In the book of Exodus, chapter 40.
Chapter 40, the book of Exodus.
Verses 34 to 38.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting,
and the glory of the Lord filled the
tabernacle.
And Moses was not able to enter into
the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode
thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled
the tabernacle.
Then the cloud was taken up from over
the tabernacle.
The children of Israel went onward throughout all
their journeys.
But if the cloud was not taken up,
then they journeyed not till the day that
it was taken up.
For the cloud of the Lord was upon
the tabernacle by day, and there was fire
therein by night, in the sight of all
the house of Israel throughout their journeys.
Let my heart this morning say a little
about divine guidance.
Divine guidance.
A matter which I am quite sure interests
us in a very real way.
On this matter, at any rate, one has
not to try and create a basis for
a world.
It is amongst those matters which are always
very much to the fore in the life
of the children of God.
Now in this matter of guidance, life has
to be viewed as a whole.
That is the first thing about it, and
a very important.
The guidance of the nation of Israel through
the wilderness is always viewed conclusively.
There are such words as he led them
on safely so that they feared not.
He led them by a street path that
they might go to a city of habitation.
In the phases and the stages of the
journey, very often that seemed not to be
true.
They feared not because he led them on
safely by a street path.
In neither of those matters did it always
seem to be true.
But you see, this matter of their guidance,
of their being led by him, is always
viewed conclusively.
The fact is that they got there at
last.
And it is the end and the verdict
which covers the whole course.
And it is like that with divine guidance.
We must recognize this and settle this that
we've got to take life as a whole.
If we only take it at given times
and in given situations, we shall be in
confusion, in contradiction, perhaps with big questions as
to this matter of guidance.
A great deal of perplexity, uncertainty, doubt, and
perhaps a feeling that we've just been left
and there's no guidance at all in our
lives.
But we must take the long view.
And the end will prove that we were
being guided even when we thought otherwise.
The hand was upon us when it seemed
that it was not so.
And divine guidance has to be viewed from
the standpoint of the whole.
Life in its entirety has to be brought
into relation to the guidance of God.
When we have got that clear, and you
know the Word of God does bear that
out very fully, we are able to take
another step.
And to see that this inclusiveness, comprehensiveness, and
conclusiveness of divine guidance is related to two
things.
Firstly, it is related to divine purpose.
All the guidance of God is related to
His purpose.
His purpose is a very clearly defined thing.
A very concrete and definite thing.
A set and fixed object.
And His guidance is completely bound up with
His purpose.
And when His purpose is really governing, has
come to become the sole interest and object
of our lives, there is a sovereignty over
everything.
All things work together for good or for
literally, God works good in all things to
them that love Him and are be called
according to His purpose.
That's a very comprehensive all things.
And the statement is that not one of
the all things is without some good being
definitely put into it and got out of
it by the sovereignty of God when His
purpose dominates.
That cannot be said of the all things
which compose lives which are not so done.
There all things do not work good.
The guidance of God is therefore inseparable from
His purpose.
This is perfectly clear in the case of
Ishmael.
The purpose of God was made known quite
clearly and definitely to bring them into the
land from the beginning.
That was made clear.
It came out so definitely and positively when
they were over Jordan and Joshua was actually
about to lead them in.
The Lord said so definitely to Joshua that
he was to be strong, of good courage,
because he was to bring the people into
the land which the Lord had sworn to
give them.
There is the purpose.
The sworn object of God to bring into
the land.
That was His purpose.
We know that that is a historic figure
and type of what we have in the
New Testament, the heavenly country and all the
riches and fullness of Christ.
That land of Canaan was a land flowing
with milk and honey, wealth, riches, mines, deep
mines, pools, and so on.
It was only a pale foreshadowing of what
came in with Christ.
Oh, the depths of the riches, the unsearchable
riches.
Well, we know all about that.
But this is just to reiterate that the
purpose of God is the fullness of Christ
and all divine guidance is bound up with
that.
And then in the next place, divine guidance
is bound up with and centered in God's
vessel.
Here, in the case of Israel, it is
set forth in the tabernacle.
Immediately the Lord had accomplished the redemption of
His people.
He proceeded to reveal that great design which
embodied His purpose.
The tabernacle, His vessel.
And again, we know so well that the
tabernacle was a two-fold figure of Christ
and His church.
If you like, of Christ, dominant, and then
in corporate expression.
I need not argue that.
I think we shall all agree that was
so.
Christ and His church.
Christ, its foundation.
Christ, its character.
Christ giving it its nature and its meaning.
It taking from Him everything.
That is the vessel of God's purpose.
That was to precede.
That was to be central.
That was to govern.
And all divine guidance was related to that.
This is a point that perhaps has not
been clearly recognized.
This tabernacle is a far, far more important
thing than we have recognized.
We like the pictorial aspect of it.
Very pleased in all this typology of the
tabernacle.
But it has been brought down to such
an earthly level.
Just reflect for a moment.
That for forty days and forty nights in
unceasing communion God was revealing to Moses the
details, the whole conception and construction and constitution
of that tabernacle.
Forty days and forty nights Moses was with
the Lord in the mountain getting this thing.
A pattern, we are told, only a pattern.
A representation of something.
And then when he had from the Lord
received that so meticulously, carefully and fully it
required a definite coming in of the Holy
Spirit to superintend the making of it in
every part and detail.
The whole structure and the whole material.
Men full of the Holy Ghost.
The Holy Spirit definitely in charge of this
thing.
Something here of tremendous significance and account.
It is a great heavenly order of things.
A vast heavenly order of things condensed into
the framework and material of a symbolic representation.
But all that vast heavenly order and system
is there implicit in principle.
And when it was set up all divine
guidance was bound up with it.
Cloud rested.
They could not move.
The people could not move without it.
The tabernacle.
Christ and his church in figure.
It governed all their movements and all their
time.
The girls and just as much the stoppings
and the stay.
You see, the church when it is as
God would have it governs movement.
Determines progress.
God sometimes has to wait for his church
before he can move.
There were those stayings and waitings of the
cloud because things were not right amongst the
people.
Adjustments had got to be made.
Wrongs had got to be righted.
Evil had got to be put away.
There is no movement in the church.
There is no guidance to any further step
or stage or measure until this body is
right.
That could be profitably enlarged upon but it
is a very important thing to see how
God finds out his guidance with the state
of his people with his church.
And how our relationship to the church is
an important factor in the guidance of our
own life.
Not one individual in all the thousands of
Israel was an independent unit in this matter
and could go without the others.
Every individual as such had to wait for
all the rest for their guidance.
Their guidance was a related matter.
That's the point.
Their guidance was a corporate matter.
The cloud rested upon the tabernacle and the
people were bound up with that inseparable from
that.
It was one thing.
These are very important things, dear friends, for
progress, for guidance.
You are exercised about the guidance for your
life Your guidance, if this is true, very
largely, if not absolutely, rests upon these two
things.
God's purpose, the fullness of Christ and God's
means or vessel, his church, are related things.
I know as I speak that difficulties arise
but I can only enunciate the principles at
this time, leaving details for another time.
See then how jealous God was for this
tabernacle.
Jealous over every detail of it and jealous
over relationships to it because he was not
seeing a thing called a tabernacle or a
tent of meeting and all its paraphernalia.
He was seeing his son.
He was seeing his church.
God always has that in you.
Not things, but the eternal reality.
That of which this is only a pattern.
Now then, having said that, you must take
that to heart and think about it.
We may answer some questions, solve some problems.
We know further then.
There was always an element of mystery about
this guidance as there always is.
An element of mystery in this that God's
wisdom and God's knowledge in his ways with
us, in his guidance of us are not
always revealed to us.
The element of faith is always present or
has always to be present and God's wisdom
is a hidden wisdom.
His full knowledge is a secret thing he
does not disclose to us.
His why, his wherefore, what he is doing
and why he is doing it in this
way or that he does not explain.
But there is always a meaning as this
history of Israel shows always a meaning in
each stage of the divine guidance.
There is a meaning at every stage.
There is something there lying within every phase
of the divine movement or the divine non
-movement.
There is something in this.
This is not just a random thing, a
casual thing, an inconsequential thing.
With his purpose in view, God has a
meaning in every phase and every stage of
his ways with us.
And it is important for us to believe
that and always look upon any particular phase
or stage or aspect of our life with
God from that standpoint.
What has God got in this?
This is the thing that matters.
Not let's get out of this as soon
as we can, let's get past this, let's
go on.
See?
No.
What has this got to reveal?
What has this got to teach?
There is something there that God has and
we have to discover it because the cloud
will not move until we have.
Maybe that some of you are in the
stopping place of divine guidance and you are
all restless and hot to get on to
the next phase, the next stage.
You are impatient.
Are you quite sure, are you quite sure
that you have got your hand upon the
meaning of this phase that you are in
and that you have been in?
Are you quite sure?
Are you quite clear that you can say
well, I don't know, I didn't know why
the Lord brought about such a situation, such
an arrest, allowed such an experience, but I
have believed that he had some meaning in
it and I have definitely had this understanding
with him that I don't want to miss
what he's got at this present time because
it's all a part of that cumulative value
which after all is the fullness of Christ.
For the fullness of Christ is not some
place to which you are going, it's some
spiritual life which is growing now.
We've got to eliminate these geographical factors, you
see, from an earthly representation of heavenly things
and remember that here time and distance have
no place at all.
They only have a place if they have
any place at all in this.
That we can proceed years in a moment.
We can take, to use literal terms, miles
spiritually in a step.
You've only got to grasp what God means
in this way that you are determined not
to move until you do know that you
have got what God means by your present
experience.
You only have to grasp it, see it,
come alive to it and you have moved
on years and moved on a great distance.
Time is only a factor while we are
dealing either in apprehension for some reason or
other or in obedience.
You see the point?
Israel could have got through to the land
in nine days and it took forty years.
Why?
Not because the Lord had appointed forty years.
They got because the purpose of God was
not strongly enough settled in their hearts as
all dominating as to rule out personal interests
and considerations.
And so they made the time, not the
Lord.
They made the miles, not the Lord.
I hope you've grasped that.
But let's concentrate there on this one point,
dear friends.
Let us make sure that we are learning
what God is trying to teach us now
because there will be no movement until we
do.
The cloud will not lift and go on
until we've got it in our hands.
What's the Lord been after in all this?
That's vital to the next phase and all
subsequent phases.
You've got it?
You're quite sure about it?
Well, there's something hidden to be discovered and
to be laid hold of in every phase
and stage of the way.
And all that is discipline.
You see, the fact that God has a
great purpose, settled and fixed and clearly defined
and that we are called according thereto and
that there is the working of divine sovereignty,
all that never eliminates the factor of discipline
for the simple reason that God is not
acting mechanically.
It is not a machine put together and
wound up and started going just by itself,
by its own momentum.
Always in God's purpose and His methods with
us there is the element of responsibility.
God never made a machine.
He made man.
Man.
And man is responsibility.
Responsibility.
We are responsible creatures.
Therefore, discipline has its place because no mechanical
reaching His end by God but along the
line of our choice.
Will, of course, is the point, the focal
point of everything.
Will.
That was the trouble with us.
Well, that's the trouble with us all.
It's the will.
There will always be the bafflement of the
human mind very largely, but the way through
is a will that is absolutely set upon
God's end, whatever that may cost.
And then, although there will always be this
element of mystery and perplexity, discipline and instruction,
growing intelligence and responsibility, there will always remain
a large margin for divine sovereignty.
Think again of Paul and his journey to
Rome.
You know what he says, don't you, at
the beginning of his letter to the Romans,
long before he went to them.
The opening of his letter to them told
them of his love and his unceasing prayer
for them.
And then he tells them that he would
have them know that he would have come
to them again and yet again he would
have come to them, but he was hindered.
Here is a man with his heart set
upon the interest of the Lord in his
church as represented in Rome.
He's a man whose life is wholly and
utterly abandoned to Christ and to the church,
who is longing to be able to minister
Christ to them in greater fullness, who purposes
to go and then is hindered and purposes
again and is hindered, seeks to move in
their direction and apparently is frustrated.
For it is on a strength of purpose
and desire for God is here.
The mystery, the mystery of hindrances, frustrations and
delays.
And then at last, long last, how did
he get to Rome?
Very, very differently from what he intended, purposed
and thought.
He had never calculated with that last voyage
and all that was in it.
It seemed on the one hand that all
hell was determined that he shouldn't get there.
On the other hand, God's mysterious way.
We don't know what would have happened if
Paul had just gone to Rome in the
way in which he'd gone elsewhere to other
places, paid a visit, but God had some
infinitely greater thoughts in Paul's at last reaching
Rome than Paul had ever thought.
The mystery of God's ways.
Well, the shipwreck, the shipwreck, the way in
which he did get there, but the historian
just summed it all up in one clause.
And so we came to Rome.
The verdict took a long run.
Mystery between the conception and inception and the
realization.
The mystery of satanic interference.
The mystery of difficulties.
The mysteries of reverses and of shipwreck.
Everything else but the verdict.
And so we came to Rome.
We came to Rome.
Divine guidance has to cover everything.
Paul had settled down on any one of
these incidents.
Divine guidance has to cover everything.
Paul had settled down on any one of
these incidents.
He was in very great difficulty indeed with
the Lord.
He got there.
He got there at last.
You and I, dear friends, are so governed,
dominated, mastered by God's end, the fullness of
Christ and wedded to Christ himself and will
allow the Lord to do it in his
own way and will seek to get hold
of the meaning and value of every part
of the way.
The end is sure.
The end is secure.
The end will be...
And so we came.
Sometimes it looked as though we would never
get there.
Shipwreck, yes, shipwreck in many ways looked very,
very much as though we would never get
there.
But the fact is we're there but we
must see the principles of divine guidance.
First is God's purpose of fullness.
The second is God's vessel of realization.
The Church is the fullness of him and
it is relatedness that is a law of
fullness.
There will always be enough mystery about God's
ways to demand faith which is another law
of guidance.
But sovereignty is over all for such and
no matter what the delays, frustrations, hindrances or
threats at last we shall say right over
all those times and experiences when we thought
so otherwise.
In present situation Jesus led me all the
way.