We began these messages with a
fresh contemplation of the greatness of Christ; and then we went
on to remind ourselves that everything which has to do with the
realization of God's purpose in creating man, and this world, and
its universe, is a matter of knowing God in Christ, which,
of course, means knowing Christ. Every aspect and detail of God's
will and God's way and God's end is a matter of knowing the Lord
Jesus. All progress, as all life, rests upon that - knowing Him.
The Christian life here is meant to be one of continuous growth
and development and progress, but that only takes place as we
come to know more, and still more, of the meaning of the Lord
Jesus. This progress will not stop when we leave this world, and
when time gives place to eternity: "Of the increase of his
kingdom there will be no end." Stagnation is no mark
of life, and life there will be ever manifesting itself in new
and more wonderful fullnesses and forms. Therefore, the knowledge
of Christ which will, in time and eternity, be the secret of
growth and progress, will continue in heaven, and it will take
eternity to exhaust it. Well, that was our next thing - all
growth, progress, fruitfulness, rest upon this growing knowledge
of the Lord Jesus.
That brought us to this: Seeing
He is so vast, so immense, so many-sided, we can only see Him
from one standpoint at a time; we have to move round to see Him
from every angle. And at this time we are just looking at the
Lord Jesus from one of the many angles, or points of view, which
is this particular aspect of His significance: that He, in His
Person and in His work, stands related to an eternal, heavenly
order. He Himself, in His wonderful, complex Person, is the very
embodiment of all the principles and laws of a great heavenly
order. When everything is conformed to Christ and takes its
character from Him, it will be one glorious, harmonious whole,
perfected into one, just one glorious unity.
So that is what we are seeking
to grasp at this time: the relationship of Christ to this eternal
heavenly order. We have, of course, laid our foundation in the
Word of God. We have allowed that to come to us in one marvellous
statement through the apostle Paul that "in the fulness of
the times - the fulness of the times - God has
determined to gather together (or, re-gather together) all things
in Christ". Seeing that the very word contains that idea of
re-gathering, it implies, if it does not declare, that there was
a glorious order at one time when everything was as God meant it
to be. All the sons of God shouted for joy as they beheld the
marvel of His creation and His order. That word implies that that
order has been lost, and in its place there has come disorder;
and it declares that the order is going to be restored in Christ.
That is the great significance of the Lord Jesus from this
standpoint. We repeat: He personally is the embodiment of that;
and His work is related to that.
That led us to the place where
the great river of revelation divides into four:
One. God is
the God of order. We dwelt a little while on that, although it
altogether defeats us, for it is so great and so full. This fact,
of God being such, is revealed clearly, firstly, in His
creative work;
Secondly,
in the great representation that we have in type and
symbol in the Old Testament;
Thirdly,
in His redemptive work;
Fourthly,
in the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
In all these four
ways there is a wonderful revelation that God is a God of order.
Let us think for just a minute
or two on the first of those - revealed in creation.
While, of course, we are
confronted with so much in this present world and system which
seems to shout disorder, derangement, discord and confusion, even
in nature, there is still discernible in nature a wonderful
background of an ordered system. That is something which has
engaged men for their whole life, and is a marvellous universe
itself of instruction and of fascination. Here is an extract from
a big work by one of the most outstanding biologists. He writes
thus:
"The hosts of living
organisms are not random creatures. They can be classified
into battalions and regiments. Neither are they isolated
creatures, for every thread of life is intertwined with
others in a complex web. This is one of the fundamental
biological truths, the co-relationship of organisms in the
web of life. No creature lives or dies to itself. There is no
insulation in nature. One organism gets linked on to others,
and becomes dependent upon them for the very continuance of
its race. Flowers and insects are fitted together as hand in
glove. When we learn something of the intricate give and
take, supply and demand, action and reaction, between plants
and animals, between flowers and insects, we begin to get a
glimpse of a vast organization in the creation."
Well, take it for what it is
worth. You will see that that gathers up into a few sentences
something that is capable of tremendous enlargement. You see it
everywhere. Behind this creation there is a Mind that loves to
have things properly ordered and related. Behind this creation
there is a perfect, spiritual system. God is the God of order,
and what is true in natural history is seen to be true everywhere
else. God has arranged the year in seasons. He has arranged the
co-operation of heaven and earth in that the heavenly bodies
govern the movements of the earth, the tides; and so on.
We would not know where to stop
if we were to allow ourselves to go on with this! There is one
hymn in our hymnbook which begins: "The spacious firmament
on high..." You notice that the conclusion of that hymn is:
"It all declares a Mind Divine." Well, if we wanted to
go on with this we do not need to go far away to the celestial
bodies or to objects outside of ourselves; we have only to have a
little intelligence about our own human bodies, and to see that
the human body, in health, is a marvellous system of related,
dependent, inter-dependent, co-operative functions, principles and
elements. Anyone who really has any knowledge of the human body
ought to be a great worshipper! It is a marvellous unity in
diversity. It all speaks of this 'hand in glove' principle, of
one thing fitting into another in perfect harmony and symmetry.
There is another side to that, I know, and I am going to speak
about it presently.
We have done no more than stated
a fact: that wherever you can trace the hand of God before the
other hand comes upon it - either the hand of man or the hand of
the devil - you find this beautiful harmony, this wonderful
order.
We come to the Old Testament,
and anyone familiar with it will not need an exhaustive proof of
this great truth. In the Old Testament representations of God's
Mind we begin with Him bringing order out of chaos, for that is
where everything begins. God, who is the God of order, reacts
against this state of chaos, and His reaction issues in a
remarkable and excellent order. And what is true as to God
bringing order out of chaos where the earth is concerned is seen
to be a principle that is working all through the Old Testament.
You see it at work in a representative people - and here is the
glory and the tragedy of Israel. The glory of Israel is that they
were taken out of the nations to be the embodiment and the
manifestation of a heavenly order on this earth, and the tragedy
of Israel is that Israel has come to chaos. You see them in
Egypt, and what was true in nature was true spiritually and
morally of Israel in Egypt - chaos; no order; barrenness;
frustration, confusion; hopelessness. Exodus is the book of
emergence from all that, and they are not a rabble, a crowd of
refugees going out into the wilderness. They are ordered, and
ordered by their ranks. You can trace these marks as you read
carefully. No, they are not just a mixed-up crowd, a disorderly
crowd, running amok to get out of Egypt. See them marching like
an army, in their serried ranks and their appointed order!
It is order out of chaos. See them at Sinai, when God has given
His pattern for their national life. Just take a look at
one of those pictures that we have of Israel assembled around the
Tabernacle. And then, the order of the service. Leviticus is the
book of the ordering of worship. And what a marvellous system
that book is of the order of worship! It is not just that
God said this, and that, and that is to be in the way of
sacrifices and offerings and feasts; you will notice that there
is a marvellous sequence, an ordered sequence, and that need is
supplied at every point. It is a progressive, ordered development
of worship, of approach to God, under a specified and
particularized government. That book of Leviticus is a wonderful
book! You move into the book of Numbers, and the very name of the
book indicates what it is all about. This is the book of the
marchings through the wilderness, and everything is numbered,
tabulated and ordered. I just indicate the details and you will
pick them up.
Pass over the many years until
you come to the Temple, and this is one of the things that almost
overwhelms you! The marvellous, meticulous order about this
Temple - every detail, every measurement; the size of everything;
the place of everything; the material of everything. And what
shall we say about the 'courses of the singers' and the 'courses
of the priesthood' all in course round the clock. Everything is
prescribed for. And when the Queen of Sheba came and looked at
the order of the house there was no more breath left in her! That
was the impressive thing. Everything here was so quietly,
harmoniously and beautifully regulated. It all speaks of a
mastermind, and that was God. He gave the pattern for that, and
He gave the revelation. And although that was disrupted and the
people went into captivity, passing seventy years in exile, the
return of the remnant, the rebuilding of the wall and of the
house were again marked by this order. We have read and studied
the book of Nehemiah from other standpoints and have perhaps not
been impressed with the wonderful organization in it. You notice
that one whole chapter is taken up with: "next unto him...
and next unto him... and next unto him". It is all arranged
and ordered. It is, if you like, all organized. We can use that
word in the Old Testament if we cannot in the New Testament.
Nehemiah represents a master-organizer in the things of God. This
is all under divine direction, and it all points to this: God is
a God of order. We must be impressed with this, dear friends. It
is not something to be contemplated objectively and historically.
You and I have to be tremendously impressed with this and see
that God is very particular about how things are done, what
things are done, and who does these things, and also about
the relationships that obtain amongst those who are employed. God
is very particular, and, as we have said, this is not because He
loves to have things 'just so', but because He is made that way.
We know quite well that real progress, real fruitfulness and real
achievement demand order. If we come into a place that is all
upside down, disturbed, with everything all over the place, we
know that we have got a job on hand, and we begin by saying:
"Well, we cannot do anything until we have got this
straightened out." That is God: "We cannot get on until
we have got it straightened out! We shall never get anywhere
until things are put straight."
But I do not want just to be
piling a lot of data upon you. It is of very vital spiritual
consequence that we get it into us that God is particular, and He
is not going to overlook anything, or bypass anything. He will
have it so, or He will not have all that He desires. He will be
patient; He will work; He will wait; He will do a lot to get it
so; He may take years to get it so, but that will be our loss. If
He could have it His way, He would get on with His job forthwith
by having things according to His order. Frustration, delay,
unfruitfulness, are always due to this absence of God's way of
doing things, or of His object in doing things, or of what He
wants done, or of the way in which He wants it done. Let us never
deceive ourselves in false satisfaction because God gives some
blessing!
That is perhaps enough by way of
emphasizing the fact that God is the God of order. I have only
opened a window to you through which you can see a universe.
We come to the next thing: the
disruption and disorder. There is a sense in which the
Bible throughout is occupied with the confronting of this
long-drawn-out, obdurate, incorrigible disorder, and with the
evil forces that are behind it. You meet it everywhere - the
dealing with interfering forces is found almost everywhere in the
Bible. The Bible shows the source of this disruption and
disorder. And we are all too aware of this disorder. Everywhere
in this universe, in this creation, there is a disrupted order, a
dis-order. There is a great schism everywhere. That is true, is
it not? Well, taking it that you agree that it is so, the Bible
shows us where it came from, the range of it, the entrance of it
into this world, its development in this world, its nature and
its effects, and its main cause.
This disorder, the Bible shows
us, began in heaven. It was a rebellion against God; and we know
how it entered into this world. The first result was that man
himself became a divided creature, a centre of civil war in his
own nature. Man is, by nature, no longer a unity. He is himself a
clash of two worlds. The Psalmist prays: "Unite my
heart" (Psalm 86:11). "Unite my heart!" Our
hearts are divided things. Man is a division, and he is himself a
conflict. And when I speak of man, I am uniting the man and the
woman, for with both of them this became true in themselves
individually, and then, of course, it became true of them as two.
The enemy sought to divide the husband and the wife - and he did
it. He struck right home to that marvellous oneness. You see, the
Scripture goes out of its way to describe and emphasize the
oneness: "They shall be one flesh... the twain shall
be one flesh." It has so much to say about that
oneness of husband and wife, but this disruptive influence and
power came in and divided them. It is a real lesson! From the
husband and the wife it reached to the family, and it is not long
before you find the family disrupted. Cain and Abel - the one
murdering the other, and destroying the family life. From the
family, it reached out to embrace the whole race; and you know
how the book of Genesis contains the story of racial disruption
and confusion. This thing spread and it has become universal. The
spirit of it is in the lower heavens: "The spirit that now
worketh in the children of disobedience" - it is in
the air: "the prince of the power of the air"; you can
breathe it and you can sense it in this world, the antagonism,
hatred and malice, and much more like that. It has come right
into the human life of the individual, and into human
relationships, into the nearest two. It has come right into the
family - and what a problem family life is now! And what a key it
is to so much more! - until the race is shot through and through
with this disrupting and dislocating spirit and power. Yes, it is
here. We have seen where it came from, how it started, its range,
its development, its nature and its effects - to set every man's
hand against his brother.
Its main cause. This is
something that we must stay with for a moment. Do remember that
the Bible always regards this matter as a rebellion, for
it is the spirit of rebellion. The more we know of our own
natures under stress, under trial, under pressure, the more true
we know this to be. Right in our constitution there is something
that rebels, and would even rebel against God and His ways, would
question His wisdom and His love. It is in us. And the
seat of this rebellion is in man himself. He is a disrupted
being, not only disrupted in his relationship with God, but
disrupted in his own personality. Man is a divided creature in
himself, for the spirit of rebellion came in. The word
"iniquity", which is such a characteristic word of the
Old Testament, has its roots in this very idea of rebellion.
Now the real nature of this
thing lies here - and perhaps we can illustrate this best by
looking at the physical body, because those who know something
about this - the laws of physical health and disease - tell us
that it is all a matter of the environment of the living cells.
This is a quotation: "It is the cell environment that is
responsible for whatever disease affects the human body, either
in the immediate environment of the cells, the presence of a
poison, or the absence of some essential ingredient." All
these millions of living cells are environed by this lymph
stream, which provides what is necessary for their life. This
lymph stream is their environment. If some poison gets into that
stream, or if something essential to their life is lacking, then
the living cells fall into disease, and the body in its whole
order is upset. And sickness is only disorder, is it not? Now, I
have taken this illustration, for God has written His spiritual
laws in all His creation, and, I think, pre-eminently in the human
body.
You see, all this disorder, and
resultant sickness, all the pain and agony due to this
disruption, are because man left his environment. God is man's
true environment. In Him there is no darkness at all, and no
poison. In Him is all that we need for our life and for our
health. But man left his environment. He took himself out of his
environment in God, and took his life into his own hands, to say
what he would do and not do, what he would have and not have. He
became a law unto himself, rebelling against God as his law and
his environment. What happened? He entered into an environment of
poison and of fatal lack of what is necessary to his very life.
Salvation - which is the word for health - is a return into God.
Hence Christ emphasized the need to "Abide in Me".
Now start again with that
thought. You see, this whole Bible is about bringing man back to
God, bringing him into God, and restoring him to his environment.
"In Him we live and move and have our being" is the
fundamental truth of the spiritual life. There is one thing I
suggest to you, or hint at, which, if you grasp it, would
be such a tremendous help to you. When the Lord says anything it
may look on the face of it something very simple, and not at all
profound and wonderful; but anything that comes from the Lord,
though it be apparently very simple, contains all the vast
knowledge and understanding that the Lord has, and not to take
account of that 'simple' thing may bring you into a vast amount
of trouble. When the Lord Jesus says: "Abide in Me" it
sounds so simple and so ordinary, but it contains all this
history, and this great principle and truth: "If you get out
of your environment you are exposed to all the poisons and all
that creates spiritual disease. Abide in Me for your health's
sake! for your life's sake! for the sake of everything! Abide in
Me, and I in you!" Have you got that? You look again
at any seemingly 'little' thing that the Lord says, and if you
could see you would find that you have a universe of meaning in
it.
Well, the main cause of all the
disorder is getting out of your rightful sphere in God,
and that is what happened at the beginning. The cure, as we shall
see when we come to the redemptive work, is to get back into your
place, into your cover, in God. Forsake your wandering, which is
outside. Leave your independence, and come in.
Now, you see, this carries with
it the whole matter of the absolute, undivided, unquestioned
supremacy and sovereignty of God in and through Jesus Christ. Put
that another way: the absolute surrender, yieldedness, unquestioning
acceptance of the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as Head.
That is the way of life, the way of health, the way of
fruitfulness, and the way of progress. And we know so well that
frustration, limitation, arrest, barrenness are because there is
still unyieldedness to Him in the life. Adam took things into his
own hands and said: "I will be the lord of my life",
and we are like that by nature. And I am afraid we have not got
so far away from it in grace. We meet one another, and what do we
meet? We meet a man and a woman who have got a mind of their own,
a will of their own, and a way of their own, and will never be
taught by you, or told by you, what they should do. Unteachable,
stubborn, mulish, knowing best!
Let me close with this: Pain,
all pain, is because of disorder. Pain is nature shouting:
"There is something wrong!" It is true in the physical.
You may kill pain. There are lots of things provided for killing
pain, and I am afraid I am one who says: "Thank the Lord for
that!" Nevertheless, no sensible person believes that the
killing of pain is getting rid of the trouble. No, you may kill
the pain and silence the cry, but the trouble that is there may
work itself out in your death. The killing of the pain
does not mean that you heal the disorder.
The world is trying to silence
this cry of pain, to numb this ache, to kill it, and go on as
though there is nothing wrong; but it is there. What is true in
the physical is true in the spiritual. Pain in our
spiritual life, in our corporate life, is the cry that there is
something wrong, there is disorder somewhere, and things are not
as the Lord intended them to be. There is a dislocation in the
joints, there is a fracture in the fellowship, and there
is a disease of sin in the Body. We cannot just take
something to numb the pain, silence the cry, and go on as though
it were all right. No, the thing will work itself out. We have
got to stop and say: "What is it? Where is the disorder?
Where are things wrong? What is it that is against God's Mind?"
Until we can get our hand upon that, there is no hope for
clearing up the situation at all. That is the need. Remember that
the Bible says that the end of the age will see disorder -
rebellion - come to the full.