STABILITY
I thought that the titles in these scriptures would help us in the stability we so need in the days in which our lot is cast. It is easy to allow a certain element of weakness and depression, whereas I think the Spirit of God would help us to see that there is a system operating, centred in Christ glorified, to which we could never attach breakdown, and it is maintained here in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
This title, “I AM”, takes us back into the contemplation of what is really quite beyond us, into the essence and blessedness of a Being whom we know as God. To us in this wondrous dispensation, the greatest of all, God is revealed in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. This title, ‘I AM’, attaches to each Person equally and inscrutably, and the essence of that Being is infinitely one, yet what a supreme privilege, beloved brethren, that we in affectionate and responsive and intelligent love, can speak to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. It seems to me that the way God has come into this wondrous unfolding of things which we speak of as an economy will leave its own impress on every part of His work. The wonder and the glory of His grace is that we should be chosen, even before the world was, to have part in that. It has been well said that it was the Father’s glory to choose us, the glory of the Son to redeem us and the glory of the Spirit to form and fashion us in Christ’s likeness, to come out, not only in the display, as it will be, but to be the fit consort of that heavenly Man. Beloved, let the greatness of these things afresh come into our affections and our minds today. It will result in an ever deepening committal and a resolve, stemming from affection for His Person, to be here fully identified with His testimony.
What I want to bring out if I can is that from the divine side there is no weakness. That there are forces against it we admit. The Lord says “on this rock”—that is the confession of Himself—“I will build my assembly”, Matt 16: 18. Oh! the appeal is to us to furnish something that is His in the days of breakdown, to give Him the joy of a possession, without our assuming anything or claiming anything. But even “two of you”, as we were saying, two assembly persons, can furnish for the heart of Christ what He loves. It is an appeal to us.
I want to say something as to these passages I have read, although I feel unable to enter into the depth of this title. When the Lord Jesus said “I am he”, His opposers were powerless in the presence of that utterance. The disciples were with Him because they went with Him. Oh beloved, how far can we go? Is not this the Ark? “When ye see the ark” (Josh 3: 3): is this not the Ark going forward to meet the awful power of death, when the Jordan overflowed all its banks? Does it not say here that it was a torrent? We do not get that in the other gospels. The torrent: it is the awfulness, the power, of all that was brought against Him at that time, but which was powerless in the presence of the One who went forth to meet death and overcome it and become the mighty Victor. “What ailed thee, thou sea”—is that not what the Psalm says?—“that thou fleddest? thou Jordan that thou turnedst back? Ye mountains, that ye skipped like rams? ye hills, like lambs?”, Ps 114: 5, 6. Think of the spiritual triumph in the mighty power of the I AM in the presence of the forces that lay between His reaching the full object of the purposes of God.
Now this section does not give us the detail we get in the synoptic gospels, nor do we get the extreme pressure that Luke gives us—His sweat as great drops of blood falling to the ground. In a way we can hardly contain at one and the same time who this Person is in the glory and greatness of the I AM, and the infinite blessedness and moral perfections that attach to His humanity. Both call forth our worship. It is food for us, dear brethren, food for the mighty. The gospels are infinite; they are profound. In a sense we go back from the epistles to learn the gospels, and in a way they are unsearchable. “The Spirit searches ... the depths of God”, 1 Cor 2: 10. Oh that something like this should come into us as we speak and as we listen, as we are together in it, as the assembly is here, the temple, the light of the truth. Let it come into us as it no doubt in some sense came into these beloved disciples. They would say they were not equal to it, and so should we. How could we penetrate into the depths of those holy feelings as He contemplated the cross and the power of death? It could never overwhelm Him. The waters went back, went back in a heap, it says, as far as the city Adam, see Josh 3: 16. The whole matter was resolved in the irresistible power of that Person who is no less than the I AM. I wish we were able to hold the whole scene at once, but I do not think we are equal for it. Think of the awful pressure on His spirit as He took the cup, not from man but from God, from the Father! “Shall I not drink it?” But what that meant! Who could understand the depth of those feelings of His holy soul as He contemplated what was to be resolved on the cross in those three hours when He was made sin? “Him who knew not sin he has made sin for us, that we might become God’s righteousness in him”, 2 Cor 5: 21. What infinite depths of almighty love flowed at that wondrous divine transaction when He met the whole power of the enemy to make a way through that we can be with Him where He is in His own abode. Beloved, these are wonderful things. They are things we know, but let them come into us afresh. I suppose these beloved disciples came to it later. They would remember and say, Why did He say to us “Thus ye have not been able to watch one hour with me?”, Matt 26: 40? What a tender rebuke! Beloved, are we watching? Can we be true in the face of these things, in what is still the time of His rejection and His absence, the time of suffering? Can we watch one hour? How much time is left? In the few moments that are left let us be committed to following. That is what He said: “Follow thou me”, John 21: 22.
Now much enters into this; Judas knew the place, it was a place to which Jesus often went, and it was a garden and there was a torrent. It is as if the whole matter heaped up in its awfulness as He went forward to meet the power of the enemy, but all was powerless in the face of the I AM. When He said “I am he, they went away backward and fell to the ground”. What a sense of triumph! Let the joy of it, and the strength and stability of it, enter into our souls, to see that the power of death has for ever been broken and annulled, and that there is a way through on dry ground, resurrection ground, to find our place with Him where He is.
I did not want to extend it; not that I would be able to, nor is there need to. These things are food for our souls to contemplate. No doubt these beloved disciples would have gone over this many, many times. Peter would say, Why did I cut off that bondman’s ear? Why did I do that? And the Lord does not heal it in this gospel; He did, according to Luke. Why did He not heal it? I venture to say He left it that way to keep Peter humble; and I would suggest He has left plenty among us to keep us humble. He humbled Himself. Wonderful! “Emptied himself”, Phil 2: 7. That too is food. Most of us have had to be humbled; and let us stay humble, let us bind it on if it falls off, see 1 Pet 5: 5. Beloved, the public position as I see it is one of extreme humility, but that in no sense detracts from the inward enjoyment by the Spirit of where He is leading us. I have a feeling that at the close of the dispensation there is something special. We were saying here the other night that there may be something yet as to eternal life which we may learn. I do not know. I do not want to be fanciful or anything like that, but I believe there is something emerging at the present time that is in keeping with the atmosphere of heaven. Let it develop. Let us prosper it. Let us get a taste of it, and we will not be content with what is less, or accept a lower standard. Oh no! Let us see that there is a stable system of things centred in Christ glorified and the Spirit here that is going through.
Now you may wonder why I went back to Exodus, to Moses. You might say this is a long way from the Jordan, but it is that all has to be gathered up, nothing is left behind. Do not forget Christ our passover or the Red Sea and the lessons of the wilderness. I do not mean that we live in history. No, no! but we learn its lessons and we hold to the truth of the conflicts, the wars of the Lord. Do not let us give them up. What spoil and spiritual territory has been secured through faithful men. Let us cherish these fruits of battle and not give them up. There was vital truth involved in every conflict. Now Moses represents the formation of the servant, and we are all servants. As having the Spirit there is something in love’s obligation to be filled out. Standing at the desk really means nothing. It is the Lord’s matter. The ascended Man has to do with these things; we respect it. My matter is humility. This front row of seats means nothing, but what mean everything is my place in Christ. I read a profound thing—do not, please, ask me to explain it, but I pondered it—to understand Christianity it is necessary to understand a man in Christ. I think it bears a little on what we have been saying. We need to understand things from the top. Paul was caught up there. He did not know whether he was in the body or out of the body: a man in Christ, see 2 Cor 12: 2. Maybe it was at a time of extreme pressure and suffering. It may be. He did not know, and he heard things not lawful to utter, but it coloured his whole course of service. I believe we want more and more to find that secret place alone, away from all influence, alone in the divine presence, to get heaven’s assessment, heaven’s view of things here below, and come back in the provisional scene to be a witness for Him.
Now Moses is in the process of being formed as a servant, and we all are; so long as we are here we will be learners. Do not let us think we have reached the terminus. Far from it! Some of us have had an awful lot to unlearn, and maybe more yet. Let us be sensitive to what the Spirit is saying to us. Moses is arrested by what he sees here, why this thorn-bush was not being consumed. Now, ordinarily a thorn-bush would not arrest much attention; it is a worthless plant. The fact was that it was being burnt but was not being consumed. Ah, if we could get a view of what is going through like this, right through the whole history, and is not being consumed. He is arrested by the sight and God sees that he is interested. I hope everyone here is interested; if you are, God will take account of it and He will lead you where you will get an answer to your interest. Beloved younger brethren, be interested. Get your minds and your affections interested in the things of God. Get into those books and read them, and read the Scriptures and read the notes, and the more you do so the more you will want to do so. I suppose Moses’ history is not too much different from that of the rest of us. It begins with him weeping—the feeling side in the babe in the river. Then he does things and makes a few mistakes; who of us has not? He began to slay those Egyptians one by one; he would still be doing it! God can deal with them; I have to slay the Egyptian in myself. Then he goes on and finds rest at the well, and sits there, and he helps those women feed their flocks. Oh beloved, let us just take on what the Lord gives us to do and be content. It says he tended the flock. I believe there was a tenderness and affection that he was beginning to learn, and he sees this great sight. He says “Let me now turn aside and see this great sight, why the thorn-bush is not burnt. And Jehovah saw that he turned aside to see, and God called to him out of the midst of the thorn-bush”. What it would be to command divine interest by such a committal, to see there is something going through that is impregnable, that life and incorruptibility have been brought to light by the glad tidings, see 2 Tim 1: 10. Beloved, everything is contained, or may we say encased, in the glad tidings: the mystery, the assembly, everything is in the glad tidings; and life and incorruptibility are brought to light in the glad tidings. It is remarkable that that comes in the second epistle, when outwardly it would appear that things were going to pieces, with all Asia turning away from Paul! How much there could have been that depressed him! No, he is not depressed. He commits that good deposit to Him who is able to bring it through, and so He will. Life and incorruptibility: let us see that our testimony, beloved brethren, is marked by life and marked by incorruptibility.
So the title comes out here again. “God said to Moses, I AM THAT I AM. And he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel: I AM hath sent me unto you”. What a credential! Not in his own strength; oh, no! He had to learn that that staff could become a serpent; he had to learn that what was in his bosom could be leprous. Let us never trust the flesh. The flesh can never be trusted. Let us see that the cross has dealt with it judicially. The whole man has been set aside. My sins—yes—but the man who sinned has been judicially set aside at the cross. Oh then to make way for the blessed gift of the Holy Spirit’s power for witness and testimony, and service, because Moses led the people through. What a man he was! Beloved, the quality of committal is no different today. Can we rise to it and see what the Lord is seeking in the few moments that may remain before we hear His shout?
Now I turn to the word in Hebrews. Much has entered into this epistle. The feelings of the writer (though his name is not given it is clear who he is) come out. We all have the tendency to slip away. Oh, let no one slip away! Where would the slippage reach? What we should be alerted to is that the apostasy has come. We would not say that as to any person. No. The Lord knows those that are His, but the character of it is all around. It is where the light once was so bright. That is what the devil attacked. In the skill of the writer he gets them back. We get here the speaking in the Son. If we do not rally to the voice of Jesus, where are we? He goes over the ground in terms they knew. We know the terms that most of us have been brought up in from childhood. Thank God we have. From a child Timothy had known the sacred letters but that in itself will not do. Only one thing will do, and that is an attachment to the Person of the Son of God. So he brings in this title, ‘the Same’, the ever-existing One, in order to bring them back to the strength and the foundation of what rests in the Person of Jesus Christ Himself. It is “Jesus Christ ... the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. Who would want Him different? Would any lover want Him different? As He sat just as He was at the well—would anyone want Him different? When they took Him into the ship, just as He was—would anyone want Him different? No! Let us be committed to Him, “the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. There is no change, save in His condition. He came into flesh and blood to terminate that condition. He could have gone back alone, but He would not go back alone. The Corn of wheat falling into the ground; that is the way He went, through death, that we should have part with Him where He is, in the risen, ascended, glorious position that He fills. The writer is lifting these beloved brethren out of the tendency to droop. Do we not know it? Are we not sympathetic with one another? How easy it is to droop. Who of us has not? We cannot afford to droop. Let us keep in the life-line, the things that lead us to what is above, where Christ is. Set your mind there.
At the beginning of this chapter it says, “Let brotherly love abide”; a lot of exhortations follow which we have not time now to go over, but I would like just to refer to “let brotherly love abide”. It is a Philadelphian touch. Love among yourselves: the Lord said “By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves”, John 13: 35. I have a feeling, dear brethren, that a distinctive feature of the end is the closeness of our bonds together. As our brother quoted the other night: The strongest bond between human hearts is absolute consecration to Jesus, see Mr Darby’s Synopsis vol 3 p402. That is a fine remark; you will all have read it. Think about it, pray about it, and see that it works. The nearest bond we can have with one another is our attachment to the Person of the Son of God. I believe it is the strength of that brotherly bond that will enable us to maintain the position in the energy and power of life till the Lord comes. It will take the strain. Things will come, as they inevitably do. Let us keep the brotherly bond intact. There is a basis on which to work things through righteously, affectionately and generously, so that we give the enemy no occasion to scatter or divide. Let us keep near to one another. Bear with the word of exhortation. I believe the Lord would help us to see that we cannot afford a shade of distance between any one of us. Think of that letter Paul wrote to Philemon. Think of what he said in Philippians to those two sisters, to be of the same mind. How fair he was! He saw the urgency, the need, that there should not be a shade of variance. How could there be in the anointed vessel of which we were speaking, the body of Christ?
Well, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”. Let us cleave to Him. He will not fail us. Keeper of Israel, He does not slumber, see Ps 121: 4. He does not sleep. He is available. Let us keep near Him. The chapter later says “But the God of peace, who brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, in the power of the blood of the eternal covenant perfect you in every good work to the doing of his will, doing in you what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for the ages of ages”, vv 20, 21. Oh, what a doxology to finish with! “Brought again from among the dead our Lord Jesus”: our place is assured with Him in a risen life. How soon will His coming be! How soon we will hear His shout! Let us comport ourselves becomingly in the few moments that remain, and we shall be with Him, with the Lord for ever. For His Name’s sake.
LONDON
18th July 1981
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