“ WE ARE NOT DRAWERS BACK”

E. C. Muggleton

Hebrews 4: 13; Psalm 29: 3–11; Hebrews 12: 25 (from “For if”)–29

I want to speak about the word of God. It is really God Himself, because God speaks. It is not as the idols of the nations, which are the work of men’s hands. It says, “They have a mouth, and they speak not; eyes have they, and they see not; They have ears, and they hear not”, Psalm 115: 5, 6. God has a mouth and He speaks, and I believe He is speaking today. He has eyes and He sees; His eyes “run to and fro through the whole earth”, 2 Chronicles 16: 9. He sees everything and He hears everything, and we have to do with that God. He is a Discerner too of the very thoughts and intents of the heart. God says in the prophet Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55: 8). He knows our thoughts, as it says in another passage, “thou understandest my thought afar off”, Psalm 139: 2. He says, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”.

So God communicates His word to us. He communicated His mind and His word to Moses, His servant, though Moses said he himself was slow to speak; but God had a mouth in Aaron, who could speak well (Exodus 4: 14). God uses and distinguishes His servants to communicate His mind to us at any time. We cannot limit God as to how He would communicate His mind and His thoughts to us. He is the living God, and we have to do with Him who sees and who hears, and speaks to us. It says “there is

not a creature unapparent before him; but all things are naked and laid bare to his eyes, with whom we have to do”. He is very gracious, but He speaks with no uncertain sound and we are to listen to what God would say to us at any time. It is living, and penetrating too, as it says here, “penetrating to the division of soul and spirit” and “a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.

Well, what are our thoughts, beloved brethren? God would say, “My thoughts are not your thoughts”. I draw attention to this because I see a tendency to go back and not to go forward.

It is a very sorrowful thing that God had to say to His people through Jeremiah, “They ...

went backward and not forward” (Jeremiah 7: 24). God’s great thought was that His people should go forward. He said to Moses, “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward”, Exodus 14: 15. God wants us to go forward and inherit the land of His purpose for us. Think of what He has in His heart for us, things which He “has prepared for them that love him”, 1 Corinthians 2: 9. God has His lovers here, and His love “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which has been given to us”, Romans 5: 5. He knows those that love Him, those that are the fruit of His own sovereign work, and has prepared wonderful, things for us, “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard”, 1 Corinthians 2: 9. Think of a God like this!

As I have said, I see, beloved brethren, a tendency with us to go backward and not forward.

The present time is very searching, and God speaks to us because He wants to have us go forward. He has no pleasure in those who draw back, and He appealed to the people constantly, rising early and sending the prophets—How gracious He is, how patient. They were a rebellious people, yet God

says, “rising up early and sending”, and I believe God speaks today through His prophets. He has had them since the world began. So God would speak to us by His word, and it says here that it is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart. Before any thoughts come into expression, He knows the intents of the heart; He knows the way we are thinking. He knows the way we are seeking to go. God would have us to go the right way and the good way, and to come into the enjoyment of the good teaching. That is really Christianity. We have had brethren who have set out good teaching for us. We have been reminded of the teaching connected with the new covenant. God loves to teach us; He loves to instruct His people as to what His mind is, what His thoughts are. It is a wonderful thing, beloved brethren, if we can just get God’s thoughts, and get into the presence of God where we discover that everything is naked and bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. It is a very important matter for every one of us to realize that we have to do with God. We have to do with a God who speaks, a God who sees, and a God who hears, and He has nothing but good for us. If we are disobedient and rebellious, well then we shall not eat the good of the land. That is quite clear.

Psalm 29 is very searching. You have a reference to the voice of Jehovah—“The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters; the God of glory thundereth—Jehovah upon great waters, The voice of Jehovah is powerful ... full of majesty”. Think of the powerful way that God would speak to His people; it is full of majesty. We should have a holy awe as we think of God, a holy God who cannot in any sense tolerate evil or any going back on His word. We should be obedient and hearken to what He has to say to us. Think of the ministries we have had to encourage us to go forward, and how the

truth has been opened up to us, and yet there is a tendency with us all at times to go back, and God has no pleasure in us if we are going back; the thing is to go forward. In John 6 it says many of His disciples went back and walked no more with Him. Think of listening to those words of Jesus when He said, “It is the Spirit which quickens, the flesh profits nothing”, John 6: 63. We have to come to it in our individual experience that the flesh, which is in us all, does not profit. We have to come to what does profit—“the Spirit quickens”. We come back to this thought of quickening, and I believe the powerful voice of Jehovah carries with it quickening power. It affects us in our conscience as well as in our heart. What this psalm brings out is the powerful voice of God which speaks to us, and God continues to speak.

Maybe a sister says, Well it does not matter whether I wear the token or not (1 Corinthians 11: 10). If you talk like that or think like that, you are going back, dear sister. The tendency with all of us is to go back on the truth and the ministry we have had. How sorrowful it is, and God has no pleasure in us in going back. You may say, It is a very small thing, but if we say, Well, it does not really matter if I wear the token or not; it does not really matter if I have my hair cut or not, it is going back on the truth, and the Lord has something to say to us. The tendency with every one—not only sisters, but brothers—is to go back, and God causes His voice to be heard. David says, “thou understandest my thought afar off”, Psalm 139: 2. He knows what you are thinking. This psalm says that the voice of Jehovah “layeth bare the forests”. He “breaketh the cedars of Lebanon”. Think of God’s powerful voice coming to break something down that is in us; maybe pride; how often there is an element of pride in us.

It says God “sets himself against the proud” (James 4: 6).

but He “gives grace to the lowly”. I think it is a time, dear brethren, when we should be characterized by the spirit of lowliness in the presence of God, in the presence of His speaking to us. If we have gone back at all, God would speak to us about it, for He has no pleasure in it. Well, these things are current amongst us and God has His own way of speaking to us and adjusting us, that He might preserve us in the right way, that we might get the gain of the good teaching. That is what is in the heart of God.

So in the end of this psalm we have a beautiful word, “Jehovah will give strength unto his people; Jehovah will bless his people with peace”. What we want is peaceful conditions, but not at the expense of righteousness, not at the expense of neglecting the principles that govern the house of God, that govern the fellowship, the holy fellowship that we can so easily compromise—and how often it may, be we have done it. What a solemn thing it is to have to do with God! He is not going to have compromise; He is going to have a people who go on consistently with the principles of fellowship and the principles of His house. God is a holy God and the fellowship is holy. It is to be guarded, and God would speak to us lest we are going on with something inconsistent, maybe idolatry. Paul had to say to the Corinthians,

“my beloved, flee from idolatry”, 1 Corinthians 10: 14.

Sometimes we need to pull ourselves up and realize that God is listening, knows what we are talking about. He sees everything, His eyes are penetrating, like fire. The Lord is seen in Revelation, “his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like fine brass” (Revelation 1: 15). Think of the Lord there in His judicial garb. He passes nothing over. He commends all that He can commend. I think that is wonderful today; the Lord is

commending what He can commend in His beloved people, but then His eyes are as a flame of fire. God is not going on with what is of man after the flesh and what is idolatrous, and, beloved brethren, it is not far away from any one of us. Let us face the word of God. So the Lord would speak to us, but He gives strength to His people. These occasions are to give us strength to go forward. We do not want to go back on any point of the truth. Let us be those who are fully committed to what the Lord has had to say to us. Think of the glory of the recovery; new covenant ministers have presented the truth attractively, and yet they have been faithful in their commission and have spoken to us faithfully in order that we might go on the right way and keep going forward.

Well, that is the main point of my message. He is a jealous God and He would stir us up in His jealousy. He loves us so much that He would speak to us that we might be preserved.

“And by a prophet Jehovah brought Israel out of Egypt, and by a prophet was he preserved”, Hosea 12: 13. Moses was a prophet; God speaks of him as a prophet. God has had His prophets, and He has them today in the assembly. It says, “Let ... prophets speak”, 1

Corinthians 14: 29. There should be something prophetic coming into our meetings in view of the preservation of things and so I say feelingly, dear brethren, let us not go back. A sister said to me the other day, ‘What do you think of two sisters breaking bread in a meeting and not shaking hands with one another?’ What a serious thing that is. Let us face these issues; let us get to God about them. What are our relations with one another, dear brethren sitting down at the Lord’s supper and not shaking hands? These are solemn things. I think the Lord has an issue at the present time. He is concerned about any going back, any violation of the principle of the fellowship. We are to be

consistent with the principle of the fellowship.

Let us challenge ourselves as to whether we are consistent when we are not with the brethren.

It is easy to be consistent when we are in a company like this but what are we doing when we are away from one another? Are we really consistent all through the week with the death of Christ? The only way we can be preserved in the holy fellowship is by being consistent with the death of Christ. I think it shuts us completely off from the world. The believers in Hebrews were in danger of slipping, and it is easy to slip; let us not slip back, but go forward.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews the apostle is urging the saints to go forward and enter into the enjoyment of their inheritance. Think of the holiness connected with the calling, and with the fellowship. There is only one fellowship and we are to be consistent in that holy fellowship all through the week, otherwise I do not see how we can rightly sit down at the Lord’s supper.

Well, let us get these matters adjusted, dear brethren. “The voice of Jehovah is powerful”.

God would speak to us. It is full of majesty. He would penetrate through so that the believer is searched out in His presence. David said, “Search me, O God … and see if there be any grievous way in me”, Psalm 139: 23, 24. Let us lay ourselves open more and more to the holy searching: of God. He would search us lest there is something that is not consistent with the holiness of God and His presence.

Just a word on the end of Hebrews 12. It is a searching point. It says, “If those did not escape who had refused him who uttered the oracles on earth, much more we who turn away from him who does so from heaven”. Are any of us turning away from His speaking today? He is speaking from heaven. God is constantly speaking to us. Are we going to turn away; are we going to say it is

too searching for us? What a blessed thing it is to get into the presence of God and have everything out and get everything adjusted, so that we can be together happily in the holy fellowship of God’s Son. Think of the glory of the speaking today from heaven, and it says here, “whose voice then shook the earth; but now he has promised, saying, Yet once will I shake not only the earth, but also the heaven. But this Yet once, signifies the removing of what is shaken, as being made, that what is not shaken may remain”. Well, God shakes things. He lays bare the forests, and He searches us out in our localities, searches us out individually too, so that everything should be adjusted and be consistent with what He is in His holiness and in His majesty. We have to do with divine speaking. Things are going to be shaken, not only on earth but in heaven, that what cannot be shaken may remain.

Well, the work of God will not and cannot be shaken; that is what is going through, beloved brethren, and nothing else. God will bring out the glory of His work. Glory is the end of God’s work and God is going to bring it out into display—the holy city coming down out of heaven, having the glory of God. Think of what God is going to display in the world to come, but He speaks to us now in view of it, so that we should see that we are related to an order of things that cannot be shaken. It remains, and God’s work will go through. Think of the glory of God’s work in the saints today. That is going through; so let us go forward in relation to what cannot be shaken, it is like new creation; not a trace of the old. It is the glory of God’s work by the Spirit, formation going on in the saints after Christ. So that what God will bring into display will be Christ, but He has it now in testimony. Paul speaks about the “world which is to come, of which we speak”, Hebrews 2: 5. We love to speak about it.

Mr. Raven was always speaking about the world to come. Think of the glory that is coming in. The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2: 14). The glory of God today is in the face of our glorious Saviour. That is where it shines, and it is to shine here in testimony, and it will shine in the coming day of glory in the world to come.

So I finish on this word at the end of Hebrews 12, “Wherefore let us, receiving a kingdom not to be shaken, have grace, by which let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear”. We are to fill out our time, beloved brethren, in serving God acceptably, and we cannot serve God acceptably if we are involved in the world and the things of the world, so we need deliverance and God is gracious and He would deliver us from all these idols and things which hold us and which discredit His own work in our souls. God would bring out the glory of His own work. So the apostle gives us a kind of urge spiritually, and we need an urge too.

We need not only to listen to the voice of God, which is powerful and full of majesty, we need an urge to go forward. My message is that I feel the tendency is to go back and go into the world. If we do that we shall become Laodicean, and what was characteristic of the Laodicean assembly was that they were rich and increased with goods and had need of nothing. Well, the Lord has a word to say to us. He is still knocking. He says, “I stand at the door and am knocking”, Revelation 3: 20. Ministry is to give us an urge to go forward as overcomers, and the Lord gives a wonderful promise to the overcomer in Laodicea. He says, “to him will I give to sit with me in my throne; as I also have overcome, and have sat down with my Father in his throne”.

Well, may we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, and be here (it may not be long) to serve God acceptably. I believe the powerful, majestic speaking of God, His voice, is to produce a holy reverence and a fear with us, a holy awe, for we are to serve God acceptably with reverence and fear, knowing that “our God is a consuming fire”. That is our God, a God well known in the love of Jesus; a God who has been revealed to us and whose love has been manifested to us in the death of His beloved Son. May we, beloved brethren, take heed to the voice that is so powerful and so majestic that we may be here serving God acceptably. May the Lord preserve us in going forward and not going back.

Address in London
20 December 1980