DEUTERONOMY 12
The people of God are viewed here as having come into the inheritance, and it is of the greatest importance that we should accustom ourselves to consider that we have our portion there. It is the thought of divine love for us; we get the inheritance purely by the love and calling of God — by the gift and appointment of the One who bestows it in love upon us. No amount of desire would secure to me the inheritance of some wealthy [p. 138] person. I could only get it by his appointment or by being his heir. I could say to the youngest and feeblest believer that long before he was born God had prepared the inheritance for him. We were born anew, and redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, that we might possess the inheritance which the love of God designed for us. It is as much in the mind and heart of God that we should receive and enjoy the inheritance as that we should receive remission of sins. Jesus glorified sent Paul to the Gentiles “that they may receive remission of sins and inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26: 18).
We come in this chapter to “the statutes and ordinances which ye shall take heed to do in the land”, and the first of these refers to the place where Jehovah would set His Name. This is a primary consideration for those who love Him. “Unto the place which Jehovah your God will choose out of all your tribes to set his name there, his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come”. This is contrasted with “all the places wherein the nations which ye shall dispossess have served their gods”. There was no unity in demon worship, for unity depends on the fact that “God is one”, but this fact necessitates unity amongst His people, and particularly in their approach to Him.
God will not tolerate anything that is idolatrous; it is positively and wholly evil, as putting something in His place which is contrary to His Name and nature. Hence everything of this kind “ye shall utterly destroy” (verses 2, 3).
But then amongst His people there was to be but one “place” where Jehovah would set His Name, and where His habitation would be; that place was common to all Israel. It would refer, typically, to the truth of the assembly as being one and the same universally, though now taken up and acted on locally by His saints wherever [p. 139] they are found. Approach to God is universal in its character; He has but one way for all His people wherever they may be found. There cannot be anything sectarian, or local, or national about approach to God. No believer could think of saying, I approach God as a Wesleyan, or as a Baptist, or as a member of the Established Church, or as an English or a Spanish brother! If we approach God at all it must be as of His assembly, and that puts the matter at once on universal ground. The way of God’s appointment is the same for all His people. All Israel “from Dan to Beer-sheba” had to come to the one “place” where Jehovah set His Name.
This is not altogether a new instruction, though it takes a new form as in “the land”. The books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers have made us familiar with the thought of “the tent of meeting” as God’s dwelling place in the midst of His people, where alone He could be approached according to His own prescribed order. That was in wilderness conditions, answering to the assembly of God viewed as in 1 Corinthians. But the same thing, in principle, has place in “the land”, and is to regulate and characterise the saints in their movements Godward.
This chapter requires us to accept as an unquestionable divine principle that if we approach God it must be in the way which He has appointed. It has often been said — and practically acted on — that the principles on which God’s people assemble together, and the modes of divine service or worship which they adopt, are left to their own choice or judgment, and that each one must follow his own taste or conscience! But is not that exactly what is forbidden in verse 8? Surely God must be allowed to say how and where He may be approached! By choosing one place out of all the tribes of Israel in which to set His Name Jehovah preserved the unity [p. 140] of His people in their approach to Him. He excluded, not only idolatry, but also sectarianism and independency from their worship.
The “place” has now to be learned by its moral and spiritual features. It is “neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem”; it has to be found spiritually. “But the hour is coming and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for also the Father seeks such as his worshippers. God is a spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth” (John 4: 21 - 24). We know something from Psalm 132 of the exercises of David with regard to finding out “a place for Jehovah, habitations for the Mighty One of Jacob”. He could say, “Behold, we heard of it at Ephratah, we found it in the fields of the wood”. Ephratah was where he had been born and brought up, and the mention of it suggests that from his youth David had thought of “a place for Jehovah”. He found it first where Caleb found the land — in his heart — and if we do not find it there first we shall not seek or find it at all. But, having it in his heart, he swore and vowed to give himself no rest until he found it for Jehovah in Israel.
Israel had to pass through a most humbling history before the “place for Jehovah” came to light. They had to learn their own proneness to idolatry, and the terrible consequences of it in the government of God. “They provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their graven images. God heard, and was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel; and he forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men, and gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor; and delivered up his people unto the sword, and was very wroth with his inheritance”. Then it was, when all was manifested failure on their part, that the “place for Jehovah” came to light. “Then the Lord awoke as one out of sleep ... and he smote his adversaries in the hinder part, and put them to everlasting reproach. And he rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved; and he built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he hath founded for ever. And he chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds” (Psalm 78: 56 - 72). The chosen “place” came to light in connection with the chosen “servant” — typically Christ.
To understand the character of the place where God sets His Name we must realise the complete breakdown of everything on man’s side, giving occasion to God to introduce His kingdom on the principle of sovereign mercy in Christ His beloved Son, the true David. When the Lord Jesus was here “the dayspring from on high” visited men “on account of the bowels of mercy of our God”. All was failure and ruin on man’s side but the power of the kingdom came in God’s Anointed — a power adequate to deliver men from every form of the power of evil. And even the rejection and crucifixion of Christ only served to bring out more fully the sovereign character of divine mercy, for redemption was accomplished therein and Christ was raised from the dead, and exalted by God’s “right hand as leader and saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins” (Acts 5: 31).
“The Mount Zion which he loved” is “the city of David”; it is called “the stronghold” (2 Samuel 5: 7). The sanctuary was built under the protection of that “stronghold”. I take it to set forth the strength of divine grace and mercy in a risen Christ. The “stronghold” secures everything against the enemy, so that the “sanctuary” may be built in which everything is secured that is in accord with God’s Name.
[p. 142] The instruction of Deuteronomy 12 looks on to the time when the people should have come to the rest and to the inheritance, and when they should have “rest from all your enemies round about, and ye dwell in safety”. It awaited the establishment of the kingdom under David, and the subjugation of all enemies by him, so that the house could be built in peace by Solomon.
If we do not know the power of the kingdom, as vested in the Lord Jesus, to deliver us from the whole power of what is evil, we shall not be really free to come to the place where God sets His Name. The power of the kingdom is first learned in the blessing and deliverance set before us in the epistle to the Romans, but it is interesting and helpful to see that we do not leave it behind when we go on to Colossians and Ephesians. In Colossians we are viewed as translated by the Father “into the kingdom of the Son of his love”, and in Ephesians we read of “inheritance in the kingdom of the Christ and God”. The risen Christ was seen by the apostles “during forty days, and speaking of the things which concern the kingdom of God”. He would have them well acquainted with “the stronghold of Zion, which is the city of David”. The power of all enemies is broken there, lawlessness is at an end, for we are under the sway of God as known in infinite grace and mercy through our Lord Jesus Christ. There can be no doing whatever is right in our own eyes when that rule is established in our souls.
We have referred to the kingdom thought being carried on from Romans to Colossians and Ephesians. In principle the same thing is true of 1 Corinthians. If assembly order according to 1 Corinthians is not respected and adhered to, and the things written there recognised as “the Lord’s commandment” (1 Corinthians 14: 37), there will not be much known of the place where God sets His Name. If one does not obey “the Lord’s commandment” one may be actually, and even publicly, lawless, though taking the place of being in the kingdom. “The name of our Lord Jesus Christ” has a wonderful unifying power for all those who are subject to Him. “Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all say the same thing, and that there be not among you divisions; but that ye be perfectly united in the same mind and in the same opinion” (1 Corinthians 1: 10). Indeed the more simply and fully we have divine Persons before us the more we shall be brought into true unity.
David in Psalm 78 is clearly a type of Christ, but David in 1 Chronicles 21 finds the place where Jehovah would set His Name through a humbling experience of his own failure. He was moved by Satan to number Israel, evidently for his own glory and to God’s displeasure, and his sin was followed by a pestilence which destroyed 70,000 men of Israel. In deep repentance David took the sin wholly upon himself, and then he was told by the prophet Gad to “go up and rear an altar to Jehovah in the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite”. There, after buying the place for “the full money”, he “offered up burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon Jehovah; and he answered him from the heavens by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering ... . And David said, This is the house of Jehovah Elohim, and this is the altar of burnt-offering for Israel” (1 Chronicles 22: 1). It was a sin-convicted man, deeply repentant and fully confessing, who was shewn the place where Jehovah would set His Name. This was after Satan had done his utmost to bring in judgment, the state of the people being such that they were righteously exposed to it. If God is approached it must be in the deep sense of the sovereignty of His mercy which furnishes in Christ as the Burnt-offering a ground of acceptance when everything has been forfeited by human failure.
He is “rich in mercy”; it is a chief glory of His Name; it is on that footing alone that we know Him or can approach Him. And this is true for all the Israel of God; no one can truly approach Him except in the consciousness of it. This gives force to the word “choose” which occurs fourteen times in chapters 12 to 16 of this book. It indicates the sovereignty in which all is secured that is truly for the glory of God.
“To set his name there”. His “name” indicates the way in which God has made Himself known; He is in the light of revelation, and He must be approached accordingly; it could not be pleasurable to Him to be approached in any other way. The full truth as to the blessed God is out. The great truth of the Old Testament was that there was one God known as the Creator-God, the Almighty and Jehovah. In the world and in Israel the devil was always seeking to corrupt and destroy that truth by turning men aside to “gods many and lords many”. But in the New Testament, as it has been said, the truth is made known that “God is one”. The Father has been revealed in the Son, and the Spirit given to those who believe. Now the great power of Satan is in the form of antichrist, who “denies the Father and the Son” (1 John 2: 22). But the Son has set the Father’s Name in the affections of the men whom the Father gave Him out of the world. He manifested the Father’s Name to them, and prayed the Father to keep them in it, “that they may be one as we”. There can be no divergence there. If we approach it must be in the light of God’s Name as now revealed, and that light is not merely individual or local; it is universal in the sense that it is the same for all saints.
If the saints “with one accord, with one mouth, glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 15: 6), they are evidently on ground common to [p. 145] all of them; they are unified in glorifying God. If no human thoughts, or arrangements, or ordering were allowed to interfere with this, the saints would reach morally the place where God has set His Name. “For through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father” — the Jew and the Gentile both coming through Christ and by one Spirit to the Father! (Ephesians 2: 18). And again we read, “Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access in confidence by the faith of him” (Ephesians 3: 12). This is the character of approach which belongs to “the land”. When we enjoy this great privilege we are not on individual or local ground; we are on ground which is common to all saints; we are enjoying the universal privilege of the assembly. And that is set forth, I believe, figuratively in the place of approach where all Israel found themselves on common ground before Jehovah their God.
If God is revealed and known as the Father His love places His saints in a relationship in which they can suitably and affectionately answer to that revelation. “Ye are sons of Jehovah your God” (Deuteronomy 14: 1). The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has “marked us out beforehand for sonship through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1: 5,6). If we have access to Him it must be according to the place and relationship in which He has set us before Him. His sons can come near in liberty and with pleasure. The spirit we have received is contrasted in Romans 8 with “a spirit of bondage”; it is “a spirit of sonship whereby we cry, Abba, Father”. “God sent forth his Son ... that we might receive sonship. But because ye are sons, God has sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father” (Galatians 4: 4 - 6). We are sons, and we have the Spirit of sonship, that we may have access [p. 146] to God in holy liberty. We can conceive the joy with which true lovers of Jehovah would come out of all the tribes to be together on the common ground of “Sons of Jehovah”, and to bring offerings which were the evidence that they were enjoying, and prospering under, His favour. They would come to enjoy His blessing, and to minister to His pleasure, in the place where His Name was set. However great the enjoyment in their own gates, it was surpassed by the joy to be found in consciously ministering to the pleasure of God in that chosen place. We may be sure that there is that which answers to it for us today.
We see in Acts 20: 7 that the saints assembled on the first day of the week to break bread. In doing so they left, for the time, what was merely individual, or of household character. To use the language of our chapter, they came from their own gates to the place where the Lord had set His Name. I have no doubt that each of them could have truly said, “The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to thy memorial” (Isaiah 26: 8). Now Scripture assumes that all believers eat the Lord’s supper, for Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 10 of “The cup of blessing which we bless”, and of “The bread which we break”. The “we” is the universal Christian “we”, like the “we” of 1 Corinthians 12: 13. The breaking of bread is the divinely ordained rallying point in Christianity. It is undoubtedly characteristic of the normal coming together of the assembly of God, as we may learn from Paul’s epistle to “the assembly of God which is in Corinth”. Anything that ignores this, or the assembly order that goes along with it, fails to answer to the place where God sets His Name. It is for Christians who break bread to see that they do it with pure heart, and with due regard to the honour of Christ, and in holy separation from all that is contrary to the light and principles of God’s assembly.
[p. 147] The Spirit of God would teach us in 1 Corinthians 10 that the communion or fellowship which is involved in breaking bread is universal in character. To break bread locally without regard to the universal fellowship would be like eating the hallowed things in our own gates instead of in the place where Jehovah’s Name is set. We must come spiritually to a “place” which speaks of the unity of all Israel in fellowship and in approach to God. As to the actual coming together to eat the Lord’s supper it is in “every place” where His Name is called upon, but fellowship and approach to God are universal in character. While our assembly relations are taken up locally, it is important to see that they are taken up in the light of what is universal, so that in taking them up we embrace, in mind and affection, all saints. Viewing the saints according to what is of God would lead to our being exclusive of every principle or practice that is contrary to the universal truth of God’s assembly. We should neither tolerate sectarianism nor independency. We are reconciled to God “in one body”; therefore assembly approach to God must be in the recognition of this. There could be no stronger expression of unity than “one body” formed by “one Spirit”, and that the Holy Spirit of God. “In the power of one Spirit we have all been baptised into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether bondmen or free, and have all been given to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12: 13). The consideration of this raises exercise that we should be careful to be in accord with the character and unity of God’s assembly. It calls us to self-judgment, and to serious enquiry as to the existing state of things in the Christian profession. We cannot accept that there is no longer anything that answers to the place where Jehovah set His Name.
If national or sectional distinctions are retained in our minds, such as the difference between Jew and Gentile, it is clear that we are not in our spirits on the ground that both have “access by one Spirit to the Father”. The Lord requires that even personal differences are to be adjusted before we offer at the altar (Matthew 5: 23,24), because every one who offers must recognise that the altar speaks of the unity of all Israel in approach to God. If something has come in contrary to that unity, the character of approach is practically falsified. This is a very serious consideration.
The saints now are “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2: 22). They “are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 5). They form God’s house, over which Christ is as Son (Hebrews 3: 6). “His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come” involves for us affectionate interest in the house of God, consistency with the truth of that house, and subjection to Christ as Son over it. Worship is “by the Spirit of God” (Philippians 3: 3), and it is also in “truth” (John 4: 24). It is in accord with the revelation of God, and with the place and relationship in which He has set His saints. The way of approach to God is the same for saints in England, India, New Zealand, South America, or wherever they are. Those who approach God do so on ground common to all, even the truth and principles of His assembly, and this is what for us answers to the place where He sets His Name.
We have a personal history with responsibilities and exercises of an individual character; we have also responsibilities and privileges which we share with our brethren locally who call on the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ; but in approach to God we are on ground which is universal. It is not prayer that is contemplated here; that surely has its most important place; but here it is rather the offering of “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ”. It is ministering to the pleasure [p. 149] of God — appearing before Him, not as empty or in need, but as furnished with gifts and offerings which are acceptable to Him.
“And thither ye shall bring your burnt-offerings and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the heave-offerings of your hand, and your vows, and your voluntary offerings, and the firstlings of your kine and of your sheep” (verse 6). The “tithes” and the “firstlings” are the only obligatory offerings in this chapter. “The land” is viewed as yielding such abundance that the people, richly furnished with the blessing of Jehovah, are wealthy in affectionate desire towards Him. The burnt-offerings, sacrifices, heave-offerings, vows, voluntary offerings, choice vows, all speak of free and willing movements of heart towards God. Every one of them has reference to Christ as apprehended and appreciated in the hearts of His saints. Those appreciations are to be brought to His assembly, and enjoyed there for His pleasure. God would enrich us in our own “gates” with the preciousness of Christ, and then lead us to bring it to the place where He sets His Name that He may have what is due from the hearts that love Him, and that we may enjoy it in a deeper and fuller way in conscious nearness to God in His assembly. How the formal arrangements of the religious world, and its human order, interfere with all this! But it is good to dwell on the precious thoughts of God, and when saints begin to think affectionately of what is due to God they will be prepared to learn the character of the place where He has set His Name.
The point of instruction here is that all is to be brought to that place. It has to find its relation, and to make its contribution, to what is universal. Do we think of all our spiritual gains as furnishing material for the service of God, and for enjoyments of assembly character? That is what they are given for, and only thus can they be rightly enjoyed. For we must note that our happiness [p. 150] has a great place in this connection. “And ye shall eat there before Jehovah your God, and ye shall rejoice, ye and your households, in all the business of your hand, wherein Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee” (verse 7 and also verse 12). Our richest enjoyments depend on our recognising what is due to God in His assembly, and that, as of that assembly, we stand in relation to all His saints. Have we really understood this? Have we drunk into the spirit of Psalm 122? Have we had any “choice vows” which have been delightful to us in making them, and delightful to God as brought to Him, and delightful in His assembly as brought into the common fund of spiritual joy?
“Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in every place that thou seest”. No “right of private judgment” as to this was to be thought of. Every Israelite was to own the one place which Jehovah would choose, and to come there with his offerings. The principles of the assembly of God are marked by unity and universality; they are to be acknowledged by all His saints everywhere. It could not be of God that we should choose the principles on which we come together, or that we should set up principles contrary to the order and constitution of His assembly. It is almost forgotten by many today that God has an assembly, and that He has given it an order and constitution which is universally the same. There is so much that is contrary to that order and constitution that what is suitable to God can only be found practically as we act on the principles of 2 Timothy. We are now under obligation to withdraw from iniquity, and purify ourselves from vessels to dishonour in separating from them, and to “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, with those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:19-22). We must go back to the first principles of the assembly, and learn what pertains to it in the mind of God. In [p. 151] spite of all the confusion of christendom saints can still be in the light of Christ as risen and glorified; they can still recognise the presence of the Spirit here, and that all the brethren are “one body” and a habitation of God in the Spirit; they can still confess the truth of God’s assembly as seen in Scripture, and seek to be consistent with it. We have to admit that there is grave and general departure from what was set up at the beginning, but 2 Timothy gives us principles according to which saints can walk together amidst all the evils of the last days, and still be vessels for holy service.
It is important that we should distinguish between “the place which Jehovah will choose” and “all thy gates”. The one refers to approach in assembly conditions, which are universal in character, though actually taken up locally “in every place” where saints “call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1: 2). The other would refer to what is individual, or of household character, amongst the people of God. Notice the words in verses 15, 20, 21, “According to all the desire of thy soul”. What we may get for ourselves in spiritual blessing in our “gates” is only limited by the desire of our souls. We are encouraged to enjoy there “the blessing of Jehovah thy God which he hath given thee”. Our individual or household consideration of the Lord’s things, our general brotherly intercourse with saints, or even a reading or an address, would come under the head of “all thy gates”. We are perfectly free to enjoy the good of “the land”. The desire of our soul has full scope; it has often been said that we can have as much of Christ as we want. It is striking, too, that it should be said, “the unclean and the clean may eat thereof” (verses 15, 22). Many of the blessed things which God has given to men can be set before the “unclean” as well as the “clean”; indeed if they were not available for the unclean there would be nothing to bring about [p. 152] their cleansing. The Corinthians and the Galatians were both “unclean”, the one by fleshly indulgence, and the other by fleshly religiousness, yet what a precious ministry of Christ was presented to them! What is administered through Christ in the wealth of divine giving is available for all.
The blessed God would have us to enjoy in our own “gates” all that He gives us of spiritual good, but while encouraging us to do so He would remind us of what is due to Him. What we enjoy in our own “gates” is preparatory to going to the place where He sets His Name. Believers say sometimes, I can enjoy the Lord and His things at home. Of course they can, but it is also their privilege and obligation to recognise in a practical way their assembly relations with the saints. Those relations are not voluntary ones; they are divinely formed; and a very considerable part of our blessing, as well as of what is due to God, is found in the practical recognition of them. In a day of great departure and weakness we may find but few with whom we can walk in the truth, but the truth itself is universal, and every saint is under obligation to acknowledge it. The tithes, the firstlings, the vows, the offerings were all due to God, and His portion was to be rendered in the place chosen by Himself. Let us enjoy all that we can of spiritual good, personally, household-wise, and in our intercourse as brethren, but let us not forget or despise the assembly of God.
In rendering what is due to God we leave, for the time, our own “gates”, and we come to what is universal in character. Many believers think almost exclusively of what they can get; to speak of meetings as “means of grace” is a common phrase with many. But is there to be no consideration for what is due to God? Is He to have nothing from His people? If we have the blessing of Jehovah in our gates the result will surely be that [p. 153] we shall have tithes to bring; we shall acquire burnt-offerings and peace-offerings; we shall develop devotedness and spiritual affections that will make “choice vows”. Our hearts, made wealthy in the appreciation of Christ, will be moved to minister to God, and to recognise that He has an appointed place where it is His pleasure to be ministered to. We shall delight to go to the place where He sets His Name, and we shall not appear there empty. He will get something, and His saints will get something, and all our spiritual joys will be deepened as we take them up with Him and with His people. It is really a question of the place God has with us. It was said of Benjamin, referring to Jerusalem as the place where Jehovah would set His Name, “He will cover him all the day long, and dwell between his shoulders” (Deuteronomy 33: 12). Jehovah’s protection would be over His beloved, but He would dwell between his shoulders — His dwelling place would be in the strength of His people’s affections.
If we bring our tithes and offerings and vows to the place where God chooses to set His Name we shall not fail to get our portion. “Ye shall eat there before Jehovah your God, and ye shall rejoice, ye and your households, in all the business of your hand, wherein Jehovah thy God hath blessed thee” (verse 7; see also verses 12, 18). The “business” of our hand is never really so prosperous as when we carry it on with constant reference to the blessed God, and to what is due to Him. We greatly deepen and increase our own joy by holding things in relation to God and to His assembly. There is more joy in eating “before Jehovah” in His assembly than there could be in eating in our own “gates”. Things are enjoyed there in the great expansion that comes by taking all saints into account, and viewing all their blessing as held in common to the glory and praise of God.
“[p. 154] Thou and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy bondman, and thy handmaid, and the Levite that is within thy gates; and thou shalt rejoice before Jehovah thy God in all the business of thy hand” (verse 18). It is “Israel’s custom” so to do (Psalm 122: 4 margin). It is evident from this scripture that all the business of our hand is to be carried on in view of what can be brought to the place where God sets His Name; its end is there, and there only can it be enjoyed in the fullest possible manner.
“All the business of thy hand”, implies diligence in the appreciation and cultivation of the inheritance. It is to be our definite business to see to the working out in result for our own joy of that which God gives us. So far as I can learn in Scripture, God has nothing for lazy people, and there is nothing for God from them. Many quietly accept that the inheritance is given to them in the love of God, and they perhaps know what it is to be under showers of blessing in the way of ministry, but they are indolent and slothful, they are not carrying out diligently what Scripture calls “the business of your hand”. It is through the “business” of our hand that the inheritance becomes fruitful. There will be no crops, no corn or new wine or oil, apart from diligence, and the result will be that there will be no tithes. We fail from want of spiritual diligence in regard to the things we admit to be true. In Romans 12 we are incited to diligence. “As to diligent zealousness, not slothful; in spirit fervent; serving the Lord”. This is of the greatest importance in view of its effect on the meetings; the end in view is that there may be something brought to the meetings which will be an enrichment of the communion of the brethren. This is the product of diligence in cultivating the land. If we accept that divine love has given us the inheritance let us cultivate it with purpose of heart. In so doing we [p. 155] shall be working for an assured result; there is no question about God giving the increase. There will be crops in abundance, and tithes to carry to the place where God causes His Name to dwell, to be eaten there in communion with the brethren before Him. Let us throw ourselves into this “business” with wholehearted energy and confidence; the product of it is very attractive.
Our secular occupation in this world is discipline for us; it is a constant exercise to carry out the will of God in relation to it. But it is not our true “business”; our “business” is to cultivate the inheritance. I have noticed that people who are pretty fully engaged in necessary duties prosper most spiritually; those who have little to do, and much leisure, often do not prosper because they lack the discipline of daily duties. The discipline we get in every day life is intended to help us in view of our appreciating, and entering upon, and cultivating the inheritance. A brother was asked not long ago why he did not retire. He said, I feel I cannot afford to dispense with the discipline my business is to me. We are not here to make money but to be disciplined, and the circumstances of daily life as under the ordering of God will not hinder us in regard to the inheritance. It would be strange if the providential ordering of God for those in His kingdom were such as to hinder us from enjoying the things which it is His peculiar pleasure to confer upon us. It could never be so. We are hindered by seeking our own things, not by things which lie in the will of God for us.
“Corn”, “new wine”, and “oil” represent things which we are continually gathering in by the work of our hands as in the inheritance. But as we gather them in we have always to remember to tithe them, and the tithe has to be carried to the place where God causes His Name to dwell. Every spiritual increase has to be linked with the assembly — the common meeting place of God’s [p. 156] people. What one gains individually or household-wise is always to contribute to the communion found where God dwells in the midst of His people. The tithes have to be eaten there.
It is not in this case ministering directly to God, but ministering to the communion of His saints before Him. It is most agreeable to God that we should come before Him to enjoy together in communion that which He has given to us as the food and fatness of the inheritance. How the practical working out of this would free the meetings of the saints from all formality! Since we last came together there has been, so to speak, a fresh harvest from our fields, a fresh vintage, and a fresh gathering in of oil throughout Israel. And each one comes with the tithe that we may all eat together before God in the place where He dwells. All is fresh — the same Christ, the same grace, the same Spirit, but all acquired in a new way through fresh diligence and living exercises. So that the tithe is something which was never eaten quite in the same way before. The communion of the saints as gathered together has thus continually a fresh and satisfying character. There is nothing old or stale. The communion is such as to suit a living God, and a people who are living in the good of what He has given. It is the communion of saints viewed, not in the Corinthian aspect as in the wilderness, but as in the land. It is our communion viewed as in the enjoyment together of eternal life.
God delights in the spiritual communion of His people before Him — their common enjoyment of things which lie outside the range and power of death. Are we bringing the tithes to further this? Have we got increase as the result of diligent cultivation of the land so that we have something to tithe — something which we can bring to the gathering place of God’s people to promote spiritual communion? I am not referring exactly to [p. 157] what is said in the meetings, though I have no doubt if spiritual substance is there it will find expression. But I challenge myself and you as to whether we are acquiring spiritual increase? There is something very abnormal if we are not. But if we are, it is obligatory to tithe it for the promotion of the communion of the saints. The communion of saints in eating together what is typified by the corn, the new wine, and the oil of the land is eternal life.
The communion of saints viewed as in the land depends on moral conditions being maintained which are suitable to the place where God dwells, and it depends upon the tithes being brought. Independency, and what is right in our own eyes, are ruled out. All must come to the one appointed place; this is not a matter of choice, but of God’s appointment. If it is not carried out the service of God according to His pleasure is not rendered.
God is saying by this institution of tithes that He gives spiritual increase to promote spiritual communion. It is more to Him to see us united in the communion before Him of what He has given us, than it is to hear wonderful words from us while the communion is lacking. It is very much for the pleasure of God that we should know the fellowship of saints as in the wilderness, according to 1 Corinthians, but if we desire to minister to His full pleasure it must be by enjoying the fellowship which pertains to the inheritance — to that sphere where eternal life and sonship are entered into.