The Voice Of God
(Hebrews and Job)
It is well to keep before us that the end of discipline is that we may hear the voice of God. The One who spoke on earth (Heb 2: 3) is now speaking from heaven (Heb 12: 25), but by the Spirit in us, and of Jesus.
Every blessing of men has always depended on their hearing with the ear of the soul, the voice of God. That voice now is the Spirit’s voice. “Behold, the bridegroom”. Every believer has heard it, at some time or another. He heard it first as a poor sinner, directing him to Christ. He may have gone to sleep since (see Matt 25: 5), but he has now to hear it as a saint, ever setting before him the same perfect model in a Man on earth. If we are awake, and only then, we hear it effectually, so that Christ is kept before us. If we are slumbering or asleep we do not know what suits God! We need arousing, but the Spirit’s testimony to us is still the same. He has one theme, and it is, “Behold, the bridegroom”.
In order to our hearing, if asleep, discipline may be necessary. Discipline comes before us in the daily life of saints. We have discipline in Heb 12: 5. If slumbering only (for this word might be rendered they became drowsy) the voice may awaken us. But it is the rush and roar of the world which too often drowns the “still small voice” of God, 1 Kings 19: 12. It is the self-assertion of man. That is why discipline is necessary. I believe we should always ask ourselves, when under the chastening of His hand, What had God to say to me, to which I was deaf, which has made this dealing necessary? Christ as man down here never needed discipline to cause His ear to be attentive. He says in Isa 50, “he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned”. Again, showing the ever attentive ear God-ward, He says, “As I hear, I judge”, John 5: 30. Always as man He had the ear attent to the voice of God. Now it is this which is necessary to our blessing. But it is often by the road of discipline and chastening that we reach it. Yet reach it we must, if we are to act as men awake.
The other passage which I have read is in the book of Job; the same lesson is before us as we have in Hebrews. God’s principles never change. A soul may be naturally in such a heavy sleep, that is, so SELF-SATISFIED, that you have to touch him, and pretty roughly too, to arouse him. The voice is not enough. The touch is for us God’s discipline, allowing evil to come upon us, as He allowed it to come upon Job. All evil comes from Satan. He is allowed of God to touch a saint, and to take away, in Job’s case, all that Job had. His riches, his sons and his daughters, are taken away, as it were, at a stroke. And lastly, the poor man himself is seen, health also taken away, and diseased from head to foot, and sitting among the ashes; for the devil is permitted also to go thus far (but in Job’s case not to touch his life).
These were rough shakings for poor Job, but God was over it all (as in Hebrews). God is behind all the movements of His hand in discipline.
Now, what was it all for? Well, I believe that Job (unknown to himself) had begun to regard Job with complacency. It was not the right object. I gather this from all the chapters which intervene between chapter 2 and chapter 42: 5, see especially chap 31: 16 to 40.
Job was a righteous man before God, there was not a man like him in the earth—“A perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil”, Job 1: 8. Yet such a man as this (and such an one every believer ought to be) must needs be kept right, and this is only done by his having the right object! I need not say that self-satisfaction (or satisfaction with yourself) is the greatest possible proof that you can have, that you are asleep God-ward! As I have said, can we be looking at Christ, and satisfied with self? Impossible.
And at the end Job confesses that he has been in error. He says, “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, BUT NOW MINE EYE SEETH THEE”, Job 42: 5. Notice that the hearing precedes the sight!
What was the result for Job? It was this, he heard (see chap 42: 5), and then his eyes were opened. He was AWAKE, and he said now mine eye seeth THEE, and God poured upon him a blessing twice as great as he had before! God wanted to bless him thus, but Job must have a right object. And today God has a desire toward us, just similar to that! only it is for us to enter into spiritual good. This is the end of all His chastening—blessing. Job came to the conclusion that he must disappear—that the ‘wick’ was hindering the ‘light’. Hence, he says, “Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes”. Self was the hindrance, and seeing God was the remedy, and thus the trimming of the lamp was there (in principle) in this early day, so that in a man there might be what God desired, His wishes for man gratified.
Are we here to do our own will? We are here for the will of God, and the Spirit is the power for that. He is in us for the “willing and the working” of God’s good pleasure, Phil 2: 13 NT.
I have dwelt on the necessity of awakening, that the eyes may be opened. All the Lord’s brethren (I mean the brethren of John 20: 17) are either awake or asleep. A good, though of necessity weak, illustration may be gathered from natural things. The light enters the eye (but only when it is opened), and it paints within on the retina the image of the object seen. If the man had the power to delineate the object, he would produce an exact image of what he saw. It is also true that no two persons receive exactly the same image. Hence there is varied beauty and reproduction of the one object produced. We have this power in the Holy Ghost, and this is important, but nothing clear is seen by a man asleep, and hence nothing clear will be produced. In that case, not only sight, but all the senses are dulled. But the Spirit is not dulled. He is ever awake to Christ and to Christ’s glory, and an old saying is true in this case (for a believer is a living entity) that ‘while there is life there is hope’! Hope of our being aroused to see the Object.
Many years ago some Christian people came out of various Christian associations where it was felt by them that the Spirit of God was hindered, and where men and human methods were substituted. I am not sure that we (who now form the remnants of that company) are as clear on this point as they were. Why I question it, is that if the Holy Ghost were acknowledged in our assemblies and His due place given to Him, we should have less of men and human arrangements than we have, and instead thereof we should surely get Christ and Christ only ministered among us, and this much more often than we do. I do not for a moment desire to hinder that which is of God (indeed, in one way I could not, if I would), still what passes amongst us sometimes savours to me so much of ‘men talking in their sleep’, that I cannot refrain from drawing your serious attention to it.
But my point is not what I have referred to. It is not the company that I am seeking (I believe with God’s help) to awaken, but rather each individual saint. This is the only way I believe, to help the company.
Let me also further remind you and myself that the sleep of which the Lord speaks (Matt 25: 5), as describing the company or an individual, is that moral condition of the soul which does not grasp the present privileges and responsibilities of our relations God-ward. When the ears are “dull of hearing” then there is sleep. You cannot distinguish between good and evil, see Heb 5: 11. When a simple moral question of good or evil arises amongst us, as we have said, then this condition of soul sleep is at once demonstrated. It is seen in the inability of some saints to judge, and in others in their differences of judgment as to the question; these indicate their varied conditions of sleep God-ward. But, thank God, that if He has some who are awake, they will not be deceived by the words of those who are asleep. It is invariably found, I believe, that those who are sleeping (morally) have a great deal to say; but the end will prove the value always of the road that any man may travel, and the end in this case is the severance of good and evil. If Christian people are not awake—awake God-ward—of what weight is all this talk? It is but the incoherent mutterings and remarks of men in their sleep!
We can distinguish those who are awake from those who are asleep, not by their talk, but by their actions and by the measure of light that they display. The sleep is pretty manifest; but I do not think that we should be guided by the words or actions of men in their sleep! The word of the Lord will occur to you, as it does to me, for a sleeping man is deficient as to his sight. “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch”, Matt 15: 14.
How many blind (because asleep God-ward) are seeking to lead the blind (those also asleep), today? You can only get help from a Christian who is himself awake. Do not say that this passage which I have just quoted only applies to the eternal state. It applies today. Very many, I doubt not, blind leaders, as well as those whom they have led, are lying in the ditch today, but a ditch is not the place in which to find light or testimony from God. They are not in eternity. Oh, no! This ditch is in the region of TIME. May God awaken His saints! For many are there.
From Words of Grace and Encouragement—vol 3, 1903
