every instance, in every day, however obvious it may seem, is that we enquire of God as to how we should move. This is a most important thing because sometimes you may say there is the enemy before us and the thing to do is to smite him, we have the power, we have God on our side, we can just go forward and do it; but even in a situation like that it says that David enquired of Jehovah saying "Shall I go up?". Dear brethren, I wonder how much we know of this line of things, to enquire of Jehovah as to how we should move. God says "Go up" and he went up to a great victory. Then within a few verses you get the same situation, the same enemy, the same valley, the same spreading; you might say, Go up again David. But he enquires of Jehovah, and the answer is "Thou shalt not go up". I wonder if these things find any answer in our experience. There may be times when as enquiring of Jehovah there is an immediate going up in conflict to take things, but there may be a time when God says thou shalt not go up. It is a very interesting section of Scripture which I could not say much about, but instead of facing them in a frontal way David was to go round behind them and was to wait until he heard the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees. The young ones would know what mulberry-trees are; I can remember a brother saying that it would mean the march of the humble people. Well, dear brethren, maybe sometimes in conflict we have to go round the back, as it were, and wait for the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees. Maybe we have to wait for something moving subjectively amongst the saints before the enemy can be overthrown. Perhaps the enemy that was overthrown previously, you may say by direct confrontation when God came in to give the victory, at this time has to be dealt with in a different way. It may be that some matters cannot be resolved, as David finds out through his enquiry, until there is some subjective answer in the saints to it. So he is to wait until he hears the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees. I do not think it will be some group of brethren deciding what to do. The mulberry-trees would involve great humility; and the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees: maybe we are hearing it. Maybe the time is come when the marching is being heard. It is military, it is not walking exactly, it is the idea that the saints are with God in the movement, and I think it is a lowly people. There is never any time in conflict that we can afford to be lofty. We shall never be any use in the conflict unless we are conscious that that same failure or that same thing to be met is within our own heart. I think we would have made far greater progress, quicker progress, and perhaps less of the sorrow we did have, if after 1970 we had judged things deeper in our own hearts instead of in others, if we had found what was within, that everything that has come out in opposition to God and to His ways has its root within me and needs to be dealt with there. Well, David had to wait, and he had to go round the back, turn round behind them and come upon them opposite the mulberry trees, "And it shall be, when thou hearest a sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees, that then thou shalt bestir thyself; for then will Jehovah have gone forth before thee, to smite the army of the Philistines". I think it is a very searching thing, that the Lord may be waiting at the present time for the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry-trees in relation to His interests and His way. You will notice that it says earlier "David heard of it"; that is how he came into this point of conflict here. Let us have our ears open as to where things are today. It is not all peace. There are things which have to be met, and I think it is a most important thing at this time that they are met.

Finally I wanted to finish in the Psalm: "One thing have I asked of Jehovah". We were speaking about David, of his personal attractiveness and beauty, and the Psalms bring out something of what the man as. Here he says "One thing have I asked of Jehovah that will I seek after". Are you like that in your life: dear brother - one thing? You think of David and all that he had before him, all the kingdom of Israel and Judah, all the mighty men that he had, all the victories that he secured, all the booty and the wealth that he took; he had several wives, he had many children, he had many disappointments and many joys, but he says here "One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after". What was the over-riding thing that David sought after? Was it to kill Goliath, was that the peak of his life? I do not think so. The great thing that he sought after in his secret feelings was that he wanted to build a house for Jehovah. If you read the Psalms further you will find that he would not give sleep to his eyes or slumber to his eyelids until he had found out a resting-place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob (see Ps 132: 4,5). I wonder if there is one thing in the life of all of us. He knew something of the state of the testimony. I do not know when this Psalm was written, but think of what came in during David's time; the ark of God was in an unsuitable place in the house of Abinadab. David had concern about it; he said he had heard about it at Ephratah, he found it in the fields of the wood. There are young people here today, and may be older ones, who have heard from their very earliest years, you may say, about the ark. Dear brethren, is everyone here attracted to Christ? Is everyone here attracted to the testimony at the present time? Are the meetings to you just a kind of church that you come to? Or is Christ the very heart of everything for you? David says, I heard of it at Ephratah and found it in the fields of the wood. It is a wonderful thing, dear young brother and sister, when you find Christ; not exactly when you can repeat the terms of the gospel but when you know in your own affections what it is to find Christ. Is Christ everything to you? Is Christ everything to you beloved older one? Is He the very centre of your life? David says, I heard of it, and he never rested through all his life; he said he would not give rest to his eyes until he find out a place for Jehovah. Is that how you are in your local place? Is that how you are amongst the saints? Are you operating to make a name for yourself or a more comfortable place for yourself? Or are you seeking to improve the conditions for the Lord in the place where you are? You may say, I enjoy the meetings, I have a very comfortable life and things look set fair. David said he would not sleep until he found it, I will not rest in my victories, I will not triumph, you may say, in the lineage we have, I will not rest upon the achievements of the brethren and the fact that all the teaching is available, not only in the recovery of the truth; I will not rest until there is some answer, some response, something improved for God in my place. "One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of my life". Well, eternally it will be so, we shall know what it is to dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of our life. We shall know what it is to enjoy in unclouded bliss the presence of Christ, to know what it is without alloy, what the blessing of God's presence is. We shall know what it is to come into the fulness, as the hymn writer says:

'What will the sunshine of His glory prove!

What the unmingled fulness of His love!

What hallelujahs will His presence raise!

What but one loud eternal burst of praise! '

(No.213)

We shall then know it in fulness. There is no problem as to eternity, it is settled and established in Jesus in the preciousness of His work and His Person; but, dear brethren, I wonder if in relation to that one thing we are set to improve the conditions for divine Persons, not only generally but particularly in the place where we are. You may say, There are only a few of us. I know that, that is one of the most testing things, and yet it is one of the most blessed things, that we can work things out in small conditions; as David says, "all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of Jehovah". Let not conflict be everything, let not even learning the terms of the truth be everything to us, let us always ever have before us that we are concerned to see the beauty of Jehovah; not only His ways with men, not only the way in which the testimony has come through, is going through and will yet go through, but to learn something of the beauty of Jehovah. At one point David sits before Jehovah and says "is this the manner of man, Lord Jehovah?", 2 Sam 7: 19. He admires and wonders at the manner of man in which God was going to establish everything.

Well, the beauty of Jehovah is to be known; I think the Spirit would help us as to it. I have said before that we are accustomed to the Spirit in relation to leading through the wilderness, but how much do we know of the Holy Spirit in taking of the things of Christ and showing them to us? How much are we before God to enquire about that area of things? David finally says here "and to inquire of him in his temple". We can enquire about things personally, we can enquire about what affects us personally, about the way that the enemy would seek to sift us and take us away from the testimony. You can enquire, and we need to enquire, about God's way in conflict, but we can enquire in relation to His beauty and it is our privilege to do so today. Let enquiry mark us more. Let us not be moving so much on the line of what is obvious; a truly dependent man would be enquiring. May it be so for His Name's sake.

 

MAIDSTONE

26 November 1977