Local Notes
by Jeff Kuns

Beginning with 1 Corinthians 3: 16 – "Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" – we have an oft heard profession among believers,

• that the believer is the temple of God, the Spirit indwelling each one – and this is very important –

• but unfortunately for many of us we have missed out on the 'collective' side of the statement, on the assembly side of things which is a spiritual and heavenly side.

• In general we don't spend the time we ought meditating on this, asking the Lord what it means.

• Perhaps we might admit and even defend the doctrine that we are a body that seeks things that are above,
  • but our expression of the doctrine in continuing the practice of traditionally religious things shows that we may have not undertaken to seek the teaching from the Lord.

The point Paul consistently presses in view of his particular ministry is that we are brought together as a spiritual house with spiritual blessings

• and that this is organized under the spiritual headship of our Lord – we go there to worship and learn and train in His things.

• "… Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone, in whom all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit", Eph. 2: 20-22

• – there is no better way to explain this spiritual building – "the true tabernacle, which the Lord has pitched, and not man", Hebrews 8: 2.

• It is difficult to articulate not only because this is a new thing for most of us, but primarily because it is God's beautiful mystery.

Keep in mind that the natural man shies away from mystery and is attracted to external forms which appear to be the service and worship of God,

• hence this subject has become perhaps the most neglected doctrine among believers and the misunderstanding of it causes all kinds of spiritual trouble.

• Whenever assembly perception is neglected, acquaintance with Christ is impaired and individual holiness suffers;
  • if the spiritual nature of the assembly itself is not perceived I can count on becoming earthly in my thinking, I will default to carnality.

• There is no other place for the Christian but heaven and dependence upon Christ. Putting our trust in earthly concepts and ideas and then trying to get a spiritual concept won't work.

• I can't find out deep things of God and a closer walk with Him in my natural way of thinking or by the practice of some system or another –

• Natural wisdom: "Let no one deceive himself: if any one thinks himself to be wise among you in this world, let him become foolish, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God" 1 Corinthians 3: 18-19a;

• Susceptibility: "For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, good does not dwell", Romans 7: 18;

• System: "For blood of bulls and goats is incapable of taking away sins", Hebrews 10: 4.

• There are three applications connected:
  1. my education does not come simply by study, don't misunderstand that to mean study is not right or important, but it must be pursued humbly;

  2. my flesh is ready to awaken and turn my knowledge sinfully against me, so even in learning the things of God there is danger of perversion and taking it up in a judgmental way or a proud way, therefore we undertake study cautiously;

  3. depending on practice to claim acceptability before the Lord has no place in His service. I have no doubt that if we continue looking to the Lord Jesus and holding fast to Him we will be given understanding and be kept from error.

We need also to address the seeking of help from other brethren.

• Even if I were to ask help from brethren, if they do not have exercise about the Lord's assembly they will not be able to "go over in array" in order to help me across. See Joshua 1: 14.
  • We may become misdirected and easily confused with their suggestions on how to improve our feeling;

  • we may become prone to fall into religious externalism with others who are equally as isolated in their traditions, we may go back to old ways of doing things.

Historically in Christendom, traditionalism turns into idolatry – symbols and systems are constructed to help us "get the right steps". Trying to get the steps is called dancing – not faith.

• What about the great faith of those who had to wait before Jesus came?
  • "All these died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar off and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth. For they who say such things shew clearly that they seek their country. And if they had called to mind that from whence they went out, they had had opportunity to have returned; but now they seek a better, that is, a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed of them, to be called their God; for he has prepared for them a city", Heb. 11: 13-16.

• Shall we now take up forms of what they did while awaiting what we are privileged to possess? Far be the thought!

• We are not left waiting to receive these things in the future – though what we have to look forward to is indeed great! – because we have access to this blessing now through our Lord Jesus Christ!

If it will be seen by us, to any degree that the material for construction is "new-creation" material, that the thing is only spiritually borne and only spiritually perceived, an utterly different and totally better process takes place than what we are perhaps used to.

• A structure that nothing but faith can see is the only thing that will satisfy the growing Christian and give him something to rejoice about.

• Everything that stands in the way of this spiritual perception by way of externalism is a hindrance to moving on with the Lord, it is standing in His way as He builds His assembly,
  • "For every house is built by some one; but he who has built all things is God… But Christ, as Son over his house, whose house are we, if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end", Hebrews 3: 4, 6; see also, Matthew 16: 18.

• There is no need to worry whether it will be accomplished or not, we don't need to help God along with His work, we need to go along with it while it is accomplished.

Here is where we arrive at our connection to 1 Corinthians 3: 12, and it is an inspiring arrival –

• "Let us also therefore, having so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, laying aside every weight, and sin which so easily entangles us, run with endurance the race that lies before us, looking steadfastly on Jesus the leader and completer of faith: who, in view of the joy lying before him, endured the cross, having despised the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God", Hebrews 12: 1-2.

• We take it for granted that we ought to lay aside sin, but the subject of Hebrews is not sin primarily, it is the inability to approach God, and that our high priest, Christ Jesus, by faith in Him, secures the approach in this dispensation.

The Spirit here wants these Jewish converts to continue, not forsaking the assembling of themselves, thus retreating into the system that was passing away – the system that was only a shadow of the heavenly things – and to preserve them for the way of approach –

• "But Christ being come high priest of the good things to come, by the better and more perfect tabernacle not made with hand, (that is, not of this creation,) nor by blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, has entered in once for all into the [holy of] holies, having found an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and a heifer's ashes sprinkling the defiled, sanctifies for the purity of the flesh, how much rather shall the blood of the Christ, who by the eternal Spirit offered himself spotless to God, purify your conscience from dead works to worship [the] living God?", Hebrews 9: 11-14 –

• we want at all costs to avoid dead works in relation to service and worship and we ought to feel free to let drop mere systematic externals and unscriptural traditions – laying aside every weight –

• in order that we might spend our time with our Lord in the true tabernacle where He is that we may be transformed, zealous for good works, in the power of His might and entirely to His glory.

We have a place in which to worship and to "inquire of him in his temple", Psalm 27: 4.

• We have it because we are being fitted into it and as we abide in Christ we will doubtless experience it for He Himself is the builder of it and our Head.

• We cannot reason ourselves in, however, I do not say it is irrational – we see it by faith and hopefully we 'have a history' with God and know He is to be trusted and is able to make it good in power.

• Let us remember that He came to His own, and His own received him not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to be children of God, to those that believe on His name; who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh's will, nor of man's will, but of God. John 1: 11-13.

The manner of the oppression is given in verses 13 and 14,

• “And the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with harshness; and they embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks, and in all manner of labour in the field: all their labour with which they made them serve was with harshness”.

• Looking around we find we are in a place which would sap our spiritual energies – the world would put us to work in the same manner, with equal harshness, to try and work away whatever comes from rest in God, so that whatever we may have is not available for God.

• What comes out more and more clearly as this account progresses is how the world, and all that is in it, hates any true effort Godward.

• A worldly estimate is either, ‘You’re wasting your time!’ or ‘Work harder!’

• Indeed as Pharaoh tells Moses later on,
  • “Behold the people of the land are now many, and ye wish to make them rest from their burdens”, Exodus 5: 5,

• as if to suggest that all this heavy labour has made possible the increase of God’s people!

• It is very important to get clear in our minds this thought of what Egypt is at the outset, and how it corresponds to all around us.

In the beginning of Exodus there is a dramatic change in authority from the final chapters of Genesis:

• “and there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph”, 1: 8.

• It is well to observe that Satan has very real authority in this world, the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus being a prime example of its nature.

• And all Satan’s resources in this world are set for the purpose of nullifying what is for God’s pleasure.

• Unless we go through these basic exercises in Exodus which are so instructive to the inner man, the details of all that God has in His heart for us, it is very difficult to proceed to what is revealed later in the book:
  • “Then shall ye be my own possession out of all the peoples … and ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation”, 19: 5-6.

• And Peter says,
  • “Ye are a chosen race, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a people for a possession, that ye might set forth the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness to his wonderful light; who once were not a people, but now God’s people; who were not enjoying mercy, but now have found mercy”, 1 Peter 2: 9-10.

• These are essential elements to begin with. We all need to pass through these spiritual exercises that God might secure us for Himself;
  • because in his own history, each believer is at some moral point in the events found in Exodus ,

• and if we do not have the conscious knowledge that we have progressed subjectively through these exercises we are very likely to still be in them. So let each of us present our body
  • “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God”, Romans 12: 1,

• because God’s thought is that we move to the end of this journey.

The Hebrew midwives feared God and continued to deliver and protect the sons that Pharaoh wanted dead.

• Even in the most adverse circumstances, there is always the “midwife”; there will always be that element, however adverse the conditions.

• Somewhere there is always going to be a response to God’s thoughts in relation to a people for Himself.

• We don't want self-generated responses, according to the flesh or in a religious way that adorns ourselves, but according to, and through, what God has given.

• This is seen in the sons being preserved by the midwives; they are making sure that what is precious to God, and the basis of its strength, goes on.

• Keeping on that line we will be preserved from acting in a legal way, and can be confident that whatever we might do, or refuse to do, will be in keeping with God's love and mercy.

• But here also, we get a glimpse of hope and a prefiguring of the deliverance that was to come.

What a heart-answer we see because of the midwives thought for the children – there are the people, but there are also the little ones.

• What account God had taken of the children by sending the midwives!

• We should take account of little ones the way God does and seek to protect them from the hold Egypt would put upon them!

• And here only two midwives are mentioned – only two in the face of the whole nation of Egypt!

• The king of Egypt commanded them to kill “all the males” – those who would perpetuate strength – because if he can’t secure their strength, he wants them dead, literally here, but spiritually for us.

• Satan knows he can’t have you if you are chosen by God, he knows that you’re secured for all eternity, he knows you are a son – so what is he going to do?

• He is going to try to rob God of His portion in worship – and that’s not just on the Lord’s day.

• There are things all through the week that can distract the mind and lead to spiritual deadness.

• We need a right estimate of all things, whatever we come across. Is it going to facilitate an answer to God?

• Is it going to facilitate a response to His care for me, or rob Him by sidetracking me on to some intellectual tangent, or religious tangent, or some carnal effort?

We also need a right estimate of ourselves as acted upon by God; we should have the sense of His choosing us.

• Pharaoh said, “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more numerous and stronger than we”, 1: 9.

• That is absolutely true – perhaps not in actual numbers, but in power.

• We have nothing to fear in Egypt but we may find ourselves cowering and in bondage; and until God sets us free by our Moses, we are truly enslaved – the way is made for us, but we may be yet held by Egypt.

• We need a right estimate of our state but we should also seek to be in the good of God’s thoughts.

That brings us back to the prominent thought of chapter:

• “the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with harshness; and they embittered their life with hard labour in clay and bricks, and in all manner of labour in the field: all their labour with which they made them serve was with harshness”.

• What is the religious nature of that harshness? – that we need to labour to put away sin, or serve in order to draw near to God.

• What is the everyday element? – that we need intense focus on career and investments.

• All of it is pressure to labour the way everyone else is labouring.

• But God’s thought is that we recognize He has taken account of us and desires our spiritual perpetuation, and will make a way for it.

• Egypt and Pharaoh would have us all worn-out and in deadness,
  • “through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the teaching of men, according to the elements of the world, and not according to Christ”, Colossians 2: 8.

• What you find in Egypt is harshness, but what you find with God is that everything is provided! That is the very opposite of labour – rest and provision.

• And that is God’s thought for each one who follows His deliverer. Thank God he has taken such account of us; let us be led to give an answer from the heart!

My purpose in reading this passage was not to dwell on the subject of ‘burial’, but more, the subject of faithfulness and the ground of burial.

• In this passage we see that Abraham was respected of men, but he also knew he was to be separate from them. He even says to them that he is a stranger and a sojourner, even as much as we who follow the Lord Jesus are strangers and sojourners in the world

• Even though he was known and well respected he would not receive anything from the hand of men, nor would he bury his own in the same ground as unbelievers, and furthermore, he would pay the full price to obtain his own field. His inheritance was not to be from men or with the help of men but from the hand of God alone.

Today, we do not bury believers in separate ground, but do bury them on separate ground.

• The important thing is the principle on which a believer is buried – that is what counts. The principle is not death, but life and resurrection.

• We bury on the ground that Christ Himself has purchased, ground which He has indeed paid the full price to obtain!

My Grandfather was a very serious person in regard to that truth, and he was faithful to what he had been given.

• Paul said to Timothy, “The things which you have heard from me … entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also”.

• We have all learned from him the importance of seriousness in the things of God. And we all may find encouragement in the principle on which our brother is buried today, that of resurrection and life, which has been fully secured, fully paid for by our Lord Jesus.

It is in this way that the Lord has made provision for the sustaining of the brethren to continue even in difficult times – it comes through bridal affection.

• It is no wonder that David took her as his wife, seeing she was ready to serve, which would only magnify her beauty and validate his choosing. Imagine how he must have felt when he heard of her desire to refresh the others first!

• Likewise, we would want to validate the Lord’s choosing of ourselves, that we would be just as ready to refresh His servants, His brethren, our brethren.

Abigail would help us to understand what it means to be married “in the Lord”

• Christian marriage is not to be held as the world holds it
  • – it is not independent, nor does it exist only to satisfy the needs and desires of the couple or their family –

• but it has that sense of readiness and that intelligence of the desires of the Lord with regard to His own, and has its identity in relation to the Church as Bride, and to Christ.