"But
the people that do know their God shall be strong and do
exploits." - Dan. 11:32.
That word
"but" marks the climax. It is preceded by
visions of the rise and fall of great world powers. Up to
this point we see men and their individual influence,
armies and their conquests, kings and empires in their
far-reaching sway. There is a veritable pageant of the
dominions of the world as they proceed and recede. They
come in splendour upon the stage, and then pass
altogether out of the great world drama. Then finally it
reaches this point, and you get a "BUT," and
from that onward, the whole scene changes. The outlook is
entirely different, the scale of values is
revolutionized. From this point it is no longer a
question of numbers and wealth or human importance, or
any of the things which the world calls great.
There appears now upon
the scene a comparatively small company, a group of men
and women whom the world will despise and reject, and
relegate to the category of the unfit, the inefficient;
whom the world will not count among its mighty, its
valiant. They will be overlooked when the world is in
search of such as it requires to do its big things. On
the human side they will be altogether at a discount.
There is nothing whatever as a basis upon which they can
hope for any success here, nothing whatever which gives
them - judged from the human standpoint - any confidence
or assurance or hope of success here, and yet, in the
unfolding of things, these are the people which count,
and it is before these that all the glory and power and
might of the world breaks down. This small, despised
company move out with some secret vital mystic force at
their centre, and they go forth conquering and to
conquer. Before them the great systems of the world give
way and go down in defeat. There is a mighty change in
the picture, swinging upon one word. How often, in the
Divine unfolding of the Scriptures, it is that one little
word "but," that changes things. "BUT
GOD," and then everything changes. Said Joseph to
his brethren, "Ye meant it unto me for evil - but
God meant it unto good."
Who are this little
company, and what is their secret? "But the
people that do know their God..." These are they who
know their God, and that is the secret. Would
that it were possible for us to have the depth of that
declaration, that we could realize all that is summarised
in that statement, "Do know their God." There
is something infinitely more in knowing the Lord than we
have yet recognised. "The people that do know
their God" - you want to know what that means.
It is a knowledge of God in His power as Sovereign, in
His executive authority, in His supremacy. But the
knowledge goes deeper than that, it is not merely knowing
God as Sovereign, it is knowing God in that way that releases
that sovereignty and causes it to function through the
people that so know Him. It is knowing God in a
vital relationship and union and oneness which makes the
exercise and execution of the power possible in this
world through such as possess this knowledge. God is on
the Throne, and He has all power and all the resources
necessary for dealing with the world situation, but He
has so chosen and ordained, that the exercise and the
demonstration of His fulness of power and might and
glory, should be through those who have been brought into
a vital union with Him on the basis of a personal
knowledge of Him in His fulness.
The New
Testament is a marvelous revelation of that victory.
After the Cross, all the fulness of the Divine power was
released upon the world through those who had been
brought into absolute oneness with the Lord by that
Cross. That is the peculiar kind of knowledge which means
the release of such forces and such powers upon the world
situation as are unknown by the great world systems.
First, let
us remember that this knowledge of God is by revelation.
We can never get this knowledge of God merely
by reading, by listening, by attending meetings. As one
looks out over gatherings of the Lord's people one
wonders just how many of those we see at every meeting
and every Conference have got this thing by personal
revelation, and how many are only standing in that which
they have heard the speakers say. If this thing is not
given to you by the Holy Spirit's working it into your
very being, and making it a part of you in a personal
revelation and an inward birth, then you may hear all the
truth possible and it will prove ineffective. How many of
you who know this thing as a theory, a teaching, from A
to Z, are really the via media of that transcendant
power of God for the working of it out?
You may
understand it all by mental apprehension, know the terms
and the verses, and use them - but what about the dynamic
of this thing? What does our personal presence in
a situation mean? Does it mean that there is the
going out of a power which cannot be accounted for on any
human basis whatever, but which is a greater force than
the forces that are represented by world organizations,
world methods, world resources? It is a most important
question. Is this thing alive, or have we merely got a
little more mental apprehension of it through
conferences? Do we know God in this thing by reason of a
personal inward revelation on the subject. Paul makes a
point of this. "It pleased the Lord to reveal
His Son in me" "By revelation, not
from man." 'I went not up to Jerusalem to consult
the Apostles, I went into Arabia, and this thing was
wrought out in me.'
Some of us
remember well the day of our pressing through fully to
experience, when the thing about which we had been
talking for so long suddenly, by a marvellous act of the
Spirit, became life in us, and we were able to say
"This is THAT"! "This is that which was
spoken by the prophet." There was a transition from
known truth to living truth; from known doctrine to
present experience; and the ringing declaration went
forth - "This is THAT"!
We have
all got to know that transition. We have the doctrine,
and now the thing has to be quickened; made life in us,
until we independently stand in the power of it. How much
do you depend upon conferences and teachers to keep you
going? Must you attend meetings just because you feel
that the last lot you got has been used up and you must
get a fresh supply? Or have you been emancipated from all
human props and put into a place of glorious
independence, because you KNOW YOUR GOD? It doesn't
matter if you are plunged into the middle of the Sahara,
you know your God and can stand independently of
all natural helps - this thing has become YOU! That is
the kind of knowledge that means power. That is the kind
of experience which overcomes the world. That is the kind
of thing that makes all the other systems go down, and
you rise triumphantly above them. That was the secret of
the apostolic church. Let kings do what they like, let
the people rage - it goes on, and it is the Roman Empire
that goes to pieces before this thing, and not this thing
that goes down before the Roman Empire. It is an
independent personal knowledge of God, resultant from an
inward birth, that lives. Not only an objective truth,
but a subjective power, and it is a great day when the
slightest fragment of known truth becomes a vital
personal experience in its working ability. That is what
we want. First-hand knowledge, not second-hand truth. May
God work this into our very beings until it becomes us.
Take it in fragments if you like, and ask the Lord to
work it out in you and make it live in you.
Secondly,
it comes by the way of pain. You get a thing revealed
to you as truth, perhaps something about the Cross of
Christ, or victory over Satan, and you think you know it,
and you say, This is beautiful! And you begin to talk
about it, and it is not very long before something
happens - your circumstances are touched. Now you go down
with this truth, down into the vortex of awful agony,
right down to the gates of hell, your being is upheaved
right from the very bottom, and all the time there is the
question - "Will that truth hold good?" Is it
going to work? And when you have got down as far as you
can go, the flesh elements and the self elements have
been dealt with, and you grimly hold on to the Lord in
this matter of victory - then it comes out, you have
tested it right to the very bottom of your being - that
thing has become you, and then you can go to
others in their grim conflict and their darkness, and
say, "I know - I know this thing, and I know God is
faithful, I know the victory." You have got a mighty
emphasis on your knowledge, it is a thing about which you
have no doubt, because you have gone down into the depths
with it, and proved it down there, and by the very pain
the thing has been proved. It is the people who know
their God like that, who count. There is a power which is
greater than all the other powers of the universe, and
that power is to be mediated through you, but only as you
know God on the basis of a personal experience
through pain and suffering.
Then this
knowledge of God only comes by implicit and unreserved
obedience. "If any man willeth to do... he
shall know," and you never advance in your personal
knowledge of God beyond the point of your will. If there
is something upon which the Holy Spirit ever so gently
puts His finger, and that thing at once starts debatings
in your consciousness, a quarrel as to whether it is
right or wrong, - beyond the point of your dealing with
that thing, you do not develop one fraction of an inch in
your knowledge of God. Your knowledge of God depends
utterly and absolutely upon your attention and obedience
to every phase and every little bit of Divine
revelation. You cannot know God beyond the point of
your obedience to what you already know of Him. He will
give you no further revelation of Himself beyond that
point where you obey what you know. There are a
good many Christians today who have stopped growing - who
are where they were ten years ago, they are not moving
on, the Divine revelation is not growing. If the truth
were known, there is something upon which the Lord put
His finger, and they did not attend to it. If we are
going to know the Lord in this way, we must attend in a
practical way to every bit of revelation and see that it
is fully obeyed. If we want to know the fulness of an
ever-growing power, it will only be as we respond to
every dear command of His, answer every bit of
revelation, and make it live, and this will give us a
wonderful spiritual and moral ascendancy - when
everything else is going wrong, then will be the
strategic opportunity, and it is in strategic
opportunities that we are found out.