Exodus 3:1 - 18; Isaiah 63:11 - 14; Deuteronomy 33:1 - 5
Reading at Hamilton, Scotland, May 1963
P.L. We have the subject of leadership before us, if the Lord will. We looked at it in relation to Christ in the gospels yesterday, bearing upon the glory of a descending Leader, the true Hebrew Servant who said, "I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go free" (Exodus 21:5). God's standard for leadership, as in everything else, must be Christ. In Christ's absence He sovereignly raises up leaders who, in the spirit of Christ, are ready to die for the saints. Paul of course sets that forth in a peculiar way, and now leadership is essential to the saints going forward in rank, under authority from the Lord, but wielded by Him in the Spirit's power through vessels that are in His mind and are ready to go forward. What marks a leader are moral qualities, that is spontaneity and initiative, discerning the way the Lord is going and, as following hard after
Him, they are able to give a lead to the saints. The spirit of leadership is to pervade in the assembly, as supported by the mutuality proper to Christ's body amongst the saints. So that there is nothing official or arbitrary, it is winsome as after Christ, whose leading we all owe everything to, and ever will. He leads them out, as the Shepherd in a love that is irresistible, because it is His. So that leadership does suppose a state in the saints, which the disciples in attachment to Christ furnished -- "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast words of life eternal" (John 6:68). That leadership now supposes a state amongst the saints, however few, that is leadable and will go forward with God. For He cannot be static in such a scene, all is moral death around and life essentially must move, and must move intelligently, normally in manhood. Movement is not to be like that in christendom -- beating the air. Movement is to be definite, to a divine goal, defined really in regard to Christ in glory, so that every true leader leads to Christ there. In another sense, of course, he gives a lead assembly-wise to the saints, ever keeping the divine goal in mind. The Spirit Himself is said to be a Guide. So that Christ's leadership is by the Spirit through vessels He raises up. But the element of lead is largely in
influence, as well as in authoritative love. So that each of us, having learnt leadership from Christ, and what it has meant for Him in love to go into death, can understand that this feature which shone in such excellence in Him must be perpetuated here; and regarded and respected as divinely provided. For the dispensation commenced with leadership in the apostles and developed peculiarly in Paul later, and it is finishing in leadership. After all the great church revival of the past hundred and fifty years has been marked by gracious leadership, raised up of the Lord, the Lord having stood by the leaders. All the opposition that the enemy has raised to it has only confirmed the Lord's decision and determination to see the leaders of His own appointment fulfil their course.
That is a little what is in mind. Moses, of course, ministerially represents the great thought of guidance and authority in leadership in the Old Testament. He is very much like the Paul of the New Testament.
A.S. What would you say about his leadership in this chapter? He led the flock of his father-in-law.
P.L. Well, he is starting well is he not? After all he is leading persons who are of great value to
Christ, and the sheep represent that -- those who need defending and protecting. The way he took them was, I suppose, in spiritual initiative and spontaneity, because it does not appear that Jethro directed him. He took them the way, and the Spirit comments upon it, behind the wilderness. Such was Paul at Corinth. Amidst the false leaders there, was this one who lead them by way of the cross, -- behind the wilderness and came to the mountain of God, so that God's system is established in stability and elevation -- the mountain -- in the presence of all that is hostile. It is His answer to it, and he proves the superiority of what He has set up, against every combination that would overthrow it. The position is safe today for faith, set up in Christ in glory and the Holy Spirit here in the assembly, which gives the mountain thought no doubt. There are moral conditions that leadership is always bound up with, and which false leadership ignores in its haste to reach the throne, but which true leadership patiently accepts in divine discipline, and so is equal to its charge, when promoted by the Lord.
R.B. Had he learned that in sitting at the well in the previous chapter?
P.L. That is it. You may say, 'You failed Moses'. Well, the account given in the New Testament, and it is important, is that he went out you know, he did not fear the king. That is to say, historically, you may get a certain account of things, that he fled and that he had in the energy, not unknown to us -- human -- tried to deal with the situation that it would be God's prerogative and glory in judgment to deal with. After all, it is possible that the Egyptians were by their millions, and to kill one of them would be a very slow process you know. God has, in the death of Christ and the cross, His own means of ending with that man in totality.
W.W.G. In addition to sitting by the well in chapter 2, it says, "Moses rose and helped them, and watered their flock", and later down it says, he "drew water abundantly for us, and watered the flock".
P.L. That's a leader, he is equal to every emergency. He adapts himself to every need that confronts him, and proves to all his true mettle as a leader in conditions of obscurity, seeking nothing for himself and all for God. As our brother says, he sat by the well. Think of that, reposeful now in a new energy. His own energy had brought disaster. He had recourse to God,
meditatively no doubt, not impulsively as when he slew the Egyptian. He sat there, we do not know how long -- we had better not fix a time for sitting by the well, we cannot be there too long!
A.S. Does a leader need two things? Has he always to be taking in something new as well as leading?
P.L. Oh yes. He sat there, it is characteristic of him. I suppose what would answer to his sitting by the well later, would be his going into the holiest. For he had right to go in -- Aaron once a year -- but it would seem that Moses went in whenever his heart yearned to be with God, and to hear what God had to say about Himself, and about His people, and about the assembly.
W.H.B. Does spiritual leadership, having Horeb as its object make way for a divine appearing?
P.L. I think so. Horeb, of course -- the mount of God -- that is very fine. He says, the very place where you stand here, is the very place where My people are going to serve Me. So that leadership essentially stands connected with the thought of God's house. If He is going to be served, He is going to dwell among them and be served, not in a distant setting, but as abiding there, dwelling, provisionally of course, among His people. It is the shekinah glory, divine Persons
resting between the cherubim, showing that God has His own holy terms, which must be regarded, if we are to know His presence.
S.N. Stephen in his address in Acts 7:38 says, "This is he who was in the assembly in the wilderness".
P.L. Marching through the wilderness! You remember He had been content to dwell in a tent. David refers to it very touchingly, as if God said to them you are in a tent for Me. You have come out of Egypt's luxuries and bondage -- they go together -- and you have come into pilgrim conditions. Then, I will be in a tent with you and, wonderful grace, you shall provide Me with My tent, and according to the model which He gave to Moses. I think the assembly is a vessel in which divine grace sojourns in sympathetic compassion for the testings of the wilderness, and the working out of the truth in localities. I think it is wonderful. Of course we say God dwells in His house universally, as He does, and is served there (I Timothy). But I Corinthians is that God is marching through the wilderness, and sojourning among His people in a provisional setting -- a most wonderful thing. So that, ere the assembly provides, as the holy city, a habitation for God in glory, the assembly, in grace now, in our localities, should provide God in sojourning grace with a
dwelling among His people. Is that little to God? We know what home is to a man, and God has put that in a man's heart, a reflection of what His house is to Him.
Ques. Is it "I am with you all the days"?
P.L. I think it is that. This man has to be put through things. It gives everything a holy character, not a novice you know, falling into the snare of the devil. Not an upstart, shall we say, but matured in the patience of God's school, and built up in adverse conditions in a manhood that made him worthy of the charge God put upon him. It proved the wisdom of God's selection. For Moses, though at times he failed, goes right through, and God goes through with him and he with God. What he did for the saints, in firmness as to God's rights, and in the grace too that bore with weakness, as he reflected Christ. He really was in a wonderful position. He was brought on the mount of transfiguration by God to be there with Christ. Why was that? It was a wonderful testimony that, with both Moses and Elijah, their courses culminated in Christ. If a leader's course does not culminate there, he will draw people after him, and all will finish in the treacherous bogs, shall we say, of christendom, instead of the divine highway of God's leading.
T.T. While Moses appears to act rashly in Egypt, God is teaching him to fit in with His timetable.
P.L. Well, it is very wonderful is it not. He grew through all the testings that arose. Moses is the greater, and that is a wonderful thing. He is the meekest man, and is recorded as such in regard to his having married the Ethiopian woman and getting into trouble with the brethren, or some prominent brethren, governed by natural and social feelings -- a most dangerous element -- but manhood alone in meekness is equal to it. So that he proves himself. "Stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah" (Exodus 14:13). Wonderful!
W.W. Would priestly grace be an element in leadership as well as authority? Psalm 77:20 speaks of Jehovah leading His "people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron". Then Moses and Aaron are spoken of in Psalm 99:6 as "among his priests".
P.L. Well indeed. Moses stands for love and life, light and rule. Aaron of course stands too for the priestly side, you might say, officially, and rightly so, but Moses stands for everything morally. What is a leader without the moral qualities of Christ? How can he move the saints to be in the divine
highway, how can he lead them except in the suggestion of Christ to them?
Ques. Stephen says of Moses that, "it came into his heart to look upon his brethren, the sons of Israel" (Acts 7:23). Would leadership be safe in the hands of such a person, who knows how to regard the brethren?
P.L. I am sure that is right, when the conditions outwardly would deny that Egypt's slaves were God's sons. But faith is with God in His own thoughts about His sons, and therefore equal to the exigencies of delivering them from whatever slavery they may find themselves in.
A.C.C. Was the great sight intended to affect them all the way through? Is that a feature with the great servants that they get some definite appearing before they set out in leadership?
P.L. And Moses never lost this sight. It affected him. I suppose his references to the movements of God in Deuteronomy all flow from this movement. It suggests I think that we are deeply divinely affected by the incarnation and we read the gospels in that light. So that we drink into the spirit of Him who has taken up manhood in such lowly grace to meet every liability that lay on man as Himself God. He alone is equal to meet and exhaust divine judgment, and at the same time
to display the love of the God who sent Him. That is leadership indeed, that in character now with the saints, you charge yourself -- of course never with the atoning sufferings -- but with the sufferings of Christ in spirit. Hence the three are introduced into Gethsemane. You charge yourself with every woe that is upon the saints, and stand in the breach for God. As so doing, you testify to the love that gave Christ supremely so to do. If that is not leadership, what is?
J.R. Would you say a word as to the thorn-bush burning with fire and not being consumed?
P.L. I suppose it is a priestly, compassionate view really, what God thought about His people. It no doubt refers to what the Lord went into in death. But the divine presence is here on its own terms, and all that is foreign, of course, must be consumed that God might have His way and retain man amidst such conditions today of lowly obscurity. You cannot connect the thorn-bush with heaven, or the land. It is the marvel of grace that in conditions so reproachful outwardly, and of lowly obscurity, God is content to move and give effect in compassion to His own wonderful thoughts. You can think of no greater contrast between the thorn-bush and the heavenly city, and yet all that is to adorn the heavenly city is worked out in thorn-bush conditions.
R.B. It speaks in Deuteronomy 33:16 of "the good will of him that dwelt in the bush". Does that link with what you had in mind last night as to leadership making the will of God attractive in view of finality?
P.L. I am sure that is important. A leader must go on, you know. Things must be cherished in his heart in communion with God. God says, 'I want my son'. Indeed Pharaoh is to be told that, if he does not give up God's son, God will take his son. So that God is to be served. Think of the vessel that Moses became. Glowing anger marked him. He was so with God, that he shared the feelings of God in compassion for His people in vengeance against Pharaoh. He knew the mighty delivering power, in the love that wanted sons, and was determined to have them now, delivered from the world. Delivered from it root and branch. All these thoughts of God lay hidden in the breast of this man of God, and the exigencies of opposition and the murmurings of the people only discovered how much after Christ he was. Of course pointing on to Christ, but think of our being able to trace Christ appreciatively in detail -- this glorious Person. It needs, of course, every saint to set out different features of Himself. But what a study the tracing of Christ in Moses, for
instance, affords in the exigencies of the wilderness church position, in which we are all found; and have to prove ourselves, as after Christ.
J.R. Why should Moses be so slow to take on the commission at the beginning?
P.L. Well, he rightly feared himself, I suppose, but God was angry with him after a time. He was very patient. It has often been said that we have all been a handful to the Lord, but if God has chosen a man in His sovereignty, He will give no peace to that man until he steps into his appointed niche in the divine system.
W.M. In Hebrews he persevered as seeing Him who is invisible.
P.L. Is that not wonderful? Oh you say, he saw Pharaoh, yes. He saw the whole galaxy of power and he did not depart a hair's breadth. He stood his ground. But then we know the secret -- as seeing Him who is invisible. How can the Spirit portray the history of a man of God here without dwelling delightfully on his communion with God. For what are we for God before men, apart from what we are with God?
R.Bn. He not only sees God, but, as you said earlier, he sees God's system functioning.
P.L. Very fine that is it not? Mr Darby saw that. He saw the Head in heaven and the body here, he saw the whole system, in the faith of his soul with God. Then he stepped into the breach to work it out, and deliver God's people from alien influences.
J.L. Would you remark then as to God's sovereignty on the one hand, because Moses is referred to in Psalm 106:23 as "his chosen", and then this feature of moral power that must mark a leader.
P.L. Well that is it. What power have you that is not moral?
J.L. Well, how is this moral power really acquired?
P.L. Oh, in a stature in love, learned through discipline, and which the trials of the path in leadership only bring out into greater prominence. Should we have ever learnt that Moses was the meekest man on earth if he had not been attacked? After all it is our leaders under fire who prove themselves at their best, and one is not, of course, limiting leadership to a universal setting, thank God for that, but it is essential you know in localities. It is not enough that there should be a general in relation to an army, but it is essential that companies, regiments, should all have
officers that lead them, if the army is going to function here according to God.
A.T. In verse 6 God speaks of Himself as "the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob". Would that be a feature in a leader that he has gathered up at the well what has been with the saints in previous times?
P.L. I think so. He links up with what has gone before. He is not a novelty man, he does not bring in innovation. He does not start anything. Paul linked on with the twelve, and, of course, found great enlargement from the Lord Himself personally in His distinctive ministry. But he went up to Peter and he abode some days with Peter in Jerusalem. He linked on with what was already there, and that is a great matter with the leaders, they have dovetailed have they not? While they have brought their distinctive line of ministry, as in the divine mind at any given moment, you will find that it is all of a piece with the church revival, because the church is all of a piece, in the divine mind.
A.Y.P. Why is it that God begins this conversation with Moses, and brings before him who He is in Himself? I wondered why God brings before him who He is in that relationship.
P.L. In His almightiness, I suppose, with the patriarchs particularly, and now to be known as Jehovah. Do you think that in Exodus 4:5 -- "Jehovah, the God of their fathers" -- it is suggestive that it is immediate relations. It is not interventions divine, on behalf of the saints individually, which we prove in our individual path, and can with God thankfully. But that is not God dwelling among us. Jehovah involves permanent relations, in holiness, with the saints. For us of course it involves God as Father known amongst us, dwelling in His house here.
H.B. What is the distinction in verse 18, where it says, "the God of the Hebrews", and then "Jehovah our God"?
P.L. Is that not fine! When you are speaking to the king of Egypt, it is Jehovah the God of the Hebrews -- what grace -- the most despised on earth, but travellers and God is with nothing static or stagnant. He is the living God, and He identifies Himself with the travellers. It is the church, not in the antiquity and stagnation of christendom, it is the church of the living God. But it is "let us go forth to him without the camp, bearing his reproach" (Hebrews 13:13). He is the God of the Hebrews is He not, and that has been coming up before the authorities of late -- the God of the Hebrews.
W.W.S. And does the God of the Hebrews involve the thought of a separated people? Is not the word first employed in relation to Abraham?
P.L. Yes, I think it is, "hath met with us; and now, let us go". That is, we base our claim to be free of Egypt, in every form, as having had immediate relations with our God in regard to our reproach. We therefore bring Him in amidst the reproach. At the present time, in the reproach of the world, we have God. Have we not the same word in 1 Peter 4:14 "If ye are reproached in the name of Christ ... the Spirit of glory ... rests upon you"?
J.C. God links together the leader, the land, and His name in these eighteen verses.
P.L. Yes, he does not tell the king of Egypt of the land -- that is a divine secret is it not -- a land flowing with milk and honey. There is what God claims, in relation to which this man Pharaoh must give way. God will weaken him down in his iron will through the plagues. God has His own way, but He does it testimonially and there is no doubt that the testimony weakens the world. Hence the enemy's attack always upon it.
H.V. What is implied in the fact that "Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look at God", after such a disclosure in verse 6?
P.L. Well, he was not equal to things. I suppose it shows the importance, in all our present testings, of having acquired a knowledge of God in faithfulness, a well-proved God.
F.B.W. When God speaks to Moses as "I AM THAT I AM", is there something special for the servant in that? When he speaks to them he is to say "I AM hath sent me unto you".
P.L. That is it, it is distinctive, a peculiar light in which God is presenting Himself at any given moment. Leadership is distinctive in that, and stands for that. Of course all these thoughts are gathered up for us in the Father, but what is the testimony? It is the distinctive way in which God is presenting Himself in Christ at any given moment.
F.B.W. I was wondering in regard to that as to the leader's special part, you may say, the secret part. I AM THAT I AM would be held especially in his own spirit would it not?
P.L. The self-existing One -- how could he give way, you know, with the knowledge in nearness of such a God. Where is man in all his boasted power? Think of our having at the end, the truth of the Trinity in peculiar grace given us. The glory of the Father was the occasion for the re-editing of the 1881 hymnbook, and then the 1931
hymnbook stood connected with the truth of Christ's sonship, and later the next edition stood connected with addressing the Spirit. All this shows that the wonderful light as to the Trinity, and the places They have taken by arrangement with One Another before time, in this wonderful economy of grace, and the way They regard One Another, make room for One Another in Their several distinctive operations. It is One God. And then think of this background for the testimony. I AM, can it fail? It stands in the eternal Being, one might say in reverence, of God Himself, the self-existing One. Will He fail in time, in what He is in eternity, and was? "From eternity to eternity thou art God" (Psalm 90:2). That is the stay in the testimony for faith is it not?
W.W.G. Does Isaiah 63:12 bear that out -- "to make himself an everlasting name"? Then in verse 14 "to make thyself a glorious name". Does that bring out the greatness of God's name?
P.L. Is it not wonderful that God should acquire a name through the very presence of sin here. What an answer to the enemy, who sought to blot out His name, through sin, that He should make sin and its sad fruits subserve the acquiring to Himself of a name eternal, in relation to redemption, and to His dwelling. There is fame
associated with the name. You may say God has all glory. Yes, but He has been pleased, and how like Him it is, to use all that sorrow has brought in to acquire but fresh fame to Himself.
T.T. In verse 11 God remembers "the days of old, Moses and his people".
P.L. Yes, is it not fine, "Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds [or shepherd] of his flock? Where is he that put his holy Spirit within him, his glorious arm leading them by the right hand of Moses, dividing the waters before them, to make himself an everlasting name?" Where is He? That is the test, can we provide conditions for Him? He is to be found. It does not for a moment suggest that He does not exist, but where is He? Faith would say, 'We will open the door to Him'.
R.McK. Is that why Isaiah says earlier in chapter 26: 8 "Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Jehovah, have we waited for thee; the desire of our soul is to thy name, and to thy memorial"?
P.L. And memorial is connected with His name. The Lord's supper is a memorial, of course, in another sense, but the name is really the way God keeps His Name green and fresh in our souls.
R.McK. Does that follow the judgments of these nations that Isaiah has portrayed? God has waited
until all that has been removed and now the disclosure of that Name in memorial.
P.L. And the names of the nations bear on what we are do they not? The pride of Moab, -- his state is not changed, because he was not poured out from vessel to vessel. Then Egypt and its resources human, and the Syrian's violence of will and rebellion. Every judgment on the nations, warningly to Israel, is that that element in them must be brought down in testimony, before being finally dealt with by God in coming judgment. So Revelation shows how God is going to bring down the world in power in a moment; all to instruct us to see that that world is brought down in our souls in a moral way by the Spirit's power.
T.T. So in saying that God remembered Moses and His people, does that suggest that there was that there in accord with God's name that he could take account of with pleasure and utilise?
P.L. I think so, there must have been some element, and there was in Isaiah and others, that cherished what God had done. It is a great thing to hold in priestly power in your soul the divine exploits. Of course the cross supremely, and the burial and resurrection of Christ, and His exaltation. But then what exploits in the testimony
the Lord has wrought, has He not? Is that so, the wars of Canaan and so on?
T.T. So that whatever the public history may have been from Pentecost, there has always been that under the eye of God which was in accord with His name, which is carried forward in triumph at the end.
P.L. I think so, and that gathers God's movements in power in the death and resurrection of Christ really, right forward into every conflict, do you not think so? He is the God of resurrection, and we want to be at home in divine history -- exploits. Of course you go to school to learn history, but you learn divine history in the school of God, you know.
W.D. So would you say that the glory of that name is a great leverage in getting the people out of Egypt?
W.D. And the servant's service in leadership is to bring that about.
P.L. Yes. In regard now to the scripture in Deuteronomy, the results are reached. They are reached, of course, in lovability. For the testings have been great, and Moses has loved them all through. Just like Paul -- the elders of Ephesus falling upon his neck; showing how he won
through in love and won the saints for the best. He assured the best to them that divine love could ever conceive and furnish, and that amidst all the adverse conditions which the night wolves suggest, do you not think, in the warning to Ephesus. So that it is very fine with Moses -- he has reached the end -- he is not going into the land, although his heart is there. God shows him it. So that he is in communion with God over the land and therefore he was in communion with Christ, who was the very essence and glory of the land. When he came onto the mount with Elias, he talked with Him, but meantime he is departing full of blessing. He is not weary of the charge, his eyesight is clear at a hundred and twenty. He finishes up in a glory that prophetically points forward to those closing chapters, I think, of each of the gospels, particularly John so full of blessing on the part of Moses' blest Master, and ours.
W.W.G. Would the reference to Moses as "the man of God" here, and also as "king in Jeshurun" (verse 5) bring out his moral greatness in this setting?
P.L. I think so, after all what can you effect but in love? If you are going to guide the saints to Christ in glory, He is there in love, or to the assembly, God dwells in love there, by the Spirit,
the habitation of God. What is the value of your ministry if the saints have not been built up in love, It is not mentality that you lead in, it is vitality.
R.Bn. So that Mr Darby speaks of the saints coming into the Father's house, and then he says, 'O Mind divine, so must it be That glory all belongs to God!' (Hymn 88).
P.L. That is it. Is it not fine this? Jehovah's spontaneous movements, and he with God in them in the intelligence of what was in the heart of God and in His mind, and in the various movements in which the truth has been developed there are different places mentioned. Sinai, I suppose, the rights of divine love in mercy and redemption. Seir brings in the brethren. Paran brings in the thought of glory. These are all great landmarks that live in the soul of Moses, and he has been there and gathered up the blessedness of God there. The movements tested the saints, and do, but the great issue in any movement divine, in which grace calls us to have such a wonderful part, is to be with God in the spoil and fruit of all that divine love intended in that movement. It is sequential, it is not haphazard, it is all orderly you know. But different language is used, there is no idea of precedent. He came from
Sinai. He rose up from Seir. He shone forth from Paran. He came from the myriads of the sanctuary. How rich is the vocabulary in the movements of God, describing them in their diversity, but in the perfection of that love that is always going on to God's rest, and would carry His saints with Him.
W.D. Could you put these wonderful points into New Testament language for us?
P.L. No, I'd like to hear you. Have you some thought?
W.D. Well, one thing that shines out as you read so touchingly about it, is the glory of grace.
P.L. Well, he rose up from Seir, you know. It was eleven days journey. It is a question of the brethren, as if God is moved. I think these different expressions of coming, and rising up, and shining bear on His own delight. They do not bear exactly on the necessities of the saints. The Egyptian darkness is not alluded to here. It starts from the time God had His people to Himself. I think all these fresh unfoldings of the truth bring out God's delight to display Himself in Christ, in a distinctive way to that people, Israel then in figure, the assembly now in substance. She is the sole and suited depository; the treasury where the divine glories, I think, in love's
spontaneous movements can be trusted and cherished. Is that so?
Ques. Are the myriads of the sanctuary what you find in the inside position? Then, He loveth the peoples is what they are here, that is in the testimonial position.
P.L. That is it, it brings in the local setting, you notice that word "peoples". Mr Darby's note says, 'tribes'. That is they are lovable to a man of God, because he has been unfolding -- as Christ typically -- that through a vessel now in leadership, He would unfold the manner suited to His presence in the land -- His own tastes in regard to His sons. Everything is touched in Deuteronomy on the high level of sonship -- ye are the sons of Jehovah -- and there is what is suitable to the tastes and feelings of God, not exactly His compassions, though you never forget that -- that you were a bondman in Egypt. That is constantly brought in in Deuteronomy, but only to reinforce the love that has its own tastes, for the company and the manners of that company to dwell with such a God in the land, as the God of purpose.
W.W.G. Is the divine end anticipated in the song in Exodus 15:17 "Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, The place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy
dwelling, The Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared"?
P.L. That is just what it is. The leader that has the divine goal before him, in communion with God. He will tread the way to it in the patience of God, and in firmness for God too, amidst every combination that would assail him.
W.C. So does the leader lead in the sense that all His saints are in Thy hand?
P.L. It is very, very beautiful as to God -- He was King in Jeshurun too. They sit down at His feet too. Think of what His thoughts are as to His saints. A leader always clothes the saints in communion with God, with God's own thoughts. We should love the saints as learning what they are to God within. Then you can face the exigencies and winter conditions without can you not?
W.H.B. So that does true leadership spiritually, bring the saints into living contact with God Himself, each sitting at His feet, each receiving of His words?
P.L. Is that not the proof of divine ministry? It makes you sensible of divine love, that you are in the divine hand, and that you sit down at the feet of the Lord, and "Each receiveth of thy words". Mr Stoney said to a servant of the Lord,
so called, 'I do not want to hear your sermon, but I would like to see your pupils'. That of course is the test. What is the result of the ministry? The ministry proves itself as divine, or otherwise, by the results it produces.
A.C.C. Would it be the point in Deuteronomy that there is some result? Might it not be a question for us, if we are forty years in the meeting, that we might say to ourselves, well now, what is there? What is there in the way of produce after forty years?
P.L. Well, that is a challenge, I am sure. What is there substantially, because there is nothing else. Words are only words. Substance is Christ in the saints.
J.R. How do you understand verse 3? Does "his saints" refer to God's saints, and "thy hand" refer to Moses' hand. How do you read it?
P.L. Well, I suppose the Spirit is prophetically looking on to Christ, do you not think in the utterance. So that Moses is viewed almost as typical of Christ is he not?
W.W. Is not this expression "he loveth the peoples" peculiarly affecting? I think it means to have in the bosom, so if that were in evidence in every locality there would be tangible results, do you think?
P.L. It is coming, it is increasing, humbly we can say, surely, that the brethren are growing up in love. The very attendance at the meetings, so much increased, is just that we cannot help coming together. It is the divine nature, feeling out after one another.
A.T. So in your reference to the elders of Ephesus and Paul; in Acts 20:32 he says, "Now I commit you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and give to you an inheritance among all the sanctified". Then he goes on to speak of himself "I have coveted the silver or gold or clothing of no one". Does that link?
P.L. I think so. The full truth, my doctrine; then my manner of life; and my ways in Christ; the whole truth enforced and enshrined in the souls in the moral features of Christ of those who minister the truth.
R.M. There were those who really loved them, Paul, and Mark, and Luke and those with them. The house of Onesiphorus, who would seek him out in his chain, they had been formed in the truth and stood with him.
P.L. That is right, and Paul will have a company to the end, but in prison, the reproach will continue intensively, increasingly. You could say
really, the gospel of the glory is in prison, impersonated in Paul, in his day. And today it is a question of the last stand, and a handful in the breach, with Paul. We must hold to the distinctive character of his ministry -- the Head in heaven, and the body here; the truth of the new man. Then church order too; the commandment of the Lord in regard of the wilderness position of the assembly; and the manners proper to God's house in Timothy, and so on. Rest assured that Paul does not die, indeed there is no historical account of his death at all, and that must have some meaning. His readiness to die is evident as a martyr in 2 Timothy and in Philippians. But there is no account of his death and that just shows, I think, that John has resuscitated the saints to Paul. Paul lives on in the prison limitations of public reproach, but in all the precious disclosures of what was distinctive to his ministry when here. I believe that we have been retained. Mr Darby says, 'cleave to Paul'. Every attack is on Paul. I mean he said, "I speak as to Christ, and as to the assembly" (Ephesians 5:32). So that it is a very wonderful moment. It will never come again. It is the closing, crowning moment of a long history of divine faithfulness; of Christ's service on high, of the Spirit's presence here, and divine Persons
have not swerved. How could They? Now They would bring us into the wealth of the economy to serve under Them in it, so that we finish in the character in which the economy began.
H.V. It is set forth beautifully in the life of Paul, in the way that he acted in relation to the Corinthians. He could say, "If even in abundantly loving you I should be less loved" (2 Corinthians 12:15). Then he goes on to say, "Be it so", indicating the love he had notwithstanding the way the Corinthians acted towards him.
P.L. That is right. Of course, it is love for the truth supremely, and then love for the saints in relation to the truth. It is meet that as the product of victorious divine love we should only win through in the power of that love.
R.B. He was king in Jeshurun, what would you say about that?
P.L. Yes, the upright people. It is very beautiful. Those "that love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption" (Ephesians 6:24). I suppose it refers to Christ's supremacy. But king in Jeshurun is very beautiful. I think you see in Acts 20, in the attitude of the saints towards Paul, that he was king in Jeshurun. Leaders who have gone through reproach, and shone out the more in the presence of it, inflexible for God,
tender towards the saints in compassionate care, faithful to them in regard to the demands of the truth -- those persons have finished their course in the testimony. I think the end of Deuteronomy shows the glorious finish to a course, where there were many difficulties and testings, and where the enemy seemed at times to win the day. But in the spirit of Christ, Moses won through, and this wonderful picture of the moral triumph and results of spiritual leadership are for our encouragement, because we owe so much to our leaders. We are to remember them, and Jesus Christ is brought in in that connection in Hebrews, "the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come" (Hebrews 13:8). It is what He is as spanning the whole course of the testimony, yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come. It does not go on to eternity really, it covers the ages here, and leaders have been a provision that democracy dislikes, but that submission thanks God for. Is that so? And we want to see it locally, but leadership is always brought in, and raised up by God, in answer to a state that is leadable Godward and Christward. Is that clear?