"And
it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise
up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that
hate thee flee before thee. And when it rested, he said, Return,
O Lord, unto the ten thousands of the thousands of Israel"
(Numbers 10:35,36).
The
book of Numbers is concerned with a militant movement on the part
of God, in the midst of His ordered people, in relation to His
testimony. The ark is called 'the ark of the testimony', and the
place in which it was resident or deposited was the 'tabernacle
of testimony'; and everything centred in, circled round and was
governed by that testimony - the testimony of God concerning His
Son, Jesus Christ. That has an abiding message for the Lord's
people at all times and at all stages of spiritual progress.
I
would point out that this is not some peculiar testimony
belonging to any one particular company of God's people. It is
the testimony of Jesus. We will not stay to explain
what it is, but we do know that, in the book of consummations -
the book of the Revelation - where everything is brought out to
its final fulness and dealt with in finality, "the testimony
of Jesus" is the dominant factor from beginning to end. In
the first chapter the testimony of Jesus is presented by Himself
in His own Person. Then everything - the churches and the Church
comprehensively, the nations, and ultimately the kingdom of
darkness - is all dealt with and settled in the light of the
testimony of Jesus; and finally that testimony of Jesus is
brought out in glorious fulness in the symbol of the City, and
everything about that City speaks of Him, and speaks of Him in
glory in the saints.
That
is just by the way, lest we should think, when we use the phrase
'a testimony', that we are talking about something other than the
testimony of Jesus in its fullest sense as in the Word of God. I
do want to deliver minds from the idea that, shall I say, 'Honor
Oak' has a 'testimony' of its own. 'This testimony' - how I hear
that all over the world from people who are associated with the
company and the Lord's work here in this place. Please strip your
mind and your tongue of that phraseology. It is not some private
testimony we are talking about. It is the testimony of Jesus in
its fulness, and it is, as I have said, God's movements in
connection with that that the whole of the Scriptures reveal.
1. Sovereign Selectiveness
We
start with Genesis. God's creative activity was there; we may
deal with that more fully later. It brings us back to the whole
outline of God's goings. But when things departed from the Divine
intention, and that so early, God reacted in relation to His
testimony, and we find that the whole book of Genesis is occupied
with the sovereign selectiveness of God in
this very connection. And here I am going to pass again to the
key - to the whole Word of God, His Divine principle. If you get
the Divine principle, you will understand the Scriptures. If you
have not, you will do what has been done and is being done, that
is, you will make theories and interpretations without number and
without end. Take, for instance, all that has been produced on
the book of Revelation. It is perfectly hopeless. Of all the
multitudes who have sought to interpret it, you find hardly two
that agree. The only sure key to the Scriptures as a whole or in
any part is a Divine principle. When you have that, the whole
thing opens up.
I
suggest that the Divine principle with which God reacted to the
fall was this sovereign selectiveness. It begins with the seed of
the woman, and then it moves on along a thin line of witnesses,
reaching to Abraham, and then, through Abraham, to Isaac and
Jacob and then through them to the nation. There is a movement of
God within the world of men, sovereignly laying hold of people in
relation to that testimony which He in His eternal counsels had
determined to realise. The testimony of Jesus began before this
world began. It has been taken up along this line by the
sovereign act of God, and it is there that we must find our
strength. There are, of course, always the two sides to any
Divine movement - the Divine initiative, and man's responsibility
- but the Divine initiative always comes first - and that is our
comfort, consolation and strength. "Ye did not choose me,
but I chose you." (John 15:16). "He chose us in him
before the foundation of the world". (Eph. 1:4). That word
'chose' is a marvellous key to God's goings right down through
the ages.
The
goings of God are seen along this line of sovereign selectiveness
- and how much we owe to that! The very holding on our way, our
very being kept by the power of God to the end, is simply because
in the first place God chose us; God, if I may use the word,
selected us. God looked and saw us and laid His hand upon us, and
that, we are told in this marvellous revelation of the eternal
goings of God, happened before ever we had a being. We were
foreknown. All sorts of difficulties are gathered into that, but
let me say here that it is not so much the individual, as that
elect company for a Divine purpose, which is the occasion of this
sovereign selectiveness.
You
can see God moving in this way right through the Word. You cannot
explain it. We shall come on to the mystery of God's ways sooner
or later, but there is no ground of explanation outside of God
Himself. The Lord Jesus chose His twelve disciples. There is no
ground of explanation, none whatever, outside of Himself.
"Did not I choose you the twelve?" (John 6:70) - and
that is all there is to it. 'I chose you'. He never explained
why; none of us could explain why. But He has done it; and what
we know, immediately we come under the government, the control,
of the Holy Spirit, is that we have come into line with something
which is not incidental in life, something which has a very long
history; we have become a part of something that reaches beyond
time, both backward and forward, something beyond the limits of
this world and this life. We are conscious of being related to
some immense purpose.
I
say again, we are not always able to explain or define it; but a
consciousness comes to us that after all, whatever we may have
felt or thought about it before, our birth is not just an
incident, we have not come on the scene by chance - there is
something more in it than that. No one knows that until they
become linked with the Lord Jesus and thus become a part of God's
testimony concerning His Son, which is the ground of all God's
movements from eternity to eternity. We have come into something
that is very near to the heart of God, and the more utterly you
come into line with that, the more God stands by you, the more
God is going to vindicate Himself and His wisdom. It is a
tremendous thing to be wholly and fully in the mid-thoroughfare
of those eternal goings of God.
So
Genesis sees the beginning of this principle, which continues all
the way through the Old Testament and New Testament - the
principle of sovereign selectiveness in relation to God's
testimony concerning His Son, the testimony of Jesus.
2. Sovereign Separation
We
come to Exodus for the next phase in the goings of God, and here
it is a matter of sovereign separation. There is the elect
people, but the elect has got rather entangled in things, mixed
up in things; the elect is in bondage, the elect, is in the
world; and God must move sovereignly again. And God retains that
sovereignty in His own hands. Moses tried to assume the
sovereignty of God in separating the people from Egypt, and it
was a terrible disaster. God retains the sovereignty in relation
to His purpose. When God's time came, when the hour came for God
to move, He did it from Himself, on His own account, right out
from Heaven. You find God saying all the time, in relation to
that emancipation: "I...",
"I...", "I...", "Now, thou
shalt see what I will do..." (Ex.
6:1). "Come now therefore, and I
will send thee..."(Ex. 3:10). "Thus shalt thou say... I
AM hath sent me unto you" (Ex. 3:14). God in
sovereignty, the great I, is taking
charge of this matter.
The
second principle, then, in the goings of God, is God acting to
get His people separated unto Himself: and separated, in the
first place, as the first stage, from the world. No one who is
really vitally related to the Lord, who has a life with God, who
is under the hand of God, will ever fail to recognise those
activities of His in separating them from the world. They will
never have a happy time in the world. The most miserable people
on this earth are Christians who are still 'in with' the world.
Far better be an out-and-out worldling - they are so much happier
than Christians who are in the world. Yes: for the Christian it
is one thing or the other. The alternative is a miserable 'half
and half' existence, which just is not worthwhile.
Look
at Israel in Egypt, and see God at work with His own to make them
inwardly know that they cannot be mixed up or entangled in this
world. God's sovereignty will not allow it, and He makes that
sovereignty known in the heart of His own people.
Then
comes the next phase of separation. Once they are out of Egypt,
there has to be an inward separation from themselves,
which seems to be an even more complicated thing than getting
them out of Egypt. That extrication had called for very great
power on the part of God, and God was equal to it when it came to
the matter of power; but in the wilderness it called for infinite
patience. God Himself was, of course, again equal to it; but if
God knows any comparatives in His activities - if one thing can
be said to be easier or harder for Him than another, it seems
that His task with Israel in the wilderness was much more
difficult than His task in getting them out of the world. The
inward work of God calls for infinite patience.
But
here you see the goings of God. God is not just going to have a
theoretical, doctrinal position; He is not just going to have a
positional truth; He is going to have an actual condition
corresponding to the truth. In relation to the ultimate object
toward which He is moving in all His goings - that Christ in all
things shall have the pre-eminence - it is necessary that self
shall have no pre-eminence, that the natural life shall not be
lord in any sense or in any way. And so His goings must be
through the wilderness, in which He is ever at work to divide
inwardly as well as outwardly. Exodus sees those two phases of
God's goings with His chosen - outward separation, inwards
separation; the outward from the world and its overlord, the
inward from the self, the flesh, the natural life and its
dominion - so that eventually the Lord has a people who have no
other lords, outwardly or inwardly, but in whom His lordship is
absolutely established. It was only for a bright, glorious but
brief period in Israel's history that that was realised; by far
the greater part of their history on both sides of that glorious
period was of other lords having dominion. But what is in the
Lord's view, toward which He is moving in all His goings, is to
have a people unreservedly for His own. That is His testimony.
3. Sovereign Service
We
come next to Leviticus, and here it is a matter of sovereign
service: it is priestly ministry. I cannot stay to take out even
fragments by way of reminding you of the contents of that book.
We can sum it all up in this way: Everything here is
"holiness unto the Lord" (Ex. 28:36, etc., A.V.). That
is, ministering to Divine satisfaction, to Divine pleasure. All
the feasts and the offerings speak of that which brings pleasure
and satisfaction to God. It is all so highly symbolic of the
perfections of His Son in Deity and in humanity. It is bringing
Him for God's satisfaction; the priestly office and the priestly
array all speaking of the glories of Christ in the presence of
God.
There
is another side to it. God ordains His service so sovereignly
that there are many things connected with it which are
exceedingly dangerous if they are not observed. If there is false
incense, if there is man-made as distinct from
Divinely-prescribed incense; if the requisite garments are not
worn, the garments of glory and beauty; if there is a breach at
any point in these laws of God concerning His Son, the
consequences are fatal. So that He ordains this service, and He
says, 'This is not optional, this is not a thing that you can
take or leave; it is a thing upon which everything, so far as My
ultimate purpose is concerned, depends.' It is a matter of life
and death - holiness unto the Lord.
What
is service to the Lord? It may take many forms, it may move along
many lines, but the essence and true nature of the service of God
is bringing to Him that which is for His pleasure and
satisfaction, that in which He can have the glories of His Son,
the perfections of His Son displayed.
That
is His object with every convert. God's object in getting people
saved is not just to get them saved.
The proclamation of the Gospel is not merely a matter of
'rescuing the perishing' from Hell and getting them to Heaven as
though it were all centred in them, as
though they - or we - were the beginning and end of the Gospel.
That is not it. Every newly born-again child of God, in the
thought of God, is a vessel in which those perfections and
glories of His Son are to be manifested, and each one is then to
be related to all the others, to make the one glorious vessel
which will eventually be seen "coming down out of heaven
from God, having the glory of God". The object of winning
souls is the ultimate satisfaction and pleasure of God. It is not
only for the sake of the convert and the convert's eternal
well-being; we have concentrated far too much on that.
If
only we can see and grasp the fuller thought of God, what a
motive it is! God can then commit Himself. Surely that is the
main point, after all - that God should be able to come alongside
and say: 'Yes, I am in this: this has something more in view than
personal gratification; this has My glory in view, this has My
Son in view.' That is sovereign service.
4. Sovereign Warfare
When
you come to Numbers, you find the Lord's people in a position or
condition of being constituted a warring instrument concerning
the Testimony. This is something tremendous - for, so far as the
ages down here are concerned, the testimony of Jesus is an
outstanding thing, the most outstanding thing in God's universe.
All the conflict, all the trial, all the suffering of the Church
and the saints, is related to that testimony. If you will have
nothing to do with the testimony of Jesus you will escape
nine-tenths of your troubles, difficulties and sufferings. Touch
that, come into relation to that, and your troubles begin.
Indeed, we know that, on one side, your troubles begin as soon as
you become a Christian! Praise God, that is not the whole story;
but it is one side, and the Lord Jesus did not hide that. He made
it perfectly clear that that would be the immediate consequence
of relationship to Himself.
There
is a great kingdom of antagonism to this testimony of Jesus -
fierce and violent antagonism. It is a mighty spite against God.
We have suggestions as to how and why it arose. There was one who
aspired to the kingdom, to the inheritance, to a certain place
next to God, to be equal with God. But that place was reserved
for God's Son, and so the Son has for ever, in Heaven and on
earth, been the object of that one's fiercest jealousy and
hatred; and so because God is working all things in the interests
of His Son, the one thing to which the Devil has committed
himself, throughout all the ages, is to spoil everything that is
of God - just to spoil it. Anything that God does, the Devil will
immediately try to spoil, because it is related to God's Son. So
we find ourselves precipitated into a realm of animosity. It is
in the very atmosphere - you cannot avoid it. It is there all the
time.
This
conflict is a part of the testimony. The book of Numbers brings
us there: we find the testimony in the centre and the people
ordered for battle in relation to the testimony. But, blessed be
God, the testimony is seen as completely victorious. "Rise
up, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered".
Personal Applications
These
few thoughts are just hints and pointers, rather than anything
else, but if you take them up you will see their operation, not
only in the Old Testament, but in the New, and also in our own
lives. Firstly, God laid His hand upon us sovereignly: He made us
know that it had to be Himself. We may have longed for Him, we
may have craved for Him, we may have yearned for Him, but the
Lord chose His own moment for clinching the matter. He did not
allow any activities of ours to bring it about -
'It
is not thy tears of repentance, or prayers...'
There
is a side, of course, where we have to show that we mean business
with God; but God chooses His own moment for doing this thing, so
that we have to say, 'It was the Lord! I could not have got
through of myself; I could not have brought this about myself.
The Lord kept it in His own hands - I know He did it.'
That
is so in every matter, not only in our conversion. We see the
sovereignty of God dealing with us, His sovereign activities for
our separation, outwardly and inwardly. God is working in that
way. And until we let go of the world and of personal interests
in this life as objectives, let go the government of any life of
our own, let go any claim to direct and order our own paths, and
come into the goings of God, we are not in rest, the testimony
does not rest. "Return unto thy rest" (Ps. 116:7). As
you are in the activities of God 'going', you come into the rest
of God resting.
And
then it is a matter of everything for God's pleasure. That is the
meaning of holiness. Holiness sums it all up: everything to God's
pleasure and satisfaction, everything concerning the Lord Jesus,
He in all things having pre-eminence.
Finally,
God's dealings with us do bring us into the realm of conflict:
but it is conflict with tremendous issues and glorious assurances
- the certainty of victory.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, Mar-Apr 1956, Vol 34-2