TREASURE
It will be observed that these passages allude to a treasure. “A treasure hid in the field” immediately raises the question of values. The value was not exactly in the field, it was in the treasure that was in it. The second passage alludes to a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where the thief does not draw near and the moth does not destroy. The third allusion is to a treasure in earthen vessels, alluding to the outward frailty of the human condition, but the treasure is going through in the substantiality of the work of God and will yet shine in the moment of display, perfectly fitted into the assembly as a city coming down, having the glory of God. Beloved brethren, what could be a greater privilege than to have part in it? Acceptance of the present outward frailness of the position does not lessen its value, for it is “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”. Now is the time of formation; it will not be up there—it is now. And the moments left to us are not enough; we need to value them and see they are put to good account in view of the day of display when Christ will come in His glory. Oh, what a hope it is! Let us quicken one another today as among those that love His appearing. This manifestation of His glory involves His vindication, over against all the ignominy and shame of the cross and what has proceeded since. It is not the time yet for our vindication, our vindication, not till He has His, when we share with Him in His glory. But in the midst of all these present conditions there is something being formed as a treasure, even in earthen vessels.
I wish first to speak of this passage where the kingdom of the heavens is likened to a treasure hid in the field. What is it? It is what God is securing out of this present time, consequent to the work on the cross, the work of reconciliation. The whole world is held in the light of that. That is in view of something being secured out of it. Oh the wonder of divine workmanship! He sold all whatever He had, and in some measure we can enter feelingly into what the cost was. The assembly is in view, the assembly is the treasure. This gospel brings out, as we know, precious truth regarding the assembly. It is not exactly named in this passage; it is named in chapter 16; the Lord Jesus says there “on this rock I will build my assembly” (Matt 16: 18); He names it. Chapter 18 shows how it functions, and through the beloved apostle Paul the great truth of the mystery is brought out. Dear brethren, we are really in the presence of the greatest possible light that could be entrusted to human beings and I wonder if we value it, whether our sense of values is right. The treasure is hidden in the field; it is not displayed yet; it will be; it is what God is securing through the divine economy, what the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are securing in a vessel that is next to Deity, and yet creature—what a treasure! God is not concerned yet with the nations as such, they are but the arena in which He is working out the purpose and counsel of His love.
It is wonderful, beloved, that we should be the objects of divine choice. It was the Father’s glory that chose us; before the world was we were chosen. We see the glory of the Son who redeemed us, and it is the Spirit’s glory that forms us in the image of God’s Son. What a time we are in! And the treasure is being brought out of the field; as I say, it is not yet the nations. He will bring them in presently; God is unerring in His purpose and ways, and the great prophetic matter will recommence when the church is complete and raptured. But His whole concern in the present time is the securing of the assembly. Another passage says, “the nations are esteemed as a drop of the bucket”, Isa 40: 15. We need to get a certain sense of values, and the supreme value at the present time is the assembly of God, the assembly that Christ loves. We want to get our values right and see that we comport ourselves rightly in the few moments that remain, and see what God is doing. So it is “like a treasure hid in the field, which a man having found has hid, and for the joy of it goes and sells all whatever he has, and buys that field”. Oh, thank God that we are in that sphere where this treasure is being secured by God. Through the great system of divine grace and through the glad tidings there is a vessel being secured which is described here as a treasure.
But then it is equally described as a pearl. What a connoisseur of values is our Lord; He knows in infinite affection and knowledge what answers to His heart. We would see the detail as we look into the types, but we have come to the great time of the antitype. Of Adam it says that “he found no help-mate, his like”, Gen 2: 20. He had longings for a help-mate, and looking round on those other creatures he did not find what answered his heart. But of what was brought to him in the woman he says, “This time ...” He discerned the comparative value of one thing over against another and “This time”, he says, “it is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”, Gen 2: 23. Think of what the Lord Jesus will secure as the perfect answer to His perfect love as a Man, a vessel formed through pressure, as the pearl is, out of sight, but enduring all the testings which are used in divine skill and wisdom to bring about what is refined in preciousness and answers to the heart of Christ. Dear brother, dear sister, look at your circumstances this way; bring God into them. I verily believe there is a great need for piety among us. Let us soberly look at things and order our path in such-wise that God can be with us in it. We so easily arrange our circumstances and expect God to be with us. He may not be. If we pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace He will be with us. Bear with the word, dear brethren; I think we want to be pious in what we do and regulate ourselves in the fear of God. He will come in for us. He surely will, He will make a way through.
This present evil world is about to be destroyed, a terrible thing. We should warn men what will happen when the church is gone, when every vestige of Christian compassion and mercy and grace will be absent. What a world it will be to be found in! Let us take warning. It is a wonderful privilege to be called to have part in the assembly of God which He has purchased with the blood of His own. Oh, let that appeal come home freshly to us that through that blood, foreknown in the very counsel of God, a vessel is being secured as the assembly of God. So I would urge that we regulate our lives in piety, which, with contentment, is great gain, 1 Tim 6: 6. It may not be material gain, but it will be spiritual gain, and you can be assured He never forsakes a righteous person. There will be a way through made for us, difficult as it may be, and it may get more so, “difficult times shall be there” (2 Tim 1: 3), “troublous times”, Dan 9: 25. And are they not? How could anyone be ignorant of the fact that the end is near? How then are we going to comport ourselves? The treasure is almost complete—“my assembly”, that He might present it to Himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things, Eph 5: 27. Oh, dear brethren, let us be quickened in our affections to see that we have part in this wonderful vessel that He speaks of as “my assembly”.
Where we read in Luke the Lord says, “Fear not, little flock”. His lovers are in a world that is hostile, in a sense defenceless, like a little flock. Where does our defence come from? “Fear not, little flock”; He will stand by His flock. He loves His people. Let us see that there is nothing of that pretentious system remaining. How much there is, beloved brethren, to keep us in humility. Let us stay that way. In some sense the outward smallness is our safety. I think it is; it is safe to keep that way, like a little flock. But the Lord Jesus says—these are His actual words—“Fear not, little flock, for it has been the good pleasure of your Father to give you the kingdom”. What would that kingdom be? We need to be protected by the principles of that kingdom. No doubt it would involve the kingdom of the Son of His love. Maybe we have had too negative thoughts of the kingdom; it certainly would subjugate what is inconsistent with His presence, but it is a sphere in which we are to find liberty, protection and peace. Beloved, let us be drawn into this idea of a little flock. A poor and afflicted people have a treasure and it is in the heavens and it does not fail. Where is our treasure? Where are our interests lying? It is where Jesus is.
’Tis the treasure we’ve found in His love,
we sing,
That has made us now pilgrims below
(Hymn 139).
If you have your heart centred in that blessed Man at the right hand of God it will alter your whole course for the remainder of the time that is left to us till we hear that assembling shout.
That treasure does not fail in the heavens; no thief can penetrate nor corruption spoil that treasure. Let us see that we have our hearts centred in what is above where Christ is. Set your mind on the things above, where the Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, and you will see in their true perspective the things that relate to our lives here in this poor world. Our real treasure lies in the sphere where He is already entered in as Forerunner for us. Our place is assured up there. Let us lessen our hold on things below. We are soon going to leave them anyway. The Spirit will engage us with our treasure up there, and it does not fail. There is no failure at the right hand of God; He is in control; there has never ever been a situation in which the Lord did not know what He was going to do—as in John 6: 6 where “He knew what he was going to do”. We may not always see through things and may wonder why they go on and on seemingly unresolved, but the Lord is in control and faith links us with the place where there is no decline or change in values. We have a treasure secured up there where Jesus is. That is to mean something to us, as it says, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be. Let your loins be girded about, and lamps burning”—ready for movement, ready to go up. Are we ready? The Lamb’s wife “has made herself ready”, Rev 19: 7. She is doing that now. Let us be drawn into this great spiritual matter.
Dear brethren, we are very soon to enter into spiritual conditions, let us acquaint ourselves now by experience with what spiritual conditions involve. We have the Spirit of God among us who leads us into the enjoyment and experience of what presently will be ours actually. So it says, “and ye like men who wait their own lord”. There is a great need of men. Paul had to write to those Corinthians as children, as babes, when they should have been men. Oh, there is a great need for spiritual maturity in brothers and sisters to rise to the challenge of this final moment of testimony before the Lord comes. We are to be like men who wait their own Lord. In this world there are lords many, but not to these men—“their own lord”. Dear brethren, these are simple things and yet they are very profound and very necessary things in view of the time we are in; we are waiting our own Lord so that when He comes and knocks we can open to Him immediately. Are we ready? The Lamb’s wife “made herself ready” in “the righteousnesses of the saints”, with those garments so spotless and bright in testimony, and so pure in incorruption, Rev 19: 8. Think of the quality the Spirit of God is bringing about at the present time as the perfect answer to the heart of the Lord Jesus—so open to Him immediately. This is not the Laodicean knocking where He is left outside in the cold. Let us at every occasion of our gathering be ready, sensitive to let the Lord have His way. As we assemble, dear brethren, in the light of the assembly let us think firstly of His glory, that this gathering is for Him and for His glory, and then He will assure us some fresh impress of Himself.
So it says here, “Blessed are those bondmen whom the lord on coming shall find watching; verily I say unto you, that he will gird himself and make them recline at table”. Who can understand that? “And coming up will serve them”. It is one of the most profound references to our Lord, and it is sufficient that He has said it. We would not be seeking it, but He will do that. I believe its import is to strengthen faithfulness with us now to be ready, when He knocks, to let Him in. Then it is His matter what He will do when, coming up, He will serve. What a scene of love that will be! Someone said the other day that love is the life of heaven. Dear brethren, it is the life of the assembly, because the assembly is heavenly; both in origin and destiny she is heavenly. And where do we find this? As we gather together unto Christ’s name we find the same atmosphere of heaven pervading that circle where the midst is His and His alone. So it says here, “If he come in the second watch, and come in the third watch, and find them thus, blessed are those bondmen”. I would like to encourage the brethren to be ready in the sensitivity of love to discern in what way the Lord is acting or speaking or knocking, that we may open to Him immediately.
Now just a reference to Corinthians where the treasure is spoken of—“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassingness of the power may be of God, and not from us”. What does this mean? It brings us again to the practical circumstances in which we are found. Our bodies are not yet changed; they will be in a moment; in the twinkling of an eye they will be bodies of glory like His; but we are in bodies of frailty now. We grow old, we have all the inevitable infirmities that come, but there is a treasure and it abides. What is it? It is the work of God. Let us value it more and more in one another. It will help us to look away from other things and see that the true bond we have with one another is in relation to the work of God in us. The work of the Spirit of God in us gives us an affinity, you might say beginning in repentance, and deepening in suffering and humility but rising to the place we have as in Christ. What we love in one another is our formation after that one Man. Let it grow. It will be tested, as this list of sufferings that we read would show, but if cast down we are not destroyed. All these pressures come in, as they will, I suppose, until we are caught away, but what goes through is this treasure now in earthen vessels. I suppose the allusion is to Gideon where the pitchers were broken and the light shone. We need to go through as broken vessels, in fact we are only safe as broken, maintaining humility through repentance and thorough self-judgment.
It is a wonderful thing to find a link, a bond of oneness, with a brother or sister in repentance. It is a strong bond, it is a bond that Satan cannot interfere with; he is defeated. I believe more and more that things which intrude among us would be excluded if we knew more in depth our bond with one another as repenting sinners. Please bear with the word, dear brethren, but I believe many matters among us would not exist if we had the strength of that kind of bond morally known and enjoyed. There is a sweetness in repentance as we know the One that redeemed us and loves us and has washed us from our sins. His precious blood becomes the more precious and His Person and grace the more proved in His sufficiency for us. What a treasure in earthen vessels, soon to be displayed at His coming. The apostle portrayed the dying of Jesus. I did not want to go into the detail of those verses, but continually let us consider the Man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He has left us a model, that we should follow in His steps. What a privilege that I may put my feet where He put His feet in love for me and prove His priestly support, and go through in the power of life, as it says, “that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh, so that death works in us, but life in you”.
That is all I wanted to say just to encourage the brethren to value the treasure that is going through. Let us see we are committed to and identified with the testimony of our Lord in faithfulness and consecration in love’s devotedness until He comes, for His Name’s sake.
NEW YORK
10th November 1984
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