Isaiah 50: 4, 5
John 16: 13, 14
1 Corinthians 14: 19
Ephesians 4: 20-24
I seek the Spirit’s help to open up these scriptures in relation to the instructed One, to persons being instructed, and to the need for instruction. We start with the greatness and glory of the One who took the dependent place as Man, and this reference that we have read in Isaiah 50 sets out the objective first, “given me the tongue of the instructed, that I should know how to succour by a word him that is weary”. That was the objective of the Lord and His instruction. Then we see the way in which He was instructed. How magnificent that is! Think of the Person of the Lord Jesus, unchanged and unchanging, as we were reminded at the three day meetings recently in Birmingham, the glory of the One who was there in unapproachable light, and yet that Person, whom we now know as Jesus, becoming incarnate, coming into a position of dependence. How majestic are the ways of God to achieve His purpose! I trust that we all appreciate the great and wonderful way that God has acted in Christ, in dependent Manhood, that we might come into blessing, that we might know the presence of God, that we might be instructed in the things of the Lord Jesus.
It says, not only that He was instructed but, “The Lord Jehovah hath opened mine ear and I was not rebellious; I turned not away back”. There is no such thing in Jesus, but there is plenty of it in me, and perhaps in you. The first matter that the scripture is bringing out is that, if I am to be instructed in the way of the Lord and the knowledge of God, it really requires a subject spirit. It requires an obedience that was seen in perfection in Jesus, but should also be in my soul. It is one of the first things that we learn in the glad tidings, that the Holy Spirit is given “to those that obey him”, Acts 5: 32. We tend to turn back - we tend to think, I have an opinion about this, and I have a thought about the next thing, and I do not perhaps sometimes agree with what so and so says. I think we need to follow increasingly the pattern of Jesus who was here in manhood as the One who was not rebellious, and His ear was open to the voice of the Father, “morning by morning”. Think of God opening the Lord’s ears “morning by morning”. Here He was as a real Man; here He was as One who was ready for instruction. Then He took on the instruction. It says, “to hear as the instructed”. What do I hear, beloved brother, sister, young one? Paul says to the Corinthians, “There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of undistinguishable sound”, 1 Cor 14: 10. That is that they each have their own topic of which to speak, but what about the voice of Christ? What about the instruction that is coming from heaven: do I have an ear for it? I think we should follow increasingly the model that the Lord Jesus has set us. I feel limited in what can be said as to the beauty of the manhood of Jesus who was here in total dependence and had His ear opened, “morning by morning … to hear as the instructed”. Think of the One who was the Creator, “by whom also he made the worlds”, Heb 1: 2. He was here as a dependent Man and He listened to what the Father said. Does it not put us in a position where we would be listening to what comes from heaven? Does it not provide an example? Does it not point the way? How wonderful it is, “He wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the instructed”. There is much in our lives morning by morning that we have to attend to, and there is much concern and much anxiety, and much flurry, and much activity, but let us fasten on Christ, and let us have an ear to hear what is coming from heaven, “morning by morning”. Do we really listen to the voice of Christ? Do we listen to the Father’s voice; listen to the Spirit’s voice? We find all these things in the other scriptures that we have read, finding that as each day goes by there is another opportunity to be in communion and to be in communion that I might receive a word.
Instruction is well known to all of us, young and old. As early as a child enters into the nursery school there is instruction; continuing through the school, the college, and the work place. If you want to learn a job you have to be instructed. If you want to have a business you have to be instructed in how to run it. All these things are well known, but if you want to know about Jesus, about Christ, if you want to know about God, about the Spirit, similarly you have to be instructed in it; we have to learn, we have to be guided. Then the Lord was given "the tongue of the instructed”. That means that He gave expression to what He heard. How beneficial that something was being conveyed of the grace of God, of the kindness of God, the compassions of God, the love of God, and much more from the heart of Christ as He hears it from the Father “morning by morning”. The tongue of the One who was instructed was able to bring in instruction to others. Think of the instruction on the mountain in Matthew, what an instruction that was. It opened up the way of grace: “whoever will compel thee to go one mile, go with him two”, Matt 5: 41. That is divine grace operating and the Lord in His instruction on the mountain brought that out. All the other teachings that He introduced, teaching the disciples at the sea as to the greatness of the types of the assembly (chap 13), teaching and bringing in what related to the positions of the mountains in Matthew - how full and how rich the scriptures are. Dear young people, do you read the gospels? What do you read and what do you expect to find in them? When you come to Luke’s gospel you find that there are pictures of the way in which the Lord Jesus acted in grace towards persons. In Luke 7 we have the woman who was in need of salvation as against the cold Pharisee who thought that he was righteous. The Lord presents these gospel pictures. Then the neighbour in Luke 10, another wonderful picture. Then Luke 15, think of that parable in its magnificence unfolding the economy, all that it was in the heart of God. That was the Lord Jesus teaching. Then you come to Mark, you get the rapidity of what the prophet is, the great service that the Lord rendered to His disciples and to all persons that came to Him to be healed. John’s gospel gives the unfolding and teaching as to the Father. How fully the Lord expressed everything. How profitable it is to contemplate the gospels. Next, you read the epistles and they instruct you in the terms of the truth, what was unfolded after Christ was glorified on high, but then come back and read the gospels, and see the Man of whom they speak and find out that there is something that is very valuable and something that will find an answer in your heart; because, if you have believed on the Lord Jesus, the work of God is in your soul and it develops and increases into a spiritual being which will shine in a day to come along with all the saints. Therefore the need that I should learn as much of Jesus as I can while I am here. The time of learning will be complete and our measure will be full as we reach Christ in glory. May we be encouraged, therefore, that we take this matter on.
In John, this is a well-known scripture where the Lord is speaking of the Spirit of God and He says, “when he is come, the Spirit of truth, he shall guide you into all the truth” - think of the wonderful guidance that we receive from the Spirit of God. Guiding means that He is showing you the way. Often, amidst all the scriptures that come up amongst us, we have to discern the way; “he shall guide you into all the truth”. We need to discern, in days of moral darkness which is increasing in our time, the importance of the truth as the standard. He is the Spirit of truth and we need therefore to find that He is guiding us in the right direction. John speaks about the discerning of "the spirit of truth and the spirit of error", 1 John 4: 6. I know that John says that, “ye have the unction from the holy one, and ye know all things”, 1 John 2: 20. Now that is true of the work of God in your soul and my soul, but because of what we are we need to be instructed and guided.
There is an interesting scripture in Isaiah, “when ye turn to the right hand or when ye turn to the left, thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it”, Isa 30: 21. Very often I have turned to the right hand, thinking perhaps that I am doing what is right, but I have been wrong. Then perhaps I have turned to the left hand, another direction, but it may not have been of the Spirit of God. This is an important matter - “thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it”. The Spirit of God is the guide into the truth, as it says, “he shall guide you into all the truth”. I find that a great challenge, but the Spirit of God has been here, not only through the twelve apostles and the apostle Paul and throughout the dark ages, when the evidence of the Spirit working in persons has been very little recorded, but also in the time of the recovery when we have been recovered to the truth, the time of the revival, when “in the middle of the night there was a cry, Behold, the bridegroom”, Matt 25: 6. The Spirit of God has spoken through these ministers of the recovery and God was in it. There is no doubt. Have you any doubt that God was in the ministries of the revival? Read them, see the living character of them. See the way in which God has spoken by His Spirit through them and led us to appreciate Christ and led us into the full appreciation of what the assembly is, that wonderful vessel composed of all believers who have the Spirit, in which we, through grace, have a part and which God is going to gather up to display alongside of Christ in the coming age. It is something of the beauty of what He has done in all the saints, myriads of the saints. It is not just a company of perhaps two hundred today, not just the company of all that are in this country, or all that we know throughout the world. There are going to be millions of believers in whom God has wrought a work which will display something of Jesus. But the question is at the present time, how much of it is displayed in you and me? That is the challenge, that the Spirit of God is intent on guiding us, showing us the way into all the truth - “For he shall not speak from himself”; that is another infinite grace, that the Spirit has taken a place of dependence. The Lord Jesus became incarnate and took on a dependent place. The Spirit of God has come from Christ in glory - “He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine”. That is, He shall receive of what Christ is in glory, and display it in the saints, in the hearts of the saints. How wonderful that is, and that is His dependent service. These two divine Persons, the Lord Jesus and the Spirit have taken lower places in what we call the arrangement of love, or the economy, in infinite grace, that we might see the way in which God has made Himself known. It is not just an arrangement of love that originates in God and is displayed through Christ and the Spirit, but it includes you and me. That is the mighty grace and power of the love of God that He would draw each one of us into it and find that there are persons who are ready to be found together.
In 1 Corinthians 14, it speaks of what I may say in the assembly, and that to me is a test also, and may be a test to some others here too. “In the assembly I desire to speak five words with my understanding, that I may instruct others also, rather than ten thousand words in a tongue.” That bears on what we said in the reading as to the man with the pitcher of water (Mark 14: 13), the spiritual character of the servant moving about in levitical service in view of instructing of others also, and it is coming in the power of the Spirit of God, coming so that I may “speak five words with my understanding”. That is five words that I know about rather than, “ten thousand words in a tongue”. That brings up whether a lot of what we say may relate to the doctrine of the truth, and that is fine and right because we need that too, but in instructing others also it involves, “five words with my understanding”. Will the Spirit of God, through what one and another says, bring light into my soul and wisdom that can explain it, that can make it understood, that can show what the Spirit of God has in mind? It is spiritually discerned and we are tested as we speak in the assembly. The assembly is a wonderful entity. It is the aggregate of all the saints brought together and it is important because she is going to be the bride of Christ, and not only that but there is going to be glory to God in that vessel throughout "the age of ages", Eph 3: 31. How fine that that should be so, and therefore if we walk in the light of it at the present time it behoves us to be careful as we move in these relations that we have with one another. So, I should not, therefore, as an older brother, exert more influence than is due because of what the Spirit of God may be showing through others that are younger. I am not putting down experience, or fathers amongst the saints, because Paul said there was a need in Corinth that there should be more fathers, “For if ye should have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet not many fathers”, 1 Cor 4: 15. Fathers, however, should make way for others also in the assembly. “Five words with my understanding” may come from somebody that I did not expect it to come from. I quote the incident in 2 Chronicles 20: 14, in the time of Jehoshaphat. He was in a dilemma as to what to do and instead of all the older persons that were round about him producing the solution, there was one young man out of the congregation that spoke up by the Spirit and gave a solution to the problem. It is very important that we respect the assembly.
The young people would understand that, although Ephesians 1, 2 and 3 bring in the purpose of God and the way He has secured it, chapters 4, 5, and 6 bring in practical instructions in the way in which we will arrive at it. This is one of them, “But ye have not thus learnt the Christ, if ye have heard him” (that goes back to Isaiah about our hearing, “morning by morning”) “and been instructed in him”. Have we been instructed in the Christ? How much have I been instructed in the Christ? It relates to Christ in glory, the position which He fills there, bringing out the fulness of what He is in the Father’s presence and the greatness of what He is as Man there influencing the whole of the universe for God. Christ will be the One that will shine in the day to come. Christ is set in relation to making known everything that will be for the glory of God, so that it returns back to God, that God may be all in all. It is wonderful that every family is named of the Father. If He is thus Father of every family, that must involve that there must be sons, so that in every family that God will have there will be a display of some character of sonship, and it must stem from Christ. It must stem from that glorious Man, the Son of the Father’s love - the beloved, the Son in all His distinctiveness. We do not know too much about the eternal age, but Christ as Son will bring everything back to God in all His greatness and glory.
Thus learning the Christ, “if ye have heard him and been instructed in him”, is what we have gone over already. Then it says, “according as the truth is in Jesus”. We learn it by the Spirit. That is that that Man Jesus is unchanged, the Man who was down here, displaying in perfection everything for God, is there in all His perfection in glory in heaven. Am I going to be like Him? Of course I will be like Him in heaven, but can I be like Him in testimony here at the present time? That is the point about the new man. Paul says, “having put off ... the old man”. That is what is so obnoxious in the sight of God, all the opinions that I have, all the independent thoughts that I have, all the evil thoughts that Satan might put in my mind and heart - these are features of the old man. We have put that off, and then we put on the new man. The new man is not represented in one person exactly, it is a collective idea - what God sees in the saints of the character of Jesus in them. What a testimony to God, what an expression of what is for Christ. Can we show that in our local meetings, large or small? Can we provide a testimony among men to the new man, “which according to God is created in truthful righteousness and holiness”? That is, that the new man displays the character of Jesus - that things are right and holy. Nothing is left at a loose end, nor swept under the carpet. Everything is brought to justice and everything is done in righteousness according to the standard of the love of God. The truth brings in the standard that makes way for the love of God to be expressed. How great these things are.
I commend these thoughts to us, and may we be encouraged in following the Model, the Lord Jesus, and seeking to express Him in some measure as we follow instruction from Him and from the Spirit.
For His Name’s sake.
Witney
13th November 2010