In The Leaders Of God's People And In John The Baptist

by JAMES BROWN | Category: The Holy Spirit And His Work | May 1952

The previous study in this series showed from the Scriptures the presence of the Holy Spirit in Israel:

"Thou gavest also Thy good Spirit to instruct them" (Nehemiah 9.20).

and

"Where is He that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of His flock ? Where is He that put His Holy Spirit in the midst of them?"

(Isaiah 63.4).

All that divine power and goodness could bestow Israel had, together with the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to fit them for their high duty and destiny as the people

"of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever" (Romans 9.5).

That a people so endowed by God should present a history so chequered with good and evil is a paradox indeed, though no problem at all to the believer indwelt by the Spirit of God, who knows by daily experience the conflict of the flesh within against the Spirit, and the humiliation of many a defeat. In Israel's story there were happy interludes of faith and faithfulness, crowned with national glory under the blessing of God, but, alas dark and evil days preponderated, culminating at last in the foulest crime of their (and all other) history in the rejection of their Messiah,

"Jesus whom ye slew, hanging Him on a tree" (Acts 5.30),

meriting thereby the bitter denunciation of the martyr Stephen (full of the Holy Spirit) just before they slew him

Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them which shewed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have no's' become betrayers and murderers" (Acts 7.51, 52).

What an indictment! How solemn the. charge-" Ye do always resist the Holy Spirit"! How very sad the history of collective failure resulting from that stubborn and hostile will! However, collective failure, as well as collective faith and progress, depend largely on the leadership which prevails. What therefore can be learned from the historical records of the infallible Word about the men who, as leaders, were either a blessing or a curse?

Leadership is of God. There is no dead level either of responsibility or competence in His economy. He raises up whom He will to lead and there were many fine leaders in Israel, Holy-Spirit-fitted men, who served the counsel of God in their generation, but "the time will fail me if t tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets" (Hebrews 11. 32),

mighty men of faith and valour. Each one deserves a volume to unfold the lessons intended for God's gathered saints to-day, though but few can be mentioned in a short magazine article like this. It is perhaps also better to consider them in connexion with the outstanding features of God's pattern for His people's corporate life and service, and judge the success or failure of the leaders as contributing thereto:

such features as, for example -(a) The Word of God ; (b) Separation;

(e) The House of God; (d) Worship and Priesthood; (e) Rule; (f) the Social life of God's people; (g) Testimony. These are as factual in the present as in the past, so that Israel's history, written for " our learning" provides important lessons for God's people in their corporate life to-day.

THE WORD OF GOD.

The Israel people were chosen by God while yet in the loins of their father Abraham to be the channel of His revelation and blessing:

" in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." The outstanding feature in Abraham's spiritual history is faith:

"he believed God"; when God spoke he listened, believed and obeyed. When called out from his native land he obeyed, became a confessed stranger and pilgrim on the earth, a separated man, and the "friend of God." He enjoyed as a precious day-by-day experience what the Lord Jesus spoke of when on earth two thousand years later,

Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it, and was glad" (John 8.56).

What an encouragement to His own to-day, waiting "for the Son of God from heaven" !"For how many soever be the promises of God, in Him is the yea:

wherefore also through Him is the Amen, unto the glory of God"

(2 Corinthians 1.20).

Another mighty man of the Word was the great prophet Moses who, moved by the Holy Spirit, announced

"A Prophet shall the Lord God raise up unto you from among your brethren, like unto me; to Him shall ye hearken in all things whatsoever He shall speak unto you" (Acts 3.22 and Deuteronomy 18.15).

He too looked on to the blessed One who was the hidden subject of his writing, and who when here set the seal of His divine authority on what Moses wrote, saying

"For if ye believed Moses, ye would believe Me; for He wrote of Me"

(John 5.46).

The divine Word must ever be the foundation and condition of all spiritual life and service acceptable to God, and true leadership guides to this. How sad, by contrast, the neglect or evasion of the Word of the Lord shown by so many in succeeding days; as for instance by Saul the king whose evasion of God's command brought the Lord's reproof through Samuel,

"Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice ... Thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, and the LORD hath rejected thee from being king over Israel" (1 Samuel 15.22, 26)!

Centuries later another king, Jehoiakim, with fearful effrontery, defied the Lord's word through Jeremiah

"And it came to pass ... that the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brasier, until all the roll was consumed ... And they were not afraid, nor rent their garments, neither the king, nor any of his servants that heard all these words" (Jeremiah 36.28).

Holy-Spirit-given words, of most solemn import, derided and treated with contempt! What a king! What leadership! although this was but one of many contemptuous acts whereby the Word of God was dishonoured and discredited in Israel. How deserved was the sequel!

SEPARATION.

Separation from the world and its principles, its godless aims and inevitable doom-this is the manifest result of giving the Word effective authority over belief and conduct, Abraham and Moses show this; Abraham as indicated above, and Moses by refusing Pharaoh's appeal that Israel should stay and serve God in Egypt, and by leading out the people from Egypt to serve God where He might appoint, until He Himself should bring them into the good land promised to their fathers. There Israel was to be

"a peculiar treasure unto Me from among all peoples: for all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation"

(Exodus 19.5, 6).

This the wicked prophet Balaam saw by the Holy Spirit, so that in the presence of Balak, king of Moab, he exclaimed

"Lo, it is a people that dwell alone,

And shall not be reckoned among the nations" (Numbers 23.9).

Thus here, as elsewhere, God teaches simply and clearly the principle of separation. How sad the lapse immediately thereafter, and how fierce the judgement incurred, when Israel mingled with the people of Moab in idolatry and licentious indulgence, a critical episode in which even princes in Israel were leaders in the wrong-doing, and in which Phinehas the son of Aaron showed godly leadership and jealous care for the LORD'S honour, as narrated in Numbers 25.! Centuries after, another priest, Eliashib, very different from Phinehas in zeal and care for God's honour, and despite the dire lesson of the captivity, and heedless of the mercy which permitted the restoration of the remnant to the land from Babylon, allowed an alien prince and enemy (Tobiah) to make his home in a chamber in the courts of the house of God. What evil leadership this was on the part of one who was charged as a priest with the spiritual instruction of God's people, to whom he should have been an example! In contrast, what energetic, godly leadership Nehemiah showed in casting Tobiah out, and his furniture too, that the separation proper to God's House and people might be vindicated! (See Nehemiah 13.7, 8, 9).

GOD'S HOUSE: PRIESTHOOD: WORSHIP.

Where His Word is honoured by His people, separated unto Himself, there God not only deigns, but desires, and delights, to dwell. To Israel through Moses came the gracious message,

"let them make Me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee ... even so shall ye make it"

(Exodus25.8,9)

And as God's Word must be served with strict adherence and compliance so we read

"According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel did all the work. And Moses saw all the work, and, behold, they had done it; as the LORD had commanded, even so had they done it: and Moses blessed them" (Exodus 39.42, 48).

The worthiness of the material and craftsmanship in that first sanctuary was assured by the gift, to such as Bezalel, of wisdom by the Holy Spirit for the faithful execution of the work.

The house of God is a theme common to both Old and New Testaments with a particularly prominent place in the former, the features and vicissitudes of which furnish valuable lessons concerning the "spiritual house." of the present era (see 1 Peter 2.5). Conjoined with the tabernacle just mentioned, there was the priesthood, with the high service of worship in the sanctuary, the ground and acceptability of which were secured by the sacrifices and offerings prescribed by God to maintain His people in a relationship and condition compatible with that high service. The true leader and shepherd of God's people, "His flock," was the man who loved God's house, and who saw that Israel's true felicity, peace and prosperity stood related most definitely to a proper appreciation on their part of His earthly habitation. David, true shepherd and leader, wrote,

"Lord, I love the habitation of Thy louse,

And the place where Thy glory dwelleth" (Psalm 26.8).

"One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after;

That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,

To behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in His temple"

(Psalm 27.4),

and every godly soul in Israel shared these sentiments and rejoiced in the LORD'S presence in their midst. How strange that a day should come when such sentiments would be despised and forgotten, when wilful and evil men, kings, priests and prophets would lead Israel away, from the law of God, from the service of God, yea, from God Himself: men of the character of Jeroboam, Ahab (whom his wife Jezebel stirred up), Manasseh, and other kings too! Even Solomon, beloved of the LORD, allowed alien affections to estrange him from God and His house, and so set in motion a long train of misrule, the final effect of which was the forsaking of the house of the LORD, by men, and by Himself in anger. Thus was the presence and help of the Spirit of God despised and resisted until He had to record

"Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the heathen; and they polluted the House of the Lord which He had hallowed in Jerusalem.

And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending; because He had compassion on His people, and on His dwelling place.

But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy" (2 Chronicles 36.14-16).

DIVINE RULE

Where God's Word is; where separation unto Him is manifest; where He dwells by the Spirit in a house provided by men according to His will; where He is worshipped and served; there will be seen His rule or government, through leaders raised up by Him. Divine rule is needed to regulate the economy of God's people, to maintain their unity, to protect them from alien assault, to promote their welfare, spiritual and temporal, and to represent God to me, through kings or leaders delegated by Him. It is a present anticipation of the happy day to come for earth when Christ shall reign, the heavenly King of kings and Lord of lords; when the long misrule of sinful kings and leaders and the consequent misery, fear, war and want, shall be banished. Righteousness, instead of sin, shall reign. David was a figure of this He understood the real responsibilities of leadership, and saw its future fulfilment in Christ, speaking thus in vision,

"David the son of Jesse saith, And the man who was raised on high saith,

The anointed of the God of Jacob, And the sweet psalmist of Israel:

The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, And His word was upon my tongue.

The God of Israel said, The Rock of Israel spake to me:

One that ruleth over men righteously,

That ruleth in the fear of God,

He shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth,

A morning without clouds;

When the tender grass springeth out of the earth,

Through clear shining after rain" (2 Samuel 23.1-4).

Alas! David had not many imitators amongst his successors. Evil kings and leaders loom largely in the sacred record as awful examples of wilful and destructive leadership. Even priests and prophets incur exposure and condemnation for their contribution to the ruin of Israel

"A wonderful and horrible thing is come to pass in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so " (Jeremiah 5.30,31). Verily such were false shepherds "that scatter and destroy the sheep of My pasture, saith the LORD." They served themselves and not the sheep. The lesson comes across to the present day in the bitter words of Jeremiah 38., with which should be coupled the warning of the apostle Peter as he exhorts the overseers of churches of God,

"Neither as lording it over the charge allotted to you, but making yourselves ensamples to the flock" (1 Peter 5.8).

How lovely the words of Paul, a true leader and shepherd of the flock,

"ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sate." (2 Corinthians 4. 5)!

FELLOWSHIP AND TESTIMONY.

The Lord designed for Israel that, as a result of obedience to His Word, there should follow peace and prosperity without fear of man, and through that an impressive witness to the nations as to God and His ways (see Deuteronomy 28.8-14). Right leadership sought to secure this; that God's people should enjoy a rich and tranquil community life, soundly based on their obedience to His word. What a contrast between Saul and David in their respective attitudes to the people whose domestic and social peace and comfort depended so much on thoughtful and godly leadership! 1 Samuel B. details with divine insight the case of a people governed by a selfish ruler. David, with true shepherd heart, served God's people, fed them, unified them, led them to eminence as a nation, scattered their enemies, established them in prosperity, and taught them in a practical way, that the psalms of the sweet psalmist of Israel had a real basis in experience of God. God knows that man's heart craves for fellowship. The Fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, is for fellowship - the enjoyment in partnership by His saints of divine blessings, and of the strength and fortitude for adversity and persecution which such fellowship also provides.

Further, the unity and well-being of Israel were meant to be a witness to the nations as a practical demonstration of the reality, and power, and righteousness of the Living God, that His name might be known and feared amongst men. The Spirit of God sustained this high end in the faith and devoted effort of the true leaders of His people.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

"great in the sight of the .... filled with the Holy Spirit,...

And many of the children of Israel shall he turn unto the Lord their God.

And he shall go before His face... to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for Him" (Luke 1. 15-17).

The long line of the prophets of Israel has closed, and the dispensation they represented is about to pass. A new order of things is here, characterized by the gift of the Holy Spirit to each believer in Christ, for power, illumination, and guidance in all life and service for Him. At this juncture God brings in John the Baptist-greater than any yet born of women, although the least in the kingdom of heaven be greater than he. He was, in accordance with the prophetic word, Elijah to those that received him, who afterwards followed the Lord, whose coming John announced. By his ministry and baptism a godly remnant, morally apart from the nation, was prepared for the Lord; many of these were duly identified with the Lord Jesus. Thus, as Israel's history darkens, true Spirit-directed leadership is seen again leading Israel to Christ. Though of the priestly family John was in the deserts till the time of his shewing unto Israel. His was the grand privilege and duty of heralding the long-promised One, who should baptize in the Holy Spirit. Perhaps John's vision of the nature and extent of the spiritual realities which would issue from the death and resurrection of the Lamb of God was limited. However, he bore his witness to Christ faithfully and sealed it with his blood.

JAMES BROWN | May 1952
The Holy Spirit And His Work