RESULTS FROM THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD

A. McKay

Exodus 4: 14, 15; 36: 19–22, 34; Leviticus 7: 8; Judges 7: 1, 3, 5, 6; 2 Timothy 2: 1–4

We were speaking this morning of the matter of intimacy and being able to go into God’s presence and be conscious, not only that we are asking something, but there is something fresh unfolded in God’s word to us. It is right to be occupied with our needs, but we know that our God is able to supply all our needs, and as our heavenly Father, He will do that!

Those of us who are older have passed through difficult years, we were well taken care of and we are here in a measure of liberty. I do not know if the young ones understand that, but how many there are in the world who through circumstances do not enjoy what we enjoy. In the first place we have been given light as to the assembly, and we have been given grace to answer to the light. There is not much that we can lay claim to, but all this has come in God’s goodness to us and His love to us, through the way that He has brought in the Lord Jesus, the One who has died for our sins. It is a great matter to be conscious of the forgiveness of sins. I trust the younger ones understand that. It is a great thing to know that your sins have been rolled away but there is more than that. We have to confess Jesus as Lord and that starts us off in our Christian pathway, “if thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised him from among the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart is believed to righteousness; and with the mouth confession made to salvation”, Romans 10: 9, 10. So in our pathways, not that we would make any show or boast of it, we need to make known to whom we belong.

We are not told of Aaron’s background, but regarding Moses we are given details right from the cradle to the grave, if I could use that expression. He was born in difficult days and he had faithful parents; then he had a history which we need not go into now, but here he gets his commission. Now I wonder if we have ever had a sense of getting a commission. It is a wonderful thing to think that the Lord of glory has taken us up for His service. Initially when we were converted we were converted for the service of God, but then there is the testimony and the Lord would take us on for that. Moses had been great in Egypt, a great man in the world, but he had turned his back on the world. It was a wonderful thing to have the power to turn his back on the world. Then in the second forty years of his life he was in training for the Lord’s service. No doubt he was trained in all the education and other things available to him in Egypt, but that is not what God had in mind for him. God had His eye on him, He preserved him; and He would do so with each one of us that we might be for Him. I think there is a suggestion here that he thought he knew better than God.

Then we have Aaron introduced with his qualification. God says, “I know that he can speak well”. It has been said that God knew that he could speak well because He had been accustomed to hearing him praying. I wonder if that could be said about us, that we can speak well. We would not tell the Lord about the faults of our brethren. If there were any we would be very sympathetic and would ask that both we and they would come to it that “in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell”, Romans 7: 18. Abraham needed adjustment too, but it is amazing how often his name is mentioned in scripture, great man as he was under God’s eye. I just wanted to make this comment about what was said this morning as to being able to go in to speak with divine Persons, and being conscious of being heard and receiving something from Them in the way of divine communication. Now this is open not only to the older brothers, it is open to everyone, open to younger ones. When we start on our Christian path we should covet

this, the intimacy to go into God’s presence and meet His unrebuking gaze. That is not my expression, it is a well-known expression. What a privilege it is to go into God’s presence and meet His unrebuking gaze! That was all I had to say about Aaron. God said that he could speak well.

In Exodus 36 material is required for God’s service. It is interesting to read in this chapter where it speaks of loops and clasps which are required to hold things together, but then the persons are referred to typically when the boards are mentioned. They were of acacia-wood, a hard heavy wood. We are only given two dimensions for the boards, as far as I know, the length of them and the breadth of them. We are not given the thickness of them. What does it mean? It means that there is mystery about the saints. As we speak of the saints there are certain things that we know, there are certain things that we see, but there is mystery about them. Why was the ark two cubits and a half in length, a cubit and a half in breadth and a cubit and a half in height? The ark gave character to the whole system and the references to the half cubit suggest mystery. So as we go through our paths it is a wonderful thing to come into contact with committed Christians. (What I mean by that is those who have not only heard of the truth of the assembly, but have answered to it and are found here as lovers of the assembly). There is a mystery, you cannot explain it, but immediately you get two such persons there is an immediate contact between them, because there were tenons to hold the boards together. The footnote to verse 22 says, ‘answering one to the other’, so that is what you find. We can sit here and converse happily. We may not be able to understand everything, and we may not be able to help much by putting in comments, but nevertheless there is something in each one, old and young, so that there is an immediate contact, we are set together. These boards were set together and they were standing in sockets of silver; they are typical of believers who understand the great redemptive work of our Lord Jesus and are answering to it. Then they are set together and there are bars put in, five bars, and we are told that the middle bar went from one end to the other. It does not say much about the others, we are not told the measurement of them or how they were placed, but the whole thing represents in type the wonderful work of the Spirit.

We could have referred to the ark and the mercy-seat, but I think most of us would be accustomed to speaking over these things. It is an exercise, especially of those who are older, that we do not run away from the younger ones. We would be patient. David could say, “I have been young, and now am old”, Psalm 37: 25. That is a wonderful thing and what did he say? He recounted something of his experiences. He says, “I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed seeking bread”. So we go on in the full knowledge that God is looking at us. I often wonder why Naaman the Syrian could take such a long journey, when the only report he had that he could be healed was from a captive maid. She must have made a wonderful impression on Naaman. He brought the letter from the king of Syria to the king of Israel, but he did not do what he was told. How simple for us all to know, and the older ones need to recognise this too, that if we did what we were told when we were told it would be an easier course. Darkness in scripture is not an absence of light, it is a positive working of evil.

When the Israelites were in Egypt there was a darkness that could be felt, but the Israelites had light in their dwellings. There may be a positive working of evil outside, but we are where the light is, and we should thank God for that.

Now when we come to Leviticus 7 it says, “And as to the priest that presenteth any man’s burnt-offering, the skin of the burnt-offering which he hath presented shall be the priest’s for himself”. In Ezekiel 37 the scripture refers to the valley of dry bones where the bones came together, bone to its bone, and sinews and

flesh came up upon them, but then it says they were covered with skin. That is really beautification, the final thing that God does is to make a man beautiful. That would be a person who has come to know the Lord as his Saviour of course. It is only Christ and what is like Him that is beautiful—no more marks of Adam, no more failure. When the children of Israel came through the Jordan they were circumcised; then it says that the reproach of Egypt was rolled away. If you had asked an Israelite what that meant, he would have said, I was a slave in Egypt but the reproach of Egypt has been rolled away. Circumcision is the cutting off of the old man and all that belongs to him, and what comes out is the new man. You are set for glory then, set for Canaan. Do you know what that means? A land flowing with milk and honey. They were labouring in Egypt to get a very frugal living, but there is no frugality connected with Christianity. It begins with a full and free forgiveness initially, and everything else is of that character. So we are on heavenly ground—that is what it means. It speaks about the heavenlies and that is where believers belong. We are not in heaven yet but we have in mind all that belongs to heaven. In the Lord’s administration we come into His bounty and so we know what is involved in that. “And as to the priest that presenteth any man’s burnt-offering, the skin of the burnt-offering which he hath presented shall be the priest’s for himself”. That skin would have to be taken care of, and he would say, What am I going to do with this? The Lord sometimes leaves us with a question like that. Well, he would have to cure it in some way for that is how things are preserved.

Now Gideon was referred to this morning as being a good soldier. He is introduced as threshing wheat in the wine-press. That meant of course that he was not treading the grapes in it. This was a serious time in Israel’s history, it looked as if everything was finished. Have you ever felt that everything was finished? We pass through exercises and we wonder sometimes. When will it

finish? or, Will we be finished? Not Gideon, there was a winepress there and it was not being used. There were no grapes there, there was a famine. These invaders had taken everything.

On account of the unfaithfulness of God’s people, that was true, but that did not stop Gideon from threshing wheat in the winepress. It was a strenuous job and it involved being in a very curtailed area because he had to hide it from the Midianites. He had been with God who had let him into His secret. The barley harvest represents Christ, and the wheat harvest, Christ in the saints. So he was really planning to foster what was spiritual and to bring it all out. You may say that not much would be seen with that; but he was doing it and he was going to save somebody, and God was watching him.

You may be in a small locality, and most of us have experience of being in a small locality, but do not give up, keep on threshing wheat, and you will find that God answers you. It says in chapter 6, “And the Angel of Jehovah appeared to him, and said to him, Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valour”, Judges 6: 12. Gideon was referred to as being a soldier, but this is what he was doing, threshing wheat in the winepress, a mighty man of valour. It is God’s estimate of what you do in your locality; God’s estimate of what I do in my locality. It is a wonderful thing to get a sense that God is pleased with you. God called him a mighty man of valour. So he does what he is told. The first thing that a soldier learns is discipline.

Some know more about soldiering than I do, but even the service that I was in we had a discipline code, and we were told that that was in view of holding a body of men together under control. So it is just to be like that with the saints. We had references this afternoon to questioning matters, but there is no questioning if you are in the army. If you are a serviceman there is no questioning, but there is a way through and the way through is, do what you are told when you are told. So, these men who had joined up with him had to be put to the test. They had to be taken down to the water. It is a strange way to test soldiers but he took them to the water, “and Jehovah said to Gideon, Every one that lappeth of the water with his tongue, as a dog lappeth, him shalt thou set by himself”. They were not self-indulgent.

I hope the sisters are listening because in those days sisters had to act, and we could have read in Judges about certain sisters who did act. There was one who sat under a palm-tree and she judged Israel. I wonder if all the sisters have a palm-tree, that is, that they have got the victory. Do you understand what I mean? We are all tested. Now are we going through and getting the victory? Deborah did. There is another one; the enemy came to Jael’s place and she took him in. Sisera asked for water, but she gave him milk, and then she put a cover over him and let him sleep. And then it says she took a tent-pin and a hammer, “She put her hand to the tent-pin. And her right hand to the workmen’s hammer”, Judges 5: 26. There was skill in it, and so she dealt with the enemy. Sisters like those deserve to be mentioned in scripture. It is a great thing for God to take up a man or a woman and we can speak of them today.

Now Gideon took the men down to the water and they lapped, three hundred of them, and the others were told to go away. The three hundred were given pitchers, earthen pitchers, and lights in the pitchers, and they were given trumpets. The pitchers were to be broken, there was no light until the pitchers were broken. They were given command and the pitchers were broken. We had an old brother in one of the localities I was in and he said, They knocked them together. So that is what we are set together for; we are not to harm one another but it is that the pitchers might be broken and the light might shine. We find that these persons go down and the enemy fled. Later on he questions the enemy as to the kind of men they slew, and they replied, “As thou art, so were they; each one resembled the sons of a king”, Judges 8: 18. There must have been something very regal about Gideon. He had six brothers, I think, with the same features as himself. That could happen if we were more Christ-like in our localities, we would find that the brethren are all the same. When Solomon got the trees from Huram to build the temple they were floated in rafts. It has been said that there would have been a lot of rubbing together in very tight circumstances, but in the doing of it they would have been cured at the same time. A brother, now with the Lord, who was in the timber trade, said that that was the way they cured the big logs, they put them into the water and let them dry out slowly. You might think that that was the worst thing you could do but then there were no shakes in the wood. That was the way they were cured. That is like being dipped in the waters of baptism and being true to our baptism; then to be conscious that we have all the rough edges knocked off and we are ready to be built into the divine system.

Now I want to speak about 2 Timothy. We cannot speak about a good soldier without thinking of this portion. Two things referred to in chapter 1 are Timothy’s tears and Paul’s chain. Now bear in mind that the Christian pathway may involve tears like Timothy’s. Paul speaks about seeing his tears. How that affected Paul, and then Paul’s chain following. We need Paul’s chain, I hope we all understand that. We cannot be let loose in the world, that would never do. You may have heard this before, but it is the string that holds the kite down that holds the kite up. If there was no restriction, the kite would not get off the ground. So bear in mind that the Lord has that in mind; if you are going to be in God’s service you have to accept restriction. So in 2 Timothy 2 where we read it says, “Take thy share in suffering as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one going as a soldier entangles himself with the affairs of life, that he may please him who has enlisted him as a soldier”. Well, we have been enlisted and I trust we want to please the Lord; so then we have to drop off certain

things. If a Christian gets entangled with the affairs of this life he is disqualified as a good soldier. We would all like to be good soldiers, so little things that cling to us we would gladly get rid of them, in order to be pleasing to the One who has died for us and now lives for us.

For His name’s sake.

Address at Ormond Beach
22 December 2000