Let us
consider the prospect of the call into the fellowship of
God's Son. This falls into two phases, the present
prospect and the future prospect. I will just bring
immediately into view the ultimate of this call and
fellowship so that we can make our way toward it again as
we trace the course of the present prospect into the
future one.
The
Bible, the Word of God which is our charter in this great
calling, teaches us quite definitely that the end of this
call and fellowship is a reigning together with Christ. "If
we suffer (with Him), we shall also reign with
Him." God's thought, intention, and will in
reigning together with Christ is that it will be
fellowship not only in His kingdom as a sphere and a
condition, but also fellowship in the sharing of His
dominion, being one with Him in His eternal government.
That is the full idea in the call and in the fellowship.
Even though it is the will of God that all govern
together with Him, in the Bible it is made perfectly
clear that many will not arrive at that. Nevertheless,
this is what we are called unto - to share with Him His
Throne.
It is
possible to be citizens even as it is possible to be
subjects, but it is also possible to be of the royal
family which is very much more because that speaks of
those who are associated immediately with the Throne. In
the Word, it is revealed that for those who are called
and will go on in the fellowship of His Son to its
ultimate fulfillment, the Lord's intention is that these
will be in association with the Throne. We bring that
into view and will probably come back to it before we
close, but now let us look at the present prospect.
The Present Prospect
The
present prospect of this call and fellowship again
divides into two phases. The first phase is the
reconstitution for that position, responsibility, and
association with Him in His ultimate fullness of
government. For this, there is a preparation and a
training, and the training is what I have called a
reconstitution or a making again on a different basis
altogether from what we are naturally. As you are
naturally, you cannot live on the moon. You have to have
a lot of apparatus, breathing apparatus and such, in
order to exist there. In the stratosphere, you need
another kind of lung, a different mechanism and organism,
to live in that realm.
So it is
in this matter concerning us. You and I as we are at
present would have a difficult time if we were
immediately translated to heaven. We would feel out of
place. So there must be a reconstituting in us. An
entirely new constitution has to be inculcated, and this
brings us into a condition of conflict between the two
constitutions that are in us and between the two ragings
around us.
I ask
you to be very patient with me because I am going to
traverse again much of the ground which we have covered
only through indication. I have only pointed things out,
indicating but not staying to consider. Now we are going
to tarry on some vital points.
Do you
agree that we have got to be made all over again?! Many
times the question comes, "Why can we not just come
in as we are and go on as we are and be in without all
this fuss and trouble and business of being
changed?" Why? Well, the answer is just this - it is
only the Lord Jesus Who can occupy that heavenly kingdom
and occupy that heavenly Throne as being of a different
order of humanity. He is a contrasting order, nature,
constitution, species. If we know anything about
relationship with the Lord Jesus, we know that He is
different from what we are, and He is so different that
it is very difficult to be like Him. We are all the time
trying to be like Him because we know that we are
different. This is very simple, but it is basic to
everything. When we are called into the fellowship of our
Lord Jesus Christ, we are called into a relationship with
an order to which we do not belong naturally and to which
we have got to be conformed. That is the scriptural word,
"conformed" to the image of God's Son.
In another word, we must be 'reconstituted' all over
again from the beginning, and this is a tremendous
battle.
We are
therefore called into conflict and warfare. Paul said to
Timothy, "No man who is called to be a soldier goes
on in the way of this world and this life, that he may
please Him Who has called him to be a soldier." We
are called to be soldiers, to join this heavenly army.
Now we can have all of our hymns, "Onward Christian
Soldiers" and others, but when we come back down to
practical politics, we find that being a soldier is not
just walking about in a uniform. To be a soldier is to be
in downright grim warfare day by day, and the warfare
begins inside ourselves. Before we can do anything
outside, this warfare has got to be finished inside of
us. There must be a settling of the battle between the
two natures in us, between the two constitutions, and
that is war.
We came
to the Corinthian Letter, and we saw that by this very
letter and its definite allusions here and there, the
Holy Spirit looked upon these Corinthian believers as in
the same position as that of Israel in the wilderness.
Very definitely that is referred to in this letter, and
it contains many warnings to the Corinthian believers.
When we
go back to Israel in the wilderness, we see that although
they had not yet arrived at the objective warfare of the
land, they were in the place and period of preparation
for that. Make very careful note of this: before you can
go in and touch principalities and powers and before you
can have any power of authority over the external forces
of evil in this universe - the principalities, powers,
world-rulers of this darkness, hosts of spiritual
wickedness in the heavenlies - before you can touch that,
all this matter of preparation has got to be completed.
It took
God forty years to get the children of Israel anywhere in
this preparation, and, then, they actually got nowhere in
it. In the end, they perished because they were not
constituted for what lay beyond. These people had not
allowed this constituting to be accomplished in them;
therefore, they perished in the wilderness. The new
generation, a reconstituted generation, went over to do
the work in the land, the objective work, because during
that time in the wilderness one constitution was dying;
it was being put aside. One kind of person was being
dealt with, brought to nothingness, and ruled out while
in the wilderness, and this other kind was being formed
from birth and growing so that it could go over and do
the work in the land.
Now do
not be disheartened because it need not be forty years.
Just get rid of the geography, just get rid of the temple
and time factor, and remember that this work of
reconstituting is not necessarily a time matter at all.
Some Christians who have been on the road for years and
years are nowhere near being able to cope with the evil
forces of this universe: they are out of that objective
battle. The Church is very largely out of this today.
Christianity is not able to touch these world-rulers of
darkness effectively. It is not really standing up to the
evil powers. These forces are just having their way with
Christianity.
However,
you come upon some here and there, perhaps a young
Christian, who because of some secret principle, some
wonderful reality, has leaped ahead into the things of
God, and they really do represent a positive factor
against evil and evil forces. In a very short time, they
have grown and have almost compassed the whole distance
of the wilderness. Why is that? Because this
reconstituting is not a time matter: it depends only upon
certain things.
We have
laid down the thing that is the principle of all
spiritual maturity and growth: we laid down the basic
thing as being a heart undivided. Remember that an
undivided heart is one that is wholly and utterly for
God, and it has no secondary considerations. Even though
a circumcised heart costs everything, this heart will
cry, "I must go on with God." This heart matter
governs the whole period in the wilderness as we shall
see.
Let us
mark the fact that this Word concerning God's people
being in a wilderness was spoken to the Corinthians who
were much nearer to our time by a few thousand years than
Israel was. Seeing that the Word of God is still alive
and has not all been used up in the apostolic age, it
comes to us. This matter comes down to our own day, our
own time, into our own lives. It is a matter of whether
we are going to be in "Corinthian" conditions
and position or whether we are going to gravitate from
that of Corinthians into Colossians and Ephesians. It is
a mighty gravitation and a tremendous transition from the
one to the other. However, as much as you may read and
enjoy and take pleasure in Ephesians and Colossians, you
cannot get into those letters until you have come out of
Corinthians. You have to first go through the Book of
Corinthians chronologically and experimentally before you
can go any further. You cannot go on to Ephesians and
Colossians until you have gone through the wilderness
position and have been reconstituted.
Now,
just a short word of warning. A lot of people have taken
up this idea of warfare with Satan and warfare with the
powers of evil, and they have set up what they call
"warfare clinics." They call this type of thing
the warfare. Their phraseology and their ideas about this
are that if you use certain words for Satan and throw
them hard enough at him, then he is going to run away. Do
not make any mistake about that; you be very careful
about that because Satan will bide his time and hit back.
He will make an awful mess of that kind of thing.
Remember that we have no power against Satan while we are
on natural ground, while we are in the wilderness, while
we are in the Corinthian position. That is why the
Letters to the Corinthians, especially the first one, are
a shocking revelation of the need for correction of the
things that are wrong.
So here
then we have the present prospect of this call and this
fellowship which involves us in a twofold warfare. There
may be an overlapping because this warfare has a double
aspect. We have seen that this first aspect concerns the
inward conflict, triumph, and ascendancy. The inward
aspect was what was going on with the Corinthians in
their first state of spiritual life. The second aspect of
the present prospect is the outward that brings power
against the power of the enemy. So we see first the
inward conflict and victory and then the outward which
results in power against the enemy.
As we
have seen, Israel was out of Egypt; that is, they had
positionally left the world. They had taken ground with
God objectively, outwardly. By the blood of the Lamb, the
Passover, by the mighty work of God for them, they had
come out to be God's people. They were out of the world
positionally, but, as we said, the world was not out of
them. Egypt was still strongly in them constitutionally.
They were constantly thinking and harking back to Egypt
for the onions and the garlic and so on. It was still a
part of their constitution, and so God had to take them
in hand to make real in them as a people corporately,
collectively, what He had been doing with individuals.
The Individual And The Prospect
Now let
us go back and start with Abel again. We have seen the
pairs up to this point and how these "twos" in
every case divided and parted company, chose different
ways and represented the two different principles. Cain
and Abel - we would like always to reverse the order to
Abel and Cain. Nevertheless the principle is quite true,
first the natural and then the spiritual. The earthly
first, then that which is heavenly.
Here we
have the two principles, the natural and the spiritual,
in these two men, and they part company. They become
absolutely hostile. The earthly is against the heavenly,
and the spiritual is against the natural. There is a
hostility which is found in these two, and they go
different ways and have two different destinies.
Abel is
the man of the Spirit, the man of heaven, and he is the
man who places everything upon the work of Another for
his salvation. He is the man who knows full well that his
own works will never get him through with God. The whole
great question of history all the way through is that of
right standing with God. Abel is the man who knows quite
well that in himself there is no right standing with God.
He is utterly dependent upon Another, upon a Lamb, to get
through to God.
Then
there is Cain, and he brings works, his own works. They
were probably very beautiful. I should think that in the
basket that Cain brought there was some very beautiful
oranges and apples and pears and what not. It was the
fruit of the land, the good fruit of the earth. The
Apostle Paul could say that before his conversion he was
bringing very good fruit. There was nothing wrong with
the law as such. There was nothing wrong with the works
of the law, and Paul was perfect so far as that was
concerned; however, he brought the works of the law, his
own works to God, and, like Cain, that never got him
through. Cain was dependent upon his own fruit, what he
could produce, what he could do, and you know where you
are in the New Testament on that. You are in the Letter
to the Galatians and the Letter to the Romans.
So here
we see a conflict arising. The point is that there is a
battle between these two, and it is a battle in which
Abel forfeits his life. He is slain, but was he? In the
long verdict of history, who lives? Who survives? Who
stands with God? What is the verdict in the end?! Read
the little book of Jude that is near the end of the
Bible. It says that "they have gone in the way of
Cain." There is a stigma upon this man, a stigma
upon this "earthboundness" of life. Upon Abel
there is no stigma: he stands well with God in the end. "By
faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain." Abel was justified. The
Amplified Version is, "in right standing with
God."
So here
is the conflict even unto death, and it is a conflict
unto death between the earth man and the heavenly man,
the natural and the spiritual. That conflict was what was
going on in the wilderness: you can see it so clearly
when you read this first letter to the Corinthians. There
is a contrast and conflict there. "The natural
man receiveth not." He cannot for there is no
right standing in that natural man with God. "But he
that is spiritual understandeth, judgeth all
things...." The spiritual man has got an open
heaven. Now we view the teaching of the conflict between
these two natures, we view the doctrine of this
objectively, and we say, "This is what is going on
in us," for we know that there is no power against
the evil one while there is any dispute within between
the natural and the spiritual. We will presently come to
this point again in another connection. So here in Cain
and Abel we have seen the first dividing of these things.
Next we
come to Abraham and Lot, and we see this principle in
another form. In the history of Abraham and Lot, there
comes a point in their course when they divide company.
They part company, and the one takes one direction, and
the other another. With Lot, it is only first a gesture.
The histories and the destinies of these men are not
precipitated in a moment: they have a very, very simple
beginning. Beware! Beware right there of Lot's gesture.
Let us see how it began with Lot. Abraham told him to
take a look and make his choice. All Lot did was to look
around, and then he took a position in a certain village
with his face toward the cities of the plain, his face
toward Sodom - his face toward the world. That is all. It
was only a gesture; but once that is insinuated into the
life, we find the enemy behind that. That is the force of
the prince of this world. The next thing is that he moves
in that direction and pitches his tent toward Sodom, and
he does not stop there because the enemy is behind all
this, and he is pressing it further. Lot goes in through
the gate, joins himself to the elders, and becomes one of
their committee, their counsel, and shares their whole
system of things. Now he has left his tent outside and
has bought a house inside.
See the
course of this. It is a steady, slow course. I do not
know how long it took. It began simply, but this course
is just a gesture, then a drawing, an inclination, and a
following that constitution to his end. It took an
intervention from Heaven to take him out of that
situation and to save his very life, but he remains in
history as a man who was not very honorable. We do not
think of Lot with a high esteem, do we? We leave him
here: his life has shown us one course.
Abraham
chose another course. He speaks to us of another
principle, and you can test your own life, your own
heart, by this. Right into the very constitution of
Abraham, there had been planted something, it was going
to grow and grow; but down there in the very bedrock of
his being, there had been planted a sense that this world
is not everything, this life is not everything. There is
something more, and there is no satisfaction whatsoever
with things here. There is a sense of being a pilgrim and
a stranger in the earth. There is no ability to settle
down here because there is a magnetism inside, this
magnetic needle of the Divine compass always gravitating
toward a certain direction. Inside there is an instinct
of the heavenly, of the Divine; and though he may stay in
places for a little while, he cannot stay long. He must
move on, ever on, because the principle of Divine
discontent is rooted in his being.
Discontent
can be a very evil thing, but there is a Divine
discontent. God can never be satisfied with anything less
than His full, final, and ultimate; and the Holy Spirit
is always inwardly urging toward that MORE. "I
must have more. I must go on. I must move more into
this realm THAT I MAY KNOW HIM. I have not yet
attained. I am not already complete. This one thing I do,
leaving behind those things that belong to the behind and
pressing, pressing, pressing...." There is
another constitution that has come in, and it has this
inward urge always for the "more" that is of
God.
The true
Spirit-governed people of God are those who while they
are satisfied with the Lord in Himself and can never
think of life without Him (in this sense, He has become
their finality); nevertheless, they know He is so much
bigger than they have known heretofore. The territory of
Christ is so much greater. The Spirit is inwardly urging,
"Go on." This is constitutional, and it is like
this in Abraham who becomes known as the friend of God.
Now we
come to Isaac and Ishmael. Let us see what Isaac has to
say to us again. If you had met Isaac, the well maker,
water provider, life giver, out looking for old wells
that the enemy had filled up, if you had met him on one
of his daily walks out looking for wells that he could
open again, and if you said, "Isaac, tell me
something of your history," I think Isaac
spiritually would have put it something like this.
"My history? Well, my history began on an altar
where I was in effect slain, came to death. In another
instant, in a flash, a drop of the hand, my life would
have been ended. But for God's intervention, I would not
be here today. I am a living miracle, a living testimony
to the power of His Resurrection. I am because of God,
and He is the answer and the explanation. My very
beginning and existence in this world has a miracle right
at its roots: it was a supernatural event. I represent
something that is wholly and utterly of God because
Resurrection is alone the prerogative of God."
That is
Isaac, the man who knows that he owes his very existence
to God. There would be no survival for him except for
God. Because of the Lord, Isaac has known the miracle of
new birth, that supernatural thing which accounts for
him. Isaac is the man that is going to be the instrument
of God, the vessel of God, in opening up wells of water
for others. He is to be the man undoing the work of the
enemy in robbing people of life. It was the constitution
of Isaac that constituted his ministry of life giving.
That tremendous battle with death had to be fought out,
and death had to be conquered in his experience before he
could minister life to others.
Isaac
was God's act from the very beginning. Ishmael was
Abraham's attempt to do God's work, to realize God's
purpose. I need say no more for you to know that you have
come down to the earth. You have come to the natural man
for Sarah argued, reasoned, on natural grounds entirely,
and Abraham fell into this. It stands over his life as
one of those mistakes that the most devoted servants of
God sometimes make. So Ishmael goes down in history as a
mistake, a mistake of natural recourse, while Isaac
stands as the great testimony to what is wholly of God.
The Lord
Jesus is the Isaac of the ages. He was begotten from
above, born of God. His birth was an intervention of the
supernatural, and then He is the opener of wells of Life
for all the thirsty. He is the Great Isaac, but I am
afraid that in the same tent with Isaac there is an
Ishmael. So often in the Church there is this other
thing. Now you must interpret and see how true this is as
we move on toward the climax of all this.
We have
spoken about Jacob and Esau. Now from the natural
standpoint, I do not think that Esau was such a bad
fellow. One can like a lot of things about Esau. As you
look at his history, there are some fine things about him
naturally. Have you ever noticed that there may be in a
family, perhaps two brothers, and one of them is
naturally a fine fellow. He is strong, honest, straight.
Naturally he is greatly respected. In the same family,
there is another brother who is not quite like that. He
is weak. There are many things about him that you could
criticize. Before the world, he is not accepted like the
other one; and, yet, the other one, the fine fellow, has
no interest in God and God's things. He has no interest
in that at all. He just goes on and lives his life, a
good, strong, straight sort of life; but in his life
there is no place for God. If you talk to him about God,
he does not want to hear about "that." He just
wants to live his own life.
The
other one, in a natural sense, is not so fine and
admirable; yet, somehow in him there is this instinct for
God and the things of God. You can watch these two
histories. One goes on in his natural course. He may be
successful in work, in business, and stand well with the
world. Then he dies, and there is nothing - nothing left
for Eternity, nothing for Heaven. That is that. Now there
is this other one. We may despise him naturally, but
there is that out of his life which abides forever, which
God has.
It is
like that so often. You can see these two types either in
families or in the world generally. Esau was a fine
fellow in this way. Look at the way he treated Jacob at
the end! I think that Esau was magnanimous, seeing that
he had been tricked out of the birthright and had
suffered so much at the hand of this brother of his. Esau
had lost so much and yet wanted to give Jacob a lot, to
help him on his way, and forget all the past. There is
something fine about Esau; and yet, what is the verdict
of history concerning him? - And why? The verdict stands
as it does because there was planted in Jacob this
instinct for heavenly things, for the things of God. With
all his faults, with all his wrongs, with all of his
deceptions, and all that he was, he eventually came out
to the position where God says, "I am the God of
Jacob," and He said that because Jacob was God's
man.
This
battle is going on in us. It is going on in you: it is
going on in me. There is a little bit of Jacob in us all.
There is a bit of Esau in us all. The conflict goes on,
and the divide has got to be made before God will get a
people.
The Corporate Body And The Prospect
Now we
leave the individuals and come to Israel, and all these
things seen in Abel and the rest, all these spiritual
principles, are taken up in the nation Israel
collectively. In the wilderness, this battle of the two
things is going on. The great issue is "which way
are you going?" Are you going your own way? Are you
going to be dictated to by your own natural interest?
Look at Israel in the wilderness, and see all these
things. There is the pull of the natural and the pull of
God. "Which way are you going, Israel?" This is
the issue of Carmel, and the Prophet Elijah cries,
"If God be God, serve Him. If Baal, serve him. Why
limp you like a lame man between the two things? Why do
you not come down with both feet on one side or the
other?"
That is
the issue in the wilderness. That is the issue in
Corinth. Are you going to be utter? Is God going to have
all? What is in the balances of such a question?! It is
whether you are going to reign, whether you are going to
have power over all the power of evil and darkness,
whether the devil is going to regard you as someone to be
reckoned with and pay you a lot of attention for that
reason or whether he is going to ignore you and leave you
alone in his content. This is the issue that is being
fought out in the wilderness and at Corinth, and I
believe in the Church today, in Christianity today, it is
just this same thing. Oh, the world is so much on the
inside, crippling and paralyzing.
Now let
us come over to the issue at the end of the wilderness at
Kadesh-barnea. What has happened is that the old
generation has been put aside, ruled out as unfit to go
and tackle the situation over on the other side of
Jordan: they were without competence to meet these other
forces in the universe. All that has been set aside, and
a new generation has been raised up. This new generation
has come to the Jordan as it was overflowing all of its
banks, and they have been taken through. "All the
People were clean passed over Jordan." CLEAN
PASSED over - no stragglers, no compromisers - they
are over!
Then
what happens? They come to Gilgal, and the whole of that
generation is circumcised. This whole generation growing
up from childhood during that time in the wilderness had
never been circumcised. The sign, the mark of the Cross
(because that is what the meaning of circumcision is) had
never been put upon them. Look at Colossians 2:12, and
you will see that we are "buried with Him in
baptism," and the apostle calls that the
circumcision of Christ. He says that baptism is the
symbol of the circumcision of Christ. It is the Cross
making a circle around the life and putting away one kind
of life and bringing in another.
This
whole generation is now marked with the Cross which says,
"That is that. That history, that dividedness of
heart is finished. That is over there now, buried in the
wilderness. Now it is all for God." That is the
meaning of the Cross. It is the meaning of that baptism. "One
has died for all; therefore, all have died... they which
live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto
Him" (RV; KJV). It is all the Lord now. They are
over, and the mark of the Cross is put into the bodies of
everyone of that generation. That is the position. All
this duplicity, doubleness, is finished with, and they
are over, "clean passed over."
Now that
they are over in this new position, what happens? There
are two things that follow. First there appears a Man
with His sword drawn. Joshua goes to Him and says,
"Art Thou for us or art Thou for our enemies?"
and He does not answer him. The Lord Jesus never did give
an answer straight like that. Notice how often the Lord
Jesus being asked a question said something that never
looked like the answer to the question: He would go
around the question and come in at the back of it. Then
He would "get home" what He did have to say. So
here this Captain of the host of the Lord did not give
the answer and say, "I am for you," or "I
am for your enemies." He said, "...as Captain
of the host of the Lord am I now come." What is
He saying, and what is He doing?! It is the establishment
of the absolute Lordship of the Holy Spirit on this new
ground in this new position. Now it is to be "'not
by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,' saith the Lord
of hosts." He is Captain of the Lord's host, and
all the battles ahead are to be through the absolute
Lordship of the Holy Spirit in the life on the ground of
the Cross.
Oh how
much truth concerning the Cross, the circumcision of the
Cross as we know it, is found right there. The Holy
Spirit is taking full possession and full charge. That is
the new position. That is the first thing. We must notice
that everything now is by the energy of the Holy Spirit
and no energy of the flesh, and that is so thoroughly
established in the second thing, Jericho. Now they come
to Jericho.
Jericho
is high and walled up to heaven. It is strong, closed, a
tremendous proposition. Jericho is at the gateway of the
land and symbolizes all the seven nations of the
principalities and the powers in the heavenlies. These
are all concentrated right at the very beginning,
Jericho. Now, what are you going to do with that
situation? Right there at the beginning you are really in
effect meeting all the forces of evil that you ever will
meet. They are all concentrated symbolically in Jericho;
and the Lord in His Own way, knowing His Own principles,
makes this very clear in the symbolism of everything.
God says
to the host, "Now then, walk around the city, just
walk and do not talk. Do not whisper. Make no sound, just
be quiet and walk around. You do it once today, and you
do the same thing tomorrow. Silently hold your tongues
and walk around. The only sound that is to be heard is
that gentle murmur like sound of the ram's horns of the
priests. Do that seven days, and then on the seventh day,
do it seven times."
Seven is
the number in the Scriptures that symbolizes what is
spiritually complete - the completeness of what is
spiritual. This is so spiritual that the occupants of
Jericho could laugh and smile and say, "What a
feeble lot." "So SPIRITUAL" that is
the language of the natural man, as he taunts, "He
is so spiritual." The Lord in effect would say,
"All right, they may despise you, but walk around
seven times on the seventh day and encompass the whole
range of spirituality, the spiritual forces of the
spiritual nature of this warfare that you are entering
into." For our warfare is spiritual, not carnal. It
is a spiritual warfare.
So on
the seventh day after the seventh time around Jericho,
they shouted. You know what happened, but what we need to
ask is this, what does all this really mean? In the full
knowledge of God, what does this mean? The children of
Israel probably did not know or understand the true
spiritual meaning of this act. When you read it, it is
like a natural story, but there was much behind it. Do
you know that when the Lord Jesus went to the Cross He
compassed the whole, entire, utter range of the cosmic
forces of evil! It was a "sevenfold" victory:
it was the completeness of victory over every power of
evil - a cosmic victory. It is not just a historic act on
the earth. He was not just dealing with things down here.
The Lord Jesus stripped off principalities and powers and
made a show of them openly triumphing over them. Calvary
was a mighty victory not only world over, but also in the
cosmic realm.
The Lord
is saying at Jericho, "Put all these things under
your feet in faith because of the completeness of My
victory." This must be fundamental. This must be at
the beginning. You must in faith appropriate this for now
and for all that is to follow. You are starting from a
victory, not working toward one. This is the position of
faith; and unless you have got there, you had better not
go on from Jericho.
Now we
can see that the great universal victory of the Lord
Jesus is implicit in Jericho, and it is implicit in all
spiritual warfare. Therefore, note this: if the enemy can
find anything whatsoever that is his ground, that belongs
to his kingdom, in a child of God, the victory is
suspended. There you come to Ai, Ai and Achan.
Achan
coveted a Babylonish garment, silver, and a wedge of
gold, and he hid it in his tent. Hid it from whom? Hid it
from Joshua? That is what he thought. Hid it from the
other people, the priest? That is what he thought. Hid it
from men? That is what he thought. He did not hide it
from God! God saw into that tent. He saw it beneath the
covering, and He held up everything. In essence God said,
"You will go nowhere from here." You see, here
the enemy has got a foothold. Here there is something
that belongs to his kingdom, a bit of this world that is
his kingdom, and it is secretly there. It is a secret
thing in the constitution, a thing that we are not
prepared to bring to the Light, and, on account of this,
the victory in our life is suspended. Seeing that this
was a corporate thing, the whole nation of Israel was
paralyzed by one man's act. We do not know how much we
affect and influence the whole body of Christ by our own
personal lives.
If Satan
can just get a foot in, something that is his right, that
belongs to him, then he can suspend this tremendous
progress of fellowship with the Lord and this victory
over himself and his kingdom. This he can do. Many a life
is held up because of something hidden, secret, that a
person is not prepared to have out in the open; and Satan
has got his foot in there behind many a life. Well, that
must go, and Achan must go with it because he is the old
constitution. All that belongs to him must go, and then
on we go in the victory.
All this
is perhaps well-known spiritual Bible teaching, but the
point is that we are called into the fellowship of His
Son, the uncompromising One, the One utter for God. We
are called into that fellowship in order that we
progressively may learn to overcome and at last stand
with those who have overcome, joining with Him in His
Throne. "To him that overcometh will I
grant to sit with Me in My Throne..." That is
the final issue of the call and the fellowship.
Well,
remember, the main issue is the divide that has got to
take place between the soul and the spirit. There is this
inward separation, this circumcision of the heart, that
must take place in us in order to bring us into the power
of His Kingdom and into power over all the power of the
evil one.
Let
us pray. Lord, we hand back to Thee the Word and
ourselves with it. We know that the enemy makes it
difficult for such a Word to be uttered and received and
understood, but we pray that the Spirit of God
may enlighten us and strengthen us both to apprehend and
to obey that we may not be disobedient to the heavenly
vision. Go on with Thy work in us. Deep work is needed,
continuous work, but may we grow in grace, may we advance
in victory. In the Name of the Lord
Jesus, Amen.