"...to the
intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in
the heavenly places might be made known through the
church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the
eternal purpose" (Eph. 3:10-11).
"Who is there
among you that will give ear to this? that will
hearken and hear for the time to come?" (Isa.
42:23).
In those two fragments
we have two things which really amount to this - 'not
here, and not now.' Not here - "unto the
principalities and the powers in the heavenlies might be
made known through the church the manifold wisdom of
God." Not now - "who... will hearken and hear
for a time to come?" I think those two intimations
ought to be a very great help to all of us, and
especially to some.
There are a good many
things in the ways of God which are altogether beyond our
understanding. They are out of our range altogether. God
hides Himself while He is working, and seems very much to
delay His actions; and from these facts many of our
problems and difficulties arise, and we find ourselves
thrown into a state of great perplexity and our faith
sorely tried.
The
Problem of Apparent Fruitlessness
I want to be quite
simple and practical, because, on the face of it, these
verses contain rather abstract and remote statements;
they could fail to help us. I think that one of the most
difficult statements in the New Testament to apprehend
with any sense of comfort is that in Ephesians 3:10. Most
people cannot appreciate the fact that what is happening
in their lives is of interest to creatures altogether
outside of this world. That does not seem of very much
practical help; but there is a very practical side to it.
Many of you will never go to the mission field, as it is
called; you will never go out into so-called full-time
spiritual service. Many of you will never go far from the
homes where you are; many of you will never leave the
places of business where you are working. Many will never
enter upon any particular aspect of work for the Lord.
You will be called upon to live just where you are, to go
on with what is called 'the trivial round, the common
task.' No one will ever hear very much about you. Your
name will never appear in the religious press for the
great work that you are doing. You will be hidden ones,
and you will have plenty of opportunity and occasion for
wondering whether you are doing anything for the Lord,
whether your life does amount to anything worth while.
You hear of others being called and going out and
engaging in 'The work.' You envy them, you wish that it
were you, and then you begin to reflect upon your life
and your place, and you ask the question, 'Well, am I
living to any account at all? Do I really matter?'
Probably the majority of you will be like that.
There are others who,
in all desire to serve the Lord and be wholly for Him,
find themselves under arrest, shut up, restrained, as
they think - limited, restive, anxious, on stretch, like
animals in a cage, going round and round and finding no
way out. There will be others who will go out. You will
go into what is technically called 'The work.' You may go
abroad, or into this or that aspect of specific service
and ministry, and when you get there you will spend
nine-tenths of your life without seeing anything for it.
You will go on and on, labouring and being quite
faithful, and yet seeing little or no result.
And yet all of you, in
whichever category you may be - and there may be others
not mentioned - are conscious you are in something; at
least you are aware that you are in a conflict, that this
life for the Lord is not an easy thing; it is full of
trial, of pressure, of experiences which you would not
have if you were not the Lord's. It is not just an
ordinary life like that of an unbeliever - not to say
that all unbelievers have an easy life - but you have the
extras that result from being the Lord's, and you meet
those extras from all directions. You find you have to encounter sometimes
quite naked, spiritual antagonisms and oppositions and
difficulties.
The
Supreme Realm - 'Not Here' but the Unseen
Well, of course, the
answer to any questionings largely lies there; for here
is this mysterious statement in Eph. 3:10, a statement in
the Word of God. (I think that we believers are seriously
lacking in a practical, Divine adjustment to the things
which we have in our Bible and which we know so well; we
do not look at them straight in the face and say, 'That
is in the Bible; it must mean something, and it must mean
something where I am concerned.' We do not do that
enough. We are lacking in our attitude of definiteness
toward the things which we believe and accept. There is
something more there than we have yet faced and taken
hold of.)
Now here is a statement
which is in the Word of God - "to the intent that
now unto the principalities and powers in the heavenlies
might be made known through the church the manifold (the
many-sided) wisdom of God." May not that explain
practically all that I have said? leaving room for this,
that so far as we are concerned it may be necessary that
adjustments be made before the Lord can use us: we may
have to come into a position before He can do more
through us. Leaving room for that and other such
considerations, there still remains this very big realm
in which it is not a matter of controversy with the Lord
on any point at all, nor of our having to adjust on
something before the Lord can do what He would do. We may
be right there with the Lord, ready for any adjustment,
and yet He does not do the thing that we want Him to do.
There is this delay, this arrest. In such cases this word
may very well be the explanation and the application. God
is doing something with us, in us, by which He is
reaching the end for which this universe was created.
Look again at the
context of Eph. 3:10 and see the universal and timeless
setting of what is there. The universe was created for
the worship and glory of God, and the thing that He is
doing is somewhere bringing creatures on their knees in
worship and in wonder.
Divine
Wisdom Manifested Through Believers
"The manifold
wisdom of God." What is wisdom for? Why does anybody
want wisdom? - to answer questions, and solve problems,
to know how. We might illustrate by the story of an
American firm who had a big engineering job done. When it
had been completed the engineers sent in their account -
simply a statement of a lump sum. When the firm looked at
the account they were startled at the greatness of the
charge, and sent it back with a request for details. So
the engineers sent it back - Materials, so much (which
was very small compared with the total cost); labour, so
much (which again, put together with the material, did
not come to half the total); knowing how - the balance.
That is just the point - knowing how. Let us put it like
this. Have you ever had a friend in whom you had absolute
confidence? You had no question but that he knew how to
get out of difficult situations or to solve problems. You
have been with him when he has been put into the biggest
situation you could imagine. It might be a debate, an
argument. The opposition has piled up its case, argument
upon argument, problem upon problem, and all the time you
have been watching your friend and having no question but
that he was going to get out of the difficulty. You have
been tense with expectation but completely confident of
the result. You have been saying to yourself, 'I know he
will get out of it: but how? How will he face this, how
will he answer that?'
That is exactly what is
here. On the one hand there are the principalities and
powers, the celestial kingdom, angels and archangels of
light, heavenly beings having absolute and unreserved
confidence in God and knowing quite well that He has the
key to everything. On the other hand there is this
immense situation built up by Satan's interference, by
all that has come in through sin - the whole state of
things in God's universe, and man's helplessness and
inability to contribute anything towards extricating
himself. The situation requires something tremendous in
order that eventually the universe shall be filled with
the glory of God. All these angelic beings are watching,
almost holding their breath, as if asking, 'How will He
do it?' And they watch what God is doing in you and in me
and find their answer there. They watch grace at work;
for it is written that we should be "to the praise
of the glory of his grace" (Eph. 1:6).
How will He solve the
problem of an individual life? The very constitution of
the one concerned is contrary to God, and yet something
is happening in that life that is making it contrary to
itself, not according to nature at all. There is the most
impatient person that ever you could touch; but look!
Grace is making a most impatient person patient and
gentle, forbearing and long-suffering. There is one
naturally hot-tempered, who would flare up at the least
word; grace is making him quiet and calm. I sat by a
brother in Minneapolis who was dealing with a bit of
intricate apparatus, a recording instrument, and all his
wires had got into a terrible tangle, requiring hours of
unravelling. I sat by him while he went to work quietly,
just as though he had all eternity for his task. He said,
'You know, brother, before I was converted I would have
lost my temper.' Grace! And the heavenly beings are
looking on, seeing the wonder of the grace of God, what
He is doing in this life, and in that life, making them
altogether other than what they are naturally.
"Manifold" - yes, 'many-sided'; the wisdom of
God has to find a solution to many problems, as many as
there are persons concerned, and the grace of God is
sufficient for it all; and so there is worship. The Lord
may be more concerned to get glory to Himself in His
universe by the expression of His grace in us, than by
the number of things we are doing for Him. So we have to
wait, see no fruit, and find all kinds of frustration and
disappointment. 'Not here, but there.' But, mark you, the
manifestation is not only in some distant time - "now
unto the principalities and powers." It is going on
now.
The
Supreme Age - 'Not Now' but the Ages to Come
We come to the other
aspect - 'not now, but then.' "Who... will hearken
and hear for the time to come?" We cannot stay with
the context to indicate what it refers to, but there is
the point - "for the time to come." This is
where one of the things that we believe needs to be
brought much nearer. After all, do we believe there is a
time to come? Do we believe that the time to come is a
bigger time than now, that the afterward is much greater
than the present, that there are ages of ages, and that
our whole lifetime on earth, however long it may be, is
only a mere fragment of a dispensation? Do we believe
that our service "in the ages to come" is far
more important than in this age? We do not thereby rule
out the importance of this life and of buying up
opportunities and redeeming the time; but, nevertheless,
when we have done all that is possible and used every
moment fully, our life is but a span which is gone; and
just as we are getting to the place where we might have
something to give, when we have learned something that
might be of value to people here, we depart. What an
enigma life is, what a problem! "For the time to
come." You notice the Apostles - they always had
their eye upon that. "I will give diligence that...
ye may be able after my decease..." said one of them
(2 Pet. 1:15). That is the real test - whether we want to
be always in view, and unless we do something,
and do it in our lifetime, we have no interest in that
thing at all. Yet you will be prepared tomorrow to go to
China or India and serve the Lord for a few weeks and lay
down your life, either in martyrdom or in sickness. The
question arises, Will it be worth it? Many a young man
has volunteered in the hour of crisis and national need,
facing what was probably inevitable - a few days on the
battlefield, and then life's end. He thought it worth
while, he was prepared for it. You are prepared for that.
Why? - "for the time to come," for the
afterward. Is that it? If we did not believe really in
some afterward, that the cost was worth the afterward, we
would not do what we do. You believe it will be worth
while in the afterward to go out just for a month to
India and die, do you? If you do not, you have no right
to go.
The
Inspiration of an 'Afterward'
"For the time to
come." Let us have "the time to come" as a
real motive in living. The fruit will not all be
immediate; only a mere fragment of the meaning of things
can be in our day. The whole mass of value is to appear
again afterward. We have to live not only for this time,
because, though we live right up to the hilt for our own
time, we cannot do or be much, and I doubt whether the
outcome here is worth the cost. All this cost just for a
lifetime? No, for a time to come; and it may be that the
Lord is dealing with us as He is, not chiefly for now -
though perhaps there may be much even in this present
age. This present is the seed plot out of which there is
to come much more later on. He has in view "the ages
of the ages." Eph 3:10 says, "now unto
principalities... the manifold wisdom of God." Yes,
but Eph. 2:7 says, "in the ages to come... the
exceeding riches of His grace..."
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Sep-Oct 1948, Vol 26-5