Reading: Isaiah 8:16-9:2.
"Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given
me are for signs and for wonders in Israel from the Lord
of hosts, who dwelleth in mount Zion."
Let us be reminded that
we are here concerned with fullness; it is that which
governs all that we have to say. When, of course, that
matter was in view in the days of the prophets, it was a
question of recovery of the fullness of Divine thought
and intention. We in our time correspond to that, but in
the book of the Acts it was not recovery that was
involved - there were all the principles of fullness
clothed with much that spoke of actual fullness. You have
things there very much as the Lord desired and desires to
have them, but all too soon the radiant morn passed away
and a new period came when the need was for recovery; and
as you move on in the New Testament you know how true
that is. Arriving at the first chapters of the book of
the Revelation, you find them occupied with the recovery
of something that is lost. In all but one or two cases,
the Lord has to speak of things that have gone, a state
that has been left behind. It is recovery that is in
view. We are in the time when the question of recovery is
before us, and therefore we are in the time when the
prophetic principle and function are operating - that is,
when a vessel of prophecy is proclaiming that which was
from the beginning as God's thought concerning His
people.
The
Testimony in Zion Summed up in Life
Now we saw in our
previous meditation something of what Zion stands for -
sovereignty, fullness, light, glory. If we look for one
thing which includes all these elements and features of
Zion we find it gathered up in the one word 'life.' By
that, of course, we mean Divine life. So the testimony in
Zion is basically that of life, a particular life, a life
utterly and altogether different from any other life. We
are going to follow on what we said in our previous
meditation, with life as our interpreter.
Divine
Life a Nature
Firstly, this life is a
nature. Now throughout these messages we have been
speaking about the gospel of the glory of the blessed
God, of the satisfied God, and we have been saying that
glory is the nature of God shining forth, manifested,
expressed. That Divine nature is given to us in the
eternal life which we receive in new birth. It is a
nature, something planted within which has Godlikeness
inherent in it. Of course, I am not meaning that we have
planted in us Deity. Is it necessary for me to say that?
But I am saying what Peter said - "...whereby he
hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great
promises; that through these ye may become partakers of
the divine nature" (2 Pet. 1:4). It is in the life
of which we are speaking that the nature resides. It is
always subjective-objective, that is, we have this life
in God's Son; we only have it in ourselves in so far as
we have Christ in us. We do not become Divine, and no
Divinity degrees can make us so! We are not great
'Divines,' and never shall be. It is an essential part of
what we were saying earlier that we do not become that.
This vessel will always be something which attributes
everything to God, therefore in such a vessel He will
have people who in themselves are very imperfect. You
will never be able to talk of them as great in
themselves. They will be very human people, and the very
mark of their humanity will be their utter dependence
upon the Lord for any bit of goodness at all. They will
know that if there is anything in them at all that is of
any worth, it is because the Lord is there, because
Christ has come in. But saying that, and keeping that in
mind with all that we say, we repeat that we have given
to us the uncreated life of God, Divine life in Jesus
Christ, and that life is the nature of God. That life
does not sin and will always be our correction, whatever
our own life does and whatever our own nature does. That
is why the Lord's people who make mistakes and go wrong
have a very much worse time in themselves than anybody
else. They have a standard set up in them and they do not
get away with things, because there is within them that
which is a sinless life. If ever we raise the question of
sinless perfection, we shall never be able to say it of
ourselves; it can only be said of that other life that is
given to us. But of that life it can be said.
God starts with that
mighty potentiality of holiness, that mighty dynamic of
His own likeness. He plants it in us at the beginning of
our spiritual experience and Christian life, and it has
in it all the mighty possibilities of God Himself. As it
has its way, as we yield to it, complying with its
demands, recognising its laws as we recognise the laws of
our natural life, only so shall we come to fullness of
spiritual health; but, given that, the result will be a
Church which has the glory of God. "Unto him be
the glory in the church... unto all generations for ever
and ever" (Eph. 3:21). "He... showed me the
holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God" (Rev. 21:10-11); the
glory which is the nature of God in the very life of God
which is given to us. Is that too elementary for you? It
is the first thing that we must recognise, however.
Divine
Life a Method
The second
thing is not, perhaps, quite so common in our knowledge
and recognition - that this life is a method. We have
often said that God's method is the biological and not
the mechanical. Man's method is usually mechanical, even
in the work of God. He makes a machine, he makes a
'Philistine cart' - some apparatus for the work of God,
something outward, a framework. That is man's way of
doing the work of God. With God it is always the method
of life. When He is going to do something, His method is
to implant life from Himself there. That is His basis,
His method. Is He going to develop something? - it will
be by life, and only by life and the increase of life.
Simply, it means this,
that the real spiritual growth of the Church, and
development and expansion of what is of God, will depend
entirely upon the measure of Divine life present. That is
God's method; for all purposes, that is His method. The
one great thing that the enemy is out to do is to hinder
that life from getting in. If he cannot do it in open
campaign, by direct activity, he will do it by either
deception or counterfeit - perhaps they are both the same
thing. I mean this - there is a very great deal produced
in the work of God which is not life. It is nothing of
the sort. It is enthusiasm, it is zest, it is interest,
it is strong emotion and feeling and the overflow of
natural spirits worked up, drawn out, fed and ministered
to, and it goes by its own momentum, and it has to be
kept going from the outside - you have to give it more
and more and more. God's method is inward - His own life;
and when He gets a way for His own life, there is no need
for any of these externals at all, the thing just goes
on.
You have it like that
in the beginning, in the book of the Acts. When things
are as the Lord would have them, life solves all the
problems, meets all the needs, gives all the directions;
life, of course, not as abstract but in the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of life is a mighty intelligence for direction
and counsel and guidance. If you are alive in the Spirit,
and you are praying on an issue, you know by the witness
of life whether the thing is according to the Lord's
mind; and on the other hand you know quite well that the
Lord is not interested in it because the thing just does
not live in you. That is spiritual intelligence, that is
having your senses exercised to discern good and evil
(Heb. 5:14). That is a matter of function resulting from
life. You go the whole way round in the work of God and
you find that is the secret of everything. Things to be
done at all or not to be done at all, things to be done
now or not to be done now - any question whatsoever - it
all resolves itself into a matter of life in the Spirit
in believers and in the Church. Well, again, that is
elementary.
You know quite well,
and the devil knows quite well, that the greatest secret
of success is life. 'So let's have a semblance of life.'
says the enemy, 'in order to triumph by death.' And he
triumphs very often with his great weapon of death by
getting for a time a semblance of life and then letting
it go, so that people are not ready to try again. 'It is
all a myth, it is all false', they say; and he has doubly
killed, and the last state of that thing is worse than
the first. God has the true secret. Now the testimony of
Zion is there, the true life of God, not only as a nature
and a power, but as a method. If we are concerned with
the work of the Lord, the point upon which we shall fix
all our attention will be this, that life is having full,
clear way in us and in all concerned. That of course will
necessitate on many things, the application of the Cross
to get them out of the way, but that is something on
which I am not going to dwell for a moment. I am simply
saying that this Divine life is God's method; it has
always been.
Divine
Life a Law
Then it is a law. Paul
calls it "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus" (Rom. 8:2). Now, what is the nature of
this life, this law? The law of life is that it is
spirituality which is the first and final standard of
God. That is the law; not by any other standard does God
judge a thing. He judges entirely by spirituality. That
is a very searching thing. You can have all the framework
of the truth and yet with a total absence of
spirituality; having it all, it may be a beautiful and
clever and masterful presentation of things, but still
hollow. I have heard a perfectly masterly presentation of
the letter to the Ephesians which, if you were spiritual,
left you cold and dead. Why? We can carnally present
Divine things by the sheer cleverness of our own brain
and strength of our own soul appeal. We can come
right into the picture with Divine things and be the
force - the force of brain and the force of will and the force of emotion - and it may for the time being seem to
be a marvellous exposition of the Scripture; but after
all, what has it done? It can be like that - carnal. Was
it not John Bunyan who said that the greatest peril that
he knew was that of Divine things carnally handled?
Spirituality is God's standard. It may not appear to be
so clever, but it will go much farther. Our measure
before God is just the measure of our spirituality, our
spiritual life. What we count for is determined by
our spiritual life, nothing else.
And what is
spirituality? Well, God is Spirit; it is just what the
Lord is, that is all; the measure in which the Lord is
met in us, the measure in which it can be seen that the
Lord is getting the upper hand with us, subduing us,
getting on top of us, taking our place. Oh, that is
testing; we all fail there; we often fail terribly. I am
not saying that we should never fail; that would be to
discourage you far too much. But I am saying this - that
if we are growing spiritually, the same old failures
ought not to be just as dominant now as they were; we
should not now be fading at the same point, in the same
way, as we did; the Lord is becoming more; that is
spirituality. Do not think of spirituality as some
abstract high-flown thing somewhere up in the air, in
words and kind of talk and ideas and sanctimoniousness
and intensity - things that are, after all, just mental.
That is not spirituality. There is a false spirituality
that is an utter deception. We know of people whose
'spirituality' has made them superior to the Scriptures -
the Scriptures are no longer the basis of the government
of their life. It does not matter what the Bible says -
'the Lord has told me to do this,' they say; and yet
there is a Scripture which directly contradicts what they
are doing! You may say that is extreme, but it is only
the issue of a false spirituality which begins somewhere.
Remember that true
spirituality is a matter firstly of character. Is the
Lord met? Is the registration in the main that of the
Lord? Well, the law of life is spirituality; it is
spiritual life because it is God's life.
The
Practical Outworking
Now we are going to
turn at this point to bring this into a very practical
realm. I am going back to a section of the Old Testament,
not to study it, but to remind ourselves of it. At the
end of the first book and the beginning of the second
book of Kings you have the ministries of Elijah and
Elisha, and when you look into those ministries you find
that the distinctive characteristic of both was life. I
am not going into all the incidents, but just to dwell
with the issue. The distinctive characteristic being
life, it indicated what was the issue for the Lord's
people to whom they were called to be prophets - and for
those beyond the Lord's people; because, you remember,
their ministries went beyond Israel. That is the point
that the Lord Jesus made at Nazareth. "There
were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah... and
unto none of them was Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath,
in the land of Sidon... And there were many lepers in
Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of
them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian" (Luke
4:25-27). The testimony was to go out to, and
through, Israel; keep that in mind. And it was the
testimony of life; and that was the issue which was in
view for the Lord's people as seen in the fact that these
men were prophets of Israel.
Therefore, again, that
ministry necessitated situations which were humanly quite
impossible. The characteristic feature of their ministry
was life. That indicated the issue that the Lord had with
His people - their life, their spiritual life, their
testimony to the nations; and being a question of life in
the ministry, to recover that testimony it became
necessary that they should be brought continually into
situations of human impossibility which could not be met
on any other than Divine ground.
Now in these two men,
of course, you have typically Christ and the Church -
Christ in Elijah, eventually coming to Jordan and from
Jordan going up in glory, and in his ascension his mantle
falling upon his successor; and the Church in Elisha
taking up the ministry of the ascended and glorified Lord
in the power of His Spirit, fulfilling His own word -
"and greater works than these shall he do; because I
go unto the Father" (John 14:12). What does Elisha
represent? We have said that he represents the Church,
but we must be more precise than that. He represents the
ministry of the Church on this basis - that he speaks of
the Holy Spirit present in the Church bringing out all
the values, all the potentialities, of the resurrection
and ascension and glorifying of Christ. You see, they
have both been to Jordan, they have both passed through
Jordan, the one with the other - speaking in New
Testament language, the one in the other - and on
the other side of Jordan the glorious rapture of the
master has taken place; and then the successor, taking up
the mantle - taking up the Spirit, receiving the Spirit -
moves to put to the proof all the mighty virtues and
powers of that risen life. "Where is the Lord God of
Elijah?"
Now that question is
going to be answered in numerous ways, every one of which
is set in a situation of death. If you can grasp that,
you have the key to the whole matter. Then some other
people come into view, called the sons of the prophets.
Well, of course, from the story as it is written, you do
not become very enamoured of these sons of the prophets.
However, they mean something. What do they stand for?
Well, just this - those who will serve among the Lord's
people in relation to that energy of the Spirit which is
present with Elisha; those who will serve among the
Lord's people in the testimony of Jesus. It is the
testimony of His risen life. That is very simple.
Now note what happens.
These sons of the prophets must have experience in order
to serve, and their experiences will be identical with
this particular ministry that is going on - the ministry
of life conquering death. Now consider the matters
recorded - the waters of Jericho, the poison in the pot,
the axe-head that fell into the river and was made to
swim. All are suggestions of death working in various
directions, in various ways, in various connections (each
of which has its own significance) and of life coming in
to triumph over death in all its operations. These sons
of the prophets are having experiences in this, and they
are learning by being terribly tested about it. Every
time it is like that. "Master, what shall we
do?" is their immediate cry, as it is ours in
similar dilemmas. But the point is that it was through
severe, deep testing that these men came to prove the
power of resurrection life in order that they might be
sons of the prophet.
You see how that
corresponds to our passage - "Behold, I and the
children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and
for wonders." They signify something which is
altogether outside of the human realm - something
wonderful, which cannot be accounted for on any ground
other than that it is of God. They are for signs and
wonders, and the sons of the prophets alongside of Elisha
are taking their character from him, learning in his
school in an experimental way.
Now we too are right
there. We have the Spirit present. The ministry of the
Spirit is the ministry of life conquering death in all
manner of ways and directions, and our education is in
that connection. If we are to come into this service,
this real service amongst the Lord's people, we must know
through experience in this way and in that way the power
of His resurrection. The only thing that will really
serve is life which conquers death. Now let me repeat; in
a testimony which is not a testimony of words and phrases
and doctrines and systems of truth and interpretations,
but a testimony in very truth, in very power, in utter
reality, we have to be brought constantly - not once nor
twice - in different ways, different connections,
different places, into situations where only God can meet
the need - the God of resurrection Who alone can raise
the dead. That is the testimony, and it is not something
that you can hear talked about and then take up; don't
you try it! If you want to be in the good of the ministry
of the Spirit of life, you have to face this - you are
going to be plunged into situations where no one can
help, nothing can meet the need, but God Himself. That
will happen more than once, and you, like the great
Apostle will have to say "that we should not
trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead"
(2 Cor. 1:9). When iron swims, you have a testimony
that there is life triumphant over death! One is tempted
to take up the various incidents in Elisha's life, but it
would take far too long. All the way along it is life
triumphing over death in this way and that.
Succession
a Question of Life
The point I want to
make is that succession is a question of life, life which
has proved itself again and again as more than sufficient
for all the power of death. Elisha's testimony went on
after he was gone, that is, the power of life was there
even when he himself as God's servant and instrument had
passed off the scene. You recall the incident of the dead
man coming to life when he touched Elisha's bones. The
testimony of that is this - Elisha may be dead, but this
life is not dead. The vessel of it for the time being may
be laid aside but the life itself goes on. If it touches
what is dead, it will restore it to life. It is the whole
principle of succession. God's principle is life - that
is my point. You cannot have succession of personal
ministries or of instrumentalities, of means or anything
else; you cannot have a guarantee that the thing will go
on fulfilling the original purpose by appointing
successors. It must be a testimony of life, and it would
be better that things were allowed to cease when the
original life is no longer there. We should not try to
keep going something which no longer has that life of God
in it. The earth today is cumbered with the lifeless
corpses of works, organisations, which had a beginning in
life, but which have lost it and are now being kept going
at tremendous expense and yet fulfilling no vital
purpose. Succession is a matter of life. Let us remember
that. Oh, if we are concentrated upon anything at all,
let it be upon that. We do not want to get something
going with a name; we do not want to keep things, places,
ministries, teaching, going. No, no, not at all! If the
thing is to continue when we are gone, it can only be if
the life of God is in it to carry it on, and still prove
that it is of God and not of ourselves. We can go, but if
the thing is of God it will go on; it does not depend
upon any thing or people, but upon the Lord Himself. The
Divine principle of succession is life, and that the life
of the Holy Spirit.
Life
by the Cross
Well, one more word -
the contrast between Elisha's servant, Gehazi, and the
sons of the prophets. Gehazi is a very despicable figure.
You call to mind the outstanding incidents of his
association with so great a man as Elisha. Gehazi
represents that professional association with the
testimony. You remember when the widow's son died and she
went after the prophet, and the prophet said to Gehazi,
"Take my staff in thy hand... and lay my staff upon
the face of the child" (2 Kings 4:29). The woman saw
through Gehazi, as women usually do see through people
like that, and she was not putting any confidence in him.
She clung to the prophet, but Gehazi went off with the
rod, and arrived, I expect, very self-important, very
professional - the servant of the great prophet! In he
walks and makes his way to the room where the boy is
lying, puts the rod upon the lad, and stands back
expecting to see something happen, but nothing does
happen. No doubt Gehazi exhausts every method of making
this thing work. Perhaps the rod is not in the right
position; try it another way! - but nothing happens. At
last he has to admit defeat and go back a confessed
failure.
The sons of the
prophets, on the other hand, are brought into touch with
equally difficult situations where acts of God are called
for, but they see the things happen. What is the
difference? What is the explanation? I think we find it
here. You remember that when the Lord came down from the
mount of Transfiguration, He found some of His disciples
at the foot, and a poor father had brought to them his
son that the son might be healed; and the father said to
the Lord, "I brought him to thy disciples, and they
could not cure him" (Matt. 17:16). Afterwards the
disciples privately said to the Lord. "Why could not
we cast it out?" Well, you remember the end of
Gehazi. He had seen the miracle upon Naaman, who, when he
found himself cleansed from his leprosy, wanted to make a
present to the prophet, and the prophet refused it. But
Gehazi was governed by personal interests and so he went
after Naaman and concocted a story and obtained the
present. When he came back, his master said, "Went
not my heart with thee, when the man turned from his
chariot to meet thee? ...The leprosy of Naaman shall
cleave unto thee" (2 Kings 5:26,27). Gehazi
became a leper. Now it is a very solemn thing to carry
this over to the New Testament; but do you see Simon
Peter in that Judgment Hall denying his Lord thrice with
oaths and curses? What is this? He is closely associated
with this very Lord of life, this Prince of life, but in
Peter as in the others, all the way through the time of
that association you can trace personal interests; they
had personal interests in the Kingdom, they wanted
position in the Kingdom, they quarrelled amongst
themselves as to who should be greatest in the Kingdom.
Yes, there were personal elements. The end of that is
spiritual leprosy and death. Anything that is personal,
professional, in the way of our association with the
Lord, is going to end in our undoing; it will not carry
the testimony through.
The sons of the
prophets are in another position. They are themselves in
living union with this one whom they call Father. There
is nothing that you can trace of personal interest with
them. Whatever you may have to say about them and their
faults and weaknesses and failures, you have to recognise
that these men are really in spirit, in heart, one with
their master, and they are recognising that everything
for them depends upon that master. Is there poison in the
pot? Well, he alone can meet the situation. Is this crowd
of people hungry and needing to be fed and there is
nothing for them? He alone can do it; he will feed them.
Has that axe-head gone to the bottom? It is he who can
recover it - not Gehazi! The power is in him and in him
only. They are in spirit on the other side of Jordan, in
the place where the self elements have been dealt with. I
know the type is imperfect, but I think there is no doubt
that this is what it is.
If the Cross has not
done its work, we are 'something' in the work of God, and
that is the way of death, not the way of life. When we
come into the picture it is the way of death, as for
Gehazi, and that must go out in the end in shame and
failure. When the Cross has been planted well into that
self-life, it is no longer I but Christ; that is the way
of life. We may come into very difficult situations which
may look like death, but no, this "is not unto death
but for the glory of God" (John 11:4).
Death
an Opportunity for the Manifestation of the Glory of God
This is one big
argument for the fact that the testimony of Jesus to be
in us, to be borne by us, necessitates in the first place
the setting aside of ourselves by the Cross, and such a
union with Christ on the ground of His risen life that He
can allow us to come into situations which are death and
seem to be the end of everything, but those very
situations are the ones that are definitely foreordained
for the glorifying of God. Remember there is that
sovereignty behind these experiences, they are not
accidents, they are not just haps. "Who sinned,
this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?
...Neither did this man sin, nor his parents; but
that the works of God should be made manifest in
him" (John 9:2-3) - that God may be glorified.
Strange sovereignty in a man born blind!
Lazarus is sick and
dies, and there is sovereignty behind it. The Lord Jesus
is standing back to give place to that sovereignty. "Said
I not unto thee, that, if thou believedst, thou shouldest
see the glory of God?" (John 11:40). That is the
thing that governs this.
How do we view our
situations - as tragedies? as judgments of God? Let us
ask again whether the Lord has not got something wrapped
up in them which, when it breaks out, will be
tremendously for His glory. That is Elijah, that is
Elisha. It is life triumphant over death as a sovereign
thing in the hands of God to bring out His glory. I do
want that all the words and ideas and material used shall
not just be the stuff of a message, but that we shall
really get to the heart of what the Lord is saying. The
Lord is after a vessel with this testimony - that here is
that which is of God, very God, all of God, not of man at
all, and which will therefore bring all the glory to God.
But to have part in such a 'Zion' vessel for His glory we
have to come by strange, unusual ways, and many times we
shall come to situations which look like the triumph of
death, and the answer in ourselves will be death. "We
despaired... of life: yea, we... had the answer of death
within ourselves" (2 Cor. 1:8). But then there
is sovereignty in it - "that we should not trust
in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead."
Let us look at ourselves for a moment; have one
glance at yourself. What is the hope? Is there any hope?
The sentence is that it is death. All right; but go the
next step. It is not the end with God; it is only "that
we should not trust in ourselves." Are you
trying to find something in yourself in which to hope? Is
that a part of the trouble? What is the meaning of all
this introspection, this accursed introspection, which is
death, death, death? Oh, let me say to you from my heart
- be as objective as you possibly can in your faith.
Leave the subjective side to the Lord; that is not your
business at all; that is God's side. Our business is to
hold on to Him, to look off unto, His is to do the rest.
We simply recognise it has to be done, and commit
ourselves to the Lord to have it done; then we hold on
to Him, but we do not hope in ourselves. Let us stop
looking for any ground of hope or trust in ourselves -
"that we should not trust in ourselves." Why
has the Lord brought you to despair? - in order to stop
you looking for any ground of hope in yourself; that you
should not trust in yourself, but in God Who raiseth the
dead.