DIVINE RESOURCES
I was thinking of the importance, dear brethren, of having our eyes opened to see the resources that are available to God’s people in this world at the present time. We need to have our eyes opened to see them, for they are spiritual resources and therefore generally invisible. Angelic resources are spiritual for it says, “Who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flame of fire”, Psalm 104: 4. So that it is good to bear in mind that all the resources for the support of Christianity are spiritual, save, of course, that God may be pleased to use government and things of that kind, but in general the resources for the support and protection of Christianity are spiritual.
You will remember that when Elijah was taken up to heaven, it says that Elisha saw a chariot of fire and horses of fire, and that Elijah went up by a whirlwind into the heavens. And on seeing it, Elisha exclaimed, “My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” He did not say ‘the chariot of Elijah and the horsemen thereof’, he said “the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” indicating that as he saw Elijah carried up into heaven, this chariot of fire and horsemen of fire separating him from Elisha, so that he was carried up by a whirlwind, he got an impression of the resources that were available to Israel. He says, “the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” and it is a great thing to realise that we have resources for the support of the testimony here far beyond anything that can be seen or that we are ready to recognise save as we have our eyes opened.
In the passage from which we have read in chapter 6, the king of Syria sent horses and chariots to take Elisha, and surrounded the city by night where Elisha was. The position of the saints on earth at the present time is, according to human reckoning, an impossible one. You remember on one occasion in 1 Kings 20, it says that the children of Israel were gathered together like two little flocks of goats, while the Syrians, their enemies, filled the land. Two little flocks of goats, and on the other hand the Syrians filled the land. What a contrast! And that is a very apt picture, really, of the position of the testimony at the present time. The saints who are intelligent in the mind of God and in any degree committed to it, are in the greatest possible outward weakness, and the power of man, to outward appearance, increases on every hand, becomes more and more threatening. The combinations of men, of lawless and selfish men, increase in power. The means that man employs is increasing in impressiveness and in power, and all that is really directed in one way or another against the assembly and the service of God. The intention on the part of the enemy working through man is, of course, to intimidate the saints so that rather than stand true to the Lord and His rights, they become involved in things that rob them of their liberty, and in consequence rob God of His portion. It is well to see that that is what is at stake, the enemy is opposed to the assembly, and to the service of God, and to the testimony of God. Let us keep that always in mind, that in all the enemy’s movements, it is the assembly he is against. We were saying this afternoon that he never sleeps, Satan never slumbers or sleeps. We can thank God that He does not, see Psalm 121: 4, but Satan does not, either. He is always alert and always plotting, which is the suggestion of the gates of hades, evil counsel being taken, in order by strategy of one kind or another, to engulf the saints, ensnare them, or to intimidate them, whichever way might be more successful, and hence it is well to see that there is this position and it is good that we should have our eyes opened to understand what resources are available to meet the situation.
The resources, as I have said, in the main are spiritual. God may use, as He does, governments; He may even use one wicked agency to oppose and weaken another wicked agency, that is another thing that God does. He has control of the forces of evil as well as of the forces of good, and it is comforting to the saints to see that He can and does use one wicked influence or agency amongst men to oppose and weaken another wicked agency amongst men. At the same time, the power of evil is increasing in the world and it is against God and His assembly.
Well, now, Elisha is in this position where the army of the king of Syria surrounds the city where he was, and his attendant says, “Alas, my master! how shall we do?” It is a good thing to be an attendant of a man of God. We read of Joshua being the attendant of Moses. He subsequently became the leader of God’s people. An attendant on the man of God, or anyone of that sort, is sure to get impressions worth receiving. We read in the first chapter of Luke of those who were attendants on the Word, and they were able to deliver to Luke and others first-hand impressions that they received of Jesus. And so there is this attendant, as yet unintelligent, at the same time, as attending on the man of God, in a position to receive impressions and help. And Elisha prays saying, “Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see”. Elisha did not need to have his eyes opened. He knew all about the resources that were available. He was perfectly at ease in the presence of the army of the king of Syria, but he desired that the young man’s eyes should be opened. He said, “Jehovah ... open his eyes that he may see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw; and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha”. Bear that in mind, it is “round about Elisha”. The testimony of God at that time was concentrated in Elisha. He was the man of God at the moment. And it was in connection with him that God was maintaining a testimony on earth. And therefore, whatever the forces of the king of Syria might be, there were more than sufficient resources to counteract those opposing elements, so that the whole mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.
Hence, the important thing, dear brethren, is to be committed to God’s testimony for the moment, and committed to the assembly. The characteristic feature of the last one hundred and twenty or thirty years, as we well know, is that the Lord has recovered, to the saints, the truth of the assembly and brought about conditions in which it can actually be expressed and realised, and we are enjoying this at the present time. Now that is the outstanding characteristic of the moment. That is the character that the testimony takes at the present time, and will have until the coming of the Lord. For as the coming of the Lord draws nigh we read that the Spirit and the bride say, “Come”. That is the assembly is there, the bride is there, and she is there in company with the Spirit, and the Spirit in company with her, and with one voice they say, “Come”. I would say in passing, dear brethren, that if we say, “Come”, that means, Come now, that does not mean, Come quickly, come soon; it means, Come now, and therefore if we are to be ready to have part with the Spirit in saying, “Come” in a real way, it is important that we should be concerned that everything should be in readiness for the Lord.
Well, now, later on in this book we find that king Joash comes to visit Elisha when Elisha was sick with the sickness of which he died, see chap 13: 14-19. That is, the position was serious outwardly. Elisha had been, as I have said, the man of God for the moment, he had been there in testimony to divine grace, and he had always been equal to every situation that arose, although the position outwardly was one of great weakness; but now Elisha was sick with the illness with which he died; that is, things were in a very poor plight, we might say. And the king comes to Elisha and weeps and says, “My father, my father! the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof!” saying exactly the same thing as Elisha had said years before when he saw Elijah taken up to heaven. Well, that was true, the resources were still available. The resources available to the saints are resources of a spiritual nature. They may be angels, but more especially they lie in the Holy Spirit Himself. And so far as resources in the Holy Spirit are concerned, what is needed is not only to believe that the Spirit is here, but to see that the conditions necessary for His unhindered operations are provided on our side. And that is another matter. And so when the king says that to Elisha, Elisha tells him to take bow and arrows, and he tells him to open the window, and to shoot. And he shot an arrow. And Elisha said, “An arrow of Jehovah’s deliverance”, and so on, and told him he should smite the Syrians in Aphek until he had consumed them. Now that was a word for the king. He was to smite the enemy until he had consumed him. Now Elisha tells the king to take the arrows and smite them on the ground, and he did it three times and then stayed. And the man of God was wroth with him, because he stayed after smiting only three times, and said, “Thou shouldest have smitten five or six times; then wouldest thou have smitten the Syrians till thou hadst consumed them”. That is to say, that the fault of the king of Israel was that he was not going the whole way.
It is perfectly true that the Spirit of God is here. The chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof, if we may thus apply them as referring to the spiritual resources available to the people of God, are still here unchanged. But the point is as to whether there are the conditions with us that provide the Spirit with unhindered scope. And this king did not go far enough. It requires complete self-judgment, not partial self-judgment, if the power is to be realised. Smiting only three times and then staying, when the situation called for smiting five or six times, showed that he was not in the full realisation of the need of suited conditions if the spiritual power that was available was to be used.
Well, I refer to those incidents, dear brethren, as linking on with the one we have read in order to stress the idea of spiritual power here to meet what is opposed. It may be angelic power, for that is spiritual, it may be the power of the Spirit of God. If it is a question of the power of the Spirit of God, then that particularly calls for right conditions on our side, because the power of the Spirit of God is only fully available when flesh is practically negated.
But now, when we come to the second of Luke, it is a question of having our eyes opened to see the exceeding greatness morally of what God has here, only that it needs spiritual eyesight and a spiritual condition to appreciate it. The second of Luke is, of course, a very familiar passage. There was the message which the angel brought to the shepherds, “to-day a Saviour has been born to you in David’s city, who is Christ the Lord”. A wonderful announcement! The birth of a Saviour, Christ the Lord! A Saviour in the fullest sense of the word. For what Israel required at that time, as represented doubtless in the shepherds, was complete salvation. “To you”, the angel says. But then the angel follows with this remarkable announcement. “This”, he says, “is the sign to you: ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger”. What a remarkable thing, dear brethren! The sign, the deliberately chosen sign of the introduction into this world of the Saviour, Christ the Lord! “Ye shall find a babe”—“a babe”, it does not exactly say ‘the babe,’ not in that sense pointing personally to Jesus, but rather the character of what they would find. “A babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger”. You can hardly conceive of anything smaller than a babe, in that sense, or anything more completely expressing dependence on God, nor could you conceive of anything more completely expressing having no place here, having an outside place as regards man’s world, than that He should be lying in a manger. And yet that was the sign. “Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and lying in a manger”, intimates to us that God intended and intends to effectuate His great thoughts in connection with which Christ has been brought in, in conditions outwardly of the greatest conceivable smallness. We have to be prepared for that. The day for what is great is to come. Jesus has already gone up, far above all heavens in order that He may fill all things. The day for what is great, and gloriously great, is near, but for the moment we are to be content with such outwardly small conditions as were implied in the babe lying in a manger wrapped in swaddling-clothes. And yet the very fact that it says “wrapped in swaddling-clothes” would perhaps convey that expansion is in mind. As Mr F E Raven once said11, in that holy Babe lying there, was all that is going to fill the world to come. It was all there in His Person; all that with which God is going to fill the universe was there in the Person of that Babe. Mystery of mysteries, indeed! But this is the truth. And therefore we are to be accustomed to being content to go on in conditions of outward smallness if they are ordained of God, but in the light that what we are going on with, what God is going on with, are the greatest possible things.
Well now for us to appreciate that fully, it requires that the Spirit should have unhindered place with us. And that we should have, as Simeon had, an appreciation of the Christ of God. Not simply Christ in relation to our own needs, however precious that may be, but Christ as the Christ of God. God’s chosen—God’s anointed One. If you read the epistle to the Ephesians, according to the better translation that is generally used amongst us, you will find that the expression “the Christ” occurs something like twenty times in that epistle. That is not Christ and the assembly, that is the Person of Christ, the Lord Jesus, viewed as the Christ, the anointed One, to bring in, and give character to, and sustain, the whole world of glory which God is securing for His pleasure.
And we have been called in relation to it. I would that I could convey something of the glory of the world that is about to come in. The Christ has gone up far above all heavens. “The Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. It is a settled matter. Whatever families God may bring into view, He has several already in reserve waiting to be brought into view at the resurrection, there are others yet to be formed, but whatever families there are, in heaven and on earth, they are all to be headed by One in that position who is the beloved Son of His Father. And that means that we have before us, in our view, a great system of affection, having its Head, you might say, in the Father, its Centre in Christ, the beloved Son of the Father, and its filling out in the assembly which is the body of Christ; then other families as well, all brought in in relation to Christ. Once we begin to get our eyes opened to these things, we begin to see how glorious is what lies before us, and how glorious is all that we are connected with. These things are known in the assembly, where God dwells, where the Spirit of God dwells, where the mind of God is opened up to us by the Spirit. And all these things may be known in the measure in which the Spirit has His place with us.
And so we are introduced to this man. A man in Jerusalem, as has often been said, whose name was Simeon. He was in Jerusalem. His interests lay there. We know that Jerusalem, from this point of view in Scripture, points to the assembly. Jerusalem was God’s centre on earth, but now that has been displaced, and the assembly is God’s centre on earth. And this man was dwelling there, dwelling in Jerusalem. And it says that he was just and pious; he was practically righteous in all his relations with God and with men, and was pious, learning to bring God into all his own matters. We shall never become spiritual, dear brethren, if we are not concerned about being just and pious. The two things underlie spirituality, that we must be practically righteous, that is, characteristically just; and we must be pious, that is, bringing God into our matters, and dependent on God, if we would develop in spirituality. The Spirit will not ally His power with someone who is characteristically unjust, or someone who lacks in piety.
And so Simeon was just and pious, “awaiting”, it says, “the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him”. The day for the indwelling of the Spirit had not yet arrived, but the Holy Spirit was upon him and Simeon evidently had very intimate relations with the Spirit, for it had been revealed to him, by the Spirit, that he should not see death, until he had seen the Lord’s Christ; that is, the Christ of God; the One in whom all God’s precious thoughts centre and by whom they are all brought in, and who gives character to all. It is a good thing to get a view of the Christ, the Christ of God, and of the kind of Man who is God’s anointed.
You remember how when Samuel was sent to Bethlehem to anoint for Jehovah, a king among Jesse’s sons, seven of them had to pass before Jehovah, before the prophet, and the word came, “Jehovah has not chosen these”. However imposing they might be, the first three of them doubtless having personality of their own, “Jehovah has not chosen these”. And then when seven had passed, and the verdict was “Jehovah has not chosen these”, the eighth was brought in, hitherto apparently forgotten, overlooked, not thought much of, but he was feeding the sheep. God loves shepherds. It was to shepherds, as we have read, that the angel announced the coming in of Christ. I think we may safely say that God loves shepherds. He loves shepherds of today, those who will lay down their lives in caring for the sheep. Shepherding involves the readiness, if necessary, to lay down one’s life. And so the eighth came in: “And he was ruddy, and besides of a lovely countenance and beautiful appearance”, and the word came, “Arise, anoint him; for this is he”. “This is he”. How was it they had not discerned it before? It shows that natural tastes, natural ideas, do not appreciate the kind of man whom God has chosen as His anointed. We need to have our eyes opened to discern the moral excellence of Jesus. Ask ourselves, Why does the Father find such pleasure in Him? It is quite right to say that He does, it is perfectly true, and we accept it, but why not ask ourselves, Why does He find such pleasure in Jesus? What is there in Jesus that makes Him say, “in thee I have found my delight”? It is a good thing to have our eyes opened to the Christ of God.
Now it had been revealed to Simeon that he should not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit, into the temple. A remarkable testimony to this man, how his movements were in the Spirit. And it says, “as the parents brought in the child Jesus that they might do for him according to the custom of the law, he received him into his arms”, wholly embracing Him, wholly committed to Him, not in any sense deterred by the outward smallness of things, Jesus was still a Babe; he received Him into his arms. His parents were poor and of no consequence in Jerusalem, all that mattered not to Simeon, he had the divine view of the Christ of God. And “he received him into his arms, and blessed God”, the first result of a real appreciation of the Christ of God is that you bless God. You get an appreciation of the immensity of scope of blessing and glory which God has before Him to which we ourselves have been called, and Christ is the One, as I have said before, who brings it all in, who sustains it all, who gives character to it all.
And so he blesses God. He is secured as a worshipper of God in these conditions of outward smallness. He “blessed God, and said, Lord, now thou lettest thy bondman go, according to thy word, in peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples; a light for revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. It has often been remarked how outstandingly Simeon was governed by the Spirit in that he puts the Gentiles first before Israel, showing how thoroughly he was with God. “A light for the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel”. And now he not only becomes, you might say, a worshipper, or at any rate a blesser of God, and I am quite sure the spirit of worship was there, but he also becomes a prophet, he can convey the mind of God to Mary. Simeon blessed them, that is Joseph and Mary, and said to Mary His mother, “Lo, this child is set for the fall and rising up of many in Israel, and for a sign spoken against (and even a sword shall go through thine own soul); so that the thoughts may be revealed from many hearts”. The more Christ is appreciated, the more the first man has to go. There is always that which is testing, in relation to the reception of the truth, it always involves displacement in some form or another, and Mary would have to learn that, that a sword would pierce through her own soul; the more Christ is appreciated the more suffering in the flesh and the displacement of what is natural have to be accepted. But it is well worth while, for God is moving on the lines of what is spiritual. He “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. Let us remember that. The Lord says, “If then ye see the Son of man ascending up where he was before! It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”; as though He would remind us that the great thing is to give ourselves to the Spirit and the things that the Spirit is able to open up to us. And we shall see that, as we have the Spirit’s view, there are great things before us, although in the wisdom of God they are presented and maintained in great outward smallness.
I do not know that I need say more, dear brethren, that was just what was in one’s mind—the great importance of realising that our resources in this day are spiritual. As I have said, God may use men in the world, or governments, or other means also to facilitate His ends, but the great resources that God has for the maintenance and preservation of His testimony are spiritual. Angels on the one hand, for they are spiritual, He “makes his angels spirits”, and on the other hand the Holy Spirit, supremely so, as the One who keeps the light of Christ, as the Christ of God, and all that is involved in that, before the hearts of the saints, and provides us with the liberty and the power to respond to God in the light in which He is known.
May the Lord help us to appreciate the resources more and more, for the day is evil indeed, but there is power in the Spirit and in all the resources that are open to us for the overcoming of all evil, so that in the presence of the evil that is developing among men, God should be served and praised according to what is due to His Name.
FLEMINGTON
20th December 1958
From Notes of Readings in New York and Other Ministry 1961, vol 30
PURPOSE OF HEART
What an important thing that is for young ones. Have a definite purpose in your heart. You have got to contact the world, but touch it as lightly as possible. You cannot avoid having to do with it, but you can purpose in your heart that you will not defile yourself with the king’s delicate food. It is a question of what we feed our minds upon. Alas! Satan gets in through the young getting their minds contaminated.
It may be with what is grossly evil, it may be with what is attractive naturally, intellectual ability, and all that kind of thing, paving the way for what is infidel in character. It is a most important thing that there should be the purposing in our hearts not to defile ourselves with the king’s delicate food, nor with the wine which he drank. There is the food to feed the mind. The Scriptures, and what the Spirit of God opens up among the saints, are enough with which to feed our minds. We may have to study other things in connection with our work, but let us just do what is needed in that relation, and see that we purpose in our hearts, that we will not defile ourselves with the delicate food that the world would offer. It is a question of food for the mind. And then the wine which he drank, the intoxication that the world would afford; it is a great thing to refuse it absolutely from the outset. You may say it is not always easy to do. It was not for Daniel, but he did it. And it says, “God granted Daniel favour and mercy before the prince of the eunuchs”.
It is a question of having God’s estimate of the glory of this world, and how it is going to end. It is important to have that also clearly in our minds. The glory of this world, the kingdoms, the four empires you may say, end up with the Roman empire in its revived form. Nebuchadnezzar was the first Gentile monarch to have the position of universal dominion, and so he is called the head of gold in the image. But Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, “Thou sawest till a stone was cut out without hands; and it smote the image upon its feet of iron and clay, and broke them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold broken in pieces together, and they became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors; and the wind carried them away, and no place was found for them”, Dan 2: 34, 35.
That is how things are going to end as regards the Gentile kingdom, in all the glories that are attached to it. The word of God is perfectly clear, it helps us to have a judgment about it, so that we are not carried away by it. Daniel had remarkable opportunities, he was promoted very highly. I do not suppose that any Christian who is really faithful to the truth will be promoted very highly in this world, nowadays, because the standards are more exacting. A Christian who is marked by integrity, as a Christian should be, and by industry, may very likely get on in business up to a certain point. If he is in the public service, he will get on up to a certain point, but there will come a point sooner or later, where faithfulness to the truth will require a certain amount of sacrifice and surrender. You may rest assured of that.
So do not set your mind on getting on too well. Set your mind on pleasing God, on doing His will. What your hand finds to do, do it with might, but do it as to the Lord and not to men; that is the great thing. It is clear that while Daniel was promoted he had a very high position for a time, but later on, somehow or other, he is lost sight of. In the reign of Belshazzar he was apparently unknown, until the Queen Mother reminded Belshazzar that there was this man in his kingdom, and she said, ‘Send for Daniel’. There is no suggestion that he felt the loss of his position. His great concern was to go on with God, and he did that right through to the end.
And so this dream given to Nebuchadnezzar shows us the end of the Gentile dominion. And we have light more precise in our day, for it says in Ephesians 4: 10, “He that descended is the same who has also ascended up above all the heavens, that he might fill all things”. I commend it to you that Christ has already gone up to that dominant position from which He will fill all things. And if He fills all things, it means that there will not be any room left for anything that is not of Christ; and that enables us to have a right judgment as to the things in the world. They may appear to be very great and glorious and attractive to some eyes, but at the same time you can always keep in mind that that is going to be the end, that Christ is going to fill all things, and that everything that is not of Christ will have to pass away.
From ‘The Way Everlasting’
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