We are not going to read
at the moment, but we shall have the book of Joshua open
before us, for reference as we go along.
THE
END OF THE WAY
It is necessary for us
at the outset, before considering the way to the end, to
bring the end of the way right into view. We commenced by
noting that God began with the heavens and then proceeded
to the earth, and at the end of the Bible it is that
which comes down out of heaven which consummates the
whole process of His activities through the ages, so that
the end is a full expression of what is heavenly, or an
expression of what is heavenly in fullness. That is the
end. We said to begin with that the heavens govern
everything. As it is in nature, so it is in the things of
the Spirit. Everything is governed by the heavens, and
the earth and all that is earthly has to reckon with and
answer to what is heavenly.
Get that as a spiritual
truth. What is true in the realm of the natural creation
is but an expression of the spiritual mind of God: and
that means that, just as this world, this earth, is so
governed and controlled by heavenly forces and heavenly
bodies that if it should get out of right adjustment or
relationship with those bodies it would disintegrate, it
would cease, it would freeze up or burn up, it would
cease to function as an organic whole: the same thing is
spiritually true. The whole Bible is taken up with this
fact, that what is here is related to what is in heaven,
and everything comes out from heaven and has to answer to
heaven and keep adjustment to heaven - everything in our
lives: because the Holy Spirit, having come down from
heaven, is the link between what is here and what is
there.
These things are not
just abstract ideas. They are the factors which lie right
behind everything we have of Divine revelation in the
Scriptures. The whole of the Bible from the first verse
to the last can be summed up in that one thing - that
heaven is challenging this earth, and this earth has got
to make an answer to heaven. There are countless details
covered by that, but it is a fact; so that the end of all
things will just be that heaven is fully realised in the
creation and, especially in a spiritual way, in the
people of God. That is the end which we bring into view
at once.
Now, in relation to that
end, we must note another governing truth. But let me
first say something in parenthesis. Some of these phrases
are very familiar, and I am always a little afraid that
familiarity with phraseology may take something of their
edge away. When we use that phrase 'a governing thing',
let us stop to get the force of it. It means that, if we
are under the government of a law, we cannot
escape that law. There are laws of nature, in our bodies,
in this world. They are there, and if you disregard those
laws it does not put them out of operation. You find that
in the long run they will break you; in the long run they
find you out. But come into line with them, and they will
mean your salvation, your life. They are 'governing',
whether you like it or not. Thus, "Whatsoever a man
soweth, that shall he also reap" (Gal. 6:7). That is
a law; you cannot escape it. There are numerous laws like
that. So when we speak of a 'governing' law or truth, it
is something established by God in His universe, and it
is best discovered and obeyed.
GOD'S
SOVEREIGN CHOICE OF VESSELS
Let us come, then, to
this further governing truth, in relation to God's end:
that God chooses vessels, individual and collective or
corporate, and brings them in a peculiar way sovereignly
into relationship with His full end, and then does that
in them which He means for a much larger company than
themselves. He sovereignly chooses vessels - whether
individuals or companies - the Bible is just full of that
- and then sets to work with those vessels to do
something in an extraordinary way, in a very much fuller
way, in order that, by means of what He is doing in such
elect vessels, He may reach out to many others beyond
them. That is a governing truth. He does something in an
elect vessel which is meant for many more than itself or
its members.
REPRESENTATIVE
VALUES
Now let us stop with
that for a moment, because our mentality always needs
helping. It might very well be that many of you, reading
these lines, would say, 'Well, I cannot see that I am an
elect vessel, in that specific way'. You are thinking of
the men to whom we have been referring as the pioneers of
this heavenly way - Abraham and Moses and so on. You say,
'I am not a Moses or an Abraham; I do not see how I come
into that category at all'.
Well, while it may be
that there are individuals among you who are chosen of
God for something of this nature beyond the ordinary rank
and file, as we say: while that may be true, there is
this other side - that you may be a part of a collective
or corporate vessel, just a part of it; and if you are -
and most probably you are; I think I would go as far as
to say, 'and you are ' - if the Lord has laid His hand
upon you and put in you this sense of destiny, of having
been called to something more than just 'being a
Christian', a strong sense of calling - if that is in
you, you may take it that you are related to a larger
purpose. If that is true, you must not just regard
yourself, as an individual, and therefore your
experiences and God's dealings with you, as though you
were the only person, as though you were something very
special.
Let me put it the other
way round. You may be going through what God is doing
with a collective vessel and you may not see, so far as
your own individual and personal life is concerned, any
meaning for what you are going through. 'Why am I going
through this?' Well, because you are a part of a larger
whole - that is the answer. So often we find that great
pressure upon us individually. When we begin to compare
notes, we find that other people spiritually related to
us are having the same experience. It is the great law of
the Body. "Whether one member suffereth, all the
members suffer with it" (I Cor. 12:26). What is it
all about?
Well, you see, it is
collective, it is corporate; and although we cannot
follow it all, to see how it is working out, God is doing
something in a related way, and we are part of that. We
are bearing the brunt of something very much bigger than
ourselves. That spiritual relatedness is involving us in
this larger purpose of God, which has to do with the
heavenlies, much bigger than this earth. It is that that
makes us one. It is not that we join something, that we
have our name on a membership roll, or that something is
done to recognise us publicly as a member of a certain
company. It is not that. You may be many miles, hundreds
or thousands of miles, apart, and yet, because you are
bound up with this heavenly thing that God is doing, you
may be feeling the repercussions thousands of miles away.
Because when you get into heaven all these earthly things
disappear; geography and distances and time all go; they
do not obtain up there.
If only we could get the
heavenly conception of the Church! Oh, how foolish our
earthly conceptions of the Church are! We must get off
this earth, and all that is here, as to what is called
the Church. You find it is just one unit in heaven. All
this does not obtain there. That is where we were when we
were speaking about the passage of Jordan in our last
chapter. In that Jordan something was left behind. The
people moved off earthly ground on to heavenly. We shall
come back to that again presently. But that is to be a
spiritual reality, a consciousness into which we enter.
While we ourselves cannot explain and understand why we
may be having such a bad time, the heavenly explanation
is that we are involved in something related to God's
fuller purpose, and we are suffering, or we are going
through this experience, in a related way; and it
is very wonderful, as from time to time we meet others
with whom we know spiritual fellowship, how we find they
have been going through exactly the same thing as we
have. The Lord has been saying something to them, and
doing something with them, which is not the ordinary or
the usual thing, but something quite extra.
INTRINSIC
VALUES
Now that is all
connected with the fact, mentioned earlier, that God
chooses individual or collective vessels, and does in
them that which is meant for a very much larger company.
Those vessels, be they individual or be they collective,
are representative of something that God is after on a
larger scale, in a larger sphere. It begins in them. I
think that is what Paul meant when he said, "in me
as chief [first one]... for an example" (I Timothy
1:16). I think he meant by that that he was
representative of what God was going to do through him.
All the Lord was going to do through him in the larger
realm, in the churches, the provinces and the nations,
was representative, was in token. God was going to
operate in the wider scale through this man - not by
giving him something to say, but by doing something in
him.
That is where we have
gone astray. God does something first. He brings
into being a living representation of His fuller thought,
by means of peculiar, unusual and extraordinary dealings
with a vessel. There is very little that is ordinary in
the life and experience of such a vessel. It is all
extraordinary, unusual. Such representative vessels,
individual or collective, are chosen that in them there
shall be established the essential, intrinsic values intended
for the larger sphere and realm; something which can be
expanded, which is capable of going far beyond itself,
capable of great enlargement and expansion.
In chemistry we speak of
the 'mother-tincture'. We mean, by that, something you
can enlarge upon and distribute. It is of the very
essence, the concentrated essence. But the effecting of
this kind of thing in any vessel, in order to produce
intrinsic values, concentrated essence, is terrific work.
There is nothing ordinary about it. Some of you may be
able to understand this from experience. God's dealings
with you are by no means ordinary dealings. Sometimes you
feel that the concentration in your experience is far too
concentrated! You wonder how you are going to get through
at all under this kind of handling from the Lord.
I am keeping very near
to the Bible. Do not think that I am talking outside the
Bible. I am talking with the background: this is what the
Word of God reveals. This is the experience of Abraham -
no ordinary experience; a concentration of God upon that
man. Think of the vast host who have derived the values
from that. Abraham more than once got to breaking point,
where he could not support it. God had to intervene to
get him through. The intrinsic value of heavenliness is
the most testing thing that anybody can ever have to do
with.
In our nature we are so
utterly earthly and earthy in every way. We must see things
- that is earth; we must feel things - that is
earth. We must have all the evidences - we must have so
much that is earthly. But God takes us off the earth,
right off the earth - I mean in a spiritual way - and
dangles us, so to speak, in mid-air. It is a most
precarious kind of existence, exceedingly trying. You do
not know where you are; you cannot explain things; you
cannot put your foot down solidly and feel that you are
sure about anything. God is upsetting all your powers of
reckoning and calculation and interpretation, and making
it utterly necessary to have another kind of wisdom and
understanding, which does not belong to this earth or
world or man at all. It is heavenly. That is the
experience of these pioneers of the heavenly way. Hear
them crying out of their earthliness, sometimes even
complaining to the Lord. Listen to Jeremiah - he is out
of his depth. It was the intensive, intrinsic values that
God was after.
SPONTANEOUS
MINISTRY
Then further, spontaneous
ministry. I underline that word 'spontaneous' -
not organized ministry but spontaneous ministry.
When it is like that, you have only got to be and
it happens. Do you understand that? You only have to be
like that and it happens. You can no more shut that up
than you can shut up the sun.
You notice that that is
what the Lord was after at the beginning of His ministry.
He first of all got hold of a set of men, individuals,
and He put them through it. It was not all so simple as
the reading of the story. You may read the Gospels
covering the story of three years' companionship between
those disciples and the Lord, and you may read the record
of those last days on the earth, and then the Cross.
Well, it is a tremendous story in itself; but we have not
recorded, because it was not possible to record, all that
went on inside those men. Even during those three years,
I venture to say that they were again and again at the
end of their tether: they did not know where they were,
what this meant, what it was leading to. They were all
the time trying to bring things within the compass of
their own ideas, their own mentality; to interpret in the
light of prophecy, and so on; to bring it down and have
it according to the text-book. He was beating them all
the time, He was a continuous enigma. They could not
fathom this Man. He never did things according to the
text-book, not even according to Moses. He is upsetting
the whole thing. What is He doing? What does He mean?
And then the Cross. You
cannot read the depths of their soul-anguish and
perplexity in those days. You can only understand it out
of your own experience of when the Lord begins to do
things like that - getting you out of your depth and
contradicting all your expectations, seeming to go
entirely the opposite way from what you felt you had a
right to expect of Him. He does not do what you expect.
Sometimes you are altogether with your back to the wall
because of the Lord's dealings with you. He got hold of
men who went through that with a very deep experience.
Then through those men
He got churches, He got companies of believers, and the
business started. There is a peculiar kind of discipline
and training which belongs to corporate life, when you
cease to be just a separate unit, even as a Christian,
and you have to live a related life, come into
relationship with other believers and live this corporate
life, a heavenly life on earth. The New Testament shows
that that is anything but an easy thing. You may think,
viewing it objectively, that it is a very lovely thing to
be in an assembly; but it is not always lovely. That
assembly may be going through it. There is something
happening, there is a handling of God there, which is
sometimes so deep and terrible that you do not know what
the Lord means by it; you are all registering this. It is
a deep way, a suffering way. We suffer together as an
assembly; this is corporate suffering, corporate travail.
So these churches were brought into being, and they went
through it. They were instructed, too; but, whatever
happened to them in the way of instruction and teaching,
there was always the parallel and the corresponding
discipline of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had His
hand upon them and was dealing with them in a drastic
way. Things were happening.
You say, 'Well, instance
that'. Look at all the happenings in Corinth. What was it
Paul said to them? "For this cause many among you
are weak and sickly, and not a few sleep [have
died]" (I Cor. 11:30). There is a secret spiritual
history there. The Holy Ghost has got hold of the
situation. They might have looked at it in a natural way.
'Somebody is ill - send for the doctor.' But wait a
minute. May there not be some spiritual factor bound up
with it? May not the Holy Spirit have something to do
with this? Paul says, Yes! It does not mean that
everybody who is sick is a spiritual delinquent, but the
principle is there. The Church is being dealt with by the
Holy Ghost in relation to God's fuller purpose.
The point is quite
clear, then, that God gets hold first of individuals and
then of companies, and He deals with them in this way: so
that, not because they have been given a message or a
truth, but because of what God has done in them, they
have a spontaneous ministry. It just happens, that is
all; somehow or other, it happens, without our being able
to explain it - except thus: that the Holy Spirit has
taken account of something and He is using it; He is
seeing that what He has done there is expanded, is
reaching out. It just happens. Paul said about the church
in Thessalonica, "From you hath sounded forth the
word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but
in every place..." (I Thess. 1:8). Do you think that
that necessarily meant that they sent out evangelists?
They may have done, but it does not say so. Look at the
context. You will see that Paul is saying, 'All over the
place in other churches they are talking about you; I
need not speak of you - it is known'. It is spontaneous
ministry out of what God does. God takes in hand to get
these intrinsic values, and He is not going to waste
them.
So the end that God has
in view is governing all His dealings with His
instruments. Heavenly fullness is His end, and it
motivates all His dealings with the instruments that He
has chosen in relation to that end. He is bringing to
heavenly fullness.
We must realise that
nothing with God is an end in itself. Conversion is not
an end in itself. It is an awful tragedy to regard
conversion as an end in itself and leave it there,
feeling quite satisfied. You stop with conversion, and
see what happens, with your own or anybody else's. What
happens? All the sense of purpose is quenched, all that
vitality in the conversion subsides, and you get simply a
lot of converted people. They are converted - they have
believed on the Lord Jesus; but they are just a lot of
converted people, and probably the greatest problem today
is a lot of converted people over this earth. They have
stopped; their conversion has become an end in itself.
Assembly life is no end
in itself. Gather a company of the Lord's people in a
corporate expression, and let them put their own hedge
around and be something to themselves, having a nice time
on their own and the same thing happens. The work of the
Lord: if the work of the Lord is an end in itself - that
is, so that it becomes some thing - oh, here
again is a tragedy. We take up the work of the Lord in
some way, perhaps missionary work as it is called, or
some other kind of specified work, and then that
particular thing closes down in itself, that sphere is
shut up or that line of things is brought to an end - and
you have to start all over again and you have lost
everything. The work was something in itself.
Now come back to this -
if the Lord has done something in you, in me, or in a
company, after this character, with this concentrated
essence of heavenliness, nothing is an end in itself. The
sphere may change, the form may change, but the thing is
there. God has got what He wants and He will find a way
for it, if it is there, if it is truly heavenly. We only
cut off our own usefulness and ministry when we bring it
down to earth. That is a true saying. Make it your ministry,
my ministry, and you have narrowed it right down
to earth. It will not move out, it will not realise God's
end.
Oh, this possessing of
things in the realm of God and making them ours! I want
to say here that, if you have a mandate from God, if you
have an anointing from heaven, if you have a ministry
God-given, and you are not holding it as yours or
stickling for its realisation as yours, it will be
fulfilled, and neither earth nor hell can stop it. Heaven
will see to it. But it must be held in relation to
heaven. The anointing is from heaven and everything that
the anointing means has to be held in relation to heaven,
and then heaven will see to it. Put Paul in prison and
his ministry will be fulfilled. It is related to heaven.
"The heavens do rule" (Daniel 4:26). But if we
have brought it down to earth somewhere, then heaven is
not going to sponsor it. There is a lot of history behind
that.
Now, seeing that God's
end is heavenly and spiritual fullness, and that it is by
the way of progressive enlargement, we should be very
concerned as to what that way is. It should really
concern us as to what heaven's way is, what is the
heavenly way to God's end. "Whatsoever things were
written aforetime were written for our learning"
(Romans 15:4), and this book of Joshua is among the
things written aforetime for our learning, and gives us a
very great deal of light on this matter of the heavenly
way. But the heavenly way is so contrary to the earthly
way. I do not know what you are expecting to happen, or
to experience, when we talk of God's end being spiritual
fullness, and this being something God is working at.
What do you expect to happen? I think the first phase of
this book contains quite a lot of light upon that.
THE
SERVANT SPIRIT
Just look at Joshua
himself. Remember that Joshua here is representative in
the thought of God of all God's saints and all God's
servants, and what God did in Joshua is what God is going
to do in all those to whom he is to minister. God did it
in him in relation to the larger company. Well, how does
it begin? The book begins like this: "Now it came
to pass after the death of Moses the servant of
the Lord, that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son Nun,
Moses' minister..." - that word is really
'attendant'. With all that is in view in this book, you
would think that he would get a better start than that.
Moses the servant of the Lord, and Joshua just his
attendant. He is not brought in with some official title,
such as 'the servant of the Lord'. He is not brought in
on that official ground at all. All that he is is an
attendant. Follow that word through and see where it will
lead you. The same word is used of John Mark - "they
had also John as their attendant" (Acts 13:5). What
is an attendant? Well, if there is one thing about an
attendant, surely it is that he knows that kind of
subjection that makes it possible for him to do as he is
told. That is the mighty Joshua that is to be, and that
is where he begins.
We are well aware of the
great significance of Elisha. What a tremendous place
Elisha came to have, with a double portion of Elijah's
spirit and greater works than Elijah did! You remember
what was said about Elisha. "Elisha... poured water
on the hands of Elijah" (II Kings 3:11). He was his
attendant. That is where he began.
In Joshua chapter 10,
when Joshua commanded the sun, "Stand thou
still", it says, "there was no day like that
before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the
voice of a man". This man is touching heavenly
things. That is tremendous. Where does it begin? With
Moses' attendant! He has learned subjection: to do as he
is told, to do trivial things, to be obedient, to take a
humble position. And do not think it was easy for Joshua.
Joshua had as much soul as anybody else. There was a time
when there were others in the camp prophesying, and it
was Joshua who went to Moses and said, "My lord
Moses, forbid them". And Moses said, "Art thou
jealous for my sake? would that all the Lord's people
were prophets...!" (Numbers 11:26-30). Joshua had a
soul; Joshua could assert his own ideas. He was a young
man then. But here at last he comes out at the
commencement of his great life work; now he is emerging
into the real purpose of the sovereign calling of God:
and the narrative begins - "Moses the servant of the
Lord... Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister". Is
that not a principle? There is something in that. We must
always remember that the Holy Spirit wrote the Bible -
and the Holy Spirit, if He is anything at all, is
consistent with spiritual principles. It does not matter
in what guise they are found; it does not matter when,
where or how: the principle remains exactly the same.
The Levites commenced
this ministry at the age of 25, but they were not
allowed to assume full responsibility until they were 30.
They were understudies of fully-fledged Levites for five
years. This principle of the Attendant is maintained all
through the Scriptures. A probationary period or phase
always precedes full approval. Fullness is suspended
until the particular purpose of that period as an
Attendant is learned. It is the inculcating of ability to
obey, to take orders, to be in subjection, to serve. We
must not assume that we are anything. What we may be has
to come naturally out of what we have been made. Do not
expect that, if God calls you to serve Him, there will
immediately and inevitably be some great demonstration of
His power and fullness. Joshua was the Attendant of Moses
long before he was his successor and before the manifestation
of the spirit of Moses was seen in Joshua. God digs
deep, He has no pleasure in superficiality, and the
measure of our usefulness in relation to His full purpose
will be the measure of our discipline by testing. We
shall never be spiritual leaders until we
have learned meekness as faithful Attendants.
Remember, then -
succession is never official in the things of heaven. It
is never by human selection. It is never assumed by the
persons concerned. You cannot assume that you are the
successor of what God has been doing. You cannot assume
that you come in and have place there, and certainly no
one can put you into it. If it is heavenly, succession is
sovereign and spiritual. You never know how the Divine
sovereignty is going to work, but you can be fairly sure
that the Divine purpose is going to work contrary to your
expectation, your ideas.
SOVEREIGN
GRACE
The next movement was to
send spies. Joshua sent out the spies. What was the
upshot? 'All the land lies before you: I have given it to
you.' "This day will I begin to magnify thee in the
sight of all Israel." There is immense fullness in
view. Well, then, surely there must be something very
dignified about this? No. Rahab, a harlot, is the key to
the whole situation. A woman without reputation, or with
a bad reputation, who has no status or standing at all in
the world of repute: everything is bound up with that.
That is sovereign, and that is grace: and you are not
going to get into the land of heavenly fullness except
through those two things. Even the great Joshua-to-be
finds that everything becomes dependent upon a woman of
ill-fame.
God has strange ways of
humbling us. How often we look for something wonderful
and big and glorious and noble, something of repute, in
relation to the great things of God: and then God brings
us down to having to accept something that has no
recognition at all, no acceptance at all; puts us in a
position where, if we want commendation, that will not
commend us; if we want something that will introduce us
as an influence in the realm of usefulness, well, this
will not do it. There is no chance of getting anywhere
along that line in this world. See what influence that
woman had in Jericho. Do you think her word would have
carried any weight? Not at all. There was no introduction
from high quarters. If this is not of heaven, then
everything is against it. We are getting no help. No;
rather are we out of court here, we have no way, no
ground here, if it is not of heaven. He has not got
people with influence at court in this matter. It is all
of heaven; it is sovereign or not at all.
And it is of grace, for
Rahab is in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Wonderful!
When you come to that New Testament genealogy - Rahab!
Oh, grace! What can recommend Rahab? What can put her on
the inspired record, into Holy Scripture, in the line of
Jesus Christ? Nothing but grace, and that is of heaven.
It is all like that. If there is going to be anything of
real value, it will be because of sovereign grace, and
nothing else; no commendation. We are out of court; we
have nothing to support our claim, nothing to go upon
naturally. It is right down on the level of Rahab. Think
of a great Joshua having to come there. But it is the
principle all the time through the Word of God. If only I
could show you how again and again it is that.
You would say, 'Why, God seems to go out of His way to
prejudice His own interests, to prejudice the success of
His purposes, really to make it difficult. He might at
least have chosen a respectable person, even if they were
not important or prominent.' But He takes a disreputable
person; He goes out of His way to keep this thing true to
principle. It is of heaven or it is nothing, and less and
worse than nothing. That woman is the key to Jericho and
Jericho is the key to the land. That is the kind of key
He uses.
THE
NATURAL MAN RULED OUT
When you come to the
passage of Jordan and when they are over, Joshua commands
that there shall be taken a man representing every tribe
of Israel and that they shall take twelve stones and put
them in the bed of the Jordan and leave them there. All
Israel has been left in the bed of Jordan, every man.
That is what he is in God's sight - right down there, and
left there. Something is left behind in Jordan. That
which goes through and comes out on the other side is a
testimony to the fact that something has been left
behind, because Gilgal follows immediately. Something has
been left behind. We cannot bring that over here; that
has to be left in Jordan. This has no standing over here
in heaven. This natural man, this Corinthian idea of man
- he is down there, and God has left him there. The
waters cover him and flow on, and he is underneath,
buried for ever. "They are there, unto this
day" (Joshua 4:9). It is the way of enlargement.
But God has to bring
that home to us, and it seems to me that Gilgal was the
practical application of the principle implicit in the
stones in the river-bed. Those stones represented the
union of God's people with Christ in death and burial -
the natural man who was so in evidence in the wilderness
being put out of sight. Gilgal takes up that truth and
applies it perpetually. Colossians 2:11-12 confirms this.
We have to experience in our souls - our flesh - the
severing work of the Cross - the death of Christ. We can
believe all the doctrine of Romans 6, and yet there may
be great contradiction of it in ourselves. Heaven will
not commit itself to the flesh or natural life. If we are
occupied with ourselves; talking about ourselves, our
work, our having been used, and so on, we are not in the
full values of an open heaven. It is so easy to slip all
unconsciously from giving glory to God to glorifying a
piece of work or glorying in the work itself; and when
this happens the atmosphere changes and spiritually
sensitive people know that something has happened, a
cloud has descended. Heaven is so transparent that no
earth-vapour can come there, and heavenly fullness
demands transparency in our spirit.