GOD’S PURPOSE FOR MEN

R. Taylor

Ephesians 1: 3–8; 2 Corinthians 1: 19–22; Joshua 14: 6–12 (to “spoke in that day”); 1 Samuel 25: 29–31; 2 Kings 4: 42–44

It would be clear from Scripture that God’s great desire was to dwell with men, and the wonder of it is that in spite of all that has come into our histories God has not changed His mind. As we read in Ephesians, He purposed before the ages of time, before ever the worlds were made, to have men in His presence for His pleasure. He has not altered His thoughts, but in the power of His love He has been able to accomplish His thoughts in perfection. I believe it is good to have our hearts turned away from the confusion, the weakness, and the sorrow that surround us, and that we are part of, to see how God has operated and what His thoughts are and how He is securing them. Paul here in this chapter says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. He has already done it. He took counsel with no one, but He purposed in Himself to have men for His pleasure. I dare say you have all thought of that.

Maybe you just think of it on Lord’s day for a short moment, perhaps fleetingly, but it is something that needs to lay hold of our affections, that God chose us in Christ before ever time began, and He has not changed His mind. He purposed in Himself. He acted of Himself and by Himself, to have a universe of bliss where He would dwell eternally with men.

Paul is here bringing it to these Ephesian saints that they may be increased in their affections to be, as he says, “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”. Could He have done anything better? The Beloved is Christ, the Son of His love, the One upon whom all His affections were centred and He took us into favour in Him. Could there be a greater favour conferred on man? Could we be taken into a greater position of nearness or blessedness? Paul says, Blessed be the God who has done that, “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. He has not only blessed us with these things but He has taken us into the atmosphere and given us the affections that we may be at home in His presence, “holy and blameless before him in love”. He has settled the whole moral question, dealing with it to His glory, so as to enrich us that we should be “holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand”.

These passages are beyond what the mind can penetrate, but they would leave, as I trust the Spirit of God would leave on our hearts now, some impression of the greatness and grandeur of God’s thoughts towards us.

God has worked to redeem us from all lawlessness and all that has come into the race, to bring us into the enjoyment of His wonderful thoughts. When we begin to have spiritual exercises with God and with Christ, our hearts are full, and rightly so, with the relief and the joy of what Christ has done for us; our hearts are buoyant with the fact that the load of our sins has been lifted, and the distance has been removed. We can lift up our hearts to God in thankfulness for the wonder of His love and grace. But that is not all. God did that to bring us to Himself, to know something of the sweetness and depth and fulness of His love. He wants us to be at home in His own presence without a cloud, to enjoy unhinderedly the great realm of His love. God did not only bring them out of Egypt, as they came under the shelter of the blood on the lintel and the doorposts in Exodus 12 but He purposed to bring them into the land of Canaan. Perhaps they, like us, were rather slow to come in. I trust the Spirit of God may stir tonight in all our hearts some response to come into the joy of the house, to know, not only on Lord’s day morning, but in our lives and pathways and exercises what it is to be before Him in love now. When they came through the Red Sea it says, “Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to Jehovah ... The horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea”, Exodus 15: 1. There was the start of it. They saw that the powers that were against them had been broken and broken for ever. What a wonderful day it is when we see that all that was against us God has dealt a death-blow to it in the death of His Son. He has broken the authority of the power that would hold us in bondage. But more than that, it says, “Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance” (Exodus 15: 17).

They had rejoiced in deliverance, as we do, but what about the rest of the time? What about our history since God intervened in His love to redeem us from the bondage of sin? It took them a long time going through the wilderness. They appropriated the grace of God for themselves. Instead of doing that we are to see that the grace of God has shone into our hearts so that we might be “to the praise of the glory of his grace”. He has made known “the riches of his grace”, typically in meeting Pharaoh, drowning these horses and riders in the Red Sea.

The “riches of his grace” did not stop there, of course, they went through all the wilderness. If they were needing water, God provided the water. Oh, the riches of His grace, they drank it, and what happened then? They began to murmur again. Oh the perversity and slowness of our hearts to come to enjoy the riches of His grace that has abounded towards us. Think of day after day in that wilderness, what came in? As they felt the need of food, the manna was all round about them; they ate of it and they murmured. Do you see some reflection of that in your heart? I do for myself. We see the richness of God’s attitude and disposition and the resources of His love towards us. We enjoy it for a time and then we go back to our old ways.

God had in mind that from the Red Sea the next step was on to the Jordan. It was not only that Christ died for them to break the power of Egypt, but He moved

through all the great barrier of death and all that stood against them as typified in the Jordan, to bring them into the land, the land where God would dwell with men, where they would enjoy their God, and He would enjoy having men in His presence. He did not change His thoughts because of their murmurings. He did not change His plans, although there was a generation that did not go in, but there were two men who stood out from that generation who did go in. What was the difference? They had appropriated the purpose of God. That was Caleb, that was why I read about him. All those round about him were murmuring and rebelling, they were living to themselves, but he says, “If Jehovah delight in us, he will bring us into this land”, Numbers 14: 8. Caleb said, Surely God did not bring us out of Egypt that we should live to ourselves and perish in the wilderness. No, he says, If God delight in us He will bring us in. He, in type, had some sense of a God who had purposed and had chosen us in Christ before the world’s foundation. He says, What has come in in our history is not going to alter that; He has resources in His love to meet my state, to meet the circumstances that I am in to bring me through them as an overcomer that I may come into His presence in all the liberty and joy of being taken into favour in the Beloved.

Well, there is Caleb in the wilderness surrounded by people who were dying and what does he see? One day God says to Moses, Bring before Me twelve staves, a staff for each tribe; the names of all the princes were on these staves and they are laid up before God. What happened? In the morning there was one staff which had budded and blossomed (Numbers 17: 8). It was there shining in its lustre. That is the passage we read in 2 Corinthians 1 that the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. Every other man is out of court. Caleb saw that rod. It was laid up before Jehovah, and I can think of Caleb day after day being reminded of it and saying, There is the assurance that God will bring us in. Think of the promises made to Abraham. Think of the

promises made to us. There are not only the promises that He would free us from Egypt, but He says, “I go to prepare you a place”, John 14: 2. It says that Christ has gone “into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us”, Hebrews 9: 24, is your eye on that Man in the presence of God in whom all the promises are yea and amen? He met the strong man once in his own domain. He took the power of death out of the enemy’s hand. Now there He is, crowned with glory and honour in the Father’s presence, Forerunner of us who have been called into this area of divine blessing to be for God’s pleasure and praise. Oh how humiliating that God has put every other man out! They murmured, they had aspirations, they thought they could do things themselves. Only one Man stands out in the purpose of God.

It is a very illuminating thing to get into your soul that Christ as Man is central to the purpose of God. The section we read in Ephesians shows how it was worked out according to the counsel of His love; in those counsels it was determined that One of the Godhead should come into the circumstances of manhood. It says, “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1: 14); in those circumstances He brought God near to man, and in His death and rising again He has brought man near to God. Blessed be His name that there is a Man in whom God’s purposes and promises have all been effectuated for His eternal praise and glory. God purposed it before ever time began. He looked on to time and He is looking beyond time to enjoy His eternal thoughts. It says, “the tabernacle of God is with men”, Revelation 21: 3. Typically, Caleb cherished that, in spite of all that they were saying, and all that was happening round about him, God would bring him in. Caleb had been sent to spy out the land and he had seen how wonderful a place it is. Do you not have a taste on Lord’s day morning of how wonderful a place the presence of God is? It is just as sweet on Monday.

Whatever the circumstances of your life, the presence of God is unchanging, the love of God is unchanging, and He is as

pleased to see you any day of the week as on Lord’s day morning. He is as ready to receive you. He is as ready to fill your heart with the purposes of His love at any time.

Moses was another man who went through the wilderness; what trials and tribulations he must have seen, but in his psalm he begins by saying, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations”, Psalm 90: 1. I have often reflected on Moses. What days of trial he had, with the people coming to him with their burdens and complaints. But what does he say?

“Thou hast been our dwelling-place”. He did not live on the troubles of the testimony or in the sorrows of the wilderness. He felt them, he cried over them, but he says, “thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations ... from eternity to eternity thou art God”. Time has not changed Him, nor affected those purposes of His love. Caleb had some sense of that, and now he says, I want to live there. In all these pressures and assembly sorrows he did not separate himself from them, he went through them all, every one of them. Caleb felt them more than the people did. The loss of his brethren, how he must have felt it, but all the time in his heart was treasured that God would bring them in. He says, If God delight in us He will bring us in.

What he had seen of that land, those grapes and pomegranates, a land where God’s eye was upon it, he says, I want to live there. Would that such a desire was stirred in all our hearts, to live there. It did not alter his responsibilities, but he moved superior to the wiles of the enemy, and to all that was there around him of persons living to themselves.

There is a danger with us of saying that these things are somewhat unreal. May I remind you that the person who wrote those words in Ephesians was in a prison, writing with a chain round about him. That shows how real it was, that the prison, the chain, the circumstances, did not for one moment alter his enjoyment of the purpose of God. Indeed the truth is

that we need to know the purpose of God to live rightly in the wilderness. That is what Caleb did. He knew the purpose of God, he knew what it was to be taken into favour in the Beloved, and so he was able to live in the wilderness. You have to be an Ephesian to live in Corinthian conditions. Now I always thought the other way about, that you went through Corinthians to Ephesians, which is true on the moral road; but to live in the circumstances of the assembly of God in Corinth you need to be an Ephesian, and Paul was just that. He says, “Railed at, we bless; persecuted, we suffer it”, 1 Corinthians 4: 12. The more you oppose me, the more I love you—there is an Ephesian in Corinth. He did not adjust his conduct to the state of the meeting; he did not say, So-and-So is doing that therefore there is licence for me to do it. No, his conduct is governed by the enjoyment of his place in the purpose of God. There is a danger of adjusting ourselves to the circumstances; if one says, I will do this, and they do it, maybe they lose the joy of the presence of God in doing it; but sometimes it gives licence to somebody else. That was what the Corinthians were doing, they were comparing themselves with themselves; but there were men among them, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, who were not living that way, they were living in the light and joy of being taken into favour in the Beloved. May it fill our hearts increasingly, what it is to be taken into that favour.

Someone said to Mr. Darby, It is deep waters. He said, Yes, but they are calmer. Think of Paul living in those deep waters amidst all the Corinthian exercises, in the calm and enjoyment of being taken into favour in the Beloved. Well, there is Caleb. If others were going off on their own ways and doing their own will, he was living in the sense of being taken into favour in the Beloved. He says, “Jehovah has kept me alive” and “as my strength was then, even so is my strength now”. Now he says, I want to live there, “give me this mountain”. The strength that he derived from God’s love and the enjoyment of it gave him strength to overcome the

enemies, and Joshua gave Hebron to Caleb. Hebron speaks of what God had done before the world’s foundation, and we leave him there in the enjoyment of God’s love dwelling in Hebron, the place that God had designed to dwell with men. There is Caleb, and all others have gone. Where the pride and arrogance of those men in the wilderness? They have all gone, and there is Caleb enjoying still the freshness and sweetness of the love that chose him in Christ before the world began.

Abigail I just refer to for a moment. She too had some sense of the purpose of God in very, very difficult circumstances. David here is not a type of Christ, he is more representing the testimony in a Corinthian setting where perhaps men would take things into their own hands.

Abigail comes alongside David and speaks to him those words that she had enjoyed in her own soul. She lived with Nabal, a man who was full of himself, of whom David thought, I will deal with that man because he is troublesome. Abigail says, Leave that to God. That is what you can do if you are living in the sense of the enjoyment of God’s love. There are many things today, dear brethren, that we can leave with God, the great Judge; He is the One who executes judgment, not us. David thought he was the one who would execute judgment, and he may have seemed right, many supporting him. There is Abigail, who says, No, can we not leave that with God? Can we not pursue this line of His purpose? She says to David, When you come to the throne this will not be against you. She knew what God had purposed, and that purpose was that He had anointed David to be king over His people, so Abigail says, Treasure that in your soul and leave Nabal to God. And God dealt with him. If David had done it there would have been another blur on the testimony, but he took Abigail’s advice, he left that with God. She says, “And it shall come to pass, when Jehovah shall do to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning thee, and shall appoint thee ruler over Israel”. At this point David was fleeing from Saul, he had no home, he was seeking his bread day by day where he could find it. Did it look as if he would come to the throne? Abigail was sure he would. Does it look today that these brethren, gathering in small circumstances, will soon be the ruling class? Is that how you regard them? There is reproach on the testimony, sorrows on the way, no outward show, nothing to attract man naturally, yet they will soon be the ruling class. Abigail says, God has decreed it. His purpose for David was to bring him to the throne.

His purpose was there before the world’s foundation choosing us in Christ to have us in His presence for His own pleasure. Well there is Abigail, able to bring something of the purpose of God into the sorrows of the testimony and leave matters with God, which He deals with in His own way, to His own satisfaction, and to the blessing of David.

In 2 Kings 4 the man from Baal-shalishah is able to bring some food in from another country, because that is what Baal-shalishah speaks of. Baal-shalishah I understand is a place where the Lord had His rights, a place where God’s authority was bowed to, and it was a place where His love was enjoyed. So it is a critical time. Somebody had cast something carelessly into the pot and there was death in it. There might have been persons poisoned through what had come in. That is very much around us today, the danger of persons being poisoned through things that are coming in, through what has been thrown into the pot. There was meal there to preserve it. Now here is a man who can bring in another kind of food, a man who is living in the enjoyment of the love of God, who brings in resources from another country all ready to be eaten. There was nothing to be cooked, no preparation to be done. It says he “brought the man of God bread of the first-fruits, twenty loaves of barley”. He had been feeding on Christ. Firstborn from among the dead, the Yea and the Amen of all God’s promises, and he says, I have something for you. Can you bring that into the local meeting, dear brother, dear sister? Abigail

was a sister. Here is a man who is unnamed, it could be anyone. May our hearts know something more of what it is to bring something from the presence of God, to bring in food among the saints. It says, “they ate and left thereof, according to the word of Jehovah”. That is the great triumph of God’s love, that He has met everything that has come into the race and come into time, and soon He is going to take the spoil of what He has wrought in time and He is going to house it in eternal conditions, the tabernacle of God is with men. He is going to have men in His presence for His own eternal pleasure.

May our hearts be filled with the wonder of His love, the glory of His grace, that what He has purposed He has been able to do, through the work of Christ in redemption, and the grace of Christ as our great High Priest, to bring us in and plant us in the mountain of His inheritance. Soon it will be the portion of the saints to be dwelling with God. That will be the first thing.

Then they will come out from that dwelling of God to rule among the nations. But the first thing is that God will have the enjoyment of His love with those that He has purposed to bless. May our hearts be looking forward to that moment increasingly! May the value of the treasure, the joy of what He has purposed, be in our souls so that like Caleb, we can be here overcoming, living in the joy of the Man who has gone in. May we be like Abigail bringing wisdom into difficult circumstances, wisdom that proceeds from the purpose of God, that meets the circumstances of the day and saves the situation. May we be like the man from Baal-shalishah bringing supplies of heavenly food among the brethren. May each one of us be exercised to be available, dear brethren, young and old, brothers and sisters, to bring into all our circumstances, that what we are in God’s presence and in God’s sight is not only true for us, but it is true of us in the circumstances of life here, so that we can join with Paul and say, “For of him, and through him, and for him are all things—to him be glory for ever”, Romans 11: 36.

May it be so, for His name’s sake.

Address at Aberdeen, Scotland
30 January 1999