SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
[p. 361] SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE
Acts 26: 13; Ezekiel 47: 6 - 9; John 3: 30
I have in mind to speak about experience: experience with God, with His people, and with the things of God, with a view to showing that such experience causes increase in our knowledge of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, and of the saints; also of the things of God in general. The service of God requires that we should progress in experience, so that there should be elders amongst us. We have among the gifts the word of wisdom; that is not exactly the fruit of experience, it is a divine gift, but the use of it is greatly enhanced by experience, and this may be said of every gift that God gives. In one sense, every saint has gift: “to each one of us has been given grace according to the measure of the gift of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 7. And the exercise of the gift effectively is really contingent upon experience.
Paul says, “I have learnt in those circumstances in which I am, to be satisfied”, Philippians 4: 11. Contented christians are not many. In one sense, we should never be satisfied until we reach the goal of spiritual progress, the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus. But as regards human circumstances, we have to be on our guard against ambition, which is greatly stimulated by what other brethren have and we have not. So learning by experience leads us to contentment, even if we have not what others have in material things. As a matter of fact, very few of us are capable of having very much with safety, and the only real value of material things beyond actual necessities is that they may become the expression of love for others, the expression of unselfish regard for others. It certainly is an experience, to be satisfied with whatever circumstances we may be in. If we have more than we need of material things, the [p. 362] satisfaction in this would be, not that it should become a stepping stone for further increase, but that it should be the means for expressing love. The “greater” of faith and hope is love. There is no quality greater than love; and the more ability or means we have of expressing it, the more it grows. There is to be no cessation of its growth whilst we are down here. We shall not be growing eternally; we should become beyond human conception if there were no end to our growth. As conformed to Christ’s body of glory, clearly we shall be perfect, completed. Eternity is a finished state of things; but until we reach that, the thought is ‘more and more’.
Now, experience leads to that. The word ‘more and more’ is of value only if we possess the thing that is to be increased. If we have not got it, then the word ‘more and more’ cannot have any force with us; the point is, therefore, to have love and have it increasingly. It is not only that the objects of our love gain, but those who exercise it gain too. It is a matter that prevails and pervades. Prevailing is power; but pervading is that it finds its way into every crevice, every passage way. ‘By the Spirit all pervading’, we sometimes sing.
God’s thought for us thus is that of growing up to Christ, to a perfect standard, and of no contentment on our side until that is reached. And when that is reached, we are translatable; God translates what is according to Christ. He was received up in glory; and in a certain way we shall be received in glory. By faith Enoch was translated, and it is on this principle the work of God proceeds in us. Enoch was prepared by the fact that before his translation he had the testimony that he pleased God. He would go up contentedly, without any anxiety that he would not be pleasing, that he would not find a place in the divine realm; his place is with the sons. All shall be there, even the angels, on that principle. Each one is regulated by the status of the family to which he belongs, but clearly all in the Father’s realm have part in sonship. So, as we are about to be translated, dear brethren, it is obvious that we should seize the opportunities for development in growth by experience.
Scripture speaks much of God showing things, that is, to persons who valued what was shown. In this connection I wish to speak first of light. We read of the light being sweet (Ecclesiastes 11: 7). The passage read in Acts is from the third account of Paul’s vision on the way to Damascus, and from it I wish to speak of his experience in light. It was a vision, because he saw the Lord, but what I have in mind now is his experience in the light that shone. Light is one of the first things we have in Scripture. God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1: 3), but that light is not defined, nor is the source of it given us. Paul, however, speaks of a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about him. I have read the last mention of it in Acts 26; he mentioned it twice himself, and the Holy Spirit mentions it directly once. Paul here speaks of the light in a superlative sense. In speaking to Agrippa here, he had much expansion inwardly; no doubt God helped him peculiarly in this address. It was a unique opportunity, and he did not come short in the appreciation of it. I do not suppose anyone really can speak on God’s behalf save as he appreciates an opportunity as divinely given. And this was divinely given, and availed of, for the apostle was in much liberty and power. He says, “At mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me and those who were journeying with me”, Acts 26: 13. I do not suppose any other monarch had such an address presented to him as this one spoken to Agrippa. “O king”, the apostle says. He knew what to say; he knew objectively whom he was addressing; and he knew what form of words to use. He was not communistic in that sense; he recognised dignities. There are those who speak [p. 364] evil of dignities (2 Peter 2: 10). This is one of the dignities, and Paul says, “At mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me and those who were journeying with me”. The apostle spoke as a man of experience. What power would creep into his soul, if it had not been there at the start, as he spoke in this experimental way! “At mid-day” — the sun was in the heavens above him as the great heavenly light shone around him. I am speaking of it now just to enlarge on what I have in mind as to experience. He says it was “a light above the brightness of the sun”, that is, he compared it with something else, with the greatest natural luminary. He was able to speak by comparison, and that is a very good way to work out experience, to compare things with other things.
Now Luke, as we have often noted, in recording the incident, says just that it was “a light from heaven”. That was important; it was important at that point to stress heaven. Not a light from Jerusalem, but from heaven; not a light from Rome, but from heaven. Heaven was peculiarly interested in Paul at that time, and the light shone from there round about him. Then in the next account, which was by himself, in chapter 22, he says to his Jewish hearers that it was “a great light” from heaven (verse 6). The material heavens are full of lights, and a great variety of them; but Paul says, “a great light”. He is alluding to the area of comparativeness which the heavens suggest. He had been learning since he first saw it, the first time he experienced it; that is, he had been experiencing more as to light. How many times the apostle would have thanked God as he recalled that memorable day outside Damascus! The impression as to the light that shone around him never left him, and it increased. Not that the light increased in itself, but it increased in his soul; that is the point. In your experience of divine light, what you saw yesterday was wonderful then, but as you [p. 365] see it today it is more wonderful. And that often happens in our experience in looking at the Scriptures or meditating upon divine things; the thing itself is not increasing, it is the state of my soul that is growing. So Paul, in speaking to Agrippa, evidences that the truth involved in his experience at Damascus had become enlarged in his soul. “At mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king” — his soul has been stirred up. He was speaking to a poor sinner, although a monarch. He was to witness before kings. The Lord had said that, and it would be in Paul’s mind that He had said that, and that this great impression that he had received at the start should be brought to the attention of Agrippa. So he used words to effect that, and the Holy Spirit was in them. Did ever Agrippa hear such words before? “At mid-day, on the way, I saw, O king, a light above the brightness of the sun, shining from heaven round about me and those who were journeying with me”. If Paul had just said, ‘a great light’. Agrippa might say, I have seen great lights, too. But when he said “a light above the brightness of the sun”. Agrippa could not truthfully say he had seen anything like that. Paul had. He was presenting to the king and those with him the fruit of his experience, his experience in light, enabling him to present light as perhaps he had never spoken of it before, on this remarkable occasion in Caesarea.
Well might Agrippa say, “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian” (verse 28). To be a true Christian involves that I must see the light above the brightness of the sun. And that is the light today; Paul had experienced it and we need it now; making sure of things by experience, so that we might find our way through, because the darkness is very great, and the confusion around. Natural light will not do; but this light above the brightness of the sun in our souls will carry us through the darkest experiences; and it becomes more and more magnified.
[p. 366] Now the next experience which I have selected to speak of is that of the Holy Spirit, and that as seen in the passage in Ezekiel 47 which I read. This passage is peculiarly adapted to my subject because it especially records experience, the experience of a prophet; his actual experience in company with a man who had a measuring line in his hand. The Holy Spirit is not simply content to tell us that a river flowed out of the house, from the right side of the house, under the threshold, south of the altar, and that it flowed toward the east; that would be interesting by itself. But Ezekiel by the Spirit of God records also that he was conducted along through it by an extraordinary man with a measuring line.
Now, dear brethren, we are in the presence of accuracy here, and therefore we must not be glib in talking about having received the Holy Spirit. We must be sure that we are speaking truth, which as to this matter involves experience. If the Holy Spirit has come into your soul, you have some corresponding experience, some experience of His presence. There can be nothing greater subjectively in a believer than the indwelling of the blessed Person of the Holy Spirit. How can I fail to have some corresponding experience if I have Him indwelling my heart, shedding God’s love abroad there? This measuring line is therefore apropos of this great feature of our subject. The measuring line is in relation to this river, what Ezekiel was experiencing of this river.
Well, the man measured a thousand cubits and the waters were to the ankles. This is initial experience of this great blessing, but through it I am learning to walk in a spiritual way. Then the prophet being taken through the next measurement, the waters were to the knees, which implies that I can leap; I am joyous through the work of the Holy Spirit in me, like the man in Acts 3, who walked and leaped. And then, as Ezekiel is brought through another thousand cubits the [p. 367] waters were to the loins, the third experience. The Spirit is touching my affections, my lower affections. I am proving that there is a power operating in me that is different from anything that I have known — the Holy Spirit. I have bowels of compassion, as the scripture says. I love the brethren; I am learning to value the brethren, and how to treat them, and that I cannot get along without them. If I have any difficulty with any one of them, I go to him and have the matter settled; otherwise, my loins are not affected. The well springs up from the inwards, according to John’s teaching. Finally there were “waters to swim in”; after the fourth measurement, “it was a river that could not be passed through”, the prophet says. This points to the renewal of the Holy Spirit; which is poured out on us richly.
I do not know of any scripture that is more apropos of my subject tonight than this chapter of Ezekiel. Dear brethren, we are drawing near the time of translation. Our mortal bodies are to be quickened on account of the Spirit dwelling in us (Romans 8: 11). It is persons that have the Holy Spirit that are translatable. Therefore it is most urgent that we should have the Holy Spirit. We are going up together, and this should be an incentive to us to be together now in the unity of the Spirit. The Lord has no pleasure in persons who are at odds with one another; He wants us to be together. God “has quickened us with the Christ ... and has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”, Ephesians 2: 5, 6.
That is the experience Ezekiel has, yet he has not yet seen any objects of special interest. It is all a question of the water, and his experience in the water. And he finally says the waters were “a river that could not be passed through”, a river that could not be passed through (verse 5). As sharing in the antitype of this river we say that the Holy Spirit is a divine Person; we have proved this. While realising and enjoying His presence,
[p. 368] I cannot compass Him. He reaches out beyond me, and enlarges me, too; and He searches the depths of God. I cannot say that I can search the depths of God, or that the Holy Spirit takes me into the depths of God, but He can go into the depths of God (1 Corinthians 2: 10).
Verse 6 says, “Son of man, hast thou seen this?” That is, I am divinely challenged. This is needful as the things of God are brought to our attention. What do you see? This is to bring out what you have learned so far. “And he led me, and brought me back to the bank of the river” (verse 6). Applying this to the believer, he is caused to return. That is the action of the man with the measuring line; it is not my volition. He is educating me. The prophet saw trees; that is important to notice. I am stressing it now because it enters into my subject very aptly, that as having experienced this river, I come to see trees, actual growth of life. “When I returned, behold, on the bank of the river were very many trees on the one side and on the other” (verse 7). This is a fine sphere to get into, after I have been swimming in the deep waters, to see the fruitfulness of these trees by the river. Ezekiel had not seen these before. He had been occupied with the river. It is, of course, right that we should be occupied with the blessed Spirit of God, seeking to apprehend Him; but now there is the fruit of the Spirit, represented in the trees here. He does not describe the trees, but he says there were “very many”, and they were on one side and on the other.
I am thankful to say that I have seen many of those “trees”. I see a good few here; a lovely sight! Not that one would be material in any sense, but the saints reflecting the power of the Spirit inwardly realised, the ankles, the knees, and the loins, these are suggested by the trees. The whole person is affected, for the thought of a christian implies this. Agrippa says to Paul, “In a little thou persuadest me to become a Christian”, but Paul says, “I would to God, both in little and in much,
[p. 369] that not only thou, but all who have heard me this day, should become such as I also am, except these bonds”, Acts 26: 29. That is a christian. That is, so to speak, Ezekiel swimming. The whole body is affected. Such a man is worth looking at. Agrippa was not equal to that; he was not equal to these trees. When the matter of great persons came up, he would think of Rome; I mean, of the great warriors and rulers there. He was not equal to the spiritually great, “the crowd of names” at Jerusalem seen in Acts 1. Never in David’s day or Solomon’s was there such a group of men and women together as there was in Jerusalem then; and everyone had his own distinction, his own spiritual attractiveness. The very many trees were on the one side and on the other, the result of the fructifying power of the river. What a place the Spirit had in those days at Pentecost! They were all speaking as the Spirit gave them to speak forth. He was the evidence of Christ being exalted at the right hand of God. “Having therefore been exalted by the right hand of God ... he has poured out this which ye behold and hear”, Acts 2: 33. That is the river.
‘The river of His grace,
Through righteousness supplied,
Is flowing o’er the barren place,
Where Jesus died’. (13:3)
That is what it was, and there were these trees; and the book of the Acts is full of them.
Well now, thirdly, we must look at “the double river” (verse 9). It is a full thought, and I had it specially in mind. What the prophet saw at first is now doubled. That is a remarkable thing. In the application, it is not that the Spirit increases; it is the person who has Him that increases. “The double river”, Ezekiel says. It is a difficult passage for many, and I do not think it can be understood save on the line of experience. It is the Holy Spirit and He is what He is. He is a divine [p. 370] Person; and hence the more experience I have of Him the greater He is in my apprehension. Certainly Ezekiel had now a greater grasp of the river than he had at the beginning. The word “double” would mean increase or intensity of the thought. But where was the increase? Not in the Spirit, as I said, but in the person who has experience of His indwelling. Ezekiel had the experience we have been considering, and the river is greater in his eyes than it was before. That is the point. The Holy Spirit becomes greater to us as we progress in experience of His gracious work in us. And, dear brethren, if we are not moving steadily on those lines, we are missing our greatest privileges. There will be lapses in our lives. It is to be a steady thing; that is, what is contemplated in Christianity implies going on to perfection; a steady growth. The double river would mean increase. Typically, it came about in Ezekiel’s soul. We should not have such a book if it were not that Ezekiel had such an experience. He saw great things at the beginning, he tells us, but this is one of the most extraordinary of his experiences, and we may connect it with the remarkable references to life in the book of Ezekiel.
And now we come to John the baptist (John 3: 30). Certain ones come to him and say that the Lord Jesus was baptising; as much as to suggest that John had a rival. How often that comes up among the brethren, the poison of rivalry injected into someone! You do not like to lose your prominence among the brethren or to be in any way reduced outwardly. John was not the man to whom to broach such a matter. He was proof against that, as he had been proof against the suggestion from Jerusalem to take the place of the Messiah; he was a lowly man. The first thing he says as to this is that the Lord Jesus “is preferred before me, for he was before me”, John 1: 15. A good start in the service of God is that somebody is owned as preferred before you. Christ is before all and above all. John knew that and so he says, “He must increase, but I must decrease”. How must He increase? Is it that His Person is going to be greater? That is not the thought. As to His Person the Lord Jesus is God, “the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”, Hebrews 13: 8. There is no growth there at all. As a Child, a Boy and a Man there was growth. But John is referring to the Person. We must all have the Person of Christ before us. John had had to do with the Lord, and he said he was a friend of the Bridegroom. He admired the Lord Jesus; he heard His voice; he saw Him coming to him; he saw Him walking; he thought of that glorious Person. It is not that He is in Himself becoming greater, but that I am taking in more of what He is. And the more I take in, the greater He becomes in my eyes, and the less I think of myself. He must increase. It is the divine appointment; the very universe must give scope to this Person. Daniel, interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s vision, speaks of a stone cut out without hands. You saw that, Nebuchadnezzar, he says. It should have sobered the king and humbled him; but instead of that he became more inflated. Finally he lost his mind, a most terrible thing. He lost his mind for seven years. God should be feared: “let us serve God acceptably with reverence and fear”, Hebrews 12: 28. “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power, and of love, and of wise discretion” (2 Timothy 1: 7), one of the greatest things to have. In telling Nebuchadnezzar about the great image, Daniel enlarges on this stone. It is cut out without hands. That implies that a divine Person is in mind. It could not be said of a creature. It became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This is seen openly as the millennial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, involving Himself. Everything in the millennium will be filled with Christ, “who fills all in all”, Ephesians 1: 23. And so it is that in John’s experience he comes to this: “He must increase, but I must decrease”. That means I must give more [p. 372] and more room to Christ, and there must be less and less of myself according to what I am after the flesh. In another sense it makes me greater, but I have to learn to be nothing in order to be something. The ‘nothing’ implies my baptism; and resurrection with Christ implies what I am. In baptism I am dead. In Colossians we are buried with Him; that is the nothingness: “buried with him in baptism, in which ye have been also raised with him through faith of the working of God who raised him from among the dead”, Colossians 2: 12. That is experience. Faith affords light as to God’s mind, and the Holy Spirit in me enables me to experience it; to become great on those lines. But baptism is my disappearing, my going out of sight, while resurrection by “faith of the working of God” is coming into view in another world; this implies something of the experience which John the baptist had. It is a very great thought. Paul says, “Brethren, I do not count to have got possession myself; but one thing — forgetting the things behind, and stretching out to the things before, I pursue, looking towards the goal, for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus”, Philippians 3: 13, 14. That is experience. I come into heaven in that way experimentally; having in measure gone through these things. They become more and more to me, so that when I go up to my heavenly place I am equal to it. The Spirit enables me to lay hold of it now.