Exodus 3:1 - 4; Exodus 19:3 - 6; Matthew 28:18 - 20; Ephesians 3:14 - 19; Revelation 21:2 - 4

I desire to say a word about God Himself. The expression comes into the last passage we have read, "God himself shall be with them, their God", and in Exodus 19 Jehovah says to the children of Israel, "I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself". There can be no greater blessedness than to know God Himself. He has redeemed a people, of which Israel was but a type, that we, in our day, might know God Himself.

Redemption has involved the outshining of the glory of God in its radiance. God's glory was seen in creation; the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows His handiwork, but the radiancy, the full radiancy of God's glory is now shining in the face of a Man. The face of a man (I am speaking now of man as a creature) is a wonderful creation. The face of a man is capable of reflecting the attributes of God; that is not true in the same sense of any creature other than man. A man's face can express love, pity, compassion, mercy, joy, anger and God made man in His image and glory that man's face might be expressive of these things. Man sinned and comes short of the glory of God; but God has displayed His glory in a surpassing way in effecting redemption. Paul speaks of subsisting glory, abounding glory and surpassing glory in 2 Corinthians 3. The ministry of righteousness abounds in glory; it is God's righteousness with glory bright that is ministered in the gospel. The way God has wrought in redemption is so glorious that it has brought all that He is in His nature and attributes into display. And all is shining in the face of Jesus Christ, the Man who effected redemption, the Man who glorified

God on the earth and finished the work which He gave Him to do. What a face is the face of Jesus! None can compare with that. He is not a creature, yet He is a Man, and in that glorious Man every feature of the divine glory finds expression. One look from that face broke Peter down. What a face is the face of Jesus, and we shall yet see Him face to face! But in the Spirit's power, we already behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face; we are already in the light of the glory. I speak of this as a preliminary matter, because we could never have been brought to God Himself, if the work of redemption had not been accomplished, if God's glory had not been upheld in such a manner that it shines out now radiant in the face of Jesus, in such a manner too, that we can find our home in the glory. It invites us. It would have repelled and expelled us, but now it invites us, because God's righteousness has been maintained, and God has been completely vindicated, and a basis has been laid on which His love can flow freely towards us.

But all this is in view of our being brought to God Himself. He says, "Ye have seen what I have done to the Egyptians". He is referring to what was typical of the great work of redemption; and then He says, "I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself". Where do we find God Himself? Not in Egypt; God is not to be found in the world as a system. If we want to find God Himself, at the present time we shall find Him in the wilderness. That is where we first come into contact with God Himself. He may have dealings with us in Egypt, but when it is a question of bringing us to Himself, it is a wilderness position. And it is touching to think that God was there in the wilderness before the people were there. Moses found Him there, at the bush. The bush burned with fire, and was not consumed, and Moses says, "Let me now turn aside

and see this great sight, why the thorn bush is not burnt". I would link that with the gospel of John, which shows how God has come into the wilderness. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God", and then, "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have contemplated his glory". God was there; God had come into wilderness circumstances. The wilderness circumstances lay in the fact that He was in the world, and the world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. The world was a wilderness to Christ; He grew up as a tender plant and as a root out of a dry ground. There was nothing here to minister to Him. And the world becomes a wilderness to us as we recognise the truth of what He said of believers, that they are not of the world even as He was not of the world. We are no more of the world than Christ is. The world hated Him, and it was a wilderness to Him, and the world hates the believer; the true believer finds it nothing but a wilderness. Sad it is, indeed, if any one of us finds the world anything but a wilderness. Mr. Darby says:

"This world is a wilderness wide,
I have nothing to seek nor to choose". (Hymn 139)

Would to God that were true of every one of us! We have nothing to seek nor to choose here; it is a wilderness; it is a question of letting God order, and letting God provide, as subject to His movements. The moment we begin to seek and to choose, and to make our own path in it, it is evident that the world is not a wilderness to us. The man to whom the world is a wilderness leaves his course with God. He lets God order his matters, he is shut up to God. His objective is not to make a home in the wilderness, but to arrive at the land of God's purpose. But it is touching to think that God has been in the wilderness before us, because the Lord Jesus has been here, and in His being here, God Himself was in the wilderness,

where He could be contemplated. He said of Himself, "Before Abraham was, I am". He uses the same name which the God who dwelt in the bush used to Moses in Exodus. The name "I Am" and the name "Jehovah" attach not only to the Son, but equally to the Father and to the Spirit. Jehovah was in the wilderness of old; that was the name by which He was known to the children of Israel; Jehovah was their God. Now God has come into expression in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and we know Him thus. As a name of relationship governing the dispensation, the name of Jehovah has given place to the name of Father, but in a personal sense the name by which we know God now is "the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", to which we are baptised, for only thus have we the full disclosure in a personal way of the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The Father is to be known; the Son is to be known; the Spirit is to be known. In coming into the wilderness we are coming into a place where God has been before us, and indeed still is, as He says, "I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself". The wilderness is designed so that we might know in a personal way the God who has brought us to Himself.

We see His glory shining upon us in the face of Jesus. We are attracted by it; we know and are sure of our salvation because of what Christ has done, and the glory which He has secured to God. But all that is to lay a basis for us to know God Himself in a personal way, and the personal name of God for us is the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. That name is not connected exactly with the solution of moral questions, nor with the vindication of God's glory. If we think of the glory of God we think of God as God, in His nature and attributes. Moral issues had to be settled that God might be glorified. But it was in view of God being

known to us in a personal way, as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We begin to learn these personal links in the wilderness, and to learn them in an experimental way, in which we could never learn them in any other setting. The wilderness becomes a place of extreme value, when we understand that God has borne us on eagles' wings and brought us to Himself. If we understood that we should not want the world to be anything but a wilderness, because, if it becomes anything but a wilderness to us, we have lost God Himself. We may still maintain a profession, we may still be breaking bread, but we have lost God as to all practical joy and communion if we give up the idea of the wilderness. How our hearts cling to Egypt, as the children of Israel did! How we lust after the world and its things. How we cling to earth! I want to make the wilderness attractive to you, I want to make the world entirely unattractive, so that you should not look upon it any other way than as a wilderness.

The value of being in it, the only reason we want to stay in it, is because of the opportunity to learn God. God is with us in it, so we are not asking to be taken out of it. The Lord did not ask for His own to be taken out of it. He said, "I do not demand that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them out of evil". "Sanctify them by the truth. Thy word is truth". So the wilderness is a most valuable place, because we have the companionship, if I might use such a word, of God Himself. We are brought to God. The Lord has suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God. Far be it from us, dear brethren, to look upon this world as anything but a wilderness from now onwards, however we may have regarded it hitherto. It was when the children of Israel accepted the wilderness, that the glory of Jehovah appeared. They had passed through the Red Sea, and Matthew 28:19

is the Red Sea for us. What a marvellous thing baptism is in the light of that verse! As coming out of Egypt, as leaving the world, God's thought is that we should be brought into all the blessedness that is connected with God Himself; and, I say again, God Himself involves the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is a personal matter. The very idea of baptism is that we are baptised to the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. That is the objective. "Is the wilderness before thee?" It is in one sense, but the great thing is that in baptism we are not occupied with the wilderness that is before us; we are occupied with the God to whom we are brought. We are to learn what the Father will be to us in the wilderness; we are to learn what the Lord Jesus Christ will be to us, in the wilderness; we are to learn what the Spirit will be to us, in the wilderness. What a blessed thing that we can take up the wilderness with that in our minds! The wilderness becomes an attractive place when we realise that God Himself is there. I would not like to be anywhere but in the wilderness at the present time. I would like to be in the land in my spirit as opportunity occurs, but in actuality I would not like to be anywhere but in the wilderness.

It is said in Exodus that "when Aaron spoke to the people they turned towards the wilderness"; they accepted it. Up till that time, they had not turned thus. But when Aaron spoke to them they really faced the position. And instead of seeing a barren land where drought abides, full of pitfalls, with no path in the waste, teeming with difficulties, what did they see? They saw the glory of Jehovah. The world cannot show us anything like that; we shall never know it unless we are out of the world. It typifies the glory of the Father by which Christ was raised from among the dead according to Romans 6 and which now shines upon those who

"are become identified with him in the likeness of his death", verse 4, 5. This has to be distinguished from the glory of God. The glory of God is the radiancy of God which has shone out in the establishment of divine righteousness with glory bright. That is the basis of everything. But the glory of the Father involves the tender personal affections of the Father. The Father Himself, the Lord says, loves you. He knows every one of us better than we know ourselves --- He, of whom the Lord says, "Thine they were, and thou gavest them me". We were His in purpose before the ages of time. What glory attaches to the Father, what glory of love and grace connected with purpose conceived before the world began, and carried through in spite of the sin question! Not that redemption was an afterthought. Peter speaks of precious blood of Christ as of a lamb "foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world". All was to be established on the ground of redemption; but, nevertheless, the glory of the Father is connected with the purpose of divine love which lies behind all else, and so the Lord says, "Thine they were and thou gavest them me". We belonged to the Father in purpose before we belonged to anybody, and He gave us to the Son. What a personal matter! It is God Himself, known in a personal way. As they looked towards the wilderness they saw the glory of Jehovah, typifying the glory of the Father, the One who foreknew, whose we were in a past eternity, and who gave us to the Son. The glory of His love is such that it enters into every detail of the formation and history and circumstances of each one of us. The One whose we were, and who gave us to the Son, is the One who watches over us, as our hymn says.

"A holy Father's constant care
Keeps watch with an unwearying eye". (Hymn 138)

As we accept the wilderness, we come into the light of the glory of that blessed Person, His personal interest in us, His personal care, which extends down to every detail of wilderness need. The Lord says, "Your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things", so He says "Do not be careful about your life, what ye should eat, and what ye should drink, nor for your body, what ye should put on". How much thought we are apt to give to these things. "All these things do the nations seek after"; that is the principle on which people of the world live. People who are engrossed in such things are not in the wilderness. But the Lord Jesus says, "Your heavenly Father knows that ye have need of all these things"; but "seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you". In the light of this, wilderness difficulties disappear. All circumstantial difficulties disappear in the light of the Father's glory, and we are able to step out in the wilderness in newness of life, walking in a new way altogether, walking as Jesus walked, walking in the sunshine of the Father's love and care, restful in Him, trusting in Him, and thus free to care for His interests. What a wonderful thing!

Then in Romans 7, the apostle speaks of our being to another, to the Christ. We "have been made dead to the law by the body of the Christ", speaking to us of the love of the Christ. When His body is mentioned, His love is especially in mind. Think of the love of that blessed Man, the One of whom, when Paul speaks of His coming after the flesh, He says immediately, "Who is over all, God blessed for ever", yet truly Man. We are dead to the law by His body. The law condemned us to death, the death of a curse, and He has taken that upon Himself, in His body, so that the bond of law, which could only bring condemnation and death, might be broken, and that we might be to Him.

The blessed Spirit of God is the bond of union between every individual Christian and the Lord; He that is united to the Lord is one Spirit. And thus we come into personal and experimental relationship with the Man Christ Jesus, that blessed Man who yet is God. It could not be said, I believe, that we are to be to another if He were not God. Not that the link is with Him in Godhead; it is with Him, in manhood. But I believe it would be idolatry for such a link to be asserted in place of the law which God had given, if He were less than God in His Person. We are to "be to another, who has been raised up from among the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God".

Then in chapter 8, where it is a question of sin in the flesh, we find that our wants and woes bring suited grace. There is the grace and love of the Father in chapter 6, the grace and love of the Lord Jesus who has delivered us from the power of law and the curse in chapter 7, the grace and power of the Spirit delivering us from the law of sin and death in chapter 8. "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus", Paul says, "has set me free from the law of sin and death". So in these chapters we come to know, in an experimental way, the God who has borne us on eagles' wings and brought us to Himself. We begin to learn what the word 'Himself' means; we begin to have experimental knowledge of the love and grace of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. And it is well to note how much is said about the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, because in the wilderness we so specially need the Spirit and all that He would be to us in our life of responsibility and testimony, our wilderness life of suffering here. Let us explore more and more what the Spirit would be to us. He dwells in us, sets us free from the law of sin and death, is life in us, giving us power to put to

death the deeds of the body so that we should live; and then it says, "for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God". In the wilderness, in the circumstances of pressure, He is the Spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father. And not only is He all that to us as in us, but He is with us, in the wilderness, because it is said, "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit". He Himself is accompanying us. We are accustomed to that idea of Him being with us as well as in us collectively, but it is true, also, as in the wilderness, individually. "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are children of God". "The Spirit joins also its help to our weakness", and "the Spirit itself makes intercession with groanings which cannot be uttered". What a Comforter He is in the wilderness, accompanying us all the way, never leaving us! If we give Him His place, He will keep us ever in the enjoyment of our bond of union with Christ, and of our relationship with the Father. Thus that blessed Name to which we are baptised, the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, becomes a reality to us in the wilderness. And the end of Romans 8 suggests a soul who, in the power of all this, can raise a triumphant note, "If God be for us, who can be against us?" and he is persuaded that nothing can separate us "from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord". It is a soul in triumph in the wilderness, in the knowledge of God, known in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

A soul in triumph thus in the wilderness will soon arrive at the land. In Ephesians 3 the apostle describes the land. The land for us is not heaven actually, but it is heaven enjoyed now. It means that we enter now into the realm of divine purpose, and so the apostle prays to the Father about it. The Father and the Son and the Spirit are brought into that prayer, not now in relation to the wilderness,

but in relation to the realm of God's purpose. God is with us in the wilderness with a view to our arriving now, in the present time, at "Canaan's long loved dwelling"; arriving at the present enjoyment of our eternal portion; and the experiences of the wilderness are such that we arrive in the realm of purpose furnished with wonderful substance. When we actually reach heaven, and the wilderness is actually over, what we have acquired in the knowledge of God in the wilderness will remain substance in our souls and contribute to the praise of God through eternity. "There no stranger-God shall meet thee". See how important the wilderness is! God will fill heaven with those who have known Him and proved Him experimentally in a personal way in adverse circumstances, where they were shut up to Him, where they had no one but Him. How wonderful that God is going to fill heaven with people like that! No wonder He affords wilderness experiences. How important it is!

But then we are privileged to enter heaven in some measure, in our spirits now, and the Father is engaged to help us in it. It is touching to think of the Father helping and strengthening us, to enter the land. It is no geographical movement with us, just as the wilderness is no geographical movement. The world becomes a wilderness; we are still in the same place; and in Ephesians 3 we are still in the same place geographically, but the Father strengthens us by His Spirit in the inner man, so that we might be brought in our spirits into the realm of His purpose now. What a wonderful thing! And so in this passage we come to God Himself in a fuller way than we could do in the wilderness. As far as experimental matters go, the wilderness is unique, but when we arrive at the realm of divine purpose, we come to fulness. It is not simply the glory of the Father, but "that he may give you according to the riches of his glory".

As we enter the realm of purpose, we discover the riches of the Father's glory as coming into a realm where every family is named of Him in heaven and on earth. We enter into the wealth of the Father's love in a way that we could not do in the wilderness. The wilderness is unique and will never be repeated, but it is in view of our reaching, even now in our spirits, the realm of purpose, where as having known the glory of the Father in the wilderness we now can apprehend the riches of His glory. Also we have known the love of the Christ in the wilderness, but according to this prayer, we are to know the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge. It is fulness here. In Romans it is, "Who shall separate us from the love of the Christ"; that is in the wilderness, but when we come to the realm of purpose, and know love in its own sphere, it is the love of the Christ which surpasses knowledge. Similarly, as to the Spirit, Paul prays that He would strengthen us with power by His Spirit in the inner man. We have the idea of the power of the Spirit in Romans 8, but here there is a double thought, "that he would give you to be strengthened with power by his Spirit". Everything here is superlative, and so it is said that we might be "filled even to all the fulness of God". It is God Himself in His fulness. We begin with being baptised to the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and we end with being filled to "all the fulness of God". It is the same preposition meaning "to" or "into".

The verses in Revelation go on to finality, in the new heavens and the new earth, and we have this final word, "the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God Himself shall be with them, their God". The men that God Himself is with includes the assembly, and no doubt includes the other saved families of men. But the assembly forms the tabernacle

itself; the assembly is the tabernacle of God. How near to God are those who form that tabernacle! How near they must be, when it is said, even of saved men generally, that God Himself is with them! He is with them through His tabernacle, as dwelling in His tabernacle. Then how near He must be to those who form that tabernacle. This is the way we are to learn God in the assembly now, the nearness in which we are to God Himself. Who will understand this expression like the assembly, those who form the tabernacle itself? God Himself shall be with them; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, God Himself, personally known, shall be with them, their God. "He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes". What a touching thing that is! He does not trust an angel to do it; He does not ask a saint to do it. It shows how personal this matter is. I suppose God Himself is the only One who can effectually wipe away tears, the tears that flow from the feelings of the divine nature in the saints. We can know something of this even at the present time, for we are still in the vale of tears, and, before the Lord comes it may be we shall have many more tears to shed. But God is able to wipe them away, and we prove it, especially on occasions of assembly privilege. God Himself does it, how touching that is!

He does not depute it to anybody else; He wipes away every tear from their eyes. What a loving action! What a God we have! In the light of it we can indeed say that God is love, and we can bow in worship before that God. In the desert He teaches us the God that we have found, but then we shall know Him also in home surroundings through all eternity -- God Himself known in a personal way, and in personal relationships. May the Lord bless the word for His Name's sake!

Markinch, January 2nd, 1954.

(From Words of Grace and Comfort 1954, page 202)