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An Attempt To Listen To God |
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Meditations On The Moral Glory Of The Lord |
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Introduction Bette Davis once said: “Attempt the impossible to improve”. When anyone seeks to appreciate the moral perfections of the Lord it is soon discovered that it is an impossible task. However, if there is an exercise of spirit not to study our Lord as we would study English, or any other subject, but for to meditate on Him for His glory and personal spiritual development, then it is exceedingly beneficial. Paul wrote: “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). There are, and forever will be, unfathomable wonders, perfections and beauties in our Lord which make Him far beyond the comprehension of we mortals, or any created being. Such is His glories that it is only the Father who can fully comprehend Him. It was not an exaggeration but precise truth spoken when our Lord said: “No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Lk. 10:22). JND penned words that catch this truth: “The Father only glorious claim the Son can comprehend”. Yet it is a sad reality that one acknowledged some years ago: “The poverty of our worship and the reciting of age old data, void of any freshness at remembrance meetings is not due to the smallness of the object but the smallness of our comprehension and appreciation of Him”. While many excuses can be given for this, yet we must ask: “Is there the possibility that we have lost true focus and priority?” Is it possible that we are Ephesian in practice, which was filled with truth, but left their first love? (Rev. 2:4). Paul wrote of those who had “Cast off their first faith” (1 Tim. 5:12), but the Ephesian saints had “left their first love”. That first love was not their first fervor, but their love to the Lord. He was their priority. When love to Christ no longer is the prime priority in life, it will be followed by a lost fervor. The problem was that their priorities were wrong. Christ is the only human of whom it could be said: “In Him is no sin”. Christ was genuine and every perfection was the outshining of what He was in Himself. In our lives there are veneers, putting on a good appearance of spirituality, respectability etc. It is the sin of hypocrisy and pride, but that was never a part of the Lord. That which He was seen to be was what he essentially was. We put on a veneer because of deformities and deficiencies but the Lord never did, for He was ever perfect. He sought not his own interests, nor His own glory, indeed pleased not Himself (Rom. 15:3). He lived in the consciousness of who He was, of His purpose in life, and in unbroken fellowship with God. Consequently, when God looked down from Heaven on Christ, He beheld a man in whom He could rest and was satisfied by, a man who always had fruit for God. Upon Christ the Holy Spirit found a place to rest as was seen at his baptism. Being perfect He never needed a cover up because of anything He did, neither was there ever the need to put a twist on any situation He was found in, there was never any need to make an excuse for any action He made. The depths of perfections that only God can appreciate is symbolized in the meal offering. From that offering the priest took a handful of the oil, flour and salt and put it on the altar, but God got all the frankincense (Lev 2:2). Understandably there are many parables, types and shadows in the Old Testament, for such are the glories of the Lord that no one shadow could convey Him in completeness. Christ was a man who was totally impervious to sin, and impenetrable by it. As the Lamb of Ex. 12 lived in the Israelite home, those in that house saw a perfect unblemished life being lived before them. A perfect life perfectly fitted to be a judgment bearing sacrifice. Furthermore, this cleanliness and perfection was not lived in a cloistered area but in the midst of a world of slavery, confused hopes, and under a powerful prince. It prefigured a life void of imperfection from the day of birth until death. Where Did It All Begin? It seems like only yesterday and yet, it is almost fifty years ago as I sat in Victoria Hall Assembly in Belfast at one of the Saturday night’s “Help Heavenward Youth Meetings”. During that meeting a hymn was given out that was to forever change my life. There my heart soared in worship as they sang a hymn, the words of which were written by German Jesuits in the 17th century. The music was a Crusaders hymn, a Silesian folk song, arranged by Richard Willis in 1850.
Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature I longed to know this beautiful Savior. I had been saved some 5 years, a child of eighteen years, but this hymn was used by the Holy Spirit to stir up in me a longing to know something more of Him than plain data. I wanted to know the Lord, to see Him as beautiful. Over the years I have intermittently sought to know the Lord. I say intermittently because who of us lives daily without getting our eyes off the Lord, sometimes for a short time and sadly at other times quite long. In 1966 I came to Canada and Mr. Demerond, an elder in Lower Windsor Avenue Gospel Hall, gave me three books. The one which captivated me was called: “The Moral Glory of Our Lord” by Bellett. It was the first opening I had ever known to the truths I sought. The fire was rekindled.
It was about 25 years later and with a little family who needed cared
for, the theme went to second place. One night, while listening to a
recording of Dr. David Gooding speaking on worship, he made the
following (paraphrased) comment: “When we speak of the glory of God, the
perfect life of Christ, we are touching themes that are too big for us.
Worship sees specifics and get enthralled by them.” Again I was drawn
back to the glories and beauties of the Lord.
A perfect path of purest grace, unblemished and complete
No broken service, Lord was thine; no change was in thy way
Morning by morning Thou didst wake, amid this poisoned air Again my heart soared. From these fifty years ago I longed to know this beautiful Savior, and still long to know Him, and yet, the more I get to know Him the more I learn the ignorance of myself in that knowledge. In the 50 years since my conversion, I cannot recall anyone ever having one series of meetings on the life of the Lord. I have approximately 650 ministry tapes, yet very few deal with the life of the Lord and none with His beauty. Each Sunday thousands of saints gather to remember the Lord, who said: “This do in remembrance of me”, yet most often the entire focus has been on the death of the Lord. That is, the focus is on one aspect, yet the Lord said to remember me and that is much broader. The matter of the moral glory of the Lord has largely been bypassed except for a few well worn clichés. There have been times when magnificently precious truths concerning the excellencies and beauties of the Lord have been lifted before the saints and waved before Jehovah. For that we are most thankful. Using their thoughts as a springboard, it is our prayer that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher and will guide into further truths.
Another major lesson was the need for cleanliness, both of flesh and spirit (2 Cor. 7:1). Just as I would be exceedingly careful about whom I would allow handling a “one of a kind” piece of jewelry, so God is even more restrictive on who can handle His beloved Son. The words still stand true: “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord” (Isa. 52:11). It is sad that so very often saints can, in parrot like fashion, repeat the same data about Christ week after week, and indeed year after year. There has scarcely been any growth in heart appreciation or expansion of knowledge of Christ. This was my life for many years. Our meditations are not for intellectualism but for meditative consideration, the higher appreciation of Christ and thanksgiving to God. A theme so sublime should produce wonder and worship as we muse on He who is the exclusive and perfect unveiling of God. When one is enlightened by the Spirit of God to see some of the excellent glories of the Lord, then they soon realize that all phraseology fall far short. Christ is so glorious that no words in any language, nor in any combination of clauses, could describe the glories, the perfections and the beauties of Himself. Many years ago Mr. Oswald Saunders wrote a book called: “The Incomparable Christ”. As such, the title is perfectly true for the Lord is unrivaled and unparalleled. Christ forever stands as the ever contrastable One, for all are in contrast to Him. So that we speak the same language, it is evident that in every aspect of work there is a specialized language, and unless that language is understood, there will be confusion. What exactly is meant by the term, “moral glory”? Simply put, the moral glory of the Lord is the beauty of holiness in everything He is, does and says. This will be expanded.
In His whole life one day's walk never contradicted another; one hour's service never clashed with another. While He is master of nature's tremendous forces and the Lord of the unseen world, He turns aside to take little children in His arms and to bless them. He must walk amid the snares His foes have privily spread for His feet, yet He is equal to every occasion and is in harmony with God for the requirements of every moment. His unaffected majesty, which is so wonderfully depicted in the record of His life in the gospels, shines as the clear shining of the sun after the rain. It is manifest in the midst of poverty and scorn, at Gethsemane and Calvary, as on the Mount of Transfiguration and in the resurrection from the grave.
Quoting the words of the psalmist, only on a different level, we can
say: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is high, I cannot
attain unto it” (Psa. 139:6). No wonder the ancient prophet will
record: “His Name shall be called Wonderful”. Why Meditate on The Moral Glory of The Lord? There are a number of reasons why we should meditate on the Lord. It Is The Way To Spiritual Revival It is a sad reality that for many saints, life is non victorious with its consequential spiritual ineffectiveness. This results in the Lord speaking of saints and congregations of His own as being dead. (1 Tim. 5; Rev. 3) Since congregations are made up of individuals, and any gathering is only as effective as it is spiritual, it is a reminder of the fig tree our Lord spoke about. The Lord was hungry, and coming to the fig tree found nothing on it. It is easy to apply this to Israel, but also in this age to many assemblies, churches and individual believers. The Lord comes looking for the fruit of His character as the Vine. The Lord comes to each of us, listening for the fruit of our lips (Heb. 13), and looking for the fruit of his own life characteristics. In Romans 8 we have been given His spirit, (note that it says if any man have not the spirit of Christ, not the spirit of God), it is the features of Christ that are being spoken about. If any individual does not have the moral features of Christ then he is none of His. The Lord comes looking for my fellowship, my love, my fidelity; yet so very often He comes and there is nothing there. In the Song of Solomon the groom says: “Let me hear thy voice let me see thy form”. It must be very sad for the Lord to come looking and listening and find merely worn out stale clichés. Dark is the condition of the saints when there can be a glorying that we are not like the denominations, for we remember the Lord each Sunday, etc., yet its ritualism can be as dead in life changing effects as repeating, “baa baa black sheep”. The Lord’s supper is for better or for worse, we cannot be stagnant by it. If my life is not brought back into alignment with the Lord through it, then there is something radically wrong. As one reviews the scriptures it becomes clear that an appreciation of the glory of the Lord will have a very enriching effect on both sinner and saint, which by extension, is congregations of the saints. The consideration of Abraham will give witness to the former, and the manifestation of the Lord in Revelation 2-3 will bear witness to the latter. Abram was brought up as an idolater (Josh. 24:1-2), and it was when he was given a manifestation of the glory of the Lord his life was changed (Acts 7:1-4). It is the manifestation of the Lord in Rev. 2-3 that can rectify and edify the saints. In the Old Testament the Lord came to Abram’s tent and rested (Gen. 18:4). In that home nothing had to be changed because of His coming. In the New Testament our bodies are viewed as a tent and what a lesson is then presented. This mortal frame ought to be in such a condition that the Lord is perfectly at home in it. How wonderful it would be if from my spiritual larder I can draw out and present to Him that which He will enjoy and He can find rest in it. The question posed is: “Is there the possibility that we have lost true focus and priority?” Is it possible that I can be no different from the Ephesian saints which were filled with truth, but lost their first love? First love is not one’s first fervor, but their love to the Lord being their priority. When that is lost then the loss of fervor will follow, and divine privileges and blessing will become common. The problem with the Ephesian saints was their priority was wrong.
The Answer To Our Present Weakness is a Heart Brokenness Due to Sin and a Worshipping of God and Christ.
The Tragedy of That Which We Miss By Not “Seeing” Christ.
God wants us to lift our eyes to see the glory of He who is the eternal theme of heavens praise (Rev. 5:9-14), to behold His glory and beauty now! One of the most unfinished quotations of the scriptures is: “Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him”. That is where it is normally finished and then we are told that it refers to heaven. This is incorrect, for the above verse carries on into verse 10, “But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:9-10). This is something we are to live in the blessedness of now, and part of that is the beholding the beauty of the Lord and this is followed by a change in us. When we behold the Lord we are changed from being self centered to Christ centered, from tradition to truth, from bondage to liberty and from pseudo spirituality to true life spirituality. (2 Cor. 3:18) How very easy to say the right things about the Lord never having experienced them. An individual who is totally deaf could go to a concert wherein a magnificent piece of music would be played with great skill and feeling. Afterward, such an individual could be with others and agree with them of how rich the melodies were, how brilliant the musician was and yet know nothing about it experientially. We can be the same! We can speak of “The beauty of holiness, how lovely Christ is as the altogether lovely, that he is fairer than the children of men", and yet these be little other than the repetition of facts which we know nothing about. For instance, we could sing the hymn with the words: “Now we see His glory shine in every word and deed of thine”. Stopping, we ask ourselves to name 20 of the glories of God that we see shining in Christ. What would we discover?
He was the only human who ever lived life in fullness of fellowship with God's mind, heart and person. He never behaved in any way in which He dreaded the wrath or judgment of God. That lovely man, who grew up as a tender plant, brought from heaven all the preciousness of His moral features and virtues that marked him in every way. He in love sought not his own interests, nor His own glory, indeed pleased not Himself. He lived in the consciousness of who He was, of His purpose in life and that God was always in all the fullness of attributes beside Him. He was always in the company of God. God was all in all to Him.
As a patient and gracious teacher, God condescends to my tiny appreciations and gives me illustrations and foreshadowing’s of Christ in the Old Testament. These little pictures can be subdivided into several groups:
The problem! Even these are too big for me! I need God to make things smaller for me. Graciously the Holy Spirit does that and in the “shadow picture” of Lev. 16:12 the incense is beaten small, and in Lev. 2:1 one of the ingredients is fine flour. There is a distinct relationship between these two items; they are small, each particle distinct and yet perfect together. The lesson is that the more precisely we consider the Lord, the more beautiful He becomes. Each action and word is superlatively perfect.
Each message was a combination.
Then one can add to these the Joy, Peace, Long suffering, Gentleness, Goodness, Faith, Meekness, and Temperance.
His Developing Perfections
There were those times when his personal glory was unveiled as in the Mount of Transfiguration. His moral glory meant that He would not be less than absolutely perfect in every solitary thing. Its intensity was so bright that man was constantly under exposure and rebuke from it. In John 8:7 where they brought the woman taken in adultery to the Lord, He answered and said: “He that is without sin cast the first stone”. Ultimately, they were trying to find fault with the Light and that which the Light did was expose their own sinfulness. It is so very hard for us to appreciate the beauty of the Lord. Perhaps it could be illustrated by a beautiful painting, sheer mastery of colors; each perfect, each in the right place and each perfectly blending with the others to give a complete magnificent picture. Despite its beauty, to one who can see and appreciate it; to a color blind person it holds no beauty, they are incapable of seeing the beauty of it and not just a collection of various colorless shades. The reality is that Christ is unique. He said: “No man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him” (Lk. 10:22). The Lord is teaching that there are depths in our Lord that only the heart of God can appreciate. This lesson is illustrated in the Old Testament when in the meal offering the priest took a handful of the oil, flour and salt and put it on the altar; but God got all the frankincense.
What a comment on the condition of man.
Now God calls us to behold, fix our gaze upon that lovely man whom He
looked down from heaven upon and says: “Thou art My beloved Son in whom
I am well pleased”, and again: “Behold MY Servant in whom My soul
delighteth.”
What refreshment this was to God, instead of seeing only evil and wickedness, He saw a beautiful oasis of refreshment, a person with whom the Holy Spirit was never grieved, was never quenched, who in spirit was always one in spirit with the Holy Spirit. Here was the only man in whom there was never any need for rectification or modification to make His Tabernacle a place where God could dwell. As God’s perfect Servant his servitude was distinctly different from all others by singularity.
A single eye for the glory of God. He was always at God's disposal.
Never a falling in any sin and therefore He was always ready to be all
that God wanted Him to be, where God wanted Him to be, in the right
attitude as God wanted Him, to be in the right condition for any
situation God would cause to come across His path. As the polished shaft
there was nothing to hold Him back, smooth ready for straight activity.
In all His earthly sojourn He never went astray or fell by the wayside,
thus never needed restoration.
This glorious Servant was loved by God, and when the time came for the greatest manifestation the Son had for the glory of God, He held nothing back. What it cost Him was irrelevant, God must be glorified, and in that Satan defeated and sinners saved. How greatly then did God rejoice over Him, His soul was thrilled and God could not do enough to glorify His beloved son. The word “glories” indicates another perfection of the Lord that seldom is ever applied to features of human beings, i.e. gentleness; I have never heard anyone speak of the glory of someone’s gentleness, understanding, etc. Largely it always has to do with position, the glory of kingship, judgeship, etc. When we come to the Lord who is the outshining of glory then every attribute is a glory and therefore has a richness that is glorious to behold and appreciate. The glories of the Lord are brought before us on different levels.
Those who lived with Him failed to see His personal glory. Those of us who are still alive have yet to see His achieved glory, and it would seem that very few have entered in to his personal and positional glory.
A high appreciation of the Lord is vital because there has never been a revival built on teaching about the Holy Spirit, however, almost every revival has had at its core the exaltation of the person of Christ. This is a truth presented very clearly in the scriptures; for in Rev. chapters two and three, Christ is presented as the answer to every departure of the people of God. One of the ways in which God seeks to cause man to admire, speak well of, hold in awe and give respect to Him is by His moral glories. These are His singular and combined excellencies. This admiration is intensified as we see the supreme height of His exaltation and that the life of the man Jesus has a moral balanced perfection.
For our Lord to be the perfect sacrifice for man’s acceptability before God, then of necessity He must be able to present to God Himself a real living among men man whose entire life was not only without sin but without having any sin nature in Himself.
May God grant us the warming of heart
⃰
that the two on the road to Emmaus knew so long ago, as we meditate on
the moral glories, the perfect excellencies, the sterling beauty of our
Lord.Faintly
now in this writing one now takes the words of John: “This is He of whom
I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for He was
before me” (Jn. 1:30). The bride in the Song of Solomon spoke the same
sentiments: “This is my beloved”. (Song of Songs 5:16)
All fading are earth's
pleasures, when set before God's Son
Copyright © 2010 by Rowan Jennings, Abbotsford,
British Columbia |
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