CT 7:55-60{I HAVE been exercised as to what the practical meaning of the passage through the wilderness is, and would now speak a few words on it in connection with what I have read and with another passage of Scripture-the story of the thief on the cross. He says to Jesus, " Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom," and gets for answer that he should be with Him in Paradise that very day. These two cases connect themselves in my mind with what we go through the wilderness for, with what the meaning of the wilderness walk is.
Take the thief on the cross for instance. We get that he was fit to be Christ's companion in Paradise then and there. This makes it such a striking testimony to the efficacy of Christ's work. Nothing is more striking than his conversion; at the moment when even the disciples ran away he was found ready to say, " This man hath done nothing amiss." And he was made fit to be with Christ in Paradise that very day. It is the same truth that we find in Colossians: " Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.," and further on: " You, who were sometime alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight." It is a present thing: " In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." All this is possessed by the Christian, so that he can " give thanks to the Father who hath made us meet." We can all understand that, if the thief went straight to Paradise with Christ, he was fit to go there, and to be Christ's companion there. The thief on the cross is the most striking testimony to this truth; his body left there on the cross, his spirit gone to Paradise with the Lord.
And in the case of Stephen it is just the same thing; Stephen after going through the trials and sorrows of the wilderness comes to the very same point: he says, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and he goes to be with Christ. If this is so in the two cases, what is the wilderness for? That is the question.
There are many souls now, sincere souls too, who are not clear as to their acceptance. If you put it to them as a test, you find that, if they look at the judgment seat of Christ, they are not perfectly at their ease. Many who put their whole trust in Christ, who have no hope in anything else, are yet not at ease in the thought of that day. They love to dwell on the cross, saying, That just suits me, He has washed me from my sins in His own blood; yet they are not at ease with respect to judgment.
Now, if we think of our standing in Christ, there is no place where we shall be so much at ease, for, when we stand before His judgment seat, we shall stand there perfectly like Him. We are there already raised in glory, and, of course, it is too late then to judge people who are in glory, I mean as to the going there; because they are there already. It is written: " As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly." Thus, their being there already like Him, of course there can be no question as to their fitness to be there, though of course He judges that in each which He has to. I am merely looking a little at the ground on which we are; the question I wish to speak of is further on. Our righteousness is perfect, absolute. The righteousness of God has been displayed in setting Christ at His right hand; from thence He has sent the Holy Ghost down to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment: " Of righteousness because I go unto my Father, and ye see me no more." Christ, having perfectly glorified the Father everywhere, and on the cross, that terrible place, God has shown His own righteousness in setting Him who did this at His own right hand.
And we get the fruit of it all in grace. Christ glorified God as to His righteousness, as to His holiness, as to His truth, as to His grace, as to His love to the sinner. God made the captain of our salvation perfect through suffering, that He might thus bring many sons to glory. And now God's righteousness has been displayed in putting Christ up there, where we, too, are to get our place in the glory; where we are to be loved as He is loved; we are to get the full value of that grace. That is the righteousness of God. The righteousness of God has been displayed in putting Christ up there, and He must see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied in having us there too. And we with Paul can say " Not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."
But I turn for a little to the hindrances that meet a soul in seeking to get hold of this. As said already, sometimes even those who see forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ, when they think of the judgment seat, feel that all is not right with them. While they own that the only foundation of their hope is in Christ dying for their sins, yet there is a discovery in themselves of that which does not suit the judgment seat; there is a measure of trust, but yet things are not all straight, and so they are not at their ease.
Now many of us have learned the difference that there is between the clearing away of the guilt of the old man and the acceptance in which we are placed in the new. We read, He " was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification." And: " When he had himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Thus we get first a deliverance from all our sins, and then the acceptance side which comes after it; we get not only the guilt of the old place that we were in put away, but we get ourselves in a new place-the acceptance of Christ in which we stand.
The epistle to the Romans is quite distinct as to this. We read in chapter 5.: " Therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;" and then in chapter 8. we get the other side of it: " There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." This is the point which puts me entirely at ease if I think of the judgment seat-" In Christ Jesus." Then He must condemn Christ if He condemns me! " At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." I am in Christ Jesus through the Holy Ghost. It is not merely that there is a clearance of my Adam nature, but that there is a positive acceptance of me in Christ, and this is a perfectly settled thing.
Now what hinders any soul here from getting this? If a man's debts are all paid, he meets his creditors with a gay face; but even so, if he has not a penny in his pocket, he must starve. And so it is with many souls, for there is all the difference between sins being cleared away and being set in a place of settled acceptance in Christ before God. With some souls it is only a question of God passing them by, as in the passover in Egypt; God as a judge, " of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," passing by the sinner because he is sheltered from His judgment. When Israel was in Egypt it was thus God as a judge passed over them, because the blood of the lamb was their shelter. Love provided that shelter, but, as to the act, it was the righteousness of God passing over them. And many a soul is in this state.
But at the Red Sea the children of Israel stand still and see the salvation of God. There is no death at all here. They are brought out of Egypt into a new place; they are redeemed, not passed over, now. So it is not merely that we are passed over, that our sins are put away, but that we are no longer in the old place at all. I get, very clearly and distinctly, the two things: not only that " He has washed us from our sins in his own blood," but also that He has brought us " to God," and " has made us kings and priests unto God and his Father." If the sins of the old man are put away, I have my place in the new man. But, this being so, what is the wilderness for?
First, however, let me say something as to what hinders people getting hold of this settled place of acceptance in Christ, which sets me at ease when thinking of the judgment-seat, because I know that I am like Him in glory before God. The hindrance is this: souls have never given themselves up. A thousand deceits of the heart are in the way; it may be the world in some form or other, but whatever form it may take, they have not given up themselves. What they have to come to is the consciousness that the poor Syrophenician woman had when she took the place of a dog; they must come to the point that they have no righteousness at all, nothing good in them, and not even any promises of good things to them. There are blessed promises for us when we are in the path, but nothing at all before.
Souls cling to one thing or another; they do not take the place of standing before God lost. They will even admit that they are guilty, but not lost. "When I talk of guilt I refer to the day of judgment; but when I speak of being lost, I speak of 'now, of the present moment; it is now I am lost. How can I talk of being better if I am lost? The soul that can do thus has not recognized its true position before God. It reasons: I find this and that in myself; I am not what I ought to be, and how, then, can God accept me? Do you expect God to accept you because you are what you ought to be? That is the way Satan deceives souls. The desire for holiness being there, they look for it as their ground of acceptance with God; though it is true that, if there is no desire after holiness, of course there is no seeking after God at all. I have often asked, " Would you not have more peace if you were more holy?" and the answer would be, " Oh, yes!" Then that is not the blood of Christ at all. It is true that there must be " holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord," but you are confounding holiness and righteousness; and you want a certain amount of holiness in yourself, so that you may be accepted before God, and that is self-righteousness.
Look at the story of the Syrophenician woman. She comes to the Lord and says, " Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David! my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. And he answered her not a word." Not only this, but " His disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for she crieth after us." They did not really care about her at all; they only did not want to be troubled with her. And the Lord Himself says, " I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Then she comes and worships Him, and says " Lord, help me." She perseveres; she will come to Him, though there is no appearance of His being willing to do a thing for her. And He only answers, " It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs." It sounded awfully hard. Why was it? It was to bring her to the consciousness that she was a dog.
It was not merely a question of His grace, of her self-righteousness, and so on, but of the fact that she had not even so much as a promise. A Canaanite had none; they were so fearfully wicked that the very land spued them out. And she was of Tire and Sidon too-their worst cities. There was no one at such a distance from grace, too hard for repentance, and without a promise to look for the fulfillment of. I cannot take the children's bread, and cast it to dogs, was all His answer. "And she said, Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table." Israel were the children; she, the dog; but still she could claim the crumbs. That is, There is goodness enough in God even for one who has no righteousness, who has no promise, and who is under the power of the devil. She had gone through all the question of righteousness, and she had none; she had gone through all the question of promise, and she had none; but she says, I rely on the heart of God, who has goodness enough even for me.
The Lord did not answer her until she owned she was a dog; He brought her down to the consciousness that she had no claim on Him whatever; and you will never get settled peace until He has brought you down to that same point. If God gave you peace before you got there, it would suppose that there was something good on your side. You want to find something in yourself; you are seeking something there to prove to you that you are accepted by Him; you have not given up yourself, and God looks exceedingly hard in such a case. And it is this which hinders so many souls. Christ is sitting at the right hand of God because the work is finished; and, as for myself, I can only say, " I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing;" I am a dog. This is real knowledge of self.
But, it is often argued, I must have forgiveness of sins before I can have peace; and I hope I am not deceiving myself in thinking that I have it. Beloved friends, it comes to this point: not that sins are forgiven, but that God has condemned sin in the flesh; not forgiven it, mind. " God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." So I say, God has condemned sin in the flesh in the death of Christ, not sins. You ask, How was that? Well, Christ was made sin for the believer, there on the cross. The believer can say, I have died with Christ. Very well, then the condemnation is past, if I died with Christ. And if I died with Christ what am I now looking for? The old man is gone.
You will never get settled peace until you have judged sin in you; nothing else but that will do it, and therefore you can look for it in no other way. But knowing this, I at once see, that that sin that I have a horror of myself, was condemned in the cross. As I read, " Once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Not, as to fact, that this is all finished even yet: not until we get into the new heavens and the new earth will sin be entirely " put away;" but the work, by virtue of which it will be, has been wrought on the cross, and now " unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin," no more question of it, that was done at His first coming, " unto salvation."
But I get this dealing with sin in my nature, and that I must learn experimentally. If, for instance, I say to some one, You are dead to sin, he may answer me, Indeed I am not; I was in a passion only this very morning. And then he will sit in uncertainty and discomfort, until his condition rests upon what God is to him, and what God has done for him, and not what he is in himself.
It is impossible that I can have settled peace in any other way. I have to learn that there is no good in me; I have to give up the thought of being able to find anything in myself. In the story of the prodigal son we find he is not fit to go into the house; he is in his rags; his only thought is to be made a hired servant. But the Father brings out the best robe and puts it on him, and we hear nothing more of the prodigal son; it is all the Father now; it is He who rejoices and is glad, it is He who is merry in having him back again. The Father was on his neck even in his rags, but he is brought into the house in all the honor of Christ. A soul gets acceptance not because of what he is to God, but because God has given him in Christ a place in the last Adam when he was lost in the first.
But mark this: if you take the blood on the door post and the path through the Red Sea, you still get the man into the wilderness. When the children of Israel got to the Red Sea, God shut them up, the devil, as it were, pursuing them into the sea. And God says to them through Moses, You stand still, and there is no sea at all. The sea even protected them: " the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on their left;" and " they walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea." And where were they brought to? Into Canaan? Not at all! It was into the wilderness! This is not what we get in the thief on the cross. There we see what the work of Christ did for that poor man; it made him immediately " meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," and took him straight with Him into Paradise. He was Christ's comfort on the cross, and His companion to Paradise. He was the only one who comforted Him in that terrible moment. This poor man was bearing the consequences of his sins as a punishment from man, whilst Christ was bearing them as a punishment from God, and the efficacy of His work was sufficient to take this man to glory. How little the soldiers thought when they were breaking his legs, that they were sending him straight off to Paradise!
But there is something I wish to speak of which is beyond this question of acceptance; there is something else I have to learn, when, as an accepted person, I come to walk with God. God has stepped in as a deliverer, and brought us to Himself in Christ. Now I find that we are constantly confounding our journey through the wilderness with the fact that God has in spirit brought us already to Himself; but the very fact of being in the wilderness proves that we are not yet at home.
But there is something besides acceptance connected with salvation. The blood being on the door-post there was no judgment for the children of Israel, whilst they fed in peace on the slain lamb. So we read, " Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth." And again, " The grace of God that bringeth salvation for all men hath appeared, teaching us, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world." And again, "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death;" but now, " Ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." Thus we are brought out into the wilderness. He may take the thief straight off to Paradise to skew the value of Christ's work, or He may be glorified in the long life of Paul serving Him down here in the power of the Holy Ghost, blessedly glorifying his Master.
And now I again ask, How comes it that we are put through the wilderness? Supposing that you are settled as to the first question we have been looking at, that you know yourself accepted in the Beloved, do you think you know the difference between flesh and spirit, and all the rest that is in you? I do not think you do. So God puts me through the wilderness, because it is a question of that exercise of heart which ends by enabling me to say, " That is the world; that is the flesh; that is the devil." We have to meet this trinity: the world, the flesh, and the devil; they are here, and are often not judged in many things. We have not learned to distinguish the difference. We take many an amiable flesh for spirit. God says to us, I have justified you perfectly, I have redeemed you perfectly, I have taken you clean out of the place you were in, and I have set you in Christ, but I have still a great deal to do with you.
We have now to learn to discern good and evil according to the nature of God. Our path is now to be that of those who "yield ourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and our members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness." It is that we may become servants of God. That is what God is doing in leaving us here.
Flesh was perfectly judged in the thief on the cross; it is the cross that judges flesh. But, besides this, are there not things here that you do not like giving up? Are you dead to everything here? I begin by saying I am dead. I must say it, or I shall never get on at all. And, however I may fail, yet it is true that I have " no more conscience of sins." I read, " By one offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." Never for one moment, when I go to God, ought I to think that God can impute anything to me. " Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity." This is a most important truth. You may plead that it is using liberty for a cloak of licentiousness, and ask " Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?" " God forbid," answers the apostle; " how shall we that have died to sin live any longer therein?"
God then puts us through a process to teach us what we are saved from and what we are saved to. Look at Moses. He begins by killing the Egyptian. Was that the Spirit of God? Not at all! He had most blessed faith; he could give up Pharaoh's court, could give up everything, to take his place with those wretched slaves making bricks without straw; but he did not know himself. It is not a question of acceptance at all; it is this exercise of heart where I learn to discern between flesh and spirit. So it says: " Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness." Do you know all that is in your heart? Surely not. And unless you keep very close to God you will fall, and Christ will be dishonored.
" To humble, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no. And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know, that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live." Allow me to ask. you, Do you live by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God? Do you never do anything but what is by His direction? " He fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not."
But more than this. In the wilderness we learn the patience of God. He never takes His eyes from the righteous, that is why He deals with them in discipline. It is " that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man." Do you think there is never pride in your heart? He teaches us that there is; He makes us find it out. The wilderness is no part of God's purpose for man, but it is His way with him. His purpose is to bring us into the same glory with Christ-into Canaan. The Lord Himself quoted from Deuteronomy, for He had to meet all the trials and difficulties of the wilderness; He learned all it meant as He went through this world.
God's ways with His people are very precious things. He humbles us and teach es us what is in our hearts. Just think of His never withdrawing His eyes from such a poor creature as I am! He has to sanctify me according to the holiness of the place in which I am set. He exercises my mind in order that I may see His holiness. As a saved person I am brought to God, and it is His purpose not to let evil touch me. He sent Paul a thorn in the flesh, lest he should be puffed up. It is not always positive transgression that He deals with me about; with Paul it was preventive discipline. In going through such exercise we get quietness of heart, and learn God in all His patient, constant grace. " He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." Thus the flesh is judged. If I were always walking before Him in a perfectly humble spirit, I should never dishonor Christ, though I might be very ignorant. But God cannot be in communion with that which is not of Himself.
If I turn to the thief on the cross, I see that everything was judged in him. What he had been in this world had brought him to the gibbet, and there he learned, " They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts," and " the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."
All this he learned in the cross, but learned it in the grace of Christ who was crucified for his sin. The world and the flesh were to him on the cross; and where was his heart? " Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom." It is the most unclouded faith. Just as surely as Christ is there beside him on the cross, so surely will He come in His kingdom. Such is his faith that the shame of sin is lost in his perception of Christ, and he prays that He may remember him-where? Hanging on the gibbet? It would not be very blessed to be remembered in such a place. He wants to be remembered, he who thus hung in just punishment for his sins, when Christ should come in His glory. And of Him he witnesses, " This man hath done nothing amiss."
And then he calls him "Lord." And what is his request? It is not, Take away a little of my pain. No; it is "Remember me when thou congest in thy kingdom." Just as certain he is of His coming in His kingdom as that he then saw Him on the cross. Christ was everything to him; to be with Him was all he wanted. And the Lord answers: You shall not wait for that until I come in my kingdom; to-day you shall be with me in Paradise. Thus I get in this thief a soul given up to the consciousness of what Christ is. Of course he did not know the gospel as we have had it since; he could not know Christ in the glory, for He was not yet there; but all his heart wanted, was to be with Christ where He was.
In Stephen I get quite another thing. Here it is practically the cross: he was killed for Christ's sake, so it was certainly taking up his cross and following Christ. We find Stephen looking up into the glory and saying, " Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit." He sees into the glory; but whilst he thus sees into it, he does not say one word about it; he simply says, I see the Son of man in it; and the consequence is, that he is exactly like Christ. The Lord Jesus said of His murderers, " Father, forgive them: they know not what they do;" and Stephen says of his, " Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." And we may say so too, in any suffering for righteousness' sake that we may be called to go through, though we cannot say " they know not."
It is the same thing in principle for us that it was for the thief. We are called to be dead to the world, not by being on the cross as the poor thief was, but, like Stephen, through seeing the glory where Christ is. So the Christian learns to see what is of Christ in himself and what is. not. Sin in the flesh is condemned in the cross. of Christ. The whole of what the thief was as a son of Adam was gone in the cross. Man and God had both stepped in to deal with his sin, and as the consequence he goes to Paradise with Christ.
But the wilderness is the place in which I learn myself. Perhaps I wish to do right, but I must get knowledge of what the flesh is. Does. my eye affect my heart in nothing? Is there nothing that I allow in my life that is not Christ? Is Christ everything in my heart?
You will find there are three men in you. There is Christ at the bottom of my heart, and there may be a blameless walk at the top; but what has my heart been upon all this day? There is that middle man; has it been upon nothing but Christ? He is all, as a matter of fact; but is He all from day to day? Is He "all, and in all"? He is life in us, and He must be all. As to fact there is flesh and spirit, and a multitude of things between.
Now the purpose of God was to take the children of Israel out of Egypt and to bring them into the land of Canaan. He speaks of nothing else. If you look in Ex. 3:88And I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites. (Exodus 3:8) you will not find a word about the wilderness. God's purpose for us is to bring us into the glory of Christ, where He is. But God delights in us, and says to us, " My son, give me thine heart." I get that we are to " yield ourselves unto God;" that we are to " present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." Have we done this? Is there no wish, no looking for anything here? Is there no desire for anything except Christ in us? It is: " present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your intelligent service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." You will find failure and shortcoming in carrying it out, and thus you will learn yourself and learn God too.
This is what the wilderness is. Christ's work made the poor thief fit to go to Paradise that day, but even for him the world and the flesh were on the gibbet; whilst in Stephen it was perfectly death to the world, seeing Christ in the glory, and being just like Him, but with this difference, that, when the Lord was on earth, the heavens looked down on Him, whilst Stephen looks up into the heavens and sees Christ there. Christ could not have become anything by looking into heaven; Stephen by doing so was transformed into His likeness.
Thus flesh and the world are done with; and what a blessing it is to think that, whilst we are passing through the wilderness, He is conforming us to Christ in this way. The Father's loving government comes in; He is a " holy Father," and He wants hearts that will reflect practically what is in Himself. And so we have to judge ourselves that Christ may come out in our ways. To think that it is God's purpose to have us with His Son in glory! That is what is in God's heart, what is in the Father's heart; and Christ will not see of the travail of His soul, will not be satisfied, until He has us up there with Himself.
Is it with each one of us " This one thing I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus"? The Lord only give us grace to have the cross upon self; to know what it is to have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, to be crucified to the world and the world to us as we pass through it. Death must come in on everything here; it did so actually in the two cases we have been looking at; but, like Stephen, may we so see Christ in the glory of God that we may be like Him, and thus say, " Come, Lord Jesus."