We are continuing along the line which we
were pursuing yesterday with words
from the first verse of Isaiah 53 as
our guide to whom hath the arm of
the Lord been revealed.
The arm of the Lord.
We are circling round that question seeking
its fullest answer.
I take it that most of us would
in some way or another say that there
is a very great need for the Lord
to show his power.
Perhaps that would be a personal confession.
We would individually say the great need for
the Lord to do something in my life.
Do some new thing and to do some
mighty thing in me personally.
And in my position.
Perhaps it might be in my ministry.
Further, many of us would say that is
the need in the circle of believers with
which we are connected and related.
The great need for the Lord in power
to move and do something.
And we could still further widen the scope,
say, the great need in the whole Church
of God and in the whole world for
the Lord to do something mighty.
I think I should be gathering most of
you into such a confession and realization.
To whom then is the arm of the
Lord revealed?
That is our question for this time.
Now before I go further with that matter
I am going to start to present to
you a hypothetical situation.
Supposing that a very complicated and serious malady
had afflicted a patient.
We will let that patient perhaps be ourselves
or our company or the Church or the
world.
Supposing such a serious condition had arisen with
a patient and the doctor was consulted.
Who, after serious and patient consideration with some
considerable experience, knowledge, no small amount of good
authority came to quite a definite conclusion about
this matter.
And that he knew that he had the
remedy.
He had no question about it at all.
But when he approaches the situation and the
patient he meets one or two difficulties which
would constitute deterrence in his desire to help.
Firstly, he has to explain that his remedy
is going to be painful.
It is not going to be pleasant.
It is going to be totally against all
the predispositions of the patient.
It is going to demand real cooperation perhaps
over an extended period calling for much patience
and faith, a persistence with
him in the matter.
Then he meets another thing.
The patient has heard about this remedy before
perhaps many times.
And the reaction is, well, I've heard so
much about this.
I mean, so much talk about it.
I think you're a one-tracked man who
has nothing but that one thing.
Perhaps you're a crank on that.
Can't you vary it a bit?
Can't you introduce some other lines, a little
more palatable and pleasant?
Must we be tied down to this one
cause?
And then a third thing.
Well, you know, this is not a very
popular thing.
Public opinion has some strong criticisms about this.
And there are many different lines on the
matter.
These are things with which he is confronted.
What should he do?
What would you say that he should do?
Should he give way to these deterring factors,
abandon the situation and the case, or should
he get on with the job?
Let us ask another question or pursue the
matter along another line from the side of
the patient.
What should be the logical attitude of the
patient in this matter?
Should it not be, well, the situation is
serious?
There's no doubt about that.
And it is very complicated.
What are the alternatives?
Do I know of any alternatives?
Are there prospects in other directions and ways
and means?
Have I really given this a thorough trial
and been perfectly honest?
Do I sense the seriousness of my condition
sufficiently to make me brush aside all public
opinion and all personal feelings and reactions and
likes and dislikes and really give myself over
to this matter?
Now, dear friends, that is, although a hypothetical
opposition presentation, that is exactly the position in
which we are.
There is no doubt that there's a great
need in the spiritual life of God's people.
The need for someone to come in with
something that will solve the problems, meet the
needs, clear up this situation, straighten it out,
do a real work of healing.
It is true, isn't it?
And yet there are all these arguments lying
about, you know.
There, there.
So much talk about this particular thing.
We've heard it again and again.
Public opinion is divided on this matter so
greatly.
And this is something that goes altogether against
our grain.
Well, does it not depend upon these two
things whether we realize that the situation is
serious enough to lead us to brush aside
all secondary consideration, to really give the thing
a thorough chance and test, examine
our alternatives.
Have we got any alternatives?
Are there prospects of this whole thing being
better along any other line than this?
And of course you are saying, what is
the line?
What is the remedy?
What is it that you're talking about?
Perhaps some of you have already drawn your
conclusions.
The remedy, the only remedy, the sure remedy
for the whole of our spiritual maladies is
the cross.
The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It's not nice.
It is not pleasant.
It runs counter to all our likes and
predispositions.
It is not popular.
Christian opinion is greatly divided on this matter,
of the work of the cross, and so
on.
But after all, we're left with our condition,
aren't we?
We're left with it.
We're left with our needs.
We're left with the situation.
And whether you realize it or not, the
situation is a very, very critical one in
Christianity, amongst Christians.
Take it from any standpoint.
Dear friends, this whole matter of divisions amongst
the Lord's people is a blight.
It's an evil journey for working of a
deep-seated disease.
It's an evil thing.
It is undermining the whole constitution of the
Church of God.
And so we could go round and face
this thing from many standpoints and find that,
without exaggeration, the situation is really a serious
one.
The Word of God offers us this one
remedy.
It is fully and thoroughly documented.
It has the most established authority behind it.
It has proved itself again and again in
individual lives and in collective life to be
the answer.
It is there.
It's established.
There are no alternatives.
The Word of God offers us no alternative,
no prospect along any other line.
The cross is the answer.
Well, that's my introduction this afternoon, a way
of approaching this matter.
We come then to Isaiah, again to this
section, which is begun in the chapter
previously, as we have pointed out, an unfortunate
chapter division.
Well, 53 ought to begin at verse 13
of chapter 52.
And this section, from verse 13 right through
to the end of 53, shows the cross
to be the remedy for a many-sided
and the most complicated situation in this world.
You see, all the things that show to
make up the situation, you put them together.
When you put them together and recognize what
they signify, you say, my, that's a situation.
Sin, sin.
The Lord hath laid on him.
He bore our sin.
The word there is our errors, our failures,
transgressions.
Stronger word still, which means our rebellion.
Iniquity, which means our perversities.
Well, errors and failures and rebellions and perversities,
these are the beginnings of the melody.
Sicknesses, griefs, sorrows.
And so you make up the case with
the words from this chapter.
When you put them all together, you say,
well, that patient is in very poor state.
That indeed is a serious outlook.
And the chapter as a whole has as
its object, this object, to show that the
cross of the Lord Jesus is the remedy
for it all.
The answer to it all.
By the cross of the Lord Jesus, the
whole thing is dealt with and cleared up.
Is not that the result of this chapter?
Of course it is.
That lies right on the surface.
But here we must stand back for a
moment to take account of two things.
A question is asked at this point, and
then the rest of the chapter is the
answer to that question.
Who is the arm of the Lord revealed?
Let that arm of the Lord be God
coming into this situation.
Coming in with skill, coming in with power,
with wisdom, with ability to deal with and
clear up this situation.
That's the arm of the Lord.
And the chapter says that the cross is
the answer.
The cross is the arm of the Lord
coming in.
Coming in in power.
Now, in relation to this whole situation, in
all its aspects and in every detail, the
cross is the arm of the Lord.
It is the arm of the Lord against
this whole condition.
The cross is set against this whole condition.
That, of course, is perfectly obvious.
The arm of the Lord is against this
state of things.
It is the arm of the Lord unto
a new condition.
Unto a certain clearly defined end.
That end is our second thing.
The end for the arm of the Lord
is the exaltation and the vindication of Jesus
Christ.
The arm of the Lord is for that.
But the exaltation and the vindication of Jesus
Christ demand that the cross clears up this
situation.
Because you can see that that is once
again the New Testament issue.
It is because the situation was cleared up
at Calvary that Jesus was exalted and vindicated.
But that is the end to which the
arm of the Lord is extended and revealed.
In other words, that is the end which
the cross has in view and secured.
The exaltation and vindication of Christ in power
and, note, in posterity.
Those two things bound this whole section.
You notice chapter 52, 13.
My servant shall be exalted and lifted up
and shall be very high.
That's right at the beginning.
Coming back to that in a minute.
Right at the end of the chapter he
shall see his feet.
He shall see the travail of his soul.
In power, very high.
In posterity, his feet.
In other words, his church.
He is vindicated and exalted.
Exalted and vindicated.
And that is by the cross.
Now, dear friends, that brings matters very closely
home to us.
Because the first challenge of this whole thing
is to our concern, our concern for Christ's
exaltation and Christ's vindication.
See, that's the issue that it raises.
How much are we, let us ask ourselves,
individually, discretion, how much are we really concerned
for the exaltation and the vindication of the
Lord Jesus?
I have no doubt whatever that if I
approached you individually and asked you, or if
I asked you to give a signal as
a company on this matter, you would say
I am very greatly concerned for the exaltation
of the Lord Jesus.
Indeed, there is nothing that I would desire
and work for more than the exaltation of
the Lord Jesus.
And for his vindication, he should be vindicated.
What greater thing could we live for and
work for than that?
You would say that.
I have no doubt about it, if I
put it to you.
But do you know, dear friends, that the
proof of your concern and that which measures
your concern is your preparedness to accept the
cross.
There is no other way of the exaltation
and vindication of the Lord Jesus than by
the way of the cross.
We shall prove whether we really are concerned
and how much we are concerned by how
much we are prepared to accept this work
of the cross in ourselves, clearing up every
situation that is dishonoring to the Lord.
Oh, it's so easy for us to talk,
to preach about the exaltation of the Lord
Jesus, his enthronement, his glorifying.
Yes, it's very wonderful to talk like that.
And, of course, it is a very great
thing, this Church of his, the Church of
Christ.
Yes, the great masterpiece of God, the Church,
which is the body of Christ, we talk
about it.
But the test as to whether really, really
that has got a grip upon our inward
life is just how much we'll let the
cross work in us.
Because those things are not practicable.
They are not possible of realization, his exaltation
and his Church, only by the work of
the cross in believers.
I say that's a challenge that arises at
once, and it is very certain.
It will come to that as we go
along, sooner or later it will come to
that.
All our language and all our talk and
all our pretensions and everything will be challenged
by this.
Yes, but are you prepared to allow the
cross to work in you in this particular
matter, that particular relationship, in this thing about
yourself, and in this thing in your connection?
Be prepared to let the cross do with
that.
The answer to that will just prove whether
really after all we have a concern for
Christ's exaltation and vindication.
Our concern for these will be shown in
our estimate of the cross and by our
attitude toward it.
Oh, if we are going to say, well,
we've heard so much about this cross.
It's the one line thing.
If we can take any attitude like that
to in any way belittle the cross, make
the cross something less than God has made
it.
If our attitude can be one that underestimates
the importance of the cross, we can accept
any of these other arguments, then that is
the proof that we have not yet become
gripped inwardly by this concern for the exaltation
of the Lord Jesus.
He would never have been exalted but for
his cross.
Don't forget that.
Wherefore, wherefore, Why for?
He became obedient unto death, yea, the death
of the cross were for God.
I will exalt him.
He would never have been exalted and he
never is exalted in principle only in so
far as the work of the cross is
wrought in his people.
Well, that of course again is very simple,
very clear, isn't it?
If the cross is not dealt with things
in you and in me, well, the Lord
Jesus is not glorified.
And as for his church, the church would
never have been but for the cross.
It never can be but for the cross.
Its beginning, its continuation, its growth, its consummation
is always by the law of the cross.
Every little bit of addition spiritually and numerically
to the church is by means of the
cross.
No other way.
So it's very challenging and very testing to
us.
Now, here again the spirit of God shows
that God's ways and means are always positive
and not negative.
I don't want to say that with emphasis
and I want you to underline that in
your mind.
God's ways are always constructive and not destructive.
God's ways are always purposeful and not at
an end in themselves.
And if God's inclusive way, God's inclusive, comprehensive
way and means is the cross, let it
be understood now once and forever that God
by the cross is working to an end,
a large end.
The cross is never intended to end with
destruction.
It is never intended to end with a
negative.
God is working for some great thing and
he uses the cross in this positive way.
In this positive way.
You see, the weakness in our apprehension of
the cross, the weakness in our apprehension of
the cross is largely due to a misapprehension
of the cross.
That is, our apprehension or our misapprehension of
the cross is that it is destructive.
It is negative.
It is death.
We revolt against that.
We don't want to always be talked to
about this death of the cross.
Death, death, death.
You can so preach the cross as to
bring in death, to bring in a state
of death, but that's a mispreaching and that
is a misapprehension.
That is not God's interpretation of the cross
at all.
Let me repeat.
The Holy Spirit here shows quite clearly that
God's ways and means are always positive and
not negative.
They are always unto something more and not
something less.
Not to an end, but to a new
fullness.
If only we could really grasp that.
It would transfigure the cross.
The Lord applies it.
The Lord challenges us with it.
What do we do?
We revolt.
We draw back.
We don't like it.
We react negatively to it.
Why?
Simply because we have not seen that in
this application of the cross God is definitely
set upon something more than there ever has
been in our lives.
In our fellowship, in our company, in his
church, God is definitely at work by this
application of the cross to get something transcendentally
more than ever there has been.
That is the law of God.
God is not a negative God.
Other gods are negative gods, but our God
is not a negative God.
He is not working to bring things to
annihilation, to an end.
He has a very large purpose before him
in all his ways and in all his
means.
What we really have to see, dear friends,
is that whatever the cross may negative, it
will negative some things, but whatever it does
negative, it is God's most positive instrument in
securing spiritual, heavenly, and eternal values.
The cross is God's most positive instrument in
securing enlargement of that which will abide forever.
But having said that, we can never have
God's yes, God's yes, the arm of the
Lord, until we have accepted God's no.
Because the cross in the first place does
represent God's no.
But if we will come and accept God's
no, then the way is clear for us
to come right into God's yes.
I mark you, his name is not no.
His name is yea and amen.
He is the God amen, the positive, the
verily, the God of purpose.
So it is very necessary for us to
move on to the established basis that God
always comes in with a mind to create
or to recover, to build, and to increase.
We could believe that of the Lord even
in our most devastating times, our most devastating
times when everything seems to be taken away,
being stripped and stripped, and all is going.
It seems to be a process of reduction.
We can see an end coming, we think.
If only we will believe that God is
working not to bring values to an end,
but to increase them.
He knows why he is doing it in
that way, but that must be our ground.
He is ploughing, he is digging, he intends
a harvest, he intends something more.
He knows, I say, why he is doing
it in that way, we don't, but I
can tell you one thing.
God is at work by the cross to
make things safe for himself.
But I can tell you one thing.
God is at work by the cross to
make things safe for himself.
Now supposing, supposing the arm of the Lord
was revealed to us, to you, to me.
Supposing the arm of the Lord was revealed
in the company with which we are connected,
in the place where we are, in the
work in which we are engaged.
Supposing the Lord came out with his mighty
arm and showed that arm in prospering, in
increasing, what would happen?
What would happen?
Oh, I know you won't agree with it
because you don't feel that it would be
true in your case, but that is just,
you see, where the heart is deceived, where
our hearts are deceived.
I know what would happen.
You and I would come into the picture.
You and I would begin to strut about
in this thing that is growing and enlarging
and prospering and becoming something, something to take
note of.
We'd be just walking around like peacocks with
our tails all spread out.
And we would, if not literally, we would
be wearing a badge, superintendent.
It would be written large on us.
Or general manager.
We begin to talk about the things.
If people began to talk about it, how
pleased we would feel.
If the news of it spread, how gratified
we should be.
That's the infinite peril that God will not
run the risk of allowing in what is
wholly of himself.
I'll tell you something.
I don't want you to repeat it or
publish it or write about it.
You know we have been out there to
the Far East and we have seen the
arm of the Lord revealed.
There is no doubt about it.
You'll have to confess, dear friends, that if
in seven short years a work has grown
from eight people divided by 200 miles far
down there and far up here, in seven
years that has grown into 20,000 with
over 50 assemblies and is still growing and
still growing and has a large spiritual measure.
You say that's the arm of the Lord.
You cannot touch it.
You cannot see it.
You cannot feel it without seeing the arm
of the Lord.
Especially if you know what it has cost.
And if you know how utterly dependent upon
the Lord everyone is.
And if you mark the deep humility, one
thing that impresses you is those in responsibility
are always trying to hide themselves.
Most beautiful thing to see young men who
have come on and been given responsibility just
all the time trying to hide themselves.
Keep out of view.
And never, never coming forward unless they are
drawn out.
It's a beautiful thing.
I'm not surprised that the arm of the
Lord should be revealed.
It's like that.
But the brother who is now in the
place of our dear brother, Watchman Lee, responsible
for that whole work under the Lord, said
to me again this time, He said, Brother,
I want you to know that Brother Lee's
life principle was this.
Try to keep things as small as you
can.
Try to keep things as small as you
can.
And if there's going to be enlargement increase,
let it be in spite of yourself.
Let it be God's doing and not because
you have done anything to try and make
it big.
Try to keep it small and let God
do, in spite of you, what he wants
to do.
He said, That was Brother Lee's life principle.
That's the explanation of everything.
He said, We never, never try to make
things big.
We do nothing to make them public, popular.
I beg of you not to publicize.
Not to let this thing become known.
Keep it covered.
Now perhaps I'm violating his request in saying
this, but I say to you in confidence
that you will respect and honor the principle.
But it's to that that the arm of
the Lord is revealed, dear friend.
See?
The Lord must make things safe for himself
so that if he does stretch out his
mighty arm and do something, and do something,
you and I will not begin to pocket
the credit.
Be something in it.
We shall be a hidden and a covered
people.
I cannot say how important that is, but
here it is, you see.
Here it is.
Is not this perhaps one of the deepest
underlying laws of the arm of the Lord
where Christianity has been concerned?
Why that growth, expansion which has never been
paralleled through the centuries?
As at the beginning?
Why?
Because the Church was stripped and peeled and
broken and emptied and battered and bruised and
persecuted because it preached Christ crucified as the
wisdom of God and the power of God.
And the world would not have it.
The arm of the Lord was revealed to
that.
The Church was not trying to avoid the
offense of the cross in order to find
a place in this world.
No.
It preached the cross.
It preached Christ crucified.
It was not ashamed of that.
It cost everything.
And the arm of the Lord was revealed.
Tremendous lesson for us, isn't it?
So, it comes back here, you see, that
this chapter in Isaiah, which is the quintessence
of the New Testament and of all God's
ways, shows us that the arm of the
Lord is revealed to that humbled and broken
and emptied and despised and crucified servant.
And it's an abiding law.
An abiding law.
Let there be no mistake about it.
If you and I have a managerial spirit,
an assertive spirit, a serene, confident spirit, or
anything like that, fullness, the arm of the
Lord will not be revealed.
But again I say, if he is stripping
and emptying and pouring out and seeming to
bring to naught, he is doing it to
make things safe for him to stretch out
his arm.
Will you believe that?
I say again, he's the God of the
positive and not the negative.
He will stretch out his arm if he
is allowed to complete, to perfect that work
of undercutting everything that would take glory from
himself.
You and I don't know how much there
is in us of that kind, do we?
We think that we've just about touched bottom.
We've come to the end.
There's nothing left in us.
Well, we don't know.
We don't know what would happen if the
whole situation suddenly changed and took the upward
road and began to enlarge.
We come in again.
This inveterate flesh crosses the only way of
the glory.
It is the great clearing instrument.
Now at that point, of course, we open
up another field of tremendous importance.
I want you to note that while this
is in Isaiah and set in such a
wonderful place in Isaiah, I suppose you know
the analysis of these prophecies.
The first thirty-five chapters are occupied with
a wide sweep of judgments beginning, as always,
note that, beginning as always with the people
of God.
That's the divine law.
How can he judge the world until he
has judged his own people?
A wide sweep of judgments beginning with God's
own people.
Chapters thirty-six to thirty-nine, just a
little interval dealing with Hezekiah and then on
chapter forty to sixty-six, the section of
restoration and rebuilding.
Now, chapter fifty-three is midway in the
last section.
That's so significant.
Midway in this last section are twenty-six
chapters which have to do with a new
prospect with recovery and rebuilding.
Thirteen chapters on each side of fifty-three.
That's the center of building and recovery.
It gives the cross the central place in
building, in recovery.
That is always true, isn't it?
But when you have said that about Isaiah
you might react and say, well, that's ancient
history, long ago and far away.
But I would like here to put in
a long parenthesis.
This whole thing is brought right into the
dispensation in which you and I are living.
And it is brought in with the letter
to the Romans.
The letter to the Romans.
You know that letter?
The first section is the sweep of divine
judgment, isn't it?
Over the whole race in Adam.
Sweep of divine judgment.
It's God's knowledge.
It comes right up to the focal point
of chapter six, the cross.
And that chapter is placed there in that
connection over against this whole situation which has
gone before to say the cross says no
forever to all that.
From chapter six you move to the positive,
don't you?
Into chapter seven, chapter eight, you're moving out
of that old situation into a new.
In chapter eight you come into an altogether
new prospect, altogether new opening up.
There is therefore now no condemnation.
All that which was condemned has been dealt
with in the cross.
No condemnation.
We are in Christ Jesus.
The law of the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus has made us free from the
law of sin and death.
Now all this new wonderful prospect is in
here.
What does it amount to?
It says this, God came on the scene
with the object of laying the foundation for
and building his wonderful and glorious church.
For that was ever the movement of God.
He came on the scene and he looked
at the situation in order to find a
foundation for that glorious church without spot or
wrinkle of any such thing.
And what did he find?
He found all that state of things in
those early chapters of the letter to the
Romans.
A deplorable description of things in this.
What a description it is.
You ought to go back to it and
read it again.
The tangle, the complication, the sin, the corruption.
Oh, what evils are in those first chapters
of Romans.
That's what he found when he came to
lay down a foundation for his glorious church.
He said, I can't put a foundation on
that.
I can't found my church on that.
I must clear this whole situation, burn it
in fire, clear it all, of all this
state of things.
And the cross did it too.
So the cross, like the mighty brazen altar,
the intense fires of judgment dealt with that
tangled, distorted state of things.
And now God has put down his foundation,
Christ crucified.
After that, there's a new prospect for building
the church.
I've got to leave it there this afternoon,
take it up there perhaps later.
But you see, this is the interpretation of
the cross.
It's to get rid, to get rid of
everything that makes it impossible for God to
really get on with what he wants to
do.
What he has in mind, he has come
with purpose.
But he finds things in the way.
He says, that must be dealt with.
And his means of dealing with it is
the cross, to clear the way for a
new prospect.
That new prospect we shall have to look
at again.
But I do want to finish, even at
this point, on the positive note again.
Oh, do believe it.
When you hear this phrase, the cross, guard
your mind against that sudden uprising, oh, the
cross again, the cross again.
And that interpretation given to the cross, oh,
it's all death, it's all crucifixion, it's all
negative.
Don't you have it?
That is Satan's twist that is given to
this most wonderful instrument of God for realizing
his glorious purposes.
When you hear the cross, you say, that
means prospect then.
That means something more, not less.
That means a clearing of the way.
That means that God's arm is going to
be revealed.
The Lord has done it.