Reading: Ephes. 4:1-16; 30-32;
Psalm 133.
Here we have a Psalm which, on
the one hand, presents an imperfect or partial entering into the
Spirit of the blessing of which it speaks, and, on the other
hand, a prophecy; a type and prophecy of the full blessing to
come, and a present but imperfect enjoyment of the meaning of the
blessing. As a type and prophecy of the full blessing to come, it
indicates the basis of the blessing, and the wonderful beneficent
elements of the blessing. Read the Psalm backward and you will at
once see what the basis is: "...there the Lord commanded the
blessing, even life for evermore." Where was the blessing
given? "Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren
to dwell together in unity!" - "...there the Lord
commanded the blessing, even life for evermore". Between the
first and the last verses the beneficent influence and effect of
the blessing is seen, which blessing is based upon two things.
One of these is brought to our notice in the preceding Psalm. You
will recognise that these are "Psalms of Ascents".
That, again, speaks of the partial enjoyment of the meaning of
the blessing. The people are going up to Zion they are in
caravan, in procession, coming up from the distant parts with
their eyes and their hearts all toward Zion in expectation, in
hope; Zion the city of their solemnities; Zion the joy of all the
earth; Zion the unifying centre of all their life; Zion in the
ways of which they were but which was also in their hearts as a
way - "...in whose heart are the high ways to Zion."
(Ps. 84:5).
The Unifying
Centre
Now you see Zion is there as a
great unifying factor. People from all directions are coming in
procession. Some have joined the caravan at various places as it
has moved on from its most distant point, and they find that
although they may never have met before on earth; although they
may only just have come into touch with one another for the first
time in their lives; although their paths may lie far apart in
ordinary life, their sphere of life and service be divided and
separate, Zion makes them a unity. Immediately the thoughts of
Zion are in their hearts, immediately they think of Zion and move
toward Zion, all scatteredness, separateness, divisiveness passes
out, and they are as one man. Zion has unified them.
Now let us mark what is brought
before us in Psalm 132.
"Surely I will not
come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my
bed; I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to
mine eyelids; until I find out a place for the Lord, a
tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob... Arise, O Lord, into
thy resting place; thou, and the ark of thy strength... This
is my resting place for ever: here will I dwell; for I have
desired it. I will abundantly bless her provision: I will
satisfy her poor with bread." (Ps. 132:3-8,14-15.)
The first factor in the basis
of the blessing is God's satisfaction, God finding His
satisfaction: "Arise, O Lord, into thy resting
place..." Here we have the Lord coming to rest in His House.
This is not to be interpreted mentally in a literal way. It is a
case of the Lord having a ground of perfect satisfaction, the
Lord having things according to His own mind, His own heart, the
Lord just finding what He has been seeking all the time:
"This is my resting place for ever..." The Lord has
been provided with that which answers to His own heart's desire,
and it is therefore possible to say to Him, "Arise, O Lord,
into thy resting place..."
David's concern was that the
Lord should be satisfied first of all. You will notice from the
passage we have quoted, that he sets aside all that is his own.
With David, the Lord takes first place.
Christ -
God's All and Ours
Let us carry that over to the
New Testament for interpretation, for it is there that we shall
find the spiritual meaning. We are meditating upon "ALL
THINGS IN CHRIST", and amongst these things, and by no means
least, is God's satisfaction, God's coming to rest in His
Tabernacle. That is what was in point when the Spirit, descending
in the form of a dove, lighted upon the Lord Jesus. The dove
returning to her rest in the Ark typified the Spirit coming to
rest in Christ, the satisfaction of God: "This is my beloved
Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). I find My
rest, I am perfectly satisfied, here I have all My desire. So the
Spirit as a dove, the symbol of peace and rest, lighted upon Him.
The Lord Jesus answers to all the desire of God's heart, and in
Him God enters into His rest.
When you and I set aside all
our interests, and focus and concentrate all our concern upon the
Lord Jesus, so that He has first place, has all, we have provided
God with His rest in our lives, thus paving the way for the
blessing. "There the Lord commanded the blessing..."
Where? Firstly, where He found His rest, His satisfaction, His
joy. The Lord does not bless you and me as our natural selves.
The Lord will not bless my flesh, nor your flesh. The blessing of
the Lord comes to rest upon His Son as within us: "...the
anointing which ye received of him abideth in you..." (1
John 2:27). Remember that the blessing of the Lord, the
anointing, the precious ointment, is upon the Head. It comes down
to us only as from the Head, by way of the Head, and it is when
Christ by His Spirit has come to rest in us that the blessing
rests there. The blessing rests upon Him in us, and that is why
it abides. Thank God, it abides. This, if we do but recognise it,
is one of the chief blessings of our life in union with the Lord.
We in ourselves do not abide for five minutes! We can be as
changeable as the weather. In the morning we may be one man, and
in the afternoon another, and in the evening quite another. We
may be as many different people in the course of the week as
there are days. At, one time we feel splendid spiritually and
think we shall never, never be down again, but it is not long
before we are right down. We vary like that; we become familiar
with every movement that this human life is capable of knowing.
If we live in that soul-life of constantly changing moods, oh,
what a distressing life it is. But the anointing which you have
received abideth. Why is this? Because it abides upon Him, not
upon us, and He is "the same, yesterday, and today, and for
ever". There is no changing on the part of the Lord Jesus in
us. With Him, there is no variableness, neither shadow cast by
turning. Oh, the changes that sweep over our lives because of
the changeableness of this human life; but there He is in us ever
the same. We may have a thousand moods in as many hours, but He
never changes, He is always the same. The anointing abides upon
Him in us. Oh, that we would live in Christ, live in the
anointing, live in that unvarying fact of God in Christ,
unchangeable. He does not love us in the morning and turn against
us in the afternoon. However we may feel it to be so, such is not
the case. "I have loved thee with an everlasting love".
Our moods would lead us to conclude that today the Lord loves us,
and tomorrow that He is against us; today that the Lord is with
us, tomorrow that He has departed from us. That is our infirmity.
That is of ourselves, and not of the Lord. The Lord is not us, in
that way. The Lord is not our moods, our feelings, our
sensations, or our lack of sensations. The Lord is the same
always, the same faithful, unchangeable God, and the anointing
abideth. It does not come and go. It does not rise and fall. It
is not in and out, up and down, one day this and the next day
that; it abides.
The enjoyment of that is only
possible when Christ is the focal point of our lives. God comes
to rest in His Son, and finds His satisfaction there. You must
come there in order to find God's rest, and then the blessing is
there. The Lord commands the blessing in the place where He has
His rest, that is, in the Lord Jesus. But then Christ is in you:
"...thou, and the ark of the strength." That is Christ
in you, the hope of glory.
Christ
as God's Rest in the Heart
So then, the first aspect of
the basis of the blessing is that of our knowing God's rest in
His Son, Jesus Christ, in our own lives. He Himself put it in
language which had to be more or less symbolic, or parabolic.
"Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and
lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls"
(Matt 11:29). "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are
heavy laden, and I will give you rest" (verse 28). We know
what that means in the spirit. When we were children we may have
thought it to be a word for labouring men in life's labours and
toil, but we have come to know that this labouring and being
heavy laden has mainly to do with these changeable moods of ours.
We are labouring against the current, the tide, the stress of our
own instability, our own uncertainty, our own oft-doubting and
questioning, our feelings: and it is a labour when you live in
that realm! The Lord Jesus says, "...I will give you
rest." How will He do this? Well, He will come into you,
take up His abode in you as the seat and centre of the deepest
satisfaction, and you will need have no more question. Are you
straining and struggling over the question of whether the Lord is
satisfied with you? You had better cease from it, because He
never will be. If you are looking and longing for that day when
the Lord is going to be perfectly satisfied with you, you are
looking for a very distant day. If you are hoping that some day
the Lord will be very pleased with you, then you will be very
happy, that day is not coming this side of glory. What we have to
realise - and it is a truth so often repeated, and yet not
grasped enough by our hearts - is that the Lord is never going to
be satisfied with us as in ourselves, but He is already perfectly
satisfied with His Son whom He has given to dwell in our hearts
as the seat of His satisfaction, and we are accepted in the
Beloved. Then the blessing comes. We see how the blessing works
out.
Dwelling
Together in Unity
Now we come to the second
aspect of the basis of the blessing.
"Behold how good and
how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity!" (Psalm 133:1.)
We have seen it in the
illustration, the foreshadowing, namely, of Zion uniting all
hearts, making all one, drawing away from everything personal,
everything sectional. Now when the heart is centred upon the Lord
Jesus, we have the greatest power and dynamic against division,
against separateness, against everything that keeps us apart, and
when the Lord Jesus is our central, supreme object, and it is
toward Him that our hearts go out, then we come into a unity. You
cannot have personal interests and at the same time care for the
interests of the Lord. David makes that perfectly clear.
"The tabernacle of my house," that is one
thing; and if I consider that, then I shall not be set upon a
house for the Lord; if I am set upon that, then I shall not find
a place for the Lord's rest. If I am seeking to satisfy my
desire, giving sleep to my eyes, and slumber to my
eyelids, then the Lord's interests will take a second place. But
when I set myself aside, with all that is personal, and I am
centred upon the Lord, and when all the others do that too, we
shall find our perfect uniting centre in Christ. That is what it
is to dwell in unity.
Now Ephesians 4 is the great
New Testament exposition of Psalm 133. "There is
one body..." Read the passage without the italicized words:
"Giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace... one body, and one Spirit ... one Lord, one
faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all,
and through all, and in all" (Verses 3-6). Oneness in Christ
as a Body fitly framed together is what is portrayed. How is this
perfect unity reached? By all that is individual and personal
being left, by the Lord being the focal centre, and by our giving
diligence to maintain the unity in that way; keeping all personal
things out, and keeping Christ and His interests always in view:
"...till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man..."
(Verse 13). Dwelling together in unity in that way, is the result
of His being the sole and central object of all our concerns.
This is not visionary, imaginative, merely idealistic, it is very
practical. You and I will discover that there are working
elements of divisiveness, things creeping in amongst us to set us
apart. The enemy is always seeking to do that, and the things
that rise up to get in between the Lord's people and put up a
barrier are countless; a sense of strain and of distance, for
example, of discord and of unrelatedness. Sometimes they are more
of an abstract character; that is, you can never lay your hand
upon them and explain them, and say what they are; it is just a
sense of something. Sometimes it is more positive, a distinct and
definite misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of something said
or done, something laid hold of; and of course, it is always
exaggerated by the enemy.
How is that kind of thing to be
dealt with in order to keep the unity of the Spirit? Rightly,
adequately on this basis alone, by our saying: 'This is not to
the Lord's interests; this can never be of value to the Lord;
this can never be to His glory and satisfaction; this can only
mean injury to the Lord.' What I may feel in the matter is not
the vital consideration. I may even be the wronged party, but am
I going to feel wronged and hurt? Am I going to stand on my
dignity? Am I going to shut myself up and go away, because I have
been wronged? That is how nature would have it, but I must take
this attitude: 'The Lord stands to lose, the Lord's Name stands
to suffer, the Lord's interests are involved in this; I must get
on top of this; I must get the better of this; I must shake this
thing off and not allow it to affect my attitude, my conduct, my
feelings toward this brother or sister!' There must be the
putting aside of that which we feel, and even of our
rights for the Lord's sake, and a getting on top of this enemy
effort to injure the Lord's testimony. That is giving diligence
to keep the unity. That is the power of a victory over
divisiveness, and is the victory for unity, and there the
Lord commands the blessing. That is the way of eternal life. The
other way is manifestly the way of death, and that is what the
enemy is after. Until that difference is cleared up, all is
death, all is withered and blighted. Life is by unity, and unity
can only adequately be found in Christ being in His place as the
One for whom we let go everything that is personal. We might not
do it for the sake of anyone else. We might never do it for the
sake of the person in view. We do it for His sake, and the enemy
is defeated. There the Lord commands the blessing.
Such, then, is the twofold
aspect of the basis of the blessing. Firstly, God's ground of
satisfaction and rest must be equally our own, namely, His Son;
and, secondly, we must dwell together therein.
Take the great illustration in
the second chapter of the book of the Acts. Here is the greatest
exhibition of the working of this truth that the world has ever
seen. "But Peter, standing up with the
eleven..." There are brethren together in unity! The Lord
also has entered into His rest. By the Cross the Father has found
His satisfaction in the Son; the Lord has entered into His
heavenly Tabernacle. All is rest now in heaven: God is satisfied,
the reconciling work has been done in the Blood of the Cross,
peace has been made, and God has entered into His rest in the
perfect work of redemption. Now the eyes of all the apostles are
on the Lord Jesus, and as they stand up He is in full view. Peter
has left all those personal things behind. They have all left the
personal things now, and their whole object is Christ. Standing
up now, their testimony all to Christ, and they are one, united
in Him; and there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for
evermore, such blessing as was like the precious ointment coming
down from the head to the skirts of the garment.
The figure is perfect, as a
figure. There is the Head, the Lord Jesus, and the Father has
commanded the blessing in the pouring of the eternal Spirit upon
the Head. Now as all these members are ranged under the Head,
centred in the Head, held together in the Head, the blessing
comes down to the skirts of His garment, and it is "...like
the dew of Hermon that cometh down upon the mountains of Zion..."
That is the effect of the blessing, that is the effect of life
for evermore. What is the dew of Hermon? If you had lived in that
country, you would know the value of the dew of Hermon. It is a
parched and shrivelled land, with everything dry and becoming
barren, and then the dew of Hermon comes down and everything
revives, everything is refreshed, everything lifts up its head
and lives again. It is the beneficent result of the blessing;
life, freshness, hope, reviving, fruitfulness. There the Lord
commanded the blessing.
Do you see the way of life, the
way of fruitfulness, of reviving, of refreshing, the way of
blessing? Two things are basic. These are our coming to the place
of God's rest in His Son, and our letting go of everything that
is of ourselves in the interests of His Son, and finding our all
in Him. Thus are we drawn together by our mutual love for the
Lord. Oh that we had more of the expression of this. I think that
is why the Lord is bringing the matter before us; not for the
message to be merely as a blessed prospect, a word that has a
happy ring about it and that gives us a certain amount of uplift
while it is being spoken, but for it to be a strong call from the
Lord. Do we want the blessing? Do we want life for evermore, life
more abundant? Do we want refreshing, and fruitfulness, and
reviving, and uplift? Do we want that others also should get the
blessing through us? Look at Pentecost. Pentecost is the
outworking of Psalm 133; for there brethren were dwelling
together in unity, centred upon the Lord, and in the Lord, and
the Lord commanded the blessing.
There is nothing very profound
in this, but it is of no less importance on that account. It is
yet another way of bringing the Lord Jesus into view, of showing
Him as the centre, as supreme. But, oh, it is a call from the
Lord, a serious and solemn call from the Lord to our hearts. The
way of fruitfulness, the way of blessing, the way of freshness,
the way of joy is to be in this way that is under the blessing of
the Lord, because we have found our rest where He has found His,
in the Lord Jesus; because the object of our hearts, for which we
have set aside all lesser objects, all personal interests, is the
object of His own, even His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. There the
Lord commands the blessing, even life for evermore.
May He be able to do that with
us. Oh, that it might be said in days to come as never hitherto:
"...there the Lord commanded the blessing, even
life for evermore", because of these two great governing
realities, both of which are centred in the Lord Jesus.