"The gospel of the glory of the blessed God"
(1 Tim. 1:11).
"The gospel of your salvation" (Eph. 1:13).
"The mystery of the gospel" (Eph. 5:19).
We were speaking in our
previous meditation about the testimony in Zion,
"...whither the tribes go up for a testimony unto
Israel". We saw that "the tribes" do not
mean the whole of Israel. "Three times in a year
shall all thy males appear before the Lord thy God in the
place which he shall choose" (Deut. 16:16) - a
representation in Jerusalem, in Zion, for a testimony to
the rest everywhere, wherever they were. And Zion is just
that - a representation of God's mind on behalf of all
His people; something fuller apprehended by some not
necessarily chosen for it, but who choose it, who are
prepared to pay the price for it, who are prepared to go
the journey; and in them is found God's mind in greater
fullness for the rest of His people.
A
Prevailing State of Need
I want to bring you to
another passage of Scripture in the prophecies of Isaiah.
"Bind thou up
the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I
will wait for the Lord, that hideth his face from the
house of Jacob, and I will look for him. Behold, I and
the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs
and for wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who
dwelleth in mount Zion" (Isa. 8:16-18).
"...and they
shall look upon the earth, and, behold, distress and
darkness, the gloom of anguish; and into thick darkness
they shall be driven away. But there shall be no gloom to
her that was in anguish. In the former time he brought
into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of
Naphtali; but in the latter time hath he made it
glorious, by the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in
darkness have seen a great light" (Isa. 8:22-9:2).
The particular verse
that I am lighting upon is verse 18 of chapter 8. The
whole section gives you the setting for this verse. The
Lord's people in general are not seeing, that is, they
are not seeing the great revelation that God has given
concerning them and their glory and their vocation. Will
you challenge that today? It is not a criticism, it is
not a judgment, it is one of those things that we very
much dislike saying. It is so easy to find fault and
point out bad conditions; you can go on like that for
ever. One would very much like never to have to do that
sort of thing; and yet you are up against it all the
time. The Lord's people are not seeing the greatness of
His purpose in Christ, the vastness of that which has
come from the eternal counsels. They are seeing so
little, and a great many of them are not willing to see -
that is the further tragedy. They are satisfied, they do
not want any more, and many are suspicious and prejudiced
and shut up; they will not have it, the Lord has not a
clear way. Again, there are many who will not pay the
price - not the price of their salvation, but of what it
means to go on to all the Lord's thought. That price is
the price of popularity and acceptance with men, of large
doors of opportunity, prestige, and such things. That is
a very general situation.
A
Prophetic Instrument - 'For Signs and Wonders'
In such circumstances,
what will the Lord do? He will bring into a company a
prophetic instrument. In the case before us it is the
individual, the prophet, to begin with; He will bring
into being a prophetic instrument, that which will
represent His thought - for you know quite well that the
title of the prophet is "Son of man", and that
is a phrase which always means representation. (He
occupies the aspect of man-form in the cherubim or the
four living ones; man-form - representation, Son of man.)
He knows God's mind for His people, he has the
thoughts of God in fullness. In a day of shadows and
darkness and declension, God will bring into being such
an instrument - and we are thinking of it in the
corporate sense now. It has ever been His way. He will
deal with that instrument in a strange way. There will be
nothing normal in its experience, nothing ordinary - you
might say, nothing straightforward. It is a strange,
mysterious, and altogether extraordinary way that the
Lord takes a prophetic instrument. See what He told these
prophets to do - all sorts of extraordinary things!
Ezekiel must lie for many days in the sight of the
people, first on his left side and then on his right. And
the people looking on say, 'What is this man doing? He is
mad!' But all that is constituting his message. The way
of a vessel for this purpose is not a straightforward
way, as men call it. It is an unusual way. The
experiences of such a vessel are all off the usual lines,
and the people concerned very often cannot be understood.
You can write up some things about the work of God and
the instrument of God's work, and it is all clear and
straightforward. But God gets something like this - and
you cannot explain it. All sorts of questions are going
round - 'What are you doing? What are you? What are you
after? We don't understand.'
And every issue of that
instrument is an indication of the particular purpose for
which the instrument is called. "I and the
children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and
for wonders in Israel". Here is a
vessel, and the children represent all the aspects, the
outworkings, the issues, of that vessel. How am I going
to explain that to you? In the case of a vessel that is
held by God for this particular purpose, every means
used, every method followed, every piece of work that is
done, will be in keeping with the Divine thought at the
root, and will be an indication that this is not
something ordinary, but something extraordinary, unusual.
Having said that, I
have touched a spring. I am sure that many of you are
seeing a long way ahead, but I shall have to explain it.
Please do not think I am criticising. I recognize this -
and let me say it again with great emphasis - that God
employs different means and instrumentalities for
different purposes, and you must not try to conform every
instrument and vessel that God takes up to one mould, one
purpose, one idea, one direction. When the Church, as the
Church, failed to fulfil the Divine function of carrying
the gospel to the unenlightened, God raised up vessels to
do it, and so you have many institutions; and not one of
us would dare to say that God never employed them, that
they are outside of His thought and consideration. We
should be saying the utmost untruth to hint at such a
thing. He has used and He does use them, and many other
things too He has employed for His purposes; but it does
not mean for a moment that He has departed from His one
true, essential, original thought as to how and by what
means things ought to be done. He will always come back,
if He can, to make the Church His vessel, and any other
means will only go so far. If it is going to fullness, it
will have to come back to His original idea. Do not let
us think that the things which God has used He has not
used, and that they are all false and wrong. But when God
does seek to get that vessel which is essentially related
to fullness, you will not find that He deals with it in
the same way as He deals with others, and you will not
find that He allows it to employ the means and the
methods that others are allowed to employ. Here the thing
itself and all its activities, its issues, its sons, its
offspring, will be signs of something - signs of some
essential nature and character, something very much
nearer to the thought of God. They will signify that and
they will be signs and wonders. Signs - yes, they signify
something that God is doing and is after; they will all
point to that. Wonders - yes, they will all be in the
realm where it is utterly impossible to man; and that is
one of the things that make all the difference.
'All
of God' - A Costly Vocation
When God gets that
which comes most closely into relation with His full
thought, He will put it into a realm where man can do
nothing, and everything associated with it will say, 'It
is God alone, it is only the Lord, no man can account for
this. Look and see if you can honestly trace this at all
to any man or men or people.' Look at the thing. Is it
something with names, titles, influence, status, and all
that is so commonly associated with a 'successful' work?
No; this is of God or it is nothing. No great names, no
great people, no great natural gifts, no great or
outstanding human qualifications; weak, in itself
helpless, foolish, often having to say, 'I do not know';
shut up like that, just thrown right back upon God, and
if it is going to be anything at all, it must be by the
Lord's doing; if it is not of the Lord, there will be
nothing. You can only account for it on that ground, that
it is of the Lord. The Lord originated it, the Lord has
kept it going, and the Lord is doing it. "I and the
children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and
for wonders". There is something about this which is
inexplicable on any human ground. That is how it is going
to be, it must be, if it is going to approximate most
closely to Christ.
I have John 5 before me
as I speak. Here is Christ, the full embodiment of Divine
thought, in Whom the perfection of those eternal counsels
is centred, Who is to be the expression of God's mind in
utterness. Hear him say, "The Son can do nothing
of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what
things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like
manner... I can of myself do nothing". But
listen, the One Who says that, immediately goes on to
say, "As the Father raiseth the dead and giveth
them life, even so the Son also giveth life to whom he
will". You can account for that on no other
ground than God. The Son can do nothing; God raiseth the
dead; He gives the Son to do what only God can do. That
is the principle we are getting at. We cannot get beyond
Christ in utterness as to God's mind, and yet He says,
'Nothing out from Myself - it is God.'
Then Isa. 8:18 is
quoted in Hebrews 2:13 and put right into the mouth of
the Lord Jesus. "I and the children whom God hath
given me". He has taken up the principle, and if
you look at the context of that statement in Hebrews 2
you see it is this, that the children conform to Him,
take their nature from Him. Now what is it? "I
and the children whom God hath given me are for signs and
wonders". Oh, is Christ a sign? Why, in John's
Gospel everything that He did was a sign. And what was it
a sign of? "Many other signs... did Jesus...
these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God" (John 20:30-31). It was
a sign that God was here in this One. "And
wonders"; and what is the essence of a wonder?
Why, this cannot be attributed to anything or anyone but
God. Read John 9, and note the issue. The poor fellow
whose eyes the Lord opened could not understand these
wise people and their logic, their reasoning. "He
opened mine eyes... Since the world began it was never
heard that anyone opened the eyes of a man born blind. If
this man were not from God, he could do nothing". 'Don't
you see this must be God? He must be something more than
a man.' And that is why they cast the man out - because
he made Jesus God. That was the effect of the signs and
wonders - 'it is only the Lord!' Ah yes, that is the
nature of a vessel, an instrument, which is going to
serve the heart of God's purpose. That is a very costly
way. You will have nothing usual. Oh, how we long to get
things straightened out and have a straightforward
course! Yet we know quite well we are never going to have
it. We are never going to have our affairs running
without a difficulty. Other people with their family life
- how easy-going it is! Everything for them seems to go
evenly, but our affairs never go just on that
straightforward track; there always seems to be something
in our situation we cannot cope with, it is beyond us,
and unless the Lord handles it we are in the most awful
and hopeless confusion. I wonder how many people can
accept that as being right - that is how it should be and
how it must be, and (the Lord help us!) how it always
will be if we are really committed to the basis that
everything is to be of God. May it not be - and I speak
with experience in this matter - that the Lord is trying
to say to us, 'Why do you not capitulate to that and take
a positive attitude in acceptance of it? I am waiting for
you to do that. You are trying to alter it, to get out of
it, you are rebelling, fighting against it and if only
you knew it you are all the time frustrating the very
thing you are seeking. Why don't you recognise that a
situation like that is absolutely essential to My
intervention so that achievement will come not by your
cleverness, your ability, your acumen, but by a miracle
every time; it will be God?' Ought we not to try to face
this - that we are called into a realm where God
deliberately plans that we should live on the basis of
His deliverances, and where we are not allowed to get
through on the level of the ordinary. Here again, though,
is a peril. We must not become unpractical, and simply
sit down and wait for the Lord to work miracles for us.
We must do our part, as far as in us lies, and cooperate
with the Lord in every practical way that is open to us;
but even so, we shall often find that we shall never get
through apart from a very real intervention of the Lord
in such a way that when we are through it is manifest
that it was not our effort that brought success but the
Lord's working. The testimony will be - 'it was the
Lord's doing'.
The
Need for a Definite Committal
I wonder if what has
been said has helped you at all. It helps me. The
difficulty for you and for me is going to be to accept
this and put our feet down on it. The Lord must present
His mind in greater fullness to His people, and He must
have that through which He can present it. He is seeking
to get that more and more. But there comes a point where
all of us have to have a transaction with the Lord about
it. You can go away and be an 'ordinary' evangelical
Christian if you like. You need not go right on with the
Lord, but you have to risk a good deal if you say No to
Him. You will come to the time when you will look back
and say, 'I missed God's best'. But I do not want to
frighten or drive. We are here just to give what God has
shown us of His greater fullness of purpose - and we are
as yet only in the shallows of that vast fullness: but,
so far as He has shown, we have to speak it. He must show
it. "Son of man, show the house to the house of
Israel, that they may be..." (Eze. 43:10). Be what?
The rest is with the people to whom it is shown. Are we
of the number of those who will accept and yield to what
He shows? Again and again in some more acute form the
question arises as to whether we are going on in this
costly way. We are required to face this and to make a
decision before the Lord in our hearts as to whether we
are going on, whether we are going to stand with Him for
the fullest expression of His thought, or whether we are
going to decide on some lesser course. There are plenty
of arguments to induce us to take the easier way if we
are prepared to listen to them. 'Most other Christians
take the easier path, and God uses and blesses them. What
more is required?' All I say is this - if you have good
reason to think that the Church today as a whole is in
the good of the greater revelation of God's purpose in
Christ, if you are sure they are, then go the way of the
majority; but if you feel that there is something more
needed - the Church needs something, you need something
more - well then, it is going to cost. You will be saved
all right if you put your faith in the Lord Jesus, but
that is not the point. You will not lose your salvation,
but you may lose the prize. Salvation was never anything
earned, but there is something called the prize (Phil.
3:14). We are not going to say what that is at present,
but we are called to face the question whether the Lord
has not got something more that He wants for His people
and that He would give through us, having given it to us:
or (to put that in another way) something into which He
would bring His people because He brought us into it in
experience, in life. Is that so? Well then, we are all of
us up against a crisis, I as much as you. Let me say this
from my own heart, that I personally am quite frequently
brought up against this crisis as the cost of this way of
the Cross is pressed home. I have to stand back and say,
'Well, what was the basis upon which I started in this
way?' What was the basis upon which we started?
Was it not on the basis of John 5? It was a thing we were
always talking about. We did not know all it meant by a
long way, but we said quite definitely, 'God wants
something here on this earth which declaredly and
manifestly can do nothing for Him out from itself. We
will give Him a chance to do it all, that no one will
ever be able to say, This is due to any man's great gifts
or to this people's outstanding qualifications and
qualities. If ever there is anything at all, the only
explanation will be that the Lord did it.' That was the
foundation, but how that gets pressed home as you go on!
It is a challenge all the way along, and it comes up in
ever new situations, new expressions. 'Are you still
prepared to stand on the ground that it is just the Lord
or nothing at all? If the Lord does not come in in an
altogether new way, you are finished!' Are you prepared
for that? There is a mystery about this, the mystery of
the gospel. It is not a matter of terms. This is where
many have made a mistake; they think this mystery is a
matter of phraseology and truths - 'It is the truth of
the Church,' they say, and all that sort of thing. Oh,
brethren, God save us from that mistake! This ministry
cannot be fulfilled along the lines of terminology. There
is a mystery about it; it is the mystery of revelation,
something deep down which you cannot explain by getting
commentaries on the subject and collecting all the data
about it and then giving it out. That is not it, that
does not work. It may be the same phraseology, the same
ideas, but it does not produce the same results. You
cannot explain the mystery of what is of God. It is a
deep, hidden secret of God Himself. That is a tremendous
challenge. I say again it is a very costly way, and it is
for us to say, and, as is necessary, to say again and yet
again, 'I can have no other way, I must go on with God,
whatever the cost.' The Lord help us to that position.