Exodus 3: 1 - 8 (“and honey”)
Deuteronomy 34: 1, 2
2 Kings 2: 9, 10 (… “so to thee”)
Revelation 21: 9, 10
I seek grace, dear brethren, to say a word about some of the things that God is ready to show to us, things that He has prepared before the foundation of the world. I trust I will say something to touch the heart of you young people. The world is showing you many things, but there is not much substance behind them. God is showing you things that He “has prepared for them that love him”, 1 Cor 2: 9. Are you a lover of God? Has the Lord Jesus touched your heart? His great desire is to do that. I would say this, with all assurance, the Lord has a very special place in His heart for young people who commit themselves early to Him. There is nothing that can compensate for years that may be thrown away. I know people say you can make up ground, but do not count on that. He says, “I remember for thee the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals”, Jer 2: 2. A simple thing such as confessing the Lord Jesus at school, I can assure you now, will stand you in good stead through the whole of your life. The Lord will remember it. If He sees you being careless, of course, He is very grieved.
The book of Exodus is a young people’s book. You may think it is very hard and difficult to understand, but these people were very young believers. They were only a few months out of Egypt when God began to show them things. Early in their lives they came to waters that they could not drink. It simply means, dear young soul, that you will come to something in your life and you will find it is very bitter. You do not understand it. It says of Moses that “Jehovah shewed him wood”, Exod 15: 25. What does that mean? That is the Man of the gospels, the Man of Luke’s gospel and Mark and Matthew, the Man who was here, He “shewed him wood”. What did it mean? It meant as he cast it in the waters became sweet. The Lord has been in our circumstances, tasted the sorrow of being ridiculed. He has been here. It says Moses took the wood and put it in the waters. Bring Jesus into your circumstances! However simple it may be, look to Him! Maybe you get despised, mocked. He has known that. I said it in the reading but it is very true, He often says to you, “I know”. He has been through those sorrows. He has tasted the bitterness. Read the gospels in your early years! You will remember them better. I would advise young people if they want to get memory training, read Isaiah 53. It is not difficult to learn it off by heart in your young years, a bit more difficult when you are older, but in your young years learn by heart Isaiah 53. You will see the manhood that came into the waters and made them sweet, changed the whole environment.
They went on a few months and they said, ’What are we going to eat?’. One morning they went out and there was manna all over the ground, and then every morning. You wonder how you are going to face the day at school or work, or even if you are retired how you are going to go through exercises you have to bear. There is manna. It never, never failed. They murmured; they despised it even, some of them; but the manna was there and do you know what it says about the manna? It says they ate it “until they came into an inhabited land”, Exod 16: 35. I think that is very beautiful. Not until you die, but until you are in glory, there will be the manna there, the manna there for the day, fresh, to touch your heart and to remind you about Jesus, that He was here, and came into those very circumstances.
They rebelled time and time again. Do you know why God showed all these things in their histories? God says about them, “I will make to cease from before me the murmuring”, Num 17: 5. He could have judged it. He could have said, ’Did I not bring you out of Egypt and forgive you your sins?’ But when they murmured, He gave them manna. Again they rebelled, and what did He do? Ah, one of the best things in the wilderness that He showed them was Aaron’s rod that budded. What did that mean? It meant that every other man was to be removed from their view and their eye was only to be on Christ. I love to think of Caleb and Joshua going through the wilderness, and their eye was on the ark. You might say, that was on Christ. Yes, but what a Man He is! Inside that ark were the tables of stone. There was the golden pot with the manna and there was Aaron’s rod that budded. I think Caleb had some insight into what was in that ark, enough to carry them through as overcomers and in triumph to the end. Well, that was all for young persons. The Lord is very ready and gracious to give you, whatever age you may be, impressions of Jesus that will last you the whole of your life.
I have read about three persons who treasured what God showed them. The first I would like to speak about is Moses getting an impression of the incarnation. It is the greatest thing that happened in the world, that the Lord of glory, the Creator of all, came down. It says, “I am come down to deliver them”, Exod 3: 8. Why did Jesus come? Because He loved us. He came down when nothing else could meet our condition. He came down when He saw the need to bring these people through, that the only way it could be met was that He would come down. And there was Moses, he was in perplexity, but each of these persons I speak of made time. Moses turned aside. He was a busy man. Tending sheep is no part-time job. It is a twenty-four hour day occupation, you may say. He was working for another man who would be demanding that he looked after these sheep all the time. It was his responsibility, but it says that he saw something that touched him, and he turned aside, and what did he see? He saw a bush burning. You say that was no unusual thing. I suppose the bushes must have burned every day in the wilderness, but he saw something special about this and he heard a voice saying out of the midst of the thorn-bush, “Moses, Moses!”. God would address you directly. Some very fine persons in the Old Testament have their name called twice because of His delight in them, and here is a man turning aside. The Lord will see that. He does see it. He sees if we turn aside. Sacrifice, it may be. He is all the more ready to honour it, and He says, “Moses, Moses!”. God calling his name twice must have touched his heart. And he heard more than that. It says, “I have seen assuredly the affliction of my people”. All those years of history, God saw it, from Adam right down. He saw it, and the answer to it all is that Jesus, God’s own Son, came down into the world. Why? Beautiful verse: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first”, 1 Tim 1: 15.
Well, He has much more than that to say to Moses, but that is why He came down. Dear young heart, do you realise that, that Jesus came down to save you? I know an old man, and he was rejoicing one of the last times I spoke to him. He said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”. He said, ’That means me! That means me!’. He came into the world to save me. Moses got some touch of what that means, but God has much more to say. He says, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham … And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians”.
Have you ever given time, dear souls, to think of the incarnation? It is despised today. There are all sorts of theories to set it aside, but it remains and will remain in all its glory, that God Himself came near, came down, came down in lowly form.
Come now, and view that manger -
The Lord of glory see,
A houseless, homeless Stranger
In this poor world for thee.
(The Man of Sorrows, J N Darby)
Oh what a stoop, my friend! What a stoop! But He came down to deliver them. He came down to take them out of it into His own arranged circumstances.
I think of Simeon when I read this passage. There was a man, I think possibly the most privileged creature, with the babe in his arms, the Lord of glory. How did he recognise Him? There must have been many babes came to the temple. It says “it was divinely communicated to him by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see the Lord’s Christ”, Luke 2: 26. He had turned aside. Persons who turn aside to see this can rebuff all these theories and speculations that come in. It says it was “divinely communicated to him” and he recognised that Who was there called out the worship of his heart, “divinely communicated to him”.
Well, may the incarnation in all its glory be entrenched in our affections! It is the centre-piece of all God‘s ways, and it was in His mind before the world began. As soon as sin came in God said the seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent, Gen 3: 15. Jesus was in His mind. The Man that we sung of as despised was there, the Centre of all God’s thoughts. And God is effectuating all His purposes because Jesus, the Lord of glory, came here into those conditions that we are in. It is worth turning aside, my friend, to think about the incarnation. Think of Him there coming in, not in triumph. He set the whole world in confusion. Just read Luke’s gospel or Matthew’s gospel, and you will see that the whole world was in confusion through a babe in lowly circumstances. Herod did not know what to do; the Pharisees did not know what to do, or the chief priests. There is something undeniable they had to say, but they did not know what to do. But Simeon knew the secret. He knew who was there and he knew what was going to happen. It is a marvellous thing, a man who was a Jew and limited to what was in the Old Testament, he knew that in that Babe in his arms there was the centre of all God’s purposes, and they were all going to be effectuated because of the One who stooped so low. Glorious Man, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2: 5), as Paul delights to speak about Him.
Well, we can say it was enshrined in Moses’ affections. He lived a good long time after this. Do you know how he speaks about this incident? He says “the good will of him that dwelt in the bush”, Deut 33: 16. Beautiful! What problems he must have had! What exercises he faced! Good will! The angels used similar words. It is what came in in the incarnation: “good pleasure in men” (Luke 2: 14), men with a long history, but God was able to take the long view. We could never have understood the Old Testament without the incarnation. It would have been a book of history, but as you look at the incarnation you will see the glory and delight God had. He could not wait. That is the impression I get, that God could not wait for the circumstances in Luke. Think of how He spoke about it in Isaiah! It says “he saw his glory and spoke of him”, John 12: 41. These prophets must have wondered who God was speaking about, but I am sure the Spirit gave them some touch: it was about Christ, the Man that was coming. Moses said, “Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him shall ye hearken”, Deut 18: 15. He knew his own shortcomings but he was feasting on that One who came down and dwelt in the bush.
And there at the end of his life God shows him something else. He takes him up the mountain. A lot of these showings are connected with mountains. You do not get them reading the newspaper, or on the sports field, or whatever area you may be attracted into. You get them, my friend, in the local meeting. You get those views of Christ that God shows through some sacrifice. You do not go up mountains in a car or whatever it may be, but these mountains were all climbed. There was sacrifice, there was labour, and God says, ’I see your labour and here is the reward’. God saw Moses go up and “Jehovah showed him the whole land”, Deut 34: 2. It is very beautiful what he saw. He not only saw the geography of it, but he saw the tribes in it. A dear brother once said about it that Moses had a look into heaven with the saints in it. That is a beautiful touch, to look in and see the saints all there. That is what Moses saw, those tribes that had wearied him, perhaps; he had seen their weaknesses, but God says as it were, ’Before you go, Moses, I will show you that the result of the incarnation will be that there is a Man who has effected all my thoughts and all my promises, and here are all the tribes, all in their place, enjoying their heavenly portion’. My friend, may I tell you, it is worth turning aside. A little bit of sacrifice it may be, but it is worth turning aside to see what God is ready to show. It says, “Things which eye has not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God has prepared for them that love him”, 1 Cor 2: 9. May I ask you again: are you a lover of God? He wants to show you His best.
Now I want to speak about Elisha. I should have read more, but the scripture is very full, and do you know the secret of Elisha’s life? He is one of the most remarkable men in Scripture. In his history they came and told him that the water was not fit for drinking. He says, ’Bring salt’, 2 Kings 3: 20. They told him the food was not fit for eating. He says, “Bring meal”, chap 4: 41. He met the need. Do you know the reason he met it? He knew a man in heaven. There is the answer for you, my friend, to all the wilderness path and the sorrows and the exercises: Christ in glory!
Elisha went through the exercise though. There were some other people there: they are called sons of the prophets. They stood afar off. They just had a cursory knowledge of things. I suppose they could preach, but they knew nothing practically of a man in glory. Where were the sons of the prophets when the food was not fit for eating? Where were they when the waters could not be drunk? They could maybe have quoted a scripture; maybe we should try this. Elisha has no hesitation. He says, “Bring meal”,. Where did that come from? For us, it is the knowledge of a risen, glorious Man. “For whatever promises of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen, for glory to God by us”, 2 Cor 1: 20. We are, to use another expression, “saved in the power of his life”, Rom 5: 10. Elisha knew typically that Man that was there was his Friend. Is Jesus your Friend? The Person who has gone in is a Man that we could turn to at any time, with any problem, and we would find the answer. Oh, my friend, feed on Christ in glory! Christendom is full, as another has said, of a historical Jesus, the Man who was here, but may I fix your eyes tonight, dear friend, on the Man who is there, “ascended up above all the heavens”, Eph 4: 10? Largely in the world they do not know what has happened to Him. Peter says of Jesus, “who is at the right hand of God, gone into heaven, angels and authorities and powers being subjected to him”, 1 Pet 3: 22.
He is the answer to those problems that arose among the people. Elisha could well have washed his hands of it. The sons of the prophets tried, but there it was, “bring meal”; ’bring salt’. What impresses you about these things is that they were all ready to hand. He did not go and look up the ministry, precious and profitable as that is, but he had the thing to hand. To the woman that was in debt, he says, “Tell me, what hast thou in the house?”, 2 Kings 4: 2. There is more than enough to meet it from a risen and glorious Man. This is like what we were speaking of in the reading, what is flowing from a Head in heaven to a body here to testify to a Man who is in glory.
Well, Elisha went on. Whatever the circumstance we can turn to the Man in heaven. My friend, He is always ready to hear. It speaks about Him in the New Testament: He is gone “into heaven itself”, Heb 9: 24. I often think of that verse. It was perfectly right that He should go into heaven, but it does not stop there. It says, “now to appear before the face of God for us”. Think of Him being there for you! That might be like what Elisha had the sense of. He is there to sustain me and to sustain the people, appearing before the face of God for us. My friend, that is a very practical thing. We turn aside to speak about it, but it is worth speaking about for a moment. The enemy will tell you how bad you are. The enemy will try to overcome you by your sins and your weakness and the breakdown of all that is around, but look to Christ! He is there before the face of God for you. Do you know that your name is on His breast? Have you a sense of that? In the midst of these problems, have you? We have to learn that bitterly sometimes. We try our own ways; but there He is, the Great High Priest, there with our names on His breast, and that is what God looks on. God is looking on your name on that breast and He says, ’That is my son’, and heaven’s resources are available to maintain you here in accord with the place that you have in heaven. There was an old brother that I knew well who heard Mr Raven speaking on Hebrews 3: 1, “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus”. As Apostle, He maintains the calling at its height. The system cannot break down. As the High Priest, He maintains the people at the height of their calling. My friend, just think of that! It is something that will help you through life. There is breakdown, but the system will not break down. The Apostle, Jesus, the glorious Man, is maintaining it and will maintain it to the end and he is “a merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb 2: 17) who will maintain you in the joy of your salvation. Make time for it, my friend! What I am saying is not a theory, or only a verse of scripture. There are many in this room have proved it: make time to consider it! That means pause and wait and think. Paul says that. You do not understand things? “Think of what I say, for the Lord will give thee understanding in all things”, 2 Tim 2: 7. Pause and consider that, “the Apostle and High Priest of our confession”. Well, Elisha knew something about that.
But then I want to speak about John for a moment. He heard those words, “I will shew thee”, something that had been prepared before the world’s foundation. “Come here”. You have to move. As I have said already, you do not get help by sitting waiting for it. Have you ever been touched by a word of ministry or in reading a verse of scripture? The Spirit may have touched your affections. Well, “Come here”. Do not hurry away from it. Think of what touches of divine grace are so readily shown to you. John could have said, ’There are all sorts of things to do’, but this voice attracted him. That is something that happens in the beginning of Revelation. John heard a voice and he turned to see the voice, chap 1: 12. Mr Darby puts it:
What powerful, mighty Voice, so near,
Calls me from earth apart
(The Call, J N Darby).
It is a voice calling you away from these circumstances that may be holding you. Well, John was very ready to turn to hear the voice, and he was ready to take this journey. The angel says, “Come here, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the Spirit”. He is seeing the saints of this dispensation. He is seeing these local brethren that you may have been meeting with; John is seeing the aggregate of them; he is seeing “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. It is a touch of another but it is very precious: an examination into the overcomers’ rewards will enable us to arrive at the thought of the bride, JT vol 47 p465. If you just look at that, there is a lot in it. Of some of them it says, they shall be clothed in white garments, Rev 3: 5. These overcomings that are going on in your life, they are making the threads, weaving the threads that God is going to put together in this beautiful garment of “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”, displaying those glorious features. Well, John sees her no longer in breakdown, but sees her coming down. She has been in glory at this point, and John sees her coming out, the wonder of the universe. Nations will be brought to admire what they see in this “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”.
John got a view of it. May it encourage your heart, my friend, and mine in the days we are in to look, to see –
The church complete and in Thy beauty dressed
(Hymn 226)
What an influence she is going to have, despised today maybe, but what an influence she is going to have in a universe to come. Her shining, her glory, is going to illumine the earth and it is going to give Israel an impression of what they missed, but they are going to see with great admiration what God has secured in a creature vessel that will bring blessing and healing and glory to the world. Well, God is showing it to interested persons today. It has been said again that John stood amidst the ruin of Paul’s assemblies in the beginning of Revelation. He must have had a broken heart as he went through chapter after chapter and saw the confusion in the world and the breakdown, but God says, “Before I close the book, I will show you something else. From all that confusion and all that breakdown I have secured “the bride, the Lamb’s wife”’. My friend, make time amidst the sorrows, amidst the breakdown, amidst the weakness and the confusion, make time for God to show it to you. You and I are part of that bride. Wonderful grace! And here she is coming out in all the freshness and glory of all God’s thoughts. John sees all that and before he closes the book, he says, “come, Lord Jesus”, chap 22: 20. That is the effect, my friend, of having some sense that things are all completed and secured in the Man Christ Jesus. “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”, chap 22: 17. God is listening for that cry from your heart and mine: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”. Then it says, “He that testifies these things says, Yea, I come quickly”, v 20. There is the answer to the cry of the bride to come. He says, “I come quickly”. But then it says, “Amen; come, Lord Jesus”. May it be so for His Name’s sake!
Glasgow
25th April 2009