Reading:
Luke 2:25-38; I Cor. 10:11; Heb. 8:13, 9:26.
We are being led at this
time to take note of the fact that we are at an end-time,
and that God does a peculiar work at such a time. Things
become very strange and very difficult at an end-time;
everything seems to be thrown into a state of
disturbance, upheaval, intense pressure and conflict. The
great conflicting faces in this universe register very
terribly and intensely upon that which is of God and upon
those who are of account to Him, so that there often
arises the sense that this is an actual end, and a
question as to what more is possible. Inwardly we feel
that the way is becoming exceedingly hedged up:
'frustration' is the word which seems to prevail, and
outwardly everything is in a state of serious and great
question as to the future. Indeed, it becomes more
persistently the experience of the true people of God
that they could give up and abandon everything. The ways
in which this works out are numerous, but the whole
effect is to paralyse and put out of commission that
which is of God and bring it to a complete standstill. It
is this, then, that will govern our consideration at this
time - that we are in an end-time and that in end-times
the work of God takes a particular form and is of a
peculiar nature. It obviously becomes supremely important
and necessary for the Lord's people to know the time in
which they live, what the portents are, and what it is
that God would do at such a time.
I suggest to you that
that constitutes a real reason for getting together in
serious and solemn conference, for it is not something
that we can take just as a part of a sequence of
meditations. Our consideration of it may be supremely
crucial and in a peculiar way related to a time in the
history of this world, and of God's work in this world,
which is of tremendous importance and will not be
repeated.
Now, this matter of the
end-time and God's work therein is brought very fully and
clearly into view by Simeon and Anna. There is no doubt
that they represent firstly an end-time - an end-time
dispensationally and an end-time with regard to their own
age, for they were both advanced in years. And then they
also represent God's service at such a time. Simeon used
the word of himself - "Now lettest thou thy
servant (bondservant, the word is) depart, Lord,
according to thy word, in peace." "Thy servant."
Anna was found continuing in the temple in fastings and
supplications day and night, not leaving it, a prophetess
thus occupied in the house of God; and if that is not a
picture of service, what is?
FULNESS
OF RIPE AGE CARRIED ON IN FRESHNESS OF NEW LIFE
I am, in the first
place, going to take up the age factor. Let me say at
once that, although I am going to talk about old age, my
message is mainly to young people. If that sounds hardly
kind and fair to others, let me put it in this way: age
is not a matter of years at all. You may be young in
years and yet be far beyond your years, or you may be old
in years and far behind your years. This is a spiritual
matter. This age factor, as represented by Simeon and
Anna, corresponds to the word in Hebrews 13, "He
hath made the first old. But that which is becoming old
and waxeth aged is nigh unto vanishing away";
and again, to the words in I Cor. 10, "upon whom
the ends of the ages are come." That makes us
very old, does it not?
Well now, what have we
as the picture before us? We have an aged man with a babe
in his arms, at once bringing an end and a beginning
together, an end handed on to a beginning, a beginning
taking up all the fulness represented by the old. It is
the old passing over into and giving place to the new. If
we get the Divine idea, the spiritual thought, about this
- an aged man with a babe in his arms - we at once see
that from the Divine standpoint that is the Divine
principle. Age is not diminution, contraction,
declension, depreciation. That is not God's mind about
old age. There is a passage in Isaiah which says, "The
child shall die a hundred years old" (Isa.
65:20). There is a state, a condition, a realm in which a
child shall die one hundred years old. It means there is
a principle here - that there is a realm in which age has
the child present, has the babe there in its arms. At one
hundred years old the child has not gone, it is still the
child. The Divine thought about old age is rather that of
fulness, fulness unto the enrichment of what is yet to
be, and which is about to come in; to provide a heritage;
not to pass out and take everything with it and for that
to be the end, but to have something very full and rich
to be taken up and carried on and expressed in newness,
freshness, youthfulness; all the values of a long history
brought out in new ways. That is what is here.
You know the instances
in the Bible of infancy linked with old age. How much is
made of this spiritual principle in relation to Abraham
and Isaac! When Abraham was old, Isaac was born. The fact
is taken up to express this - that when there is a great
accumulation of history and spiritual knowledge, God will
reproduce that, He will give it form again and yet again.
"In Isaac shall thy seed be called"
(Gen.21:12). Or again, Jacob and Benjamin, the child of
his old age; and what a lot Benjamin represents
spiritually. Then we have the case of Eli, who was very
old, and the child Samuel. It is not only a beautiful
picture, but it is a very significant one, that child
along side of the aged Eli. God started there again,
right in the presence of something that was in itself
about to pass out, but taking up all its spiritual values
to reproduce them and bring out all their intrinsic
worth. Here again are the aged Simeon and Anna, - by
certain computations we arrive at the conclusion that
Anna was 106 years old at this point - these two with a
babe. It is not an end with God; it is something very
much more than that.
ALL
FORMER SPIRITUAL VALUES NOW CENTERED IN CHRIST
So the inclusive thing
represented by Simeon and Anna is fulness by fulfilment.
Firstly, it was the completing of a phase, the gathering
up of all past spiritual values, as represented in these
two, into a new and wholly spiritual order, the order of
Christ.
Simeon so clearly speaks
of that transition mentioned in the first chapter of the
letter to the Hebrews: "God, having of old time
spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers
portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these
days spoken unto us in his Son." It is a
transition from the fragmentary, the partial, the
occasional, the diverse, to the complete, to the
inclusiveness of the unified, and to the final. That is
the transition here represented. The bringing in of the
Babe, the Christ, holding Him in his arms, was in figure,
simply the gathering up of all that had been of God in
the past, and centering it in Christ, and seeing how He
takes it up and is the fulfilment of it and transcends
it.
See Simeon, then as to
the past. Something was happening now with the coming in
of this Babe, the coming in of the Christ. It is not
without a certain significance that Matthew's Gospel has
been put out of chronological order and put into the
first place in our New Testament. In that Gospel, again
and again Matthew uses this phrase, "that the
scriptures might be fulfilled," or, "that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet."
It is characteristic of Matthew's Gospel. It pointed
backward to all the Scriptures which were looking toward
this Christ in Whom they were to find their fulfilment,
their realisation, their finality and their
transcendence. All the hopes, all the expectations all
the promises, all the foreshadowings and all the
forecastings, were gathered into the hands of Simeon that
day as he held that Babe. The Hope Of Israel was in his
hands. What a long hope, what a chequered hope! Even
through all their failure, when black and dark despair
seemed sometimes to have settled down upon them and they
cried that their way was hidden from the Lord and their
judgment passed away from their God, still they cherished
a hope. Through all their failure, through all their
sufferings, they still held to the hope that there was
something yet to be. Through all the judgments which were
poured upon them from heaven for their sins, they still
clung to the promises and believed that they would one
day see the salvation of the Lord. Oh, here it is all in
the hands of Simeon! All that past is here present in
those arms. That Little One answers to it all. The Hope
of Israel!
This expectation and
hope has reached its consummation in these very two who
with others were looking for the consolation of Israel,
the redemption of Jerusalem. They were looking; and what
a day it was of little prospect, of seeming hopelessness!
and yet there were those who were still hoping, still
believing, still clinging. And there that day stood
Simeon, holding in his arms the fulfilment of all the
hopes and expectations and promises - holding the
complete embodiment of the full thought of God. Simeon
held all that in his hands, and by his words and attitude
and spirit you can see him projecting that into the
future, holding it forth. "This child is set for..."
- the whole future is going to be affected by Him. It was
a tremendous moment.
ALL
TYPES AND SYSTEMS TRANSCENDED BY CHRIST IN PERSON
Ah, but note, it carried
with it a stripping of all framework of earthly systems.
It was no longer that which encased Christ, it was Christ
Himself. All the encasements of Christ were finished at
that moment. What a moment it was! The encasing in types
and figures, symbols and prophecies and the whole system
of Judaism, that whole framework was shattered and
stripped off that day, and the manifest reality of all
that had been inherent and intrinsic in the past was in
Simeon's hands, to be handed on to the future. It was a
crisis, a turning of the dispensations. It was a passing
from all that was merely of earthly systems in relation
to Christ, to the Christ Himself: and that is no small
thing, and that is the mark of the end-time.
See what we come to.
Christ Himself emerges from the framework of things, from
all the scaffolding of past ages, from all the figurative
and typological and symbolical, and transcends the things
by His own Person. There is all the difference between
Himself and His things. Right up to that time, God's
people had been occupied with the things concerning the
Christ: now they were to be occupied with the Christ
Himself. It was a tremendous moment. This is what will be
at an end-time. That is the point. An end-time is
transition from a lot that has had to do with Christ to
Christ Himself, transition from frameworks to the
essential and the intrinsic, transition from all the
works and the things related to Christ to that which is
known of Him personally. All the other is going to be
stripped off, and we are in the day when that stripping
off has seriously commenced. The issue is going to be -
may I put it this way? - how much we have actually in our
hands of the very Christ Himself, how much we are
occupied with the things concerning Him, the encasement
of Christ.
This work of transition
is going to be done, for this is an end-time movement. I
see it here so clearly, the pre-figuring of the
prophesying of that other end-time which we have in the
book of the Revelation, when the man child is brought
forth, and the ultimate things are in view. At such a
time everything will be tested and challenged by the
forces that will be let loose from hell. There started,
with the bringing in of this first man child, the Lord
Jesus, a loosing of Satanic and hellish forces which has
gone on and on, right through this dispensation. Herod
heard, and loosed his sword, occasioning a terrible
massacre, in an endeavour to compass the death of this
One; and from that time onward hell was out (and has
continued to be out) not against a system but against a
living person. So here we see the man child presented and
the tremendous reactions that are immediately provoked.
Pass right on to
Revelation 12, and there you see a corporate company
called the man child. (It is corporate because the
language is " and they overcame him because of
the blood of the Lamb.") This is the corporate
counterpart of the individual, of the personal. When that
corporate expression of the man child is presented in the
book of the Revelation, what have you? - a most violent
release of evil forces for the destruction of everything
that speaks of Christ.
GOD'S
END-TIME WORK - EVERYTHING ESSENTIALLY SPIRITUAL
Well now, what is the
service of God at an end-time? As far as we have gone,
surely we are able to see one or two things. The
particular work of God at an end-time is, to begin with,
the constituting of a new and spiritually inclusive
dispensation, a new age of an essentially and wholly
spiritual kind. In Heb. 12:27 we have, "And this
word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that have been made,
that those things which are not shaken may remain."
That word 'removing' really means the transferring or the
transposing on to another and different basis. The fact
that that comes at the end of the letter to the Hebrews
is significant, for that letter is just full of that
earthly system of Judaism with all its forms, its ritual,
its make-up and constitution. All that is earthly, even
in relation to God, is going to be removed, and
everything is going to be transferred to another basis -
a spiritual, a heavenly basis; and when things begin to
happen on the ground of an end-time, that is the
character of what is taking place. The earthly is now
going to be forced to give way to the heavenly , the
temporal to the spiritual, the outward to the inward.
Then it will be proved just how much we have that can be
transferred, for there are many things that are not going
to be transferred, "Flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Cor. 15:50). That
signifies and implies that there is a whole order of
creation which is not going to constitute that eternal
order; it is to pass away. Everything is going to be
transferred to another basis, and this kind of thing
intensifies at an end-time. Do you see that?
Let me put that more
simply. What God will see to, by sheer force of
conditions, is that anything that is only temporal will
go and that which is spiritual alone will remain. There
must therefore be intensifying processes to bring out the
spiritual. Is not that where we are? I do not know what
your experience is, but touching one and another here and
there I find there is some real understanding of this. We
never knew such spiritual conflict, pressure and
difficulty as we are knowing now; things seem to be
getting beyond measure. May this not be the explanation?
The Lord seems to be concentrating upon bringing out
spiritual values, making spiritual men and women, and if
I am not mistaken (and I claim no gift of prophecy, in
the foretelling sense), we are going to see, and are
already seeing, the removal of so much, the external
things, upon which Christians have been relying as though
these things constituted their Christian life. We are
going to be forced back to the place where the one
question that faces us is, After all, what have I got of
the Lord Himself? Not, What can I do, where can I go?
but, What have I got? I believe that is a very present
and appropriate question in many parts of the world just
now, and it will be increasingly so as everything outward
is brought to an end. Now is the test - What have I got
in my hands?
GOD'S
END-TIME WORK INCLUSIVE OF ALL FORMER VALUES
Yes, the constituting of
a new and spiritual dispensation. But I also used the
word inclusive - that is, the heritage of all the values
that God has ever given. This is, mark you, a
dispensation principle. Spiritual history returns upon
itself, it goes back to the last point of fulness.
Perhaps you do not grasp what I mean by that. If there
has come about a decline, whether in our own spiritual
life or in the life of the Church, sooner or later we
shall be forced back to the point where we left the full
measure of God. Cannot you see that happening? We see it
in various connections to-day. Take the matter of
literature. There is an increasing demand for the old
works. Publishers are finding a great demand for
something of years ago, and it is coming into the market.
The shelves have been full of cheap, superficial
Christian stuff with gaudy wrappers and all that, and
times have come when people are aware that this is not
meeting the need, and the demand for something more is
arising. The call is for some of the books which former
generations had. That is happening. History is returning
upon itself. There has been decline, loss,
superficiality, frivolity, cheapness, in Christianity,
and the Church is going to perish for want of solid food
unless it is provided. Thus the cry is, `Let us get back
to what there was before.' That is happening in many
ways. It is a dispensation principle. If God has really
given anything, that will never be lost. Time will
vindicate it. Sooner or later we shall have to come back
to it. We shall be thrown back for our very lives on what
God has given. This is where the new takes up the old.
It is a sorry and a
superficial day, and one which will not stand up to
things, when you think you can dispense with experience.
If young people suppose they can think lightly of those
who have gone through the fires and grown grey-headed in
the service of God, in learning to know the Lord, and
that such can be set aside as back numbers, that is a
sorry day for the future. With all that is needed of the
new generation, do not let us think they can produce all
the past in their own lifetime. God will throw them back
upon what has gone before. Do not count the past servants
of God as back numbers. They are very much up to date.
Simeon was very much up to date when he brought all the
wealth, fulness, richness of the past in his hands, and,
so to speak, transferred it to the new, to the Babe, Who
took it all up, and Who later confessed that He did take
it all up. "Think not that I came to destroy the
law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to
fulfill" (Matt. 5:17). There are always, sooner
or later, reactions from cheapness and superficiality,
and that usually under duress and compulsion and a sense
of being unable to go on without something fuller.
Infancy in the arms of
age. Yes, and infancy depends upon those arms. I think I
am not going too far in saying that here, in the holding
of the infant Christ in these arms, there is this
signification, that for the fulfilment of His life and
ministry the Christ depended very much upon the past,
upon all that God had done before. The only Bible He had
was the Old Testament. How He lived on it! When He said,
"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every
word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,"
He was talking about the only Bible He had, the Word of
God, the Old Testament. You see how the Old Testament is
used in the New. It is but another aspect of this. One of
the richest studies and most profitable lines of inquiry
is to mark where the Old Testament is found in the New
and why it is found there, the use made of it. Yes, it is
a tremendous fact: that which is new depends upon that
which has gone before.
THE
ABIDING VALUE OF EVERY WORKING OF GOD
We come to a close for
the present by noting this. We must live and we must work
with our eye upon the after value of our lives. Thank God
that can be. Life would be an enigma and intolerable if
all that we have learned through suffering and discipline
passed out with us and there was nothing more for it. No,
it is not like that at all. There is an after value, and
we ought to live, I say, and work, with our eye upon that
heritage which we are to give beyond our own time. On the
principle that God vindicates everything that He Himself
has done and given, and makes it necessary, then He is
making necessary for His new dispensation what He is
doing in you and in me now. That new dispensation is
going to be constituted on the basis of what He is doing
in his saints now. That is a New Testament principle.
What He is doing in the Church now is to be the good of
the coming ages. What He is doing in us, it is not
presumption to say, is going to be the very life of some
beyond our time. So we should not think of this life as
something to be got through, to be lived through to
ourselves, something in itself. It is something that is
to be found again to the glory of God in that which is to
be - the passing on of that which has been of God, which
can never die but is conserved by Him for ever, and will
be necessary. I wonder if that is a new thought to you?
What the Lord is doing in you by way of increasing the
measure of Christ in you is going to be necessary long
after you have gone. It is a principle, a law, that
anything that God does is for ever and will be necessary.
We will leave it there
for the time being and ask the Lord to exercise us quite
strongly about this matter of the intrinsic value of the
knowledge of Himself for the time that is to be, through
this transition upon which we have now so seriously
entered.
An extract from "The Work of God at the End-Time", Chapter 1, published by Witness and Testimony Publishers in 1951.