These gatherings and the ministry today are based upon a threefold supposition, or assumption.
One is that you have come here together because you have a very real concern to know the will of God. The other is that you are quite prepared to consider anything that may be a help in that direction. And the third is that you are of a mind to obey any light that the Lord may give as to His will.
Given that foundation, I think the Lord will find a clear way of meeting us and speaking to us today.
The business of any servant of the Lord is, perhaps in many ways and by many means, to bring His people to know what His will is concerning them. And that is what is on the heart of this servant of the Lord: if it may please Him, to make you a little clearer, to give you a little fuller understanding of what that good and perfect will of God is.
We will come back to that specifically as we go on.
The Bible, which is our charter—the charter of the Christian faith—is altogether occupied with that one thing. It is always helpful to know what it is all about, after all.
You can read your Bible, read through the various books, and find quite a lot of things that you would perhaps skip or find rather tedious. There are many things you might not understand. But the whole Bible is concerned with just this one thing: the will of God.
It is well to read the Bible everywhere in that relationship: What has this to do with the will of God? For that is the thing with which the whole Bible is occupied. It is all about that.
By way of introduction to our specific message today, what is it that the Bible is occupied with? In other words, it is a revelation of God moving according to purpose. That is only another way of speaking about the will of God.
God is seen from the very first words of the Bible to the last, moving according to purpose—moving in purpose and moving with purpose. God is motivated by one final, all-inclusive object, which we understand in New Testament language as God’s eternal purpose.
The first section of the Bible, the first five books, shows us so clearly, fully, and meticulously God moving according to purpose. It is a section of movement forward, is it not?
Although, when you come to the fifth of those books, the book of Deuteronomy, there is a retrospective aspect—looking back—with the word, “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God hath led thee,” even that retrospective aspect has a forward aspect connected with it. The remembering is related to what is yet to be.
Deuteronomy is the book of a people between a past history and a new history in the future. It looks back to gather the lessons of the past in order to carry them into the future. So you move out of Deuteronomy into Joshua with this forward movement, and all that the past history has taught becomes the foundation.
How meticulous the Lord is in that book! You should read it again in this light. He is reiterating, re-emphasising, and laying a very sound and particular foundation for the future. It is important to note that in the light of what we are going to say today.
We are going to be occupied with God’s laws, by which His will—which is His purpose—is realised and fulfilled in His people. Here in this first section, everything is with the future in view: the will of God governing.
The last section of the Old Testament, the prophets, is occupied with the tragedy of lost purpose. The cry of the prophets is that God’s will has not been realised and fulfilled. It is a tragic cry, a cry of failure and disappointment over this very thing.
You must listen to that. If you listen to these prophets and hear their anguished cry over those people, you are hearing this: what God meant has not been realised, and that is a terrible thing. The prophets have a voice of tragedy, because God has been disappointed over His purpose in His people, and they have missed what He intended for them.
So you have the Old Testament foundation. We are not here to be occupied with the whole of the Old Testament; we only notice this in connection with the will of God.
It is a tremendous thing, the will of God. I am talking about the big will of God—the comprehensive will of God. I am not talking about what I might call the little wills of God.
You are every day occupied with questions such as, “What is the Lord’s will for me in this and that?”—hundreds and one things. No, that is not what I am talking about. All those expressions of the divine will in particular matters and situations are gathered into the big will.
Until you get into the big will, you have not really got the ground for the little wills of God—the particular applications of that will.
You turn over to the New Testament. The first section of the New Testament is God taking up His purpose, and He is taking it up in the Person of His Son.
Here, in the Person of His Son, you have the purpose and will of God embodied and personified. It is all gathered now into a Person. It has been expressed, as the writer of the Hebrew letter says, in many different ways, by many portions, at different times. Now the whole thing is summed up in the Person of Jesus Christ, Who says, “I am come to do Thy will.”
The whole will and purpose of God, therefore, is personified—or incarnated—in Jesus Christ, God’s Son.
Although you have heard many messages given on it, it may not have occurred to you that there is one statement of the Lord Jesus which comprehends all this. You know it so well:
“I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”
— John 14:6
That is a comprehensive statement as to the whole will of God. “I am the way.” But you have a way in order to get somewhere. A way implies a goal, movement forward, and an object.
“I am the way” of this eternal purpose of God. “I am the way” of its realisation. “I am the way,” the embodiment of the will of God. The way is a Person.
“The truth.” So immense is that simple clause. Men have been preaching on that for centuries. Christ is saying, in effect, that in a realm which has been deceived and led away from the will of God—away from the divine purpose—He is the truth.
A world that is now a lie in its constitution: “I am the truth” over against all that is false in the human race, in the creation, and in this universe. If the will of God is all-comprehending, vast, and great, the lie of the devil is immense. It is something that has to be overcome in you and in me, and in the whole race. Truth put into our constitution destroys the lie that is there.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” We talk about conversion, people being converted. The fundamental factor in conversion—turning around, turning the opposite way—is turning from what is false to what is true.
It is coming into the truth of God as to why we have our being in His purpose, why He is dealing with us as He is according to His great will, and what it all means. The truth about this is what you and I need if we are to know the good of conversion: a real, true meaning of God in Christ for us.
The way, the truth, and the life. We have far too small an idea of this conception of life.
There is a marvellous statement in Paul’s letter to the Colossians which has arrested me with great force: he speaks of the life which God purposed for us. Life in the eternal counsel of God—the thought of God before ever the world was created. A man upon whom God’s thought rests: a thing called life.
Life—that is the battle of the ages, is it not? That is the key to so much. What God means by life: the life of God’s eternal purpose, the life of God’s all-captivating will, the life which He is, the Lord Jesus.
We are in a day called Good Friday. We were reading this morning about this, and I was impressed again. When He was coming from the sentence of crucifixion toward the hill, Simon carrying His cross, the women of Jerusalem came wailing for Him.
He turned to them and said:
“Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.”
— Luke 23:28
What does that say? Why, this cross to which the Lord was going, and upon which He was so soon to be impaled—all that was going to fall upon Him there—that was not the end. That was not the end. They may have thought so, but He knew it.
Tears for Him were not justified, even then. “Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross.” Life, not death, was the way of the cross. Life.
This is how He was going to secure that for which He came, which God had intended for man down the ages and from before the world, or time, was.
“I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If we can get inside that—if we comprehend what those three terms mean—that is it.
The New Testament, then, introduces this eternal will and purpose of God in a Person. The rest of the New Testament is the working out of that which is in Christ.
What is all the rest of the New Testament about after the Gospels? It is simply the working out of those three things: the way that Christ is, the truth that is in Jesus, and the life that is by His death and resurrection. All the New Testament is there. Read it like that.
Pick up any part of it and ask, “What is this talking to me about?” It is talking about the way, Christ the way; the truth; and the life.
Having said that, we can perhaps come to our particular passage and message for the morning. We must read some Scripture to get to this.
Please take your Bible. We begin in the book of Joshua, and then go back a little. Joshua 1:8:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:
for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,
and then thou shalt have good success.
Or, as the margin has it, “deal wisely.”
Now we go back to Deuteronomy 4:1-2:
And now, O Israel, hearken unto the statutes and unto the ordinances,
which I teach you, to do them;
that ye may live, and go in and possess the land
which the Lord, the God of your fathers, giveth you.
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you,
neither shall ye diminish from it,
that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God
which I command you.
Deuteronomy 6:6-9:
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be upon thy heart;
and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,
and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house,
and when thou walkest by the way,
and when thou liest down,
and when thou risest up.
And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thy hand,
and they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes.
And thou shalt write them upon the door-posts of thy house,
and upon thy gates.
Then Matthew 4:4:
It is written,
Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Divine laws are the means of realising the divine purpose, of knowing the will of God, which is the ultimate thing in Christianity. Here it is perfectly clear: there is the absolute government of the Word of God.
We read from Joshua, and you know what Joshua is. The book of Joshua is the resumption, after Israel’s failure and perishing in the wilderness, of the divine will and purpose moving forward under that government.
Right there at the beginning of this new movement—and all that is involved in it, against any repetition of the failure that had been such a tragedy and unto fullness of life—the foundation is the meticulous observance of the Word of God. The Word and the will of God go together.
There is no progress, dear friends, in this great calling with which you and I are called—in the mind, purpose, and will of God—except by the Word of God: obedience to the Word, cherishing of the Word, binding the Word upon our lives in all matters.
I have said how meticulous the Lord was in the book of Deuteronomy: on one side was the terrible tragedy that had taken place, and on the other side were tremendous prospects, without which there was no prospect for the people of God.
Chapter after chapter says, “Remember what I said. Remember what I said. Remember—call to remembrance—all that I have said to you.” The whole prospect is governed by God’s Word.
The people had been forty years on probation in the wilderness. The one thing that stood over those forty years of probation was a testing of the heart as to the Word of God.
“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 thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or not.”
— Deuteronomy 8:2
Whether thou wouldest obey His Word; what place His Word had in thy heart.
Probation in life is always that. The testings of a wilderness experience, the trials of the journey—all the experiences in God’s mind are to see what is in our heart: whether we really have a heart for the Lord; whether, after all our professions and protestations, the will of God is really the thing which governs our whole life.
Testing by the Word of God—we know it, perhaps daily. We are going to bring that very near as we go on.
So we come to Joshua, and the book begins with a reaffirmation, on the other side of Jordan, that the Word of God is to be kept always before them, on their foreheads, on their homes, and treasured always.
They were a called people. God called them out of Egypt. They were called by His Name. But the calling is not enough. We have all been called; we are the called, the Lord says. But after the call comes the testing.
Everything in the Word of God, then, comes back upon this one thing: the government of His will. Disaster comes where the Word of God is not honoured; calamity and failure come where what God has made known as to His will is disregarded.
Again and again in the Old Testament, we find disaster attending failure toward the Word of God.
Even Moses—I always have a bad feeling when I think about it and read about it. This man who had sacrificed so much and suffered so much for these people was, at last, forbidden by the Lord to ask any more that he might go into the land: “Speak unto Me no more of this matter.”
The Lord had said something, and Moses had not meticulously observed what the Lord had said. You say, “Terrible, terrible; it is a hard God.” But you must remember that it was not merely Moses. Moses is in glory. He appeared with Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration in glory. No, it was the people forever afterward who had to learn this lesson: you cannot violate anything that the Lord has said without forfeiting something, losing something.
We remember again David bringing the ark to Jerusalem, making the new cart on which to bring it. Disaster came on the way.
The whole thing seemed to be such a happy occasion. They felt that they were being prospered and blessed of the Lord. They were rushing on with it, and then Uzzah died before the Lord. David was angry with the Lord that day and went aside.
But we do get over those things. We have bad times with the Lord, but when we get over them, the Lord is able to show us the meaning. So David went back to his Bible—to the Word of the Lord—and found the discrepancy.
The Lord had not said, “Thou shalt make a new cart.” That was not in the Word at all. Indeed, that was another heathen idea. David saw that it was written: not a cart, but the Levites were to carry the ark.
The tragedy of that day came because, with all good intentions, the Word was overlooked—the Word was missed. The Lord does not overlook this; this is His Word.
There may be many secret tragedies in our lives and many arrests in our spiritual progress, not because we did not mean well, and not because our motive was not good. But a good motive, even the best motive, cannot substitute for the particular thought of God.
God does not substitute a good motive for something that He has laid down.
You see, we are pressed with something this morning. This sounds very terrible, I know, but we have not got through yet. Here we are: the government of the Word of God.
In all these things, it was invariably one thing. And this, dear friends, is where our hearts are going to be really touched. It was not just a legal, mechanical way of observing some statement in the Bible. The issue was very much bigger than that.
Look at every such instance—the big and the small, the larger and the particular—and you will see that it was always a matter of the Lord’s presence.
You remember Ai? You know what Achan did. He violated the Word of God, and the whole of Israel was arrested in its progress, brought to a standstill; and it was a scene of tragedy.
But what was the real tragedy? The manifest presence of the Lord, was it not? Is not that everything?
Surely no heart here has any interest in anything in this life or in this world apart from the presence of the Lord. If only we know that the Lord is with us—oh, what a difference that makes! What victory, what strength!
Yes, there may be conflict. There was conflict with Joshua afterward—terrible assaults—and there may be many problems and difficulties in life. But if only we are assured that the Lord is with us, that is everything, is it not?
The devil is so cruel, using the very disciplines of God—by which He is seeking to bring us into His greater fullness—as accusations against God. He uses trials and makes us feel, because of a situation, circumstance, difficulty, or hard thing, that the Lord is not with us.
Do not listen to that lie. You will be absolutely ruled out of all the conflict and possession if you take on that lie. But it is always there in the background: the presence of the Lord.
What can we do without that? How can we get on without that? What would our meetings be but for the presence of the Lord? What would our prayer meetings be if we could not say, “The Lord was with us. The Lord was there. We knew His presence”?
That is life, is it not? That is strength.
All that in the Bible hangs upon this Word of God. He is with us according to His Word, on the basis of His Word, and only with us as His Word has its place in our heart.
The Apostle says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom.” The Lord stood back at Ai. The Lord stood back in David’s case because there was defaulting over His Word. It is always like that.
The Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit—is present as the jealous Trustee of the Word, will, and purpose of God. Oh, I thank God for that, do you not?
You may be hearing what I am saying and thinking, “This is rather oppressive. This is rather heavy, exacting, demanding; this is rather hard.” Ah, yes, that may all be true and right, but the Holy Spirit—what has He come for? Why is He here? Why is He in us?
He is the jealous Custodian of the Word of God. On the one side, He is very watchful. He is referred to as the seven Spirits of God—that is, the complete spiritual knowledge and discerning perception of the Lord.
The Holy Spirit is entrusted with the will of God, entrusted with the purpose of God, and therefore entrusted with the Word of God, for these things all go together.
The presence of the Holy Spirit, the known presence of the Holy Spirit, and the working and energy of the Holy Spirit are all in this connection: to bring us, by way of the Word of God, to the end to which we have been called.
The Word of God is the ground of the Holy Spirit’s activity. Remember that.
As they lived in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God was in charge. He is the Captain of the host of the Lord. In the New Testament, the Holy Spirit has come to dwell within, to keep us on the line of the Word of God.
If we are sensitive to the Holy Spirit, without perhaps knowing the particular Scripture that applies at the moment, we shall know that something is not right. We are out of adjustment to the laws of God. Something in us does not say, “That is right and good and proper.”
There is a sort of pause in us. The Holy Spirit knows why that is. If we will go to the Lord about that, seek the Lord about it, and turn to His Word, the Lord will put His finger upon something.
Then we say, “Well, that has been there all the time, and here my situation just contradicts that.” All right: now we are tested by the Word as to the heart.
Let me say to the young Christians, out of our long experience, that although you may not understand the Bible—although you may not understand a great deal of it, and may not even seem to enjoy it—read it.
Enjoy it or do not enjoy it; understand it or do not understand it: read it. Work at it. Even if it is labour, get down to it.
You know, you have a tape recorder inside of you. We have a lot of tapes in the office, messages spread over many years. Sometimes one is asked for, and we look it out. Occasionally I listen to a little of one and think, “Did I say that?”
Then I remember where I was—perhaps coming back by boat from somewhere far away—and I realise, yes, I did say it. You have a tape recorder inside of you.
Have you noticed this interesting thing? You try to remember something: someone’s name, some person, some event. You want to remember, “What was that person’s name? When was it that that happened?” Then you say, “Oh no, I will give it up.”
If you understand anything about psychology, you will not say that. I cannot let go of something like that until I have got it. I set my mind to recover it, and then, when I feel utterly defeated, I leave it. In a few minutes it comes floating in: “Oh yes!” Where did that come from? Your tape recorder is speaking back. It has been there for years, and it comes back.
Now, the Word of God is like that. I am so glad that in my early Christian life I set myself to a systematic study of the Bible, book by book.
Oh, I did not understand. There are many things today that I do not understand. I read some things in the Bible yesterday that I did not understand. I could have closed the Book because it did not seem to mean anything, but I worked at it. I worked at it. I analysed the Book without spiritual understanding, but I worked.
Am I not glad today? If I have any spiritual ministry today, it is the Holy Spirit working upon what is there. The Word is there; the Spirit works upon the Word. In time, it becomes more than the Word: it becomes life.
Young Christians, do not give up the Bible because it is difficult. Work at it, and the time will come when you will say, “Thank God for that hard labour over the Book.”
One of the greatest, if not the greatest, Bible teachers of this last century said to me once, “Sometimes, in such a weariness in my work with the Bible, I almost wish there were no people there.” Well, he laboured at it, but what fruit there has been from his ministry all over the world.
The Spirit works upon the Word. Remember that. Give Him His ground. It is the ground of spiritual progress by the Holy Spirit.
There may be an unconscious control of the Word, in the sense that you may not know exactly what Scripture applies, but unconsciously you know that something has got hold of you. You cannot get away with it; you cannot get on with it. He is working.
The thing is written inside. He wrote it. The new covenant is written upon the heart.
That is the beginning—a strong statement. But what does this mean, after all? It may still seem objective to you.
Let us come back to the beginning. Spiritual progress in the will of God, unto the full purpose of God in our calling, demands a very meticulous observance of the Word of God.
Why this word today? Why has this been borne in upon us with tremendous exercise over recent years? Why the weakness of Christianity? Why the weakness of so many Christians? Why the slowness of their spiritual progress? Why the failure of so many?
I have the answer; there is no doubt about it. I can put my finger upon a large number of things that are there in the Word of God—things as plain as anything can be. Yet I look at Christians and see, in their behaviour, appearance, conduct, way of going on, and relationships, a clear contradiction of what is written in the Bible.
The Bible has something to say about anything that you can think of, and it prescribes for anything that you could ever think of. If I mentioned some of the things it mentions, you would be surprised that the Bible speaks about them. Yes, it does.
What is the meaning of the tragedy of many marriages? That is a practical point, is it not? Then you go back behind it: why did the marriage take place? On what background? Infatuation? Emotion? Impulse? A desire to be married anyhow?
Tragedy comes because the marriage was not based upon a real spiritual relatedness. The first thing was not given its place. The Word says precisely:
“Be not unequally yoked with unbelievers.”
— 2 Corinthians 6:14
Are you going to make spiritual progress if you violate that? No. Certainly tragedy will come, sooner or later.
I take that as an example. I could take a million things like that in the Word which I see contradicted in Christianity today. I am trying to be very faithful with you young Christians. I am deeply concerned that you do not miss God’s best—God’s good.
That depends upon your having the Word of God in you, so that the Holy Spirit can say, “Now then, what about this?”
Of course, there is another side to it. I must be faithful, and I want to be serious in this matter, because it is a present issue—a real issue in Christianity today.
The Christianity that is being produced today is a terrible caricature, of course. You young Christians bear with me. I am trying to be very faithful with you. I want you to have God’s fullest and God’s best.
I am saying to you that it depends upon your being serious about the Word of God.
The other side, of course—we always like to turn to the other side. What a blessed thing it is to feel that there is no impediment, no restraint, but that there is a clear way. The presence of the Lord is very real. Heaven is open.
I know of nothing more blessed in all life than those times when you are able to say, “The Lord’s presence is so real, so wonderful.” I wish it were always like that.
We sing the hymn, “There have been seasons of calm delight,” and, “Abide with me, and they shall ever be.” Well, that is right. Let Him abide with you, and they shall ever be.
There is nothing more precious in all human history than this joy of the Lord, this peace of God, this sense that the Lord is near. It is not ecstasy; it is witness and voice. Is that not so? You have had those times of spiritual ecstasy by the Lord.
And so it is worth it. It is worth it to be obedient, to let His Word rule in our hearts, as the Scripture says: rule in our hearts.
When Jesus was dealing with the devil in the wilderness, you know what He was dealing with, do you not? He was dealing with a person—the personality of the devil, an evil person. But He was dealing with very much more than that.
He was dealing with the whole issue of life and death. The devil was trying to get Him, coerce Him, tempt Him, constrain Him, compel Him to take a way that was out of the will of God—and that would mean His premature death, a death that would be death and not victory.
He was dealing with this whole issue of life and death. So underline and encircle the words: “It is written.”
“Man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”
— Matthew 4:4
Put that in a positive way, leaving out the negative clause: man shall live—live—by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
That is a word of exhortation. I was very near to despairing a little while ago, especially in the realm of ministry. The Lord turned me to a Scripture, and it hit me like a sledgehammer:
“Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season;
reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.”
— 2 Timothy 4:2
Be instant in season—that is very easy. Out of season, when everything says, “This is not the time”—well, reprove, rebuke, exhort.
Perhaps you have had too much reproof this morning, too much rebuke. Let us exhort. Give the Word its place. The Holy Spirit will do the rest, and you will go on your way unimpeded, I trust. God help us.
Shall we bow for a moment, letting the Word of God search us and quicken us?
O Lord, we love Thy law. We ask Thee to write it in our hearts, that it may be seen in our lives for Thy glory; for Christ’s sake.