Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of meeting,
because the cloud abode thereon,
and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle,
the children of Israel went onward, throughout all their journeys:
but if the cloud was not taken up,
then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up.
For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day,
and there was fire therein by night,
in the sight of all the house of Israel,
throughout all their journeys.
It is in my heart this morning to say a little about divine guidance. Divine guidance is a matter which, I am sure, interests us in a very real way. At any rate, one has not to try and create a basis for a word on this subject. It is amongst those matters which are always very much to the fore in the life of the children of God.
Now, in this matter of guidance, life has to be viewed as a whole. That is the first thing about it, and a very important thing.
The guidance of the nation of Israel through the wilderness is always viewed conclusively. There are such words as, “He led them on safely, so that they feared not,” and, “He led them by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation” (Psalm 78:53; Psalm 107:7).
In the phases and stages of the journey, very often that did not seem to be true. “They feared not” because He led them on safely; “by the right way”—neither of those matters always seemed to be true.
But, you see, this matter of their guidance—their being led by Him—is always viewed conclusively. The fact is that they got there; they were not lost. It is the end and the verdict which covers the whole course, and it is like that with divine guidance.
We must recognize this and settle this: we have got to take life as a whole. If we only take it at given times and in given situations, we shall be in confusion, in contradiction, perhaps with big questions as to this matter of guidance—a great deal of perplexity, uncertainty, doubt, and perhaps a feeling that we are just being left, that there is no guidance at all in our lives.
But we must take the long view, and the end will prove that we were being guided, even when we thought otherwise. The hand was upon us when it seemed that it was not so.
Divine guidance has to be viewed from the standpoint of the whole. Life in its entirety has to be brought into relation to the guidance of God.
When we have got that, we are able to take another step and see that this inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and conclusiveness of divine guidance is related to God’s purpose.
Firstly, it is related to His purpose. All the guidance of God is related to His purpose. His purpose is a very clearly defined thing, a very concrete and definite thing, a set and fixed object. His guidance is completely bound up with His purpose.
When His purpose has become the whole interest and object of our lives, there is a sovereignty over everything.
And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good,
even to them that are called according to His purpose.—Romans 8:28
Or, literally, “God works good in all things” to them that love Him and are called according to His purpose.
That is a very comprehensive “all things.” The statement is that not one of the all things is without some good being definitely put into it and got out of it by the sovereignty of God, when His purpose governs. There can be many of the “all things” which compose lives that are not so governed; their all things do not work good.
The guidance of God is therefore inseparable from His purpose. This is perfectly clear in the case of Israel. The purpose of God was made known quite clearly and definitely from the beginning: to bring them into the land.
It came out so definitely and positively when they were over Jordan and Joshua was about to lead them. The Lord said very definitely to Joshua that he was to be strong and of good courage, because he was to bring the people into the land which the Lord had sworn to give them.
There is the purpose: the strong object of God, to bring them into the land. We know that this is an historic figure, and that we have its counterpart in the New Testament: the heavenly country and all the riches and fullness of Christ.
That land of Canaan, the land flowing with milk and honey, with its wealth, riches, depth, and fullness, was only a pale representation of what has come in with Christ—the depth of the riches, the unsearchable riches, of Christ.
The purpose of God is the fullness of Christ, and all divine guidance is bound up with that.
In the next place, divine guidance is bound up with God’s vessel. Here, in the case of Israel, it is centered in the tabernacle.
Immediately the Lord had accomplished the redemption of His people, He proceeded to reveal that great design which embodied His purpose: the tabernacle.
Again, we know so well that the tabernacle was a twofold figure of Christ and His church: Christ personally and Christ in corporate expression. I need not argue that. I think we should all agree that this is so.
Christ and His church: Christ giving it its foundation, its character, its nature, and its meaning; it taking from Him everything. That is the vessel of God’s purpose.
That was to precede, that was to be central, that was to govern, and all divine guidance was related to that. This is a point which perhaps has not been clearly recognized. It is far, far more important than we have recognized.
We like the pictorial aspect of it and are very pleased with all this typology of the tabernacle, but it has been brought down to a certain rather earthly level.
Just consider for a moment: there were forty days and forty nights in unceasing communion while God was revealing to Moses the details, the whole conception, construction, and constitution of that tabernacle. Forty days and forty nights Moses was with the Lord in the mount, receiving this thing—which, we are told, was only a pattern, a representation of something.
Then, when he had received it from the Lord so meticulously, carefully, and fully, it required a definite coming in of the Holy Spirit to superintend its making in every part and detail—the whole structure and all the material. Men were filled with the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit was definitely in charge of this thing.
There is something here of tremendous significance and account. It is a great heavenly order of things, a vast heavenly order of things condensed into the framework and material of a symbolic representation. But all that vast heavenly order and system is there implicitly, in principle.
When it was set up, all divine guidance was bound up with it. That is the point. While the cloud rested, they could not move. The people could not move without the tabernacle.
Christ and His church, in this sense, govern all their movements and all their times—their goings just as much as their stoppings and their stayings.
You see, the church, when it is as God would have it, governs movement and determines progress. God sometimes has to wait for His church before He can move.
There were those stoppings and waitings of the cloud because things were not right among the people. Adjustments had to be made. Wrongs had to be put right. Evil had to be put away. There could be no movement in the church, no guidance to any further step, stage, or measure, until this body was right.
That could be profitably enlarged upon, but it is a very important thing to see how God binds up His guidance with the state of His people, with His church, and how our relationship to the church is an important factor in the guidance of our own life.
Not one individual in all the thousands of Israel was an independent unit in this matter and could move without the others. Every individual, in a sense, had to wait for all the rest for their guidance. Their guidance was a related matter; their progress was a corporate matter.
The cloud rested upon the tabernacle, and the people were bound up with that in one inseparable corporate whole.
These are very important things, dear friends, for progress and for guidance. If you are exercised about the guidance of your life, your guidance, if this is true, very largely—if not absolutely—rests upon these two things:
It is a related thing. I know, as I speak, difficulties arise, but I can only enunciate the principle at this time, leaving details for another time.
See, then, how jealous God was for this tabernacle—jealous over every detail of it, and jealous over relationship to it. He was not seeing a thing called the tabernacle, or the tent of meeting and all its paraphernalia. He was seeing His Son. He was seeing His church.
God always has in view, not things, but the spiritual reality—that of which this is only a pattern. Now then, having said that, you must take that away and think about it. It may answer some questions and solve some problems.
We note further that there was always an element of mystery about this guidance, as there always is. There is an element of mystery in God’s wisdom and God’s knowledge. His ways with us, and His guidance of us, are not always revealed to us.
The element of faith is always present, or always has to be present. God’s wisdom is a hidden wisdom. His full knowledge is a secret thing. He does not disclose to us His ways, His plan, what He is doing, or why He is doing it in this way or that. He does not explain.
But there is always a meaning, as this history of Israel shows—always a meaning in each stage of divine guidance. There is a meaning at every stage. There is something lying within every phase of the divine movement, or the divine non-movement. There is something in this.
This is not just a random thing, a casual thing, an inconsequential thing. With His purpose in view, God has a meaning in every phase and every stage of His ways with us.
It is important for us to believe that and always to look upon any particular phase, stage, or aspect of our life with God from that standpoint: “What has God got in this?” This is the thing that matters.
Not, “Let us get out of this as soon as we can. Let us get past this. Let us go on.” No. What has this got to reveal? What has this got to teach? There is something there that God has, and the cloud will not move until we have it.
Maybe some of you are in the stopping-place of divine guidance, and you are all restless and eager to get on to the next phase, the next page. You are impatient.
Are you quite sure that you have got your hand upon the meaning of this phase in which you are, or in which you have been? Are you quite sure that you can say, “Well, I do not know—I did not know either, Lord, what You had in such a situation, such an arrest, such an experience—but I believe that You had some meaning in it”?
“I have definitely had this understanding with Him: I do not want to miss what He has for me at this present time, because it is all a part of that cumulative value which, after all, is the fullness of Christ.”
The fullness of Christ is not some distant thing to which we are going; it is a spiritual life which is growing now. We have got to eliminate these geographical factors, you see, from an earthly representation of heavenly things, and remember that time and distance have no place at all here.
Time and distance only have a place, if they have any place at all, in that we can progress years in a moment. We can make vast spiritual progress in a step.
When you make out what God means in this way—when you determine not to move until you know that you have got what God means by your present experience, until you grasp it, see it, and respond to it—you have moved on, and moved on greatly.
Time is only a factor while we are failing, either in apprehension for some reason or other, or in obedience. You see, they could have gone from Egypt to the land in nine days. It took forty years. Why? Not because the Lord had appointed forty years, but because the purpose of God was not strongly enough settled in their hearts as all-dominating, so as to rule out personal interests and considerations.
They made the time, not the Lord. They made the miles, not the Lord.
I hope you have grasped that. But let us concentrate upon this one point, dear friends: let us make sure that we are learning what God is trying to teach us now, because there will be no movement until we do.
The cloud will not lift and go on until we have got it in our hands: what the Lord has been after in order to prepare us for the next phase and all subsequent phases. Have you got it? Are you quite sure, brother?
There is something hidden to be discovered and laid hold of in every phase and stage of the way, and all that is discipline.
You see, the fact that God has a great purpose, settled and fixed and clearly defined, and that we are called according thereto, and that there is the working of divine sovereignty—all that never eliminates the place of responsibility.
For the simple reason that God is not acting mechanically. It is not a machine put together and wound up, going just by itself, by its own momentum. Always, in God’s purpose and His methods with us, there is the element of responsibility.
God never made a machine; He made man. And man is responsible. We are responsible creatures. Therefore, discipline has its place.
There is no mechanical reaching of His end by God, but it is along the line of our choice. Will, of course, is the point—the focal point of everything. Will, will, will. That was the problem with Israel; that is the problem with all of us. It is the will.
The way through is a will that is absolutely set upon God’s end, whatever that may cost.
Although there will always be this element of mystery and perplexity, discipline and instruction, growing intelligence and responsibility, there will always remain a large margin for divine sovereignty.
Think again of Paul and his journey to Rome. You know how he says, at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, long before he went to them, of his love and his unceasing prayer for them. Then he tells them that he would have them know that he desired to come to them. Again and again he would have come to them, but he was hindered.
Here is a man whose heart was set upon the interests of the Lord in His church as represented in Rome; a man whose life was wholly and utterly abandoned to Christ and to the church, who was longing to minister Christ to them in grace and fullness.
He purposes to go, and then he is hindered; he purposes again, and again he is hindered. He seeks to move in that direction and is apparently frustrated. Yet the strength of purpose and desire for God is there.
There is the mystery—the mystery of hindrances, frustrations, and delays. How did he get through? By a very, very different way from what he intended, purposed, and thought. He had never calculated on all that was involved in it.
It seemed, on the one hand, that all hell was determined that he should not get there; on the other hand, there was God’s mysterious way. We do not know what would have happened if Paul had just gone to Rome in the way in which he had gone elsewhere, to other places, and paid a visit.
But God had some infinitely greater thoughts in Paul’s at last reaching Rome than Paul had ever thought. The mystery of God’s ways: the shipwreck, the way in which he did get there.
But the historian sums it all up: “And so we came to Rome” (Acts 28:14). The verdict took a long road. Mystery between the conception and the realization; the mystery of satanic interference, the mystery of difficulties, reverses, shipwrecks, and everything else. But the verdict is: “And so we came to Rome.”
Divine guidance has to cover everything. If Paul had settled down on any one of those incidents, he would have been in very great difficulty indeed. But he got there. He got there at last.
You and I, dear friends, if we are governed, dominated, mastered by God’s end—the fullness of Christ—and wedded to Christ Himself, and if we will allow the Lord to do it in His own way, and seek to get hold of the meaning and value of every part of the way, the end is sure. The end is secure.
The end will be: “And so we came.”
At times it looked as though we would never get there. Shipwreck? Yes, shipwreck. In many ways it looked very, very much as though we would never get there. But the fact is: we are there.
We must see the principles of divine guidance:
There will always be enough mystery about God’s ways to demand faith. No matter what delays, frustrations, hindrances, or threats may arise, at last we shall be able to say, over all those times and experiences when we thought so otherwise:
Jesus led me all the way.