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The Greatness and Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ

by T. Austin-Sparks

First published in "A Witness and A Testimony" magazines, 1965-1968

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Function of the Son of God

Chapter 2 - An Ark of Acacia Wood

Chapter 3 - Overlaid with Pure Gold

Chapter 4 - The Mercy-Seat

Chapter 5 - The Ark of the Testimony

Chapter 6 - The History of the Ark

Chapter 7 - The Creation and Consecration of the Ark

Chapter 8 - The Crossing of the Jordan

Chapter 9 - The Testimony of Jesus

Chapter 10 - The Sending Out of Spies

Chapter 11 - The Capture of Jericho

Chapter 12 - Defeat at Ai

Chapter 13 - The Travail of the Holy Spirit

Chapter 14 - A Tragic and Instructive Episode

Chapter 15 - The Ark of Glory

Chapter 1 - The Function of the Son of God

"Who being the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance, and upholding all things by the word of his power" (Hebrews 1:3).

"The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them" (2 Corinthians 4:4).

"Who is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15).

Our subject is the Greatness and the Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and these passages are amongst many which declare that greatness and glory. In Hebrews it is: "Who being the effulgence of his glory"; in Corinthians it is: "The light of the gospel of the glory of Christ"; and in Colossians it is: "Who is the image of the invisible God".

We begin by noticing the function of the Son of God, and that function is to be God's supreme representative of Himself. Those Scriptures state His function to be the very effulgence of God's image, the image of the invisible God, and that in Him is the glory of God. The all-governing truth of the Scriptures is that by the greatness and glory of His Son, God designs to show that He is God alone. To put that in fewer words: Jesus Christ, as God's Son, is the revelation of God. This defines the nature of Jesus Christ, and sets forth His greatness and His glory.

If we want to know the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ we just have to look at His vocation. When everything else is said about His coming into the world, this is the full, final, supreme thing: He came to reveal the invisible God. That is the function of God's Son, and everything for us rests upon our appreciation of Jesus Christ. For us our knowledge of Christ governs everything in time and eternity. You must weigh these words very carefully. For us, in this life, everything depends upon our appreciation of Jesus Christ, and in all eternity that will be our occupation.

If I were to ask you if you believe that the Apostle Paul had a large knowledge of Jesus Christ, I am quite sure you would say 'Yes!' For two thousand years men have been trying to get into the teaching of that Apostle about Jesus Christ and they are still at it today. More and more books are being written and published on Paul's teaching about Jesus Christ. Some of us have been studying that teaching for more than fifty years, but we are quite prepared to say that we know nothing about it yet. The Apostle Paul had a knowledge of Christ far, far beyond our comprehension. And yet, at the end of his life he was writing: "That I may know Him" (Philippians 3:10). Paul went out of this world saying: "That I may know Him", showing that it would take eternity to know Jesus Christ.

If that is true, then we are surely ready to say: "How great Thou art!"

This knowledge of Jesus Christ is inexhaustible and unending. It begins when we are born again, and is intended to be the education of the Christian throughout all his life here. The one desire and quest of every true Christian ought to be continually: "That I may know Him". Sometimes in speaking to some unsaved person we have asked: 'Do you know the Lord?', but if they knew what we were talking about, they would say: 'Who can know the Lord?' So we have to revise our phraseology and say: 'Have you begun to know the Lord?' And to Christians we have to say: 'Are you going on to know the Lord?'

If we did but know it, the purpose of all God's dealings with us is to bring us into a greater knowledge of His Son. You see, we never know anything about greatness unless we have a great need to know it. For the Christian, 'greatness' is not just a subject for the mind. For the child of God, 'greatness' is a matter of the heart, and we are therefore brought into situations where we must know something much greater than we do know. That is why God brings His children into impossible situations - that they may learn how great Christ is. It is those people who have had the deepest and the greatest trials and difficulties who know how great is the Lord. They know the greatness of the Lord Jesus more than others.

We must understand that the very object and purpose of the coming of the Holy Spirit was to make us know Christ. No one can "by searching find out God". You may spend all your life and all your energy trying to find God, and you will never find Him. There is only One who knows God, and that One is the Holy Spirit. He has come, therefore, to reveal Christ in our hearts. When the Apostle Paul said that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God... and he cannot know them" (1 Corinthians 2:14) he does not leave it there. He tells us that "unto us God revealed them through the Spirit".

The very purpose, then, of the coming of God's Son into this world was to make God known. There are many parts of the purpose of His coming. For instance, Jesus said: "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost" (Luke 19:10), and "I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly" (John 10:10). The Apostle John says that the Son of God was manifested "that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). These are parts of the purpose of His coming and they take their value from the whole purpose. That whole purpose, which includes all the parts, was to reveal God the Father.

We have, therefore, to get behind Jesus to God, and there we come to the whole comprehensive truth of the Bible. That is that God, Jehovah, is God alone. The Apostle Paul gives us that in one comprehensive statement. When God had raised Jesus from the dead and set Him at His own right hand, He "gave unto him the name which is above every name" (Philippians 2:9). If His name is above every name, then there is no name higher. If "in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth", if in His name the whole universe should bow, then Jesus must be God. God manifest in the flesh.

We are saying that the Bible has one object, and that is to show that God is God alone, and that truth has been taken up by God's Son to be proved as right. The Bible approaches that fact, that truth, from many standpoints, but there is only one truth in the Bible, and that is: Jehovah is the Lord.

Now the Bible throughout is dealing with a challenge to that truth. In the unseen, spiritual realm there is a great battle going on to put God out of His place in this world. Whatever men and systems may do to displace God, it does not begin with men. It begins in that unseen world. It commenced there before this world was created. The Bible reveals that there was one with a great many followers who said: "I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:14). It is as though that one said to God: 'Move over on your throne. I am going to be your equal.'

Now the impact of that challenge to God's sovereignty is registered upon men. We have read: "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the fight of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them." There is a much greater power behind the power of world systems which try to dethrone God, and this power against God is at work in every part of this world. In one part it is directly to repudiate the very existence of God, and in another part it is to put everything else in His place - money, pleasure and a thousand other things. It is very important that we should have our eyes open to exactly what is happening.

Just look at the realm of nature. Perhaps never before in history have there been so many upheavals in nature. Yes, catastrophe is the word. Every day, when we open our newspapers, we see something fresh of those disturbances in nature. What does it mean? God was the Creator of this world, and all things were created through and for Jesus Christ, and the mighty spiritual powers of this universe are trying to destroy God's creation. They are trying to say that God is not the master of this creation. There is a great schism in the whole universe. The powers of evil are concentrated upon breaking up everything. We can see it in the nations, for everything is breaking to pieces in the nations. We can see it in nature, and, perhaps most tragically of all, we see it amongst the Lord's people. There never was a time when there were more divisions amongst the Lord's people than there are today. This great work of schism is spreading over everything.

What does the Bible have to say about this? It shows that there is a necessity to demonstrate that God is the Lord after all, and that necessity was taken up by God's own Son. The Lord Jesus has come into the world to answer that challenge. That is exactly what He was doing when He was here on the earth. Was it in the realm of nature? The winds and storm were raised to tempest height by the evil powers to destroy Him, and He was lying quietly and restfully asleep in the back of the boat. The disciples came and woke Him, saying "Carest thou not that we perish?" He arose and rebuked the wind and the storm, and in doing so He used the very words that He used in casting out demons. It says: "And rebuking them, he suffered them not to speak" (Luke 4:41). In the original that is the word used here: "He... rebuked the wind and the raging of the water" (Luke 8:24). Do you think that He was only speaking to the sea and the wind? No, He was speaking to the evil powers out to destroy the Creator. He said to the disciples: "Where is your faith?" and they said to each other: "Who then is this, that he commandeth even the winds and the water, and they obey him?" The answer to that is: This is the One who created all these natural forces and is Lord over them.

There was a poor man full of evil spirits. His home and all his relationships were broken to pieces, for no man could tame him, or bind him with a chain. Here, then, is the evil power destroying human relationships. Jesus rebuked the evil spirits and cast them out, and perhaps that man's home and family was one of the happiest in the country. Such people want to go and follow Jesus wherever He goes, but Jesus says: 'Go home! I am not interested in broken family life.' That is the work of the devil, and never in history were there so many broken families as there are today. The evil powers are seeking to destroy one of the most sacred things that God has created - the family - but some of us here could tell wonderful stories of how broken families have been reunited by Jesus Christ.

There are many other ways in which we could illustrate this, but the one great truth is that God's Son is going to reunite all things in Himself. That is what the Apostle Paul definitely stated: that God has intended to gather together into one all things in Jesus Christ. To 'gather together' is to 'reunite in one'. The last book of the Bible gives us a glorious picture of that having been done. Gathered into one, singing one song, will be people out of every nation. Yes, Vietnamese and Americans singing one song together, and Congolese and the missionaries from other countries singing one song. All the nations which have been at war in this age will have representatives singing together in glory. There will be a gathering together into one in and by Jesus Christ in the ages to come.

It was this great controversy in the universe that God's Son came into this world to settle. Jesus already has the victory in His possession and He is going to bring His Church into that victory. We look for that glorious day when all the divisions among the Lord's people will be healed and Jesus will have established the great truth: God is all and in all.

That is just the doorway into our theme. From now onward we shall move through the door into the reality of these things.

Chapter 2 - An Ark of Acacia Wood

We are occupied with the greatness and the glory of Jesus Christ. So far we have been looking at this matter in a comprehensive way. We have been considering the immense vocation of the Son of God in this universe, and from the greatness of that vocation we have come to see something of the greatness of the Person. For so great a vocation a very great Person is necessary, and never has so great a purpose been entrusted to any other being. It demanded God Himself in the Person of His Son to do what Jesus Christ came into this world to do.

Now we are going to break that up into fragments.

There are many ways in the Bible by which the great truth of the greatness and glory of Christ is brought before us. This week we are confining ourselves to one of these ways by which God has chosen to reveal His Son, and that way is by means of the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle of the Old Testament. That ark was God's temporary method of representing the greatness and glory of His Son.

Now I want to safeguard this matter very carefully. There will be a great deal said about that ark as we trace its history through the Old Testament. But this sounds like a contradiction - I am not really talking about the ark. It will be mentioned perhaps very many times during this week, and you might think that I am giving some messages on the tabernacle and the ark, but what I am really speaking about is what the ark represents. The ark is only a symbol, after all. It is one of the types in the Old Testament, and we are only doing here what God did, and what Jesus Himself did. God took an earthly object by which to teach heavenly truths. The object is not an end in itself, but only a means to an end, so that in order to understand and appreciate typology we have to stand back from that which is used in order to see what purpose it serves. We have to see what it is that God is trying to say by using this object. So we must get behind the type to that which it typifies.

What we are going to see as we look at this ark and its history is the absolute supremacy and exclusiveness of Jehovah as God. This ark is going to say to us, if we have ears to hear and eyes to see, that God is God alone in this universe. This ark is the symbol of the rights of God in this universe.

I wonder if you have ever been impressed with the way in which the Psalmist so often addressed God? He was addressed as the 'Creator of the heavens and the earth', which was just one way of saying that God has by creation supreme rights in heaven and on earth. We shall find as we go on that this ark is set up against all other gods, and all these other false gods of the nations have to bow in the presence of this ark. Those of you who know anything about its history are at once realizing how true that is. Whether it be the gods of the seven nations in Canaan, or whether it be Dagon, the god of the Philistines, down they will come from their thrones when this ark comes into their midst. There are many gods in this universe, but they will all have to bow the knee when the ark comes into their presence. All these gods represent rebellion against the absolute supremacy of Jehovah. Therefore, in principle, all these other deities embody the law of lawlessness. They are against Jehovah. Lawlessness is in the heavens and in the earth, and we know that today more than ever. Lawlessness has reached its highest point in our time, but we can see it so much in the Old Testament. Very well, then: bring in the ark and see what happens when it appears on the scene!

You see, it is not just the ark: it is what the ark represents. We shall see that the ark is a type of Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh. It is the function of Jesus Christ to establish the uniqueness, the perfect holiness, the almighty power and the wonderful grace of God. All these things were features of the ark, and the Lord Jesus Christ takes them all up in Himself. The uniqueness of God - there is no other - the absolute holiness of God, the supreme power of God and the unspeakable grace of God. These were features of the ark which point to the Lord Jesus.

It may be that there are some of you who are a little sceptical about Old Testament typology. Indeed, you may be sceptical about the place of the Old Testament in our life today, but I think I shall have to bring you right to the real point.

Are you sceptical about the Old Testament? Have you no place for Old Testament typology? If that is your attitude, then you must close your New Testament as well as your Old Testament. You will have to tear your New Testament to pieces and throw a lot of it away. That is why, in this special connection, I asked you to read the ninth chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews. We will just look at it.

"And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holy of holies; having a golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was a golden pot holding the manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; and above it cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy-seat; of which things we cannot now speak severally" (Hebrews 9:3-5).

Now that looks backward, but in verse 8 it is brought forward to the present time: "The Holy Spirit this signifying, that the way into the holy place hath not yet been made manifest, while as the first tabernacle is yet standing; which is a parable for the time now present; according to which are offered both gifts and sacrifices that cannot, as touching the conscience, make the worshipper perfect, being only (with meats and drinks and divers washings) carnal ordinances, imposed until a time of reformation" (verses 8-10).

I want you to note several little fragments in that passage. "Not yet." Now, as you know, the writer of this Letter is saying that that 'not yet' is finished - now it is all finished... "which is a parable for the time now present". If you look at verse 23, it says: "It was necessary therefore that the copies of the things in the heavens...", and verse 24: "For Christ entered not into a holy place made with hands, like in pattern to the true." Now put all those fragments together: Not yet while the old tabernacle was standing. The 'yet' is a later time. That was a parable of the things now. That was a copy of things in the heavens, and the writer is saying throughout the Letter: 'We are living in that time of reformation.' This is something much bigger than the Reformation under Martin Luther! This is the re-forming of everything from types to realities, from the earthly type to the heavenly truth.

Now I am sure that has wearied many of you, because you have no difficulty in this matter, but I want you weary people to remember two things. There are here a large number of young Christians who have yet to learn all the meaning of the Bible, and there are a few present, who, because they come from a certain part of Europe, have little place for the Old Testament. So it is necessary for us to see that we cannot understand the Old Testament without the New Testament, and to understand the New Testament we must have the Old Testament. The New Testament is illuminated by the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is explained by the New Testament. Forgive me for taking so much time on that, but I think it is important.

Let us come back to this ark. You know that it goes by a number of different names, which we will just mention, and then explain them afterward. Fifteen times it is called 'The ark of God'; fourteen times it is called 'the ark of the testimony'; nine times it is called 'the ark of the covenant'; five times it is called 'the ark of the Lord'; twice it is called 'the ark of the glory' and once it is called 'the ark of God's strength'. Let us, then, look at some of these names more carefully.

Firstly, the ark of the covenant. The covenant is the basis or ground upon which God is willing to be with us. Perhaps the greatest thing that man needs is to have God with him, so it is important to know the ground on which God is willing to be with us. So the covenant is an agreement which God makes. It is a contract made by God, a charter provided by God. In the covenant God says: 'These are the terms upon which I will be with you.' God has made a covenant and says: 'This is the covenant that I make: that I will be with you on this ground. If you will keep on this ground I will remain with you.' That is the covenant, and the ark is the ark of that covenant.

In the next place it is called 'the ark of the testimony', and in the Hebrew language the word 'testimony' is a different word from the word 'covenant'. The testimony is a declaration made by God, a statement and a proclamation that God makes to man. God is a speaking God, not a dumb God. He makes a proclamation. If we were using New Testament language we would say 'God is a preaching God'. You see, the Gospel is a proclamation. It is the speaking of a speaking God. "God hath spoken" is the great proclamation of the prophets. God has made Himself known in word. You must store all this up for what we are going to say in a few minutes.

The third name is 'the ark of the Lord'. This declares that He is Lord, and by means of this ark men are going to meet God. They are going to know that it is the Lord with whom they have to do, and the name 'the ark of God' carries with it a very similar meaning. By means of this ark a relationship with God is created. They truly did learn in the old days that this ark meant that men came into touch with God.

Now we need not enlarge upon the other names, 'the ark of God's strength' and 'the ark of God's glory'. We are going to see that as we go on with the history of the ark.

All this was concentrated into a small chest. I used to think that the ark was about the size of a man's coffin, and that when they carried it through the wilderness they were carrying something like a coffin - something about the size of a man. But that, of course, is not true. The ark was a comparatively small box, only just a little longer than this reading desk here, about as wide and also about as high. It was really quite a small thing.

As you know, it was made of acacia wood, a wood chosen for its strength and incorruptibility. That ark would never be troubled by woodworm or dry rot. That is not just a joke - I am thinking all the time beyond the ark. But there it was - quite a small cabinet with a basis of acacia wood.

Then it was overlaid with gold, and on the top of it was a slab of pure gold. That was called the mercy seat, and over the mercy seat were the two cherubim of glory.

Inside the ark there were three things. There were the tables of the covenant, the golden pot with a specimen of the manna in the wilderness, and Aaron's rod that budded and bore fruit.

We have to turn over from the type to the reality to understand all these details, but before we do that let us mention one other thing: the place that the ark occupied.

The ark was right at the very heart and centre not only of the tabernacle but of the whole nation of Israel. The whole system which gathered around that ark was governed by the position which it occupied. It was there that God had His place as the centre of everything. It was there that He was heard to speak and it was there that He made Himself known.

Now we turn over. We have said that this ark was a type of Jesus Christ, and we begin with the incorruptible nature of the Son of God. He could say: "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" (John 8:46). If He were not the Divine Son of God, how dared He say such a thing? There is not another human being in all God's universe who dare say: 'You cannot find any sin in me'. Mark you, we are now speaking about His humanity - we are referring to the acacia wood. No sin could register its power in His life. That is what I meant by 'no woodworm and no dry rot'. Neither sin nor death could affect Him. The testimony concerning Him was: "it was not possible that he should be holden of death" (Acts 2:24), and Peter, quoting the Psalmist, also said: "Neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption" (Acts 2:27). His humanity was a sinless, perfect humanity, and yet it was true humanity.

Do you not wish that you were like that? Do you not wish that sin could have no power over you? Do you not wish that you had an incorruptible nature? Do you not wish that death had no power over you?

Dear friends, we are chosen to be conformed to His image that all that shall be true of us. Paul says that even these corruptible bodies are going to be changed and "conformed to the body of his glory" (Philippians 3:21). The Word of God teaches us that we are not going to be just disembodied spirits floating about in the air. We are going to have resurrection bodies, from which all sin and corruption will have been removed for ever. We are chosen for that, and for that very purpose Jesus Christ, God's Son, came in the form of a man. Every time we take the loaf at the Lord's Table we are really testifying to this fact that by faith we are made partakers of that incorruptible Body of Christ. We are secured in Him unto a body that will overcome death.

We are launched out into the beginning of a mighty ocean! So far I have only just touched a little upon the acacia wood, but the ark will go through all the wilderness trials. It will overcome all the difficulties and adversities of the wilderness life and, as we shall see, it will lead the way right through into the promised land of the inheritance.

Chapter 3 - Overlaid with Pure Gold

Now we come to the second thing about the ark. We have seen that the ark was made of acacia wood, and that it was overlaid with pure gold. If you make a study of gold in the Bible you will see that it always speaks of glory, and you will also see that God was always jealous about the gold. He claimed the gold, and said: 'That is Mine. It belongs to Me.' It was that which represented the glory of God, about which He is very jealous, and Satan tried from time to time to steal the gold away from Him.

When Moses remained in the mountain forty days and forty nights the people said: 'Well, we don't know what has become of this Moses. Let us make us gods', and they called upon the people to bring their gold and out of that gold they made a golden calf. Then they said: 'This is thy god, O Israel', and they worshipped the calf.

You see, Satan had stolen the glory from God - God's glory was taken from Him by Satan. There is so much in that incident about which we have no time to speak, but there was one man who discerned the meaning of it, and it is that man's connection with the ark that we are going to look at more fully. When Joshua heard the noise of shouting in the camp, all this noise of worshipping the calf, he said: "There is a noise of war in the camp" (Exodus 32:17). There was registered upon the spirit of Joshua a conflict that was going on. That was how he interpreted the situation, and he was more right than he knew, for it was a battle between the glory of God and the glory of Satan. You know that Joshua was a man of war. His whole history, as you will see, had to do with warfare, and that warfare was in relation to the ark. This spirit of conflict in Joshua was for the jealousy of God's glory.

You will remember that later on, when they were in the land, they came to the city of Ai, and there Israel met their first defeat. Joshua fell down before the ark of the Lord and asked Him why this defeat, and it was as though the Lord lifted up His finger, and that finger came down upon a wedge of gold. Achan had stolen a wedge of gold and hidden it in his tent. He had taken what had belonged to God alone and made it his own. In another way, you see, Satan had taken the glory of God and given it to man, and God says: 'My glory will I not give to another.'

Satan always has his eye on the gold: that is, he is always concerned to take the glory from God to himself. Oh, what a lot there is in the Bible about this! I am tempted to spend hours on the gold in the Bible, for it is a wonderful revelation of what belongs to God alone.

This ark, then, is covered with pure gold, and that speaks of how very precious Jesus Christ is to God, and how jealous God is for His Son, Jesus Christ. The Scripture says that all should "honour the Son, even as they honour the Father" (John 5:23). If we want to be in the good pleasure of God we must make everything of the Lord Jesus. If we want to know why it was that God was so wonderfully with the first Christians and Apostles, the explanation is that they only had one Person in view, and everywhere at all times, they were magnifying the Lord Jesus. They knew something about the value of gold in God's sight. Wherever they went people glorified Christ. The Apostle Paul was able to say about certain Christians: "They glorified God in me" (Galatians 1:24).

Now will you notice that this gold of the ark and of the tabernacle was only seen from the inside. There was very much gold in the tabernacle. It covered all the boards, there were crowns of gold upon the pillars, there was the golden altar of incense, there was the golden lampstand, there were the gold vessels, and then there was the golden ark, the golden mercy seat upon the ark and the golden cherubim over the mercy seat. There was much gold, but it was all covered over by the many curtains and you could see none of it from the outside. If you had looked at that tabernacle from the outside you would have seen something very plain and ordinary. The outermost covering was just made from skins of porpoise, and if you had looked at it from the outside you would have said: 'There is no beauty that we should desire it.' Do you know where those words come from? "And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised, and rejected of men... and as one from whom men hide their face he was despised" (Isaiah 53:2,3). You know those words were spoken about the Lord Jesus, and that is exactly how He was to the world outside, but, thank God, that is not the whole story. Let us get inside. Let us go into this place where God is, and what a changed scene! Wherever we look it is sparkling gold. There is that golden altar, that golden table of shewbread and that gold lampstand with its seven branches. From the inside we can see the gold upon the boards of the tabernacle and there are all the golden vessels. And right at the centre, and more than all, is the golden ark. But the gold can only be seen from the inside. What a lot of meaning there is in that!

See how the world looked at Jesus! See what value the world placed upon Him! See how they despised and rejected Him! And then hear John crying: "We beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). But you have to be on the inside to talk like that. That is the privilege of the Lord's people. There is now no veil between - it has been taken away, and we are all privileged to enter within the veil and to behold His glory. Are you on the inside? Have you come to see the glory of Christ? Are you seeing more and more as life goes on of that glory in Christ? Can you join with John and say: "I behold His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth"?

Dear friends, as we go on in the Christian life we ought to be seeing more and more of the glory of Jesus Christ. You see, the gold was that which was mostly to God's pleasure; it was that which gave God His true satisfaction, and the thing which satisfies God most of all is the glory of His Son.

You know, the last picture in the Bible of the new Jerusalem describes it as having one street which is all of gold. It is the last picture in this dispensation, and the street is not just something to look at. It is something to walk in, and this symbolism is just saying: 'In the end you and I will be walking up and down in the glory of Jesus Christ.'

Well now, you can see that that opens the door to the great subject in the Bible of our being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Peter says that 'the trying of your faith is more precious than gold'. True faith which has been tried and purified in the fire is the most precious thing to God, because it is the faith of the Son of God. It is reproduced in us from Christ through fiery trials. I think that of all things precious to God faith is the most precious, because unbelief is the thing which is most against God.

Abraham is the embodiment of gold tried in the fire. He was the 'father of the faithful' and a man of gold, that is, when God had finished with him. And you and I, through the fires of trial, difficulty and suffering, are being made precious to God.

Well, I did not expect to take so much time on that one thing, but I should not be exaggerating if I said that I could spend more than this whole week on gold alone. However, there are many other things to say - but not tonight.

May I ask you, please, before tomorrow morning, to read the first chapter of the Book of the Revelation. I am not sure that we shall get to that tomorrow - those of you who know me best wonder when I shall get anywhere! However, sooner or later we shall reach that chapter.

Chapter 4 - The Mercy-Seat

We go on with the next thing about the ark, and that is the mercy-seat. There rested upon the ark this solid plate of gold which was called the mercy-seat. It is mentioned twenty-three times in the Old Testament, and in the New Testament it is taken up as referring to the Lord Jesus. It is so set forth in the Letter to the Hebrews. The mercy-seat on the ark of the Old Testament is one other aspect of the glory and greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You notice that it is called 'the seat of mercy', and that word 'mercy' in the Old Testament is a very rich and strong word. It means 'the loving kindness of the Lord'. A new translation of the Bible has translated that word 'mercy' into 'steadfast love', and that is the nearest definition to the Hebrew word that we have. It is covenant love, loyal love, a covenant of love made in the blood which was sprinkled upon the mercy-seat. Because we are so familiar with the old versions, which give this word simply as 'mercy', we love that constant repetition of the statement: "His mercy endureth for ever", or "How great is Thy mercy!", or from the prophet: "He delighteth in mercy" (Micah 7:18). Perhaps we do not easily take to a new translation, but when we stay to think about it, the new translation is still richer. Perhaps, as we come more deeply to understand it, we shall be willing to accept this translation 'His steadfast love'.

It is a very impressive thing that, right at the very centre and heart of this whole great system of the Old Testament, represented by the tabernacle, is the mercy-seat. Everything else pointed toward the mercy-seat, and it gave its value to everything else. The mercy-seat governed and gave character to everything. It is a wonderful thing to think of that. Yes, the mercy-seat governs everything for the people of God. We turn to a little phrase in Psalm 84. You know that that Psalm is the Psalm of the House of God. It begins with: "How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord". It is sinful man saying that! This is poor, failing man who is speaking. Why is it that the poor, sinful, failing man speaks like that? Why is it that he so longs for the courts of the Lord's house? The answer is found in this little phrase: "The Lord will give grace and glory" (verse 11). The throne of grace, the mercy-seat, was right at the centre of the House of the Lord. The gold of the glory was there at the mercy-seat, but it was not a throne of judgment; it was a throne of grace.

We pass from the type to the Lord Jesus Himself. We said that the Lord Jesus takes the place of the mercy-seat in the New Testament. Now look at the Letter to the Romans, chapter 3, verse 25: "Whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood". We can understand the difficulty of the translators, but their difficulty has deprived us of something very precious. It would have been difficult for the translators to have put: 'God hath set forth Him as a mercy-seat'. In the original it is not what God has done, but what Christ is. In that literal translation it would not be: 'God has set Him forth as a propitiation', but 'as a propitiatory'. It is what He is, although it is also true of what He has done. So it ought really to read: 'God hath set Him forth to be the mercy-seat'. Jesus occupies the central place in the whole scheme of redemption, and that place is the mercy-seat. It was there at the mercy-seat that God met the people in the representative person of the high priest. You will remember that when Aaron, the high priest, went in to the ark, he had the breastplate on him with the names of all the tribes of Israel, so that in the person of the high priest all the people of God were present, and there, at the mercy-seat, God spoke and made Himself known to His people. Aaron went in with the blood of the sacrifice and sprinkled it upon the mercy-seat, making an atonement for the people, and by that covenant in blood God made Himself known. It was a perpetual testimony to the grace of God. In that regime it was every year. It was maintained throughout all their generations, but with our Lord Jesus it is once and for ever. All who come unto God by Jesus Christ stand on the ground of His steadfast love, and for such people it is everlasting love.

The Apostle Paul had a great knowledge of these Old Testament types. He was perfectly instructed in all the things of the tabernacle of old, and in ways which we do not always recognize he was alluding to that Old Testament system. I believe that those words which we love very much, but understand very little, are an allusion to the mercy-seat. Let us read them in the light of the mercy-seat, for they will throw much light upon it.

"Who shall lay anything to the charge of Gods elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather, that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." That is the High Priest who has gone into the heavenly tabernacle with His own blood to make intercession for us. Now the next words explain the mercy-seat, that is, the steadfast love: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:33-35, 37-39).

That is the mercy-seat, the steadfast love of God for His own. That is the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ; and surely we can speak of that as grace and glory. That is what Jesus Christ has been made unto us.

Are you not more and more amazed at the steadfast love of God for Israel? You have only to read that long record of their history in the Book of the Psalms - Psalms 106 and 107. They are very long Psalms, but it is a long, long story of the steadfast love of God, and that love is set over against the long story of Israel's failures. Oh, how those people disappointed the Lord! They never had one little trouble but they turned against Him. It seems that they only wanted some little occasion to grumble at Him. When we come to the Prophets we are greatly impressed with the love of God for Israel. Indeed, it was steadfast love. How loyal God was to His people! His love for them often made Him close His eyes to their wrong. When I remember what Israel was really like I am amazed at those prophecies of Balaam. Balak, of Moab, called for Balaam to come and curse Israel, and perhaps you might think that if there were any people who ought to be cursed, those people were Israel! Balaam came to try to curse Israel, but the curse would not come out of his mouth, and he had to say: 'God has commanded me to bless. How can I curse?' But what did Balaam say, or rather, what did God say through Balaam's mouth? "He (God) hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in Israel" (Numbers 23:21). Oh, what does this mean? There was plenty of iniquity in Israel, but God says: "I have not beheld iniquity in Jacob". Why did God speak like that? He was looking at Israel through the mercy-seat, and was being true to His covenant of steadfast love.

If you really love someone, you usually make a lot of excuses for their failures. If someone else points out the failures and the wrongs of the one you love, you always say: 'Well, perhaps that is true, but... but...'. You cover up the faults of the one you love because you are loyal to them. Loyalty is a great virtue. I wish that we Christians were more loyal to one another, simply because we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have to go a long way to be like God in this matter. There is an old saying that love is blind. Don't you believe that! Love sees everything, but love loves in spite of everything, and that is like the love of God.

We are poor sinners and we cannot accuse Israel. We are a very poor lot in ourselves, and God knows all about that, and much more than we know about ourselves, but with all His knowledge of us He loves us.

What do you think of this world? What do you think about those Congolese people who have done all that wicked work? They are only representative of humanity. What do you think of this world? Well, we are saying that this is a poor kind of a world. Man is a poor kind of creature. Do you think God does not know anything about that? He knows far more about man than you or I know, and yet it still stands - "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son", and God has set Him forth as a mercy-seat. We shall never exhaust the wonderful fullness of this mercy-seat! We find all the patience and the long-suffering and the forbearance of God in the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is not a low kind of love, that is, a kind of love that does not care whether a person is bad. That is why there are two cherubim over the mercy-seat, and if you study the history of the cherubim you will see that they always relate to one thing - the holiness of God. The first time you meet them is at the gate of the Garden when man has sinned. Those cherubim say: 'Man in his sinful state cannot dwell in the presence of God. Something must be done about it.' When you get to the end of the Bible you find redeemed man in the midst of the Paradise of God. Yes, he is back in the Garden now, but God has done something about it. The Mercy-Seat has attended to this whole matter. The precious Blood has made a full atonement for man's sin.

The point is that the cherubim always speak of the holiness of God's love. The cherubim in Isaiah's time are heard chanting: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts." His love is a holy love, and by the mercy-seat He lifts us from our own unholiness to His holiness. That blood on the mercy-seat always speaks of the great price that God paid to redeem man from his unholiness.

Forget the mercy-seat and remember Jesus Christ. He is all and more than ever the symbol represented.

We said that this is just one other aspect of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ. May God give us a new appreciation of our Lord Jesus as our Mercy-Seat!

Chapter 5 - The Ark of the Testimony

"Who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ" (Revelation 1:2).

"I John, your brother and partaker with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus" (Revelation 1:9).

"And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgement was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and such as worshipped not the beast" (Revelation 20:4).

In our consideration of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ we are seeing how God used the ark in the tabernacle of old to set forth that greatness and glory of His Son. Among the number of names by which that ark was called is "The Ark of the Testimony". The 'testimony' there referred specifically to the tables of the covenant within the ark, but it came to have a much larger meaning than that. The testimony related to the ark itself as well as to all that which was in it, so it was a very comprehensive thing. We saw that when we looked at the many names by which the ark was called.

There is a link between the ark of the testimony in the tabernacle and this phrase which repeatedly occurs in the Book of the Revelation, and which we have just read three times: "The testimony of Jesus". That was what the ark of the Old Testament represented. It was in very truth the testimony of Jesus.

Now it will be noted, as we follow the history of the ark, that its progress was always connected with conflict. As it went forward through the wilderness and into the Promised Land it was always an object of conflict. There is a great word by both Moses and David, the Psalmist, about this. It says that when the priests took up the ark the word went out: "Arise, O Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered" (Numbers 10:35; Psalm 68:1). The testimony was always an object of opposition, and the very presence of the ark of the testimony caused opposition. Then, when you come to this Book of the Revelation, you will notice that every time the testimony is mentioned it is connected with persecution. John says: "I... was in the isle that is called Patmos... for the testimony of Jesus." He was in exile because of the testimony of Jesus. He was in the isle of Patmos under one of the great Roman persecutions of Christians. Then, in chapter 20, he says: "I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus".

So it will be noted that the testimony of Jesus is connected with persecutions and martyrdoms, but we shall understand that phrase 'the testimony of Jesus' better if we know the cause of the persecution.

There is no doubt whatever that the cause of all the persecution of the Christians was emperor-worship, and here, in this Book of the Revelation, we are in the presence of the persecutions which arose over emperor-worship. The Roman emperors were worshipped as deities. They posed as gods, and did the work of the devil. One of the titles of the Roman Caesars was 'our lord god', so that right over that vast Roman empire, over all the world, Caesar reigned as god. Only Jews and Christians were persecuted by the Romans, and the reason for that was that they would not acknowledge any other god than Jehovah. The Jews would worship no other god than Jehovah, and the Christians would acknowledge no other god than the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Roman world said of Caesar: 'Our lord god'. The Christian world said of Jesus: 'Our Lord God'. That explains the phrase 'the testimony of Jesus', for the testimony of Jesus brought the Christians into immediate and direct conflict with the whole Roman conception of who was God.

So the 'testimony of Jesus' is the testimony concerning the truth as to who and what Jesus is. History is repeating itself. If you are saying: 'Of course, that was long centuries ago. That belongs to the time of the Roman Empire and the Christian persecutions, many hundreds of years ago', I would remind you that that same thing, in principle, is spreading like a great wave over the world today. The systems and ideologies may not take the name of God, but they are taking the place of God. They are in opposition to all that is His right, and in a very great part of the world you dare not speak of Him. It is forbidden, with great persecutions, to worship God. Even the great world of Islam may recognize Jesus as a good man and a prophet, but you mention Jesus as God and see what you meet! We have reason to believe that this anti-God movement is far more widespread than we know. Even the Western nations are undermined with it, and those in the movement are only waiting for the day when they can spring up and put God out of this Western world.

We are all, in some way or another, in some measure or another, involved in the testimony of Jesus. If the outward persecutions and martyrdoms are not yet our experience, every truly devoted Christian knows that it is becoming more and more difficult spiritually to be true to the Lord. We are all involved in the conflict of the testimony of Jesus in one way or another. There is an antagonism to Jesus Christ in the very atmosphere. If you are not conscious of that, there is something wrong with your spiritual life. The more utterly consecrated to Jesus Christ you are, the more conflict will there be in your life.

The ark of old times is a wonderful foreshadowing of this conflict. It is the ark of testimony, and it is the testimony of Jesus. Of course, if you are not prepared to testify to the Lord Jesus, you may have an easy time. Many Christians are afraid to testify because they know it will bring opposition. It will bring opposition in business, or in the home, or in social life. There is a mighty opposition in the very spiritual realm, and because of that opposition, many Christians keep their mouths closed. Do you think that makes them neutral Christians? It may look like that, but, really, they are defeated Christians already.

Now let us look at this testimony of Jesus more closely. It is the testimony as to who and what Jesus is. What did these Christians of the New Testament believe concerning Jesus? The first and basic thing that they believed and declared was: Jesus is the Son of God. That, of course, brought them at once into conflict with the Jews, who persecuted the Christians on that one point. You have one instance of this in a parable of the Lord Jesus. He said: 'A certain man planted a vineyard and let it out to husbandmen. At the time of the fruits he sent his servant to receive the fruit of the vineyard, and the husbandmen cast him out of the vineyard. So he sent another servant, and they treated him in the same way. After he had sent a number of servants, whom they killed, the Master of the vineyard said - "I will send my son. They will honour him." They saw the son coming and said: "This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours."' The Lord Jesus spoke that parable in the presence of the Jewish leaders, and whatever else you may say about their intelligence, on this occasion they saw the point, and the writer says: "They perceived that he spake of them" (Matthew 21:45). You would have thought that they had been discovered and so would go away and do nothing, but "they sought to lay hold on him". They did the very thing that the Lord had said about these wicked husbandmen. They would not have it that Jesus was the Son of God, and anyone who claimed to be that must die. That was the basis of all the persecution by the Jews.

We have seen how true that was in the case of the Romans. If anyone was said to take the place of Caesar, he must die. So the Christians were persecuted because of their testimony that Jesus was the Son of God.

However, that is only one of seven things.

The Christians believed and preached that Jesus, as the Son of God, was the destined Lord of creation. Both John and the Apostle Paul, put that into words: "In him (Jesus) were all things created... through him, and unto him" (Colossians 1:16).... "All things were made by him" (John 1:3). The wicked husbandmen of the spiritual world sought to take His inheritance from Him, but although they killed Him on the Cross, the Apostles and the Christians went through the world preaching that Jesus was the destined Lord of creation. If they had had our hymn-book, one of their favourite hymns would be:

"Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

Doth his successive journeys run..."

Yes, they would sing that most heartily!

"His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

Till moons shall wax and wane no more."

Jesus is God's Son, appointed to be the heir of all things.

But the Christians believed something even deeper than that. They believed and taught that Jesus, as the Son of God, was the pattern of all the creation. We have often said that if we understood the spiritual principles of the material creation we should understand Jesus Christ. The sun, the moon and the stars are used as symbols of His kingdom. The sun is Jesus Christ Himself reigning high; the moon is His Church living and reflecting His light over the world in a dark night; the stars are the local churches showing His light in a dark world. And where shall I stop if I go through the whole universe? If we understood all the sciences and their spiritual laws, we should see Jesus. He is the spiritual pattern of the whole material creation. That is why the Apostle Paul used the human body as a model of the Church.

Now go out into a pagan world of unbelief and begin to preach those things! Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of the living God; Jesus of Nazareth is the destined Lord of creation; Jesus is God's eternal pattern for the creation, and eventually the whole creation will reflect Him. Well, say those things in a pagan, hostile world, and see what happens! You are not surprised that Caesar rose up against Jesus. Jesus said: "I am." Caesar said: 'The world is mine. It was made for me. I have conquered the world, and I make it according to my mind.' I said that because Caesar claimed that position he did the work of the devil, for behind the rulers of this world is Satan. Satan says: 'I am the god of this world. I am going to make this world according to my mind. I am going to take possession of the whole creation.' This is not fiction; it is spiritual reality, and this is the conflict of the testimony of Jesus. You notice that the sole object and the theme of testimony by the early Christians was: 'Jesus is Lord'. The preaching of that brought them into conflict with the lord of this world.

Now I said that there were seven things that the Christians believed. I do not think that it is necessary for me to overstep my space by dealing with all of them, but there are two things which we must mention as we close.

The Christians proclaimed that God had attested Jesus Christ on all these points by raising Him from the dead. They said: 'You killed Him, but God raised Him', and they went everywhere preaching Jesus and the resurrection. The raising of Jesus from the dead was God's seal upon all that we have said as to the testimony of Jesus.

The last thing for the present is this - and it is something that we must all take very careful notice of. All this was the meaning of Christian baptism. Baptism was baptism into Jesus Christ. It was baptism into the Name of Jesus, and that meant into all that was true of the Lord Jesus: into Him as the divine Son of God, into Him as God's destined Lord of the universe, into Him as the pattern of the creation that is yet to be, into Him as Lord. Is that what baptism means to you? Baptism has lost very much of its meaning in our time. In many realms it is just a ceremony, a part of Christian practice and teaching, but, as God sees it, it is an immense thing, and anyone who goes to this matter of baptism really seriously knows that there is a conflict related to it. The testimony of Jesus is the cause of all the trouble, the suffering and the martyrdom, but it is the testimony of the glory. The greatness and the glory of Jesus Christ is the testimony of Jesus.

I must close, but I am quite sure that you all feel that the immensity of this demands a great deal more time. I was speaking in India once, and after I had been speaking for one and a half hours, I looked at my watch. An Indian in the company shouted: 'Throw that watch away!' Well, we are going where there will be no clocks or watches, and when we are where time shall be no more we shall still be talking about the testimony of Jesus.

Chapter 6 - The History of the Ark

We have been considering the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ, and have been looking at this matter through the ark of the testimony in the tabernacle of old. We have seen the glory and greatness in the materials of the ark, and in relation to the mercy-seat over the ark. Now we shall begin to look at the history of the ark.

The ark began at the time when Israel was formed into a nation. They were constituted a distinct nation at Mount Sinai. Of course, they were a chosen seed before that, and as Hebrews they began with Abraham, but there is always a difference between the Hebrews and Israel. Israel is the national name for the people. So it was at Mount Sinai that they were constituted a distinct nation with their own national constitution, and it was then and there that the ark was made by direction of God. And that ark goes right through their national history, from the beginning until at last it comes to rest in the fulness of the kingdom under David and Solomon. It had a long journey, and a very varied history.

We have been seeing that the ark is the Old Testament means of revealing the Lord Jesus Christ, and what we have now is that very varied and long journey that the testimony of Jesus has to take. How many different situations the ark came into! How many strong forces it had to contend with! All the way through the wilderness, and all through the battles in the Promised Land, the ark was governing everything until at last it came to the end of its journeys in the house of God. There the staves were drawn out, the journeys were all over, and the testimony had reached its end.

The Letter to the Hebrews takes up all these things and translates them from the Old Testament to the New. It tells us that what was true in a material and literal way in the Old Testament is now true in a spiritual and heavenly way. So the Letter begins with the statement that God, having of old times spoken in many different ways, has gathered up all those different times and ways into His Son, and He has spoken fully and finally in His Son, so that everything led on to the Lord Jesus, and we have the explanation of all that was through those times in Jesus Christ.

This Letter to the Hebrews has two sides. On the one side it tells us that the end has already been reached in Jesus Christ. In Christ all the journeys have come to an end. He has come to His rest in the heavenly House, and personally the Lord Jesus has no more journeys to take. He has sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens, and, so far as He Himself is concerned, He will remain sitting down. He has reached the end in fulness. That is what this Letter teaches. Fulness and finality have been reached in the person of Jesus Christ. He has no more work to do for Himself, no more journeys to take Himself, and He has nothing to add to Himself - He is perfectly full. In Him all the fulness dwells and He has reached the end of all His journeys. That is one side of this Letter to the Hebrews.

The other side is that what is true about Him has to be made true in His new Israel. He is now forming a new heavenly Israel. The kingdom has been taken away from the earthly Israel and, as Jesus Himself said, it has been given to "a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof" (Matthew 21:43). The true vine is that which is bringing forth the fruits of Jesus Christ, and if we are in Jesus Christ we belong to the new heavenly Israel which He is forming. That is what is going on in us now. What is true and final of Jesus Christ in heaven is now being made true in His Israel on earth.

I expect you are familiar with the truth that the New Testament teaches. It looks as though there is a contradiction, and almost as though Paul and Peter do not agree. Paul says: "(God) made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6), while Peter says: "I beseech you as sojourners and pilgrims" (1 Peter 2:11). Paul says: 'You are in heaven', and Peter says: 'You are on earth', but there is no contradiction. You see, Paul says that we are in the heavenlies in Christ. It is a spiritual position. In Christ all the work has been done for us, and we are already sanctified and perfected. That is the great spiritual truth, but we know very well that we are still on the earth. The other side is that what is true of our position in Christ is being made true of our position in this world.

That brings us back to the journeys of the ark, that is, that what is true concerning Jesus Himself has got to be made true in our experience. What we have to see clearly is that the journeys of the ark were not only literal, material, earthly journeys, but were spiritual journeys. It was the journey from what the ark was in itself to what it had to become in the life of the people.

You see, I can take up this Bible and say: 'Now, that is a very literal book. It is something that I can see. It is something that I can feel and move about.' I can say that that Bible is a real thing, and I can also say that I believe in the reality of the Bible. I can do all those things with the Bible as I hold it away from myself and look at it. In that way the Bible is objective, but for that Bible to be really a power in my life, it has to take a journey. It has to take a spiritual journey, and that journey is from the objective to the subjective. It has to get inside me somehow. I must have what is written in this book written in my heart, and what is written in this book has to be an experience in my life. Now I ask you, does that happen in half an hour? Does that happen in one day, one week, one month, one year? Well, I would not like to tell you how many years ago it is that I took the Bible in my hand, but all through these years of my life this spiritual journey has been taking place, and I am not at the end of the journey yet. I have a long way to go for all that is in this book to be made true in my experience.

The Journey from the Objective to the Inward

That is how it was with the ark in Israel. There was the ark, a material thing. The people knew that it was there as a definite object. They knew what it was made of and what was in it, and they could see it being carried on the journeys in front of them, but what was the real history of that ark? It was not just the history of the movement of an objective thing. God was making them know that that ark was a power in their lives. God was saying something to them through the ark, from place to place and from time to time, and through all their difficult experiences they were learning something about the meaning of that ark. They were learning that what was true of the ark in itself had got to be made true in their own lives, and that was never accomplished by preaching about the ark. Neither Moses, nor Aaron, nor the priests just gave them daily expositions on the ark. It was only as they came into situations that they learned by experience the meaning of that ark. Experience is the only school in which we truly learn.

I expect the experience of many of you has been similar to my own. You see, for some years at the beginning of my ministry I was occupied with Bible teaching. I took all the books of the Bible, analysed them, and put the outline on a blackboard. By that method I got to know what was written in the Bible. Well, of course, that is of some value, for it is a good thing to know what is in the Bible, but after some years of doing that kind of work, God took me personally in hand and through deep, deep experience He brought me to know the meaning of the Bible. Well, I could tell you that the Gospel by John has mainly to do with life, and I took my coloured pencil and put a coloured line under every occurrence of the word 'life'. This matter of eternal fife was a wonderful thing - in the Gospel by John. Then the Lord began to work in my life in such a way that the only thing I needed was divine life. Spiritually I came into a situation of death. In my ministry I came into a situation of death, and physically, too, and it was then that this whole question of life became a very serious matter for me. My whole future, spiritually, physically, and in ministry, depended upon whether God gave me new spiritual life. And through that deep experience the Gospel by John was no longer in a book. It got inside me. Divine life moved from the position of teaching in the Bible to become a reality in myself. If that were not true I should not be talking to you now.

And so I could go on. I could have given quite a good analysis and outline of the Letter to the Ephesians, and could tell you on a blackboard all that that Letter has to say. It is the great Letter about the Church as the Body of Christ. Well, I thought I knew all about that. And then God took me in hand, and through a very deep experience He brought me to see the real heavenly nature of the Body of Christ, and all this other idea of the Church seemed to me to be like nonsense. Putting up buildings and calling them 'The Church'; going to services and saying 'I am going to Church'. That whole system became empty. I had come to see that the Church is, after all, only an earthly expression of the heavenly Lord Jesus.

Now, I did not start out to speak about the Church, but I am just emphasising one thing: We only come into spiritual reality through spiritual experience, and it is in experiences that we come to know what Christ is.

That was the history of the ark in Israel. It was not only going from Mount Sinai to the next place... to the next place... and so on, to the Land. It was going more and more from the objective into the very life of the people as a power, and we are going to see, as we go on this journey of the ark, that when the people put those two things apart - that is, when the ark was only something objective and separated from spiritual reality - then they got into trouble. There were times when Israel used the ark only as a superstition. They thought that if they took the ark into battle against the Philistines, then it would work like magic for them, but it did not do so - the Philistines captured the ark and Israel were defeated. You see, they had separated between the ark as an object and the ark as a spiritual reality.

But I have gone a long way ahead. Our great lesson for now is that the work of the Holy Spirit is to make true in us what is true in Christ, and things will go all wrong in our lives if we separate those two things. It is therefore most important that we really understand the spiritual nature of the ark, or the spiritual nature of Jesus Christ. We are dealing with the true testimony of Jesus in the Church, in the people of God, and for the present I will just put my finger upon one thing.

By Revelation of Jesus Christ

In the beginning the ark was made as the result of revelation and inspiration. In other words, God allowed no man to think of this, and to make it according to his own ideas. The ark was the first thing in all that belonged to the tabernacle, and therefore, right at the beginning, this thing had to come from God Himself. This is not man's idea. God did not say: 'I just want you to make Me a box and you can make it of whatever materials you like. You can choose just what size it is, and you can decide what shall be in it.' God never did anything like that. He did not leave one thought about this to man. In a very meticulous and particular way He revealed what this ark was to be made of, its shape, its size, and everything to do with it, and, having given the pattern, He divinely inspired the men who made it. It says that the Spirit of God came upon Bezalel and Aholiab, and it was made by revelation from heaven and by inspiration of God. The testimony of Jesus is not something that man makes. Man has nothing to do with this in the first place. It comes by revelation and inspiration from heaven.

Do you know that in Christianity there are a number of different kinds of arks? Do you understand what I mean? Man's interpretation of Jesus Christ, man's ideas of what to preach, and man's conception of the Church. Nearly all the hundreds of different bodies of the Lord's people have a differently shaped ark. You see, the Baptists say: 'It must be like this', the Methodists say: 'It must be like this', and the Lutherans say: 'No, it must be like this.' There are hundreds of different arks in Christianity. No, God never, never meant that. We shall only come to oneness, to unity, as we have it straight from God, that is, as the Holy Spirit Himself reveals Christ in our hearts.

There was no greater denominationalist or sectarian in this world than Saul of Tarsus. Indeed, he was a bigoted sectarian. He had no room for any other denomination, and so strong was his sectarianism that he would persecute to the death anyone who did not agree with him. What a mighty miracle it was that that man became the Apostle to the Gentiles! That that man could say: 'Now the Church is not just a Jewish Church, but whether it be Jew or Gentile, whether it be barbarian, Scythian, bondman or freeman, in Christ Jesus we are all one man!' I say, what a mighty miracle! What brought that miracle about? Only one thing that he says explains it: "It was the good pleasure of God... to reveal his Son in me" (Galatians 1:15,16). He no longer spoke of 'Jesus of Nazareth, that false prophet', or 'those heretics called Christians'. He would say: 'I have seen Jesus. I have seen God's Son, and that has worked the miracle', and he could speak of all those who loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity as being 'my brethren'.

I am just saying that, when this spiritual journey takes place, the movement from the objective, even Jesus, to the inward Son of God, everything changes. Man cannot make that! He may have all his committees and his conferences on Christian unity. He may get all his own ideas about Jesus Christ, but in the end it gets nowhere. The true testimony of Jesus is not of man, nor of this world. It is by the Holy Spirit revealed in our hearts.

From Creed to Reality

If I said to you: 'Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?', I am sure that most of you would say: 'Yes, certainly I believe in the Holy Spirit.' If any of you belong to the State Church, every time you go you recite the Creed and say: 'I believe in the Holy Ghost.' But whether you belong to the State Church or not, you believe in the Holy Spirit. But, really, do you? Do you believe in the Holy Spirit objectively or subjectively? Do you realize that the very coming of the Holy Spirit was to make Christ, in all that He is, real inside us? Jesus said: "He shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak... he shall take of mine and declare it unto you" (John 16:13,14). The Holy Spirit shall cause you to take this spiritual journey from the objective to the subjective. What a wonderful inheritance we have in the Holy Spirit!

May the Lord show us the meaning of this spiritual pilgrimage! It is going to be a longer or a shorter journey according to the openness of our hearts. Israel could have got into the Land in eleven days, but it took them forty years, and that was because their hearts were not wholly over for the Lord. We shall come on to that again later.

Chapter 7 - The Creation and Consecration of the Ark

We are occupied at this time with the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are seeing how that greatness and glory is represented to us in the Old Testament by means of the ark of the covenant. We have begun to look at the journeys of the ark through the wilderness and into the land, and we have pointed out that it was not only a literal journey, but a spiritual journey, moving ever more deeply into the life of God's people. The ark only went forward as it went inward. The Lord called upon the ark to stand still many times while the people worshipped, and in that way it was becoming a more inward reality as they went on with it. That is, what was true of the ark was being made true in their own history.

In that way it represents the history of every child of God. By means of deepening experiences the Lord Jesus is moving more and more from the outside to the inside, and is thus seeking to make His people correspond to Himself. That is the great general truth about our relationship with the Lord Jesus. In the first place He is presented to us objectively, and from that time onward the Spirit of God is seeking to make Him not only objective, but subjective also. So what John said is true: "As he is, even so are we in this world" (1 John 4:17).

With that fact before us we went on to see the way in which the ark came into being, and, while I feel that what I have to say now is for everyone, I feel that it is especially for those who are near the beginning of their spiritual journey, those who have only recently come to the Lord, or who have gone only a little way on the journey. What I am going to say has to do with the real nature of a Christian.

The beginning of a true Christian life is the beginning of Jesus Christ in that life, and that is something that has never been made by man. When the Word of God says: "In Christ there is a new creation" (2 Corinthians 5:17 - RV margin), it means exactly that.

Now, you see, that is how the ark came into being. We have already emphasized that God did not leave the making of the ark to man's ideas. It came into being by a direct revelation from God Himself, and then it came into being by direct activity of the Holy Spirit. In the first place, it had nothing with what man did, or could do, but only with what God did. This ark was something which was altogether of God, and if the ark really does represent the Lord Jesus, that is the first great truth about Him. Man did not make the Lord Jesus Christ. He is not a human conception or idea. He is neither of man's mind nor of man's hand. He is a revelation and a creation of God, something altogether new. When the people who heard Him speak said: "Never man spake like this man" (John 7:46 - AV), they would just as truly have been able to say: 'Never was there a man like this Man.'

Now that truth has to move from the objective to the subjective with us. The beginning of a true Christian life is something altogether new. We have to say: 'I never saw it like that before.'

We must look at the Lord Jesus more closely. We are saying that He was something new out of heaven, and the Apostles who wrote about Him took very great pains to emphasize this truth. The Apostle John, for instance, continually spoke about the heavenly character and person of the Lord Jesus, and they all took great care to make it perfectly clear that everything truly related to the Lord Jesus was of a heavenly nature.

We begin with the home of the Lord Jesus. If you were asked where His home was, perhaps you would say: 'Well, Nazareth, or Bethlehem', or perhaps: 'He had no home. He Himself said: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." He was born in a stable, and was buried in someone else's tomb. He was altogether without a home.' Are you quite sure that that is true? If you think again, you will know that it is not, for He Himself said: "I am come down from heaven" (John 6:38), and that His Father was in heaven. His native land was heaven. He was a stranger in this world, but He had a home. Heaven was His home.

I wonder if you have all realized that that is the great truth about every true child of God. It is a pity that in our most common translation the Lord Jesus said to Nicodemus: "Ye must be born again" (John 3:7 - AV). That is only part of the truth. What He really said was: 'You must be born from above.' The first truth about every child of God ought to be the same as it was of the Lord Jesus Christ, for we ought to be able to say: 'I don't belong here. I am a stranger in this world. It is not my home.' This is not because we have been told that we are going to heaven as our heavenly home, but because there is something in us of which we are conscious that does not belong to this world. Do you really have that consciousness? Sometimes when we go to Canada we meet very many people who have emigrated from Scotland, and they give us such a warm welcome. They say: 'Oh, are you from the old country? Our hearts are there! We think about it, we dream about it, and when we get together we are always talking about it. It is good to meet someone from the old country.' They are in another country, but they do not belong to it. The country to which they truly belong is inside, and that is exactly how Jesus was when He was here. He was always telling people about His wonderful Father who was in heaven, and about the wonderful heavenly home from which He had come, and He was longing to return there. You read the Gospel by John again and see if that is true!

Do you see what I mean when I say that what was true of the Lord Jesus has to be true in us? That ark of the testimony came out from heaven and was always moving toward heaven. It would never come to its rest until it came right into the heavenly country. Are you quite sure that you have that country in your heart? You remember that the Psalmist, in Psalm 84, when speaking of the pilgrim people of God, said: "In whose heart are the high ways to Zion" (verse 5). The thing that was in their hearts was going to Zion. Their feet were not only taking the way to Zion, but the way to Zion was in their hearts.

Now I am spending too much time on this one thing, but it is very important that we should all recognize this fundamental thing about a true Christian life. It must not be that when we come to the end of the journey we just say: 'Now I am going home'. That is how a lot of people think of death, but we ought really to have been going home all our Christian life, and the last step will just be over and through the door. So heaven as our home must be in our hearts and in our consciousness from the beginning of the Christian life.

When you are asked where you were born, it is only half a truth to say: 'In France... In Switzerland... In Germany... or, In England.' No, we were born from above. But what does that mean? What happened to you when you were born? You were born because you had received life. When you were born naturally you received French life, or German life, or English life, but it was an earthly life. It had a beginning, and it has an end. Those who are born from above receive a life which had no beginning and has no end. That is what John tells us about the Lord Jesus. He begins his Gospel with these words: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God." Can you tell me when that beginning was? There is no date to it. It is outside of time. John says of Jesus Christ: "In him was life" (John 1:4), and Jesus Himself said: "I came that they might have life" (John 10:10).

There are two Greek words for 'life'. One is 'bios', from which we get 'biology', and that is just natural life, but there is another word, 'zoe', and that is a different kind of life. It is a life that no one has naturally. It is called eternal life, or the life of the ages - and that is the life which was in Jesus Christ, and which He gives to every new-born child of God.

Now, you do everything by reason of the life that is in you. You think because there is life in you, and when the life has gone, you will stop thinking. You feel because of the life that is in you. Am I being too simple? Be patient, for I have not finished yet.

I find that French people behave in a certain way because they have French life, and British people behave in a certain way because they have British life. And all the other divisions of the human race behave, think and feel and act because of their peculiar life. When you go to a foreign country you are always having to excuse yourself. You have to say: 'Excuse me, but this is how we do it in our country.' You see, your whole behaviour is governed by the kind of life that is in you. Jesus did not think as the people of this world think, He did not feel as they feel, and neither did He act as they act. That was the cause of all the trouble with Him. The world did not understand Him, and John said: "The world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." He had a life in Him which made Him different from the life of this world.

We all need to recognize this more, and young Christians especially must recognize this great truth: If you really are a child of God you do not belong to this world system, and even the world recognizes that there is something different about you. We are given a life which is not the life of time or of this world. It is the life of eternity, and that is the life which we are supposed to have in Jesus Christ.

What is true of the Lord Jesus has to be made true of us in every respect.

Now I will close with just one other thing about the ark. When the ark had been made according to God's pattern, although it was an expression of God's mind it had to be consecrated to Him. You will find this consecration in Exodus 30, and there were two things in it - blood and oil. The high priest sprinkled the ark with blood and oil. Now you notice that, as in the New Testament, blood in the Old Testament is always related to sin. It speaks of the atonement for sin, for where the blood was, sin had been removed. Atonement had been made for sin, and the blood separated that upon which it rested from a life of sin. The blood says: 'Sin is atoned for and put away.' It speaks of the death side, for that which has shed its blood has died. Oil speaks of the life side, for, because sin has been put away, the Holy Spirit can come down upon it, and because there has been a death to sin, there can now be a life in the Spirit. In that way the ark was consecrated, which means that it was separated unto God. One of its names was 'The Ark of God'. It is wholly for God. It is no longer for the world or for self, but altogether for God.

That is Jesus Christ. By shedding His own precious blood He removed sin for us, and by giving the oil of the Holy Spirit He has brought us from death into life, so that now we wholly belong to God. We do not belong to ourselves, to this world, or to sin. The Holy Spirit has come to us and made us wholly God's.

I am so glad that the old Christians are listening so carefully! That means that they are also taking this to heart and are not saying: 'Oh, that is for young Christians.' My dear friends, the older we grow and the further we go with the Lord, the more true will this become in our history.

Forgive me for saying this: I am not wanting just to give you the truth that is in the Bible. My far greater concern is that the truth which is in the Bible shall be true in us. If you go away with all this just in your note-books, or in your heads, the whole conference has failed. All the ministry of every meeting has failed. All our prayer and travail over this time is for nothing. These realities about the Lord Jesus must be realities in our experience. Therefore I beseech you to have prayerful exercise about these messages.

Chapter 8 - The Crossing of the Jordan

We are considering the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as represented in the ark of the covenant, and we now leave the wilderness and come to the crossing of the Jordan. Thus we have open before us the Book of Joshua, especially the first three chapters. Here we are in that great forward movement of the ark from the wilderness to the land - and let us keep in mind all the time that we are not thinking so much of the ark as we are of the testimony of Jesus. We are not living some thousands of years ago, we are living today. We are told that "whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Romans 15:4), so that what we are concerned with is what the Lord Jesus means to us today, and that is all centred in the ark of the Old Testament.

Warfare in View

There is one thing of which we must take note right at the beginning. This movement from the wilderness, through the Jordan and into the land, was entirely with warfare in view. It is necessary for young Christians especially to recognize this, but if the older ones are wondering why there is so much conflict in the Christian life, we had better remind ourselves at once that that is the nature of the testimony of Jesus. If we are really associated in heart with the testimony of Jesus we are going to find that we are committed to warfare. Perhaps we know the fact of conflict, but we very often have questions about it, and even think sometimes that because of the conflict things are all wrong. I think it would be right to say that any Christian who knows nothing about conflict has not really entered fully into the meaning of the Christian life. Of course, we all sing very heartily "Onward, Christian soldiers!", but we have some very big questions when we find ourselves in the battle. The journey of the testimony of Jesus is therefore a journey of warfare.

I remember hearing a very famous preacher put it this way: On Sunday morning the Christians go to church and sing "Onward, Christian soldiers!"; on Monday night they go to the theatre; on Tuesday night they say: "We will have a cocktail party"; on Wednesday night they decide to go to the pictures; on Thursday night they play cards at home; on Friday night they go off and visit some of their friends; on Saturday night they say: 'Now, what shall we do tonight?' - and on Sunday morning: "Onward, Christian soldiers!" Now, that may not be true of any of you, but a Christianity that only sings about Christian soldiers and never goes into the battle is not true Christianity.

So I remind you that when we come to the Book of Joshua there is a movement entirely with warfare in view. In chapter one the Lord is preparing Joshua for the battle, and the word which constantly occurs is: "Be of good courage." 'Courage' is a great word in that chapter! Joshua was a man of courage before - all his history shows him to be so - but this new movement needs more courage than ever before. The ark is moving on to new ground, and there are many great enemies to this testimony.

In chapter two the Lord commands that they send out their spies in order to take the measure of the people, so that the people of Israel might really recognise what they are up against.

So in chapter one there is the preparation of the leader and the people for war, and in chapter two the being quite intelligent as to the kind of enemy that they have to deal with. Then, with those two things done, in chapter three the ark comes to the foremost place. So chapter three is our present occupation, for it is the ark, or the testimony, with which we are occupied.

The Superlative Sign

In chapter three, verses 10 and 11, we have: "And Joshua said, Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Hivite, and the Perizzite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Jebusite. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan." The superlative sign of victory is in the ark passing over into Jordan.

It says: "Jordan overfloweth all its banks all the time of harvest" (3:15), which means that at that time Jordan would normally be in a state of flood. I think you are familiar with the fact that Jordan always speaks to us of death, and that in the Bible it is always a figure of death, so that when the ark entered the Jordan at the time of flood, it represents the Lord Jesus moving into death at its greatest and fullest. When Jesus entered into death, death was at its full floodtide. I think it is important for us to remember that the death of the Lord Jesus was in relation to death in all its fullness. Jesus in His death took death in its absolute power.

Human judgment would have said: 'It would be very much better if this whole thing had been arranged at the time when there was no flood in Jordan.' Naturally this would have been an argument against the wisdom of God, but He, who was in charge of this whole matter, arranged that it should be just then, at that time. It was a part of His Divine wisdom and plan to have this thing just when normally Jordan overflowed all its banks.

You see, God knew what He was doing. He was giving a great illustration of what the death of the Lord Jesus really does mean. The Cross of the Lord Jesus was not something that just touched the shallow waters of death. You remember that John said about Jesus: "Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29), and Paul said: "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Therefore sin with death in its fullness is represented here. Jesus entered death at the flood. He has taken the full measure of death. There is no degree or aspect of death that Jesus has not dealt with in His Cross.

There is a difference here from that which happened at the Red Sea, for when they passed through that the waters stood up like a wall on either side of them, and when the Egyptians entered into that passage the wall fell on them. At the Jordan the waters did not stand up like a wall. We are told that it began right away up the Jordan at the city of Adam, and it was there that God cut off the waters. "The city of Adam has been placed 16 miles up the river, and it seems probable that a stretch of 20 or 30 miles of the river bed was left dry" (Amplified Bible). I am tempted to dwell upon that for a long time, for I think we could make a lot out of that word 'Adam'! However, in the Cross of the Lord Jesus, God went a long way back to deal with death. The entering of the ark, or the entering of Jesus into death, meant that the waters were cut off a long way back - "Far back at Adam" (3:16).

The Greatness of Christ's Death

Dear friends, the Lord Jesus has done a very great thing in His Cross, for He has dealt with death a long way back. That is the backward work of the Cross. I am so glad that the Lord Jesus had dealt with sin and death before ever I came into this world! We have come into something that He did long before we had a life on this earth. I have heard of some young Christians being asked the question, when they have been baptized: 'When were you crucified with Christ? When did you die with Christ?', and they have answered: 'When I was baptized.' Oh no, it was a long, long time before that. We have come into a very far-reaching victory of the Lord Jesus over death.

Now that brings us to the ark carried by the priests. This is an interesting point, for a change has taken place. It was the Levites who carried the ark through the wilderness, but now it is not the Levites. It is the priests, and this has its own particular meaning. What is the special function of the priest? It is to deal with sin. It is the priests who have to take the blood of atonement, and by that blood cut off the power of sin.

Now here we have a very interesting thing. We said that the Cross of the Lord Jesus went a long way back. If you look at the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Genesis, at verse 13, you will find that God is speaking to Abram, and telling him of the future history of his seed - "Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge." 'That nation' was Egypt. Then God says to Abram: "And in the fourth generation they shall come hither again" (verse 16), and that is the land of Canaan, where Abram was at that time. Now, in that 16th verse, there occurs this little phrase: "For the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full." What does that mean? The Lord's people could not possess that land of promise while the Amorite was there, or until the Amorite had filled up the cup of iniquity, but when the Amorite had filled it up to overflowing, then God would bring Abram's seed into the land and destroy the Amorite. You will have noticed that the Amorite is mentioned as one of the seven nations in the land, and several times in this Book of Joshua the Amorite is used as representing all the others. Whatever was happening in Egypt during the four hundred years, God was watching the Amorite. He was watching the people in the land and seeing the cup of sin become more and more filled. When it became full of iniquity, God said: 'The day has come. Now is the time for My people to occupy the land.' So the River Jordan overflowing all its banks represents sin at its fullest, and the ark moving into the Jordan says: 'The day of the Amorites is finished.' Sin and death at the flood are now to be judged. That is why the priests carried the ark, for the priests are the people who have to do with sin.

Man's Weakness and God's Power

But there is another side to this. It is the side of Israel. There was the side of the Amorite and all the other nations, but there was also the side of Israel, and what does that side represent? Surely it speaks of human weakness. These people had failed terribly in the wilderness, and had proved themselves to be a very weak people. Everything here at the Jordan speaks of human weakness. Look at the Jordan! What a powerful thing it is! Look at all those nations in the land! What powerful forces they are! In other words, what is man in the presence of sin and death? What can man do when he meets the full power of sin and death? How weak we all are before those great forces of evil! If these nations in the land represent 'the principalities, the powers, the world-rulers of this darkness and hosts of wicked spirits' (Ephesians 6:12), what can we do before those awful powers of evil? Why, those powers have only to do a little thing to us and we go to pieces! Satan has only to attack us in one small way, and we feel how helpless we are! So, on the side of Israel, it was a picture of human weakness faced with terrible powers. But the ark goes right in, and from this time onward all the powers in opposition will have to give way. Jesus has gone ahead of us and has met all the powers of evil in His own person. So the ark does represent the greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus! He stands for us in the midstream of all adversity, and in all our weakness He becomes our strength. The ark stands in the midst of the flood and holds the ground in victory.

The Look of Faith

Do you notice that it is commanded that there shall be a space of two thousand cubits between the ark and the people? There is a great distance between the Lord Jesus and us. It is what He has done for us. So the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: "Looking off unto Jesus the author and perfecter of faith" (12:2). Death focused all its forces upon Him, and He focused His superior forces upon death. That is why the Apostle wrote those words with which we are so familiar: "The exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe" (Ephesians 1:19). Jordan, as the mighty power of sin and death, may be very great. All the principalities and powers in the heavenlies may be very great. But the Apostle says: 'the power which is for us exceeds all those powers'. It is the perfect work of a perfect Person for us. We have a perfect Person who has done a perfect work, and has gone on before us, like the ark. Of course, it is a question of faith; if we believe that we shall come through. One generation never went through the Jordan, and the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews says: "They were not able to enter in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 3:19). This is the generation of faith.

We ought to spend some time upon that, because there is a very interesting thing here, but will leave that for another time.

But let us remind ourselves of the thing with which we are really occupied: the greatness and the glory of our Lord Jesus. I think you are beginning to agree that this ark represents something very wonderful. It is not just an Old Testament object, it is an everlasting truth. It sets forth what Jesus Christ is, and what He has done, and it has very much more yet to say to us.

Chapter 9 - The Testimony of Jesus

"For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, how that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them; and the rock was Christ. Howbeit with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness" (1 Corinthians 10:1-5).

In our consideration of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ as represented by the ark of the covenant in Israel, we have reached that point where the ark led the way through Jordan into the promised land. That was one of the greatest crises in the history of Israel. It was a great forward movement, for at that point the people were entering into that which had always been in the mind of God for them. We have seen that God spoke to Abraham hundreds of years earlier about this very day and had told him that his posterity would be in the land of Egypt for four hundred years, what would be happening during those four hundred years, and that at the end of that period the people would come into this land. So at this time, marked by the first chapters of the Book of Joshua, that promise is being fulfilled and that purpose is actually beginning to be realized. God said it was to be, and even though He has to wait four hundred years, or four thousand years, what He says will come to pass. We know the terrible story of how Pharaoh tried to prevent it. Well, let Pharaoh do all that he can do - so much the worse for Pharaoh! God had intended it, and be there a thousand Pharaohs, it is going to happen.

Then we know the long story of the difficulties in the wilderness; those forty years during which Israel wandered in the wilderness. The difficulties then were not with Pharaoh and Egypt: they were with the people themselves. Well, whether it be difficulties in the world, or difficulties in the people of God, God's purpose will be realized.

These first five chapters of the Book of Joshua see the movement into the thing which God had purposed for so long. If we look at the ark of the covenant as the illustration, we see it is an ark which is always seeking to move further on. It has been constantly moving during the earlier years, but when it came to Kadesh-barnea its progress was arrested and it had to wait. But that was not God's idea. As soon as He can get the conditions that He needs, He will start going forward again.

We look from the ark to what the ark represents, for we are quite sure now about this matter - that the ark is a type of Jesus Christ, and what John calls the testimony of Jesus. When we come to our own time the same truth holds good concerning the Lord Jesus as was true of the ark: the Lord Jesus in the midst of His own people is always wanting to go further on. He does not desire nor intend that there shall be any delay in the spiritual progress of His people. If there is any delay, it is not His will nor His fault - it is the fault of His people. The true Christian life, in fellowship with the Lord Jesus, should always be progressive. The Lord does not believe in spiritual standing still or stagnation.

Now we have seen that the ark meant three things. In the first place, it meant spiritual government, and in our case that means the absolute government and lordship of Jesus Christ. The Lord desires that every aspect of our lives should be governed by the Lord Jesus.

Here is something very important and very helpful: If you look at the ark of the testimony you will see that - in its normal course - it was always just where it was because the Lord wanted it there, and where the ark was the people had to be. Therein is a very important lesson for our lives. If we are truly under the government of the Lord Jesus we cannot say where we would like to live. To put that in another way: We cannot just go and live where we would like to live. I expect all of you know quite well where you would like to live. I certainly know where I would like to live - but that is not the point. Where does the testimony of Jesus require that I should live? My place of living, my place of working, under the government of the Lord Jesus, must be decided by Him, and if we are living somewhere where we choose to live and not the Lord, we shall have missed the way. It is the ark that always chooses the place where we are to be. There is a definite statement about this: "The ark of the covenant of the Lord went before them three days' journey, to seek out a resting place for them" (Numbers 10:33). Our lives, in every respect, are to be governed by the interests of the Lord Jesus, and we must be quite sure that we are where we are serving the highest interests of the Lord Jesus. The ark, then, as a type of the Lord Jesus governs everything, and by prayer, and humility, and obedience we must always keep our eye on the Lord Jesus. On the one side that is the surrendered life, and on the other side it is the fruitful, or victorious, life.

The second thing that we have seen about the ark is that it governs the matter of intelligence. Every movement of the ark meant that the people came to some fresh knowledge; that is, the ark was not only moving from place to place, but it was bringing the people into a deepening knowledge of the Lord. Every movement of the ark became a new experience for the people of God.

Now you understand that I am not just talking about geography. It may, of course, apply to the town in which we live, or even to the country where we live. It may even mean the very street and house in which we live. That may come under the government of the Lord, but I am speaking also about spiritual geography. What I mean is this: You may have lived in the same house for fifty years and yet have moved hundreds of miles. I must try to explain this very clearly.

How long have you been living in the house where you are now? Perhaps some of you have been there ten, twenty, thirty or forty years. Are you in just the same spiritual position today as you were when you first went into that house? Well, that would be a miserable existence! You ought to be moving with the Lord continually, and moving with the Lord means coming into an ever-growing experience of the Lord, and growing in knowledge of the Lord. That place where the Lord puts you ought to be the place of experiences which bring you into an ever-growing knowledge of the Lord.

We have said that experience is the only true way of education, and it is possible for us to say: 'Now in this place where I have been living so long I have had many deep experiences. There have been sorrows and there have been joys. There have been many trials and many conflicts, but all these have brought me into a fuller knowledge of the Lord. Because the Lord has governed my life, it has been a way of a growing knowledge of Himself.'

That is how it was with Israel in relation to the ark. This week the ark will be here and the people will be learning something, but perhaps next week the ark will have moved on and the people will be learning something else. And that goes on until the ark comes to Jordan - and what a tremendous discovery of the Lord the Jordan was!

Before we come to that, let us mark the third thing about the ark. We have said that the ark was always the occasion of conflict. It seemed that the very movement of the ark involved the people of God in difficulties. As that ark went forward the enemies noted it and came out against the Lord's people. We can say that the ark led the Lord's people into battle. Indeed, the time came when the people would not go into battle without the ark.

This may not be a very comforting idea, but our relationship to the Lord Jesus always means that we are going to be involved in conflict. However, it was by way of conflict that the people came nearer and nearer to the fullness of God's purpose. The purpose of God is a full inheritance for His people, but we can see with the ark that it was through conflict that they came into the inheritance. All those of us who know anything about spiritual life know quite well that if we have anything of the Lord we have got it through battle. It has come into our possession by way of adversity. That is very true, is it not? We are not going to get to the Lord's end by a joy-ride and a picnic. We are only going to get there by terrible conflict, and we are going to discover that every step nearer to God's purpose is going to be challenged by the enemy. That is undoubtedly why we always have trouble in these conferences - because the Lord has a purpose in them. I want, therefore, to say to everyone here, and especially to the young Christians, that God wants us to be always moving on in our spiritual life.

What was the greatest enemy that Israel had against their getting into the land? Was it the enemies on the outside? Amalek came against them, but he was disposed of. Did other nations come against them? Well, again, so much the worse for the other nations! It reminds me of the first steam engine that was made in England. It could go at such a terrible pace that it travelled at four miles an hour! All the people were terribly frightened of this thing, and some good ladies said to Stephenson, the maker: 'Supposing a cow gets in the way?' Stephenson simply looked at them and said: 'So much the worse for the cow!'

Well, let it be Amalek or anyone else, while the people's hearts were in the right direction it did not matter about the enemies on the outside, but there came a time when their progress was arrested and they were turned back into the wilderness, where they had this great experience about which we have read in 1 Corinthians 10, where it says: "Howbeit with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness." No outward enemy did that. What was it that brought that terrible tragedy into the life of this people? Of course, it says here that it was unbelief, but what did that mean in their case? It means that they did not have a heart to go on. You will remember that when they did go over into the land it was because Joshua and Caleb, who had a heart for the Lord, led them there. That generation which perished in the wilderness only had a heart for itself. Self-interest was their greatest enemy, and it manifested itself even in relation to the things of God. But the generation that went on and went in had the Lord alone as its interest. Joshua and Caleb had said: "If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land" (Numbers 14:8). It was all a matter of the Lord's delight.

It is a matter of the spirit in us, that is, our spiritual disposition. What a rich and full inheritance the Apostle Paul has left for the people of God! Why was his life so full, so rich and so fruitful? It was because of the disposition in him. Hear what he says in one of the last Letters that he ever wrote, at the time when he could say that his journey was just finishing: "Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12-14).

The second generation came into the land because they had a spirit like that - and we need to have a spirit like that. We need to be wholly and utterly committed to the Lord and His interests. If that is true of us He will bring us into the fullness to which He has called us, and we shall come to know more and more of the greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus.

We will leave it there for the time being. May all the young men and young women have a heart like this for the Lord, and may none of us older people ever settle down to think that we have already attained! The testimony of Jesus is always wanting to move forward and bring us more and more into that fullness for which we have been chosen.

Chapter 10 - The Sending Out of Spies

We are continuing in the first five chapters of the Book of Joshua, but I want to read two verses from the New Testament:

"By faith they passed through the Red sea as by dry land: which the Egyptians assaying to do were swallowed up. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days" (Hebrews 11:29-30).

Now there is something here that does not appear on the surface, and it is that thing to which I have already referred as 'something quite remarkable'. If we had been writing the exact history of this story of the people of Israel, we would have put in a verse between Hebrews 11:29 and 30 and said: 'By faith they passed through the Jordan', but there is no such verse here. Evidently the Holy Spirit made a mistake! He forgot something, and jumped right from the Red Sea to Jericho. Do you believe that? Or do you believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures? Do you believe that the Holy Spirit governed the writing of the Bible? Do you believe that He deliberately left out this particular verse concerning Jordan?

In raising that question we touch something very vital - the question of whether the Holy Spirit dictated the Scriptures, and whether He really knew what He was doing in leaving out the reference to Jordan.

Now, one of the lessons that we Christians have to learn is that the Holy Spirit knows better than we do. That is a lesson that we shall be learning all through our lives. There is something more in the Scriptures than we recognize, but the Holy Spirit knows all about that, and He wrote the Scriptures with His own knowledge.

Why is the passage of Jordan not mentioned in Hebrews 11? Why is there this tremendous jump from the Red Sea to Jericho? The answer to that question is full of instruction, and is just this:

The Red Sea and the Jordan were not two distinct things, but the Jordan was the completion of the meaning of the Red Sea. In the mind of God the Jordan was in the Red Sea. The Red Sea is one part and the Jordan is the other part, and the two parts make one thing. There are some differences, but there are also some similarities. We will look at the similarities first.

In both the Red Sea and the Jordan death was destroyed, in principle. The Red Sea was only the carrying out of the death of the first-born in Egypt. In other words, the Red Sea was the triumph of life over death for the Lord's people. In Egypt the people of God were in death, but now they were in life. The Red Sea was the great evidence that death reigned in Egypt, but life reigned amongst the Lord's people. In the Red Sea the Lord's people went out from the realm of death into the realm of life, and the people who belonged to death were drowned. The same was true in the Jordan. We shall see that it was the great testimony of triumph over death. When the Jordan overflowed all its banks the Lord delivered His people from death. That was a similarity between the two things.

Then in both events there was a testimony to the virtue of the blood. The sprinkled blood of the Passover lamb was the signal for the Lord's people to be delivered from the realm of death. When the ark was moved into the Jordan the blood had been sprinkled upon the mercy-seat, and that blood was the testimony to victory over sin and death, a testimony to the virtue of the blood.

Then in both instances there was present authority over the world of darkness. You will remember that Moses lifted up his rod over the Red Sea, and that rod was always the symbol of Divine authority. By that authority the people were delivered from the power of darkness. Darkness reigned in Egypt, but with Israel there was the fight of the pillar of fire. There were the two authorities, the authority of darkness and the authority of light. When the Captain of the Lord's host met Joshua on the other side of the Jordan he represented the Divine authority by which these people were to be transferred from one kingdom to another. It was a matter of Divine authority in both the Red Sea and the Jordan.

There was one other thing that marked the two events, and that was the transfer from one kingdom to another - from the kingdom of Pharaoh and Egypt, representing the world, to the kingdom of God and His Christ in the land.

Those were the similarities. Now what about the differences?

We have said that Joshua and the Jordan were the completion of something that was begun at the Red Sea. Everyone can see the difference between Israel's life in the wilderness and their life in the promised land, and the movement of the ark of the testimony through the Jordan made complete what had begun in the Red Sea.

The second thing about the Jordan was that it represented the recovery of a lost testimony. The testimony of the Red Sea had been lost in the wilderness. The people who came through the Red Sea died in the wilderness, and that testimony was lost with them in the wilderness. When they were turned back from Kadesh-barnea to wander for forty years in the wilderness, there followed a story of failure and a lost testimony, but the Lord never gives up His purpose and He completed in a new generation what had been begun in the first. The Jordan makes good what has been lost in the wilderness.

You must be very patient while I lay the foundation for the real message! The crossing of the Jordan makes real what God really intended for His people. Now, you see, we have double movements. There were two seas crossed, and the second repaired the damage of the first. The second made victory where the first had only resulted in defeat. Now try to hold on to that for a little while.

There were two other things that happened. On the surface they looked the same, but they were fundamentally different, and that is the two occasions on which spies were sent out. This is very important and instructive for our spiritual life. The first sending out of the spies was a movement by man. Moses refers to this in Deuteronomy 1:22: "And ye came near unto me every one of you, and said, Let us send men before us, that they may search the land for us, and bring us word again of the way by which we must go up." In my Bible I have put a red circle round a very little big word, and I think that little big word is the key to the whole thing: "And ye... every one of you... said, Let us...". 'Ye - you - us.' The people decided on this and Moses acceded to their wish. Sometimes, you know, the Lord does have to say: 'All right! Go ahead!' because He knows quite well that we will not accept anything else. When the people of Israel said to Samuel "Make us a king to judge us like all the nations" (1 Samuel 8:5), Samuel warned them: 'This does not come from the Lord, but from yourselves. You had better be careful what you are doing!' But they said: "Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations." Samuel said: 'All right, then. I will accede to your wish and do as you say' - but it was the worst day's work that Israel ever did! We know the terrible disaster and tragedy of Saul.

So the people came and said: 'Send out men.' Moses accepted, and the Lord permitted. There was a big question behind this act of the people, and that question was whether the Lord was as good as His word. The Lord had said that He would bring them into the land. He had said it to Abraham four hundred years before, and He had said it to this people. 'Let us send men before us..!' - in other words: 'Let us see whether it can be done. Let us see whether the Lord is as good as His word.' That was experimenting with God, and putting Him to the test.

Do you see that this was the whole basis of this long book of Deuteronomy? In this long book everything in this people's history was being gone over again, and Moses was saying again and again: 'That was wrong... that was wrong... that was wrong. Now you must put it all right.' What is the lesson of this first sending out of the spies? It is the tragedy which results from man taking God's things into his own hands. It was the people who took the direction in this matter. It was an act of self-determination and did not in the first place, come from God.

We are preparing the way for the second sending out of the spies. When the first generation had died in the wilderness and the new generation was ready to go over into the land, Joshua sent out spies. Is the thing wrong again? Is Joshua just doing what they did on the first occasion? The first was of man. The second is of the Lord. but there is a big difference. When the Lord directed Joshua to send spies over into the land, it was not because He did not know what was over the other side of Jordan. He knew all about the nations in the land, and all about Jericho and the other built-up cities. He did not send these spies because He wanted to know Himself. Note this very great fundamental difference between the two occasions:

In the first place, the Lord was dealing with a very different kind of people. This was a people of faith and not of unbelief, and it was perfectly safe for Him to bring a truly consecrated people into fellowship with Him in His power. You see, if the first had succeeded the people would have said: 'We have done it', and would have drawn all the glory to themselves. But this people was a very deeply disciplined people. All the self-life had been knocked out of them and the Lord could bring them into fellowship with His supreme power. This second generation could have said at this time: 'Well, we did that once before and remember the tragedy! We are not going to do it again'; but through experience they had learned a very deep lesson - that of ourselves we can do nothing, but if the Lord says it, then we can go forward. All that is gathered up in the ark, and the ark in the midst of the Jordan speaks of the end of the self-life and the beginning of the Christ-life.

Before I go on with that, let me point out something else. It is possible to do a right thing in a wrong way, and disaster follow. Sometimes the Lord calls upon us to do something on a right basis which would be disastrous on any other basis. This is one of the lessons that we Christians have to learn. The natural man can take the right things into his own hands, and only tragedy results. We meant it to be right. We had the good intention and did not mean to do wrong, but we did it. We chose the time for doing it, decided on the way to do it, and took it into our own hands. The result was that a right thing, done by the natural man, turned out wrong. You see, in the end it proved that it was not a wrong thing to send out spies, but it was a matter of whether man took it into his own hands, or whether it really came from the Lord. Very often, like Israel, when we have done something from ourselves which we think is for the Lord, we have to wait a very long time before it turns out well.

If you do not understand that, do not worry about it. If you are going on with the Lord you will learn it sooner or later. There will be things in your life about which you will say: 'If only I had waited for the Lord! If only I had been patient! If only I had got it from the Lord all this time would not have been lost!' Remember, that is one of the important lessons that has to be learned before you can go out of the wilderness into the land.

We will read from Joshua 4 verses 1-7:

"And it came to pass, when all the nation were clean passed over Jordan" (I like that phrase! Get your hand tightly on it - "clean over Jordan!") "that the Lord spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man, and command ye them, saying, Take you hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests' feet stood firm, twelve stones, and carry them over with you, and lay them down in the lodging place, where ye shall lodge this night. Then Joshua called the twelve men, whom he had prepared of the children of Israel, out of every tribe a man: and Joshua said unto them, Pass over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of Jordan, and take you up every man of you a stone upon his shoulder, according unto the number of the tribes of the children of Israel: that this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall say unto them, Because the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever."

You will notice that Joshua also took twelve stones from the land and put them into the bed of the Jordan. These two sets of twelve stones represent the cost of going right on with the Lord into His full purpose. The twelve stones representing the Lord's people in the bed of the Jordan said that this people had died for ever with Christ. To use a New Testament phrase, they said: "Ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3).

You can almost hear those stones talking! They are saying: "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I." The self-life has been buried. The twelve stones on the land say: "Nevertheless I live, but it is no longer I, but Christ." Paul said: "We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him by the likeness of his death, we shall be also by the likeness of his resurrection" (Romans 6:4,5), and: "We thus judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all, that they which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him" (2 Corinthians 5:14,15).

You see, the cost, the inclusive cost, is that we are, in the death of Christ, separated from the old self-life. That self-life, which has been our undoing in the wilderness, is now left behind. It is buried where the ark stood, and henceforth it is not the self-life; it is everything for Christ.

The cost, then, is the cost of ourselves. Sometimes we sing: 'Here, Lord, I give myself away' - but are we quite sure that we really have given ourselves away? That is God's mind and attitude toward us. It is absolute, so far as He is concerned, but as far as we are concerned it has to be a crisis, something of one day, when we say: 'This very day I accept fully the end of my self-life.' But perhaps you say: 'Well, I did that, but this self is always coming up again. I have something that I love very much, and the Lord puts His finger on it and says, 'I want that'.' Do you think this is a new crisis of Jordan? No, this is not a new Jordan. The Lord simply says: 'That was included in Jordan. Did you really mean what you said at Jordan?' and we have to say: 'Yes, Lord, when I was baptized I said good-bye to the self-life. You can have that.' Jordan was an inclusive crisis.

But the Jordan is also a continuous experience, a progress as well as a crisis.

You notice what the Lord said about those stones on the land? "When your children ask in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones?" what is the answer? Let us put the answer in modern terms. The children say: 'Why do you live this separated life? Why don't you do things that other people do, and why do you do things that other people do not do?' You know that those are questions asked by children. 'You are so different from other people. You don't do what they do. You do not go to the things that they go to. You do this and that, which other people do not do. What do you mean by these stones?' What is the answer? 'The Lord has done a very great thing in my life. He has changed my entire world of interests. He has given me another world.' The children ought to see it in the parents, not in stones. Peter says: "Ye also, as living stones, are built up a spiritual house."

And the last word is: "And they are there, unto this day." Those words are often used in the life of Israel, and it is only a way of saying: 'And that stands for ever.' Our union with Christ in death and resurrection must be something that goes right on to the end of our history.

May we all have a testimony that makes other people say: 'What do you mean by this?'!

Chapter 11 - The Capture of Jericho

We come to the sixth chapter of the Book of Joshua. This chapter contains the story of the capture of the city of Jericho, and is one more chapter in the story of the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus as represented by the ark of the covenant. You will notice that the ark is the most conspicuous thing in this story, for it is mentioned eight times in the chapter. We will not make much of that number, but perhaps you know that the number eight in the Bible is the symbol of resurrection, and in this chapter we are over Jordan and on resurrection ground.

This chapter, then, represents the great transition from one ground to another, and it very powerfully represents the new ground of resurrection life. An impressive thing is that it marks a big change in the life of God's own people - not the change from not being God's people to becoming God's people, but a great transition in the life of His people.

We look back to the ground which they had already held. They had had an experience of redemption from the world and the prince of this world, for Egypt represents the power of this world in which these people were at one time, but by the power of God they had been separated from that world and its power. Most of you know the story of the great deliverance of Israel from Egypt, and the one point upon which we will put our finger is the completeness of that separation according to the mind of God. Note that it is according to God's mind. The whole of His mind did not become actual in them, but here is God's mind, which was, and still is, that His people shall be absolutely separated from the power of this world.

That is illustrated for us by the ten judgments which God poured upon the Egyptians. Time after time God struck tremendous blows at that which tried to keep His people in bondage. At last that great power began to weaken, and tried to get the people on to the ground of compromise. Pharaoh said: 'Just go three days' journey into the wilderness.' He meant: 'Don't go altogether out of my reach. Don't put too great a distance between yourselves and my power.' But the Lord said: 'No! None of that!' And then Pharaoh said: 'Well, let the men go and leave the women and children behind.' I don't know what kind of men Pharaoh thought they were, but the Lord knew what kind of man Pharaoh was, and He said: 'No! I will not have one single hoof of one single animal left in Egypt.' The mind of the Lord was absolute separation from this world and its authority. There was the great care of the Lord for these people. He had said to Moses: 'I have heard the cry of My people and have seen their distress.'

The Lord's desire to have His people completely separated is because He loves them. I think a lot of people, especially young people, have the idea that this teaching about separation is something that is not very happy. You have to give up the world, and you have to give up this... that... and the other thing. If you come out to be the Lord's people you are going to lose a lot. But this separation of Israel was an expression of the Lord's love and care for them. Our deliverance from this world and its power is because God loves us: and He wanted to give His people something better than ever they had had in Egypt.

Now you ask any true Christian about this and hear what they have to say! 'Yes, we as the Lord's people have really had to suffer many things. The way has not always been easy, and sometimes it has been very hard, but if you ask us whether we would rather have the world than the Lord and what He has given us, we would have no hesitation in giving you an answer. The Lord's love for us means more than anything else.'

Here, then, you have the mind of the Lord, the love of the Lord, and then you have the power of the Lord. It is a mighty thing that the Lord has done to make us His people!

Now let it be understood that we shall never get very far until this complete separation has been made. We have to remember that this is the way that the Lord Jesus went. He has gone right through all the difficulties, the sufferings and the sorrows, to the Father in glory, and the Father has filled Him with His heavenly fullness. The Father has answered His prayer. The Lord Jesus had prayed: "Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5), and that prayer has been fully answered. But on what ground was that prayer answered?

We have to go back to that temptation of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. The prince of this world (that was the Lord's own name for Satan. He said "the prince of this world cometh" - John 14:30) came to Him and showed Him all the kingdoms of this world and said to Him: "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve" (Matthew 4:9,10). Jesus refused all the kingdoms of this world at the hands of Satan, and got them at the hands of His Father. Jesus fought this fundamental battle with the prince of this world. He refused to acknowledge Satan and his claims. It was a complete break with the prince of this world, and because of that He could go through to the glory.

Now Israel was called upon to take that position. That was the mind of God for them, but they failed to live up to it in the wilderness. Although they were positionally out of Egypt, they were not out conditionally. Or we can put that in another way: they were positionally out of Egypt, but Egypt was not out of them, so in the wilderness they failed to reach God's full mind for them.

Are you beginning to see the meaning of Jericho? They had come through the Jordan on to a new ground, and that new ground had come into them. It was the new ground of perfect harmony with the mind of God, and the first thing on the new ground was Jericho. Jericho was the full embodiment of this perfect purpose of God.

What is the dominant number of Jericho? It is number seven. You notice that Jericho was the gateway to the seven nations that were going to be overthrown. Then it was seven priests who were to take up the ark - that is, who were to take up the testimony of the greatness and glory of Christ. These seven priests were to have seven trumpets. Every one of them had a trumpet. This was a band of seven instruments. They were to go round Jericho seven times - once every day, but on the seventh day they were to go round seven times. You see what a prominent place this number seven had? Seven nations, seven priests, seven trumpets, seven days, and seven times on the seventh day.

Of course, a lot of you know the meaning of Bible numbers. I only have to remind you that seven is the number of what is spiritually complete, the fullness of what is spiritual. It is spiritual life from the dead. and is the fullness of spiritual power by resurrection. The ark here is the testimony to Christ's full victory and dominion. You see, everything in this story is at a discount except the ark. The only thing that is in power here is the ark. You may say that these seven nations are very strong. but before the ark they are as nothing. This ark is going to lead the way to a complete victory over them all. The greatness and the glory of the Lord Jesus makes everything else as nothing.

Look at the people! And look at what they were told to do and what they were told not to do! I wonder what any general would say today if you told him to go to war like this! If you said: 'Now, look, here is this nation that you have to overcome', or 'Here are seven nations that you have to overcome. All you have to do is just to walk round quietly and blow your little trumpets. You do not have to draw any sword or fire one shot. You just go walking round quietly and let seven men blow trumpets. After you have done this for one week just shout, and it is all over.' I am glad that you smile, for it is so ridiculous, is it not? Perhaps some of the people on the wall of Jericho just looked down and laughed at these people, saying: 'Well, you just go on walking round for ever. Nothing will happen!'

What I am trying to say is this. This is a picture of human weakness, of human foolishness, of human nothingness. Do you remember what Paul said to the Corinthians? "God chose the foolish things of the world... the weak things... the things that are despised... and the things that are not, that he might bring to nought the things that are" (1 Corinthians 1:27,28). Everything here at Jericho speaks of that human weakness and foolishness... at least, everything but one thing - and that was the ark. The ark was a symbol of the greatness and glory of Christ, and Christ is perfectly capable of overthrowing all the other powers in this universe.

But before I come to the conclusion, let me emphasize one thing. Before that ark could manifest its power the Lord's people had to be on special ground, what is called in the New Testament 'heavenly ground'. This spiritual separation from the power of this world is essential to know the power of Christ. We have pointed out that the passage of the Jordan represented a separation from all self-sufficiency, and a standing on the ground where Christ, and Christ only, is our life and our sufficiency. This truth runs right through the New Testament. The Apostle Paul said: "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me" (1 Corinthians 12:9). That is the great principle in the New Testament Christian life. The Lord has to empty us of our own self-strength. Before ever He can fill us with His strength He has to empty us of our own wisdom and make us feel that we are very foolish people, in order that His wisdom may be manifested in our lives. He has to bring us to nothing in order that He may be everything. That is the meaning of Jericho. This is laid down as the foundation of the whole conquest of the land. If you are uncertain of that, you will soon see that if they just departed from that principle they were defeated. For the power, the greatness and the glory of Christ to rest upon us we must have no power, no greatness and no glory of our own.

Do not make any mistake about it. This is not a negative life. It is only negative where we in our own lives are concerned, but it is very positive where the Lord is concerned, for it is a life of the positive power of God.

I am going to finish where I began: It is a matter of our absolute committal to the Lord. In a gathering like this there are always four kinds of people. There are those who have never come out of Egypt and started on the way with the Lord, and we are very glad to have unsaved people with us for often they get saved. That has happened in more than one of these conferences, and I am told that it has already happened in this conference - some who were not on the road with Christ are now on that road. However, there are still those who have not started on the road, who have not given their lives to the Lord Jesus, and I hope that this conference will not finish before they have done so. That is one class of people.

A second class contains those whose position is a mixture of Egypt and the wilderness; I mean, a mixture of the world and Christianity. It says in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Exodus: "The children of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth and a mixed multitude went up also with them" (verses 37, 38). Apparently there had been mixed marriages, between the Hebrews and the Egyptians, and these people who were neither one thing nor the other went out with Israel. They were a multitude of those who were neither one thing nor the other. They had some of the world, and some of Christianity, and it may be that there are some people like that here tonight.

Then there are some belonging to a third class: those who have come out of Egypt, or are out of the world, on the ground of the Blood of the Lamb. They are the people who believe in the fundamentals of Christianity. They believe that Jesus died for them and their sins, that His precious Blood was shed for them, and that He is their Saviour. They have accepted Him by faith, but that is as far as they have got. They have just accepted the first things of the life in Christ. They believe in all the truths about Him: that He is the Divine Son of God, that He was born of the virgin Mary, that He lived a perfect life on this earth, that He was crucified and died, that He was raised from the dead, and that He is coming again. They believe all those things - but they believed them long years ago and have never moved further than that. Israel were like that in the wilderness, and went on like that for forty years. In effect, they just lived there for a whole lifetime and never went on further than that with the Lord. Perhaps there is that class here tonight. You have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, have taken Him by faith as your Saviour, and now you go to church every Sunday and read your Bible and pray every day. You do other things that are expected of you because you are a Christian, but your Christian life is just a daily routine like that, and if you were asked about your Christian life you would say: 'Oh, I was saved ten... twenty... thirty years ago.' There are multitudes of Christians like that! They form a very large category.

But then there is this fourth class: those who, like the people who went over Jordan, are going right through with the Lord to all the fullness of His purpose. They realize that this Christian life is a warfare, and, like these people over Jordan, they are going right on in the warfare until the final victory is won. Are you a Jericho Christian? Or are you a half-Egypt Christian? Or a half self-life Christian? Or are you a one hundred percent the Lord's Christian? Can you say with the Apostle Paul: "One thing I do... I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus"?

The Lord Jesus said there would be these four kinds of people. He put it into one of His parables - the parable of the Sower, who went forth to sow. One part of the seed fell by the wayside and the birds of the air came and took it away. Another part of the seed fell upon stony ground, and another part fell amongst thorns. All those three classes never came to fulfil the purpose of the sower. The devil did not have very much difficulty with some of them, for he could just come and snatch away the seed. They were not very careful about this matter. Then the cares and the affairs of this life, like thorns and thistles, swallowed up another part. The business and the pleasures of this world were more important to those people than the Word of God. Three categories never realized the purpose, and out of the four categories only one produced the result that the sower required, and that fourth class brought forth fruit "some a hundredfold, some sixty and some thirty". To which class do we belong? Are we determined that the Great Sower shall have all that He intended to have? That is Jericho: spiritual fullness, and all that will satisfy the Lord.

Chapter 12 - Defeat at Ai

We are going at this time to be in the seventh chapter of the Book of Joshua, which chapter, as you will know, contains the story of Israel's defeat at Ai, but before we go on with that I want to refresh your memories with words from the Letter to the Ephesians:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (6:10-12).

We leave that there for a few minutes while we move toward this message in Joshua 7. I confess to you that I find this message perhaps the most difficult to explain. The story of Ai is quite a simple one, but to explain its spiritual meaning is not at all easy. All I can do is to set forth the principles that are here and leave the Lord to make you understand.

As we are coming to the close of these meditations, I think it is important that we should understand why they are written. They are not just for general Christian purposes, nor just to give Bible teaching. The special purpose of these messages is to help Christians in relation to the full purpose of their calling. I underline and emphasize that word 'full'. The Lord's people are called in relation to the fullness of His purpose. We have been emphasizing the changes which take place in the position of the Lord's people and, not only in the position, but the changes in the Lord's people themselves. In the Old Testament we see this illustrated in the three different positions of the people of God.

Firstly, Israel's position in Egypt. The Lord has a people in this world. It is said in the New Testament that He visited the nations "to take out of them a people for his name" (Acts 15:14). So in the nations there is a people known to God whom He is going to take out of the nations, just as He took Israel out from among the nations. The Lord has been doing this for the last two thousand years, and He is still doing it today. It may not be very long before He has completed that people. That is the first position.

The second position is that represented by Israel in the wilderness. There, by the power of God and the virtue of the blood of the lamb, they were taken out to be God's people. Their position was that of people redeemed unto God and separated from the world. That was a Divine step forward in the life of the people of God.

The third position is that represented by the people in the land of promise - and let me say at once that that does not represent our going to heaven after this life. So many of our hymns speak about Jordan as being between this life and the next. Of course, you will go on singing those hymns, all about when the time comes to pass over Jordan, but that is not the teaching of the Bible. Jordan is in the life of the Lord's people now, and the promised land is our life now with the Lord Jesus in heavenly places. It is the difference between the Letter to the Romans and the Letter to the Ephesians - but we are going to speak about that later on.

Well, here are three positions of the Lord's people, and they represent three different levels of spiritual life. The lowest level is in the world; the next level upward is in the wilderness; and the top level is in the land. The spiritual history of the Lord's people is one of going up.

Now note this other thing: the Lord deals with His people according to the position in which they are. If you are in Egypt, that is, in the world, all His dealings with you will be to get you out of Egypt. If your position is in the wilderness, that is, if you have come out to be the Lord's people, the precious Blood of the Lamb of the Passover having redeemed you from the world, the Lord will be dealing with you according to that position. There we have the whole history of the Lord's dealings with His people in the wilderness. He adjusted His dealings with them according to the position in which they were, but all His dealings with them were always with something in view. Of course, what I have just said wants a lot of time spent on it - all the way in which the Lord dealt with His people in that place between the world and the fullness of His purpose.

What I am saying is this: God deals with us according to the position in which we are spiritually, and I want you to notice that the more the people of God come toward His full purpose, the more exact He is. That is the message of Ai, but I must go back for the sake of the young Christians.

If we are only newly out of the world and have become the Lord's, He will deal with us according to that position. In a sense, He will come down to our position. He will be dealing with us as with children, and not as with full-grown men; and yet, a father always deals with his children with the idea of making them full-grown men or women. As we go on with the Lord, He will be dealing with us in different ways. He will be changing His ways with us. We shall find that things which we were once able to do, we are no longer able to do. That is, the Lord once allowed us to do some things, but now He is not allowing us to do them. The situation is changing, and the methods of God with us are changing. We shall find, as we go on with the Lord, that He is disciplining us, and the discipline will be the greater difficulties which arise in the way.

When we first come to the Lord what a good time we have! Everything seems so wonderful and so good; but as we go on with the Lord, it is not that He becomes different. We had such a happy time in those early days, but now Father says: 'The time has come for you to go to school.' Perhaps we say: 'Oh, can I not stay at home from school?', and we get afraid of the prospect of school life. We know that we are going to have a Schoolmaster who will say: 'You have got to learn this lesson!' Our position is changed, and our experience is changed.

Now I wonder what you are going to say to this next thing! As you look back upon your school life, are you prepared to say: 'Well, this idea of education was a bad invention! The person who first thought of this school business ought to be put in prison!' Some of you may feel like that, but would it be a good thing for everyone in this world to be just an ignorant child? No, there is a real value about education. It may represent many difficulties, but on the whole we are glad we went to school. We had to find that our changed position needed a changed dealing with us, and in the end it works out for good.

When we come over Jordan into the land we find that we have come into an altogether new position, and it is a position where we have very largely graduated from school. That does not mean that we have ceased to learn. We have not finished schooling because we have graduated from school. All that has been only now serves the purpose of a new kind of education.

All that leads us up to Ai, and as we go on you will see the meaning of what I have been saying. I used to think that the story of Ai was of something not quite so big as anything else. Of course, the conquest of Jericho was a big thing, and from there you go on to Ai, which is not so big. You just read the story, and then you go on further. However, the more I have thought about Ai the more I have seen what a tremendous thing it is. You see, Ai stands for this: whether all that God means in the new position is going to be or not going to be. Ai therefore relates to the whole of this new position.

Everyone knows the difference between the Letters to the Romans and Corinthians and the Letter to the Ephesians! Romans and Corinthians have to do with beginnings and foundations, and with formation. They see the Lord's people in the position that Israel occupied in the wilderness, where they were being formed for the future. When you come to the Letter to the Ephesians, while you carry over the lessons of the past, you are in an altogether different realm. If you sit down and read the Letter to the Romans, then the Letter to the Corinthians, and then the Letter to the Ephesians, you would feel, as you read Ephesians, that you are breathing an altogether different atmosphere. Romans and Corinthians are like being down here on the earth, and Ephesians is like being in the heavenlies. Indeed, that is the word of Ephesians. This is a new position for the people of God. Here they are represented as having passed over Jordan. In Ephesians the people are represented as 'seated together with Christ in the heavenlies.' That is a spiritual and not a literal position. They are represented as walking here in a heavenly life, and most of all they are represented as being engaged in spiritual warfare. In Corinthians the people were wrestling with flesh and blood, and that is why the divisions at Corinth are referred to. One party was in opposition to the other party, and there was conflict between the different groups of the Lord's people. They were going to law against one another, and they were doing many other things that men on this earth and in this world do. That was an earthly Christianity, but when you get into the Letter to the Ephesians you have left all that, and Paul says: 'Here our wrestling is not with flesh and blood. It is not with men and women, nor in sects and denominations, nor with the divisions and parties of the Lord's people. When we get into this position our wrestling is with principalities and powers, and with the world-rulers of this darkness' - and if you have the idea that that refers to Caesar, or the Caesars, the Apostle will correct you by saying: 'with hosts of wicked spirits.' That is the kind of warfare that we have when we move into this new position with the Lord. In the highest position of the spiritual life we come more intimately into touch with the evil spiritual forces.

Now, if that sounds very terrible, do not worry about it. There is no need for fear, because Jericho lies behind, and Jericho, as we have seen, is the type of the complete spiritual victory of the Lord Jesus over all the powers in the land. So complete was His victory that the people had to do nothing about it; all they needed was to have faith. And so it says: "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down" (Hebrews 11:30). The mighty ark of the testimony of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ was triumphant at Jericho, and He who was represented by the ark triumphed over the whole range of Satan's power in His Cross. So we need not have any fear as to whether the enemy is going to triumph in the end, but we must realise that we are in a warfare, that we must be girded with 'the whole armour of God', and that we must be very watchful. This new realm, then, is one in which we enter a special kind of spiritual conflict.

Now let us come to Ai for our lessons. After the great victory at Jericho the people were completely defeated at Ai. I wish that all the details in the seventh chapter of Joshua were fresh in your minds! If you are not familiar with them, I advise you to read the chapter again, and then what I am saying will come back to you.

This that happened at Ai represented a retrogressive movement on the part of Israel. It is true that what happened was caused by one man only, and that man was Achan, but the Lord did not say: 'Achan has sinned.' He said: "Israel hath sinned" (verse 11). Achan's lesson was to be learned by all Israel - and all the people of God have to learn this lesson through Achan. Perhaps you say: 'Well, it is hardly fair that if one man sins all the people have to suffer', but that is not the situation. We shall see in a minute that all the people were involved in this. We have said that this was a movement of retrogression, going back, and it went back a very long way. It went back over the Jordan again, right back through the wilderness, right back through the four hundred years in Egypt - and right back to Adam.

Let us look at this seventh chapter of Joshua, and we hear Achan making his confession: "And Achan answered Joshua, and said, Of a truth I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and thus and thus have I done: when I saw among the spoil a goodly Babylonish mantle, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them" (verses 20, 21). Can you hear something coming from the garden of Eden? 'I saw... I coveted... I took.' The Lord had said to Adam: "Thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Genesis 2:17). Adam did eat, and said, in effect: 'I saw... I coveted... I took.' That is going back a long way! But where do you put the emphasis? 'I'! 'I saw... I coveted... I took.' The self-life has taken command, and where did that come from? Before ever Adam sinned another one had sinned, and that other one said: "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; ...I will be like the Most High" (Isaiah 14:13,14). That was the very spirit and motive of Satan.

Well, poor Achan had become a victim of Satan, and will God allow that? You see, the very Jordan itself meant that these people were entirely separated from the self-life. The ark in the middle of Jordan represented a division between the self-life of the people and the Lord's life in them.

I have not the time to speak about the details - that is, as to the Babylonish garment and the silver. They represent a link with Satan's kingdom. But I would remind you of the gold: the Lord claimed it all. Just look at Joshua 6:18: "And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the devoted thing, lest when ye have devoted it, ye take of the devoted thing; so should ye make the camp of Israel accursed, and trouble it. But all the silver, and gold, and vessels of brass and iron, are holy unto the Lord." The gold represented the glory of God, and Achan, in type, took the glory from God to himself.

This is a very great lesson for the people of God. All the glory has to be the Lord's glory. Later on we shall be glorified together with Him, but now we are to suffer with Him, and the suffering is having no glory here in this world. But Achan took the glory to himself, and God says: "My glory will I not give to another" (Isaiah 42:8). In this realm of spiritual warfare Satan tries to take the glory to himself, so are you surprised that there is so much spiritual defeat amongst the Lord's people? They are always trying to give glory to man in their Christian work. If they are going to have some special meetings they will advertise the chairman as being some very great man - a General or a Field Marshal, or a 'Sir' or a 'Lord'. Organized Christianity rests upon this principle of giving glory to man, so you are not surprised that the Lord is so limited, and, as with Achan, death comes upon so much of our Christianity.

Go back to the Book of Deuteronomy, where Moses says to the people: "Beware... lest when thou hast eaten and art full... and when thy herds and thy flocks multiply... thou say in thine heart, My power and the might of mine hand hath gotten me this wealth" (8:11-13,17). When the spies which Joshua sent from Jericho to Ai came back, they said: 'The men of Ai are but few. It is not necessary for all our men of war to go up against them. Just let two or three thousand go up and smite them.'

Do you see what has happened? 'We can do it!' Here is self-sufficiency! And the men of Ai came out against them and there was a great slaughter amongst Israel that day. The whole thing was arrested. It was a retrogressive movement, back to self-sufficiency.

We cannot treat this enemy with contempt. A very few evil spirits will be more than enough for our strength, and that is why I underlined those first words in Ephesians 6:10: "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might." We shall be easily defeated in this heavenly warfare unless our faith is in the Lord.

I have not mentioned the place of the ark in Ai, but it was the ark that decided this whole issue. Do you not agree with me that Ai is a very big issue? All the past leads up to Ai, and all the future depends upon Ai - that is, upon whether we learn the lessons of Ai.

Chapter 13 - The Travail of the Holy Spirit

We are going to spend a little more time in the seventh chapter of the Book of Joshua. As you know, this chapter tells the story of a tragic defeat in the life of the people of God. There had been a wonderful experience of victory at Jericho, and that victory shows that it was God's will for His people to go on from victory to victory. We have seen that Jericho represented a complete victory over all the enemies in the land, and it set the standard for all the future, so when we look at Jericho and the great victory there we see what God intended to be the history of His people. But at the very next city they met with defeat - the victory was turned into defeat.

We have already seen the main factor in that defeat: the people had left the real ground of victory. Spiritually they had gone back on to the old ground on the other side of the Jordan. We spent a lot of time on that, but it was not the only reason for this defeat. We touched upon another factor, and it is that upon which we are going to dwell more fully now.

First, there are one or two things connected with that which we must notice.

The two most prominent factors in this story are the ark of the testimony and Joshua. We have seen that the ark is a type of the Lord Jesus and all that God has made Him to be as a testimony for His people, so that it represents the greatness and the glory of Jesus Christ. We need not stay longer with the ark just now, and we will pass on to Joshua.

After the death of Moses Joshua is always seen to be associated with the ark. Now, we must understand what Joshua represents. The ark represents the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ, and Joshua represents the energy of the Holy Spirit. He is not a type of the Holy Spirit, but he represents the energy of the Holy Spirit. You remember that when the people had crossed the Jordan Joshua lifted up his eyes and saw a man. He went up to this man, who had his sword drawn, and said: "Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come" (Joshua 5:13,14). So far as the Church is concerned, the Holy Spirit is the man with the drawn sword. The Apostle Paul speaks of "the sword of the Spirit" (Ephesians 6:17), and the Holy Spirit is the one with the sword, and the one who is the Captain of the hosts of the Lord. On another occasion Paul said: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Corinthians 3:17). It is the sovereignty and lordship of the Holy Spirit in relation to the people of God.

"And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant?" (Joshua 5:14). Joshua, therefore, absolutely submitted himself to the Holy Spirit, and was under His dominion for all that lay ahead. Thus he becomes a representation of the Holy Spirit's energy.

One characteristic of Joshua as representing the energy of the Holy Spirit was that he was always forward-looking in relation to the testimony of Jesus, and the attitude of the Holy Spirit is one of always looking onward, anxious to go on with the testimony of Jesus. If you study the history of Joshua you will see that that was true of him all his life. When the twelve men went out from the wilderness to spy out the land, ten of them brought back an evil report and discouraged the people from going forward, but Joshua and Caleb said: "Let us go up at once" (Numbers 13:30). It was Joshua who went over, and here we find him still looking forward. He never looked back, for it was contrary to his very disposition. He could not accept defeat.

Another characteristic of Joshua was that he was always a man for a fight, for a battle. He had led the battle in the wilderness, when Amalek came out against the Lord's people, and here he is in the land leading in the battle.

In these two ways Joshua represents the energy of the Holy Spirit. If the Holy Spirit has His way in our lives we will always be going forward, and we shall neither look back nor shall we stand still. Joshua was like an old war-horse. I remember reading about one once. It was in the days when men went to war on horses, and this one had been in many battles. He came to understand the meaning of the sound of the bugle, and whenever it sounded the Advance he put his ears back and stood erect, ready for the battle. The time came when that old horse was too old to fight any more, and so he was turned out into a field, to spend the rest of his life quietly at rest. One day, after he had been there some time, a coach came along the road by the field, and sitting at the back of the coach was a man with a long trumpet. As the coach passed that field the man put up his trumpet and blew a long blast. The old horse put up his ears and made a rush right across the field to the road. He was ready for the battle again! But the coach went past, and after a little while the old horse put down his head and his ears, turned round, and walked away. He was very sad! I think Joshua was very much like that - or shall I put it the other way? I think the Holy Spirit is like that: always in the spirit of the battle.

Joshua had never been defeated in battle until he came to Ai. That was the first time in his life that he had been defeated in battle, and we can understand, therefore, why he was so distressed. It says: "And Joshua rent his clothes, and fell to the earth upon his face before the ark of the Lord" (Joshua 7:6). He cried unto the Lord and said: 'Oh, Lord, why have You allowed this? All Your enemies who hear of it will say that You have been defeated. Lord, what will You do for Your great name?' And the Lord said: 'Why are you calling to Me? Israel has sinned. They have taken of the forbidden thing.' Then it says that Joshua arose early the next morning and set to work to find out what the sin was. That is the thing with which we have already dealt, and we now come to the other thing.

You see, the Holy Spirit was grieved at Ai, and the energy of the Holy Spirit could not go on while He was grieved. I must remind you that here in the land over the Jordan the people were in a new position altogether. I have said that they were in the position of the Letter to the Ephesians, and in the Letter to the Ephesians (so-called) we have the key to this defeat at Ai. There everything is set in the realm of spiritual conflict. Three things comprise victory or defeat. The three things are: 1. Separation from the ground of the authority of darkness, the prince of this world. 2. The unity of the people of God. 3. The absolute dependence upon God, and no presumption.

When the Lord said to Joshua that "Israel hath sinned" - not Achan, you notice - He first of all meant that a link had been made, by Achan, between all the people and the ground of this world where Satan has his kingdom. It was the disastrous effect of a sinister and subtle return, in principle, to the old Egypt and wilderness ground, from which both the Red Sea and Jordan had meant redemption by Divine power. This opens up the immense matter of the Church's weakness and helplessness before "the world rulers of this darkness" because of a 'world' ground in the Church. The effect is weakness, defeat, and shame. The first step toward recovery has to be a heart-quest to know where and how the devil has found his occasion.

Then in "Ephesians" the unity and solidarity of the Church are an essential basis for ascendancy. Israel's responsible men had said that - Ai being so much less than Jericho - only 'some' of the fighters need go up against it. Thus the principle of oneness was violated or ignored. They lost sight of the fact that the prince of this world is the same in a local and particular situation as he is in the greater and more universal, and that the Divine principles are the same however 'small' the situation may appear to be. It was proved and demonstrated at Ai that we cannot have great universal ideas of the Church and its principles, big conceptions and teachings about the Church, and then neglect to observe them in local and - what we might think to be - lesser situations. Achan may have been just a local matter, but he could not be isolated from the general spiritual laws of all Israel. God does not so regard it! "The body is one", and what applies to the whole applies to each and every member, whether individual or corporately local. Achan's family was an affecting factor. Parents, or a parent, may raise serious "Church" issues if they have not - at least - been very clear, definite, and firm as to the home and family situation, so far as Divine principles are concerned. They may fear to lose something by such a course, but there comes a point where faithfulness to God involves God in faithfulness, sooner or later. Yes, sooner or later, failure in spiritual principles will find us out and disqualify us before God; in the meantime detrimentally affecting the body corporate. Ai says that God's eyes are watching.

Then, this attitude of Israel's soldiers was presumption. It was an attitude of 'We can do it'. That was the essence of Satan's temptation of Adam and the defeat of humanity. It is the very terrible snare of any humanism. We are as much dependent upon Almighty God in a 'minor' issue as in a major, and failure to recognize this may make a very major issue of what we thought was minor.

Now note: Joshua entered into a great travail over this matter. Shall I put that in another way? The grief of the Holy Spirit was registered in Joshua's heart, and until things were put right for the Holy Spirit the people could not go on.

I am putting my finger upon something very important as to the people of God. There is nothing more important in this universe than the honour of the Name of the Lord, and that became the focal point of Joshua's distress. It was no less a matter than the honour of the Name of the Lord: "Lord... what wilt thou do for thy great name?" Joshua was afraid that the Name of the Lord would be dishonoured because of this defeat, and the causes of defeat were those we have mentioned. The Holy Spirit is very sensitive to spiritual principles.

Chapter 14 - A Tragic and Instructive Episode

Reading: 2 Samuel 6; 1 Chronicles 13, 16.

In tracing the history of the Ark of the Testimony we have been deeply impressed with its foreshadowing of the Testimony of Jesus in the New Testament. What a varied and instructive history that has been! In its journey from its formation to its ultimate and final rest in the House of God and glory, what deep and important lessons it has taught! As it sets forth the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus the way of that Testimony has been seen to touch the life and history of God's people at every point in their pilgrimage. Both as positively for them when their life was in keeping with it, and as against them when it was otherwise. That is a first lesson of which we must take notice in our relationship with the "Lord of Glory". The Testimony of God in Jesus Christ is not just a doctrine, a system of truth, the fundamentals of the Christian faith; but a vital relationship with a living Person; a relationship jealously watched and checked by God the Holy Spirit Himself. The greatness and glory of Jesus Christ is something given to the custodianship of the Spirit of God, who has "the seven eyes" of perfect spiritual intelligence and discernment, and who never eventually overlooks any details which affect that Testimony, for good or evil. This is what we have been seeing in these messages thus far.

In this present message we come to an episode which contains some of the most vital, solemn, and instructive lessons for God's people personally, and His Church universally and locally. Upon the lessons of this incident hang - for our own time - issues as serious as was the case when it actually happened. This is indeed a very real example of the words: "The things which were written aforetime were written for our learning" (Romans 15:4).

Let us, then, come to the elements of this episode.

David, after his chequered history, discipline, troubles, in preparation for his anointed kingship, has at length been made king after the tragic death of Saul - man's choice (note) - and Saul's sons, including that fine man, Jonathan, who was caught between the two regimes, a victim of divided loyalties. Upon this confirmed anointing of David it is not long before his thoughts turn to the ark of God, which still lingered on its way to fulness and finality. He had the right idea as to what was due to that sacred figure. His motive was sincere and true. The question was how to realize the Divine intention. Let us pause there and look forward to what eventuated from the point of that question. We will return there presently.

There has been a tragedy. Disaster has overtaken the enterprise and venture. The ark is turned aside. One man closely associated with the proceedings is dead, smitten by the hand of God. The people are in consternation and confusion. David is dismayed and "angry". The whole process has been cut short, and for a long time the atmosphere of frustration hangs over everything. Arrest, death, abortion, frustration, suspense, disappointment, confusion - these are the features which hang over the life of the people of God. They had, with one accord, "made David king", first in Hebron, and then in Jerusalem. That was a right and excellent thing, and the portents and potentialities of that were very great. It was as God meant it, and that was accompanied by much Divine favour. Hebron was "Fellowship". Jerusalem was "His Foundation of Peace". But now "the radiant morn has passed away, and spent too soon her golden store". Shadows have descended. Disintegration of hearts, and bewilderment of purpose have overtaken.

David is somewhere, first nursing his grievance and fretting his spirit; murmuring against the Lord's non-co-operation with his good-intentioned purpose. The spirit of unity and responsibility, as symbolized by David, is disconcerted and paralysed. "And the time was long."

I wonder whether, thus far, we are able to discern corresponding features in the Church and the Testimony in our own times. Let us pause, think, and ask the question!

Now we return to David where we left him before the tragedy. He is thinking out a scheme, a plan, a programme, a method, a means, for advancing the Testimony. It ought to "get a move on". Something must be done to remove "stalemate". 'It has been in the house of that man Abinadab too long.' So, to action to release the Testimony! 'Let's have a committee. Let's confer with some men of substance.' 'I have an idea,' said David. 'Do you remember how the Philistines returned the ark after they had captured it, and God had so honoured it with judgments? Why, God was in that . They were quite respectful and made a perfectly new cart for the ark. They had common sense and used their own good judgment. That's an idea for our work for God!' So David instructed the carpenters and wheelwrights to make a new cart such as the Philistines made. Best wood, well put together, wheels well oiled, ornate coverings; some well-chosen beasts to be the power and volition; and when we get going, let Ahio go in front, and - in case of difficulty - let Uzza be nearby to steady things. Yes, man's idea, man's creation, organization, technique; man's leadership, man's custodianship, man's enthusiasm! Very well. Off we go! The shouting and the singing and the dancing begin. The make-believe and artificiality. There is something hollow in it all. But, isn't it all for God? Isn't the object and the end that we have what God wants? Surely that is the guarantee of prosperity and success! Well, was it? And is it?

All seems to go well for a time and everyone is enjoying the "New thing".

But, oh, why are there such things as "threshing floors" in the Bible? They have always been such testing places. They search for reality as against make-believe, grain and chaff. They stand for the ultimate issue, what is of God and what is of man. At such a place David's oxen stumbled, the new cart rocked, the ark was imperilled, and - you know the rest, for we have told it.

Here we return to David - the spirit of responsibility.

Such a man as David could not remain indefinitely with a controversy with God. God is waiting for him to come out of his cul-de-sac. So David begins to run through the Bible which he had (which had been there all the time) and his eye is directed to:

"And thou shalt put the staves into the rings on the sides of the ark, to bear the ark withal" (Exodus 25:14).

"And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the furniture of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward; after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it: but they shall not touch the sanctuary, lest they die. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tent of meeting" (Numbers 4:5).

"But unto the sons of Kohath he gave none: because the service of the sanctuary belonged unto them; they bare it upon their shoulders" (Numbers 7:9).

As he looked he was startled, shocked, amazed, ashamed. Here was God's own prescription and ordination for the transit of the Ark of Testimony! As David read these Scriptures he must have called up his knowledge of the history lying behind God's unchanging order. The new cart faded from view, and in its place were some men who, through a most testing and searching history with God, had qualified for this so sacred ministry.

Although David did not have the prophecies of Malachi, God's speaking there (Malachi 2:4...) was retrospective to Exodus 32:26-29, and Numbers 25:12,13. God's covenant with Levi and his sons, which governed their service, and gave them responsibility in relation to His Testimony, was because they were proved and approved men. In New Testament terms they were 'spiritual' men, "approved of God, workmen needing not to be ashamed". Yes, approved of God, and of His people. Not chosen, voted for, appointed and given office by men! Men of spiritual measure, "pillars of the church". In Christianity one of the most sacred expressions of the Lord's Testimony is His Table. "The Table of the Lord" is characterized as most holy: dangerous - like the ark - to what is not wholly suitable to it, and most blessed to those rightly related. Surely it is here that Levitical service is to find its true expression. Those who serve at the Lord's Table ought to be true "Levites" in the sense that they have - under extended or intensive trial and proving - shown to the Lord and His people that they are men of spiritual measure and quality! With reference to "overseers" Paul said: "Not a novice." "Novice" means "one newly planted". Surely this ought to apply to so sacred a function as serving at the Lord's Table! To put an untried and unproved 'novice' into such ministry is to put him into a false position, and even a dangerous one, and also making the church and its elders very responsible. Levites may not now be an ecclesiastical class or a ritualistic "Order", but the law of spiritual approvedness and quality born of experience surely holds good for every ministry in the Church!

No, not a "new cart"! Not a man-conceived technique! Not - with the best of intentions and motives - man's arrangement! It is possible for man to get too close to the Lord's Testimony with his own hand, like Uzza, and consequently find himself out of the living fulness of the Divine goings and purpose. He may even be responsible for arrested, retarded, and confused conditions in the work of God. To put a hand on something that is of God as to purpose is surely - sooner or later - to meet God in stern disapproval, and to forfeit His "Well done".

Of the various instructive things which arise so evidently from this episode, not by any means the least is the solemn government of the Word of God. David's disastrous course was due to his overlooking, ignoring, and consequently violating the clear Word of the Lord. His act - if unintentionally - implied superiority to the Scriptures. This is always dangerous! It is particularly incumbent upon any who are in a position of responsibility to familiarize themselves with God's Word in relation to any course of action in which they may be involved.

We have written the above out of very long and wide experience in the Lord's work, and we are sure that to give serious consideration to the Bible's teaching in this episode would be to have the explanation of much tragedy, would be a strong warning and corrective, and see the Lord's Testimony freed to proceed.

Thank God, David recovered himself and had a happier end. This we shall see in our next message.

Chapter 15 - The Ark of Glory

Reading: 1 Samuel 4:10-11, 17-22.

"And delivered his strength into captivity, and his glory into the adversary's hand" (Psalm 78:61).

We have been occupied with the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ as represented in the ark of the testimony. Amongst the various titles of this ark we noted that one is 'the ark of his glory'. We also noted that the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews speaks of Jesus Christ as the effulgence of God's glory, and one of the names of the Lord Jesus is 'the Lord of glory'. Here, in our last consideration of this matter, the ark is called 'the ark of glory', for, when the ark was captured by the Philistines, it is said: "The glory is departed from Israel."

Although there is very much more to be said about the history of the ark than we have said, we are going to finish this consideration where we began - with the glory of Jesus Christ, and once again the ark will be our illustration.

We must notice that there is one word which covers the whole history of the ark: it is always the ark of life. Wherever you touch it in its right place, in one way or another you touch life.

Look at what was in it! There we have life revealed in three ways, or, I should say, there we have the testimony of life revealed in three ways. The first thing in the ark was the Word of God, and God said that His people should live entirely by His Word, and be governed by it: "Man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live" (Deuteronomy 8:3). The Word of God was intended to save people from death, and to be their life, so the testimony of Jesus is the testimony that He is the living Word of God, that is, that in Him all the mind of God has been revealed for His people. "The word of the Lord abideth for ever" (1 Peter 1:25). It is the word of eternal life, and that is one aspect of the glory of Jesus Christ. He has brought to us in His own Person the revelation of God's mind, and in that way we are to find our life. How often, in a time of trial and difficulty, we have gone to the Word of the Lord and in the Name of the Lord Jesus we have made that Word ours, and it has been our salvation and our life - "For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him, Amen, unto the glory of God by us" (1 Corinthians 1:20, A.V.).

Looking again into the ark - and, thank God, we may look into the ark now! - we see the testimony to the living provision of God for His people. There was a golden vessel with manna in it, testifying to how God met the needs of His people in the wilderness and thereby saved their life. God has made full provision, in our Lord Jesus, for all our need to be kept alive.

And the third thing in the ark was Aaron's rod which budded and brought forth fruit. Do you remember how it came about that that rod was put in the ark? There were certain men in Israel who said to Moses and Aaron: "Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the Lord is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?" (Numbers 16:3). They were disputing the priesthood of Aaron, so God said: 'We will answer this dispute. Let a man out of every tribe of Israel bring a rod, write his name on it, and then let them all be laid up in the house of the Lord overnight, together with Aaron's rod.' You know, things don't usually bud, blossom and bear fruit in the dark. They really do need the sun! However, God made this test in the most difficult situation. He said: 'The man whose rod is found in the morning to have budded and blossomed is the one whom I have chosen.' When morning came Moses went in to look at all these rods. Eleven of them were dead, and only one was alive. The strange thing was that all the seasons were represented in that one rod! Not only was there blossom, but there were also buds and there were fruits. When God answers a question He answers it thoroughly! That rod was Aaron's. You notice what happened: the others died, under the judgment of God, but the house of Aaron lived, and in this way God signified who was the living high priest. The high priest is the one whom God raises from the dead and makes abundantly fruitful. The work of the priest is salvation, and he is the mediator between God and man.

We are here because Jesus "ever liveth to make intercession for us". And so, in the Lord Jesus, there is the testimony of life in relation to the revealed will of God, life in relation to God's full provision for us here, and life as our High Priest Saviour.

We move from that to the Jordan again, and you will recall how the ark, moving into the bed of the Jordan, made the waters withdraw. The waters at that season were overflowing all the banks, and all that overflowing testimony of death was destroyed when the ark moved into the bed of the Jordan. We can say that in that ark death was swallowed up by life. The ark destroyed the power of death, and the people were saved from death in all its fullness. Here we have the glory of life overcoming death, and that is the testimony of Jesus. That is His glory.

Life comes because Jesus is glorified and the glory of the Lord Jesus destroys death. That is the great testimony of what our Lord has done in His Cross. He is risen from the dead and cries: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18) - 'The authority of death is in My hands.' "Through death he might destroy him that had the power of death" (Hebrews 2:14). He came to bring "life, and incorruption to light" (2 Timothy 1:10). And that is the ark in the Jordan.

We move on with the ark to Jericho, where we have seen all the powers of evil represented. The seven times round the city represented the seven-fold victory of the Lord Jesus over the evil powers, the number seven being the number of spiritual perfection. In His resurrection Jesus has completely overthrown the authority of Satan. So at Jericho we see the glory of Christ's power over all the evil forces in this universe, and "this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith" (1 John 5:4). "By faith the walls of Jericho fell down" (Hebrews 11:30). The Lord teach us how to stand firm in faith when the enemy is trying to demonstrate his power, and to stand firm in faith believing that the enemy is going to have to give way because Jesus has fully conquered the powers of evil. This is the glory of the power of Jesus Christ over all the power of the enemy.

From Jericho we move to Ai, and this looks like a contradiction of all that we have just been saying. The ark is there at Ai, but instead of victory there is defeat. Is that a contradiction? Is it the defeat of the ark or of the Lord's people? Is this the defeat of the testimony of the ark itself? Does this really speak of the glory departed? No, this is only another aspect of the glory. It is the testimony to the glory of holiness. The story of Ai begins with a little word: 'But'. There is the great story of victory at Jericho on one side, on the other side is the defeat at Ai, and in between is this little word 'but': "But the children of Israel committed a trespass" (Joshua 7:1). The whole story of Ai centres in that little word 'but'. It is really a testimony to holiness, and how very holy is this ark! To violate that holiness is to bring defeat. When the sin was judged and put away, victory was restored. There is no glory where sin governs, but there is glory when sin is judged and put away. Holiness and life are inseparable.

It is a long time before the ark is mentioned again, perhaps three hundred years, and it is more than that when we come to this first Book of Samuel. Here we have this terrible story that we have read: the ark captured by the Philistines and taken into their country. You see, this is a long story of spiritual decline. I have often said that the most terrible book in the Bible is the Book of Judges, and as you go through all that long period you see how the spiritual life of the people of God was going lower and lower. That leads up to this story of the ark being captured by the Philistines, and the old man, Eli, dying after judging Israel for forty years. As representing the whole people, he is a pathetic picture of spiritual weakness and blindness. Eli was physically blind, and when Samuel was born it says that "there was no open vision" (1 Samuel 3:1). Eli was a type of the spiritual condition of the whole people, and because of the spiritual decline this terrible thing happened: "The glory is departed from Israel."

But we are not going to dwell on the negative side, though we could say a great deal about how glory goes out when the spiritual declines. It is always like that. If the spiritual level goes down, the glory goes out. We shall come back to that, but we will keep on the positive side.

Now note exactly what it says. It does not say that 'there is no more glory'. The glory may have departed from Israel, and it may have gone into the hands and the country of the Philistines. Be that as it may - but the Philistines are going to discover that this thing is not dead. They put the ark into the house of their god, Dagon, and had a great celebration, spending the evening and the night rejoicing. They had a night of feasting and singing, and said: 'Dagon is greater than the God of Israel.' They took the glory from Israel and gave it to Dagon. Well, so much the worse for Dagon! When they got up the next morning and went to the house of Dagon, they found that he had fallen on his face before the ark. If it were not so serious it would be humorous. Think of having to lift up your great god after he had fallen on his face and stand him up again! Jehovah has never needed that! However, they got round poor Dagon, lifted him up and put him on his feet again. They were having to have some second thoughts about this matter! They went away, and when they came back the next day they found that Dagon had fallen down again. But this time he had not only fallen down - his head, his hands and his feet were off. Poor Dagon! But the glory has not been destroyed. The testimony of Jesus still holds good, and if the Lord's people are not living in the good of that testimony the enemy is being made to know all about it.

I believe that the Philistines are a type of rationalism. They were always trying to look into Divine things with their own minds. They took hold of the ark as uncrucified men, and are always called 'the uncircumcised Philistines'. If you look into the second chapter of the Letter to the Colossians you will see that Paul interprets circumcision as being the effect of the Cross. We will read verses 11 and 12:

"In whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with him in baptism, wherein ye were also raised with him through faith in the working of God."

So circumcision is a type of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and this word says that baptism is the testimony to that.

Therefore the uncircumcised Philistines were men who knew nothing about the Cross, and yet they were always trying to get hold of the things of God and look into them as uncrucified men.

Now if, as I have said, the Philistines were a type of the rationalists of our time, it is interesting to see what is happening. I will give you an illustration.

I usually have a book beside my bed at night so that I can read before I go to sleep. One night I went to my bookshelves, looked along the books, and saw a book that I bought fifty years ago. It gave an appreciation of the lives of some of the great theologians. I opened the book at the chapter about a great modernist theologian of fifty years ago, a man who did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible, nor in the deity of the Lord Jesus, but believed in a lot of other things of the new theology, as it was called. That man got a great name in his time. The writer of this book said: "Now the teaching of this man is the teaching of the new age. It is going to change the entire belief of the Christians. It has come to stay, and everyone will have to accept it." 'Well,' I said, 'that is enough of that!' and I put the book back into the cupboard. A little while afterward I went to find another book. This book was written by one of the great theologians of our own time, and he started by saying: "No reputable scholar of our time will believe the theology of fifty years ago. It has gone for ever."

You see the big change? The testimony stands. Let it go into the hands of the Philistines, and the Dagon of intellectualism will come down on his face sooner or later. The glory may go away from the Lord's people, but it does not lose its power. The glory of Jesus Christ still stands.

Now I must come to an end, and leave several other things.

We come right over to 1 Chronicles 16. David is on the throne at last. After all the troubles of his past life, he is now enthroned as king, and his first thought is to bring the ark to Jerusalem.

What a chequered history this ark has had! How many enemies have been against it! What various conditions it has known in the Lord's people! What difficulties it has come through! But at last it is in the house of God, and the last thing about it in the Old Testament is this:

When the ark came to rest in the house of God the glory of God filled that house. That had been reached of which the Apostle Paul spoke, as he looked forward to the end of the testimony on this earth: "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and ever" (Ephesians 3:20,21).

That is the testimony to the glory of Jesus Christ. It goes through all these sufferings, sorrows and adversities. It sees the spiritual life of God's people rising and falling. It sees the powers of this world trying to take its glory away, but after the long, long story, when perhaps sometimes we might tremble for the ark of God, for the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ, it will come to rest at last in the House of God, and the glory will be in the Church by Jesus Christ unto all ages for ever and ever.

May the Lord keep us faithful to His Son! When the testimony is in adversity, passing through troublous times, and it seems that the enemy has prevailed, may we abide faithful to the Lord Jesus, and His glory will be in the Church for all ages for ever and ever. The testimony of the ark is a true representation of the history of the Lord Jesus. All the forces of this universe are against the testimony of Jesus, but the Word of God shows that in the end that testimony is going to triumph. "If we suffer, we shall also reign with him" - when our Greater David brings the ark into the House of God at last.

If we cannot understand all that has been said with our minds, may the Lord give us a greater impression of the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ!