Reading: Exodus 35:1 - 40:38.
I think first of all for the Bible Students I would like to say a
few general things about these five chapters by way of giving you a
basis for study. There are five things that can be said about these
chapters.
First of all they are a comprehensive representation of Christ as
tabernacling among us.
Secondly, they are a detailed definition of the testimony of Jesus.
Thirdly, they are a typical setting forth of the Body of Christ, the
Church, in (1) its object; (2) its nature; (3) its ministry.
Fourthly, they are a most valuable disclosure of the spiritual
principles of the life and service of the people of God.
Fifthly, they are a complete embodiment of Christian doctrine.
Now that is fairly comprehensive. While I have no thought of going
into all that here, we shall be touching it in a general way.
We come to chapter 35. But before we can deal with the content of
these chapters we must remind ourselves of the background and main
setting, and the ultimate thing which is in view, and that can be
stated in this way. What we have here is one of those breakings into
this world of the God of glory. God has broken into this world at
different intervals in its history and this is one of those
breakings in of the God of glory. You read back immediately before
this and you have God descending from the heavens, breaking through
to the mount and meeting His servant there at a place mid-way
between heaven and earth with a purpose concerning this world. The
glory of the God of Israel fell upon Moses and he brought it down
out of the Divine presence into this world, and it was reflected in
his face as the mediator between God and man.
Then the purpose of that breaking through and breaking in of the God
of glory was unto the setting up, or constituting of a vessel for
His testimony. That there should be here that which according to His
own mind was for Him the instrument of His self-manifestation, and
typically it was in Christ. It was to be in effect God here
manifesting Himself in His heavenly power and glory amongst the
nations, registering in the earth His own sovereign supremacy. Now
that is the setting of all this and brings us back to the whole
theme of this conference; the testimony and its vessel. With that
background clearly before us we are able to come to this section of
the book from chapter 35. Here the mediator of the Divine glory is
before the people with that glory shining forth from his
countenance, and we listen to his first utterances. I am quite sure
that your minds have already leaped on to another dispensation, and
you are in 2 Corinthians 3 and 4, the glory of God in the face of
Jesus Christ shining in our hearts, and we have this
ministry. I mention it to remind you of the link and to indicate
immediately what it is we are after.
The Assembly Constituted upon the Sabbath of
God
Now the first utterances of the mediator upon whom rests the glory
of God: "And Moses assembled all the congregation of the children of
Israel, and said unto them, These are the words which Jehovah hath
commanded, that ye should do them. Six days shall work be done; but
on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day, a sabbath of
solemn rest to Jehovah: whosoever doeth any work therein shall be
put to death. Ye shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations
upon the sabbath day."
Be reminded again of what is in view, a vessel for the testimony,
the heavenly testimony of God in Christ. That is going to be
constituted, constructed; and the first words which lead up to the
constituting relate to the Sabbath, and that carries with it a very
great and important truth, that the Sabbath is the ground upon which
the tent of meeting will be constructed. That is the ground upon
which it can be constructed, and the only ground upon which it can
be constructed, because that Sabbath represents the end of the works
of God and the entering by man into the finished works of God, and
only a man of rest can build the House of God. Solomon was a man of
peace, or rest, and because he was such he could build the House.
His father David, having been a man of war, was forbidden on that
ground to build. The vessel of the testimony can only be constituted
on the ground and principle that those who have a part in it have
come definitely and finally to rest in the perfected works of God.
We have been seeing in these gatherings that the testimony and its
instrument have a specific relationship to the whole kingdom of
hostile forces, principalities and powers and world-rulers of this
darkness, and so on, and that in that realm the establishing or
maintenance of the testimony represents terrific conflict, warfare,
wrestling, and the only hope of the triumph of the testimony, the
coming through to finality of the instrument of the testimony, is
that before ever it enters into the conflict it has the victory in
hand, it is at rest in the perfect assurance that the end has
already been secured.
Uncertainty, A Satanic Strategy
We have covered ground like that many times here but it has not been
covered too often, I do not know that it can be covered too often.
One of the enemy's most successful activities against the testimony
and its vessel is to bring about uncertainty, unrest, and a lack of
assurance as to relationship to the Lord, and as to the Lord's
relationship to them. In many ways he seeks to create that state,
that condition; introspection, self-analysis, self-judgment,
self-occupation, the accusations of the enemy, the bringing of
feelings and impressions to bear upon one's soul, the wrapping round
of the mind with blankets of uncertainty and doubt and questionings.
All manner of means are used to break in upon the restful,
confident, assurance of faith in relation to the Lord; by fears and
forebodings; and mark you, beloved, there is nothing which will
paralyse the Lord's servants so quickly and so utterly as fear. In
this connection the Apostle, would say to us: "And in nothing
affrighted by the adversaries." The Adversary would get us
affrighted, and if he does that we are paralysed, we are helpless,
it means that we have lost the Sabbath.
The Sabbath in principle is
a spiritual state, not a period of time, a spiritual state into
which we have entered, a state of restful assurance that God has
reached the end of all His works and has nothing more to do, has
secured finality in Himself and in His Son, and it is a matter of
the apprehension of the completeness of Calvary's work which brings
rest, assurance; and you cannot fight and you cannot build until you
come there. People who have not come there are useless as vessels of
the testimony. Now, if we are always fretful and worried and agitated
and restless and concerned about our spiritual life, about our
acceptance, our standing, our fellowship, and the Lord's attitude
toward us, and there is a state of disturbance in our spirit, well,
we cannot touch this building, we have no place in the constituting
of this vessel: we must come there first.
That is something to immediately lead us to exercise before the
Lord; and so it is simply that the mediator with the light of the
glory of God upon his face, speaks first of all in relation to the
setting up of this vessel of the testimony about the Sabbath.
Man's Natural Interests Cease on the Sabbath
Did it strike you as strange that one thing about the Sabbath was
emphasised? Elsewhere you may have many other things said about the
prohibitions of the Sabbath, but only one is mentioned here. "Ye
shall kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the Sabbath
day." It is the only one. The Holy Spirit, of course, knows exactly
what He means and what He is doing when He singles out a thing like
that and makes it the only thing in relation to the Sabbath. What
does the Holy Spirit intend to say by that? As far as I can see (I
will be glad if you can help me with more light, doubtless you can)
that kindling of fire in the habitations represents looking after
your own comfort. It is the personal, natural interests, comforts
and pleasures which are represented by that, and what the Holy
Spirit says here is, that if you are going to constitute the vessel,
build the tent of meeting, the Sabbath means for you an end of all
personal, natural interests, the setting aside of
self-consideration. I look elsewhere in the Scripture to see if I am
borne out by the Word of God and I think undoubtedly I am borne out
by the Word in Is. 58:13: "If thou turn away thy foot from the
Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day; and call
the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of Jehovah honorable; and shalt
honor it, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own
pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou
delight thyself in Jehovah: and I will make thee to ride upon the
high places of the earth; and I will feed thee with the
heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken
it." We are borne out are we not?
To know what spiritual ascendency is in the testimony, to be on the
high places, the uplands, moral elevation, the places above only and
not beneath, means first of all we have to enter into God's rest in
His completed work and then cease from our own personal, selfish
interests and pleasures. Self goes out on the Sabbath. That is
simple enough, but it is a principle basic to all that follows in
the testimony and its vessel. It means that our labours and our
self-interest are ended in Christ's mediatorial work, and that
tabernacle service demands rest Godward. So we see the significance
of these first utterances of Moses.
The Assembly is for God's Pleasure
Now we go on in the chapter and we see what a fine state of things
prevailed here. The whole assembly is moved in response to God's
pleasure. If you like, run your blue pencil underneath the
constantly recurrent words and see the willing-heartedness here, two
things going together, a willing heart and a wise heart. I am
tremendously impressed with the recurrence of that word "willing." A
willing heart, a willing spirit, everyone whose heart made him
willing, everyone whose spirit stirred him up; they are all moving
in response to God's pleasure, for everything here is unto the Lord.
The Lord has made known what He would desire and you must notice
that it is not a command from the Lord that is here. In another
place the Lord commands to bring the offerings; offerings are
commanded because when it is a matter of sacrifices there is no
fellowship with God without, and therefore it is a matter of command
and demand, and the Lord commands that they should be brought; but
here you are setting up a vessel for the testimony which is
something for God's pleasure, God's heart satisfaction, and the Lord
does not command that these things be brought, He simply says:
"Whosoever is of a willing heart, let him bring..." This is voluntary
activity for the pleasure of God, and it is that which gives
character to this whole thing.
The beauty of it all is that there is a spontaneous movement of all
hearts for God's pleasure. It is a heart movement. Now I think we
shall have to recover this feature in relation to the testimony of
the Lord Jesus and our being vessels. I am afraid we have regarded
it as somewhat onerous to be vessels of the testimony, something
imposed upon us, something required of us which is a demand so
difficult to meet; a requirement so hard for us to respond to; and
we vessels of the testimony go about so often with faces as though
we were carrying the weight of the universe upon our shoulders
because we are in this testimony, because the testimony is entrusted
to us and deposited in us. I may be just as guilty as anybody else
of that failure, and so I need talking to as much as or more than
anyone else, and I am being talked to here - and allowing myself to
be thoroughly dressed down, I feel perfectly at liberty to press
this upon you!
When we think of the Apostle Paul of whom we have been speaking
earlier in the day, as the representative vessel of the testimony,
well, with one exception, no one who has ever borne the testimony
had to pay a higher price than he did. It has cost no one more than
it cost him, but it is marvellous how even at the end, writing from
his prison in Rome, where, being looked at from the outside, people
might have said: "Poor old Paul, his work is done"; he is sending
out: "Rejoice in the Lord always: again I will say, Rejoice." That
Philippian letter throbs with joy, and shall we not say that that
was the testimony. The power of the testimony is in that: "As
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing"; "Rejoicing in hope; patient in
tribulation; continuing instantly in prayer." We may not be there,
beloved, but we are here tonight to try and help one another in
these matters, and it is the heart response to the Lord's pleasure
which will give the testimony so much power. This is to the Lord's
pleasure, and it becomes a heart matter with us.
Oh, that the Lord would just put more of this spirit into us, into
me, where things are more fully and continuously looked at in the
light of the Lord's pleasure, and everything is done out of a heart
which responds to the pleasure of the Lord. The doing of the will of
God by the Lord Jesus was a thing which cost Him intense anguish, it
meant terrific conflict, a wrestling and resisting unto blood, and
yet He says: "I delight to do thy will, O my God." Two things going
together all the time, a consciousness of the cost, the suffering,
pain, anguish, and yet because it is unto the Lord's satisfaction,
something very much is in the nature of joy in suffering. And if
there is that apprehension of the Lord's delight it takes a good
deal of the sting out of the suffering.
These people were going to be called upon to produce all sorts of
precious things. That is, this was going to lead to their bringing
of that which meant their foregoing, their sacrificing that which
perhaps to them naturally would be precious. But anything in the
nature of yielding, sacrificing, giving and letting go was deprived
of regret or pain or pang by the very fact that they were responding
in heart to the Lord's pleasure. It was unto the Lord's pleasure.
Now without adding words to this, let us ask the Lord to give us a
greater delight in His testimony, a greater joy in bearing the
testimony, though it be at great cost. We must pray for more joy
even in the midst of suffering, for that is the testimony. Well, it
was the heart response to the Lord's pleasure.
Love Produces the Materials
Then the third thing. When the heart was moved they found all that
was necessary and required. I can imagine that when all the
requirements had been outlined by Moses, the gold and the silver and
the brass, the precious stones, the various materials, if these
people had had no heart-response to the Lord and His pleasure, they
might well have doubt as to whether they had got any of these
things, and you would have heard them saying: "I do not know whether
I have got any of those things at all"; "I am not sure that I can
answer to those requirements"; "I do not think that I can do
anything in this matter." They would perhaps not have known what
they had got, and if they had got it they would have forgotten all
about it, or it would have been somewhere where they could not find
it! You see what I am getting at? But because the heart was in this
thing they had all that was necessary. All the material was produced
from the affections. It is wonderful, beloved, what we can discover
that we have in the Lord Jesus when our hearts are aglow for Him and for the Father's satisfaction.
I mean those people who really have a heart devotion to, and delight
in the Lord, are always discovering treasures which they are
bringing out all the time for the satisfaction of the Lord. And
people whose hearts are cold never bring out any of those treasures;
they do not know that they have got them.
To the Corinthians the
Apostle said: "In everything ye were enriched in him," but it takes
love to discover that, what those riches are; love for the Lord. You
will not, in the time of worship, have to scour through your Bible
to find some passage of Scripture that will suit the occasion to be
your contribution. If your heart is aglow to the Lord you will have
something spontaneous to offer in the hour of worship, and if your
heart is aglow to the Lord you will discover that you are richer in
spiritual possessions than you thought you were and you will always
have something to give.
The Features of Christ
You see everything here of these various and numerous things
mentioned were related to the Lord Jesus in type, for there can be
nothing to the satisfaction of God apart from the Lord Jesus. They
all were different phases and aspects of Christ; gold, silver, brass
and fine linen, all these things were types of some aspects of
Christ in His person and work, and people discover those things
because of their heart-relationship to the Lord's pleasure; and our
heart-relationship to the Lord will be our means of discovering what
we have of Christ and in Christ, and we will be constantly making
those discoveries. You find the person who is just full of love for
the Lord, whose heart is burning and throbbing with love for the
Lord, they have always got to tell you something about the
preciousness of the Lord, they are always seeing the glory of their
Lord from a different angle and giving you a different facet. People
whose hearts are not so aglow with the Lord have not much to say
about Him and cannot give very much. You see the principle, it was
all produced, it all came, and we are told they brought more than
was required and they had to stop the bringing! We have not reached
that stage yet. The Lord make that symbolism a speedy realisation.
But you see the possibilities of delighting in the Lord. Oh, how it
makes the testimony grow. This is the testimony. Before there can be
any outward expression there must be an inward relationship. All
outward ministry must be the result of an inward state with the
Lord. And it is a great thing, beloved, a great thing to have our
ministry as the spontaneous expression of our personal delight in
the Lord. That carries weight, that is the testimony.
Now the fact is that every child of God has got all in Christ that
they can have. It is true of all children of God as it was true of
the Corinthians that "in everything... enriched in him" but it wants
love to discover it; heart devotion to the Lord to find out that it
is so. So let us ask the Lord to increase with our joy, our love for
Himself.
The fourth thing. The assembly and the testimony are constituted by
the heart product of Christ. That is, all this that now comes into
being and is set up on the earth is just the accumulation, the
bringing together of the individual heart exercises in the
appreciation of the Lord Jesus, and that defines what God's assembly
is. What is the assembly? It is not just a congregation, it is not
just the coming together of people for services, meetings,
conferences, public worship and so on. The assembly is the bringing
together on the part of a company of the Lord's people, of the
features of the Lord Jesus so that as the Father looks down He sees
His Son befeatured by that company. This one has brought the gold,
and that one the silver, and another the brass, another the fine
linen, and another the blue, another the scarlet, another the
purple, and each one has brought their own apprehension and
appreciation of the Lord Jesus, and these things being put together
constitute the assembly, and the Father looks down and sees the Son;
that is the testimony of Jesus in the earth. That is Christ
tabernacling amongst us. That is the tent of meeting, and what the
Lord is looking for is Christ as represented by the assemblies of
His people. That is the nature of the assembly. And the Lord is
working to that.
As we follow on the Lord leads out in exercise, spiritual and secret
exercise unto that end, and the things that the Lord is causing us
to be exercised about in our private, personal, secret life and
history is that we might discover the virtues and the values of His
Son, and having made those discoveries, when we come together with
other children of God we speak together and sing together about the
glories of Christ as things which have come up in our own life
experimentally and livingly, and we become a collective and
corporate representation of those glories which are living realities
to us. And all the exercise, which the Lord brings about in our
lives individually and secretly, is in order that we may make
discoveries about Christ.
So they go back to their tents; see the scouring of those tents for
these things, see the exercise. And then they all come together and
as the result of their exercise apart, in secret, they have brought
some feature of Christ and all those features put together represent
Christ as a whole. They all have some part of Him which, being added
to the other parts makes a whole Christ, and that is the assembly.
The Mutual Love and Cooperation of the Saints
Fifthly, they all co-operate in varied contributions and exercises,
that is, they all worked to make their part a part of someone
else's. They worked in relation to the rest. Not all could bring
gold, not all could bring silver, not all could bring brass, but
these things all had to be related to the other, and so the spirit
of co-operation was there. And mark you, even a Bezaleel, who was
especially anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit unto all this,
could not have made what was necessary for the tent of meeting if
there had not been that personal, individual, secret activity on the
part of each one. If the women, for instance, had not done the
spinning and the weaving all the filling of the Holy Spirit of
Bezaleel would have been in vain. The Holy Spirit Himself depends
upon each one co-operating toward the end.
And speaking of the women who did the spinning and the weaving, one
might just say that spinning and weaving means bringing things
together and binding them together. It is so easy to tear things
apart, to put things asunder and have shreds. We can do it by our
talk, our flippant or careless talk, by letting our tongues run away
with us, by gossip, by criticism, that perennial "but": "She is an
awfully good soul - but..."; "He is a fine fellow - but..."; "Yes, he is going on with the Lord - but...."
We are all guilty of that. Now the women did the spinning and
weaving. I am not specially laying these charges at the door of the
women, but you see I am only saying it by way of illustration. It is
bringing together, it is constructive work in relation to everything
else in this testimony. And how strange it is that so many of us who
are in the same testimony, paying the same price, going through the
same sufferings, find it so easy to criticise one another, and
weaken the testimony by strains in our relationships. It is strange,
isn't it? But it is true. It must be positively constructive in
co-operation with all the others, toward one end. The Holy Spirit
Himself cannot do this work and perfect this testimony only as each
one takes personal and individual responsibility and works toward
the common end of God, the manifestation and glorifying of the Lord
Jesus.
The Lord just lay that on our hearts and may we be better
instruments of the testimony for His glory.