INTERCESSION
As thinking over, dear brethren, what has been before us in these meetings, these scriptures have come into my mind in relation to the great matter of intercession which we have been speaking about.
The first scripture refers to intercession for men, for the world, you might say, or rather the men in it, and the other two refer to intercession for God’s people. One is struck with the lowly attitude of Abraham in taking up this service of intercession in regard of Sodom. He had just had the privilege of providing a repast for three visitors, one of whom was God Himself, and later, at any rate, he acquires the place of the friend of God, indeed we may gather from verses 17 to 19 that he had already acquired it. But here he is faced with the position that God is about to come in in judgment on Sodom, and, as we were saying together in one of the meetings yesterday, we have, perhaps more than we have done, to face the matter of having to do with the Lord in judicial character, for He is shortly going to judge the world, the very world in which we are, and He is moving, as we know, in judicial character among the assemblies.
So, as has been said, when even John saw Him in that character he fell at His feet as dead. It may be that we have not sufficiently taken account of that side of things, the seriousness of the Lord having and expressing a judgment as to conditions in the assemblies, and the very great seriousness, the awfulness, of judgment being poured out shortly upon this very world in which we are. Revelation speaks of the fury of God—a most terrible expression, the fury of God.
Now Abraham is pleading with God for Sodom, that possibly there might be fifty righteous, and when God said if there were fifty He would spare the whole city for their sake, he says it may be that there will lack five of the fifty. He is imbued with the spirit of intercession but, at the same time, as marked by it, he says, I, who am dust and ashes. A remarkable thing for Abraham to say, “I, who am dust and ashes”. Job repented in dust and ashes. It is not quite clear, perhaps, at what time Job lived, but he said it as brought into the presence of God and made to feel that his only outlet was to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes. But Abraham says, “I, who am dust and ashes”, as though the full weight of having to do with God as in a world that was marked by evil, though Abraham himself was separate from it, had been made good in his soul. Well, one only refers to it, dear brethren, as believing that this kind of spirit and facing things with God will give us greater power with God. There is no doubt that Abraham acquired great power with God in this remarkable incident of persevering intercession and, at the same time, there is nothing sentimental about his intercession, he knows when to stop. He goes so far, step by step, saying, perhaps there may be ten found there, and Jehovah says, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. But Abraham went no further. That is, he had a suitable sense of what was due to God, and that if the conditions in Sodom were so bad that there were not ten righteous persons there, it was only right that judgment should fall, although, no doubt, he had confidence in God—that if there was one righteous man—as there was in the person of Lot—that man would be spared.
So we read, as the chapter proceeds, that when the time came and the judgment was poured out, Abraham went out to the place where he had stood before the Lord; and it says that God remembered Abraham and delivered Lot. One felt, dear brethren, that this is a matter that we all need help on, really to face the seriousness of conditions all around us which call for judgment, and therefore the suited spirit on our part in which to engage in intercession on behalf of men.
Now when we come to Jeremiah 15 Jehovah is making known to Jeremiah that the position with Judah is irretrievable. The captivity was just about to take place, Jerusalem was shortly to be destroyed, the position after the reign of Manasseh was apparently irretrievable and so, in order to bring home to Jeremiah, how serious it was, God says, “Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, my soul would not turn toward this people”. That is, He is pointing out Moses and Samuel as men who had had remarkable power with Him in intercession. We might enquire what was it about Moses and Samuel that made them such effective intercessors. We know that Moses was very effective in his intercession, especially at the time of the golden calf; we know that Samuel was very effective in his intercession. What made them so effective? The Lord would surely call our attention to those who are effective intercessors in order that we may learn to take on similar features.
Now Moses is presented to us as one who felt the state of God’s people from the start. He was born of good levitical lineage and the first time he is mentioned, it says that the child wept. He is presented to us in that way as one who is marked by feeling the state of things in which God’s people were involved. And then we know that later on, much discipline of course had to be faced before he was fit to be used as the deliverer of God’s people—when he went to Pharaoh to bring out God’s people, having had a command to do so, he was very definite. He had to become strong gradually, he developed strength as he moved in obedience to God’s word, but there comes a time when Moses says, we will go with our young and with our old, with our flocks and with our herds, there shall not a hoof be left behind; Exod 10: 9, 26. Nothing could be more definite than the judgment that Moses had and expressed about the world which was holding God’s people in captivity, and he would bring them out. There was no doubt whatever in the way he spoke to Pharaoh as to his attitude with regard to Egypt. Now, what attitude have we, dear brethren, in regard of Egypt?
If it were the Sodom world, we should doubtless condemn it, repudiate it, reprobate it, but what about the Egypt world? The Egypt world is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all from one point of view. It represents the world as a system that lives in independence of God, having its resources in itself. The very principle of it is in all our hearts, and yet God would have the saints completely delivered from it. Indeed, one has asked oneself lately how much we are really in the good of redemption, because there is something so absolute about redemption. It says that the Lord gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all lawlessness, and purify to Himself a peculiar people, zealous for good works. Redemption means that the rights of God over us are absolute, and that He has delivered us from one order of things, or intends to, in order that we might be wholly for Himself and the system in which He is known and served. One sometimes fears, dear brethren, that we, to a certain extent, have links with both systems; with the world on the one hand and with God’s system on the other. But that is not the recognition of God’s rights in redemption. God’s rights in redemption are absolute, and it says that the Lord has washed us from our sins in His blood—that is we are never to go back to what marked us previously—and has made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father. That is the position we are in—made us a kingdom; all His power and support available for our protection but, at the same time, it is in order that God might have priests in this evil world; priests who minister to His pleasure on the one hand, and, as we have been hearing, to represent Him in prayer and intercession for all men, for kings and those who are in dignity, and so on. Well now, we shall indeed have no power with God if we are not definite in our repudiation of the world and in our recognition of the claims which He has established over us in redemption. Moses says, we will go with our young and with our old, with our flocks and with our herds, there shall not a hoof be left behind, and in chapter 11 of the book of Exodus we find that he went out from Pharaoh’s presence in a glowing anger. That is, he really represented God’s own feelings in regard of the system which, up to that moment, had kept His people in bondage. And how many of God’s people are in bondage still. They belong to God, they belong to Christ, and yet are in bondage. And one challenges oneself as to how far we really feel it; how far there is godly indignation in our hearts in regard of the position. The Lord says, “Woe to the world because of offences!” (Matt 18: 7); as though He would say that system has provided stumbling blocks for thousands of My people, and woe to it—Woe to the world, He says, because of offences.
We might say much more as to Moses but one does not want to monopolise the time, but then Samuel, too, he was the product of deep feeling. We know how Hannah felt things, we know how she was determined that from the very outset Samuel should be one who served God suitably, so that even as a boy he ministered to Jehovah clothed in a linen ephod. Think of that, starting as a young boy with the idea of ministering to God in suited moral conditions; no doubt the effect of his mother’s influence. And so Samuel grows up in that setting, as one who from the very outset is to be a priest, though not one officially, and one who was marked by feeling in regard to the conditions in which God’s people were. Well now he intercedes in power. He calls upon God’s name, as it says in Psalm 99, “Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel among them that call upon his name” (v 6), and he was answered. But he particularly shines near the end of his history. Not that he was not in power before for he certainly was, but at the end of his history he is rejected by the people, and he says, “far be it from me that I should sin against Jehovah in ceasing to pray for you”, 1 Sam 12: 23. He was not embittered by the fact that he was rejected by the people whom he had served so long. He says, I will teach you the good and right way. And there is another thing in which he shone, and which I have no doubt gave him great power with God, and that was the unsparing way in which he dealt with Agag after Saul had spared him. All these things, dear brethren, I have no doubt, enter into our acquiring power with God. If we are to intercede—intercessions, prayers, supplications, thanksgivings for all men and especially too for all saints as we have in the end of Ephesians—if we are to have power with God, it is a question of taking on, I believe, these features which are particularly seen in Moses and Samuel.
But now when we come to Amos, he is not, in one sense, someone distinctive like Moses and Samuel, nevertheless he acquires power, but he tells one who was opposed to him, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit”. He was just engaged in ordinary lowly occupation, engaged with what was living and concerned with fruit: “I was a herdman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit”. It is a good thing to be occupied with what is living and what can be sacrificed to God, what can be presented to God, and with the idea of fruit for God, too. And Amos was marked by that. Just, you might say, an ordinary person, but at the same time having the good of the saints at heart, for he says, “And Jehovah took me as I followed the flock”, that is he would be watching their movements, seeing, we might say, how they were getting on. Timothy cared with genuine feeling how the saints were getting on, and that was the kind of man that Amos was, and it is open to anyone of us. It is open to anyone of us, the youngest of us, that we should be genuinely concerned how the saints are getting on, following the flock and seeing their movements and, of course, if we are thus exercised, we shall be concerned as to our own movements. And as he was following the flock it says, “Jehovah took me, as I followed the flock, and Jehovah said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel”.
But now there is another thing that comes to light with Amos, and that is that if anyone has the mind of God, so that he can communicate it to His people, he should also be an intercessor. We have in chapter 3 of this very book what I believe was referred to during the meetings, that the Lord Jehovah will do nothing “but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”, and Amos was one to whom God showed things. If God shows us things it is intended that we should not only convey God’s mind but that we should glorify Him by taking up the attitude of intercession. And, therefore, Amos is given to witness certain governmental dealings of God, locusts that were eating up all the latter growth and so on, and as he took account of this, he said, “O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee!” What feeling there was, “O Lord Jehovah, forgive, I beseech thee! How shall Jacob arise? for he is small”. His intercession was effective: “Jehovah repented for this; it shall not be”. And then in the next paragraph there is another governmental intervention on God’s part in great severity and again he says, “O Lord Jehovah, cease, I beseech thee! How shall Jacob arise? for he is small. Jehovah repented for this”. Then as things continue the position becomes irretrievable but I need not say any more as to that.
All I had in mind was to point out that whereas with Moses and Samuel we have outstanding persons, with Amos we get what we might call an ordinary person, who is just following the flock and going on with a humble occupation, but available to God, to be taken up to convey His mind, but that if we have God’s mind He intends that we should feel what it involves for His people and that we should take up the service of intercession. Amos was an intercessor who was effective, with what feeling he pleaded with God! Twice over his intercession was heard, and he becomes in that way a model for us.
Well, dear brethren, that is all that was in one’s mind, hoping that the Lord might use the word just to help us all in what I am sure has been a challenging time at these meetings to us all; in the little time that is left I have no doubt the Lord would have us take up with greater definiteness and earnestness than ever before this service of praying in God’s house suitably; having intelligence as to what is due to Him and at the same time having divine feelings both in regard of men and in regard of His people.
CROYDON
30th March 1957
From The Times of the Nations, 1957
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