Back again to the chapter which has just been read: Deuteronomy 8, verse 2.
And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee.
In the letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, verse 13:
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.
“Thou shalt remember.” “Forgetting the things which are behind.” Remembering and forgetting.
In these two passages, which look like a contradiction, but which we shall see are not, we have, firstly, an exhortation to grateful recollection: “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee.”
Then we have an exhortation to profitable review, gathering up the lessons for the future; and finally, an exhortation to purposeful resolve: forgetting, and pressing toward the mark.
In these two places, Deuteronomy and Philippians, we have one point of likeness and similarity. There are others, but this marks a point of transition—if you like, of crisis.
In the former case, a big change was about to take place. All that Moses said, as you have had in this long discourse, was said in relation to that transition. There was a change about to take place in leadership.
There was a change from a period of deep and drastic preparation, from a phase of pioneering the way and laying the foundation for the future, to a time of proving the value of all that had been, and taking up responsibility by means of it.
It was a transition from a period of child-training—what is called chastening, discipline—to possession of the inheritance and an exercise of stewardship.
You gather all those features together, and you will see quite clearly that they represent the stages and phases of any normal Christian experience. A true Christian life, or pilgrimage, should be marked by those characteristics. It has its stages.
There are divinely appointed economies for these different phases of the Christian life. At one time, certain things obtain and are the governing, outstanding, quite conspicuous ways of the Lord. A time comes when those lose, or pass from, their particular place of prominence, and other things take their place.
But within those changing economies, there are always these two things that I have mentioned: preparation and fulfilment of responsibility.
There is the laying down of groundwork, provided by God, of experience and instruction; and then the point at which all that is going to be put to the test as to its real meaning to those concerned. It will be put to the test as they are forced into a way of new responsibility.
Maybe that is the individual’s experience, and it very often is. Most of us can see the stages and phases of our Christian life through which we have moved, through various crises, from one phase to another.
It may be true of a company of the Lord’s people. It may be true of the whole Church. But there it is. At such a time, when the Lord brings us face to face with the issues of all that has been in the light of a new day, with new demands and new responsibilities, there is great value in remembrance.
At such a time the Lord says, “Thou shalt remember.”
There are two sides to remembrance, or recollection. There is the human side here in this chapter:
And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee these forty years in the wilderness, that He might humble thee, to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no.
Now, as we have often said, the Lord did not need to discover what was in their heart by putting them into situations. More correctly, He did it that He might make them know.
The statement about the basis of man’s subsistence—not bread alone—“to make thee know that man doth not live by bread alone,” can well govern this earlier statement: “to make thee know what was in thy heart.”
That is an essential uncovering and disclosure if there is going to be all that the Lord intends. It is certainly the most painful experience, or part of life, under the hand of God.
By His dealings, by His ways, by His methods, and by His means with us, we should be coming more and more desperately to recognise what kind of people we really are.
All the disillusionment about ourselves—if we were ever at all proud, or self-sufficient, or had any opinion of ourselves, as though we were anything—this devastating uncovering of our true selves, as God sees and knows us, is perhaps the most terrible aspect of a life under the hand of God.
But it is absolutely essential for the purpose of God. There is no doubt about that. And there is no doubt that that is one of the things which the Lord does with a life when He gets it into His hands. Sooner or later, He has laid that life bare to itself, that it has no confidence in the flesh whatever.
“To make thee know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no.” What was the verdict upon the forty years? No. They were not capable of doing it in themselves, and they proved to themselves and to all that it was not in them to do it. And thou shalt remember that.
We too easily, in the day of blessing—as the chapter goes on to show—forget that work of humbling and emptying which the Lord did as a part of the very foundation of everything. That is how we are made. That is human nature.
And so the word comes with tremendous emphasis: “Thou shalt remember.” There are very many of those phrases with God: “Thou shalt.” One of the imperatives, one of the emphatics of God: “Thou shalt remember.”
You must keep in mind always that the foundation of everything is your own unworthiness of anything at all.
You will never, never come to appreciate all the grace and mercy of God, all His goodness and kindness, His patience and longsuffering, and His forbearance—of which the forty years are such a history—unless, on this other side, you have come to realise what Paul said of himself:
In me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.
There is no merit for this in thee. Thou shalt remember that side.
But then, over against the human side of self-discovery—so much weakness, so much failure, so much shame and breaking down—there is the divine side. Oh, what a story of faithfulness on God’s part!
The faithfulness of God is magnified as the true nature of man is revealed under His hand. Thou shalt remember that while it was true that you could not be relied upon, depended upon at all—you failed at every point of testing and trying, and proved yourself utterly worthless under every trial—well, that is true. God did not give you up. God did not abandon you. God did not wash His hands of you.
He remained faithful.
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness.
That stands on the divine banner over all the tribes for forty years: infinite patience, infinite longsuffering. Thou shalt remember. This is the foundation.
And this is, as I have said, necessary whenever it is the Lord’s purpose to lead into something more for His glory and honour. It is an hour of bringing home to people: you are not better than any others, but God is infinitely merciful toward the poorest stuff of humanity.
Paul, in the other passage in Philippians, is also at a point of transition.
We know that the writing of that letter was in prison. The time of his departure was at hand. He did not know, day by day, whether he would be led out to his death. He had hopes that there might be an extension, but he was writing as though the end were very near.
I am already being offered up, and the time of my departure is at hand.
It was a true time of transition with him and with all the churches. The leadership was changing. All had come in by way of pioneering, foundation-laying, teaching, and training; now it was to give place to the proof of its value by those to whom it had been given.
That is what comes in.
What this may mean to us, I do not know. Over a week ago, the Lord put this word into my heart very strongly. I thought I would share it on the day of prayer on Saturday. Well, you remember that our brother read this chapter and spoke about it. I am trying to protect myself by saying that the word is there, and what the Lord means by it, well, we must seek to know.
We are, at any rate, passing now into a new year, a time of transition. It may be something much more or less in the time in which we live. The Lord may—oh, may the Lord be intending to lead us into something more than ever we have known of Himself.
Well, that is what is here. In order to do it, it is essential for us to remember, on the one side, that it will all be of grace. And the Lord has been very, very thorough in making that clear.
All of grace. If we had been left to ourselves, what an awful state of hopelessness there would be! But through all—and it is a big “all” for many—all the way, all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee: fiery trial, deepest testing, much suffering—all the way.
He has not left us. He has been faithful. It is a miracle of His faithfulness. Those who have any experience will say that without any hesitation: a miracle. It is the miracle of His faithfulness that we are here today.
Let that be established, and then, of course, you can move on with anticipation. Because in neither of these places—Moses or Paul—is this the end. It is only the beginning, the beginning of something more. That is very wonderful, very wonderful.
In the case of Moses, it is entirely forgetting himself. He knows he is not going on into it with them. He learns that, as far as he is concerned, his course is finished; and yet, and yet, he is just full of the prospect, taken up with the prospect.
His words about this wonderful land—the wonderful land into which they are going, not he, but they—are such that you can hardly believe that he is not going in. What would you expect naturally? If you knew that it was not for you, but for others, you would probably be in a very depressed mood. But he gloried in the prospect, the wonderful prospect, forgetting himself.
Oh, he knows that his course is run: “I have finished my course. I have kept the faith.” And yet for him it is not the end by any means.
I think this is very wonderful, do you not, dear friends? Paul did not close down at that point and say, “This is the end.” But, even if I have only another hour, another day, another week, I press on. I am not closing down. I am going on.
Why? Because, like Moses, he has seen far, far more ahead than ever he had seen before. That which was before outweighed all that he had come into thus far. Even after all these years, he saw so much more.
You see, these are the two great lessons of life. Where does hope lie? Where does hope lie?
Negatively, you have to say, “Well, looking at myself as I now see myself, in the light of God’s uncovering of everything, I have to say there is no hope there. There is no hope there. There is no hope in me. I have proved that I am hopeless in this whole matter.”
And that is what Paul was referring to when he said, “Forgetting.” What was it he said forget? Look at the chapter again, you see. All the things in which there was no hope.
He was recounting those things which he said were gain to him in the old life: all the things that made up this world for him in the past. He had come to see that they were no ground of hope at all.
“I have come to see that though I may have had everything that this world aspires after, that men are ambitious to get, and may hope in all that—” Paul said, “No hope.”
The great lesson of life, on the one side, is to discover where there is no hope and to leave it—to leave it. Leave the hopeless ground. Forget it.
Oh, for grace of forgetfulness! In this matter, anyway, forgetfulness is a great trouble to some of us the older we get, but here is something in which it is good to have a poor memory.
There are people who are trying every day of their lives to keep this thing before them: the ground of their hopelessness. That is what Paul says you can forget. You can forget that—everything in which there is really no hope.
Great life lesson. Paul looked at things and tabulated them one by one, one by one. He laid them all out and then, over every one, he said, “Nothing in that. Nothing in that realm of things. Nothing in that realm provides any ground in the heavenly realm.” Writing them all up one by one, there was no prospect in that for heavenly things.
So that is what we do: let us forget it.
On the other side, of course, we must learn where hope lies. What is the ground of hope?
Here Paul is the counterpart of Moses. Moses is bringing into view the land—the wonderful land, flowing with milk and honey, with all its wealth and all its fruitfulness. Oh, its depth, its blessedness, it is all in view.
And we now, today, know that all that is but a prophetic pointer to the spiritual. We know—we have heard it hundreds of times, perhaps—that land depicts, typically, Christ: the heavenly country; Christ, in whom all the fulness dwells.
Here Moses is talking about riches and wealth in the land, and here Paul is crying, “Oh, the depth of the riches!” What he had seen in Christ.
The land and Christ are type and counterpart: the fulness of Christ.
Where is the hope to deliver Moses from despair and Israel from despair? It lies in Christ.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
What of Paul? Well, his outlook was not too inspiring, you know. He had many things that made up a ground of very real depression.
All they that are in Asia turned away from me.
He mentions different ones who had left him. Looking at himself in his situation, it was not too inspiring from the natural standpoint: cut off from all his beloved friends, shut up in chains, reduced to pen and paper, all these reports coming to him of departures and whatnot.
The man is not for a moment cast down in depression. Why? He has seen how much more there is in the Lord Jesus than he has ever attained unto. Christ is bigger than it all. That is what it is. His Christ is bigger than everything, bigger than all the accumulated discouragements. Christ is bigger.
And so he says:
I count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord;
and do count them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found in Him.
“Forgetting the things which are behind, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” There is the hope that saves from despair.
I wonder, dear friends, if this is all words to you. Is it? What would be your salvation in a time of severe trial, disappointment, discouragement, opposition, and disillusionment? What would be your salvation? What alone could be your salvation?
I suggest to you that it is this: the Christ that you have seen and come to know is bigger than all that.
I mean that you just cannot give up everything because of the difficulties, because what you have seen of Christ is so real. It is not theory. It is not mere teaching. It is not mere hearsay. Oh, it is your own heavenly vision.
You have seen. You have seen. What you have seen, you just cannot unsee.
What has come to you, you cannot let go of as some mere thing. It is your life. When I say “it,” I mean Him.
Well, the land was to Moses what Christ was to Paul: very, very real, very wonderful, very great. And that was hope in a day when it might well have been despair and deep depression.
So what is it? It is the fulness of Christ, is it not, after all? The fulness of Christ that has got a grip on the heart, pulling at the heartstrings and drawing on, drawing on, and getting through the transition, disappointment, sorrow, anguish, and all that into which we have been brought in those training ways of God.
When it would be so easy—oh, so easy—to give it all up, if we are not held by what we have seen: the land. If we have been to Pisgah’s mountain and viewed the land, if we have had some revelation of Jesus Christ to our hearts, it just cannot be given up as something that does not work and does not matter. No.
That I may know Him.
“That I may know Him,” Paul says in this chapter. Now, it is not the quest of a beginner. It is the quest of a man at the end of a long, full life of learning Christ.
Here, at the end, with that full knowledge of the Lord gained through all the years—gained through all the years of training—with that, he says in effect, “My knowledge of the Lord is such that I see far, far beyond my present attainment and experience, that He is far, far greater than anything to which I have yet come.” So, “That I may know Him.”
Well, dear friends, what again I say all this means to us, I do not know. But I do feel this: you must recognise that there does come a time in the Christian life when the Lord says, “Now then, I have been dealing with you, I have been working with you, I have been making you know and understand very much. Now the time has come when all that is going to be put to the test as to its real value.”
Have you learned your lessons? What does it amount to now? Are you able to take responsibility in spiritual things? Those crises arrive from time to time, and they are very real. A new phase of things is breaking upon the people of God just now.
Do not think I am wrong if I say that a time has begun when the people of God are going to be put to the test as to their inheritance, as to what they have received from the Lord—really put to the test. That is happening.
Now let us gather up all the values of our past experience of the Lord and His past dealings with us. Gather them up and bring them to this resolve, this result:
I press on.
I press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
I wonder if tonight we can come to that resolve, individually.
You may have been in the fires, having a pretty hard time, a painful time in your spiritual life. But believe me, these Scriptures do not mean the ending of it all. They mean that God has only been preparing for something more.
That is what I want to leave with you this weekend: the note of hope. No, no, God is not the God who believes in bringing everything to an end. Not at all. God is always after something more. He is like that.
And if I may so put it, that is God: more, something more, something more. And if He has to clear the way for something more by devastating methods, all right—there is something more that He is after, because there is so much more, far, far transcending all our asking or thinking.
So much more. The Lord does want that so much more, dear friends.
I began to say it may be individual; it may be as to a company. And I am quite sure many here will read between the lines of what I am saying. The Lord does deep, deep ploughing, but it is always to do deep sowing. He means a harvest. He means a crop. It is something more that the Lord is after.
And His past dealings, though they may seem to have been devastating, are only in the light of that so much more that He would have.
But here is the resolve: I am not giving up. I am not giving up. I am not letting go. I am not going to quit. I am going on. By the grace of God, I press on toward the mark.
May that spirit be found in us, shall we?