"These
all died in faith, not having received the promises, but
having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having
confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the
earth. For they that say such things make it manifest
that they are seeking after a country of their own. And
if indeed they had been mindful of that country from
which they went out, they would have had opportunity to
return. But now they desire a better country, that is, a
heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be
called their God: for he hath prepared for them a
city" (Hebrews 11:13-16).
Some time before these
messages were given, desiring to be quiet and away from
many things, I went down into the country with my heart
very much to the Lord for His word. In the early hours of
the morning it seemed as though the heavens opened and
everything became alive: it all opened up wonderfully,
and centred in one phrase - 'Pioneers of the Heavenly
Way'. That really does sum up the verses that we have
just read, and, while we are going to think and perhaps
say much about the heavenly way, it is this matter of
pioneering the heavenly way that will be our main
concern. It is necessary, to begin with, for us to
consider to some extent the heavenly way itself, but I
repeat that it is this whole tremendous business of pioneering
that way that I believe to be the main concern of the
Lord, and hence of ourselves, at this time.
THE
EARTH RELATED TO HEAVEN
The Bible begins with
the heavens: "In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth" - not 'the earth and the
heavens'; the heavens come first. The Bible closes
with the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God
out of heaven (Rev. 21:2); and, just as heaven stands at
the beginning and at the end, so everything in between,
in the Word of God, from the beginning to the end, is
from heaven and to heaven. As it is in the natural realm,
so it is in the spiritual. The heavens govern the earth
and the earthly, and the earthly has to answer to the
heavenly. It is the heavens, it is heaven, that is
ultimate: everything has to be in the light of heaven, to
answer to heaven, to come out from heaven. That is the
sum of the Word of God, the whole content of the
Scriptures.
This world, this earth,
is not unrelated and alone. However important it may be
in the Divine scheme of things - and certainly it is an
object of great heavenly concern; perhaps the greatest
things in the universe have taken place on this earth:
God has come here in flesh, has lived here, has given
Himself for this world; the great drama of eternal
counsels has to do with this earth - nevertheless it is
not apart, alone, it is related to heaven, and all its
significance is by reason of that relationship. It takes
its significance and importance from being related to
something greater than itself - to heaven.
The Bible teaches that
God is located in heaven. "God is in heaven"
(Eccles. 5:2): that is the declaration. It teaches that
there is a system, an order, in heaven, which is the true
one and which is the ultimate one. In the end, it will be
the reproduction of a heavenly order upon this earth
which will be the consummation of all the counsels of
God. Christ came down from heaven and returned to heaven.
The Christian, as a child of God, is born from heaven and
has his life centred in heaven, and the life of the child
of God will be consummated in heaven. The Church, that
masterpiece of God, is of heavenly origin, of heavenly
calling, and of heavenly destiny. In all these things,
and in many others, "the heavens do rule" (Dan.
4:26). This great factor of heaven governs everything.
CHILDREN
OF GOD RELATED TO HEAVEN
As for ourselves, if we
are children of God our whole education and history is
related to heaven. That is one of the matters we must
follow out presently in greater detail; but let it be
said, and let it at once be recognised, that our whole
history and education as children of God is related to
heaven - and by that I do not mean simply that we are
going to heaven. We are related to the kingdom of
the heavens, by birth, by sustenance and by eternal
vocation. All our education, I have said, is related to
heaven. All that you and I have to learn is as to how it
is done in heaven; as to what the Lord meant when He
said, "Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on
earth" (Matt. 6:10) - a great comprehensive fragment
covering all the education of the child of God, for that
prayer begins with "Our Father who art in
heaven". For as things are in heaven, so they must
be here; but a whole lifetime of education, deep and
drastic training, is involved in conformity to heaven.
The Bible of the
Christians in New Testament times was the Old Testament.
When we read in the New Testament, as we so often do,
about the Scriptures - "that the Scriptures might be
fulfilled", "as it is written in the
Scriptures", and so on - it was the Old Testament
that was referred to. The Old Testament was the only
Scripture, the only Bible, of the first Christians, the
Christians of the first decades. They had not got our New
Testament. For them the Old Testament was the Bible, and
it was continuously drawn upon, referred to, taken up and
used in order to exemplify the spiritual experience of
Christians. This letter to the Hebrews, from which we
quoted at the outset, is just that. From beginning to end
it is packed with the Old Testament; the Old Testament is
being unceasingly used to illustrate and set forth the
meaning of the spiritual life of the New Testament
Christian.
A
PILGRIMAGE RELATED TO HEAVEN
And what we find in the
Old Testament is a pilgrimage, all the way through: a
pilgrimage in relation to heaven. Let us step right back
to the beginning. You see, the Divine intention in
creation was that such a harmony should obtain between
heaven and earth that God could be here in this world in
pleasure, in happiness, in rest, just as much as He could
be in His heaven. He made it for His pleasure, He made it
for Himself, He made it that He might come and go in
perfect satisfaction and rest and joy. The first picture
is of God being pleased to come to the world which He had
created. He made it, it was His work, and we are told
that when He had made it He entered into His rest. His
rest was found in being here in His creation.
Ah, but since the
tragedy of the fall, heaven and earth have lost their
harmony; they are now at variance. This world is in
conflict with heaven. Everything here on this earth has
been changed. So far as the world is concerned, God has
no pleasure in being in it or coming to it. His
presence here is in testimony, not in fullness - in
testimony that this is His rightful place, in
testimony to the fact that "the earth is the Lord's,
and the fullness thereof" (Ps. 24:1), in testimony
that He made it for His own pleasure. But God is here only
in testimony, in token. He must have that testimony,
but He is not now here in fullness. In a very real sense
and in a very large degree, God is outside of this world,
and there is conflict between heaven and the world; and
even while there is testimony here, that very testimony
is here and not here. It is outside. The very vessel of
the testimony of God's presence is something that does
not belong here. Here it has no dwelling; here it has no
city. It is 'in', but not 'of'. It is a stranger in this
world. So it has been since the fall.
Now the whole history of
Divinely apprehended instruments for that testimony,
whether they be individual or whether they be corporate,
is the history of spiritual pioneering in relation to
heaven. Have you grasped that? Let me repeat it. The
whole history of vessels Divinely chosen and apprehended
for the testimony of God, whether they be individual or
corporate, is the history of pioneers breaking a way,
cleaving a way through, doing something which was new so
far as this world was concerned, breaking fresh ground,
making fresh discoveries in relation to heaven; pioneers
of a heavenly realm. How much history is gathered into a
statement like that!
FOR
PILGRIMS THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY IS IN HEAVEN
Let us look at one or
two of the features of this pioneering vocation. First of
all, those who are called from heaven, apprehended by
heaven, to serve the heavenly purpose, find that their
centre of gravity has been inwardly and spiritually
changed and transferred from this world to heaven. Inside
there is a deep-seated sense that we do not belong here,
that this world is not our resting-place, that this is
not our home and this is not our centre of gravity; we
are not drawn to it inwardly. Within the spirit of the
pioneer there is this sense of conflict with what is
here, of being at variance with it and unable to accept
it. I repeat: inwardly and spiritually, the centre of
gravity has been transferred from this world to heaven.
It is an inborn consciousness, and it is the first thing
in this heavenly calling, the first effect, the first
result of our calling from on high. We are going to come
back to that again later on.
And we can test by this.
Of course, it is true of the simplest child of God. The
first consciousness of one born, truly born, from above,
is that the centre of gravity has changed. Somehow or
other, inwardly, we have moved from one world to another.
Somehow or other, that to which we have hitherto been
related by nature no longer holds us: it is no longer our
world. Put it how we will, that is the consciousness, and
unless it is so there is something very doubtful about
any profession of faith in the Lord Jesus. And this
inborn sense of a new centre of gravity has to grow and
grow and grow and make it more and more impossible for us
to accept this world in any way. Again I say, it is a
test of our spiritual progress, of our pilgrimage and our
advance in it. But that is elementary after all.
THE
HEAVENLY REALM UNKNOWN TO US BY NATURE
Again, that other realm,
the consciousness of which has come into our hearts, the
gravitation toward which has commenced in our spirits, is
an entirely unknown world to us by nature. To nature it
is another realm altogether - different, unfamiliar,
unexplored. It does not matter how many have gone on
before us, it does not matter how many there are who have
started on this way and gone a long way in it: for every
individual it is an altogether new world and it can only
be known by experience. We may derive values from the
experience of others, and thank God for all those values,
but with all their experiences they cannot get us one
step further on that way. For us it is new, utterly new,
and strange. We have to learn everything about it from
the beginning.
That makes pioneering -
what pioneering always is - a lonely way. No one can hand
down to us a heritage. We have to obtain our own in that
world, strange and unknown as it is; demanding basically
a new constitution according to that world, with
capacities that are not possessed by nature. No man by
searching can find out God (Job 11:7); we have not the
capacity. It must be born in us from heaven. We have got
to make the discovery for ourselves of everything. We
have to discover God for ourselves, in every detail of
His willing relationship to the human heart.
Light may come through
testimony, light may come through the Scriptures, help
may come through counsel, inspiration may come to us from
those who have ploughed through and gone ahead, but in
the last analysis we have got to possess our own
spiritual plot in the heavenly country, subdue it,
cultivate it and exploit it. You know that is true; that
you are going that way in the spiritual life. You are
having to find out for yourself. Oh, how we long for
somebody to be able to pick us up and put us through on
the good of their experience! The Lord never allows that.
If really and truly we are on the heavenly road - if we
have not just started and sat down or given up: if we are
moving on the heavenly road, we are all pioneers. There
will be values in it which others will come into because
we have pioneered, but there is a sense in which every
one, no matter how far behind, has got to make
discoveries for himself, and it is best so. Ultimately,
there is nothing second-hand in the spiritual life.
PIONEERING
FRAUGHT WITH COST AND CONFLICT
So we come to the third
feature of this pioneering. All pioneering is fraught
with great cost and suffering, and, this being a
spiritual course or way, the cost of this pioneering is
mainly inward.
Perplexity; yes,
perplexity. I have been reading a translation of a
message by our brother Watchman Nee. In it he says,
in effect, 'There was a time when I had such a high idea
of the Christian life that I thought for a Christian to
be perplexed was all wrong; a Christian to be cast down -
that is all wrong; a Christian to despair - that must be
all wrong; what kind of Christian is that? And when I
read Paul saying he was perplexed and in distress and in
despair it constituted a real problem for me, in the
light of what I had taught myself a Christian ought to
be; but I had to see there was nothing wrong with it,
after all.' Yes: a Christian, and such a Christian as the
Apostle Paul, perplexed, and cast down, and in despair.
That is the way of pioneers.
Perplexed. What
does perplexity imply? It implies a need for capacity or
comprehension in some realm in which at present
there is none. There is a realm that is beyond you. It
does not mean that you will always be perplexed in the
same measure over the same thing. You will grow out of
your perplexity on this matter, and you will understand;
but there will be to the end perplexity, in some measure,
simply because heaven is bigger than this world, vaster
than this natural life, and we have to grow and grow.
Perplexity is the lot of pioneers.
Weakness. Brother
Nee asks, 'A Christian in weakness and confessing
to being weak? What kind of a Christian is that?'
Paul speaks much about weakness, and about his own weakness
- meaning, of course, that there is another kind of strength
which is not our own, which has to be discovered;
something that we do not know naturally. It is the way of
pioneers: to come to a wisdom which is beyond us and
which for the time being means perplexity; to a strength
which is beyond us and which for the time being means
weakness in ourselves. We are learning, that is all. It
is the way of the pioneer, but it is costly. The cost is
inward, like that, in so many ways.
But while it is inward,
it is also outward. This letter to the Hebrews is just
full of these two aspects of the pilgrimage. "These
all... confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on
the earth" (Heb. 11:13). It was a spiritual
journey, a transition from the earthly to the heavenly,
that the Apostle was writing about. There was an inward
aspect. But there was the outward aspect for them, and it
is the same for us. The whole trend of nature, if left to
itself, is downward. Leave things to themselves, and down
they go, in all nature. Is that not true? A beautiful
garden will become a wild desolation, a riot and a chaos,
in no time, if you take the upward-ordering hand from it.
And that is true of us in a spiritual way - gravitation
earthward, always wanting to settle down, always wanting
to end the conflict and the fight, always wanting to get
out of the atmosphere of stress in the spiritual life.
The whole history of the Church is one long story of this
tendency to settle down on this earth and to become
conformed to this world, to find acceptance and
popularity here and to eliminate the element of conflict
and of pilgrimage. That is the trend and the tendency of
everything. Therefore outwardly, as well as inwardly, the
pioneering is a costly thing.
You are up against the
trend of things religiously. See again this letter to the
Hebrews. The trend was backward and downward to the
earth, to make of Christianity an earthly religious
system, with all its externalities, its forms, its rites,
its ritual, its vestments; something here to be seen and
to answer to the senses. It was a great pull on these
Christians; it made a great appeal to their souls, to
their natures, and the letter is written to say, 'Let us
leave these things and go on'. We are pilgrims, we are
strangers, it is the heavenly that matters -
you recall that great paragraph about our coming to the
heavenly Jerusalem (chapter 12:18-24).
But it is a costly and a
suffering thing to come up against the religious system
that has 'settled down' here. It is, I sometimes feel,
far more costly than coming up against the naked world
itself. The religious system can be more ruthless and
cruel and bitter; it can be actuated by all those mean
things, contemptible things, prejudices and suspicions,
that you will not even find in decent people in the
world. It is costly to go on to the heavenlies, it is
painful; but it is the way of the pioneer, and it has to
be settled that that is how it is. The phrase in this
letter is, "Let us therefore go forth unto him
without the camp" (Heb. 13:13) - and I leave you to
decide what is the camp referred to there; it is not the
world. "Unto him without the camp" means
ostracism, suspicion.
"These all died
in faith, not having received the promises,
but having seen them and greeted them from afar" -
is that not the vision of the pioneer - always seeing and
greeting from afar; hailing the day, though it might be
beyond this life's little day; greeting the day of
realisation? - "and having confessed that they
were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they
that say such things make it manifest that they are
seeking after a country of their own. And if indeed they
had been mindful of that country from which they went
out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now
they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly:
wherefore God is not ashamed of them" - God is
not ashamed of the people who are on the pilgrimage with
Himself to His end; He calls them His own and He is "called
their God" - and "he hath prepared for
them a city" (Hebrews 11:13-16).
That is a marvellous
summary, when you come to think about it. "These
all" - what a comprehensive "all"! And
covering them all, it says of them that they had seen
something - and having seen they could never rest, to
their last day and their last breath on this earth. They
were still pilgrims, they could never rest, this was in
them the call of the unseen. It is something that must
come into us from heaven in order to get us to heaven.
Have you got it?
Well, as we shall see,
that is the key to everything, it explains everything. It
is the guarantee - oh, blessed be God for this, would
that more of the Lord's people knew it in greater power!
- it is the guarantee that all that is in us of longing
and of craving and of quest, born of the Spirit of God,
is going to be realised.
Are you hungry? Are you
longing? Are you dissatisfied? That is itself a prophecy
of more to come. Are you contented? Have you settled
down? Is your vision short and narrow? Can you just go on
here? Can you accept things as they are? Very well, you
will be left to it, you will not get very far. God calls
Himself the God of those who are pilgrims. He is the God
of pilgrims, and, divesting ourselves of all the
mentality of a literal pilgrimage - if you like, of a
literal heaven, for I do not know where heaven is, but I
know that there is a heavenly order of things and that I
am being dealt with in relation thereto every day of my
life - let us leave out the literal side, and see the
spiritual, which is so real; and let us ask the Lord to
put this spirit of pilgrimage in us mightily.
You will find as you go
on that, whereas at one point in your spiritual life
everything was so wonderful and so full that you felt you
had reached the end of everything, there will come a time
when that will be as nothing, and you look back upon it
as mere infancy. Things that you were able to read then
and feed upon: you say, 'How was I able to find anything
in this at all?' Do not mistake me: there is nothing
wrong with that, that is all right for people at that
point - but you have gone on, you must have something
more. We ought to be growing out of things all the time,
going beyond. We ought to be people of the beyond. That
is probably the meaning of the word 'Hebrew'. This letter
is called the letter to the Hebrews, and it speaks about
pilgrims and strangers, and if the word 'Hebrew' means a
person from beyond, well, we are people from beyond, our
home and our gravitation is beyond. We are pilgrims here,
pilgrims of the beyond.
May the Lord make this
helpful, and on the one hand move us out of any lethargy
or false contentedness, or undue longing to reach an end
here, and, on the other, keep our eyes and our hearts
with those who have pioneered before, seeing and
greeting, and, if needs be, dying, in faith.