THE WILDERNESS POSITION AND THE SERVICE FLOWING FROM IT
[p. 185] THE WILDERNESS POSITION AND THE SERVICE FLOWING FROM IT
Numbers 11:16; Numbers 11:24,25; Numbers 14:10; Numbers 12:5; Numbers 16:19
In reading these verses, dear brethren, I am thinking of the wilderness and the position of God’s people in it. This book is pre-eminently the wilderness book; indeed, its primary title was “In the Wilderness”, and so in the opening of it, we have Jehovah speaking unto Moses “in the wilderness”. Our position in it is thus assumed, and God at the very outset reminds us that He is thinking of us in that position. He thinks of us in every legitimate position in which we may be, and indeed, even where we may be contrary to His mind; but He thinks of us particularly in every position involved in the path of His will for us in this world. So it is in this book, we have “the journeys of the children of Israel ... Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of Jehovah”, (Numbers 33:1,2). God would impress upon us that He follows all our movements with intense interest, noting down the occurrences.
The wilderness is a very familiar word to us, but perhaps not so well understood as we may imagine, and perhaps the import of it not definitely accepted as divinely presented to us. The idea of it is what is adverse, but divinely ordered; what the world becomes to the believer, affording him no resources. In Exodus 3:18 God sent the message to Pharaoh that he was to let His people go that they might serve Him in the wilderness. It may seem a matter of small moment that these words are added, it may seem that it might have sufficed to say to Pharaoh that God wished His people to serve Him, as in chapter 4:23: “Let my son go, that he may serve me”, but elsewhere stress is laid on the place of service. In christendom today the nominal service of God is [p. 186] not carried on there at all, it is carried on where there are worldly resources, and the world is taxed to provide them, whether it be the buildings, the salaries of the clergy or the furniture. The world is taxed to provide, as if it could provide, whereas God informed Pharaoh in type at the outset that the world could not provide the means for divine service. He intimates plainly that it was to be carried on where there were no resources visible, so that the world and its resources are ignored wholly, that the ways and means, the pattern, the dimensions might proceed from above. Hence you find that before God speaks of His dwelling and service He indicates the direction whence the means for them should come. Moses and Aaron and seventy of the elders of Israel are invited up: that is the principle, that things have to come from above (Exodus 24). The passage says “they saw the God of Israel; and there was under his feet as it were work of transparent sapphire, and as it were the form of heaven for clearness. And on the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his hand: they saw God, and ate and drank” (verses 10,11).
They are there in God’s realm as nobles and they are there without fear, so that in the proposal to build the tabernacle in the next chapter, what is required is understood, at least there is a general impression conveyed that the details awaited the instructions to be received by Moses during the forty days in the mount. Then Moses is detained, called up higher, and there is unfolded to him the pattern of the tabernacle, which was, as we are told in the New Testament, “the figurative representations of the things in the heavens”, (Hebrews 9:23). God is not in any way dependent on this world for the means for His service; we are relieved of all that and shut up to God, so that the divine thoughts can come into evidence; and who that knows God in any way does not prefer to have God’s designs and provision [p. 187] generally for His service or worship, instead of man’s? The greatest ecclesiastical architect, Wren, or any other, utterly fails to provide a building suitable for God. The young believer begins to see that he has to do with God and that His service is not in an environment in which man’s art and device prevail. All must be of God, and in His temple everything reflects His glory (Psalm 29:9).
Of course I am not overlooking that the people brought the material for the tabernacle, but in the anti-type that is from God, the saints are themselves the material and they are of God, they are heavenly, as Ephesians 2 shows. It awaited the wilderness position to bring this out. Israel were to go out of Egypt with abundant substance. It was announced to Abraham four hundred years before that they should go out with “great property” (Genesis 15:14), and no believer is of any value morally in the assembly unless he have substance, that is to say, the result of the exercise of his exit out of Egypt. I do not go into the wilderness as a pauper spiritually, I am there with a measure of substance and heaven will direct the use of that, it is to fit into the divine scheme. Think, young believer, of having something that God can use according to the pattern which He had ever in His mind, think of having something that God can use now! I would not like to be out of that, I would like to have some little or much that God can use in His own dwelling. As I said, the tabernacle was “the figurative representations of the things in the heavens”.
Now that is the position in the wilderness as regards the service of God and I am concerned about that now in Numbers. Exodus gives us the tabernacle set up, Leviticus gives God in it calling us to Him, with everything provided in the priesthood; and then Numbers is the working out of what we see in these two books; this is in the world — a contrary place. I have the light of Exodus and the light of Leviticus,
[p. 188] and now I am here in the wilderness not as an individual unit, but in relation to the tabernacle. In Matthew 14:24 we read, “the wind was contrary”. The Lord is seen there on a mountain; having sent the multitude away and compelled the disciples to go into a ship, He went up and was alone praying; but the ship in which the disciples were was tossed in the sea, the wind being contrary; that is the position. Let no one for a moment assume that the wind will ever change in that respect, it will always be a contrary wind; but Numbers is to prepare us for it and to show how we are sustained and carried through in spite of this.
Now I want to dwell first of all on individual service. Moses is the great type of that, he is said to have been, as a servant, faithful in all God’s house. There are those who are specialists, or pretend to be, but Scripture hardly confirms anything like that. The idea of service is to extend to all God’s house, each has his own part, of course, his own gift, his own measure, but every truly commissioned servant will have the whole house in his mind. If he is not able to help directly in any matter, he will be thinking of it; if he is not actively able to help, he will pray; even if bedridden, he or she can embrace the whole of God’s interests.
It is as the tent begins to move — chapter 10 contemplates the tabernacle set up — that the power of the wind is felt in opposition, and alas! you get here in Moses, and we can all recognize something of this in ourselves, a bitter complaint. He tells Jehovah of the burden that is laid upon him, that he did not conceive all this people. The complaint is against God. He makes no allusion to his great office, nor to the fact that Jehovah had honoured him as no man hitherto had been honoured; his complaint is that He had put too much upon him. One sympathizes with Moses, as on that occasion he [p. 189] saw the Israelites every man at his tent door weeping. They were the tears of murmurers, they were not tears of humiliation; a murmur of resentment went through that camp and Moses felt it.
So it is that we are tested in the service of God, and I want to show you how, although a man in this position of honour with God may for a moment fail, God stands by him. He came in in a visible way (for us, of course, by faith), to meet the opposition and provided that His servant in his weakness and complainings should not lose ground. It is as sure as possible, if I begin to complain that there is too much upon me, and I am not considered for, that I shall lose ground; I shall lose ground with those whom I serve. But the first divine appearing here is to maintain Moses in the full height of his service. God says in effect, I will come down and speak with you in the presence of the elders, I will act according to your suggestion and lighten your personal burden, but in doing it, I will preserve your dignity, your honour (compare Numbers 11:16,17).
I speak thus, dear brethren, so that in service we may know what resources there are. How tenderly, how compassionately the Master stands by the servant, even although he has brought the shade upon himself: alas! we do bring dark reflections upon ourselves in moments of unbelief. Here Moses complains against God — as if He did not know, as if He were unfair. So He says, “Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and their officers; and take them to the tent of meeting, and they shall stand there with thee”. He will never pass by His servant save He is obliged to by permanent unbelief, and so He says, as it were, Moses, I put it on you to select those men. What confidence God had in His servant! He says, “Gather ... them to the tent of meeting.
... [p. 190] And I will come down and talk with thee there”. Thus the honour of the servant is maintained.
Well, that is the first thing; then Jehovah says, “I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them”. How Moses must have felt that! It was God saying, I have thought this matter out, and I have not put one ounce of weight upon you that I have not provided for in the power I furnished you with. While there are seventy-one personalities in the service, instead of one, the power is not increased, that is to say, God’s calculation as to power was then as it was at the outset; the measure was not increased, but the personality is increased. Jethro earlier had suggested this, but now God has ordered it; some of the power Moses had is actually transferred to others, so that we have seventy persons in addition to Moses, all of the same spirit and power that Moses had. Two of them remained in the camp and prophesied. Joshua says, “My lord Moses, forbid them!” like many a young brother who would stand for some selected labourer, as at Corinth. Moses says to Joshua, “Enviest thou for my sake? would that all Jehovah’s people were prophets, and that Jehovah would put his Spirit upon them!” Beautiful spirit! the spirit that every servant of Christ should inhale fully. No servant of God who serves in the spirit of Christ will detract from or rival another such servant. What a camp Israel’s would be if they were all like that!
The next chapter shows how Aaron and Miriam were moved to attack Moses; they were jealous of him: “Has Jehovah indeed spoken only to Moses? has he not spoken also to us?” Well, that was true, but Moses was not saying anything different to it, he had just said, “would that all Jehovah’s people were prophets!” It was wicked to impute to Moses such a charge as arrogating to himself the whole service of God; he had no such thought. Indeed,
[p. 191] the service of God is never a one-man affair, it is a question of personality, and increase of personality, and all in the power of God, in the Spirit of God, in the anointing, so why should they question in this way? The Holy Spirit speaks of “the man Moses”.
We see in this chapter the seriousness of envying one whom God uses; in this instance, one whom God had honoured in such a signal manner as to come down and speak to him at the tent door, in the presence of those seventy men. The Holy Spirit immediately calls attention to the man, not the servant Moses. We want to see the man, the man as he is in his business, as he is in his workshop, particularly as he is in his house. Moses had married an Ethiopian woman. Why should he not? He was not accountable to Miriam for that, and so the Holy Spirit speaks of “the man Moses”. He “was very meek, above all men that were upon the face of the earth” (Numbers 12:3). That brings to mind “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). What a Man! Luke gives us the Man; we have to study Luke in order to understand Mark; Luke gives the Man, Mark the Servant.
Well, God takes this matter in hand and He interfered suddenly. It may have been in secret that they spoke against their brother, but “Jehovah spoke suddenly to Moses and to Aaron, and to Miriam ... If there be a prophet among you”. We see here how God distinguishes between servant and servant. “Jehovah came down in the pillar of the cloud, and stood at the entrance of the tent, and called Aaron and Miriam; and they both came forth. And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I Jehovah will make myself known to him in a vision, I will speak to him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses: he is faithful in all my house. Mouth to mouth do I speak to him openly, and not in riddles; and the form of Jehovah doth he behold. Why then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant, against Moses?” (Numbers 12:5 - 8.) That is solemn, and most important instruction; it is a solemn warning against rivalry and opposition founded upon jealousy against any servant of the Lord. You see how Jehovah goes down Himself, making the attack on His servant a personal matter; He shows that whilst He cares for all His servants, He makes distinctions between servants, as in Moses here; He spoke with him “mouth to mouth”.
In chapter 14 we have another appearing; it is in relation to the gospel in its heavenly character, alluded to in Hebrews 4; it is the gospel of the land, as I may call it; the gospel that witnesses of heaven, the heavenly calling. The spies brought down an excellent report, confirmed by the grapes which they brought from Eshcol. Refusal of their testimony was a most serious matter; the epistle to the Hebrews shows that it was the great turning point, apostasy was dealt with from this point onwards; that is to say, what leads to the habit, which has been observed from that very day till now, of taking a lower line when God is emphasizing an upper line, of taking a line that is contrary to what God is emphasizing. That is generally a great feature of opposition, the contrary wind. This was to be the test, for they sent out twelve men to bring back a witness from the land and there it was, the grapes of Eshcol, the pomegranates and figs tell the glad story, they all witness of the wealth of the land. Then the enemy began to work, and only two out of the twelve stood their ground in connection with what God was emphasizing. Caleb stands by and witnesses to the good land, and that God would bring His people into it, as He delighted in them. How wonderful is this truth! It declares that God delights in us and gives us the very best He has, and exercises His power to put us in possession of it against all opposition.
Now you see what is at work; opposition to what [p. 193] God emphasizes as the very best thing for us, and they were about to stone the witnesses of the truth, but the glory appeared; that is the comfort. The scripture says, “all the congregation bade stone them with stones. And the glory of the Lord appeared in the tabernacle of the congregation before all the children of Israel”. The opposers now see what they have to contend with, it is not simply two men, Caleb and Joshua, but it is God, and not only God, but God in His glory shining out against them. We can well afford to stand by the truth, for God will never fail us, as we see here. How irresistible and condemnatory of the wicked opposition was the appearance of the divine glory at this time! We can always reckon on it, dear brethren, and so we need not fear to stand firmly by what God emphasizes; the glory will appear in some form, God will come in unmistakably and show where He is so that the evil is exposed and withers away.
Following on this, in chapter 16, you have the great rebellion against Moses and Aaron. Korah and the Levites with two hundred and fifty men of the congregation, a most powerful combination. The Levites who had stood by Moses in an earlier uprising, are now against him; and the glory appears again. We may learn from this chapter that God will stand by the whole position; it is not simply a question of one servant or two servants, the whole position occupied by christendom is typically indicated in this chapter. “And Korah gathered all the congregation against them unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation: and the glory of the Lord appeared unto all the congregation”. The glory is appearing now to all the congregation. The rebels gathered all at the door of the tabernacle, It is an attack on the whole position, what God had set up in testimony, typically it is against Christ in heaven and the Holy [p. 194] Spirit here in the assembly. It is the boldest and most far-reaching of the enemy’s attacks.
This opposition continues and has to be resisted. This entails sufferings, even to martyrdom, but the truth will stand, it must stand; while Christ is in heaven and the Holy Spirit here christianity will not cease to exist; we may stand courageously by it, for in doing so the glory stands by us; we shall prove that. This is a very wonderful divine intervention, and so in verse 42: “And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron, that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation: and, behold, the cloud covered it”. The cloud is covering what symbolizes the whole testimony; can we doubt that this applies at the present time? There is no doubt. God has preserved the truth, christianity is in principle preserved. Christ is in heaven, all power committed unto Him, and the Holy Spirit is here in the assembly; the tabernacle thus exists, and the glory covers it.
The general failure of the public assembly must be fully owned, yet the Lord in addressing Philadelphia has the whole body in the true sense in mind. “I ... will keep thee”, He says (Revelation 3:10). The recovery of the Lord’s supper involves this. It had been in captivity, but is restored; it maintains before us the whole thought of the assembly. In Matthew 26:26 and Mark 14:22 the Lord in instituting the Supper said, “Take, eat: this is my body”; that is His own body, but in 1 Corinthians 10:17 it extends to the saints: “we, being many, are one loaf, one body”. There you have the whole thought and, we may say, the glory covers it. How often we have proved that! How precious to be together in the light of this and of Christ as the Head! The breaking of bread is primarily local but it has also a universal bearing, it involves the whole assembly. We must maintain what is local, but we must also maintain strenuously what is universal, one whole thought, and so it says, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come” (Revelation 22:17); as soon as the Lord announces Himself the whole assembly responds with the Spirit; and so He said to Philadelphia, “I also will keep thee out of the hour of trial, which is about to come upon the whole habitable world, to try them that dwell upon the earth”. This implies His coming for us, and the Lord Jesus has never less than the whole assembly in His mind in announcing His coming.