UD 7:1-18{I have read this Scripture not So much to interpret it, as to give a Clue to the path the Lord would have us follow in this day; and, in order to see what this path is, you must be instructed from the word as to two great things now going on. These two are the New Jerusalem and Babylon-two great structures now in course of formation; and we are helping on one or the other-contributing to one or the other in each one of our actions. Every one on earth is aiding and abetting either Babylon or the New Jerusalem. This is a momentous thing for us. There is the divine path, and the Lord can lead us along it, though the keenest eye-the vulture's eye, as it is said-cannot see it. I have read this Scripture simply as a waymark to point out the road, but the subject I wish to bring before you is these two great cities.
We must go back to the beginning of things to see how these two gather force as they go along. God never deserts His plan-His thought about a thing; but the evil gathers strength as it goes on. Gen. 11. gives us Babylon at its beginning Here we look at the city, which we soon drop; but it is principles that form cities; and, Babylon once set up, we can trace without difficulty the principles that it represents right on to the end.
" Nimrod began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel." This is the first allusion to it; and I would call your attention to the state of things in the midst of which Babylon sprang up. It was not before the flood; it arose when God had set man in new favor on the earth-everything mitigated as to the curse upon it, and man himself placed there in new terms; God had smelled the sweet savor of the offering of Noah, and had brought in blessing in a new form. But, instead of man using these favors for God, he used them to make himself independent of God. Men combined together to reach a point where they should be independent of God. This being the principle of the organization of the city, I shall drop the name Babylon, and call it independence.
This will touch us all very closely-that the favors of God here upon earth, instead of turning our hearts to God, only tend to make us independent of Him Prosperity makes a man independent of God; when money accumulates he has an opportunity of gratifying self, and, unless he be able to deny himself in the midst of plenty, it will prove a snare to him. This is the principle that Babylon was formed upon. Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord; that is, he pursued the object that attracted his heart—his game, if you like-he pursues it to death. A saint may be like Noah; he drinks of the wine and exposes his weakness; but that is not what a hunter is: a hunter is girt up to his work; he does not lose his senses in the least; he is all on the alert; it is the most exhilarating pursuit-human energy reaching to its goal. That is what the beginning of this Babel is.
I seek to make it simple to any here, for in the smallest hamlet you are not exempt from this danger. Where it looks least likely to crop up there it comes, for the heart so easily rests in mercies and forgets the Giver of the mercies.
In Gen. 11 this independence comes to a head. " They said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name; lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Here it takes its form, independency being the principle on which it is formed, God confounded it for a time, but it is very plain to any who have read Scripture, that Babylon will yet come forth and be destroyed. " In one hour is thy judgment come. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." It is well for us to know this-what the consummation of Babylon will be-because it is what men will come to.
Besides Babylon, however, there is another city coming, of which I cannot say much, for there is but little told us about it; but this I can say, that it is what Christ Himself has formed, and that in it there is every beauty that He Himself can bestow on it-it is the display, of all His divine beauty as a man to the earth. In the one there is every natural attraction without God; in the other every heavenly attraction with God. And you are contributing to one or the other, for you must belong to one of the two.
We see next, in Gen. 12 that God calls out Abraham to be a witness against all this. Thus I get independence in Babylon, and now dependence in Abraham. His history is a history of dependence. It is not that there is not failure and trial; there is; but throughout he is a dependent man. First and foremost he starts by being a very peculiar man; he has to break with country, and kindred, and father's house. What a thing dependence is! what it calls us to! who would have thought it would have called us to such a path as that-to give up not what was wrong, but actually things that are right! "Country, kindred, and father's house." But it is often the things that are right that interfere with our walking with God. The man who is to be the leader in this wonderful line of dependence-the character of this man is: I break with country, kindred, and father's house.
It is not that he does not encounter difficulties by the way; he does; " there was a famine in the land," and every one knows that " hunger will break through a stone wall;" but he recovers himself; and, when he does get back to the land, the true character of dependence comes out. He says to Lot: I do not choose; I am a dependent man; I make no choice; I have nothing to seek or to choose. Of course as he was the elder-his uncle -the one who had brought him with him he had the right to the choice in every way; but he says: I do not choose; I leave you to take what you like.
This is an important point in the history of dependence. Failure is continually coming in because saints do not know how to refuse. When Satan attacks a saint he comes first in an attractive form; he comes with devices. The invitation is, " Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant; " and would not you like something? Say a day in the country?—Satan knows you, and, what is more strange your own family knows you very well too. They put before you something that they know will tempt you; and, if they do not succeed in making you yield, they will censure you. It is always so; Satan first invites and then opposes. If the first shot carry you away, Satan will not use a second; he economizes his forces. Here, in Judges, the water carried them away at once; that was enough; they could not stand favors; there was no need for any other attack upon them. You say, But surely may I not accept an opportunity that offers? I say, I must refuse offers, I must refuse opportunities, and then I can suffer for God. I want you to get hold of the great principles of dependence, and you will see them very clearly in Abraham. Look at every servant of God and you will see this brought out more or less in him. Even our blessed Lord Satan tried first with seductions; he offered Him everything in the wilderness to tempt Him; and then, in the garden of Gethsemane, he brought everything down on Him; He first refused and then endured. Did you ever refuse anything for Christ? If you never do, you will never suffer for Christ. If you accept, you will suffer for yourself. That is what Lot did, and he was carried away captive. And who then comes to his rescue? Abraham let Lot have the choice, and so, when he was taken captive, it was Abraham suffered for him. If we suffer for Christ, we shall suffer for others; and the greatest earthly distinction that ever was given to any one is that of suffering for Christ. This is our place. If you cannot refuse, you will not be put in a place to suffer for Christ. How could a deserter be called out for a forlorn hope?
I want you to understand what dependence is; but the Lord alone can conduct your soul into it. I say I am not looking for anything; " I have nothing to seek or to choose." Well, then,-do I get nothing? Why I have " manifold more in this present time! " As soon as Lot was separated from Abraham, the Lord said to him, " Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever; " 'and then he goes to Hebron, the resting place. People are all for relegating rewards to the future, but I get them now. Afterward Abraham had to suffer for Lot, who got into difficulty. Here the servant character comes out; he had to risk all he had I become a servant, I risk my comforts. There is not an insurance office in the world would have given anything for Abraham when he went out in service after Lot. He went out with his life in his hand, risking all to serve the very man who took the choice before him. It is the one who chooses that gets into trouble; but the, one who is dependent, who suffers for him, has the sufferings of Christ abounding in him, and his consolation abounding by Christ; and this the present gain.
I will take David for a, moment, as another instance of the difference, there is between a person walking in the simplicity of denying himself; and that same person when yielding to what is naturally attractive. David yields to Joab, and brings Absalom back to Jerusalem, thus listening to the voice of nature pleading for his son; and Absalom actually drives him out of Jerusalem. But -when he might have killed Saul, he would not, because he was dependent upon God. If you choose, you lose. If you do not choose, you gain, and you gain in God's way. I never saw a person get into a scrape yet but because he would have his choice; he was not observing that grand line of faith dependence-that God has set, fulfilled only by His own beloved Son.
I next come to Josh. 7 It is very difficult to carry ordinary students of the word rapidly through a long subject like this; but I can just give you waymarks tracing out the progress of dependence and independence. I am sure that whilst we all talk of dependence, we often have but very little understanding of the characteristics of it.
I do not then go into the history of the children of Israel, who eventually went down into Egypt; but I see here God, after having brought them out of the wilderness, leading them into the land. Now there are two ways of being in the land. One is the heavenly stranger, Abraham; not a foot of the land has he in possession. But Joshua comes in in quite another way; he goes in to take possession as a warrior-to take possession in power. We are here on the earth in both these attitudes: heavenly strangers like Abraham, and men of war like Joshua.
As soon as they get into the land, the reproach of Egypt is rolled off them, and then we get the most surprising instance of dependence. The walls of Jericho fell down! No one did anything! It was patient dependence going round the city seven days. But the men were armed all the time; armor for Satan, and prayer for God. The efficacy of prayer is to get armor for Satan. You must have a good character; nothing stands with Satan but character; all the truth in the world will riot carry any weight with him; it must be the breastplate of righteousness," etc.
Here dependence has gained an immense victory-a wonderful day! And immediately in walks independence in one man. Achan sees among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment and a wedge of gold, and hides them under his tent; and no sooner is the greatest victory in the land gained than they are on the way to Babylon. You see this by looking at Hos. 2, where they are brought back by the valley of Achor for a door of hope. Achan was the very first man who traced the way to Babylon, and God brings them back through sorrow. He says, I will bring them back by the very valley where he was stoned. And this prophecy was written before ever they went into captivity. These dealings of God are very remarkable, and enough to make us tremble. If you allow the leaven to work, if you do not judge it in its commencement, you will reap the misery of it eventually, for it will surely yield its crop. It may be a very small thing walks in. Achan says: Have I not got this opportunity? See what an offer! And you yield, and then see what you come to. The children of Israel never recovered dependence; in all their history they never had again such a thing as Jericho. So long as you maintain dependence, Babylon is not heard of. When the star of Israel is in the ascendant, Babylon is nowhere; but the moment the star of Israel descends that moment the star of Babylon ascends We do not hear of Babylon again until the ten tribes go into captivity. And the next time after that is when Hezekiah receives the courtesy of the ambassadors of the king of Babylon. One would have thought there was not much harm in this; but God says, You have committed yourself, and all you possess shall go into Babylon. And, as we know, they were all eventually carried away to Babylon. Then they lost their power; the power of God, the right of kings, was in the hands of Israel, and that power lapsed; it passed into the hands of the Gentiles. I pray your attention to this, for it is of the greatest importance. God says to Nebuchadnezzar " Thou art this head of gold; for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory." And the power never returned to Israel. The captives returned to their land; but earthly power was never given back to them. God says to them by Haggai, My word and my Spirit remain among you, but not power. So much so, that when it became a question of crucifying the Lord they say: "By our law he ought to die; but it is not lawful for us to put any man to death." They could only deliver Him over to Rome, the fourth power: Israel was a people that were to be dependent upon God, and, so long as they were, He was their power. When they were carried into Babylon it was the kingly power that went down-it was not a question of the priestly; but the kingly they lost.
One redeeming point, however, is, that there never was a place where there was such a bright expression of dependence upon God as in the midst of that very city of Babylon; and this by men who refuse the king's wine, and so they are not afraid of the king's fire. They refused the king's meat; they would not eat anything but pulse, and yet in the end of the days they were fairer and fatter than all those who did eat the portion of the king's meat. They could refuse; and I thank God, if I have it in my soul to refuse, I am sure to be able to bear. Satan will come down upon me in a hundred ways, but I Say, I am not afraid of you; I have been able to refuse you, so I know I shall be able to endure. You cannot beat me; for the grace that enabled me to refuse, is the grace that will enable me to endure. The king called on these men of God to bow down to king image, and what is their answer? " O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this Matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the &den image which thou hast set up." They [said, We will stand the fire: and what did it do? Merely let them loose. Here was dependence. Let me be in the very midst of Babylon—of its attractions or its fire-by simple dependence I may astonish them all and win the day.
But these three men also brought out another great principle which marks the servant of God; he has a base and a door; a base behind-the ground on which he stands; and a door before him-in presenting the truth to others. The greatest proof of a faithful man is that he knows what he is about. Others may not see it, but I see it myself. He says: " I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew what they were about. They said: We are not a bit afraid of you; there is an open door set before us by God Himself. Thus they gave the greatest expression of dependence in the midst of the city of independence.
I am sure we are losing if we do not know what things are going on to. One set of things around us is going on to a city that suits man-Babylon the other to a city that suits Christ- the New Jerusalem. Which are you going to? It is a great question. We get the picture of the future Bride; how she will be adorned for her husband; and this is put before us when everything has failed in the church. The nuptial garments are brought out before the wedding day, in order that we may try them on. The bridal costume is shown us in order that we may acquire the characteristics of the Bride. We are presented in Rev. 21 with all the beautiful features in which the Lord will have us stand before Him on the wedding day.
One passage more in the Old Testament before I go to the New. In the fifth of Zechariah it says: " And they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there 'upon her own base." Now this lawlessness is;` between earth and heaven "; the weight of lead has been cast upon it; it is not allowed to come out in all its evil. But it is going to be set up on its own " base " in the land of Shinar. It is really going back to the place where we found it in the eleventh of Genesis, and there all they first principles will again come out. That is thorough independence.
And now to turn to the New Testament. In Matt. 16 I find a Man who was thoroughly dependent upon God-a Man whom no one understood. First led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of, the devil and there overcome him through dependence. And then, through a dependent life, His service, His public life, culminated on the Mount of Transfiguration, whence He descends to die. „ This is the One we have to do with. In this chapter He is coming to the close of His ministry, and, on speaking to them of Himself, Peter makes the confession, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; " when He tells them that on this rock He will build His church. That church is the New Jerusalem, and nothing piior to that is. If you ask: Why does not the New Jerusalem take in the Old Testament saints? I answer: Because it is "built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets," and every builder knows that the first thing that is laid in a building is the foundation; I cannot have anything prior to that.
The city that the Lord is about to build will be a brilliant display of every divine beauty here upon the earth, where man and the church have made such total shipwreck. The heavenly city is a most compensating thing. I belong now to a people who have completely failed to set forth Christ on the earth. Where is the church? People often say there is none! But though the church has so entirely failed as the candlestick, yet is it necessary that it should fail as the Bride? Not at all! Though there never be a recovery of what is lost, the faithful are brightened up to what is coming.
We are the Bride. I get her moral features in Rev. 21 The Bride is formed by the Bridegroom; He makes her suitable to Himself; she is His helpmeet. " For Adam there was not found an helpmeet for him; " and that is what Christ is seeking for Himself-a helpmeet; as it is beautifully brought out in the German translation, " one over against you." He is seeking something that answers to Himself. We are that which will not entrance man's eye, but which will suit His eye. We have lost too much the sense of how His heart takes pleasure in the beauty He has formed in us Himself. I turn round to those who say there is no church, and say: Are you the Bride then? If people are answering to Christ as that, they will be on true church ground. He says: You have failed to man but you must not fail to me; I form a thing that my eye can rest upon; and to be this you must be occupied with me. We would be the most holy separate people on earth if we were truly the Bride. We should get light as to what suits Him so as to stand morally in all the capabilities of the church, though it be not the church or the candlestick either restored. or revived.
So the Lord says: " Upon this rock I will build my church." And in this same chapter this very man to whom it was revealed' lets out that which will try to come in and spoil all this. He rebukes the Lord about the cross-says to Him, " Be it far from thee, Lord." The cross here is not looked at as setting aside sins, but as setting aside man, and Peter refuses this. The very man who was at one moment telling who Christ was, is the next refusing His cross; he cannot see it; and the Lord says to him, You are Satan. I cannot think of anything more sad than that this same `man should take up natural feelings to such an extent that the Lord should be able to say this to him-that the one who got the greatest revelation should be the one to seek to neutralize it, however unwittingly.
I must maintain the two o-: the Rock and the cross. Do you accept the Rock? I am sure you do; we all accept it; and the cross too, as that which delivers us from our sins; but do you accept it as that which sets man aside? Do you say, Yes, I do? Let us look a moment at the fourteenth of Luke, to see whether you do or not. A man here, says to the Lord, " Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God." He meant the millennium. But we will have a great day before the millennium comes, says the Lord; we will have a great entertainment, because of poor sinners received now by the Father.
Now what hinders any coming to. it.? There are two things that do, and we find them in Judges. One is earthly mercies, and the other the ties of nature-mercies given from God's hand, and ties formed by Himself. Nothing wrong at all—no harm in them! Are not earthly mercies beautiful? And may not man receive from God oxen, and ground, and marry a wife? To be sure he may. But yet these things tend to hinder from seeking the great supper. Are you proof against right things? It is not wrong things; it is the right thing that will do the mischief. The apostle could say: "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." I give up all that is bright and beautiful in the first man, for the surpassing excellence and beauty of the second. I can supersede man if I have got Christ. I have to exercise my soul every day so to keep the beauties of that blessed One before me, that I may be proof against all the beauties that are around me here. It is impossible, to be proof against either attraction or affliction if you have not Christ to compensate you for the one and comfort you in the other. He eclipses everything for me. I have not got to steel my heart, but I have to guard it against all the beauty that is around me. I do not go to Christ in sorrow only; every one does that; I go to Him for beauty. " If a man hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Hate my father and mother! I never heard of such a thing! The question is, Will you have the cross? " Whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple." You are taken off natural ground. If you say, I attend to my unconverted father because he is an old man, and so on, I say, All very well. But if he say, I would sooner be without your company, then he has set me free, and. I leave him mournfully. You must have Christ first; if you have not you will never go forward; you will neither be a tower nor an army—a tower to resist the enemy, and an army to attack him. And why not? Because you have not got the grace in you. Gideon's ten thousand began, but they could not stand it; they turned back; they had not got it in them.
There is one more passage I must refer to to bring this to the final issue; that is the latter part of Rev. 3 I would gladly trace it all through the New Testament, but it would be too much exercise for patience. I may, however, say in passing, that the grand point of the apostle in the espistles is to keep out the man. It is the man I am afraid, of, and that is the reason I -say to you, Get rid of the man. And why? Because Satan cannot turn anything against God except man. He does not turn an elephant against God. But, as to man, he says, I have turned your own image against you. But God says, I Till deprive you of the man; I will have the I cross on him. In Romans we see man without any restraint, and see what a state he has got to, and then how faith in God justifies him. Then in Corinthians it is the worldly man. In Galatians it is the legal man: " God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." In Colossians it is the religious man, and thus rationalism and ritualism crop up. And in Hebrews it is the earthly man. But if you get rid of the man you clear the ground.
And now in Rev. 1 get the closing scene. There is one link, perhaps, that I have a little lost sight of; and that is, that with this new city Christ brought in a new power-an invisible power. The power of Babylon was visible, and it is still in existence, but it has nothing at all to do with this new structure. Would to God I could get the saints to see this; they would then refuse to use a particle of the power of that beast which is soon to carry the church—as soon as it has been spued out of Christ's mouth. When I hear of saints licensing rooms, putting up notices and so on, I can only say they are stepping outside to the power that would carry them; you are coquetting with the beast, and he will end with carrying the harlot-the spued-out church. If you give up witnessing to the place the Holy Ghost has here in bearing testimony to Christ, you are losing power in your own soul. A man might say, I will shut out the sun from one side of my property; but if he do he will injure the whole of it. One office of the Holy Ghost here on earth is to comfort me n the absence of Christ; the other is to stand for Christ as a witness to the world; and if you say, I understand the one, but not so well the other, then I say, you are losing the other too.
In Rev. 3 it says He is " the beginning of the creation of God." What comes in to delude the saints is present advantages; and they end by being so drawn away by them that it comes to Christ Himself being outside. He stands at the door and knocks. The final state of things in the church is that of having need of nothing; it is independence again. This is the church, not the body; 'it is the vessel; it will be spued out of Christ's mouth; and then the beast says, I will carry you. Christ takes the body to heaven with Himself. Then the Holy Ghost is gone, and the vessel left behind becomes the harlot, and. the beast carries it.
Now what is Babylon working for? I turn to Rev. 18 to show you. Babylon is this great structure where everything is pleasing to the natural eye. People are cultivating ease and comfort in this world, and what is the effect of it all? Is it suffering for Christ? I say, I am not to be taken up with it. I may enjoy a beautiful day, but I seek not to be carried away by it. God says, I will bring you to the water to test you, and the one that is proof to earthly mercies is the one who will go on with Christ, and be kept from the delusions that are so ensnaring to man, and so pleasing to his heart-from all those things which culminate in Babylon. She says: " I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow." She has all that is beautiful in nature, but nothing of Christ. It is not that I would deprive a feeble person of any comfort, but this I do say, When you go into your house just think whether it is a question of ease that is before your mind, or whether it is that you are here to suffer for Christ? How much is your heart set upon Him 9 Look at poor Anna-an old woman of eighty-four. I wish we were more like her. She departed not from the temple, though it was ruined. It is not a question of ability and intelligence, but it is whether I have a heart for Christ. Why should He not come into this room and be greeted by many Simeons and Annas here? Simeons who know what Christ: is to them, and Annas who are here for Him.
Surely it is a word for each of us. In everything, I remark, the world is getting richer. It is all there, and can I not accept what is offered? Yes, you can; but, if you go on your knees to it, you lose your true path for Christ here. Which am I helping on to-day? Is. it this heavenly Jerusalem, the illustration of all divine beauty which is coming down to make up for all the failure of the church in this world where we have been such poor wretched things? Or am I going on with that whose " plagues shall come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her?" Is it a happy thing to be in any wise supporting that which is rival to Christ? As I look at the little urchin in the streets I say, That is one part of this vast machine that is working up to either one or the other. The grand consummation for the world is Babylon; the grand consummation for the church is the New Jerusalem.
Some may perhaps say, How do, you get to Babylon? When the church is cast out of Christ's mouth it is not the body; the body has been taken up to heaven; but the church-the vessel of testimony-has no longer any vitality, and the beast takes it up; he takes the place from which the Holy. Ghost has retired. You find this in Rev. 17 And then " upon her forehead is the name written: Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth." Do you ask, What induces the beast to take up the church? I answer, What is the character of Laodicea? It is that which fits her for it. Laodicea is trying to get men embellished by Christianity-getting up that terrible thing called self-culture. People talk wonderfully about it, but what is it? A man may be all right outside, and yet have the most terrible rage boiling up within. Some twenty years ago, they got the leader of Romanism in England to lecture on self-culture at the opening of an Institute. It is nothing but a form of Christianity without power. A person converted now-a-days is generally drawn into anything for man's benefit; young men's associations and everything utilitarian. I admit such a man is agreeable to his neighbors through all this, but he is nothing better in the sight of God.
Babylon is a " mystery; " that is, a thing that is not yet unfolded. So when it first comes out it does not take openly the character of independence that it assumes in the end. But soon it will come out in its true colors; and the beast will carry her until he hates her, and makes her desolate, and burns her with fire.
There shall not be a bit of Christianity left; but man shall be satisfied in his own acquisitions.
Well, what about the three hundred? The ten thousand are tested, but they never hear the order of battle. And what is that? It is, As ye see me do so shall ye do. If you want to get on now you must keep your eye on Christ. I cannot give you any directions; I can only give you the order of battle. " As I do so shall ye do." The Lord lead us to be very distinctly for Christ, and open our eyes to see whether we are helping on that which man has got his heart set upon, or that which Christ's heart is upon.
(J. B. s.)
" Make the tree good and his fruit good." I cannot do that; the only thing is to kill it. And indeed I cannot do that either. But God has done it, and I can therefore say, I am dead, and my life is hid with Christ in God. (J. N. D.)
What is service? It is having part in Christ's ministry of love. (J. N. D.)