ABUNDANCE OF SUPPLY IN THE DIVINELY ORDERED PATH
Exodus 13: 21, 22; 15: 22-27
BES We could have read much more from Exodus chapters 13 to 18 in order to illustrate what is in mind, but we rely on the general acquaintance of the brethren with the Scriptures, so that it is not necessary to read everything that we may refer to. In chapter 19, the people begin to be put under the law, but, as we have often been taught, in these early stages of the wilderness journey, Israel was under grace. I thought we might look at the path, the divinely appointed path for them (with its application to ourselves, of course), and the richness of the divine supply that marked those early stages of the journey in the wilderness.
There was the pillar of cloud and fire, which they had even before they reached the Red Sea; there was deliverance in going through the Red Sea; there was the joy of salvation expressed in the song of chapter 15. Then they felt the need of water; they came to the waters of Marah: these waters were bitter, but they were made sweet by the wood that God showed to Moses. Then there was the healing, “I am Jehovah who healeth thee”; then the twelve springs of water and the seventy palm trees.
In chapter 16 we have other things: the quails and the manna, and the Sabbath (for us the rest of God).
In the chapter after that we have water again, the water from the rock, and then we have the intercession of Moses, leading to ‘Jehovah my banner’ (chap 17: 15, note ‘h’) at the end of the chapter.
Then in chapter 18 we have suggestions of fellowship with the people of God who were outside the circle of the specially chosen people, Israel. However, that did not come up to what we understand and enjoy as fellowship in this dispensation (it corresponds more with what is millennial). At the end of it Jethro went back to his own land (verse 27): he would not go any further. Numbers 10: 29-32 tells us how even one who did remain with them up to that point declined to go on with Israel, though they offered to do him good, sharing their blessings; so the type falls short there. But I believe we can get instruction by considering these various things in divine supply of the riches of God’s grace, before there is any question of law and curse for disobedience.
RJF Are you thinking that what we have in the two verses you read in chapter 13 gives the divinely appointed path, that He “went before their face by day in a pillar of cloud”?
BES Yes, and it has that character of lighting up the way even at night, and protection from the enemy: “the one did not come near the other all the night”, it says (chap 14: 20). The Egyptians rode into the sea in self-confidence and they were destroyed, but Israel were preserved and came through.
RJF I was just reflecting, as the passage was being read and as you were speaking, that there is an immense reassurance that God was with them, you might say, twenty-four hours a day. There was no interruption, was there?
BES That is right. We often speak of the desert as without a path, without a way: the only way is what is marked out by divine Persons, first in the Lord in the path where He has trodden, and then for the people of God, a path marked out by the word of God and the presence of God - for us the presence of the Spirit. That takes in all believers, of course, all true believers. We must keep that in mind, but not all may be following in the way that He leads. If we see the glory of what God has supplied, that helps us forward and keeps us remembering that the path is not a path of our own devising. If we resort to that, we shall very soon come to disaster. But it is where the Lord is leading or where the Spirit is leading.
AEM Would you say something further as to the divine presence here, maybe rather than divine instruction?
BES Well, God did not exactly tell them beforehand in detail which way to go. He gave light that the objective would be the mountain of His inheritance, the land that He had promised to Abraham, but the way to it was not what man would think a direct one. It was necessary to follow the cloud step by step, and it led at times in a direction different from what man would have expected, but God saw and sees what lessons are needed on the way, to learn what they were - what we are as according to flesh - but chiefly to learn what God is, what He is to us.
PJW Mr Darby’s hymn says:
In the desert God will teach thee
What the God that thou hast found –
(Hymn 76).
BES Yes, we find that, do we not?
PJW It has been said that the wilderness does not belong to His purpose but is connected with His ways. Could you help us as to that?
BES Well, purpose is what God has determined at the beginning to have at the end. His purpose typically was the land, the promised land, and the mountain of His inheritance in it, but there is a way for us to reach it, and that way is not part of what God has purposed to have eternally, but it is very necessary for us in order to reach what He has in mind for eternity. That is what we mean when we say it is part of His ways, is it not? It is the way that God takes in wisdom to bring us morally and spiritually into accord with what His final thoughts are. You have some more in mind about it.
PM I was wondering if you could help as to the antitype of the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, and the distinction between the two.
BES It is the same pillar but two different aspects of it. The character of it is that it gives light even in the night, but the cloud emphasises more the side that we are baptised. They “were baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea”, 1 Cor 10: 2. The cloud, to us, brings separation from the world so that we can be wholly for the pleasure of God. We are not up to it most of the time, but that is the divine thought, is it not? So there is separation from the world and the comfort of divine presence; but what would you say about it?
PM I think that is helpful. We are travelling by night, are we not, as well as by day? Is the assurance of the presence of the Spirit suggested in this?
BES Yes, I thought that. Being baptised in the cloud is not anything spectacular exactly. This is not what men generally could take account of as something spectacular marking out the Israelites from everybody else. It was for the Israelites; it was for their assurance and their guidance.
QAP Is there a link with what the Lord Jesus says in John 8, “I am the light of the world; he that follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”, v 12?
BES Yes, I think that can be connected with it. He is “the light of the world”, but He is not perceived and accepted as such by the world generally; but the one who follows Him, he gets the benefit and has the experience of “the light of life”. Is that what you had in mind?
QAP So although there is a bearing towards all, it is the individual that comes into the gain of it, “he that follows me”, do you think?
BES Yes, exactly. So for us as well as for Israel we are in the path as individuals; we find that others are there too and that brings in the thought of fellowship and the path of the saints collectively, but as regards responsibility, we must accept that we are in it as individuals, each one for himself or herself. If we are not in it by conviction, the weakness will soon show itself.
AJET As you say, the cloud was not spectacular, but it was constant. This is something to give us great reassurance; it was always there. Movements would be regulated by it, but it was always there for them; in our day, He is there and would lead us in all the way.
BES Yes. In a day of breakdown and recovery such as we get in Ezra and Nehemiah and some of the prophets, the cloud was no longer visible, but God’s word and God’s Spirit remained among them, the same word and the same Spirit that He covenanted with them when they came out of Egypt, Hag 2: 5. So in a day of breakdown like our own there may not be the evidence that there was in early assembly days, when there was fear coming upon all in Jerusalem, and “of the rest durst no man join them”, as it says in Acts 5: 11, 13. We have not got quite that today, but in faith we can perceive the essential things that were typified by the cloud. God’s word and God’s Spirit are still the same, even if the public evidences of them are not what they were.
RMB Do you have any impression of the direction in which the Lord is leading us today?
BES Well, that would bring us perhaps to the next thing that God supplied - the waters of Marah. As we have rightly been taught, that suggests the bitterness of death and disappointment according to the flesh; we must be in self-judgment about that, more today, I suppose, than ever; but there is what God showed Moses, the wood, the humanity of Christ, how He went through suffering and death, gave up everything according to nature and accepted the will of God. When we see the way He went through death, that makes it “sweet” and acceptable to us; they were able to drink of it then, to drink the water that became sweet. Does that help?
RMB In regard of the actual journey that they took, God led them in one particular direction at one time and then another. We have a list in Numbers of the various places that they passed through or passed by, and we know too in the history of the church that at particular times it has pleased the Lord to lead His saints a particular way. I just wonder whether there is any way in which we can get a sense of what that might be for us at the present time.
BES I think the need of self-judgment is being impressed upon us more perhaps than before. I, at least, could not identify in Numbers 33 in the list of places exactly where we are at present. Perhaps others could; if so, we should be glad of their help. But in a general way we are being made to feel, I believe, the importance of judging ourselves and everything in ourselves that would divert attention from Christ and His will. That would lead us on to the next thing, which is the healing that comes in: “I will put none of the complaints upon thee that I have put upon the Egyptians,” God says, “for I am Jehovah who healeth thee”. That is one of the distinctive names of God. We get in Genesis ‘Jehovah will provide’ (Gen 22: 14, note ‘g’), and then this is “Jehovah who healeth thee”. In chapter 17 we get ‘Jehovah my banner’ (v 15 note ‘h’), and others in the Old Testament. They mark the knowledge of God as made known in a particular way, and this one is “Jehovah who healeth thee”.
PM Does your reference to the maintenance of self-judgment link with the Lord’s own service in Ephesians 5: 27: “that he might present the assembly to himself glorious, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things; but that it might be holy and blameless”? I wondered if that was the way in which divine purpose is being worked out in the saints at the present time.
BES Yes, the Lord is doing the washing as well as the nourishing and cherishing. We have been thankful many times for a sense of the Lord’s nourishing and cherishing of the assembly, even if in comparison with the whole number of believers there are only a few that get the gain of it; but there is washing needed as well, “washing of water by the word” in that passage, v 26. There are things that we need to be purified from. That would come into it, would it not?
PM I thought so. Is it not in view that the assembly should be entirely, if we might speak reverently, compatible with Himself as a blessed Man?
BES Yes; so however unlikely it looks naturally, there will be at the end what is “holy and blameless”, “having no spot, or wrinkle, or any of such things”, and the Lord will then present it to Himself. In Genesis it was God who brought the woman to the man. That, I believe, is alluded to in that scripture in Ephesians. From one point of view it is God who brings the assembly to Christ, but from another Christ presents it to Himself, which brings out how He Himself is really a divine Person as well as man, having the assembly for Himself.
GCB As to the enquiry as to where the Lord is leading us at the present moment, is it important to note what Peter said, “to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal” (John 6: 68), in contrast to those who “went away back and walked no more with him”, v 66? We know that Israel was constantly beset with problems, but “to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal” should be our joy and prayer constantly, do you not think?
BES Yes. Those who went away in that chapter did it because they thought the word was hard; “who can hear it?” they said, v 60. That was because the Lord had brought before them the great truth that the life that He was giving and sustaining for them by means of the living bread, was only available through His death; it had to be those who eat His flesh and drink His blood who get that life. They found that hard, and they “went away back”, but Peter and others, though they may not at that time fully have understood what was in the Lord’s mind (because the Spirit had not come), yet they felt, as I think you are suggesting we should feel, that if the Lord is speaking, even if we do not fully understand it, we are attracted, and could not think of going to anyone else. Is that what you have in mind?
DCW Just before where we started to read there is a reference to “the bones of Joseph”, chap 13: 19. They too went right through the wilderness journey, did they not? There was a man who had confidence that the journey would be completed, and his bones were buried in the land.
BES Yes; he had faith that God would visit them and bring them up out of the land of Egypt, and he left them with the obligation of carrying his bones with them, Gen 50: 25. Moses took that up and made himself responsible for it.
DCW Hebrews says “Joseph … called to mind the going forth of the sons of Israel” (chap 11: 22); so there was to be a dignity about their movements and a confidence that the journey would be completed.
BES Yes, it was what God had said that Joseph took account of. It was not just something he had thought of himself. It was the word of God, because he had promised that land to Abraham and his seed.
DAA I was wondering whether it was important for us to see where we commenced reading, “And Jehovah went before their face”. I was wondering whether you had some impression as to that, because that is important, is it not?
BES Yes; you mean they could see for themselves the way that God was leading. Is that what you had in mind?
DAA I think that comes into it, but also the way in which God maintained the initiative right the way through. He led them “before their face”. I was impressed by the expression that He “went before their face” or the cloud “went before their face”.
BES Yes, that is right. It was not that they chose a way and hoped that God would support them in it. It was the way that God Himself was going, and even when, to protect them, the pillar moved behind them, it was still morally in the lead, so to speak. It was God leading them. It was not that they were choosing a way and God was following.
PHM I was looking at that verse too, and I was just thinking, when you were speaking earlier as to the great and divine supply, we get a sense here that Jehovah drew near to them, as our brother has drawn attention to it: Jehovah drew near to them so that they could see. What we have been speaking of would help us: the Lord is near, and we can take advantage of the divine grace you have referred to.
BES Yes, Ephesians speaks of the “surpassing riches” of God’s grace, chap 2: 7. There is that which we shall enjoy eternally in it, but there are riches that are available to us now, and the richness of divine supply in grace before the law comes in is something for us to take account of and to be exercised about in our day.
DCB You mentioned that the children of Israel were not yet under law, but there is the element of authority that has to be recognised. Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea and, if they were to come into the healing you have referred to, that depended on them inclining their ears to His commandments and keeping all His statutes.
BES That is important. Verse 26 of chapter 15 brings that out: “If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God … I will put none of the complaints upon thee that I have put upon the Egyptians; for I am Jehovah who healeth thee”. The word of God is always obligatory. We do not classify that as law. The essence of the law was that if they declined to keep the commandments, then they were under a curse. That was what had not yet come in, but the obligation to obedience is always there. We cannot set that aside or call it legality. It is simply what is due to God. Is that what you have in mind?
DCB Yes; so that we are in this time and dispensation of grace - that covers the whole dispensation - but it is also the time when the words of the Lord would be what would govern us.
BES Certainly. We can never set that aside or neglect it. If we do, then the Lord will have to say to us, perhaps severely.
GCB You have impressed upon us that they were under grace up to chapter 19. Perhaps you could say more about the fact that law had to come in. I know that it is explained to us in Galatians, but perhaps you could give us your own impression.
BES Well, Galatians and also Romans give us light on that, do they not? The law came in by the way; it came in because of transgressions. It came in to show what man was and to prove that there was no hope for man if it depended on his keeping the law. Grace was absolutely necessary, the only way of salvation for man and satisfaction for God. The way of the law would only condemn, and that would not be any source of pleasure to God. He has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live”, Ezek 33: 11. What do you say about it?
GCB I am glad of your impressions, but I was impressed afresh, and I suppose we all were, by what you said at the beginning, the fact that they were under grace and we are under grace; but the necessary thoughts are gone through in Galatians and other scriptures, and are put out far better than I could, of course.
BES God often brings in His prime thoughts initially, before the practical side of breakdown and all that comes in historically. We arrive at it the other way round. We arrive at it by the experience of repentance and God’s ways with us in discipline and so on, to see how hopeless the flesh is and man after the flesh, even when he is trying to please God, and we arrive at grace that way, as the answer to our need; but God in His ways brings it in first; and He did that here. He led them on a journey of some months under the principles of grace before He brought in the law. So, as has often been pointed out, in Exodus chapter 16 we read that God supplied the quails. Now later on (Numbers 11), when they were under law, the same thing became a judgment upon them and an experience by which they had to learn how objectionable the flesh was, and the desires of the flesh; how objectionable these things were to God, and how objectionable they became even to the people. But here in Exodus 16 the supply of the quails is not made a matter of reproach. It is something offered by God without even being asked for, and then there is bread, the manna. Later on that also became an occasion of judgment for those who neglected the word of God about it. The history of the brazen serpent has to do with that. But here in Exodus it is the supply of the manna in grace: that has, so to speak, priority over the lessons learned under the law, and it is brought in historically before the law.
RJF I was impressed that as we look through these early chapters of the movements of the children of Israel, up to chapter 19, Moses was with them through that time, was he not? It is only in chapter 19 that he goes to the mountain, goes away from the children of Israel to receive the law. I was noticing the passage that has been referred to earlier in Corinthians, where it says, “all were baptised unto Moses”. I wonder if you could help open that out a little bit, that Moses was there with them.
BES Well, it was in mind, if the Lord will, in the second reading to take up something of that chapter in Corinthians, but what you say is important to notice, that Moses was with them through this period of grace; it was when the period of law was beginning that he was absent from them on the mountain, and breakdown came in. He was with them during this time, and they were kept; they were preserved, not really being conscious exactly of how God was doing it, but it does say at the end of chapter 14, “and the people feared Jehovah, and believed in Jehovah, and in Moses his bondman”, v 31. There was that element of faith, not of understanding exactly, but there was that element of faith by which they were preserved as long as Moses was with them. Your question was, ‘What is the significance of that?’. Well, of course, with the Lord there was a time when He was on earth with the disciples. Now He is in heaven and only faith can see Him; but even then, when He was here bodily, it was really only faith that discerned who He was. To those without faith, what was He? What did they say about Him? All kinds of things, various opinions about whether He was John the baptist risen or not, and whether He was of God, and why He did not keep the Sabbath, and so on; but for those who had faith, His presence preserved them. When He is absent, that brings to light those who are governed by the Spirit and those who are not; because it is the Spirit now who is present, and it needs faith, discernment and self-judgment, which we began with, to discern and get the gain of His presence and of His word.
GJR Could you say something as to Peter and John in John 21? They were both men who had faith, and there were probably a few others there who had faith, but one of them recognised it was the Lord; the other did not immediately. I am just following what you said, that faith is necessary to discern the Person, and I fully respect that. I am just conscious there are brethren around me who discern the Lord more readily than I do, perhaps the Lord’s presence and what He is doing, and I was thinking of John 21 where it is John who says, “It is the Lord”, v 7. It was a breakthrough moment really. Is it a breakthrough moment for all of us if we can recognise the Lord?
BES Yes, I think we should always recognise that there are those who are nearer the Lord than we are, and more sensitive perhaps to His word, and more devoted in following; and that would exercise us to be more on that line ourselves, not to compare ourselves with others exactly, as if others were the standard, but to recognise as Paul says, “each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves”, Phil 2: 3. I do not know whether that promotes further what you had in mind.
GJR There is also the matter of authority ever being present: that is the chapter where the Person is designated several times as Jesus. In the mind of the discerning disciple it is “the Lord”.
BES Yes, the one who discerns Him and His word perhaps more vividly than others is more ready to submit to His authority. Is that what you are suggesting?
GJR I had not thought of that, but thank you.
PJW So John is spoken of in that chapter as “following” and it adds, “who also leaned at supper on his breast”, v 20.
BES Yes, it is the same one.
PJW I was thinking of what you said as to nearness to the Lord. He also said, “Lord, who is it that delivers thee up?”. He was able to ask the Lord things that the others were not, it seems.
BES Yes, he was near enough to be able to do it in confidence.
PJW How do we reach that state or position?
BES I should like help from others on that. Have you some thought?
PJW Well, not really. I wanted to ask whether the exercises of Romans would link with your thought, particularly 5, 6, 7 and 8.
BES Yes, that must always come in. We can never leave that behind.
PJW It is the Deliverer, not exactly deliverance, but the Deliverer, do you think, that we arrive at?
BES Yes, “who shall deliver me out of this body of death?”, Rom 7: 24. It is the Person, as you say, rather than the deliverance or the experience of it that is before Paul’s mind; so he can immediately say, “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord” (v 25), and he can go on to “no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”, chap 8: 1.
PJW Do you think walking by the Spirit (v 4) and being led by the Spirit (v 14) in chapter 8 link with the springs of water?
BES Yes, you are connecting that with the next step, “And they came to Elim; and twelve springs of water were there, and seventy palm trees”. Would that suggest the Spirit among the saints collectively, and the food of the tree of life available to the saints as going on together?
CHS In relation to John’s moral state, do you think it would help us to be conscious of how we are seen by God? “And we have known and have believed the love which God has to us” (1 John 4: 16), he says. He knew how he was viewed by God. It has been said if we try to be self-judged, it is perhaps a very testing and difficult thing, but it makes it easier if we know how God views us.
BES Yes, how God views us and how God sees us at the moment. If we are conscious of being examined by Him, that is what shows us what we are morally in its true light; but then how God views us in the sense you have been speaking of it is, so to speak, beyond all that. It is according to His purpose. Is that what you have in mind?
CHS Yes, we have been helped about it that there is a certain deliverance, delivering power, to be conscious of how God sees us, which I think helps us in the matter of self-judgment and particularly in relation to how John was maintained in his affections for the Lord.
BES Yes. One thing that helps us in self-judgment is that we see on the one hand what we are according to God’s purpose and on the other hand what we are naturally and in the flesh, and the contrast between the two helps us to put each in its right place in our minds. Would you agree with that?
CHS Yes, and it is necessary to be near to God in both those matters.
BES Yes, we only get a true sense of what we are naturally (or according to flesh) in the light of the presence of God, really.
PM In John’s gospel in chapter 12 you have one who distinguished our Lord Jesus by anointing Him, and in chapter 13 one who rested on His bosom. Is there an order in that, and is it in the appreciation of the excellence and superlative greatness of Christ that He is marked out in all His distinctiveness? I have to go into the presence of such a One and find rest in His bosom.
BES I believe that is right. In making much of Him and getting help in that way to leave ourselves behind, so to speak, we find the rest that you speak of.
PM Could you then just say a little as to the wood that was cast in?
BES I suppose we are all familiar to some extent with what has been said about it before, and I do not think I can add much to that, if anything. Wood generally is typical of the humanity of Christ: Christ as man. It was as Man that He gave up a will of His own; as Man that He suffered and went into death, and gave up even all that was good and right; there was no evil to give up with Him, but He gave up what was good and right and proper to Him as Man and as the Anointed of God, in order to secure for God what was greater. If He did that, what right have we to retain anything of ourselves? If He did that (and we see in the Scriptures how He did it and what He did), that brings an entirely different light to bear on the application of death to the flesh. ‘Putting to death the deeds of the body’ and so on (Rom 8: 13) then becomes something that we are glad to do.
QAP Paul says, “our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed”, 1 Cor 5: 7.
BES As the passover, of course, it is to satisfy the claims of God. It is the price of redemption for His people. We might have mentioned that as all part of the divine supply. It is something furnished from God’s side to meet His requirements and our need. But what we are speaking of at the moment, the wood and how it made the waters sweet, is more on the line of our practice and our experience in discipline under the hand of God, to come to a complete judgment of what it was that had to be removed in the sacrificial work and death of Christ.
AM It says, “Jehovah shewed him wood”. It is necessary, is it, by the Holy Spirit, to have our eyes open as to the way the Lord Jesus has been? Otherwise, discipline could tend to lead to bitterness, but “Jehovah shewed him wood”.
BES God Himself draws our attention to the perfection of Christ in this, in His humility and in His going into death, giving up all that was best, for the sake of the will of God.
RMB Has the experience of the waters being bitter not been likened to the experience of a new believer having recently been converted and come to the Lord and being baptised? The world in that sense becomes a wilderness to such, and they can no longer find their refreshment and satisfaction in the things that they did. They can no longer be engaged in the same occupations; they can no longer perhaps keep the same company; and there is a certain bitterness about the discovery of that, do you think?
BES Yes, what we have here is typical, as you say, of new believers. They have only just come through the Red Sea. This is the beginning of their path of pilgrimage. The path out of Egypt and through the Red Sea is not exactly that; it is a necessary beginning, but the path of pilgrimage begins at this point when they are out of the Red Sea and to one just converted that may be bitter in what it involves. But then if God draws attention, as we have just been reminded, to Christ and how He went through things - He who had nothing evil at all to give up, nothing questionable in any way - if He made that sacrifice in that way, then surely it need be no longer bitter to us to have to follow Him in some of those steps.
TJH Naomi said, “Call me not Naomi - call me Mara”, Ruth 1: 20. I wondered maybe this may not only be the experience of a new believer. We may have to be brought to it again, do you think?
BES We may have to be brought back any number of times to a lesson that we have not learned the first time, and this is one of such lessons.
PJW The remedy is always the same: “Jehovah shewed him wood”.
BES Yes, that is right, always the same.
RJF In relation to that, there is something that is unknowable about the expression “Jehovah shewed him wood”. What I mean is that the account is not given that there was a tree or anything like that that could be taken account of, readily apprehended, but “shewed him wood”. There seems to me in that expression something that was beyond the ken, as it were, of the believer, that the Lord Himself knew and took upon Himself.
BES Yes, even Moses would not have known if God had not shown him the wood. He would not have known what to do or say about it; so it was something God made known at the time, when it was needed.
RJF And it was sufficient. It says, “he cast it into the waters, and the waters became sweet”. There is not any suggestion that there was something that was left that was still bitter, but “the waters became sweet”.
BES Yes, very good.
DAA What would you say about what it says as to Moses that “he cast it into the waters”? It does not seem that he had any instruction in relation to it, but he seemed to see it as the remedy to the situation.
BES Well, there are things from time to time that Moses does without instruction. He seems to have a knowledge by the Spirit of God of what is appropriate at particular times of crisis. Later on he took the tent and pitched it outside the camp, Exod 33: 7. He had no word to do that, but God showed His approval of it by bringing the pillar of cloud to rest upon that tent (v 9), and making the skin of Moses’ face to shine when he came out, Exod 34: 35. So Moses is sufficiently in the current of the thoughts of God, or for us it would be the Spirit of God, to know what to do in an emergency like this.
DCW Is the implication that something was already prepared and available?
BES Oh, surely, yes. God always has something to meet what is needed whether we see it or not.
DCW So that the Lord is available, then, to meet every situation, is He not?
BES Yes.
IMcK What was your impression as to the banner? You have mentioned that twice, in connection with the richness of God’s supply. What were you thinking of then?
BES Well, if there is conflict (because it is brought in in that context), we rally to the Lord or to His word, and that is our banner: ‘Jehovah my banner’, it says. He appropriated it for himself. We get in that section that there was a great need because they were under attack by the Amalekites, and God has His resource of supply in that too, that Moses interceded for them. You have Christ on high making intercession for us. He has no need for His hands to be supported as Moses did, but that was just to show that it depended on that, not that God had any intention of letting Amalek prevail. It was only as long as Moses’ hands were upheld in intercession, that Israel prevailed. So for us there is never any question of Christ’s hands becoming weary. He is always living to intercede for us, Heb 7: 25. So we can be quite confident and rally to that banner, so to speak. ‘Jehovah my banner’, Moses says: we can say ‘our banner’.
RMB There was what had to be rehearsed “in the ears of Joshua” (Exod 17: 14), so that while on the one hand Joshua was to learn, as he did, how God could help him in the present conflict, the banner was also giving him the assurance of final victory, do you think?
BES Yes, because it is the same God throughout.
GJR Psalm 60 is about a time of great trouble for Israel:
Thou hast shewn thy people hard things;
thou hast made us to drink
the wine of bewilderment.
Thou hast given a banner to them that
fear thee, that it may be displayed
because of the truth, (Selah,), v 3, 4.
BES Yes, very good. That is an instructive psalm. It brings in the distinction later on between vessels to honour and vessels to dishonour, and how they have their place in the ways of God; but there is confidence in God, as in the verse you draw attention to,
Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.
PJW It is also said somewhere, “When the adversary shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of Jehovah will lift up a banner against him”, Isa 59: 19. “Will lift up”: there is no doubt, is there? While we may be very weak and faltering, it is the Spirit of the Lord that lifts up the banner, and it is for us to rally to it.
BES That is the point, I think. “When the adversary shall come in like a flood”, well, we can see that in the world. The flood is rising and rising; there is nothing we can do to stop it; but the voice of the Spirit of God is clear, and He is the one that lifts up the banner against the enemy, showing that ultimately there will be victory for the truth.
So we get these riches of supply throughout chapters 16 and 17. The level is not quite so high perhaps in chapter 18 though, in one sense, it is fuller. It points to what there will be in the millennium. But all of it brings out typically “the surpassing riches” of God’s grace (Eph 2: 7); and that, even while we are in these wilderness circumstances, we can appreciate what God supplies and what enables us to go forward for His pleasure, before there is any question raised about the law.
Sunbury
14th October 2017
Key to Initials:
D A Alexander, Sunbury; D C Brown, Edinburgh; R M Brown, Strood; G C Bywater,Buckhurst Hill; R J Flowerdew, Sunbury; T J Harvey, East Finchley; A Martin, Buckhurst Hill; P Martin, Colchester; I McKay, Witney; P H Morris, Sunbury; A E Mutton, Witney; Q A Poore, Swanage; G J Richards, Malvern; C H Smith, Chelmsford; B E Surtees, Colchester; A J E Temple, Sunbury; P J Walkinshaw, Strood; D C White, Bexley