Reading: Ps. 24:3-5; Rev. 14:1-5.
We
have been occupied with what we have called
“spiritual ascendency” — “Who shall
ascend...?” What does it really mean? How does it
concern us? The answer will come to us in some such form
as this. First of all, the whole of the Word of God from
beginning to end sets forth the necessity for spiritual,
inner ascendency on the part of God’s people. That
carries with it the fact that there is something to get
over; for ascendency has no meaning if there is nothing
above which to ascend, if there is no challenge, nothing
to overcome. We have no need, I think, to be told that
there is quite a lot that demands absolute ascendency in
our hearts, in our spirits, and we learn afresh almost
every hour that there is a great realm, a universe, in
which our lives are set, which will press us down and
under, and hold us there, unless we know how to get on
top of it. That is patent to us all.
Ascendency Over the Enemy
Then
we begin to define that, to break it up, and we find
three things about it. Firstly, there is a great realm of
spiritual forces outside ourselves which are set upon our
casting down, seeking by any means to get us down and
under. That is a reality. There is no doubt about that.
Ascendency Over Our Own Souls
The
second thing is that that great realm of spiritual
antagonism to us has its opportunity in something in us.
As we find ourselves now in our present state of
humanity, there is that in us which constitutes a
foothold, a ground and a response to that great system of
evil outside. Temptation has no meaning unless there is
something in us that can respond. We know that this is
not only an objective fight, it is also subjective. This
whole matter is an inward one as well as an outward, and
until you have dealt with the inward, you have no chance
of dealing with the outward.
Power with God
Then
there is a third thing which arises in the Word of God.
It is a question of ascendency with God, or, to put that
in another way, power with God, standing with God; where
God’s power and support and resources are with us.
That is a tremendous thing, for, apart from that,
ascendency in the other two realms is hopeless. We cannot
meet the great foe without and have any assurance of
victory within unless we know absolutely that we stand
well with God, that there is no shadow over God’s
face where we are concerned. On that basis we are princes
with God, we can prevail with God in prayer. (I did not
say to prevail UPON God in prayer. That is a
different thing altogether. We have not to prevail upon
God, but to prevail with God; that is, to come so
completely into oneness with God that He has no need
whatever to have reservations in our case — He can
completely let go. To prevail upon God would be to change
God. We are not out to do that, but we are out to bring
the unchangeable God — if I may put it in this way
— into a place where, in His relationship with us,
He can release His power. That is just a little technical
difference by the way.) Prevailing with God in prayer is
no small matter, but a tremendous thing. This is power
with God and, because of that, power with men, and power
over the enemy, and power over our own souls — and
what an enemy our souls are to spiritual progress! All
that is what is meant by spiritual ascendency: coming
into a place where we are really in possession of the
situation.
Lest
you should be discouraged at that point, let me say again
that this is not something done suddenly, in a moment.
Coming to Zion, as we said earlier, is a journey, but it
is an upward journey. This whole matter ought to be
progressive.
Zion the Place of Spiritual Power
Zion,
then, is the place of spiritual power. Zion, we have
already indicated, means the stronghold. It was the peak
of conquest in the Old Testament. It was the one thing
which forever stood as a testimony to kingship, when
kingship reached its highest point of realization in
David. It became known as the city of David. That is no
mere title: that is achievement, that is triumph, that is
the last word in ascendency. So Zion speaks of being
over, up, through: it is there above all other places
spiritually. Thus Zion becomes the symbol of the life of
the Lord’s people in the place of His Lordship or of
His power, and it is the very embodiment of the meaning
of the kingdom of God. And remember, that while by new
birth we are brought into the kingdom of God — “Except
one be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of
God” (John 3:3) — the kingdom of God is
also within you (Luke 17:21). Both things are true. You
come into a position by birth, but that position comes
into you. The Kingdom has to be in you. The Kingdom is
not just the realm of God’s reign. It is a form, a
nature, a kind of reign which is above every other
authority and power. “His kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and
obey him” (Dan. 7:27). It is a spiritual
thing in the first place. People talk about the kingdom
of God in such earthly ways. They speak of
“extending the Kingdom”. The idea is that you
are building something up over a wide superficial area,
whereas the Kingdom means something very much more than
that. The kingdom of God is a deep thing, a mighty thing;
“a kingdom which cannot be shaken” (Heb.
12:28). Zion, meaning ascension through victory,
becomes the simile of spiritual power.
Holiness Basic to Spiritual Power
Upon
what does spiritual power rest? Power with God, power
from God in our lives and in this world, enabling us to
overcome; upon what does it rest? Who shall ascend? “He
that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not
lifted up his soul unto falsehood, and hath not sworn
deceitfully” (Ps. 24:4). "I have set my king
upon my HOLY hill of Zion” (Ps. 2:6). This
matter of spiritual power is a matter of holiness at its
root and foundation. Many have thought that spiritual
power is a matter of enduement. To receive a
“baptism” of the Holy Spirit, that is said to
be the way of power — something that happens to you
like that. Let me point out that that concerns power for
witness. “Ye shall receive power, when the Holy
Spirit is come upon you: and ye shall be my
witnesses” (Acts 1:8). But power over the power
of the enemy is by reason of the nature of the Holy
Spirit — the HOLY Spirit — and the
witness, the power, of the church in its effectiveness at
the beginning was simply because the HOLY Spirit
had come to be absolutely in the ascendent as Lord. That
is why, when in the book of the Acts you so soon find
something unholy rising up in the midst, there was such
an instant action of judgment by the Spirit. You will
recall the cases of Ananias and Sapphira and others.
That
opens up a very long and full history, and you at once
see that the great enemy’s one means and method of
destroying power over him was to corrupt, to introduce
something unholy. That is the history of man. “Thou
makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet” (Ps. 8:6). But
that purpose was definitely countered for the whole race
by the subtle movement of the enemy to introduce
something unclean, unholy. It was done. The enemy did not
come with an army and assail objectively. He simply
insinuated something unholy, and that did it, and that
whole kingdom crashed. From the beginning it has been
like that, all the way through. Israel’s history is
just such a history. The Lord’s purpose for Israel,
as we have seen, was that they should be above all the
nations of the earth, the head and not the tail. Then
Balaam was hired to curse them. But you cannot curse
people who are holy. He came in his heart to curse, but
his very lips were taken hold of by God, and he said the
most glorious things of Israel. “He hath not
beheld iniquity in Jacob” (Numbers 23:21). “Who
can curse a people like these whom God hath blessed? I am
helpless in this matter.” He went away and came back
a second time to seek to defeat these people, to bring
them down from their excellency. I suggest you read again
those three visits of Balaam and all the magnificent
things he said about Israel. He describes them from
God’s standpoint. After three tries he has to give
it up. In effect, he has to say, “It is no good;
people like that cannot be paralysed by a curse, they
cannot be defeated.” But then he sells himself, and
somehow his soul is bound in the irons of covetousness,
and what he cannot do directly, Satan leads him to do
indirectly. You have those words in Micah (6:5) about
Balaam, and then in Revelation: “Thou hast there
some that hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak
to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel,
to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit
fornication” (Rev. 2:14). Balaam went round to
the back door and introduced something unclean —
idolatry — and down Israel came. How awful is the
tragedy of the crash of that glorious people! Not from a
position which they had reached by their own merits, not
from an exalted condition which was their own native
condition, but a position in which God had placed them
through faith in Him; our blessed position in Christ it
was, virtually. It was not true literally to say of
Israel that there was no iniquity or sin or wrong in
them. It was how God looked at them while they were there
encompassing the tabernacle in a full obedience to the
Lord. God looked at them, so to speak, in Christ
positionally.
But
then idolatry was introduced. It is the story which
arises again and again, both generally and particularly,
of how Satan gains the ascendency, what the ground of
Satan’s power is. The ground is always something
unholy.
Is not
that the story of Job from one angle? Job, on the ground
of righteousness which is by deeds, acts, externalities
— the law, if you like — is found blameless. On
that ground, then, Satan is released to assail, and under
the assault you find things rising up in Job that he
would never have suspected. No one would have believed
those things were in Job, and Satan is finding a good
deal of power, of ground, to shake him to his very
foundations, until Job gets through to another position.
This is not the position of what he is according to the
righteousness which is of the law — works, deeds,
externalities. It is a position of righteousness
virtually by faith, where, so far as he himself is
concerned, he no longer talks as he did at the beginning
about the kind things he did, and of how everybody
acknowledged what a good, generous man he was.
“Now”, he says, “I have learned
something;” “Mine eye seeth thee: wherefore
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job
42:5,6). When he got through there and capitulated to
the Lord, Satan’s power was taken right away. Do you
notice there is a certain stage in the course of that
conflict where Satan disappears from the scene? Satan is
very much in evidence at the beginning; but where is he
at the end? What has happened to him? You cannot find
him. A work has gone on within Job which has taken the
ground from Satan and compelled him to retire, and in the
end the man is in the place of absolute ascendency —
over friends, circumstances, himself and the devil. A new
ground has been found; not the ground of his own
righteousness, but the ground of Another’s
righteousness. You find right through, as the matter
develops, that Job is crying for someone else — for
a daysman, a mediator, an advocate; and the only one who
answers his need is the Lord Jesus. You see it again and
again. His cry is for this mediator to stand between; and
speaking typically, Job passes from his own ground to the
ground of Christ. And that is ascendency; the enemy is
out of court.
You
come to later days, to Israel and the prophets. Take the
third chapter of Zechariah. “And he showed me
Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the
Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to be his
adversary”. Satan is in the place of power to
resist. Joshua represents Israel, and in that vision of
the filthy garments we have Israel’s unclean
condition before God, resulting in Israel’s utter
impotence in the presence of the enemy; weakness,
powerlessness, because of uncleanness. Not only are the
filthy garments taken away, but a new white robe is put
upon Joshua, and a fair mitre upon his head. The word is,
“The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan... is not this a
brand plucked out of the fire?”. The rebuke to
Satan is administered when the condition is changed. That
is to say, in other words, Satan’s power is only,
but always, established where there is unholiness.
Ascendency over Satan is not something objective: it is a
matter of condition.
So you
find that the whole thing turns, in Israel’s
history, upon the priests. How is the priest? That is how
the people are. Look at the situation in the days of Eli.
The priests, what of them? Look at Eli’s sons. The
priesthood is corrupt: there is gross uncleanness. How is
Israel? Utterly in defeat, captured. It is a deplorable
picture of a people brought down from their excellency to
lowest levels of defeat, helplessness and misery. The
priesthood was the key to the situation: as with Joshua,
so with Eli.
What
is priesthood? What is the meaning of it? Priesthood has
to do with the removal of sin, of corruption. That is the
secret of life. The priest stands for the life of
God’s people. But there is no life where there is
corruption, and there is no power with God where there is
unholiness.
We
could go right on to the New Testament, to the churches
in Asia. It is the same trouble over again. “I have
this against thee: thou hast there that and that and
that”. What is the effect? They are helpless,
impotent, defeated. The one word which relates to them
most is “Overcome”. So we get the force of the
words, “To him that overcometh” —
“You are under; you have to get over, but you cannot
take this position officially and mechanically: things
have to be dealt with.”
I
think I have said enough to show what the real foundation
of spiritual power is, power with God, power over the
enemy. It ought to be helpful to us.
The Defilement of Self-interest
We do
go through it in our spiritual experience! How persistent
the enemy is to get us somehow involved in something
questionable! There is an extraordinary phrase used in
relation to Israel’s life — a phrase not easy
to understand, and I do not profess to understand all it
means; but there it is. It is this phrase: “the
iniquity of the holy things” (Ex. 28:38). What
does it mean? I can see something of what it means, and a
great deal more than I am going to say now. I am only
going to suggest to you that in the fuller meaning it
means this — that there are holy things, and it is
in the realm of the holy things that the enemy is always
trying to get something that involves compromise.
Love,
true love, is the most holy thing, and it is in the realm
of love that the enemy is always trying to get something
compromising, something wrong. We have said ambition is
not a wrong thing. It is a divinely implanted thing. God
made man to have dominion. Perhaps ambition is the wrong
word; aspiration is a more spiritual word — the
desire, the sensing of destiny, that you were made to
rise, made to attain. You were not made a worm grovelling
on the earth: you were made with legs; which means that
you were made to get somewhere. Interpreted spiritually
and morally, God made us to rise, to reach, to attain.
That mighty instinct is found in the apostle — “Not
that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect:
but I press on...” (Phil. 3:12). Here it is at
work, that kind of thing. Aspiration is a holy thing. Is
it not just there that all the iniquity is found? —
the self-element, the possessive, the acquisitive, the
assertive, the domineering, the effort to gain dominion.
Then dominion becomes domination, and it has gone wrong:
the very spirit of it has gone. Meekness has become
pride, the glory of God has become instead our glory. It
is the iniquity of holy things: and remember, that the
nearer you get to the most holy, the nearer you get to
the deepest perils. The deep things of Satan lie next to
the deep things of God. “The iniquity of the holy
things.” The Lord gives something which is His gift,
and it is holy; and then the enemy seeks to spoil it by
bringing in something that is not holy. The Lord has ever
had to do a work there of cutting in between. He gave
Isaac to Abraham, a holy gift. It was God’s gift,
something utterly of God, very pure. In principle
God’s most utter gift. Then God had to say: Offer
him! What is happening? Abraham is in peril now, in
infinite peril of the iniquity of a holy thing. What is
it? To hold that personally to himself and not let it go.
A self-hold may come in to spoil the holy thing. It was
when the self that was there was resisted without
hesitation, when in faith Abraham responded to God and
let the boy go, that the boy was given back a
thousand-fold forever and ever on holy ground. There must
be no self-ground. What a perilous moment that was for
Abraham, lest his personal love should come in and
interfere with his holding everything for God! And that
is a thing with which you and I are continuously
confronted and assailed. Holy things; but an impingement
of personal interest, and the holy things are robbed of
their power. We could mention thing after thing that is
holy and yet that holy thing, which is meant to be of
such account, such spiritual value, can be robbed of it
all because something comes in that is unholy.
The Defilement of an Earth Touch
Let me
say again that the unholy thing need not be something
that all the world would call evil. When we talk about
unholiness, our thoughts fly to certain things which we
call unclean and corrupt and evil, certain positive
things. Oh, but it goes very much deeper than that. You
see, it may only be what we have before called the earth
touch. We live in a world and on an earth that is cursed.
Everything in this creation lies under a curse, the proof
of which is becoming more and more patent; for the higher
man rises the quicker he destroys himself with his work.
He cannot rule out the power of death and evil from his
world however high he rises. The further he goes, the
more that power of evil and death works. It is such a
vain, false thing to talk about a “new world”,
a “new order”, until you have changed
man’s very nature. We live in a world, in a
creation, like that, and the prince of this world has got
things in his hands; there is no doubt about it. If you
live in his world, he has you in his hands. Step across
from the kingdom of God’s Son to the kingdom of the
enemy and you know you touch death. In many, many ways we
know we touch death when we do that. The further we go
with the Lord, the more we find we dare not touch that
other realm. What we could touch as Christians at one
time we may not touch now. We are learning. We could talk
at one time in a way in which we may not now. We have
learned in a very grim way that others may, but we may
not. As you go on in a certain realm, you are becoming
more and more limited in another realm.
That
is the difficulty of going right on with the Lord, being
of “the hundred and forty-four thousand”
company. There is a certain amount of isolation. You have
gone with the Lord — “They... follow the
Lamb whithersoever he goeth” — and no one
else follows you; you are very much alone; it is
spiritual loneliness. We are in this world and if we
touch it in a voluntary way we become defiled. I am not
saying we have to leave our business. As Paul says, if we
are not going to have anything to do with this world in
practical ways, we had better go right out of it (1 Cor.
5:10). That is not the point. The question is that of our
voluntary moral and spiritual links, our choices. It is
not our business obligations that need involve us, but
our heart association — the sort of things we want,
like, choose. Those things bring a death touch, and we
come under arrest. We find we have lost our position, our
spiritual power, our ascendency, whatever that may mean
— our joy, peace, rest. We have touched the dead
realm somewhere in spirit. It is a terrible thing in
spirit to touch death — and that is iniquity. You
have touched iniquity.
Hence
the Lord has to do this work of the Cross in us. It is no
use saying, Bring us not over this Jordan! Jordan has to
do its work continually, to cut right in.
Let me
say here, for the sake of the Lord’s servants
particularly, that this is the realm in which our main
education takes place. You and I, as the Lord’s
servants who have responsibility in the things of God,
are up against this question of spiritual power all the
time. We find the enemy so entrenched, we find him
holding the ground. We meet so much that does not yield,
and our whole question is one of power, power with God
and power over the enemy. Now, it is not always a case of
flagrant wickedness, a Corinthian situation of gross
moral sin, of wrong in the domestic and social life of
the saints, of doubtful business dealings, and so on,
with which we have to deal. Where these are found, they
are, of course, holding up everything, and must be dealt
with. But as we go on we find that spiritual progress,
coming to a place of real increase, of spiritual
ascendency, is not just a matter of dealing with what
everybody would call evils and iniquities, but it may
only be an earth touch that is involved — in this
sense, that a thing is too earthly, the horizon is an
earthly horizon. We have come down to earth, and it is a
matter now of the success of our work in the eyes of men,
of all sorts of things which are earthly considerations.
We are involved in something which, after all, while it
means to be for the Lord and is very zealous for Him,
nevertheless is itself so earthly. There is a worldly
principle in this. It is only as we come to that
completely heavenly position, where every earthly and
natural consideration is set aside, and nothing matters
to us here so long as the Lord is being glorified, that
ours is a true position. What does it matter whether
everybody leaves us and goes somewhere else, so long as
they have gone after the Lord? It does not matter to me
whether all of you get up and go, and never come back
here, so long as you have found more of Christ somewhere
else. If you do, I will be after you, to enjoy it with
you! If you have found something more of Christ, that is
all that matters. Is that true of organized Christianity
today? What about the charge of sheep stealing? On what
does that rest? OUR fold, not the Lord’s
fold: OUR people, OUR workers, taken away.
It is OURS! If all who had responsibility would
but take the attitude, “If only they can find more
of the Lord somewhere else, let them go as soon as they
can: we are prepared for our whole organization to come
to an end, if only that is true. If we cannot be the
channels of meeting their need, well, the Lord save us
from trying to carry on something that is not delivering
the goods.” An utterly detached position, with no
personal interest or consideration at all, is the only
place of spiritual power. That is ascendency, that is
heavenliness. It is very real, and again I say to you,
that is the realm of our education as the Lord’s
servants. If we are going on into fullness, we shall be
learning all along the line what has to go, what we
cannot touch, what the Lord cannot allow. He will allow
and bless up to that point, but beyond that point
something more has to be done, the question at issue
being, not something of positive sinfulness, in the sense
in which men speak of sinfulness, but just some earth
touch, something we have never before realized to be of
the old creation. So the matter of spiritual ascendency
becomes very practical.
Encouragement to Perseverance
I
cannot close without going back, lest anyone should come
under oppression over this. There are two sides to this
matter. We have seen Israel spread abroad in the valley
and Balaam looking down from the height, and what the
Lord made Balaam to say, as expressive of His own
attitude toward them because they were centred in His
Son: and that is true. Our position in Christ through
redeeming grace is so complete and perfect that there
never, never can be added anything to it; it is perfect.
Even to Corinthians, who are always looked at by us as
the poorest specimens of Christians in the New Testament,
with all that was there that was so unhappy, so unholy,
the apostle will begin by saying, “sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called saints”. Not “called
to be saints”: the words “to be” are not
in the original text and should be left out, as they
entirely upset the whole idea. “Called
saints”. When you are called saints, you are
regarded as saints. “Sanctified in Christ
Jesus”. So far as our position in Christ is
concerned, we shall never be any more sanctified than we
were at the beginning, than we are today. But no one is
going to settle down on that and say that nothing
matters. We have now to walk according to our calling.
The battle is on, the enemy is out to put us out of our
position in Christ, to make it unreal. That is just where
the mighty power of the Holy Spirit comes in to educate
and discipline us. We pass into experiences which, but
for the mighty reactions of the Holy Spirit in us, the
mercy and grace of God, would undo us as the Lord’s
servants, rob us of all our power, because they are
compromising positions. But, while our hearts are really
toward the Lord, the Spirit goes on and does the work,
and brings us inwardly to the place where already in
Christ we are deemed to be. We are in Zion, we are there
positionally, and yet we are on the way to Zion. Do not
be discouraged if the way seems difficult. It is a rising
way, and that means you have to overcome something with
every step. You have only to take one step at a time; do
not try to take two or three. If you look right up there
to the summit from the beginning, you may be discouraged.
If your feet are on the way to Zion, take the next step.
And don’t forget, young people, that in this way the
first wind is usually our zeal, and power to go only
comes when the first wind comes to an end. God’s
power really comes when our first wind gives out. I mean
this, that when we come to the place where we have to
say, “I cannot go on any further; unless something
happens, I shall never go on” — that is all
right. What some of us have proved in the further stages
of this way to Zion is that the power of God to keep us
going is altogether independent of our enthusiasm. The
marvel is that we have gone on at all. We have not done
it because we were so enthusiastic. All that has long
since waned and dried up. Now it is something very much
more than enthusiasm that keeps us going; it is nothing
less than the power of His resurrection. That is the
power working in us of which the apostle speaks, when he
says, “Unto him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to
the power that worketh in us” (Eph.3:20).