An Appeal
To The People Of God
Ezra 8.
The ground upon which we
stand is very much more positive at this present time
than even the Old Testament saints enjoyed, for we look
back to Calvarys triumphant accomplishment. Yet the
Old Testament position and condition is also a true
picture of our own time and condition spiritually; I am
thinking in terms of books of the Bible and not of
verses.
We want to see what the
Books of Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther have to say
to us. I feel convinced that we are living in a time very
truly represented by these books, and in that sense we
are living in Bible times, so that these books are very
up-to-date, and have their abiding meaning for our time.
I cannot think the Lord
would merely have given us a set of books of history
about things which happened hundreds of years ago with no
real value for us. His Word says, "Whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our
learning" (Rom. 15:4), so we see God meant them to
say something to us.
The
First Factor: Spiritual Captivity.
Let us see what these
books represent, and how they touch our time. There are
common factors about them. Firstly, their one general
historic background - the people of God in captivity in
Chaldea resulting from a spiritual breakdown.
Without going into what
Babylon and Chaldea may mean, we take it as a settled
fact that, when God's testimony breaks down in His
people, a state of spiritual captivity ensues, and they
are spiritually outside of the place where the testimony
of God has its place.
They were in an
earth-order of things in regard to worship, outwardly
ordered by men, but at the back of it all was the hand of
Satan as the god of this age - Babylon represents a great
deal more on the positive side as to the dominion of a
man-constituted religious order, or an earthly order of
things, in the realm of worship governed by the god of
this age through man - but in the midst of those
conditions were those who still stood for the Lord and
represented something that was not compromising with
those conditions; they were dissatisfied and inwardly
revolting against them.
Heart
Burden.
These four books
represent that something; and in every case you find the
state of the vessel mentioned as being under a very great
burden concerning the Lord's testimony, His interests,
His Name, and His people for that Name. That is the
second common factor.
I am going to stay here
awhile, for it is here that ministry begins.
On the whole today, the
Lord's full thought and conception is not the general
thing found among His people. The testimony of the Lord
has largely broken down, and the great multitude called
by His Name are governed and manipulated and controlled
by something that is religiously of the earth and not of
the heavens, of man and not of the Holy Spirit; and there
needs to be seen the impossibility of accepting that
state of things.
It is one thing to
recognize that and quite another thing to be in relation
with the Lord's movement to recover for Himself that
which is according to His mind. One can be occupied all
the time with the bad state of things, bemoan it, make
people feel miserable, and yet never get anywhere. That
is not sufficient; I expect there were plenty in Chaldea
who bemoaned things and spoke of "the good old
days"! It is quite easy to do that, and in a sense
be religious malcontents; but that is not being active in
the Lord's recovery movement. The Lord would act in
relation to this thing, and He is acting. Ezra opens with
the sovereign activity of God (chapter 1:1). God acts not
only from the outside, not only sovereignly, but there is
something that precedes it, that makes possible His
activity, that brings in the sovereignty of God.
All these who represent
His vessel for dealing with the situation were men who
had a great burden about the situation, and they are no
use to God in a situation like that unless in the burden
of it.
We see Ezra latterly
spreading himself out before God in such a way that the
people gathered round to see him, and when they saw his
desperate concern over the state of things, they were so
tremendously moved that no sooner had he finished praying
than they came to him and sought to have things put
right. So we see Ezra away in Jerusalem with a great
burden for the Lord's testimony.
Nehemiah, away in
Babylon, is seen to have a similar burden. For, having
asked Hanani and his friends as to their welfare in
Jerusalem, and hearing from them a report that was not
good, this so burdened him that his countenance became
changed, and he, knowing his life was at stake, went
before the king with a sad face - for it was criminal to
go before the king with a sad countenance - yet he could
not help himself for sorrow of heart over the Lord's
interests and testimony, concerning the people called by
His Name.
Esther, another chosen
vessel unto the Lord, is likewise seen taking her life in
her hands for the life of her people - these people,
these whose life represents God's interests and testimony
in the earth. This is the way God would have us take on
His concern for His interests in the earth.
Daniel is also a man
with a burden, praying three times a day, and then for
three whole weeks; and what prayer it is, moving heaven
and earth! He is a man with a burden; and that is where
real ministry begins. God must have a vessel, an
instrument brought into such sympathetic fellowship with
HIM, that the conditions around of breakdown and failure
become acute suffering, an agony.
Paul knew something of
that "suffering for His Body's sake";
"filling up that which was lacking of the sufferings
of Christ." We must face that! The thing that is
going to count for God is the sharing in His travail.
There is all the romance
of Christian work but that is mere glamour; all the
enthusiasm and interest of organized Christian activity;
but it is not what we are before men in this matter that
counts, but what we are before God in the secret place,
having heart concern for the Lord's testimony. Have you a
burden, a passion? Is the breakdown in the Lord's
testimony in the earth among those upon whom His Name is
called a heartbreak to you? We shall never get anywhere
till, in measure, His travail is entered into by us.
Ministry, in its real, abiding, eternal value, will
depend upon the measure in which the travail is entered
into by us. This is a day for travail: whether it be a
travail for unsaved or for the Lord's people; every true
spiritual activity is born out of travail, and those who
have been most used of God in every time have been men
and women who had this travail in their soul, in their
secret life with God. Have you got it? Perhaps you say
no. Then ask the Lord to bring you into His concern,
stretch yourself out before God to be brought into His
burden for the time in which you live.
And so all this
represents those who carry on their hearts a burden which
leads them to a point where their interests have
become quite secondary, and they take their life in their
hands, and hold everything in relation to the Lord's own
interest and His testimony, willing to let all go for
God. This becomes a heart burden to be carried all
the time, not merely a ministry burden. Oh! that the Lord
would put this burden within us, so that wherever we are
we cannot be slack. This is necessary to any real
ministry. Not that we are ever to give the impression of
being unhappy. There was a confidence and faith which
created in these servants of God the strange, the very
true paradox - "Sorrowful, yet always
rejoicing" (II Cor. 6:10).
Beloved, that will be
one of the emancipating factors in any life. The way of
deliverance from oneself and from introspection is to get
a share in the Lord's burden. If one might speak of one's
own experience - but for the situation as it is, and the
crying need and the desperate concern that the need
should be met, one could any day be bound up in personal
problems. Deliverance from oneself comes along the line
of being concerned for the Lord's interests. You can become
tied up with your own spiritual problems, and the way out
is to have the burden of all God's people on your heart.
That creates ministry, that means strength, that means
praying. It is an emancipating thing to have the Lord's
burden. Have you got it, or are you dabbling with things,
toying with pebbles on the beach, instead of being out in
the deep with God in His big thing? Are you just
interested, or desperately concerned; just having a nice
pleasant time, or really carrying God's need in His
people on your heart? Are you there at all?
The
Lord's Great Need - An Instrument.
The Lord must have an
instrument, a Daniel instrument, whether personal or
collective, that moves out towards God for His testimony.
He must have a Nehemiah with a heartache over the people
because of the breakdown of the testimony. He must have
an Ezra who is not for a moment compromising with
anything contrary to the mind of God. He must have the
Esther instrument who flings fear to the winds, and goes,
taking life in hand, to besiege the throne for the life
of her people, for the deliverance of the people of God
from the threat of the enemy. Oh! What those prayers
wrought! And, beloved, the burden of the Lord must come
on our heart in like manner if we are to be effective
instruments for the Lord in His End-time activities; we
must be exercised in a very deep way with the interests
of God. We must hold back nothing that will count for the
Lord and His interests. You would be surprised how the
Lord would come through if you gave Him a chance.
The whole thing begins
with a recognition of the need, and the burden of these
things upon our hearts. When we are really in it by the
urge of the Holy Spirit, the common features found in
these Old Testament instruments will be found inwrought
in us; and we shall be found an abandoned people unto
this ONE THING - the Lord's burden and heart concern for
His testimony in His people.
Second
Factor: The Opposition Of The Enemy.
Then when you come into
the burden you find you are in a realm of opposition, and
that you are really in a battle. That is another common
feature in these books; every one of them represents a
situation of terrific opposition and antagonism, all
combining to stop the work. Ezra - "Now our
enemies." And you are not far in Esther before you
find you are in a realm of conflict. And what about
Daniel? The den of lions was for praying!
Now this is a stile to
be cleared at once. If we are going to stand with God,
for that which wholly represents His mind, we have to
meet the most fierce antagonism, conflict, and pressure,
from every quarter; there is going to be no method
overlooked by the enemy for frustrating the end in view.
Why so much antagonism? Why so much pressure? Each time
when something is in view which is to count for God in
relation to His End-time purpose, there it is, you meet
it all the time.
Where does the Devil get
his information from? He finds out when we have a message
from God that is going to count, and we meet this
pressure from within and without when we are in the thing
that is counting for God. When it comes you must
recognize that it is related to something which is to
count for God. It will come through people, and if we
blame the people and focus our attention on them, we have
missed the point; if we begin to fight people whilst all
the time it is something deeper. "Our wrestling is
not against flesh and blood, but against the
principalities, against the powers, against the
world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies" (Eph. 6:12;
A.R.V.).
People get cross with
one another, and that gets on top of us, and we begin to
direct our attention to them, and we get out with them
and there is a distressing situation, and we see
afterwards how foolish we are to allow the Devil to swing
us off into a human track when it is a spiritual issue.
It has not really been the fault of persons, or just
inconsequential happenings; there has been a spiritual
issue at stake, and all these other things were brought
about and used by the enemy to occupy us with the lesser,
and so blind us to the real issue, thus keeping us out of
prayer, and preventing our standing with the Lord for His
rights which were at some point or other being
challenged.
It is the realm of
unceasing conflict, and it would seem that we have come
into that part of the age when the enemy takes no rest,
and we find we can take no off-times. Anything you do
must be done deliberately with God, and you must never
act out of, or apart from, God; that exposed movement
has been watched for by the enemy, and you have to pay
for it.
The
Fourfold Ministry.
Recognize the fourfold
aspect of the ministry of these instruments used of God.
Daniel is the first to start this movement towards
recovery in Babylon, and it is interesting and
significant that it was started in prayer. Daniel took up
the testimony of God in Babylon in prayer. God reacted
through an instrument of prayer. Daniel's outlook is
towards Jerusalem; he is praying that God would recover
that which He has lost. His concern is for the place of
the Name, and he gets through in prayer.
"From the first day
that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to
humble thyself before thy God, thy words were heard: and
I am come for thy words' sake. But the prince of the
kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days"
(Daniel 10:12-13). Through Daniel's praying hell's forces
had been stirred to their depths, even to the
withstanding of one of the highest archangels of Heaven -
"Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help
me."
Do you notice Esther
comes next, and it is as if the Devil said: "Daniel
has prayed to get a people out and back to Jerusalem; I
am going to make it impossible for them to get
back," and so we see him, through wicked Haman,
seeking to wipe out all the Jews, determined to have no
remnant to go back.
Today the enemy is out
to prevent a remnant getting out to God, by bringing
death, pressure from all quarters, in such force as to
almost paralyze them. God sovereignly over-rules, and the
devices of Haman are brought to nought.
Then Ezra takes up the
testimony, and his concern is for the House of God at
Jerusalem, and Ezra, with the remnant, goes back and
builds the House and sets up the Altar.
Nehemiah comes in
finally - his concern is for the walls and gates of
Jerusalem. He has respect for the marking off in a clear
definition of what is all of God and what is not of God.
He is zealous for the safeguarding of the testimony of
God; see his jealous watch over the Sabbath Day: "I
contended... and said... ye do... profane the sabbath
day... I testified against them if ye do so again, I will
lay hands on you" (Neh. 13:15-21). The Sabbath is
that great testimony to the completeness of God's works.
The walls speak of the mark where what is not of God
ends; there is a distinct bounding, and beyond this,
things are not of God, they have no place here, we shut
them out. The walls represent no mixture, no
over-lapping, and a clear definition. That is the message
of Nehemiah.
God's
Roll Of Honour.
Now we will turn to Ezra
8, and see what its value is to us.
We find a number of
names are mentioned: the names of "them that went up
with me from Babylon." Here you have a record of
those who did absolutely separate themselves to go
through with God; we have Holy Writ here, and it is as if
the Holy Spirit is taking the pen and putting down the
names of men who took responsibility in the testimony of
God, and HE is setting down every name of the wholly
devoted company who went right through with God; for the
Holy Spirit would have made comment, if anyone had
stopped on the way. No, these left the comparative ease
and comforts of Babylon for a long and difficult journey,
fraught with many dangers, and came back to a ruined
city.
There is hard work, a
certain amount of suffering, opposition, and so on, but
they are willing to pay the cost and go through; and
these are the ones whose names are severally recorded
with such care, and their names will stand as long as the
Bible stands; they are "Called, chosen, and
faithful" wholly for God, whatever the cost.
It is fine that God
should put down every name of those men who are going
through. Are we going through with God? Or are we
counting the cost and drawing out?
And then I notice that
the next thing in the chapter is Ezra's statement:
"I found none of the sons of Levi there" (Ezra
8:15).
Why was this? The
Levites were those who had an inheritance only in God;
they had no inheritance in the land (Joshua 14:4-5). To
go to a land of desolation in which, in any case, they
had no inheritance, does not look very promising, and
they were getting more in Babylon than they could get
there, and so the Levites could not see how they were
going to get their bread and butter, and they knew they
had no right to enter into the land-realm of things; and
because they had no inheritance in the land, but had to
trust the Lord, they stayed in Babylon. Those who had to
come out and have their portion only in God, without
seeing where "on earth" it is coming from, were
miserably few; no Levites came out!
And is it not the same
in the ministry of the Word, when you come out of a
system where you are sure of your supply? It is a test of
faith to have a secured position in the world of
religion, and to come out and have your portion only in
God, nothing in the world; and we find not many can stand
up to that. So we find no Levite in that record of names.
Giving
God A Chance.
The next thing is, Ezra
proclaimed a fast (verses 21-23). What does this
represent, spiritually? Just this - the Lord seeing
you through! That is all. Oh, yes, but it is a test of
faith again, for it is a journey of faith. Can the
Lord see us through, had we better not ask the king? In
other words, make an appeal for help to men, to the
world; make sure of a safe conduct through - that is what
it means; but we have taken our stand that we can
go through without the resources of the world; we can
count on GOD, HE will see us through; that is the
testimony, beloved - GOD SEEING US THROUGH - that is our
safe conduct, successful and triumphant conduct. Put in
Psalms 121-134 after Ezra 8:21; notice there is a going
up in them all the time, and a strong note of trust and
victory; some have thought they were sung on this
journey. They express that utter confidence in GOD -
"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the
Lord is round about His people." That is something
better than all the horsemen and horses of this world.
The Lord can see you through. Trust HIM; don't go down to
Egypt or to the king of Babylon for help; give the Lord a
chance to maintain His own testimony. And so they went on
this journey of faith and the Lord vindicated their
confidence.
Ezra 8:24-30 deals with
the deposit; the holy free-will offering to the Lord;
"Watch ye, and keep them, until ye weigh them before
the chiefs of the priests and the Levites, and the
princes of the fathers' houses... at Jerusalem." It
is blessed to regard this as the deposit which the Lord
entrusts to us at the beginning. It is that of which the
Apostle writes to Timothy - "Guard the deposit which
is committed unto thee" (I Tim. 6:20). The Lord has
committed to the vessel for His testimony those things
which represent the fulness of His salvation. You have
the brass, the silver, and the gold; we know what it
means, and all this is the deposit, these sacred things
of "the faith once for all delivered to the
saints." Those great factors of salvation -
Righteousness - Redemption - and Sanctification.
You meet brass
immediately you come within the Court of the Tabernacle -
the Brazen Altar - with all its wonderful meaning of the
wholly and fully consecrated body of the Lord Jesus to
the will of God, "By the which will we are
sanctified" - the whole Burnt Offering which avails
for our Sanctification (Heb. 10:10). Then you have the
silver of our Redemption, and the gold of that conformity
to the Divine Image. That is the deposit of the faith.
Jude urges the believers to whom he writes that they
contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to
the saints; that is the deposit entrusted to us at the
beginning, and to be handed up complete at the end of the
journey. Paul could say at the end of his life, "I
have kept the faith," and he handed it back at the
end in the House of God complete.
It represents the
ministry concerning the House of God, the whole
testimony, the full Gospel. The full faith once for all
delivered to the saints is entrusted to us; and it has to
be enshrined within the House of God, safeguarded
on the journey, and at last presented to the Lord without
mixture, the clear testimony; not an iota dropped, but
handed back complete.
The Lord give us
grace and strength to guard our trust and present it to
Him saying, 'We have lost nothing, we have kept the
faith, we have run the race - henceforth there is a crown
of Righteousness."
All this is very good as
Bible truth, but if it only goes that far, I have spoken
in vain. I know the difficulty of bringing other people
into one's own concern and travail. I believe you have a
certain amount of perception as to how things are today;
they are terrible spiritually, but there are those
reaching out for more of God, and asking where they can
find spiritual food.
The Lord would, I
believe, do something in our day, a day of small things;
and He will begin by having an instrument with a burden,
with whom there is deposited the full-orbed revelation of
the Lord Jesus; and who would step out in faith and trust
the Lord; give the Lord a chance to vindicate Himself. May
the Lord constitute us part of such an instrument and
move out to others also. Ask the Lord about this matter,
and, if it is true, to lay it on your heart and bring you
into fellowship with HIMSELF in what
He would do today.
"The hand of our
GOD was upon us, and HE delivered us from the hand of the
enemy and the-lier-in wait by the way... and the vessels
were weighed in the house of our God... the whole by
number and by weight: and all the weight was written at
that time" (Ezra 8:31-34).
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazine, May-Jun 1931, Vol 9-3