Reading: 2 Kings 7:1-2,16-20; Luke 1:5,8-15,18-23; Romans 12:1-2.
As we come to the close of
these meditations around the Lord and His Word, we look to Him
for that which will bring all that He has said to us at this time
to some point of practical issue.
These passages have suggested
to my own heart what that issue is, and their message lies right
on the surface, so that we have not to seek deeply for it. They
say to us quite clearly, I think, that although the Lord has His
own wonderful and boundless resources, they are resources beyond
our ken, altogether outside of our realm of natural apprehension
and understanding, yet are nevertheless at our disposal, they are
for us in Christ. But when everything has been said that can be
said as to the fact and the nature of these resources, and the
necessity for them, they still remain in Him, and are not of
practical and living value in our own experience until we
exercise appropriating faith in relation to them. The link
between His fulness and our need is faith.
The two passages which are
before us from the book of Kings and the Gospel by Luke are
striking examples of a loss, through not exercising faith in God
in relation to what was humanly impossible. In the one case this
loss was even unto death, in the other case unto a silenced
ministry. In both cases a miracle was required. In both cases
what was foretold was altogether outside of the realm of the
ordinary operation of nature. In both cases the Lord said that
nevertheless what had been foretold could be, and should be. But
in both cases there were those who were very closely connected
with the Lord's things who questioned, who doubted, who allowed
nature to govern, to dominate. Because of the tremendous
difficulty in the way - not an imaginary difficulty, but a real
one - because of the condition of things, or character of the
situation, they took nature as the criterion rather than God's
assurance, God's promise, God's word.
The man in the story in 2 Kings
7 lost his life, whilst Zachariah, for a time at least, lost his
ministry. These two things may be interpreted spiritually. Our
spiritual life will most certainly be forfeited to unbelief. This
life of which we have been speaking, which is in Christ, this
risen life of the Lord, will only be enjoyed, known, expressed,
as we by faith transcend the natural conditions and believe in
God more than we believe in the situation. Ministry also can be
curtailed and limited for the same reason. There may come into
our lives an experience which corresponds to Zachariah's being
dumb for a season; that is, that on certain great things of
tremendous importance we have no testimony; we are silent; there
is a suspending of the fuller values of ministry.
The passage in Luke also
presents us with a contrast. When the message came to Zachariah's
wife, there was anything but dumbness in her case. She burst into
a great song, and we have on record a beautiful psalm of worship.
But Zachariah is dumb and silent.
The Nature of
True Worship
These things are parables, and
they lead us to this passage in Romans 12: "I beseech you
therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service (your spiritual worship)". That is the
first step. Such words bring into view the priest taking the
unresisting sacrifice in his hands to the altar, where without
any rebellion he is able to take its life, and offer it a burnt
offering unto the Lord. "Present your bodies a living
sacrifice", unresisting, un-rebelling, unquestioning. This
is declared to be "your spiritual worship". Worship, as
we have seen, is giving God His place, and His rights. Spiritual
worship implies that we do not put any questions of ours in the
place of God's will.
Then, as though he would
explain that in spiritual terms, the Apostle says, "And be
not fashioned according to this world: but be ye transformed by
the renewing of your mind..." Is not that a beautiful
exposition of these other passages which we have mentioned? What
is it to be conformed to this world? We know that the governing
principles of this world are the principles of sight and reason,
of argument according to what is called common sense. The world
is always saying that you must take things as you find them; you
must recognise facts, and the facts are these; the situation is
this, and it is perfect folly to shut your eyes to it; you must
take facts into account, reckon with facts! And for this world
the facts have always been the things which are seen, things as
they obtain. The world thinks it to be utterly absurd to say that
what obtains is not to be taken as the final argument. That is
the world.
Now the Lord Jesus never asks
us to make facts other than they are. He never says to us that
these things are not what they are, and that we are to try by
some mental process of imagination to make things other than they
are. But He does call upon us to see that there is something
above things as they are. Faith goes beyond this world's facts.
The world calls them hard facts, but faith can dissolve hard
facts. To be conformed to this world is to say, like the man on
whom the king leaned, The facts are that we are starving!
Everything in the city has been devoured for food, save for a few
horses that are left, and we are perishing in the severity of the
siege; and, well, that is the fact, that is the situation! To say
that the whole position can be reversed by this time tomorrow,
and that in twenty-four hours we shall not only be getting
something to eat, but obtaining it at an absurdly low price, even
if God were to make windows in heaven that would be doubtful!
That is conformity to this world.
It was the same in the case of
Zachariah. In the presence of the angel, he said, in effect,
Well, the facts are that I am an old man, and my wife is an old
woman; one cannot blind one's self on this matter; nothing can
alter the facts! That is conformity to this world. That is how
the world reasons.
The Apostle says, "Be not
conformed to this world..." Do you notice how he applies
this to the mind? "...but be ye transformed by the renewing
of your mind..." That may be comprehensive, it may touch
everything. It may touch our manner of life. It may touch
everything that we would call worldliness in every direction
whatsoever. But here is the special application for our present
purpose, that a renewed mind changes the outlook, changes the
attitude, changes the consciousness, changes possibilities, and
changes therefore the individual in whom that mind is renewed.
Bringing that fact to bear upon
the incidents in the passages before us, and all similar
situations, that word simply means that we must have another mind
about things, a new mind, not the natural mind, not the mind of
this world. The mind of the spirit says: Well, the facts are
these; the situation is a very difficult one; nature most definitely
declares the position to be one of utter impossibility, but the
Lord has given an assurance, a promise, an unveiling of
possibilities; the Lord has said that there are resources which
are beyond the reach and range of nature; and faith, bridging the
gap, represents another mind - a renewed mind. Then you may prove
what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Then
you are like the living sacrifice, not dwelling on this side,
where nature holds sway, but on that side, where God is your
criterion, your argument.
All that means, then, is that we
are challenged in relation to these resources in Christ. In the
presence of any given need, or demand, for which provision has
been made in Christ, we are called upon to take the attitude of
appropriating faith.
I can quite clearly see that
this whole meditation, wonderful as may have been the truths
stated, the Divine provision unveiled, the glorious possibilities
mentioned, must inevitably lead to that. Is it to be like that?
That is for us to decide. Are we going to take our stand upon
this ground, and in faith, as necessity arises, as occasion
presents itself, as the demands come upon us, stand there,
exercising faith by which the Lord can make it good? Are we going
to do that? It is only thus that the permanent value of anything
is entered into. The supreme importance of that which is
permanent and abiding is one of the many things upon which
emphasis has been laid in these meditations.
The Law
of Permanence in Relation to
(a) The World
I want to say a little more
about that matter. If there is one thing which is clear about the
Word of God, especially the New Testament, it is that it regards
this world in its present state, along with all that has to do
with it, as of transient duration, as being at most a passing
thing. It is regarded as in a state of transience. "The
world passeth away and the fashion thereof". Men are
deceived by their own reasoning into thinking that because they
are achieving so much more, and making the world so much more
wonderful, this means that by all this progressive development,
as it is called, the world will in time become a Utopia. It is
all that which gives strength to the idea that we are going to
develop into the millenium. The fact is that men are only now
discovering and using what already exists, and toward the most
wonderful discovery that ever man makes and shows to the world
God takes the attitude that it has already existed. In effect He
says, I made that; that was there! You have only discovered it!
When you have gone I am capable of bringing a race of men into
all that knowledge and experience without any kind of discovery
or investigation along the line of reason! All those things can
immediately become for man's good, and man's benefit, without all
these laborious years of research; they are all there! You spend
your life discovering them, and then you are gone, but you have
not added one whit to the content of the universe by all your
discovery!
Thus, because of this
transient, passing nature of things, the whole emphasis of the
New Testament is upon the heavenly order, heavenly relationship,
heavenly resources, and the fact that the believer is completely
separated from this world in every way as to his life and his
sustenance, and is a heavenly being, with everything heavenly.
Though he be here on the earth, he is living out from heaven.
That makes for permanence, and that is what gives to the
believer's life its permanence. It is that which is summed up in
the risen Lord, and His risen life; it is the life which is
permanent, and which is not of this world. Personal union with
the risen Lord and His resources makes, therefore, for the
eternal character of the believer.
(b) The
Church
The same applies to the
heavenly and spiritual nature of the Church. When we commenced
our meditations we gave to them the title of, "The Risen
Lord and the Things Which Cannot be Shaken". It was that
element of permanence which was so much in my heart in relation
to our union with Christ risen. The Church is something which is
permanent, which cannot be shaken, because it is united with the
risen Lord. It is the expression of Christ risen, and everything
called the Church which is other than that will pass.
That is the whole force of the
letter to the Hebrews. "Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven." The things which can be shaken will
be shaken, and the things which cannot be shaken will remain. An
immediate application to the whole Jewish system was then in
view. The letter was written about the time when Jerusalem was to
be hurled to the ground, and its temple left with not one stone
upon another, and the Jewish believers, being tempted to return
to Judaism, were being warned by this letter that the time was at
hand when there would be such a shaking of all things of this
earth, even religious things, that everything that was attached
to this earth, even of a religious kind, would be shaken to its
foundations, and brought down, and pass away. The only hope for
believers was that they should be a part of something heavenly,
spiritual, which could never be shaken. The heavenly nature of
the Church was revealed over against the earthly nature of
Judaism; the permanent nature of the Church over against the
transient, temporal nature of the Jewish Church. The true Church
is eternal, because it is heavenly, and only on the grounds of
its heavenliness is it possible for the gates of Hades to be
defeated, and for the Church to triumph. It must be heavenly
therefore.
(c) Heavenly
Gifts and Ministry
Then the same thing applies to
the elements of gift and ministry in the Church. We have touched
upon all these things, and we just mention them again to show the
connection of this permanent element, the abiding elements in
gift and ministry. By this we are taken back to those parts of
the New Testament where ministry and spiritual gifts are
mentioned. If you go over such lists as are found in the first
letter to the Corinthians, and elsewhere, you will notice that
the Apostle uses this law of permanence as a means to determine
the value of the gifts. In 1 Cor. 12 Paul goes through the gifts,
and then when he has catalogued them, and divided them up, he
brings the rule of permanence to bear upon them all, and in the
following chapter goes on to say of quite a number of them, that
they will pass. This latter chapter opens with a reference to
tongues - "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of
angels..." The difference, of course, there between tongues
of men and of angels is the difference between that which
happened at Pentecost and that which is met with subsequently. At
Pentecost it was the tongues of men that were given, with the
express object that the many there from diverse nations should
hear every man the Gospel in his own language. That was related
to human intelligence. The Apostles were intelligible because
they were given the tongues of men. But later there is a gift of
tongues, or another tongue, which is the tongue of angels, that
is, the ecstatic worship of angels, and that is unintelligible
naturally and demands interpretation. That can only be
interpreted by a special gift of the Holy Ghost. There was no
interpretation at Pentecost, but at these other times, when
tongues were in operation, it was this ecstatic language of
angels for worship, and demanded interpretation.
The Apostle says,
"Though I speak with the tongues of men (intelligible) or
of angels (unintelligible), and have not love I am as a noisy
gong, a tinkling symbol". "Whether there be tongues
they shall cease". Tongues are only for a time at best. Then
Paul goes on to say there are other things, and brings the same
rule upon them. They too shall pass away. "Whether there be
prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues,
they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done
away." He sums up and says, "When I was a child, I
spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child; now
that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now
we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in
part but then shall I know even as also I have been known."
"Now", and "then", represent the passing and
the permanent. Again he says, "But now abideth...".
"They shall be done away" - "But now
abideth"; the passing, the abiding. "Covet earnestly
the greater gifts", says the Apostle. "But now
abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these
is love". It is the rule of permanence which is determining
the ultimate value of things.
The
Corinthian Assembly
You can see how
completely conformed to this world the Corinthians were in
relation to spiritual gifts, and I believe that is the key to the
whole situation. Read the opening chapters of the first letter to
the Corinthians, and you find worldly-mindedness, worldly wisdom,
the natural man handling the things of the Spirit of God; human
worldly-mindedness trying to bring Divine things down to the
level of a human philosophy and human reason. Worldly-mindedness
is displaying itself with regard to the ministries of men. What
is the world's mind as to the ministries of men? Well, it is
abroad today. You go to hear men preach because you like the man!
It is an appalling thing how much of that there is about. At
conventions, for example, you find some meetings are crowded
because people like the man who is to speak; other meetings are
not so crowded, because the man there is not attractive. It is
his method, perhaps, which they dislike. That is to make it a
matter of human consideration. I am not speaking of being drawn
by spiritual help, which is quite another thing, but of being
influenced by human preferences. That is worldly-mindedness; that
is being conformed to this world; selectiveness amongst men, even
the servants of God, on a human basis. Paul! Apollos! Peter! Paul
makes it clear that all this belongs to spiritual immaturity,
spiritual babyhood, childhood. That is just how children act.
Children have no power to determine the real value of men. If
they like a man they go after him, but they are simply influenced
by their own likes and dislikes, by something quite superficial,
and it may well happen that they take a dislike to the man of
real value, who could be of far more help to them in time of need
than any other man; but there is just the childish preference.
Paul speaks of the Corinthians as children, and says that it is
immaturity that governs them when they are making these choices,
exercising these preferences, and more than this, that it is
worldliness.
He carries the
same thing right over into the matter of gifts, and he says, in
effect, This is what it amounts to; you Corinthians are centering
everything in these manifestation gifts; you are making a great
deal of tongues, simply because something can be seen in
connection with tongues. It is a thing of demonstration. These
gifts of outward manifestation, are, to your mind, so obviously
the proofs of power, that they assume the place of greatest
importance to you. Yet when you look into them it is not the
abiding value of those things which is their supreme quality.
Tongues! Well, what is the abiding value of tongues? Healings!
What is the abiding value of healings? But there are those things
which are not manifested in the same way, namely, outwardly,
which can make no appeal to the senses, and which do not supply
you with anything to trade upon, or to glory of, in the flesh,
nothing of which to shout, You see! You see! You see! This is the
power! There are the things which you cannot prove like that
which are of infinitely greater value. They are not capable of
being demonstrated to the senses, but they have a permanence
about them. Faith! Hope! Love! These carry on when everything
else has gone.
You may have a
healing. Well, if you have it until you die, there is not of
necessity an abiding spiritual value in a healing. If it would
have been of a larger spiritual value to Paul to have been
healed, than it was for him not to have been healed, he would
have been healed; for this is the man who is closely associated
with gifts of healing, and yet his thorn in the flesh was
undoubtedly a physical thing, and the Lord denied him healing,
because of a greater and more abiding spiritual value which, I
think, is proof positive that the greater value is not of
necessity always in that gift.
Maturity Shut
Up to Faith
Now, having said
everything that could be said - and I know the difficulties and
problems which may abound - the point is this, that what the Lord
is after, of greater and more enduring account, is spiritual
value. As you watch the New Testament, and watch Paul, and as you
watch the movements of the Lord since New Testament times, I
think you are bound to come to this conclusion, that the
manifestation gifts, (I mean the tongues gifts, the healing
gifts, the miracle gifts) belong to spiritual infancy, and are
not in evidence so much, if at all, in spiritual maturity. I
think that was true in Paul's own life. I think that was true in
the Church itself at the beginning. I think it is always true.
These manifestation gifts, of which a great deal is made, very
often go side by side with an appalling spiritual immaturity.
When you come to the question of spiritual revelation, the
knowing of the Lord in a greater fulness, in a spiritual way,
that is not always accompanied by the gifts which are of the
outward order. That is one of the surprises, is it not, that this
is so, and that spiritual immaturity, spiritual ignorance, lack
of revelation, are found coupled with manifestation gifts?
We have often
quoted Pastor Hsi in this connection; among his writings he has a
passage on this very thing. He says that in breaking new ground,
and dealing with new Chinese converts, fresh from the awful
superstitions of their heathenism, the Lord wonderfully gave
manifestation gifts amongst them. There were healings, miraculous
healings, and other gifts, and signs. But he noticed that as
these converts grew in grace, and became more mature, those
things began to disappear, to fade away, and when the converts
were established these outward signs and activities altogether
disappeared, and they were left to believe in the Lord, not for
what the Lord could do, but for what the Lord was in Himself.
That is maturity.
That is the abiding value. The other may be very much of a
temporary character, and we may become very worldly-minded about
it, just as the Corinthians did. The permanent elements in gifts
and ministry abide. It is upon that the Apostle lays so much
stress. "Each man's work shall be tried... the fire itself
shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work
shall abide... he shall receive a reward." Abiding! That is
the thing that matters. What perishes, and what remains, is the
thing that determines the spiritual value. "While we look
not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not
seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things
which are not seen are eternal"; and they are the things to
which we are to look.
The Gate-way
to Living Knowledge
Perhaps this is
enough for the moment, but you and I have to be initiated into
the secrets of the Lord, and initiation into the secrets of the
Lord is by way of that Cross which lays low in us, destroys in
us, all that which hankers after what is temporal, what is seen,
what is manifest, and gives us a relationship with what is
spiritual and permanent.
I believe that is
what the Apostle meant when he introduced this subject as he did.
Look at the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 12:1-3. What
is the point of those verses? The Apostle is referring to the
pre-conversion life of these Corinthians, and evidently many of
these Corinthian converts had been initiated in former days into
the mystic cults of paganism. A form of baptism was one of those
initiatory rites, and when they had been initiated into those
mystic rites they received a watchword by which they were able to
have fellowship, and to know one another. If anyone could not
give that watchword, then it was known that he was not within the
compass of that rite, and must be recognised as an outsider, with
whom it might be dangerous to talk of those things. It was the
same thing as is found in Freemasonry today; the secret watchword
of the initiated. The Apostle takes hold of that and says, You
were led away by those dumb idols before you were converted! Now
you have been initiated into something else, baptized into
Christ. The watchword here is, Jesus is Lord! and no one can say
that watchword, but by the Holy Spirit. No one knows that, but by
the Holy Spirit. No one who has been initiated into the secret of
Christ will ever say Jesus is anathema, but anyone who has been
so initiated knows the watchword, knows indeed that Jesus is
Lord. It is not the using of the language, it is the knowing of
that which the language indicates. Anybody can say, so far as the
phrase is concerned, Jesus is Lord! A great many of whom He
Himself spoke will say to Him, Lord! Lord! of whom He foretold
that He would have to say, "I know you not." No, it
means knowing Jesus as Lord. It is seeing what that means. Jesus
is Lord! Is He Lord? Is He in every realm Lord? Lord of demons?
Lord of nature? Lord of men? Lord of heaven? Lord of earth? Jesus
is Lord in all the spiritual content and meaning of that fact.
You have to be initiated before you have that watchword, and you
can never say that with its real meaning, or understand what it
means, until you have been initiated, baptized into Christ, and
have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. It is a matter of
knowing the Lord in the power of the Holy Ghost, and being
delivered from everything that has a trace of that worldliness
which all too often is thought of in such limited terms, as of
its being worldly if you go to certain places, or if you dress in
a certain way. Worldliness is something more than that. It may be
that, but something far deeper than that is worldliness.
Worldliness is bringing this world's standards and values to bear
upon the things of the Spirit.
There was
worldliness in Corinth in relation to spiritual gifts, such as
tongues and healings, power and miracles. They loved these things
simply because they brought satisfaction to the flesh, along the
line of demonstration, outward proof. That was worldliness. That
is all passing when it is like that. There is no permanent value.
So the Apostle brought the real and permanent to bear upon
everything, and in effect he said, The thing which contributes to
the largest amount of permanent spiritual value is to be the
thing for which we have concern! So of all these gifts he says
that they are, in the Lord's mind, for edifying - the Greek word
is "building up" - and immediately gifts fail to build
up, they have gone out of their orbit, out of their realm, they
have ceased to fulfil the purpose of the Lord.
Let us find
encouragement in the thought that though none of these gifts by
which things can be demonstrated may be ours, yet if the saints
are built up because of us, that will be of far greater value.
Even had we a gift by which to do miraculous works, these might
not have the same effect, and the benefit of them would only be
for a time at most. They might bring glory to God, but their
permanence may be doubtful. I do not say that these things are
wrong; I do not say that there are no such Holy Ghost gifts even
today, but I do say that we have to be more careful as to what
emphasis we place upon these things, and do not put first what
Paul puts last, do not give the primary place that which was
given secondary place. We have to recognise that the thing which
takes primary place is that which contributes mostly to spiritual
maturity and permanence, the abiding.
We touch upon
things in this broad way to emphasise one principle, and that is
that the value of things is to be judged by their spiritual
permanence, and the measure in which they lead to spiritual
maturity. That is only another way of saying, away from the world
to heaven, to Christ, to His fulness.