In the second book God is praised in connection with the effectuation of His purpose,

• “Blessed be Jehovah Elohim, the God of Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things!”

• It is a question of what He has done here and now in the scene of testimony, and what He will yet do in the day of display. So it says,
  • “Blessed be His glorious name for ever! and let the whole earth be filled with His glory! Amen, and Amen”,

• and the longings of the soul, expressed in Psalm 42, are completely satisfied,
  • “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended”.

• We saw in that book what the assembly is to Christ as the King in Psalm 45, and what it is to God as the great King in Psalm 48, the assembly being His city, where He is praised worthily.

In considering the third book we should note at the outset that the doxology at the close is to God personally.

• It is not God relative to His purpose nor to what He has done. The book ends with this simple yet moving outburst,
  • “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore”,

• and it unfolds His ways with the saints in order that we might come to a profound appreciation of the blessedness of God Himself:

• Thus the doxology is addressed to God in a personal way and the book unfolds His personal dealings with us and His provision for us, so that we might come into the truth substantially and experimentally.

• The earlier books have dealt with His purpose and the effectuation of it, but now it is a question of our being brought into the present gain of His purpose.

• The importance of this is apparent, because it is the will of God that those who will soon be actually in the place that He has purposed for them should be there
  • as having an experimental knowledge of Himself and a profound appreciation of Himself.

• What we learn of God in this way will remain as substance in our souls and enrich His praise throughout eternity.

The book, therefore, begins with the experiences of a soul, but as bearing on God’s general dealings with Israel,

• “Truly God is good to Israel, to such as are of a pure heart”.

• Whatever appearances may seem, God is good and He has only good in view. And then he recounts his experiences,
  • “As for me, my feet were almost gone, my steps had well nigh slipped”,

• but at the end of the Psalm he can say,
  • “Whom have I in the heavens? and there is none upon earth desire beside thee”.

• That is the great end God has in view in His dealings with us. He is going to fill heaven with people to whom He is everything. God is going to be all in all.

• We can therefore understand that His operations at the present time are to reach with us the end that the Psalmist arrives at,
  • “Whom have I in the heavens? and there is none on earth I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever”.

• God will fill heaven with people who have learned to use language like that.

The other Psalms bring out in more detail the tenderness of God’s dealings with His people, first in leading them like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

• The book is not presenting Christ so much in what He effects for God, but rather as provided by God, in His tender consideration for us.

• So He leads His people in the wilderness like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron, and in the next Psalm He chose David and took him from the sheepfolds and brought him to feed Jacob His people and Israel His inheritance in the land.

• How considerate of God to raise up such a Person as this – first as typified in Moses and Aaron, and then in David.

• Then the experience with God which this book contemplates leads us greatly to value the house of God, so that His house becomes our home; it becomes the most precious place on earth to the believer, more precious than his own home.
  • “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand”.

• That is Psalm 84. And then His city becomes so precious to us that we speak of it,
  • “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God”, Psalm 87: 3.

• This is not God speaking about the city exactly, but what we can say about it, through experience. And he ends Psalm 87 with,
  • “All my springs are in thee”.

• So I think we can see in these Psalms that God is bringing us into things practically and experimentally in such a manner that when we come to the last Psalm we can say,
  • “Who in heaven can be compared to Jehovah”, Psalm 89: 6.

• There is no one like Jehovah; this blessed God we have learned in such a personal and experimental way.

G.H.M. Does Romans give us the relations of God with men? Is that why it is so experimental?

G.R.C. Romans is a very experimental book. We arrive at sonship experimentally in chapter 8.

• We prove experimentally, as sons, the good and acceptable and perfect will of God in chapter 12, do we not?

S.H. In referring to God having to do with us personally, have you in mind that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are committed to us in such intimate exercises in view of arriving at what you have said?

G.R.C. I have. That brings up the consideration of this name Jehovah, does it not?

• “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore. Amen and Amen”.

S.H. You mean that the name Jehovah covers the three Persons that we know so intimately?

G.R.C. I would think that. The name Jehovah was the personal name of God in so far as one could call a name personal in the Old Testament.

• In our day the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit implies personal relations with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Spirit.

• Every believer enters into these personal relations.

A.T.G. Is what you are saying about personal relations seen in Paul’s word to the Philippians,

• “My God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus”?

G.R.C. Yes. I think when Paul said “My God” his thoughts were not limited to one Person, as we speak. Earlier he says,

• “I have strength for all things in him that gives me power”,

• without distinguishing a particular Person. There are other scriptures which are similarly undefined.

W.H.K. J.N.D. points out that the name Jehovah is the personal name of the One who is spoken of as Elohim in Genesis 1, which would confirm what you are saying.

G.R.C. It would. There are certain settings where the Jehovah of the Old Testament is clearly the Father of the New.

• See, for instance, J.N.D.’s note on 2 Corinthians 6: 18.

• And there are other settings where the Jehovah of the Old Testament is clearly the Christ of the New.

• J.N.D. says elsewhere that it is as clear to him as the sun at noonday that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New. In Isaiah 6 the seraphim says,
  • “Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of hosts”.

• The comment on that chapter in John 12: 41 is,
  • “These things said Esaias because he saw his glory” – that is, Christ’s glory – “and spoke of him”.

• We can rightly say that the passage has an allusion to the Trinity in the three “Holy’s”, but the Spirit of God has liberty to apply it particularly to Christ.

E.C.L. In Exodus 3, where the name Jehovah is introduced, He says to Moses,

• “I AM THAT I AM”, and then,

• “Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Jehovah the God of your fathers … hath sent me unto you. This is my name for ever”,

• as though the name Jehovah is added to the name, “I AM”, which would be inclusive, would it not, of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as now made known?

• He is spoken of as Jehovah in His relations with Israel, but He is the I AM.

G.R.C. That is right.

B.G.H. With reference to God’s having personal dealings with His people, would Psalm 81 express His personal feelings and His desires for them?

• “I am Jehovah thy God, that brought thee up out of the land of Egypt; open thy mouth wide and I will fill it”.

G.R.C. And verse 13, “Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, that Israel had walked in my ways!”

D.G.H. It seems to express the personal feelings of God in a very definite way.

• God is the speaker in the greater part of it.

G.R.C. It is a Gittith Psalm; a Psalm of pressure, and the pressure is caused through the declension of the people

• and yet God uses even that form of pressure, the feeling of the godly soul about the declension and stubbornness of the people, to enlarge the soul in the knowledge of Himself.

• The soul gets such a sense of God’s yearnings for His people that he arrives at what is stated in the first verse,
  • “Sing ye joyously unto God our strength, shout aloud unto the God of Jacob”.

• He gets such an impression of God!

• There are three Gittith Psalms, two in this book and one in the first book.
  • In Psalm 8 the pressure in the midst of which the babes and sucklings utter the perfected praise is because of the adversaries,

  • in Psalm 81 the pressure is caused by the state of the people,

  • while in Psalm 84 it is on account of the sufferings of the way in maintaining divine principles – see Psalm 84: 5-6.

B.G.H. Would you be free to say a word as to the desires of the soul in relation to God in view of the word in Psalm 73: 26,

• “My flesh and my heart faileth: God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever”.

• Does pressure promote desires towards God, or does it produce something substantial in the soul that already has such desires?

G.R.C. I think the two things react upon each other. God works in us by the Spirit so that we all have desires after Himself, but

• we would never pursue those desires to the divine end without discipline. So that, according to Psalm 73: 14,
  • “For all the day have I been plagued, and chastened every morning”.

• That proves God’s love to us. He is good to Israel. Israel suggests the saints viewed according to purpose, and He is good to us.

• He does not let us settle down like the wicked. He does not give us days of prosperity like the wicked.

• His ways with us are to encourage and develop those divine instincts and feelings which the Spirit of God has wrought in our hearts towards Him, until they become completely dominant in us. So in the end he says,
  • “Whom have I in heaven? and there is none on earth I desire beside thee”.

• I think God’s discipline has reached its end there.

G.H.S.P. Would it be right to say that God’s personal dealings are restricted to man, that order of creation? Is there something instructive in that, that

• “He takes not hold of angels by the hand, but of the seed of Abraham”?

• Is it instructive that God’s moral ways are with that order of being capable of being affected feelingly by them?

G.R.C. It is very affecting to think of that. It would be confirmed, would it not, by the fact that the Son has come into Manhood –

• of course the Son is a title which applies only to Him in Manhood,

• yet it is a title which brings home to us the greatness of the Person who came. And so it says in Hebrews,
  • “Though he were Son, yet learned he obedience from the things that he suffered”.

• Is it not a remarkable thing that this can be said of Him?

G.H.S.P. I am sure it is. It is very affecting and throws, perhaps, fresh light on all God’s ways with us.

• These have the definite end in view that He should be served in a feeling way by persons who have been brought to know Him through His moral dealings with us.

G.R.C. And so it is remarkable that the Lord Jesus does not enter into the great offices of which we were speaking yesterday until He has passed through things experimentally.

• He enters upon His great official positions, according to the purpose of God, as having Himself in manhood experienced all that God could be to a perfect Man, and learned all that obedience meant;
  • an obedience which, in His case, meant infinitely more in suffering than that required of any other.

• That He should have been through such experiences is a remarkable thing. And I think that is what it means when it says,
  • “having been perfected”.

• He is fully qualified for the offices He now holds in glorious manhood because
  • He has been through with God every experience a perfect Man could go through in the scene of testing, and has effected the work of atonement.

W.McK. Philippians has been referred to as the epistle which gives us normal Christian experience, and the Spirit inserts chapter 2 in relation to the Lord Jesus?

G.R.C. You are thinking of the downward steps?

W.McK. Yes. And then the exaltation as a result.

G.R.C. It says in Philippians 2 that

• He “became obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross”;

• and Hebrews shows how He felt it,
  • “strong crying and tears” – a very real matter.

• Many of our disciplinary experiences are because of what we are by nature, whereas He was ever “sin apart”.

• Yet nothing we shall ever go through could in any way compare with the depths of suffering that were His.

W.J.S. What had you in mind in reading verse 17? Is that the resource of the soul as going this way?

G.R.C. Yes, I thought so. However inexplicable the ways of God may seem, viewed in themselves, when we go into the sanctuaries of God we see the reason for them.

• We do not understand the details of His ways, for it says in Psalm 77: 19,
  • “Thy way is in the sea, and thy paths are in the great waters; and thy footsteps are not known”.

• There is much in the ways of God which we cannot and shall not understand down here.
  • “How unsearchable are his judgments, and untraceable his ways”.

• But do you not think that, although we cannot explain them, in going into the sanctuaries of God we see the reason for them and can be entirely restful in God.

A.A.B. In Hebrews 12 the peaceable fruit of righteousness is assured to those who are exercised by the Father’s discipline. Would you link the thought of being exercised with going into the sanctuaries of God?

G.R.C. I am sure that is true. It shows the need for exercise in passing through discipline, that we should be sufficiently exercised to go into the sanctuaries of God.

B.G.H. What is the distinction between the sanctuaries of God and the sanctuary?

G.R.C. I think the sanctuaries of God refer to the court and the holy place as well as the holiest.

• The key to understanding why God orders things which, in themselves, we cannot understand, lies in the whole matter covered by the word
  • “sanctuaries of God”.

A.B. Does it suggest they are very near? Sanctuaries is in the plural. Is it that they are available for us, and do we touch something of the character of it as among the saints? What a relief to be among His people where God is. How establishing it is.

G.R.C. So as we come into the court, the altar faces us, the altar of burnt offering. That is a key to much.

• All that God has established for His pleasure eternally rests upon the sufferings of Christ and the solution of all moral issues.

• Then there is the laver. That also instructs us. Whether the priest approached the altar or whether he went into the tent, he had to go by way of the laver.

• And then, as we move into the holy place, we learn that we being many are one bread, one body,
  • because the twelve loaves of shewbread are now replaced by one loaf, because the saints of this dispensation are reconciled to God in one body

• – I am referring, of course, to the type, and not to the actual bread on the table at the Lord’s Supper.

• Much of God’s discipline is to help us to fit into our place in the body. So that in the sanctuaries of God one thing after another is educative.

• As I look at the altar of burnt offering I can understand God dealing with me in the light of what Christ suffered to establish all for God.

• When I look at the laver, I can understand God dealing with me in order that I should be ready to accept purification.

• And, as in the holy place, I can understand God dealing with me, because if He did not deal with me I should never fit into that one bread, one body, I would never be prepared to let my will go.

• Then there is the light. God must deal with us if the light of the lamps is to shine unhinderedly.

• Finally, in the Holiest of all we see in all its splendour the glory of the One who sits between the cherubim,
  • and the glory of the Man in whose heart the whole will of God is enshrined.

• All is educative and we understand that God must deal with us; and so we become amenable to His discipline.

W.H.K. Would you say why many of these Psalms are of Asaph?

G.R.C. These Psalms indicate that Asaph was remarkably intelligent as to the ways of God,

• and if there is a link between him and the Asaph of 1 Chronicles 16: 7, would it not show what a bearing this has on the service of song?

• Those equipped to take up David’s Psalm, that is, typically, to voice the very praises of the Lord Himself in the assembly, were headed by Asaph.

G.H.S.P. Asaph’s name, meaning Gatherer, too, would show that he always had in mind what might be gathered up to enrich the service in all these ways?

G.R.C. That is very helpful, because these Psalms are certainly a gathering up of that which would enrich the service in real substance. The earlier books give us light, but this book gives us substance.

H.W. So that this book would be analogous to Leviticus, where the service of God is taken up, drawing near to Him with offerings?

G.R.C. Quite so. It would give the substance for the offerings.

• Bringing offerings suggests what is substantial in the knowledge of God and of Christ, what has really been wrought out in the soul, because the offerer is identified with the offering.

• There can be no true offerings except in the measure in which we have had experience with God.

C.J.H.D. And do we have that experience with God in Christianity in a more affectionately intimate way than was possible in the time of the Old Testament?

• I was thinking of the title that God takes according to Hebrews 12 in regard of discipline as the Father of spirits.

• When Moses is under discipline himself, and forbidden to go into the land, it says,
  • “Let Jehovah, the God of the spirits of all flesh”.

• Would you say that the expression, Father of spirits, covers a very great deal in regard of the affectionate side of sonship in our discipline, as compared with men like Moses and Asaph?

G.R.C. I am glad you have referred to that because, while the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

• on the one hand, implies equality of Persons, and, therefore, would lead our hearts out in worship to the Trinity,

• yet from another standpoint it gives the order of the economy, and in this the Father is dominant, the Son and the Holy Spirit having, taken positions relative to Him.

• And I think in the personal relations of which we are speaking, we have to keep that in mind. The doxology,
  • “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore”,

• would include, for us, the full thought of the Trinity, nevertheless, in connection with God’s disciplinary ways, the Father has a peculiar and distinct place.

• According to Hebrews 12, He is the Father of spirits.

• In Psalm 77 it says,
  • “Thou leddest thy people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron”.

• It is like a father to take his children by the hand when they are treading an unknown path.
  • “His paths are in the great waters and His footsteps are not known”.

• We do not know how to take the next step, but God comes in in a fatherly way and leads us by the hand. True, He does it by way of the Son, but the Father’s affections are in it.

C.J.H.D. Yet discipline is not to be connected exclusively with the Father, for 1 Corinthians 11 says that in certain circumstances we are disciplined of the Lord.

• While, in a primary way, in regard of our circumstances, the Father has to do with us, yet it says it is God who conducts Himself towards us as towards sons, does it not?

G.R.C. Quite so. And do you not think that the discipline of the Lord is more judicial? We are disciplined of the Lord that we might not be condemned with the world.

• The Lord comes in, He is jealous, and if we go on in a worldly way, He will deal with us.

• But is not the Father’s discipline apart from that question altogether?

• The Father has our true soul welfare in view and provides all that a Father could provide for us, both in necessary chastening and testing, and also in the comfort and support needed in going through it.

• He provides Christ, the true “Moses and Aaron”, to take us by the hand, leading us in the most tender way so that we might get the gain of the discipline.

G.R.C. That is a different setting, but you have in mind that the purging is in order that the branch bearing fruit may bear more fruit? It is not judicial.

J.D. Would the partaking of His holiness be in mind? The beginning of Psalm 73 speaks of the pure in heart, and in Matthew 5 the Lord says,

• “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.

G.R.C. That is the vital point. The discipline is needed to purify our hearts, so that nothing might hinder us seeing God. Later, in Hebrews 12, it refers to

• “holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord”.

A.B. Would leading like a flock have in mind the saints being led in God’s way, He being the guide, in a combination of tenderness and authority?

G.R.C. You are thinking of Moses and Aaron? Very good. And it does suggest, does it not, that we do not know one footstep ahead.

• He is leading us in God’s way whose footsteps are not known, so that, without the hand of Moses and Aaron we could not get along at all.

• It is a wonderful thing to be in a path of dependence, and yet a path where we are the objects of such tender care.

• And you will notice that we are not isolated in it. He leads His people like a flock.

• God has individual dealings with each one, but yet we are moving together.

E.C.L. Does the thought of confidence, which is to be restored from man to God, come into this thought of the Father’s dealings?

• The Lord’s ministry from John 13 onwards is in order that the disciples might be at home in the Father’s presence, having full confidence in Him, in order that they might move forward into the most precious thoughts of God.

G.R.C. The leading in Psalm 77, which promotes confidence, would prepare us for the leading in Psalm 78, which stands related to the greatest thoughts of God.

• It is a real test to be in a path where we do not know what the next step is to be, but where we are content because such a glorious Person holds our hand, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.

• He is viewed in these Psalms not as the Man of God’s purpose, as in the first book, but as the One God has provided for us. He is leading His people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

• And as we develop in the confidence which comes from that kind of leading, in the path of responsibility in the wilderness, we shall be amenable to the leading that is suggested in David.
  • “He chose David His servant, and took him from the sheepfolds: from following the suckling-ewes, he brought him to feed Jacob His people, and Israel His inheritance. And he fed them according to the integrity of his heart and led them by the skilfulness of his hands”.

• It is skilfulness here because he is leading them in relation to the service of God, in relation to His sanctuary like the heights, spoken of in verse 69.

B.G.H. Would you say the choosing of the tribe of Judah would imply the praises of God being secured?

G.R.C. I think so. We have to learn that the assembly is not simply a family setting.

• “He rejected the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim”

• – that is, the family setting –
  • “but chose the tribe of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved”.

• This is the assembly in its dignity
  • “He built his sanctuary like the heights”

• – and only the true David can guide us skilfully in this setting.

A.A.B. As typified in Moses and Aaron the Lord would be endeared to us as leading us out, and in David as leading and bringing us in?

G.R.C. Quite so.

M.H.T. This follows the darkest moment, when God delivered His strength into captivity and His glory into the enemy’s hand.

• “Where sin o’er all seemed to prevail, redemption’s glory shed”.

G.R.C. God brings in the best at the very worst time. That is what we are proving in our own day.

M.H.T. And is it of interest that the third book contemplates a time of great suffering for the remnant in a future day, when the heathen will come into the inheritance of God and God’s people will be dispossessed,

• but it is in those circumstances of pressure that the service of song to which you have referred will be enriched.

• Ought that not to be a great encouragement to us who form part of the assembly at the present time?

G.R.C. It should, indeed. All the circumstances are ordered of God to bring just the amount of pressure needed. Nothing more than is necessary is ever, allowed by God.

• So that even in that darkest day for Israel, which lies in the future, there will be just the needed pressure to bring about the end God has in view,
  • that Jehovah should be everything to them.

• And God is working to the same end with us, for He will have us go into heaven as a people to whom He is everything.

G.H.S.P. Do you think we might link the doxology in Jude with this book?

• I am thinking of the dark days which that epistle depicts, the days of apostasy, and the way it finishes with,
  • “But to him that is able to keep you without stumbling”.

• Is there a veiled reference in that to being led by the hand? And then,
  • “to set you with exultation blameless before his glory, to the only God our Saviour”, and so on.

• Does it indicate that God secures full response in the very darkest day?

G.R.C. That is excellent. That doxology would seem to link up these two Psalms.

• To keep us from stumbling might be like the hand of Moses and Aaron in the difficult path of the wilderness,

• and then to present us blameless before His glory might link with the sanctuary at the end of Psalm 78.

C.J.H.D. Is there not comfort in the fact that our time of recovery has involved God doing things from behind the enemy and not by means of a frontal attack?

• “He smote his adversaries in the hinder part”.

• Does that not indicate that we have to accept the reproach of the smallness and meanness of things apparently outwardly in the face of great religious movements around us?

G.R.C. Very good. So that the facade of Christendom remains, but God has smitten them in the hinder parts.

C.J.H.D. Exactly; the reproach is really behind them where they least expect it. But we must accept the public reproach.

• We shall never be anything publicly, ecclesiastically, in the eyes of the world.

B.G.H. Would you say a word as to the name Jehovah of hosts occurring in Psalm 84?

G.R.C. I think in this Psalm it is not so much to stress what is military but rather to stress that, as we should say, He has filled His house with sons.

• It is the attractiveness of His house. Not only is Jehovah Himself attractive to the soul, but His house and all that surrounds Him becomes exceedingly attractive also.
  • “My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of Jehovah; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God”.

• Thus God’s house becomes the home of the soul.
  • “Yea, the sparrow hath found a house”.

• Some of us are looking for a house to live in down here, but it is better to find this house.

S.E.W. Is not the latter part of verse 8 touching,

• “Hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob. Selah”?

G.R.C. Jacob was the one who first got light as to the house of God, and it was not at all attractive to him at first. But then the word comes,

• “Go up to Bethel and dwell there”.

• He was to find his home there. And I think the soul really finds its home in the house of God in Psalm 84.

S.E.W. And God brought it to pass with Jacob.

G.R.C. He did. And so in this verse,

• “The sparrow has found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself”.

• I wonder whether we have found this in the house of God?

• It may be we are not prepared to accept the place of a sparrow. It links on with what Mr. D. has just been saying, the place of reproach.

• The Lord says, according to Psalm 102, that He was as a pelican in the wilderness and as a sparrow alone on the housetop.

J.C.T. Is it interesting that in Zechariah the name Jehovah of hosts is used a good many times? While it says,

• “Who hath despised the day of small things?”

• it speaks of the greatness of what God is setting up.

G.R.C. Very good. It is well in a day of small things to remember that He is Jehovah of hosts.

• Things outwardly may seem small, but God will never be short of numbers; and as we become acquainted with His house and learn to dwell there in our spirits, we are not short of numbers.

G.W.B. If the Spirit says “many sons” you may be sure there are many.

G.R.C. So that the title Jehovah of hosts in this setting would be linked with the many sons.

• The Psalmist represents a person in whom the affections of sonship are formed in such a manner that God’s house is his home.

• He is nothing but a sparrow here – an object of reproach – but he has found a house, the house of God.

• He is a swallow, too, always a stranger here, a bird of passage; but the swallow has found
  • “a nest for herself, where she layeth her young, thine altars, O Jehovah of hosts”, Psalm 84: 3.

E.C.L. Why is altars in the plural? In the court there was one altar.

G.R.C. I think the soul is brought to appreciate both altars, so you have the expression,

• “Thine altars, O Jehovah of hosts, my king and my God”.

• We ought to have an appreciation of both of the altars and to use them both.

• I believe one links especially with “my king” and the other with “my God”.

D.W.M. Would Samuel have learned a lot in his young days as being at home in the temple, in a time of great weakness publicly? He develops afterwards as a leader of the people of God.

G.R.C. That is very good, because it shows that we cannot be too young to find our home in God’s house.

W.McK. The younger son in Luke 15 shows how readily that place is found. The reproach is not removed in the eyes of the elder son. He is still in reproach, but he is tasting what is inside in the house of God.

G.R.C. So that, from the divine side, our home is there from the outset, is it not?

• “Bring out the best robe and clothe him in it”.

• But the experiences of this book of Psalms are to make it truly home to us from our side.

• And I do not believe it will become that unless we accept the place of the sparrow and the swallow in this world.

E.C.L. “They will be constantly praising thee”.

• Is that going on continually and not only when the saints are together? It is an attitude of soul?

G.R.C. It shows how much this matter bears on our subject, the praises of God, because this kind of person will be constantly praising God.

E.M.W. Would you say a little more regarding your remark as to the two altars? You made a particular connection.

G.R.C. The altar of burnt offering is a place of: immense provision.

• “We have an altar of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle”, Hebrews 13: 10.

• We find abundance of food there. Then there is the privilege of prayer and supplication at both altars.

• I think at the altar of burnt offering the character of prayer would be more in keeping with “my king”, that is, with God as King of the ages, the blessed and only Ruler,
  • whereas at the golden altar their character would be in keeping with “my God”.

• Solomon prayed in the court. He prayed in the presence of the brazen altar.

S.H. Does the Psalmist indicate the two altars where he refers to his prayer being set forth before God as incense and the lifting up of his hands as the evening oblation? Psalm 141: 2.

G.R.C. The golden altar was the incense altar and connects with the immediate presence of God and what is fragrant to Him; particularly, of course, in the Person of Christ.

• In Revelation 5: 8 the incenses, however, are said to be the prayers of the saints.

• But the altar of burnt offering is connected with the greatness and majesty of God. That is where, typically, He was glorified, according to all that He is in His nature and attributes.

• All that is due to Him as, the King of the ages, the incorruptible, invisible, only God, was maintained at the altar of burnt offering, viewed in its typical significance.

A.B. Would these things give character to our meetings for prayer?

G.R.C. I think so. The kind of prayer that links with the brazen altar is the prayer of 1 Timothy 2.

• That is linked with the King of the ages – 1 Timothy 1: 17. Paul says,
  • “I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings be made for all men; for kings and all that are in dignity”.

• Solomon’s outlook was outward at the altar of burnt offering.

• But the altar of incense is inside and there you are thinking of God and His purposes which centre in Christ.

C.J.H.D. Very fine. And are not our young people to be held in relation to all of this?

• We may marvel that the Spirit of God should speak of the swallow laying her young in such a position.

• Is that not how they are to be held, that we are to indicate to them that we are birds of passage, that our destiny is a heavenly one, that we shall be gone overnight, as it were, and they are brought up in that atmosphere.

G.R.C. That is excellent. This certainly shows where we need to lay our young.

• We need to lay our young at God’s altars. They are safe there.

• And what is so encouraging is that the nearer you bring young children to the altars nowadays, the happier they seem to be.

G.W.B. Has the brazen altar in mind the place of acceptance that has been secured for man in Christ?

G.R.C. It has. That truth enters into our prayers for men.

G.W.B. The golden altar relates to what is for God Himself, from the priestly company?

G.R.C. I think so. Following this we get the kind of exercises that mark those who find their home in God’s house. They are the persons of whom it says,

• “in whose heart are the highways”.

• If we value the house of God we shall always have the highways in our hearts, the highways of divine principles, and, that being so, we shall find the valley of Baca.

• The maintenance of divine principles means that we are never out of the valley of weeping, but we make it a well-spring.

G.H.S.P. Is that why Genesis 35, where Jacob has the word,

• “Go up to Bethel and dwell there”,

• is a chapter of almost unparalleled suffering and sorrow in the household setting, including the death of Rachel; but Jacob rises above it in the naming of his son,
  • “Son of the right hand”.

G.R.C. In that chapter the highways were truly in his heart.

In Psalm 87 we move on to the appreciation of the city, but still on the experimental line. And so the word is,

• “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God”.

• It is a great thing when the saints can speak glorious things about the assembly as the city of God.

• As we were saying yesterday, the city is an inclusive thought.

• It includes the habitation – the Lord God Almighty is its temple and the Lamb; His servants serve Him, so that priestly service proceeds in it, and the tree of life is there.

• All that is most precious to God is enclosed in the city. It is indeed a glorious vessel, the city of God.

• We ought to appreciate the assembly more and more. What a glorious vessel it is!
  • “Glorious things are spoken of thee”.

• Who is speaking? Let us all be speaking.

B.G.H. “All my springs are in thee”.

G.R.C. Quite so. Just as in Psalm 84 his home is in the house of God, so here all his springs are in the assembly as the city.

• It is what the singers and the dancers say, showing how much it bears on the service of God; and if we answer to this, and all our springs are truly in the city of God, it will be evident that we were born there.
  • “Of Zion it shall be said, this one and that one was born there”.

• How does it become evident that we were born there, that she is our mother city? It is because we are among the singers and the dancers who say,
  • “All my springs are in thee”.

N.F.A. Does the thought of the city have some place in regard of our service Godward? You mentioned it yesterday in relation to praises, and you mentioned it again now.

G.R.C. According to Psalm 48 it is the place where God is praised.

• “Great is Jehovah, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the hill of his holiness”.

• I think it is the assembly viewed as the great vessel of praise. It encloses everything that is most precious to God.

• On the other hand, of course, the city is the vessel of light, for the diffusion of light, the light of God. What do you say as to that?

N.F.A. I was wondering whether it should be referred to in the service of God?

G.R.C. I think it should, in the light of this Psalm.

• “Glorious things are spoken of thee”.

• I think God would appreciate it if we could speak some glorious things about His city, because it is very precious to Him.

J.L.W. Revelation 21 and 22 are full of those glorious things.

G.R.C. They are. What a development there is in those chapters of the glorious things of the city.

D.W.M. Is that a justification of Hymn 221, “Jerusalem the holy, whose builder is her God”?

G.R.C. I think there is full justification for that hymn. This Psalm confirms it.

W.McK. Is it in your mind that along with the increased apprehension that the saints have of God, as He has been now presented to us in the ministry,

• there should also be an increased apprehension of the city of God as supplying an answer to all that has come out?

G.R.C. Yes. It is the only vessel in which the great King finds an adequate answer in praise. Everything about the city is worthy of the great King – all its appointments, as one might say.

J.W.G. Mr. Taylor has referred to the city as being solid, substantial.

G.R.C. And that shows the importance pf our coming into things substantially in our souls, according to this book of Psalms.

• And so, in the final verses, we read, it really goes back in principle to what we began with in the 73rd Psalm,
  • “Whom have I in the heavens? and there is none upon earth I desire beside thee”, Psalm 73: 25.

• But it is not simply personal now, it is a challenge to the universe.
  • “Who in the heavens can be compared with Jehovah? Who among the sons of the mighty shall be likened to Jehovah? …

    “Jehovah, God of hosts, who is like unto thee? The strong Jah, and thy faithfulness is round about thee”, Psalm 89: 6, 8.

• What a wonderful thing to arrive at this real appreciation of God Himself. It would lead us on to the doxology,
  • “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore. Amen and Amen”.

J.C.T. We arrive at this by way of the assembly?

G.R.C. Yes, by way of the house and the city, both of which are the assembly.

The second book presents God as the One who effectuates His purpose, having effectuated it here and now in testimony, and shortly to effectuate it in display.

• And so the note of praise at the close is,

• “Blessed be Jehovah Elohim, the God of Israel, who alone doeth wondrous things! And blessed be his glorious name for ever! and let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!”

In the third book we saw that God has personal dealings with His people with a view to our coming into the truth of the first two books vitally and substantially, and to our acquiring a personal knowledge of God, so that the book ends,

• “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore! Amen and Amen”.

• This doxology does not refer to God relative to His purpose or to what He does.

• It is most blessed as expressing the way the soul is brought to appreciate God Himself, as learned in His ways here in discipline.

• His way is in the sanctuary; there we see the reason for His dealings with us; and His way is also in the sea; His path is in the great waters and His footsteps are not known.

• There is much that is inexplicable as to the detail of His ways, but in them we learn Himself and prove the provision He has made for us in Christ.

• Christ is presented in the third book as provided for us.

• According to Psalm 77, He led His people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron, in those paths where they did not know one step in advance;
  • and in Psalm 78 He raised up David to feed His people and to guide them by the skilfulness of his hands in relation to the sanctuary.

• All this leads to a living appreciation on our part of the house of God in Psalm 84, and of the city of God in Psalm 87.

• God’s house becomes our home in Psalm 84, and His city becomes glorious in our eyes in Psalm 87 –
  • “Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God”.

• We are marked by the features of those that are born there, and can say,
  • “All my springs are in thee”.

• One is impressed with the wonderful character of God’s ways with us in order that we may be brought into things practically,

• and, above all, brought to a profound appreciation of the blessedness of God Himself, so that we can say,
  • “Blessed be Jehovah for evermore! Amen and Amen”.

The fourth book, I think, has in view days of recovery.

• In the exercises that mark days of recovery we learn God’s faithfulness and unchangeableness.

• Whatever has happened amongst His people in the sphere of responsibility, He has never changed.

• So that an appreciation of God is wrought out in the souls of the saints in days of recovery that has its own special features.

• The book furnishes guidance for our exercises in such days.

• First of all, Psalm 90 shows that we have to go back to first principles; it is the prayer of Moses, the man of God.

• Since we are in the Psalms it does not give his doctrine, but in going back to his doctrine, as typical of apostolic doctrine in our day, it is a great thing, also, to go back to his prayer and thus to his own view of God,
  • “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, and thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from eternity to eternity thou art God”.

• This surely is the keynote to recovery. And then at the end of the Psalm there is the prayer,
  • “Return, Jehovah”,

• the covenant name, the name of relationship being used.

• That would be the earnest desire in days of recovery. We would return to God, but our prayer would be that He would return to us.

The next point of instruction for days of recovery is that we look on to the Lord’s coming.

• We go back to first principles, on the one hand, and look on to the Lord’s coming on the other.

• And so the Psalms that follow anticipate the Lord’s coming, and we need to do so in order to be maintained in buoyancy
  • in days when, in spite of spiritual recovery, things can never return to their pristine beauty publicly.

• Not until the Lord comes will the public position be remedied. Psalms 93, 97 and 99 begin,
  • “Jehovah reigneth”,

• and Psalm 96 gives the language of souls that are in the hope and present anticipation of the Lord’s coming,
  • “Give unto Jehovah, ye families of peoples, give unto Jehovah glory and strength … say among the nations, Jehovah reigneth!”

• We, in our spirits, anticipate His coming, and testimony is rendered from that standpoint.

H.W. Is there confirmation as to God’s attitude in days of recovery in the post-captivity prophets, particularly Zechariah,

• “Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy … I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; my house shall be built in it”, Zechariah 1: 14, 16.

G.R.C. Such prophetic testimony would encourage us to voice this prayer, “Return, Jehovah”.

• While we look on to the Lord’s actual coming, we count on Him coming to us at the present time.

• We call upon Him to return, counting on His faithfulness to come amongst His people now.

• Scriptures such as John 14: 18,
  • “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”,

• and Matthew 18: 20,
  • “Where two or three are gathered together unto my name, there am I in the midst of them”,

• are peculiarly encouraging in the last days.

I suggested reading Psalm 102 because it refers to the sufferings of Christ as enduring God’s indignation and wrath

• on account of the unfaithfulness of the people, whose representative He had become, in wondrous grace.

• It is that character of His sufferings which would specially affect us as we look back on the unfaithfulness of God’s people.

• And in connection with these sufferings, which culminated in His being cut off in the midst of His days, the unchangeableness of His Person is brought out,
  • “But thou art the same”

• – a title of Deity most comforting in days of recovery. As the hymn says, “Thou art the Same, the one unchanging God”.

• The appreciation of God as the Same, and of the Lord Jesus, being God, as the Same, leads on to the praises of the last Psalms of the book;
  • the praise of God in connection with His healing power in Psalm 103,

  • creation in Psalm 104,

  • His ways of grace in Psalm 105

  • and His ways in government with His people in Psalm 106.

• Psalms 105 and 106 are reviews which belong to days of recovery, reviews of God’s ways in grace, on the one hand, and His ways in government on the other; and they end with this prayer,
  • “Save us, Jehovah our God, and gather us from among the nations, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and to triumph in thy praise”.

• The one desire of the soul is that God would save His people and gather them from among the nations; and for what purpose?

• To give thanks unto His holy name and to triumph in His praise! Then follows the doxology,
  • “Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, from eternity and to eternity! And let all the people say, Amen!”

• Nothing less is in mind than that all the people should be in it.

• All will be in it when the Lord comes, but meantime, however few may be actually available, we have nothing less than this in our minds and prayers,
  • “Let all the people say, Amen! Hallelujah!”

S.H. Is much of what you have said gathered up in a concise way by the people as recovered in Nehemiah 9,

• “Stand up, bless Jehovah your God from eternity to eternity. And let men bless the name of thy glory, which is exalted above all blessing and praise. Thou art the Same, thou alone, Jehovah”?

• And then you have references to creation, quickening and other things which involve the work of God in us.

G.R.C. That is very confirming. It shows how their thoughts were running in line with the fourth book of Psalms.

S.E.W. Is it interesting, in Nehemiah 9: 7, that it goes on to refer to Abraham,

• “Thou art the Same, Jehovah Elohim, who didst choose Abram and broughtest him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees”?

• You were referring to first principles.

G.R.C. That helps us because the name God in Psalm 90: 2 – El – is first used in connection with Abraham.

• The name Lord in Psalm 90: 1 is Adonai. Adonai is a divine title, suggesting the lordship and authority that is inherent in Deity.

• In many places – e.g. Ps. 68: 17-18; 110: 5 – it refers to the Lord Jesus; but, of course, sovereign rights and authority belong also to the Father and the Spirit.

• In this Psalm the title is applied to God, as such; and its suitability is evident, for when we are thinking of our transgressions and failure
  • we rightly think of the authority of the God whose rights we have flouted and whose commandments we have disobeyed.

• Yet we turn to Him because, although we have forfeited every claim by our practical conduct,
  • we know that Adonai has rights in mercy as well as in authority,

• and therefore it is to Him that we cling. And so the prayer is,
  • “Adonai, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, and thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from eternity to eternity thou art God”.

• Now the word “God” is ‘El’, and it is first used in connection with Abraham.

• It means ‘the Mighty’; God viewed as the mighty, stable, eternal God:
  • “from eternity to eternity thou art ‘El’ ”.

• In days of recovery Israel needed to go back, not only to Moses, but to Abraham, the one to whom the promises were made by the mighty God.

• In our case we need to go back to God’s purpose and grace given us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time.

E.M.W. Is it interesting that Abraham is the first to use that title ‘Adonai’?

• In Genesis 15: 2 we read,
  • “And Abram said, Lord” [Adonai] “Jehovah, what wilt thou give me? seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus”.

G.R.C. That is very interesting. God uses the name ‘El’ and Abraham uses the title ‘Adonai’.

H.W.E. Does it also refer to God as the source of all blessing?

G.R.C. The name ‘Adonai’ conveys lordship and authority,

• whereas Jehovah is the One who is faithful to all His commitments, the One who is, who was, and who is to come.

• Abraham uses both names.

• ‘Adonai’ is important there because it says he believed Jehovah, and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

• It was the obedience of faith. Disobedience is a denial of the rights and authority of God.

G.R.C. I think an understanding of them would greatly enlarge our apprehension of God in His greatness and thus promote our worship.

W.C.P. Are not the exercises connected with days of recovery enriching the saints universally in their appreciation of God in every way in which He is presented to us in scripture?

G.R.C. I think so; and the apprehension of the meaning of these names in no wise belittles the name now declared;

• the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the greatest name of all.

• The more we enter into the fulness attaching to that name, in which God Himself has come out to us in order to be known to us in such personal relationships,
  • the more we shall value the names in the Old Testament, each of which is expressive of some attribute of Deity, some feature of greatness proper to Him as God.

J.L.W. Does the first verse of Psalm 103 help in that connection?

• “Bless Jehovah, a my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name”?

• Would “his holy name” include these manifold glories?

G.R.C. “Bless Jehovah” would show that in the closing Psalms of the book there is full restoration to the sense of relationship, Jehovah being the name of relationship with Israel.

• Similarly, we are coming into the full blessedness of God’s name of relationship in our day.

• Its meaning is being unfolded more and more to us, the meaning of the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the blessedness of the economy of love and grace connected with it.

• I think you have in mind that as restored to the sense of relationship, our affections would embrace every feature of divine glory previously disclosed; so that His name becomes a great inclusive thought?

J.L.W. Yes, “All that is within me” it says. And our affections are fully engaged.

G.R.C. So that, as knowing God in the name of relationship, and as in the joy of our place in the divine economy of love, we can bless His holy name in every feature of that name which has been disclosed from the beginning of time.

G.H.S.P. Is it interesting that during the ministry within the knowledge of most of us the outstanding features have been

• the truth as to the Person of the Son,

• and then the truth as to the Person of the Spirit,

• and then the truth as to God Himself, in these final days of recovery?

G.R.C. That seems to be the way the Spirit of God has been leading in our time.

• Prior to that the truth as to the Person of the Father had been stressed, I believe.

A.A.G. Would the way in which we know God now have particular reference to His nature,

• whereas the varied names in the Old Testament relate more to the attributes of Deity?

G.R.C. I think that is right. In the Person of the Son there is now the full display of His nature, as well as His character or moral attributes.

• His moral attributes were not in full display in the Old Testament, that is, His mercy, kindness, grace and compassion; but now they are in full display.

• The Son is the effulgence of His glory and the expression of His substance.

• But then in the Old Testament there are names which express the attributes of greatness, strength, stability, majesty and splendour that attach to God,

• and the Spirit of God expects us to carry all those forward, because they all attach to the God who has come out to us in such an intimate, and, we may say, loving way, according to His nature.

A.A.G. So that the knowledge of God in His nature would make these varied attributes of greatness, majesty, stability, and so on, extremely attractive, would it not?

G.R.C. It would.

W.H.K. “And let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us”.

• Would that not include all that has shone out of God? All is to be reflected in the saints.

G.R.C. That is very beautiful.

A.A.B. Would the way John writes the book of Revelation after the departure from Paul

• and his allusion to the Lord’s coming in the first chapter, and to the Spirit and the bride saying “Come” in the last, link with the thought of “Return, Jehovah”?

G.R.C. I think the first verse of Psalm 90 bears on John’s ministry,

• “thou hast been our dwelling-place”.

• There is the thought of His dwelling-place among His people, and in that connection there has been unfaithfulness, but it does not alter the fact that He is our dwelling-place.

• He has never changed, and I believe John particularly brings out the unchangeableness of the God who has been so fully declared.

• So that John’s ministry is for days of recovery.

A.A.B. “He that abides in love abides in God, and God in him”.

G.R.C. Quite so. So that while God is our dwelling-place, our desire is to provide, at the close of the dispensation, conditions down here suited to His dwelling-place.

• As we return to Him, and prove the resource we have in Him, we find strength to take up the position of responsibility and to say,
  • “Return, Jehovah … Satisfy us early with thy loving-kindness; that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days”.

  • And then, “Let thy work appear unto thy servants”.

• We yearn to see something substantial down here in the way of recovery, so that while the church in responsibility can never be recovered,
  • yet we desire that features proper to the assembly, which is the house of God, and the city of God, might come into evidence.

S.H. Would you say that Moses’ song in Deuteronomy 32, much of which is judicial, and where this very word is used as to Jehovah repenting in favour of His servants, shows how God will come in in regard to His people? It says,

• “Shout for joy, ye nations, with his people, for he avengeth the blood of his servants, and rendereth vengeance to his enemies, and maketh atonement for his land, for his people”.

G.R.C. Quite so. So Psalm 90 ends,

• “let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us”

• – a wonderful thought, that there should be seen in the saints an answer to the revelation of God; and then His work appearing and the work of our hands established.

• There is something concrete thus in the way of recovery.

The next Psalm more definitely goes back to Abraham, the one to whom the immutable promises of God were made.

• “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty”.

• El Elyon, the Most High God, and El Shaddai, the Almighty God, were titles disclosed to Abraham, and I believe they are of great encouragement in a day of recovery.

• “Most High” is used in Daniel in connection with the political scene. God ordered the whole political scene in the Babylonish and Persian empires
  • in view of what was outwardly but a small remnant, but was marked vitally by all the features of the original.

• And that is what God has done in these last days. He has ordered, and is ordering, political matters, with a view to an expression of features proper to the whole assembly, though seen, it may be, in but a few.

• And then there is the shadow of the Almighty. What a comfort that is in days of recovery – what cannot God do?

J.D. Does Paul have this in mind in Acts 20,

• “I commit you to God, and to the word of his grace”,

• and then in Timothy, speaking to him as the man of God, he says,
  • “God, who preserves all things in life”.

G.R.C. The man of God particularly comes into view in days of recovery; and life is also a great feature.

• The test is not simply outward order, but life.

W.H.K. Paul refers to “the blessed and only Ruler”, the King of those that reign, and Lord of those that exercise lordship. That would link with the “Most High”?

G.R.C. I would think so. As in the secret place of the Most High, we can be restful in political matters,

• and the shadow of the Almighty keeps us restful in spiritual matters, because what cannot God do in a spiritual way?

• The title ‘Almighty’ is introduced in connection with quickening the dead.

H.W.S. Luke 2 refers to the arrangement of the political sphere, and in Luke 1 it says,

• “He shall be great and shall be called Son of the Highest”.

G.R.C. It is very interesting that Luke presents the Lord Jesus as the

• “Son of the Most High”, Luke 1: 32 – footnote J.N.D.

• The Most High is supreme in every sphere, and the beginning of Luke stresses that.

A.T.G. Luke 6 says, “Ye shall be sons of the Highest”. It is the same word, is it not?

G.R.C. Yes. It is those who dwell in the secret place of the Most High and under the shadow of the Almighty who can manifest the character of

• “sons of the Highest”.

• They are maintained in peace and moral elevation whatever is going on around.

• They are in spirit above the scene of political agitation, they know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men; and, on the other hand,
  • they are not unduly disturbed by, although they feel keenly, what is going on in the profession, because they know the Almighty.

• They trust in Him to let His work appear to His servants and to bring about results, even in days of greatest weakness, on the principle of life out of death.

P.S.L. Is the secret place illustrated by the hill country in Luke 1?

G.R.C. The hill country was a place of elevation, above the level of things here.

A.T.G. May we refer to a certain agitation in relation to what has been taking place in London in a big and popular way? If we are in the gain of “sons of the Highest”, should we not be restful in regard of that?

G.R.C. I am sure that is right. It is a question of

• “let thy work appear to thy servants”.

• God is working in spite of everything, and by whatever means He chooses.

• But then there is our work, the work of our hands, and we are to have holy hands.
  • “Establish thou it”.

• As to all the works that are done in Christ’s name, the question is, are they of such a character that God can establish them?

R.H.S. Does 2 Corinthians 6: 16-18 help as to the Almighty? It brings in the thought of dwelling,

• “I will dwell among them”,

• and then the matter of separation.

G.R.C. And is not separation specially vital in days of recovery?

R.H.S. I thought so.

G.R.C. In that connection God says,

• “I will be to you for a Father, and ye shall be to me for sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”.

R.H. Daniel says, “Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever; for wisdom and might are his. And it is he that changeth times and seasons”.

G.R.C. That links with the Most High, a title which occurs much in Daniel –

• “the Most High ruleth over the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men”, Daniel 4: 17.

• Everything is according to His will, and in view of His testimony that is the thing to see.

• It is very encouraging that God enters in a peculiar way into the political scene in days of recovery, with a view to what is outwardly so weak being preserved and protected and going forward,
  • in order that the dispensation should finish as it began, not in numbers but in features.

• Thus the Spirit and the bride say “Come”.

C.J.H.D. I am wondering whether there is not great confirmation in the last book of the Old Testament which accords so well with Luke.

• There is the statement of such majesty,
  • “I am a great King … and my name is terrible among the nations”,

• and then, in view of our returning and service, it says,
  • “ye shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not”.

• Then there is the last reference to Moses, so beautiful in regard of the second giving of the law in grace at Horeb.

• I was wondering whether Psalm 90 was written on Horeb, not Sinai.

G.R.C. Malachi is most interesting.

• “From the rising of the sun even unto its setting my name shall be great among the nations; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure oblation”, Malachi 1: 11

• – and in principle God has brought that about. It looks on to the millennium, but in principle God has brought it about in these last days.

C.J.H.D. And then the unchangeableness of God:

• “I Jehovah change not, and ye sons of Jacob are not consumed”.

G.H.S.P. The reference to the latter glory of this house being greater than the former would confirm, do you think, what you said at the beginning about something special entering into the days of recovery?

• Do you think our enjoyment of that is dependent upon our maintaining the principles of separation?

G.R.C. I do, and that bears on Mr. G.’s remark as to what has been going on in London, because what is not based upon holiness and separation to God will not stand.

• While souls are saved in God’s sovereignty, and we are thankful for that, yet it is a question of
  • “the work of our hands, establish thou it”.

• The test of a thing is how far God establishes it in its results.

• The popular revivals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have left no permanent results in testimony according to God.

• Souls have been saved and we thank God for that, and some may have been brought into the path of separation, but from the movements themselves there has been nothing that God could establish. We need to understand that.
  • “Let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us, and … the work of our hands, establish thou it”.

• Establishment comes, not by using Egyptian methods, but by the beauty of Jehovah our God being upon us.

• It is a great thing to be on lines in which God will establish the work of our hands.

H.W. That all emphasises, does it not, the importance of John’s ministry,

• not setting up anything outward but bringing in living and holy conditions. The Lord says in His prayer,
  • “Holy Father, keep them in thy name”.

G.R.C. Very good.

R.F.D. Do you think that, as we are engaged with the truth relating to recovery, the Holy Spirit would engage us with all the truth, not just one section of it. Popular evangelism limits itself to one aspect.

G.R.C. I am sure that is right. Every feature of the truth of the assembly should be in expression in these last days.

• But then we need to see that for anything in the way of public display we have to wait for the Lord’s coming.

• It is not for us to have in mind public display now because of the humiliating failure of the profession in which we have part.

• As far as public display is concerned, we have to await the Lord’s coming. But there is the anticipation of it.

• It is a great theme of testimony that the Lord is about to come, and it keeps us in buoyancy.

• But then according to Psalm 101 He comes to us now:
  • “I will sing of loving-kindness and judgment: unto thee, Jehovah, will I sing psalms. I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way. When wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house in the integrity of my heart. I will set no thing of Belial before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me”.

• Does that not set out the secret exercises which provide conditions for the Lord to come to us now?
  • “When wilt thou come unto me?”

• The Lord is coming publicly shortly, but He comes to us now as there are conditions.

E.C.L. You would expect the Lord to come to us, in some sense, at every gathering, not only at the Supper, would you not?

• I wonder whether we have had this sufficiently in mind on all occasions of gathering. If the Lord comes He will give a distinct impression of Himself, suited to the occasion, will He not?

G.R.C. One has thought that the Lord’s word

• “I will not leave you orphans, I am coming to you”, John 14: 18, has a wide bearing.

• He comes in a peculiar way at the Supper, but we count on Him to enter into every occasion, do we not?

• On an occasion like this, what emptiness there would be if the Lord were not here.

• Hence our exercise at all times is that there might be conditions of righteousness, holiness and dependence so as to secure His presence.

• As regards the individual, He says,
  • “he that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me; but he that loves me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will manifest myself to him”;

  • and then, “If anyone love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him”.

C.B.J. Would Genesis 17 and 18 allude to dwelling in the secret place of the Most High and abiding under the shadow of the Almighty?

• In the seventeenth chapter, was not Abraham invited to abide under the shadow of the Almighty; and in the eighteenth he is dwelling in his house, as it were, with the heavenly visitors.

G.R.C. Very good. So that the word at the beginning of Genesis 17 is,

• “I am the Almighty God: walk before my face and be perfect”.

• And God was going to express the proof of His almightiness, was He not, in the bringing in of Isaac?

• We can count on God proving His almightiness in bringing in what is spiritual amongst the saints today.

• But then as you say, in the eighteenth chapter, in the restfulness of that knowledge, Abraham was able to provide conditions for Jehovah to come to him.

F.L.R. Would you say why three Psalms are merged together in 1 Chronicles 16, where the ark is brought into the tent which David spread for it?

• I was wondering whether the tent would indicate a provisional idea, because David’s day was a day of recovery.

• The ark had been in other hands, and the three Psalms, 96, 105 and 106, are blended together in the first Psalm delivered to Asaph.

G.R.C. That is very interesting. Does it not show how under the Lord’s hand in the service of song, contributions are blended? It says,

• “On that day David delivered first this psalm to give thanks to Jehovah through Asaph and his brethren”.

• It came, as it were, from David, and yet it was a blend of contributions.

D.S.H. Would you say some more about the blend of contributions?

G.R.C. Is it not instructive as to the service of song? David said,

• “In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee”, Psalm 22: 22,

• and he did so on the day that the ark was brought up.

• He delivered the Psalm, but it was a blend of contributions, and it was voiced through Asaph and his brethren.

D.S.H. Should not we have great liberty in merging with one another in assembly service?

G.R.C. I am sure we should, as under the headship of Christ.

• And then, as the book proceeds, Psalm 102 would help us as to feelings proper to the closing days.

• The Lord Himself has entered into intense sufferings resulting from God’s governmental indignation and wrath against a faithless people, of whom He was, in wondrous grace, the representative.

• He entered into these in Gethsemane. While these sufferings do not, in themselves, go so far as atoning sufferings, yet they lead up to and merge into the sufferings of atonement.

• We need in our spirits to understand, in so far as this is possible, God’s feelings about what has taken place in Christendom and the breakdown in which we have part.

• We need to enter into them as recognising how much the Lord has suffered because of man’s – i.e. Israel’s – unfaithfulness in the place of responsibility in which God set him; on account of which He was cut off in the midst of His days.

• But the Psalm goes on,
  • “Thou art the same”;

• the blessed Person who, in grace, took all upon Himself is saluted by God in this way.

W.J.S. You quoted this Psalm yesterday,

• “I am become like the pelican of the wilderness … and am like a sparrow alone upon the house-top”.

• How he felt the conditions, the spotless, perfect, holy Man, surrounded by so much that was dishonourable to God; how it pressed upon His spirit!

G.R.C. Yes, and feeling, too, the state of the nation of Israel, and how right it was that indignation and wrath should fall upon it and therefore upon Him as its representative, through boundless grace.

• Wrath came upon Him; He took it upon Himself as that nation’s shepherd.

• It would affect our outlook on church history, I believe, to contemplate these sufferings.

• God as God cannot overlook what has happened, and if His grace is the same at the end of the dispensation as it was at the beginning, the righteous basis lies in these sufferings of the Christ
  • which go deeper than the smiting of Israel’s Shepherd, though linked with it, namely the sufferings of atonement itself.

• But what a comfort in these last days, to know that the Man who was cut off in the midst of His days is the Same – the unchanging God.

• He is unchanging in grace and faithfulness, in spite of our unfaithfulness.

H.A.H. Would all His ways with us as shown in Psalms 105 and 106 be in view of all the people saying “Amen”?

G.R.C. That is what is in mind, and I believe that should be ever before us in days of recovery. We should have nothing less in mind than that all the people should say “Amen”.

• We may say, ‘We shall never achieve it’. True, we shall not achieve it, but it is going to be achieved.

• All the people are going to say “Amen” at the coming of the Lord. And the coming of the Lord is our hope in this book.

• His coming is imminent and we already anticipate it in our spirits; in fact, He already comes to us.

• And when the Lord actually comes, all the people will say “Amen”. Not one will be absent, all will be in the matter, so that we are not cast down at all.

• But meantime our earnest prayer and desire is that they might say it now.

• All the saints are in our hearts; we yearn that all might be available, and our continual prayer should be, according to Psalm 106: 47,
  • “Save us, Jehovah our God, and gather us”.

• This is not a limited “us” – it includes all who belong to the Lord Jesus.
  • “Save us, Jehovah our God, and gather us from among the nations”

• – we long for all to be saved and all to be gathered –
  • “to give thanks unto thy holy name and to triumph in thy praise”.

G.H.S.P. Does this bear on the ministry which we have had as to forgiveness, and our attitude towards each other if assembly sorrows occur? I think you used the expression ‘healing power’ in your opening remarks.

G.R.C. That is very interesting. Psalm 103 is an ascription of praise to God in connection with His healing power;

• “Bless Jehovah, O my soul; and all that is within me bless His holy name”.

• It implies that we are healed inwardly; otherwise all that is within us is not available.

• We would love to see all the saints healed inwardly so that all that is within them is available for God, as under the control of the Spirit.
  • “Bless Jehovah, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities”

• – these are assembly iniquities, as well as personal ones; God is ready to forgive us in respect of our part in all the sins of the dispensation, if we are repentant.
  • “Who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from the pit, who crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies; who satisfieth thine old age with good things”.

• We are living in the ‘old age’ as it were, of the dispensation, but He
  • “satisfieth thine old age with good things; thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s”.

• So that the dispensation ends up with full youthful energy in the power of the Spirit through the healing faithfulness of God, in spite of all the sins of the dispensation.

• And all is due to the fact that He is “the Same”. He is all that He ever was to the church.

C.J.H.D. So that the two sides that you refer to, God never overlooking matters and yet corning out in the most wonderful grace, are brought together very closely in the last chapter of the Old Testament;

• the day is going to burn like an oven, and things are going to be dealt with, and yet the Sun of righteousness is going to arise to them that fear God’s name, with healing in His wings.

G.R.C. Very good.

G.H.S.P. You referred in a previous reading to some of Paul’s doxologies, and yesterday to Jude’s doxology;

• might this book link with Peter’s doxology,
  • “the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, when ye have suffered for a little while, himself shall make perfect”, 1 Peter 4: 10?

• Recovery would be connected with the God of all grace?

G.R.C. I think it would.

J.D. Why is “Hallelujah” used at the end of this book?

G.R.C. This book introduces the word “Hallelujah” because in days of recovery we become specially jubilant as we prove God in His faithfulness.

• It leads to a state of exuberance in Nehemiah, where the joy of Jerusalem was heard afar off.

• And so the word “Hallelujah” begins to appear; it appears at the ends of Psalms 104, 105 and 106.

• In Psalm 103 we magnify God for His healing grace, and in Psalm 104 for His works in creation
  • – the truth of creation having a great place in New Testament teaching and having special importance in this day of evolutionary theories.

• Psalm 105 rehearses His gracious acts to His people, and Psalm 106 the failures of the people and God’s governmental dealings with them.

• Rehearsal belongs especially to the end of the dispensation, and adds to the wealth of praise that goes up at the end. It says,
  • “And let all the people say, Amen! Hallelujah!”

J.P. Do you think Aquila and Priscilla are set out as wonderful examples of Psalm 103 –

• “satisfieth thine old age” – see note as to ‘adornment’.

• I believe Priscilla means ‘old age’ and Aquila ‘the eagle’ – youth.

G.R.C. That is very interesting.

M.H.T. Is it striking that Hebrews begins with a quotation from Psalm 102 in connection with the title “the Same”, Hebrews. 1: 12 – and ends with the reference to

• “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and to the ages to come”,

• the first reference being an assertion of His Deity, and the second a beautiful allusion to His humanity.

G.R.C. Very good.