"And it came to
pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his
eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over
against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua
went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for
our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as prince of the
host of the Lord am I now come. And Joshua fell on his
face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him,
What saith my lord unto his servant? And the prince of
the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Put off thy shoe from
off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is
holy. And Joshua did so." (Joshua 5:13-15).
"...having the
eyes of your heart enlightened, that ye may know what is
the hope of his calling, what the riches of the glory of
his inheritance in the saints" (Ephesians 1:18).
I would make it clear at
the outset that it is not my purpose to deal with the
correspondence between the book of Joshua and the
letter to the Ephesians. We are occupied in these studies
with one particular thought, around which all this
gathers, in which it centres: that is, that God's end is
to have heavenly fullness expressed in this earth through
and by a people. The whole course of His dealings through
the ages, from the time when He established the heavens
over the earth, has been, and still is, from man's point
of view, like a spiritual pilgrimage, a moving
spiritually heavenward: and that means, not to some
place, necessarily, but to some order of things according
to God's mind - that order to which the Lord Jesus
referred when, speaking of the will of God, He said,
"as in heaven" (Matt. 6:10); to have everything
as it is in heaven. Toward this there is a heavenly way,
a heavenly course, a heavenly journey, and we are seeking
to see, amongst other things, the nature of that heavenly
way. And then we have seen that, since so many do not
know more than the very beginning of that way in
conversion, the Lord raises up instrumentalities in whom
He does His very deep work in relation to heaven to
pioneer the way for others.
Now we pursue this a
little further. With the two passages which we have just
read, we arrive at a particular point in this matter of
coming to heavenly fullness. The second half of the book
of Joshua, of course, is occupied with the people coming
into the inheritance, the inheritance being divided and
apportioned and possessed. Strangely, in the letter to
the Ephesians - which corresponds to this - it is put
round the other way. It is spoken of as God's inheritance
in His people, "the riches of the glory of his
inheritance in the saints" (1:18); and I would like
to drop a word on that before we pass on, because it is
not different, it is not something else. It is the same
thing viewed from the other side.
The Lord comes into His
inheritance when, and only when, His people really become
a heavenly people. For the Lord to have His inheritance,
they must be where they are seen to be in the letter to
the Ephesians. When they really take position and
possession and truly become a heavenly people, then the
Lord has got His inheritance. To see "the riches of
the glory of his inheritance in the saints" means,
from the other side, that we come to the place where He
can see it in us. He cannot see His inheritance in the
saints until He sees them in the place where He would
have them, until He sees them really the people that
answer to His mind as a heavenly people. I am saying this
in order to clear up any possible mental difficulty over
talking about the people possessing the inheritance, and
this word about the Lord possessing His inheritance.
Now, our point is not
just the truth of there being an inheritance in Christ,
either for us or for the Lord; not just the truth, set
forth in the Word, that, when we are in union with Christ
through death, burial and resurrection, and on the other
side, we come into the realm of Divine fullness. The
point that we are underlining is the point of actually
becoming a heavenly people, actually taking possession -
not doctrinally, not theoretically, not Biblically, but actually.
I am quite sure that you behold the truth, you
contemplate it, you recognise that it is a wonderful
presentation; I am quite sure that you, in your hearts,
embrace the idea; but the trouble is that all this is
known so well - it has been taught to so many, but they
are not there. They have not actually come to that
position where they are this - and what is the
use or good of all our doctrine, teaching,
interpretation, contemplation and all the rest, if we are
not there? So we have to look at the way to, shall I say,
get there, so that it shall become an
actuality.
THE
LORDSHIP OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
And the very first thing
after that preparatory work of which we were speaking a
few pages earlier: the Jordan, the leaving something in
the bed of Jordan, our old man crucified and left there;
after leaving him there and letting him be covered over
and going away from him: after that and after Gilgal -
that is, the negative side, the putting off - now comes
the positive side, the putting on, the real, the actual
taking possession or entering; the becoming the thing
that has always been in view. For this has always been in
view, or it has been ever since coming out of Egypt. It
was mentioned in the song of Moses. Yes, it was
pre-visioned in that great prophetic song on the
deliverance side of the Red Sea. It has always been there
as a notion, but it has been remote, somewhere out there,
more or less vivid, as the days have gone on: sometimes
strong and clear and positive and gripping; at other
times fading, weak and far off, an abstract.
But now the whole thing
has come right up as a positive present issue,
preparation having been made. We come to this passage
which we have just read in Joshua 5:13-15. Joshua,
standing over against Jericho, "lifted up his eyes
and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against
him with his sword drawn in his hand". The warrior
spirit in Joshua evidently rose, and he went to challenge
him: "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?"
- probably meaning that if he got Yes to the latter part
of his interrogation it was going to be the worse for the
man - for at this point he only saw a man. The answer
revealed that He was more than a man. Joshua capitulated,
dropped his attitude of challenge, bowed, worshipped,
confessed himself the servant of this One, and asked for
instructions.
Who is this One? As I
said in a previous chapter, it is my own conviction that
this One, in this particular part of the Bible,
represents the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. That, I
think, could be borne out by quite a lot of evidence,
but, without arguing it from the Scriptures, let us see
how it works out - if it is that - in effect.
There are a number of
changes which have taken place at this point. Up to this
point, the course, the way, the government of the people,
had been by the pillar of cloud and fire. Everybody will
accept that that is the Holy Spirit. That is objective,
that is in evidence to the senses, that is characteristic
of the wilderness. When you get over into the heavenlies,
it is all the Spirit; but, although at this point He was
seen, He was never seen again. He disappears from sensual
perception, but He is there all through what happens,
very much there, the unseen Prince of the host of the
Lord. That is one change. There are many other changes.
No longer the manna - now the old corn of the land; the
bread of life, the heavenly food, in another sense; that
which belongs to another realm: Christ in resurrection,
not Christ in humiliation, the broken bread. This is
Christ in resurrection, the food of a heavenly people.
The one belonged to the wilderness; this belongs to the
land. And so we might go on with the differences. You
see, here, in this realm, everything is essentially
heavenly, in a new sense; in other words, it is
essentially spiritual; not sentient, not temporal, but
essentially spiritual.
Now Paul says that the
Holy Spirit is "an earnest of our inheritance"
(Ephesians 1:14): so that the Holy Spirit coming here at
this point is the guarantee that this purpose of God is
going to be realised. He, although from this point
unseen, is the absolute security of all the rest. We said
in our last study that the presence of the Holy Spirit in
anointing for Divine purpose positively guarantees the
realisation of that purpose, not only making it possible,
but being the ground of the actuality. How does it become
an actuality, as more than a doctrine, a truth, a precept
- a present actuality?
God has given us the
Spirit as an earnest: the guarantee, the security. The
positive side begins with this first - the Holy Spirit
presented as Lord. You notice that the American Revised
Version (as English A.V.M. and R.V.M.) here says
"as prince", and perhaps it is more true to the
original than 'captain'. "As Prince of the host of
the Lord": He is presented in Lordship. The positive
side of things begins there - with the absolute Lordship
of the Holy Spirit amongst the people of God. He is
presented and recognised, and something is done in
relation to it. It is not an objective truth, but
something that is done positively in relation to it.
Joshua went down in absolute surrender and capitulation.
The Cross has led to
that. The Cross always does lead to the Lordship of the
Holy Spirit. So it is from the Jordan to His Lordship.
The Cross demands that. If He is not in His place as
Lord, and if there is no capitulation, you had better get
back to the Cross - go back and have another look through
the waters at those stones which are supposed to
represent you. Something has gone wrong, you are not true
to the fact of the Cross, if He is not Lord.
But here, in spiritual
interpretation, it is taken for granted that the Cross
really is an established fact. While there are the faults
and the weaknesses of the human life - they come out in
Joshua - while there are faults and weaknesses and flaws
still there in our humanity, nevertheless, so far as our
hearts and our wills and our minds are concerned, the
Cross has broken us and made a way for the Holy Spirit.
That is what the Cross means: the way of the Lordship of
the Spirit is open, and through the Lordship of the
Spirit the way to heavenly fullness is open.
What a profound
difference there is between man-made 'conquests' (?) -
shall I say, man-made revivals - and the work of the Holy
Spirit! What a difference! This book of Joshua is the
book of mighty differences. The difference here is such
that it just leads man right out of it. He cannot reckon
with this thing, he has no place in it, it is simply
beyond his powers of calculation. The Lord has
precipitated His people into a realm where it is
altogether different from man's way of doing things. When
the Holy Spirit is Lord you have not got to organize
something to get it going. You have not got to plan and
devise and scheme, in order to get something going, to
make a work of God, to make a revival. It just goes. It
is the going of heaven. And it requires you in that
position - it requires this absolute government of the
Holy Spirit. In every man-made activity there is
always the 'earth touch' - means or methods or people, or
all that paraphernalia, to guarantee its success - and
the thing goes with a lot of noise and a lot of creaking,
and it has to have a tremendous amount of human support,
and at any moment it may fade out, if you do not prop it
up with something more; it will collapse if you do not.
Never is it like that in
a work of the Spirit. But that earth touch - that is the
point. The earth touch always means death, always means
arrest. The absolute Lordship of the Holy Spirit demands
that the earth touch be finished with - and that is what
is meant by Joshua being commanded to take the shoes from
off his feet. "What saith my lord unto his
servant?" 'Go and conquer the land, go and take
possession, go and lead the people in'? Not at all. 'Take
your shoes off.' You get your shoes off, Joshua, and all
the rest will follow. You destroy the earth touch, and
see what will happen. You will only have to walk round
Jericho. That is not how men would do it. Think of the
tremendous campaign that would have been organized to
capture Jericho if left to men! No, get your shoes off
and see what happens.
If you question that
interpretation, you have only to see what happened where
he put his shoes on, or where Israel put their shoes on,
a little later. What happened at Ai? What happened with
the Gibeonites? They had got their shoes on, they touched
earth: the result - arrest, compromise, limitation. Get
your shoes off and keep them off. The principle of the
heavenly is the principle of the Holy Ghost's moving on,
is the principle of spiritual fullness. 'Put off thy shoe
from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is
heavenly ground.' You have no standing here; the earth
has no place here, the world has no place here, men have
no place here. This is sacred and sanctified to heaven.
From this point heaven takes over. Yes, even from the
great instrument raised up to serve the Lord, heaven has
taken over. Sovereignty in choice of an instrument never
means that sovereignty gives place to human strength. It
never condones wrong in the instrument. That works out
even with Joshua and Israel, for Joshua, as we said
earlier, is representative of all the saints and all the
servants of the Lord.
THE
HOLY SPIRIT COMMITTED TO GOD'S PURPOSE
But notice this answer
that came to his enquiry - "Art thou for us, or
for our adversaries?" Which? For us? For them?
For this? For that? 'Nay; I am not for this or for that,
I am not for you or for them: I am for the Lord's
purpose'. That is the real content of the answer. 'I am
not for people, whoever they are: I am for the Lord's
purpose. I am not for this work or that work that you are
trying to do for the Lord. I am for the Lord's purpose, I
am committed to the purpose of God - the eternal
purpose.' "Nay; but..." Oh, if only we
could get the force of that in everything! We are wanting
the Holy Spirit to sponsor our movements, our work, our
ministry. We are asking the Holy Spirit if He is 'for
us'. He will never say He is. There is a sense in which
the Lord is for His people. "If God be for
us..." But there is another sense in which the Lord
says, 'I am not for you but for My purpose in you and
through you; not for you, as you, in behalf of Israel, or
Joshua the sovereignly chosen and anointed; I am not for
you, I am committed to the purpose of God'.
My point is that we must
identify the ground and object of the Holy Spirit's
committal. We must know what the Holy Spirit is committed
to. There is so much planning and arranging for the Lord,
and so much failure on the part of the Lord to come and
take it up and fulfil it. How much there is today in the
world that is being arranged, planned and programmized
for the Lord. It does not seem to go. The Lord does not
seem to be committing Himself to it. That is just the
point. We must identify the object of the Holy Spirit.
The object of the Holy Spirit is not to do something and
make something on the earth, not to set up something
upon, and linked with, this earth, which has 'shoes' on
it. To establish something here is not His object at all.
The Holy Spirit is committed to something that is
absolutely heavenly, and His whole object is to detach
everything, in a spiritual and inward way, from this
world. That must be shown more fully, perhaps, presently;
but note that it is most important to know what it is
that God will commit Himself to. He will not commit
Himself to anything that is attached to this earth. He
will only commit Himself to that which is attached to
heaven.
THE
HOLY SPIRIT WITH A DRAWN SWORD
Well, now, that being
established, the next thing follows - again an
extraordinary thing. This One, as Prince of the host of
the Lord, is standing with His sword drawn in His hand.
Oh, this is battle, is it? This is warfare, is it? And so
immediately the Holy Spirit takes charge and there is
complete capitulation to Him. The battle is on. Make no
mistake about it. Whatever you think about being baptized
with the Holy Spirit, and all that that may imply -
whatever else it is going to mean, it means immediate and
unceasing conflict. It may mean other things, but it
means that - a warfare from which there is no discharge,
an army from which there is no retiring. Here you will
never be pensioned off. You are in it to the end.
Was it not like that
with the Lord Jesus? It begins there - Jordan, the open
heaven, the Holy Spirit, the wilderness, the devil.
Immediately - "Then was Jesus led up" (Mark
says 'driven', or 'impelled') "of the Spirit into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil" (Matthew
4:1). No sooner had the heavens been cleft for the advent
of the Spirit, on that day called Pentecost, than the war
was on. The Church was precipitated into it, and has
never been out of it since. If it has, it has been to its
own spiritual loss. Somehow this Lordship of the Holy
Spirit immediately issues in that. The sword is in hand,
and it will never be sheathed until the day's task is
done.
Yes, but that is
language. The Holy Spirit is not very interested in
carnal and physical warfare. The warfare, the conflict,
will be after His own kind. It will be spiritual, it will
be after the spirit - because spiritual forces are in
possession; and therefore it is spiritual warfare that is
going to dispossess. That is one reason why it is so
actually and truly a battle. The point hardly needs
labouring. We know it. We know that there is not one
step, one foot, of spiritual attainment that is not
contested; not one movement or even gesture in the
direction of spiritual increase but that there is
conflict. It is true. It is spiritual warfare, and the
nature of it is altogether beyond our power to
comprehend. We think it will come one way - it comes
another. It never comes where we expect and in the forms
which we think we would recognise. The fact is that we
rarely recognise the devil in his assaults. They seem to
be so covered in either accident or mishap, or something
going wrong - but you have only got to judge of the
effect in relation to spiritual life, and you know there
is something more of design and intelligence in it than
mere circumstances of life. It is spiritual warfare. The
Holy Spirit has precipitated this.
Do understand that; it
explains so much. How constantly the enemy works by the
'blind spot'! I think that probably by far the greater
proportion of his success today is by blind spots amongst
the Lord's people. Prejudice is called 'caution',
suspicion is 'being watchful' - good names for bad
things. The enemy is a past master at that. Your
prejudice may be your blind spot which the devil has
created. He has found the possibility of creating that,
and it is standing right in the way of your own spiritual
and heavenly fullness. The Lord's people are caught in
that snare today, the world over. Enlargement and
increase spiritually, in a heavenly way, is being
withstood and frustrated by the prejudices and suspicions
of God's people. "An enemy hath done this."
Why is it that in the
letter to the Ephesians, with all the heavenly fullness
presented and in view, and the spiritual conflict in
relation to it shown, the Apostle prays that the 'eyes of
their hearts may be enlightened' to see? Why is that
necessary? Because of this blinding work and these blind
spots; because all can be lost by a prejudice, a bit of
closed mind, a bit of suspicion, a bit of false fear,
instead of trusting the Holy Spirit and knowing the
anointing within which will 'teach you concerning all
things' (I John 2:27) and show you what is right and what
is wrong. You feel you must fortify yourself 'in case',
and you may be fortifying yourself against the Holy
Ghost. That is what so many are doing. That is the realm
of the conflict. Spiritually it is like that. It is very
sinister and subtle.
But there is another
aspect to this spiritual conflict. Why does the Holy
Spirit bring this about? Why does the Holy Spirit precipitate
it? You would think that it would come from the enemy
quite naturally, but why does the Holy Spirit start it
up, or make Himself the occasion of it, every time? We
have seen it in the case of the Lord Jesus. Deliberately
- for it is a definite and positive and precise
statement: "Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil" - the
Holy Spirit takes the matter in hand to precipitate it,
to bring it about. He did it with the Church -
deliberately, knowing what He was doing. The effect of it
is as though the Holy Spirit said, 'Now I am going to
lead them into battle forthwith, straightway'. Why?
Well, for one thing,
because this is a spiritual matter, a spiritual
inheritance, because there are spiritual forces in
possession and they have to be ousted; but also because
we only grow spiritually by conflict. The Lord is
interested in us. It is perhaps rather difficult for us,
if a speaker stands on a platform and says, 'You are
having a bad time because the Lord is interested in you;
the devil is being allowed a lot of leash to assail you
because the Lord has His highest interests in your
well-being' - it is perhaps difficult for us to accept
such a statement. The next time the enemy comes and
begins to do his terrible work, you will be the last to
say, 'Oh, the Lord loves me today'! We do not do that.
But is it not a fact, is it not true to experience, true
to history, and therefore true to principle, that we
never make any progress spiritually, never increase at
all, never grow at all, never go on at all, except by
conflict? It is true. The only way we grow is by having
something to overcome, where our spiritual life has
somehow to get on top of something. It is a law in nature
and in grace. There is no progress without contest. Would
to God that we should be able to look at it like that
every time! We believe it may be true as a fact - but,
oh, save us from being involved in that truth!
That will not do. The
Lord is concerned with these people coming actually into
possession; not theoretically, not doctrinally, not on
the ground of a Bible reading, but actually into
possession; and when you really come under the mastery of
the Holy Spirit, then you are in the way of the
actuality, and the Lord believes in it being actual and
very practical.
Jericho is
representative: the great example of how it will always
be in principle. You have first of all to have a heavenly
position, as we have said; not an earthly position, not
man's way of doing things. This is the outworking of that
principle which we saw first of all with Abraham, where
man tried to act and made an awful mess, because he
touched earth; and again with Moses, where he took things
into his own hands, and assailed the Egyptian and the
Hebrew, and made an awful mess. Here is the outworking of
the discipline, and Joshua takes up all that spiritual
history, and at Jericho we find there are no carnal
weapons - no human reason here, nothing left to man here.
If this is not heavenly, it is nothing. Things do not
happen like this on the earth. We can walk round, not
only seven days, but all our lives, and nothing will
happen unless we are in a heavenly position, unless
heaven is coming in. Jericho is man set aside, altogether
excluded. It is heavenly.
Well, that is the basis.
And then immediately afterward you find this - that, if
the enemy cannot succeed by open resistance, he will try
more subtle tactics. He cannot succeed by open resistance
if you and I are in our heavenly position and keep it
- and keep it, for that is what
Jericho means. They not only took it on the first day but
they held it and kept it and ratified it, and seven times
on the last day they confirmed it, holding their heavenly
position; they did not give up. We do not always get
through with the first or second day. There has to be a
holding to that position in faith, and the enemy is
completely worsted when that position is really held like
that. When he is worsted along that line, he must somehow
turn it to defeat, if he possibly can, and so he will
work subtly.
Is that not the word
about the Gibeonites? They worked subtly to make an
'earth touch' somewhere. It was the same with Achan and
Ai, the Babylonish garment and the wedge of gold - an
earth touch. The Gibeonites and the covenant made with
them constituted another earth touch. We must not think
that it is always going to be just open, clear,
straightforward spiritual warfare. There is that aspect
where we must see where the earth touch is being
manoeuvred by the enemy - where there is the introduction
of something that will make a contact with that which is
cursed, and with which God cannot go on.
How is that done? You
know, of course, that Gilgal was the place from which
they moved out - Gilgal, the place of the rolling away,
the place of the flesh set aside. But they did not go
back to Gilgal after Jericho. They went straight on to
Ai: whereas it was the custom always to go back to Gilgal
after any advance or conquest - back to Gilgal and out
again from Gilgal. This time they did not go back to
Gilgal. They went on.
Let us keep near the
Cross, and never assume that because the Lord has blessed
and prospered and given success we can go on. Never for a
moment must we get away from the Cross. The Cross is not
something that lies back there, to be left. It is
something to be with us all the time. It is our safety.
This is the heavenly
way, the whole nature of the heavenly way, the way to
God's end. The Lord keep us in it.